The Bus Driver Who wanted to be God by Etgar Keret

This is the story about a bus driver who would never open the door of the bus for people who were late. Not
for anyone. Not for repressed high school kids who’d run alongside the bus and stare at it longingly, and
certainly not for high-strung people in windbreakers who’d bang on the door as if they were actually on time
and it was the driver who was out of line, and not even for little old ladies with brown paper bags full of
groceries who struggled to flag him down with trembling hands. And it wasn’t because he was mean that he
didn’t open the door, because this driver didn’t have a mean bone in his body; it was a matter of ideology.
The driver’s ideology said that if, say, the delay that was caused by opening the door for someone who
came late was just under thirty seconds, and if not opening the door meant that this person would wind up
losing fifteen minutes of his life, it would still be more fair to society, because the thirty seconds would be
lost by every single passenger on the bus. And if there were, say, sixty people on the bus who hadn’t done
anything wrong, and had all arrived at the bus stop on time, then together they’d be losing half an hour,
which is double fifteen minutes. This was the only reason why he’d never open the door. He knew that the
passengers hadn’t the slightest idea what his reason was, and that the people running after the bus and
signaling him to stop had no idea either. He also knew that most of them thought he was just an sob, and
that personally it would have been much, much easier for him to let them on and receive their smiles and
thanks.

Except that when it came to choosing between smiles and thanks on the one hand, and the good of society
on the other, this driver knew what it had to be.

The person who should have suffered the most from the driver’s ideology was named Eddie, but unlike the
other people in this story, he wouldn’t even try to run for the bus, that’s how lazy and wasted he was. Now,
Eddie was Assistant Cook at a restaurant called The Steakaway, which was the best pun that the stupid
owner of the place could come up with. The food there was nothing to write home about, but Eddie himself
was a really nice guy—so nice that sometimes, when something he made didn’t come out too great, he’d
serve it to the table himself and apologize. It was during one of these apologies that he met Happiness, or
at least a shot at Happiness, in the form of a girl who was so sweet that she tried to finish the entire portion
of roast beef that he brought her, just so he wouldn’t feel bad. And this girl didn’t want to tell him her name
or give him her phone number, but she was sweet enough to agree to meet him the next day at five at a
spot they decided on together— at the Dolphinarium, to be exact.

Now, Eddie had this condition— one that had already caused him to miss out on all sorts of things in life. It
wasn’t one of those conditions where your adenoids get all swollen or anything like that, but still, it had
already caused him a lot of damage. This sickness always made him oversleep by ten minutes, and no
alarm clock did any good. That was why he was invariably late for work at The Steakaway— that, and our
bus driver, the one who always chose the good of society over positive reinforcements on the individual
level. Except that this time, since Happiness was at stake, Eddie decided to beat the condition, and instead
of taking an afternoon nap, he stayed awake and watched television. Just to be on the safe side, he even
lined up not one, but three alarm clocks, and ordered a wake- up call to boot. But this sickness was
incurable, and Eddie fell asleep like a baby, watching the Kiddie Channel. He woke up in a sweat to the
screeching of a trillion million alarm clocks— ten minutes too late, rushed out of the house without stopping
to change, and ran toward the bus stop. He barely remembered how to run anymore, and his feet fumbled
a bit every time they left the sidewalk. The last time he ran was before he discovered that he could cut gym
class, which was about in the sixth grade, except that unlike in those gym classes, this time he ran like
crazy, because now he had something to lose, and all the pains in his chest and his Lucky Strike wheezing
weren’t going to get in the way of his Pursuit of Happiness. Nothing was going to get in his way except our
bus driver, who had just closed the door, and was beginning to pull away. The driver saw Eddie in the rear-
view mirror, but as we’ve already explained, he had an ideology— a well- reasoned ideology that, more
than anything, relied on a love of justice and on simple arithmetic. Except that Eddie didn’t care about the
driver’s arithmetic. For the first time in his life, he really wanted to get somewhere on time. And that’s why
he went right on chasing the bus, even though he didn’t have a chance. Suddenly, Eddie’s luck turned, but
only halfway: one hundred yards past the bus stop there was a traffic light. And, just a second before the
bus reached it, the traffic light turned red. Eddie managed to catch up with the bus and to drag himself all
the way to the driver’s door. He didn’t even bang on the glass, he was so weak. He just looked at the driver
with moist eyes, and fell to his knees, panting and wheezing. And this reminded the driver of something—
something from out of the past, from a time even before he wanted to become a bus driver, when he still
wanted to become God. It was kind of a sad memory because the driver didn’t become God in the end, but
it was a happy one too, because he became a bus driver, which was his second choice. And suddenly the
driver remembered how he’d once promised himself that if he became God in the end, he’d be merciful and
kind, and would listen to all His creatures. So when he saw Eddie from way up in his driver’s seat, kneeling
on the asphalt, he simply couldn’t go through with it, and in spite of all his ideology and his simple
arithmetic, he opened the door, and Eddie got on— and didn’t even say thank you, he was so out of breath.

The best thing would be to stop reading here, because even though Eddie did get to the Dolphinarium on
time, Happiness couldn’t come, because Happiness already had a boyfriend. It’s just that she was so sweet
that she couldn’t bring herself to tell Eddie, so she preferred to stand him up. Eddie waited for her, on the
bench they’d agreed on, for almost two hours. While he sat there he kept thinking all sorts of depressing
thoughts about life, and while he was at it he watched the sunset, which was a pretty good one, and
thought about how charley- horsed he was going to be later on. On his way back, when he was really
desperate to get home, he saw his bus in the distance, pulling in at the bus stop and letting off passengers,
and he knew that even if he’d had the strength to run, he’d never catch up with it anyway. So he just kept
on walking slowly, feeling about a million tired muscles with every step, and when he finally reached the
bus stop, he saw that the bus was still there, waiting for him. And even though the passengers were
shouting and grumbling to get a move on, the driver waited for Eddie, and he didn’t touch the accelerator till
Eddie was seated. And when they started moving, he looked in the rear- view mirror and gave Eddie a sad
wink, which somehow made the whole thing almost bearable.

Christmas Carol by Kim Young Ha

“Don’t you think we should get together?”

Jeong-sik was the first to pick up the phone and suggest that they meet.

“So you saw the news. Did you get in touch with Jung-gweon? OK, then I’ll do it.”

Yeong-su hung up and carefully dialed Jung-gweon’s number. He couldn’t reach him—he wasn’t at home
and his cell phone was turned off.

‘That idiot,’ Yeong-su thought. ‘Where could he have gone?’

Yeong-su tossed the phone on the couch and got up.

“Is something wrong?” his wife asked from the kitchen, her eyes narrowed. She sensed that something was
going on.

“It’s nothing. We were just making plans for a year-end get together.”

“You guys shouldn’t drink so much, you know. If you're not careful you’ll drink yourself to death.”

She took the trash bag and walked toward the front door. “I'm going to take out the trash.”

While she was out, Yeong-su tried calling Jung-gweon again, but he couldn’t get through.

‘I wonder... could he have done it?’ Yeong-su thought, and called Jeong-sik again.

“Jeong-sik? I haven’t been able to reach Jung-gweon.”

The silence towered over the two men, glowering down at them like a totem pole. They were probably
thinking the same thing. Surely it couldn’t be... no. Would he do something like that? No, of course not. It
takes a truly twisted person to do something like that.

“OK, then, how about just the two of us meet? Sure, why not. Where should we meet? OK, that sounds
good. What time? Four o’clock? That’s a bit early, isn’t it? OK, five o’clock. We can just talk for a little while
and then have dinner. Alright. See you then.”

Yeong-su’s wife came back in from taking out the trash. She held in her hand a red envelope.

“This came for you.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it looks like a Christmas card. Are you expecting a Christmas card from someone?”

She brusquely tossed the card at Yeong-su, as if to say, ‘Well, now I’ve seen everything.’ Yet she couldn't
stop thinking about that card even after she returned to the kitchen.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

Yeong-su stole a glance at the card. In the upper left-hand corner, in small letters, was written “Jin-suk.”

“Who is it from?” his wife asked.

“I’m not sure.”

Yeong-su tore the envelope open. Out popped Santa Claus as if he were spring-loaded, and at the same
time an electronic melody began to play that sounded something like a music box. Be-Be-Be-Beep, Be-Be-
Be-Beep¡¦ “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

“Merry Christmas, Yeong-su,” the card read. “It’s me, Jin-suk. It’s been a while since I’ve sent you a card
like this, hasn’t it? Do you remember that Christmas, ten years ago?”

Yeong-su’s wife could finally stand it no longer and came back out into the living room. “What on earth is
that card?”

Before Yeong-su could even begin to explain, his wife took the card. Her face turned as red as a brick.

“Jin-suk? That Jin-suk? Why is she sending you a card now? You two must be seeing each other. Did you
see her? When? Hmm? You wanted me to see this card, didn't you? What, are you two playing house
now? And what is this stupid music? Do you want me out of this house, is that it?”

Yeong-su didn’t say a word, silently waiting until her barrage of questions was finished. When she quieted
down, Yeong-su spoke.

“That’s enough.”

“What’s enough? I haven’t even started yet!”

“I heard you. That’s enough.”

“Why?”

“Jin-suk... she’s dead.”

“Dead? When did she die? And how does a dead person send a card?”

“She died a few days ago,” Yeong-su said, and he showed her the newspaper that had been under the
living room tea table.

“Korean resident of Germany meets violent death,” the headline read. “Police are investigating the murder
of a Korean resident of Germany who had returned to Korea for a year-end visit. Her body was found on
the 15th in an inn in Changcheon-dong, Seoul. The body was discovered by the owner of the inn, who
entered the room at noon to investigate when the occupant showed no sign of leaving. Police are assuming
it was a crime of passion or revenge, citing the facts that the victim’s wallet and valuables were left
untouched and the victim was cruelly murdered with a sharp weapon. They are now conducting an
investigation centered on those closest to the victim.”

Without taking her eyes off the newspaper, she asked, “It wasn’t you, was it?”

“Are you crazy?” Yeong-su was furious. “Suk-gyeong Lee, look at me! I said look at me!” Yeong-su
screamed, his voice dry and rasping.
“If it wasn’t you, then fine.” His wife got up and went back to the kitchen.

