Badfellas Read Free Page B

gloomy and banal daily misery on the front pages of the paper. She deliberated over various possible answers to the question: perhaps local violence was what most interested those readers who loved to whip up feelings of fear and indignation in themselves. Or perhaps readers liked to feel that their town wasn’t quite as boring as it seemed, and had just as many incidents as any other. Or perhaps rural dwellers liked to be reminded that they suffered from all the inconveniences of town life without any of its advantages. And of course the final reason, the saddest and eternal truth – that nothing is more entertaining than the misery of others.
    Back in Newark she had never read the local or national papers. Just opening one was too much of a challenge for her – she was much too afraid of what she might find leaping out at her, that she would come face to face with an all too familiar name or face. Uncomfortably reminded of her previous life, she leafed nervously through the rest of the papers, glancing at the weather forecast and the forthcoming events in the area, fairs, car-boot sales, a small art exhibition in the town hall. She gulped down her water. She was suddenly overcome by a sense of oppression, which was accentuated by a huge shadow that was darkening the square as the sun moved. It was that of Sainte Cecile, a church described as a jewel of Norman Gothic art. Maggie had pretended to ignore it, but now turned to face it.

    The Brother 900 had been placed in the middle of the ping-pong table, which was itself now in the centre of the veranda, a geometrical symmetry carefully arranged by Frederick. He sat in front of the machine, gathering his thoughts, with the sun behind him. He slid a piece of paper – the whitest thing he had ever seen – into the carriage. One by one he checked the mother-of-pearl keys, now sparkling – dusted and then cleaned with liquid soap. He had even managed to soften a ribbon that had become as dry as hay by holding it over a pan of boiling water. He was now ready to make contact, alone and face to face with the machine. He had probably never opened a book, had always spoken in direct and unadorned language, and had never written anything more complex than an address on the back ofa matchbook. Can you say anything on this machine? he wondered, without taking his eyes off the keys.
    Fred had never found an interlocutor he could respect. The lie is already in the ear of the listener , he thought. He had been obsessed with the idea of telling his version of the truth ever since the result of the trial which had obliged him to flee to Europe. Nobody had really tried to understand his evidence, not the psychiatrists, not the lawyers, not his ex-friends, nor any of the other well-intentioned people: everybody just saw him as a monster, and felt entitled to judge him. This machine wouldn’t do that, it would take everything on board, the good and the bad, the inadmissible and the unsayable, the unjust and the horrible – because they were all true, that was what was so incredible, these lumps of fact which nobody wanted to accept were all real. If one word followed another, he could select them all himself, with nobody suggesting anything. And nobody forbidding him anything either.
    In the beginning was the word; somebody had said that to him long ago. Now, forty years later, he had been offered the opportunity to verify that saying. In the beginning there would certainly be one particular word; all the rest would follow.
    He raised his forefinger and hit a light-blue, just visible g, then an i, then looked around for an o, then a v, and, getting bolder, found an a with his little finger, then two ns, with two different fingers, finishing off, with the forefinger again, with an i. He read it through, pleased that he hadn’t made any mistakes.
    giovanni

    The young Blakes had obtained permission to have lunch together. Belle searched for her brother in the playground, and finally found