The Breath of Suspension Read Online Free

a pleasure to be alive.
    Brother Michael picked me up. “Are you all right, Vikram?”
    To be rescued by Michael. How humiliating!
    “I’m fine, thanks.” I tried to stand. He had to catch me. Two other monks came and supported me under the shoulders.
    Blue-uniformed girls had gathered around Aya Ngomo. They swirled and twittered, brushing the twigs from her sweater. For a moment I could see nothing but masses of feminine hair. Then they parted and I saw Aya’s eyes on me. Standing next to her, full mouth quirked in amusement, was Michael’s sister Laurena. She looked past me as if thinking about something far away. Then my brothers carried me off.
    The monastery Infirmary was on the second floor of what had once been a rustic tourist lodge, its false wood beams long since cracked and fallen away, revealing the metal that supported it. My bed was crammed into a corner behind a deeply gouged plastic partition. On the wall above my head, just under the roof, hung a glass case filled with Indian arrowheads, labeled with names like Kickapoo and Potawatomi. It had probably hung there for over a century. I imagined a boy collecting these remnants of a forgotten age, the action of someone who did not have to worry about the future. A window looked out on the monastery past the thick bough of a maple tree. I could lie in bed and watch others about their duties. Under a thick blanket yet.
    A firm knock came on the partition. I looked up, half-expecting it to be Brother Michael, come heartily to rip the blanket from me and drive me out into the frost to do some labor for God. Instead, Aya Ngomo’s dark head poked around the partition. She rustled in and sat in the room’s one chair.
    “I came to thank you,” she said. “That was a brave tiling you did.”
    “And completely ineffective.” I waved my hand in dismissal. I had already learned how effective being casual could be.
    “It was still brave. Such a helpful man you are. Is there anything I can do for you?” She was made to be painted as an icon. Her scrutinizing black eyes dominated her face. Her words, as they so often did, seemed to contain a sardonic barb.
    I was suddenly hot in my bedclothes, prickling sweat all over my skin. I reached under my pillow and pulled out an envelope. It contained a love note to Laurena Tarchik. I had labored long over this work, sitting up in bed under the arrowheads. In it I proclaimed my love for her, my undying passion, my longing for one single word from her lips... well, it was new to me then. I also cited my family’s connections and my future prospects. A sturdy bank balance is often as much of an aphrodisiac as flowers and honeyed words. I begged for a meeting with her, at the corner of the Chapel of SS. Cosmas and Damien, in two nights.
    I handed the letter to Aya. “This is a letter to Laurena from her brother Michael. Could you take it to her?”
    She balanced it on her palm as if weighing the truth of my words. Her eyes looked past me.
    “There’s one sort of intelligence,” she said. “It helps you get what you want. Laurena has it. So do you, I think. There’s another: the kind that tells you what the right thing to want is.” She slipped the envelope into her sleeve. “It’s lovely of Michael to write his sister. She doesn’t like him much. That’s too bad. I’ve always thought about how lovely it would be to have an older brother.” She stood up, as far as she could, her back bent. “Get better, Vikram. Even if you don’t want to.” She left with a sound like blowing dried leaves.
    Two nights later I edged out of my window into the cold air. The maple had been pruned away from the building, and I had to lean over to grab the bough. The drop below pulled at me as I tilted out of the window. I seriously considered climbing back into bed. Perhaps the career of a lover was not for me. I let myself fall outward. I felt the rough bark of the tree in my hands and swung my legs around the bough. After that it