The War
When the war started my father began to dig a trench; at first we imagined it was a shelter for the family but he never tried to protect us in it. At the time the war was quite a distance away, and a shelter seemed unnecessary, though we respected father’s precaution. As the trench grew deeper, its potential function became more obscure, however. It wasn’t long before father had to build an elaborate scaffold to continue his work, with a maze of ladders to climb down in the morning, and back out at night. When he began to work in the dark as well, the light from his torches and smudge pots cast shadows into the sky that seemed anything but prudent, given the bombardments. Thankfully the bombs never fell that close to our town; nevertheless father continued digging, and even after the war had finally ended, continued to dig his trench. The neighbors had long since stopped speaking to him, and to mother, and even we children were regarded with suspicion, both by the town and by its new authorities. Eventually these authorities came to inspect the trench — which was now hardly a trench but more a construction of wood and stone as solid as if it had been a house above ground — and there was a time of uncertainty when we worried that father might be fined, or worse, as a result. But the authorities could find no laws, either extant under the previous regime or newly written by the nascent one, that applied to the structure and so, after the exchange of a few small bribes from my mother, left father to continue his work. Perhaps they realized that a man in a hole is no danger, at least not to anyone else. For the trench had become so large as to encompass my father’s entire world. With the dangers of war removed, he took to staying in his trench at all hours of day and night. We could no longer determine whether he was still working on it, or had finally decided it was finished. Indeed, we never saw him again. The only evidence of his existence — the trench — was so deep and so narrow that it had swallowed up his presence. Eventually we covered the trench over, and said a prayer.
Kaddish
In mourning for myself, I did nothing for a year that reminded me of my personality. I read religious tracts (I am a non-believer); traveled the world (I am agoraphobic); wrote novels (I am inarticulate); and sang songs (I am tone deaf). At the end of the year, I mended my clothes and resumed my personality. But I was now a public figure, famous for my singing, my novels, my travels, and my spiritual inner life. My former self had died, and so I have returned into mourning.
Economy
I have a limited number of words to speak or write. You might think that I would choose them carefully; but in fact I am quite garrulous. I do not worry about expressing my opinions too baldly; nor do I dance around a topic; or soften my feelings with attempts at elegant, decorous conversation. I am unafraid to run out of words, because all this communication has made me tired. I long for silence, for an end to the blistering insults I am compelled to dole out to all around me. That is what they are generally considered, these attempts at direct, truthful and economical communication. I do not know when I will run out of words. But when I do, please remember that I was once a free talker.
Song Without Words
My instrument is easy to play, and I played it for hours on end. People make a fuss at times, but really it is an easy instrument, and if I became especially proficient on it, it was only because it is so easy to play that I played it often. Eventually, for variety, I began to play the instrument in unusual ways; that is, I played different parts of the instrument than are typically used, and I used my body in new ways to play it. These were just small adjustments and inventions I introduced to amuse myself. Joyfully, I played the instrument with my whole body, stamping my feet, clapping my hands. And one day it occurred to me: If I play with my whole body, why do I not sing, too? So I began to sing while I played my instrument. I played, and I stomped and clapped, and I sang as well. But as I sang, I began to think of the words I was singing — these were simple words, both sad and happy ones I had picked up from different lullabies or folksongs I remembered hearing in childhood. The words, though simple, began to affect me. I thought about them more and more often, and they began to take on greater import than I had at first realized. These phrases, taken at random from my memory in the midst of the joy of playing my instrument, began to trouble me. It seemed to me that I had pulled my very memory from my body, and flung it out into the road where I stomped and clapped, disrespectfully dancing across my own thoughts. My mind, emptied of these memories, became obsessed with them. I wanted to re-collect them, stuff them in again and forget them as thoroughly as I had before. But the memories, remembered, wouldn’t go back. They were there every time I played my instrument, emerging from my voice. And as I played constantly, they were constantly there. I began to live only through these memories. My playing took on a dirge-like, mournful tone. People were saddened to hear me play. They crossed the street, or themselves, when they saw me coming — stomping, clapping, and yelling out my memories, the memories that were now forever before my face. Eventually, I could no longer play my instrument, easy as it is, while I sang. Singing was a struggle with my mind, and my body, always content to simply play my instrument, could not manage without my mind. Finally, I lost the ability to play my instrument. I picked it up as often as before, but my body wouldn’t respond. I stood still, clutching my instrument, screaming the phrases that had jumped from the depths of my mind, which had nowhere else to go.
Never, no matter how easy your instrument, begin to sing.
