Was I unconscious? Backsliding? Where were my angels? What regressions would distract me from my destiny? Did I have a destiny? It was too late to become a Good Humor Man, or a Bad Humor Man, too late to win a noble prize. I was an old dog: I’d played out my tricks; there could be no new life for me. Maybe my destiny was this: raising a child who hated me, and crying myself to sleep at night.
So the weeks passed; autumn threatened to slip unremarked into winter.
PART SEVEN
RETURN
52
ICARUS DEFEATHERED
The Monday before Thanksgiving, Benny stopped by. Andi was in bed, and I was looking over brochures for Caron, an Italian manufacturer of passenger ferries.
Guess what? I said. I got a new job, starting next week. No more filing.
Good! he said. I brought the stories for you to read this afternoon.
I’d agreed to read stories for Gilgul, give Benny my opinion. For what that was worth.
I’ll be earning more money, I persisted. Temp to perm.
Great! Benny said. I used the key you gave me, I put them in your study. The stories, I mean.
Thanks, I said, not realizing what he’d said. Do you want to hear what I’ll be doing?
Benny nodded halfheartedly, so I told him how Luigi, Caron’s U.S. sales manager, was so impressed that I could take dictation in Italian that he insisted I stay at least a month.
You had some papers in there, on the desk.
Huh? I said, looking up.
He was still standing, holding the end of his beard, a folder tucked under his arm.
Some papers. Your translation. It was there. I read some of it.
Ah, I said, putting down the brochures. You shouldn’t have.
I know. It was there.
Uh huh.
Shira, it was beautiful, he said, sitting next to me. Really!
Which part? I asked, despite myself.
Esther and Romei at the restaurant.
Oh, I said. Shit.
I want to read it to you.
You what?
I want read it to you. Will you let me?
He’d opened the folder, my work was in there.
You’ll stop at nothing, I said.
Listen, he said, putting his arm around me. Close your eyes and listen.
•
It was good.
I was surprised. I listened as a writer, a translator, a daughter.
We sat in silence a moment.
What’s your point? I asked.
I want it in Gilgul.
No! You’re crazy!
I’m not crazy. This is a major work by a major author. It would be good for you, too!
You just want Esther to see this …
This has nothing to do with Esther. Romei would never let her see it, out of context. She’s too ill—what would be the point?
You’re trying to manipulate me.
I’m responding to what you said.
You think you can get a grant for this!
Of course! And readers. The poet describes the genesis of his Nobel Prize–winning poetics—who wouldn’t be interested? Better, he admits that his poetics arose out of his wife’s suffering and his own self-centeredness, his inability to feel. That’s powerful stuff. He discredits his entire life’s work, calls it graffiti!
He does not! Where does he do that!
You don’t see? Look, he said, riffling excitedly through the pages. His first mature poems are associated with scribblings, obscene chalk drawings on a wall, his wife’s nonsensical ravings, the inarticulate mewling of an underfed cat. His wife wipes vomit onto the tablecloth he uses as his page—not exactly subtle! His first poem is smeared with blood—tomato sauce, drops of wine—the blood of the suffering Christ. Again, not subtle.
I don’t know, I said, wondering how I could have missed this, and explained about Esther’s penne, how Romei’s penna from the first section, filled with ink by Esther and resounding with the fluttering of writer/bird wings, became Esther’s rejected sustenance, vomited to the ground like Icarus defeathered.
Then she’s also vomited up the flying girl, the daughter we first saw flying like an airplane around her mother’s park bench—if we understand the child to be winged.
I suppose so.
What did you think it was about? Benny asked.
I don’t know, I said, wishing we could talk about something else. I was angry, I said. I thought Romei was engaged in a vengeful poetics of exposure.
Exposing himself? How could that be vengeful?
Exposing Esther. He made her ugly.
I’d have to see the whole thing before I could form an opinion …
No way! I said.
Look, here’s the spot I’ve reserved for it.
He began sorting through Gilgul pages, and I found myself wondering: Had my feelings for Romei and his “characters” informed my choices as a translator? If I went back with a new perspective, what would I find? Electricity pulsed through my legs, a spring urging me, despite myself, to snatch his pages from their papery grave. Followed by the leaden thought: Why bother?
Here’s the spot, Benny said, holding up some pages. Before Diego’s novella, if you like it, and after Sandrine’s piece. (Sandrine’s “piece” was a black-and-white photo of some candle droppings. It looked like a deformed cow, but Benny insisted the “image” was not representational. Candles are a part of every major spiritual tradition, he’d said.)
You can’t publish it, I said.
Why?
For all the reasons I’ve said: I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.
Well, this is the spot. For when you change your mind.
Whatever, I said, too tired to argue. Coffee?
Hmmm, he said, distractedly, and started thumbing through his artwork. You know, Esther survived her crisis in September, but she can’t last another six months. Her kidneys are shot.
