Life on Sandpaper

by Yoram Kaniuk

  Miranda was in her fifth month. A call from Seldes. He wanted to meet with me. I went to see him. I went up to his office and this time the secretaries smiled at me. He was sitting at the far end of his office and said something positive about the book but, as we say in Israel, that it “wasn’t for his school.” He said it was too different, but added, I’ll suggest something: Hiram Haydn, the legendary editor, and Mike Bessie, editor-in-chief at Harper and Row, and Knopf’s son, are founding a new publishing house to be called Atheneum Publishers, and this book is just what they’re looking for. We said good-bye. I went to Thirty-eighth Street. The place was humming with workmen putting in finishing touches. I was taken into Hiram Haydn’s office. He was a tall Yankee with beautiful clear eyes and a furrowed forehead, when he spoke you could hear ancient music, he was both strong and gentle, he said he’d read my book and I left, and a few days later he called and I went back and he said they’d publish it as the fifth book on their list, and that he and his friends had all left big publishing houses to bring about change in the industry, but in his opinion the third chapter needed more work because it was missing something. Miranda and I looked for an apartment with a room for a baby girl, although Miranda didn’t know the baby would be a girl, but I did. Sandy and Steve’s apartment in the building next door became vacant. We rented it and furnished it and people brought us gifts. A crib. A baby bath. And all the other things we needed, even diapers. Miranda wanted us to sign up for an experiment in natural childbirth that was being conducted at the New York Hospital. In return Miranda would be able to have the baby there and not at whatever hospital my financial status would have forced her to use. I remembered how Lee’s mother, so Lee had told me once, wanted to have Lee not at Bellevue but at a good hospital, and throughout her last month of pregnancy she’d walked freezing cold outside the hospital of her choice so she could give birth there because once her labor pains began they’d have to admit her. I gave Ziva Shapiro the translator the revisions I’d made and took the manuscript back to Haydn. It was okay and we talked and the book was signed on. I met Mike Bessie, the second partner, who wanted to drink a toast and said that Atheneum would be a different press, loyal to literature, and he said he was happy that my book would be among their first titles, and I went home and a few days later I got a call from Mr. Ford, Atheneum’s graphic designer, who said that he’d given the manuscript to the Robert Lowell grant committee, unless it was some other grant committee, and I’d won, and that together with the advance I’d be getting the following week I’d also have a nice sum of money to continue working. To participate in the hospital experiment we had to go there with our wives, in light clothing, for three consecutive meetings. We were taken into a small hall. There were mattresses on the floor and we were fifteen husbands and fifteen wives. We were all laid out on the mattresses and a stern-faced woman inspected us, asked us to lie down and she got up onto a stool. In a commanding voice she explained that we had to learn the natural childbirth process so that we’d be able to cooperate with our wives and then the births would be natural ones. We all lay down, quite embarrassed, and in a drill sergeant’s voice she ordered us to raise our legs and blow hard and breathe deeply, to strain and push the infant out and for the men to understand every shout, experience them, and we shouted, we learned to hurt, we screamed, we learned to imagine pain and try and bring the baby forward into the vagina which for women is natural but we men needed the guidance of the SS officer on the stool. We learned how to understand our wives and move together with them, we learned in which directions our legs should be pointing when pretending to be our wives struggling to give birth, and we raised our legs that were trembling more than a little and from our empty bellies expelled children, and she shouted: Harder! Push! Push! And I was overtaken by the feeling that I was indeed giving birth and during the break we all started to make friends with each other and tried to understand what exactly adults like us were doing there, but we knew we were doing it for the use of that excellent hospital and so that our wives could give birth in a nice room and we moaned as ordered, and the women filled with their real babies rehearsed and we tried to imitate them, the SS officer yelling at us: Imagine you’re giving birth! And we did. She said groan—we groaned. She said push—we pushed. We’d all seen movies and so knew how to give a performance. Hardest