Good on Paper

by Rachel Cantor

  Don’t run, I cried pointlessly, thinking of her cast. Then I arranged everything on my bench—Romei’s pages, Andi’s pail and shovel, her Observations Notebook, my iced mocha, Andi’s Wonder Woman Band-Aids, a jumbo pack of goldfish.

  The Hudson glimmered. I closed my eyes, heard the trickle of the fountain behind me, imagined myself as Esther on her bench, smiled to think that a singular Romeo might someday watch me from a tree: Benny, for example, his long legs dangling from a branch, playing a flute like an oversize sprite.

  Down girl! The only woman Benny wanted anywhere near his flute was narcoleptic Marie.

  So what was Romei’s task now? At this point in Vita Nuova, Dante addresses poems to his muse. He runs into her at a party—his entire body throbs, he is abandoned by his spirits, he leans against a fresco for relief. The ladies laugh at his distress, not understanding the cause of his transformation. But this sighting occasions more poems—poems about romantic anguish in which the figure of Pity frequently appears.

  Then Beatrice injures him by not saying hello. Heartbroken, he tells the ladies who surround him that while his joy once lay in her greeting, now he must locate it in something that cannot be withdrawn. His new path? Words of praise! He resolves to write not of romantic anguish but of the perfections of Beatrice.

  Like most of us, Dante finds change easy to talk about, but the prospect overwhelms him. He dithers, he’s beset by fear and trembling. Finally, while traveling by a “clear stream,” he receives a first line … The result: a canzone describing Beatrice’s perfections.

  So what would Romei do? Esther was his muse, presumably. He’d praise her, right?

  Not exactly.

  I’d thought that Esther and Romei, once “liberated” from her husband, would be speechless. In fact, their first act is to dine al fresco in Trastevere, Esther’s Samsonite propped against a wall covered with obscene chalk drawings. Romei avoids her eye, tosses crumbs to urchin cats, sketches nonsense syllables onto a paper tablecloth. He imagines himself a poet Picasso, whose scrawled words will one day pay for dinner, for he is down to his last lire.

  Esther, meanwhile, cannot sit still: she spills wine, complains of pains in her hip, gives her ragú back to the waiter, insists she’d ordered carbonara, though she doesn’t eat pork. She tastes her penne, vomits them onto the cobblestones.

  Yes, more penne, not filled by Esther this time, but voided, spennar, like Icarus.

  You will live with me, Romei says, as if this is a comfort. She wipes her mouth on the tablecloth, looks at him in horror. He looks back at her in dwindling light as if from a mountain top, imagines words falling from her mouth, heavy and broken—and from these on the tablecloth he fashions poems. A blotch between lines three and four represents a smear of sugo, between six and seven, a drop of wine, or so a sidebar explains.

  In the days that follow, Esther’s languor, attractive in a lover, is revealed as pathological passivity: she is by turns depressed, hysterical, withdrawn. The passion that brought them together proves no stronger than a wishbone, snapped in two by Esther’s loss, the rigors and banalities of everyday life. Esther refuses Romei her bed, brings men to the flat—foreigners, thieves, CIA operatives. She acts not out of desire, nor to make Romei jealous, but to give form to her despair. When the men finish their business, she sends them off and crawls onto Romei’s lap, babbling, her words slippery and disconnected. He croons at her—in Italian, Romanian too. Her babbling, his crooning (increasingly insincere), neither understood by the other, is the subject of another poem, a long-limbed Whitmanian knock-off, the wind knocked out of every line. The Song of Me-Me-Me taken to its solipsistic extreme.

  Housekeeping is a nightmare. Esther can’t cook, her habits are slovenly. She takes the pittances Romei earns from interpreting, from acting as guide to visiting journalists, and spends them on imported Rice Krispies, fat loaves of American bread. Their phone is disconnected: she’s been calling overseas, calling everyone she knows, trying to find her husband. No one will help: even her mother has disowned her. Romei shouts at her in Italian: get up! get up! Curled on a couch, unmoving, she asks in English if she should take up crochet. Croce? Romei wonders. Croce? The cross? Does his Jewish wife wish to convert?

