Good on Paper

by Rachel Cantor

  I opened my Door Number Two notebook, wrote halfheartedly about terza rima, then stopped. My nerves felt brittle from too much caffeine, too little sleep. I wanted to rest my head on the table and dream—about sexy Italian conferences, poets claiming my time till 2020—but turned instead to “Screen”: Romei joining Esther and lo sposo for dinner, pretending to be an expert in the Bible.

  And saw that he’d done it again. Syllepses this time. A figure of speech where a word is placed once in relation to at least two others, each instance suggesting a different meaning: He bought the sales pitch and the Brooklyn Bridge. She caught hell and a cold after staying out in the rain. All untranslatable. A figure of speech used here (I guessed) to show the divisions in Esther’s world, the different things she meant to her two very different men. I pulled Romei’s earlier books out of my bag to see if other translators had been faced with this challenge. They hadn’t. I knew they hadn’t.

  My head was thudding. Everything about this work, absolutely everything, was untranslatable. Not just individual poems, not just the occasional phrase or play on words—but everything! The false friends, syllepses, paronomasia, the goddamned pantoums. An extended family of monkeys could try for all eternity and never manage to translate even one line.

  I felt broken. And had the irrational feeling that this had been Romei’s purpose—to break me. Not to compose a prose-and-poem work as gift to his wife, not to produce a work establishing his rightful place at the head of the canonical class, but to write the ultimate untranslatable work, to prove that I was right about the futility of translation and, in the process, break me.

  43

  LIFE FOR DUMMIES

  I trudged back to the Den with groceries, then called Benny, ostensibly to confirm dinner.

  He’s not here, Marie said.

  I was wondering about dinner, I said. Do I bring red or white?

  He’s out of town, she replied.

  How about I try him at home? I said, and hung up. Then lay on Andi’s bed, staring at her metamorphosis mural. Can I offer you some change? No thanks, I’m fine the way I am. Was I fine? I didn’t feel fine. I felt like an odorous object. I’d failed, just as I’d known I would fail.

  The Flying Girl called out to me in her stupid Flying Girl voice: Visit me! We’ll talk!

  What if I don’t want to talk? I shouted back.

  That shut her up.

  When Andi returned from school, I was still on her bed.

  Have you been reading my Observations Notebook? she asked.

  Never! I said.

  That’s my bed, you know.

  I know, lovebug. Snack?

  Of course, Andi said, plopping her Pretty Princess backpack onto her desk.

  I got her Kool-Aid and a pink thing with coconut, and sat by her at the dining room table as she ate.

  Pammy was angry with Martina, she told me. Martina had spilled Pammy’s Jell-O into the sewer: green was Pammy’s favorite flavor and she wouldn’t share. Martina explained that she’d done it by accident, which Pammy accepted, though Andi didn’t see how you could kneel down in the road and scoop Jell-O into a drain by accident. So now Pammy was angry with Andi.

  You guys are friends again. I hadn’t realized.

  We just had a fight, Mom, weren’t you listening?

  I meant from the other day, sweetie. You said you had a fight the other day.

  Andi looked at me blankly.

  What about Ovidio? Does he play with you, too?

  How can he if he’s not real?

  What do you mean, not real?

  How can he if he’s just a story? she asked, perplexed and licking the pink off her fingers.

  A story? I asked, equally perplexed.

  Don’t tell me you’ve never heard an Ovidio story! she said, shaking her braids. Were you raised by wolves?

  I shook my head, amused by my daughter, and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

  Ask Ahmad, he’ll tell you one.

  I’ll do that, I said. She’d finished her pink thing; I reached for a remnant on her cheek.

  How about a movie! I said.

  She squinted at me.

  I’m not going to any stupid Samurai movie, she said.

  Understood. Your choice.

  Hmm, she said, and, delicate chin in hand, pretended to deliberate: The Thinker with magic marker fingers, Kool-Aid lips.

  I’ll go to Toy Story II, but only if I can have Raisinets. My own Raisinets, no sharing.

  You drive a hard bargain.