Yeong-su stared at his wife as she stood in front of the sink, as if he was looking through the wrong end of
a telescope. It was a war without gunfire, a truce without parley. The two did not say a word and buried
themselves in their own worlds; Yeong-su turned on the television and Suk-gyeong began to prepare
dinner. She peeled the green onions and washed the fish. When it came time to do the bean sprouts, she
grabbed the newspaper from the tea table in front of her husband, spread it out on the kitchen floor and
dumped the bean sprouts out on top of it. The bean sprouts covered Jin-suk’s article, but some of the
words and letters were still visible between the heads and stems.

“Korea· ········ ·· Germany ·eets vio··nt death. Police are ····stigating the mu·der of a Korea· resident ··
Ge·ma·· who had ········ ·· ····· for a year-··· ······ H·· ···· was found on ··· ··th in ·· ··· ·· ················ Seou··
··· body was dis······· by the ow·er o· th· ···, wh· enter·· t·e r··m at ·oon to ·····tigat· ···· ··e occ····t showe·
·· ···· of l···ing ······ ··· ·····ing ·· ·as a ···me of pa·sion or ··venge, cit··· ··e fac·· ···· the v······· ··lle· ···
valua···· ···· ···· ·····ched and the ······ ··· crue··· mur··red wit· · sha·· weapon. Th·· ·re ··· ···ducting an
investig····· ····ered ·n tho·· clo···· ·· the ·ict···”

As each bean sprout was cleaned and put in a bowl, the words began to take shape again, and they told
her that Jin-suk was dead. Someone had gone into the room where she was staying and killed her,
ruthlessly stabbing her with a sharp knife. Suk-gyeong cast a furtive glance at her husband sitting in the
living room. He was nervously biting his fingernails, and his toes tapped on the tea table. He was clearly
fraught with anxiety.

Could he have killed her? With an exaggerated motion, she popped the head off the bean sprout she was
holding. Not just anyone can commit murder, though. There was no way such an unremarkable person as
her husband would take a knife, break into an inn room and go through with a murder, changing his life
forever. She knew her husband too well. He was the type of person who never booked tickets in advance.
He wasn’t the type to do anything decisive, either. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her, they would never have
been able to buy the apartment they were living in now.

“I can’t stand being in debt,” he had said, shaking his head.

“How can you call 20 million won debt?”

“Debt is debt. And you’re not going to be repaying it, anyway, are you?”

“Then who’s going to repay it?”

“I’ll have to.”

He was the type of person who would argue over whose money it was whenever there was a
disagreement. That sort of person could never have done away with Jin-suk—he was just too petty. But
what if Jin-suk had demanded money? No, Jin-suk would not have done that, and even if she had, her
husband, Yeong-su Jeong the accountant, would never have gone into her room with a knife.
But what if... what if he had done it? Freedom. The word that first came to mind was ‘freedom.’ She would
be free. If he had really committed murder, and a brutal stabbing at that, he would get at least a life
sentence. If that happened, then this apartment and all their possessions would naturally be hers by
marriage. It would also be easy to get a divorce from a husband she could no longer live with, even more
so since the fault for that would be his. Of course, she would have to pay a lawyer as a formality, but that
was unavoidable. She would at least have to put up a front. And if he would just be so kind as to be killed in
a traffic accident, well then the life insurance money would be the icing on the cake. One mustn’t be too
greedy, though.

“Ah!” The blade of the knife passed over her left thumbnail. It didn’t leave a mark, but her conscience stung.
‘What on earth am I thinking?’ she said to herself, shaking her head. Her thoughts then went to Jin-suk,
lying there bleeding to death in the inn room. What had she felt like, seeing all that blood gushing out of her
body? She must have felt woozy, like the feeling you get from sleeping pills.

That good-for-nothing tramp. She had been thrown out of the dormitory before even the first year was over.
The offense was staying out overnight without permission, for a total of three times. There had been a
rumor that she was sleeping around, and one of the guys mentioned in the rumor was Yeong-su. Of
course, he had denied it.

“That’s just a meaningless rumor. I’m not that close to Jin-suk; she's just a girl I know. You think I'm the
only guy she knows?”

Jin-suk had lived in the room across from Suk-gyeong. There was that one time... just once. Suk-gyeong
pressed her lips together, finished cleaning the bean sprouts and put them in the pot. There was the time
when she had stolen a pair of Jin-suk’s underwear. Many of the girls liked to steal Jin-suk’s underwear
because she had been with a lot of guys. ‘I was different,’ thought Suk-gyeong, shaking her head. ‘The
reason I stole her underwear was....’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘The reason was....’ She looked down
again. ‘Actually, my reasons were no different from everybody else's. That’s right. I hated her. In fact, I was
even a bit jealous. And there was more. Not why I stole it, but the way I stole it. The other girls would
quietly steal them from the clothesline, but I deliberately stole it from the hamper in her room. What did I do
with those panties? I don’t know. Probably threw them away in the bathroom. Yes, that’s what I did.’

The thieving never ended in the dormitories. Every day someone was stealing something from someone
else. Of course, Suk-gyeong had makeup, underwear and watches stolen from her. One of those items
might have even found its way into Jin-suk’s hands, Suk-gyeong thought. The filthy girl. The tramp, the slut
who slept with anyone and everyone. That’s why she had so many pairs of pretty underwear. Someone had
once asked her where she had bought them, and Jin-suk answered in her peculiar, stammering way. “They
were presents.”

The very fact that panties were given as presents—that panties could be given as presents—came as a
shock, and all the girls in the dormitory gaped in surprise.

“What kind of presents?”

“Well, this was a birthday present, and this was a Christmas present.”
The panties she had received for Christmas actually had a picture of Santa Claus on them.

“What is she, an idiot?” Suk-gyeong asked her roommate when they returned to their room.

Her roommate answered without a second thought. “Her? Of course she’s an idiot. Do you know what her
nickname is? The vending machine.”

“Who said that?”

“A guy I know. She’s got quite a reputation among her classmates, too.”

“And she doesn’t know this?”

“Probably not.”

Of course, as time went on, there were those who told her what people were saying about her. Jin-suk was
depressed for a few days, but then went back to her old self. It might have been understandable if she was
pretty, but she wasn’t even that. How such a chubby and ordinary girl, with the looks of a simple county
bumpkin, could attract so many guys was always a mystery to Suk-gyeong.

She turned her head to look at the newspaper that was spread out on the kitchen floor. “Korean resident of
Germany meets violent death.” Who could possibly have killed Jin-suk? She must have had countless men
during the ten or so years after she left Korea, and it must have been one of them. On the off chance that
her husband had done it, yes, there would be an uproar at first. Detectives and reporters would storm the
house and carry out an investigation, and her husband’s family would probably camp out there, too. Ah,
she would actually feel alive. Not everyone experiences what it’s like to be the wife of a murderer. “Were
you aware that your husband was such a heinous criminal?” Requests would flood in from women’s
magazines. “My husband was a murderer!” That would make a great headline. People would want to know
what it was like to be married to a murderer, to have dinner with a murderer, to go on a honeymoon with a
murderer.

While she was thinking these things, her husband was getting ready to go out.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I won’t be long.”

“I asked where you were going.”

“Don’t you remember the phone call I got from Jeong-sik a little while ago? I’m going to meet him for
dinner.”

“Didn’t you see me preparing dinner all this time? Why do you have to see Jeong-sik? Ah, since Jin-suk
died you figured you’d go pay your respects? Is her old screwing club getting together to give her a funeral
oration?”
Yeong-su put on his coat and scarf without a word. As he slid his heel into his shoe with the help of a shoe
horn, he muttered his protest.

“It’s so easy to say those things, isn’t it?”

Suk-gyeong was about to reply when the door slammed shut. Suk-gyeong threw the ladle into the sink.
“Bastard.”

Yeong-su left the house with the word “bastard” at his heels and pushed his heavy body into the car parked
in front of their apartment. His belly bulged out and hung over the seat belt. ‘I am so out of shape,’ he
thought. The car struggled out of the apartment complex and crawled into the street. At every traffic light he
tried calling Jung-gweon, but he still couldn’t get through.

When he arrived at the appointed place he found Jeong-sik already there. His face looked as dark as the
sky just before a storm.

“Say, are you sure we should be meeting like this?” he queried, looking sidelong at Yeong-su.

“Ah, coffee,” Yeong-su said when the waiter arrived. “Ah, whatever... OK, the house blend will do.”

He turned back to Jeong-sik. “What are you talking about? What have we done wrong? Is there any reason
we shouldn't we be meeting?”

Jeong-sik unwrapped a piece of candy and popped it into his mouth. “It’s not that, damn it. It could look
suspicious. Strictly speaking, there isn't any reason we should be meeting either, is there? Hey, you don’t
think those guys are undercover cops, do you?” He pointed to a group of men sitting at a corner table.

“I don’t think so. Undercover cops don’t wear suits.”

“Some of them do.”

Yeong-su’s coffee arrived, and he took a sip of the lukewarm drink. “It wasn’t... you, was it?” Yeong-su
asked without taking his eyes from the coffee cup.

“There’s one thing that I know for sure,” Jeong-sik said, noisily rolling the candy around in his mouth. “And
that is that I didn’t kill Jin-suk.”

“Then who did?”

For the first time their gazes met.

“It could have been that bastard Jung-gweon. He’s separated now, isn’t he?” Yeong-su asked. “Ugh, this is
bitter!” It was only then that he realized he hadn’t added sugar to his coffee. He hastily dumped in two
spoonfuls.
“What does being separated have to do with committing murder?” Jeong-sik retorted guardedly, but without
conviction.

“I heard his business went under last year. What business was that?”

“It was a fried chicken franchise. He did that and sold coffee and kebabs during the day, or something like
that. I’m not really sure. When that went under he and his wife separated.”

“Didn’t he live with Jin-suk for a little while way back when?” Yeong-su asked.

“Live with her? He probably just slept with her a few times. Jin-suk used to visit his place from time to time,
remember? Say, didn’t you and Jung-gweon share a place?”

“Did we? Ah, for a little while, maybe a few months, yeah.”

“Jin-suk was pretty loose. More thickheaded than loose, actually. Ah, but they said she was stuck with a
knife. I wonder who did it. And did he really have to do it that way? I mean, he could have just strangled her
and that would have been the end of it.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Say, did you quit smoking?”

“Yeah, not too long ago.”

“You're one willful bastard. They say you should never mess with a guy who quits smoking or a guy with a
perfect poker face.”

“You should quit too, man,” Jeong-sik shot back. “I’m glad I quit.”

“You really think I’d be able to quit in a situation like this?”

“Situation? What situation? By the way, you haven’t heard anything from the police, have you?”

