Where Love Is Found: 24 Tales of Connection - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743488792 ISBN 13: 9780743488792

Publisher: Atria Books, 2006

Synopsis

For more than a decade, the literary quarterly Glimmer Train has sought out and championed the most compelling short fiction written today, by both established luminaries and fresh new voices. This stunning new anthology probes the whole range of human relationships -- lovers, friends, family members, spouses, even one's beliefs and dreams.

In "Beneath the Earth of Her," acclaimed writer Karen E. Outen delicately probes the life of a loving, passionate married couple at odds over the prospect of having children. In "Gary Garrison's Wedding Vows," novelist Ron Carlson offers a poignant and delightful tale about a young woman who escapes the rigors of academia and finds love and purpose at a bird sanctuary in Utah. And in "The Marvelous Yellow Cage," O. Henry Award-winner Charlotte Forbes examines an elderly woman's relationships with her estranged children, her deceased husband, her loyal housekeeper, and a lifetime's accumulation of possessions. Stories by Quinn Dalton, Louise Erdrich, and a host of other writers dig deeply into the joys and sorrows of human connection -- enlarging our perspective and refining the language of the heart. Where Love Is Found is a valentine for literary lovers and a delicious treat for those who crave short fiction by some of today's finest writers.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Burmeister-Brown and her sister, Linda B. Swanson-Davies, have been editing the national literary quarterly Glimmer Train for more than a decade. They live in Portland, Oregon. Their previous anthology, Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood, is available from Washington Square Press.

Susan Burmeister-Brown and her sister, Linda B. Swanson-Davies, have been editing the national literary quarterly Glimmer Train for more than a decade. They live in Portland, Oregon. Their previous anthology, Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood, is available from Washington Square Press.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Christopher Bundy

MORNING PRAYERS

Somewhere in the middle with the haze

and the sky like a bruise

Prayers in Arabic floated to the domed ceiling as a small crowd of men knelt on simple rugs and straw mats in front of a young white man. In blue jeans and a T-shirt stained with Val's blood, and his own, the same black cherry, the young man had wandered into the remote mosque after police had taken his unconscious wife away in a taxi. Clumsy old ambulances like fat cartoon vans overflowed with wailing Chinese, traumatized Malay, and a family of Indians that spoke only in terrified gazes. The police had not allowed the young man to go with them no matter how he pleaded and shouted, no matter how well he cursed them. Men in ill-fitting blue uniforms stuffed the young man's wife into the backseat of a dirty yellow taxi, folding her legs, still bleeding from the glass that cut them, into the tired Fiat as if she were a tattered mannequin on her way to the scrap yard. The crushed bus below appeared to the young man as if through frosted glass, a gauzy gray spot below him. Women cried and men yelled hasty instructions as headlights broke through the morning fog and cars began to arrive at the scene of the accident. The ceaseless squeal of police sirens pushed the young man to bang his fists furiously on the hood of another taxi -- this one a dented and dusty red, unmarked and anonymous -- bringing automatic frowns from two men left standing by the car, watching and wondering at the white man with blood on his shirt and a bandage around his head. With the departure of the ambulances and police, the scene was quiet and the young man was left alone. He pounded again on the hood, his fists hurling into the air and back down again, a windmill of fury and frustration. The taxi driver, a young Malay in dirty brown trousers and a dress shirt opened to his navel, rubber thongs, and a baseball cap, grabbed the young man by the arms, using his feet as leverage against the bigger man.

"Let me go! Where's Val?" The white man struggled against the small Malay.

"Sorry, sir. Please come."

The taxi driver pointed to the inside of his taxi. In the hysteria of the crash scene, and with so many others injured, dying, and dead, they had forgotten the young man, a hasty bandage placed over his forehead, his wounds minor in comparison with the others. As the sun began to rise behind the haze and the sky lightened into purples and yellows like the bruises that would soon rise on his arms and legs and neck, the young man surrendered and slid into the backseat of the old taxi. As they drove east toward the brightening sky, his head hurt, like a rope tightening around his skull by degrees, and he heard the echo of song, a rhyme and rhythm that he did not understand, growing louder, over and over, the same stanza chanted through loudspeakers across the Malay morning. Morning prayers had begun and their melody rang over the flat land around him.

The Caretaker greeted the young man without surprise, directing him to sit down on one of the prayer rugs inside the remote mosque. Everywhere men bent in prayer. The taxi driver and his friend guardedly watched the tall stranger, bandage around his head, dried blood on his face and T-shirt. He clutched a dirty day bag with the strength of panic in trembling hands. Birds perched in the open windows and a blend of prayer and birdsong reverberated through the breezy mosque. In a matter of seconds the young man had gathered himself up onto a frayed and faded rug in a fetal ball, tired, his head foggy, a knot of fear and bewilderment in his throat. He felt a hand on his shoulder and a fever swept over him with the rhythm of morning prayers.

