Devotion by Howard Norman Read Free Book Online Page B

to address it with David but to subtract half a grade. He received an A-minus.
    Â 
    The swans had settled down. Back in the guesthouse, David percolated coffee. He wrote in his notebook,
If I’d been devoted to my marriage, I would not have
—, stared at the page until the coffee was ready. He sat on the porch sipping coffee. He went back to the kitchen, closed the notebook, took up
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard.
His headache spiked in intensity two or three times but otherwise was manageable, and it disappeared by 5:15 in the morning, just as he finished the novel.
    He then stood at the open screen door and stared out at the darkness, now filtering a little dawn light through the mist. He reached into the back pocket of his khaki shorts, removing the photograph the doorman had taken of him and Maggie together in front of Durrants Hotel the first morning they spent together, more than a year ago. In the photograph, David looked disheveled, harried; he was touching Maggie’s hand, not holding it; Maggie’s eyes were somewhat squinted up; she looked breezy, alert and pleased. They
were more huddled together than embracing, but definitely out in public together, in the sunlight after a night of rain.
    David slid the photograph back inside the transparent plastic pocket, set the wallet on top of the peaches, pears and apples in a bright yellow bowl on the kitchen table. This was where he always put his wallet, in that bowl. It had become habit.
Now, which one next?
he thought, approaching the stack of novels on the counter. He ran his finger along the spines, then pulled
Manuscript of a Country Doctor
out, immediately balancing the others in their column.
Maggie told me this was one of her favorites.

Room 334
    T HE DOORMAN WHO had taken their photograph was named John Franco. That morning, Maggie handed him her pocket-size tourist camera. John Franco snapped a picture, then opened his palm for a tip. “Joking,” he said when Maggie narrowed her eyes and took back the camera. Ever alert, he turned to another couple getting out of a taxi; the trunk popped open and John Franco lifted out two suitcases. Maggie put her camera in her Dutch schoolbag. She and David went back inside the hotel to have breakfast.
    It was 9:30 A.M. They had slept later than either had done in years, though they’d been awake, except for brief naps, until dawn. In the dining room an Indian woman sat alone
reading the
Guardian,
a stack of Penguin paperbacks secured by twine on her table. Across the room a family—mother, father, lanky teenage daughter—spoke in German. David and Maggie chose a table at the street-side window. The waitress arrived. Maggie ordered orange juice, coffee, a cranberry muffin, a slice of melon. David ordered coffee and oatmeal—“hot cereal” on the menu. When the waitress left to put in the order, David suggested they cancel breakfast and go back to Maggie’s room. “I wouldn’t hesitate a moment,” she said, “except there’s a London
Times
cultural reporter coming to rehearsal this morning who I’ve got to talk with.” She looked at her wrist, raising her eyebrows at having forgotten to wear her watch. “I’ve got to be at the hall by eleven. And where do you have to be, David?”
    The waitress set down their breakfasts. She poured coffee for them both. “I have to go to my flat and work on a book proposal,” he said.
    â€œBook proposal. For what book?”
    David told her about Josef Sudek. His dates: 1896–1976. How he had lost an arm in World War I. How he was closely associated with Prague. How he’d attained fame mainly toward the end of his life. David condensed his knowledge of Sudek in as resonant a summary as possible, wanting Maggie to feel he was capable of wholehearted devotion to an intellectual endeavor. It felt urgently necessary. He didn’t know all the reasons why. “I’m really thinking