A Late Divorce (11 page)

Mother:

That's enough you'll annoy her and ruin everything. You think that it's me but you can see that it's him he doesn't stop talking I don't get a moment's peace. Yesterday I spoke to Sarah's mother that girl from your class who was married a few months before you they're already expecting a second grandchild. Don't be angry I wasn't making comparisons I know that's all that she's good for but you have to realize that time's not standing still it never does...

A soft enclasping pleading cunning duet if only they knew how we're still stuck at the starting line. They do but don't know what they know.

But he does have a view on the other side of these houses a deep broad cleft toward the mountains and sky for inspiration is that west east or north I'm so bad at directions Asi can take one step in any room and know just which way he's facing.
Down dropping heavens.
And in the plural too. Sometimes unexpectedly in a Talmudic text such a precise sense of landscape the boys would chop logic with the Talmud teacher while I dropped down heavens.
A frail snake by a
drowsing old man.
Perhaps. We'll have to see. In the end only words and the pain of words. And yet no blood of words.

It's really cold and me in this light spring dress and open shoes. Is this icy wind supposed to be spring? Why it's almost time for the seder. A few pale weak glizzly days and summer will be on us all at once.
This land of all at once.
A line for a poem. I must write it down. Some poet quoted in the paper as saying that he always carries a little notebook with him. Useful. What can he possibly say to me? Dina Kaminka you are a great talent. Yours is a name to remember. The great hope of a declining literature. Where have you been hiding until now? Baloney. Wanton women with shopping bags stare at me as they pass. Some women's glances are more piercing than men's as though I'd robbed them of something. But those who know me know the threat's sheer bluff.

A small child backs against a wall of the stairway. His. You can tell right away the same curls the same look all he's missing is the pipe. I put my hand on his shoulder your father is isn't he? But he's not impressed he's used to being spotted to having a famous father he kicks a ball and trips down the stairs after it.

Two facing doors on each (how odd) his name. I ring the bell of the one on the right a young faded woman in jeans holding a baby rock music inside before I can say a word she points to the other door softly retreating it opens while I'm still looking for the bell and out steps an older woman with another baby (his third child?) and a shopping basket.

(Does he really have two wives? But why not? The apartments are low-income. In the middle of the night he runs naked from one to the other.)

“I have an appointment with Mr....”

Mister?

“Come in.''

She studies my fancy dress with an ironic smile and points to an inner door. It was an error in judgment to come traipsing into this hotbed of bohemia in high heels. I enter a small hallway the front door slams rudely cynically behind me the dim light is congested amid the low bookcases there's a smell of mold and wet laundry a lyrical overture to a literary tribunal my head is a pennant in the flaking mirror among the winter coats the sharp slanty blue the open doggy mouth the curly until-two-weeks-ago-soft-honey-braided head my makeup's come off in the wind. What have I gotten myself into? I pass the kitchen piles of dirty dishes on the stained marble counter of the sink. Maybe he's looking for a third wife to do them.

What can he possibly say to me?

My wife has been secretly
(secretly?)
writing stories and poems for a while now I mean just for her own satisfaction maybe you'd be willing to read them and tell her what they're worth. A professional opinion and a kind word from you. (Perhaps you can even talk her out of the obession.) She admires you greatly.

Why did you say I admired him who allowed you. Then you don't? I admire no one. Not even me? You I love. What do you care if I said you admired him it will make him read your material
(material?)
I mean what you've written more sympathetically. I don't need sympathy I need truth. Truth is different when told with sympathy. But what kind of a writer is he? What sort of stuff does he write? Read it yourself. I don't have time for literature I'll read what bodes time has been kind to when I retire but what does he write about what subjects describe one book. Don't be absurd you can't describe books like his. That's what must make him so important.

Important. Another code word.

