Be My Knife (43 page)
Authors: David Grossman
But … how can I even have any “feelings” for you, feelings like I used to have?
I was so wrong about you.
I was so wrong about you.
I’m still trying not to completely surrender my anger at you, my anger as well at the insult that grows from hour to hour, even now.
I have been trying to understand why, but it is very difficult for me to believe such a reason for your violent disappearance: was it really just because you felt as if you were “polluting” me during my trip to Tel Aviv?
My search for you?
I have been trying to understand why, but it is very difficult for me to believe such a reason for your violent disappearance: was it really just because you felt as if you were “polluting” me during my trip to Tel Aviv?
My search for you?
And what makes you think I was “polluted” on my journey?
I had more than a few good, even purifying, moments.
I met people I would never have met in any other way.
And I told you about the sunset and how the depths of the sun sparkled with green.
About the fisherman with his little kerosene stove.
Even my conversation with the two prostitutes.
What are you talking about?
Your disappearance from my life is polluting me so much more!
I had more than a few good, even purifying, moments.
I met people I would never have met in any other way.
And I told you about the sunset and how the depths of the sun sparkled with green.
About the fisherman with his little kerosene stove.
Even my conversation with the two prostitutes.
What are you talking about?
Your disappearance from my life is polluting me so much more!
The hour I sat on the seawall—the water was so beautiful, so clear, I could see into the horizon; and a kingfisher gliding around me—perhaps he is a distant relative of the one in my garden?
Who knows, maybe I am being guarded by a secret network of kingfishers.
I wish I had brought
my camera (I packed so hastily)—I wanted to take pictures and send you a few, so you could see where you were.
Who knows, maybe I am being guarded by a secret network of kingfishers.
I wish I had brought
my camera (I packed so hastily)—I wanted to take pictures and send you a few, so you could see where you were.
Only a few weeks have passed since then, and it seems like a year to me.
I wandered around the streets by the sea for two days, walking, waiting for one special look, waiting to suddenly hear my name from one of the thousands of people passing by me, and smiling.
I was smiling the entire time.
I thought of what you wrote so long ago about my public smile, and I rejoiced in my new smile.
I wandered around the streets by the sea for two days, walking, waiting for one special look, waiting to suddenly hear my name from one of the thousands of people passing by me, and smiling.
I was smiling the entire time.
I thought of what you wrote so long ago about my public smile, and I rejoiced in my new smile.
You paid no attention to where you arrived, as if by coincidence—straight into the kingdom of my childhood, my Nekhemya Street, with memories of everything mixed together.
Do you remember the letter I wrote you from a little vegetarian deli stuck between a steakhouse and a pizzeria?
Only the day before yesterday, it occurred to me—I had an epiphany: it is right in the same location as the old Café Ginati Yam.
(Well, these days even I can hardly recognize my kingdom under all the marble and hotels and Ackerstein bricks.) It truly sent thrills of pleasure through me—that was the café my father used to love to sit in, in between his taxi shifts.
And once a week, in the afternoon, I would join him.
And once a week, in the afternoon, I would join him.
All the fine ladies, the chatterers and slatherers of makeup, would come here dressed to the nines.
A little stage stood in the middle of the café, and a band played Viennese music (and Romanian, too, I think) on a cello and a violin.
A little stage stood in the middle of the café, and a band played Viennese music (and Romanian, too, I think) on a cello and a violin.
My father would buy me ice cream in the summertime, they would serve huge scoops of ice cream in metal bowls.
One man would pass by with a big glass box, the kind that opens from both ends (like old sewing kits, do you remember?), and from that box he sold cones of newspaper filled with nuts and seeds.
My father would flag him down with a kingly wave of his hand, very unlike him, and we would spend a long time trying to decide what we wanted, and always picked the same thing: walnuts.
And we cracked them together.
One man would pass by with a big glass box, the kind that opens from both ends (like old sewing kits, do you remember?), and from that box he sold cones of newspaper filled with nuts and seeds.
