This Magnificent Desolation Read Free Page A

shadow—comes music: the faint, distant sound of an old transistor radio and Elvis Presley singing “Blue Moon.” And it is raining. Duncan listens to the sound of raindrops tap-tap-tapping glass. Light trembles and shudders upon a far wall, and the shadow of rain trickles down the paint.
    He is in a large room that smells slightly of disinfectant, a room that he would later learn the Brothers called the
pellegrinaro
, or sick room: dark wide-board floors burnished brown and gold with patterns of wear upon which moribund light briefly shimmers as if passing through a bowl of murky water; brightly colored frescoes adorning the walls and showing a narrative of some kind: robed figures journeying though pastureland amidst slanting sunlight, huddled men and women clinging to one another beneath tempestuous black clouds, all leading toward a far hill, where three crucifixes rise in stark silhouette. The image presses at his eyes to rise also, and he cranes his neck toward the ceiling, which, some thirty feet above, curves into a pinioned, gilt dome, bordered by elaborate filigree: a fiery ring in which the faces of the saints and martyrs, in bas-relief, stare down at him.
    Panicked, he tries to follow the sound of Elvis’s voice, for, withhis song, there comes peace and a sense of the divine. The transistor radio momentarily crackles and then its sound reverberates, haunting and thin, as if it were traveling the length of some tiled hallway between distant rooms.
    He listens to Elvis’s fragile, high, crooning voice and for a moment he closes his eyes and lets the sense of it fill him. If there had been a memory in his head of something other, a thought, or dream, he should have fled there and hid, but there was nothing. Nothing he could evoke and nothing in which he might find comfort besides the sound of Elvis.
    A small, wizened old man with a large, almost perfectly rounded skull sits with his eyes closed in a chair opposite him, tapping a white walking stick on the floor in time to the music—or perhaps he is listening to another song, some other music somewhere else, deep inside his head, but it doesn’t matter, because there is a big smile on his face and Duncan feels his face and realizes that he is smiling as well. Tall, leaded windows are open to the outside and the smell and sounds of the day drift in; Duncan can hear children laughing and shouting in play, and rainwater hissing through trees. He blinks rapidly and then a girl is standing before him, staring intently.
    She is tall and pale and has long dark hair that she repeatedly pushes from her face and from her large, serious brown eyes. She is wearing a blue-and-yellow-flowered dress that seems much too small for her, with the hem resting on her thighs, and a soft-looking velvet belt pinching the material tightly about her waist. She leans forward, hands upon white kneecaps, chin thrust out, and regards him intently.
    You’re awake, she says and raises both hands off her knees. Finally!
    Hello, the girl says, extending a narrow hand. My name’s Julie.
    Duncan remains still; he doesn’t know what to do. Finally, Julie lifts his hand from the chair, places it in her own, and pumps it vigorously.
    Julie can talk, and she talks in volumes. She tells Duncan that he’sbeen asleep for a long time—she seems to be the only one able to perceive that he was asleep—as long as she’s been here, she says, which is a long, long time. My mother dropped me off here when I was a baby, she says.
She
was a famous actress.
    Julie stares intently at his face, her brown eyes searching his mouth, his forehead, and hairline, and lastly his eyes, for something—a defect perhaps?
    She touches his hand. It’s okay, she says. We’re harmless. Her fingers are cool and reassuring and tender. Gradually, Duncan loosens his grip upon the armrests.
    How old are you? he asks, and his voice sounds strange to his ears—immense and