The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt Page 0,196

still a price.

Out on the avenue, a fire engine screamed high and hard before trailing into the distance. Cars, trucks, loudly-laughing couples coming out of the bars. As I lay awake trying to think of calming things like snow, and stars in the desert, hoping I hadn’t swallowed the wrong mix and accidentally killed myself, I did my best to hold tight to the one helpful or comforting fact I’d gleaned from my online reading: stolen paintings were almost impossible to trace unless people tried to sell them, or move them, which was why only twenty per cent of art thieves were ever caught.

Chapter 8.

The Shop-Behind-the-Shop, continued

i.

SUCH WAS MY TERROR and anxiety about the painting that it overshadowed, somewhat, the arrival of the letter: I’d been accepted for the spring term of my early college program. The news was so shocking that I put the envelope in a desk drawer, where it sat alongside a stack of Welty’s monogrammed letter paper for two days, until I worked up the nerve to go to the head of the stairs (brisk scratch of handsaw floating up from the shop) and say: “Hobie?”

The saw stopped.

“I got in.”

Hobie’s large, pale face appeared at the foot of the stairs. “What’s that?” he said, still in his work trance, not quite there, wiping his hands and leaving white handprints on his black apron—and then his expression changed when he saw the envelope. “Is that what I think it is?”

Without a word I handed it to him. He looked at it, then at me—then laughed what I thought of as his Irish laugh, harsh and surprised at itself.

“Well done you!” he said, untying his apron and slinging it across the railing of the stairs. “I’m glad about it, I won’t lie to you. I hated to think of packing you up there all on your own. And when were you going to mention it? Your first day of school?”

It made me feel terrible, how pleased he was. At our celebratory dinner—me, Hobie, and Mrs. DeFrees at a struggling little neighborhood Italian—I looked at the couple drinking wine at the only other occupied table besides our own; and—instead of being happy, as I’d hoped—felt only irritated and numb.

“Cheers!” said Hobie. “The tough part is over. You can breathe a little easier now.”

“You must be so pleased,” said Mrs. DeFrees, who all night long had been linking her arm through mine and giving little squeezes and chirrups of delight. (“You look bien élégante,” Hobie had said to her when he kissed her on the cheek: gray hair piled atop her head, and velvet ribbons threaded through the links of her diamond bracelet.)

“Model of dedication!” said Hobie to her. It made me feel even worse about myself, hearing him tell his friends how hard I’d worked and what an excellent student I was.

“Well, it’s wonderful. Aren’t you pleased? And on such short notice, too! Do try to look a bit happier, my dear. When does he start?” she said to Hobie.

ii.

THE PLEASANT SURPRISE WAS that after the trauma of getting in, the early-college program wasn’t nearly as rigorous as I’d feared. In certain respects it was the least demanding school I’d ever attended: no AP classes, no hectoring about SATs and Ivy League admissions, no back-breaking math and language requirements—in fact, no requirements at all. With increasing bewilderment, I looked around at the geeky academic paradise I’d tumbled into and realized why so many gifted and talented high school kids in five boroughs had been knocking themselves senseless to get into this place. There were no tests, no exams, no grades. There were classes where you built solar panels and had seminars with Nobel-winning economists, and classes where all you did was listen to Tupac records or watch old episodes of Twin Peaks. Students were free to concoct their own Robotics or History of Gaming tutorials if they so chose. I was free to pick and choose among interesting electives with only some take-home essay questions at midterm and a project at the end. But though I knew just how lucky I was, still it was impossible to feel happy or even grateful for my good fortune. It was as if I’d suffered a chemical change of the spirit: as if the acid balance of my psyche had shifted and leached the life out of me in aspects impossible to repair, or reverse, like a frond of living coral hardened to bone.

I could do what I had to. I’d done