No.
Didn’t you find it odd that he spoke without an accent?
Well, he was different from the rest of you Americaniards, wasn’t he? English was his first language, his adoptive parents were American. Whereas the rest of you—sometimes I think you’ve actually managed to preserve a way of talking that’s died out even in Spain. There’s you, and Raúl—who was actually born here in Brooklyn, yet after forty years still sounds like he just stepped off the boat from Galicia . . . but Gal only ever heard English when he was a kid, so . . .
No, no, English wasn’t all he heard—it might not even have been his first language, really.
What do you mean?
He never told you anything about Leonor?
Gal never knew his flesh-and-blood, milk-and-bone mother, but ended up with two surrogate ones. Frank was hesitant to speak about it. He found it very strange that Gal had never mentioned this other mother to me. I had to remind Frank that Gal and I hadn’t actually been very close friends; the truth was, I’d just been getting to know him when he died. Well, Leonor had played a crucial role in Gal’s early years, but Frank couldn’t tell me much else about her. He didn’t even know her last name—only that she was from Salamanca, the daughter of exiles from the Spanish Republic who settled in New York after spending some time in Mexico—professors, I think. They became close friends with Ben and Lucia, and were at their place at all hours. Gal told me that it had been Lucia’s idea to hire Leonor. She was fluent in four or five languages, including Catalan, which she had learned before enlisting with the Lincoln Brigade, and insisted that her adoptive son speak Spanish perfectly. Thanks to Lucia’s conviction, ever since he was an infant, Gal was always around Leonor.
He adored her, Frank continued. She had been an elementary school teacher in Salamanca during the time of the Republic, teaching was a higher calling for her, it was in her blood. In New York, she ran a small school devoted to giving lessons to the children of immigrants and exiles. She taught all kinds of subjects at an elementary-school level, always in Spanish.
Is that right? If she’s still alive, I’d like to speak with her.
I don’t know where I got the idea, but I’m pretty sure she passed away. She went back to Mexico. I’m not exactly sure when. I think Gal even went to see her once or twice . . . Ness, I’m sorry, if I knew more I would tell you. I did meet her once, though.
When was that?
It was a very brief encounter.
Where did you see her?
Here in the Oakland. One day she showed up with Lucia. And that was the only time I ever saw Gal’s stepmother, by the way. They came to see Gal, who was secluded in his room, going through another bad spell. One of those times when he would lock himself up and refuse to see anybody. Gal came down to meet them, but at one point, he and Lucia stepped aside to talk alone, and that’s when I approached Leonor. We had a few minutes to ourselves. She told me about the days when Gal took lessons from her. Lucia was so committed to the idea that he had to master Spanish at any cost, she even held him back from grade school so he started a year late.
Never said a word to me about that.
The idea was to have Gal learn to read and write in Spanish before he could in English. He spoke perfect English, of course, but thanks to Leonor his Spanish kept its “viviparous origins,” as Gal liked to put it. After he started school, he continued to take lessons from her, a couple of hours every afternoon, so for him Spanish was always a living thing. And when, at fourteen, Ben and Lucia told him the truth about his past, the issue of keeping his native language alive became crucial to him too. It was the key to his true identity, and he did everything he could to maintain it. Aside from being the only thing that kept him connected to Spain, he often said that it was the most beautiful of languages, and to master it was both a duty and a privilege. That’s why he went to Mexico so often—and to other places in Latin America as well, although, as I said, less so. That’s why he became a translator and why it was so important for him to write in Spanish. And of course to read it; you’ve seen his collection of Spanish classics. It’s impressive. Everything that counts is in there.
(He wrote in both languages, but it was clear he felt more comfortable in English. And, though I’ve looked and looked, I haven’t been able to find any sort of writing left over from his youth, in English or Spanish. As for published work, he mentions in his notebooks that he used the money from a piece accepted by the Atlantic Monthly to pay for detective Queensberry’s services, but I’ve looked everywhere and haven’t been able to find the story. When I inquired at the magazine, I was told that most likely it had been published under a pseudonym. I knew that he hadn’t submitted it himself—his friend Marc Capaldi had done it—but the trail went cold. As for the notebooks, ninety-nine percent of them are in Spanish. There’s a handful of texts in English, no more than fifty pages altogether, but of course there’s no way of knowing what he might have gotten rid of. I’ve found a few additional pieces originally written in English in Ben’s Archive, and then there are the texts that Gal entrusted to Louise Lamarque, the most remarkable of them being his portrait of Lermontov, but that’s outside the scope of Brooklyn. At any rate, I have no way of knowing how much he destroyed before he died. I have a feeling that as soon as he realized that the end was near, he began to accelerate the process of destruction, especially the English texts, although I can’t be entirely sure about this either . . .)