I knock on the door and open it softly. A small room with a big blond baby girl on dirty linen gnawing on a doll behind crib bars. I push open the next door. An old snake in a shabby black turtleneck shorter than I imagined sturdier than I imagined older than I imagined leaning over some page proofs with a tall young man. A huge dilapidated light-colored armchair ravaged like an old woman a clutter of pipes a large desk a poorly lit wood-paneled room with books on the windowsill beyond them the peaks of mountains a lambskin rug a record soundlessly spinning a deep un-Israeli room full of dark wooden figurines and sharp male tension.

“Excuse me ... your wife said I should come in ... I don't know if you remembered ... my husband ... at ten o'clock ... my name is Dina Kaminka...”

Coffee dregs in tall glasses ashtrays full of burnt tobacco an airless room the smell of literature in action. His eyes beam at me brightly the young man glowers. I'll let them take in (what else do I have to show?) my beauty.

“My wife? Well, never mind. Is it ten o'clock already? You're right, we do have an appointment. Come in, sit down ... I'll be with you right away...” I make a beeline for the tumbledown chair and flop right into it sinking all the way to the floor. Reliably precise-looking in his worn corduroy pants he clears papers and the coffee glasses off his desk and tells the young man with the proofs to step out it won't take long he whispers sympathetically regarding my flaming face with its strained smile trapped in this armchair still sinking lower I cross my legs and bare the cause of so much pain. Not mine.

He remains standing there contemplating me genially objectively seeking to cope with what the morning has unexpectedly turned up.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

He closes the door behind the tall young man who has left without a word or glance he puts on his glasses and begins going through drawers and moving piles of paper until at last he finds a yellowish sheaf and starts to read silently. He turns the pages beaming he sits down and takes off his glasses.

“You know, your poems made a great impression on me.”

Can it be? The miracle. And so painlessly.

“Honestly?” I sink soundlessly ecstatically deeper into the chair.

“Where have you been until now? Your poem
Pleasantly My Body
is absolutely marvelous.”

“Which poem?”

“
Pleasantly My Body
...” He leans ceremoniously toward me to read with me from the yellowish manuscript that's covered with a strange curvy disturbed scrawl. He's mixed me up he's thinking of someone else.

Pleasantly My Body?

“Amid all the junk that comes my way at last I find a new sound, the prospect of a new linguistic key.”

In a crumbling yet courageous voice:

“One minute, I think you're mistaken ... those pages aren't mine ... Dina Kaminka ... you're mixing me up ... my husband gave you a notebook with a floral design...”

He's stunned. Turns red. He drops the manuscript smiles (what's so funny?) grabs hold of his head and slaps it lightly gets up sits down gets up bends over mumbling just a minute excuse me that's right how could I have confused you. He kneels to pull out a bottom drawer talking to himself just a minute everything's all jumbled up here they've turned this room into an editorial office yes Dina Kaminka of course your husband Asa's in the history department of course I remember...

“You didn't get around to reading it ... it doesn't matter ...” With a sudden feeling of relief I seek to extract myself from the jellylike armchair and vanish.

“No, just one moment. I did read it. I'm sure I did ...” He rummages feverishly through some papers. “There was a story there, wasn't there? About a young woman ... just one minute ... it takes place in a shop on a winter day ... one minute ...”

One minute for what? Some other woman has already found a new linguistic key amid all the junk that's being written. She can look forward to the joyous prospect of hearing it from you perhaps she's already coming up the stairs. But behold he has my notebook in his hands triumphantly he shows it to me. My first mistake was to copy everything out into a high-school notebook. I should have written on yellow disturbed paper
yea to take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate and they shall spread the cloth...

Silence.

He clutches the notebook predatorily racing through it quickly filming digesting with supreme concentration he's not embarrassed to read it now in front of me. At last he shuts it puts it down stands up and smiles at me kindly.

“Which will it be, Turkish or instant? Or perhaps you'd like something cold?”

“No, thank you. I really don't want anything.”

“Turkish or instant?” he persists, still smiling his patronizing smile. “I wanted to make some for myself anyway.”

“No, thank you, really ...”

He steps up to me and takes the liberty of laying a warm hand on my shoulder.

“You're angry at me. But I really did read it ... it was just one of those things. If you don't have coffee with me, I'll feel hurt. Turkish or instant?”

