Be My Knife (45 page)
Authors: David Grossman
Still … I stopped for a moment.
I went to wash my face, it was like putting a fire out with a thimbleful of water.
I thought, as I stood in front of the mirror, how afraid I am to actually see you face-to-face.
Because, before anything else, immediately, you will be exposed to the less beautiful things in me.
I have, for instance, a white spot, not a large one, above my left eye, a little crescent.
I don’t think you saw it from where you were standing.
Why did you ask me, so long ago under the sprinklers, not to dye my hair?
I already have so many gray hairs—my mother was already completely white at my age.
I had meant to start dyeing it this year, and then your letter came.
You know, I noticed that when I close my eyes in front of the mirror, I see you.
I went to wash my face, it was like putting a fire out with a thimbleful of water.
I thought, as I stood in front of the mirror, how afraid I am to actually see you face-to-face.
Because, before anything else, immediately, you will be exposed to the less beautiful things in me.
I have, for instance, a white spot, not a large one, above my left eye, a little crescent.
I don’t think you saw it from where you were standing.
Why did you ask me, so long ago under the sprinklers, not to dye my hair?
I already have so many gray hairs—my mother was already completely white at my age.
I had meant to start dyeing it this year, and then your letter came.
You know, I noticed that when I close my eyes in front of the mirror, I see you.
My heart is going wild.
Maybe because she is singing the Hallelujah right now.
I haven’t told you, I’ve been having a little blood pressure problem lately (yes, it is my dignified age, of course, my too-real reality, my body’s bureaucracy, altogether at the same time).
Dr.
Shapira demands that I take pills to relax my heartbeats—but I refuse to give them up.
If only you could put your hand on my heart now, you would make me so very happy.
Maybe because she is singing the Hallelujah right now.
I haven’t told you, I’ve been having a little blood pressure problem lately (yes, it is my dignified age, of course, my too-real reality, my body’s bureaucracy, altogether at the same time).
Dr.
Shapira demands that I take pills to relax my heartbeats—but I refuse to give them up.
If only you could put your hand on my heart now, you would make me so very happy.
I will stop here and continue tomorrow.
No!
I won’t stop!
Did you see that pitiful demonstration of my fear of being too heavy to contain?
Of the child who is so certain she is terribly fat;
she wasn’t at all fat, but tortured herself for years and years by sitting ramrod straight at the edge of her chair so no one would see the folds of flesh on her back.
I won’t stop!
Did you see that pitiful demonstration of my fear of being too heavy to contain?
Of the child who is so certain she is terribly fat;
she wasn’t at all fat, but tortured herself for years and years by sitting ramrod straight at the edge of her chair so no one would see the folds of flesh on her back.
So what if I’m heavy?
You’d promise to hold me.
You’d promise to hold me.
Yair, I never dared the way I dared with you.
I never allowed myself such license, internal license, I mean, with no boundaries; and you know I have the most generous partner in the world, a man who tells me in countless ways, Just be you, yourself.
Anything you like, Miriam, as long as you are you, yourself.
But I never dared, not all the way, not to the places beyond my strength, and surely not the way I now know I want to feel.
Perhaps I can’t really reach that place by myself with only my own strength to see it through.
Perhaps someone like me, someone who needs someone else to bring her her happiness, no, not just her happiness, her most profound confirmation, will forever be
I never allowed myself such license, internal license, I mean, with no boundaries; and you know I have the most generous partner in the world, a man who tells me in countless ways, Just be you, yourself.
Anything you like, Miriam, as long as you are you, yourself.
But I never dared, not all the way, not to the places beyond my strength, and surely not the way I now know I want to feel.
Perhaps I can’t really reach that place by myself with only my own strength to see it through.
Perhaps someone like me, someone who needs someone else to bring her her happiness, no, not just her happiness, her most profound confirmation, will forever be
(You see?
The sentence is incomplete.
But the verdict is already written here.)
The sentence is incomplete.
But the verdict is already written here.)
Because I am probably only capable of being in that place with another.
Not alone.
Not alone.
I suddenly remember that, from a very young age, ever since I read the Krilov fables as a teenager, I had an internal sketch of myself: I am that miser, dying of starvation on the box of coins they had given to his hands to protect; and it’s a lot worse for me, because those gold coins are mine!
