Can't and Won't

by Lydia Davis

  I was thinking about the landing over my dinner that night, in the orderly, bustling ground-floor restaurant of my hotel. I was looking into the face of a very small fried egg, a quail egg, on my plate, and it occurred to me that if the outcome had been different, the egg would at this very moment still have been looking up at someone, but at someone else, not me. The egg would have been looking up at a different fork, or even the same fork, but in a different hand. My hand would have been somewhere else, maybe in a Chicago morgue.

  I was also writing down what I could remember of the landing, while my dinner cooled. The waiter, observing my plate, said something like “Your pen is moving faster than your fork,” and then he added, as an afterthought, “which is the way it should be.” At that, I liked him better. I had not liked him before, with his lank locks of hair and his overly friendly jokes.

  Meanwhile, in the background, at the hotel reception desk, a slim, cautious, gray-bearded Englishman was asked by the clerk, “What is your name?” and he answered, “Morris. M, o, r, r, i, s.”

  The Language of the Telephone Company

  “The trouble you reported recently

  is now working properly.”

  The Coachman and the Worm

  story from Flaubert

  A former servant of ours, a pathetic fellow, is now the driver of a hackney cab—you’ll probably remember how he married the daughter of that porter who was awarded a prestigious prize at the same time that his wife was being sentenced to penal servitude for theft, whereas he, the porter, was actually the thief. In any case, this unfortunate man, Tolet, our former servant, has, or thinks he has, a tapeworm inside him. He talks about it as though it were a living person who communicates with him and tells him what it wants, and when Tolet is talking to you, the word “he” always refers to this creature inside him. Sometimes Tolet has a sudden urge and attributes it to the tapeworm: “He wants it,” he says—and right away Tolet obeys. Lately he wanted to eat some fresh white rolls; another time he had to have some white wine, but the next day he was outraged because he wasn’t given red.

  The poor man has by now lowered himself, in his own eyes, to the same level as the tapeworm; they are equals waging a fierce battle for dominance. He said to my sister-in-law recently, “That creature has it in for me; it’s a battle of wills, you see; he’s forcing me to do what he likes. But I’ll have my revenge. Only one of us will be left alive.” Well, the man is the one who will be left alive, or, rather, not for long, because, in order to kill the worm and be rid of it, he recently swallowed a bottle of vitriol and is at this very moment dying. I wonder if you can see the true depths of this story.

  What a strange thing it is—the human brain!

  Letter to a Marketing Manager

  Dear Harvard Book Store Marketing Manager,

  I recently telephoned your bookstore to inquire about the matter described below and was told that you would be the person to contact. My question concerns an unfortunate biographical mistake printed in your January 2002 newsletter.

  I was startled to see, on the back page of this issue, that my recently published book was featured in the column titled “Spotlight: McLean Alumni.” Now, I am aware that McLean’s has a distinguished list of former patients and is among the most prestigious of institutions of this type in the country, but I have been inside its walls only once, and that was as a visitor. I stopped in to see a friend of mine from high school, and spent no more than, perhaps, one awkward hour with him, since our conversation was at best difficult.

  Now, to be perfectly honest—in case this is the source of the misunderstanding—it is true that a member of my family was once incarcerated in McLean’s. My great-grandfather, of the same surname, was for a time a patient of the institution, but this was in the early part of the last century, and he was not a seriously disturbed individual, as far as I can tell from what my father has said and from the letters and other documentary evidence I have in my possession. He was apparently no more than generally restless, apathetic at his place of employment, occasionally inspired with plans for irrational enterprises, dissatisfied with domestic life, and visibly oppressed by his wife’s emphatically demanding and restrictive nature. Although he did indeed escape the institution once and was then forcibly returned to it, he was several months later judged to have been rehabilitated, and he was released. He thereafter lived a tranquil, if rather solitary, life apart from his family, with a single manservant, on a farm in Harwich, Massachusetts.

  I offer this information in case it may be useful, though I can think of no reason why you would confuse me with him. However, no other explanation occurs to me for your mistaken identification, unless your buyers assumed on the basis of the contents of my book, its title, or my admittedly somewhat wild-eyed photograph that at some time in the past I was an inmate of McLean’s.

  It is always nice to have some attention paid to one’s book, but embarrassing to be misidentified in this way. Could you please throw some light on the matter?

  Yours sincerely.

  III

  The Last of the Mohicans

  We are sitting with our old mother in the nursing home.

  “Of course I’m lonesome for you kids. But it’s not like being in a strange place, where you don’t know anyone.”

  She smiles, trying to reassure us. “There are plenty of people here from good old Willy.”

  She adds: “Of course, a lot of them can’t talk.” She pauses, and goes on: “A lot of them can’t see.”

