Cosmopolis Read Online Free Page A

whole."
    "Who's the other elevator?"
    "Brutha Fez."
    "Who's that?"
    "The Sufi rap star. You don't know this?"
    "I miss things."
    "Cost me major money and made me an enemy of the people, requisitioning that second elevator."
    "Money for paintings. Money for anything. I had to learn how to understand money," she said. "I grew up comfortably. Took me a while to think about money and actually look at it. I began to look at it. Look closely at bills and coins. I learned how it felt to make money and spend it. It felt intensely satisfying. It helped me be a person. But I don't know what money is anymore."
    "I'm losing money by the ton today. Many millions. Betting against the yen."
    "Isn't the yen asleep?"
    "Currency markets never close. And the Nikkei runs all day and night now. All the major exchanges. Seven days a week."
    "I missed that. I miss a lot. How many millions?"
    "Hundreds of millions."
    She thought about that. She began to whisper now. "How old are you? Twenty-eight?"
    "Twenty-eight," he said.
    "I think you want this Rothko. Pricey. But yes. You totally need to have it."
    "Why?"
    "It will remind you that you're alive. You have something in you that's receptive to the mysteries."
    He laid his middle finger lightly in the rut between her buttocks.
    He said, "The mysteries."
    "Don't you see yourself in every picture you love? You feel a radiance wash through you. It's something you can't analyze or speak about clearly. What are you doing at that moment? You're looking at a picture on a wall. That's all. But it makes you feel alive in the world. It tells you yes, you're here. And yes, you have a range of being that's deeper and sweeter than you knew."
    He made a fist and wedged it between her thighs, turning it slowly back and forth.
    "I want you to go to the chapel and make an offer. Whatever it takes. I want everything that's there.
    Walls and all.'
    12/91

    Don DeLillo
    Cosmopolis
    She didn't move for a moment. Then she disengaged, the body easing free of the goading hand.
    He watched her getting dressed. She dressed in a summary manner, appearing to think ahead to some business that needed completing, whatever he'd interrupted on his arrival. She was in post-sensual time, fitting an arm to a creamy sleeve, and looked drabber and sadder now He wanted a reason to despise her.
    "I remember what you told me once."
    "What's that?"
    "Talent is more erotic when it's wasted."
    "What did I mean?" she said.
    "You meant I was ruthlessly efficient. Talented, yes. In business, in personal acquisitions.
    Organizing my life in general."
    "Did I mean lovemaking as well?"
    "I don't know. Did you?"
    "Not quite ruthless. But yes. Talented. And a commanding presence as well. Dressed or undressed.
    Another talent, I suppose."
    "But there was something missing for you. Or nothing missing. That was the point," he said. "All this talent and
    drive. Utilized. Consistently put to good use." She was looking for a lost shoe.
    "But that's not true anymore," she said.
    He watched her. He didn't think he wanted to be surprised, even by a woman, this woman, who'd taught him how to look, how to feel enchantment damp on his face, the melt of pleasure inside a brushstroke or band of color.
    She dipped toward the bed. But before she plucked her shoe from under a quilt that had spilled to the floor, she engaged him at eye level.
    "Not since an element of doubt began to enter your life."
    "Doubt? What is doubt?" He said, "There is no doubt. Nobody doubts anymore."
    She stepped into the shoe and adjusted her skirt.
    "You're beginning to think it's more interesting to doubt than to act. It takes more courage to doubt."
    She was whispering, still, and turned away from him now.
    "If this makes me sexier, then where are you going?" She was going to answer the telephone that was ringing in the study.
    He had one sock on when it came to him. G. triacanthos. He knew it would come to him and it did.
    The botanical name of the tree in the courtyard. Gleditsia