by Laurie Sheck
This doesn’t mean that experts should be trusted. But the explanation surprised me. I wish I could know what you think.
I’ve tried to lay this out for you as close to how I read it. To not stray or make unnecessary asides. It’s very hard for me to be this methodical. And always I think of the blackness. It should have been back by now I don’t understand what’s happening I xx
I will try to write one more time xx
Dear A,
I don’t know where the magnifying glass is anymore /// Why can’t I find it? And the lilacs outside the window—how could they have vanished? Or maybe they’re there but I can’t see them (though the blackness still hasn’t come back, or the sound-colors that come with it…I have no way to understand this). As when I read about time and space—how we can’t feel or know their true nature yet they’re there xxxx // we live in incompletion always
Woland takes me to his room, gives me slippers of spun rose petals to put on, tells me it’s all right to feel anything I wish “but not indifference.” I don’t tell him I don’t want his slippers or anything to do with roses. I’ll take them off as soon as I leave here. I understand now your roses aren’t mine. And I was wrong to imagine myself into your body. I try so hard to see you…I still think of your privacy, your quiet. How we worked side by side but didn’t speak.
Remember the boy who taught himself the sounds of different metals? Why do I so readily think of the boy and his metals but not the thousands of times he sat in a paper hospital gown in an examining room, the air too cold, waiting with his one broken bone or another, or his several broken bones, maybe looking at the garish seascapes on the wall, or looking only away, or at the photographs of trees taken by a doctor who decided he needed “a new hobby”? What does a fracture feel like, can you tell me? Or a fracture that recurs many times in the same place?
I still remember our months in the office. The books we scanned, the silence between us. The fake daylight we worked in. The signs above our work stations. The real daylight we often didn’t see. We knew the new technology would replace us, it was just a matter of time. I wonder if by now it’s ready. And the low hum of the machines, remember? Fluorescent buzzing from the ceiling. Computers. Scanners. Everything close and far away at the same time. Even our own skin.
The man on the rock, where is he? I never should have turned his words to sand and wished them down his throat. I tried to help him with my cloth, cool water, but he didn’t want it, and I knew it wouldn’t really help.
Why didn’t you push my hand away like he did? (Though I know that you would never touch me.) Why did you open my first letter, why did you do as I asked? The article says you have a “benevolent face”—it says that you “possess a remarkable capacity for empathy.”—that maybe this is built into the structure of your genes, the same mutation that’s the cause of your illness. How can we ever begin to understand how we are made, how we function, the forms and processes that drive us? So much elsewhere outside and inside us…The article says there is something in you resistant to holding on to hurt—it calls it “benevolence.” It calls it a “particular form of mild euphoria,” “the power of bearing well.” “Indomitable and tenacious spirit.”
But I sent you away, I—But maybe the notebook gave you something after all, though you don’t know my name or where I am and you can’t tell me. Venice. The lagoon. San Servolo…Maybe they gave something and you’re not sorry that I asked you, that you went.
And this light is too bright now when all along I expected the blackness. I don’t understand what could account for this. But now it’s getting dark again, so I don’t know… “Sometimes mercy slips through the narrowest cracks,” Woland says, but I want to leave his room, go back to the room with the round table, the large window, the papers on the floor, the word “ruin.” Dostoevsky felt such joy before he fell, remember?
“increased rate of cellular oxidation…a component of the generalized metabolic disturbance”
“Behavioral phenotype” is such an ugly term—
Her penciled words had been so faint I’d barely seen them. And those words so few, so scattered, as if they were the only ones left and, as in her description of Pilate, the rest were sand sifting back and down her throat to where no one could hear or feel them.
So when these letters came, and I tried to accept they could be possible, it was like trying to accept a notion of time and space that exists in accordance with laws all their own and apart from us where we never truly know them.
