>>5248855>>5248887Today I present this extract from serious writer Don DeLillo, you may have heard of him with Cosmopolis etc. This passage comes (kek) from his serious short story collection the Angel Esmerelda, this short story entitled "Baader-Meinhof" is about an encounter at an art gallery. I actually saw this same exhibition of Gerhard Richter in a gallery, but the memory of it was ruined forever after reading DeLillo's short story:
(...)
She found she was shaking her head, trying to disbelieve the moment, to make it reversible, a misunderstanding. He watched her. She was standing near the bed and this was precisely the information contained in his look, these two things, her and the bed. He shrugged as if to say, It’s only right. Because what’s the point of being here if we don’t do what we’re here to do? Then he took off his jacket, a set of unhurried movements that seemed to use up the room. In the rumpled white shirt he was bigger than ever, sweating, completely unknown to her. He held the jacket at his side, arm extended.
“See how easy. Now you. Start with the shoes,” he said. “First one, then the other.”
(...)
She said, “Please leave.”
Her voice was unnatural, so fluted and small it scared her further. Then she heard him move. It sounded almost leisurely. It was a saunter, almost, and it took him past the radiator, where the cover rattled slightly, and in the direction of the bed.
“You have to go,” she said, louder now.
He was sitting on the bed, unbuckling his belt. This is what she thought she heard, the tip of the belt sliding out of the loop and then a little flick of tongue and clasp. She heard the zipper coming down.
She stood against the bathroom door. After a while she heard him breathing, a sound of concentrated work, nasal and cadenced. She stood there and waited, head down, body on the door. There was nothing she could do but listen and wait.
When he was finished, there was a long pause, then some rustling and shifting. She thought she heard him put on his jacket. He came toward her now. She realized she could have locked the door earlier, when he was on the bed. She stood there and waited. Then she felt him lean against the door, the dead weight of him, an inch away, not pushing but sagging. She slid the bolt into the chamber, quietly. He was pressed there, breathing, sinking into the door.
He said, “Forgive me.”
His voice was barely audible, close to a moan. She stood there, and waited.
He said, “I’m so sorry. Please. I don’t know what to say.”