  And the aisle seat, she said, hand and cast at her hips.

  Don’t push your luck, I said.

  •

  I made my escape that evening as Andi described the high points of Toy Story II to Ahmad—before he could ask where I was going or tell me I was ruining our lives.

  It was still light out, but People of the Book was dark. The boys with boomboxes, even the drunks, were gone. Reflexively, I looked across Broadway for Nate; he still wasn’t back. Where was Benny? His last-minute message had been clear: Meet me at the store, not the house.

  I banged on the door—no answer—then saw him approaching, a grocery bag in each hand. He had a black eye, a cut down his right cheekbone.

  So what did you decide? he said instead of kissing my cheek. Red or white?

  What happened?

  Were you trying to cause trouble? I ask because I told you I was making pasta. Pasta goes with white, right?

  Uh oh, I said, leaning against the shop window.

  She chased me down Broadway, throwing books.

  I put my hand to my mouth, then looked down the street as if I might find them there.

  I ran like a coward.

  She chased you down Broadway?

  Up Broadway, actually. Throwing books. Dummy books, must have been a whole case of them …

  A case of the Dummy books!

  Don’t you love that? Benny said, half smiling, hand in his beard. Salt Mining for Dummies, Agitprop for Dummies …

  Dental Hygiene for Dummies …

  For some reason, this cracked us up.

  She thinks you’re the devil, he said, putting his bags down. She sees things—ghosts, spirits, she sees people’s intentions, like auras around their heads. Yours is green, in case you didn’t know; it means you’re up to no good.

  Exorcism for Dummies, I said. Benny smiled and dug a key out of his pocket. She said it was either her or you. I had to choose.

  You’re kidding!

  Relationships for Dummies, he said, inserting the key in the lock.

  •

  Marie had wrecked his store. With the force of a whirlwind, she’d pushed books from their shelves; knocked the antique cash register and smaller bookcases to the ground, then left the door propped open. Marla was missing, two kittens had been crushed under a pile of dictionaries.

  Benny had gone looking for Marla. The kids in Slice of Park pointed to the China Doll: chop suey by now, they said. He offered them ten bucks to help find her; they laughed. He went back to the store, locked the door, and cried.

  Then he buried the kittens in Riverside Park, said Kaddish without a minyan.

  I buried them with a book about Africa, he said, so they could dream about being big cats. I once wrote an ode to Marla in which I imagined her a cheetah trapped in a housecat’s body. One of the reasons I failed as a poet.

  He took a nursing bottle from the grocery bag, filled it with milk, and tried to feed one of the two remaining kittens. But the nipple was too big. I picked up the other, plopped it onto my lap. It stuck its chin out bravely, started wobbling toward the abyss.

  You wanna know what I said? When she asked me to choose?

  Not really, I said. The kitten squirmed in his hand; drops of milk dribbled down its face.

  I said, at least you, Shira, were literate, at least one could have a civilized conversation with you. She never finished high school, you see. She’s dyslexic; she’s terrified people will think she’s stupid. All year I’ve bee
n training her to do battle in the New York art scene. You can do it! Now what’s the difference between a Warhol and a Jasper Johns? It took guts for her to work in a bookstore. Yup, I really got her.

  Oh, Benny!

  I’m a credit to my race. I’m sure you’re proud to know me. Want to know something funny? He put the bottle down, the kitten back in the box. Baruch, he said. My Hebrew name.

  Hebrew name?

  The name by which I’m recognized when I go up to Torah. You know.

  No, I don’t know. What’s funny about it?

  It means blessed.

  Oh, I said. I take it you don’t feel blessed.

  Benny just laughed.

  Full disclosure? I said. I’ve been feeling rather miserable myself.

  But Benny was slumped over his arm, sobbing.

  I loved her. I really thought I loved her!

  Could have knocked me over with a feather.

  •

  Not my finest hour, he said finally, lifting his head. Lucky you: you get to witness this.

  How about I help you clean up? I said, my hand on his shoulder. We could get takeout from the Eight Bar. It’ll be fun.

