Varieties of Disturbance

by Lydia Davis

  I have faith that she will come, though along with my faith is the same fear that always accompanies my faith, the fear that has been inherent in all faith, anyway, since the beginning of time.

  Felice and I were not engaged at the time of that unfortunate dinner, though we had been engaged three years before and were to be engaged again one week later—surely not as a result of the dinner, unless Felice’s compassion for me was further aroused by the futility of my efforts to make a good kasha varnishke, potato pancakes, and sauerbraten. Our eventual breakup, on the other hand, probably has more explanations than it really needs—this is ridiculous, but certain experts maintain that even the air here in this city may encourage inconstancy.

  I was excited as one always is by something new. I was naturally somewhat frightened as well. I thought a traditional German or Czech meal might be best, even if rather heavy for July. I remained for some time undecided even in my dreams. At one point I simply gave up and contemplated leaving the city. Then I decided to stay, although simply lying around on the balcony may not really deserve to be called a decision. At these times I appear to be paralyzed with indecision while my thoughts are beating furiously within my head, just as a dragonfly appears to hang motionless in midair while its wings are beating furiously against the steady breeze. At last I jumped up like a stranger pulling another stranger out of bed.

  The fact that I planned the meal carefully was probably insignificant. I wanted to prepare something wholesome, since she needed to build up her strength. I remember gathering the mushrooms in the early morning, creeping among the trees in plain sight of two elderly sisters—who appeared to disapprove deeply of me or my basket. Or perhaps of the fact that I was wearing a good suit in the forest. But their approval would have been more or less the same thing.

  As the hour approached, I was afraid, for a little while, that she would not come, instead of being afraid, as I should have been, that she would in fact come. At first she had said she might not come. It was strange of her to do that. I was like an errand boy who could no longer run errands but still hoped for some kind of employment.

  Just as a very small animal in the woods makes a disproportionate amount of noise and disturbance among the leaves and twigs on the ground when it is frightened and rushes to its hole, or even when it is not frightened but merely hunting for nuts, so that one thinks a bear is about to burst into the clearing, whereas it is only a mouse—this is what my emotion was like, so small and yet so noisy. I asked her please not to come to dinner, but then I asked her please not to listen to me but to come anyway. Our words are so often those of some unknown, alien being. I don’t believe any speeches anymore. Even the most beautiful speech contains a worm.

  Once, when we ate together in a restaurant, I was as ashamed of the dinner as though I had made it myself. The very first thing they brought to the table ruined our appetite for the rest, even if it had been any good: fat white Leberknödeln floating in a thin broth whose surface was dotted with oil. The dish was clearly German, rather than Czech. But why should anything be more complicated between us than if we were to sit quietly in a park and watch a hummingbird fly up from the petunias to rest at the top of a birch tree?

  The night of our dinner, I told myself that if she did not come, I would enjoy the empty apartment, for if being alone in a room is necessary for life itself, being alone in an apartment is necessary if one is to be happy. I had borrowed the apartment for the occasion. But I had not been enjoying the happiness of the empty apartment. Or perhaps it wasn’t the empty apartment that should have made me happy, but having two apartments. She did come, but she was late. She told me she had been delayed because she had had to wait to speak to a man who had himself been waiting, impatiently, for the outcome of a discussion concerning the opening of a new cabaret. I did not believe her.

  When she walked in the door I was almost disappointed. She would have been so much happier dining with another man. She was going to bring me a flower, but appeared without it. Yet I was filled with such elation just to be with her, because of her love, and her kindness, as bright as the buzzing of a fly on a lime twig.

  Despite our discomfort we proceeded with our dinner. As I gazed at the finished dish I lamented my waning strength, I lamented being born, I lamented the light of the sun. We ate something which unfortunately would not disappear from our plates unless we swallowed it. I was both moved and ashamed, happy and sad, that she ate with apparent enjoyment—ashamed and sad only that I did not have something better to offer her, moved and happy that it appeared to be enough, at least on this one occasion. It was only the grace with which she ate each part of the meal and the delicacy of her compliments that gave it any value—it was abysmally bad. She really deserved, instead, something like a baked sole or a breast of pheasant, with water ice and fruit from Spain. Couldn’t I have provided this, somehow?

  And when her compliments faltered, the language itself became pliant just for her, and more beautiful than one had any right to expect. If an uninformed stranger had heard Felice he would have thought, What a man! He must have moved mountains!—whereas I did almost nothing but mix the kasha as instructed by Ottla. I hoped that after she went away she would find a cool place like a garden in which to lie down on a deck chair and rest. As for myself, this pitcher was broken long before it went to the well.

  There was the accident, too. I realized I was kneeling only when I saw her feet directly in front of my eyes. Snails were everywhere on the carpet, and the smell of garlic.

