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Quote by Emma Richler

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Be My Wolff

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Emma Richler

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“A fighter, muses Rachel, is a fighter through and through, consistently irregular, a fighting man on every scale. Fractal, fractious, with a rough complexity! Nothing she can do. A fractal, Papa once told her, is a way of seeing infinity. In Zachariah, she sees infinity. Mandelbrot famously wrote a paper called 'How Long Is the Coast of Britain?,' the answer to which, of course, is that it depends how you look at it. The closer one looks, the larger it is. And more and more intricate, on an infinite scale. There is a template for all things.”

“A year later, there is another miscarriage, another lost boy, and then an operation, and Rachel is in a muddle. Another missed carriage, she hears, conjuring a vision of Mama in a typical dash from the house, hurrying for trains to other cities where she will conduct music and choirs. Rachel sees Katya on a railway platform, suitcase and baton box in hand, but Mama is too late, the train hurtles by, screaming through the arches, a great train of missed carriages. Rachel's night-time wish is granted then, that though Katya has left her once again, she must return home as quickly. She has missed her carriage. 'Mama,' Rachel whispers into the night bedroom air, 'Mama, hurry home!”

“It is perfectly scientific,' Lev protests, rising to draw the heavy dining room curtains against the streetlamp light, reducing it to a glow that bleeds amber round the edges and between the panels of plum brocade. Lev turns back into the room but stays by the window a moment to observe the new play of light, the chandelier casting shards of glitter upon mahogany and bold shadows across the high brow and long sharp plains of Katya's timeless face. Oh my wife.”

“The hours stretch out in summer, the evenings go on and on; has he lost track of hours? Where are you, Zachariah? Come home! Rachel stands by the windows again, listening to the thrum in Camden Road and the Gardens behind, everything noisier on long summer afternoons, streets and voices, people speaking louder even face-to-face as if fighting to be heard over the seasonal rush of blood, over the bright light and heightened smells and unusual clamour of days. The city transfigured this year almost overnight and it has not rained in weeks. How the sun shines, how the rain falls, the qualities of light and precipitation, London has a microclimate all its own. London weather has powers of change, change and conjuration.”