“Not yet. You?”

“No. You don’t think the police will know that we met like this, do you?”

“Of course not. How would they know?”

“Ah, I never should have gone out that night. I just figured I’d go out to meet you and Jung-gweon, and look
at me now.”

The two men looked regretful and were silent for a while.

“It was that night, wasn’t it?” Jeong-sik asked.

“Apparently so.”
“So, Jin-suk met us for a drink and then went back to her room at the inn, right? She met somebody there.
It could have been someone who went to see her, or she might have called someone. Who could it have
been?”

“I don’t know. She knew plenty of guys.”

Jeong-sik narrowed his eyes. “You went straight home that night, right?”

Yeong-su threw his cigarette into the ash tray. “Are you doubting me?”

“No, I just wanted to make sure you got home alright that night. But anyway, I’ve got a problem on my
hands now.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, the police are probably going to check out her wallet, right? Then they’ll find her schedule, and even
phone numbers.”

Yeong-su retrieved his cigarette from the ash tray and put it back in his mouth. “What’s to worry about? If
we haven’t done anything wrong we’ll be fine.”

“It’s not that, it’s that I have to leave the country on a business trip the day after tomorrow. Let’s say that the
police find my name and come to investigate, but I’m on a business trip overseas. I’ll become the prime
suspect, won’t I? I will, won’t I?”

“Well, they might have already issued an order preventing you from leaving the country. That’s the first
thing they do these days when someone falls under suspicion.”

“Ah, then I’m finished. Nobody knows how to handle this furniture exhibition but me. If I don’t go we don’t
get the contract. Do you know how big a deal this is? What am I supposed to tell the company? That I can’t
leave the country because I’ve been implicated in a murder, and we should forget the exhibition? That I
can’t leave the country because I had a drink with a girl I knew some ten years ago who had just returned
home, and that girl just happened to get whacked that very night?”

Yeong-su held up his hand. “Why are you getting angry at me? I’m not the one preventing you from leaving
the country. For all we know they might not have given the order yet. So relax,” he said. “But your wife
doesn’t know yet, right? All because of that stupid Christmas card....”

“Wait. Card? What card?”

“Jin-suk sent a card to my house. My wife saw it and flew into a rage. I just can’t understand why she’s
making such a fuss. It’s not like I slept with her.”

“You did sleep with her.”

“Me? When?”
“Back then.”

“That was back then.”

“True. But tell me more about this card. It wasn’t in a red envelope, was it?”

“Yeah, it was. A red envelope. What is she, a teenager? Sending a Christmas card like that....”

Jeong-sik jumped up from his seat. “It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“On my way out I saw a red envelope sitting all by itself in the mailbox. I thought it was just some
advertisement, and I left it there. Damn it! That must’ve been the card Jin-suk sent! That bitch, she’s
hounding me even in death. I’d better go.”

Jeong-sik grabbed a few pieces of candy from the counter on his way out. As soon as he got into his car he
tossed one of the candies into his mouth. He rolled it around a few times with his tongue before crushing it
with his molar. In ten minutes he was home. Fortunately, the Christmas card was still in the mailbox. Jeong-
sik’s wife didn’t know about Jin-suk, but she would certainly not be happy about the card. As he took the
card out of the mailbox, someone appeared at his side.

“Jeong-sik Lee? Ah, yes. Would you come with us, please?” the detective asked. “What? In your home?
Look here, Mr. Lee. Do you think you're so important that we’d question you in your home?”

Jeong-sik began to follow them to the car without a word when he stopped. He gently freed his arms from
their grasp, so as not to give the impression that he was trying to run away, and walked over to the mailbox.

“Ah, I’m just going to put this back in. I think it’s for my wife.” He held in his hand the Christmas card from
Jin-suk.

While one of the detectives put Jeong-sik in the car, the other detective strode over to the mailbox and took
the card back out again.

“What are you doing with my mail?” Jeong-sik protested. “Put that back! Am I going to have to report you?
Do you have a search warrant?”

The detective paid no attention to Jeong-sik’s protests, put the card in his inside coat pocket and climbed
into the passenger seat.

“Let’s go,” he said, and the car slowly pulled out of the apartment complex.

“It’s a card from the victim,” the detective in the passenger seat said, smiling widely. He clearly enjoyed
finding evidence of the victim. “Cuff him,” he ordered.
His colleague in the back seat handcuffed Jeong-sik. Jeong-sik realized that they now considered him a
threat, one who might destroy evidence or try to escape. He softened his manner.

“Please, don’t do this. I haven’t done anything wrong. Let me ask you something? Why on earth are you
doing this?”

Not one of the detectives in the car answered him. Just as the workers who carry the boxes of cola don’t
speak to the cola bottles, just as the middlemen at a cattle market don’t speak to the cows, detectives don’t
speak to suspects while they are being transferred. When they arrived at the police department the
detectives brought Jeong-sik to the violent crimes department. Then they began to interrogate him for real,
as he sat there.

The dark room, a swinging incandescent lamp, a typewriter... these are all just scenes from a movie—they
don’t exist in a real police station. At a glance, the police station might have been mistaken for a tax office.
People sat with obsequious expressions in front of bored staff members, earnestly explaining their
situations.

“Age? Occupation?” Jeong-sik answered every question sincerely. Or at least he tried to give that
impression. ‘I have nothing to hide, so ask whatever you want.’ But that strategy didn’t seem to be too
successful. The more he tried to give that impression, the more his words sounded like forced excuses.
Like in some fable, he felt as if the words that sprung from his mouth turned into snakes and frogs.

“Jin-suk, she was just a girl I knew long ago. That’s all. You know how it’s all the rage these days to meet
with old schoolmates. She had returned to Korea after being abroad for a long time, and it was an
opportunity to meet old friends, so we just got together. Why on earth would I stab to death an old
schoolmate I hadn’t seen in such a long time? Hmm? Think about it.”

The detective stared at him blankly over the LCD screen of his notebook computer and then smiled. “‘That
damn girl, I’ve got to kill her.’ You said that, right?”

“Ah, well... officer, you wouldn’t happen to have any candy, would you? I stopped smoking not too long ago,
you see. Do you smoke? Ah, then you’ll understand. The withdrawal is killing me. If I don’t at least have a
piece of candy I’m going to go insane. If you have a piece of candy, maybe....”

The detective shook his head from side to side.

“‘That damn girl, I’ve got to kill her.’ You said that, right?” he asked again, enunciating each syllable slowly
and carefully.

“Yes, but that was just something I said when I was angry. If I had known she was going to die like this I
probably wouldn’t have said that.”

“That night, you had a drink with Yeong-su Jeong, Jung-gweon Park, and the victim, Jin-suk Jo, and
afterwards you went to the inn room where Ms. Jo was staying, correct?”
Jeong-sik lifted up his head. Letting out a pained breath, he said, “Officer, if you don’t have any candy, do
you at least have a cigarette?”

The detective took out a cigarette. With the peculiar, servile expression of a turncoat, Jeong-sik awkwardly
lit the cigarette and began to smoke it.

“I’m even starting to smoke again because of that damn girl. Yes, I went to her room. Haven’t you ever
done anything like that, officer? If you haven’t, well, I guess there’s no explaining it. Jin-suk and I used to be
like that. We were in the same club at school. So after having a drink we’d just slip out, meet at an inn
and... well, you know, don’t you?”

“But that night, Mr. Park was already there, wasn’t he?”

“How do you know that? Jung-gweon isn’t here by any chance, is he?”

“You don’t need to know that. Just answer the question, please.”

Jeong-sik let out a breath. “Officer, you don’t know what it was like between us. I doubt you’ll understand
even if I tell you. Jin-suk was, well, she was sort of public property between the three of us way back when.
We didn’t know this at first, of course. We found out later when we were having a drink together. Yeong-su
probably said something about it first. Anyway, we all found out that the three of us had been sleeping with
Jin-suk at around the same time. In that sort of situation, men act in one of two ways. The first way would
be to back off. Declare a sort of joint security area, so to speak.”

He chuckled at the thought. “If Jin-suk had been the least bit intelligent or pretty, that’s what we would have
done. But the problem was that Jin-suk was a bit stupid. She was so stupid that the first time I did it with her
she thought it was my finger inside her. She didn’t even know. I don’t know how such a girl made it to
university.

“Oh, and the second way would be to pretend that the girl didn’t exist, that she still doesn’t exist. That is, no
one talks about her, but the relationships continue. We could never all meet at the same time, of course. In
a word, she was a ghost, and it’s quite a problem if everyone can see a ghost. Yes, you’re beginning to
understand now, aren’t you? Because she didn’t exist, there was no problem with her being public property.

“This sort of thing used to happen in the countryside all the time. Every village had its wench., the kind of
girl that everyone had a piece of, from the pig-tailed boy of fifteen to the old man of seventy. Nonetheless,
there were no problems. That’s exactly what happened with us.”

The phone rang and the detective picked up the receiver.

“Yes. I see. That’s enough now.”

The detective hadn’t recorded a single word of Jeong-sik’s carrying on at the end. That sort of testimony
was not fit to be included in a report, because only clear facts could be recorded in a report. Nonetheless,
the detective listened patiently. He had already written down everything required for the report and was
waiting for the results of the on-site criminal investigation by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation.
Naturally, he would have to change his report based on the results of that investigation. Finally, he received
the call telling him that the results of the primary criminal investigation were in. The detective spoke so that
the suspect in front of him couldn't follow the conversation.

“Who did they say it was? Is that so? Are you positive? OK.”

The detective hung up the phone and pulled his notebook computer closer. “You didn’t kill her?” he asked
Jeong-sik.

“Why would I kill her?”

“Then why did you say you had to kill her?” The detective chewed on a matchstick.

“That was a joke.”

“Do you often make those kinds of jokes?” The matchstick broke.

Jeong-sik waved his hand in denial with a servile expression on his face.

“You left the inn room with Mr. Park for another drink, right? And that’s when you said that?”

“Yes.”

“And then Mr. Park said that his life had turned out this way because of that damn girl, and how he had
actually gone to kill her. He said something like that, no?”

“Yes, I think.”

“Why would Mr. Park think that his life was wrecked because of the victim?”

“The thing about Jung-gweon, well, he had a problem. You see, he actually—this is pretty funny, but, he
seemed to really like Jin-suk. The reason that the three of us stopped speaking to each other ten years ago
was Jung-gweon. After we graduated, Yeong-su passed the CPA exam and went to work for an accounting
firm, and I found a job as well, and we were all busy with our own lives. After a while we decided to get
together to celebrate us all finding jobs.

