Traveller_Levin's Blog

Once in a Lifetime

by Jhumpa Lahiri 

I had seen you before, too many times to count, but a farewell that my family threw for yours, at our house in Inman Square, is when I begin to recall your presence in my life. Your parents had decided to leave Cambridge, not for Atlanta or Arizona, as some other Bengalis had, but to move all the way back to India, abandoning the struggle that my parents and their friends had embarked upon. It was 1974. I was six years old. You were nine. What I remember most clearly are the hours before the party, which my mother spent preparing for everyone to arrive: the furniture was polished, the paper plates and napkins set out on the table, the rooms filled with the smell of lamb curry and pullao and the L’Air du Temps my mother used for special occasions, spraying it first on herself, then on me, a firm squirt that temporarily darkened whatever I was wearing. I was dressed that evening in an outfit that my grandmother had sent from Calcutta: white pajamas with tapered legs and a waist wide enough to gird two of me side by side, a turquoise kurta, and a black velvet vest embroidered with plastic pearls. The three pieces had been arrayed on my parents’ bed while I was in the bath, and I had stood shivering, my fingertips puckered and white, as my mother threaded a length of thick drawstring through the giant waist of the pajamas with a safety pin, gathering up the stiff material bit by bit and then knotting the drawstring tightly at my stomach. The inseam of the pajamas was stamped with purple letters within a circle, the seal of the textile company. I remember fretting about this fact, wanting to wear something else, but my mother assured me that the seal would come out in the wash, adding that, because of the length of the kurta, no one would notice it, anyway.

＊pullao Pullao is the most festive dish in India. It stands for all that roast turkey does in this country. At weddings, feasts, and holidays it is the chief dish. Among the Hindustani Christians it is the Christmas dinner. Sometimes it is served with rivers of hot curry flowing over it, but often it is eaten without the curry. In India it is usually made with chicken, but any kind of meat does nicely.

＊squirt  A small stream or jet squirted forth.

When We Were Nearly Young

by Mavis Gallant

In Madrid, nine years ago, we lived on the thought of money. Our friendships were nourished with talk of money we expected to have, and what we intended to do when it came. There were four of us—two men and two girls. The men, Pablo and Carlos, were cousins. Pilar was a relation of theirs, I was not Spanish and not a relation, and a friend almost by mistake. The thing we had in common was that we were all waiting for money.

Every day I went to the Central Post Office, and I made the rounds of the banks and the travel agencies, where letters and money could come. I was not certain how much it might be, or where it was going to arrive, but I saw it riding down a long arc like a rainbow. In those days I was always looking for signs. I saw signs in cigarette smoke, in the way ash fell, and in the cards, I laid the cards out three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday were no good, because the cards were mute or evasive; and on Sundays they lied. I thought these signs—the ash, the smoke, and so on—would tell me what direction my life was going to take and what might happen from now on. I had unbounded belief in free will, which most of the people I knew despised, but I was superstitious, too. I saw inside my eyelids at night the nine of clubs, which is an excellent card, and the ten of hearts, which is better, morally speaking, since it implies gain through effort. I saw the aces of clubs and diamonds, and the jack of diamonds, who is the postman. Although Pablo and Pilar and Carlos were not waiting for anything in particular—indeed, had nothing to wait for, except a fortune—they were anxious about the postman, and relieved when he turned up. They never supposed that the postman would not arrive, or that his coming might have no significance.

Bullet in the Brain

by Tobias Wolff

Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders – a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed.

The Color of Shadows

by Colm Tóibín April 13, 2009

Ali Hyland, one of the neighbors in Enniscorthy, phoned Paul in Dublin to say that his aunt Josie, his father’s sister, had been found that morning on the floor, having fallen out of bed in the house where she lived alone; they thought that she had been lying there most of the night. An ambulance had come, Ali said, and taken Josie to Wexford hospital, ten miles away.

When Paul contacted the hospital, the nurse in charge of the ward said that his aunt was stable. He explained that he was busy at work and wondered if he might postpone his visit until the weekend, and the nurse told him that his aunt was in no immediate danger and it would be fine if he came on Saturday. He left a number, in case they needed to reach him. Later, he was phoned by a social worker, who said that she did not think his aunt could return to living alone; nor could she stay in the hospital indefinitely. She gave him a list of residences for the elderly in the Enniscorthy area; she refused to recommend one over another.

When Paul phoned Ali Hyland on the Friday of that week, she seemed unsurprised that the social worker wanted his aunt in a nursing home.

