Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

Author:Lorrie Moore [Lorrie Moore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571275076
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2010-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

From Horsehearts to Paris, I think, staring at the ceiling. Has anyone even put those two places in the same thought before?

‘I’ve been thinking about our genes,’ says Daniel, when I ask him how the day’s conference events went. We are in bed, and it’s hard to sleep. There are car alarms, motorcycle alarms, disco noises. A woman in the the street below is singing, ‘Eef I ken mek eat there, all mek eat onywhere, eats op too you, New York, New York.’

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘I mean, maybe it’s all for the best. Besides the Tay-Sachs. Look at the genes. On your side there’s diabetes and bad hearts.’

‘And bad blood.’

‘That’s right. Bad blood. And on my side there’s, well –’

‘There’s arrogance and not listening.’ I say.

‘Arrogance and not listening.’ He laughs in a sighing way. ‘Did you have a good day with Marguerite? What are you thinking about?’ he asks. ‘Was it fun? Don’t worry. I can have this whole conversation by myself. You can just watch.’

‘I really like Marguerite,’ I say.

‘I know you do.’

I sigh, clutch the covers up under my chin.

‘That’s it? That’s all that’s on your mind?’

‘Also Manon Lescaut,’ I say. Last week we’d seen a production of it at the Bastille.

‘Manon Lescaut?’

‘I’d like to die like that,’ I say. ‘All my jewelry on, and singing about madness.’

‘You would?’

‘With all my jewelry on? Sure.’ Probably, in real life, I would die in a bathrobe, the telephone cradled in my neck.

‘Do I know you?’ asks Daniel. ‘You don’t even wear jewelry.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘A Watch. You wear a watch. Lots of lipstick and a watch.’

‘If’s a nice watch.’

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Daniel says now sleepily. The air in our room is damp from the rains; it has turned my hair strumpety and full, but has made Daniel’s skin moist and pale, color in his cheeks coming only in the day, outside, in the hurried pace to and from drier destinations, He seems delicate and young beside me.

I keep talking. ‘You know, that’s one thing Manon wasn’t wearing: a watch. You don’t see a lot of watch wearing in the soprano world. Have you ever noticed that? Tosca? No watch. Madame Butterfly? Again, no watch.’

He is no longer paying attention, but it doesn’t stop me. We have traded places. ‘If in La Bohème you gave everyone wristwatches you’d have a happy ending.’

‘You would?’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘You wouldn’t have that guy singing about his coat. He’d look at his watch and go “Yikes!”’

‘Now that’s what I’d like to hear. A nice aria with the word “yikes” in it.’

Daniel has never really liked opera. ‘What I like is philosophy,’ he said to me once. ‘Philosophy’s great. Except I don’t like the whole Existence thing. Do we exist? That really pisses me off. But I like Good and Evil. I like What is Art. But just a little of What is Art. If you get too much it circles back around again to Do we exist?, which pisses me off.’

‘I’m not really looking forward to going home,’ I say now.

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