How Should a Person Be?

by Sheila Heti

  I sat like this, my brain going wild beneath Uri’s hands, the cap bound tightly around my head, Uri plucking out strands of my hair. I suddenly saw: it was so ridiculously easy to end things! I had given him the letter, and before I could speak, my time there was over! My hair was being colored—­then out the door for good. I had made a huge mistake!

  I followed one of the girls to the bowl, and as she held my head and rinsed me off, the tension began rising in my neck. When she returned me to the chair to towel dry my head, I saw in the mirror what Uri had done: he had completely bleached out my hair! These ­were not highlights. The toner had turned my hair dry and gray—­not a pretty soft white like Marilyn Monroe’s or an Andy Warhol silver. It was an old woman’s head. I looked like I was at the end of my life, and, worse, like the person who had lived this life. Uri returned and spread his hands wide, smiled at me, and said, “Well?”

  I could not smile back. I felt like I had been erased, like no one would ever look at me again. But at least I had no inclination to glance into the mirror and tilt my head just so.

  • chapter 21 •

  HOW GREAT IT IS TO BE AN ADULT

  When I was little, and I thought that children grew up and their parents grew down, so that one day the child became the parent and the parent became the child, I had in my head such an impressive idea of what an adult was. My father seemed to me to know everything. My mother had such assurance and command. Inside my head was a little square of awe, compact and complete.

  They seemed as far away from me as a spaceship from the earth, orbiting in some darkness I could not comprehend. But now that I am an adult among adults, I am there. I am now ­here—­in what once seemed like a stratosphere, another stratosphere entirely—­but is this. This is the absolute outer limit of the human universe.

  • chapter 22 •

  A STRANGER IS A FRIEND OF ANOTHER STRANGER ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR STRANGENESS ON EARTH

  My mother had been calling for weeks, leaving messages on my phone, sending long and desperate emails, so that I finally felt: Today is the day. I would go and do what she needed me to do—­clean up the trash in her basement, which was my entire life, and throw it all out, so she could proceed in her life with a clear mind.

  I took the bus fifteen minutes north. When I arrived at her ­house she was not home, as I knew and expected she would not be. She was at work. I went down into the basement by myself. She had left garbage bags on the landing for me to clear everything away. The basement was different than in my memory—­less a place filled with special meaning than just a place. But the air was reassuringly familiar: mildewy and warm.

  I looked about to see where my mess was, but I ­couldn’t find the mess. All the papers and books I had imagined cluttering everything up—­there was nothing like that there. The hard brown carpet had recently been vacuumed, and there ­were two small hatboxes against the wall, one on top of the other.

  I went up to the boxes and knelt and opened them, and in them was my stuff. This was the mess I had left behind? This was what had been cluttering my mother’s mind for so long?

  I glanced through the boxes, threw out some essays I knew I’d never want to read, and was left with a small stack of papers and pictures, plus a letter addressed to me, which had never been opened, and which I put in my pocket. I ascended from the basement with both boxes and went from her ­house. One box I put by the garbage bin outside. The other I carried home with me.

  It was nine ­o’clock at night. I got on the southbound bus, passed beneath the bright fluorescents, and sat in the back. The air was humid. There ­were only three other people on the bus.

  When the bus began to move, I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and turned it around. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, and yet I did, a bit. Why hadn’t I opened it before? I opened it now.

  1.Dear Sheila,

  2.On Sunday eve­ning my son told me that you and he are separated. I was stunned by that news and am still having trouble believing it’s true.

  3.I thought you ­were soul mates, with so much in common and so able to help each other through life.

  4.I think back to the spring when you told me that you ­were madly in love with him and that no one ­else made you feel that way.

  5.I know he adores you as well and wants to take care of you. That kind of love is a rare gift.

  1.It has been a very difficult year for both of you, with many unexpected stresses which have made life so hard.

  2.But that is when we need each other most—­just to know someone cares about you is so important.

  3.There are few answers, I think, to many of our problems.

  4.We just have to live through things.

  1.That is how I am feeling with my husband now passed, and I have to believe and act as though it will get better.

  2.Frustrating as life with him could be, my life is now quite empty without him.

  3.He and I shared so many things, both good and bad, and had come to a place where we ­were able to appreciate what we had as being very special.

  1.You have been such a part of my life and my family for the past few years, that it is hard to think of it without you.

  2.I truly don’t know what to say except that I am feeling very sad, as I think you are, too.

  3.All my love, Odile.

  I held the letter close, like a warm animal against my chest.

  • chapter 23 •

  BACK IN FRONT OF THE BIKINI STORE

  By the time I arrived home, I was thinking about Margaux. I just wanted to make her feel safe and good. If only I could figure out what would make her trust me, I would do it. So I really tried to think. There ­were two things I knew for sure about Margaux: she had never quit anything, and she felt she had too much empathy. So I hoped things could be saved. I hoped we could live through this.