Frank’s face had again disappeared behind a curtain of smoke. Where were we? I asked.
Gal told me that he had just returned from Oaxaca where he’d spent a couple of months with Nadia, and he wanted to know if any of the rooms upstairs was free.
Had they broken up?
I don’t know if you could call it that. Theirs was a unique relationship. What I can tell you is that after their trip to Mexico, Nadia started coming by the Oakland more often than she had done ever before. When I say the Oakland, I mean the studio; she hardly ever set foot in the bar. Until, one day, she stopped coming by altogether, and it wasn’t long before Gal left New York again. He didn’t say a word to anyone. He simply gathered his things and took off. He was gone for such a long time I was convinced we would never see the man again. But I was wrong. After a couple of years, he showed up and asked me if I remembered him. Well, I laughed in his face. He wanted to rent a room but I didn’t have any available. Then it occurred to me to offer him Raúl’s studio. I had been saving it for my son forever, but he didn’t want to leave our house. There was no way to get him out—until I bought him a place in Jersey and he had no choice but to go off on his own. Gal found the studio perfect for writing. And that was it: he was there for the rest of his life. What caught my attention was how much he had aged since he left, as if ten years had gone by, not two. When he left, he was still a young man, but the person who returned was someone else. Maybe that’s why he asked if I still remembered him. He was aware of how much he had changed and imagined others saw it as well. And it wasn’t just his physical appearance, his character had also changed; he had become more sullen and withdrawn, keeping much more to himself than he ever did before. It was as if his youth had evaporated. The Gal who returned was an older, defeated man, someone who’d lost his battle with life. Very strange.
Did he talk about Nadia a lot?
It came and went. She was definitely always on his mind. There were times when he was more loquacious about her and other times when he would act as if she didn’t exist. When he brought her up, I took it with a grain of salt. Not that I thought he was lying, Gal was incapable of that. He just seemed to be revising the past, just as he revised reality, which is what all you writers do, isn’t it?
Yesterday she came along to pick up some books Marc had left for me at the Mad Hatter, a small bookstore he was very fond of. Nearby, right next door to the jail on the corner of Boerum Place and Atlantic Avenue, we saw a crowd gathered in front of a very austere building. By the door, there was a sign that read:<
br />
FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE
That’s what Quakers call themselves: Friends. Noticing us, a tall guy came over: If you’re here for Alice Keaton’s funeral, he said with a strong Slavic accent, her brother is receiving mourners in the lobby. Nadia and I exchanged a glance. We must have been thinking the same thing. We went in. Alice Keaton’s brother was a redhead, around forty years old. He wore a black suit and no tie. The couple who had been talking to him shook his hand and went up the stairs. Nadia and I followed them. On the first floor beyond the double doors was a very spacious square room with high ceilings. Two of the walls had windows that looked out to an interior garden. The other two walls were white and bare. Wooden benches were set up at an incline toward the far end, as in a theater. In the middle of the room was a lectern with a Bible next to a red velvet stool on which sat an open violin case with the instrument inside. The guests filled the rows, sitting two by two or three by three, or alone, leaving a good deal of space between them. The man in the black suit greeted the last mourners at the entrance. When everyone had arrived, he took a seat in the first row. Outside, the afternoon was bathed in an unpleasant, murky light.
