Sharp and Dangerous Virtues: A Novel

Flying

127 flying “Now what virtue kicks in?” Chad said, resuming his pacing. “They’re discouraged, they’re disheartened, they don’t believe in themselves they way they used to.” Thrift, someone suggested. The Wright Brothers recycled their glider. No. Although they did recycle their equipment, always. They were conservers. Determination? “Morespecific,”Chadsaid.“Weknowtheyweredetermined.” Modesty? someone ventured, to scattered titters. “How about the opposite of modesty?” Chad asked, cocking his head. “How about something that doesn’t say to someone else: You’re right, oh you’re right? How about the virtue that says: You could be wrong? Skepticism. Yes, that virtue. It hit the Wright brothers that Lilienthal’s tables of lift, the basis of all their calculations, could be wrong. No, I’m sorry, Lilienthal’s tables must be wrong. How audacious! What a thought! Lilienthal, a German, was the father of modern gliding. In the ten years before his postflight death, in 1896, of a broken spine, he had launched himself on more than two thousand flights, in a variety of 128 s ha r p a n d d a n g e r ou s v i r t u e s gliders he designed and built himself. He studied birds. He launched himself from a hill he’d constructed into which he’d built a cave to store his equipment. He was a passionate hobbyist like the Wrights themselves, as well as the brothers’ hero, and it must have cost the Wrights a small chunk of their own self-confidence and happiness to doubt him. Still, they dared to doubt him, and to that end constructed , in the back room of their bicycle shop, their own wind tunnel. It was six feet long and sixteen inches per side, with a viewing window in its top and a fan mounted on its end. “We spent nearly a month getting a straight wind,” Wilbur wrote. They made all sorts of miniature wings and tested them for lift at different angles, confirming to themselves that they were right, that Lilienthal’s lift tables were indeed inaccurate. The brothers then designed and built, based on their experiments, the ideal wing. They cut the fabric for this item on their living room floor. “Nothing earthshaking,” Chad said. “Steady forward progress . Open minds. One task, then the next, at various points amending things they’d done before. It’s a way to live life, isn’t it? It’s a way to dream.” October. Sharis punched the button for real time and again watched the back view of Lars the Norwegian walking down the hall. All the times she’d watched him—and sometimes seen him and Clara, his wife, naked and communal in the living room—and she’d never had this reaction. Something about the curve of his hip, the play of light and dark on the towel over his ass. Half the size of Chad, sleek and muscled. He flicked his shoulders back and she almost moaned. He was probably older than Chad, but his hair made him look young to her. She imagined the droplets of water at its tips. The living room camera picked him up now. He was alone. He pulled the towel from his hips and swung it to his tilted head, rubbing his hair—almost as long as hers—dry. His legs were slightly apart 129 flying and his equipment swung. Then he disappeared into the bathroom . When he came out he was tucking in his shirt. She ran it again, and again. Autumn was the perfect time to be in love, with the migratory birds coming through. Charles had realized that Diana knew little about the natural world. Her nature center interests until now had extended little beyond donations, trusts, and bills. She had read all the tags in the museum, but she hadn’t spent much time outside. But now, in their splendid isolation (they were ridiculously well-provisioned, thanks to a solar generator and a paranoid volunteer who’d insisted, years before, on stocking up for the coming attack by China), Charles was delighting Diana with the cornucopia of the natural world. “Look,” he might say, “loco weed,” splitting a pod to empty out a handful of jimson seeds. “Hear that?” he’d ask, testing to see if she recognized the “Q” call of a flicker. The pond still as glass; the meadow grasses higher than their heads...