“Well, that night, Jung-gweon, he wasn’t even all that drunk, but suddenly out of nowhere he grabs a knife
and goes into a rage, and I thought I was going to die. He said he was going to kill us all. That he wouldn’t
let us touch Jin-suk one more time. Huh, why would we want to touch her? We only slept with her because
she never said she didn’t want to. Wouldn’t you have done the same?

“He had acted just as we had, and now he says that he was in love and we were just having fun. Have you
ever seen such obstinacy? Actually, I kind of feel sorry for Jung-gweon, too. The only girl he had ever slept
with up until graduation was Jin-suk. But still, to come at his friends with a knife and say he was going to kill
us. Jung-gweon, he had a bit of a drastic side. I’m not saying that he killed Jin-suk, of course. He must
have been a bit gloomy, seeing that his business went under and he got a divorce and all.”
“He’s separated, not divorced,” the detective corrected.

“You know everything, don’t you.” Jeong-sik swallowed hard.

‘Why am I swallowing,’ he thought. He worried that the detective might have heard him swallow. Then he
began to worry because he was worrying about pointless little things like that. But just then the detective
gave him the good news.

“OK, you’re free to go. Don’t go far for the time being. You’re still not completely cleared of suspicion.”

Jeong-sik hesitated as if to say something, but then changed his mind and got up. He had wanted to
mention his upcoming business trip, but his first priority was to escape from the police station without any
further trouble.

Actually, half of what he had said about the international furniture exhibition was just boasting. He was
always exaggerating his abilities and hinting that everything would be lost without him. Surely the
international furniture exhibition wouldn’t fold just because he wasn’t there.

This is what Yeong-su had been thinking while listening to Jeong-sik speak. He sat in the cafe, slowly
drinking the coffee that the staff kept full, long after Jeong-sik left to retrieve the Christmas card from his
mailbox. For some reason he didn’t want to go home. He feared that detectives would be staked out around
his house, watching his every movement. And his wife would interrogate him just as mercilessly as the
detectives about his relationship with Jin-suk. When they were at school together, Suk-gyeong was clearly
displeased every time Jin-suk was mentioned.

“I know you’re comparing me with her every time we sleep together,” she had said in bed one day. “You’re
not by any chance thinking that there’s no difference between her and me?”

At times like that Yeong-su took great pains to appease her. But it was that much harder to explain himself
when he was thinking, ‘Well, there really isn’t any difference, is there? If there is a difference, it’s that you,
unlike Jin-suk, only sleep with me.’

“There’s nothing going on with Jin-suk. Why do you keep doing this?”

“If nothing is going on, then why do you break into a sweat every time I mention her?”

Suk-gyeong was a vicious sparring partner. Of course, even while he was fooling around with Suk-gyeong
he was sleeping with Jin-suk. And there were times when he wondered how Jin-suk could have chosen that
sort of life for herself.

“Well, I’ll tell you.” Jin-suk, who had returned from Germany, answered his question. “Back then, I didn’t
think anything of myself. I thought I was a bug, and there’s nothing you can’t do if you think you’re a bug.
And once I became that bug, as long as you guys didn’t rape me—that is, as long as you were at least
civil—there was no problem. Only one person ever told me I shouldn’t live like that, and that person is now
my husband.”
“That German guy?”

“Yes, the German guy. He told me that I wasn’t a bug. That I was precious. Oh, my God, that was the first
time I had ever heard that—that I wasn’t a bug, and that I was precious. You know that my husband is
president of the Dusseldorf chapter of the Green Party, right? Of course, I’m a member of the Green Party
too. When I came back to Korea, some magazine said that I was an environmental activist, but, uh, that’s
not true. I’m just a member of the Green Party; in the strict sense of the word I’m not an environmental
activist.

“I’ve changed? Well, I’ve always been impatient. When I was in Germany, I often heard about how quickly
Korea was changing. First the Soviet Union collapsed, then the bubble economy grew, and then the
economic crisis hit. I was worried about how much you guys and Korean society had changed, and whether
or not I would be able to adjust. But now that I’m here I see that I have changed the most. You guys, you’re
the same as ever. You’re not upset, are you?”

As she calmly recounted the last ten years of her life, the only thing Yeong-su could think was, ‘Well, so
much for sleeping with her.’ That thought turned itself into the words he said next.

“You’ve become quite smart.”

Jin-suk shook her head. “You guys think I was an idiot, don’t you. Yeah, I was an idiot. But I felt a little sorry
for you guys. You guys, in your early 20s—don’t take this the wrong way, it’s all in the past anyway—you
were, um, you were like little dogs who had to take a crap. You guys couldn’t even feel sorry for me.
Consumed by your lust and disgusted with yourselves, you guys didn’t even have the strength left to feel
anything like compassion for anyone else. You would stride into my room pretending to be so gallant, shoot
your loads within ten minutes, then slip out again like thieves; you guys must have thought you were some
sort of guerillas.”

“OK, that’s enough,” Yeong-su interrupted. “We were wrong.”

Jin-suk was calm. “I’m not asking for an apology. What do you guys have to apologize for? In reality, the
biggest problem was that I thought of myself as a bug. If a girl thinks of herself as a bug it’s only natural that
other bugs should swarm to her. It’s just that you guys seemed to think I was an idiot, and I always wanted
to correct at least that. Of course, I only began to think this way after I went to Germany.”

It was at that moment that Yeong-su undeniably began to harbor thoughts of murder. Yes, it was true. That
girl was a walking videotape, and in that tape were recorded without fail all the sins of his repulsive past. All
she had to do was push the play button and the audio and video would begin, no power or batteries
required.

While she was going on, the murderous impulse violently took root in Yeong-su’s mind. In his imagination
he rearranged her insides with a knife, pressed a pillow down over her face and suffocated her, and took
her up to the roof and pushed her off. He was particularly fascinated by the thought of stabbing her in the
chest with a long, sharp knife while she was sleeping. The blood gushed out like a fountain, and when the
whole room reeked of blood he changed into the clean clothes he had brought along and quietly slipped out
of the room. Glug, glug... each time her heart pumped out another spurt of blood, Jin-suk would gag and
spit it up.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do this. You shouldn’t have come back like that. The three of us were quite happy
with our lives. We had children, we bought houses, and we even go shopping on the weekends. We’ve all
forgotten the past when we shared one girl. So you’re just going to have to disappear for us.’

But it was all in his imagination. Yeong-su didn’t do anything. Before he could take those thoughts any
further Jung-gweon and Jeong-sik arrived at the appointed place, and their awkward meeting began. Jin-
suk's sudden appearance was a cause of great discomfort for all three of the men. They had believed that
she had completely disappeared. They were even thankful for it. Who would have thought she would leave
for a distant land as soon as they graduated? Actually, they had even forgotten the fact that she had
disappeared. So when the foolish girl of their youth returned as an environmental activist, there was no way
they could simply accept it. And it was even harder for them to bear the absurdity of all of them being in the
same place at the same time.

The power relationship between the four of them had now clearly changed. Now she summoned the three
of them and led the meeting. This was possible because of the nature of their relationships. She knew each
of them individually, but none of the men knew what sort of relationship the other two had with Jin-suk.
They could only guess. And though they had denied the very existence of their relationships, they could no
longer deny them now that Jin-suk had returned. Thus it was natural that the initiative would pass to Jin-
suk.

Although they did not speak of it, there was probably not a single one of them that didn’t feel the desire to
murder Jin-suk as she coolly exposed their disgrace. That is why, when Jin-suk was murdered, they could
not help but slowly look at their own hands. ‘Could it be that I, without knowing it, stabbed her? Did I really
take a taxi straight home last night?’ In fact, Jin-suk had already been murdered many times in their
dreams. There was no end to her blood. There was no atoning for their sin. One cannot repent of a sin one
hasn’t committed, and they hadn’t killed her, so how could they repent? In order to be able to cope with
arrest by the powers that be, that is, so they wouldn’t make a slip of the tongue in a possible police
investigation, they never sought to atone for their sin. Instead, they paid the price for it in their dreams.
Their dreams were always dreams of great fear, and in waking they were no less fearful.

Yeong-su arrived at his house in this fearful state of mind, stealing a furtive glance behind him. He couldn’t
shake the feeling that someone was staring at him through binoculars. He felt that he was being watched,
and that feeling bordered on paranoia. After carefully examining his surroundings, he pushed the doorbell.
The door opened, and the smell of bean sprouts wafted out from within the house. His wife opened the
door without a word, returned to the living room and sat down in front of the television.

“Did anyone call?” Yeong-su asked.

“Humph. Were you expecting a call? No one called,” Suk-gyeong answered curtly. “Did the co-conspirators’
meeting go well?” she asked cuttingly.

Yeong-su started to get angry but held back. But Suk-gyeong didn’t stop there.
“Well, the police haven’t raided our home yet, so I guess intelligent criminals really are different.”

This time Yeong-su could stand it no longer, and he went to stand in front of Suk-gyeong. His face was so
twisted that she could not help being frightened.

“Turn off the television.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Suk-gyeong protested.

“I said turn off the television!”

Suk-gyeong turned off the television. As soon as it was off, Yeong-su went into their bedroom and laid
down on the bed. Suk-gyeong turned the television back on. The news was on the cable news channel, but
there were no more reports about the murder at the Changcheon-dong inn. Well, it’s not like one girl getting
stabbed to death is such a big deal. The news was now urgently reporting on the large illegal loans taken
out by venture companies and the restructuring of the banks.

Suk-gyeong got up and went to her husband in their bedroom. “Why don’t you take a vacation? Maybe visit
your hometown?”

Yeong-su shot up. “What is wrong with you? That’s something a criminal would do! Me, the only thing I did
wrong was to have a drink with Jin-suk. That’s all.”

Suk-gyeong’s eyes flashed. “A drink? You had a drink? With Jin-suk? Oh ho! And when was this?”

Yeong-su bowed his head. “The 15th.”

“The 15th? Wasn’t that the night Jin-suk was killed? Are you sure you should even be sitting around at
home like this?”

Yeong-su sprang up, grabbed Suk-gyeong by the hair and threw her down on the bed.

Suk-gyeong screamed. “Go ahead! Kill me! Kill me! One more isn’t going to make a difference, is it?!”

Yeong-su jumped on top of her and pressed down on her throat, and she began to choke. But he couldn’t
keep it up for long.

“Idiot,” Suk-gyeong spat coldly as she pushed Yeong-su aside, got up and left the room.

