Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

The women who believed that this would all be over shortly and they would be home in their own beds by two A.M. were careful to adjust their full skirts beneath them in a way that would minimize wrinkling. The ones who believed they would be shot presently let the silk wad and crease.

The Catholic priests, sons of those murdering Spanish missionaries, loved to tell the people that the truth would set them free, and in this case they were exactly correct.

If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. Once the life begins to seem secure, one feels the freedom to complain.

The kind of love that offers its life so easily, so stupidly, is always the love that is not returned.

right in the jugular

What she prayed for was nothing. She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone.

“There has been a change in the food, sir.” Even though Thibault was the diplomat, Gen believed that he probably had a better chance of getting what they wanted. It was the difference in their natures. The French had very little experience in being deferential. “And that change?” The General did not look up. “It isn’t cooked, sir. They’ve sent in boxes of vegetables, some chickens.” At least the chickens were plucked. At least they were dead. It was probably only a matter of time before dinner walked through the door on its own, that their milk showed up still tucked warmly inside its goat.

Please

Gen stopped and spoke to Simon Thibault, who was stretched across a nearby sofa reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in Spanish.

YUH

How much luck is one person entitled to in a night? Does it come in a limited allotment, like milk in a bottle, and when so much has been poured out then only so much is left? Or was luck a matter of the day, and on the day you’re lucky you are limitlessly lucky?

He was in love, and never had he felt such kindness towards another person. Never had he received such kindness. Maybe the private life wasn’t forever. Maybe everyone got it for a little while and then spent the rest of their lives remembering.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking at Ismael, his friend, not two minutes dead. The Vice President was crying into the boy’s neck, his eyes pressed closed, his mouth stretched open wide. He was holding his child’s lovely head in his hands. In Ismael’s hands was the spoon with which he had been digging.

:(

Then she heard another gunshot but this time it knocked her off her feet. A pain exploded up high in her chest and spit her out of this terrible world.

:(