The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(44)

Boredom.

Squire, I’m a scoundrel very nearly without peer. But in our time decent people actually attract comment. We dont know what to make of them. They have few friends, while I have more friends than I know what to do with. Why is that?

I dont know.

I think it’s because people are bored out of their fucking minds. I cant come up with anything else. And there may even be something contagious about it. Certainly there are mornings when I wake and see a grayness to the world I think was not in evidence before. A conversation we’ve had. I know. The horrors of the past lose their edge, and in the doing they blind us to a world careening toward a darkness beyond the bitterest speculation. It’s sure to be interesting. When the onset of universal night is finally acknowledged as irreversible even the coldest cynic will be astonished at the celerity with which every rule and stricture shoring up this creaking edifice is abandoned and every aberrancy embraced. It should be quite a spectacle. However brief.

Is this your new preoccupation?

It’s forced upon one. Time and the perception of time. Very different things I suppose. You said once that a moment in time was a contradiction since there could be no moveless thing. That time could not be constricted into a brevity that contradicts its own definition.

I said that.

Yes. You also suggested that time might be incremental rather than linear. That the notion of the endlessly divisible in the world was attended by certain problems. While a discrete world on the other hand must raise the question as to what it is that connects it. Something to reflect upon. A bird trapped in a barn that moves through the slats of light bird by bird. Whose sum is one bird. We should go.

Do you think I’m bored?

No. Bright people often have a good load to carry. But boredom is seldom a part of it. It’s all right. I’m always pleased to see just that small bit deeper. You deny our brotherhood. Insisting as you do in your sly way that our genealogies and our socioeconomic standings have set us apart at birth in a manner not to be contravened. But I will tell you Squire that having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.

What else?

What else. I dont think it’s schadenfreude to take a certain pleasure in that odd bit of envy that I occasionally see in you. Just a flicker. Soon to pass.

You think that I envy you?

It’s irritating, isnt it?

God help us.

Sheddan smiled. He pulled on the cigar and held it at length and studied it. He blew softly at the ash. It’s not that common a thing for people to appreciate what they have. Especially perhaps something so strange and rare as a noble wretchedness. If one has to be unhappy—and one does—then it’s better to be admired than pitied. However loath we may be to so encloak ourselves in the first place.

We should probably go. I need to get some sleep.

Of course. And I.

Thank you for lunch.

You are more than welcome. Nice to have several benefactors to choose among.

He sorted through a pack of credit cards and laid one on the table. I tip so well the waiters are often startled. The tourists as you can well imagine are a niggling bunch. You told me of a dream once that you may or may not remember. Rather curious. We were moving along a stone wall in a slurry of ash. A scene of ruin. There were dark flowers hanging over the wall. Carnivorous flowers, you thought them. Black and leathery in appearance. Like a dog’s cunt, you said. We sat in the rubble waiting. Finally a phone rang. Do you remember?

Yes.

I answered and listened and then I said no and then I hung up the phone. And in the dream you asked me what they had said and I told you that they wanted to know if we knew anything about them. And I said no. And they said: We didnt think so. And then they hung up. You were the dreamer. Yet if I’d not told you what they said would you have known?

I dont know.

Nor I. Why do you think your inner life is something of a hobby with me?

I’ve no idea.

No doubt you see in it something sinister. It’s not.

The waiter came and took the check. When he returned the long one bent and signed the bill with a name unknown to him and closed the leather folder. He smiled. I’m going to say that I’ll die before you. And that you may well envy me in the going. There’s something in life which you’ve forsworn, Squire. And while it may be true that I in turn envy you your classic stance, I dont envy it much. Trimalchio is wiser than Hamlet. All right. Shall we?



* * *



—

When Western came through the patio doors in the morning Asher was sitting at the corner table with his satchel stashed in the chair beside him. He didnt look up from the paper he was studying. Western went on to the bar and got two beers and came back.

Bobby.

Is the fateful tale unfolding?

Yeah right.

Where are you?

What do you know about Rotblat?

Not much.

Did your father know him?

Sure. I dont remember him ever coming to the house though. They had different views about things. Why?

I just wondered if your father ever said anything about him. I guess even more specifically about his wife. Why she went to the gas chamber while he stayed home.

You think he should have gone back to Poland and died with her.

Yes. Dont you?

Yes. What else?

Would you have?

I didnt.

Your father thought that Russell was an idiot.