In the Envelope of Memory

by Ilana Haley

  A response from Lani to Maggie

  (which was never sent):

  Maggie, you deserve a prize for your last letter and for the quality of your writing too, but most of all for your self-awareness camouflaged as always, as a cry to the heavens. What you write about me is exactly what I think about you, and not only today, but have done for a long time now. My thoughts about you are precisely what you write, just that

  I have a few more things to say about you that have to do with your huge lies, phony behavior, appalling selfishness, your unrepentant delays, last minute cancelations, coarse language in relation to your friends, such as: ‘That cow Nora’ or Dahlia, who’d have laid down her life for you. I remember you calling her a ‘doormat’ and more, even saying ‘that Fool Ariel.’ She succeeded where you failed. There was even your contempt for my friends Tamara, Naomi, and Mina, but most of all it was how you almost managed to destroy the wonderful relationship I had with Ora, for which I will never forgive you. And so much more – you were almost drooling with pleasure at putting all of them down. You are filled with hidden corners, sinister secrets, and bitter insinuations. I did get angry sometimes, but when I realized that it’s an illness, that there’s even a medical term for it, I told myself: We’ll forgive Maggie. She has other qualities too. I cast you out from my heart a long time ago. It was a long, slow process, almost like a death; it took a year I think, maybe even longer. I always knew it would end badly, for you aren’t capable of hearing anything that isn’t complimentary to you, and you aren’t capable of confrontation without a verbal explosion and screaming, no matter where you are – in a restaurant, or on the phone or writing a letter. With all your grandiose behavior, you don’t understand that being humble is the hardest of all! So now I repeat what I wrote. Switch the names around in your letter and you’ll realize that you were actually writing about yourself. I hope this will help you to understand that you cannot abuse people. Ultimately it will all come back to you like a boomerang – You ought to learn about yourself from your letter, not about me. I already know who I am. A long time ago I told you that a part of me feels as if disabled, lacking and I will always be that way. It’s who I am, but this has nothing to do with what you say here and only a small part of your total disability. You are a very sick woman who does not have a clue about yourself. Our relationship has long been a ritual obligation. So do a little exercise and switch the names round in your letter and maybe, just maybe, you’ll understand that you’re talking about yourself. (Or as an afterthought, perhaps about your cruel mother.) I’m not going to respond to what you say about children, even though I have a very clear opinion about that, but since I won’t be sending you this letter anyway, I can only say that you have destroyed your children. Neither of them can cope with life, and now you’re picking on your grandchildren. Let me tell you a little secret; for the past year or so, every time we met I took Xanax beforehand, because the poison coming out of your mouth put me into a terrible state of anxiety. Words of love are nothing to sneer at. I loved you with all my heart, but not because you were nice or made me feel good. I was always afraid of you… but that’s for a profound talk...Sincerely, Lani.

  There are other ways to say it – as Rilke wrote: ‘masks, banalities’. So what? Life is mostly banal and moments of transcendence have faces that are not quick to emerge; there are people who do not have a face at all – merely heads without a face. The main thing is to live; to be. Holding on is the main thing. That’s what those who know have to say. An example… This morning I saw a blind man waiting to cross the street. I touched his arm and asked, Can I help you? He almost hit me with his cane, Go away, he hissed, Go away bitch! He shook his fist at the sky and shouted: The pit…the pit!

  What pit? I asked, but he continued to shake his cane in the air and his fist at the sky. I covered my face with my hands and when I raised my head the blind man had disappeared. I realized he was from Neverland and as always I was alone, so I went home, wrapped myself in a blanket, sat on the stairs of my house, and watched the sparrows, tiny unpretentious creatures, and I wondered how a bird feels; but I couldn’t even begin to understand. Maybe a mistake made in Creation; perhaps birds were created out of His love, and Man out of His hatred.

