All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang

Author:Lan Samantha Chang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2007-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

THEY PILED THE DISHES in the sink and strolled toward campus, so that Bernard could get his bearings. They reached the long main street. It was still quite warm, and Roman could smell the undergraduates milling around them: sweat and cheap perfume, new, warm yeasty beer, and stale beer.

One of Roman’s students approached: Veronica. Roman cringed. She was a small, wan, troubled girl, whose surprising gifts as a writer seemed to have been granted along with a commensurate burden of anger and self-doubt. She came to office hours frequently and, despite Roman’s firmest resolutions, often engaged him in virulent speculative conversations, interjected with observations about the class that felt like criticisms. She had made the past spring semester challenging; and, to his dismay and, oddly, to his satisfaction, she had registered again for his fall class.

Now, upon the sight of him, she nodded sullenly. “Hi, Professor Morris,” she said. Roman nodded back, feeling awkward.

Bernard weaved a step ahead along the sidewalk.

“I am quite drunk,” he said. “And a thousand years old. If I weren’t here with you, I would be lost.”

“Don’t worry,” Lucy said. “As you can see, it’s quite normal to wander about this part of town in an inebriated condition.”

“I do see it,” Bernard said. He turned to Roman. “You included me in the toast, but aside from my tenuous hold on a sublease to a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, I don’t think I have achieved, or even will ever achieve, the kind of success that you’re thinking of. Although I do feel rich in friendship.” His eyes were shining with feeling. Bernard went on, “If they never abolish rent control in New York City, my current degree of success is assured for life. But I’m in trouble if they do.”

Was he warning them that he might someday need a place to live? “You could housesit,” Roman said. “Or take a job in insurance, like Wallace Stevens.”

“Although I have great admiration for Wallace Stevens, I can’t imagine looking for, or working at, that kind of job.”

“No doorman, then, for you,” said Lucy. “No master bedroom, no fancy countertops, no six-burner range. You write poetry, remember?”

Roman listened to her talk, faintly envious. He wanted the master bedroom, the doorman; he wanted the city. But this was not to be his life. While he held his tenured job in Nebraska, the great, burnished island of Manhattan would hum its symphony of financial and artistic work without him.

Bernard smiled. “That’s right, I’d forgotten, we write poetry. Roman, Lucy, why do we write poetry?”

Roman said nothing.

“You never know what the future will hold,” Lucy said.

“Believe me,” said Bernard. “In my case, I do know.”

Lucy laughed. Roman allowed himself to remember that night so many years ago, at their classmates’ holiday party. He had stood with Lucy near the bar, and she had laughed with similar delight at Bernard’s bow to Miranda. A sweet, girlish sound, a sound of earlier times, a time of newness he’d forgotten, or that he did not know he’d had.

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