The Diaries of Arnon Grunberg (13)

Arnon entered Lucien on first and first and asked for a stool at the bar. He looked at the menu without much appetite, then finally ordered the foie gras maison with the cheapest red wine at twenty eight dollars per bottle. It was the first time that Arnon felt comfortable in a social environment for months. He had concluded that his preference to stay at home and read, was a mental condition that he needed to break through, and diligently he had made reservations at nine. He drank his first glass and poured a second, drank a second and poured a third. There was no reason to his thoughts, he was not thinking, just realizing that he had not been thoughtful in many weeks. There was no purpose to his existence, cause there was no thought worth considering. This was the New York life that made New Yorkers unwillingly distressed, irritated, hasted. You traveled two hours south to Washington and life let you breath again. Arnon pondered only how this city with so much stimulation and diversity, managed to create such a uniform lack of thoughtful relevance. Was it the immigrants who came from poverty, sacrificed themselves to offer their children a better future, and like a maelstrom of ambition, they dragged Arnon down with them into their gutter toward just the same empty future. The thought itself made Arnon hate immigrants. He poured a fourth glass and measured the bottle to be half empty. The room seemed to detach itself from the street and the building in which it was located, and started floating in the night, tables started dancing, voices started conversations and faces looked at Arnon with a friendly smile. The waiter offered him not only a broad grin but complemented him with a pear liquor that went down smoothly with the foie gras without purpose or thought.