  They know so little about each other. Esther is allergic to cigarettes; Romei always smokes when he writes. Esther is a morning person; Romei likes to sleep in. Romei, despite his slow start, is swollen with ambition; Esther has only her past.

  She is difficult, complains of wrist pain, leg pain, she sells her mother’s pearls, forgets to attend job interviews. Awaking with a rash across her nose and cheeks, she stays in bed, pretends she is a child in Connecticut. Romei grows tired of her babbling, her complaints, her wild-eyed wandering. There are circles under her eyes, as if she hasn’t slept, yet she spends whole days in bed. Romei urges her to continue her translation. It’s a lie, she says, the Song of Songs, translation, all of it a lie. He agrees but thinks her lazy. One morning she presents him with a handful of her hair—did it fall out or did she pull it?—he finds he doesn’t care: it’s her fault, surely, something she has brought upon herself.

  Their bond is a negative one: held together by the drama that brought them together, his guilt and sense of obligation, her inability to imagine anything different, they live a life of crossed purposes, missed opportunities, swallowed outrage and, not incidentally, squalor. But Romei writes. Out of this impossible relationship, out of their perpetual misunderstanding and disappointment, Romei, no longer “blocked,” discovers the anti-vocabulary for his art. He writes, she wanders, falls to the ground, he writes. She is his muse, his anti-muse.

  A poem that comes close to announcing Romei’s poetics of distance and incomprehension includes an outrageous scrambling of the Celan line I’d featured in my story, written here not in German but in what I guessed was Yiddish: Then, when only nothingness stood between us, nothing brought us together.

  To make clear the poet’s identification with this poem, he writes it as an acrostic, each line beginning with a letter from his name: R-O-M-E-I.

  A pattern emerges, the couple’s version of normalcy. Esther takes typing lessons from an expatriate Scot, finds work in English-speaking offices, but always she is forced by drowsiness, by ever-shifting aches and pains, whose fluidity and unpredictability torment her more than their effects, to quit these jobs, though Romei suspects it’s the daily demands—the clothes that must be pressed, the long journeys by tram or bus—that wear her down. A disbarred doctor offers her a diagnosis over wine—hysteria, of the Freudian variety, he says, and suggests sex with a vigorous man.

  The couple develops friendships with other marginalized types—a surrealist painter displaced by the Spanish Civil War, a schizophrenic actor, a heroin-addicted banker who leaves gold coins in Esther’s underwear drawer. Homosexual brothers: black dancers from Georgia. An amateur archeologist from Duquesne, in search of an underage wife. Esther types, the two attend parties, drinking fests in public places, Romei writes.

  And thus, the years pass: Romei publishes a book of poems, and another. Esther dresses in men’s clothing, wanders late at night. Romei’s work is translated, he travels to consult with translators and publishers, leaving Esther in the custody of a friend, a poverty-stricken academic, a costume designer, an art restorer who can be relied upon to buy toilet paper and make polenta. Daily life is marked less by hysteria, more by courtesies, occasional kindnesses that betray the fullness of their resignation. Their intercourse is defined by what they do not discuss: Esther’s loss, the choice they did not make, which was to be together.

  With extraordinary timing, Andi pulled on my sleeve.

  Hello, my darling, I said, reaching for her shoulder.

  You look funny, Mom.

  Moms do that sometimes. You having fun?

  Have you been reading my Notebook? she asked, squinting at me.

  Never! I would never read your notebook! Your notebook is private!

  I’m just ask
ing.

  I couldn’t help adding: You could share it with me sometime if you wanted.

  Andi rolled her eyes. Good thing we brought Band-Aids, she said, pointing to a scrape I couldn’t see. I kissed her knee, once, twice, thrice, and held her tight.

  It’s okay, Mambo! she said, pulling away. No need to go bananas!

  I watched her run away, sans Band-Aid, watched the glimmering Hudson, and awaited my share of wisdom. These pages were no gift to Esther. To invert Dante’s poetics of praise, Romei had spared her nothing—he’d stripped her bare, exposed her as an hysterical, nymphomaniacal, cross-dressing hypochondriac. He dug his penna into her pain—her tears now the ink that filled his pen—and to what end? So he could play the martyr? What purpose could he have but injury? The modern meaning of libello, Dante’s “little book,” was libel. How could she bear to read this defamation? I felt a traitor’s desire to soften the language, to protect Esther from Romei’s vituperation. But I couldn’t. Who was I? The translator. I was no one.

