Good on Paper

by Rachel Cantor

  Until that time, I thought, he has us. He’ll always have us.

  You saved me, he said more than once. You saved me, was my standard reply, taking us in when I was pregnant—but it was more than that.

  My father and I had waited for my mother at the airport, ready to return home after our first sabbatical in Rome. She must have been delayed, he said, white-faced. We’ll get on the plane, she’ll be on the next one for sure. At Kennedy, a light snow falling, we met the next flight, and the next.

  I’d thought all losses permanent till Ahmad came back into my life.

  I walked up behind him and kissed the top of his head.

  Thank you, I whispered. Thank you.

  17

  TRADUTTORE/TRADITORE

  It was raining the next morning when I took Romei’s pages back to Cuppa Joe’s and read them again, this time as a translator.

  I’d once loved translation, before I got all complicated about it. Weighing poetic elements, deciding which to highlight, which to sacrifice—because not everything can survive translation. The eleven-syllable Italian line doesn’t transfer easily to our English pentameter: you’d think it would exceed the capacity of our ten-syllable line but, being syllable rich, Italian condenses at the rate of four English feet per line. What’s a translator to do? Preserve the length of the original line by padding the translation? Sacrifice meter for concision, semantic accuracy, the original line breaks? It’s something of a lose-lose situation. Hence the age-old notion that she who translates is both translator and traitor: traduttore e traditore.

  Over my computer I’ve taped a quote from Nabokov, who knew something of the chasm between languages, and strongly preferred the “literal” to the “literary”: “I want translations with copious footnotes,” he wrote, “footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to the top of this or that page so as to leave only the gleam of one textual line between commentary and eternity. I want such footnotes and the absolutely literal sense, with no emasculation and no padding—I want such sense and such notes for all the poetry in other tongues that still languishes in ‘poetical’ versions, begrimed and beslimed by rhyme.”

  Indeed!

  At Joe’s, I identified two questions I’d need to think about. First, Romei’s Song of Songs fragments: had he played with the original? I had no idea. I’d have to consult some English Bible translations. Then there was the matter of Romei’s first poem. If Dante’s first poem describes a dream (in which Love feeds Dante’s heart to Beatrice), Romei’s describes a wet dream: his inkless pen, refilled by Esther, explodes onto the page in the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy (a sonnet about an inkless pen refilled, exploding). I’d have to check, but I was sure it had been fashioned out of fragments of Romei’s earlier work, recast here out of context as something new.

  His “pen,” for example (his penna, or quill) was free-floating in the earlier poems, never associated with anything other than itself (penna qua penna); now it resonated: it meant pen, but also wing, the poet’s words, the uomo di penna (the man of letters), even the poet himself, as in Italian, penna can be a figure for writer. Penna, penna, penna. Dante’s birds fly with plural wings (penne), but in Romei, one might well ask: What is the sound of one penna flying—maybe the sound of Icarus spennar (defeathered) and falling?

  How I wanted Benny’s opinion! I looked out of Joe’s window, hoping to see Benny on the street. Then I could “run into him,” let something slip.

  Bad girl.

  But I would need Benny, wouldn’t I? He could tell me about the Song! He knew everything there was to know about the Bible. His rates would be reasonable: a single vegan donut oughta do it.

  It had stopped raining. I gathered my books and papers, waved goodbye to Joe, and rushed to the Den, where I emailed Benny and faxed Romei: I need a Bible consultant, Benny’s a Hebrew scholar, could I possibly show him Romei’s work?

  Did I specify that I only wanted to discuss a few lines? Why split hairs?

  18

  REAL PEOPLE

  After dinner, Andi staged a Miss America pageant for her dolls. Ahmad played Bob Barker (in the left corner, weighing in at a sturdy seven ounces, is … Julie? Julie is a corn husk doll from the Indian Plains. She likes to water-ski and … what? Make brownies! Please welcome Julie!). As judge of this solemn entertainment, I tried not to laugh as Tink and her teddies strutted their stuff down a Wheaties-box catwalk.