Mute
I am mute, ignored, covered in dust. At the end of a dark dry hallway, I sit high on a shelf and consider my position. Humble, to be sure. Pride left me when I entered this black building, unlit and cool like a tomb. No mute can cry out, but one more proud might rattle the bars, kick over the furniture. I despair at how readily I surrender, at my inability to complete projects once begun. There was a time, I believe, when I focused my energies and worked diligently to improve my situation. But this thought may be exaggerated by feelings of nostalgia; even misery is subject to nostalgia. At present, my mind is ill at ease, my concentration fractured, though there is nominally nothing here on which to concentrate. My only comfort is that you, if you think of me, will think of me in this miserable state. A comfort because at last I will have communicated something through the blackness of my isolation and silence.
The Memory Theater Burned
The memory theater burned, and in its ruins I could remember only portions of scripture, commentary, history, poetry, biographies of notable men, successful recipes, homeopathy, botany, and the classification of animals. I do not wish to fill the world with nonsense, but I cannot recall these pieces without supplying connective elements; and so I am constructing, anew, my own hybrid theater. Some of its niches are now supported by boulders or crude timbers. Some are covered in cloth so as to hide their ruination. I loved the theater, in its perfection; and I am pained to see it in fragments. But fragments are all I find, and what I find is all I can remember.
I Will Always Remember Primrose Hill
(A Sheaf of Wheat for Mr. Epstein)
Primrose Hill? If I tell you my view of it, will this help you find it? Places, like people, are witness to many things; but unlike people, they bear no responsibility for what they have seen. If a boy stands on a hill, and stands there until he becomes a man, does the hill change as well? The grass may show signs of his ceaseless presence; and other living things, the fauna, may adapt to his vigil. But this place — and it is just one place on earth — has no memory. And the man’s memory of the hill, whatever it may be, is a part of the man; and when the man finally dies and sinks into the hill, his memory shall remain a part of the man and not of the hill.
And so we walked by Primrose Hill, never seeing it.
First Sabbath
I have two eyes, so I give you one. I have two lungs, so I give you one. I have two hearts, so I give you one. I sneeze for good luck. Your spirit enters the room.
Strange knockings as the heating pipes expand, contract. It is the new moon, and the first frost. The Nephilim arrive, ready to cohabit for the winter.
The Copyist
I write with the holy intent of writing. Because these may be the words of God: I am his creation and words are his gift. I write with my hands screening the page, because like the Sabbath candles, these words create both the occasion and the need for blessing. But what blessing can I speak, with words I cannot see and dare not say? To avoid possible error, I do not speak.
I write with the holy intent of writing. And if I fail to think, and can only copy out others’ thoughts, at least I will have been a copyist.
A Bowl of Lentils, A Dish of Game
The desert is lush, in places. Who will sit in the sand, who on the heights? If there were enough for all, Jacob and Esau could sit together and eat, Esau grunting, Jacob watching. But watching leads to contemplation, internal debate, neurosis. Who am I to despise my brother, his hairy hands, his brutal ways, his careless words, his awful wives? Who am I but Jacob, son of the patriarchs. Who am I but Rebekah’s son.
Raree Show
I am the prompter at our national theater. It would be a good job, if the principal actor and actress were not my parents. What is more, they never forget their lines. Each performance, I stand and watch my parents embrace, quarrel, stab one another, and embrace again. They look my way rarely, and at each other never. They are our nation’s greatest actor and actress because they love the audience more than they love one another, me, or even themselves. I sit six nights a week (and twice on Saturdays) in my prompter’s box and read. Except I do not read, because I have already memorized every line in every play of our national theater. Many I had memorized before I came to my post as prompter; at the dining table these same lines were repeated endlessly. Once I wanted to be a writer. But I soon found that these lines were so ingrained in my memory, their path worn so smooth, any phrase I thought of would inevitably be followed by the next from some famous dialogue. I could only have been a plagiarist; or a prompter. The job of prompter utilizes my best ability — were I to employ this talent instead of wasting it — that is, memory. From the beginning of my consciousness I remember all that my parents have said, and done. True, they often repeat their actions, gestures, and words (what actor or actress does not?); but I can recall even the smallest variations in their hackneyed lives. Similarly, I recall each and every performance of the interminable plays that I witness each night. At home, after the performance, I drink heavily to erase this image of my parents, in full makeup and lit spectacularly by the footlights, prancing before me in that buzz of expectation that can only be generated by a thousand attentive minds. As prompter, I never see the audience, but I watch the stage with all their eyes.
The Analysand
I showed this poem to my mother, and she said: This is not a poem, this is a story your grandfather told me . . .
