Read Online Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Janette Turner Hospital
Tags: Fiction
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the last few hours, to be so unperturbed? He wanted to ask: What’s your trick ?
But he probably knew the answer. Her trick was that there was no trick. She would not know what he meant. She had the alarming sort of innocence and the wide-eyed insatiable curiosity available only to the genius, the idiot, and the child. She could be all or any of those. In that instant of realization, he felt something shift at the bottom of the deep well where his own sorrows and angers roiled. He saw that he had never been an innocent child. That luxury had never been his.
“Your machine’s stuck,” she said helpfully. “It’s in a loop. Loops are fascinating phenomena, especially to mathematicians, which is what I am. Do you know what a ‘strange loop’ is, mathematically speaking?”
“Ma’am, this is not a game.” He spoke sharply but his voice caught and he had to clear his throat. “State your name.”
“ Ma’am! ” She laughed. “You’re a Southerner.” She reached across the table and touched his arm. “I know you. I know you from somewhere. Where are you from?”
“Don’t touch me.” His gesture was violent.
“Hey,” she said, eyebrows raised. “Sorry. I’m not infectious with anything except the Deep South, but you’d be immunized. Hard to shake off, isn’t it?”
“State your name,” he shouted. The shout was involuntary, and shocked him.
“Gosh, okay,” she said. “Take it easy.”
She did this every time: made him lose dignity. He wanted to strike her. There were always and only two outcomes: switch-flow or surrender.
“My name is Leela-May Magnolia Moore, per my birth certificate. My driver’s license, which I’ll be happy to show you, says only Leela Moore and anyone who calls me Leela-May these days is dead on the spot. But since you’ve also left the South and tried to disguise your accent, none of that will come as any surprise. I bet you have at least two names yourself.”
“Place of birth?”
“Promised Land, South Carolina. Know it? Small town near the coast, but close enough to the capital—”
“Subject states for the record—”
“What record am I stating for? Are you FBI or Homeland Security or one of those rogue vigilante forces or what?”
He opened a drawer on his side of the table and extracted a loose-leaf ring binder. “For the record: interrogator has introduced the folder of photographic evidence to show subject and to gauge her response.”
“Where am I, by the way?”
“I am going to show you a series of photographs,” he said, “and I’m going to ask you whether or not you can identify the subjects in the photographs.”
“Sure,” she said. “Fire ahead. I’m terribly curious to find out who I’m supposed to know and what I’m supposed to have done. But before I look at your photographs, I would like to know where I am.”
She was like a pit bull. He felt challenge and irritation in equal parts. “Bonbec,” he said without thinking.
“Bonbec?” She frowned and made a compass with her hand on the table, her thumb as fulcrum. She described an arc, calculating something. “I know I’m still somewhere in Greater Boston, not far off 128, I’d say. I know we took the Mass Pike because we slowed for the toll, and even though your driver had an EZ pass I kept count of the slowdowns and booths. My specialty happens to be the mathematics of sound—well, of music in particular, which is simply one highly codified branch of the mathematics of vibrations—and there’s a precise mathematical relationship, you know, between the sound of tire revolutions per minute on the pike and on 128, where they are quite different, and on the secondary roads, where they are different again, and on the off-off roads to the secondary, and so on. I’d say we made at least one complete revolution of the city on Route 128 in a rather silly attempt to confuse. And now I’d say we’re west or north-west of Boston on one of those off-off roads, out beyond
But he probably knew the answer. Her trick was that there was no trick. She would not know what he meant. She had the alarming sort of innocence and the wide-eyed insatiable curiosity available only to the genius, the idiot, and the child. She could be all or any of those. In that instant of realization, he felt something shift at the bottom of the deep well where his own sorrows and angers roiled. He saw that he had never been an innocent child. That luxury had never been his.
“Your machine’s stuck,” she said helpfully. “It’s in a loop. Loops are fascinating phenomena, especially to mathematicians, which is what I am. Do you know what a ‘strange loop’ is, mathematically speaking?”
“Ma’am, this is not a game.” He spoke sharply but his voice caught and he had to clear his throat. “State your name.”
“ Ma’am! ” She laughed. “You’re a Southerner.” She reached across the table and touched his arm. “I know you. I know you from somewhere. Where are you from?”
“Don’t touch me.” His gesture was violent.
“Hey,” she said, eyebrows raised. “Sorry. I’m not infectious with anything except the Deep South, but you’d be immunized. Hard to shake off, isn’t it?”
“State your name,” he shouted. The shout was involuntary, and shocked him.
“Gosh, okay,” she said. “Take it easy.”
She did this every time: made him lose dignity. He wanted to strike her. There were always and only two outcomes: switch-flow or surrender.
“My name is Leela-May Magnolia Moore, per my birth certificate. My driver’s license, which I’ll be happy to show you, says only Leela Moore and anyone who calls me Leela-May these days is dead on the spot. But since you’ve also left the South and tried to disguise your accent, none of that will come as any surprise. I bet you have at least two names yourself.”
“Place of birth?”
“Promised Land, South Carolina. Know it? Small town near the coast, but close enough to the capital—”
“Subject states for the record—”
“What record am I stating for? Are you FBI or Homeland Security or one of those rogue vigilante forces or what?”
He opened a drawer on his side of the table and extracted a loose-leaf ring binder. “For the record: interrogator has introduced the folder of photographic evidence to show subject and to gauge her response.”
“Where am I, by the way?”
“I am going to show you a series of photographs,” he said, “and I’m going to ask you whether or not you can identify the subjects in the photographs.”
“Sure,” she said. “Fire ahead. I’m terribly curious to find out who I’m supposed to know and what I’m supposed to have done. But before I look at your photographs, I would like to know where I am.”
She was like a pit bull. He felt challenge and irritation in equal parts. “Bonbec,” he said without thinking.
“Bonbec?” She frowned and made a compass with her hand on the table, her thumb as fulcrum. She described an arc, calculating something. “I know I’m still somewhere in Greater Boston, not far off 128, I’d say. I know we took the Mass Pike because we slowed for the toll, and even though your driver had an EZ pass I kept count of the slowdowns and booths. My specialty happens to be the mathematics of sound—well, of music in particular, which is simply one highly codified branch of the mathematics of vibrations—and there’s a precise mathematical relationship, you know, between the sound of tire revolutions per minute on the pike and on 128, where they are quite different, and on the secondary roads, where they are different again, and on the off-off roads to the secondary, and so on. I’d say we made at least one complete revolution of the city on Route 128 in a rather silly attempt to confuse. And now I’d say we’re west or north-west of Boston on one of those off-off roads, out beyond
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