  When my phone rang, I didn’t want to answer.

  Romei didn’t say hello: He just wanted to know, did I get the first pages? What did I think? He was calling from Rome, there was a strange delay in his responses.

  Why would the Great Man care about my opinion?

  Time for a station identification, I whispered.

  What do you mean what do I think? I asked, buying time as I slipped into Andi’s room. I only got ten pages. What happened to the rest?

  I send you the first part; the rest is not finish.

  Not finished? How could he know the beginning if he hadn’t written the ending? He’d hired a translator before he’d even finished the work? I didn’t believe him. He was testing me, just as I thought, prepared to cut his losses!

  So what are you thinking? he asked.

  As it happened, I’d scribbled my “thinking” in my Door Number Two notebook just that afternoon.

  As best I can tell, I said, your object is to write a mature, postexilic love story, an inversion of Dante’s youthful, pre-exilic fantasy. Undoubtedly, you hope to define an ultimate poetic, a poetic perhaps related to love, or perhaps to eros, more broadly defined. Indeed, the tension between Dante’s narcissistic form, concerned with the solitary writing subject and the inaccessible love object, and Esther’s interest in a mutual, embodied passion, where the beloved co-authors the text, as it were, is established early and suggests a competing poetics, a dialectic which I assume will be resolved by the end of the book.

  I looked up. Ahmad had poked his head into the room.

  Real people don’t talk like that, he whispered, then left the room.

  Silence.

  I took a breath and sat down on Andi’s bed.

  And the story? he asked. What are you thinking?

  What do you mean?

  Are you interesting in this?

  Was I interested in his story? As it happened, I wasn’t. I suspected the author’s purpose to be self-serving: the world should forgive him for breaking up a marriage. Assuming the world cared—and I didn’t think it did. I certainly didn’t.

  I’m reserving judgment, I said. The characters don’t seem quite real.

  He made a sound like a snort. I tried to explain: Why would a lovely stranger initiate erotic play-acting in a park? Was the narrator that irresistible? By his own admission he wasn’t. Would she turn out to be something other than a projection of the narrator’s erotic fantasies?

  I knew I was talking about his wife, but I couldn’t help myself: “Esther” and the narrator were characters in a work of art. It wasn’t my job to “like” them, or pretend they were real!

  This is the response of a spinster, Miss Greene. You think I give one fig for poetics? You are not the reader you think you are. I call again in one week.

  And he was gone.

  Fuck him! I thought, and pounded Andi’s guilt quilt with my fist. Where does he get off talking to me like that!

  He called me a bad reader! Me?! A bad reader!

  What had I missed? I hadn’t missed anything. Had I?

  No! I thought. Real people don’t talk like that! Real people have it out, they say what they mean! If he thinks I’ve missed something, he should say so!

  Spinster! He called me a spinster?

  I’d had my share of affairs, but I didn’t bring them home, I didn’t allow them to become Andi’s concern. Andi came first for me, always, which was maybe why I disliked Esther: her happy ending was decided, but what would happen to the child as Esther played out her mutual, her embodied, her co-authored passion?

&
nbsp; Spinster? I was a spinster. What of it?

  19

  MORNING PEOPLE

  I slept too few hours, got up to see Andi off to camp, then fell back asleep. I woke up again some time later, found Ahmad still in his bathrobe.

  When I became a mother, I’d had no choice but to become a morning person; Ahmad never quite made the transition. His mornings with Andi, he was usually silent (hair on end, pajama bottoms inside out), no doubt to spare us his ill humor.

  Late night? he asked.

  Romei had called me a bad reader. I’d stayed up half the night trying to prove him wrong. I reread his pages and Vita Nuova, then read them again. My opinion hadn’t changed. No need to explain this to Ahmad, no need to tell him he might be right about Romei.

  Besides, he looked barely awake. I lifted his wrist and looked at his watch.

  Ten? Don’t you have a department meeting?

  I called in sick.

  Ahmad never called in sick, not even when he was sick. I waited.

  Mirabella’s been in touch.

