Read Online Us Conductors by Sean Michaels - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sean Michaels
Ads: Link
withdrew, and a dozen pens, flashing like electric components. I wondered which was his favourite colour of ink. I liked dark green. Lenin was always said to write in red. Pash used either black or blue.
I didn’t sign his contract. I told him I would be in touch. I told him I was a scientist. That night, at the Plaza restaurant, I conveyed our conversation to Pash. He was cracking crabs’ terracotta shells with his bare hands, sopping crabmeat in butter.His suit looked bulkier than it used to; I wondered if he was carrying a flask, or a gun.
Pash wiped his mouth with his sleeve and put down the fractured crab. “Let me tell you something, Lev,” he said, “and listen very closely.”
I remembered that I did not know where this man had come from: where he was born, where he was taught, which Moscow spire held the safe that held the dossier that held his real name. Whenever we dined, Pash’s right hand did not stray far from his knife. “Thorogood asked you if you would like to be a millionaire?” Pash looked at me, dead straight. “Yes, you would.”
ONE MORNING A CARD without a stamp arrived for me at the Plaza Hotel. LEON THEREMIN, it said. I slit open the envelope and found a printed drawing of an elephant, in pen and watercolour. The elephant seemed friendly and wise but very old, very tired, with hundreds of lines in his skin. In his trunk he held a lemon.
On the reverse of the card, below date and details, it read:
“ DON ’ T FORGET !!”
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A LEMONADE SOCIAL
MARKING THE EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY
OF
MISS CLARA REISENBERG.
R.S.V.P.
I tapped the card against the counter, then found I was picking up the telephone receiver.
Our conversation began like this:
“Is that Clara?”
“Yes, who is this please?”
“This is Leon Theremin.”
What did my name say to you? Did it speak merely of science, engineering, and that snowy afternoon? Did it say something else?
You said: “How is all that electricity doing, Leon?”
I could not attend the party. I had an appointment with RCA that same day, slated to go until dinner. Perhaps I could have cancelled it but really I was not sure what to do, at that moment, talking to you on the telephone. I hesitated. I invited you to tea, the day after. A tardy birthday. “Sure,” you said. We both put down our phones.
The elephant seemed to be staring at me.
There were other girls, then. I don’t mean Katia. I felt young, arriving in America. I felt new. There were flirtations, exchanges of affection. Discreet ministrations. My valentines were associates, students, chance acquaintances. One drowsy evening with a friend’s ginger wife. I write this not to embarrass you, or out of a need to confess, but to say that in the week between that phone call and your visit to my apartment, every other face disappeared, at once, from my thoughts. It was as if I had plunged my head into a bucket of seltzer: everything fluttered up and then was gone.
On your eighteenth birthday, a collection of friends and family visited your parents’ home for lemonade. You played charades and musical chairs. There was dancing. I am given to understand that Schillinger performed an air on his Arabian
mijwiz
. I was not present. I was with Pash and Mr Thorogood and later I was alone in my workshop, holding a screwdriver between my teeth, working on your birthday present.
You arrived at two the next day. I wondered if you would come alone but there you were with your mother and also a gang of friends, girls and their dates, all crowding together in my doorway. “Look at that,” I said clumsily.
You smiled. You said: “Hi, Leon.”
I had put on a new Paul Whiteman record. The maid had cleaned the carpets. The blinds were raised. My studio seemed like a chamber at the top of a tall tower. All the vases were filled with tulips. There was a telescope by the window, a large jade plant, a crate filled with piano keys, a tapestry in lace that depicted the makeup of
I didn’t sign his contract. I told him I would be in touch. I told him I was a scientist. That night, at the Plaza restaurant, I conveyed our conversation to Pash. He was cracking crabs’ terracotta shells with his bare hands, sopping crabmeat in butter.His suit looked bulkier than it used to; I wondered if he was carrying a flask, or a gun.
Pash wiped his mouth with his sleeve and put down the fractured crab. “Let me tell you something, Lev,” he said, “and listen very closely.”
I remembered that I did not know where this man had come from: where he was born, where he was taught, which Moscow spire held the safe that held the dossier that held his real name. Whenever we dined, Pash’s right hand did not stray far from his knife. “Thorogood asked you if you would like to be a millionaire?” Pash looked at me, dead straight. “Yes, you would.”
ONE MORNING A CARD without a stamp arrived for me at the Plaza Hotel. LEON THEREMIN, it said. I slit open the envelope and found a printed drawing of an elephant, in pen and watercolour. The elephant seemed friendly and wise but very old, very tired, with hundreds of lines in his skin. In his trunk he held a lemon.
On the reverse of the card, below date and details, it read:
“ DON ’ T FORGET !!”
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A LEMONADE SOCIAL
MARKING THE EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY
OF
MISS CLARA REISENBERG.
R.S.V.P.
I tapped the card against the counter, then found I was picking up the telephone receiver.
Our conversation began like this:
“Is that Clara?”
“Yes, who is this please?”
“This is Leon Theremin.”
What did my name say to you? Did it speak merely of science, engineering, and that snowy afternoon? Did it say something else?
You said: “How is all that electricity doing, Leon?”
I could not attend the party. I had an appointment with RCA that same day, slated to go until dinner. Perhaps I could have cancelled it but really I was not sure what to do, at that moment, talking to you on the telephone. I hesitated. I invited you to tea, the day after. A tardy birthday. “Sure,” you said. We both put down our phones.
The elephant seemed to be staring at me.
There were other girls, then. I don’t mean Katia. I felt young, arriving in America. I felt new. There were flirtations, exchanges of affection. Discreet ministrations. My valentines were associates, students, chance acquaintances. One drowsy evening with a friend’s ginger wife. I write this not to embarrass you, or out of a need to confess, but to say that in the week between that phone call and your visit to my apartment, every other face disappeared, at once, from my thoughts. It was as if I had plunged my head into a bucket of seltzer: everything fluttered up and then was gone.
On your eighteenth birthday, a collection of friends and family visited your parents’ home for lemonade. You played charades and musical chairs. There was dancing. I am given to understand that Schillinger performed an air on his Arabian
mijwiz
. I was not present. I was with Pash and Mr Thorogood and later I was alone in my workshop, holding a screwdriver between my teeth, working on your birthday present.
You arrived at two the next day. I wondered if you would come alone but there you were with your mother and also a gang of friends, girls and their dates, all crowding together in my doorway. “Look at that,” I said clumsily.
You smiled. You said: “Hi, Leon.”
I had put on a new Paul Whiteman record. The maid had cleaned the carpets. The blinds were raised. My studio seemed like a chamber at the top of a tall tower. All the vases were filled with tulips. There was a telescope by the window, a large jade plant, a crate filled with piano keys, a tapestry in lace that depicted the makeup of
Similar Books