“Turkish.”

He energetically loads the glasses and the remains of some crackers on a tray lays my notebook on top of them and leaves the room.

I rise from the bottomless depths of the armchair and loiter by the row of books drawn to the yellow manuscript left on the desk with its strong curvy scrawl.

 

Death can fall from the dark
Like a poem
—
But a poem was all that it was.

 

Laughter from the kitchen. I return to the books unable to read even their titles my eyes on the watery light swirling over the mountains.

The door opens and he carries in a tray with coffee cups cookies and my notebook. The stage is set he glances hesitantly toward me at the other end of the room I'm still rooted to my place by the window have a seat he smiles and I float to another chair (enough of that mortifying armchair) and sit down by the steaming cup while he offers me sugar. He lays my notebook on his knees picks up his cup and drinks from it vigorously.

“My first question is just out of curiosity. Are you religious? Do you come from a religious background?”

“I went to religious schools.”

“High school too?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

He's tickled pink with himself.

“It's something one senses in your language, your imagery, your values, your way of dealing with things, of approving or disapproving. It's something one can smell. It's a new phenomenon, this writing of literature by religious Jews. There's already a whole school of you.”

He's classed me with a whole school, and a religious one yet. He's got the world all figured out.

“But I'm not so observant anymore...”

“That doesn't matter. These things run too deep to be easily cast off. It's a whole outlook.”

“Is that good or bad?” I inquire submissively trying to grasp the steaming-hot cup.

“On the whole, it's a welcome new source. Not that I myself can subscribe ... on the contrary ... but it's a new climate for literature, a new possibility. How old are you? Please, drink your coffee, why aren't you drinking?”

He was asked for a literary opinion and he's already made himself my guardian he thinks he can ask what he wants he does have a technique though for dealing with young scribblers.

“I'm twenty-two ”

“Are you a student?”

“I finished a year ago.”

“In what field?”

“Social work.”

“Not literature?”

“No.”

“That's good. But how did you manage to finish so quickly?”

“I was exempted from the army.” I look straight at him waiting for the scornful smile of the injured solid citizen. He says nothing suddenly blushing at a loss.

“But drink something. It will get cold. Have a cookie.”

“Thank you.” I lift the cup noticing with revulsion the lip prints on the rim I quickly slurp a drop of bitter Turkish coffee and put it down again.

“Do you have any children?”

“What? No, not yet.”

“Do you have a job?”

“Yes. In the municipal department of social work.”

Why all these questions? Is he playing for time or gathering material for a diagnosis?

“How long have you been writing?”

“For quite some time. I began in the eighth grade. I was sick for a few months ... some kind of rheumatic fever ... that's why I didn't serve in the army. It wasn't on religious grounds.” (Take that, you varmint!) “I was bedridden for a long while, and it was then that I started to write. To this day when I want to concentrate on writing I get into bed and write on the pillows.”

I'm talking too much.

“Into bed?” He laughs amazedly warmly excitedly leaning toward me.

“To tell you the truth” (just lay it on me gently please) “your story is weak, still juvenile. It gets too involved for no good reason in the middle and lets itself off too easily in the end. Basically, the poems are better. This one here...
For You Raised Me Like a Thistle
...it really sings, it even deserves to be published. At any rate, it's
no
worse than a lot of poetry that does
get
published these days. So if you've come to ask me which to devote yourself to, prose or poetry” (I didn't) “I should obviously say to you: poetry. And yet still ... I can't help thinking ... that you shouldn't stop writing fiction either. There are definitely some good passages in this story, not all that many, but a few. The descriptive ones in particular. What's the one that I'm thinking of ... ah yes, in a grocery store, isn't it? An old-fashioned sort of grocery. Something in your description of it struck me.” (I shut my eyes.) “The shelves, the dim bread compartment. There was a wonderful, humorous bit about a hunk of white goat cheese—you captured the absurd shape of it perfectly, you used a precise image there, I can't remember it, but I recall having marked it.” He rapidly leafs through the notebook. “Well, never mind...”