And I don’t want you to be a lightning rod for me.
Why should you capture my lightning?
Just the opposite.
Are you listening?
Come and tell me, Be light!
Why should you capture my lightning?
Just the opposite.
Are you listening?
Come and tell me, Be light!
It is a moment before the beginning of a new day.
I have to add an apology.
Not to you.
I want to write here how ashamed I am for putting myself under such a strain as I wrote yesterday.
I have to add an apology.
Not to you.
I want to write here how ashamed I am for putting myself under such a strain as I wrote yesterday.
Amos arrived at eleven, just as I was finishing up my last lines.
Can you imagine how I looked at that moment?
You could, unquestionably, “see it on me.”
He asked me what was going on, if I was all right.
I told him I was terribly shaken by something I was writing.
He waited another minute to see if I wanted to tell him what it was and, perhaps, to
whom I was writing.
I don’t doubt that he knew—and I said nothing.
I didn’t see the need to share it with him.
He didn’t ask, and went to take a shower.
When he returned, I had already pulled myself together, more or less.
We didn’t talk about it.
We talked about other things.
And Amos will wait, without impatience and without fear, for me, for the time when I will be able to talk to him.
Do you understand?
There is no daily, or hourly, duty or report between us, about the strength of our emotions and what direction they are blowing in.
You don’t have to take flower bulbs out of the ground every moment to check what length their roots are today.
Can you imagine how I looked at that moment?
You could, unquestionably, “see it on me.”
He asked me what was going on, if I was all right.
I told him I was terribly shaken by something I was writing.
He waited another minute to see if I wanted to tell him what it was and, perhaps, to
whom I was writing.
I don’t doubt that he knew—and I said nothing.
I didn’t see the need to share it with him.
He didn’t ask, and went to take a shower.
When he returned, I had already pulled myself together, more or less.
We didn’t talk about it.
We talked about other things.
And Amos will wait, without impatience and without fear, for me, for the time when I will be able to talk to him.
Do you understand?
There is no daily, or hourly, duty or report between us, about the strength of our emotions and what direction they are blowing in.
You don’t have to take flower bulbs out of the ground every moment to check what length their roots are today.
You don’t understand, do you?
You think that such peace is possible between us only because he must not truly love me, or love me enough, or that we no longer share true passion.
Isn’t that what you think?
That if he doesn’t immediately storm at me and take me apart to discover why I am isolating myself so suddenly and for whom, he probably doesn’t love me enough.
You think that such peace is possible between us only because he must not truly love me, or love me enough, or that we no longer share true passion.
Isn’t that what you think?
That if he doesn’t immediately storm at me and take me apart to discover why I am isolating myself so suddenly and for whom, he probably doesn’t love me enough.
But to me—this is love.
The middle of the night.
I got up and everything is spinning around me.
I’m afraid of what I will write down here.
It’s the rain, the first rain.
He already decided in April that we will end it in the rain.
Of course, the first rain, which I love so much, which he loves, too, perhaps—and this is why he chose it.
I don’t even need to ask him to confirm it, I know.
I’m so cold, all of a sudden, shivering … and all the times I wrote him so innocently telling him how I was waiting for that drink, thirsty for it, how it fills me with such a feeling of bounty and hope again every year, unites me with the sequence of life and time and renewal.
I don’t have many unions like it …
I got up and everything is spinning around me.
I’m afraid of what I will write down here.
It’s the rain, the first rain.
He already decided in April that we will end it in the rain.
Of course, the first rain, which I love so much, which he loves, too, perhaps—and this is why he chose it.
I don’t even need to ask him to confirm it, I know.
I’m so cold, all of a sudden, shivering … and all the times I wrote him so innocently telling him how I was waiting for that drink, thirsty for it, how it fills me with such a feeling of bounty and hope again every year, unites me with the sequence of life and time and renewal.
I don’t have many unions like it …
I’m freezing, even in my robe and a sweater, my entire body pricked with pins of chill.