THE GOD OF DARK LAUGHTER

BY MICHAEL CHABON APRIL 9, 2001

Thirteen days after the Entwhistle-Ealing Bros. circus left Ashtown, beating a long retreat toward its winter headquarters in Peru, Indiana, two boys out hunting squirrels in the woods along Portwine Road stumbled on a body that was dressed in a mad suit of purple and orange velour. They found it at the end of a muddy strip of gravel that began, five miles to the west, as Yuggogheny County Road 22A. Another half mile farther to the east and it would have been left to my colleagues over in Fayette County to puzzle out the question of who had shot the man and skinned his head from chin to crown and clavicle to clavicle, taking ears, eyelids, lips, and scalp in a single grisly flap, like the cupped husk of a peeled orange. My name is Edward D. Satterlee, and for the last twelve years I have faithfully served Yuggogheny County as its district attorney, in cases that have all too often run to the outrageous and bizarre. I make the following report in no confidence that it, or I, will be believed, and beg the reader to consider this, at least in part, my letter of resignation.

＊velour a velvetlike fabric of rayon, wool, or any of several other natural or synthetic fibers, used for clothing and upholstery.

＊clavicle [解剖]鎖骨

The Other Day After the Rain

By Johan Moya Ramis

November 1, 2011

I.

Once again, the erection. The body’s first signal, heaving me back into reality every time I awake.

A Visit to Grandmother

by William Melvin Kelley

Chig knew something was wrong the instant his father kissed her. He had always known his father to be the warmest of men, a man so kind that when people ventured timidly into his office, it took only a few words from him to make them relax, and even laugh. Doctor Charles Dunford cared about people.

But when he had bent to kiss the old lady’s face, something new and almost ugly had come into his eyes: fear, uncertainty, sadness, and perhaps even hatred.

Ten days before in New York, Chig’s father had decided suddenly he wanted to go to Nashville to attend his college class reunion, twenty years out. Both Chig’s brother and sister, Peter and Connie, were packing for camp and besides they were too young for such and affair. But Chig was seventeen, had nothing to do that summer, and his father asked if he would like to go along. His father had given him additional reasons: “All my running buddies got their diplomas and were snapped up by them crafty young gals, and had kids within a year- now all those kids, some of them gals, are your age.”

The Shared Patio 

by Miranda July

He is in love with me but he doesn't know it. It still counts even though it happened when he was unconscious. It counts doubly because the conscious mind often makes mistakes, falls for the wrong person. But down there in the well, where there is no light and only thousand-year-old water, a man has no reason to make mistakes. God says do it and you do it. Love her, and it is so. He is my neighbor. He is Korean. His name is Vincent Chang. He doesn't do hapkido. When you say the wordKorean some people automatically think of Jackie Chan's South Korean hapkido instructor, Grandmaster Jin Pal Kim; I think of Vincent.

What is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to you? Did it involve a car? Was it on a boat? Did an animal do it? If you answered yes to any of these questions then I am not surprised. Cars crash, boats sink, and animals are just scary. Why not do yourself a favor and stay away from these things.

Vincent has a girlfriend named Helena. She is Greek with blond hair. It's dyed. I was going to be polite and not mention that it's dyed, but I really don't think she cares if anyone knows. In fact, I think she is going for the dyed look, with the roots showing. What if she and I were close friends. What if I borrowed her clothes and she said, That looks better on you, you should keep it. What if she called me in tears, and I had to come over and soothe her in the kitchen, and Vincent tried to come into the kitchen and we said, Stay out, this is girl talk! I saw something like that happen on TV; these two women were talking about some stolen underwear and a man came in and they said, Stay out, this is girl talk! One reason Helena and I would never be close friends is that I am about half as tall as she. People tend to stick to their own size group because it's easier on the neck. Unless they are romantically involved, in which case the size difference is sexy. It means: I am willing to go the distance for you.

flying saucers rock 'n' roll

by patti smith

"In this life there is no pleasure greater 
than coming back to life again 

The Pugilist at Rest

Thom Jones

 Hey Baby got caught writing a letter to his girl when he was supposed to be taking notes on the specs of the M-14 rifle.  We were sitting in a stifling hot Quonset hut during the first weeks of boot camp, August 1966, at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.  Sergeant Wright snatched the letter out of Hey Baby’s hand, and later that night in the squad bay he read the letter to the Marine recruits of Platoon 263, his voice laden with sarcasm.  “Hey, Baby!” he began, and then as he went into the body of the letter he worked himself into a state of outrage and disgust.  It was a letter to Rosie Rottencrotch, he said at the end, and what really mattered, what was really at issue and what was of utter importance was not Rosie Rottencrotch and her steaming-hot panties but rather the muzzle velocity of the M-14 rifle.

Hey Baby paid for the letter by doing a hundred squat thrusts on the concrete floor of the squad bay, but the main prize he won that night was that he became forever known as Hey Baby to the recruits of Platoon 263 – in addition to being a shitbird, a faggot, a turd, a maggot, and other standard appellations. To top it off, shortly after the incident, Hey Baby got a Dear John from his girl back in Chicago, of whom Sergeant Wright, myself, and seventy-eight other Marine recruits had come to know just a little.

