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a love story. That is not the sort of convergence I had in mind. This is not a story that begins with attraction and ends with a kiss. At least not between Levin and Jane.
    It’s hard to imagine a man more capable of living in his own cocoon than Levin. Art creates a certain familiarity with loneliness. And possibly with pain. Physical, mental, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all a catalyst. I don’t like to admit that because it’s depressing, but in truth pain is the stone that art sharpens itself on time after time.
    It would be easier if humans lived longer. The span is brief. It takes so long even to begin to understand the job ahead. Art is really a sort of sport. To master the leap is essential. It is the game of the leap. Practise, practise, practise, then leap. The starting point may be different for each, but the goal is the same. Do something worthwhile before you die.
    Every idea is invisible until it isn’t. Love is invisible yet we can see it. Attraction is the same. Inspiration is invisible, though it sings and dances through every day.
    In case you were wondering, I am one of many. We are here in the unseen, just as Levin’s mother suspected. We are here to help. Remember that when you are feeling uncertain.

THERE IS ANOTHER PERSON WATCHING Marina Abramović day after day. She has been dead for three years and she finds death rather as she found life—an inconvenience. Her name is Danica Abramović.
    ‘Quite a dress,’ Danica was telling the man beside her. ‘What, she thinks she’s a queen? Orthodox red. Blood red. So she remembers. She has not forgotten.’
    Nobody can see Danica staring down at the square. Nor do they hear her or smell her. Danica is observing the photographer, Marco Anelli. She has watched him arrive every morning since the show began. She has observed the way he unpacks his equipment.
    ‘Pah, no soldier, that one. Italian,’ she said, lifting her chin.
    She remembers a boy who sang her a love song in a sea cave in Dubrovnik. He had been a Marco too, probably dead now. Her daughter had this Marco in captivity for seventy-five days. It was a long time for a handsome boy like that, she thought, to be staring down his lens at Marina and the years in her face. Still, for all the MoMA guards observing the crowd, it would be Marco who would dive in front of her daughter to stop a blade or bullet. She was sure of that. For that she almost forgave him the Tom Ford sweater. She knew the lure of beautiful things.
    Danica saw leaves burning the ground red and orange. Light running through trees like water. The fabric of her lungs was molten silver and her throat mother of pearl. No fear. No flag. No wind. Hadn’t that been a Rumi poem? She saw ahead a man on a white horse and all the breath went out of her. He rode between trees, dancing between bullets. Vojo!
    ‘They cannot kill me, Danica,’ he shouted to her. He was young with the eyes of a tiger, wild and full of light. ‘If you believe in something you can never die.’
    She had nursed him on her lap. She had staunched the blood. She had rolled him over and saw that his back was riddled with bullet holes.
    ‘Fill them with tobacco!’ he said, laughing.
    Her hands were big and clumsy as she plugged the wounds. She rolled him back and his tiger’s eyes were undimmed.
    ‘We are the dragons of the past,’ he said.
    After the war they had married. She had borne him two children, first Marina and then her brother Velimir. Vojo said to her, his voice raw with šljivovica , ‘The age of heroes is gone. Nobody believes any more.’
    ‘Why would we die for our beliefs when we can live with our doubts?’ she asked, because she wanted to see him smile. If only he still smiled at her.
    ‘It was all theatre, Dani. You know that. There is nothing left to believe in.’
    ‘Believe in me. Believe in our children. We have a daughter and a son and they will need everything we can give them.’
    He wasn’t a hero then. Not President