  Chapter 12

  Apple. Face Lift

  One of those mysterious nights, when the air is white and liquid, and a kaleidoscope of images whirls around. A dark moon smirked and sneered, a moon without comfort or beauty, a loveless moon… a jealous moon in a white night thick with doubts and elusive half dreams, which leave my insides hollow and my brain tacky. Do you know about such nights? Yes, of course you do. It was you who told me about face-lifts: blue, green, yellow: the cutting of the flesh as if being slaughtered, but without fear. The pain is transcended by the thought: tomorrow I’ll be beautiful again. Death. There must be no fear in death. Life is only a metaphor, you said, or did I say that? No matter. But if that is so why cut the face? Why change what is preordained? Why tamper with nature? There is no nature, only a face… a face swollen like a full moon… a painted moon, or maybe a dream. It might all be a dream; the knife, the blood, pain; all a dream. You wake up one morning, look in the mirror and gasp: Me? Is this me? Yes, it’s me inside. Outside a stranger glares into my eyes; a faulty reflection, a distorted image. When did the years pass? So, you are cut and stretched and you change. Anticipation, exquisite agony. Madness. New you? New me…? Youth captured once more? Eternity? Well, that’s a good question. The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert say there is a dream always dreaming us.

  You my friend went to Germany for a face-lift operation. What a trip you must have had with a train ride through German landscape. Were you thinking of Nazis and gas chambers? Being Jewish is forever. No. It is not right even if you think of it from your other side, or if you peel away the pretense that you are right, not even if you insist: I don’t know, I don’t understand. I know I am only alive and all of it belongs to the distant past anyway. Even then it isn’t right for you or for me or for anyone of our kind to go on a train in a German land. Were you alienated? Didn’t you belong? You belong to all and everywhere, but no one wants to remember because if one remembers one has to care. So we cut even deeper and the blue turns purple, the green yellow, they all merge and become one. One ancient tree; a tree of Eden: old, gnarled, wrinkled, cracked and twisted; but on its top are a few green leaves still fluttering in the wind as if to say: We are still here. Look! Life, Love and Space… or perhaps they are simply just a place?

  St. John said that in the beginning was the Word. Do you recognize this? One word, but did anyone ever find the right word? Maybe you will and maybe you won’t. I might, but I know I cannot. What’s in a name? asked distraught Juliet of love-stricken Romeo. Everything? Nothing? Just a word? But oh, if I only could find the right word, then the white night will be the right night after all.

  A habit, a strange habit, or a thirst for knowledge? I wake up about two o’clock in the morning and feel a craving. A sort of restlessness descends upon me. It is a hunger, a craving, my body tingles with longing. Reflecting on the feelings I discover, of all things it is an apple I crave. All I want is an apple. Wanting to smile at my foolishness, my mouth seems frozen, so I get out of bed and tiptoe to the kitchen. The floor creaks, but there is no fear that Teddy will wake up. My love and husband Teddy, has become deaf and blind through modern devices – eyeshades and earplugs, but then again why hear dogs bark in the night? A smart man my Teddy is and the one I tenderly love. I sneak the apple to bed with me, lie on my back and squeeze the apple between my hands. The fruit fragrance drifts across my face and soothes my screaming nerves before I proceed to eat, as if it is the last apple I shall ever eat. Delicious… The night is not white any longer. I have a friend inside me: an apple . . . Words pour out of me. My fingers spell what my mouth dares not say: Am I mad? Is Zeus my God? or Satan? Did I build a golden calf? Will I gouge out a horses’ eyes? Truth is missing from our
sight. We chose knowledge instead. We are afraid to dwell inside. Introspection is amiss: “Do I dare to eat a peach?” Indeed! Indeed! Poor T. S. Eliot, he should have had a face lift, but would that have been it? “That is not it at all,” said Mr. Eliot. But if that is not it, then what is? This is not funny. It is strange; I feel so strange.