Lying on the bed, Yeong-su thought, ‘I didn’t even lay a finger on Jin-suk, and here we are acting like this.
There is not a single reason for me to feel guilty. That bitch.’

The last curse was directed at his wife, Suk-gyeong. ‘You’d think she could be a little more understanding
when her husband is faced with a crisis like this. Intelligent criminals are different, she says? It’s almost as
if she wishes I had actually committed the murder. Really... maybe I should just leave the country. Gather
up all our belongings and emigrate to Canada, the land of dreams, just like that. We’d see how proud that
bitch would be then.’

Just then Yeong-su’s cell phone rang.

“It’s Jeong-sik.” He spoke shortly. “Turn on the television.”

Yeong-su fumbled around for the remote control and turned on the small bedroom television set.

“Channel 7.”

The screen showed Jung-gweon being taken from the police station under arrest. The news ended with
that clip, so it was impossible to learn the details.

“What happened?” Yeong-su asked.

“They said on the news that Jung-gweon killed her.”

Yeong-su asked mechanically, “Jung-gweon? Why?”

Jeong-sik replied weakly in a voice devoid of tension, and thus just a little regretful. “Who knows?
According to the police, he harbored a grudge against her for not meeting him, but as you know, we had a
drink together that night.”

Yeong-su clucked his tongue. “They probably meant that she wouldn’t meet him alone. Anyway, Jung-
gweon, he’s finished now.”

“Not just him, either. What about Jin-suk, returning home after all that time? He finished her, too. So, are
you OK? Well, you said your wife knows all about it... I guess there’s no way you’d be OK.”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. But here’s the strange thing: why don’t we feel relieved? Damn it, I don’t
have a single drop of blood on my hands!”

Jeong-sik exploded. “Neither do I! Damn it, life is just like that!” He continued, “Anyway, I haven’t been able
to sleep for the past few days. I feel like I’m dead on my feet. Now I think I’ll stretch out and go to sleep.
OK, keep in touch.”

They hung up. Yeong-su went out into the living room and went over to his wife, who was pouting and
staring at the television.

“Look,” he said tenderly. “It’s Christmas, right? Do you want to go get a tree at Namdaemun Market?”

His wife looked at him, confused. Yeong-su continued with an exaggerated tone and gestures, like some
wise man from the East bearing glad tidings. “Jin-suk... they said that Jung-gweon killed her. It was just on
the news. The bastard should have called us or something. We were worried for nothing!”
Suk-gyeong stared at Yeong-su for a moment, and then spit out her words in a mixture of regret and scorn.
“Some wonderful friends you are.”

Yeong-su fought back his anger and tried again. “Do you want to buy a tree or not?”

Suk-gyeong didn’t answer.

“Forget it then!” Yeong-su shouted angrily and went into the bathroom. As he washed his hands the water
turned red as blood. ‘I didn’t kill her.’ He lifted his head to look at the mirror and saw a beast-like man
standing there staring back at him.

Out in the living room, Suk-gyeong screamed, “I told you to put that down!”

Santa Claus is coming to town.... Apparently their child had opened the red Christmas card Jin-suk had
sent. This was followed by the sound of his wife tearing the card to bits. But the monotonous electronic
carol from the built-in Chinese music chip droned on. Before he knew it, Yeong-su began to hum along with
the melody. Santa Claus knows. He knows who’s been bad and who’s been good. And he’s coming tonight.
La la la la la la.

Suk-gyeong rummaged through the trash to find the tenacious music chip that she had thrown out, opened
the veranda window, and tossed the chip out. Santa Claus is coming to town—the Christmas carol that
would continue to play obstinately until the battery was fully exhausted. Of course, it was only a
monotonous melody, never to be heard again by Suk-gyeong and Yeong-su.

Chickens by Elaine Magarrell

In the killing yard a man sharpens a razor, says a few words to God, and does a nice killing. After plucking
and gutting he cooks the bird in a coat of its own beaten eggs. When he eats the flesh it is with pleasure.
Every night he goes to bed satisfied. Every day he wakes up hungry. The chickens complain to heaven and
a chicken angel is sent to earth. At first she helps the man dream about red meat so that he wakes up with
an appetite for steak. In a meadow he stalks a cow but is intimidated by its intrepid stare, the importance of
its dung. So apprehensive is he that he goes to bed hungry.

The chickens rejoice. They have an ambassador.

That night the chicken angel sits on the man’s pillow and lectures him about vegetables. At daybreak she
sows for the man a garden where vegetables fairly leap from the ground. But the man finds carrots and let-
tuces frightening, the way they appear out of nothing. A captive of habit, he hungers for chicken.

As a last resort the chicken angel tells him how hunger cleanses the body and makes it holy. The man is
intrigued by the notion of fasting. He asks God’s approval and takes distant thunder for an affirmative
answer.

Only so much can be done with intervention, the chicken angel reports to heaven. Having won for the
chickens a respite, she leaves. Not that the chickens expected more.
“A Gentleman’s C” — Padgett Powell

My father, trying to finally graduate from college at sixty-two, came, by curious circumstance, to be enrolled
in an English class I taught, and I was, perhaps, a bit tougher on him than I was on the others. Hadn’t he
been tougher on me than on other people’s kids growing up? I gave him a hard, honest, low C. About what
I felt he’d always given me.

We had a death in the family, and my mother and I traveled to the funeral. My father stayed put to complete
his exams–it was his final term. On the way home we learned that he had received his grades, which were
low enough in the aggregate to prevent him from graduating, and reading this news on the dowdy sofa
inside the front door, he leaned over as if to rest and had a heart attack and died.

For years I had thought that the old man’s passing away would not affect me, but it did.

We ate the children last by Yann Martel

The first human trial was on Patient D, a 56-year-old male, single and childless, who was suffering from
colon cancer. He was a skeletal man with white, bloodless skin who could no longer ingest even clear
fluids. He was aware that his case was terminal and he waived all rights to legal redress should the
procedure go wrong. His recovery was astounding. Two days after the operation, he ate six lunch meals in
one sitting. He gained 24 kilos in two weeks. Clearly, his liver, pancreas and gall bladder, the source of
greatest worry, had adapted to the transplant. The only side-effect noted at the time concerned his diet.
Patient D rapidly came to dislike sweet dishes, then spicy ones, then cooked food altogether. He began to
eat bananas and oranges without peeling them. A nurse reported that one morning she found him eating
the flowers in his room.

The French medical team felt vindicated. Until then, the success rate of full-organ xenografts was zero; all
transplants of animal organs to humans - the hearts, livers and bone marrow of baboons, the kidneys of
chimpanzees - had failed. The only real achievement in the field was the grafting of pigs' heart valves to
repair human hearts and, to a lesser extent, of pigs' skin on to burn victims. The team decided to examine
the species more closely. But the process of rendering pigs' organs immunologically inert proved difficult,
and few organs were compatible. The potential of the pig's digestive system, despite its biological flexibility,
stirred little interest in the scientific community, especially among the Americans; it was assumed that the
porcine organ would be too voluminous and that its high caloric output would induce obesity in a human.
The French were certain that their simple solution to the double problem - using the digestive system of a
smaller, pot-bellied species of pig - would become the stuff of scientific legend, like Newton's apple. "We
have put into this man a source of energy both compact and powerful - a Ferrari engine!" boasted the
leader of the medical team.

Patient D was monitored closely. When asked about what he ate, he was evasive. A visit to his apartment
three months after the operation revealed that his kitchen was barren; he had sold everything in it, including
fridge and stove, and his cupboards were empty. He finally confessed that he went out at night and picked
at garbage. Nothing pleased him more, he said, than to gorge himself on putrid sausages, rotten fruit,
mouldy brie, baguettes gone green, skins and carcasses, and other soured leftovers and kitchen waste. He
spent a good part of the night doing this, he admitted, since he no longer felt the need for much sleep and
was embarrassed about his diet. The medical team would have been concerned except that his
haemoglobin count was excellent, his blood pressure was ideal, and further tests revealed what was plain
to the eye: the man was bursting with good health. He was stronger and fitter than he had been in all his
life.

Regulatory approval came swiftly. The procedure replaced chemotherapy as the standard treatment for all
cancers of the digestive tract that did not respond to radiotherapy.

Les Bons Samaritains, a lobby group for the poor, thought to apply this wondrous medical solution to a
social problem. They suggested that the operation be made available to those receiving social assistance.
The poor often had unwholesome diets, at a cost both to their health and to the state, which had to spend
so much on medical care. What better, more visionary remedy than a procedure that in reducing food
budgets to nothing created paragons of fitness? A cleverly orchestrated campaign of petitions and protests
- " Malnutrition: zéro! Déficit: zéro! " read the banners - easily overcame the hesitations of the government.

The procedure caught on among the young and the bohemian, the chic and the radical, among all those
who wanted a change in their lives. The opprobrium attached to eating garbage vanished completely. In
short order, the restaurant became a retrograde institution, and the eating of prepared food a sign of
attachment to deplorable worldly values. A revolution of the gut was sweeping through society. "Liberté!
Liberté! " was the cry of the operated. The meaning of wealth was changing. It was all so heady. The
telltale mark of the procedure was a scar at the base of the throat; it was a badge we wore with honour.

Little was made at the time of a report by the Société protectrice des animaux on the surprising drop in the
number of stray cats and dogs. Garbage became a sought-after commodity. Unscrupulous racketeers
began selling it. Dumps became dangerous places. Garbage collectors were assaulted. The less fortunate
resorted to eating grass.

Then old people began vanishing without a trace. Mothers who had turned away momentarily were finding
their baby carriages empty. The government reacted swiftly. In a matter of three days, the army descended
upon every one of the operated, without discrimination between the law-abiding and the criminal. The
newspaper Le Cochon Libre tried to put out a protest, but the police raided their offices and only a handful
of copies escaped destruction. There were terrible scenes during the round-up: neighbours denouncing
neighbours, children being separated from their families, men, women and children being stripped in public
to look for telling scars, summary executions of people who tried to escape. Internment camps were set up,
nearly always in small, remote towns: Les Milles, Gurs, Le Vernet d'Ariège, Beaune-la-Rolande, Pithiviers,
Recebedou.

No provisions were made for food in any of the camps. The story was the same in all of them: first the
detainees ate their clothes and went naked. Then the weaker men and women disappeared. Then the rest
of the women. Then more of the men. Then we ate those we loved most. The last known prisoner was an
exceptional brute by the name of Jean Proti. After 41 days without a morsel of food except his own toes
and ears, and after 30 hours of incessant screaming, he died.

