Authors: Alexander Maksik
The wind came up in the late afternoon and we all lay on our bellies watching the sunset. Tess the sniper, we her spotters.
P
erhaps I will ask where she has been.
Maybe I will ask what she has done.
On the other hand, one must surrender entirely.
L
ast night on the couch, Tess tucked her feet beneath my legs. Zeus was asleep between us. Our owl was calling from the woods.
I wanted nothing but for nothing to change. I wanted nothing to change and for nothing to change to be my reward for faith, for insistence, for staying alive, for fighting so hard against the dark, for surrendering, for seeking out that other thing, which is neither tar nor bird, which is neither beast nor object, which is beauty, which is love.
I wished for nothing to change, but if wishes were horses, Joey Boy, beggars would ride, and the night went on and on toward morning, and now as I sit here writing one last time, I see Tess at the edge of the clearing, her back to the house, Zeus panting at her side.
She is out there looking into the forest at something I cannot see.
I am grateful to the following people for their generosity, intelligence and faith:
Caroline Ast, Natalie Bakopoulos, Joe Blair, Ryan Bloom, Laura Bonner, Jon Brockett, Diane du Périer, Patricia Escalona, Jenny Gersten, Francesca Giacco, Pilar Guzman, Leslie and Jon Maksik, Paula and William Merwin, Greg Messina, Michael Reynolds, Grant Rosenberg, Barbara Seville, Stefan Schaefer, Colombe Schneck, Eric Simonoff, Rachael Small, Daniel Smith, Tara Spencer-Frith, Françoise Triffaux and Christian Westermann.
I would also like to thank The Corporation of Yaddo for twice providing me shelter, peace and friendship.
Alexander Maksik is the author of the bestselling novel
You Deserve Nothing
(Europa, 2011) and
A Marker to Measure Drift
(Knopf, 2013), which was a
New York Times Book Review
Notable Book of 2013 as well as finalist for both the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and Le Prix du Meilleur Livre Ãtranger.