  Today after school I felt dizzy with frustration and frenzy, so I went to the executioner, now called a Beauty Designer, and had my hair cut almost to the scalp. Finally returning home, I was feeling even more weird and wacky, and looking in the mirror my ears stuck out like one of those creatures from the ridiculous movie cartoons, Loony Tunes. My face looked white and naked; my nerves were spattered in patterns over the gossamer screen of the indifferent glass, and my wrinkles were dancing in frenzied celebration. Oh, if mirrors only had a heart! Suddenly the image of Van Gogh’s mutilated face zapped my mind. I quickly found a needle and pierced one earlobe, then the other. They didn’t bleed or hurt, but I still didn’t feel any better… a bath, perhaps? What a clever thought! The water in the tub was scalding hot, but no relief was found there either. I don’t think that I’ll have a face-lift after all. Get old gracefully? Hurray! What a luxurious stupidity. I’ll only get old – grace belongs to elephants and children. Hot flushes… a wet fever… Absurd! Absurd! Of course, it’s only menopause. I really feel terrific, so why the pain? I hear God’s answer: I do not know.

  FACE-LIFT

  He opens the door wide offers her a mustached smile and utters in an oily voice; You’re so beautiful.

  The wrinkles on her face deepen, her eyes sink in their sockets. The skin of her neck crumples, the spots on her hands darken.

  He sits in the black leather chair; She perches on the royal blue couch; In one hand he holds a glass of white wine; she clutches a tiny mirror to her chest.

  Between his lips trembles a cigarette. She stares at the brown spots on her naked arm (the oil paintings on his walls are terrific). He laughs, he roars; he continues to seduce.

  Words, words, words, pecking at her like ravens’ shrieks. And though he is her friend of many years, she does not believe him because his eyes are dead, his face opaque.

  His fingers shake— the wine crumbles his brain. And she, she only sees how with the downing of each young morn her beauty drowns into the depth of the looking glass.

  Chapter 13

  Desert

  I woke up to bird song. Looking out the window I saw a sky bursting with delight and when I saw your letter I was filled with joy. Teddy flew to Paris and Barcelona, and the first night on my own was sublime (a Xanax or two – so what?) Everything around me was quiet in a world of souls, and for some reason you walked into the wilderness, into an ancient silence filled with vanishing voices, spaces rumoring a soothing heat wave and rolling infinity. I remember walking in the desert when I was serving in the army. I walked alone. The night was perfect, the desert waiting - everything in place - beckons to me, silent, pulling me like a magnet toward its secrets. The desert haunted me. Although the moon was only crescent-shaped, the night was intense like a white night, as bright as day, yet much softer. You know, one of those nights when the Milky Way flows all around you and you feel as if you were floating inside it touching the stars with the tip of your fingers. The desert. So pure. I imagined all this living as the same strange experience for you. The city is prose, the desert poetry. How I envy you, dearest Ora. Don’t you know that real letters aren’t what we plan to write? When we re-read them we are curious, wondering, sometimes startled. These are the true words; giving the hand freedom to write from the subconscious. There is no better way to understand what is happening in that astonishing dwelling place for the secrets of spirit and soul. You and I – where do we belong? We write love letters not even speaking on the telephone. We don’t seem to have the need; what is there left to say? We’ll coat our words in marzipan, conceal expressions in mountains of smoke; gazing into each other’s eyes is sadly impossible. Giving each other a bear-hug is also impracticable. Our treasure is truly our own and our truth is written gradually in letters and not by chance. This is an issue that lies in distinctions between the rational external world and the emotional internal world. You write that you find the creation of environmental and landscape sculptures nauseating. Differing, I find it marvelous – it wasn’t for nothing I wrote about it in one of my last poems; LOVE.

  And yet, even though it is still cold and murky outside, the wind is howling – Never mind, there are more important things than the weather, like our talk on the phone Saturday; It was a delightful experience for me and I loved you so much, Love. What is love? Is it just a burnt-out word, or does it have some meaning? It knows. It is still; shines and instills yearning, for it does have the power to change lives – sometimes for the better, often for the worse. When good, it is wonderful, when bad - terrible. Love is a frightening word. Yet sometimes a person surpasses himself and, at the sight of a flower in bloom, two people might exchange a glance of wonder as pleasurable as any kiss. Just a look, a sigh, sudden tears, pain momentarily forgotten; sadness disappears as that space is taken over by love, which is always waiting its turn, a little shy, depressed, hesitant, but never gives up, waiting with infinite patience for that extraordinary moment; when a man makes room in his soul, love is swift to steal in, if only for a while.

