A Void

A Void Read Online Free PDF

Book: A Void Read Online Free PDF
Author: Georges Perec
rack and a strobo-cycloidal rotator, probably has a global
    function unknown to him.
    Not daring to pass a night in such unpromising surroundings,
    Ishmail simply "borrows" as many tools as his arms can carry, as
    also a big brass cauldron, a chopping board, a winnowing fan, a
    matchbox or two and a hip flask brimming with whisky, and
    quickly slips off to a clump of dark woodland not too far away,
    in which stands a run-down shack; starts doing it up, allowing
    not a day to go by without improving it; hunts, kills and cooks
    rabbits; and, on his most fruitful raid, actually corrals an agouti
    with his lasso, making bacon and ham, dripping and black pud-
    ding, out of its carcass.
    Days and days of this. Days of monsoons, of a curdling sky,
    of ominous clouds amassing on its horizon, of a high, cold, gusty
    wind blowing up all about him, of tidal troughs and billows,
    of a foam-capp'd flood rushing inland, plashing and splashing,
    washing and sploshing, anything in its path. Days of rain, rain,
    rain.
    Not long into his third month Ishmail sights a yacht putting
    into port and dropping anchor off his island. Six individuals now
    climb up to its casino, from which soon float out sounds of a
    jazz band playing a foxtrot, a 30s "standard" that's obviously still
    popular. At which point nothing again is as it was.
    Though, initially, his instinct is to turn tail, to withdraw into his
    19
    shack, Ishmail cannot but find this situation intriguing and crawls
    forward on all fours. What is going on? In a malodorous pool
    choking with fungus, and around a shabby, unglamorous casino,
    his visitors start swimming and dancing: a trio of guys, a match-
    ing trio of dolls, plus a sort of footman adroidy mincing back
    and forth with a tray of snacks, drinks and cigars. A tall, smiling,
    muscular man - in his mid-20s at most - is particularly conspicu-
    ous in a suit with a Mao collar and without any buttons down
    its front, a Cardin fashion of long, long ago. His companion, a
    man in his 30s with a tuft of bushy black hair on his chin, sporting
    a stylish morning suit, sips from a glass of whisky, adds a dash
    of soda and lazily hands it to a young woman - obviously his
    girl - snoozing in a hammock.
    "This is for you, Faustina. May I kiss you for it?"
    "Why, thank you," says Faustina, half in a laugh, half in a huff.
    "Ah, Faustina, what bliss I'd know if only . . . if only I could
    . . . oh, you know what I'm trying to say . . ."
    "Now now, I said no, no and no again. Why can't you and I
    stay just good chums?" adds Faustina, fondling his hand for an
    instant.
    What a fascinating woman! thinks Ishmail, who now starts to
    follow Faustina around, though naturally, as a runaway convict,
    still afraid for his own skin. For who's to say that this group of
    upstarts isn't harbouring a cop or a grass? What am I but an
    oudaw, worth a king's ransom to any informant? As an outcast
    from my own country, having had to fly from a tyrant as corrupt
    as Caligula, as bad as any Borgia, how can I know that this
    insignificant-looking yacht isn't on a kidnapping mission? Alas,
    I don't know and I don't want to know; all I know is that, loving
    this woman as I do, I want to know Faustina - Biblically.
    Caring not for company, Faustina strolls about this way and
    that, hips swinging lighdy to and fro. Finally Ishmail accosts his
    inamorata, who is studying a book, Virginia Woolf's Orlando,
    as it turns out.
    "Miss, oh Miss, I'm sorry, awfully sorry, I . . . I had to talk to
    2 0
    you. It's just my hard luck if anybody spots us . . . I'm willing
    to risk it. . ."
    Alas! ignoring all his sighs and supplications, Faustina looks
    straight through him.
    At which point Ishmail falls victim to hallucinations, possibly from
    consuming a poisonous black mushroom or having had too much
    to drink; or, why not, from having shrunk so much as to vanish
    wholly from sight, so that Faustina is nothing but a vision, a vision
    passing right through his body; or, if not, from
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