  She looks at us through her thick-lensed glasses. We know she can’t see anything but light and shadow.

  “I’m the last of the Mohicans—as they say.”

  Grade Two Assignment

  Color these fish.

  Cut them out.

  Punch a hole in the top of each fish.

  Put a ribbon through all the holes.

  Tie these fish together.

  Now read what is written on these fish:

  Jesus is a friend.

  Jesus gathers friends.

  I am a friend of Jesus.

  Master

  “You want to be a master,” he said. “Well, you’re not a master.”

  That took me down a peg.

  Seems I still have a lot to learn.

  An Awkward Situation

  A young writer has hired an older, more experienced writer to improve upon his texts. However, he refuses to pay her. He keeps her, in fact, in a situation that amounts to imprisonment, on the grounds of his estate. Though his frail and elderly mother, while turning her back and walking away, as though unwilling to look at him, urges him, weakly, to pay this writer what he owes her, he does not. Instead, he holds his arm out straight towards her, his hand in a fist, while she holds her hand out under his fist, palm up, as though to receive something. He then opens his hand, and it is empty. He is doing this for revenge, she knows, because he and she were once involved in what might be called a love relationship, and she was not as kind to him as she should have been. She was sometimes rude to him, and belittled him, both in front of others and in private. She tries, over and over, to think whether she was as cruel to him then, so long ago, as he is being cruel to her now. Complicating the situation is the fact that another person is living here with her, and depending on her for support, and that is her ex-husband. He, unlike her, and unlike her bitter former lover, is cheerful and confident, not knowing, until at last she tells him, that she is not being paid. Even then, however, after a moment’s pause in which he absorbs the news, he continues to be cheerful and confident, in part, perhaps, because he does not believe her, and in part because he is distracted, having just embarked on another writing project of his own. He invites her to work with him on it. She is interested and willing, until she looks at it. She then sees that, unfortunately for her, it involves the writing of yet another person. She does not like the writing, or the character, or what she suspects is the corrupting influence, of this other person, and she does not want to be assoc
iated with her. But before she can tell him this, or, better, hide it from him, while still declining to collaborate on the writing project, another question occurs to her. Where, in all this, she wonders now, after a surprisingly long time, perhaps weeks, is her own present husband, always so helpful to her, and why does he not come to help her out of this most awkward situation?

  Housekeeping Observation

  Under all this dirt

  the floor is really very clean.

  The Execution

  story from Flaubert

  Here is another story about our compassion. In a village not far from here, a young man murdered a banker and his wife, then raped the servant girl and drank all the wine in the cellar. He was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed. Well, there was such interest in seeing this peculiar fellow die on the guillotine that people came from all over the countryside the night before—more than ten thousand of them. There were such crowds that the bakeries ran out of bread. And because the inns were full, people spent the night outside: to see this man die, they slept in the snow.

  And we shake our heads over the Roman gladiators. Oh, charlatans!

  A Note from the Paperboy

  She tries to get her husband to look at the dog and the cat lying stretched out together companionably side by side on the floor. He is immediately annoyed with her because he is trying to concentrate on what he is doing.

  Since he won’t talk to her, she then starts talking to the cat and the dog. Again he tells her to be quiet—he can’t concentrate.

  What he is doing is writing a note to the paperboy. He is writing a note in answer to a note they have received from the paperboy.

  The paperboy has written that when walking through their yard in the dark in the early morning, he has “met several animals”—“like skunks.” He is announcing that from now on, he would prefer to leave the paper outside the yard, “at the back gate entrance.”

  Now, in response, her husband is writing to the paperboy saying No, they prefer to have the newspaper delivered as always to the back porch, and if he can’t do that, they will discontinue the paper.

  In fact, according to the grammatical construction used by the paperboy in his note, it is the animals themselves who are not only walking through the yard but also delivering the paper.

  In the Train Station

  The train station is very crowded. People are walking in every direction at once, though some are standing still. A Tibetan Buddhist monk with shaved head and long wine-colored robe is in the crowd, looking worried. I am standing still, watching him. I have plenty of time before my train leaves, because I have just missed a train. The monk sees me watching him. He comes up to me and tells me he is looking for Track 3. I know where the tracks are. I show him the way.

  dream

  The Moon

  I get up out of bed in the night. My room is large, and dark but for the white dog on the floor. I leave the room. The hallway is wide and long, and filled with an underwater sort of twilight. I reach the doorway of the bathroom and see that it is flooded with bright light. There is a full moon far above, overhead. Its beam is coming in through the window and falling directly on the toilet seat, as if sent by a helpful God.