  Mirabella? I asked, leaning over to put a hand on his shoulder. It had been ten years since his ex-wife, forced by her brothers, had taken their sons from the U.S. to Karachi.

  He explained.

  Though in purdah, Mirabella had gained access to the Internet through her cousin Shamseh, who’d finagled a laptop from her parents, saying she wanted to write ghazals for her fiancé, Jamal. Her younger brother had hooked her up to the Internet—her parents had no idea. Shamseh now had pen pals all around the world, she visited chat rooms disguised as Fork, the nongendered performance artist; Geraldine, the day trader; Lola, the Lesbian Leather Girl—all genres she’d become familiar with on the Net. A disciplined woman, she downloaded Shakespearian sonnets, spent one hour each day translating them into passable Urdu, then presented them to her parents, who planned to have them printed on vellum as a gift for Jamal.

  No one seemed to recognize that they weren’t, strictly speaking, ghazals.

  Young Shamseh, aware that Mirabella had experience of the world, confided her several secrets—the existence of the Internet portal, her increasing conviction that she was not exactly normal. Mirabella, intoxicated with the thought of escaping purdah, however briefly, told Shamseh she thought her desires entirely normal, aligned with Allah’s plan for the world, there were plenty of girls like her in the West, yes, it was true what they said about Ahmad, but he was a good man, God-fearing in his own way. Though of course she thought Shamseh an abomination.

  In time, as Shamseh shared her correspondence with a certain Glenda, who didn’t know that “Lola” was a Pakistani in purdah, promised to a man twice her age, Mirabella even came to wish her well. I think I love her, Shamseh said, referring to Glenda, black kohl tears slipping down her cheeks. What’s wrong with me?

  Mirabella found Ahmad on the Web. She was surprised to learn that he was no longer at the think tank: he’d become an academic! And here was Hassan, their oldest, about to finish secondary school! Not even her family’s connections could get him into university. But in the U.S., insh’Allah, he could go to college, maybe the university at which Ahmad taught. She would appeal to her brothers: Hassan had to continue his education, how else could he make a name for himself? Ahmad would pay for it—it was his obligation as a father, the least he could do after the shame he’d brought them. The boy was a good Muslim: he wouldn’t be swayed by his father’s perversions.

  Her plan: Hassan would go to the U.S. first, then the others. They would stay, Mirabella could visit and eventually stay on herself. Her sons would be of age, no one could make them go back. Maybe she could even send for Shamseh. Would Ahmad help? Would he pay for the boy’s college?

  It took Mirabella all night to work up to this request. First, she wrote about the boys—Ahmad’s first news of them in a decade (the youngest was a squash player, the middle favored Ahmad’s father, and so on). She said her brothers had intercepted her letters; Ahmad didn’t believe her, but said he’d do what she asked—if Hassan lived with him during school vacations.

  You’re kidding! I said.

  Ahmad shook his head.

  The bitch is using me, of course. I’ll let her, because my ends justify her means. But she’s desperate—she’ll pursue this plan …

  Even if it means breaking your heart all over again, I said.

  Well put. I have no way of knowing if a reunion with Hassan is likely or impossible. And this was three days ago!

  I’m sure it’ll work out, I said. Why wouldn’t it? I put my arms around my best friend’s neck and kissed his hair, silky like that of a child. He clasped my hands in his cold, dry fingers and kissed them back.

  Do you ever think our decisions too costly? he asked.

  Don’t you ever think that! I said, moving around so he could see my face. Ever! You are the bravest person I know! You did exactly what you needed to do.

  I’m a role model, I know.

  Look at me, I said. You are a role model! Your sons would be proud to know you! They will be proud to know you!

  Ahmad just shook his head and left the room.

  20

  WITHOUT YOU, WHO KNOWS

  The next afternoon I received another fax from Romei: I attach the next section. You may share with Mr. Benny but I pay him no fee. Please fax the first. Also photo of your little daughter.

