Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Author:Ann Patchett [Patchett, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Psychological Fiction, Embassy Buildings, Opera, Victims of Terrorism, General, Women Singers, South America, Hostages, Large Type Books, Fiction, Love Stories
ISBN: 9780061719868
Google: IeWQNwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0061565318
Publisher: Harperluxe
Published: 2001-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Of course Ruben could have let it all go. It wasn’t really his house, after all. He could have watched the carpets molder in pools of spilled soda pop and stepped around the trash that circled the overfull wastebaskets, but he was first and foremost the host. He felt a sense of responsibility to keep some semblance of a party running. But what he soon found was that he enjoyed it. Not only did he enjoy it he believed, with all modesty, that he had a certain knack for it. When he got on his hands and knees and waxed the floors, the floors did shine in response to his attentions. Of all the many jobs there were to do, the one he liked the best was ironing. It was amazing to him that they hadn’t taken the iron away. If properly wielded he was sure it was as deadly as a gun, so heavy, so incredibly hot. While he pressed the shirts of shirtless men who stood waiting, he thought of the damage he could do. Certainly, he couldn’t take them all out (Could an iron deflect bullets? he wondered), but he could clank down two or three before they shot him. With an iron, Ruben could go down fighting and the thought of it made him feel less passive, more like a man. He nosed the pointy silver tip into a pocket and then slid it down a sleeve. He puffed out clouds of steam that made him pour with sweat. The collar, he had quickly come to realize, was the key to everything.

Ironing was one thing. Ironing was within his grasp. But where raw food was concerned he was at a loss, and he stood and he stared at all that now lay before him. He decided to put the chickens in the refrigerator. Avoid warm meat, that much he was sure about. Then he went to look for help.

“Gen,” he said. “Gen, I need to speak to Señorita Coss.”

“You, too?” Gen asked.

“Me, too,” the Vice President said. “What, is there a line? Shall I take a number?”

Gen shook his head and together they walked over to see Roxane. “Gen,” she said, and held out her hands as if she hadn’t seen them in days. “Mr. Vice President.” She had changed since the music had arrived, or she had changed back. She now more closely resembled the famous soprano who had been brought to a party at enormous expense to sing six arias. She once again put out a kind of light that belongs only to the very famous. Ruben always felt slightly weak when he stood this close to her. She was wearing his wife’s sweater and his wife’s black silk scarf covered in jewel-colored birds tied around her throat. (Oh, how his wife adored that scarf, which had come from Paris. She never wore it more than once or twice a year and she kept it carefully folded in its original box. How quickly Ruben

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