Why are you telling me this? I told you I don’t want to hear it.
I’m telling you because I’m going to Rome to see her.
My heart stopped, but I didn’t skip a beat.
Have fun, I said.
Come with me. In a few weeks, around Christmas, when the issue’s out.
No way.
He started examining a woodcut of a marauding bear.
How about I bring Andi, he said, holding the woodcut up to the light. A week, tops.
I gaped at him.
Are you insane?
Andi should get to know her grandmother, he said, putting the woodcut down and picking up a poem by a Latvian unknown.
Never! I said, throwing a mock-up of the masthead to the ground. It’s never going to happen!
A too-deep intake of breath advised me that he’d prepared for this. You wanted this, he maintained. You wanted Andi to know her grandmother: that story you wrote about the artist—what’s-his-name, Jonah, Ahmad’s friend—and his mother, the one where Jonah draws the Flying Girl?
“Tibet, New York”?
It ends in reconciliation, doesn’t it? The little girl …
Dotty, his niece.
Dotty sits on her grandmother’s lap; the artist, long estranged from his mother, feels tenderness for her, perhaps because of this.
It’s just a story, I said. Besides, you’re misreading it.
Benny picked up the page I’d thrown to the ground, put it back on the table.
What about that other one, he said, where the daughter runs away.
Elena, I said, despite myself.
The reader knows the daughter blames her mother unfairly. The mother invents a grandmother for the daughter, so she won’t have to do without. It’s what you want.
Those are stories! They’re not me. What kind of a reader are you?
They are you. I know you.
You don’t know me!
We sat in silence a while, our limbs tense.
It’s something Andi might not forgive, he said softly, when she’s old e
nough to know what you’ve done.
What I’ve done! I said, jumping up again. That’s precious coming from you! Oh no! I said, shaking my head. I don’t have to defend myself to you! and turned, looking for my purse. I’m going to my room! Lock up when you go.
Benny jumped up off the sofa and, for the first time ever, shouted at me: Run away! Go ahead! You say you’re protecting Andi, but you’re not! You’re protecting yourself!
I stared at him, he stared at me. His beard was trembling.
Jesus, I said, sitting down. Look at us! I laughed and pulled him back to the couch. You’d think we’d been married sixty years!
We looked at each other.
Even if I wanted to go to Rome, and I don’t, I haven’t been invited.
What are you talking about? he asked.
Esther, I said, aware that my lower lip trembled. She doesn’t want me. She never wanted me. That’s what you don’t understand. She never made any effort to find me, she never sent a birthday present, she never called. One minute I had a mother, the next I didn’t. Can you imagine what that’s like?
Benny shook his head.
Can you explain her silence?
I’ve never spoken with her about you.
Romei makes excuses for her, he wants me to believe it was all my father’s fault, and maybe it was, partly, but he can’t hide her passivity, her indifference. You say she’d want to see me, but how do I know that? This whole thing was Romei’s idea, it’s always been about him, his ego, his desire to manipulate. He could write ten volumes and that wouldn’t change the fact that she doesn’t want me, she never has.
Are you saying you need Esther to invite you? Shira, she’s very sick.
I’m saying it’s too late. She could have found me and she didn’t. Even after I was findable on the Internet, I always made sure my name was in the book. For twenty-five years I did this, so I could know her silence wasn’t my fault. She’s not sorry for what she did: she doesn’t want me, she never did.
Benny put his arm around my shoulder, began to stroke my hair. I wrapped myself into him, breathed the heady smell of his armpit, traced the line of his collarbone with my finger.
Do you really think I’m running away, do you really think I’m scared? I whispered into his chest.
I think it’s complicated, he said, still stroking my hair. I’m sorry about what I said.
I don’t want to run away, I murmured. Really, I don’t.
Then marry me.
I pulled away and looked at his face. His eyes were shining green and gold, his eyebrows were raised, as if surprised by what he’d said, yet his face was expectant: he’d meant it.
You can manage the store, he said. Start a reading series, a translation series, even. You won’t have to work those terrible jobs, I’ll make you fiction editor of Gilgul …
Are you offering me marriage or a job? I asked, stunned.
I’m asking you to spend the rest of your life with me, Shira. I love you, I want to take care of you, grow old with you …
No, I said, standing.
No? he said.
I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I can take care of myself.
You know what I mean!
I know what you mean.
We can’t keep on the way we are.
Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, I said, staring at my Docksiders.
We can’t. You say I’m your boyfriend, but you won’t let me touch you. I can’t be in the same room as your daughter. You won’t even invite me to Thanksgiving! It isn’t right. I can be patient, but I have to know we’re moving toward something.
I shrugged, not meeting his gaze.
At least think about it? he asked in a thin voice.
I nodded, numbly, and gestured for him to go.
