Life #6. Diana Wagman

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Copyright © 2015 by Diana Wagman.

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquires to:

      Ig Publishing

      392 Clinton Avenue

      Brooklyn, NY 11238

       www.igpub.com

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Wagman, Diana.

       Life # 6 : a novel / by Diana Wagman.

       1 online resource.

       Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

       ISBN 978-1-63246-006-6 (ebook)

       I. Title. II. Title: Life number 6.

       PS3573.A359

       813’.54--dc23

      201500759

       For Benjamin and Thea

       No longer exalting in the swimming seas will I toss up my neck, rising from the depths, nor will I blow around the fine prow of a ship leaping and enjoying the figurehead. But the sea’s blue wetness threw me up on dry land and I lie on this narrow strip of beach.

       -- Anyte, 300 BC

      Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Life # 1

Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Life # 2

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Life # 3

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Life # 4

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Life # 5

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Life # 7

       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

       Life # 8

       Acknowledgments

      It is never quiet on a boat. Riding in a car can be silent as you travel down the highway with the windows up and the night sky outside. Huddled inside a small tent in a spring snowstorm, the snowflakes make no noise as they fall on the blue nylon. Even on a foldout couch in an apartment in New York City the world can be hushed, everything outside so unimportant it seems mute. But boats are never quiet because they are never still. They rock and jiggle and complain. The wood creaks, the lines vibrate and hum, the water licks and laps and swallows. Even at night the small flags, the sails and bits of canvas, fwap and snap. It is incessant, a constant sloshing and sighing of desire, “I want to go. Let me go.”

      I sat on a bench in front of my favorite statue of Venus. Her marble skin, her empty gaze comforted me. The news from my doctor had been bad. Dr. Carolyn had left a message on my cell phone, which wasn’t very professional, but then she’d been my ob/gyn a long time. I had cancer. Cancer. Just the word is ugly, two hard syllables, the hissing “c” in the middle. I was glad I worked as an educator at the Getty Villa. Glad I could turn to ancient, immutable beauty. This statue, the Mazarin Venus, Roman, circa A.D. 100, had not changed for two thousand years. Her pupil-less eyes were in eternal serene contemplation. She was beyond life or death; cancer didn’t matter to her. The hands that formed her, the very world she was created into, all gone. Now she stood among humans with cell phones taking digital photos, protected by a laser beam alarm. She didn’t weep or protest. She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t care.

      The lights clicked on automatically and I looked out through the door of the gallery. The sky had turned the gray of smudged charcoal, and darker clouds were rolling in. Rain was coming, always a surprise in southern California. Beyond the sycamore trees I could see a black line of ocean. The sea always there—covering most of СКАЧАТЬ