Amor and Psycho: Stories Read Online Free
think he felt that he had wasted his time. Mrs. Brazir seemed embarrassed by his short temper, by the way the beautiful, silent rooms held the sharp tone of him. They had gotten by all those years gliding on the surface, and the surface was perfect, like Zamboni ice, until it cracked.
After dinner, Karim and I walked to the beach with a flashlight. No one else appeared, so we lay down in the cold sand and did it quickly. I loved the way his white shirt hung and moved with the motion of his body. (The Brazirs were obsessed with white shirts in summer. Mrs. Brazir insisted that “white must be pristine.” The shirts were blindingly white and wrinkly. Sublime dishevelment was the virtue of these shirts; something about them transcended that other quality, of being ironed and businesslike.)
Karim and I did not talk much. He was—I realized this later—too cool to talk much. He had the confidence of a wild animal—he never questioned his instincts. He never asked me about the sex, whether I was satisfied by his intense, distracted hammering; we never discussed it at all. We wentback to the silent house, undressed around the Brazir Tree. We hung our clothes on the branches of the tree and went to sleep in our separate rooms.
I woke in the night and looked through the delicate skin of windows into the sky (where the moon hung, waxing gibbous and creamy) and thought, They have the moon.
IN SPITE OF his illness, Mr. Brazir caught a fish for our last dinner, my last among them. He caught it himself somewhere, with a hook and line. It was perfectly illegal, he said with satisfaction; he had gotten away with murder. He invited us to look at the silver skin of the fish, which held rainbow colors in its shingles. Nobody had any idea what kind of fish it was. We called it “the fish” and sometimes “Him.”
“Do we want Him in lemon and butter?” Mrs. Brazir asked.
Mr. Brazir announced that we would clean the fish at three o’clock. Mrs. Brazir insisted that first she and I must put on dresses and ride bicycles barefoot to a particular shop to buy lemons. (I wanted to learn everything from her, to inhabit her tone. I still have the stolen book, with entries in her elegant, playful hand: “A beautiful Yale man drinking gin at Thanksgiving. I wanted that one.”)
When we returned, Mr. Brazir had found a bottle of champagne in the cellar—something very old, a Taittingerwith the label slightly eroded or chewed. He cooked the fish on a tiny hibachi in the garden, and served Him on a platter with His head still on.
He was very small, though. The four of us drank the champagne and shared Him, with slices of lemon. I realized how bourgeois it was to make an evening around quantities of food; better to drink water and eat air.
After dinner, Mr. Brazir rummaged in the pantry—I remember a tea towel tacked up in the door, representing the anniversary of the French Revolution, ten bodies, very well-dressed, severed heads. He returned with his fingers spread around four small lead-colored glasses and a bottle covered with interesting labels. Absinthe was illegal in America, he told us, which I knew from reading postwar novels—it was for information like this that I’d minored in literature. He poured some into each of the glasses and then added water. The absinthe turned milky, though the color of the glasses obscured the full effect.
The drink tasted of licorice and childhood, but quickly went deeper. I began to feel universal and human. The Brazirs understood the discipline of surface—the depth that was protected by surface. The surface functioned as the depth. We were all part of it. What could we do but transcend ordinary, sloppy suffering, rise above it, refuse? I tried to say these things to the Brazirs; it felt like a gift I could offer, to see them in their beauty.
Mr. Brazir began to laugh. His chin fell down on hischest and he laughed into the soft open collar of his ancient and immaculate white shirt.
Our dirty
After dinner, Karim and I walked to the beach with a flashlight. No one else appeared, so we lay down in the cold sand and did it quickly. I loved the way his white shirt hung and moved with the motion of his body. (The Brazirs were obsessed with white shirts in summer. Mrs. Brazir insisted that “white must be pristine.” The shirts were blindingly white and wrinkly. Sublime dishevelment was the virtue of these shirts; something about them transcended that other quality, of being ironed and businesslike.)
Karim and I did not talk much. He was—I realized this later—too cool to talk much. He had the confidence of a wild animal—he never questioned his instincts. He never asked me about the sex, whether I was satisfied by his intense, distracted hammering; we never discussed it at all. We wentback to the silent house, undressed around the Brazir Tree. We hung our clothes on the branches of the tree and went to sleep in our separate rooms.
I woke in the night and looked through the delicate skin of windows into the sky (where the moon hung, waxing gibbous and creamy) and thought, They have the moon.
IN SPITE OF his illness, Mr. Brazir caught a fish for our last dinner, my last among them. He caught it himself somewhere, with a hook and line. It was perfectly illegal, he said with satisfaction; he had gotten away with murder. He invited us to look at the silver skin of the fish, which held rainbow colors in its shingles. Nobody had any idea what kind of fish it was. We called it “the fish” and sometimes “Him.”
“Do we want Him in lemon and butter?” Mrs. Brazir asked.
Mr. Brazir announced that we would clean the fish at three o’clock. Mrs. Brazir insisted that first she and I must put on dresses and ride bicycles barefoot to a particular shop to buy lemons. (I wanted to learn everything from her, to inhabit her tone. I still have the stolen book, with entries in her elegant, playful hand: “A beautiful Yale man drinking gin at Thanksgiving. I wanted that one.”)
When we returned, Mr. Brazir had found a bottle of champagne in the cellar—something very old, a Taittingerwith the label slightly eroded or chewed. He cooked the fish on a tiny hibachi in the garden, and served Him on a platter with His head still on.
He was very small, though. The four of us drank the champagne and shared Him, with slices of lemon. I realized how bourgeois it was to make an evening around quantities of food; better to drink water and eat air.
After dinner, Mr. Brazir rummaged in the pantry—I remember a tea towel tacked up in the door, representing the anniversary of the French Revolution, ten bodies, very well-dressed, severed heads. He returned with his fingers spread around four small lead-colored glasses and a bottle covered with interesting labels. Absinthe was illegal in America, he told us, which I knew from reading postwar novels—it was for information like this that I’d minored in literature. He poured some into each of the glasses and then added water. The absinthe turned milky, though the color of the glasses obscured the full effect.
The drink tasted of licorice and childhood, but quickly went deeper. I began to feel universal and human. The Brazirs understood the discipline of surface—the depth that was protected by surface. The surface functioned as the depth. We were all part of it. What could we do but transcend ordinary, sloppy suffering, rise above it, refuse? I tried to say these things to the Brazirs; it felt like a gift I could offer, to see them in their beauty.
Mr. Brazir began to laugh. His chin fell down on hischest and he laughed into the soft open collar of his ancient and immaculate white shirt.
Our dirty
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