Running by Cara Hoffman

Author:Cara Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

The person he didn’t look up on those mornings while sitting in his office listening to Joy Division was Murat Christensen. Whether out of guilt or fear or self-preservation, he never typed Murat’s name.

Milo did not know Murat well, but he had thought about him nearly every day for decades. A Danish Arab kid studying the Greeks, he said he was staying at Olympos for so long because it was halfway between sites he was researching, but Milo got the sense he liked it there; that it was an adventure; one that could seem rugged, staying among the poor, befriending petty thieves, getting to know a gritty part of town. It should have been an adventure with very low stakes. Murat wanted to be with the people, or just wanted to save some money, while he studied. While he rigorously documented a dead world, soberly took notes on the Bacchanal. This, Milo thought, was why Jasper hated him and why ultimately he may have been deserving of hate.

Murat should never have come around that day to give Bridey The Clouds.

“Quite a place for scholars up here,” he had said in that genial singsong lilt, and the words made Jasper wince. Milo passed Murat the bottle and he sipped, held it out skeptically, gave it back saying “No,” then turned to Bridey. “I’m going to Delphi tomorrow, if you’d like to come.”

“Making a pilgrimage to the oracle, then?” Jasper said. A new cut on his face, the price of a poorly timed joke, had begun to scab, and he scratched it absently.

“In a sense. Bridey said you had wanted to see Mount Parnassus. Maybe we could all go.”

This was the second time he’d asked if they’d like to go to the ruins. The first time they’d had a late night—or a night that hadn’t ended and then Jasper said they’d have to get on the bus to do it and soon after that everyone was asleep.

Murat said, “What do you think, Bridey?”

“Oh, it’s just Bridey now, is it?” Jasper said. “We don’t know how to appreciate these things.”

Murat looked at him impassively. Jasper’s shirt was sweat stained; he was wearing a pair of cutoff dress pants and filthy tube socks with holes in their blackened toes.

Bridey was already paging through The Clouds, ignoring them.

“Maybe you’d like to stay here with us,” Jasper said to Murat. “We also inhale vapors and engage in impressive physical feats.”

When Murat started to reply, Jasper began whistling.

Murat shut his mouth. Jasper nodded at him, jabbed a finger in his direction, stopped the song long enough to say, “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Tomorrow’s good,” Bridey said, not bothering to look up.

“You really should come,” Murat said to Jasper. His voice was kind, his expression turned to startled sadness.

Jasper laughed. “Oh, you feel bad for me now?”

Bridey put down the book.

“What th’fuck is all this?” Milo asked.

“He’s whistling the Delphic Hymns,” Murat said admiringly, but the softness of his expression had gone as fast as it had come. “Apparently he doesn’t remember the words.

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