Read Online A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin - Free Book Online Page B

feeling on his shoulders.
    He refused to turn.
    If he did, if he gave in to the urge, he saw nothing, of course. Just the blank rows of study carrels and the line of storefronts down Euclid, colored by lights. They stretched to vanishing in the darkness.
    He would face forward again and close his eyes. For a change of scene, he’d begun spending time in the main library instead of Evans. Still, there could be other mathematics students around. If Milo Andret’s eyes were open, the other students would notice. Milo Andret worked with his eyes closed . He was Hans Borland’s protégé. The savant.
    At this point he was usually done for the evening.
    Occasionally he would drop all pretense and just walk over to one of the big windows and stare out toward the bay. The air from that direction smelled of fog and turned the streetlights into rows of yellow moons. Sometimes this was enough; but usually, he would need to leave. To calm himself he would take a longer route home. The couples with their dogs. The rows of wooden bungalows lit by porch lamps. The orange-rind scent of the trees. All of it gathered by the steady beat of his step. At the apartment he would go immediately to his notebook, which was dense now with figures. In such straightforward work he could forget himself.

    And thankfully, the night itself never failed to wash him. In the morning he would wake early and begin recording again. In the tradition of Copernicus or Leonardo, he was extrapolating from nothing but his own data. His perfect two-windowed view of the universe. Figures upon figures.
    In their incremental intervals, he was certain now of what he was seeing: the recognizable proof of a harmony. The numbers in their perfect columns bearing him forward.
    —
    N OT LONG AFTER: another row of panes in Earl’s palm. It was early afternoon when he let Cle slip one onto his tongue. Hours later, when he came out from its hold, she was gone. So was Earl. It was different this time—there’d been no mathematics, no visit from his sources.
    Still, he’d understood something.
    The way she’d been visiting his apartment lately: every other afternoon.
    Around him the room was dark. Thin coronas of light flaring the perimeters of the shades. Bodies on the rugs and couches. The upswell of the drug making him queasy. He recognized a girl from somewhere, rose and walked over and touched her on the shoulder.
    By the time they were outside, they were arm in arm. The curve of her hips. His brain undone and the drug still not finished with him: colors swooping in his eye. Yellows from a line of hollyhocks, blocks away. The silver-green glitter of the bay. His focus leaping. Cle. This new girl next to him, her voice falling and rising. Block after block while the colors struck from a distance. Night had fallen before they tired, somewhere below the hills of Albany. A tiny bar, dark and quiet. Colors gone at last but the drug still skirmishing at the edges. A longshoreman’s place—iron stools and a jukebox. A hint of threat. Vodka for her, bourbon for him: a double.

    Its woody bite touched his throat and brought back the world.
    —
    A LONE, LATER, HE woke in a strange bed. The room bright: morning. Gray snakes of incense twisting on the ceiling. Clothes on the floor—his own. Jeans, boots. A fringed leather jacket on a peg by the door. He looked away: not the kind of thing Cle wore.
    Whoever she was, she’d left. The tossed sheets. The dent in the pillow. He looked around for a note. Then, through the window, he searched for a street sign.
    It was infinitely strange not to know where he was.
    He remembered nothing: this was the odd part. A hole in the world, starting in the bar. The street. The stairs. The heat of her beneath him. But before that, nothing.
    He must be in the flats, he realized, somewhere near Gilman. He gathered his things and left.
    Block after block of low houses, dogs barking behind chain-link. The vistas obscured. Finally, at a corner park, he