  I’m thinking of closing the store.

  Well, you’ll have to till we get it cleaned up. We should be able to do a lot of it tonight.

  I mean for good. Work on Gilgul full time—I’ve got backing for four issues. I can’t help thinking that if I can change the structure of my life, the deeper things, the more difficult things, will also change. Easier to stay away from paranoid rageaholics if I don’t work with them, right?

  Sure, I said. You’ll just hire them to copyedit, I thought.

  I could work a regular business day, get myself a life.

  Ooh, I said, a life! What’s that?

  Life for Dummies, he said.

  44

  NINE LIVES

  We worked a few hours, trading songs as we reshelved. I knew the torch songs Ahmad’s ex had taught Andi, also “Eensy, Weensy Spider” and your basic Raffi medleys; Benny knew Clapton’s early solos, songs from the Yiddish theater. We’d been at it an hour when Benny dropped his books and ran to the back of the store. I lost sight of him, then heard an anguished cry. He returned holding Marla in his arms. She was frothing at the mouth; she looked half dead.

  That crazy bitch stapled her paws together! he said.

  She had, front and back. We put her in her box, rushed her with the kittens to an all-night vet on Broadway, where we learned that Marla had probably been left on a top shelf: she’d fallen a substantial distance and, missing the use of her legs, had been unable to break her fall. She was bleeding internally, all nine lives simultaneously at risk.

  Never seen anything like it, Dr. Ghosh said, then disappeared with Marla into an exam room. An assistant fed the kittens with an eye dropper.

  I should have found her sooner! Benny said.

  I held his hand, but wasn’t sure he noticed.

  It’s my fault, he kept saying, my fault!

  Not your fault, I said, thinking, It’s mine.

  She said the cat was possessed, Benny said, shaking his head. I should have known!

  Marla died at around ten. Nothing to be done, Dr. Ghosh said. You say it could have been anyone in your store did this?

  Benny nodded. Dr. Ghosh offered to take the kittens, find them a home. Benny nodded again, and we walked into the rain.

  With quiet words, I offered to make dinner. I poured water into a heavy pot, was about to light the stove when he appeared and wrapped his long arms around me, buried his beard in my shoulder. I turned, put my arms around him, lost my face in his sweater.

  I’m so sorry, I said, then realized that I was crying, we were both crying, for our big mistakes, and small, the people we hurt as we stumbled along, the endless recycling of our same old shit, the torment we put ourselves through as we ran in place, trying to escape—what? I didn’t know, but then Benny started kissing me, and I kissed him back, not sure what I was doing or why. Then an image came to me, not from memory but from “Confessions”: Ahmad kissing Shira at fifteen, Shira thinking about T. but kissing him back—also, a line from that story: I knew nothing about myself—who I was and what I wanted; this, it seems, made anything possible. Young Shira had made nothing but mistakes. I pulled myself out of Benny’s arms. We were both breathing hard.

  Not a good idea, I said.

  Benny’s eyes, soft and wet, became small and stonelike.

  Benny? I said.

  You know what you are? he said, but I knew his game. I didn’t know what my soft spot was, but I was sure he did.

  Your bullshit won’t work with me, I said, because I knew it would. My heart drummed in my chest as I tried to squeeze past him. He was blocking the door, his body a dead weight. Let me pass, I said, holding my hands in fists so he wouldn’t see them shake. His face crumpled.

  I’m sorry, he said, hanging his head, but still he didn’t move.

  It’s fine, I said, lying again. I’d like to pass. Let me through. Thank you, I said, as Benny, dumb with sorrow, turned to let me by.

  Call me? he said.

  Sure, I said, lying for the third and final time.

  45

  UNDERSTANDING

  It was my morning to get Andi off to school. She wanted to wear a frilly dress; I let her.

  Ahmad and I still hadn’t talked. We hadn’t even made eye contact since that night on the train.

  Ahmad, I said as he passed me in the hall. He pretended not to hear.

  Ahmad, I said. I don’t have a boyfriend. Really.

  He shut his door.

