his chair, slowly gets up, stands there, his arms by his sides and his hands on his guns. He looks at the boy.
Pat Cobhan spits. He looks at the tips of his boots, as if he were searching for something. Then he raises his eyes towards the man.
You fool, the man says.
Pat Cobhan suddenly grabs his gun. But he doesnât draw. He feels the sixth shot, now. Then nothing else, forever.
Silence.
What a silence.
Shatzy had a poem by Robert Curts stuck on the door of the fridge. She had copied it because she liked it. Not all of it, but she liked the bit near the end where it said: Lovers die in the same breath. It also had a nice closing, but the best part was that line. Lovers die in the same breath.
And another thing. Shatzy was always humming a rather stupid song, which she had learned as a child. It had a lot of stanzas. The refrain began like this: Red are the fields of our paradise, red. It wasnât much, as a song. And it was so long that you might be dead before youâd sung the whole thing. Truly.
Young died in his cell, the day before the trial. His father went to see him, and shot him in the face, point-blank.
13
Gould had twenty-seven professors. The one he liked best, however, was Mondrian Kilroy. He was a man of about fifty, with an oddly Irish face (he wasnât Irish). On his feet he always wore gray cloth slippers, so they all thought that he lived at the university, and some that he had been born there. He taught statistics.
Once Gould had gone into Classroom 6 and had seen, sitting at one of the desks there, Prof. Mondrian Kilroy. The curious thing was that he was crying. Gould sat down a few desks away, and opened his books. He liked to study in empty classrooms. One didnât usually find professors crying there. Mondrian Kilroy said something, very softly, and Gould was quiet for a bit, then said he hadnât heard him. Mondrian Kilroy, turning towards him, said that he was crying. Gould saw that he didnât have a handkerchief, or anything, and that the back of his hand was wet, and the tears were dripping down inside the collar of a blue shirt. Do you want a tissue? he asked. No, thank you. Would you like me to bring you something to drink? No, thank you. He was still crying, there was no doubt about it.
Although peculiar, it couldnât be considered completely illogical, given the direction that for some years the studies of Prof. Mondrian Kilroy had been taking, that is to say given the nature of his research, which, for some years, had centered on a rather singular subject, that is to say: he studied curved objects. You have no idea how many curved objects exist; only Mondrian Kilroy, and even in his case it was only by approximation, was able to appreciate the impact on manâs perceptual network and, therefore, on his ethical-sentimental disposition. In general he found it difficult to recapitulate the argument in front of his colleagues, who were often inclined to consider his research âexcessively lateralâ (whatever such an expression might mean). But it was his conviction that the presence of curved surfaces in the index of existence was anything but accidental, and in fact represented in some sense the flight path by means of which the real escaped the rigid framework of its destiny, that fatally blocked orthogonal structure. It was what, in general, âset the world in motion again,â to use the exact words of Prof. Mondrian Kilroy.
The sense of all of that emerged clearlyâand yet in an undoubtedly bizarre formâin his lectures, and in some in particular, and with unusual brilliance in one, the one known as Lecture No. 11, which was devoted to Claude Monetâs
Waterlilies.
As you all know,
Waterlilies
is not properly a painting but, rather, a group of eight great wall panels that, if set next to each other, would give the impressive final result of a composition three hundred feet long and six feet high. Monet worked on the paintings
Pat Cobhan spits. He looks at the tips of his boots, as if he were searching for something. Then he raises his eyes towards the man.
You fool, the man says.
Pat Cobhan suddenly grabs his gun. But he doesnât draw. He feels the sixth shot, now. Then nothing else, forever.
Silence.
What a silence.
Shatzy had a poem by Robert Curts stuck on the door of the fridge. She had copied it because she liked it. Not all of it, but she liked the bit near the end where it said: Lovers die in the same breath. It also had a nice closing, but the best part was that line. Lovers die in the same breath.
And another thing. Shatzy was always humming a rather stupid song, which she had learned as a child. It had a lot of stanzas. The refrain began like this: Red are the fields of our paradise, red. It wasnât much, as a song. And it was so long that you might be dead before youâd sung the whole thing. Truly.
Young died in his cell, the day before the trial. His father went to see him, and shot him in the face, point-blank.
13
Gould had twenty-seven professors. The one he liked best, however, was Mondrian Kilroy. He was a man of about fifty, with an oddly Irish face (he wasnât Irish). On his feet he always wore gray cloth slippers, so they all thought that he lived at the university, and some that he had been born there. He taught statistics.
Once Gould had gone into Classroom 6 and had seen, sitting at one of the desks there, Prof. Mondrian Kilroy. The curious thing was that he was crying. Gould sat down a few desks away, and opened his books. He liked to study in empty classrooms. One didnât usually find professors crying there. Mondrian Kilroy said something, very softly, and Gould was quiet for a bit, then said he hadnât heard him. Mondrian Kilroy, turning towards him, said that he was crying. Gould saw that he didnât have a handkerchief, or anything, and that the back of his hand was wet, and the tears were dripping down inside the collar of a blue shirt. Do you want a tissue? he asked. No, thank you. Would you like me to bring you something to drink? No, thank you. He was still crying, there was no doubt about it.
Although peculiar, it couldnât be considered completely illogical, given the direction that for some years the studies of Prof. Mondrian Kilroy had been taking, that is to say given the nature of his research, which, for some years, had centered on a rather singular subject, that is to say: he studied curved objects. You have no idea how many curved objects exist; only Mondrian Kilroy, and even in his case it was only by approximation, was able to appreciate the impact on manâs perceptual network and, therefore, on his ethical-sentimental disposition. In general he found it difficult to recapitulate the argument in front of his colleagues, who were often inclined to consider his research âexcessively lateralâ (whatever such an expression might mean). But it was his conviction that the presence of curved surfaces in the index of existence was anything but accidental, and in fact represented in some sense the flight path by means of which the real escaped the rigid framework of its destiny, that fatally blocked orthogonal structure. It was what, in general, âset the world in motion again,â to use the exact words of Prof. Mondrian Kilroy.
The sense of all of that emerged clearlyâand yet in an undoubtedly bizarre formâin his lectures, and in some in particular, and with unusual brilliance in one, the one known as Lecture No. 11, which was devoted to Claude Monetâs
Waterlilies.
As you all know,
Waterlilies
is not properly a painting but, rather, a group of eight great wall panels that, if set next to each other, would give the impressive final result of a composition three hundred feet long and six feet high. Monet worked on the paintings
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