Me: From the Words of Another
December 9, 2003

“It was strange to feel so pure a joy in the simple task of preparing a breakfast. The work seemed an end in itself, as if the motions of filling a coffee pot, squeezing oranges, slicing bread were performed for their own sake, for the sort of pleasure one expects, but seldom finds, in the motions of dancing.”

“She had watched his work for some time; she had always looked for sparks of competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland.”

“Somewhere within her, under the numbness that held her still to receive the lashing, she felt a small point of pain, hot like the pain of scalding. She wanted to tell him of the years she had spent looking for men such as he to work with; she wanted to tell him that his enemies were hers, that she was fighting the same battle; she wanted to cry to him: I’m not one of them! But she knew that she could not do it. She bore the responsibility for Taggart Transcontinental and for everything done in its name; she had no right to justify herself now.”

“He glanced at her and did not answer. Then he said, ‘I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire held in a man’s hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind—and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.’”

“His voice had said it with the same sound as hers. He waited, to regain his breath. When he spoke, his voice was low and clear, with some stressed quality of awareness, which was almost the quality of a smile of understanding: ‘It’s your acceptance of this place that I want. What good would it do me, to have your physical presence without any meaning? That’s the kind of faked reality by which most people cheat themselves of their lives. I’m not capable of it.’ He turned to go. ‘And neither are you. Good night, Miss Taggart.’”

“‘Will you give me time?’
‘Your time is not ours to give. Take your time. You alone can decide what you’ll choose to do, and when. We know the cost of that decision. We’ve paid it. That you’ve come here might now make it easier for you—or harder.’
‘Harder,’ she whispered.
‘I know.’
He said it, his voice as low as hers, with the same sound of being forced past one’s breath, and she missed an instant of time, as in the stillness after a blow, because she felt that this—not the moments when he had carried her in his arms down the mountainside, but this meeting of their voices—had been the closest physical contact between them.”

Love,
Lemme