My father would flag him down with a kingly wave of his hand, very unlike him, and we would spend a long time trying to decide what we wanted, and always picked the same thing: walnuts.
And we cracked them together.
(And what was written here will probably never be told from my heart, by my mouth.)
Sitting in the kitchen, in darkness, in silence, and thinking thoughts of no substance, only a certain rhythm.
Waves of something vague becoming stronger in me.
I don’t understand why I am still writing—what is this impulse that doesn’t let go of me?
Because I find no release in it,
every time I swear to myself that I will stop for a minute, to think about it and try and understand, before my hand reaches for the notebook and opens it—but my hand is always quicker.
I am also trying not to think about you—but you, of course, are always quicker than me.
Waves of something vague becoming stronger in me.
I don’t understand why I am still writing—what is this impulse that doesn’t let go of me?
Because I find no release in it,
every time I swear to myself that I will stop for a minute, to think about it and try and understand, before my hand reaches for the notebook and opens it—but my hand is always quicker.
I am also trying not to think about you—but you, of course, are always quicker than me.
In these hours, when you are not writing me, and not coming to me, bringing me your body, when you can leave me alone, abandoning me to everything you already know I live with, I begin to consider the possibility that you perhaps have quite a few women with whom you correspond this way, simultaneously.
That you tell each one a completely different story, and with each you determine the length of your connection according to a “private sign on the general calendar.”
Until, let’s say, the first swallow of spring, or until—until what else?
The sun’s eclipse?
The next earthquake in China?
I know that this is a stupid idea, false and repulsive and cynical; but as we both know, something in you has given rise to ideas that would never have occurred to me before.
That you tell each one a completely different story, and with each you determine the length of your connection according to a “private sign on the general calendar.”
Until, let’s say, the first swallow of spring, or until—until what else?
The sun’s eclipse?
The next earthquake in China?
I know that this is a stupid idea, false and repulsive and cynical; but as we both know, something in you has given rise to ideas that would never have occurred to me before.
If I had at least known what it was, the “private sign” you had intended for me, at least this—it is something the condemned woman should know, isn’t it?
I remember how, about seven and a half years ago, when Yokhai’s disease broke out, I used to sit nights, here in the kitchen, and write these kinds of lists.
Not exactly these kinds—but there was something similar in the writing, the unsteadiness of it, and the strength with which it forced itself upon me, actually possessing me (oh well, what’s the point of picking at this).
Not exactly these kinds—but there was something similar in the writing, the unsteadiness of it, and the strength with which it forced itself upon me, actually possessing me (oh well, what’s the point of picking at this).
What wouldn’t I give now, to read Milena’s lost letters to K.?
To see, for instance, with what exact words she responded to his “love is that you are my knife with which I dig deeply into myself.”
To see, for instance, with what exact words she responded to his “love is that you are my knife with which I dig deeply into myself.”
I hope she immediately sent him a telegram in which she made it clear that a person must never, not ever, agree to be anyone else’s knife.
You mustn’t even ask such a thing of someone.
You mustn’t even ask such a thing of someone.
On second thought, I actually don’t understand Milena at all.
If I were Milena, I’d have behaved completely differently.
I would have left
Prague and gone to him in Vienna, and entered his home and said, “I’m here.
You can’t escape me any longer.
I am no longer satisfied with imaginary travel.
You cannot heal with words alone—you can sicken, yes, this is apparently not too hard.
But comfort?
Resurrect?
For that you must, in some moment, see eyes in front of you, touch lips, hands—the entire body rebelling, screaming out at your infantile ideas about some ‘pure’ amorphousness—oh yeah?
What’s so pure about it?
What is pure in me now?!”
If I were Milena, I’d have behaved completely differently.
I would have left
Prague and gone to him in Vienna, and entered his home and said, “I’m here.
You can’t escape me any longer.
I am no longer satisfied with imaginary travel.
