I thought, the hell with this, the hell with trying to get anything done around here, and yelled down to the person whose hand was still mid-motion through a wave. I climbed back down, dropped the club at the foot of the ladder. How very impatient, I thought to myself, because when I walked into the house, the person who was standing in the middle of the driveway was already ringing the doorbell. I imagined a woman on the other side of the door saying “Yoohhoo, Yoohhoo, somebody let me in please,” and I had a sudden urge to go back out and grab the club, but she kept ringing the doorbell and I walked quickly through the kitchen instead, into the living room, right up against the front door, and I thought, very quickly and one after the other: the plants, the mailman, the old lady in the dark, Fra Keeler, and opened the door to let her in.
A broad-shouldered woman was standing there staring at me. Her face was stern and kind at the same time, I couldn’t quite make it out, and she had a name-tag pinned to her blouse right below her left shoulder. I said “Hello.” She said “Hello” right back at me, and asked if she could come in. “Yes,” I said, “come in.” Then I peered over her shoulder to see if the mailman was standing behind her. I thought, this woman and the mailman, they must be connected, and the pair of them to the old lady as well. But all I could see were the plants, sitting there, bored as light bulbs, sticking out of the ground, and I thought, they could use some water, the plants, only I must have said this out loud because the next moment the woman was saying, in the form of a question, “Excuse me, sir?” and I responded by saying, “There is no one there,” like I was shrugging something off my shoulder. The woman quickly took her place in the middle of the living room, and I thought, who the hell is she? What is she doing here? But before the questions had occasion to close in my mind, she said, “The phone, sir.” And I said, “Yes, the phone, what about it?” And she said, “The phone, sir, I am here because you asked for me over the phone.” “For you,” I asked, “in particular?” “No,” she said, “not in particular.” And I said “Oh” and looked over at the phone. It was sitting on top of the table, and I thought, the phone, and I remembered the dream and the ringing, high as a horse’s, her cheekbones, and I thought why is the phone intact? Because certainly I remember having shattered it.
“Would you like to further discuss the issue?” she asked. Discuss what? I wondered, because I couldn’t remember having talked to her in the first place. “Sir, we could discuss your research,” she said. “Discuss my research?” I asked. She is out of her mind about my research, I thought. And then I asked, “What research?” To which she replied, “You requested our services, sir.” And I thought, how is the phone intact when surely I had shattered it. “Discuss my research,” I said. “That would be good,” I said, because I wasn’t getting anywhere without lying to her. “Where would you like to start?” she asked. “Anywhere,” I said. One moment you are on your roof, I thought—but then I turned over to address her because her eyes seemed to have widened, “Anywhere you would like to start,” I repeated, “Very well then,” she said, relaxing her eyes—and the next, I thought, you are standing in your living room with a broad-shouldered woman asking you questions about your research.
She pulled out her clipboard. Things are getting serious, I thought. Then she repeated herself: “Very well then,” she said, “I am going to ask you a string of questions.” “A string of questions,” I said. “Are you mocking me, sir?” she asked, and her eyes tightened into two little screws. Clearly, I thought, I had shattered the phone against the wall earlier. “How long have you been doing your research?” she asked, and her voice tightened to match the screws. “Research?” I asked, because I wanted to buy time to think about something else. A panoramic view, I thought. “Sir,” she said. Because once one event takes shape the rest line up alongside it. “Sir,” she repeated. “Yes,” I said, “sir.” Then I thought, have your thoughts quickly, speak your thoughts quickly or get out of here, but I didn’t say this out loud because some thoughts are better kept private. “I am not a sir,” she said. “Clearly,” I said, looking at her, and I wanted to tell her more. You are a strange specimen, I wanted to say, but she had already walked out the door.
I shut the door behind her and went over to the receiver. Hadn’t it shattered? I thought. Hadn’t I thrown it against the wall? The receiver. But there it was: whole, entire, not a part of anything else, but something in and of itself, and I thought, it is an act of rebellion, the receiver is acting out against its own death. And death, I thought, is more present than life. Because it is always near, right up against the edge of one’s skin. Where one person’s skin ends, I thought, that is where their death begins. And it is the same with tables, and telephones, I thought, picking up the receiver, because despite being objects they all have a finite existence. At any moment a table could break, at any point the telephone could shatter. Only it could not shatter then recompose itself, not of its own will, I thought. In this way objects are different from people, I thought. Because people could recompose themselves, if they wanted, although to what degree remains unclear. I put the receiver back down, and thought, objects decompose in stages, they inch slowly toward their own death. Only much slower than humans do, because most often objects outlive the people who own them, even though death, in every case—in the case of objects and in the case of people—is always very near. I leaned over to unplug the telephone line, and sitting on the floor stared at the stub of the cord for a moment. Because the world, I thought—blowing into the outlet to clear out any particles that might have been caught in it—by virtue of existing beyond us, is the space of our death. Only, not our exact death, but our potential death, I thought, and plugged the phone line back in. Because our exact death annuls our potential death, I thought, and got off the floor to check the telephone again. Our potential death becomes irrelevant once we’ve enacted our exact death, I thought. Nothing exists beyond itself. So that everything beyond our skin points to our eventual disappearance. As in, at every moment we are both here and not here, I thought, we are at the same time both present in the world and not present in the world, because the space that we occupy is limited. And it is not only limited, I thought, picking up the receiver a second time, because everything beyond the space that we occupy represents our death. So that we are doubly limited, I thought, listening to the dial tone. The space that we occupy is limited, and everything beyond the space that we occupy reinforces the fact that we are limited by virtue of containing our potential death. So that in every moment, at the same time that we exist, we also do not exist, because our potential death, and within it our exact death, is right up against us. We are continually disappearing, I thought. Evaporating, becoming more and more a part of our exact death, and less a part of ourselves. I put the receiver down.