  Fax the first? I’d just gotten it three days before! Was he mad? He wanted Andi’s photo? How strange was that? But I had permission to work with Benny, so I gathered my King James, Romei’s pages, my Door Number Two: Notes for a New Life notebook, and went to Joe’s, where I bought a half dozen vegan donuts, tithing one to Nate, who bowed.

  Before going into the bookstore, I stopped at Benny’s side display. Customers who guessed its organizing principle (talking animals, revisionist gothic) got free stuff, usually a book from the display. Today? Millennial madness.

  Marie’s hair was a cornflower blue, to match her corduroy overalls, and braided in two tight braids that stuck out over her shoulders. On her nose she’d penciled blue freckles; from her ears dangled blue-tinted condom earrings—handy in an emergency, I guessed.

  He in?

  Who? she replied. I controlled the urge to slap her.

  Benny.

  No, she said, and returned to her word find.

  I smiled and walked toward the steps, looking over my shoulder to catch the defeat in her eyes, but she was immersed, scratching her forehead with sky-blue fingernails.

  Benny wasn’t in his annex. Too embarrassed to return directly downstairs, I entered the office, thinking to leave him a note, taking care not to trip on the boxes that surrounded his desk. On the walls, photos of Gilgul alumni, many famous now, no longer in need of Benny’s tender mercies. Also a few like me who’d missed the posterity bus.

  The desk took up most of the room. Benny had found it in the Garment District—it had a built-in ruler along its front for measuring bolts of cloth, and was covered with invoices and order forms and oversize Hebrew books, their titles stamped in gold on leather bindings. Also a newish-looking copy of Vita Nuova, an industrial stapler and, in the back, an ancient computer with a scrolling screensaver that read, Breathe! Breathe! On top of the keyboard, my email, printed out, with the words Shir haShirim written on top.

  Benny was doodling my name?

  I was saved the embarrassment of searching for other evidence of interest by the plaintive mewling of a kitten. One of Marla’s brood, hidden by Marla for reasons of her own, and forgotten. For a cat with so much practice, Marla was one lousy mother. I put the donuts down and searched between boxes, in boxes, and finally under Benny’s desk … where amid the dust bunnies and crumpled bits of paper, a decaying cherry pit and something that might have been mouse droppings, I saw a photo propped against the wall, of two fat men laughing, their arms around each other. I reached for it, looked at it in the light.

  Topeka.

  Benny was wearing the black beret he’d favor
ed during his Santa Claus phase; Romei was holding a book in the air as if it were a trophy. In purple ink in the right-hand corner, an inscription:

  To Jellyroll,

  Without you, who knows?

  Yours, Romei

  I didn’t notice if Marie watched me as I left.

  21

  GHOST IN THE ANNEX

  Benny called. Strange, he said. I seem to have a ghost in my annex.

  Why didn’t you tell me you knew Romei? I asked. On my way home I’d slammed his millennial madness window with my hand, which earned me jeers from the boom box–bearing boys in Slice of Park.

  It was you! Benny said. Donuts are a novel calling card, but you might have left a note.

  Why didn’t you tell me you knew Romei?

  I published his first English translations in Gilgul—I thought you knew.

  Why would he think I knew that?

  Why would you think I knew that?

  Didn’t I say?

  Never mind, I said. For some reason, Benny wasn’t telling me the truth.

  Isn’t that why you asked me about him?

  Never mind, I said.

  Where did you find the photo?

  I didn’t answer. It had been so plainly hidden under the desk. And recently: the photo was clean despite the dust bunny convention. I thought about this a moment and hung up. Fuck him.

  When the phone rang again, I let it go to voicemail.

  We seem to have been cut off, Benny said in his message. Or maybe not. Listen, I published Romei long before he was famous. We can talk about Shir haShirim whenever you want—I’ve put together some commentaries and … Oh, shit, he said, and hung up.

  Shir haShirim—it wasn’t a play on my name! I should have known. Shir was song—I knew that: Benny’s name for me was shir chadash, new song. Shir haShirim was the Song of Songs. I’d thought Benny had been doodling my name, when in fact he’d been lying—about what I couldn’t guess.