Good on Paper

by Rachel Cantor

  No! I said too quickly. Can you see me with a rabbi?

  What’s wrong with rabbis? Ahmad asked with a half smile.

  Everything’s God-this and God-that! I said, and poured myself a double.

  I’m at People of the Book a lot and I’ve never heard Benny talk about God.

  If you’re a rabbi, you believe in things, you have certainties.

  Like Dante, with bagels.

  Exactly. Then there’s the ritual, keeping up with the Yiddishisms …

  You keep up with the Joneses, why not the Yiddishisms?

  We couldn’t have a life together. It’s obvious.

  Ahmad shrugged.

  Besides, he’s seeing someone.

  Ah. There are donuts in the kitchen, but Andi and I ate the good ones.

  I was ravenous, I realized. I brought the box to the table, though it contained only what Andi called bald donuts, barely worth the calories.

  I looked for the Philosopher’s Tea the other day, I said, but couldn’t find it.

  The box was empty; I threw it away.

  Really? I asked, hoping Ahmad couldn’t sense how crestfallen I was.

  A scanner arrived, by the way. I insisted to DHL that I was Shira Greene.

  I laughed.

  Hey, I said, I think I know why Romei is so interested in translating his work into English!

  Oh? Ahmad had surrendered again to his hazy gloom.

  His wife doesn’t speak Italian, can you imagine? Benny told me.

  Again with the Benny, always with the Benny. How does he know?

  Oops! I shouldn’t have said. He knows Romei, and Esther. Don’t say anything.

  You’re confusing me, Shira. It’s too early. I heard you come in last night, by the way.

  (I may have tripped on the umbrella stand; I may have reprimanded said umbrella stand.)

  Be careful, he said. I don’t want to have to pick up the pieces.

  There’s always another umbrella stand, I said, knowing that wasn’t what he meant at all.

  Ho, ho, he said, but not in a jolly way.

  I picked up a bald donut.

  I haven’t heard from her, if that’s what you’re wondering.

  Really? I asked.

  Not since I agreed to cooperate.

  You must be on email day and night, I said.

  The time difference doesn’t help, he said.

  I’m sorry, I said.

  Ahmad shrugged.

  No Connecticut if Hassan stays where he is, right? I wanted to ask, but didn’t.

  I’ve made a cock-up of my life, Shira. Mistake after mistake. I look back, though, and don’t see how I could have done differently.

  You’ve done good, Ahmad, I promise!

  Maybe, he said, maybe not. If I ever lost you guys, if I ever lost Andi …

  Why would you lose us? Why would you lose Andi?

  He gave me a sharp look, then softened.

  Right, he said. Why ever?

  It wasn’t an apology, but it would do.

  34

  THE CHARMING CHIASMUS

  I went online and found an email from Benny: Thanks for the visit. Sorry if I acted weird. Love trouble. (Don’t you love that section in Vita Nuova where Dante talks about love as if it were susceptible to reason, then concludes that love makes him unreasonable?)

  It was true! As Dante writes poems of love, he muses: love is good because it keeps us from thinking vile thoughts. But it’s also not good because the more faithful he is, the harder his trials. He writes a sonnet, then, saying he’s confused, his theme is confusion.

  There was more: I’ve left a present for you. In the lobby.

  I ran downstairs like a child. There, in a padded envelope, The Song of Songs, Ariel and Chana Bloch translation.

  Excited, and hungry, I brought it to the Eight Bar.

  At night, the Eight Bar was a blues club where dapper old men played harmonica and called other old men up to the stage: Sonny Boy, is that you? Stormin’ Eddie, get up here! while awestruck undergrads looked on, clutching their collectible albums. I’d been something of a regular before I became a loco parenti. I found a booth in back, well beyond the reach of drunken darts, and ordered a junior-size Junior Wellsburger.