  I’ve done as we always said we’d do, I thought. I’ve kept my affairs out of the house. My family is everything, you’re everything. Ahmad? I’d never do anything to hurt us. Come out. Please! We’ll talk about Connecticut. I promise, we’ll talk.

  I said none of these things. I stood at his door, hand on the jamb as if feeling for tremors.

  He and Andi left together, Andi looking over her shoulder with a worried expression. I blew her my usual hurricane kiss, sent with all my motherly might; she, as usual, pretended it landed with great force on her cheek. But she knew nothing was usual.

  Still wearing my father’s bathrobe, I brought my coffee to the study. Romei’s next section had arrived, together with a faxed photo of Romei in a too-small chair next to a hospital bed, where a small woman—Esther, presumably—lay lost in her bedclothes and a tangle of tubes. Above Romei on the wall, a crucifix. On a table to his right, a laptop, a printer, a fax machine.

  He was working in his wife’s hospital room? His wife was dying and he was writing?

  Of course: the next pages of Vita Nuova were about death (or, as Romei put it, more precisely, “The Harrowing”), when the hero makes his obligatory visit to the underworld. Poor Dante! The poetics he’d stored against his ruin were about to collapse. First, the death of Beatrice’s father—a small death by cosmic standards, but when Dante learns of it, he grieves so much (for her sake) that the ladies who attend her speak of his grief, his suffering. He is so grieved he becomes gravely ill. On the ninth day, so weak he cannot move (corpselike, in other words), he understands that his beloved, too, will one day die. He envisions her death, and his own. Birds fall from the sky, the earth trembles, the sun grows dark, and the stars begin to weep, as Beatrice’s soul, accompanied by angels, ascends to heaven. His cries break through his dream, he is crying!

  He looks dead! say the ladies—as if we’d missed the point.

  When he rises from his sick bed, at long last, he thinks he can return to Life as Usual: he writes poems of praise, he prattles on about figures of speech—but Death stalks him, pulling him ever deeper into understanding, eventually taking from him everything he holds dear, which is to say, his muse, his sense of purpose, his artistic certainty, his faith in love—for Death has his eye on Beatrice: she will be the next to go.

  Her death is noble, as it happens, but anticlimactic: it can’t compete wi
th the one Dante has imagined for her. So he doesn’t write it, saying, instead, that it isn’t relevant to his theme. Whatever that means.

  I didn’t want to read about Romei’s harrowing, or what passed as such. Esther’s illness, the loss of hope. There wasn’t enough hope to go around. I wished I had some PT.

  I thought about dusting Andi’s Nancy Drews, or going to Cuppa Joe’s. Instead, I visited the Flying Girl.

  You’re being a child, she said.

  Speaks the child! I said. What do you know about the loss of hope?

  I feel hope, she said, so I can imagine losing it.

  I wish I could be like you, I said.

  You are me. Silly rabbit! she said. Go! Read what the man has to say.

  I brought the pages to Andi’s room, wrapped myself in her quilt.

  But again, Romei—or should I say, Esther?—surprised me.

  She left him. Twenty-five years after her husband left them, she left Romei. While he was in Kiev, being feted by the Writers’ Union in a language he couldn’t understand (an absurdity that occasions a villanelle: Romei asking repeatedly for an interpreter, his hosts replying in nonsense syllables borrowed from what we understand to be a Ukrainian nursery rhyme). He returns to find Esther gone, her suitcase and favorite clothing gone, her passport gone, mementos from her lovers gone. A note on the fridge reads: Gone to the U.S. Back soon.

  Her first visit to the U.S. in a quarter century. Romei can’t imagine what occasioned this trip—and for trip he uses scampagnata for its suggestion of “an outing in the countryside” (campagna), an irony that points to his unwillingness to read the irony of Esther’s note, to accept that she has left him. Frantic, concerned, he thinks, for her safety, he contemplates going after her—but where? The U.S. is a big country, and he’s due to read in Dubrovnik. She has to have gone to New York. He sends a telegram to the one person there he considers a friend.