  Perhaps, even so, once the meal was behind us, we did arithmetic tricks at the table, I don’t remember, short sums, and then long sums while I gazed out the window at the building opposite. Perhaps we would have played music together instead, but I am not musical.

  Our conversation was halting and awkward. I kept digressing senselessly, out of nervousness. Finally I told her I was losing my way, but it didn’t matter because if she had come that far with me then we were both lost. There were so many misunderstandings, even when I did stay on the subject. And yet she shouldn’t have been afraid that I was angry at her, but the opposite, that I wasn’t.

  She thought I had an Aunt Klara. It is true that I have an Aunt Klara, every Jew has an Aunt Klara. But mine died long ago. She said her own was quite peculiar, and inclined to make pronouncements, such as that one should stamp one’s letters properly and not throw things out the window, both of which are true, of course, but not easy. We talked about the Germans. She hates the Germans so much, but I told her she shouldn’t, because the Germans are wonderful. Perhaps my mistake was to boast that I had recently chopped wood for over an hour. I thought she should be grateful to me—after all, I was overcoming the temptation to say something unkind.

  One more misunderstanding and she was ready to leave. We tried different ways of saying what we meant, but we weren’t really lovers at that moment, just grammarians. Even animals, when they’re quarreling, lose all caution: squirrels race back and forth across a lawn or a road and forget that there may be predators watching. I told her that if she were to leave, the only thing I would like about it would be the kiss before she left. She assured me that although we were parting in anger, it would not be long before we saw each other again, but to my mind “sooner” rather than “never” was still just “never.” Then she left.

  With that loss I was more in the situation of Robinson Crusoe even than Robinson Crusoe himself—he at least still had the island, Friday, his supplies, his goats, the ship that took him away, his name. But as for me, I imagined some doctor with carbolic fingers taking my head between his knees and stuffing meat into my mouth and down my throat until I choked.

  The evening was over. A goddess had walked out of the movie theater and a small porter was left standing by the tracks—and that was our dinner? I am so filthy—this is why I am always screaming about purity. No one sings as purely as those who inhabit the deepest hell—you think you’re hearing the song of angels but it is that other song. Yet I
decided to keep on living a little while longer, at least through the night.

  After all, I am not graceful. Someone once said that I swim like a swan, but it was not a compliment.

  Tropical Storm

  Like a tropical storm,

  I, too, may one day become “better organized.”

  Good Times

  What was happening to them was that every bad time produced a bad feeling that in turn produced several more bad times and several more bad feelings, so that their life together became crowded with bad times and bad feelings, so crowded that almost nothing else could grow in that dark field. But then she had a feeling of peace one morning that lingered from the evening before spent sewing while he sat reading in the next room. And a day or two later, she had a feeling of contentment that lingered in the morning from the evening before when he kept her company in the kitchen while she washed the dinner dishes. If the good times increased, she thought, each good time might produce a good feeling that would in turn produce several more good times that would produce several more good feelings. What she meant was that the good times might multiply perhaps as rapidly as the square of the square, or perhaps more rapidly, like mice, or like mushrooms springing up overnight from the scattered spore of a parent mushroom which in turn had sprung up overnight with a crowd of others from the scattered spore of a parent, until her life with him would be so crowded with good times that the good times might crowd out the bad as the bad times had by now almost crowded out the good.

  Idea for a Short Documentary Film

  Representatives of different food products manufacturers try to open their own packaging.

  Forbidden Subjects

  Soon almost every subject they might want to talk about is associated with yet another unpleasant scene and becomes a subject they can’t talk about, so that as time goes by there is less and less they can safely talk about, and eventually little else but the news and what they’re reading, though not all of what they’re reading. They can’t talk about certain members of her family, his working hours, her working hours, rabbits, mice, dogs, certain foods, certain universities, hot weather, hot and cold room temperatures at night and in the day, lights on and lights off in the evening in summer, the piano, music in general, how much money he earns, what she earns, what she spends, etc. But one day, after they have been talking about a forbidden subject, though not the most dangerous of the forbidden subjects, she realizes it may be possible, sometimes, to say something calm and careful about a forbidden subject, so that it may once again become a subject that can be talked about, and then to say something calm and careful about another forbidden subject, so that there will be another subject that can be talked about once again, and that as more subjects can be talked about once again there will be, gradually, more talk between them, and that as there is more talk there will be more trust, and that when there is enough trust, they may dare to approach even the most dangerous of the forbidden subjects.

  Two Types

  Excitable

  A woman was depressed and distraught for days after losing her pen.

  Then she became so excited about an ad for a shoe sale that she drove three hours to a shoe store in Chicago.

  Phlegmatic

  A man spotted a fire in a dormitory one evening, and walked away to look for an extinguisher in another building. He found the extinguisher, and walked back to the fire with it.

  The Senses

  Many people treat their five senses with a certain respect and consideration. They take their eyes to a museum, their nose to a flower show, their hands to a fabric store for the velvet and silk; they surprise their ears with a concert, and excite their mouth with a restaurant meal.