  I’d read my share of scripture in grad school, but of the Song I knew only what Bernard of Clairvaux had said of it eight and a half centuries ago. Bernard, because he was Dante’s biggest crush, able to travel farther in Paradise than even Beatrice herself. In his lifetime, Bernard was best known for his eighty-six sermons on the first two chapters of the Song—yes, eighty-six sermons on a mere eighteen verses, sermons about the redemptive power of love, the intimate relationship between Christ and His flock. Bernard was clear that the Song was not an erotic tale. No, it was the very opposite of an erotic tale! There was nothing carnal about that book, he insisted, nothing whatsoever.

  Reading the Song now for the first time, I could see why he needed eighty-six sermons to make his point. For a description of purely “spiritual” love, the Song is all about the senses. The sound of a lover’s voice, the singing of birds. The vision of a lover’s beauty. The taste of milk, honey, and wine. Lovers’ bodies exuberant—dancing, running, bounding, chasing—and luxuriant—embracing, leaning, resting in bowers, on couches, in beds. All of nature flowing, flourishing, flowering.

  And the lovers, the Shulamite and her “king”: they believe in each other, they believe in themselves; they do not hesitate, they will not hold back. It was hard to imagine a love story more different from that of Vita Nuova. If Dante only looks at Beatrice, if he only rarely hears her speak, and certainly never tastes, touches, or smells her, these lovers revel in senses that blur boundaries (two points, no longer clearly separate, become one point, which is the point).

  The Song has two heroes, moreover. Neither is a symbol, an idea of perfection, neither waits patiently or in peril while the other fulfills his destiny. Quest is unnecessary: in their happy world of lyric fulfillment, they have no need for heroes or new life, no need to look behind Door Number Two.

  My beloved is mine, and I am his. Close enough to I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. The source, I was beginning to understand, of the inscription on my father’s wedding ring.

  I called Benny.

  I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine, I said.

  It’s a bit early for declarations, he said.

  Where from? I asked.

  The charming chiasmus? he said. King James, Song of Songs, 2:16. Ani ledodi ve dodi li.

  Nicer in King James than the Bloch version, I said. Thanks for that, by the way.

  What’s that? Benny was talking with someone who wasn’t me. Be right there, pumpkin. Sorry, Shira, gotta go.

  My heart beat too quickly, tears welled.

  Benny’s pumpkin. His voice, speaking to her, was kind, it was gentle. Had anyone ever spoken to me that way? You don’t get to be pumpkin shagging your boss, not if you’re a temp.

  I could (almost) imagine Benny and his Maid Marie luxuriating in their fragrant bower, Benny making plaits of Marie’s green hair as she strained to finish her word find. But I couldn’t imagine myself there. I tried! I tried to imagine myself—with Benny, with anyone—shooting spikenard or dropping myrrh, but I couldn’t. I could imagine desire, I could imagine seasonal flings, but not tender reciprocity, not the charming chiasmus. Even at fourteen, when I danced for T. in the chem lab, I was no Shulamite—I called myself Salomé, veiled even then. When I imagined love now, it was Love Lite I imagined—or, more often, the end of love: waiting at the airport, the ring on T.’s finger, my father being rolled away.

  Prelapsarian Shira, innocent Shira, Shira before T., Shira before marriage, the Shir haShirim Shira was gone, the Flying Girl grounded.

  I looke down, was startled to find a Junior Wellsburger sitting cold on an oval plate, next to a side of Jimmy Witherspoonbread. Freshmen were tossing darts, drunk already, or pretending to be. I found I’d lost my appetite.

/>   35

  WHAT COMES AFTER ONCE UPON A TIME?

  I finished trotting “Call” and “Screen,” and this is what I found: aside from the echoes in Romei’s first poem, my lexicon of oft-repeated words contained just one entry: Romei’s omnipresent penna (his pen, wing, man of letters, writer). Had I missed something? He repeated the usual articles and prepositions (I figured rather frequently; she almost as often), but nothing substantive—no important nouns or modifiers. As if the New Life involved finding a new word for every situation, as if nothing I’d ever done could help me now.

  I was working on the park bench scene, when Ahmad stuck his head in the study.

  Our precious needs help with her homework, he said.

  Huh? I asked, not looking up. You help her.

  I’m due at the Temple of Learning.