Then a large thought came to me, in a flash, and I surrendered to it the way the sky surrenders to lightning. I thought, life is not a movement toward death, as though death were a single, containable event waiting at the end of life to close down on everything, as though everything that came before one’s death were a linear progression toward it. No, I thought, impossible, abominable stupidity, for death to be there, at the end, waiting in silence. Everything before it sound, everything after it silence. Ha! I thought. And how to explain the noise long after Fra Keeler’s death? Because what we are doing, I thought, as I surrendered to the thought the way the sky surrenders to lightning, is a side-by-side living out of life right alongside our death. At every moment there is the moment of our living, and the moment of our potential death, I thought, right alongside the moment of our living, the moment of our potential death. Until the moment of our living is unable, in a particular situation, to evade the moment of our potential death, and our exact death takes over, like a hollow wave rising, curving, gathering force, I thought, the wave of our exact death. Our bodies, I thought. And next to our bodies, the lack of our bodies, I thought, because one is no longer able to put one’s body in motion. Just like that, one moment
and then the next. And it is the same for objects, I thought, coming back down from the large thought, because who can sustain lightning for very long? I moved away from the living room, from the front door, because when I came to I realized I was still standing there, senselessly under the skylight, frozen up after having checked and rechecked the receiver, the lady having gone, appeared and disappeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Only then there was a knocking on the door, just as I had prepared to move away from it. And I heard her voice again, “Hello, I know you are in there,” she said and I opened the door just as she was making a fist with her hand to knock again.
“Hello,” I said. And I wanted to add, It’s you again, but I kept the words to myself.
“I left my clipboard here,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “you did,” looking at her clipboard on the table next to the receiver. Isn’t that a sign? I wondered, her clipboard next to the receiver, and offered to let her in. She headed straight for the receiver and grabbed her clipboard like a creature in distress.
“I will be on my way, then,” she said, but just then one of her business cards fell away from her clipboard. She reached down to pick it up, and I thought, I should have that, it should be mine just in case.
“Clearly there is a connection here,” I said.
“A connection?” she asked, and I realized immediately that I had given myself away. The mailman, her, I thought, the old lady down the street, the receiver, but it was difficult to review things in her presence. She is a nuisance, I thought to myself, only not altogether, just in that particular moment when I needed to review her connection to the rest of the events.
“May I hold on to your business card?” I asked, ignoring her question. “In case I should have to make a phone call to you in the future,” I added, “but for now you can be on your way.” I faced the palm of my hand toward the door so as to motion her out of it. She walked out the door. Only, at the moment when she was two thirds of the way turned away from me, I could see the edge of her face had contorted.
So much noise, I thought, Fra Keeler, even after the time and space of his death. And I thought, it’s senseless to stand here under the skylight contemplating her departure, her fanfare and contorted face. Who is she, in any event, to have left her clipboard beside the receiver that had shattered then recomposed itself? I felt as though my brain were being drawn up by a series of strings. Some things, I thought, are to think about later. The receiver, the clipboard. Everything comes in pairs. And here I am, I thought, standing under the skylight by the door when clearly I have thought it senseless to stand under the skylight by the door, contemplating her departure. Only not senseless altogether because every piece should be put in its proper place: the clipboard, the receiver. But there is a time and a place for everything, and then I thought, I must extract myself! So that I did, from under the skylight, and thought: I will come back to this, one pair and then the other, I will retrace. But so much noise after a death, so much sound to a death, and it was calling me, the noise of it all, drawing me out from under the skylight and into the kitchen, beyond the kitchen into the garden, beyond the garden through the trees, and there I was again: the yurt brave and stout as a horse in front of me. And the skylight was so far, the woman with the contorted face farther, and I could see them revolving around each other, sheets of paper in the wind. I thought, I should go in, I must—there is information to be gathered. Pal-ma, I heard myself say, Pal-ma de Mallorca, and then the Netherlands, those under-lands, low lands, lower lands, and the handwriting: a low squiggly line, a hill with a dark horse or two traversing them. Another pair, I thought, another square in its place: Palma de Mallorca, the Netherlands. And the yurt flashed like a cloud, a misty white cloud, it billowed and went through me.
