Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018
- Автор: Ловси Питер, Зельцерман Дэйв
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018». Краткое содержание книги:
Fifty years ago, at the ripe old age of sixteen, he’d thought of himself as an invincible crime buster, a Master Detective, all-knowing, able to leap tall mysteries in a single mental bound.
But not all crimes are mysteries, his father had cautioned him, using the case of the Solomon Kaines, père et fils, to make his point. And, he realized now, it had been that bursting of his poetic belief that law enforcement in real life was all about the unraveling of riddles, as it was in his beloved books, that had led Ellery to abandon his idea of becoming a policeman like his father and turn, like Kaine, to academia.
And now, fifty years after the fair, with the end of his journey almost visible through the mist and much closer to where he sat than its beginning, he saw himself for what he was: flawed, and limited, and every bit as capable of error as of wisdom.
But the law is the law, he told himself, even fifty years on. If not for the law, society crumbles and chaos reigns.
But which is the greater good, he asked himself, to uphold the law or to be a human being? Which is more important: being right, or being merciful?
“At the length,” Shakespeare’s Launcelot had declaimed in The Merchant of Venice, “truth will out.”
“Then you will know the truth,” said Jesus in The Gospel of John, “and the truth shall set you free.”
But what if the truth accomplished nothing of value, set no one free, and caused nothing but pain?
Was it better to tell a painful truth, or to let sleeping dogs lie?
Righteousness? Or mercy?
Ice? Or fire?
Which brought him back to Robert Frost.
The professor sighed, refolded the sheet of paper yet again, slipped it back into the pages of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and slid the issue into its accustomed place at the far left end of the bottom shelf of his bookcase.
And then he swiveled back to his computer and resumed preparing his notes for tomorrow’s lecture.
© 2018 by Josh Pachter
Take Care, Love
by Jean-Claude Mourlevat
Translated from French by Samuel Ashworth
France’s Jean-Claude Mourlevat is the award-winning author of over fifteen novels for children and young adults. Silhouette, his first collection of adult short stories (including this one), was published in 2013. Translator Samuel Ashworth is an assistant fiction editor at Barrelhouse whose own fiction has been published in a number of literary magazines.
Class had ended and the lecture hall was emptying slowly. Madame Seligman, professor of American Civilization at the University of St. Etienne, gestured to the thin blond student lingering in the front row.
“Mademoiselle, if you please.”
Angelique came forward. She looked like a schoolgirl with her glasses, her coat buttoned up to her neck, and her backpack dangling from the crook of her arm.
“Yes, madame?”
“Have you ever thought of applying to be a teacher in England or the United States?”
“No,” replied Angelique, taken by surprise.
“It would do you considerable good, I think. You are a fine student, but a little too timid. You realize this.”
“Yes,” Angelique agreed. “I’m not self-confident, especially speaking.”
“Precisely. And it is to your detriment. Look at the presentation you did for your classmates on Catholic charismatic renewal in the United States. It was excellent, articulate, and the argument was remarkable, but it was as if you wanted to keep it all to yourself. We could barely hear you. Your barely lifted your nose from your notes. It’s a pity, don’t you think?”
She was speaking softly and solicitously, returning her papers to her leather briefcase.
“I know that you have had some difficulty in your life,” she went on, lowering her voice even though the lecture hall was deserted now. “I also lost my mother very early, and in a brutal way. I was fourteen, and starting that day I expected the worst at every instant, as if the worst was just... normal. It took me twenty years to understand that it wasn’t true, that life could have good surprises in it too, that the worst was not a sure thing. Twenty years, gone.”
Angelique lowered her head to hide her emotion. Mme Seligman was much more than a professor to her. This woman, who was her mother’s age, had taken her under her wing at the beginning of the year and had encouraged her fiercely. Angelique had returned her confidence by working tirelessly.
“Forgive me, I’m not a psychologist,” she pressed, “but I get the impression that you try to protect yourself from everything. Am I mistaken?”
“No,” said Angelique, reproaching herself for blushing again, “you’re right.”
“Then we agree,” concluded Mme Seligman. “I am quite convinced that a year abroad would greatly benefit you. You will gain conviction and self-assurance. Consider it.”
For Angelique a suggestion from Mme Seligman was a commandment from God. Without hesitation she took the necessary steps, and easily secured a posting as an assistant French teacher for the coming year. Her assignment was to a secondary school in Hull, in East Yorkshire, England. A glance at the map told her the port city lay three hours north of London.
As soon as she heard, she went to see Mme Seligman to tell her the news.
“Magnificent,” she said. “I am convinced that you will have a fine experience there. But above all, don’t curl up and hide. Make friends. Be active. Do not hesitate to scrape yourself against real life.”
As Angelique was leaving, she reminded her: “If you want to write me during your trip, I would be glad to know how it’s going. Here, take my home address.”
“I’ll write,” Angelique promised.
She had barely ever left her province up until that point, and so she felt a great rush of emotion when, at summer’s end, she brought herself to Lyon, dragging two bulging suitcases, to board the bus that would take her to England. They drove all night. She slept terribly because of her uncomfortable seat, and because of the fifty hundred-franc bills stuffed under the Ace bandage wrapped around her abdomen. She’d earned them in July, checking meter readings for EDF. The first salary of her life. And it was a good job. Except for whenever she went out to farms, and the dogs would keep her from getting out of her little blue Renault.
At Victoria Station, she ate what was left of the provisions she’d brought from France: a saucisson sandwich and an apple. When they were consumed entirely, she could hear it all around her: The only language anyone was speaking was English. She was far from home, she realized, and alone, and she would be for a long time.
For three hours she sat on a suitcase, waiting, before boarding another bus. The trip took longer than expected, so it was night when she arrived in the Hull bus station, after a voyage of twenty-seven hours and thirty minutes.
“You’re late, love.”
These were the first words addressed to her by Miss Sykes, her landlady, who was tapping her foot on the platform.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and began to explain that it wasn’t her fault, but the woman silenced her with a gesture and led her to a dusty Ford Fiesta with a dented left door.
She was a woman of some fifty years, stout, brusque, and masculine. She wore an old, weathered coat, her hair cropped and bristly, like a shoe-brush. As she drove, she sniffed noisily and multiple times she scratched her crotch, like a man. Angelique took in the stubby red hands on the wheel, the crusted blood on the back of her thumb from a recent wound, the chewed fingernails, and asked herself how she was supposed to live with this woman for a whole year.