Bobcat and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

Stasselova as he veered into very interesting territory. “All things in revolution,” he said, “in this way, need protection. For instance, when my country, Poland, was annexed by the Soviet Union, we had the choice of joining what was called Berling’s Army, the Polish wing of the Russian army, or the independent Home Army. Many considered it anti-Polish to join the Russian army, but I believed, as did my comrades, that more could be done through the system, within the support of the system, than without.”
    He looked at me. I nodded. I was one of those students who nod a lot. His eyes were like brown velvet under glass. “This is the power of the sentence,” he said. “It acts out this drama of control and subversion. The noun always stands for what is, the status quo, and the verb for what might be, the ideal.”
    Across the table Hans’s damaged hand, spindly and nervy, drummed impatiently on the tabletop. I could tell he wanted to speak up. Stasselova turned to him. “That was the decision I made,” he said. “Years ago. Right or wrong, I thought it best at the time. I thought we could do more work for the Polish cause from within the Red Army than from outside it.”
    Hans’s face was impassive. He suddenly looked years older—austere, cold, priestly. Stasselova turned then to look at me. This was obviously an issue for him, I thought, and I nodded as he continued to speak. I really did feel supportive. Whatever army he thought was best at the time, that was fine with me.
    IN THE EVENING I went to the ravine in the elm forest, which lay curled around the hill on which the campus was built. This forest seemed deeply peaceful to me, almost conscious. I didn’t know the reason for this at the time—that many elms in a forest can spring from a single tree. In this case a single elm had divided herself into a forest, an individual with a continuous DNA in whose midst one could stand and be held. The ravine cut through like an old emotional wound. I crouched on its bank and glanced at the book one last time. I flicked open my lighter. The book caught fire instantly. As the flame approached my hand, I arced the book into the murky water. It looked spectacular, a high wing of flame rising from it. Inside, in one of its luminous chapters, I had read that the ability to use language and the ability to tame fire arose from the same warm, shimmering pool of genes, since in nature they did not appear one without the other.
    As I made my way out of the woods and into the long silver ditch that lined the highway, I heard about a thousand birds cry, and I craned my neck to see them lighting out from the tips of the elms. They looked like ideas would if released suddenly from the page and given bodies—shocked at how blood actually felt as it ran through the veins, as it sent them wheeling into the west, wings raking, straining against the requirements of such a physical world.
    I RETURNED AND FOUND Solveig turning in the lamplight. Her hair was piled on her head, so unnaturally blond it looked ablaze, and her face was bronze. She looked a thousand years old. “Some guy called,” she said. “Stasselova or something.”
    He called again that night, at nearly midnight. I thought this unseemly.
    “So,” he said. “Solveig’s back.”
    “Yes,” I said, glancing at her. She was at her mirror, performing some ablution on her face. “She’s much better.”
    “Perhaps the three of us can now meet.”
    “Oh,” I said, “it’s too early.”
    “Too early in what?”
    “In her recovery.” Solveig wheeled her head around to look at me. I smiled, shrugged.
    “I think she’ll be okay.”
    “I’m not so sure.”
    “Listen,” he said. “I’ll give you a choice: you can either rewrite the paper in my office, bringing in whatever materials you need, or the three of us can meet and clear this up.”
    “Fine, we’ll meet you.”
    “You know my hours.”
    “I do.” I hung up and explained to Solveig what had