*
My father was born 1912, and the story above is how I imagine the story of the family, escaping their home on the eve of World War I, which started on August 1, 1914 with the German declaration of war on Russia. Always an army town, the fortress of Brisk was now flooded with Russian military personnel, and many private houses were requisitioned to accommodate them. Late in July 1915, with the installation of new hospitals in town, it became clear that the front was fast approaching Brisk De-Lita.
Rumors of evacuation were heard and the Russian army was to fortify the east bank of the Bug River; but when the German army captured Warsaw on August 4, the Fort Commandant gave the civilian population in Brisk three days to evacuate. Imagine the panic amongst the Jews, who owned most of the businesses, when they had to abandon their belongings and flee for their lives.
When the German army marched into Brisk on August 25, it was a town without people, but with a great abundance of merchandise in the stores. And on the eve of Yom Kippur, the 18th of September, they entered Slonim, a neighboring city, and pressed on into Russia. By that time, the family was already far away from the frontline.
A long, dragged out journey had begun.
A Heartbeat, Reversed
Uvi Poznansky, 2010
It was a childless marriage, childless by choice; his choice. A choice about which she had no misgivings, usually; or, if she had any, Edna would soon forget them in his arms.
Leaning her head against his broad shoulders, she would take in his smell, a mixture of shaving lotion and a trace of sweat, and think herself happy.
But tonight she was lonely. Ethan was not there. Edna tried to imagine him coming close, even whispering some sweet nothings in her ear. She waited for the whisper to dissolve, then tried to force another one—but again, the voice was vacant. She rose to the tips of her toes, as if longing for a kiss. She could almost feel him. His embrace was tight, she nearly fainted—but there was no breath, no warmth in his lips. It was, to her, like a kiss through a handkerchief.
Is it too much to ask, to be protected by a strong man, to be desired? To be adored, even pampered? Edna held her breath, thinking she heard someone at the front door. She ran excitedly through the corridor to meet him; but no, there was no one there. On the way back she caught sight of her reflection, hanging there in the mirror.
For a second, it looked like her older sister. Edna stuck her tongue out at her, thinking, oh well, those wrinkles are just a play of shadows, just shadows in the murky glass. She could make them disappear, simply by tipping her head backwards. She leaned over the cabinet for a closer look. The eyes looked somewhat blurry; so did her mouth. It seemed like a smudge, perhaps because the lipstick had been wiped, or else because she was too close.
In her youth, she was so weak that she could easily fall for something, easily laugh for anything. But that other woman, on the other side, seemed as if she could easily cry for nothing.
There, see? She rubbed the corner of her eye. So did Edna, thinking it was hard to know, anyway, if someone was crying or laughing. The features of the face contorted in much the same way.
There were walls around her, on both sides of the mirror; walls waiting for something to happen, for anything really; waiting there with great patience—with stability—as if they were home. Edna looked away, unable to escape that feeling, the feeling that there was no motion, it was all an illusion; and that in reality, both she and her reflection were absent. She was lost and could not be found.
She counted the beat of her heart, counted it aloud as if she were a child, a small child playing hide and seek. Nineteen... Eighteen... Seventeen...
When, she asked herself, will he come? Will he ever come? Will he be looking for me? I am not here. I am not there. Not anywhere. I cannot be found.
It would be impossible to sleep tonight. She thought about the frequency of his business trips, which for some reason had increased lately, and decided that if he came in just this minute, if he called her name, she would stick her fingers in her ears, pretending she could not hear him.
I cannot hear you! I cannot hear you...
She became increasingly more anxious, opened and closed several drawers, shuffled some supplement packs, some medicine bottles from here to there. These wrinkles are no shadows, Edna said to no one in particular. Given time, they will deepen, spread, gain more hold, more definition. Time must be stopped. I cannot grow old, cannot waste away.
It is too frightening, really. I must stop wasting my time. Stop wasting it using cheap, old remedies.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would allow herself to splurge: Yes, she would buy that expensive, celebrity endorsed anti-aging miracle cream, which contained powerful moisturizing agents; these had sensational skin firming effects. The thought of it made her cheerful. She could be young again, tomorrow.
