Authors: David Leavitt
Family Dancing (26 page)
“Yes,” Nathan says. “Much better.”
She nods, and gets up to pack her things. It is about a ten-minute walk to the train station, and when they get there, the platform is already full of tired-looking people in shorts, all yawning and opening up their newspapers. When the train pulls in, it’s already crowded; there are no sets of three seats together. Andrew sits with Celia, and Nathan sits alone, two rows behind them, but the arrangement is entirely for her benefit. Something has happened between Nathan and Andrew this afternoon: They appear to have forgiven each other. Why else would they be thinking about her?
She lies back, watches the pleasurable journey from the scum of Penn Station to the beautiful Hamptons run backward; now they are in the famous suburbs of the Guyland (as Nathan calls it), now in the nether regions of Queens. When they pass the exact border between New York City and the rest of the world, Nathan cannot resist walking up to point it out to them.
Then they are in the tunnel under the East River, and under the famous city where they spend their lives.
They get off the train. Penn Station has no air-conditioning, and is packed with people. Celia wipes the sweat off her brow, and rearranges her bags between her legs. She will take the Broadway local to the Upper West Side, while Nathan and Andrew must walk across town to catch the East Side subway, and ostensibly ride it in opposite directions. She has no doubt but that they will spend tonight, and perhaps tomorrow night, together; and she wonders if they will eat dinner out, see a movie, talk about her, and shake their heads. It will last a few days; then, she is confident, they will fight. One of them will call her, or both of them will call her. Or perhaps they will decide to move in together, and never call her again.
“I’ve got to catch my train,” Celia says, when it becomes clear that they’re not going to invite her out with them. She offers them each her cheek to kiss as if to give her blessing. They look at her a little awkwardly, a little guiltily, and she can’t believe they’re acting guilty now, when it’s been like this for so many years between them. Besides, there really isn’t anything anyone can apologize for. Celia begins to walk away, and Nathan calls out her name. She turns, and he is next to her, a big smile plastered on his face. “You know,” he says, “you’re wonderful. When I write my book, I’m dedicating it to you.”
She smiles back, and laughs. He said the same thing the day she left them at Termini station in Rome and boarded a train for Calais. All that night the couchette car in which she slept was added on and taken off of other strings of lit cars, passed among the major trains and in this way, like a changeling infant, carried singly to the coast. She shared a cabin with two Englishwomen on their way back from holiday and a Swiss man who was going to Liverpool to buy a spare part for his car. Like college roommates, the four of them lay in their bunk beds and talked late into the night. The wheels rumbled against the tracks, the train moved on; every minute she was closer to England. Then she fell asleep, wondering to herself what kind of book Nathan could ever possibly write.
David Leavitt
’s books include the novels
The Lost Language of Cranes
,
While England Sleeps
(finalist for the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award),
The Body of Jonah Boyd
,
The Indian Clerk
(finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award) and
The Two Hotel Francforts
. He is also the author of two nonfiction works,
The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer
and
Florence, A Delicate Case
. His writing has appeared in the
New Yorker
, the
New York Times
, the
Washington Post
,
Harper’s
,
Vogue
, and
The Paris Review
, among other publications. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he is professor of English at the University of Florida and edits the literary magazine
Subtropics
.
“One of the major voices of contemporary fiction.” —
The
Guardian
While England Sleeps
“Extraordinary . . . Deeply moving.” —
People
“A sprawling novel of star-crossed lovers . . .
[Leavitt is] an extremely graceful novelist.”
—
Los Angeles Times
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-62040-708-0
eISBN: 978-1-62040-701-1
The Lost Language of Cranes
“A tour de force.” —
The New York Times
“Brilliant, wise . . . It would be hard to overpraise this book.” —
Vogue
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-62040-702-8
eISBN: 978-1-62040-703-5
The Two Hotel Francforts
“Crackling with intrigue and illicit romance.”
—
O,
The Oprah Magazine
“Moving, ravishing and fiercely ambitious, this is a novel to treasure.” —
The
Guardian
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59691-043-0
eISBN: 978-1-60819-599-2
The Indian Clerk
“Richly imagined . . . Offers the pleasure of escape into another world.” —
The
New York Times Book Review
“Ambitious, meaty . . . Refreshingly original.”
—
San
Francisco Chronicle
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59691-041-6
eISBN: 978-1-59691-840-5
Available now wherever books are sold
For their contribution to the final shaping of these stories,
I would like to express my gratitude to Bobbie Bristol,
Mary D. Kierstead, and Andrew Wylie.
D.L.
Copyright © 1983, 1984 by David Leavitt
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Bloomsbury is a trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make
available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without
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claims for damages. For information, write to Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York,
New York, 10018.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR.
eISBN: 978-1-62040-705-9
“Territory” and “Out Here” originally appeared in slightly different form in The New
Yorker. “Counting Months” originally appeared in slightly different form in Harper’s
and in The O. Henry Awards: Prize Stories of 1984. “Radiation” originally appeared
in slightly different form in Prism under the title “In the Radiation Center.”
Family Dancing was first published by Knopf in 1984 and was included in
Collected Stories, published by Bloomsbury in 2003
This electronic edition published in June 2014
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