Tag: Books

Jazz with Ella

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

ROSTOV-NA-DONU, JULY 13, 1974
The Canadian student tour group were old hands at Soviet travel by the time their plane left Leningrad bound for Rostov-na-Donu in the Ukraine. The usual plump stewardesses, more relaxed on this domestic flight, handed out the usual sticky candy. The students played the now familiar game of who had the functioning seatbelts. David had no seatbelt, and he threatened to hang on to Paul’s leg for the duration of the flight should they meet turbulence.
Despite the gloom of parting from Volodya, Jennifer’s spirits lifted slightly. The plane was full of Ukrainians returning home—women in harem pants, swarthy men with metallic, toothy grins carrying bundles, carpets and, in one case, something alive in a cage that screeched at intervals. The passengers moved around the plane freely, paying no attention to the attendant yelling at them.
Jennifer wasn’t the only one who was mourning the loss of a friend in Leningrad. Ted had ended his stay there at a party with students from the institute. He had met them on the street, and over some powerful moonshine liquor they had discoursed heavily on the problems of the cold war and had resolved to bring peace to their various countries. Unfortunately, Ted couldn’t quite recall how they had proposed achieving this lofty aim. Lona had also found some friends in Moscow, it seemed, and was only now telling the group about them. Jennifer wondered if Lona would have admitted the liaison if she had not been spotted outside the hotel with a group of sharp and eager young men whom everyone suspected of being some kind of confidence tricksters. If anyone can take care of herself, it’s Lona, thought Jennifer, and she wondered if Lona’s swains had asked her to help them leave the country. Then, in an attempt to shake off…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Swamped

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

He dialed Rebecca’s number first. Her pleasant voice delighted
him when she answered. It was a voice Eteo likened to a mixture of
honey and birdsong, both of which he loved.
“Would you be able to drop by for a few minutes, Eteo?” she
asked. “The annual report for Redama Resources is ready. Come and
have a look at it, and let’s make sure we haven’t forgotten anything.”
Rebecca always consulted him before she filed reports on
Redama with the regulators and other authorities. Eteo had brought
this file to her and she regarded him as the guiding force behind the
company, whose directors, two engineers with little financial background
between them, didn’t know much about these filings. Eteo
had seen many over the years and knew how to peruse them quickly.
“I could come anytime, Rebecca. How is your own schedule?”
“I’m free for the next hour. Could you come over now?”
As usual Eteo had hardly anything to do by this point in his day.
He would have left in half an hour anyway, so he confirmed that he
would walk over soon. It was only two blocks down to the 1177 West
Hastings tower and a quick elevator ride up to the 21st floor where
the Horton and Musgrave offices were located.
Ten minutes later, after telling Helena where he was going and
that he would not be back that day, he was sitting at Horton and Musgrave’s
reception. He only had to wait a minute before Rebecca appeared
and extended her hand, which Eteo squeezed warmly and
held perhaps a moment longer than would have been customary between
business colleagues. Rebecca told the receptionist to hold her
calls and took Eteo to her office. He sat down opposite her and she
handed over the file. It took Eteo only a couple of minutes to be satisfied
that everything that needed to be said was there. When he
handed the papers back he noticed that Rebecca’s hand felt hot and
sweaty, and when he got up to leave, she gave him her hand again.
He pulled her closer and found no resistance at all. Instead Rebecca
almost fell into his arms and returned his deep kiss with equal passion.
Her breathing became fast and excited and Eteo felt his groin’s
hot desire for the body of this attractive young lawyer, who was exploring
his mouth with her tongue and obviously eager for more and
more of him. His hands ran down her delicate body to her buttocks,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Still Waters

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

In the nursery, Tyne watched as Miss Pomeroy, the supervising
nurse, cleansed the baby’s tender skin with cotton soaked in mineral
oil. Then she combed the dark mass of hair into a cock’s comb on
top of the rounded head. There was little moulding of the skull because
Jeannette had had a fairly rapid labour, especially during the
last stages. Tyne had received permission to come into the nursery
while the baby was being admitted, but she was surprised when the
supervisor turned to her and told her she may diaper and dress her
little namesake.
“And then,” said Miss Pomeroy, “Daddy’s waiting at the window.
Would you like to show him his daughter?”
Tyne carried her charge to the viewing window and smiled at a
beaming Guy. His eyes were fixed firmly on his daughter, the look
on his face a mixture of amazement and pride. Finally, he looked up
and, realizing for the first time who held his child, his eyes widened
and he grinned broadly. Then he waggled his fingers at the sleeping
baby, and reluctantly turned away.
Tyne carried the infant to her waiting bassinette and laid her in it
carefully. She was pulling the cover up when a voice behind her said,
“Don’t cover it yet. I’d like to examine it before I go.”
Tyne swung around, and came face to face with Bryce Baldwin.
She felt the blood drain from her head, then return in a rush. Her
pulse raced. He gave her an appraising look, then turned his attention
to the baby. As he unwrapped the child, he spoke to Tyne without
looking at her.
“So, Miss Milligan, I understand you are now a full-fledged nurse.
Was this your last day?”
Tyne took a deep breath. “Yes, it was. Too bad Carol Ann Shaughnessy
couldn’t have had the same privilege. This should have been
her last day as well.”
Tyne saw him tense. After a moment he said, “Where is Miss
Shaughnessy? I haven’t seen her for a while.”
“Oh? You haven’t heard then?” Tyne used her sweetest tone.
Dr. Baldwin turned to look at her. His face had paled. “Heard what?”
Tyne smiled, in no hurry to answer. Doesn’t he know she aborted?
Does he still think she’s having the baby? Does he think she had to leave

