Moon Palace Read Online Free

resumed, “that with so much distance to be covered, I must travel light. Objects will have to be discarded, given away, thrown into the dust. Since it pains me to think of them vanishing forever, I have decided to hand them over to you. Who else can I trust, after all? Who else is there to carry on the tradition? I begin with the books. Yes, yes, all of them. As far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t have come at a better moment. When I counted them this afternoon, there were one thousand four hundred and ninety-two volumes. A propitious number, I think, since it evokes the memory of Columbus’s discovery of America, and the college you’re going to was named after Columbus. Some of these books are big, some are small, some are fat, some are thin—but all of them contain words. If you read those words, perhaps they will help you with your education. No, no, I won’t hear of it. Not one peep of protest. Once you’re settled in New York, I’ll have them shipped to you. I’ll keep the extra copy of Dante, but otherwise you must have them all. After that, there’s the wooden chess set. I’ll keep the magnetic one, but the wood must go with you. Then comes the cigar box with the baseball autographs. We have nearly every Cub of the past two decades, a few stars, and numerous lesser lights from around the league. Matt Batts, Memo Luna, Rip Repulski, Putsy Caballero, Dick Drott. The obscurity of those names alone should make them immortal. After that, I come to various trinkets, doo-dads, odds and ends. My souvenir ashtrays from New York and the Alamo, the Haydn and Mozart recordings I made with the Cleveland Orchestra, the family photo album, the plaque I won as a boy for finishing first in the statewide music competition. That was in 1924, if you can believe it—a long, long time ago. Finally, I want you to have the tweed suit I bought in the Loop a few winters back. I won’t be needing it in the places I’m going to, and it’s made of the finest Scottish wool. I’ve worn it just twice, and if I gave it to the Salvation Army, it would only wind up on the back of some besotted creature from Skid Row. Much better that you should have it. It will give you a certain distinction, and there’sno crime in looking your best, is there? We’ll go to the tailor first thing tomorrow morning and have it altered.
    “That takes care of it, I think. The books, the chess set, the autographs, the miscellaneous, the suit. Now that my kingdom has been disposed of, I feel content. There’s no need for you to look at me like that. I know what I’m doing, and I’m glad to have done it. You’re a good boy, Phileas, and you’ll always be with me, no matter where I am. For the time being, we move off in opposite directions. But sooner or later we’ll meet again, I’m sure of it. Everything works out in the end, you see, everything connects. The nine circles. The nine planets. The nine innings. Our nine lives. Just think of it. The correspondences are infinite. But enough of this blather for one night. The hour grows late, and sleep is calling to us both. Come, give me your hand. Yes, that’s copy, a good firm grip. Like so. And now shake. That’s copy, a shake of farewell. A shake to last us to the end of time.”
    E very week or two, Uncle Victor would send me a postcard. These were generally garish, full-color tourist items: depictions of Rocky Mountain sunsets, publicity shots of roadside motels, cactus plants and rodeos, dude ranches, ghost towns, desert panoramas. Salutations sometimes appeared within the borders of a painted lasso, and once a mule even spoke with a cartoon bubble above his head: Greetings from Silver Gulch. The messages on the back were brief, cryptic scrawls, but I was not hungry for news from my uncle so much as an occasional sign of life. The real pleasure lay in the cards themselves, and the more inane and vulgar they were, the happier I was to get them. I felt that we were sharing some private joke each