And it felt good to slide into the deepest sadness he had experienced since losing Linus. It felt good to be in bed, hurting, alone. But further down, in a part of himself new to him, he was, to his surprise, content and at peace. Underneath the pain, he sensed the vastness of the plains weighing on his heart. Håkan got into bed, his skin burning from the cold, the bristles, and the pine oil. Then they both left, bolting the door behind them. The other man left the room, returned with two bundles, and threw a new suit of clothes on the bed and some rags to wipe up the soapy water on the floor. When his efforts were deemed too timid, one of the men grabbed a brush and scrubbed him down vigorously. A bed, a barred window, a bucket of pine-smelling water. Two men escorted Håkan through the empty barroom and led him upstairs to a room adjacent to the woman’s. He is the Associate Director of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University Hernán Díaz is the author of Borges, Between History and Eternity. A tale that defies the conventions of genre, offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness. The story of a young Swedish boy, separated from his brother, becomes a man the man, despite himself, becomes a legend and outlaw. The following is from Hernan Diaz’s novel, In The Distance.
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