Ben.
Chapter 30 The Source Of Trouble
As Told by Ben
Of one thing I am certain this time: The source of trouble between my father and me is nothing else but that book, or whatever he is calling that thing which he is trying so hard to put together. I can understand why you laugh. If someone said this to me I would laugh, too. Still, it is the one explanation that fits the string of events, and it makes increasingly more sense to me, the more I reflect on it. Which is what I have been doing ever since he threw me out. Yes, for once I am certain, and it took me four months of following him, and of being invisible.
For all his faults, I have never found reason to doubt how deeply my father loves me, which makes his anger so devastating now, and also, so puzzling to me—not just the anger itself, but the constancy of it, the fact that it would not relent, not even to let him answer my letters, which by now, I have stopped sending.
So every evening I find myself drawn back to that place. I pass through the back alley, wrapped in a knitted, black scarf all the way up to my ears. It is tied in a thick knot around my neck, cloaking me as if to ward off the cold.
I slip into the bushes at the side of the apartment building, behind the large garbage cans. This is where I take my time, to let my eyes grow used to the dusk. If the light comes on in his balcony—as it often does, around this hour—or, if the glass door suddenly squeals along its rail, I sink back into the darkest dark. Here I cast a quick glance around, to make certain no one is there to see me, or to sense the surge of my heart, and I wait, till I see him coming out.
Then, when at last my heartbeat grows calm, I draw near—but not too near, so there is no way for the old man to suspect that I am here, at such a close range, looking up at him. And even if he did, I trust that he is blinded by the light of the desk lamp, and cannot find me out here, in the shadows. So I stand below his balcony for a long time, not a muscle stirring, and watch him.
I see the desk lamp flickering across his glasses. From time to time he pushes them, with one finger, up his nose. I see the reflection of his hands, large hands wearing fingerless leather gloves, going at the keyboard in spurts of punched sequences. His eyes shine then with inspiration. Other times—when he is betrayed by his muse—he stops typing altogether, and even curses himself out loud.
Then he scratches some corrections into the sheet of paper, and the creaking of his chair gets more frequent, more pronounced. After a while, a faint voice comes on. The first time I heard it—it was late December, I think—I found myself strangely moved. It compelled me to risk revealing myself.
So without taking a second to think, I clung to a drain pipe going up the next building, fumbled about, climbed onto a crack, or a nick, or maybe it was some missing brick in the wall. I nearly faltered, and then—in one leap—flung myself up into a balcony, the one opposite his, which was, as luck would have it, empty.
From here I glanced back at him, afraid he might have detected the rattle of the railing, which was, unfortunately, still going on, vibrating in the air, even though I tried to make it stop already, by gripping the metal bars, bringing them to a freeze in my hands—but no: there he was, crossing something out, then crumpling his papers furiously and starting over, as if nothing else in the whole world mattered.
Next to me, in the corner of the balcony, I spotted a large clay pot, where dry geranium had withered, scenting the air. So I perched on its lip, expecting the neighbor to come out any minute and raise hell—but no: they must have fallen asleep, or something. And so, I was feeling unusually bold, as if I dared steal someone’s seat in a theater.
This, I thought, was the best place to watch the scene, and to gain some clarity. At this height, I would enjoy an uninterrupted view of him. At this distance, I would examine my father’s actions in a cold, analytical manner, free, so I thought, of emotion. I would be able to pay closer attention to what I thought I heard, so I might remove from my mind any doubt about it.
You must be careful, said a voice.
There was a raspy quality to it, which startled me, because it sounded so close, so vivid. It came not from inside his apartment—but rather from the top of his desk, from the tape recorder. It was a voice to which the old man seemed to be listening obsessively.
Rewind, Play, Rewind, Play, he slapped one key, then another, alternating between them numerous times, leaning over them closely, as if to register in his mind every nuance of the way Anita talks.
You must be careful, Ben, said her voice. And then again, a thousand times over, The words you leave behind you, they ain’t yours no more.
What surprised me was not merely the fact that my father had the nerve to listen in, to study her most intimate, secret moments. Simple curiosity would have explained that, and could, perhaps, have been forgiven. No! This was something completely different, something I could not put in words right away.
So I slipped off my perch, over the railing, down the pipe, around the bushes, and back into the alley, chased by confusion, before it hit me, all of a sudden, with sharp clarity: her voice is his. So is mine. In the process of writing, he has crossed a line, crossed it into an altogether different reality, which is all made up. He has come to consider us his characters, characters with no claim to privacy. In his mind, our thoughts are his for the taking.
That, I believe, is the only explanation to his tape collection, the voices he owns. As an author, he wishes to capture us—as genuinely as language can—in the most touching, most vulnerable of moments. He cannot help but invade our mind, our heart, our guts, because he needs to feel us inside, refine our voices, perhaps even guide us from one scene to the next. He aims to determine how our story would end. In his madness, he puts faith only in himself. He is God.