He also said we would deposit the decision for our separation into the hands of an outside force, something completely indifferent to us … and the strange sentence in his last letter, his wish for time to stop, for the summer to continue forever—and I, like some stupid—
He also said we would deposit the decision for our separation into the hands of an outside force, something completely indifferent to us … and the strange sentence in his last letter, his wish for time to stop, for the summer to continue forever—and I, like some stupid—
It doesn’t matter to me anymore.
I even wonder how it is that I was so surprised, couldn’t guess it ahead of time.
I even wonder how it is that I was so surprised, couldn’t guess it ahead of time.
It still makes me wilt, like no other idea of his shriveled me.
It transforms him into my enemy; he never was that, but now he is.
A poor, desperate
enemy, one who actually deserves compassion—but who uses unconventional weapons.
I don’t want to write something in here that sounds so completely primitive, but I know, in my most private logic, that you
don’t do
such things—you don’t play around this way with someone’s feelings!!!
It transforms him into my enemy; he never was that, but now he is.
A poor, desperate
enemy, one who actually deserves compassion—but who uses unconventional weapons.
I don’t want to write something in here that sounds so completely primitive, but I know, in my most private logic, that you
don’t do
such things—you don’t play around this way with someone’s feelings!!!
After one day of high fever and shivers and nightmares.
What an odd illness, so quick and concentrated, it left at dawn, as soon as it came (maybe I caught it from Y.?
Or caught it from his rhythms, at least).
Here, I too am already writing only the first letter of his name.
Not because of the Sanctity of the Bond.
Just out of weakness.
What an odd illness, so quick and concentrated, it left at dawn, as soon as it came (maybe I caught it from Y.?
Or caught it from his rhythms, at least).
Here, I too am already writing only the first letter of his name.
Not because of the Sanctity of the Bond.
Just out of weakness.
It tears at me painfully to write about you in the third person.
I try, but it is already rebelling against me, as if it is a horrible mistake … The words fade instantly, and there is none of the flush of life in them.
Never mind.
I’ll get used to it.
I have to.
But still, turn your face to me now, the face I have still never seen.
I try, but it is already rebelling against me, as if it is a horrible mistake … The words fade instantly, and there is none of the flush of life in them.
Never mind.
I’ll get used to it.
I have to.
But still, turn your face to me now, the face I have still never seen.
The shock from the night before last, a complete despairing of the possibility that we will ever …
I went over all your letters again.
I saw all the times you didn’t answer me after I had asked if you had yet given up the guillotine.
Why, I didn’t even know if you were still flirting with the idea of it for two months.
Then came the moment, and I know exactly when it was … when you told me about the egg without a shell.
I told myself then that I would stop nagging you with this question, because it was unnecessary.
Since then, from letter to letter, I truly believed you had released yourself from your internal “deal.”
That cruel, stupid—
I saw all the times you didn’t answer me after I had asked if you had yet given up the guillotine.
Why, I didn’t even know if you were still flirting with the idea of it for two months.
Then came the moment, and I know exactly when it was … when you told me about the egg without a shell.
I told myself then that I would stop nagging you with this question, because it was unnecessary.
Since then, from letter to letter, I truly believed you had released yourself from your internal “deal.”
That cruel, stupid—
Yair, I know the deal is not just “stupid.”
Believe me, I understand what you need to fight in order to escape yourself at last, to come to me; you need complete internal freedom.
I also know, of course, how hard it is to recover, even as an adult, from those diseases from childhood that left scars.
Believe me, I understand what you need to fight in order to escape yourself at last, to come to me; you need complete internal freedom.
I also know, of course, how hard it is to recover, even as an adult, from those diseases from childhood that left scars.
Perhaps—it occurs to me—perhaps you are even more afraid of the recovery.
If it is so, say it, just tell me, and we can weep over it together, about the wretched feelings planted in us, that we are, ourselves, the disease.
That if we dared to rebel and recover, perhaps our life’s breath would suddenly be taken away from us.
Is that it?
If it is so, say it, just tell me, and we can weep over it together, about the wretched feelings planted in us, that we are, ourselves, the disease.
That if we dared to rebel and recover, perhaps our life’s breath would suddenly be taken away from us.
Is that it?
Always.
It always is.
That fear, the prophecy of the heart, that the disease or the falseness or the stain planted in us is our most basic element, our Luz …
It always is.
