A Day and a Night and a Day: A Novel (29 page)
“It's all right. It's okay. We better get going, though.”
But she can't, for a moment. Things have caught up with her. She goes down on her knees and vomits in the snow. No stopping the effect on her ribs. In solidarity rather than because there's anything he can do Augustus gets down on one knee next to her, puts his hand gently in the small of her back. The sky above the snowline is deep blue. You can see how people lie down in snow to die and eventually it feels warm.
“I'm all right,” she says after a little while. “Juss needed to do that. Sorry.”
They get by ridiculous degrees to their feet. “Here,” Augustus says. “Take these.” Ibuprofen. Four left in the bottle in his pocket. Morwenna swallows two with a mouthful of snow. Augustus is
thinking of New York. He has a vivid mental picture of Darlene sitting at the window table in Ferrara, drinking a double espresso and looking over the numbers Maguire the accountant's run for her on a possible new purchase, a prime spot on Third Avenue and 7th Street. You find something you like and go into it.
A few paces ahead of him Morwenna slips, but recovers her balance. She stops for a moment, adjusts the shoulder bag, looks back at him.
I'm indebted to a collection of essays,
Abu Ghraib: The Politics of Torture
(North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 2004), for diverse illuminations of this very old and very new phenomenon. In particular, “Breakdown in the Gray Room: Recent Turns in the Image War,” a transcript of the lecture by David Levi Strauss, first given at the Los Angeles Times Media Center, June 17, 2004; “Abu Ghraib and the Magic of Images” by Charles Stein; “Feminism's Assumptions Upended” by Barbara Ehrenreich; and “Abu Ghraib: A Howl” by Richard Grossinger.
Augustus's version of the arrest and treatment of Johnson Hinton derives from Malcolm X's account in
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
(Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, London, 2001).
Selina's story of her accidental ingestion of the ant belongs to Andrea Freeman, who has very kindly lent it to me.
Many thanks to my agents, Jonny Geller in London and Jane Gelfman in New York, for keeping the faith, and to my editor
at Ecco, Abigail Holstein, who brought to this book immediate understanding, fierce enthusiasm, and consistently sound judgment. I am much in her debt.
For editorial guardianship during the writing of this novel, and for patience with my delays, thanks to Millicent Bennett. For tactical support and an incisive first read, I'm grateful to Paige Simpson. For Italian and Spanish language help, I salute Mike Loteryman, Eva Vives, and Nicola Harwood.
Last but not least, thanks to Kim Teasdale, for being cheerful first thing in the morning, and for gently forcing me to experience the world outdoors every now and again.
GLEN DUNCAN
is the critically acclaimed author of six previous novels, including
Death of an Ordinary Man; I, Lucifer;
and, most recently,
The Bloodstone Papers
. He lives in London.
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Jacket design by Allison Saltzman
Jacket photographs: woman's face © Gareth Munden/WildCard; man's face © Matt Caplin; Barcelona © Andrea Pistolesi/Getty
A DAY AND A NIGHT AND A DAY
. Copyright © 2009 by Glen Duncan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition December 2008 ISBN: 9780061984211
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