You cannot heal with words alone—you can sicken, yes, this is apparently not too hard.
But comfort?
Resurrect?
For that you must, in some moment, see eyes in front of you, touch lips, hands—the entire body rebelling, screaming out at your infantile ideas about some ‘pure’ amorphousness—oh yeah?
What’s so pure about it?
What is pure in me now?!”
Listen to what a big heroine I am.
I don’t dare even to call you at work.
I don’t dare even to call you at work.
I drew out what you said (in your kitchen) about how your life with Maya is so stable and defined that “it is impossible to add a new element that is too large (like myself, for instance).”
As I looked at this piece of paper in front of me, it became so clear, Yair, that your life is truly so stable, so defined, that you weren’t able to find any room in it for me, either.
There is no room for me in your life.
I should have already accepted that.
Even if you had wanted me very much, you probably wouldn’t have dared make room for me in your “reality.”
I should have already accepted that.
Even if you had wanted me very much, you probably wouldn’t have dared make room for me in your “reality.”
(Perhaps this is why you let me into the only place you were ever truly free, into your childhood, with such sweeping force.)
I don’t understand, I don’t understand you.
You hide the world of your imagination from Maya and the physical world from me.
How can you navigate between all these opening and closing doors?
Where do you truly live a full life?
I would like to hear from you once, so you can answer me this—if we have all already committed suicide once, why repeat the mistake over and over?
You hide the world of your imagination from Maya and the physical world from me.
How can you navigate between all these opening and closing doors?
Where do you truly live a full life?
I would like to hear from you once, so you can answer me this—if we have all already committed suicide once, why repeat the mistake over and over?
I used to sit and write the entire night then, trying to document every day that passed, so I could understand it and solve it; also, so that I might not lose my mind to my fear and helplessness.
During the day, I would write down Yokhai’s every move—follow his tracks as he walked through the house, the repetitive, endless actions of the day, what words he had left—what he ate, how he ate.
And at night I would sit here and try to crack the code, turn all of it into something legible, some method, some pattern.
I had hundreds of pages, notebook upon notebook.
I’ve kept them somewhere in our basement, and there is no rhyme or reason in them, or in keeping them.
I don’t have the courage to throw them away; yet I have even less courage to open them and see myself as I once was.
If he ate a tomato at breakfast, he would be upset for hours.
When we moved the armchair into the living room, he moved it back.
We turned off the lamp and he turned it back on.
If we reduced the dose of this medicine or that, he wouldn’t have an attack for three days.
He tore up a piece of paper, he tore up another … I would follow him at home, at kindergarten, and simply write him down … The more that was erased in him, the more I would write of him.
During the day, I would write down Yokhai’s every move—follow his tracks as he walked through the house, the repetitive, endless actions of the day, what words he had left—what he ate, how he ate.
And at night I would sit here and try to crack the code, turn all of it into something legible, some method, some pattern.
I had hundreds of pages, notebook upon notebook.
I’ve kept them somewhere in our basement, and there is no rhyme or reason in them, or in keeping them.
I don’t have the courage to throw them away; yet I have even less courage to open them and see myself as I once was.
If he ate a tomato at breakfast, he would be upset for hours.
When we moved the armchair into the living room, he moved it back.
We turned off the lamp and he turned it back on.
If we reduced the dose of this medicine or that, he wouldn’t have an attack for three days.
He tore up a piece of paper, he tore up another … I would follow him at home, at kindergarten, and simply write him down … The more that was erased in him, the more I would write of him.
So what am I writing now?
The documentation of my disease?
The documentation of my disease?
The new coat was not received with delight.
We had intentionally set Saturday aside for this task, when we had time, were in no hurry—but by noon we were desperate.
Even Amos gave up, so we wrapped it up again.
I guess something in its texture is different from the other coat.
Perhaps the edges of the sleeves or the collar.
Maybe its smell.
It was the closest coat I could find to his old one, and now we will have no other choice but to patch the old one up.
