• A Painting for the Temple
• Justin Taylor (bio)

Spencer Silver could scarcely believe his eyes. While whole swaths of Soho, the Village, and even Chinatown had been razed and replaced—or his impression was that they had been—here on East Eighty-Sixth and Lexington, where the wild light of the January day had so dazzled him upon emergence from the subway that he'd stumbled on the stairs and now stood gathering himself by the window of a CVS, it seemed as though everything remained as he remembered it.

He had lived in this neighborhood for only one year, and not on purpose. It was not a place to which he felt bound by nostalgia; nor was he nostalgic in general. Had he been, he'd be in Bushwick, rending his garments on the steps of the old Spanish church that was now (he'd heard) a prada store. He had come to the Upper East Side this brisk morning to see the Hilma af Klint show at the Guggenheim. It was a Monday, and he figured if he got there when the doors opened, he'd have the place mostly to himself. Later he was meeting his old friend Helen for lunch downtown. After that, he'd have to grab his bag from the hotel in Chelsea and head for JFK. [End Page 311]

It was a quick trip, barely a long weekend. He had come for the opening of a group show at his gallery in which some of his recent sculpture-work appeared. He'd built a dozen small boxes out of freight pallet scraps, slathered their outsides in cyanotype, and painted their interiors black. Into each empty box he had dropped a handful of half-dollars he'd painted gold, then he'd filled the box to its brim with clear resin that dried into something that looked like a block of glass or unusually pure ice. The coins gleamed and drew the eye, little sunken treasures in the lucent, impenetrable gloom, while the cyanotype on the boxes' exteriors made them look like fallen bricks of sky. He called the series Portable Impossible Oceans. They were selling okay.

Spencer had invited Helen to the opening, but she'd said she couldn't (or had she in fact said wouldn't?) leave the baby for that long. She'd suggested Monday lunch instead, if he didn't already have plans and didn't mind being "chaperoned," her way of letting him know that she'd be bringing the baby and perhaps, too, a sly acknowledgement of the fact that they had, for a stretch—indeed for two separate stretches—been lovers.

Now he was walking west on Eighty-Seventh Street, passing by the Morton Williams where he'd always done his grocery shopping. Across from the market was the Park Avenue Synagogue, which he had never had occasion to enter. This brought to mind his grandmother, with whom he and his sister, Dana, had lived after their mother died in a car wreck when Spencer was ten and Dana fourteen. He did not think of his grandmother at this moment because she was Jewish, though she was (as were Spencer and Dana, officially) but because the last time he'd visited her in Boynton Beach, Florida, it had been the weekend after the shooting at Squirrel Hill made national headlines. That had been three, almost four months ago. He remembered the scene outside the synagogue across the [End Page 312] street from his grandmother's nursing home: a row of police cars with lights on, a fire engine with a huge American flag flapping from the top of its fully extended white ladder. Grandma had still been in independent living then. He hadn't known whether his grandmother took notice of the hubbub and, if so, what sense she made of it. He hadn't asked.

Dana was in Florida now, helping Grandma get resettled in an assisted living unit, which had lately become available. Her new room, like her old one, was furnished. What little there was to pack and move was being handled by the staff at the facility. Dana was perfectly capable of...

• 圣殿画
• 贾斯汀·泰勒（生平）

Spencer Silver 简直不敢相信自己的眼睛。虽然 Soho、Village 甚至唐人街都被夷为平地并被取代——或者他的印象是它们曾经存在过——但在 East Eighty-Sixth 和列克星敦，一月的狂野阳光让他在出现时眼花缭乱从他在楼梯上跌跌撞撞，现在站在 CVS 的窗边聚集自己的地铁，似乎一切都和他记忆中的一样。

他在这个街区只住了一年，而且不是故意的。这不是一个让他感到怀旧的地方。一般来说，他也不怀旧。如果他在，他就会在布什维克，在现在（他听说）一家普拉达商店的古老西班牙教堂的台阶上撕裂他的衣服。他在这个清爽的早晨来到上东区，是为了在古根海姆观看 Hilma af Klint 的展览。那是一个星期一，他想如果他在开门的时候赶到那里，那地方大部分时间都是他一个人的。后来他在市中心与老朋友海伦共进午餐。在那之后，他必须从切尔西的旅馆里拿上他的包，然后前往肯尼迪国际机场。【第311页完】

这是一次快速的旅行，几乎没有一个长周末。他来是为了在他的画廊举办群展开幕式，其中展出了他最近的一些雕塑作品。他用货运托盘的废料做了十几个小箱子，在它们的外面涂上厚厚的蓝蓝版，把它们的内部漆成黑色。他在每个空盒子里放了一把他涂成金色的半美元，然后他用透明的树脂填满盒子的边缘，树脂干后变成了看起来像一块玻璃或异常纯净的冰块。硬币闪闪发光，吸引眼球，在透明的、难以穿透的阴暗中，小的沉没的宝藏，而盒子外部的氰版使它们看起来像天空中掉落的砖块。他称这个系列为 Portable Impossible Oceans。他们卖得很好。

斯宾塞邀请海伦参加开幕式，但她说她不能（或者她实际上说过不会？）离开婴儿那么久。如果他还没有计划并且不介意被“陪伴”，她建议改为周一午餐，这是她让他知道她会带孩子的方式，也许，也是一种狡猾的承认事实上，他们曾有一段时期——实际上是两段不同的时期——是恋人。

现在他正沿着八十七街向西走，路过莫顿威廉姆斯，他总是在那里买杂货。市场对面是公园大道犹太教堂，他从来没有机会进去过。这让他想起了他的祖母，在斯宾塞 10 岁、达娜 14 岁时，他们的母亲死于一场车祸后，他和他的妹妹达娜与祖母一起生活。这一刻他没有想到他的祖母，因为她是犹太人，尽管她是犹太人（官方说法是斯宾塞和达娜），但因为他最后一次去佛罗里达州博因顿海滩看望她，那是在在松鼠山的枪击事件成为全国头条新闻。那是三个月前，将近四个月前。他想起了对面犹太教堂外的场景【完312页】他祖母疗养院的街道：一排警车亮着灯，一辆消防车的白色梯子顶部飘扬着一面巨大的美国国旗。那时外婆还在独立生活。他不知道他的祖母是否注意到了这些喧嚣，如果注意到了，她是怎么理解的。他没有问。

达娜现在在佛罗里达州，帮助奶奶在一个最近才可用的辅助生活单元安顿下来。她的新房间和她的旧房间一样，布置得很好。几乎所有需要打包和搬运的东西都由该设施的工作人员处理。达娜完全有能力……