As Max Saw It Read Online Free PDF Page A

introduced Toby to Laura and told her that he had been teaching me backgammon while everyone else was absorbing culture. She enveloped me in a smile directed at Toby and began to question him about school, the work he was doing at Charlie’s office, and his plans for university studies. It turned out she had a niece his age in Florence who intended to go to college in the States. She offered to have them meet. He said yes at once, eagerly, with the easy grace I had earlier liked so much, explaining he was worried about the academic level of his boarding school in anything other than mathematics, notgood at all in English composition or in history, while he hoped to become a journalist. Perhaps he couldn’t get into any university and should find a job on a paper through his father, the way his father had got him a job with Charlie. Laura was given to alternating abruptly between English and Italian; the admirable child followed her lead, speaking as distinctly and, I thought, as elegantly as she. I began to think that a candidate like him, out of left field, might in due time be helped to gain admission to Harvard—if I made sure the right person, capable of seeing past the standing of the Swiss school and even Toby’s standard examination scores, should they turn out to be spotty, studied his case. Illogically, my benevolent intentions gained strength as I observed Laura. She had turned in the boy’s direction and was leaning forward; her arm rested against my sleeve, it was naked, and she made no move to take it away. I decided that the red of her jersey dress went perfectly with her hair; earlier, I would have thought the combination was impossible. The light at the center of the table was strong; it turned Laura’s suntan into an ashen pallor. She was probably a little older than I had first supposed. What did Arthur mean about her organs, and how had that information come to him? It occurred to me that I might experimentally touch her knee with mine; she returned the pressure, and I perceived a smile directed at the boy that could have been intended for me.
    A platter of lake fish followed the ravioli. Rodney warned us about the bones. They were treacherous; Edna wouldn’t have allowed the fish to be served if the oil lamps they had found the previous winter in Portugal did not give such abright light. Even the California woman fell silent as we concentrated on removing them. Laura finished first and began to explain to me the proper technique for deboning freshwater
frittura;
her entire leg was pressed against mine. I chimed in, stupidly, about bones in fillets of shad.
    I had noticed that Charlie, even as he spoke with Rodney, had been listening to the conversation between Toby and Laura. Now he addressed Rodney with a deliberate emphasis, which left no doubt that his remarks were to be heard by the entire table.
    It is a risky business when a man such as I, responsible, accustomed to caution and old forms of courtesy, undertakes—be it for the brief space of a summer—to nurture and guide the young son of a friend. Distant friend, to be sure, not one of those links forged when we were malleable and so innocently receptive, like my friendship with Max. What a joy to be reunited with you through the intercession of our hosts!
    He put his left hand to his eyes, as though to stop a tear, and ceremoniously raised his wineglass to me and then to Rodney.
    One has not seen the youth, if indeed in one’s distracted contemplation of the surroundings one deigned to notice him, the resonant voice continued, since he was a child—since a lunch, or perhaps tea, in the garden of his father’s house in the hills above Beirut. Sweet smell of jasmine! His gracious mother—such a tragedy!—would have been there. To her alone this fortunate child owes his complexion. Look at him, he is blushing! Lips like rubies swimming in a sea ofmilk. Of course, the Levantine bandit’s eyes, the fierce nostrils, the pride—that is his