Read Online Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta - Free Book Online Page B

haven’t torn down these empty warehouses.” The impressive village library was also built of limestone. “Look how grand some of these buildings are. It is shocking next to the rest of this place.”
    â€œIt takes money to tear things down. The preservation of poverty, they call it,” Meadow said. “So. Not only the same Fondas, but get this. In 1980, Jane Fonda came up here. On the anniversary of her great-great-great-grandfather’s death by Tory raiders, but also, apparently, to make amends for stealing all the Mohawk land. She may be helping some Mohawks who are trying to reestablish a community here.”
    Carrie couldn’t stop herself from tilting her head and raising her eyebrows as she smiled to indicate a cartoonish level of skepticism. “Where did you hear that?” She was used to Meadow making things up, getting them slightly wrong, editing them or exaggerating them in the moment of the telling.
    Meadow shrugged. “A Mohawk told me. He described it as a rumor.”
    â€œI thought you said it was the Iroquois?”
    â€œCarrie, come on. Mohawks are Iroquois. The Iroquois Confederacy, or the Five Nations, is made up of the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Oneida, the Onondaga, and the Cayuga.”
    â€œOh yeah. I guess I should know that.”
    â€œI’ve been filming trains.”
    â€œTrains?”
    â€œAll spring. Nothing but trains,” Meadow said. “Do you remember that movie Night Mail ? We saw it in Jay Hosney’s class.”
    They pulled up in front of a brick warehouse.
    â€œOf course. That tedious documentary about Scottish mail being delivered.”
    Meadow got out and Carrie followed, carrying her backpack and duffel of gear. Meadow went through the open exterior door and then unlocked an interior door that led to a stifling, dusty stairwell. After three flights, she pushed open a wood door with an opaque glass panel and a chain-hinged transom window above that. The studio space consisted of an open warehouse floor. The sun shone through the walls of tiny-paned windows, and the high-ceilinged, huge room was hot and airless.
    â€œNot tedious,” Meadow said. “ Night Mail devotedly follows the mail train as it speeds across the land and through the night.” Meadow had a slightly condescending habit of telling Carrie about movies even if she had seen them. As if Carrie needed them summarized and paraphrased to make sure she “got” it. As if Carrie watched things but had no relationship to them. But Carrie also understood that this was Meadow’s way of thinking. Meadow was building an idea about something, and she liked to think through talking. Once Carrie understood that, she didn’t feel condescended to. She instead felt a pleasing intimacy with Meadow and her great brain. Carrie knew how to be friends with Meadow.
    â€œThe train barely stops and we see all the automatic mechanismsto load and unload and sort the mail. It is a machine-age celebration of speed and technology.”
    â€œI remember. There is a poem.”
    â€œRight. An Auden poem, and music by Benjamin Britten. I have been thinking about it.”
    â€œI can see that.”
    â€œThe poem and the music complicate the efficiency. Or counter it. Or maybe it is the long focus on only the train—anything looked at that closely becomes mysterious to us.” Meadow turned on a large fan. Some papers blew around, but it felt great on Carrie’s face.
    â€œThat’s better! Thank you.”
    â€œIt’s a meditation. Or it starts out celebrating and marveling at this unstoppable train. Trying to meet the power of it. But then—as if the filmmaker himself transformed during the night—the film becomes progressively breathless and dark. After all, that 1930s devotion to efficiency did lead to dark places.”
    Carrie let the air cool her face, and then she walked around. “So you have been filming the trains as