  But most people make their senses work hard for them day after day: Read me this newspaper! Pay attention, nose, in case the food is burning! Ears!—get together now and listen for a knock at the door!

  Their senses have jobs to do and they do them, mostly—the ears of the deaf won’t, and the eyes of the blind won’t.

  The senses get tired. Sometimes, long before the end, they say, I’m quitting—I’m getting out of this now.

  And then the person is less prepared to meet the world, and stays at home more, without some of what he needs if he is to go on.

  If it all quits on him, he is really alone: in the dark, in silence, numb hands, nothing in his mouth, nothing in his nostrils. He asks himself, Did I treat them wrong? Didn’t I show them a good time?

  Grammar Questions

  Now, during the time he is dying, can I say, “This is where he lives”?

  If someone asks me, “Where does he live?” should I answer, “Well, right now he is not living, he is dying”?

  If someone asks me, “Where does he live?” can I say, “He lives in Vernon Hall”? Or should I say, “He is dying in Vernon Hall”?

  When he is dead, I will be able to say, in the past tense, “He lived in Vernon Hall.” I will also be able to say, “He died in Vernon Hall.”

  When he is dead, everything to do with him will be in the past tense. Or rather, the sentence “He is dead” will be in the present tense, and also questions such as “Where are they taking him?” or “Where is he now?”

  But then I won’t know if the words “he” and “him” are correct, in the present tense. Is he, once he is dead, still “he,” and if so, for how long is he still “he”?

  People may say “the body” and then call it “it.” I will not be able to say “the body” in relation to him because to me he is still not something you would call “the body.”

  People may say “his body,” but that does not seem right either. It is not “his” body because he does not own it, if he is no longer active or capable of owning anything.

  I don’t know if there is a “he,” even though people will say “He is dead.” But it does seem correct to say “he is dead.” This may be the last time he will still be “he” in the present tense. Or it will not be the last time, because I will also say, “He is lying in his coffin.” I will not say, and no one will say, “It is lying in the coffin,” or “It is lying in its coffin.”

  I will continue to say “my father” in relation to him, after he dies, but will I say it only in the past tense, or also in the present tense?

  He will be put in a box, not a coffin. Then, when he is in that box, will I say, “That is my father in that box,” or “That was my father in that box,” or will I say, “That, in the box, was my father”?

  I will still say “my father,” but maybe I will say it only as long as he looks like my father, or approximately like my father. Then, when he is in the form of ashes, will I point to the ashes and say, “That is my father”? Or will I say, “That was my father”? Or “Those ashes were my father”? Or “Those ashes are what was my father”?

  When I later visit the graveyard, will I point and say, “My father is buried there,” or will I say, “My father’s ashes are buried there”? But the ashes will not belong to my father, he will not own them. They will be “the ashes that were my father.”

  In the phrase “he is dying,” the words “he is” with the present participle suggest that he is actively doing something. But he is not actively dying. The only thing he is still actively doing is breathing. He looks as if he is breathing on purpose, because he is working hard at it, and frowning slightly. He is working at it, but surely he has no choice. Sometimes his frown deepens for just an instant, as though something is hurting him, or as though he is concentrating harder. Even though I can guess that he is frowning because of some pain inside him, or some other change, he still looks as though he is puzzled, or dislikes or disapproves of something. I’ve seen this expression on his face often in my life, though never before combined with these half-open eyes and this open mouth.

  “He is dying” sounds more active than “He will be dead soon.” That is probably because of the word “be”—we can “be” something whether we choose to or not. Whether he likes it or not, he “will be�
�� dead soon. He is not eating.

  “He is not eating” sounds active, too. But it is not his choice. He is not conscious that he is not eating. He is not conscious at all. But “is not eating” sounds more correct for him than “is dying” because of the negative. “Is not” seems correct for him, at the moment anyway, because he looks as though he is refusing something, because he is frowning.

  Hand

  Beyond the hand holding this book that I’m reading, I see another hand lying idle and slightly out of focus—my extra hand.

  The Caterpillar

  I find a small caterpillar in my bed in the morning. There is no good window to throw him from and I don’t crush or kill a living thing if I don’t have to. I will go to the trouble of carrying this thin, dark, hairless little caterpillar down the stairs and out to the garden.

  He is not an inchworm, though he is the size of an inchworm. He does not hump up in the middle but travels steadily along on his many pairs of legs. As I leave the bedroom, he is quite speedily walking around the slopes of my hand.

  But halfway down the stairs, he is gone—my hand is blank on every side. The caterpillar must have let go and dropped. I can’t see him. The stairwell is dim and the stairs are painted dark brown. I could get a flashlight and search for this tiny thing, in order to save his life. But I will not go that far—he will have to do the best he can. Yet how can he make his way down to the back door and out into the garden?