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Poodie James

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

“Sam, you’re smart enough. You wouldn’t work if your life
depended on it. You been a proper stiff all your miserable life?”
“Only since I was old enough to leave home fifty years ago.
‘Bout you?”
“Oh,” Engine Fred said as he uncapped one of the pints, “I had a
job, a wife, kids, a house, dogs, even a car. They had me, really. I
left all that behind. I had to get out from under.”
“Think you’ll ever go back to it?’
“If I did, it wouldn’t be there.”
Poodie watched, intent on the conversation, marveling that
these men rode freight trains, lived in the open, begged for food,
did odd jobs, wanted no home, and he had found a home. Engine
Fred offered him whiskey out of his tin cup.
“Just a sip, see how you like it.”
Engine Fred and Old Sam laughed at Poodie’s grimace and the
tears in his eyes.
“You’ll get used to it,” Old Sam said, peering at Poodie’s face.
Poodie shook his head and made low sounds. He got out his pad
and pencil, wrote, tore off the sheet and handed it to the old man.
Old Sam studied it, shrugged and passed the note to Engine Fred.
“What’s it say, Engine?”
“It says, ‘No more of that.’ See, Sam, I told you he was smart.”
Two nights later, Poodie made his way up to the jungle carrying a
bag of apples. As he came around the big boulder at the path’s final
turn, he saw Old Sam cowering near the bonfire, trying to shield
his head from the blows of a big man in black clothing wielding a
club, a cloth tied over his nose and mouth, his hat pulled low. Sam
twisted, arched his back, tried to tuck his chin into his chest. The
man kicked at Sam’s groin and aimed the club at his ribs, chest and
face. Poodie dropped the apples and stood frozen. The man suspended
his club in mid-strike and looked at Poodie. All that
Poodie could see of his face was eyes reflecting the firelight. The
attacker started toward him, then turned and ran toward the tracks.
Poodie rushed to Sam. The old man’s neck was bloody.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Then he reached to the side, and turned on the
tap of the small bar sink, and filled a pitcher with water. Lastly, he opened
another cupboard, lifted down two tumblers, poured a goodly measure
of whiskey into both, and splashed water into the glasses.
“This is how you and I are going to do business,” he said. “We’re going
to drink.”
‘In the middle of the day?” Ken asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything? We’re going to drink.”
“Why do we have to drink?” Ken eyed the whiskey with revulsion. “My
guess is it’s to do with, ‘get a man drunk and you’ll find out who he is.’”
“Who told you that?”
“My father.”
“I’d like to meet your father.” He took a large swallow. “So, tell me
about yourself.”
Ken told his story, while he watched Fraser drink until the bottle was
empty. He drank a bottle every day, he said, and he was as proud of that
as the fact that he was a one match a day man. He struck a match in the
morning to light his first cigarette, and every subsequent cigarette, for the
rest of the day, was lit from the stub of the last. “It takes discipline to do
that.”
“I want you to come to the gallery two or three days a week. I want to
hear your story. I want you to tell me your feelings, your thoughts, your
understanding of the universe – everything. I want to listen to you. I want
to hear you.”
For several weeks, Ken visited and talked, while Fraser downed a bottle
of rye and smoked an eternal chain of cigarettes. “You have a passion that
is white-hot and I love it,” he said. “We have all these artists around, and
they’re all limp. I want to see a man with a paintbrush in one hand and a
sword in the other. That’s you.”
One day, Ken asked Fraser why he never saw the paintings he sold to
him. “Where do you put them?”
“I’ve sold them.”
“All of them?”
Yes, all of them.”
“Oh my gosh. Well, that’s terrific.”
“You look surprised.”
“I am.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to me. Of course, they’re sold. So,
bring me some more. Go and paint.”
“There’s a limit to my speed.”
“I’m sure there is and I want to find it. I suspect the faster you paint the
better you get. You’re thinking too much. Don’t think. Painting isn’t about
thinking. This is not an intellectual exercise.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Arrows

