“That’s quite all right.”
He reaches out to hand me the open notebook.
“It’s as though you were afraid to touch on the real problem… if there is one, that is, and of course I know nothing about you… but I did feel that there was one, especially in that comic sketch in the dark grocery. I felt some sort of bitterness there. You have to get more deeply into it, to open it up. Even in your poems…”
“In my poems too?” I sound crushed.
“Yes. In your poems too.” Suddenly he’s annoyed. “Wherever an emotion is called for you retreat into scenery, into some neutral description of nature. All alone all alone O vain seeker bent over that small body frail clouds of morning in the window. When someone is bending over the body of a dead child…’’
“A dead child?”
“Dead or sick, it doesn’t matter. That small body demands a response, not frail clouds of morning in the window. That’s an evasion, an aesthetic indulgence. You can’t write without the willingness to expose yourself, and even then nothing is ever certain. But without it you’re wasting time and paper. And in general, you overwork the word ’frail.’ I counted it five times on the first page alone.’’
Hail frail snake.
He reads aloud. He reads well. A seasoned professional. He’s gotten the feel of it right off even if he did probably read it for the first time in the kitchen between the kettle and the coffee cups.
Silence.
“Is it important to you?”
“What?”
“Writing.’’
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then give it all you have, please. Otherwise…” His voice dies softly away his glance caresses my legs. A baby bursts out crying in the hallway there’s a scraping of chairs. Suddenly I have a bad taste in my mouth. All in all a negative opinion.
“You say that my story isn’t developed, but in your own fiction it
He bristles. “What about my fiction?”
“Never mind…” I don’t pursue it. I get up to go the baby is still screaming. His head is bowed with a wise understanding smile. I reach out again for the notebook.
“I think someone is calling you.”
But he’s distracted still deep in his chair he won’t let go of the notebook he leafs through it again quickly loath to part with it.
“First things, objects, physical realities, only afterwards ideas and symbols derived from them. That’s literature. The full immediacy of the moment as it happens to you or others, the ability to empathize rather than abstract, to be down-to-earth… to keep closing the gap between life and the written word…”
I smile my hand still out to take my story. The baby is having a tantrum I hear the young man’s steps utensils are falling. He rises slowly still holding on to the notebook. Now that we stand facing each other I can see that he’s actually shorter than I am not that that keeps him from stalling still more.
“Give my regards to Asa. When he first approached me at the university I didn’t realize who he was. I remember him as a small boy. His father, old man Kaminka, was my teacher in high school.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“He was a sharp fellow. An odd person, though. And one who got on your nerves. Still, he did make me think. What’s with him? Is he still alive?”
“Of course. He’s been in America the last few years.”
“Kaminka? What is he doing there?”
“Teaching at some half-Jewish college. I’ve actually never met him. He was already there when we were married.”
“And he didn’t come back for your wedding?”
“No.”
“That sounds just like him. An odd fellow. Complicated. He made life tough for us. You never met him?”
“No. But he’s here now on a visit. In fact he’s due in Jerusalem today.”
“Is his wife still alive? I believe she was ill or something.”
“Yes. There was something.”
“A strange man. Talented but wasted. There were times when he drove us up the wall.”
(And you? Odd, strange—three times on the same page.)
“Give him my best. He’ll remember me if he wants to. Our relationship was never very good. And if you’d ever like me to read other things of yours, I’ll be glad to. You don’t have to ask me through Asa.”
I catch a whiff of his tobacco-smelling breath. He ushers me outside his hand on my shoulder he gives me my notebook back.
“That poem you said deserved to be published… whom shall I send it to? Do you think that you might… that is, perhaps you… might give it to someone…”
He steps back his hand slips from my shoulder. But I give him a soft look mustering all my beauty.
“You already want to be published?”
“Just if I deserve to be… if you think…” The page is tom from the notebook and given to him. He takes it reluctantly then hands it back and asks me to write my address on it. We are in the hallway by the kitchen door the tall young man is standing with the baby in his arms. Her face is wet with tears she emits a muffled gasp reaching out for him but he ignores her and continues seeing me out my page of poetry crumpling in his hands.
A big sharp-eyed woman opens the door with a key she enters quickly and snatches the baby at once. Through an open door at the rear of the house two youngsters are blowing up a ball. I tiptoe back out to the madding crowd unable to restrain myself any longer.
“Excuse me for asking, but how many children do you have?”
He turns around quickly.
“Two. Why?”
“Nothing. I just wondered.”
A slight bespectacled mouse of a girl ascends the stairs. Perhaps it’s she who has found the new linguistic key. My provisional mark: an honorable failure with hope for the future. My best effort so far is that hunk of white cheese the dimness of the bread shelf that’s where I’m most at home. Yet I did feel the warmth of the truth when I wrote it. To look hard not to fear self-exposure to dig deeper into the problem if it’s there. Farewell frail clouds. He’s right. Though what will I do without “frail” that magic word that helps in hard transitions? An old snake on a rock an old errant snake? I must find a substitute.
Meanwhile the hunk of cheese has come to life out of the pages of my story. Here’s my father slicing it with a long knife his large handsome face so weary tall blond a skullcap pushed back on his head. Objects give me of yourselves come you breads you biscuits you smoked fishes you jars of jam you yoghurt containers come smells I need your inspiration. Joking with the fat voracious short-tempered lady customers struggling with stained little chits of bills I slip silently by him to the storeroom in the back where amid beer crates oil bottles and bags of powdered detergent mother bends in the gloom with her glasses on writing new prices on items.
“Raising prices again?”
“Ah, Dinaleh, it’s good you came. Asa called. He’s been trying to get hold of you.”
Father is already hugging me from behind he’s left the customers.
“Be careful, you’ll get her pretty dress dirty!”
“I’ll buy her a new one. So what did he say?”
“Who?”
“That author, what’s his name…”
“Let her catch her breath first!”
“How do you know about it?”
“Asa told us.”
My room never had a lock or a key no bolt even in the bathroom they just barged in without knocking without asking in my bed in my drawers no secrets no privacy an all-loving all-knowing omnipresent world invading every pore choking me with embraces yet I’m to blame I ask for it I collaborate going out of my way to come see them each day if I didn’t they’d turn up in disgrace at suppertime wanting to know if their daughter is still alive or has she gone up in smoke.