Страница 53 из 102
– Today? I walked.
Dr. Green wrote something on the clipboard with a heavy golden pen. -Good. You stopped to visit your friend at the market, I see.
Da
– Did I mention that? My Friday rounds?
– Yes. When we first met. He tapped a thick, manila folder bound in a heavy-duty rubber band. The folder contained Da
– Oh.
– You mentioned going back to work. Any progress?
– No. Merrill wants me to. She thinks I need to reintegrate professionally, that it might fix my problem, Da
– What do you think?
– I liked being a scientist. I liked to study insects, liked tracking their brief, frenetic little lives. I know how important they are, how integral, essential to the ecosystem. Hell, they outnumber humans trillions to one. But, oh my, it's so damned easy to feel like a god when you've got an ant twitching in your forceps. You think that's how God feels when He's got one of us under His thumb?
– I couldn't say.
– Me neither. Da
Dr. Green picked up the clipboard. -Well. Any episodes-fainting, dizziness, disorientation? Anything of that nature?
She smoked in silence for nearly half a minute. -I got confused about where I was the other day. She closed her eyes. The recollection of those bad moments threatened her equilibrium. -I was walking to Yang's grocery. It's about three blocks from the apartments. I got lost for a few minutes.
– A few minutes.
– Yeah. I wasn't timing it, sorry.
– No, that's fine. Go on.
– It was like before. I didn't recognize any of the buildings. I was in a foreign city and couldn't remember what I was doing there. Someone tried to talk to me, to help me-an old lady. But, I ran from her instead. Da
– Why? Why did you run?
– Because when the fugue comes, when I get confused and forget where I am, people frighten me. Their faces don't seem real. Their faces are rubbery and inhuman. I thought the old lady was wearing a mask, that she was hiding something. So I ran. By the time I regained my senses, I was near the park. Kids were staring at me.
– Then?
– Then what? I yelled at them for staring. They took off.
– What did you want at Yang's?
– What?
– You said you were shopping. For what?
– I don't recall. Beets. Grapes. A giant zucchini. I don't know.
– You've been taking your medication, I presume. Drugs, alcohol?
– No drugs. Okay, a joint occasionally. A few shots here and there. Merrill wants to unwind on the weekends. She drinks me under the table-Joh
– Do you visit many different places?
Da
– Sex?
Da
– Loyal to whom?
– I've been noticing men and… I feel like I'm betraying Virgil. Soiling our memories. It's stupid, sure. Merrill thinks I'm crazy.
– What do you think?
– I try not to, Doc.
– Yet, the past is with you. You carry it everywhere. Like a millstone, if you'll pardon the cliché.
Da
– Yes, you are.
She smoked and looked away from his eyes. She'd arranged a mini gallery of snapshots of Virgil and Keith on the bureau in her bedroom, stuffed more photos in her wallet and fixed one of Keith as a baby on a keychain. She'd built a modest shrine of baseball ticket stubs, Virgil's moldy fishing hat, his car keys, though the car was long gone, business cards, cancelled checks, and torn up Christmas wrapping. It was sick.
– Memories have their place, of course, Dr. Green said. -But you've got to be careful. Live in the past too long and it consumes you. You can't use fidelity as a crutch. Not forever.
– I'm not pla
August 2, 2006
Color and symmetry were among Da
Their apartment was a narrow box stacked high in a cylinder of similar boxes. The window sashes were blue. All of them a filmy, ephemeral blue like the dust on the wings of a blue emperor butterfly; blue over every window in every cramped room. Blue as dead salmon, blue as ice. Blue shadows darkened the edge of the table, rippled over Da
Da
The light that came through the glass and blue gauze was muted and heavy even at midday. Outside the sliding door was a terrace and a rail; beyond the rail, a gulf. Damp breaths of air were coarse with smog, tar, and pigeon shit. Eight stories yawned below the wobbly terrace to the dark brick square. Ninety-six feet to the fountain, the flagpole, two rusty benches, and Piccolo Street where winos with homemade drums, harmonicas, and flutes composed their symphonies and dirges.
Da