Altered States by Anita Brookner

Author:Anita Brookner [Brookner, Anita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82631-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

10

As I rehearsed this epochal scene my thinking became magical, taking no account of actual circumstances. In my projection of it everything would serve my purpose, which was undefined but not on that account to be ignored. I would arrive in Paris a free man, having left in abeyance a wife to whom I would return by the simple expedient of reinhabiting the body of which I had taken temporary leave. My wife, or rather my erstwhile wife, would, like the dolls in Coppélia, be brought out of her temporary suspension, which would obtain during the period of my absence, by the very fact of my renewed presence. I would arrive in Paris at about six o’clock, having caught a plane at about five. I did not take into account the time difference, since time was also there to serve my purpose. Some faint uneasiness clouded this part of the proceedings but I dismissed it as nugatory; if obliged to I would adjust. I would take a taxi to the hotel, inspect my room, find it more than satisfactory, shower, change my shirt, and order a drink. Sarah, I imagined, would not be with me before nine; as she was staying with the Rigauds I imagined that she would be obliged to eat dinner with them. Whether or not this were true, I had the hour of nine fixed in my mind. This would give me time to take a nostalgic stroll and no doubt eat something myself, very little, since at nine o’clock I would order chicken sandwiches and champagne from room service. Thus everything would be civilised, in sharp contrast to the image I still had of myself peering through the letter-box in Paddington Street. The rest of the evening and the night remained a blank in my mind, but they would be memorable. When I returned to London it would be with a feeling of completion, of triumph, and thus renewed I should be able to shoulder my burdens once again.

My first brush with reality occurred on the plane. I was seated next to a man whose terrible agitation disturbed even the whisky in my glass. I stole a glance at him, unwilling to involve myself in his dilemma, but there was no ignoring the fact that he was either ill or in the grip of a nightmare. He was a man of about my own age, dressed in a cheap raincoat and childish-looking brown shoes: those two items, however, were the only signs of normality about him. His eyes were tightly closed and his fair-skinned face was a dusky red and beaded with sweat. From time to time a low moan escaped him and he clutched his briefcase convulsively, leaving damp handprints on the leather.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked reluctantly.

He opened his eyes and turned his head minimally in my direction, as if fearful of movement.

‘Phobia,’ he gasped.

‘Claustrophobia?’ I enquired sympathetically.

‘Travel. Motion.’

‘You mean you’re frightened of travelling?’

‘Petrified.’

‘But there’s no need. We’ll be landing in ten minutes, and then you’ll be all right.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.