City by Alessandro Baricco Read Free Book Online Page B

up.
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    â€œI don’t know, Gould, what did I say?”
    â€œCover up.”
    â€œNo way.”
    â€œI swear.”
    â€œYou dreamed it.”
    â€œYou said cover up, as if you were my mother.”
    â€œCome on, let’s go.”
    â€œYou said it.”
    â€œStop this.”
    â€œI swear.”
    â€œAnd cover up.”
    The street sloped slightly downhill, and the ground was littered with leaves that had fallen from the trees, so Gould shuffled his feet as he walked, as if he had moles instead of shoes, moles that were tunneling through the leaves, making a noise like a cigar being lighted, but multiplied a thousand times. A red and yellow noise.
    â€œMy father smokes cigars.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHe’d like you.”
    â€œHe
does like me,
Gould.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI can tell, from his voice.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYou can tell a lot of things, from a person’s voice.”
    â€œFor example?”
    â€œFor example, let’s say you hear someone with a beautiful voice, really beautiful, a man with a beautiful voice, OK?”
    â€œOK.”
    â€œThen you can bet on it, he’s ugly.”
    â€œUgly.”
    â€œWorse than ugly, really ugly, a greaseball, you know, he’s too tall, or he has fat hands that are always sweaty, always sort of moist, you get the picture?”
    â€œSo.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, so?”
    â€œI don’t know, I don’t like to shake hands. In fact I don’t have much experience of hands.”
    â€œYou don’t like to shake hands.”
    â€œNo. It’s stupid.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œGrown-ups’ hands are always too big. It’s pointless for them to shake hands with
me,
just thinking about it is stupid, and in the end it’s always embarrassing.”
    â€œOnce, on TV, I saw the Nobel Prizes being given out. Well, one person went up there, in a fancy outfit, and then all he did was shake hands, from start to finish.”
    â€œThat’s another story.”
    â€œIt’s a story I’m interested in. Tell it to me, Gould.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThe Nobel Prize.”
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œHow did they decide to have you win it?”
    â€œThey didn’t
decide
to have me win it.”
    â€œYou mean you just won it?”
    â€œThey don’t give the Nobel Prize to children.”
    â€œThey could make an exception.”
    â€œStop it.”
    â€œOK.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œAll right, then how did it happen, Gould?”
    â€œNothing, it’s nonsense, you know—a way of talking, I think.”
    â€œOdd way of talking.”
    â€œSo you don’t like it?”
    â€œIt’s not that I don’t like it.”
    â€œYou don’t like it.”
    â€œI find it odd, that’s all. How can you think of telling a child that he’s going to win the Nobel Prize? He may be intelligent, and what have you, but you can’t know—maybe he’s not
that
intelligent, maybe he doesn’t
want
to win the Nobel, and anyway, even if he does, why tell him? Isn’t it better to leave him alone, let him do what he has to do, and then one morning he’ll wake up and they’ll say have you heard the news? You’ve won the Nobel Prize. The end.”
    â€œLook, no one’s said anything to me . . .”
    â€œIt’s the way you talk to someone when he’s going to die.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œIt was only an example, Gould.”
    â€œ. . .”
    â€œCome on, Gould, it was only an example . . . Gould, look at me.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œIt was only an example.”
    â€œOK.”
    Gould stopped and looked back. There were the two furrows dug by his feet through the leaves, like long, even stripes, vanishing