That fear, the prophecy of the heart, that the disease or the falseness or the stain planted in us is our most basic element, our Luz …
Why can’t you tell me something so horrible?
It will bring us even closer to each other if you can simply come to me and tell me … and I would say yes … and, for a moment, perhaps we could breathe our relief together.
It will bring us even closer to each other if you can simply come to me and tell me … and I would say yes … and, for a moment, perhaps we could breathe our relief together.
Because I have no other person that knows me there, in that last curve of my soul, that much.
Neither do you.
Neither do you.
But what was I thinking?
What I believed would happen to me when I would be with you “there.”
My profound pain springs from places that have nothing to do with you, from things you and I haven’t even started to discuss.
We have only started the long journey …
What I believed would happen to me when I would be with you “there.”
My profound pain springs from places that have nothing to do with you, from things you and I haven’t even started to discuss.
We have only started the long journey …
I imagine a storm, a volcanic eruption from your insides and mine, something sweeping and shaking, that exposes us, forces us to live in another skin (or even better than that—with no skin at all).
I see the perfect bubble of a level rule, straight, complete, the innocence of both total knowledge and total abandon to that knowledge.
A match between two.
The two of us.
Which neither of us can reach separately.
A match between two.
The two of us.
Which neither of us can reach separately.
This is the one (and only) pain in my life that you can solve or allay: the pain of my separateness from you.
It was, until you, only a vague, dull pain.
Perhaps I couldn’t even name it so clearly, perhaps it would erode and sink into the other burdens of life.
But you came and gave it a name, and a vocabulary.
It was, until you, only a vague, dull pain.
Perhaps I couldn’t even name it so clearly, perhaps it would erode and sink into the other burdens of life.
But you came and gave it a name, and a vocabulary.
On second thought, Yair, I’m not certain that you can ease even that pain.
But at least our connection can “ground” itself in us, as you once called it.
I do prefer to think about us participating, together, in the same “merciful surplus of strength,” full of grace, that Kafka speaks of in his diary, in the entry on September 19, 1917 (when he is wondering how he can “write to someone: I am unhappy”):
But at least our connection can “ground” itself in us, as you once called it.
I do prefer to think about us participating, together, in the same “merciful surplus of strength,” full of grace, that Kafka speaks of in his diary, in the entry on September 19, 1917 (when he is wondering how he can “write to someone: I am unhappy”):
“And it is not a lie, and it does not still my pain; it is simply the merciful surplus of strength at a moment when suffering has raked me to the bottom of my being.”
The one thought that does not cease: Where will the first rain catch me?
At home?
In the street?
In front of my pupils?
And where on my body will the first drop hit?
My ear is alert at night for any sounds of pattering …
At home?
In the street?
In front of my pupils?
And where on my body will the first drop hit?
My ear is alert at night for any sounds of pattering …
Other possibilities are open to me: to rid myself of the torture, to not cooperate, to stop rubbing the wound of expectation.
To my list of losses I am adding this morning, with a heavy heart—my internal freedom.
Another day.
You’re gone.
I can’t stop looking at the sky.
How is it that you managed to transform the whole world into two huge clamps slowly tightening around me?
Enough, enough, enough (but “enough” is also “Yair, speak to me”).
I’m picturing you differently these days.
Look: you’re a clock mender.
A dark, intriguing clock mender, sitting in a little suffocating alcove, full of tickings.
There you are.
A lonely man, burning with a tremendous urge that ebbs and flows like a wave constantly winding the gears of several clocks at once, setting them so they will sound out one after another according to some predetermined secret plan, ringing all night and all day, in the summer and winter, throughout the whole of time …
You’re gone.
I can’t stop looking at the sky.
How is it that you managed to transform the whole world into two huge clamps slowly tightening around me?
Enough, enough, enough (but “enough” is also “Yair, speak to me”).
I’m picturing you differently these days.
Look: you’re a clock mender.
A dark, intriguing clock mender, sitting in a little suffocating alcove, full of tickings.
There you are.
A lonely man, burning with a tremendous urge that ebbs and flows like a wave constantly winding the gears of several clocks at once, setting them so they will sound out one after another according to some predetermined secret plan, ringing all night and all day, in the summer and winter, throughout the whole of time …
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