Itinerary

Berdy never liked the bus rides: the highways so lightless and somber, the grind of old bus transmission gears and snoring passengers, the cramped spaces, and the chill of winter nights, or the relentless heat of summer. On the bus he could only think of arriving, and when, if ever, that relief from cramps, too much cigarette smoke, roadside food, and sleeplessness would come. The Malay bus ride was no different than any of the others that he and Val had taken. Val slept, her legs across his, a blanket pulled tightly over her shoulders, but Berdy could never find a hole to crawl into and rest. The buses were kept either too cold or without air-conditioning altogether. Some stopped at lightless street corners in anonymous towns so that passengers could find roadside meals, have a smoke and a piss. Others plowed ahead without concern for what was in between, rocking along horrible roads at dangerous speeds, simply start and finish on the bus driver's mind. Berdy typically spent the sleepless hours clutching his money belt and pushing earplugs deeper into his ears, struggling with a need for a cigarette, too nauseous and miserable to actually enjoy one. Yet despite his desire to escape the sluggish isolation of an overnight bus ride, there was something peaceful and reliable about the dark journey over empty highways, the sounds and smells of two dozen of the sleeping and the sleepless, the drum and rattle of an old diesel or the clean, cool churn of a newer one. Berdy recognized the precious moments, to be awake when others were not, his thoughts keeping a steady rhythm with the roll of big bus tires, wondering where he and Val, newly married, were going and what they had left behind.

Not that he and Val had left much behind. They were simply ready to be in someplace different yet again, the getting there just as important a part of their plan as being there. A bus, a ferry, a train ride to the very next place, and always another place. It was important that they get there successfully -- the connections of bus and ferry and train sketched out in their guidebooks, Val's tidy handwriting in the margins: prices, times, and intricate maps that exemplified precision planning; cross-referencing; constant updating; and suggestions from other travelers. They were interested in the kind of travel that demanded the best of what could be assembled from guidebooks, word of mouth, and their own road savvy. They shared an affinity as travelers, their trustworthy travel books and backpacks and well-worn, comfortable clothes; wet and dry gear and travel blankets assembled somewhere en route; boots as reliable allies; knives; flashlights and sunglasses; hats for sun, rain, and cold winds; novels, essays, and dictionaries that rotated in and out of their portable library; and a small stack of journals adorned with the tatters and tears that were wistful memos of time and places done. That was the plan: always another place and always the journey that came of practiced study -- a deliberation of a treasured itinerary. So bus rides -- where Val slept deeply and easily and Berdy stayed up, shifting his butt from side to side, furling and unfurling his aching legs, suffering for a cigarette -- were a part of it, the pleasure and pain of late-night fitfulness and getting there.

Berdy and Val had still not spoken since leaving Hong Kong except for mundane utterances on directions, the price of a room, or a place to eat. In Singapore for one night, Val ate in the room while Berdy searched the harborside for a cheap beer. He feared their long silences in Hong Kong had put something between them he could not name, something that would keep them remote from each other -- mute travelers guided by a common itinerary. Berdy assumed they had both wanted to leave that silence behind in Singapore, the curiously quiet time a necessity for a couple so closely joined by geography and agenda. But the act of solitude had turned tedious and absurd. He imagined their scheduled connection in bright and shiny Singapore would give them an excuse to leave the creepy hollow that had opened between them in the rush of Hong Kong. But they had not spoken since, and the silence between them grew.

The night clerk in their guest house -- an old Chinese man sweating in a worn T-shirt and smelling of garlic, onion, and soy, as if he had spent the day inside a bowl of noodles -- told the young Americans that they must catch the 6:00 AM bus to Kota Bharu near the Thai border. Up early, Berdy and Val stood ready. But there was no morning bus to Kota Bharu. There had been, but it no longer ran that route, guidebook and concierge both wrong. So Berdy and Val waited in the heat and smog of Malaysia for the 10:30 PM bus to take them to Kota Bharu, eating a breakfast of cheap, sour noodles and rice, their backpacks underfoot as diesel exhaust and dust settled over everything. They read novels, journal entries, a limited English newspaper, and more of the faithful guidebook. Val scratched a thick black star in the margins by the erroneous bus information, so hard that she tore through to the other side of the page. When the sun began to set and the shade of the station awning began to actually comfort, they opened cold bottles of beer and the guidebook to read passages as if from a book of prayer. Berdy and Val recited to each other in the cool tones that they had adopted for temporary exchanges of the words that formed their expectations and plans, their gospel. It was the first time in two weeks that they had spoken to each other beyond necessity. Their faith in the faulty edition had only slightly diminished, but their confidence in the method remained.

The guidebook outlined the east coast of Malaysia and the islands and towns they calculated would be their stops. Color photos of empty beaches and Spartan bungalows rekindled their desire to head north along the coast, a contingency plan already developing around a new schedule. The sun set behind the thick haze that hovered above, and they pulled bandanas tighter around their faces to keep the smog out while the fires of Sumatra burned strong and unbridled in the aggravating summer of 1997, the currents of the Indian Ocean driving cloud after cloud of dense, unbearable smoke over the whole of Malaysia, ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0743488792
• ISBN 13: 9780743488792
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416
• Editor: Burmeister-Brown Susan