Fracture

by Andres Neuman

  Yoshie chimed in to say that perhaps it didn’t matter to the person who died. Or at least to those who died instantaneously, because many others suffered protracted deaths or illnesses. It did matter hugely, however, to the families mourning their dead. And to society, which, whether consciously or unconsciously, grieved with them.

  I suspect that when my brother attempted to justify the nuclear genocide, it came from a place of fear. If he acknowledged the enormity of what our country had done, we’d be in a position where we’d have to fear some kind of reprisal.

  Ralph rejected the word genocide. And he admonished me for using it to refer to something that wasn’t the Shoah. He argued rather ingeniously that if anything, a nuclear attack was an omnicide. Okay, I protested, that’s even worse. Killing everyone, indiscriminately?

  He replied in that tone of his, halfway between successful lawyer and eldest son: You’re wrong, my dear, quite wrong. It’s still preferable, despite everything. Or would you have preferred us to select our victims according to race, religion, or class? We would never have done a thing like that. Look, I’m not saying that the A-bomb isn’t every bit as brutal as you say. But at least it responds to a radically democratic notion of war. It establishes no distinction or privilege among victims. Doesn’t it make you sick that civilian casualties, as newspapers like yours like to call them, are in fact always the poor? And here I thought you were a leftist, Sister.

  Arguing with Ralph is no easy feat. Like Grandpa Usher, he has authority running in his veins. My mother used to say that, as a child, my brother didn’t beat up on his friends because he wasn’t able to reason, but in order to get them to argue with him. He would literally punch them to make them listen to his opinions. And if they still disagreed with him, he would apologize for hitting them.

  Like the rest of my family, he truly hated it when people compared any other massacre to what the Nazis did, even as metaphor, and I understand why. If everything can be compared to Auschwitz, he’d say angrily, then it serves only to normalize Auschwitz.

  According to Ralph, my boyfriend and I championed a reductive pacifism. My brother maintained that Japan’s current stance was too self-serving. It opposed war and nuclear weapons, yet accepted our military protection. Japanese diplomacy was taking advantage of our alliance with its ambivalence. Yoshie argued that it wasn’t ambivalence, but impotence.

  Despite not seeing eye to eye, Ralph and Yoshie never really lost their tempers with each other. They were content to engage in a different kind of male ritual—neither of them budged an inch. The curious thing is that when Yoshie wasn’t there, my brother took his side against my family.

  When we were alone at home, Yoshie would let down his guard. Occasionally he would speak of his fear during the bombardment, which he said felt physically similar to the panic you feel during an earthquake. The insignificance of your body. The permanent threat of it happening again. The sensation that clings to your senses. Like when your ears go on hearing an alarm even after it has stopped, he said.

  * * *

  Ever since I was young, I’d considered waking up early to the sound of an alarm clock a divine punishment, the ultimate misfortune, the end of all happiness. At least for a few minutes. But as soon as I’d had a shower and a cup of coffee (well, two), I’d realize it wasn’t so bad.

  Yoshie got up early because he had to, and also, I suspect, by choice. Whereas the working hours of a journalist are as unpredictable as the news. That’s to say, they happen at any and all times. Your day is no longer divided into hours. Your week is no longer divided into days. Your time becomes an open-ended pursuit, a fever that subsides only once you’ve caught your prey. For many years, I adored that rhythm governed by chaos. If anyone had told me back then what my routine would become—breakfast at dawn, running errands in the mornings, and tending to my beloved plants—I’d have called them a bigger liar than Nixon.

  I loved that in my job, I never knew what to expect. Having to be alert in the newsroom, on the street, at home. Observing people without being seen. Cab chases or running like crazy to catch up with someone. Getting a call from the newspaper and having to pack in a hurry. Editing a sentence just before it goes to print. Going out for a late dinner and getting drunk after finishing a difficult job. Transcribing interviews into the early hours. Continually juggling a succession of deadlines. The thrill of feeling that I wouldn’t make it and then finally making it. Adrenaline as a form of love.