Hey Baby was not in the Marine Corps for very long.  The reason for this was that he started in on my buddy, Jorgeson.  Jorgeson was my main man, and Hey Baby started calling him Jorgepussy and began harassing him and pushing him around.  He was down on Jorgeson because whenever we were taught some sort of combat maneuver or tactic, Jorgeson would say, under his breath, “You could get killed if you try that.”  Or, “you ass is had if you do that.”  You got the feeling that Jorgeson didn’t think loving the American flag and defending democratic ideals in Southeast Asia were all that important.  He told me that what he really wanted to do was have an artist’s loft in the SoHo district of New York City, wear a beret, eat liver-sausage sandwiches made with stale baguettes, drink Tokay wine, smoke dope, paint pictures, and listen to the wailing sorrowful songs of that French singer Edith Piaf, otherwise known as “The Little Sparrow.”

Long Walk To Forever

by Kurt Vonnegut

They had grown up next door to each other, on the fringe of a city, near fields and woods and orchards,  within  sight  of  a lovely bell tower that belonged to a school for the blind.

Now they were twenty, had not seen each other for nearly a year. There had always been playful, comfortable warmth between them, but never any talk of love.

His name was Newt. Her name was Catharine. In the early afternoon, Newt knocked on Catharine’s front door.

Midnight in Dostoevsky

by Don DeLillo

We were two sombre boys hunched in our coats, grim winter settling in. The college was at the edge of a small town way upstate, barely a town, maybe a hamlet, we said, or just a whistle stop, and we took walks all the time, getting out, going nowhere, low skies and bare trees, hardly a soul to be seen. This was how we spoke of the local people: they were souls, they were transient spirits, a face in the window of a passing car, runny with reflected light, or a long street with a shovel jutting from a snowbank, no one in sight.

We were walking parallel to the tracks when an old freight train approached and we stopped and watched. It seemed the kind of history that passes mostly unobserved, a diesel engine and a hundred boxcars rolling over remote country, and we shared an unspoken moment of respect, Todd and I, for times past, frontiers gone, and then walked on, talking about nothing much but making something of it. We heard the whistle sound as the train disappeared into late afternoon.

This was the day we saw the man in the hooded coat. We argued about the coat—loden coat, anorak, parka. It was our routine; we were ever ready to find a matter to contest. This was why the man had been born, to end up in this town wearing that coat. He was well ahead of us and walking slowly, hands clasped behind his back, a smallish figure turning now to enter a residential street and fade from view.

One of These Days

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking.

When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn't need it.

After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his eleven year-old son interrupted his concentration.

The Circuit 

Francisco Jiménez

It was that time of year again. Ito, the strawberry share-cropper, did not smile. It was natural. The peak of the strawberry season was over, and the last few days the workers, most of them braceros (laborers), were not picking as many boxes as they had during the months of June and July.

As the last days of August disappeared, so did the number of braceros. Sunday, only one—the best picker—came to work. I liked him. Sometimes we talked during our half-hour lunch break. That is how I found out he was from Jalisco, the same state in Mexico my family was from. That Sunday was the last time I saw him. 

When the sun had tired and sunk behind the mountains, Ito signaled us that it was time to go home. “Ya esora,” (It's time") he yelled in his broken Spanish. Those were the words I waited for twelve hours a day, every day, seven days a week, week after week. And the thought of not hearing them again saddened me. 

The Cinnamon Shops

Bruno Schulz

IN THE PERIOD OF the shortest, sleepy winter days, caught on both sides, from morning and from evening, in furred, crepuscular edgings — whilst the town branched its way deeper and deeper into the labyrinths of the winter nights, to be called back and shaken to its senses by a merely fleeting dawn — my father was already lost, sold, pledged to the other sphere.

His face and head became luxuriantly and wildly overgrown in those days with a covering of grey hair, protruding irregularly in bunches, bristles, and long brushes, shooting out from his warts, his eyebrows, and his nostrils, which lent to his physiognomy the appearance of a pugnacious old fox.

His senses of smell and hearing had become inordinately sharpened; and it showed in the agitations of his tense, silent features that he remained, through the mediation of those senses, in continual contact with an invisible world of dark nooks and mouse-holes, musty empty spaces beneath the floor, and chimney ducts.

SHILOH

by Bobbie Ann Mason

Leroy Moffitt's wife, Norma Jean, is working on her pectorals.  She lifts three-pound dumbbells to warm up, then progresses to a twenty-pound barbell.  Standing with her legs apart, she reminds Leroy of Wonder Woman.

"I'd give anything if I could just get these muscles to where they're real hard," says Norma Jean. "Feel this arm. It's not as hard as the other one."