  But she had made a sacrifice for me, in letting herself be taped, while I had made no sacrifice for her. I had done nothing scary or of risk to myself for Margaux’s sake. There was a real imbalance. But what could fix it? What did she need me to do? It would have to be something that would prove to her that I was not using her, that I would not leave her once I had taken from her what I thought she was useful for. But what could the sacrifice be? I considered it as I lay in my bed that night, and my dreams seemed to swirl in that direction. But when I woke the next morning, I had no idea what the gesture should be.

  Only one person could help me.

  Margaux and I sat on the stoop in front of the bikini store, and she looked down at her hands while I watched the people walk along Queen Street. She was breathing quietly and sitting very still. Then finally she looked at me and said, “I want you to finish your play.”

  “What! My embarrassing, impossible play!”

  “Yes! And I want it to answer your question—­about how a person should be—­so that you never have to think about it anymore. So that what­ever you do from that point on isn’t about that question, and so our friendship won’t be either. And you can use anything you need from me to answer that question—­my words, what­ever, just answer it.”

  It was the worst, most difficult thing she could have asked of me. And certainly she would be the only person left who could love me—I would have no new friends once my ugliness was out there in the world for everyone to see. I sat for a moment, sunk into my glumness. Her eyes drifted to my gray hair.

  “And do it quickly,” she said. “You’re going to have to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life.”

  I sat in silence, then turned to her.

  “Does it have to be a play?”

  She thought for a moment, then grinned. “No.”

  • chapter 24 •

  THE CASTLE

  I followed Margaux up the stairs to her apartment and into her studio. I was relieved to find a few paintings on the wall
s, freshly painted, just beginning. A computer had been moved into the space, and there ­were two old monitors on a desk, plus some pieces of paper taped to the walls—­charts. She began telling me about a conversation she’d had a few weeks ago with her new gallerist in New York, who was putting her in a group show. I didn’t know she was going to be showing in New York!

  MARGAUX

  (excited) I told him why I’m doing all the things I’m doing, and I talked a lot about my paintings, and I said that the less the work’s about me, the more I get to use my life. It just felt like the healthiest conversation in the world!

  SHEILA

  What did he say?

  MARGAUX

  That I’m doing everything wrong! He asked if in Canada people liked paintings small, and I said yes, and he said well ­here in America we like our paintings big, and we don’t like them painted on wood, or when the paint is thin—

  SHEILA

  (delighted) He must have been so happy with you!

  MARGAUX

  Um, it’s hard for me to say.

  Margaux turns to one of the charts on the wall and touches it gently. Her voice gets quieter.

  You know, after you left my ­house that night, I kept quilting and thinking. I was up until dawn almost, and then I knew it—­what I needed to do to get rid of my bad feelings. (turning) You know I never needed you to get rid of them for me.

  Sheila looks down.

  The solution was not to speak less but to speak more, and not through you, but through myself. That felt really right. But what did I have to say? So I sat at my desk and began thinking of all the things I have, right? Like, I wanted to see what meaning there was between all the things around me. So I wrote down all my resources—­all the things I have. For instance, I have Julia’s mother’s cottage, I have the Hamlet story, I have Sholem, I have four thousand dollars. I figured, you work from what you have. I wondered, What would be the best outcome, taking everything I have? So it really was about using variables and using the—­what do you call them?—­the invariables.

  SHEILA

  What do you mean, invariables?

  MARGAUX

  Well, it’s like in life—­you have the variables and you have the invariables, and you want to use them all, but you work around the invariables.

  Margaux becomes quiet.

  I thought you ­were an invariable—­and then you left without saying a word.

  SHEILA

  You think of me as an invariable?

  MARGAUX

  Yes.

  Then, very deep inside, something began to vibrate. I was an invariable. An invariable. No word had ever sounded to me more like love.

  MARGAUX

  So these past few weeks, I’ve been looking at everything I have—­just sitting ­here looking, and it slowly became clear: it’s a movie! I’m going to make a movie using everything I have! I’ll sort of construct these scenes from everything I have, then when I’m done shooting, I’ll put the scenes in some sort of instinctual order. I don’t know what it’s going to look like in the end, but I have faith that at the center of the film there’ll be, like, this invisible castle, and each of the scenes will be like throwing sand on the castle. Wherever the sand touches, those different parts of the castle light up. At the end you’ll have a sense of the entire castle. But you never actually see the entire castle.

  SHEILA

  Right.

  MARGAUX

  (smiles, relieved) You know, all week I was sitting at my computer, thinking, Am I retarded? Am I retarded? Am I retarded?

  SHEILA

  I understand the part where you say, “Am I retarded?”

  •••

  Had anyone suggested at the time that it would not be the Egypt of the pharaohs that would survive and change the moral landscape of the world, but instead a group of Hebrew slaves, it would have seemed the ultimate absurdity.

