Augustino and the Choir of Destruction by Marie-Claire Blais

Author:Marie-Claire Blais
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc.
Published: 2012-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

I could do nothing about it then, Désirée, nor now. You have your God, I have what was mine, and Samuel, working out at the bar, heard his teacher Arnie’s voice urging him to the lightness of Japanese masters Samuel had seen dancing in the interpretation workshops that had so disoriented him, these masters were able to show our western world the refinement of dance so slow and other-worldly, when the body evolves into serenity, but the relentless atmosphere of the world heralded to Samuel a heavy footfall, no longer capable of slowing down, whose echo he heard under his window at night, if he wanted others to understand what he was feeling, he would have to dance wearing fibres with the texture of flexible metal, like the biological suits worn by hazardous-materials teams in post offices or any strategic point where a troublesome bacterium might have insinuated itself beneath a stamp or onto letter-paper, living in symbiosis with the written word and travelling with the letter, this bacterium would distance itself from its host organism and any other secret information, these trackers would spray the area with antibiotic powder, cleansing one hand after the other of typhoid and diphtheria, Samuel would dance through the streets of New York with a disturbing dressing over his mouth, held over his nose by two threads around his ears, he’d wear the outfit he had just learned the term for, Tyvek, which would be needed for his safety tomorrow, like those worn by rescue teams in the worst epidemics, dancer or mailman, he would be ready to resist infection, from the minute he got up in the morning, he’d remember that even his own shower could produce contamination, who knows what harmful substance ran into the wells and seas and rivers, especially if an envelope holding a card or letter could propagate pustules of smallpox or traces of chicken-pox, even more insidiously, the postal worker might contract something as harmless as a cold, plan a picnic on Sunday with his family, being a health enthusiast, drink eight glasses of water a day and stay away from communion wine, Samuel too would be kept in this trap of healthy living and false security, and wouldn’t even know what was ailing him, colic or nausea, he’d go to class and be found at noon the next day lying on the bathroom tiles, not breathing, or again he might be exercizing on the bars, a butterfly of a dancer as light as he was graceful at one instant, thinking of unencumbered grace, free of ornamentation, of the Japanese dancers, or the unclean cast out by all, quarantined like so many others, whichever way it was to be, he had to live cautiously, especially being Samuel, it meant that his life and growth would forever be punctured, yet still he would be determined to live well, like his father and grandfather, thus it was with his home computer, Samuel thought, he communicated daily with his friends, and

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