Richard Powers - Gold Bug Variations

"He can't believe his good luck at getting a new recording. But

the party dissipates at the end, after the return of the ossified aria, when the announcer reports that the pianist has suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage just after releasing this take two. He leaves the radio on all night, and the next, as if letting it air out. When the piece plays again two days later, he knows why. He sits and listens the piece through in its entirety, weeping like a child for the death of someone he didn't even know."

I saw then why Todd came back to pass all this on to me. I raised my head, knowing I looked hideous, thinking that if he could see me this way and not run away, it might begin to signify some chance. When he saw my face like that, Todd laughed, reached out a finger, and smeared a little saline pool around in the bogs under my eyes.

"He sent you back to me," I said.

"My suggestion. He supplied the dowry. A trunk packed with handwritten full scores. He thought we might like to try to decipher them together." Todd reached his hands around my waist from behind, closed them around mine, then moved both sets in a pantomime of that old pump-organ enterprise we had once indulged in, up in the woods. This time the keyboard was only four-hands.

I freed myself from his arms. The thought of Dr. Ressler's compositions pinned me against the stakes of being alive. The readiness that the singing bank machine had released in me vanished. Everything I had learned in my year off, every stunted enzyme for courage that I had managed in isolation to nurse alive, was about to seize up and go dysfunctional again, knowing all that now rode on it. I tried to steady myself; if I could tell Todd everything I'd done, from the beginning, I might begin to retrieve myself. "I've been toying with a little biography too, I'm afraid."

"So I see," he said, picking up the notebook I had caught him reading. "Pretty strong stuff here, Missy. Sex, love, espionage, the works. You're sitting on a gold mine, you know."

"Don't be absurd."

"No. I'm serious. I have this great idea."

All of a piece, I knew what it was. "Out of the question. Don't even think of it."

"Come on. A few edits, a little cut-and-paste___"

He made me laugh. I couldn't help myself. "I believe 'splicing' is the bioengineer's term of choice."

He made a great show of collating, a little courtship-dance of paper-shuffling to win me again, for good. "Come'on. Let's do it. Let's make a baby."

I shook my head. "No," I said, dead sober. "It wouldn't be enough. A man like you will always want the real thing someday. Or at least the chance. It would never last."

"My dear Ms. Reference." He edged over to me, taking me up against him. "Why do you think the Good Lord invented sperm bank donations?" He placed his hands over my face, exploring the burning landscape there. "And let me ask you another thing." One for the perpetual Question Board. His eyes were full beyond measure. His whole throat shook like a beginner's in wonder at the words he was about to discover. "Who said anything about lasting?"

ARIA

Da Capo e Fine

What could be simpler? In rough translation: Once more with feeling.