The Last Bullet Is for You Read Online Free Page B

spend too much time sitting quietly in front of a computer.
    Deep down, while the world is important, it matters little to me. It interests me as a kind of playground but its geography leaves me indifferent, along with nature’s outlandish inventions, its flora and fauna, topography, what things are and how they became that way, the great battles, the conquests, ancient customs, the way people once acted, the movement of populations and the passage of time, everything that has made the world the place we live in. I live a floating life, always apart from things. Very few places interest me outside of New York, Rome, and Montreal, the only spot in my native country I was willing to live. The alleys of Plateau Mont-Royal, the old houses hidden in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Verdun, and Griffintown, the lookout on the Mountain from which I gaze down at the tower of the Olympic Stadium, the amusement park on St. Helen’s Island, the grocery stores in Chinatown, and Anna’s Deli on Queen Mary that I didn’t know, and where I’ve discovered gefilte fish and potato pancakes, the pala č inke and the goulash and the saleswoman with the big green eyes who told me no one can hire Ukrainian cleaning ladies anymore, now that they’ve understood they were being abused.
    Few places on this planet really interest me, but there’s always Montreal, the city that took my heart, and there’s Rome, especially when it grows brittle and cracks beneath the summer sun pouring down on the crowds in the streets, Rome in chiaroscuro like in the Caravaggio paintings unearthed from the depths of some church, in the folds of a pieta in lamentation, Rome in the curves of the young women in Trastevere. That is where I will write the end of our love, in a world of pastel stucco, under an infinitely blue sky. I chose Rome instead of travelling to your country to see you because it was no use, your invitation was an excuse to continue your reign, and you can’t change people, their madness can’t be cured by some magical thinking. I knew I would land in Ruzyn ě and nothing would have changed, after the first day, the first stroll together, the first night in bed, I would stumble on a snake and slide down to square one again.
    Since she was burned by a breakup, Julia has been addicted to travel. She told me how she forced herself to leave the man she loved most. One day she showed me his photo, I told her he had a beautiful mouth, and she turned pale. He had asked her to marry him and she said yes, she was ready to sacrifice the life she’d dreamed of for him, the hours of solitude in the workshop where she designed jewellery in pieces that fit one inside the other, the image of what had always tormented her. For him, she was ready to put aside her work, just enough to make room for love, and for children, and begin a new life. But when she moved toward him, the man she loved, he turned away. He didn’t leave her, but he kept her hanging. He had her on a string, he cast her away, then reeled her in to make sure she was well and truly hooked. One angry night, he cast her too far away, and she could not return. He yelled at her to leave and she took him at his word. She packed her bags. She’s been packing them ever since. Any excuse to jump in a plane, fairs, meetings, workshops, travel numbs her, it’s a way to leave herself, her memories, her lost love, her despair at being tricked.
    One evening, as I was soaking in the bath after one of those hellish days when, for some banal reason, your anger overflowed and levelled everything, you knelt down next to the tub and begged forgiveness, and as you ran the bath mitt over my back, you told me about one of your old lovers. She was a dancer in the corps de ballet of the Státní opera Praha. Before she met you, she had been in love with a dashing Italian, a Florentine from a rich family who wooed her intently, then asked her to marry him. Her name was