She pushed hard against the drawers, even though they gave some resistance, and the second she shut the last one, something creaked and the cabinet doors flew open. She peered inside and could see, deep down on the bottom shelf, a box. It smelled of dust, of forgotten things. What she was about to discover would move her life in an entirely new, unexpected direction.
She pulled the box out and lifted the flap, under which was a thing, a hard thing covered with an obscure plastic wrap, through which she could already recognize what it was: The silent movie projector, which she had used frequently until moving to this place, nearly thirty years ago.
Now Edna recalled how the very act of projecting had been a special ritual, a special game for her: Watching the reels turn, listening to the sound they produced, gauging the contrast between the blackest black, the whitest white—and above all, playing with different speeds, both forwards and back. It made her marvel at how the brain would merge separate images, to create the illusion of motion.
Giddy with excitement, Edna carried the box to the living room. She used her elbow to clear the coffee table and then, very carefully, set it down. Inside, tucked under the machine, she found two reels: One empty, the other heavy with celluloid. The filmstrip rolled down her fingers. Thrilled at the familiar touch, the touch of perforations, she threaded it as best she could, up and down through several guides, until it locked into place. Then, aiming the projector at the wall, she fired it up.
At first, it stirred into motion, casting a glowing, larger-than-life face into the darkness. The eyes sparkled, and from the lips came a laughter. It was giggly, yet utterly silent. Edna smiled back at this girl, the spirit of her youth. The eyelashes fluttered and then—with a sudden stutter—something took over the machine; for stuck on that single frame, it started rattling uncontrollably.
Even worse, Edna noted something strange about the image. It was disrupted in places by some small, underlying things, some pictures which—in her haste—she had neglected to remove from the wall. Right there between those eyes, which were as big as lampshades, hung an old picture of her, locked in arms with her pregnant sister; and under that forehead, which was as wide as the entire room, hung another picture, showing three of her sister’s grandchildren. Looking at them, Edna felt empty. Empty and barren.
She rose to her feet, took the pictures off the wall and stared blankly, for a moment, at the nails. Standing there with her back to the light, her shadow sharpened, cutting into the image. There was no motion. Stop. She turned off the machine. Something was wrong. There must have been some mistake in the way she had set things up.
Edna studied the two reels: One empty, the other heavy with celluloid. It occurred to her that they were suspended like scales between joys and sorrows. Like herself and her sister, they could achieve balance—but only when they were both empty.
She should start by rewinding. This way time would start ticking, ticking in reverse: As if she were running back the clock, regaining her youth, her lost opportunities.
Edna looped the filmstrip again, properly this time. A number appeared in the darkness, vibrating
on the wall, right in front of her: Ten... Nine... Eight...
In a flash, up there between those two nails, there she was: A fragile doll, dressed in a flowing wedding gown trimmed with pearly white lace. Suddenly, rising behind her was a large, tilted shadow.
It was him; every motion—reversed. Ethan gathered her to his chest, his face dark with effort, his brow dripping with sweat. He swept the bride off her feet, and carried her in his arms, walking backwards. He backed away from the living room, out through the corridor. Edna shouted, Look out! She sucked in her breath; somehow she was quite sure that in a snap, the veil would ensnare him.
And indeed, it did. Ethan nearly stumbled—but then made it, somehow, across the threshold. You could see him framed by the door, his outline dark against the streetlights out there. He balanced his burden, and climbed down a flight of stairs without a snag, and without toppling over. He managed to hold the bride steady—more or less—and must have felt lucky, for he did not even bother looking down at the next stair behind him.
By the time he had reached the landing he was no longer perspiring; neither was he breathing heavily. Like an army in retreat, he became lighter on his feet. All the while, clinging to him for dear life, the bride kept smiling pretty, as if oblivious to perils of moving in reverse.
She surrendered nothing, not a hint of distress—but looking at herself, Edna wanted to cry, Stop! Let me down! At which point the clip came to an abrupt end. Without missing a beat, a new one began.
