The Millennium Hotel: The Rider Quintet, vol. 2

11. 1812

II 1812 This young man you call 'Bonaparte' . . . J O S E P H J O U B E R T Why were we granted room 1812 on an empty Sunday in frozen January, and why did our view from this most cold modern and angular of places include so much of the old world, Trinity Church and its small,dignified graveyard? Jury Duty Walking here last May on my lunch break from the law the light hit the time-darkened, turbulent stones with such tender, fierce, erotic force, like a match struck in a cave I ground to a halt and wanted to rub my skin in, on, against, within . . . , but rested, restlessly, content with the palm of my left hand on the roughy graniteand, lightly, both cheeks. . ., and would have lingered had not my citizen-reminder-beeper begun its this is not the time, this is not the place routine, as if this confluencecould happen any day, and our species were not endangered by the daily catastrophe of delay . . . ; and allowed myself to wonder if when I am no longer around to walk these underestimated streets the world would be worse off without me here to love it. 53 I looked out the window and indulged in the image of another failed "final solution," another "invincible" army laid low, by the same unpredictable factor that brought us to this place; weather; the snow continuing beyond what the greatest tacticians could have predicted, as if a law of averages were ever truly useful in the short run. There are no true odds unless you factor in time. G O O D Q U E S T I O N There is no losing when you're meant to win. But how and when do we know which side destiny's on? The gods like underdogs. To keep the betting high in the casinos of heaven. What the gods want: another throw of the dice. (Is this what it is to be more thanhuman?) Take away the dimension of time in gambling and the odds are less in favor of the house. Then why, knowing loss is temporary, knowing they have to win over time, are they so vicious at play in their preciouscasinos? —Or is there a chance they don't know knowledge is not enough?, that what is immeasurable means more (and is in danger, every day, of falling away) than a horde of cashed-in chips. 54 When you reach bottom you're in a clean place. Stepping out of icy air to worm through underworld tubing, you descend shimmering elevators and stairs and reach the tree-lined colonnade , the world of a landscape architect whose luxury it was to work without "nature's interfering mess and chaos." Music piped in from invisible speakers, the sound of Muzak, the spare, barely modulated melodic line of yesterday's "new sound." Which all of Soho flocked to Town Hall to hear. The majority, who turned up in white painter's pants, are turning thirty and either committing themselves to art for life or reverting to type, returning to the World of Their Parents, ranging from suburbs where life is a dream, to small towns and dingy cities they'd lived to escape, like Lucien dc Rubempre—whom Balzac imported from the provinces so he could lose his illusions—and the gamblers in La Peau de Chagrin who thought they could clamber up to heaven without a ladder. And others whose names, fictional or real, you're free to fill in. When does the pride in fashioning things unreal begin, or begin to yield? Why was the finest Chinese restaurant I have ever eaten in in Manhattan situated in this plant-infested underworld, where no ray of sun will ever pierce the kaleidoscopic fishtank where no fish I'd ever laid eyes on before fanned their fins? It was the first time Sam could be induced to eat more than sesame noodles ("not spicy"), to lament the smallness and scarcity of spare ribs per portion (four, at the cost of more than a dollar per, and with four orders of these tidbits you can seewhere this meal was heading . . . ) and to submit to a tasting of the soup (in its exquisitely small and detailed bowl) and asking for more, more everything, more cashew-sized chicken nuggets on a skewer . . . —when I had to pull the plug: these microscopic...