I showed this poem to my mother, and she said: This is not a poem, this is a song I sang at Minton’s . . .
I showed this poem to my mother, and she said: This is not a poem, this is a dream I had . . . Why did you read my dream book?
At the Café Detroit
They came to me and said, old man, we want you to sing your songs for us again, everyone has forgotten them. But I said: If everyone has forgotten them, how do you know you want to hear them? I am old and tired of singing for those who do not care. But they continued: We remember the subjects of the songs, we remember the feelings of the songs, we just cannot remember their details. Please sing us your songs again. But I said: If you remember the subjects and the feelings, that is enough, the rest is for an old man to take to his grave. But they protested: Old man, we loved your music when you were young, and we were children. Our parents loved your music, but now they are dead. We want our children to hear it. You must sing for us again. I was moved, but I knew what lay ahead, so still I resisted. I said: If you really loved my music, you would remember its details as well and not have to bother me in my old age, to recall such painful memories. Here they sensed more than they had known. But old man, they asked, can the songs that bring us joy bring you pain? (These were no longer children, but nonetheless young enough to ask such foolish questions.) I told them: I will not sing for you, but I will tell you my secret. With it you can sing songs yourself, and suffer through life until you too are an old man who no longer wants to sing. This is all I know: It is songs of pain that bring people joy. I am old and tired of pain. And you, who know no pain, can never bring me joy. So they let me be, at last.
A Still, Small Voice
This time, God sends Moses up a mountain to see the promised land, and die.
But in the Haftarah, we find Elijah on a mountain — on Sinai, the mountain of the law. And here Elijah hears the still, small voice of God. The voice asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Of course he had been commanded to be there.
We are given the law, we seek a higher law, we are visited by an angel, we are fortified by cakes and march for forty days, and up a mountain, the mountain of the law. Then, if we are the prophet Elijah, we are finally addressed, and the address is this question: “What are you doing here?”
Is this what Moses heard before he died?
The Longest Day
The longest day surprises us, having approached so slowly as to appear, from a distance, as if standing still. But suddenly it’s 9:00, 9:30, even 10:00 pm, and the faint light in the sky announces its arrival. The next evening is bright, but already we see the back of day. The longest night approaches.
A Testimonial
I had a dream to record a nation’s songs, a people’s music, in its entirety. With such a document, it might be possible to catalogue all emotion; I even believed, in more giddy moments, that it might reveal all thought.
But what nation is both musical, and small enough to document thoroughly? In my search for an ideal subject, my own prejudices and tastes began to interfere: not all music, it seemed to me, was worthy of such an investigation. Could a theory of mind emerge from a mindless music?
I decided to invert the project, and record all the music I could think of myself. Might not one individual’s music, if executed with honesty and discipline, reveal the same range of mind as a people’s? Important questions were raised by such an assertion, but I lay them aside: to write and record this music I would need complete concentration and dedication of effort.
I sang directly into a tape recorder. My practice resembled certain rituals I have witnessed in my travels; after a prolonged period of singing without break, my mental state would approach euphoria, aided by disorientation, lack of food and water, and hyperventilation. I do not know how long I was recording because the tape often ran out without my noticing. I believe, from external evidence, that it may have been a month or more.
The body is capable of remarkable feats, when the mind is focused and the breath active. I drained myself of song, like a body of blood. Onto the tape I spilled out my consciousness; at times I was left a shell of myself, perhaps it was a state of madness, or of pure instinct such as we believe animals possess.
However, our most basic instinct is survival, and even this I eventually violated. The tapes I made are filled with screaming, as I frequently experienced pain from the privations required by my experiment. There are, I believe, more tapes of screaming than of singing. There may be no singing on them at all. I cannot say, because I have been unable to listen to these tapes. Empty of song, I have found that I am empty of desire. There is nothing left inside, and the external evidence I have created is only a mirror for this same nothing.
Sonho de Valsa
The earth might be a red paper ball, hanging by a thread in the center of a room lined with books. Through a gap in the books can be seen a man, his eyes meet yours. The ball is cut down, and it is clear that you must care for it. But how can you be both of this earth, and holding it delicately in your hands?
Venus and Neptune
Astrologists have long maintained that the planets each revealed themselves only when they were ready to be seen. Neptune, shrouded in mist and fog, was discovered in the 1840s, as Romanticism took its own damp form. Pluto, dark and stony, was first sighted in 1930, ushering in a cold age of Fascist evil. So perhaps it should not have come as such a surprise when the planets began to disappear. Pluto was the first to vanish, a blow to science but for many a great relief. Restored to its rotation of eight, the solar system seemed more elegant, Victorian, and high minded. But then Saturn, Uranus, Mars, Mercury, and finally the great Jupiter also vanished from the sky. Foggy Neptune and lovely Venus only remained. And so they shall, goes one popular theory, because many believe that Earth will be the next to go. Unobserved at last, Venus and Neptune will enjoy alone together the peace and ineffable beauty of the stars.
