Four Letter Word

by Joshua Knelman

  How shocking to learn that what you saw in me – that what attracted you – was what you called my emptiness. A bony empty face, displaying its emptiness openly was the exact expression that, I believe, you used. Bristly, unappealing hair, a big chin, a broken nose. I know I was never a beauty, I had trouble with my teeth. But I wouldn’t have called myself empty. Far from it. I was full of many things, energy, for one. I had supported my family since Father left us for his younger, more cheerful family on the other side of town. I traveled, I had an excellent job, friends, money, professional respect. I was a woman who had done well for herself even if I didn’t write books, like you and Max and your friends.

  And if I’d written that to you, my dear? No one could ever correct you, because you always agreed with them and went further. You were a worm, a dog, a feral creature fit only to haunt the woods and crawl on the floor and beg for table scraps. Besides, those few times when we saw one another, I did feel myself empty out, like a spilt cup waiting to be filled by one precious drop from you.

  No one else has ever made me feel that way in my entire life – the life that you despised me for wanting, and warned I would never find with you. No one else had the power to turn me into a melancholy ghost of myself, sighing and wringing her hands, too weak and indecisive to move from the sofa to the chair. There would be no point in saying that it wasn’t fair. You would only go on for pages of self-laceration, like the pages in the letter that included your marriage proposal. A girl wants to show such a letter to her family, her friends, her co-workers. But I couldn’t. You had made sure of that.

  How much have you kept up, my dear? That is so hard to know. These days, women do what they please, they are just like men. But in our time, our circle, it was considered awfully modern to agree to go to Palestine with a stranger one had just met. It wasn’t something a girl would forget, but I tried. I told myself it was a joke. And then I received your first letter. The trip to Palestine was on. We needed to discuss it. Meanwhile, you felt you should warn me that you were careless, casual, lazy about correspondence. All lies, I need hardly say.

  And then the second letter, the one I pretended to lose. I didn’t know how to answer it. I don’t know what I expected. Polite chat about your family, a remark about the office, the weather in Prague, but not those pages of complaint about the torture it had been for you to write every word you sent me. Was I supposed to be flattered, dear? I put it out of my mind, until a friend mentioned she’d heard that I was engaged in a very lively correspondence with a certain Doctor Kafka, and I said yes, a lively correspondence indeed, and so it was decided.

  It wasn’t just the speed of it, the zero to sixty in sixty seconds, but the fact that you and yourself and our love affair took off and left me behind. I was good with numbers. If I’d had the time or the interest, I would have computed the ratio: the small number of our meetings compared to the large number of letters before and after, the notes arranging every detail and then reporting that you had changed your mind and then changed it again about whether the meeting would even take place.

  Certain things did interest me: that note you enclosed with the flowers you sent me. ‘The outside world is too small, too clear-cut, too truthful to contain everything that a person has inside.’ I recognised your handwriting, but you didn’t sign it. And what on earth did it mean? A more conventional woman might have been scared away for ever. And you, with your famous imagination, why could you not imagine the scene in which my family and friends gathered round and said, Flowers! Show us, dear Felice! What does your young man write?

  There was so much you never forgave me for even as you claimed to take all the blame on yourself. For example, my so-called failure to understand your work. Oh, I understood it, all right. But how could I not have been jealous of the rival that, as you seized every chance to say, you loved so much more than me. How could I not have resented the hungry beast that had to be fed, and whose need for care and feeding meant you could never have a life. A normal life was all I wanted, dear, and what you claimed to want – at the beginning. A house, the voices of children, country vacations, Sunday lunch. You had your fantasies, and that was mine. Both were equally unlikely. Those Sunday lunches were as improbable as a machine that painfully tattooed the names of one’s crimes into one’s flesh, though maybe those things were the same for you. How would I ever know? By the way, dear, I’ve spent much of my life – my normal life – in America, which, I feel I must tell you, might be hard to recognise as the country you described in your book.

