Book Doctor. Esther Cohen
of mine. Besides, he’s performing through Thursday. We could go somewhere else. Or just go home,” he added. He looked around the restaurant at the large black-and-white blowups of noodles on the wall, and suddenly understood she wanted to leave.
“We have no home,” Arlette said, more resigned than angry now. “We have chosen not to make one, out of some idea of mutual convenience. Neither one of us wants to compromise. What would happen, for instance, if you used a white towel? Or lived in a space with unbearable chairs? Stuffed, for example. Semivintage.”
Jake looked stunned. He leaned across the table to grab Arlette’s hand, but she wouldn’t let him. His face, usually handsome and clear, a strong face, looked frightened. “Did this tax guy say something particularly upsetting?”
“No,” she exhaled. “Only that he wanted to write a book. It wasn’t what he said. It was who he was.”
“Well you’ve heard what he said a thousand times. Maybe more. Has it ever bothered you before?”
“No,” she said. “I will help him. It’s not that. I don’t know what it is.”
“Do you want to go to graduate school? Maybe we should take a vacation. I’m tired myself,” said Jake. “We can go to Maine. Or is that too Waspy? Montana’s supposed to be beautiful. We’ve never been west. How about the Caribbean? We can get a cheap flight to Jamaica. And then there’s Costa Rica. So many people have said it’s paradise.”
Jake was not usually so concerned with her moods.
“I’m not so happy myself. I’ve lost my point of view,” he said, “which is ironic, given that it’s the name of my series.”
“I wonder if I ever had one. I’ve become a nature documentary, without the beautiful scenes of pollinating bees.”
“Well, at least it’s not your job, anyway.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said, and reached out for his hand. She felt endlessly conflicted about herself and Jake. Her moods often shifted wildly.
“Does this mean we can actually eat? All I’ve had today is a thousand cups of coffee.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I don’t think I can stand Night Shade. Not tonight. The idea of hearing a transvestite painted blue ranting about racial injustice is too much for me today. We can try tomorrow, if you like.”
“I’m glad to have an evening with you.”
“As long as you don’t deconstruct it,” Arlette smiled, for the first time that evening. “No grammar of story, if you know what I mean.”
“What would a perfect evening together be? You tell me.”
“I wish I knew. But imperfect is good enough. Only dinner. And a story or two. The usual back and forth.”
“All right,” said Jake. “You go first.”
“O.K. I will. I wrote a poem today about why I can’t write. Why I don’t write. I brought it to read, just in case.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “And don’t worry about whether or not it’s good. Good doesn’t matter. We both know that. It’s arbitrary, anyway.”
She felt her heart beat very loudly. Her hands were wet. Her throat seemed to swell. But she began to read, very carefully, very slowly, as though each word were an egg.
For reasons of mothers and others mine is a hamster life. On a wheel most of the time, unable to stop long enough to tell you this story. It was always summer in my childhood. Yellow beach, big green house. My whole life right there. Even love. Twenty years later. Another house. Very small. Twenty years between summers and stories. No twenty-four hours anywhere. No children. No histories. No long connected breathing the way yogis teach. Only moments here and there. Standing in suns.
She stopped reading, but didn’t look up right away. She was a little afraid of Jake, afraid he would judge her by her poem, and not by her heart. That he would do what she did very often.
He spoke first. He was gentle with her, and she knew then that he might possibly love her. “So,” he said very slowly. He looked at her with unmistakable kindness. Even more. “I liked your poem. Will you continue? Let me tell you a story now,” he said. “Even though I’m not very good at stories.”
“Good doesn’t matter,” she smiled.
“My father and mother didn’t love each other,” Jake began. Arlette’s face was turned to him. She looked at him fully. “I don’t know that either of them loved me. They were both so damaged by the war. They were in Poland. They’ve been afraid all their lives. It’s hard for me to think about them. So I just don’t. As a boy, I never knew much about where they were from. They didn’t really want to say. Where they were born, who their parents were. I still know very little. I would ask sometimes, and they’d reply, ‘Wait. Wait. Someday you’ll know.’ But I never did. They raised three children and sent us to college by working very hard. They never said a word. They both died as silently as they lived. It has taken me years and years to think about them, and their impact on my life. I guess their lives are part of my own.”
“Thank you, Jake. You never quite said it that way before. It’s so funny that we rarely discuss our past.”
“That could be the only thing we have in common.” He smiled, and it was hard for her to tell what he was thinking.
She laughed, and wondered if there was some truth to that.
“Now you,” said Jake. “Say something. Anything.”
“My real life began when I was eighteen. But my memories are from before. Those pictures that you hold in your head, bright red pictures full of smells and sounds, mine are all from childhood. But when I was able to leave my family, to go to college and hang paintings on a wall, to live in a world that had restaurants on the corner, and a park, and the promise of a broader life, then I felt as though I was finally beginning to live.
“My first day of college was one of those days you remember, and remember. My parents seemed relieved that I would be gone. I was not an easy child. They drove me to school, took me to dinner, and just drove away without the slightest drama. No tears. Only relief all around. In my room was a girl my age. She wore one long sausage curl hanging down the back of her head, to her waist. Her name was Divine, and she was from a religious family, from Baltimore, Maryland. She had a twin sister named Charity. I later found out it took hours to get that curl just to sit there the way it did. She was lost. What was funny was that I could feel how lost she was. And I who had never been in that city before felt very sure. I asked her to come out to dinner with me, and then I sat on a chair, and watched her get dressed. She wanted to change into a flowery skirt. I was wearing a black dress. My first. I didn’t take it off, except when I had to. I loved that dress, and the life I expected to live in it.
“We went to a Vietnamese restaurant on our block. I had a noodle dish with bright green lines. They could have been coriander or cilantro, or spring onions. We sat there talking, and I remember thinking to myself that I had never been so happy. And that, in a way, was the beginning.”
Slowly, they continued talking through the night. In and out, easy words, just like breathing.
5
dikran aram boyajian
Dear Miss Rosen: Should I call you Ms? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Maybe it’s my generation (I’m 74) but I think either you’re married, or you’re not. If you’re married, it’s Mrs., and if not, it’s Miss. What’s so bad?
If you don’t believe me that Miss is not