I escaped. I still have a good appetite, but there is a moral rot in this country that even I can't digest.
Everyone knew what happened, and how and where. To this day everyone knows. But no one talks about it
and no one is guilty. I must live with that.
Kiss by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I never told anybody, but getting that apartment was nothing short of a miracle. All I knew about
Laura was that she worked part-time at the offices of the landord on the first floor, and that she
kissed like a tango. I met her on a July night when the skies blanketing Barcelona sizzled with
steam and desperation. I had been sleeping on a bench in a nearby square when I was awakened
by the brush of her lips.
Do you need a place to stay?

She led me to the lobby. The building was one of those vertical mausoleums that haunt the old
town, a labyrinth of gargoyles and patch-ups at the top of which you could still make out 1886
somewhere beneath the layer of soot.
I followed her upstairs, almost feeling my way in the darkness. The building creaked under my
feet like an old ship. Laura never asked for any references, personal or financial. Good thing,
because in prison you don't get either. The attic was the size of my former cell, a spare room
perched over the endless roofworld of the old city.
I'll take it.

Truth be told, three years in the slammer had obliterated my sense of smell and the issue of
voices leaking through the walls wasn't exactly a novelty for me. One man's hell is another's
paradise lost.

Laura would come to me every night. Her cold skin and her misty breath were the only things
that didn't burn during that scorching summer. At dawn she would silently vanish downstairs,
leaving me to doze off during the day.

The neighbors had that meek kindness granted by years of misery and oblivion. I counted six
families, all with children and old-timers reeking of dead flowers and damp soil. My favorite was
Don Florian, who lived right downstairs and painted dolls and tin toys for a living. I spent weeks
without venturing out of the building. Spiders were building arabesques at my threshold. But
Doña Luisa, on the third floor, always brought me something to eat. Don Florian lent me old
magazines and challenged me to endless domino matches. The kids in the building invited me to
play hide and seek.
It was a good life. For the first time ever I felt welcomed. Even appreciated.

By midnight Laura would bring me her nineteen years wrapped in white silk and give herself to
me as if it were the last time. I'd make love to her until the break of dawn, savoring in her body
everything life had denied me. Afterward, I'd dream in black and white, like dogs and cursed
people. But even the lowest of the low sometimes get a taste of happiness in this world. That
summer was mine.

When the demolition people came by in late August I mistook them for cops. The chief engineer
told me he had nothing personal against squatters, but unfortunately they had to dynamite the
place and raze it to the ground no matter what.
There must be a mistake.
Most chapters in my life begin with that line.
 I ran downstairs to the landlord’s office on the first floor looking for Laura. All I found was a
coathanger and two inches of dust. I went to Don Florian's. Fifty eyeless dolls rotting in shadow.
I went through the entire building looking for just one neighbor, one voice. Silent corridors lay
covered in debris.
This property has been closed down since 1938, young man, the chief engineer informed me. The
bomb damaged the structure beyond repair.
I believe we had some words. The wrong kind. My kind. I believe I pushed him. Down the stairs.
Hard.
This time the judge had a field day with me.
My old cellmates , it turned out, were still waiting.
After all, you always come back.
Hernán, the library guy, found a ten-year-old newspaper article about the bombardment during
the civil war. In the photograph the bodies are lined up in pine boxes, disfigured by shrapnel, but
they were still recognizable to me. A shroud of blood spreads over the cobblestones. Laura is
dressed in white, her hands crossed over her open chest.

It's been almost two years now, but in prison you live or die by memories. The guards think
they’re smart, but she knows how to sneak in past any walls.
At midnight I am awakened by the brush of her icy lips. She brings regards from Don Florian
and the others.
You'll love me always, won't you?, she asks.
And I say yes.

To Those Who Have Lost Everything By Francisco X. Alarcón

crossed
in despair
many deserts
full of hope

carrying
their empty
fists of sorrow
everywhere

mouthing
a bitter night
of shovels
and nails

“you’re nothing
you’re shit
your home’s
nowhere”—
mountains
will speak
for you

rain
will flesh
your bones

green again
among ashes
after a long fire

started in
a fantasy island
some time ago

turning
Natives
into aliens

As a Woman Grows Older

J.M. Coetzee

She is visiting her daughter in Nice, her first visit there in years. Her son will fly out from the
United States to spend a few days with them, on the way to some conference or other. It interests
her, this confluence of dates. She wonders whether there has not been some collusion, whether
the two of them do not have some plan, some proposal to put to her of the kind that children put
to a parent when they feel she can no longer look after herself. So obstinate, they will have said
to each other: so obstinate, so stubborn, so self-willed—how will we get past that obstinacy of
hers except by working together?

They love her, of course, else they would not be cooking up plans for her. Nevertheless, she does
feel like one of those Roman aristocrats waiting to be handed the fatal draft, waiting to be told in
the most confiding, the most sympathetic of ways that for the general good one should drink it
down without a fuss.

Her children are and always have been good, dutiful, as children go. Whether as a mother she has
been equally good and dutiful is another matter. But in this life we do not always get what we
deserve. Her children will have to wait for another life, another incarnation, if they want the
score to be evened.

Her daughter runs an art gallery in Nice. Her daughter is, by now, for all practical purposes
French. Her son, with his American wife and American children, will soon, for all practical
purposes, be American. So, having flown the nest, they have flown far. One might even think,
did one not know better, that they have flown far to get away from her.

Whatever proposal it is they have to put to her, it is sure to be full of ambivalence: love and
solicitude on the one hand, brisk heartlessness on the other, and a wish to see the end of her.
Well, ambivalence should not disconcert her. She has made a living out of ambivalence. Where
would the art of fiction be if there were no double meanings? What would life itself be if there
were only heads or tails and nothing in between?

“What I find eerie, as I grow older,” she tells her son, “is that I hear issuing from my lips words I
once upon a time used to hear old people say and swore I would never say myself. What-is-the-
world-coming-to things. For example: no one seems any longer to be aware that the verb ‘may’
has a past tense—what is the world coming to? People walk down the street eating pizza and
talking into a telephone—what is the world coming to?”

It is his first day in Nice, her third: a clear, warm June day, the kind of day that brought idle,
well-to-do people from England to this stretch of coast in the first place. And behold, here they
are, the two of them, strolling down the Promenade des Anglais just as the English did a hundred
years ago with their parasols and their boaters, deploring Mr. Hardy’s latest effort, deploring the
Boers.

“Deplore,” she says: “a word one does not hear much nowadays. No one with any sense
deplores, not unless they want to be a figure of fun. An interdicted word, an interdicted activity.
So what is one to do? Does one keep them all pent up, one’s deplorations, until one is alone with
other old folk and free to spill them?”

“You can deplore to me as much as you like, Mother,” says John, her good and dutiful son. “I
will nod sympathetically and not make fun of you. What else would you like to deplore today
besides pizza?”

“It is not pizza that I deplore, pizza is well and good in its place, it is walking and eating and
talking all at the same time that I find so rude.”

“I agree, it is rude or at least unrefined. What else?”

“That’s enough. What I deplore is in itself of no interest. What is of interest is that I vowed years
ago I would never do it, and here I am doing it. Why have I succumbed? I deplore what the
world is coming to. I deplore the course of history. From my heart I deplore it. Yet when I listen
to myself, what do I hear? I hear my mother deploring the miniskirt, deploring the electric guitar.
And I remember my exasperation. ‘Yes, Mother,’ I would say, and grind my teeth and pray for
her to shut up. And so…”

“And so you think I am grinding my teeth and praying for you to shut up.”

“Yes.”
“I am not. It is perfectly acceptable to deplore what the world is coming to. I deplore it myself, in
private.”

“But the detail, John, the detail! It is not just the grand sweep of history that I deplore, it is the
detail—bad manners, bad grammar, loudness! It is details like that that exasperate me, and it is
the kind of detail that exasperates me that drives me to despair. So unimportant! Do you
understand? But of course you do not. You think I am making fun of myself when I am not
making fun of myself. It is all serious! Do you understand that it could all be serious?”

“Of course I understand. You express yourself with great clarity.”

“But I do not! I do not! These are just words, and we are all sick of words by now. The only way
left to prove you are serious is to do away with yourself. Fall on your sword. Blow your brains
out. Yet as soon as I say the words you want to smile. I know. Because I am not serious, not fully
serious—I am too old to be serious. Kill yourself at twenty and it is a tragic loss. Kill yourself at
forty and it is a sobering comment on the times. But kill yourself at seventy and people say,
‘What a shame, she must have had cancer.'”

“But you have never cared what people say.”

“I have never cared what people say because I have always believed in the word of the future.
History will vindicate me—that is what I have told myself. But I am losing faith in history, as
history has become today—losing faith in its power to come up with the truth.”

“And what has history become today, Mother? And, while we are about it, may I remark that you
have once again maneuvered me into the position of the straight man or straight boy, a position I
do not particularly enjoy.”

“I am sorry, I am sorry. It is from living alone. Most of the time I have to conduct these
conversations in my head; it is such a relief to have persons I can play them out with.”

“Interlocutors. Not persons. Interlocutors.”

“Interlocutors I can play them out with.”

“Play them out on.”

“Interlocutors I can play them out on. I am sorry, I will stop. How is Norma?”

“Norma is well. She sends her love. The children are well. What has history become?”

“History has lost her voice. Clio, the one who once upon a time used to strike her lyre and sing of
the doings of great men, has become infirm, infirm and frivolous, like the silliest sort of old
woman. At least that is what I think part of the time. The rest of the time I think she has been
taken prisoner by a gang of thugs who torture her and make her say things she does not mean to
say. I can’t tell you all the dark thoughts I have about history. It has become an obsession.”
“An obsession. Does that mean you are writing about it?”

“No, not writing. If I could write about history I would be on my way to mastering it. No, all I
can do is fume about it, fume and deplore. And deplore myself too. I have become trapped in a
cliché, and I no longer believe that history will be able to budge that cliché.”

“What cliché?”

“I do not want to go into it, it is too depressing. The cliché of the stuck record, that has no
meaning anymore because there are no gramophone needles or gramophones. The word that
echoes back to me from all quarters is ‘bleak.’ Her message to the world is unremittingly bleak.
What does it mean, bleak? A word that belongs to a winter landscape yet has somehow become
attached to me. It is like a little mongrel that trails behind, yapping, and won’t be shaken off. I
am dogged by it. It will follow me to the grave. It will stand at the lip of the grave, peering in and
yapping bleak, bleak, bleak!”