  Since we are, as we frequently were, speaking of forgiveness, perhaps this is the moment to tell you about something for which I feel I might need to be forgiven. And that is the sale of the letters, dear, by which I mean your love letters to me. I don’t know if you know about this yet, it has only just happened. I have no idea how you get your information, or if you get any at all. Though matters of finance were always far below the lofty plane on which our love transpired, I must confess that I received, for them, the not inconsiderable sum of eight thousand dollars.

  I agonised for a long time, as I’m sure you can believe. My deliberations are worth noting, if only because you were always the one who got to play and replay every theme and variation, to trace and retrace every baby step forward and backward in your thinking about this or that.

  I thought about your reading Grillparzer’s letters, and Kleist’s, and I wondered if you could imagine some as yet unborn disciple of yours poring over your letters that way. I thought of how lightly you took it when my mother and sister found them, and how your only concern was that they should realise that, despite the passion and intimacy of our correspondence, we had spent only a few heavily chaperoned hours in each other’s presence. If they’d known you, they might have realised that, but that is not my point. I am merely consoling – or justifying – myself by recalling your lack of outrage at having something so tender exposed to unsympathetic eyes.

  I am not the sort of person who adds things up, who divides life into debit and credit columns marking who did what, and who owes what. I have always thought that my not being that sort of person was among the many reasons that my marriage was so happy and lasted so long – until my late husband’s recent death. And yet I think that, in our case, some accounting is required. While I was pretending to have lost that second letter, you wrote ‘The Judgment’ in one night. While you were worrying about the flowers and the card you sent, you found relief by writing that terrifying description of that poor young man waking up as a bug. And then there was that meeting in the Berlin hotel room, a conversation that now, my dear, would be called an intervention. My friend and my sister helped me demand that you be honest and stop lying. Forever, you would refer to that afternoon as ‘the tribunal’. Who was being judged, dear? Who was being punished? You went off with Ernst and his sexy girl, you had a good time, you had fun. And I stayed in Berlin, feeling as hopeless, as cursed as you claimed to feel every day of your life. Later, you would write The Trial. Don’t I get any credit for that?

  Which isn’t to say I don’t owe you some things: a tendency towards paranoia, a compulsion to analyse every word in an attempt to fathom its hidden meanings. That is how I first heard, in my grown children’s voices, the unspoken mathematics of how much my care might eventually cost, and which of them would assume it. It is they who urged me to sell the letters, so maybe you were right about the danger that children posed to your life as a writer. Or maybe you would have wanted them sold. Those letters were never written to me. They were messages from you to yourself, from you to yourself and the world. But even so, as my family has so often, and so unsubtly pointed out, I am old, my love, and your letters were all that I had.

  With love,

  Your Felice

  GRAHAM ROUMIEU

  Dear Santa,

  I guess it probably be long time between time you get letter and actually get chance to read. Bigfoot also get a lot of mail so understand it take long to get through all of th
ose word. Words hard read, especially when come from sad heart.

  Bigfoot heart sad like kitten who choke to death on pretty ribbon.

  Suppose you already know how Bigfoot feel.

  Then again, maybe you not. You only know what everyone do, naughty and nice. Bigfoot not know if you know how they feel afterward. Maybe you have no time any more to look at bigger picture. Maybe just not care. Maybe want stay cold and impartial in judgement. Bigfoot can only guess. Sit here in dark room and cry and guess until maybe just die from too much guess. Santa think of Bigfoot as nothing more than bad kid? Is that how?

  Ten year now, no phone call, no letter, no hello-visit-down-the-chimney leave Bigfoot only to wonder what going on in Santa head. Bigfoot admit I do something awful. Thought Bigfoot mean more to Santa than that though. All time we spend together, like father and son, two cool mythical bachelor dudes out on town, two kindred spirits; how can throw all away?

  Like I said, Bigfoot know I do something wrong. Betray you for dirty lady in dirty bar wrong thing to do in hindsight. That woman not worth it at all, she simply just another filthy Starfucker tramp that want to screw Bigfoot for trophy value. Just like ladies you warn me about.