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Tell him I promise his village won’t be damaged, nor his
fields touched. Tell him.”
Losada dismounted and the others followed suit, but he stopped
them with a gesture of his hand. “Infante, Ávila, Galeas,
Maldonado, Pedro and Rodrigo Ponce, Gregorio de la Parra, with
me. Ten harquebusiers and ten pikemen, come forward as well.
Carlos.”
He snapped his fingers, then turned to me. “Friar Salvador, if you
please, come with me. The rest of you, stay where you are, don’t let
your guard down. It wouldn’t be the first time they welcome and
then betray and kill. Keep an eye on your surroundings. At the first
sign of trouble, Juan Suárez, sound the charge. All of you! Diego de
Paradas will command in my absence. Camacho! You are second.
Good luck and may God be with us.”
“Harquebusiers, check your priming!” yelled Diego de Paradas.
Losada put a hand on the hilt of his sword at his hip, as if to
reassure himself. Behind him, the harquebusiers grabbed their
powder flasks and rammed the charges down the muzzles. A flock
of parrots cawed overhead.
“Take good account of everything, Friar Salvador,” said Losada.
“I have a mind to have you write a record of this expedition.”
Recording the expedition would be considered a great honour and a
great responsibility. I nodded. But I knew immediately it would be
impossible to record the truth.
I admired the orderly arrangement of the village. The streets were
smooth under my feet, the houses skilfully made. Earthen pots
steamed over the embers of fires; hammocks were neatly
distributed; baskets and heads of plantain hung from the wooden
structures. Strings of yarn were stretched over primitive looms. On
the sloping thatched roofs, dozens of round cassava cakes dried in
the sun. Human and animal skulls and bones hanging among the
baskets and plantains reminded me of macabre tales of cannibalism.
The Indians stepped aside as we entered the village. They stared
at my feet and then at the rest of me, for I was the only barefooted
Spaniard, let alone one wearing a frock.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Nikos Engonopoulos – Poems

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Dyadic Automation
Careful! Cover yourselves! Be careful! The blowing winds have already brought the mysterious messages to our ears. Everything around us is just another threat. There wasn’t any neighbourhood not blanketed by fear, each object hides a soul inside it. Come, let’s go. The time is now. The rusty weathercock calls us wildly in the night. The draw-well stopped and the blind horses became one with the begonia flowers. Let’s go, march! To go far away to Galvana. The saviour plank is hidden from the wind harbour of forgetfulness, peace is there. Sacrificial victims of love, ascetic wanderers of the night, proud dawn walkers light up the sea lamp. Whoever has the strength, whose heart truly dares, let him come. But let us not delay in futile reviews of the past. The time is uncertain. The roads aren’t safe at all and the flood drenched many places. The Caryatid girls have crowded erotically the dark ditches, the lustful maidens of our erotic years. Their famous smile flew away and now it blooms in some abandoned islands. The thunderbolt shows us the way. Let’s go! To the Lycaonian Galvana, there we shall rest. After our kind foreheads are decorated with rose flowers, we offer the libations due to the birds. There, in the graceful wooden temples of the old capital, we shall slaughter the young bull and a fiery column will spring out from its shed blood. There, wrapped around phallic banners, girls are more beautiful than sudden conclusions of dynamite. There lives the Hellene Pantelas among the wild Soudanese. The flowers there are wise and sunlit leftovers of dead beauties. The tears of the shark and the enigmatic prayer of Zacharia are useless there along with the frosty embrace of the penguin.
The erotic spasms of the last emperors and their fiery tears belong to the same person. The offer of the boatswain to the footprints of the hypotenuse of anomalous attractions is accompanied by the angelic harp, and our imposing stature means the spread of freedom and the longing for freedom all over the globe.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763734

Water in the Wilderness

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

for a long, long time but she had heard her mom say that if he got upset about something, he was sure to wet during the night. She hoped and hoped he wouldn’t do that tonight. What was it Uncle Morley and Auntie Tyne said if something was bothering them? Oh yes, they always said, “Let’s pray about it.”
Rachael had forgotten most of the praying words she had heard them say, but it still sounded like a good idea to talk to God about Bobby. Quietly, she moved her hands so that the palms were together. “God, don’t let my brother wet the bed tonight,” she whispered. “He’s so small and afraid. And please, God, don’t let them send us to an orphanage. Make Daddy come for us soon.” She started to move her hands apart but then realized she had forgotten something. “And, oh yes – Amen.”
The house had gone quiet, so she eased herself from the bed and, in the faint glow from the street lamp on the corner, she made her way carefully across the room to the closed door. In the hallway, she tiptoed towards the bathroom, but stopped abruptly when she heard the baby whimper. Rachael waited, but Maybelle must have only been fussing in her sleep because, once more, the house was silent. She just hoped she wouldn’t rouse anyone when she flushed the toilet.
On her way back to bed, Rachael was a little less cautious. Apart from her uncle’s snoring, she heard nothing until she had almost reached her bedroom door. Then she stopped short as a sound from the boys’ bedroom across the hall caught her ears.
Crying. Someone in the boys’ bedroom was crying. Bobby!
Without even a second thought, Rachael pushed the door open and started towards the child’s cot near the far wall. She stared when she saw him, still fully dressed, lying quietly with gentle little snores coming from his slightly open mouth. She stood still and listened.
“What are you doing in here, Rachael?”
She swung around, every nerve tense, her heart pounding. Ronnie lay on his side, his head propped on his bent elbow. Even in the dim light she could see his swollen eyes and traces of tears on his lean cheeks.
“I … I thought Bobby was crying,” she whispered.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

