Читать онлайн «Middle C»
Автор Уильям Гэсс
Also by William H. Gass
FICTION
NONFICTION
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2013 by William H. Gass
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. , New York
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gass, William H. , [date]
Middle C : a novel / by William Gass
p. cm.
“A Borzoi book. ”
eISBN: 978-0-307-96226-3
1. Music teachers—Fiction. 2. Self-presentation—Fiction. 3. Austrians—Ethnic identity—Fiction. 4. Identity (Psychology)—Fiction. 5. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3557. A845M53 2013
813′. 54—dc22 2012017087
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jacket design by Gabriele Wilson
v3. 1
For Mary
never more so
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
When I am laid in earth,
may my wrongs create
no trouble, no trouble
in thy breast.
Remember me! remember me!
but ah! forget my fate.
—HENRY PURCELL AND NAHUM TATE,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier versions of some chapters in this novel have appeared as fictions in
1
Miriam, whom Joey Skizzen thought of as his mother, Nita, began to speak about the family’s past, but only after she decided that her husband was safely in his grave. His frowns could silence her in midsentence; even his smiles were curved in condescension, though at this time in his absence, her beloved husband’s virtues, once admitted to be many, were written in lemon juice. He had a glare to bubble paint, she said. Her recollection of that look caused hesitations still. She would appear alarmed, wave as if she saw something gnatting near her face, and stutter to a stop. Joey was helped to remember how, at suppertime, for only then was the family gathered as a group, the spoon would become still in his father’s soup, his father’s head would rise to face the direction of the offending remark, his normally placid look would stiffen, and fires light in his eyes. His stare seemed unwilling to cease, although it probably was never held beyond the lifetime of a minute. But a minute … a minute is so long. Certainly it continued until his daughter’s or his wife’s uneasy expression sank into the bottom of her bowl, and the guilty head was bowed in an attitude of apology and submission.