A long silence followed. I was moved by this way of paying homage to the memory of the deceased. When I told Marc about it later, he explained to me that the observance of silence is not mandatory. Whoever feels like it can speak, although, on that day, no one did. I was enthralled by that unfathomable, limitless silence. After a time I began to wonder how much longer I’d be able to endure it. Nadia, on the other hand, was imperturbable, seated on the edge of our bench with her gaze lost someplace beyond the windows. I managed to relax, eventually overcoming my resistance to the power of that silence. I lost all sense of time then; it was as if I were floating in a void. My mind dragged me to different places and moments of my life. Every once in a while, I emerged again and looked at Nadia, who seemed just as lost in thought. After who knows how long, however, I saw her expression change. She knitted her brow as if she had come to some decision, stood up, and walked to the center of the chapel. She approached Alice Keaton’s brother and pointed to the violin. Outside, it had started to drizzle, and you could hear the raindrops against the windows. Nadia picked up the violin and played a sad sweet melody that she managed to make sound as though it were an extension of the silence rather than an interruption of it. The mourners didn’t seem to notice—as if, indeed, the silence had never been broken. When Nadia passed by Alice’s brother on the way back, he stood up and shook her hand. Instead of sitting down next to me again, however, Nadia walked out the door.
The rain had almost cleared, and stopped completely after a few minutes. I felt purified, very close to Nadia, still incapable of speech. When at last I managed to say something, I asked her what piece she had played. A Schubert sonata, she replied, so softly I almost thought I’d imagined it, and then the silence continued between us. Time had come to a halt while we were in the Quaker chapel, and now it was difficult to set it back in motion. The air smelled of damp earth and of that acrid scent that trees give off when the air is charged with electricity after it rains. We took a long walk to Columbia Heights.
On the promenade, we sat on a bench to watch the Manhattan skyline. The view of the harbor was beautiful. We marveled at the incredible variety of vessels we saw in front of us: oil tankers anchored in the distance, tugboats, garbage scows, passenger ferries, cruise ships and ocean liners, police patrol boats, yachts, sloops of various sizes, and even a solitary Chinese junk, God knows how it ended up there. Nadia pointed at the masts of the old schooners docked at the South Street Seaport, and finally let her eyes fall on the merchant ships tied to the piers on the Brooklyn side.
The Danish cargo ships captained by Frank Otero’s friends are berthed over there, I told her, and explained that the original Oakland had been there many years before. Frank bought the bar from a Dane. That’s how the whole thing started.
The sunlight slipped in between two rows of clouds, painting the sky a bloody orange. We had lapsed back into our silence, watching the colors of the twilight change. Then I asked her to marry me.
Her expression didn’t change, and she didn’t turn to look at me. The water in the harbor, a metallic blue till then, became tinged with violet reflections. When the ball of the sun fell behind the buildings of New Jersey, she asked:
Should we go?
I asked her to wait a bit, because I wanted to see night fall.
As the sky darkened, lit squares began to pop up on the sides of the skyscrapers as if someone were putting together a luminous puzzle. Rows of multicolored lights traced the shapes of the bridges. When the first stars appeared, we got up and began to walk toward the subway, down Montague Street, holding hands. Riding back, silence still reigned. Back at her apartment, Nadia dragged me to the bedroom, and when we made love, it wasn’t like the other times. As for the proposal I had made to her on the promenade—it was as if I’d never opened my mouth.
Why didn’t they ever live together?
The truth is that everything happened very quickly. It was like a gunshot in the dark. According to Gal, Nadia was too independent; even the slightest hint of commitment terrified her. What Gal liked most about Nadia was what hurt him most, you know? She was the carnal embodiment of his attraction to the void. I don’t know how many times I heard him say that.
A few hours ago, in the Astroland cafeteria, I proposed once again and she replied that she was against marriage. She said she hated the idea of tying herself to anybody. She stated these things so forcefully that I didn’t really know how to react. I said things . . . things I didn’t realize were as foolish as they must have sounded until I saw them written down in my journal:
[. . .]
I asked her if she loved me. She stared at me and it was a while before she said:
Define “love.”
There’s nothing to define. Or explain. Just answer me.
Please, Gal, enough with the meaningless questions.
Silence again, only now it was different, because I felt the sliver of an affirmation making its way through her consciousness. It would emerge in a moment. I imagined a string of monosyllables falling down through the air, not knowing where they would land. She held my hand, her big green eyes fixed on mine. I must have repeated the question, because I heard her say:
You know that I do.
Then, the question I had asked her on the promenade escaped my lips once more.
She pulled her hand away, closed her eyes, and with an expression of deep weariness, began to reply . . .
I put my index finger to my lips.
I get it, I said. No more questions, your honor. The interrogation is over.
