Ice And Fire

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Ice And Fire Page 20

by Andrea Dworkin


  the novel. He tells me he sees me in it working. I ask him

  about his ideas about structure. He tells me that he wants me

  to understand that now I have a home, with him, by the ocean,

  he has bought a home there where I will live and write, his

  home and my home. We leave the coffeehouse. We get to the

  corner where we go in different directions. I ask him if he

  wants to tell me about his ideas about structure so I can think

  about them. He tells me that the publishing company is my

  home too, as long as he is there, and he wants me to see the

  house on the ocean which is my home: and the publishing

  house is my home, because wherever he is is my home. He tells

  me to call him, day or night. He tells me to call him at home. I

  M3

  look blank, because I am blank; I am blank. He kisses me. I

  walk away, alone. He calls after me: remember you have a

  home now. I met him at six for dinner, it is now three in the

  morning, I don’t know his ideas on structure. I walk home,

  alone. The rats are in the walls. The walls are closing in.

  Someone, a stranger, blond, six feet, muscled, curled in fetal

  position, is sleeping. I do not call the publisher, no, I don’t, I

  wait for his offer of money on my novel. Months go by. I

  don’t call him, my agent keeps calling him, he says he is

  working on it, trust him, six or seven months go by, the

  stranger in the next room and I barely speak to each other, the

  rats are monstrous, I am hungry. I say to my agent: you must

  find out, I must have money. She calls. He says he doesn’t do

  fiction. He doesn’t do fiction. My book that I finished when the

  rats came is published a few months later. He lets it die, no gift

  like jewelry for me anymore. He preordains its death and it dies. I

  see my house, the ocean so near it. I see the beach, smooth wet

  sand, and the curve of the waves on the earth, the edge of the

  ocean, so delicate, so beautifully fine, lapping up on the beach

  like slivers of liquid silver. I see the sun, silver light on the winter

  water, and I see dusk coming. I am alone there, in winter, ice on

  the sand, silver waves outside the window. I see a small, simple

  house, white and square against the vast shore. I see the simple

  beauty of the house absorbing the dusk, each simple room

  turning somber, and then the dusk reaching past the house onto

  the wet beach and finally spreading out over the ocean. I see the

  moon over the ocean. I see the night on the water. I see myself in

  the simple house, at a window, looking out, just feeling the first

  chill of night. I sit in the apartment, rats are running in the

  walls, the walls are closing in, writing my poor little heart out:

  in a terrible hurry to tell what is in my heart. You have to be

  in a terrible hurry or the heart gets eaten up. There is a carcass,

  sans heart, writing its little heart out so to speak: in a terrible

  hurry: and somewhere an ocean near a house, waiting. He

  can’t want that, they said, oh no, not that. I am a writer, not a

  woman, I thought somewhere down deep, he can’t want that.

  Now I am in a terrible hurry to tell what is in my heart. Who

  could hurry fast enough? Brava whoever managed it!

  Did I remember to say that I always wanted to be a writer,

  since I was a little girl?

  144

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 35477d97-f5e8-4ee6-9ede-b99df7d32bc1

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  Document creation date: 9.11.2013

  Created using: calibre 0.9.39 software

  Document authors :

  Andrea Dworkin

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