thinks
you— want—
censorship— so why don’t you— just give— us— that— and
then— we can sell— the fucking thing. I mean— listen— I think
you are— right — all the way—I do. I— want— you— to know—
I hate— pornography— too— more— than— you— even. I have
my reasons. I mean. I don’t think you are— completely— right
in everything— you say — but listen— just— add — a few—
things. You can have — the rest — I mean— listen. I am — with
you— one
hundred— percent— because—I— see— what
all
this— does— to— women— but— the thing is— teenagers— and
all those— tooshies— on tellie— in the — living room— and I—
mean— that is what people— understand. ”
“ No. Thank you for seeing me. ” Soft smile. “ Listen, I appreciate your time, but no. ” Homer would die. Dante would shit.
Dostoyevsky would puke; and right too. Quiet, frail, polite, not
daring to show the delusions of grandeur in the simple
“ Thanks, no. ”
I stand up and reach out to shake his hand. I am ready
to go. This is in the first five minutes. Then he begins with
literature, my heart.
*
He does the canon, my heart. Dostoyevsky, Rimbaud, Homer,
Euripides, Kafka my love, Conrad, Eliot, Mann, Proust. His
courtesy is sublime. Dickinson, the Brontes, Woolf, Cather,
Wharton, O’Connor, McCullers, Welty. Oh, I love them but I
have ambition like a man. I am curt, quiet, tender, bleeding,
especially quiet, but lit up from inside. He seduces. Dante.
Bach, the greatest writer. Months later I will finally read
Faulkner and he will be the only one I can tell, trembling in
my pants.
The next three hours are him, seducing, talking this passion,
I am building my little castles in the sand. Tess. Flaubert.
Hedda. Marquez. Balzac. Chekhov.
He wants to publish my book. As Is. It is bold and has
no manners. I am in life now confused, overwhelmed. On the
96
page never: but here I am dizzy, why does he, why will he, can
he, is it true? Hush hush little baby, hush hush my dear. As Is.
I am profoundly loved. We go to dinner in the rain.
*
Byron, the Song of Songs, Dickens, Mozart, Jean Rhys, Tolstoy
and the Troyat biography and the new biography of Hannah
Arendt, Singer, Freud, Darwin, Milton. I am profoundly loved.
I am trembling. Donne. Utterly female. Bought and saved.
*
I am afraid to eat, wet, in the restaurant, out of the rain,
trembling and wet: too carnal, too vulgar, too much the
mountain of thigh, I want the ether.
*
lt is, of course, not entirely this way. Somehow, Conrad reminds him of a high school teacher who had a boat in his sophomore year of high school; and Dostoyevsky reminds him
of someone he fucked three weeks ago in Denver— it was cold
there; and Milton reminds him of how misunderstood he was
when he was eighteen; and Zola’s J ’Accuse reminds him of
how he stood up to his parents and finally told them whatever;
and Mann reminds him of a lover who told him how hard it
was being German and of course he remembers the room they
were in and the sex acts that went before and after the desperately painful discussion of how hard it is; and Virginia Woolf reminds him of how depressed he is when he has to attend
sales conferences; and Singer reminds him of how his Jewish
mother reacted when he told her whatever; and Mozart reminds him of all the piano lessons he took and how brilliant he was before he decided to be brilliant now as an editor of
literature and also how he was unappreciated especially when
he taught English to a bunch of assholes in the sixties who had
no critical standards; and Freud reminds him of what it was
like to be such a sensitive child in school when all the boys
were masturbating and telling whatever jokes; and Jean Rhys
reminds him that he has been stalled on his own novel for
quite a while because of the demands of his job, which can be
quite pedestrian; and Djuna Barnes reminds him of a party he
went to in the Village dressed not in a dress like the other
whatevers but in a suit and didn’t that show whomever; and
Dickens reminds him of how much he abhors sentimentality
97
and the many occasions on which he has encountered it and
since he is in his late thirties there have been many occasions
and he remembers them all. And the Brontes remind him of his
last trip to England, which Maggie is really fucking up, which,
he tells me sternly, is going to hurt feminism.
And I wonder how I am going to survive being loved so
profoundly, like this. My palms do not sweat; they weep.
*
We went from the coffeehouse to the restaurant in the rain,
wet. I tried to slide along the broken New York sidewalks,
drift gracefully over the cracks, dance over the lopsided cement,
not hit the bilious pieces of steel that jut up from nowhere for
no reason here and there, not fall over the terrible people
walking with angry umbrellas into me. I tried to glide and
talk, an endless stream of pleasant yesses with an occasional
impassioned but do you really think. We stopped, we breathed
in the rain, breathless, in a crack I saw a broken needle, syringe,
I want it a lot these days, the relief from time and pain, I keep
going, always, away from it, he followed and we walked far,
across town, all the way from east to west, in the rain, wet,
cold, and I tried not to be breathless, wet, and the hair on his
lip glistened with lubrication and he strutted, his shoulders
sometimes hanging down, sometimes jutted back. They hung
down for the Japanese. They jutted back for Celine.
The cement disappeared behind us, a trail of rice at a
wedding, and stretched out in front of us, the future, our life,
our bed, our home, our earth, wet.
We went into the restaurant, wet.
*
A small cramped table, an omelette, a dozen cups of coffee, a
million cigarettes, one brutal piss after waiting all night, no