Thirst

Zusatztext Paper magazine Playful! moving short stories about travel! childhood! and loss! from a writer who does almost everything well. Klappentext In "the story collection of the year" (Paper magazine)! Ken Kalfus mines a vast terrain of geography and metaphor to create a stunning series of portraits of people caught in the seismic collision of cultures! be they real! hallucinated! dreamed! or desired. With his "magical! transformative! and captivating" (Boston Book Review) mix of fantasy and dark humor! Kalfus has crafted an extraordinary collection that is! by turns! hilarious! mysterious! and touching. Chapter One: Bouquet The young au pair had grown up only twenty minutes from Grafton Street, in the pastel-colored clapboard suburb of Finglas, and she had expected Paris to be somewhat like Dublin, if bigger. But automobiles here careened down narrow streets, a subtle and capricious grammar tied the language in knots, men and women in flowing desert robes passed her as she walked the children home from school, and everywhere, on everyone´s minds, on the tips of their tongues, like a secret they could not keep, there was sex. On the way to the museum with Marie and Melanie one afternoon, Nula entered a metro station in which every billboard carried the same advertisement for a line of lingerie. The adverts were huge, reaching from floor to ceiling, and were composed entirely of a close-up photograph of two breasts gently cupped by a white lace bra. The image was repeated on nearly every inch of wall space in the station, even alongside the system map, all the way down the stairs, and then on every platform. As the train pulled from the station, the breasts flickered in Nula´s eyes. The girls, ages ten and eight, didn´t miss any of it. No, they wouldn´t. They stared at the advertisements and, once aboard the train, launched into a discussion about a schoolmate who had begun wearing a brassiere. "She stuffs it with tissue paper!" cried Melanie, the eight-year-old. The two of them fell against each other, giggling. The other passengers looked away. Marie and Melanie knew the au pair´s discomfort; this was their revenge. They hated museums. They would have preferred to spend their Wednesday afternoons, when school was let out early, in the Luxembourg Gardens children´s park or at Trocadero, where they would watch helmeted youths, some just a little older than Marie, glide and spin on skateboards down the Palais de Chaillot´s long driveways. Nula had taken them there once but, burdened by the knowledge that the French school authorities had thoughtfully set aside the half day for educational excursions, she now insisted on searching the newspapers for exhibitions, matinees, and recitals. It was their first visit to this museum, a majestic block of carved stone, not like those joke structures, all glass and plumbing fixtures, that had been thrown up around the city in the last few decades. Dedicated to the diffusion of scientific knowledge, it sailed through the neatly tended, grassy square like a battleship trimmed with granite weaponry and other appurtenances: a tower, a clock, a gallery of togaed figures perched between decks. Nula swept up the steps with the girls, past a scattering of men sunning themselves at the institution´s prow. Some of them squatted and spat seeds. An elder passed, dangling a single watch for sale from a rough, misshapen hand. Teeth flashed at an unkind remark. A young man lounged by the museum door, wearing a brown leather jacket and a rakishly askew, oversized plaid cap. He stared at each woman passerby, regardless of her age or appearance, fishing for her eye, and mechanically moved on to the next one after she was gone. It was the cap that caught Nula´s attention: its vulgarity amplified his projection of self-confidence. He thought he was good-looking enough to wear anything. Nula glanced at t...

Product details

• Authors: Ken Kalfus
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2008
• EAN: 9780671034825
• ISBN: 978-0-671-03482-5
• No. of pages: 228
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature