Read Online Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard Powers
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Joyousness, it says, is like perfect pitch: a little early training in elation can bring out a trait that might otherwise wither.
Stone assumes that Algeria’s Time of Horrors is not exactly the early training of choice.
Late one class, as Thassa is leaving, he works up the courage to ask her how she’s surviving the local Arabophobia. She just grins. “But I’m not an Arab! I’m Kabyle. You might be more Arab than I am.
Stone
: that’s
Hajar
. That’s a good Arab name. Hey! Are you planning any terror, Mister?”
His terror is all unplanned.
He’s like a man who has just seen some mythic creature fly past the window—teal and ruby against the concrete neighboring high-rise, a species blown a continent off course, not listed in any of the books he now spreads along the windowsill in the hopes of making an ID. A thing of complete unlikelihood. Game for anything. And anything’s game.
Stone shares an office with two other adjuncts—a converted smoking lounge on the sixth floor. There he holds his first student conferences. The half-hour sessions feel more like counseling jags than writing tutorials.
Joker Tovar drums on his thigh with a chewed-up uni-ball, his knee pounding like a woodpecker spattering a concrete phone pole. “Digital media is over,” he tells Russell. “Played out. Nobody’s done anything fresh for three months. The whole scene is
Night of the Living Dead
. And no one has a clue what to do next.”
Roberto the Thief sits forward on the hot seat, his soul stretched as taut as shrink-wrap. In a soft voice, he announces, “I go to the edge of the abyss every other night. Sometimes I look over.”
Russell asks, “Would it help you to talk to someone?”
Roberto just cocks his head. “I’m sorry . . . Help
what
?”
Charlotte, intrepid Princess Heavy, shows Russell her portfolio—charcoal vortices of human bodies that look like the Venus of Willendorf, which is to say, a little like Princess Heavy. She works snippets of journal entry around each image. One sketch, more sinewy than the rest, jumps out at Russell. He doesn’t even need the hand-scrawled accompanying passage:
It’s like she’s glowing. Like she knows something. Makes me want to be a refugee.
Maybe it’s just a fragment of indie-song lyric. He flips to the next image, but not fast enough to evade Charlotte. “So what do you make of her?”
He flips back, holds up the sketch, lifts an eyebrow. He’s remarkably good at being the one thing his father taught him never to be: a fake.
Charlotte tsks. “I don’t mean the sketch. Is there something broken with her? Or something really . . . fixed?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I’ve never met an Algerian before. I . . . probably shouldn’t be discussing—”
“No, of course not.” Charlotte retrieves her drawings and slips them into her portfolio. “Wouldn’t be caught dead discussing real life.”
When Thassa is five minutes late for her appointment, Russell unravels. The Islamic Salvation Front has sent a death squad after her. Or the America First people. Her total lack of depressive realism leaves her a walking target.
At eight minutes after the hour, she sticks her face around the doorjamb, puckered with sweet shame. He’s so relieved to see her that he stands up. He’s shocked all over again at just how short she is: the crown of her curly hair reaches no higher than his collarbone.
“I’m sorry to be so tardy,” she says. “I was talking to the security guard downstairs.”
Just the sound of her voice is like a governor’s pardon. Her accent has drifted: too much time in North America. He wants to stop the sound from drifting any further.
“He has a fascinating story,” she says, touching Stone’s wrist and making him sit. She sits just next to him. “He’s a Bosnian Muslim. Imagine: he taught himself English when he moved here, and now he’s writing a book!”
Russell treads water. “Do you know
Stone assumes that Algeria’s Time of Horrors is not exactly the early training of choice.
Late one class, as Thassa is leaving, he works up the courage to ask her how she’s surviving the local Arabophobia. She just grins. “But I’m not an Arab! I’m Kabyle. You might be more Arab than I am.
Stone
: that’s
Hajar
. That’s a good Arab name. Hey! Are you planning any terror, Mister?”
His terror is all unplanned.
He’s like a man who has just seen some mythic creature fly past the window—teal and ruby against the concrete neighboring high-rise, a species blown a continent off course, not listed in any of the books he now spreads along the windowsill in the hopes of making an ID. A thing of complete unlikelihood. Game for anything. And anything’s game.
Stone shares an office with two other adjuncts—a converted smoking lounge on the sixth floor. There he holds his first student conferences. The half-hour sessions feel more like counseling jags than writing tutorials.
Joker Tovar drums on his thigh with a chewed-up uni-ball, his knee pounding like a woodpecker spattering a concrete phone pole. “Digital media is over,” he tells Russell. “Played out. Nobody’s done anything fresh for three months. The whole scene is
Night of the Living Dead
. And no one has a clue what to do next.”
Roberto the Thief sits forward on the hot seat, his soul stretched as taut as shrink-wrap. In a soft voice, he announces, “I go to the edge of the abyss every other night. Sometimes I look over.”
Russell asks, “Would it help you to talk to someone?”
Roberto just cocks his head. “I’m sorry . . . Help
what
?”
Charlotte, intrepid Princess Heavy, shows Russell her portfolio—charcoal vortices of human bodies that look like the Venus of Willendorf, which is to say, a little like Princess Heavy. She works snippets of journal entry around each image. One sketch, more sinewy than the rest, jumps out at Russell. He doesn’t even need the hand-scrawled accompanying passage:
It’s like she’s glowing. Like she knows something. Makes me want to be a refugee.
Maybe it’s just a fragment of indie-song lyric. He flips to the next image, but not fast enough to evade Charlotte. “So what do you make of her?”
He flips back, holds up the sketch, lifts an eyebrow. He’s remarkably good at being the one thing his father taught him never to be: a fake.
Charlotte tsks. “I don’t mean the sketch. Is there something broken with her? Or something really . . . fixed?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I’ve never met an Algerian before. I . . . probably shouldn’t be discussing—”
“No, of course not.” Charlotte retrieves her drawings and slips them into her portfolio. “Wouldn’t be caught dead discussing real life.”
When Thassa is five minutes late for her appointment, Russell unravels. The Islamic Salvation Front has sent a death squad after her. Or the America First people. Her total lack of depressive realism leaves her a walking target.
At eight minutes after the hour, she sticks her face around the doorjamb, puckered with sweet shame. He’s so relieved to see her that he stands up. He’s shocked all over again at just how short she is: the crown of her curly hair reaches no higher than his collarbone.
“I’m sorry to be so tardy,” she says. “I was talking to the security guard downstairs.”
Just the sound of her voice is like a governor’s pardon. Her accent has drifted: too much time in North America. He wants to stop the sound from drifting any further.
“He has a fascinating story,” she says, touching Stone’s wrist and making him sit. She sits just next to him. “He’s a Bosnian Muslim. Imagine: he taught himself English when he moved here, and now he’s writing a book!”
Russell treads water. “Do you know
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