In this scene, the bride was facing a group of her girlfriends. She opened her arms to them; but the girls stayed shoulder to shoulder, frozen and remote. From afar, they seemed to be giggling at her. Then—without warning—one of them raised her hand, took aim and thrust something directly at her.
Into her arms it flew: A huge bouquet of roses. Before Edna could move, before she could say, “No, don’t,” the bride clutched it. She pressed it to her breast and—with tears in her eyes—kept smiling pretty. She took a little step back, a little stumble, which suddenly blew ripples in her wedding gown. A drop of blood lifted from the lace. It squirted up as high as those fingers, where it glistened for an instant; and then, evaporated into thin air.
The bride took a deep, sensuous breath, smelling the sweet fragrance as if she had already forgotten the pain, forgotten the thorn lurking there, underneath the rosebuds; at which point—like a memory—the scene gradually faded.
The next scene opened with black leaves floating across the surface. No, not leaves but rose petals, some of which had already started to wither. They were swaying, scattering all over, all around her feet, making her feel unstable. Edna whispered, let it pass. Let it be over, soon. The moment was ripe with tension:
Ethan and the bride had just separated out from a kiss and stood still, facing each other. The silvery light could barely filter through the wedding canopy. Gathered around them were members of both families. They bore witness, in a serious and ceremonious manner, to the unravelling of this union.
Edna could see clearly how he kept tugging at that ring on his finger, as if it did not fit, no, it did not feel quite right, now did it. She caught herself hesitating, wavering there under the gray shade, between one nail and another. Finally the bride took back her vows and set him free. With great gentleness, she recovered his ring. Ethan, in turn, recovered hers.
The scene started fading, as if white veils were falling, one layer over another, over her. She held on to her sister, and started circling around him. Seven times she circled, as if rewinding a filmstrip.
Seven... Six... Five...
In a daze she backed away from him, tracing her steps back into her own footprints, erasing them; erasing herself. Glistening in the fog, rose petals drifted across the path. One by one, they were plucked from the air, from the ground, from soles of shoes and hems of dresses, and heaped into a basket. Keeping in step behind her sister, the bride withdrew even farther.
The wedding canopy shrank away and after a while, vanished into white mist. So did he, he whose name she forgot.
Her eyes fell shut—but only for a moment. She opened them and was surprised to see, somewhat out-of-focus, her sister looking at her, lips moving. There was no sound; but even if there were, Edna knew the words would come out garbled, as the syllables would surely clash, if uttered in reverse. Yet by the sight of it, she could suddenly recall that conversation, which had taken many years to forget.
Her sister gazed at her with moist eyes, saying, “Look at you! How radiant you look today!”
To which the bride begged, “Say you don’t hate me?”
“Why should I hate you? It’s over now. He is yours. He is no longer mine.”
“But I love you. Really, I need you—”
“You need me for one reason, and one reason only: To baby you.”
“Oh stop! That’s a lie!”
“From now on, it’s his turn. I do wish him luck.”
“And me, what about me? Wish me luck, too!”
“What a pity,” said her sister, in a rare moment of cruelty. “You do not have what it takes to become a real woman.”
Edna grew sleepy. The scene went blank before her eyes. She could hear, faintly at first, the mechanical hum of the projector. It went on faster and faster, spinning its reels—but at this point she could not make up her mind whether she was dreaming or not. There she was, lost in the middle of a strange story; her life, rewinded.
It felt like evening, noon, morning, and suddenly night again; winter, fall, summer, and suddenly spring again. Edna touched her body. It seemed more agile, more slender. A change was upon her; she could sense it despite her drowsiness. She turned over. By some strange twist, she fancied that she was suddenly flat chested.
Curiously, the sleepier she became—the more her body awakened. It ached with desire. She must have boxed up this feeling and now, it could no longer be denied. To her surprise, there was a certain tenderness in her nipples, such as she had not felt in a very long time—ever since her early teenage years, come to think of it.