of all was the bit about pushing the baby the rest of the way out after our waters had broken and it had left the womb. The SS officer said we were doing well and that if the experiment was a success, this new method would be used all over New York. Then one morning, September 27, 1960, I’d just come home from the restaurant, Miranda whispered to me that she thought that perhaps, but no, surely not, but then again maybe she was about to have the baby. Her case was already packed. Miranda was completely calm, but I became hysterical. I ran downstairs to stop a taxi. I didn’t succeed and ran back upstairs and then remembered that I hadn’t finished what I’d meant to do downstairs and I ran down again and then I realized that when I’d gone back upstairs I’d left the case there, and the next time I went back up to get it, I forgot Miranda. Miranda saw I was shaking and she took the case from me. The taxi she’d stopped was waiting downstairs. We got in and Miranda did so quite gracefully despite the pregnancy but I fell and got up and the driver helped me and Miranda was concerned about me and I explained to the driver that I was having a baby. We finally drove to the hospital, which was on the East Side. We went into the ward and the doctor, who knew us, examined Miranda and said that she was indeed having contractions but it would be a few hours before they started coming closer together and perhaps we should go for a walk. I asked him whether a taxi ride to Thirty-eighth Street was a reasonable request. He replied that being in motion in a taxi sounded good. We took a taxi to Atheneum Publishers so I could pick up the proofs of my book. I was nervous and wanted to hold the proofs in my hand but Miranda’s contractions confused me. We got to Atheneum and Mike Bessie gave me the proofs and Miranda suddenly turned pale and didn’t say a word and groaned quietly and Mike said, Get a taxi right now, it’s close. I called a taxi. We got in and went. Suddenly the street was blocked. There were sirens. Black limousines sped by. Miranda was swaying and choking back her groans. This was the only day in the twentieth century on which the majority of the world’s leaders assembled at one time at the United Nations, which was only a few blocks from the hospital. Miranda was climbing the backseat and mumbling to herself and Nehru drove by. Nasser drove by. Khrushchev, who would later take off his shoe and bang the table with it, drove by. Eisenhower drove by. Ben-Gurion drove by. The British drove by. The French. The Greeks. The Italians. And each and every one of them blocked the street and I was trying to keep Miranda together and the driver said he’d once delivered a baby in his taxi and could help, and I was trying to remember what I’d learned in the birthing course and began breathing and blowing like Miranda and thinking about pain but I had no pain and she did, and she was fighting it, climbing over the back of the seat, contorting, and the driver got us there at the last minute, her water broke, she was in pain, nurses were running and taking her away and I followed them, looking for doctors, she was taken inside, I was standing and looking at her spread legs and the blood and my head was spinning and the entire class was a blank in my mind now and a nurse led me to a bench to contemplate that SS officer and then the pain suddenly came to me, the proofs were in my hand, I glanced at the first page, the title and my name on the first page, it excited me and I felt like a monster because what was preoccupying me then was that maybe the title wasn’t so good and a nurse came out and said, Congratulations, you have a daughter, and I was breathless and asked, What’s she like? Beautiful? And she replied, Beautiful, and I went inside to Miranda. She was still drained but she smiled to fortify me. In the hall, I asked them to show me the baby through the big window, they did, and I went back to Miranda and her parents came and we sat with her and then the nurses asked us to leave so Miranda could rest. The three of us went into a nearby bar.
We had a drink in honor of the big event. Then Miranda’s father, the new grandfather, asked me what we were going to call her. I said, Chamoutal. Her mother asked if I’d consulted my wife. I said I’d told her. She asked me to repeat the name and I did: Chamoutal. They had another couple of J&Bs without water or ice and began trying to pronounce their first granddaughter’s name. The new grandfather said, Jamoutal? And his wife said, No, Bobby, not Jamoutal, Camoutal. And he, Gamoutal? She tried very hard: Amoutal? I tried again: Cha-mou-tal. They said it was a lovely name, Jamoutach, and said it again, Jamoutal, they tried, their mouths open, their lips searching for the correct angle, I looked at them in despair and said, Aya.

