The Art of Living Read Free Page A

probably wouldn’t be afraid. Like most people, he’d heard friends speak, from time to time, about their fear of dying, and the feeling was not one he scorned or despised; but the fact remained, he was not the kind of man who had it. “Well, you’re lucky,” Arline had said, refusing to believe him, getting for an instant the hard look that came when she believed she was somehow being criticized. “Yes, lucky,” he’d said thoughtfully. It was the single most notable fact about his life.
    Abruptly, the girl, Miss Curtis, broke in on his expansive praise of airlines. “We’re moving!” she exclaimed, darting her head past his shoulder in the direction of the window, no less surprised, it seemed, than she’d have been if they were sitting in a building.
    Nimram joined her in looking out, watching yellow lights pass, the taxiway scored by rain-wet blue-and-white beams thrown by lights farther out. Now on the loudspeaker an invisible stewardess began explaining the use of oxygen masks and the positions of the doors, while their own stewardess, with slightly parted lips and her eyes a little widened, pointed and gestured without a sound, like an Asian dancer. The girl beside him listened as if in despair, glum as a student who’s fallen hopelessly behind. Her hand on the armrest was more yellow than before.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Nimram said, “you’ll like it.”
    She was apparently too frightened to speak or turn her head.
    Now the engines wound up to full power, a sound that for no real reason reminded Nimram of the opening of Brahms’ First, and lights came on, surprisingly powerful, like a searchlight or the headlight of a railroad engine, smashing through the rain as if by violent will, flooding the runway below and ahead of the wing just behind him, and the plane began its quickly accelerating, furious run down the field for take-off. Like a grandfather, Nimram put his hand on the girl’s. “Look,” he said, showing his smile, tilting his head in the direction of the window, but she shook her head just perceptibly and shut her eyes tight. Again for an instant he was struck by the likeness, as remarkable now as it had been when he’d first seen her, and he tried to remember when Arline had squeezed her eyes shut in exactly that way. He could see her face vividly—they were outdoors somewhere, in summer, perhaps in England—but the background refused to fill in for him, remained just a sunlit, ferny green, and the memory tingling in the cellar of his mind dimmed out. The Brahms was still playing itself inside him, solemn and magnificent, aglow, like the lights of the city now fallen far beneath them, lurid in the rain. Now the plane was banking, yawing like a ship as it founders and slips over, the headlights rushing into churning spray, the unbelievably large black wing upended, suddenly white in a blast of clouded lightning, then black again, darker than before. As the plane righted itself, the pilot began speaking to the passengers again. Nimram, frowning his Beethoven frown, hardly noticed. The plane began to bounce, creaking like a carriage, still climbing to get above the weather.
    â€œDear God,” the girl whispered.
    â€œIt’s all right, it’s all all right,” Nimram said, and pressed her hand.
    Her name was Anne. She was, as he’d guessed, sixteen; from Chicago; and though she did not tell him what her disease was or directly mention that she was dying, she made her situation clear enough. “It’s incredible,” she said. “One of my grandmothers is ninety-two, the other one’s eighty-six. But I guess it doesn’t matter. If you’re chosen, you’re chosen.” A quick, embarrassed smile. “Are you in business or something?”
    â€œMore or less,” he said. “You’re in school?”
    â€œHigh school,” she said.
    â€œYou have