wants my book: he is soft, melodious, undulating, tones like
music washing up in waves on the shore.
He calls, whispering. You are so wonderful to want me, I say.
*
He calls, whispering, a musical voice, soft, soft, like the ocean
undulating or the wind rushing through the trees at dusk, the
chill of night in the wind.
I am a writer, I have an agent, she stands between me and
every disaster, one human heart with knowledge and skill,
some common sense, and I say to her, I cannot stand to talk to
him. I don’t know what to say to him, I don’t know how to
say anything to him because anything I say has to mean: take
me: have me: I love you: I want you, wonderful you. I knew
how, certainly, once. He must be loved, admired, adored, to
publish me, whom he now adores. She tells me what to say. I
write it down, word for word, on a four-by-six plain index
card. I cross out the adjectives. I say what she tells me. I read
it, pausing where I have crossed words out. I sound breathy
and unsure. Brilliant, brave, heroic, you are so wonderful to
want me, I say.
So wonderful, so wise, so brave, so pure, so true, so smart, so
brilliant, so intelligent, so discerning, so unique, so heroic, so
honest, so sensitive, so good, so so you are you are.
So kind, so gentle, so tender, so intuitive, so sweet, so fine,
so vulnerable, so so you are you are.
129
The adjectives are all implicit, crossed out on the index cards
but whispered under the silence of the dead pauses, massing in
clusters under the throat.
*
Tell him, she says, my guardian, my friend, standing between
me and disaster, tell him that he alone of all the men in the
world has the brilliant and incredibly courageous capacity and
talent to. . .
I say that he alone— pause— breathe— breathe—is well
I don’t say this easily— breathe— breathe— he alone—
breathe— pause— breathe— has
the— breathy— breathy—
talent— pause—
I know, he says, voice undulating.
Oh, I say, breathy, breathy, talent, pause, breathy, breathy,
courage, it’s so hard for me to, pause, pause, say this, breathe,
breathe, but he alone.
I know, he whispers, voice undulating, rushing through the
trees, wind at dusk, carrying chill. I know. I will take care of
you now, he says, and hangs up.
*
Tell him, she says, this woman who stands between the abyss
and me, who believes in me, who year after year stands with
me so that I will write, tell him that you trust his judgment
implicitly because he is so special and that his incredible mind
and phenomenal intellect and brilliant ability to. . .
I say that I trust, I breathe hard, I trust, I pause, I trust him,
breathy breathy pause, and his mind is— breathe— breathe—
well it’s not often that I can honestly say— I breathe— pause,
pause— breathy, breathy— his intellect and ability—
I know, he says, breathy, undulating wind rushing.
*
He has to believe that every idea of mine is his. This is the art
of being female, but I have lost it. She tells me what to say, I
write it down, I cross out the adjectives, I say it, I read it,
breathy, full of raw nerves: but in his world the breathy pauses
mean fuck me, the misery in my voice means fuck me, the
desperate self-effacement means fuck me.
He whispers, undulating: comforts me: he will take care of
me now.
*
130
The contracts are signed. I have been breath-fucked, undulated,
through several intimate talks on the phone. The phone is
slobbered over, whispered over, bits of spit are the silent dissent. In my throat there is a lump the size of a man’s fist.
*
My throat has a rock in it, busting the seams of my neck: each
breathe-pause-breathe is a word lying down there to die,
to decompose, to be a pile of dead bone fragmented in the
throat. Each breathy hello, each breathy sentence about he is a
hero, he is a rescuer, he is a genius, he is a savior, pulls its way
past the rock, bone, graveyard of words not said, remarks not
made, a woman’s slow death, the familiar silence, the choking,
the breathy death. Oh, so quiet, so timid, so wordless, so deferential. It is the only way to absorb, to honor, to recognize, to survive, his immeasurable greatness, his sublime intelligence,
his magnificent sensibility, his superbly-intuitive understanding. Breathtaking qualities: breathtaking love: of an editor for a writer: of a man for a woman: you are so wonderful, I say.
Undulating, he knows.
*
In my throat there is a lump the size of a man’s fist. In my
throat there is a rock the size of my tears. In my throat unsaid
words lie down to die: they are buried there: the writer is
dying: the woman is being reborn. Oh, says the breathy little
thing, you are so wonderful.
*
The air tries to push past the fist of tears. It comes out in a
rush, having had to push through. Oh, says the air having
rushed past the swollen lump in the throat, oh— breathe—
breathe— pause— a tear silently dies, a word dies— oh, you are
so wonderful.