Edna could hear the sound, the maddening sound of celluloid sliding across and over itself; like air sucked in, whistling between the teeth. It made her head reel. Scenes raced through her mind in quick succession. This was no longer a game: She was helpless to stop this mad rush, a rush towards something unknown, towards the beginning.
People came in and out of her life: Men, women, children, all of whom she had long forgotten. They were not the least bit embarrassed about walking in reverse, like circus acrobats on a tightrope. For the most part they managed to do it without bumping against each other or taking a fall.
Like prunes in water, old men lost their wrinkles and gained back their plump skin. They spat out their medicines, and were instantly healed. They promised her love—love for eternity—but soon after, started to backpedal. Middle-aged women became young again, detaching themselves, in the process, from one boyfriend after another until even the first one backed away. Then they found themselves turning into wide-eyed virgins.
Children became smaller. They forgot all their words, cried longer, the pitch of their voice rose higher and higher until finally slapped by a nurse; at which time—guided by an umbilical cord—they disappeared into a void, into their mother’s womb.
The prospect of finding the end of life at the beginning seemed contradictory at first; but then, she figured, it was so much better than finding it at the proper end. It would be scary, either way—but when time draws near, you need all the help you can get. At least, as a baby you are cute, irresistibly so; which makes people want to take care of you. Not so when you are old.
Edna slipped to the floor and cuddled herself. The machine kept on humming above her—but at this point she had no idea how to stop the thing. She turned her attention to that other sound, which echoed around the room: The beat, the wild beat of her heart. A heartbeat, reversed.
Then, in the distance, a scrape could be heard, like that
of a key, yes, a key turning in its lock.
The front door opened. A sudden gust of air blew in, carrying an unfamiliar smell, a mixture of shaving lotion and a trace of sweat. Someone stepped over the threshold. He walked forward, which by now she found rather unusual, maybe even disturbing. Why won’t he stop? Why won’t he reverse his course?
When will he go? Will he ever go?
The thud of his footsteps came to her, closer and closer, louder and louder through the floor boards. It startled her, but she had no wish to open her eyes. Edna curled over her knees, and listened. Her heart was pounding so hard, so fast! Could he hear it? How could he not?
Willing her heart to slow down, she tried to relax, tried counting it down. Before she knew it, she found herself so close—so terribly close—almost there, at the beginning. Three... Two... One...
“Where are you,” he cried out playfully. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
I am not here, she said to herself. Not there. Not anywhere.
He passed through the corridor, calling, “Where are you? I cannot see you!”
I am lost, she mumbled. I cannot be found.
He entered the living room and at first glance all he could see, in the ghastly light of the projector, was celluloid; clips and clips of celluloid snaking, curling one over the other, all over the coffee table, all over the floor.
“Edna?” he cried.
He bent over to turn off the machine, and it was there—in the darkest dark, right under that beam of light—that he stumbled over her. He brushed away the celluloid and, guided by nothing more than a sense of touch, passed a hand over her forehead, her eyelid, her ear, trying to piece together how she looked, and what had happened here.
“Wake up, babe,” he whispered.
Her breathing was barely audible. He took a guess—by the grip of her fingers over her nose, and the subtle movement of her cheeks—that she was hiding a smile. Was it a game? Was she toying with him? He went down on all four, hanging over her, and could not believe his eyes. He must have been blinded, a second ago, by the glare. What he saw was unlikely. It was, perhaps, an illusion; a false sense of motion.
“Stop it, Edna,” he shook her. “Wake up already!”
In her sleep she gave a faint cry. He rocked her, much gentler now, much more tenderly. Normally, after a long absence, it would take a bit of pampering for her to warm up to him—but so far, she seemed to remain cold. If he did not know any better, he would say she was under a spell.
She would not wake up. She was lost. Lost to him. The closer he came, the farther away she shrank. Trying to deny a sense of fear—for what was he fearing, really?—he considered whether or not he should give her a kiss.
“Can you hear me? Edna, can you hear me?”
Why was she so tightlipped? Look: She clasped a hand over her mouth as if her tongue had been bitten. The fingers were trembling, too. He took out a handkerchief and wiped them, for they were moist. There... There. To his astonishment, he sensed it again: Ever so slightly, that movement, still.