She got up abruptly, grabbing me by the arm, and rushed me out of the cafeteria to the base of the Astrotower. It was Tuesday, so the line was huge; everyone wanted to see the fireworks from the glass elevator that went up more than a hundred yards. I wanted to say no, but Nadia would have none of it. We had never been to Astroland together. I had never seen her act like this—it was as though she had become somebody else. She was very agitated, behaving like a teenager, avidly pointing at everything, her excitement contagious. As we went up surrounded by strangers, her body pressed to mine, I looked down at the park and remembered when I had gone up on the Parachute Jump with my grandfather. The world of fantasy at our feet grew smaller and smaller; we were entering a place whose laws were different from those down below. I thought about my grandfather David, separated from me forever by the cruelty of time. He never got to know Astroland (he died in ’58 and the park didn’t open until ’63), although he would have found its style foreign. All the attractions had something to do with the space age. The elevator was a glass cage that rotated as it went up hugging the outside of the tower, providing a view of the four cardinal points. Below us, people lined up in front of the Mercury Capsule Skyride to go on a simulated journey through space. A panorama of rockets and satellites suspended by cables hovered in
the air above the spectators. Presiding over everything were the capricious peaks of the Cyclone. Somewhat farther away, outside the limits of the park, like a symbol of the past, stood the silhouette of the Parachute Jump. Beyond that, the black surface of the sea, splattered with the reflections of the fireworks.
She had it her way. The elevator remained on at the top of the Astrotower for a long time, so we could watch the fireworks finale. After we came down, Nadia was still very restless. She took me firmly by the hand and told me that she wanted us to ride the Cyclone. I followed her in a daze, not knowing why I was humoring her. It was a violent, absurd ride punctuated by hysterical, piercing shrieks. When we finished the nightmarish course, I was trembling, but Nadia was unbowed. We ran through the amusement park, Nadia leading me by the hand. At the exit on Neptune Avenue, she hailed a cab and told the driver to take us to Brighton Beach. Making love in her apartment, I felt as if I were at her mercy. I could feel her despair intensely. When we finished, she forced me to start again. I don’t know how I had it in me. It only ever happened with her. For the second time that day, time had been suspended. I forgot about the world, about my fears. Finally, she fell asleep, inaccessible, gone to a distant place to which I would never be able to follow her.
I went down to the boardwalk and took a long stroll all the way back to Coney Island. Seated on a bench reminiscing about all the things we’d shared—thoughts, feelings, silences—I realized that it was precisely what I would have to call her soul that was out of reach . . . no matter how much she took charge of my body and how often she gave me hers.
Her body,
but
no:
it’s too
difficult
to put the words
the concepts
in the place where they belong
That’s why
I need to write
about her / about you.
I need to write about you in the diary, because here and only here can I express what I feel without worrying about your reaction. When I’m with you, I just can’t speak freely; I feel the conflict and anxiety inside you and dare not open my mouth. I wait until I’m here, alone, to set down all the things I keep to myself when we’re together. And yes, I know these are words that no one can actually define. It could be that they don’t mean anything—but I need them just the same. Without them I don’t stand a chance of beginning to work out what’s happening to me. Because of you. What happens to me when I’m with you, what in the world happens to me when I’m inside you. Not to mention what happens to you, then. What do I give you? What do you give me? It’s very strange, I’ve never been a religious person in the least, but somehow, when we have sex, if feels almost holy to me. But no, you won’t let me talk like that. I realize that for you it’s entirely different. At any rate, you’d rather remain silent about it. Unlike you, I need to verbalize my feelings, wrap up everything that happens in words, then shape them in writing, caressing them one by one. We’re so afraid to use certain words. What I’m writing now, though, is nothing but the truth, and it’s meant for your eyes only. Perhaps a day may come when you’ll read this. Don’t think it isn’t difficult to write. Having the courage to use words like these makes me extraordinarily vulnerable, in turn. But, one day, all of this will find a form. I will repay you with my writing for everything you’ve given me. I never knew why I did it, why I wrote it all down, but now I see that it makes sense—because of you. I’ve always wanted to write this book, this Brooklyn—even if I’m not sure what it will turn out to be, in the end. All I know is that the real book is hiding underneath the thousands and thousands of words I can’t refrain from writing. I have to dig it up and give it a shape, so that you’ll read it. Brooklyn. I’ll write the book for you, even if you don’t want it. Brooklyn will be born thanks to you, in spite of you.
Call Me Brooklyn Page 21