  But, I no listen.

  I NO LISTEN

  I NO LISTEN

  I NO LISTEN

  ;ALDJSFALN;SKIHLS;LHK;BANO NO NO NONO!!!!!!!

  I let her seduce Bigfoot with long painted fingernail and big curly hair. Her teeth so sharp and hand so fast. Bigfoot spray scat all over barstool but she only come on stronger. We make out real hard and mate right there right on floor of TGI Friday’s. Love.

  In pool of liquor and glass and other fluid I ask her marry me.

  I just did it. It just come out like excited barf.

  She say ‘YES, YES I MARRY BIGFOOT!’ and I so happy!

  Thought greatest moment of life.

  I so happy. Say to her have to go tell best friend Santa that I find woman of dreams and want him be best man at wedding! I tell her all about Santa, how fun, how we go like party sometimes. How Santa can come over and hang out with us and barbecue at new Bigfoot family compound.

  Then things get weird. She glare at Bigfoot and she say ‘I no believe in Santa, so he no can come to wedding. Only loser believe in Santa. No marry if Bigfoot believe in Santa’.

  Bigfoot was confuse. Also now terrified because she hiss all scary as stroke Bigfoot real hard as Bigfoot mill over deep moral and philosophical dilemma. Kept looking for you to come back from bathroom but you must been taking big milk and cookie dump because you gone way way too long. Sometimes think Santa never intend to come back from bathroom.

  Bigfoot feel pressured and crack, say worst thing Bigfoot ever say in life. Was hoping sound of hand dryer or flush toilet would drown out so Santa no hear. Bigfoot say that I no believe in Santa either. Just want make her happy. Ladies like hear what ladies want hear. Bigfoot just want be happy.

  Me know now it worst thing Bigfoot ever say. Make Bigfoot sick just to think about. Guess you did hear what I say. Maybe you magic power of know everything help you know. Either way, obviously you catch wind of it because Bigfoot no have seen you since.

  You know how lonely mythical life be. Felt like Bigfoot only have one chance at true happiness. Felt like Santa would totally understand. Thought Santa understand too when no invite Santa to bachelor party or send any kind of wedding invite. Figure you just shrug off, figure you probably pretty busy anyways and might not be able to make.

  Marriage a sham and fall apart after a month. She just after Bigfoot money and when that all gone she gone too. Worst part is she leave Bigfoot on Christmas day. No woman, no hope, no self-respect, no Santa beard to cry on, and worst of all find lump of coal in stocking.

  I mean fuck, maybe I have it coming but you not think you could use a little restraint you heavy-handed fucker? Really push Bigfoot over proverbial cliff. Is any wonder Bigfoot try kill self by eating all of Christmas tree ornaments?

  No, it not.

  Anyhow, have been ten year since go by. Have try and try get hold of you. Notice you change you number, you still live at North Pole? Have sent many letters like this but no response. Expect not to get anything from this letter either. If you are reading, Bigfoot really want you to know you still mean a lot to me. You beacon of light for Bigfoot and I only truly realize when you gone. You mean a lot to Bigfoot, man. Kids write and say nice stuff to you all the time but they only want toys. See through that and know what Bigfoot write come from heart. We kindred spirit.

  Santa, I know I fuck up. Know I deserve be treated like piece of shit Bigfoot am. Even so, try, try, try to find way to forgive. Not because of Christmas stuff you obligated to do but because Bigfoot need you and is that not true meaning of Christmas?

  Love your pal,

  Bigfoot

  GAUTAM MALKANI

  Dear Mum,

  Did Dad write letters to you? I know he sent you the odd bunch of flowers when you were both young (I suppose the correct word is courting) because I found the little message cards you kept. I was clearing out some old crates and boxes in the attic earlier today and I found them in a shoebox full of your old postcards, photographs and even your old, expired passports. I’m writing this letter up in the attic, away from Kate, because she always complains that I never write letters to her. I tell Kate I live with her, so why would I write to her? If I lived with you, then I probably wouldn’t write to you either.