  Journalism is bipolar, and so are those of us who practice it. We veer daily between euphoria and despair. Between sudden disappointment and our next discovery. Many people are like that, but we have a professional excuse. We’re addicted to the scoop. Deadline junkies. I imagine this affects the way we relate to others. If a person didn’t strike me as unusual or exceptional, complicated even, I found it impossible to feel attracted to them. Did others find me as surprising, as special? What a cruel question.

  I documented every interesting thing I saw or heard, jotted it all down, because you never know. That was how I avoided depression. I didn’t always know why I was taking notes, but the act of doing it reassured and inspired me. In the end, I found it impossible to read a book, watch a film, or talk to someone without imagining that sooner or later I’d be writing an article about it. Or an obituary. In the end, it was all useful. A lot of the facts I mention now were in my notes from back then.

  I can’t say exactly when I grew tired of that life. I know that if I could travel back to the time before I met Yoshie, I’d be a journalist again. But if I were a young person today, I’d look for a different occupation. That’s what I told that Argentinian guy who interviewed me. News doesn’t really matter these days. Actually, nothing really matters. There are a billion other things waiting for you to click on them. How can you write seriously when you can no longer take reality seriously?

  Even if I had the same vocation as in those early years, I have no idea what I would do in this jungle of giant corporations and investment funds, how I would earn my living in a gig economy of instant layoffs. Nowadays, what counts isn’t who reads you but who finances you. Your investors are your public. People no longer want to pay for quality information. They’re prepared to spend a fortune on the devices they use to read, but not a cent on what they’re reading. A newspaper’s income doesn’t come from its readership. One day they’ll invent media that doesn’t even require an audience.

  And what about those new toys? Outside demands and pressures have grown as much as or even more than technology. On any objective ledger, exploitation has increased. I know, I sound like an old woman. The world has never been a very nice place. So where the hell did I get all my youthful optimism back then?

  I wonder whether these concerns seem ridiculous to my great-nieces and great-nephews. They seem so savvy about today’s world, they fit into it with such ease. In fact, the youngest has dreams of becoming a journalist, bless her.

  It’s a despicable, beautiful profession. If you don’t do it right, it will stick out like any of those mediocre works of art we had to write about. After all, watching art is an art.

  Early on in my career, I remember that writing in the imperative was de rigueur. If you didn’t use it at least half a dozen times in one article to rouse your readers, you were at serious risk of failing to connect with the middle class.

  Second, you had to create a sense of intrigue by starting off with a question. This was practically obligatory if you were writing about a chamber music ensemble, a French sociologist, a philosopher of language, or any of those things that scare people off.

  Third, you had to try to pull off the most outrageous comparisons. For example: “The Andy Warhol of medievalism.” “The Joe Frazier of peace.” “The Virginia Woolf of movie starlets.” “A masterful combination of Fellini, Engels, and Mickey Mouse,” or “An explosive encounter between Proust, Eva Perón, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”

  But most important, you had to analyze the classics through the aesth
etic of camp and glam. What would Haydn in black leather have sounded like? What would have become of Tolstoy if he’d had a penchant for sequined boys? Could graffiti improve the Sistine Chapel? All of a sudden, these questions became transcendental. There came a point when post-Marxism, semiotics, and structural anthropology were acceptable only if they were being used to introduce a punk rock band.

  In the small world of underground criticism, the use of such unfashionable concepts as content, conclusion, or (even worse) message was strictly prohibited. We saw them as distortions that tainted the aesthetic experience. They could ruin your reputation over the course of a weekend.

  Naturally, all this had a sexual connotation. We expected to enjoy art without preconceptions, the same way we wanted to fuck without having to worry too much. We were sick and tired of keeping our distance. We demanded skin. We wanted to touch. To conquer our senses as we fought for control over our own bodies.

