Read Online A Model World And Other Stories by Michael Chabon - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Chabon
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to end. No one else is in the little studio at this hour, and the thought of the stylus drawing nearer and nearer to the emptiness after the last groove of the song, without me there to make the segue, thrills me and keeps me from thinking about everything else. And then when I am thrilled enough, I drop the third cigarette and rush back into the studio, with the stumbling, happy urgency of someone who has heard the milk on the stove begin to boil over. I play this game pretty often. Sometimes I make it, sometimes there’s a terrible pause.
At midnight I shake hands with Jean-Marc, le Jazz-Maniac, who’s on his way in for his shift. Then I’m out and I echo along the street to the Metro and clatter down onto the empty platform. At the foot of an advertisement for a new American film, someone has scrawled a tangle of Farsi, a long, descending statement followed by three tiny exclamation points, and it looks to me like the notation for a difficult passage of music, a decrescendo. I catch the next-to-last train home and ride alone in the fluorescence the whole slow way. I’ve read all the advertisements, all the safety warnings and every damn word of French between the Europe and the Père-Lachaise stations a hundred times, and now reading them again makes me jumpy, impatient. I’m in a hurry because it’s late and we still have to pack for our trip to Brittany tomorrow. And when I get home, Roksana’s stretched out on the sofa with her eyes wide open and the two suitcases are lying empty on the living-room floor.
“Roksana,” I say, “I saw some Persian graffiti in the Metro again tonight.”
“I didn’t write it,” she says.
“Come on, let’s talk. Tell me some more about Iran.”
We’ve finished packing and we’re on the sofa, and I draw her big head down onto my lap; I hold it there. Her hair is always cool to the touch. The light in the living room, dim and pink through the heavy shade on the only lamp, tends to put us to sleep anyway, and now it’s 3 A.M.; Roksana is going under, eyelids fluttering. Every so often she stirs and struggles to free her hair from my twining fingers. She stiffens her neck, and against my thigh I feel the hardness of the muscles of her back. Now that I’ve mentioned Iran, she springs up and goes to perch on the other end of the sofa, black eyes, no nonsense. My lap feels cold.
“What about Iran?” she says. “Let’s not.”
“No, please.” I don’t really want to talk about Iran, either. We’ve had this conversation a thousand times before, but what else is there? About the things someone would write on an advertisement in the Metro. “I don’t know. The shah, the ayatollah.”
“Tell me what you think,” she says, barely, and yawns, and there again are the three gold teeth I bought for her. I had heard that toothache can cause profound, moral sadness.
“As far as I could see, um, the shah was an asshole and they threw him out, but he died anyway. And then the ayatollah came in, and he’s an asshole, too. And a bunch of sweaty guys were running around throwing Coke cans and setting American flags on fire.”
“That’s it,” she says. She stands up, I watch her black knit dress gather around her hips, then fall, one instant of yellow boxers. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
Many things fill the distance between me and Roksana, and one of them is the nation of Iran. If you look at a map, I am the Caspian Sea, and she is the Persian Gulf. Once upon a time, I suppose, the whole place was underwater.
Roksana hoists our suitcases and we follow Hervé Heugel down onto the platform at Le Pouliguen, where we stand waiting for his mother or his father, I’m not sure which, to take us to the Heugel manor, or chateau , as Hervé calls it. I’ve known Hervé for about a month. He lives in our neighborhood in Paris and takes his morning coffee around the corner from our apartment, at the Voltaire, where one day he spotted my accent and my Velvet Underground
At midnight I shake hands with Jean-Marc, le Jazz-Maniac, who’s on his way in for his shift. Then I’m out and I echo along the street to the Metro and clatter down onto the empty platform. At the foot of an advertisement for a new American film, someone has scrawled a tangle of Farsi, a long, descending statement followed by three tiny exclamation points, and it looks to me like the notation for a difficult passage of music, a decrescendo. I catch the next-to-last train home and ride alone in the fluorescence the whole slow way. I’ve read all the advertisements, all the safety warnings and every damn word of French between the Europe and the Père-Lachaise stations a hundred times, and now reading them again makes me jumpy, impatient. I’m in a hurry because it’s late and we still have to pack for our trip to Brittany tomorrow. And when I get home, Roksana’s stretched out on the sofa with her eyes wide open and the two suitcases are lying empty on the living-room floor.
“Roksana,” I say, “I saw some Persian graffiti in the Metro again tonight.”
“I didn’t write it,” she says.
“Come on, let’s talk. Tell me some more about Iran.”
We’ve finished packing and we’re on the sofa, and I draw her big head down onto my lap; I hold it there. Her hair is always cool to the touch. The light in the living room, dim and pink through the heavy shade on the only lamp, tends to put us to sleep anyway, and now it’s 3 A.M.; Roksana is going under, eyelids fluttering. Every so often she stirs and struggles to free her hair from my twining fingers. She stiffens her neck, and against my thigh I feel the hardness of the muscles of her back. Now that I’ve mentioned Iran, she springs up and goes to perch on the other end of the sofa, black eyes, no nonsense. My lap feels cold.
“What about Iran?” she says. “Let’s not.”
“No, please.” I don’t really want to talk about Iran, either. We’ve had this conversation a thousand times before, but what else is there? About the things someone would write on an advertisement in the Metro. “I don’t know. The shah, the ayatollah.”
“Tell me what you think,” she says, barely, and yawns, and there again are the three gold teeth I bought for her. I had heard that toothache can cause profound, moral sadness.
“As far as I could see, um, the shah was an asshole and they threw him out, but he died anyway. And then the ayatollah came in, and he’s an asshole, too. And a bunch of sweaty guys were running around throwing Coke cans and setting American flags on fire.”
“That’s it,” she says. She stands up, I watch her black knit dress gather around her hips, then fall, one instant of yellow boxers. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”
Many things fill the distance between me and Roksana, and one of them is the nation of Iran. If you look at a map, I am the Caspian Sea, and she is the Persian Gulf. Once upon a time, I suppose, the whole place was underwater.
Roksana hoists our suitcases and we follow Hervé Heugel down onto the platform at Le Pouliguen, where we stand waiting for his mother or his father, I’m not sure which, to take us to the Heugel manor, or chateau , as Hervé calls it. I’ve known Hervé for about a month. He lives in our neighborhood in Paris and takes his morning coffee around the corner from our apartment, at the Voltaire, where one day he spotted my accent and my Velvet Underground
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