My fever was coming back again. I’d felt its slow rise for several days, though at first I denied it. So as I sat in my red room, and held her last three letters, I was also thinking maybe they had never come, maybe I was holding nothing. Thinking I had never read them. That they didn’t even exist. Or maybe I had written them—she was dead and I missed her. And as I thought this, I thought also of Frieda, how her voice entered the air after so many years of not speaking, and how strange it was for her to suddenly hear its willingness to place itself in danger, though the white handkerchief remained inside her.
The infirmary walls were much too quiet. The caregivers had given me my name, then left me. No one lived there anymore. The air smelled of Pilate’s roses. Then the roses left and it smelled of rosemary and camphor, and after that the acrid burning of computers.
I was in Venice, I was on the plague island with Frieda, I was watching the doctor write his name in the plague ledger, sign it. I was in the courtyard, the twelve trees still saplings. I was in the office, scanning. My bones were broken. I was wearing a leg brace, a body cast, a wood splint, I had my cane by my side, I was in a wheelchair, I was holding crutches. My bones had never broken.
The penciled pages were blank. I had been right the first time. There were no words on them. There were never any words.
There had been no cyclic AMP. No you’re alone you observe…I learned the sounds of metals I was alone and I knew what was making that sound…you’re alone and you learn certain metals…
Or maybe the letters were there, even the ones in faint pencil.
How did the Master’s manuscript come back after it burned, and what else could come back or could nothing ever come back? Why were my walls so hot…why were they still melting…A fork…a spoon…a cup…I am alone and I learn the sounds…you’re alone and you learn the different metals...
But why does Sushilov have so many scars on his back….the nights are very cold in prison, there’s ice on the windows one inch thick….and the cattle are cold in their white field, I want to tend them like I used to but I can’t move from this rock….the red cloth is very beautiful, isn’t it….“behavioral phenotype”….“grant sponsor”….“purpose of this study”….who will bring food into the city….only the poor remain in the city….I understand that I am nothing, that my suffering is nothing….but this white handkerchief inside me….why do I still believe that you might hear me?….I have put on my black lenses….I have wrapped myself in resin and blackness….he showed me the kindness of red cloth….a fluttering thing of pale gray blue and white….A flightless bird A ghost….
I took the medicine. Why would the hot waves slip back and rise and slowly spread again….and this black spot in the corner of my eye….
….the article is “Personality and Stereotype in”….as soon as I found it I knew you wouldn’t want me to read it….I held the words under the magnifying glass, read one cluster then another….I write the word dark and cross it out write joy and cross it out….“behavioral genetics”….“systematic research”….from the air all faces blur, all bodies stay unfocused….Woland gave me the slippers but I didn’t want them….I worry that I wronged and harmed you….why did I see your hump as mine….“the materials and methods of this study”….“the history of euphoric attribution”….I am looking for you in the poorest districts, in the crumbling streets beside the women’s prison, I am flying over St Marks and the gardens of Ca’ Morosini….we must learn to find beautiful laws, we mus
t understand more fully the nature of order….
….Why won’t you show that you can hear me I believe now that you never heard me….
….And the scientists say there is no such thing as empty space but Dark Energy….Dark Matter….
….And all the stars will go out and there will be no life-bearing planets….
….Myshkin believes that kindness can rescue everything but how can this possibly be so….
….All beggars are ordered to depart the city in three days….I still wish that you would show if you could hear me….25,000 have already fled the city….the magistrates have fled, the councils have emptied….but it is suddenly as if the whole universe says yes, everything’s terribly clear and there’s such joy….But there is so much darkness now….What lies past the single horizon, the single scale?….and Myshkin strokes Rogozhin’s face with such tenderness but why does he do this why doesn’t he get up and leave him….Why do I keep coming to you, why have I found you?….you are alone and you learn to observe, you are alone and you learn the different metals….how can I explain why I need you to read to me….the light across the courtyard the twelve trees….the Nucleus Solitarius is such a lonely name, forgive me….Protein activation….Post-synaptic Excitation….and when you read to me your reading brought me peace
Dear A,
But everything is dark now. I still feel you though my eyes can’t see you.
