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...
His father winced. The punch had landed. Clem waited for him to say something else, so that he could knock it down, but his father just sat there. He was defenseless against Clem’s superior reasoning, his intimate knowledge of his failings. Into the silence, through the door, through the floor, came the pulse of a distant bass guitar.
“Anyway,” Clem said. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’ve sent the letter.”
“That’s right,” his father said. “Legally, you’re free to do as you please. But emotionally you’re still very young. Very young and, if I may say so, very self-involved. The only thing that seems to matter to you is moral consistency.”
“It’s hard work, but somebody’s got to do it.”
“You seem to think you’re thinking clearly, but what I’m hearing is a person who’s forgotten how to listen to his heart. You think I don’t understand you, but I know how devastated you would be, how utterly shattered, if you had to see a child burned up with napalm, a village bombed for no reason. You can do all the rationalizing you want, you can try to reason your way out of having a heart, but I know it’s there in you. I’ve been watching it grow, my God, for twenty years. You’ve made me so proud that you’re my son. Your kindness—your generosity—your loyalty—your sense of justice—your goodness—”
His father broke off, overcome with emotion. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to Clem that he could be anything but an adversary to his father; that his animosity might not be reciprocated. It seemed unfair to him—intolerable—that his father still loved him. Unable to think of a rejoinder, he jerked open the door and ran out into the hallway. For relief from the remorse that was rising in him, his mind went reflexively to the person who validated his reasoning, who shared his convictions, who freely and wholly gave herself to him. But the thought of Sharon only deepened his remorse, because he’d broken her heart that very day. Broken it violently, with merciless rationality. He’d shot her down with her own moral arguments, and she’d said it in so many words: “You’re breaking my heart.” He could hear the words so clearly, she might have been standing next to him.
There was no telling how long Becky might have stayed in the sanctuary, exploring what it meant to have found religion, if she’d eaten anything but sugar cookies since the night before. As God’s goodness routed the evil of marijuana, leaving only a fluish hotness in her eyes and chest, stray wisps of strange thought, she was beset by images of the baked goods in the function hall. She recalled a moist-looking chocolate layer cake, a loaf of cheese-and-chive bread, practically a balanced meal in itself, and a tray of lemon bars—she’d noticed lemon bars. She was so famished that she finally gave up on praying. By way of apology, she stood up and kissed the brass of the hanging cross.
“I’m your girl now,” she told it. “I promise.”
Hearing her own words, she felt a quake in her nether parts, as if her promise were romantic. It was akin to the shudder of ecstasy with which she’d beheld the golden light inside her. She wondered if the satisfaction of accepting Christ, becoming his girl, might enable her to renounce more worldly pleasures, such as kissing Tanner. The wrongness of kissing him before he’d broken up with Laura was clear to her now. So was the wrongness of her behavior in the ice cave of his van. Instead of celebrating the news that an agent was coming to hear the Bleu Notes, instead of sharing in his joy, she’d selfishly pressured him to dump Laura, and now God had shown her what to do. She needed to apologize for pressuring him. She needed to tell him that if he just wanted to be friends with her, see her in church on Sunday, explore Christianity with her, forget they’d ever kissed, she would cherish his friendship and be glad of heart.
First, however, she needed to see if any chocolate cake was left. It was nearly nine thirty and the concertgoers would be hungry. Letting the sanctuary door lock itself behind her, she paused in the front hall to collect herself. There was a scraping rumble from a snowplow in the street, a nasty rip in her beloved coat. She pulled on the loose threads, wondering if it could be repaired. She’d reentered a mundane world in which it wouldn’t be so easy to stay connected with God. For the first time, she understood how a person might actually look forward to Sunday worship in the sanctuary.
She must still have been lingeringly stoned, because her torn coat pocket had absorbed her for quite a while, without her reaching any conclusions, when she heard footsteps in the church parlor. Into the front hall came an older man with permed-looking hair and thick sideburns. He wore a wide-lapelled jacket of apricot-colored leather. His face brightened as if he knew her. “Oh, hey,” he said. “Hey.”
“Can I help you?”
“Nah, just looking around.”
She waited for the man to leave, so she could proceed to the baked goods, but he approached her and extended a hand. “Gig Benedetti.”
It would have been rude not to shake his hand.
“Sorry, didn’t catch your name,” he said.
“Becky.”
“Nice to meet you, Becky.”
He smiled at her expectantly, as if he had nowhere else to be. He was an inch or two shorter than she was.
“Are you … here for the concert?” she asked.
“That was the plan. Although, a night like this, it really makes me question. They already canceled the other show I wanted to catch out here.”
She was definitely still a bit stoned. There was a delay in her processing. Then sudden clarity: “Are you a music agent?”
“In my own little way.”
“Tell me your name again?”
“It’s Gig—Guglielmo, for the adventurous. Gig Benedetti.”
“You’re here to see the Bleu Notes.”
He seemed delighted with her. His eyes darted down to her body and back up to her face. “Either you’re a very good guesser, or you’re the person I’m hoping you might be.”
“Which person is that?”
“The one with the voice. I’m told it’s gotta be heard to be believed.”
There was another delay in her comprehension and then a clutching fear. The voice could only be Laura’s. Until this moment, Becky hadn’t given one thought to her encounter with Laura behind the church. It was like a drunk-driving accident she’d fled the scene of and forgotten.
“You must mean Laura,” she said.
“Laura, yeah, that sounds right. Obviously, if you’re Becky, you’re not Laura.”
“Definitely not Laura.”
“You had my hopes up for a minute. There’s ten freaking inches of snow out there. The only reason I’m waiting around is to hear that girl sing.”
Now there was no delay in Becky’s comprehension—she was immediately offended. Gig ought to have been waiting to hear Tanner, who was at least as talented as Laura and was the one with the ambition. Laura didn’t even care about getting an agent.
“It’s really more Tanner’s band,” she said.
“Tanner, right. Talked to him this afternoon. Nice guy. Friend of yours?”
“Very good friend, yes.”
Again his eyes went up and down her body, lingering at her breasts. It was a thing older men had been doing more and more often, especially at the Grove. It was gross.
“So, his girlfriend?” Gig said casually.
“Not exactly.”
“Oh, well then. How would you feel about grabbing a drink with me?”
“No, thank you.”
“I thought, they’re playing a church, how late can this thing go? I thought I’d be outta here by nine, nine thirty at the latest. But, no, we gotta hear from Peter Paul and Betty Lou. We gotta hear from Donny Osmond Santana and the Lilywhites. I’m not hitting on you, Becky. Or, like you say, not exactly. I just happened to notice a little tavern down the street. It could be an another freaking hour before we see your headliners.”