And we better do it today, because how long will the rain wait for us as considerately as it has?
The one accomplishment of the day: if we failed with the coat, we have at least succeeded with the long thermals, without even cutting off the sleeves.
We had intentionally set Saturday aside for this task, when we had time, were in no hurry—but by noon we were desperate.
Even Amos gave up, so we wrapped it up again.
I guess something in its texture is different from the other coat.
Perhaps the edges of the sleeves or the collar.
Maybe its smell.
It was the closest coat I could find to his old one, and now we will have no other choice but to patch the old one up.
And we better do it today, because how long will the rain wait for us as considerately as it has?
The one accomplishment of the day: if we failed with the coat, we have at least succeeded with the long thermals, without even cutting off the sleeves.
I have just finished cleaning up the last traces of riot in his room, and Amos took him out to fly his kite.
I am disconnecting the phone—you won’t call on a Saturday—and am sitting to rest for a moment.
I have been waiting so long for this moment.
I am disconnecting the phone—you won’t call on a Saturday—and am sitting to rest for a moment.
I have been waiting so long for this moment.
On the right side, in the back, just under the bone that juts out.
That is where you are, in my brain.
I think it’s exactly on the opposite side, for you (oh, then how will we ever truly meet?).
In the past few days, coming near that place has been accompanied by pain and so much anger toward you; but now, to my surprise (and certainly to my joy), I am touched by the same precious moment I had sitting with Amos on the balcony after receiving your last letter.
That is where you are, in my brain.
I think it’s exactly on the opposite side, for you (oh, then how will we ever truly meet?).
In the past few days, coming near that place has been accompanied by pain and so much anger toward you; but now, to my surprise (and certainly to my joy), I am touched by the same precious moment I had sitting with Amos on the balcony after receiving your last letter.
Should I tell you more than I have?
Should I give up on you then, on the possibility that we—Should I give up already?
(Then who am I actually writing to here?)
You will see, there will come a day when we will be old and wise, and all these wars will have passed between us.
You will hold me close and say, “How clever you were in those days, when you didn’t give up, when you knew how to do the exact right thing, come to our meeting place and wait and wait, and stay there as long as I needed you.”
You will hold me close and say, “How clever you were in those days, when you didn’t give up, when you knew how to do the exact right thing, come to our meeting place and wait and wait, and stay there as long as I needed you.”
Fine.
I’m going to tell you.
Here it is: It happened as we were busy with one of our house’s most annoying rituals—the preparation of our monthly tax report.
You’re probably intimately acquainted with this particular burden of independence (because of your own business, right?).
Amos has to report what he makes from private lectures; it’s always so little money for so much heartache, and I have to assist him, because he is completely helpless in the face of columns and charts.
Whereas I am the high priestess of practicality …
I’m going to tell you.
Here it is: It happened as we were busy with one of our house’s most annoying rituals—the preparation of our monthly tax report.
You’re probably intimately acquainted with this particular burden of independence (because of your own business, right?).
Amos has to report what he makes from private lectures; it’s always so little money for so much heartache, and I have to assist him, because he is completely helpless in the face of columns and charts.
Whereas I am the high priestess of practicality …
I really used to hate doing it.
What am I?
An accountant?
And the complex calculations involved in finding a percentage of taxes from such minuscule income.
But one time I discovered that there is something pleasant about it, too.
It is another way to re-create and linger for one more moment on all kinds of little events, the highlights of family life: buying shoes in a larger size for Yokhai … dinner at a restaurant with a couple of friends … and also an unusual amount of money spent over recent months on envelopes and stamps …
What am I?
An accountant?
And the complex calculations involved in finding a percentage of taxes from such minuscule income.
But one time I discovered that there is something pleasant about it, too.
It is another way to re-create and linger for one more moment on all kinds of little events, the highlights of family life: buying shoes in a larger size for Yokhai … dinner at a restaurant with a couple of friends … and also an unusual amount of money spent over recent months on envelopes and stamps …
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