•
We couldn’t continue? Not continue? How could we not continue?
I slipped on my father’s robe, went to Andi’s room, where she was sleeping at a forty-five degree angle to the wall. I straightened her quilt, touched her still, soft, satin cheek. She’d been through enough. I couldn’t give her another father who might not stay. It was out of the question. Neither Benny nor I knew the first thing about love! I knew how to fly a flaming chariot into the ground, he how to enflame others. How long before I decided it was time to move on? How long before he used my pain against me?
Not continue? How could we not continue?
He didn’t mean it, he couldn’t mean it! I crawled under the guilt quilt next to my daughter, held her sleeping body close.
Mom? she asked, poking my shoulder. Are you dead?
It was light, and she was standing over me, wearing the outfit she wore to do her Canadian Air Force exercises: leotard, tights, and tutu.
I pulled the guilt quilt over my face.
Not yet, I said.
Ovidio spilled Cheerios all over the floor. And he says he isn’t sorry.
53
NOT AS HE WAS, AS HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN
To appease Benny I agreed two days later to “learn” the Song of Songs with him, which, as far as I could tell, meant talking about it with him. It was the night before Thanksgiving and he arrived bearing gifts: cassava chips, heavy tomes, Jelly Bellies.
Froggy comes a’ courtin’? I asked.
Yup, he said, and pecked my cheek.
Where do you want to start? he asked, opening one of his books.
At the beginning, I said. Where else?
There is no beginning or end in Torah. We start wherever you want.
Huh?
The Rabbis don’t consider the Bible a linear narrative. The beginning informs the end, one story comments on another, all occur simultaneously. Everything is connected by an infinite collection of cosmic hyperlinks.
I don’t get it, I said, but I like it. How about the shalhevetyah? I asked, taking a handful of bellies. The great God-flame? I was intrigued by your conversation about it with Esther.
With Esther? I never talked with Esther about shalhevetyah.
You know, when she came to New York and you found her through your colloquium and studied the Song of Songs with her.
Shira, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Romei said this?
Of course.
Why would we study the Song?
For her translation.
Benny didn’t say anything.
What? I said.
Wow, he said, shaking his head. He said she was a translator? That’s intense!
She wasn’t?
No.
She wasn’t translating the Song of Songs?
Benny shook his head.
He wrote that she left him. After twenty-five years, she disappeared, went to New York. You flushed her out by holding a colloquium on the Song at People of the Book …
Shira, this never happened.
You called Romei when she got sick. That’s as far as his story got.
I don’t know what to say. She never left him that I know of. I got to know her through him, I advised her on … well, I can’t talk about that.
Shit, I said. The whole thing is a lie.
I’m a character in his story?
In this last section, yeah.
So much for my cover! he said, laughing.
It was after I realized you knew each other.
He and I had a conversation around that time, Benny admitted.
Yeah, and what did you talk about?
Not what you’re thinking.
What am I thinking?
Shira.
What did you talk about?
Way back when, I told him a direct approach would be counterproductive …
Got that right, I said.
Later he said he wanted to include you in a project that would be good for you professionally and might make you, well, more open to seeing Esther. I thought both sounded good. We didn’t talk particulars. When he offered you the job, I had no reason to think it was anything other than a job. I never told him anything about your per
sonal life.
He seemed surprised to learn I had a daughter.
He knew you were single. He’s old-fashioned, he made assumptions.
We sat a moment, as I imagined what it might be like to suddenly learn you were a grandparent. I remembered the photograph I’d sent so easily, tried to imagine what it might feel like to receive it, to look at that beautiful face and know it was yours. And from nowhere, an image came to me, of my father, as he looked in those early photos, his face untouched by disappointment, his hair clipped Eisenhower short. Holding a swaddled infant, hunched over her, as if protecting her from air and wind, his grip sure, his face uncertain, looking up as if to say, how can I be trusted with this little being, surely I will drop her, surely I will fail her, but his face radiant, still—a trick of the light, perhaps. He was holding me—only now I imagined it was Andi he held, the granddaughter he didn’t know, her eyes, alert from the start, straining to understand. I saw him through Andi’s eyes as he gazed at us in wonder, the inchoate bundle that we were, his new life. He might have recovered some of his tenderness, he might have been able to see outside his own pain, had he been able to hold her, had he been able to hold my child.
You’ve done well, I could hear him say. I’m proud of you.
My father, not as he was, but as he might have been.
Shira?
Are you okay?
I shook my head.
Benny put his arm around me. My pores felt too open—memories, dreams, wishes passed unbidden through my skin like vapors. Forgive me, my father had said as the nurse wheeled him away. I thought because he’d not been much of a father. Because he hadn’t told me the truth, I knew now, not even at the end.
If I had known you were dying, I might have asked about my mother. I might have asked about you.
Can you tell me about it? Benny asked, squeezing my shoulders.
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