Read Online A Convergence Of Birds by Jonathon Safran Foer - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathon Safran Foer
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angelic component that makes their lives difficult until they manage to combine angel with harpy). Everyone at Hindlip is familiar with the sounds of probing as, once again, the poursuivants, some recruited only for the day, sedulously go about the business of ruining good panel work, much to the distress of Maestro Owen. Such grinding and scraping suggests a house full of rats, which in a sense it is whenever these busybodies show up. Mostly from hovels themselves, they delight in the spoliation of luxury, delighted to bore holes in the eyes of the faces in portraits (who would hide behind them?) or next to an old borehole so that the two, plus another on another occasion, will form a peephole. By now, the house has a much-penetrated look, as if musketry practice of the wildest abandon has taken place in the dining room, the bedrooms, even lofts and closets. Father Garnet thinks of Hindlip as the punctured house, practiced upon by dunce doctors trying to let the blood out of it to no purpose—nobody has ever been found here, never mind how vehement and specific the official proclamation borne in the hand of the poursuivant who leads. John Owen is far too clever for them, and Hindlip gives him more scope than almost any other country house. They might as well look for actual faces in the coats of arms proudly displayed on the walls.
Anne Vaux knows she cannot stand any more of this, so she goes downstairs, unable to believe she has just ridden cross-country to entomb the dearest priest in the world. She has not so much participated as lent an ear, an eye, a heart. Now her stomach, always upset by riding sidesaddle—or any saddle—begins to come back to normal, less afflicted by the devious fragility of her robust-looking life. She is not that strong, she knows, what with eyes, womb, and—no, there is nothing else save the acid swilling about in her stomach. Not because she wants it, but because she associates it with conventional everyday conduct, she asks for an unusual lunch: ham and eggs, a dish often favored at Hindlip because the makings are always fresh. Gradually, overpowering the reek of cauliflower and the bouquet of roast beef, the companionable wideawake aroma of ham and eggs bubbling in hot lard ascends the stairs and seeps through the structure, reaching Henry Garnet and actually bringing a tear to his eye; why, this is the most exquisite torture, he feels, and surely Anne could stop it. Who on earth—no, he stops. It is no use getting into a swivet about a wrongly timed breakfast he would give his folding leather altar to devour. The smell will endure for at least a day; no windows open in November, and over the decades the house has brilliantly captured and fused its own smells, like a prisoner inhaling himself, until there is always a fused aroma—faint corky oversweet strawberry infused with an acrid spume of boiling vinegar—that serves as background to the smells of the moment. Against both delight and abomination, Henry Garnet decides to hold his breath, but he can do so only in upsetting spasms, and he soon gives up, at once rhapsodic and revulsed.
Anyone with a developed sense of coincidence, such as may be acquired after reading a great deal of Dickens, will wish Father Garnet never to have arrived, but instead to remain circling with Anne Vaux in some nondescript, drab field until the end of time. By the same token, one does not want to have Sir Henry Bromley arriving within half an hour of Garnet’s reaching Hindlip. As zealots go, Bromley is fairly civilized, although his arrival coincides also with break of day; Henry Garnet’s feeling that it is dinner time shows how exercised his mind has become (he’s being previous as almost never), but Anne Vaux’s craving for the ritual of ham and eggs reveals her attunement to a daily round, a regimen that both pleases and steadies. Amid the panic of their confusion, no one is saluting the dawn except the kitchen staff, who time their work by
Anne Vaux knows she cannot stand any more of this, so she goes downstairs, unable to believe she has just ridden cross-country to entomb the dearest priest in the world. She has not so much participated as lent an ear, an eye, a heart. Now her stomach, always upset by riding sidesaddle—or any saddle—begins to come back to normal, less afflicted by the devious fragility of her robust-looking life. She is not that strong, she knows, what with eyes, womb, and—no, there is nothing else save the acid swilling about in her stomach. Not because she wants it, but because she associates it with conventional everyday conduct, she asks for an unusual lunch: ham and eggs, a dish often favored at Hindlip because the makings are always fresh. Gradually, overpowering the reek of cauliflower and the bouquet of roast beef, the companionable wideawake aroma of ham and eggs bubbling in hot lard ascends the stairs and seeps through the structure, reaching Henry Garnet and actually bringing a tear to his eye; why, this is the most exquisite torture, he feels, and surely Anne could stop it. Who on earth—no, he stops. It is no use getting into a swivet about a wrongly timed breakfast he would give his folding leather altar to devour. The smell will endure for at least a day; no windows open in November, and over the decades the house has brilliantly captured and fused its own smells, like a prisoner inhaling himself, until there is always a fused aroma—faint corky oversweet strawberry infused with an acrid spume of boiling vinegar—that serves as background to the smells of the moment. Against both delight and abomination, Henry Garnet decides to hold his breath, but he can do so only in upsetting spasms, and he soon gives up, at once rhapsodic and revulsed.
Anyone with a developed sense of coincidence, such as may be acquired after reading a great deal of Dickens, will wish Father Garnet never to have arrived, but instead to remain circling with Anne Vaux in some nondescript, drab field until the end of time. By the same token, one does not want to have Sir Henry Bromley arriving within half an hour of Garnet’s reaching Hindlip. As zealots go, Bromley is fairly civilized, although his arrival coincides also with break of day; Henry Garnet’s feeling that it is dinner time shows how exercised his mind has become (he’s being previous as almost never), but Anne Vaux’s craving for the ritual of ham and eggs reveals her attunement to a daily round, a regimen that both pleases and steadies. Amid the panic of their confusion, no one is saluting the dawn except the kitchen staff, who time their work by
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