  After dinner. Tell her I’ll help her then.

  Shira, Ahmad said, raising his voice, she needs help now! You need to help her now.

  I looked up. Ahmad was holding a wastebasket overflowing with crumpled paper. I pulled out a paper ball. Laboriously perfect block letters, Once upon a time … then an error, a “t” that slipped below the line, scratched out furiously with a dull pencil.

  They’re all like that, he said. She’s been at it for an hour, apparently.

  Andi was seated at her little desk, her face grim with concentration, her Observations Notebook closed under her elbow, her children’s dictionary open to P.

  You already have homework? I asked. You’ve only been in school three days!

  Exactly. It’s all downhill from here.

  I leaned over her shoulder to see what she was writing, then pulled up a chair.

  How do you spell precisely? she said. I can’t find it in this stupid dictionary.

  How about you tell me what you want to write, I’ll write it down, then you can copy it.

  Mrs. Chao says we can’t copy.

  She means you have to make it up.

  I am making it up.

  What’s your story about?

  It’s about once upon a time there was a boy named Ovidio …

  You’re writing about your friend?

  It’s about once upon a time.

  Sweetie, I don’t think it’s a good idea to write about your friend. He might not like it.

  It’s my story. Ahmad said it was okay.

  He did? Well, maybe it depends on what you write. What happens to him?

  I don’t know. I’ve only written Once upon a time. I keep making mistakes. Look! she said, and swirled around, then swirled around again. Where’s my wastepaper basket? Where is it?

  Ahmad took it.

  Wow, she said, shaking her braids. He’s always playing tricks on me! I think that’s what he does best.

  I laughed.

  If Ahmad goes to Connecticut, I think I should go with him.

  I stopped laughing.

  Why? Why do you say that?

  Because he’ll be lonely there without me.

  Why do you think that? I asked, and had to keep myself from crying out, What about me?

  Because I’m the only one who likes what he likes.

  Conservative economics? I thought. Picking up boys at barber shops?

  Don’t you think I’d be lonely without you? I asked.

  No, Andi said, applying pencil to paper. You’ve got Benny.

  Benny’s just a friend. Besides you’re my baby.

  I’m not a baby, Andi said, putting down her pencil and looking at me, exasperated.

  You’ll always be my baby.

  She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was pleased.

  Did I spell Ovidio right? she asked, leaning into me, her braid tickling my thigh.

  Yes, sweetie.

  She squinted at me.

  I’ll ask Ahmad when he finishes his stupid class.

  You’re spelling it right, I promise.

  You could just be saying that.

  Why would I do that?

  So you can go back to work.

  I’m staying right here while you write your story, I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. That way you can ask me anything you want. Okay?

  What do you think happens after Once upon a time?

  I wish I knew, princess, I wish I knew.

  •

  Andi read her story out loud at Friday Night Dinner: Ovidio lived in a cave where he hid from his mother and father. Sometimes his mother fought with his father. That’s when he went to the cave. Ovidio had a broken nose but he wasn’t nosy.

  I had to bite my tongue while she composed her masterwork, not to influence her. At one point, I took a break in our bathroom, looked at Mr. Bubble, her Winnie the Pooh shampoo, and wondered: Was Andi okay? Was the friction between her loco parenti scarring her for life? Did she need Sigmund? My funny, my beautiful, my startling child! My baby—look at her!

  The Polaroid Ahmad had given her was on a shelf. I snapped a shot of her hunched over her desk, the tip of her tongue sticking out as she crossed out yet another word.

  Mo-omm! she cried. Look what you made me do!

  But there she was now, smiling, triumphant, standing behind her uneaten dinner, peas hidden inexpertly under some mashed potatoes. The End. We clapped; Ahmad gave me a look.

  Mommy says it’s spelled right, she said to Ahmad, but I think you should look.

  He scanned the page.

  It’s perfect! he exclaimed. I have never seen such perfect writing!

  See, Mambo! I told you.

  Know what Chao means in Italian? Ahmad asked.

  Don’t, I said, hiding my smile behind my hand.

  What? Andi asked. It means food, right?