  Miranda came home. Aya was breast-fed. I went back to work at the restaurant. My book was published. The regulars together with Big Charles and the waitresses threw a party in honor of my book. Humorous speeches were made and at home Elizabeth Love came to help Miranda. She was a silent black woman who had helped Miranda’s mother when Miranda was born. She belonged to the sect of Father Divine, who was a messiah whose followers had to lead lives of abstinence and live in communes they called Heavens but without partners and without alcohol and they worked hard to get their just deserts from their God. The sect came into being in the early twenties and the Father was a charismatic man who tried to get black women to stand on their own two feet. Elizabeth, who wasn’t allowed to talk about her life before she became addicted to the great Father, and who therefore had to erase everything that had happened to her previously, was a gentle woman. Strict when necessary. Loyal. Serious. She knew how to work without sweating. She loved every baby she was given to raise. She looked at Aya and Aya was Miranda for her. She had diapered both of them. She stayed with us for about two weeks and then vanished once she realized that there was no further need of her.

  The author Davis Grubb came into the bar. He had a girlfriend, maybe his wife, she didn’t say a word, she was as quiet as a character who’s erased herself from a book. Davis wore an earring because he’d survived the sinking of a submarine. Everybody who’d been saved from a submarine that sank wore an earring so they could recognize one another. Davis had written one book, The Night of the Hunter, which was a huge bestseller. He lived off the royalties and the film and television royalties from that one book all his life. He’d drink with me late at night. He liked quoting Mae West who among other things had made movies with the great W. C. Fields and said, “When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” And about his book he said that he’d faked the freshness of the language, minced the English, falsified life, he said that everything was shit, but when he said these things there was an expression of kindness on his face and he was a good friend and waited all his life for his second big hit, which perhaps came and perhaps didn’t.

  Libby, the woman who’d brought Miranda into my life, asked Miranda if we could join her for dinner at her lover’s, the ambassador of India, though their relationship was still a secret. She was afraid of being there alone with the ambassador’s daughter, who was her close friend, and accidentally revealing the big secret. We took Aya to Miranda’s parents and drove to a magnificent apartment on Fifth Avenue. We went into a big room, on one side there was a long table laden with food and behind it waiters in white. Everybody was Indian. Most of the guests were wearing Indian dress and the women had a mark on their foreheads. Indian music was playing. Libby was happy and stuck to Miranda who was worried all the time about Aya being at her mother’s. The food was colorful. Roast chicken under gold covers. Dishes in every imaginable color. Pungent aromas that mingled with delicate perfume. Water flowed into a small pond. Slender chairs and delicate paintings on the walls. I ate a tasty portion of duck covered with a layer of gold speckles, I poured myself a Dewar’s whiskey and sat down by the fireplace. Next to me sat a very beautiful young Indian woman who didn’t eat or drink. After some time I asked her if I could get her something to eat or drink and she said, Thank you, but not at the moment. She sat there, there was a tiny smile in her eyes when she glanced at me, and I felt uncomfortable and got up, joined Miranda and Libby who were chatting with the ambassador, who behaved like a lovesick boy, and I got another drink and went back to the fireplace and the beautiful Indian woman was still sitting there with her legs crossed beneath her fine silk sari. I again asked if I could help her and finally, after about an hour during which I saw how an Indian minister who was visiting New York came over to talk to her and other distinguished personalities sat down with her to whisper a few words I didn’t hear, and Libby on her way back to the bar told me that the woman was number one at the embassy, I sat down again and again made my offer and again she declined and I told her my name and who I was and she told me her name but not who she was and I asked why she wasn’t eating and she said that today was Erev Yom Kippur. I clammed up. I felt uncomfortable and said, I read that if you drip a drop of alcohol onto a scorpion it immediately goes crazy and stings itself to death. She smiled and said this wasn’t quite as bad as that and added in Hebrew, Atonement isn’t stinging yourself to death. A hot wind blew. We had lunch at a German restaurant. We looked for somewhere to live. Steve and Sandy’s apartment had been restored to them. We moved into an apartment that was noisy and then into one on York Avenue. It looked like a boat. The first room was the kitchen, and the bath was under the draining board, and behind it was a smaller room for Aya and behind that a tiny room for us and a kind of small arrowhead at the end for storage. I wanted something better. There was a house around Seventieth Street that had once been used as a home for Tammany Hall mistresses. We found an apartment on the fifth floor. There were hundreds of small apartments in the building. They were made up of individual rooms that had simply been apportioned out in groups as apartments. Every room had its own door, we had an apartment of four rooms that had been joined together but all the doors leading out had been locked so you could only get in or out by the main one. In the middle of the building there was a huge courtyard that was overlooked by all the inner windows. The floors creaked and downstairs lived an Irishman who played “If You Knew Susie like I Know Susie” on his player piano day and night and nearly drove me crazy. It didn’t bother Miranda but I couldn’t stand it. Miranda understood me now and knew what to expect, since over a period of three months we had lived in three apartments—and some of that time included moving, storage, unloading, and so forth—but then another apartment became free in the building on Eighty-seventh Street where Steve and Sandy lived occasionally and that’s where we ended up staying until we left America.

