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    The City of Windy Trees
    The City of Windy Trees
    The City of Windy Trees
    Ebook49 pages33 minutes

    The City of Windy Trees

    By Simon Van Booy

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    About this ebook

    “Simon Van Booy knows a great deal about the complex longings of the human heart, and he articulates those truths in his stories with pitch-perfect elegance. Love Begins in Winter is a splendid collection, and Van Booy is now a writer on my must-always-read list.” — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitizer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and Severance

    A new collection of stories from award-winning writer Simon Van Booy that explores the beauty of connection and the anguish of loss.

    In Love Begins in Winter, Simon Van Booy offers intimate scenes of tragic loss, redemptive tales of unlikely connection, and breathtaking moments that never really end. These stories, set around the world, are a perfect synthesis of grace, intensity, atmosphere, and compassion.

    From a famous French cellist who heals the heart of a lost woman to a suitor who polishes eggs, from heroic gypsies to generous gondoliers who can sing, Van Booy writes eloquently about the difficult choices we make in order to maintain our humanity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 12, 2009
    ISBN9780061926709
    The City of Windy Trees
    Author

    Simon Van Booy

    Simon Van Booy is the author of two novels and two collections of short stories, including The Secret Lives of People in Love and Love Begins in Winter, which won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. He is the editor of three philosophy books and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, and the BBC. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

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      Book preview

      The City of Windy Trees - Simon Van Booy

      I

      ONE DAY, GEORGE FRACK received a letter. It was from very far away. The stamp had a bird on it. Its wings were wide and still. The bird was soaring high above a forest, its body flecked with red sparks. George wondered if the bird was flying to a place or away from it.

      At first, George thought the letter had been delivered to him by mistake, but the name on the envelope was his name and the address was where he lived.

      Then he opened it and found a page of blue handwriting and a photograph of a little girl with brown hair. The girl was wearing a navy polyester dress dotted with small red hearts. She also had a pink clip in her hair. Her hands were tiny.

      The handwriting was full of loops, as if each letter were a cup held fast upon the page by the heaviness of each small intention.

      When George read the page, his mouth fell open and a low groaning resounded from his throat.

      He held the paper very close to his eyes and read it again several times.

      Then he dropped the page and looked around his apartment as though people were watching him from every dusty corner.

      On the mantelpiece was the only photograph of his great uncle, Monsieur Saboné, who like George had lived alone in a quiet part of the city where he was born.

      George wandered from room to room without knowing why, balancing the words of the letter in his mind; trying to make sense of them.

      When George found himself standing in the kitchen, he automatically reached for the teapot. Perhaps because he wasn’t himself, he somehow managed to knock it to the floor. When George tried to pick up the pieces, he realized he could not control his shaking hands and he cut his fingers in several places.

      Blood dripped onto the broken pieces of china; large spots fell upon the white sink.

      George sat on the edge of the bathtub and wrapped his hands in old bandages. He imagined writing out the story of his life across each length of white. What words would he choose; would there be things he wrote that weren’t true; would there be spaces for things he wished he had done, people he wanted to meet, but who never came?

      George sat on his toilet with the lid down. He remained there for two hours looking at his bandaged hands. When he felt faint, George removed his clothes and slipped into bed. Blood soaked through the bandage and left spots on the sheets.

      Outside, a fire engine wailed, changing pitch as it passed: one sound for coming and one for going—the moment in between, indistinguishable.

      George

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