  • chapter 25 •

  ISRAEL BECKONS

  Back at home, Sheila finds an email from Israel . . .

  1.i have a hard-­on right now in the viet­nam­ese internet palace.

  2.theres a guy next to me whos really getting into the porn. he just went to the bathroom and i think hes jacking off.

  3.he just came back and yep, he smells like giz, hes kind of creepy, ex military or something, but the porn hes looking at looks pretty good.

  1.so theres something i need done for me.

  2.i want you to buy a porno mag, and i want you to look at that porno and get really horny thinking about me fucking you like a dirty dog and cumming hard down the back of your throat.

  3.take the mag and roll it up tight. tape it so it doesnt move and put a condom over it. put some lube on your cunt and the mag.

  4.spread your legs as far as you can and put the magcock up your cunt and fuck yourself.

  5.then take pictures of you doing this and send them to me.

  1.i know you once said that the idea of an old man fucking you in a portolet didnt turn you on but that wasnt the point.

  2.the point was that it turned me on thinking you would do something like that for me.

  3.its not the idea of you fucking a disgusting old man in a portolet that gets me going, no, i like the idea of you doing things i ask.

  4.bye for now.

  I saw there was no way of escaping a man like that. Even if I went to the farthest shore, there would still be internet access there and he would find me. Only if I never checked my email, then I would be safe. But I always checked my email, even when I tried not to. North Korea was the only place I would be safe. But even there I would still have my memories of him, so I would not be safe.

  • chapter 26 •

  DESTINY IS THE SMASHING OF THE IDOLS

  I should have spent the night inside writing, figuring out how a person should be, like I meant to, but I was afraid. I ­wasn’t ready. Instead I went out. I went to meet Israel. I went not knowing what would come. We agreed on a spot, at a bar on the longest street in the world. When I arrived on the corner, he was standing there smoking. He gave me a lazy look that cut at my heart and said, “Nice hair, old lady.” We walked together to the bar, and he asked me if I had ever written him that letter from camp. I felt uneasy. I said no.

  Inside the bar, I sat silently as he talked on about a coffee shop he wanted to open, while I just looked at his face. I ­couldn’t believe he was a real person sitting there before me. He didn’t ask me any questions. I ­wouldn’t have known what to answer.

  As we ­were finishing our second drink, he said, “Should we go?” So we left. I ­couldn’t tell if I loved him or liked him or if I felt nothing at all. We got in a cab—­his idea—­and soon we ­were back at my apartment. I paid. We went into my bedroom, then I excused myself to use the bathroom. When I returned to the bedroom, he pulled off all my clothes. Then he took off his clothes. Looking at him, his belly was softer; his legs seemed stout. When he smiled, it did not make me feel special or strange. There was a vacancy in our touch, a deep well of nothing. What­ever bright thing had existed between us had left and moved on to other people. I made out with his penis until the moment came that he might fuck me. He was on top of me as I lay on my back. Then he hesitated and said, “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “Okay.”

  I did not know why he said it, or if he would want to in ten minutes, or in the morning, or next week, or never again. We lay silently in my bed, and then my body felt it, deep and calm: what I wanted to do—­something I had never done before. Without letting myself think about it a moment more, I shuffled down beneath the covers, saying to him as I did it, “I want to sleep beside your cock.” I slithered down there and lay, my lips soft up against his dick. I felt his legs grow tense. “Get up,” he said. “No.” “Come up ­here,” he said, more forcefully this time. But I knew that if I d
id, his desire for me might remain, and I wanted none of it left. I had to be so ugly that the humiliation I brought on myself would humiliate him, too. I would have to strip every last filament of gold from my skin—­all the gold I had put there—­and strip the gold from his skin, so that none of the gold on him would reflect onto me, and so none of the gold on me would reflect onto him, so we would be in utter darkness together. I curled myself around his legs. I knew he’d never understand why I was doing it—­that he was misunderstanding what I meant. But I didn’t care if he got me wrong. The way he saw me was not the same thing as me.

  I felt so alert as I felt his dick shrink away, disgusted or ashamed. A few minutes passed. Then he turned his back on me. My nose went into his ass, and I felt its tiny hairs on my skin. A heat blanched my cheeks and my soul, but I remained there, stoic.

  I had gone down, gone under, and when several minutes later I surfaced from beneath the hot, stuffy sheets, it felt truly like I was emerging into a new world entirely. Israel kept his back turned. We did not speak the rest of the night.

  The next morning, I lay calmly on my side of the bed and watched as he stood in the middle of my room and dressed. After buttoning his shirt, he looked down into his shirt pocket and pulled out a quarter. He placed it on the windowsill beside my head with real deliberateness, then turned and walked away.

  I glanced out the window, into the bright day.