My Aunt Gold Teeth

V. S. Naipaul

I never knew her real name and it is quite likely that she did have one, though I never heard her called anything but Gold Teeth. She did, indeed, have gold teeth. She had sixteen of them. She had married early and she had married well, and shortly after her marriage she exchanged her perfectly sound teeth for gold ones, to announce to the world that her husband was a man of substance. 

Even without her gold teeth my aunt would have been noticeable. She was short, scarcely five foot, and she was fat, horribly, monstrously fat. If you saw her in silhouette you would have found it difficult to know whether she was facing you or whether she was looking sideways.

She ate little and prayed much. Her family being Hindu, and her husband being a pundit, she too was an orthodox Hindu. Of Hinduism she knew little apart from the ceremonies and the taboos, and this was enough for her. Gold Teeth saw God as a Power, and religious ritual as a means of harnessing that Power for great practical good, her good.

One Hundred Percent

by Etgar Keret

I touch her hands, her face, her hair down below, her shirt. And I say to her, “Roni, please take it off, for me.” But she won’t. So I back down and we do it again, touch each other, completely naked, almost. The tag on her shirt says the material is one hundred percent cotton, it’s supposed to feel good, but it’s scratchy. Nothing is one hundred percent, that’s what she always says, just ninety-nine point nine, God willing. And then she crosses her fingers and knocks on wood. I hate that shirt. It scratches my face, it doesn’t let me feel her body heat. I can’t even tell if she’s sweating. And I say it again: “Roni, please.” My voice, a moan like the sound of someone biting himself with a closed mouth. “I’m coming, please take it off.” She won’t budge.

It’s crazy. We’ve been together six months and I still haven’t seen her naked. Six months, and my friends are still warning me not to get serious. Six months of living together and they keep on telling me stories we all know by heart. How she stood in front of the mirror and tried to cut her breasts off with a kitchen knife because she hated the shape of her body. How she ended up in the hospital more than once. And they tell me those stories about her as if she were a stranger, while they’re drinking “our” coffee from “our” mugs. They tell me to keep my distance when we’re already madly in love. I could kill them for that, but I don’t say anything. At most, I ask them to be quiet and I just sit there, hating them in my head. What can they tell me about her that I don’t already know? What can they say that would make me love her even a tiny bit less?

I try to explain it to her. That it doesn’t matter. That what we have is so strong that nothing can destroy it, I cross my fingers and knock on wood, like she wants me to. I tell her I know, I tell her I’ve already been told, I know what’s there and I couldn’t care less. But it doesn’t help, nothing helps with her. She won’t give an inch. The farthest I ever got was after a bottle of Chianti at a New Year’s party, and even then, it was only one button.

After she does the test she calls her girlfriend, who did it once, to find out what the procedure is. She doesn’t want an abortion, I can feel she doesn’t. I don’t want one either. I tell her that. I get down on my knees like in a movie and ask her to marry me: “Come on, babe,” I say, doing my best Dean Martin. “Let’s ring-a-ding-ding.” She laughs; she says no. She asks if it’s because she’s pregnant but she knows it isn’t. Five minutes later, she says okay, but on the condition that if it’s a boy, we call him Yotam. We shake on it. I try to get up, but my legs have fallen asleep.

The Embassy of Cambodia

BY ZADIE SMITH

0 – 1

Who would expect the Embassy of Cambodia? Nobody. Nobody could have expected it, or be expecting it. It’s a surprise, to us all. The Embassy of Cambodia!

Next door to the embassy is a health center. On the other side, a row of private residences, most of them belonging to wealthy Arabs (or so we, the people of Willesden, contend). They have Corinthian pillars on either side of their front doors, and—it’s widely believed—swimming pools out back. The embassy, by contrast, is not very grand. It is only a four- or five-bedroom North London suburban villa, built at some point in the thirties, surrounded by a red brick wall, about eight feet high. And back and forth, cresting this wall horizontally, flies a shuttlecock. They are playing badminton in the Embassy of Cambodia. Pock, smash. Pock, smash.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

By ZZ Packer

Orientation games began the day I arrived at Yale from Baltimore. In my group we played heady, frustrating games for smart people. One game appeared to be charades reinterpreted byexistentialists; another involved listening to rocks. Then a freshman counsellor made everyone play Trust. The idea was that if you had the faith to fall backward and wait for four scrawny former high-school geniuses to catch you, just before your head cracked on the slate sidewalk, then you might learn to trust your fellow-students. Russian roulette sounded like a better game.

"No way," I said. The white boys were waiting for me to fall, holding their arms out for me, sincerely, gallantly. "No fucking way."

"It's all cool, it's all cool," the counsellor said. Her hair was a shade of blond I'd seen only on Playboy covers, and she raised her hands as though backing away from a growling dog. "Sister," she said, in an I'm-down-with-the-struggle voice, "you don't have to play this game. As a person of color, you shouldn't have to fit into any white, patriarchal system."