  Then I am back in bed. I have been lying there awake for a while. The room is lighter than it was. The moon is coming around to this side of the building, I think. But no, it is the beginning of dawn.

  dream

  My Footsteps

  I see myself from the back, walking. There are circles of both light and shadow around each of my footsteps. I know that with each step I can now go farther and faster than ever before, so of course I want to spring forward and run. But I am told that I must pause at each step, letting my foot rest on the ground for a moment, if I want it to develop its full power and reach, before taking the next.

  dream

  How I Read as Quickly as Possible Through My Back Issues of the TLS

  I do not want to read about the life of Jerry Lewis.

  I do want to read about mammalian carnivores.

  I do not want to read about a portrait of a castrato.

  I do not want to read this poem:

  (“… and so I stood/at the water’s edge among electrolytes…”)

  I do want to read about the history of the Inca khipu.

  I do not want to read about:

  the history of the panda in China

  a dictionary of women in Shakespeare

  Do want to read about:

  sow bugs

  bumblebees

  Do not want to read about Ronald Reagan.

  Do not want to read this poem:

  (“What’s the point of sitting on a bus/and fuming?”)

  Do want to read about the creation of the musical South Pacific:

  (“This study will contribute greatly to the still under-written history of the Broadway musical”)

  Not interested in:

  The Oxford Companion to Canadian Military History

  Not interested in (at least not today):

  Hitler

  London theater productions

  Interested in:

  the psychology of lying

  Anne Carson on the death of her brother

  French writers admired by Proust

  the poems of Catullus

  translations from the Serbian

  Not interested in:

  the creation of the Statue of Liberty

  Interested in:

  beer

  East Prussia after World War II

  philosemitism

  Not interested in:

  the Archbishop of Canterbury

  Not interested in this poem:

  (“Light dazzles from the grass/over the carnal dune…”)

  Not interested in:

  the Anglo-Portuguese establishment

  heraldic leopards

  Interested in:

  the lectures of Borges

  Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style

  dust jackets in the history of bibliography:

  (“For the first time, the dust jacket has been given its due status…”)

  Not interested in:

  the friendship of Elgar and Schenker

  the work of Alexander Pope

  T. S. Eliot’s fountain pen

  Not interested in:

  the Audit Commission

  Interested in:

  the social value of altruism

  the building of the Pont Neuf

  the history of daguerreotypes

  Not interested in:

  a cultural history of the British Census:

  (“It is salutary to see, from this learned book, that, mutatis mutandis, such controversies have plagued the census since its inception…”)

  Not interested in:

  a cultural history of the accordion in America

  (“Squeeze This”)

  Interested in:

  the Southport Lawnmower Museum

  Not interested in:

  a history of British television criticism

  fashion at the Academy Awards:

  (“How Oscars dress etiquette has changed since the ceremony’s inception in 1928”)

  Not interested in:

  Anacaona: The Amazing Adventures of Cuba’s First All-Girl Band

  Always (or almost always) interested in:

  JC’s NB and the doings of the Basement Labyrinth

  Not interested in—or, well, yes, maybe interested in:

  the history of diplomacy

  Laura Bush’s autobiography

  Notes During Long Phone Conversation with Mother

  for summer she needs

  pretty dress cotton

  Men

  There are also men in the world. Sometimes we forget, and think there are only women—endless hills and plains of unresisting women. We make little jokes and comfort each other and our lives pass quickly. But every now and then, it is true, a man rises unexpectedly in our midst like a pine tree,
and looks savagely at us, and sends us hobbling away in great floods to hide in the caves and gullies until he is gone.

  Negative Emotions

  A well-meaning teacher, inspired by a text he had been reading, once sent all the other teachers in his school a message about negative emotions. The message consisted entirely of advice quoted from a Vietnamese Buddhist monk.

  Emotion, said the monk, is like a storm: it stays for a while and then it goes. Upon perceiving the emotion (like a coming storm), one should put oneself in a stable position. One should sit or lie down. One should focus on one’s abdomen. One should focus, specifically, on the area just below one’s navel, and practice mindful breathing. If one can identify the emotion as an emotion, it may then be easier to handle.

  The other teachers were puzzled. They did not understand why their colleague had sent them a message about negative emotions. They resented the message, and they resented their colleague. They thought he was accusing them of having negative emotions and needing advice about how to handle them. Some of them were, in fact, angry.

  The teachers did not choose to regard their anger as a coming storm. They did not focus on their abdomens. They did not focus on the area just below their navels. Instead, they wrote back immediately, declaring that because they did not understand why he had sent it, his message had filled them with negative emotions. They told him that it would take a lot of practice for them to get over the negative emotions caused by his message. But, they went on, they did not intend to do this practice. Far from being troubled by their negative emotions, they said, they in fact liked having negative emotions, particularly about him and his message.