  Yes, it was time to assault the pantheons of high culture with our base instincts. What we never imagined was that the latter would replace the former. As an old friend who wrote for the Chronicle said to me, this amazing wave led many theorists to abandon their prejudices, but an equal number of dilettantes to cling to theirs.

  The visceral was trendy again, and it seems to be enjoying a comeback. Cultural journalism became a celebration of pain. If a novel didn’t churn your guts, you hadn’t really read it. If a record didn’t make you go deaf, you hadn’t heard it. If you didn’t feel actors were flaying themselves alive onstage, you were unworthy of the theater. I started to think that art schools would be replaced by nursing courses.

  I wonder whether this was somehow related to how tortured we were by the war in Vietnam and the agony of Watergate. If you think about it, Nixon’s resignation sparked a rhetorical healing process. Public opinion was focused on national reconciliation and first aid. Our new president spoke a lot, you know, about patching up wounds. Politics, the media, and psychology came together in the illusion of an instant cure.

  Nobody had done anything wrong. Or if they had, it was for the common good. No one was actually guilty. Or rather, they were both the guilty party and the victim. Justice was less important than forgiveness. So you went to your shrink, who told you to go easy on yourself. In other words, if you dug too deep, everyone might end up being implicated, starting with you. It was in your interest to cooperate a little.

  In all fairness, Mr. Ford had made history. He became vice president and president without getting a single vote. During his brief mandate, he also had time to pardon his boss without trial. My brother thought this was the least we could do for someone who had sacrificed his job for the good of the nation.

  Rather than making a living as a journalist, I was just scraping by. I realize that would be a luxury nowadays. The fact is that, for a few years, I could barely pay the rent on a one-room apartment with about half a kitchen and not quite a bathroom. Nor could I afford regular visits to the therapist, the way my mother had all her life. She was convinced that her shrink was as crucial to her survival as her butcher.

  Yoshie was horrified by therapists. He believed they couldn’t help you, or that their help made you feel worse. I explained that they teach you to think about your problems. Even more than we already do? he protested. I accused him of having a resistance to therapy. Resistance is good, he retorted.

  * * *

  At some point in our relationship, which to my surprise was becoming increasingly serious, Yoshie and I decided to move in together. I’d say it was a big step for us both, I mean as individuals. He’d never officially lived with anyone before, or so he said. And I’d promised myself a very long time ago that I’d never do it again.

  In California, I’d been in an abusive relationship with a controlling boyfriend when I was too young to understand what that meant. At twenty, living with him was a forgivable mistake to have made. But at thirtysomething, no way. My biggest fear was that Yoshie wouldn’t respect my space, that he wouldn’t accept my chaotic habits, the erratic hours I kept, the trips I made for the paper. I was in love, yet pretty much convinced things wouldn’t work out.

  When we met, I was living in an area of Queens where a lot of Manhattan cabdrivers refused to go at night. Those motherfuckers would tell you, I don’t do Queens, ma’am. I really loved that borough, with its mishmash of identities, and I detested how some people reacted when you told them where you lived. New York has always been divided into three areas. The Wow, the How nice, and the I see.

  Yoshie was keen for us to move to Manhattan, and had difficulty accepting my only condition. That we live in a place where we could afford to split the rent, a place that would be mine as much as his. The thought of depending on his money to pay for my own apartment horrified me. He had classic fantasies about the city center. The wide avenues of Midtown. The fatuousness of the Upper East Side. At the time, Me was expanding. It had just launched those old color TVs with the Cromesonic system. His successes made me happy, but that was his budget to spend, not mine.

  Before making a final decision, we considered the West Side. If I remember correctly, we looked at several options there. Either we didn’t fall in love with any of them or they were too small for his damn banjo collection. More and more Latinos were moving into the area. When I asked for advice, my contacts told me it was going downhill. And from what great white heights? I’m afraid they weren’t able to say.

  We ended up renting a fairly spacious apartment in central Harlem, which was the most I could afford. We were steps away from the Apollo Theater and Spanish Harlem and not that far, it turned out, from my family’s neighborhood, where I wouldn’t have gone back to live in a million years, by the way.

