The Age of Grief by Jane Smiley

Author:Jane Smiley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction.Contemporary
ISBN: 9780307787279
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 1987-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I remember when I first had the idea of making bombs. That is, I don’t remember the circumstances, but I remember the feeling. I remember putting my hands out, palms curved and facing each other, about eight inches apart, as if a bomb, a hard small object, as I thought before I had seen any dynamite, could appear between them, if the force of desire alone could have that effect. Making a bomb was the most extreme thing I could think of to do, and once I had thought of it, I could not settle for anything less. All through the research, all through the dropping of hints, all through the wooing of Maury Nassiter, I was lusty and restless, the way I feel now. It is the itch to do the most unthought-of thing, the itch to destroy what is made—the firm shape of my life, whether unhappy, as it was, or happy, as it is now.

But if I turn the imagined object and look at the other side, my motives are trivial, unimportant. My grandfather would say that what is true was what compelled me to act. He used to say, “When these bosses make you go faster until you can’t keep up and they fire you to hire a younger man for less, you think this is by mistake?” He would say, “Of course they shoot me if I throw a stone through the window. You think that a pane of glass is not worth more than I am worth? Did the pane of glass cost more than the bullet? That’s what they say to themselves.” And every time he devalued himself, I got angry. It is an explosive pressure in my chest and shoulders that pulsates, I realize now, in time to my quickened breathing. It only takes a second to feel it again, to know again what my grandfather knew. I push myself out of the couch and walk to the front door. It is locked, and I open it and step out onto the porch, still panting. Since no one ever comes here, and Michael and I always park in the back, I know that this matted grass is from the morning, from the old couple. I stand looking at the tracks. Who could they be, that couple, other than the representatives of blame? I am struck, in retrospect, by their half-defeated air, the way the man stayed behind the car door, and the woman held her handbag in front of herself like a shield. Although it is certain they have nothing to do with me, my anger passes suddenly into remorse, the way the blossom of an explosion turns from yellow to orange, even as its shape billows outward. And the blast wave, though slower, is more punishing: the conviction that I might have understood more, acted less ruthlessly.

• • •

“I can’t believe you ate it,” says Avie.

“I ate it. What was wrong with it? I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“Mom, it was rancid.

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