My Life in Heavy Metal by Steve Almond

Author:Steve Almond
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2002-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Toward the end of July an old professor, who had known me in a steadier time, tracked me down. He needed a lecturer for fall. The job itself was no great shakes. But his intention was clear. He was offering me reentry. A decent paycheck. Enough respect to take another pass at my dissertation. “What are you doing over there anyway?” he said.

Basha remained unconvinced. “You won’t leave,” she said. “You love me too much.” She refused to imagine that I had another life, beyond her beauty, thick with the troubled symptoms of adulthood.

“You can come to the States,” I said. “Like we talked about.”

For all her brave claims of a year ago, Basha said nothing about this plan. Instead, we let the weeks drift by, watched the dour sun elongate the days. The cedars shed elegant white scrolls along the aimless paths where we went to eat ice cream.

On the eve of my departure I took Basha to Katowice’s toniest bistro. We ordered coq au vin and tenderloin braised in anisette. I had hoped to take a last walk on the plaza, but by the end of the meal Basha’s complexion looked like cement. She barely touched her food. Back at home, Mamu prepared her tea and got her to take aspirin and lie down.

I finished up packing. When I came to bed, Basha was staring out the window, at the torn clouds. Her face was the kind of thing one sees in the classical wing of a museum: beauty as a force of history. Her robe rode up the back of her thighs. I had it in mind that we might make love. That was what my great, quivering cliché of a body had in mind.

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