The Art Student's War Read Online Free PDF Page B

were “silly stories” according to Uncle Dennis. They were “mere relaxation” or “just a way of chasing sleep.” They were even “dumb stuff.” Nonetheless, his face flushed like a boy’s when, in his slow and measured way, he regaled Bea with one more convoluted journey through the coils of time, or one more intricate tale of earth-menacing perils hurtling toward us from the other end of the galaxy.
    Years and years ago, Bea’s new best friend, who was still her best friend, Maggie Szot (now Maggie Hamm), posed a question that made Bea laugh. Having heard so many stories about Bea’s beloved uncle Dennis, Maggie had asked, “And is he handsome?” The question was funny because Uncle Dennis was unmistakably meant not to be handsome. Being not handsome was so much who he was. Uncle Dennis was plump and round-faced, with thick lips and big, square ears. (He was the only square-eared person Bea had ever met.) Like Stevie, he wore enormously thick glasses, and solely on this basis the two were sometimes taken for father and son. Whereas Bea felt honored whenever mistaken for a Poppleton, Stevie bristled. Stevie was the only son of a man who built houses with his scarred, powerful hands. He idolized his dad.
    They were such a unified couple, Uncle Dennis and Aunt Grace, it was as though he hardly needed good looks, when she possessed them so abundantly. Could anyone imagine a better partnership? Bea could scarcely compass the notion of Aunt Grace’s previous marriage. How could she possibly have wed anybody other than square-eared Uncle Dennis? In her entire life, Bea had never heard them quarrel.
    Grace’s beauty was partly the beauty of Kindness—anybody as nice as she was probably must seem beautiful in time—and partly the beauty of pure Beauty. Had Grace lived in the Renaissance, five hundred years ago, some immortal painter might have asked her to model for the Madonna. She had alabaster skin, vibrant with health, and clever gray eyes, and she had a full and lovely bosom.
    They continued up Woodward, past a jeweler’s, a locksmith’s (“Sleep Tight,” the old sign said, which Bea had once thought extremely clever), an Olsson’s Drugs (“There When You Need Us There”), Honest Abe’s Radio, a music store (“Sheet Music—We’ve Got the Latest”), a tobacconist’s, and, on the other side of the street, another Olsson’s Drugs.
    Uncle Dennis was concluding his story: “So now everything’s in his grasp: the kingdom, the beautiful and mysterious princess, the planet itself. The only thing left is to eliminate the young masked man—his rival for the princess and the rocket ship’s plunder. Well, the young man doesn’t beg. He’s quite dignified. He says, You must do what you must do—or words to that effect. And the older man takes out his death ray and declares, You’d do precisely the same thing in my place—words whose irony you’ll understand in just a moment, Bea—and then he shoots the young man. And when he does? He feels himself fading away.”
    “Fading away?” Bea said.
    “And well you might ask. Becoming unreal. Just as if he never existed. And how could this be? Good question. Good question. He realizes the brutal truth just before vanishing altogether. You see, he’d gone backward , not forward in time. You remember the time machine was upside down when he mounted it? Well, because of that, he reversed the direction, and the young masked man was actually himself, back when he was young. By shooting the young man, he’s actually committing suicide. And his very last thought, before fading away altogether, is, But then there was no enemy and I’ve been fighting myself…”
    “I like that,” Bea said. “There was no enemy.”
    You could watch, by clear stages, as the inner boy receded from Uncle Dennis’s features and the good sober middle-aged doctor assumed his place. “There’s a big problem—a big hole in the plot,” Uncle Dennis pointed out. “If he shot