  Anyhow, I was going through the old crates and I found a letter I wrote to you when I was at school which I’ve kept hold of all these years. So I thought I’d give it to you now – albeit about twenty-five years late. And somehow I’ve ended up writing this letter as well, which I suppose makes this a covering letter for the original one.

  You’re probably wondering what on earth I was doing writing to you while at school. If I remember right, it was part of an English lesson. It was when I was in Mrs Arnold’s class, which means I must have been about eight or nine years old. You remember Mrs Arnold, don’t you? I think she’d asked us to write a letter to a hero or a person we admired. She was always setting us bizarre tasks like that. Perhaps she secretly hoped someone would address a letter to her. A love letter, perhaps. After all, we may have been allergic to girls back then, but I remember lots of boys in my class were infatuated with Mrs Arnold. I wasn’t, of course. I didn’t have any childish crushes on anyone. Actually, I think we weren’t supposed to address our letters to real people. They were meant to be to a character from a story. That was the rule. But I addressed mine to you, and all the other kids started teasing me. Especially Keith Mackenzie. Remember how I used to complain about him?

  Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t give the attached letter to you when I wrote it. I was being a bit pathetic, I suppose, embarrassed because Keith Mackenzie and the others had laughed at me. It wasn’t as if any of them knew about Oedipus or even Norman Bates back then – presumably most of them still don’t. But nonetheless, they considered it weird of me to have written a love letter to my own mum. Maybe it was, but I was nine years old. Who else was I supposed to love? Or even like? I didn’t even care much for Madonna or that girl from Grease – Sandy, I think – I only hung those posters on my bedroom wall to show people that I was all right, you know? I’m sorry if some of my posters offended you – you’ll be glad to know they weren’t in the boxes of junk I was sorting through today because I threw them all out when Kate first moved in. During my first cull. She doesn’t like clutter, you see. She’s into minimalism and feng shui (which she pronounces ‘fung shway’). She forced me into the attic today because apparently I’ve contorted my Chi. She always mocks my tendency to hoard things – somehow she always mocks me, full stop. You’re going to say you told me so, right? That I should have known better. I know I’ve discussed this with you many times before but finally I can appreciate why you never liked Kate. I suppose it’s as well you don’t have to live with the consequences of me ignoring your opinion and I hope this letter do
esn’t disturb your resting soul or anything. It’s just that when I found the old letter and decided I had to come by and leave it on your gravestone, I thought I’d add a few more words while I was at it. Keep you up to date.

  I suppose I just want you to know that I’ve come to realise you didn’t like Kate because you didn’t think she was good enough for me. Perhaps I always knew this and I always knew you were right. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never written Kate a love letter. I’ve never even written the little message card when I’ve given her flowers. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever written too much inside her valentine, birthday or Christmas cards either. Just ‘Dear Kate’, then whatever the card has to say, then ‘from Michael’. Not even ‘love from Michael’. That’s minimalist, right? Kate keeps things even less cluttered by throwing all those cards away the day after I give them to her. You’ll be glad to know my junk in the attic didn’t include any of Kate’s cards to me. That’s just as well, seeing as I need to clear more space up there to make room for her body … only joking – it’s just as well I’ve inherited your dark sense of humour.

  I was thinking this same thing just the other day. I was smelling your perfume and found myself trying to decide what aspect of your personality it most clearly resembled. And I decided it was either your sense of humour or that elegant way you carried yourself. I often carry your last bottle around with me – the little glass pyramid leans perfectly against my ribs. And no matter how much de-cluttering I’m forced into doing, that’s one thing I’ll never throw out. Scent is pretty strange, isn’t it, Mum? I can’t tell whether that bottle contains the scent of the perfume or the scent of you. The obvious answer – that you smelt of the perfume – doesn’t really suffice. After all, I imagine even your shampoo smelt the same as your perfume and your hair still smelt of shampoo even if you hadn’t washed it for weeks.