From time to time, in spite of himself, he welcomes our rebellious nature, because it offers him a new, unforeseen twist in his tale. Which is not to say he enjoys his power. Quite the opposite. I come there often to watch him, and I can tell you that as this long winter bores on, he seems to plunge deeper and deeper into despair—especially when hearing me, I mean, my voice ranting on tape.
Lately, his wrist seems to be painfully tired, because of the incessant typing. But somehow he presses on. Play. He listens to me—breath fluttering in his throat, as if to hold himself back from a fit of crying—then he takes a short pause, and Rewind, he listens again.
Meanwhile, immobile in the shadows, I cannot ask him to stop. I feel exhausted slouching here, motionless, against the bars. I cannot even bring myself to clap my hands over my ears. A thousand times over, here it comes, here it is, trembling with a rising inflection. I try not to hear it, but carried over to me by a light breeze is my voice, betraying my secret. It says:
And through the wall, the space, the wall, can Anita hear the pounding, the loud pounding of my heart? Can she feel me, breathing her name? Does she whisper back to me, Stop it, stop it right now?
For the author in him, this, I figure, should be considered pure gold. He must be terribly pleased at the opportunity to take what I said and mold it anew, reducing here, embellishing there, channeling every turn, every twist in the flow of my passion. But then, for the lover in him, trying to to place his trust in the hands of those he holds dear—his wife, his son—every word must be driving a dagger into his heart.
And yet, despite the pain, I see him he pressing on, forcing himself to listen, then to write. His new character—a paper version of me—starts taking shape. It is given a voice, which is drawn out of my throat. Every word makes me a touch weaker. Soon I will be completely drained of breath.
I look at my father across the divide, and for the first time in my life, I wish for uncertainty. I wish I would have a doubt left in me. If I did, I could still wonder if he might, one day, want me back.
I could still hope.
It does not even matter that he cannot see me at this moment, because now, after so many Play, Play, Play repetitions, we both know—we cannot avoid knowing—t
hat we are on opposite sides. We are rivals, regarding each other with deep suspicion, because we can no longer look into each other’s eyes. I am waiting here, longing for my dad. He is waiting over there, writing my voice.
Chapter 31 Around Me Around Him
As Told by Anita
Aunt Hadassa calls me to say that he’s called her, this time from New York, just to say hi and to let her know all’s well, he’s traveling around the country, having the time of his life. So I tell her, like, Good for him, and I mean it—but I’m careful not to mention no doubts, ‘cause like, why should I make her worry. So the only one I ask is myself, Why do I still have that funny feeling, like he’s never left town?
Like, a week ago I went shopping with her, and we stopped on Montana street, outside the window of a baby furniture store, ‘cause that cradle—the one with the arched canopy, with them cute ruffles over it—caught my eye, it was so adorable! And then, then I could swear I spotted them eyes glinting there, in the glass. That look, it was terribly familiar. So without having to turn around I already knew that someone, someone I used to know was standing there, directly behind us, on the other side of the street.
I won’t have noticed that man at all, if not for the odd way the chin was wrapped with a scarf, over the nose and ears, which wasn’t even necessary, ‘cause there wasn’t no wind, and it was such a warm, sunny March day.
But it turned out that it wasn’t Ben, after all. I mean, the shoes wasn’t exactly right, and way he walked away was kinda different. And the hair was all wrong, it was much too long. And, he wasn’t even looking at me, the way I thought he was. Like, there wasn’t even a glance. I really don’t get it. I thought I had a sharp eye, but somehow I must have misread the reflection.
Enough, I told myself then, what’s the matter with you?
You think someone—anyone—would bother taking another look at you now, waddling around with your belly coming forward like that, like a beach ball?
Then we went into the store, aunt Hadassa and me, and I think she could tell—in spite of me trying to smile—how tense I was. So she bought a little something for me—well, for the baby, really: a mobile, with plush toy animals dancing around it. For now, I mean, until I get a cradle for my baby, it’s hung up in the bedroom window, right in the center, where the blinds meet.
So at night, when I feel sad, or tired, or just sleepy, I pull out the little string to wind the thing up, which makes the animals go fly—fly like a dream—so slowly around your head.
And at the same time, it brings out a sweet lullaby, chiming, Twinkle, twinkle, little star... How I wonder what you are...
I stand here, by the window under the mobile. I touch the glass between one blind and another, and watch them animals, mirrored. They come in like ghosts, one after another, right up to the surface, swing around, and fly back out, into the dark. Then I gaze at them stars up there, so far beyond, and ask myself if they’re real—or am I, again, misreading some reflection.
But after a while, all of that don’t matter no more.
What matters is only what’s here. I touch my skin right under my breasts, which is where the little one’s curled, and where he kicks, ‘cause he has to. Like, he don’t feel so cosy no more. Here, can you feel it? I reckon he wants me to talk to him. He can hear me inside, for sure. He can hear every note of this silvery music.
