The Bradbury Report Read Online Free PDF Page A

grateful for it. Absolutely. Glad.” She was quiet. Then: “That was
thoughtless. Forgive me. I don’t mean to be cruel. This must be hard for you to hear.”
    â€œNot at all,” I said.
    At my request, she spoke briefly about her husband, who’d been a nurseryman, and about her children. There were three of them, two boys and a girl: the oldest a professor of history; the middle child, the girl, a labor and delivery nurse; the youngest, a graduate student in philosophy. One of her sons lived in the Pacific Northwest, the other abroad. Her daughter was close by. There were, so far, two grandchildren.
    â€œYou did well,” I said.
    â€œI’ve been very lucky. Lately I’ve wished the boys were nearer to home.”
    â€œThey’ll come back,” I said, not quite knowing what I meant.
    â€œOh, they do. They’re good boys.”
    â€œAre you still teaching?”
    â€œI retired last year,” she said.
    â€œI just retired,” I said. “This spring.”
    â€œWhat will you do?”
    This question, it turns out, was somewhat disingenuous.
    â€œI have no idea,” I said. “What do you do?”
    â€œI keep busy.”
    Then she said my name. Not Ray, of course, but my actual Christian name. She spoke it in a way—knowing, affectionate, beseeching—I’d not heard since Sara died. It startled me to hear my name said this way again.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œThere is something I want to talk to you about.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œI want to come see you.”
    â€œWhat is this about?”
    â€œI won’t tell you now. We’ll talk when I arrive.”
    â€œThis sounds serious, grave.”
    â€œIt is,” she said. “Both. It is important we talk.”
    â€œAll right,” I said. “When do you want to come?”

    â€œSoon. If it’s convenient for you, I’d like to come the first week in August.”
    â€œThat’s next week.”
    â€œWill that work for you?”
    â€œCome anytime. I couldn’t be more free.”
    â€œIf it’s possible, I’d like to stay with you.”
    â€œYes. Good. I’ve got too much room. Tell me when you’re getting in, I’ll pick you up.”
    â€œI’ll be driving,” she said.
    â€œFrom Iowa?”
    â€œYes. Listen. Ray.” There was nothing calculated about the way she spoke my name, but the effect was uncanny. “Don’t tell anyone I’m coming.”
    â€œI have no one to tell,” I said.

Two
    I see how one generates suspense. I am not a novelist. I am not interested in the tricks of that trade. One of my teachers at the university remarked that my prose read like a poor translation from the Czech. More than one person has suggested to me the similarities between written language—it was usually poetry they were thinking of—and the language of mathematics. I was a high school math teacher, not a mathematician, but I think this is wrong, wishful thinking on both sides. The ends—expression on the one hand, theoretic manipulation on the other—are radically different, not comparable. I have found I am deaf, and blind, to nuance. I have been told this more than once. It is an incapacity that has made my life bearable
    The six days between Anna’s call and her arrival in New Hampshire, I was in suspense. I didn’t like it. I found it an unpleasant, frustrating state. Why had she called me, just then, after all those years of silence? What did she want to talk to me about? What did she want of me? What would happen next? Had I had anything else to do, after I’d readied the house—I had not had a houseguest in decades—I might have been able, intermittently, to put her visit from my mind. As it was, I spent most of my waking hours those six days speculating, brooding. I let my mind run, unfettered by logic or probability. I wondered if she had waited a