  Oh yes, I dreamed the other night that I had an affair with Yehudi Menuhin. I immediately realized that the dream came to remind me that there is wonderful music in the world and that not every voice comes from Dante’s Inferno. There are also pure voices and the eyes of sculptures that express more than human eyes – even if you cut yourself, the wound will ultimately heal. {What an inappropriate metaphor!} And myself? Again I am distant, looking at you, Ora, through reverse binoculars, and you are so tiny, a fairy story woman, and perhaps this is one big mistake, and when I wake I will see Teddy’s sad eyes looking at me with a familiar kind of alienation. Another time, another person, and my heart contracts. It is very hard for him to get used to a strange body and he rages at his body and at mine, while writhing on my belly with neither lust nor sensation, and I am insulted and overcome, overcome and insulted.

  No, I cannot go through all this, not even at this point in time, even if it is important, even to get beyond the stench. I will stay here with my ironic fate.

  When I was born, I sucked at the breasts of a stranger. So what is the question? For example: Why haven’t I heard a word from Eric? What is the point of distant love? And again words unspoken, feelings unexpressed, tears unshed, and a temporarily required joy hidden in the tissues. A desire to know what comes before knowing wakens in me and I realize that there is nothing before knowing, and a terrible frustration rises in me and I think of the desert and everything that came before knowing, or if there was anything at all. Existing houses have been destroyed; they collapsed: gaping windows, eyes full of resentment, and the dream of creation and enduring love in an uncomprehending heart:

  What does your brother have against me? says Mother. He’s my child after all. Come with me mother. We shall go to the desert and count the grains of sand, I say, and fall asleep. Will I wake up tomorrow?

  Chapter 14

  Marta

  And Now, since we’re talking about kibbutzim, I’ll tell you a story about the kibbutz, or more accurately, about a certain family I was very close to. Listen well, friends, and please don’t get too upset, even if it breaks your heart.

  Here it is –

  All that night, the rain fell thick and insistent. All that night, Marta was deep into her reveries; the voices humming far and near, high and low; the visions clear and sharp. Others as pale as banks of fog. Marta’s eyes are closed, but she is not asleep. She is afraid to sleep. Devoured by cancer, drowning in morphine, she lies in her bed under the window, listening to the rain, holding her breath, postponing the pain each breath costs. The rain stops at dawn. She sees the sunrise in her mi
nd’s eye. A red sun bursts forth from within rain-saturated clouds. Large drops of water glistening boldly on the branches of the cypress trees, balancing for a moment, then falling, disappearing into the cracks of the parched earth.

  Her pain is dim and distant. Her imagination hovers in the kibbutz, in the world. She is digging deep into the archives of memories, sunk into the world of images. Now she sees the teacher, Dahlia, meet with her friend, Anna, near the Children’s House. Thank God it rained, Anna says. I was getting worried. Another drought would have been a disaster. I must hurry, Dahlia says. The children are all over the place, getting filthy, looking for snails and earthworms. And Marta sees Anna smile, and smoothes a bunch of white hair from her forehead with a calm hand. Relax, Dahlia, she says. The children will get wet anyway. Besides, it’s good for them. You mustn’t worry so much. You already have an ulcer. Look! Such a beautiful day. It’ll probably rain again this afternoon. But Dahlia puckers her forehead, narrows her eyes, sighs, and says, Anna, you always know everything. And she adds quickly, see you, and they disappear. Now she imagines Ezra, her husband, on his way to the sheep pen, meeting with Eli, the kibbutz mechanic. A beautiful day, Ezra. Did you hear the deluge last night? she hears Eli say to her husband. What do you think? Will it be a good year? We live and hope, Ezra mutters. Lots of grass for the sheep. What do you say, Ezra? Yah. Ezra allows himself to be cajoled into a stingy smile. Lots of good grass for the sheep this year.