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A short story is presented.
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The Sister
I left Boston in May on the chance that Jacques Austerlitz would remain a few more days in Paris. The novelist Sebald said he'd seen him a week earlier in the vast reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale, exhausted and forlorn as usual. Of course Sebald had a way of making everything sound grim and alarming. In his presence the light filtering through the curtains was always gray. When he spoke to me of Austerlitz he looked out over the heads of the assembled diners at the Charles hotel as if he'd just heard a small bird crash against the tall windows at the far end of the room. Did he think Austerlitz would be glad to see me? I asked, but the look of mild astonishment on his face at once alerted me to the absurdity of a word like glad where a man like Austerlitz was concerned.
I'd heard that Sebald was writing a book about Austerlitz, and so had managed to have myself invited to the dinner in Sebald's honor at The Charles. It was the usual thing, an academic awards dinner at which Sebald was bound to be uncomfortable. When I arrived fifteen minutes late for cocktails I saw that he had already positioned himself against the far end of the bar and that no one stood next to him. Presumably he'd stifled a few yawns when one of his Harvard hosts passed a bland remark, or perhaps he'd casually noted that the wind beating against the panes howled like a beaten dog. That's usually good for clearing some space around yourself at a party, though Austerlitz would surely have felt the sap quicken in his tired limbs had he been present at Sebald's side.In nothing he said did Sebald suggest that he had the slightest interest in my friendship with Jacques Austerlitz. We'd traveled together, I told him. He'd written me letters and once attended a lecture I gave at the English Institute in Venice. And was that a thrill for you? Sebald asked. Or for him? I detected then a sly sort of smile, as if he'd been toying with me and wondered how long it would take for me to object. But really he had no wish to be unkind. I seemed to him dull and that was that. Austerlitz was, fair enough, someone I knew, but Sebald was not interested in any gossip I hoped to share with him about the man who had recently discovered, after forty odd years, the identity of his...See the full content of this document
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