  He was more enamored of the apartment than of the area. He couldn’t have imagined that in the future other yuppies would live there. Ironically, the whole of Harlem is becoming hip nowadays, meaning expensive. Meaning on its way to becoming mummified. It’s the same old process. They start to build, plant a few trees, prices go up, and they kick out the locals. Afro-fusion restaurants, hell yeah. But barbecues and kids playing in the streets? Hell no. Property speculation is a toxic stain chasing out cities, which have to flee to survive.

  Yoshie seemed traumatized by the prospect of moving to a different neighborhood. He’d barely set foot outside of downtown and the environs of Central Park. I don’t think he’d heard of the Harlem Renaissance, the New Negro, or any of the other black cultural movements. I suspect he even thought Harlem and the Bronx were the same place. As far as he was concerned, Manhattan ended on Ninety-Sixth Street. He took some convincing. I explained that if he really wanted to assimilate, he had to experience all four corners of the city. I wonder whether there wasn’t a bit of racial prejudice going on there as well. I don’t suppose he would ever have admitted it.

  Near where we lived, African American girls, some of them minors, hung around in bars and on street corners, pacing slowly up and down, as though aging with each step. I would see them soliciting white guys who came uptown. Watching them brought to mind Claude McKay’s poems, which still packed a punch back then.

  Through the long night until the silver break

  Of day the little gray feet know no rest;

  Through the lone night until the last snow-flake

  Has dropped from heaven upon the earth’s white breast,

  The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet

  Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street.

  Those white sons of bitches treated Harlem like their private hunting ground. And they were the ones who most claimed they loved the place.

  As for me, I guess I hoped to behave like the writer Jean Toomer, who, thanks to his mixed heritage, was considered both black and white, or neither, depending on who was looking at him. But coming from a nice, typical Jewish family, I’m afraid my aspirations were slightly self-righteous.

  When we first moved there, it was difficult for me not to feel awkward when striking up
conversations with strangers. Like an idiot, I exaggerated my friendliness, as if, instead of just mutual respect, they needed to be treated with kid gloves. I was trying to convey notions of equality that can’t be shown in a single moment, only applied over time.

  I soon realized that my inadvertent condescension made them uneasy. Apparently, they didn’t give a damn if I was a liberal, signed petitions, or thought of myself more or less as a supporter of civil rights. All they wanted from me was to be left alone. I found that frustrating. Only when I relaxed and learned to be a bit rude with everyone, including Latinos and African Americans, did I start to feel that I fit in with the locals.

  One evening, Yoshie and I were out walking after having dinner downtown and seeing a Cassavetes movie. I don’t remember which one. We had just started living together. It was summer. We were happy and reasonably tipsy, so rather than take the subway or a cab, we decided to walk home. Getting back to our new neighborhood took longer than we’d imagined, or maybe it was a weekday, because the avenue was deserted. Around 115th Street or so, with my typical nocturnal high spirits, I suggested a nightcap. Yoshie was ready for bed, but he agreed with that generosity that exists solely in couples who are still honeymooning.

  The movie, it’s coming back to me now, was about two people who are exact opposites, poles apart, and unexpectedly end up falling in love. Cassavetes used a technique based on muscle memory. The basic idea is that actors repeat the same gestures and actions over and over, until they become not as much a role as part of their own behavior and identity. I wonder whether this could work in reverse. Whether we could omit something over and over, until the event in question is erased from our memories.

  Anyhow, we stopped for a drink at a nightclub near our apartment. The live music was over, and the place was almost empty. We were the only customers whose skin was a different color. No one said anything to us. No one messed with us. But Yoshie admitted that he was struck by the looks people gave us, the way their bodies stiffened as soon as we came into their field of vision, the conversations dropping off as we walked into the room. When the barman served us our drinks, the counter between us suddenly seemed a lot wider than before.