The Game of Opposites by Norman Lebrecht

Author:Norman Lebrecht [Lebrecht, Norman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37833-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

AS THE TAXI ENTERED the valley and began its ascent, Paul was overcome by a profound calm, a serenity so soporific that it took an effort of will for him to ask the driver to roll up his side window as the breeze turned mountainous and made him shiver in his short-sleeved shirt. Home was close, his tasks fulfilled, and he knew to the last statutory instrument and underground pipe thickness what was required to achieve his new town. The brushes with his past had been instructive and unthreatening. Dinner at Angelo’s had been delightful, Jovanka proving to be an inventive chef and a good raconteuse with a throaty laugh and a healthy line in self-mockery. Angelo had basked in Paul’s appreciation of his effervescent wife and promised to sell him the next coffee machine that came free, once he had got through a long list of overseas orders.

On his last day in the city, Paul had loaded up with gifts: a clockwork train set for Johann, silver earrings for Alice, a striped tie for Franz-Josef, a literary biography for Lisl, a monogrammed brass tankard for Papa Hofmann, and, overlooking no-one, a stainproof nylon-coated apron with a black horse on its front for Mathilde Zumsteig, whom Alice could not abide but who was worth keeping sweet through the months ahead.

All of his presents, without exception, would prove inappropriate or inconsiderate. Johann was a year too young to work the clockwork train and broke the handle before he had much joy from the toy. Alice, he should have noticed before, did not have pierced ears. Franz-Josef, with his one hand, was unable to knot a tie, and Lisl only ever read fiction. Papa Hofmann had more tankards on his bar than a smithy has horseshoes, and his partner turned out to be allergic to synthetic materials, sprouting pink rashes at the sight of a plastic wrapper. Despite these miscalculations, Paul’s offerings were welcomed by one and all with squeals and rumbles of innocent pleasure and Paul was praised to the peaks for his loving kindness towards every member of the family, including Lisl’s little twins, for whom he had bought transparently cheap (he had left the price stickers on) though timely woollen socks in, by chance, the right colour and size. The wholehearted reception of his presents was, for Paul, confirmation of his own acceptance by the family and the village. And when Alice on that homecoming night received him with renewed desire, he experienced a glow of well-being that, for one unbroken night’s sleep, allayed his torments and allowed him the illusion of having found a perfect peace.

He had hoped to spend a leisurely day or two with his wife and child before getting back to work, but human need pressed at his door. There were children living in tents without adequate sanitation. Their parents, workless, were turning to crime. Barely stopping to ingest breakfast, Paul rushed to his desk and put together a project team from his displaced

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