I am sitting in a chair on a green hill in the cold sunlight.
I see the different grasses under my feet, some rough and dark, others slender, thread-like, almost silver. I see the splinter of black wood jutting out from the chair leg. Mostly I remember Rogozhin’s room, my tears falling onto his cheek as we lie close, side by side on the cushions he arranged on the floor, the two on the left for me because they are “the best.” Many hours pass. I hold and stroke him. We talk about flowers the knife the drops of blood. And Marie is too weak to leave her rock, but the sight of the cattle calms her as they move in their inhuman quietness through the fields. She worries they are cold and hungry. And the waterfall, I still hear it, and the donkey in the marketplace. I am still holding Rogozhin and now it is impossible to tell which is his skin and which is mine. My tears are falling on his face I am trying not to tremble, I can see the green curtain, the tip of a bare foot beneath it, scattered petals, a white dress, white ribbons. I am holding a white handkerchief, the shore is empty then it’s littered with white boats. The green hill grows darker, colder. I am in Daravoe, a man is touching a boy’s face in kindness. The hours pass slowly, I have put on black lenses. I see the plague doctor’s beaked mask filled with rosemary and camphor, I see the white mask of the Servetta Muta. I am on my cold hill, I am putting on my white death-shirt I am lowering it over my head my naked body I am sixth in line for execution. I am traveling over snow I pass a bell sentenced to eternal silence. I am in a prison camp and a man is remembering Daravoe, a hand touching a boy’s face with kindness, I will stay here for four years. I am on the plague island with Frieda and won’t show if I can hear or see her. I am in a room with a narrow bed, a coffee cup, green lamp, small table, the room is red I am hot and cold at once my fever is building. The long bones in both my legs are broken. A soft music has fractured one of the bones of my middle ear, the smallest bones of the body, I am alone and I am listening for the sounds of different metals. I am alone and I learn the sounds you learn to know them, a fork, a spoon, a cup, each one is different. Marei has worked all day in the fields, he is old, red scars on both his arms. Why is he so kind to me? A man is crossing a courtyard to read to a woman whose sight is failing. Then the courtyard is empty, the man lies on the floor he is having a seizure. The woman looks out on twelve trees, she can feel the man’s hands on the closed book, she hears turning pages. The hill is very dark, the air sharpening, colder. My tears fall on a murderer’s cheek, I lie on the “best” cushions I hold and stroke him. My breath mixes with his breath, I hear our breathing. I think of pulling back but don’t pull back.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to Jack Shoemaker, to his dedication as a publisher, his love of books, his indomitable spirit and example, and to all that he stands for and has done over the past decades.
My thanks to everyone at Counterpoint, especially the intrepid Matthew Hoover, whose exceptional discernment, keen, clarifying, eye, and steady, problem-solving temperament were invaluable in taking this work from manuscript to book.
My thanks, too, to Kelly Winton who created the inspired jacket design, and to Domini Dragoone, the book’s designer, whose acuity, and clear, persistent vision has enriched these pages.
Also to Megan Fishmann, for her invaluable judgment, guidance and spirited support.
Thanks, too, to Peter Mendelsund and Maggie Hinders, whose work on my first hybrid helped me to move forward with aspects of this one, as I tried to see through their eyes, and further think about surfaces—their complexities and contradictions, but most importantly, their ingenious plainness.
My husband made this book possible in the deepest of ways.
Thanks too, to my parents. To the gift of my mother’s joy at seeing each book. To Susan Howe for her kind act, as well as her example. To my caring friends, and my cousin Karen. And to the Rinaldis, dear, wonderful neighbors, who made possible the environment in which much of this book was written. Sharon Cameron’s radiant essay on Dostoevsky was an inspiration.
