The Runaway Soul

by Harold Brodkey

  So, if we meet, if we are to speak, I suppose it will have to be in Hell.

  But when I imagine us meeting in Hell, there I think she would turn her back on me—even there, then, too—unless I could do her a favor there, among the flames, the ashes . . . I think I mean to say that hatred and balked ambition are serious and final.

  Ah, my pretty and complex and difficult and violent sister, ah, my long-lost, clear-eyed Nonie, I don’t care if you forgive me or not . . . What do you suppose that means?

  If I step out of the frames of narrative, out of all such frames, and enter the present actual moment, I see that while I bear a floating kind of forgiveness toward her (and why should she want my forgiveness: what were her crimes?), all this is ultimately beside the point for me. It is only in leaps and spasms of will that I can make myself see that if I had been as bad to her as I think she was to me, I would forgive her now. I would be close to her in spirit. I would not, even if only idly, think ill of the dead.

  Perhaps this story should be continued by other means . . . As time was, once she was dead.

  But, for a moment, let us pause. Let us be still. Or, rather, let me be quiet in her memory—and in memory of me—for a little while.

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781446419649

  Version 1.0

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  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

  First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, Ltd 1991

  Vintage edition 1992

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  © Harold Brodkey 1991

  The author would like to thank the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for their support

  The right of Harold Brodkey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988

  ISBN 9780099913702