He wiped her chin. At once she froze, as if it was something forbidden, a pleasure she was hiding.
Ethan called her name again, this time in a soft, cooing sound, trying to pacify her. He whispered sweet nothings in her ear, raised her head to his lips, and gave it a quick peck. She uttered something: A vague, muffled moan with no words. It reminded him of the little sounds she would make in bed. He cradled her in his arms, tried playing with her fingers—but she fell back, away from him, pushed his hand away and, lost in her dream, went back to sucking her thumb.
And Then She Left Him
Uvi Poznansky, 2010
And then she left him.
He looks at the line. It is written in blue ink, pressed into the sheet of paper—vigorously here, faintly there—with his usual stroke, a stroke that drives through the spikes and valleys in the shapes of the letters at a steady slant. The line reaches the margin, where it is punctuated, unexpectedly, by a red stain.
Blotting it is bound to leave fingerprints, and so Mr. Schriber decides to leave it alone. He lifts the paper by its corner—and a drop bleeds down; he lays it down on the desk—and the stain goes on spreading. Going back to his writing, he applies too much pressure on the pen—and the pointed nib digs into the paper. Taking a deep breath, he tries to compose himself. The pen is his weapon. The simple act of pulling it over the soft, white surface has never failed to calm him down. Letter by letter, mark by mark, it will soon draw him into a different state of mind.
In this state, an alternative universe awaits him, a universe that exists in his mind, with details roughed out from memory or from imagination. This is his escape: A place faraway from the wild, maddening affairs of everyday life. Once there, Mr. Schriber will take control of his thoughts. He will be able, at last, to leave her behind.
He will populate this place with invented characters. Right now they are still a bit sketchy, nothing more than stick figures: A woman, and a man who loves her. He, the writer, will dictate their actions. He will choose when to reveal himself, giving them his emotions: Simple moments of joy, the intricacies of pain. At other times he will choose to mask himself, becoming that which he is not:
A woman, a man who loves her. In this place, he is God. He is the writer. He has control.
And then she left him.
These words are so painful to him, so penetrating, they feel like a pin through the core, a pin that fixes him in position, as if he were a dying butterfly. What other words are there? How else can his story start? Finding the right expression is always a fight: The writer in him wages battle against the editor; one is bold, the other—doubtful. They struggle inside him for control of his pen; one—to write, the other—to cross out.
Mr. Schriber reflects upon his writing method. In his mind, it is best to skip any introductions and open, quite abruptly, from the middle of things. There may have been some events in the past, events leading you up to that first sentence—but he, the writer, allows you just a sense of them, a sense vague enough just to come closer and listen.
Beginnings, he tells himself, are cheap. They come to him every morning by the dozen; and as easily as they come, he finds himself compelled to discard them. Too bad about the trees. Most of them have been sacrificed for nothing, for the pulp upon which he attempts to write his first, second and third drafts. His waste basket is already overflowing with crumpled beginnings.
An ending, on the other hand, is precious. It comes rarely, sometimes in a dream. He has to jot it down quickly, before it evaporates. A good ending allows the tale to linger in your mind, well beyond the last sound of the last sentence. It invites the words, utterances and expressions, the little fragments that float there nebulously, over his head, to come to him. Once captured, they will flow out of his pen. Only then will he pour himself out. But right now—without an end— Mr. Schriber is stuck.
For she was his muse.
The sad part, he wants to write, is not the fact that she left him. Nor is it the fact that she left him abruptly, after thirty-some years of marriage. At the time, it had taken him completely by surprise, for he adored her, wanted her all for himself, showered her with gifts, lavished money on her, took her abroad on expensive voyages and, being a good provider, insisted she should stay home, and forget about finding a job.
Her beauty had been diminished by time—but Mr. Schriber was blind to her puffy flesh, which she massaged morning and evening; blind to her thinning hair, which she teased up and curled constantly. What he saw was her eyes. There was a flash in them, a green flash that seared him and left a burn mark, especially when he caught her looking at him.