It ripples all around him, wave after wave. I can tell that it’s starting to sooth him. It’s so full of joy, of delight, even if to him, it’s coming across somewhat muffled. Like a dream in a dream, it’s floating inside, into his soft, tender ear.
I close my eyes and hold myself, wrapping my arms real soft—around me around him—and I rock ever so gently, back and forth, back and forth, with every note of this silvery marvel. You can barely hear me—but here I am, singing along. I’m whispering words into myself, into him.
And this is the moment when, like one, we’re happy.
Chapter 32 No Second Look
As Told by Ben
Here is my latest revelation: I have been in hiding for so long that at this point, by some strange twist, my mind starts rebelling against me. I know it, because—in spite of my efforts to disguise myself, to alter my looks and behavior—I find myself wishing to be found out.
To this day I do not exactly know why, why I attempted this transformation in the first place, except to say it was something I felt compelled to try. It was the only way to stay in town, and to remain close, physically at least, to my father, he who had cast me away.
So I put a black rinse on my hair, which at first—until I got used to it—looked somewhat artificial to me: not just the color, but the shine, too. I let it grow longer, so that in a matter of a few weeks it hung just short of my shoulders. And unless I swept my bangs sideways, there would be no way for you to spot my eyes.
Next I bought a suit, a secondhand suit made of charcoal blue pinstripe wool, the kind I would never be caught dead wearing, I mean, in my previous, normal life. It made me look a lot wider, I thought, because of its double breasted cut, and the heavy shoulder pads. An overcoat, a pair of new dress shoes and my old, black scarf put the finishing touches on my costume.
I glanced down at myself thinking, what sort of a man was I trying to turn into? A yesterday’s hippie, who had evolved, somehow, into a white-collar character? Would I not be drawing more attention than I usually do, and becoming easier to recognize, dressed in way which to me, was peculiar?
The answer, to my surprise, was No. People—even those who used to be my neighbors—would not give me a second look when I passed them on the street.
I suppose they mistook me for someone who spent most of his time counting money, such as a clerk in a bank or something. I looked formal, which helped me land a job, my first job, not only since my return to Santa Monica, but ever. It happened quite by chance.
Back at the beginning of January I was walking aimlessly up and down Wilshire Blvd., and happened to spot a Teacher Wanted sign in the front window of this place, which turned out to be a local music academy. On a whim, I went in, and gave my real name—Benjamin Kaminsky—because it is quite common, and because I had no time to think, and because I wanted, in my heart of hearts, to leave some trace of myself, so if someone went looking, they could, eventually, find me.
I presented myself as a pianist, whose academic credentials had been lost back in Bulgaria, or some such place. I said I was eager to start working immediately, and for low wages, and completed this introduction by dashing over to one of the pianos and playing my old version of The Entertainer, which—to my astonishment—got me the job on the spot.
The very next day, as I approached the entrance to the music academy to start my afternoon schedule, my heart took a leap: I thought I caught sight of a familiar outline coming around the opposite street corner. A broad-shouldered man could be spotted advancing toward me with long, steady strides. Turning there—no longer with a limp—and walking down the other side of the street, was my father.
Gazing at the pavement, the old man seemed lonely and withdrawn. Over a month had passed since our quarrel. The memory of it swung there, in the space between us, like a double-edged sword: ready to cut in both directions.
I needed to believe dad was thinking about me, imagining me someplace else, perhaps traveling abroad, this time on my own dime, having refused his offer of support. Was he worried about me? Did he go back to regarding me as a son, instead of a rival? I wanted to be on his mind, now that I was out of his way.
Cloaked in my black scarf I felt close to invisible, secure in my new identity—but at the same time an urge came upon me, a strong, undeniable urge to be discovered. There was no fighting it.
I hurried over, and—quite abruptly—stepped into his path, and crossed him.
Coming against me he raised his face, and was looking far out there, perhaps at the stormy sky over my shoulder. For just an instant I dared look directly into his eyes. In my heart, anger clashed with somethin
g I had trouble naming: maybe love, maybe not. If he were to touch me right then, I had no idea if I would break his arms or fall into them, sobbing.
The moment came and went. Not once did he show any sign of recognition. Absentminded, my father passed me by as if going around some thing, some inanimate object. An empty suit, for all he cared. An obstacle.
Even so, I was hopeful. With every step my father had taken along the way, I could not wait for him to take a second look at me—but then remembered he had neglected to take even the first one.
I stood there, hidden from him in plain view. Being unnoticed should not have shocked me so—but somehow, it did. As if planted in the pavement I froze, looking at his back, which was growing smaller and smaller, obscured by one passerby, then another, until at last it faded out into the distance.
His gait never slowed down, nor did he turn around.
Apart From Love Page 28