  No, it means hello and goodbye both.

  Only if you don’t know if you’re coming or going, my baby said.

  36

  RIGHT! WRITE!

  It was Friday evening. Ahmad was telling Andi a bedtime story, and I was in my room, looking out at People of the Book. It seemed ages since Benny and I had talked, though it had been just two days. I shouldn’t, I knew, but I did: I pulled out my cell phone.

  Marie answered, wanted to know who was calling.

  Tell him it’s Hester Prynne.

  Who?

  I spelled it for her. She put the phone down, didn’t ask if I could hold.

  Shabbat shalom! Gut yontif! Benny finally answered.

  Kasha varnishkes! I said.

  Who is this? Benny asked.

  Shira! Who else?

  Shanah tovah! Happy new year! Can I call you after the weekend? It’s not a good time.

  Locusts? I wanted to ask. Frogs?

  I’m getting ready to close, he said. Rosh Hashana.

  Rosh Hashana! I said. Too bad! I mean, congratulations!

  Benny laughed.

  Happy birthday of the world, I blurted.

  Thank you, but it starts in an hour and I’ve got a sermon to write.

  Right, I said. Write! Ha, ha.

  I got off the phone and stared at myself in the mirror.

  Watch out, Shira, I said. Watch out.

  37

  BY A CLEAR STREAM

  The next morning I found a fax from Romei, a new section titled “Muse.” And a note:

  You say Dante experienced love only in his imagination. You are right, of course, to an extent. His dreams and visions, and therefore his poems, are inspired at first by illusions (the figure of Love, his screen ladies). But increasingly he locates his muse outside himself.

  His English was better than he’d let on! If he alienated every translator in town, he could easily translate his Vita Quasi Nova himself.

  The later poems in Vita Nuova are inspired or commissioned, he continued, by ladies, the brother, various pilgrims, the mysterious visitors. These are not constructs of Dante’s imagination but “real” people, and the poems he writes for them reflect an increasing engagement with the real. His later poems praising Beatrice also represent an advance on his earlier, more self-centered work. A
s his love grows, so does he.

  Yes, I thought, burning my mouth on my coffee, after Beatrice is dead and more of an idea than ever!

  Your rigid judgments do not allow for the possibility of change. To put it in terms you should understand: what good is a story if nothing happens?

  Where is this photo of Andrea?

  I laughed and scanned the photo I’d taken of Andi at her desk, then faxed it to Romei, together with a note:

  Yeah, whatever. So Dante accepts commissions, so he is inspired by “real” people, so he has a “muse,” whatever that means. So he stops writing woe-is-me poems. This doesn’t mean he changes—not really. This doesn’t mean he learns how to love.

  Then I said, What the hey, and mailed the photo to Aunt Emma, or Elisheva, as she now called herself, though this would mean receiving a photo of her in return—in the scarf she wore so the West Bank wind wouldn’t wig out her wig.

  Which inspired me to find my daughter. She was at the dining room table, coloring in her Insects of the World coloring book.

  What kind of bug is that? I asked.

  A green bug.

  Is that its scientific name? I asked.

  Mom!

  Up, child! I exclaimed. It’s time to exercise your limbs. Come!

  Where’s Ahmad?

  In Brooklyn, fixing his car. Come! First-to-get-to-Joe’s-while-also-checking-both-ways-before-she-crosses-the-street gets a happy-face cookie!

  Once at Joe’s, I had to grab Andi to keep her from stepping on the twins, who were playing with the Barnard student’s shoelaces. I got a double for me and a coconut dandy for Nate, who, oddly, was nowhere to be found.

  Andi ate her cookie while leaning into me on our Riverside Park bench.

  It’s pretty great living here, isn’t it? I said, my arm around her. When she didn’t reply, I elaborated: the playground, Joe’s, Cohn’s Cones.

  Can I have an ice cream later? she said.

  I considered that a victory. Sure, I said. Then she asked for, and I produced, a Handiwipe from my mother’s bag of tricks.

  Bye! she shouted, waving furiously, as if she were off on a polar expedition.