But most of the time she evaded him; which made her, in his eyes, even more alluring. He was consumed with jealousy when other men as much as laid eyes on her.
And then she left him.
He asked himself over and over, Why? How did he deserve it?
The
kitchen table, bought in a garage sale long ago, when he was a young student, a couple of French landscape paintings, bought on the first morning of their honeymoon, and the festive set of china, which he bought her just last month, to celebrate their anniversary, were all carried off to her new place: An apartment his wife rented right around the corner. And so, his ability to dictate actions, either as a writer or as a husband, turned out to be nothing but fiction.
There was nothing real in it, nothing to which he could hang on. She abandoned him. Mr. Schriber was left there alone sitting at his desk, staring blankly out of his window, hoping; counting the seconds, the minutes until her return.
Now that, he thinks, is the saddest part of all. He wants to write about it, but cannot...
His hand trembles. Forgiveness is not in his character. He remembers threatening to divorce her, to take a new wife—but both of them knew these threats to be empty. So he threw himself feverishly into writing:
First, a story about handing Halloween candy to some kids, which—strangely enough—landed him in bed with the mother. Next, a story about attending a wedding ceremony, which landed him in bed with the bride. Then, a story about planning a Bar-Mitzva event, which landed him in bed with the Rebbitzin. Somehow, every female character he wrote ended up sharing these brief, outrageous adventures in his bed. The duller his life—the more uplifting became those hot, imagined quickies.
Meanwhile, his wife stayed estranged from him. Estranged—yet close. Close enough to keep an eye on him, and never let him go. How, then, could he recover? At every chance meeting, when he saw her walking on the other side of the street, she hinted that she might be coming back, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week.
Mr. Schriber wonders: Why did she say that? To quell his feelings—or to ignite them anew? There was no way to know for sure—but oh, how desperately he needed to believe! After a sleepless night he would call her, overcome by desire, as if he were a teenage boy. He yearned to lay his head in her bosom and cry, cry for the mistakes, the time lost, the missed opportunities.
As a writer he found a story with a happy ending to be boring—but now he hoped he yearned for one. He wished he could say, Let me tell you how things will turn out. But there was a lump in his throat; and so, when she picked up the phone he fell silent. Even so, she must have known how lonely he was, how much he wanted her back.
Her voice was distant, even cold at times. No, she insisted, there was no one else in her life. No one but him.
This month, however, she was too busy to talk, having been hired, just the other day, as a receptionist. There was, she said, too much pressure right now at work.
Then with a slam, she dropped the receiver at the other end. So well he remembers the sound of it. It must have been accidental. She could not feel that angry, that mad at him as to have done it on purpose.
At this point Mr. Schriber changes the period to a comma, hesitates, then adds a sentence: She left him, saying she could only be his.
As soon as he lifts up his hand, ‘be his’ gets absorbed, and sinks into the stain. He crosses out that entire sentence, and stares at what is left. Not much. He finds himself stumped. There is no flow to his story. The paper is still rustling there, under the shadow of his pen.
Thinking about his characters—a woman, a man—he scribbles a few notes to himself: Is the man too jealous? Does she hate him? Is she uneasy, for some reason? He drifts off for a while, then reads his notes again, aloud this time—but somehow they make no sense to him.
How can a woman feel uneasy, constricted by attention, even by jealousy? This is unbelievable! Unreal, really! He is a better writer than that! Isn’t jealousy a sort of compliment, the highest, most sincere compliment a man can offer? His wife should be happy, she should be flattered that he loves her so much, so deeply!
Last night, he recalls, was again a restless one. He tossed off the blankets and got up in the dark, cursing himself, cursing her. When daylight finally broke in, it seemed to kick things off in the same manner as any other old day. The same words—he can still hear an echo of them—came stammering out of his mouth.
Secrets and lies, lies and deception!
She was driving him mad! He could not go on like this, trying to trust her, doing his best to suspend disbelief. This was his life—not some fiction! There was no patience, no time to pretend any longer.
For the sake of his sanity, he had to find out the truth. She could be his, only his—but was she?