“If you are not the bleak one, then who are you, Mother?”

“You know who I am, John.”

“Of course I know. Nevertheless, say it. Say the words.”

“I am the one who used to laugh and no longer does. I am the one who cries.”

Her daughter Helen runs an art gallery in the old city. The gallery is, by all accounts, highly
successful. Helen does not own it. She is employed by two Swiss who descend from their lair in
Bern twice a year to check the accounts and pocket the takings.

Helen, or Hélène, is younger than John but looks older. Even as a student she had a middle-aged
air, with her pencil skirts and owlish glasses and chignon. A type that the French make space for
and even respect: the severe, celibate intellectual. Whereas in England Helen would be cast at
once as a librarian and a figure of fun.

In fact she has no grounds for thinking Helen celibate. Helen does not speak about her private
life, but from John she hears of an affair that has been going on for years with a businessman
from Lyon who takes her away for weekends. Who knows, perhaps on her weekends away she
blossoms.

It is not particularly seemly to speculate on the sex lives of one’s children. Nevertheless she
cannot believe that someone who devotes her life to art, be it only the sale of paintings, can be
without fire of her own.

What she had expected was a combined assault: Helen and John sitting her down and putting to
her the scheme they had worked out for her salvation. But no, their first evening together passes
perfectly pleasantly. The subject is only broached the next day, in Helen’s car, as the two of them
drive north into the Basses-Alpes en route to a luncheon spot Helen has chosen, leaving John
behind to work on his paper for the conference.

“How would you like to live here, Mother?” says Helen, out of the blue.

“You mean in the mountains?”

“No, in France. In Nice. There is an apartment in my building that falls vacant in October. You
could buy it, or we could buy it together. On the ground floor.”

“You want us to live together, you and I? This is very sudden, my dear. Are you sure you mean
it?”

“We would not be living together. You would be perfectly independent. But in an emergency
you would have someone to call on.”

“Thank you, dear, but we have perfectly good people in Melbourne trained to deal with old folk
and their little emergencies.”

“Please, Mother, let us not play games. You are seventy-two. You have had problems with your
heart. You are not always going to be able to look after yourself. If you—“

“Say no more, my dear. I am sure you find the euphemisms as distasteful as I do. I could break a
hip, I could become gaga; I could linger on, bedridden, for years: that is the sort of thing we are
talking about. Granted such possibilities, the question for me is: Why should I impose on my
daughter the burden of caring for me? And the question for you, I presume, is: Will you be able
to live with yourself if you do not at least once, in all sincerity, offer me care and protection? Do
I put it fairly, our problem, our joint problem?”

“Yes. My proposal is sincere. It is also practicable. I have discussed it with John.”

“Then let us not spoil this beautiful day by getting into a wrangle. You have made your proposal,
I have heard it and I promise to think about it. Let us leave it at that. It is very unlikely that I will
accept, as you must have guessed. My thoughts are running in quite another direction. There is
one thing the old are better at than the young, and that is dying. It behooves the old (what a
quaint word!) to die well, to show those who follow what a good death can be. That is the
direction of my thinking. I would like to concentrate on making a good death.”

“You could make just as good a death in Nice as in Melbourne.”

“But that is not true, Helen. Think it through and you will see it is not true. Ask me what I mean
by a good death.”

“What do you mean by a good death, Mother.”

“A good death is one that takes place far away, where the mortal residue is disposed of by
strangers, by people in the death business. A good death is one that you learn of by telegram: I
regret to inform you, etcetera. What a pity telegrams have gone out of fashion.”

Helen gives an exasperated snort. They drive on in silence. Nice is far behind: down an empty
road they swoop into a long valley. Though it is nominally summer the air is cold, as if the sun
never touched these depths. She shivers, winds up the window. Like driving into an allegory!

“It is not right to die alone,” says Helen at last, “with no one to hold your hand. It is antisocial. It
is inhuman. It is unloving. Excuse the words, but I mean them. I am offering to hold your hand.
To be with you.”

Of the children, Helen has always been the more reserved, the one who kept her mother at more
of a distance. Never before has Helen spoken like this. Perhaps the car makes it easier, allowing
the driver not to look straight at the person she is addressing. She must remember that about cars.

“That’s very kind of you, my dear,” she says. The voice that comes from her throat is
unexpectedly low. “I will not forget it. But would it not feel odd, coming back to France after all
these years to die? What will I say to the man at the border when he asks the purpose of my visit,
business or pleasure? Or, worse, when he asks how long I plan to stay? Forever? To the end?
Just a brief while?”

“Say réunir la famille. He will understand that. To reunite the family. It happens every day. He
won’t demand more.”

They eat at an auberge called Les Deux Ermites. There must be a story behind the name, but she
would prefer not to be told it. If it is a good story it is probably made up anyway. A cold, knifing
wind is blowing; they sit behind the protection of glass, looking out on snowcapped peaks. It is
early in the season: besides theirs, only two tables are occupied.

“Pretty? Yes, of course it is pretty. A pretty country, a beautiful country, that goes without
saying. La belle France. But do not forget, Helen, how lucky I have been, what a privileged
vocation I have followed. I have been able to move about as I wished most of my life. I have
lived, when I have chosen, in the lap of beauty. The question I find myself asking now is, What
good has it done me, all this beauty? Is beauty not just another consumable, like wine? One
drinks it in, one drinks it down, it gives one a brief, pleasing, heady feeling, but what does it
leave behind? The residue of wine is, excuse the word, piss; what is the residue of beauty? What
is the good of it? Does beauty make us better people?”

“Before you tell me your answer to the question, Mother, shall I tell you mine? Because I think I
know what you are going to say. You are going to say that beauty has done you no good that you
can see, that one of these days you are going to find yourself at heaven’s gate with your hands
empty and a big question mark over your head. It would be entirely in character for you, that is
to say for Elizabeth Costello, to say so. And to believe so.
“The answer you will not give—because it would be out of character for Elizabeth Costello—is
that what you have produced as a writer not only has a beauty of its own—a limited beauty,
granted, it is not poetry, but beauty nevertheless, shapeliness, clarity, economy—but has also
changed the lives of others, made them better human beings, or slightly better human beings. It is
not just I who say so. Other people say so too, strangers. To me, to my face. Not because what
you write contains lessons but because it is a lesson.”

“Like the waterskater, you mean.”

“I don’t know who the waterskater is.”

“The waterskater or long-legged fly. An insect. The waterskater thinks it is just hunting for food,
whereas in fact its movements trace on the surface of the pond, over and over, the most beautiful
of all words, the name of God. The movements of the pen on the page trace the name of God, as
you, watching from a remove, can see but I cannot.”

“Yes, if you like. But more than that. You teach people how to feel. By dint of grace. The grace
of the pen as it follows the movements of thought.”

It sounds to her rather old-fashioned, this aesthetic theory that her daughter is expounding, rather
Aristotelian. Has Helen worked it out by herself or just read it somewhere? And how does it
apply to the art of painting? If the rhythm of the pen is the rhythm of thought, what is the rhythm
of the brush? And what of paintings made with a spraycan? How do such paintings teach us to be
better people?

She sighs. “It is sweet of you to say so, Helen, sweet of you to reassure me. Not a life wasted
after all. Of course I am not convinced. As you say, if I could be convinced I would not be
myself. But that is no consolation. I am not in a happy mood, as you can see. In my pres- ent
mood, the life I have followed looks misconceived from beginning to end, and not in a
particularly interesting way either. If one truly wants to be a better person, it now seems to me,
there must be less roundabout ways of getting there than by darkening thousands of pages with
prose.”

“Ways such as?”

“Helen, this is not an interesting conversation. Gloomy states of mind do not yield interesting
thoughts, at least not in my experience.”

“Must we not talk then?”

“Yes, let us not talk. Let us do something really old-fashioned instead. Let us sit here quietly and
listen to the cuckoo.”

For there is indeed a cuckoo calling, from the copse behind the restaurant. If they open the
window just a crack the sound comes quite clearly on the wind: a two-note motif, high-low,
repeated time after time. Redolent, she thinks—Keatsian word—redolent of summertime and
summer ease. A nasty bird, but what a singer, what a priest! Cucu, the name of God in cuckoo
tongue. A world of symbols.

They are doing something they have not done together since the children were children. Sitting
on the balcony of Helen’s apartment in the suave warmth of the Mediterranean night, they are
playing cards. They play three-handed bridge, they play the game they used to call Sevens, called
in France Rami, according to Helen/Hélène.

The idea of an evening of cards is Helen’s. It seemed an odd idea at first, artificial; but once they
are into the swing of it she is pleased. How intuitive of Helen: she would not have suspected
Helen of intuitiveness.

What strikes her now is how easily they slip into the card-playing personalities of thirty years
ago, personalities she would have thought they had shed forever once they escaped from one
another: Helen reckless and scatty, John a trifle dour, a trifle predictable, and herself surprisingly
competitive, considering that these are her own flesh and blood, considering that the pelican will
tear open its breast to feed its young. If they were playing for stakes, she would be sweeping in
their money by the veritable armful. What does that say about her? What does it say about all of
them? Does it say that character is immutable, intractable; or does it merely say that families,
happy families, are held together by a repertoire of games played from behind masks?

“It would seem that my powers have not waned,” she remarks after yet another win. “Forgive
me. How embarrassing.” Which is a lie, of course. She is not embarrassed, not at all. She is
triumphant. “Curious which powers one retains over the years and which one begins to lose.”

The power she retains, the power she is exercising at this moment, is one of visualization.
Without the slightest mental effort she can see the cards in her children’s hands, each single one.
She can see into their hands; she can see into their hearts.

“Which powers do you feel you are losing, Mother?” asks her son cautiously.

“I am losing,” she says gaily, “the power of desire.” In for a penny, in for a pound.

“I would not have said desire had power,” responds John gamely, picking up the baton.
“Intensity perhaps. Voltage. But not power, horsepower. Desire may make you want to climb a
mountain but it won’t get you to the top.”

“What will get you to the top?”

“Energy. Fuel. What you have stored up in preparation.”

“Energy. Do you want to know my theory of energy, the energetics of an old person? Don’t get
anxious, nothing personal in it to embarrass you, and no metaphysics either, not a drop. As
material a theory as can be. Here it is. As we age, every part of the body deteriorates or suffers
entropy, down to the very cells. That what aging means, from a material point of view. Even in
cases when they are still healthy, old cells are touched with the colors of autumn (a metaphor, I
concede, but a dash of metaphor here and there does not add up to metaphysics). This goes for
the many, many cells of the brain too.