The Circle

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

and then when they retire, most often they collapse from the stress of the
years they spent at work and away from home, like Matthew. What have you
been doing all your life, sweet Emily? What have you been doing for Emily? You
said the other day that you would like to get into underwater photography. How
are you going to do that being married to a man who has no time for his wife, let
alone for what his wife likes to do?”
Emily looks at him, but is at a loss for words. She knows he’s right, although
she’s afraid to admit that even to herself. The world is a scary place without
money, she knows. She also knows Matthew and Emily hardly make it on his
salary.
“It’s scary to think of being out there without the means to survive, sweet
Talal,” she utters, as if to convince herself that that is the most important thing at
this time.
“Yes, I agree. But what will you do to survive is the question, my sweet Emily.
Do you sell out what counts for the security of having money? This is a call we all
have to make.”
“That’s right, my love, do you sell out what counts?” she asks, instead of
answering his question.
He smiles brightly at her as if trying to see into her very soul and says, “No, sweet
Emily, you never sell out, no matter what. Because if you do, how can you face
yourself in themirror and say you have been true to yourself; I have been true to my
integrity, I haven’t sold out. That is what counts in life and that’s the reason I would
never sell out.”
“Perhaps you are right. But it’s different for a man than for a woman.” She
points out.
“No, my love, there is no difference. It’s only a matter of personal belief, a
matter of effort, a matter of achievement, a matter of commitment, that’s all!”
She lays her head on his shoulder and says nothing more, as if listening to the
gap between two words or two breaths, or two of her heartbeats that sound like
the song of a woman in love with this Iraqi man with the sweet voice and the sad
eyes. He’s very pleased that he has made her aware of Matthew’s work, because
he knows that, later, all this will sink in and the result is going to be exactly what
he wants. Talal sits listening to the song of the wind through the small park
where they sit, a song that unfolds slowly and methodically like a majestic eagle
spreading its wings to the heights of the sky.
They begin walking once more, holding hands and observing nature all
around them. They see the bright colors of the trees and flowers, and the shining,
splashing water of the pond where the sun’s rays reflect like crystals. They come
to a smaller pond filled with ducks making all kinds of sounds

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Swamped

On By vequinoxIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

excerpt

Eteo’s thoughts took him back and forth between this pleasant
Vancouver afternoon with its sea whispers and almost imperceptible
sounds of the people around him and the lonely days of his childhood
when his father was far away and he and his brother struggled
to understand why. He was on the way back to his car when Logan
called to ask whether he should dispose of all the shares of the underperforming
real estate company that another client, Tom Batsas,
had in his account and switch Tom to Platinum Properties or keep
some of the real estate shares and buy Tom just a few of the new company.
Eteo advised him to tell Tom to sell all the underperforming
shares and put all the funds into the new company, which would give
Tom a good chance of making something out of this one.
When he had almost reached his car, Eteo spotted Frankie again.
This time the promoter was with two other people, Sandra Wilson, a
well-known Hollywood actress, and a young man he did not recognize.
Frankie gestured for Eteo to join them and introduced him to
the actress, whom Eteo had already recognized, and the young man,
who was introduced as Ricardo. As they shook hands, Frankie told
his companions that Eteo was an investor and a good supporter of
Lionsgate Entertainment.The others responded politely, but what impressed
Eteo most were the simple manners of the famous actress.
She spoke to Eteo as if she had known him all her life, as did Ricardo,
even though the encounter was brief and they only exchanged the
usual pleasantries.
All the same the encounter made Eteo want to find out more
about Frankie’s new venture into the realm of Hollywood and of actors
and actresses who were paid at the level of Sandra Wilson. He
knew she was one of the most highly paid actresses in the world. Perhaps
it would be a good idea to invest some of his clients’ money in
this new company, but he hesitated. He was unfamiliar with the industry.
Recommending Lionsgate Entertainment would be taking a
chance unless he delved into the details, especially the earnings potential
and success rates of such ventures. Of course, he knew very
well that every time someone put money in a company it wasn’t …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX