Crossroads
- Автор: Франзен Джонатан
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Crossroads». Краткое содержание книги:
Universally recognized as the leading novelist of his generation, Jonathan Franzen is often described as a teller of family stories. Only now, though, in *Crossroads* , has he given us a novel in which a family, in all the intricacy of its...
“There’s a concert?”
“Crossroads,” Becky said.
A silence.
“I see,” Jeannie said.
“You know what, though? I’m going with Tanner.”
“Tanner Evans?”
“Yeah, he’s the headliner, and he’s taking me.”
“Well, well, well.”
Becky was tempted to say more, but she might already have said too much. Tanner didn’t quite know yet that he was taking her to the concert. In her mind, their very long kiss had been definitive, but much had been left unspoken, and she wouldn’t feel secure until the world had seen her walk into First Reformed on his arm. She asked Jeannie if she wanted to go shopping with her. It was almost funny how eagerly Jeannie said yes, after all these weeks of distance. But Jeannie wasn’t free until three thirty.
“Shoot,” Becky said. “I’m meeting Tanner at four.”
“Wow, Bex. Too busy with a guy.”
“I know,” she said happily. “It’s weird.”
“Tomorrow, though? I’m not doing anything all day.”
Becky took a long shower and performed delicate work at the bathroom mirror, applying makeup that was enhancing without, she hoped, being noticeable. Perry banged rudely on the locked door, offered some commentary which she ignored, and went away. Dressing, too, she labored to strike a balance between elegance and Crossroads. She had to look good for at least the next ten hours, beginning especially at four o’clock. By the time she went down to the kitchen, her mother was bundling herself into a frightful old coat.
“I’m late to my class,” her mother said. “Can you make sure you’re home by six?”
Becky filled her mouth with a sugar cookie. “I’m not going to the Haefles’ party.”
“I’m afraid that’s not negotiable.”
“I’m not negotiating.”
“You can discuss it with your father, then.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
Her mother sighed. “You know, honey, it’s not the worst thing in the world to make a young man wait. I know it doesn’t feel that way to you, but there is always tomorrow.”
“Thank you for your input.”
“I take it he managed to find you last night?”
“I thought you were late for your exercise class.”
Her mother sighed more heavily and turned away. Becky was sorry to have to freeze her out. Her goodwill was boundless, but her mother was wrong. Tomorrow was too late for the work she had to do. Tanner wasn’t headlining the concert, he was co-headlining it with Laura Dobrinsky. Becky needed every minute she could get with him before it started.
The time had come to take action. A dull red gash had opened and closed below the clouds on the eastern horizon, over the fields of broken cornstalks distantly visible from the window of Clem’s room, while he typed the last sentences of his Roman history term paper. His desk, in the uneasy light, was stubbled over with red eraser morsels and cloud-colored ash. His clean-living roommate, Gus, had already decamped to Moline for the holidays, and Clem had seized on his absence to smoke heavily all night, powering himself forward with nicotine and with rage at his primary sources, Livy and Polybius, for contradicting each other, rage also at the dwindling of his hoped-for hours of sleep from six to three to zero, and rage, most of all, at himself for having spent Monday seeking pleasure in his girlfriend’s bed, allowing himself to believe that he could research and write a fifteen-page paper in two twelve-hour workdays. The pleasure he’d experienced on Monday now amounted to nothing. His eyes and his throat were on fire, his stomach on the verge of digesting itself. The paper he’d produced, on Scipio Africanus, was an ill-argued tangle of repetitive phrases for which he’d be lucky to get a B-minus. Its badness was the final confirmation of a thing he’d known for weeks.
Without giving himself time to think, without even standing up to stretch, he rolled a clean sheet of erasable onionskin into his typewriter.
December 23, 1971
Selective Service Local Board
U.S. Post Office Building
Berwyn, Illinois
Dear Sirs,
I write to inform you that as of today I will no longer be enrolled as a student at the University of Illinois, thus no longer eligible for the student deferment that I was granted on March 10, 1971. I am prepared to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces if I am called upon. My date of birth is December 12, 1951. My draft number is 29 4 13 88 403. Please advise if/when you would like me to report for induction.
Sincerely,
Clement R. Hildebrandt
215 Highland Street
New Prospect, Illinois
Unlike his paper, the letter had the clarity of extensive forethought. But did typing it constitute an action? The words were barely more substantial on paper than they’d been in his head. Not until they’d been received and replied to would they attain power over him. At which point, exactly, could he be said to have taken an action?
He gazed for a while at the ceiling of cloud above the distant cornfields, the ground-level haze that industrial agriculture seemed to generate in winter, a smog part dampness and part nitrates. Then he signed the letter, addressed an envelope, and applied one of the postage stamps he’d bought for writing to his parents.
“This is what your son is doing,” he said. “This is how it had to be.”
Feeling less alone for having heard a voice, if only his own, he ventured out to the bathroom. Its eternally burning lights seemed all the brighter now that everyone else had gone home. Some departed hall mate’s whiskers adhered to the sides of the sink at which he splashed water on his face. He considered taking a shower, but his core body temperature was at a low ebb and he thought he might convulse with shivers if he undressed.
As he left the bathroom, the hall telephone rang. Its loudness was extraordinary and jolted him with dread, because he knew that only Sharon could be calling; she’d already called at midnight for a progress report and a pep talk. With regard to Sharon, his typing of the letter most definitely constituted an action. He stood outside the bathroom, immobilized by the ringing, and waited for it to stop. After the debacle of his wasted Monday, he no longer had a shred of faith in his power to resist the pleasure he took from her. The only safe plan now was to pack up his things, catch the first available bus to Chicago, and inform her of his action from New Prospect, by letter.
To his surprise, a door at the end of the hall flew open. A hall mate in gym shorts stomped out and answered the phone. He saw Clem and shook the receiver at him.
“Sorry,” Clem said, hurrying to take it. “I didn’t think anyone else was here.”
The hall mate slammed his door behind him.
“Did you finish?” Sharon said eagerly.
“Yeah. Ten minutes ago.”
“Hurrah! I bet you could use some breakfast.”
“What I really need is sleep.”
“Come have breakfast. I want to take care of you.”
A wave of light-headedness washed over him. The mere sound of her voice was rushing blood to his groin. Change of plan.
“All right,” he said. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when I come over.”
His room, when he returned to it, was like a lidded charcoal fire. He opened the window and put on the peacoat that Sharon had chosen for him. The tissue-swelling elevation of his blood pressure was surely related to sex, but also perhaps to what he had to tell her. The letter he’d written had elements of aggression, and aggression was known to induce erections in men. The letter could lead to his going to Vietnam, where, although there was nothing arousing about being killed, he might be called upon to defend himself with a weapon. In his rational mind, he knew that killing was morally wrong and psychologically devastating, but he suspected that his animal self took a different view.