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Quote by Emma Richler

“Like a bird, Tasha sees acutely on the periphery, and for a moment, before fear sets in, this feels somewhat prophetic. The periphery is always full of signs, of things to come, of things that once were, and of yearnings.”

Quote by Emma Richler

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Be My Wolff

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Emma Richler

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“Rachel thinks, What long fingers Mama has, like wands in fairy tales. All the better to conduct with my dear! Ekaterina Wolff has conduits for fingers. Rachel muses on the conducting of music and the conducting of electricity, and of the yellow sign depicting a man falling, struck by a current. Danger of death! What fells the man? A powerful conduction of electricity? Of thought? Of sound? Which? Perhaps the man is felled by music. In the sign, he falls backwards.”

“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!”