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Authors: Nicole Krauss
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middle of class. When he told Anna what had happened she’d sighed and pressed her lips together and said he seemed to be making a habit of getting up and walking out of things.
They had fought then, and Samson said he wished she would stop blaming him for something, an illness, that had happened to him.“Sometimes I think you might be happier if I’d died,” he said, knowing how cruel a thing it was to say, saying it anyway. Anna looked as if she’d been punched and began to cry. Later he apologized, but the words hung in the air between them, hardening like the unidentifiable spilled things on the street that solidified into horrendous fossils. That night, while they lay in bed, Anna had said, “Maybe we don’t belong together anymore.” Samson had not known what to say and so he reached for her hand in the dark. He didn’t tell all of this to Lana. He stopped after the bit about walking out of class.
They rode the elevator up into the stacks. Lana showed him how to find books in the shadowy, obscure districts lit by failing bulbs. Then in a hushed tone she said, “Good luck,” and turned a corner and was gone, leaving behind a slight electric disturbance in the air. He took down a few books she had recommended and, sinking to the cold floor, began to read. Soon he ceased to notice the slightly sickening smell of old paper.
HE WENT BACK to the library often, and sometimes he met Lana for lunch after her classes. She was
starving,
she would say, and had to eat something before she
fainted.
They sprinted across Broadway dodging traffic and ducked into a noodle shop, or they bought falafel wrapped in paper and took them to Riverside Park, where they ate watching kayaks skim up the Hudson, imagining a wilderness of Indians. It was only the beginning of September and fall was still a long way off from the green shore of New Jersey, unspoiled and almost idyllic upriver. They discussed the possibility of swimming across, how long it would take and how far the distance, the drama of plunging in the murky water and looking back at Manhattan.
“There was a girl who swam across the Bering Strait,” Lana said. “Maybe twenty years ago. It was some kind of statement. She wantedto encourage friendship and understanding between America and the Soviet Union. A long-distance swimmer, I forget her name, but the water was freezing and all she wore was a bathing suit.”
“And she made it?”
“She made it. She’d already swum the Channel a few times. I read somewhere that they have to have a special kind of body fat. Spread evenly over the body for insulation.”
“You wouldn’t last a minute,” Samson said, gesturing at her rail-thin frame.
“Hey, I’m tough.” She flexed her biceps, a joke.
“I’m sure.”
“My main problem is that I don’t like deep water. The idea of being suspended with miles of darkness, with who knows what, below.”
They watched as a rusted tanker moved downriver toward the ocean.
“I wouldn’t exactly volunteer myself.”
“But what an amazing thing, don’t you think? A girl swimming alone across the strait that once carried the first human beings to this continent.”
He imagined Lana stroking through open waters toward Siberia.
“Amazing.”
He liked to listen to her talk, her unguarded way of telling him what was on her mind, about a fight she’d had with a friend or a book she’d been reading. It was a freedom that seemed consistent with the way she moved, with her limbs that, if she did not concentrate on restraining them, were rarely still. Everything about her seemed accelerated, and the natural intimacy that had so quickly grown up between them surprised and delighted him. At times he felt convinced that they must have sat like this countless times before, paper lunch bags on their laps and the river below, but Lana insisted they hadn’t. He understood the unlikeliness of it too, he being her professor and she his student, and yet it seemed impossible that he
They had fought then, and Samson said he wished she would stop blaming him for something, an illness, that had happened to him.“Sometimes I think you might be happier if I’d died,” he said, knowing how cruel a thing it was to say, saying it anyway. Anna looked as if she’d been punched and began to cry. Later he apologized, but the words hung in the air between them, hardening like the unidentifiable spilled things on the street that solidified into horrendous fossils. That night, while they lay in bed, Anna had said, “Maybe we don’t belong together anymore.” Samson had not known what to say and so he reached for her hand in the dark. He didn’t tell all of this to Lana. He stopped after the bit about walking out of class.
They rode the elevator up into the stacks. Lana showed him how to find books in the shadowy, obscure districts lit by failing bulbs. Then in a hushed tone she said, “Good luck,” and turned a corner and was gone, leaving behind a slight electric disturbance in the air. He took down a few books she had recommended and, sinking to the cold floor, began to read. Soon he ceased to notice the slightly sickening smell of old paper.
HE WENT BACK to the library often, and sometimes he met Lana for lunch after her classes. She was
starving,
she would say, and had to eat something before she
fainted.
They sprinted across Broadway dodging traffic and ducked into a noodle shop, or they bought falafel wrapped in paper and took them to Riverside Park, where they ate watching kayaks skim up the Hudson, imagining a wilderness of Indians. It was only the beginning of September and fall was still a long way off from the green shore of New Jersey, unspoiled and almost idyllic upriver. They discussed the possibility of swimming across, how long it would take and how far the distance, the drama of plunging in the murky water and looking back at Manhattan.
“There was a girl who swam across the Bering Strait,” Lana said. “Maybe twenty years ago. It was some kind of statement. She wantedto encourage friendship and understanding between America and the Soviet Union. A long-distance swimmer, I forget her name, but the water was freezing and all she wore was a bathing suit.”
“And she made it?”
“She made it. She’d already swum the Channel a few times. I read somewhere that they have to have a special kind of body fat. Spread evenly over the body for insulation.”
“You wouldn’t last a minute,” Samson said, gesturing at her rail-thin frame.
“Hey, I’m tough.” She flexed her biceps, a joke.
“I’m sure.”
“My main problem is that I don’t like deep water. The idea of being suspended with miles of darkness, with who knows what, below.”
They watched as a rusted tanker moved downriver toward the ocean.
“I wouldn’t exactly volunteer myself.”
“But what an amazing thing, don’t you think? A girl swimming alone across the strait that once carried the first human beings to this continent.”
He imagined Lana stroking through open waters toward Siberia.
“Amazing.”
He liked to listen to her talk, her unguarded way of telling him what was on her mind, about a fight she’d had with a friend or a book she’d been reading. It was a freedom that seemed consistent with the way she moved, with her limbs that, if she did not concentrate on restraining them, were rarely still. Everything about her seemed accelerated, and the natural intimacy that had so quickly grown up between them surprised and delighted him. At times he felt convinced that they must have sat like this countless times before, paper lunch bags on their laps and the river below, but Lana insisted they hadn’t. He understood the unlikeliness of it too, he being her professor and she his student, and yet it seemed impossible that he
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