I was standing inside, enveloped by the yurt. There was a strange light inside, the kind of light, I thought, that would come through the skylight if it were polished. A drained yellow bordering on soft white. I looked up. I looked around. There was nothing. I was entirely enclosed by the yurt. The light, I wondered, where could it be coming from? Infiltrating the walls as though they were not walls, but thin sheets of tracing paper exposed to a faint, comforting light. And I could see him: he was there, just beyond me, his two glassy eyes blue as ice: “Fra Keeler,” I said, “Fra Keeler,” he called back. And he was an old, frail man, all shriveled up, moving his wrist through the air. “Wars,” he said, and I thought to myself perhaps he is explaining the strange light in the yurt, or comparing the light in the yurt to the light of wars, because just as the yurt is drenched in a particular light so are wars, with all the explosions and the fires that are endemic to them. I reached my arm out, Fra Keeler, soft as a dove toward him. I thought, either I will touch him or I will go through him, one or the other, and just as I reached toward him I was confronted with sheer emptiness. Just as quickly as he appeared, he disappeared. The world of the yurt closed down harshly on him.
The yurt faded. Just as it appeared it faded. I must take a walk, I thought. Then I spied the yurt again beyond the trees. There it is again, I thought, impossible to go to it, impossible to leave. But alas, this lasted a mere second, because then I opened my eyes, and I was back in the house again, in the bedroom, with no recollection of having arrived there. The curtains were drawn, and the faintest light was filtering through them. This is dawn, I thought, because the birds were chirping and the light was a delicious faint wave of yellow trickling through the curtains, a silken soft white light falling onto me. I could see the birds beyond the curtains, their shadows flickering, I could hear them chirping. This is morning! I thought. This is a new day! But what, what was I doing in the bedroom? How did I get here, I thought, from the yurt, through the kitchen, up to the bedroom—when had I gone to bed? I sat there, upright and still for a moment. I turned away from the window and the birds. I spied an image of myself in the mirror as I turned away: sitting on the edge of the bed, the white morning light washing over me, the curtains, the sheets, the birds chirping in the trees. I looked at myself in the mirror. I thought, that is me, or that is not me, but a reflection of me according to the mirror.
Suddenly I remembered standing by the window, swinging the club. A handsome figure, I thought, a handsome image, me standing by the window swinging the club. I got up and walked to the mirror and posed as though I were holding the club, the same way I had been holding it, practicing my swing in the mirror, then tapping the club to the skylight. Again, I thought, staring at myself in the mirror: the skylight is inextricable. One of those objects, passed down, owner to owner, I thought. So that Fra Keeler stood beneath it, just as I stand beneath it every time I open the door. The same inextricable object: the skylight above my head just as it was above Fra Keeler’s head when he would go to the door. I bounced the club around from hand to hand a few times, I practiced my swing. Certain objects are interminable, I thought. Because just as you can take the legs off a table, I thought, as I found my grip, you can put them back on again. Or chop the table up, use the wood to make a new table, altogether new and exact in an entirely different way. Certainly a person cannot be made from a chopped up person, I thought, and released the imaginary club. Because even though I wasn’t actually holding it, I thought that if I had been holding the club, by then I would have grown tired of its weight.
I walked back over to the bed and sat down again. Ultimately, I thought, it is impossible to tell to what degree the skylight is my skylight, to what degree Fra Keeler’s. And just as objects are passed around from person to person, one is handed thoughts from all sides, thoughts one asks for and thoughts one doesn’t ask for, and they become inextricable from each other. One could destroy one’s own thoughts, just as one could destroy one’s own objects. And why shouldn’t one choose to destroy oneself, when wars, I suddenly thought, are a massive choosing out of one’s death, an entire mass of people choosing out their own death, only without knowing it, without fully being aware? War is a coward’s death, I th
ought, and caressed the edge of the bed. A coward’s suicide: war, that is all it is: a mass of people walking like sheep toward their own death. The whole world, I thought, full of decrepit corpses. Because war is everywhere, I thought. The war in our brains, and actual wars: over land, and by sea, and even through the air above the land, I thought, because one way of killing isn’t enough, one gets bored of it, so many strategies, I thought, one must have tactics. I wanted to smash the mirror. To take the club to the mirror and smash it. Only not the invisible club, not the pretend formulation of a club I had been holding earlier, but the actual club. Shatter the mirror, I thought, because there is no other way to stop it from capturing so many images, doubling things where they don’t need to be doubled—objects, I thought, myself.
The whole world, I thought, standing up from the edge of the bed in a sudden gesture, devoid of persons. The whole earth! I went over the earth with my mind’s eye as though I were a camera floating through the air. I saw landmass after landmass completely devoid of persons. On a mountain, a table. By the ocean, a chair. Just like that. Nothing else. I waved my hand through the air so as to say: Aha! I have made a circular motion with my hand, the same motion with my hand as I have made with my thoughts about death. Everything is mirrored. Thoughts coordinated with the motions of one’s body, and vice versa: the motions of one’s body coordinated with the thoughts in one’s head. So that one is always synchronized.
Fra Keeler Page 4