*
His voice undulates, confident, melodious, whispery, I try not
to have to talk to him, the phone rings: I have begun already
to be afraid: he never says who he is: the undulating voice says
hi, deep, whispery, melodious, hi, hi, it sort of slithers out long
and slow like a four-syllable word, the inflection going up and
down singsong: and he begins talking: it is invariably chivalrous— I thought you would like, I thought you would like, to know, I remembered that you like, I protected you from, I
131
saved you from, I remembered that you wanted, I was thinking
about you and wanted to know if you wanted— but the voice
undulates: like there is some secret: the voice of someone whispering a secret: each time I think it is an obscene phone call but something warns me and I don’t hang up, I am courteous and
quiet, I listen, and it goes on and on, this undulating voice,
and then he says something recognizable, businesslike, but in
a deep whisper, and I know it is him, my savior, the one I have
to undulate with or die. The phone rings: I have come to dread
it: he never says who he is: the voice is melodious, undulating
or the wind rushing through the trees at dusk carrying the
edge of night, chill, fear. I am breathy, uncertain, timid, tenuous:
in his world it means fuck me.
*
Have you ever seen a snake on parched ground, undulating?
His voice was like a snake. I am the parched ground.
*
“ I can’t, ” I say.
“ What will you do then? Where are you going to go? ” asks
my agent, smart, humane, serious, a serious woman with a
serious question. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go.
“ I don’t know what to say, ” I say.
“ Just say..
I write it down. I cro
ss out the adjectives. I pause. I am
breathy. I can barely choke it out. It sounds desperate and
sexy. I never have to finish a sentence. “ I know, ” he says,
melodious, undulating.
*
The lump in my throat is tears, a fist. It is repulsion, coiled up,
ready to spring. Then the wild wires will cut through the silky
skin lining the throat and blood will flood the lungs and spill
out over the shoulders, and the child will be like a stone statue,
ancient marble, desecrated with red paint: head and shoulders
cold and polished, throat torn open: Brian DePalma and
werewolves: the stone statue on a stand, shoulders and head,
eyes empty, no pupils, stone hair matted down in cold ivory:
blood tearing out of the torn throat: called Loved. I am the
child, silent now: a girl sleeping on a bed, it is dark, she is
wearing a turquoise dress with old-fashioned buttons all up
the front from below the waist to the high neck, and her daddy
132
comes in to say goodnight, and slowly, slowly, he undoes each
button— she has not been able to sleep, he says go to your room
and just lie down and rest and I will come in, no don’t worry
about changing your clothes, so she lies down just as she is, in
her old-fashioned dress with all the buttons— and slowly,
slowly, he undoes each button: it is a dream but she is awake,
a fog, in the dark, she waits, he undoes each button, he is
nervous, throaty, he rubs her, he is throaty, he runs out: the
lump in my throat is tears. I am the child, silent now. It takes
me back that far: that close to annihilation.
*
The phone rings late Friday evening. The whisper goes on and
on. He wants me to come to dinner at his apartment the next
night. I say, well no, I don’t think, maybe sometime next week
we could meet, in a restaurant because I know how busy he is.
The whisper deepens, chills. No that really wouldn’t be good
because he really wants me to meet this friend of his, a woman
whom he knows I would like very very much and whom I just
absolutely must meet and the problem is that she has been in
Nicaragua with the Sandinistas for the last three months and
she is just back in New York now for a few days and she is
leaving early Monday morning and she and I have so much in
common and the women’s struggle in Nicaragua is really so interesting and so essential: he just can’t stand to think of her and me not meeting and he is really just going to be there to cook
dinner: do I like steak? and this is the only chance there is for
me to meet her and find out from someone firsthand, a woman,
you know, more about the situation of women down there. Oh,
yes, well, certainly, I say. I chastise myself for attributing seduction to him. Paranoid, paranoid, I accuse myself. I am nervous and unhappy: does he or doesn’t he: will he or won’t he: it doesn’t
matter, another woman will be there. Tonight I am safe.
*
Late fall, November already, is blustery, cold. I walk there, to
his apartment, a long walk, an hour, over urban cement,
against a strong wind. Some of the streets are entirely desolate,
deserted. A man offers me $50. I walk fast, against the wind. I
smoke cigarettes one after another. I am on edge, nervous. I
hope to tire myself out, walking miles against the cold wind.
*
133
The street is dark, deserted. The man lunges out at me and
offers me $50. Oh, shit, mister, you have $50 for me. I am put
in my place by this stranger, lunging out, I am nervous, on
edge: the wind almost knocks me down. The streets are wide.
There is no traffic. The streets are dark, deserted. The wind is
fierce. I am cold. I am sweating.
*
I find the building where the editor lives. It is on a wide, dark,
deserted street, dangerous, deserted. I knock and knock on the
heavy wooden door to the lobby. The doorman is elsewhere
and there is no other way to get in. I knock and knock, the
street is deserted except for the wind, the cold, I almost leave.