  38

  ALWAYS WE RETURN TO DANTE

  The next morning I awoke late. A note from Ahmad advised me that Andi was upstairs at Pammy’s. Again? Surely it was Pammy’s turn to come here, but I wouldn’t insist. Pammy was what Ahmad liked to call an expert: spinach makes you fat, childhood is incomplete without a parrot. My adulthood was complete without Pammy.

  I visited the Flying Girl, who was in good form, flying over the head of the artist’s crazy mother. What was Romei doing? I asked. Did he hate his wife? What was his game? Would Ahmad move to Connecticut? What would Andi and I do then?

  You’re pondering imponderables, the Flying Girl said. Go get lunch.

  I got a hot dog from Cohn’s Cones’ beach menu, decided to take it for a walk—up Broadway, past Abdul’s, past the Eight Bar, then west to Riverside Drive, where I stopped at the Skating Park to watch mad young men turn upside down on their boards. I was heading to Grant’s Tomb, apparently, where Ahmad and I had walked every day when I was pregnant, talking about the future—how the world would begin again when she was born. We didn’t talk about the future these days; we didn’t talk about much of anything.

  I was nearly at the Tomb when my phone rang.

  Who is the child’s father? Romei asked. He didn’t say hello.

  I beg your pardon?

  Andray-a. Nice photograph, but who is the father?

  You are unbelievable! I said. My daughter’s father is none of your business!

  He is Ahmad from this last story you are writing? I like this story!

  He was referring to “Domino,” the story about Jonah as a boy, the story that made Ahmad’s face go white, that made Jeanette stop talking to me.

  Oh, I said. Well, thank you. But, no. Ahmad isn’t her father.

  I found a bench facing the Hudson and sat down. In front of me, industrious, red-faced people jogged or roller-bladed along the Riverside Park path.

  She looks like a good girl, Romei said, writing like her mother.

  Yes, I admitted, looking for my MOM! handkerchief. She’s writing a story. About a boy at school.

  She is loving this boy?

  The thought made me laugh: like Dante loving Beatrice at her age. Was it so impossible?

  She empathizes with him. He’s had a hard life. She confuses herself with him, maybe.

  She is also having the hard life?

  She thinks so … But that’s a long story.

  I felt a strange urge to share with Romei the story of Connecticut, of Mirabella and Jonah, and all our hurts—he was so avuncular! Except he wasn’t, not really.

  You too, maybe, are writing a story?

  I am not writing a story. I’m working, like I said. Just working.

  The muse is not with you? There is no fidanzato who inspire you?

  I laughed and wiped Indian-summer sweat from my neck and brow.

  Men may amuse me, I said, but they do not muse me.

  This I cannot believe!

  “Domino” was a bear, I said. The last story I ever wrote. I’ll probably never write again.

  A bare? You mean you hide nothing?

  Bear, orso! I mean it was difficult. But, yes, it was also rather bare.

  You do hide, if you refuse to be with a man.

  You have too little knowledge of my life to make that judgment with, I said, too flustered to take care with my prepositions.

  I mean you in the impersonal sense of one. This is the American way, no?

  You don’t mean you in the impersonal sense, but I forgive you. Besides, if I hide, it’s no more than Dante does.

  Always we return to Dante when we want to understand our life! Romei said.

  Is that we in the royal we sense, the you-and-me we, or the impersonal we?

  Wee, wee, wee! the poet cried. All the way home! This is American, no? A game played with the children’s feet?

  Maybe it was Indian summer or the hotdog napkin still in my hand—a memory struck me, of little Shira on the beach, skin roasting, sodas warming nearby, bathing suit sticking like a reassuring second skin. Screaming with glee as someone, her mother, wee-wee-weed up her fat little thigh, little Shira laughing till she wee-wee-weed in reply. And my mother, smiling a sun-kissed smile, calling me babydoll and, caking my legs with sand, picking me up and running me to the sea. I couldn’t have been more than two. Baby Shira laughing with her mother? Was it possible?

  Yes, Romei said, after a pause that seemed to respect my silence. Dante is fearful, this is true. But he has a muse. Beatrice motivate him, she inspire him.