  On one of the moves from apartment to apartment I lost my phonebook. I was looking for Jerry Tallmer’s number and in the corner of a page of a TV Guide I found a handwritten note: Boris. Funeral. November 2. 4 P.M. I don’t know what made me do it and maybe I hallucinated the note, but I went to the cemetery in Brooklyn. I walked along the path and tried to let my feet lead me and I came to the two graves, the graves of Boris and Zhenya. I saw Mira facing me. She was standing and crying. She looked at me wonderingly and asked, How did you remember? I said I’d found something I’d written down as a reminder and felt a longing for them, for you, for our lives, for Marilyn, Lee, Al Brown, the city we were part of, and Mira whispered, Thank you for coming. Then she placed two wreaths on the graves and we left. We were both ten years older than we’d been when we first met. She looked good, she looked withdrawn, and for the first time I could remember, she looked restless. It was as though all the energy that had been in her like the Niagara Falls, in all her speeches, her adventures, had evaporated. She said, I miss them. Boris. Mama. It wasn’t Mama’s fault that Boris was a character torn from a Dostoyevsky novel. Not far from the cemetery we found a bar that was almost empty at that time of day. We ordered drinks and Mira started crying. It was strange to see her crying and I looked at her in astonishment. She stretched out her hand, touched mine, and said, Lee’s turned into a monster. Calls herself Mrs. Theodore. She doesn’t want anything to d
o with any of us. I’ve given up. Given up. I’m twenty-eight, I’ve had it with everything, I’ve done some terrible things. All of a sudden I’m a person with grief and a conscience, I’m going to marry an academic, a good man, he writes books, studies. He doesn’t know anything about me. In fifteen years I’ve lived ten chapters of a life. I’m tired of adventure and a life of searching for myself and for excitement. As Emerson says, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. But I’m desperate for a life like that. In the movies, in books, they tell the bitter truth: little frightened people love crooked and uninhibited heroes who shatter all conventions. I could have been a movie heroine, but I no longer want to live in that movie. I want a man like a toaster. At my side. Who’ll tell me I’m beautiful even when I’m old and even if he cheats on me, but who doesn’t, because I want him to have the conscience of a good petit bourgeois. And the most awful thing is that Yuri is still after me. Remember that pitiful violinist I was married to for what, two days? Three? He chased me to Spain, actually he’s chased me everywhere. I despised him. In my next, quiet life I don’t want to despise anyone like him. He never even forgave me for leaving the church. Mira drank some coffee and concentrated on her hand lifting the cup. I had a beer that wasn’t cold enough and she fixed me with a miserable stare. It was a wound of a look, she said she’d read my book and she didn’t know what to say. She said, I know where every line comes from. But listen, Yuri is threatening me. He yells at me on the phone. I don’t know. Boris really was a genius of a chemist. He really did flee Russia and we really did live in Los Alamos and I remember a phone call from Stalin who asked me to call my father to the phone and he didn’t only announce that he was Stalin, he sounded like Stalin, I’ll never forget the sound of his voice, it was a part of my earlier childhood, I’d apparently heard it more than once, and what Lee always said was absolutely right, Boris wanted to marry me off to Stalin and he even sacrificed his brother, who I never knew, to Stalin. My uncle’s name was Leonid. That’s all I know. And Mira said, Avi Shoes’s in the hospital. He doesn’t speak. Pat vanished again and somebody said he saw her wearing a fine, tailored suit, walking down Fifty-seventh Street by the Russian Tea Room. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t. For you New York could have been a new homeland, but you missed out on it. I thought about you when I found the Hebrew manuscripts in the convent in Spain. But I was a bitch and I sold them.