The doorman opens the door. I go up in the elevator. I am
cold. His windows will be closed, his apartment will be warm:
it is another world.
*
He is barefoot. The living room is warm. The living room is
filled from corner to corner with furniture, three sofas, the
three sides of a square, a huge wood table filling the square.
The bedroom is just a double bed, the rest of the room empty.
There is a tiny dining room with a big round table, set for
two. The kitchen is a cubicle, dingy, things hanging everywhere. It is all carpeted. The living room is claustrophobic, there is barely any room for moving, walking, pacing, the three
sofas and the wooden table that fills in the space of the square
are like one thing, one huge, heavy thing, bedlike. You can
get laid anywhere in this room but on the floor. There is a
sound system of incredible sophistication: four speakers, two
on the floor, two hanging from the ceiling, he can virtually
mix his own records by adjusting dials. He has an extra pack
of cigarettes there for me, my brand not his. There is a bowl
of grass. We sit. He gets me a drink, vodka with ice. He has my
brand. He drinks Scotch. I am very nervous. I don’t take off my
coat. I sit and drink. The whisper of the telephone will not do
here. He has to speak up. I am sitting on the far edge of a sofa,
as far away as I can get. He is squarely in the middle of the
middle sofa. He has his bare feet up on the large square low
table that the sofas surround. The sofas and table are inexplicable. I have my coat on. I smoke feverishly. Little philosophers of repression: it is not desire. I am wearing my heaviest motorcycle
134
boots, my plainest black T-shirt, my basic denim, hanging,
ragged. He wears denim, a leather belt, a white undershirt. His
eyes sort of stare in at his moustache. We smoke. We drink. I
am waiting for the woman from Nicaragua. I am hot. I take
off my coat. I put it beside me, between him and me, a pile, an
obstacle, not subtle. I drink. We chitchat. There is sofa everywhere. One cannot stand or walk around. It is for lying down on. I ask when the woman is coming. Oh, he says, not missing a
beat, she just called a while back, I tried to get you but you had
left already, she couldn’t make it tonight but the next time she is
back in the country we will get together, I want you to meet my
sister too. A grown-up woman cannot pretend to be a virgin.
*
He knows what I love and what I need and what I do not
have. He knows I love music. He knows I live in the cold, in
the wind. He knows I haven’t been able to buy steak. He puts
on music. His record collection is sublime: it is an ecstasy for
me: the sound embraces and pierces: his taste is exquisite: he
makes me a concert: we don’t have to talk: I am happy in the
music: he leaves me alone and makes dinner, runs out now
and then to change the music, each piece more beautiful, more
haunting, more brilliant than the one before it: he knows music:
h
e educates me tastefully and then leaves me to listen. He
interrupts to tell me stories about himself, how when he was
sick certain pieces of music healed him, the story is long and
boring, I listen quietly feigning interest, he will now play those
pieces for me: they could make the dead walk: they are the
deepest layers of sex, the deepest sensual circles transmuted to
formal beauty, ordered, repeated in unspeakably beautiful
patterns, sound on sound, sound inside sound, sounds weaved,
sounds pulling the body into an involuntary happiness unrelated to human time, real life, or narrative detail: sounds deeper than sex: sounds entirely perfect and piercing. He
doesn’t put on one record and leave it. He changes, weaves,
composes, interlaces: just enough, just not quite enough, it
leaves you wanting, wanting, needing more.
Dinner is ready, two steaks. We sit next to each other at the
big round table. Now he is close enough to whisper. I will tell
you, he says, why I am publishing your book, he is whispering,
I have to strain closer to hear; I will tell you, he says, whisper
135
ing, why, the real reason. He is whispering, my ear is almost
up against his lips to catch the passing breath, the words just
barely discernible on the edge of breathing out. I will tell you,
he says, why. Meat juice and fat glisten in his moustache and
zing past my ear.
*
He was a schoolboy, probably around fourteen. A teacher and
some older boys gang-raped him for hours and cut him up all
over with knives.
*
He tells it slowly, detail by detail: the way raped people talk:
once one starts the whole story must be told, nothing can be
omitted. I see it.
*
I am shaking in pain and rage. I cannot talk. My skin is
crawling in terror. I see it.
*
I see it. I see the boy. I see him, the boy, the child. I see him on
the table where they did it. I see the torn membranes inside
him, the bleeding, the tearing destruction. I see the knife cuts. I
feel the pain. I see that he was a child. I see that he was raped.
I don’t look at the adult male beside me. I shake in pain and
rage. I am numb with anger: for him, for us: the raped.
Ice And Fire Page 18