  He was referring to my fax of that morning.

  Beatrice cause Dante to change, he continued. Because of her, he choose change.

  He changes his aesthetics, I said. First he writes about romantic anguish, then he writes poems of praise. Is that change? At the end of the book he decides to write not just lyric poems but narrative. What kind of change is that? Who cares?

  Is still change, Romei said, and he sounded grumpy about it.

  We were going to have to agree to disagree.

  You’ve written a bare tale about your muse, I said. Would you tell me why?

  Bear, meaning difficult?

  Meaning not hidden.

  I tell you already, I hold no interest in poetics.

  What are you interested in? This story is no gift to Esther.

  You are wrong. This is the biggest gift I give my Esther. You will see. Send me when you can. Goodbye.

  Wait! I have questions!

  You were at Trixie’s! You heard me read! Why didn’t you tell me?

  I think this is all. Goodbye!

  Infuriating man!

  •

  Ahmad was in his studio; Andi was back early from Pammy’s. Pammy, it turned out, needed “alone time.”

  You guys fight? I asked.

  No. They’d disagreed about how to punish Tink. Andi said he should sit quietly and think about what he’d done; Pammy thought he needed a spanking. Andi said spanking was uncivilized. Which was when Pammy slammed the door and said she needed alone time.

  Does Pammy’s mother know you left? I asked.

  She gave me an apple.

  You upset?

  About what? she asked.

  39

  GOOD ON PAPER

  I was awakened the next morning by the telephone. Someone get that, I thought, then realized it was my cell, Brahms’s “Lullaby.” Andi had been at my ringer again.

  Veronica! Benny said.

  Veronica?

  Betty? he asked.

  Benny?

  You don’t read comic books, do you?

  I was supposed to call you, wasn’t I? What day is it?

  Dear me, I woke you, didn’t I?

  We made a plan: Benny would cook, I’d bring wine. I went back to sleep, half aware that dinner sounded rather like a date.

  •

  That afternoon, I lay on Andi’s bed and wrote a quick running translation of “Muse.” I shouldn’t have been s
urprised to see paronomasia sprinkled all over the couple’s tragic victory, like shots on a Cohn’s cone, but I was. Paranomasia: words that are unrelated but sound alike, placed in proximity for the fun or pleasing sound of it. Kissing cousins-in-law, couples that look good in public (or on paper) but aren’t, in fact, compatible. Not croce/crochet (false friends), but a place for the plaice or traditore-traduttore. The heart’s hurt, if you stretch it.

  It made a certain sense. Esther’s loss is Romei’s gain: she deteriorates as he, inspired by his anti-muse, finds his Nobel/ignoble voice. By reminding us of the lack of “true” correspondence between words that appear connected, Romei underscores the lack of affinity between his lord and lady.

  Or so I wrote in my Door Number Two notebook. Then I read over my notes—about the Song, the false friends, Romei’s poems—and found that it was good.

  I was, and would for a short while remain, the world’s leading interpreter of Romei’s Vita Quasi-Nuova (or whatever he was going to call it). Should I expand my Translator’s Note into a definitive monograph? I should! I could see it now: Talks at sexy Italian conferences! A dissertation-cum-bestseller! Graduate students shouting me half-caffs at the Hungarian Pastry Shop!

  Spirit aloft, I called Jeanette to finagle an invitation to watch the three Eves: The Lady Eve, All About Eve, Three Faces of Eve. I even put on lipstick and a low-cut blouse, so she’d think I’d made progress.

  Where’re you going? Ahmad wanted to know, looking me up and down.

  I winked—it was my scheduled night out: let him wonder! But he wasn’t playing.

  It’s been days since you put Andi to bed, he stage-whispered. She’ll be so disappointed!

  I looked at Andi sitting on the floor, absorbed in her crayons.

  You’re nuts, I said.

  Maybe I said it loudly. Her head jerked up; she looked anxiously at me, then Ahmad.

  You look pretty, Mommy. Don’t you think she looks pretty?

  It seemed very important to Andi that Ahmad think I look pretty. I raised my eyebrows, dared him to agree. When he didn’t, I walked over to my daughter and kissed her on the head.