All the Fountains of the Great Deep Burst Apart
We are the eleventh generation; from the tenth only our fathers survive. Is it any wonder our language is confused? God heard us talking about our fathers, and confounded us.
The tenth generation had one, mythic language, because what they saw is beyond description.
What we know is unworthy of description. And for this we use words: confounded, rare and unique words.
Into the Medina
A boy took my hand and led me into the labyrinth of the medina. This was a dream, but only the boy knew its plan and I was helpless to leave it without him. I struggled through the press of the crowd to keep up with him. He slipped through people like water. We came to an open courtyard, filled with shops. Each shopkeeper beckoned to me, but the boy turned toward a closed door and I followed. He opened this door onto yet another street, more crowded than all the others, filled with spice vendors and carpenters, the air heavy with cedar resin and the thousand spices they mix together to make ras el hanout. The boy began to slip ahead, always more smoothly and silently, his body compressing like a cat. Clumsily I followed, bumping into passers-by, store displays, and bundles on the backs of donkeys. Exhausted, I fell into the doorway of a mosque. The boy appeared at my side. Together with an old man they bundled me onto the back of a donkey. The stench was unbearable; I was lying on a mat of uncured skins, meant for drums, or shoes, or another thousand products. The boy whistled to direct the donkey. We continued through the labyrinth. Am I dead and dreaming of a life, I thought, that consists of the medina, this boy, and a labyrinth of thoughts that cannot free themselves from the unknowable plan of these streets. Or am I alive and dreaming I am dead. Either way, I will never find my way out of the medina.
My Life as the History of a Town
The town grew up along the river, but the river dried up. No one ever walks, or even steps, into the riverbed. The finest houses are built with a view of the river. Walking along its banks, one can see into the sumptuous rooms of these palaces. Above, one sees the sky in all its moods and variations. Bridges, made of wood, rot slowly and are replaced. Boats, immobile for generations, are carefully repaired and painted. Without the river, life in this town would be a dusty, airless hell.
Last Supper on the Shanghai Bund
The Last Supper wasn’t a meal, but a meeting — a long table set out along the Bund, Shanghai, with its grand buildings behind, and the broad Nanjing Road stretching before it. My own feeling was of being trapped in the dense crowd that filled either side of the avenue. In the center was an open space; I held a white square of paper, and thought I might throw it across to help me reach the other side. But as it sailed over that space, it suddenly plummeted to the ground at the very center. I realized this was opposite Jesus, and it was his presence that had struck the paper down. This was the sign that would enable me to leave the press of the crowd and escape, both unnoticed and called apart.
Dream
Near escapes all day. From a town so small it is only one room, with slots in the walls for windows. We watch the planes pass overhead, but they will not stop here because this town is too small, it is only one room.
The Virtuoso
The guitar grew heavy, heavier each day. At first it was enough to shift my position while playing, but soon my legs began to ache from supporting its weight. When I couldn’t bear it any longer on my lap, I began placing it on a low bench covered in cloth to protect the wood. On the third night of this arrangement, the bench collapsed. The guitar was undamaged; its mass had changed and the wood was now a denser material than the floor. It had become impossible to lift the guitar without assistance, and as I travel alone, I had no choice but to leave it where it lay. The nightclub allowed me to extend my gig, for the time being, so the next day I set to work learning how to play the guitar as it lay on the stage. I found a rug, and performed cross-legged, with the guitar before me. I could no longer move its neck. As its weight increased, the guitar began to sink into the floor. The next evening, I lay prone on the rug and stretched out my arms, reaching over the top of the instrument rather than from below. Eventually the guitar sank level with the stage. I lay down beside it now, no longer plucking or strumming its strings but simply stroking its wood. I found that I too was growing heavy, perhaps from the immobility of this new position. The next evening, I did not get up after my performance. All night, I lay beside the guitar, as we sank together deeper into the ground. I could see the lights of the room above me, as far away as the stars on a clear night. When these lights faded, the guitar and I entered a world I had heard about in myth and song, but which I had never believed I would witness. I did not see it, exactly, but felt it seep around us, and then inside us, making us ever heavier. Once it had filled us both completely, I could no longer find any difference between myself and the guitar.