“Just as spring is the season that looks forward to summer, so autumn is the season that looks
back. The desires conceived by autumnal brain cells are autumnal desires, nostalgic, layered in
memory. They no longer have the heat of summer; what intensity they have is multivalent,
complex, turned more toward the past than toward the future.

“There, that is the core of it, my contribution to brain science. What do you think?”

“A contribution, I would say,” says her diplomatic son, “less to brain science than to philosophy
of mind, to the speculative branch of that philosophy. Why not just say that you feel in an
autumnal mood and leave it at that?”

“Because if it were just a mood it would change, as moods do. The sun would come out, my
mood would grow sunnier. But there are states of the soul deeper than moods. Nostalgie de la
boue, for instance, is not a mood but a state of being. The question I ask is, Does the nostalgie in
nostalgie de la boue belong to the mind or to the brain? My answer is, The brain. The brain
whose origin lies not in the realm of forms but in dirt, in mud, in the primal slime to which, as it
runs down, it longs to return. A material longing emanating from the very cells themselves. A
death drive deeper than thought.”

It sounds fine, it sounds like exactly what it is, chatter, it does not sound mad at all. But that is
not what she is thinking. What she is thinking is: Who speaks like this to her children, children
she may not see again? What she is also thinking is: Just the kind of thought that would come to
a woman in her autumn. Everything I see, everything I say, is touched with the backward look.
What is left for me? I am the one who cries.

“Is that what you occupying yourself with nowadays—brain science?” says Helen. “Is that what
you are writing about?”

Strange question; intrusive. Helen never talks to her about her work. Not exactly a taboo subject
between them, but off bounds certainly.

“No,” she says. “I still confine myself to fiction, you will be relieved to hear. I have not yet
descended to hawking my opinions around. The Opinions of Elizabeth Costello, revised edition.”

“A new novel?”

“Not a novel. Stories. Do you want to hear one of them?”

“Yes, I do. It is a long while since you last told us a story.”

“Very well, a bedtime story. Once upon a time, but our times, not olden times, there is a man,
and he travels to a strange city for a job interview. From his hotel room, feeling restless, feeling
in the mood for adventure, feeling who knows what, he telephones for a call girl. A girl arrives
and spends time with him. He is free with her as he is not free with his wife; he makes certain
demands on her.

“The interview next day goes well. He is offered the job and accepts and in due course, in the
story, moves to this city. Among the people in his new office, working as a secretary or a clerk or
a telephonist, he recognizes the same girl, the call girl, and she recognizes him.”

“And?”

“And I cannot tell you more.”

“But that is not a story, that it is just the groundwork for a story. You have not told a story until
you say what happens next.”

“She does not have to be a secretary. The man is offered the job and accepts and moves to this
new city and in due course pays a visit to relatives, to a cousin he has not seen since they were
children, or a cousin of his wife’s. The cousin’s daughter walks into the room, and behold, it is
the girl from the hotel.”

“Go on. What happens next?”

“It depends. Perhaps nothing more happens. Perhaps it is the kind of story that just stops.”

“Nonsense. It depends on what?”

Now John speaks. “It depends on what passed between them in the hotel room. Depends on the
demands you say he made. Do you spell out, Mother, what demands he made?”

“Yes, I do.”

Now they are silent, all of them. What the man with the new job will do, or what the girl with the
sideline in prostitution will do, recedes into insignificance. The real story is out on the balcony,
where two middle-aged children face a mother whose capacity to disturb and dismay them is not
yet exhausted. I am the one who cries.

“Are you going to tell us what those demands were?” asks Helen grimly, since there is nothing
else to ask.

It is late but not too late. They are not children, none of them. For good or ill they are all together
now in the same leaky boat called life, adrift without saving illusions in a sea of indifferent
darkness (what metaphors she comes up with tonight!). Can they learn to live together without
eating one another?

“Demands a man can make upon a woman that I would find shocking. But perhaps you would
not find them shocking, coming from a different generation. Perhaps the world has sailed on in
that respect and left me behind on the shore, deploring. Perhaps that is what turns out to be the
nub of the story: that while the man, the senior man, blushes when he faces the girl, to the girl
what happened in the hotel room is just part of her trade, part of the way things are, part of life.
‘Mr. Jones… Uncle Harry… How do you do?'”

The two children who are not children any more exchange glances. Is that all? they seem to be
saying. Not much of a story.

“The girl in the story is very beautiful,” she says. “A veritable flower. I can reveal that to you.
Mr. Jones, Uncle Harry, has never involved himself in something like this before, the humiliating
of beauty, the bringing down of it. That was not his plan when he made the telephone call. He
would not have guessed he had it in him. It became his plan only when the girl herself appeared
and he saw she was, as I say, a flower. It seemed an affront to him that all his life he should have
missed it, beauty, and would probably miss it from here onward too. A universe without justice!
he would have cried inwardly, and proceeded from there in his bitter way. Not a nice man, on the
whole.”

“I thought, Mother,” says Helen, “that you had doubts about beauty, about its importance. A
sideshow, you called it.”

“Did I?”

“More or less.”

John reaches out and lays a hand on his sister’s arm. “The man in the story,” he says, “Uncle
Harry, Mr. Jones—he still believes in beauty. He is under its spell. That is why he hates it and
fights against it.”

“Is that what you mean, Mother?” says Helen.

“I don’t know what I mean. The story is not written yet. Usually I resist the temptation to talk
about stories before they are fully out of the bottle. Now I know why.” Though the night is
warm, she shivers lightly. “I get too much interference.”

“The bottle,” says Helen.

“Never mind.”

“This is not interference,” says Helen. “From other people it might be interference. But we are
with you. Surely you know that.”

With you? What nonsense. Children are against their parents, not with them. But this a special
evening in a special week. Very likely they will not come together again, all three of them, not in
this life. Perhaps, this once, they should rise above themselves. Perhaps her daughter’s words
come from the heart, the true heart, not the false one. We are with you. And her own impulse to
embrace those words—perhaps it comes from the true heart too.
“Then tell me what to say next,” she says.

“Embrace her,” says Helen. “In front of the whole family let him take the girl in his arms and
embrace her. No matter how odd it looks. ‘Forgive me for what I put you through,’ let him say.
Have him go down on his knees before her. ‘In you let me worship again the beauty of the
world.’ Or words to that effect.”

“Very Irish Twilight,” she murmurs. “Very Dostoevskian. I am not sure I have it in my
repertoire.”

It is John’s last day in Nice. Early next morning he will set off for Dubrovnik for his conference,
where they will be discussing, it seems, time before the beginning of time, time after the end of
time.

“Once upon a time I was just a child who liked peering through a telescope,” he says to her.
“Now I have to refashion myself as a philosopher. As a theologian even. Quite a life-change.”

“And what do you hope to see,” she says, “when you look through your telescope into time
before time?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “God perhaps, who has no dimensions. Hiding.”

“Well, I wish I could see him too. But I do not seem to be able to. Say hello to him from me. Say
I will be along one of these days.”

“Mother!”

“I’m sorry. I am sure you know Helen has suggested that I buy an apartment here in Nice. An
interesting idea, but I do not think I will take it up. She says you have a proposal of your own to
make. Quite heady, all these proposals. Like being courted again. What is it you are proposing?”

“That you come and stay with us in Baltimore. It is a big house, there is plenty of space, we are
having another bathroom fitted. The children will love it. It will be good for them to have their
grandmother around.”

“They may love it while they are nine and six. They will not love it so much when they are
fifteen and twelve and bring friends home and Grandma is shuffling around the kitchen in her
slippers, mumbling to herself and clacking her dentures and perhaps not smelling too good.
Thank you, John, but no.”

“You do not have to make a decision now. The offer stands. It will always stand.”

“John, I am in no position to preach, coming from an Australia that positively slavers to do its
American master’s bidding. Nevertheless, bear it in mind that you are inviting me to leave the
country where I was born to take up residence in the belly of the Great Satan, and that I might
have reservations about doing so.”
He stops, this son of hers, and she stops beside him on the promenade. He seems to be pondering
her words, applying to them the amalgam of pudding and jelly in his cranium that was passed on
to him as a birthgift forty years ago, whose cells are not tired, not yet, are still vigorous enough
to grapple with ideas both big and small, time before time, time after time, and what to do with
an aging parent.

“Come anyway,” he says, “despite your reservations. Agreed, these are not the best of times, but
come anyway. In the spirit of paradox. And, if you will accept the smallest, the gentlest word of
admonishment, be wary of grand pronouncements. America is not the Great Satan. Those crazy
men in the White House are just a blip in history. They will be thrown out and all will return to
normal.”

“So I may deplore but I must not denounce?”

“Righteousness, Mother, that is what I am referring to, the tone and spirit of righteousness. I
know it must be tempting, after a lifetime of weighing every word before you write it down, to
just let go, be swept up by the spirit; but it leaves a bad taste behind. You must be aware of that.”

“The spirit of righteousness. I will bear in mind what you call it. I will give the matter some
thought. You call those men crazy. To me they do not seem crazy at all. On the contrary, they
seem all too canny, all too clear-headed. And with world-historical ambitions too. They want to
turn the ship of history around, or failing that to sink her. Is that too grand a figure for you? Does
it leave a bad taste? As for paradox, the first lesson of paradox, in my experience, is not to rely
on paradox. If you rely on paradox, paradox will let you down.”

She takes his arm; in silence they resume their promenade. But all is not well between them. She
can feel his stiffness, his irritation. A sulky child, she remembers. It all comes flooding back, the
hours it would take to coax him out of one of his sulks. A gloomy boy, son of gloomy parents.
How could she dream of taking shelter with him and that tight-lipped, disapproving wife of his?

At least, she thinks, they do not treat me like a fool. At least my children do me that honor.

“Enough of quarreling,” she says (is she coaxing now? is she pleading?). “Let us not make
ourselves miserable talking about politics. Here we are on the shores of the Mediterranean, the
cradle of Old Europe, on a balmy summer evening. Let me simply say, if you and Norma and the
children can stand America no more, cannot stand the shame of it, the house in Melbourne is
yours, as it has always been. You can come on a visit, you can come as refugees, you can come
to réunir la famille, as Helen puts it. And now, what do you say we fetch Helen and stroll down
to that little restaurant of hers on avenue Gambetta and have a pleasant last meal together?”