by Tim Wirkus
Sérgio paused, his haunted eyes turned momentarily downward, and suddenly I didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to be consumed by this despondency that had overtaken my once jocular friend. Before I could open my mouth to stop him, though, Harriet gave Sérgio an encouraging nod, and he continued.
“In this dream,” he said, “this anxiety dream—it’s a nightmare, I suppose—I’m in the hotel room where I first met Salgado-MacKenzie. And just as it was in real life, the room is packed—people sitting cross-legged on the bed, sprawling out on the red-and-blue carpet, everyone drinking and talking, everyone having a very pleasant time.
“Or almost everyone anyway. As I’m looking around the room, I see someone standing alone over in the corner, but instead of Salgado-MacKenzie—or Rex Cooper, I should say—it’s Irena Sertôrian I see, looking just as I always imagined she would: heroic and sad and so invitingly powerful. I feel an upsurge of an emotion that’s not joy so much as an anticipation of joy, and I know I have to speak with her.
“As I cross the room, though, I realize that what I mistook for people are actually dozens of blue crablike creatures crawling over every available surface, their scuttling legs tapping against the walls and snagging against the softer surfaces of the bedspreads and carpet. I walk carefully, but whenever I get near one, it hisses and snaps its claws at me. I move very slowly.
“Finally, I make it past the crabs, whose ranks are growing as more and more of them spill out from a crack in the ceiling back by the bathroom. But it doesn’t matter because now I’m standing just a few feet away from Irena Sertôrian herself. Unfortunately, though, I can’t see her face. It’s turned away from me toward the empty hotel wall, and somehow I know that the joy I’m anticipating will continue to elude me until I can look her in the eye.
“I clear my throat, then, and hold out my hand. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘My name is Sérgio Antunes, and it’s an honor to meet you.’
“For a second she doesn’t move, but then her head slowly turns to look at me, and for a moment—less than a moment—there’s an expression of guarded pleasure, almost a smile on her face, and I feel my anticipation teeter on the cusp of becoming something much more powerful. And then, as Sertôrian opens her mouth to say something, her eyes take in my face, and there’s a spark of recognition.
“She recognizes me, Harriet, and the joyful anticipation flushes out of me. I feel seasick instead—so uneasy. Irena Sertôrian knows who I am, and in that exact moment a doorway appears between us, and a dark wooden door swings shut.”
Daniel Laszlo
February 2017
Salt Lake City, UT
END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Ray Bradbury for The Martian Chronicles. Thanks also to Emily Anderson for the illuminating conversations about how reading works. For their insightful and generous feedback on early drafts of the novel, thanks to Aimee Bender and Yishai Seidman. More thanks to Yishai Seidman for being a terrific and indefatigable agent. Thanks to Ed Park for being an editor who knows his power pop (and much, much more). The whole team at Penguin has been lovely to work with—a big thank you to all of them. I’d also like to acknowledge the generous support of the University of Southern California’s Provost’s PhD Fellowship during the writing of this novel. Thanks also to Jessie, a diamond of the first water (minus the creepy purity connotations).
SOURCES
As I was doing research for this novel, the following books proved essential:
David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, by Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright
Juanita Brooks: The Life Story of a Courageous Historian of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Levi S. Peterson
The Lord’s University: Freedom and Authority at BYU, by Bryan Waterman and Brian Kagel
Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, by Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery
Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, edited by Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright
The Mormon People, by Matthew Bowman
The Mountain Meadows Massacre, by Juanita Brooks
Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, by Ruy Castro; translated by Lysa Salsbury
Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, by Thomas E. Skidmore
Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares, by Carmen L. Oliveira; translated by Neil K. Besner
Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, by Benjamin Moser
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