SOURCES
PART 1
The character Frieda is lifted and adapted from a few brief paragraphs in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita. In that book, the often-charming, world-weary, and even kind devil, Woland, says, “A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.” However, in Ambrose’s tellings, sometimes “facts” shift around a bit, and quotations may at times be approximate or altered.
Venezia Isola del Lazzaretto Nuovo, Ministero per i Beni al Attivia Culturali, Venice, Italy, 1986.
The Abandoned Islands of the Venetian Lagoon, Giorgio and Maurizio Crovato, San Marco Press, Middlesex, England, 2008.
The Canals of Venice, Marcia Amidon Lusted, Lucent Books, Farmington Hills, MI, 2004.
Venice Incognito, James H. Johnson, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2011.
The Souls of Venice, Janet Sethre, McFarland and Co., Jefferson, NC, 2003.
Venice Is a Fish, Tiziano Scarpa, Gotham Books, New York, 2009.
Venice: The City of the Sea, Edmund Flagg, Charles Scribner, New York, 1853.
Life on the Lagoons, Horatio Brown, Rivingtons, London, 1900.
The World of Venice, James Morris, Harcourt Brace Jovonovich, New York, 1974.
A Literary Companion to Venice, Ian Littlewood, John Murray, London, 1991.
The Venetian Printing Press, Horatio Forbes Brown, G.P. Putnam, New York, 1891.
In Venice and in the Veneto with Ezra Pound, Rosela Zorci, Ca’Foscari University, Venice, Italy, 2007.
A Wanderer in Venice, Edward Verrall Lucas, New York, 1914, reprinted by Bibliobazaar, 2007.
Venice: Its Individual Growth from the Earliest Beginnings to the Fall of the Republic, Pompeo Molmenti, A.C. McClurg and Co., Chicago, 1907.
The Makers of Venice, Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant, Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., New York, 1887.
Daily Life in Venice, Maurice Andrieux, Praeger, New York, 1972.
Chioggia and the Villages of the Venetian Lagoon, Richard J. Goy, Cambridge University Press, England, 1985.
Venice Observed, Mary McCarthy, Harcourt, Inc., New York, 1963.
The Companion Guide to Venice, Hugh Honor, Boydell and Brewer, Suffolk, England, 1997.
Venice, Fragile City 1797–1997, Margaret Plant, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2002.
The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin, National Library Association, New York, 1851.
Venetian Life, William Dean Howells, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1891.
The Charm of Venice, compiled by Alfred H. Hyatt, Chatto & Windus, London, 1908.
> Tropic of Venice, Margaret Doody, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2007.
The Lazaretto of Venice, Verona, and Padua (1520–1580), Jane Stevens, Cambridge University PhD Thesis, England, 2007.
Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice, Brian Pullin, Oxford University Press, England, 1971.
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O’Connor, Vintage International, New York, 1996.
“Bulgakov, Dante, and Relativity,” Bruce A. Beatie and Phyllis W. Powell, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 15, Nos. 2–3, Summer–Fall 1981.
Mikhail Bulgakov: Life and Interpretations, Anthony Colin Wright, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada, 1978.
A Pictorial Biography of Bulgakov, Ellendea Proffer, Editor, Ardis Publishers, Ann Arbor, MI, 1984.
Pontius Pilate, Ann Wroe, Random House, New York, 2001.
Beyond Vision, Pavel Florensky, Nicoletta Misler, Editor, translated by Wendy Salmond, Reaktion Books, London, 2002.
The Life and Times of Titian, Vols. 1 and 2, Joseph Archer Crowe, John Murray, London, 1881.
Titian, Filippo Pedrocco, Scala, Florence, Italy, 1993.
Titian’s Portraits Through Arentino’s Lens, Luba Freedman, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 1995.
Titian: The Last Days, Mark Hudson, Walker & Co., New York, 2009.
Through the Eye of a Needle, Peter Brown, Princeton University Press, NJ, 2012.