Mr. Schriber knew the address of her office, having followed her there a few days earlier. He buttoned his shirt, placed the cover on the pen and stuck it in the shirt pocket. Then he dashed out the door. Walking at a brisk pace, he reached the intersection. There he halted at the red light, flanked on each side by men, tense young men in grey suits, who checked their watches every so often. This edginess, he decided, would be of use to him in fleshing out his characters. A woman; a man, waiting.
The man was still only a figure in his mind, a stick figure bracing itself for the most dramatic day of the tale of its life. Was the woman cheating on him? Would he kill her—or, perhaps, himself? The stick figure, like these jumpy men around him, could be coming to a stop; waiting at a red light, and checking its watch nervously.
Without even knowing how he got there, Mr. Schriber found himself standing in front of her office building. The glass doors swung open before him, giving him a glimpse of a small window directly across from him, on the back wall of the lobby. Reflected in the windowpane was a slender woman. She was dressed in a low-cut, blue blouse. From a distance, it looked like a mark of indigo ink. He saw the big hairdo and suddenly recognized his wife.
At once he turned around and went out. His heart pounding, he found a dirt path around the building, located that window and cowered underneath the ledge. The bushes at his back were prickly, so he could not allow himself to lean against them. His feet dug themselves into a hole.
From time to time he straightened his back, took a quick peep at her through the window, and hunkered down again.
Some insect fluttered away; perhaps a butterfly. Something that felt like a worm crawled around his sock and into his pants. The sun kept rising. He rose, glanced inside and ducked, only to rise, glance and duck, over and again. After an hour of this spying routine, Mr. Schriber was wet with sweat. His knees swelled, and his leg muscles started to burn under him—but he was bent on his task. He pulled his pen out of the shirt pocket, perhaps with a vague intention of taking notes. Clearly, the information he was gathering became more and more troubling:
First, a few people lined up in front of her. Five minutes later she was alone, leafing through some paperwork. Next he noticed a man, an incredibly tall man with broad shoulders, dressed in a business suit. The man approached her. Five minutes later, they were still chatting. From a distance, the conversation seemed to be overly friendly; there was too much warmth, too much familiarity between the two of them. Then Mr. Schriber caught his wife swaying her hips in a bold, flirtatious manner and alas, smiling.
He had to hide a little longer this time, suspecting that someone on the inside might have spotted his head, bobbing up and down, up and down over the windowsill.
By now it must have been noontime. Drenched in sweat, he glanced over his shoulder at the thorny branches surrounding him; and suddenly the shame, the humiliation of where he found himself and what he was doing caught up to him. No woman was worth it; was she?
He rose to his feet with a sigh, prepared to give up and go home, and then caught a sound, the sound of snapping branches coming from behind. Mr. Schriber turned around when—out of nowhere—a heavy fist pounded him square on his chin, making him sway back and forth until finally, losing his balance. The only thing that cushioned his fall was the prickly brush behind him.
Standing victoriously over him, a big halo of sunshine crowning his head, was that man, the tall man he has spotted earlier. His shoulders seemed even broader at this close rang
e. Without a single word, he stepped forth even closer and—without a warning—set his foot down, directly on top of Mr. Schriber’s shoulder.
Meanwhile, a head appeared at the window above him. “What happened?” cried Mr. Schriber’s wife. “What are you doing down there? You stalking me?”
Lying there helpless, flat on his back, exposed to her scrutiny, Mr. Schriber felt his face turning red. Scolded by the heat of the sun and by the green flame in her eyes, he bit his lips. There was no way, no reasonable way to answer, which—quite inevitably—ignited his anger. And so, armed with nothing more than a pen, he thrust out his hand, aiming straight up at the man who attacked him.
His weapon rose in the air, flipping reflections in the sunlight. It went spinning, rising higher and higher in its flight toward the attacker, who raised his hand, attempting to snatch the thing, catch it—
But then, the man must have lost his footing on the ground, for he came down heavily, snapping at branches, even breaking some of them along the way. The only thing that cushioned his fall was none other than Mr. Schriber, who found himself all of a sudden pinned down, and utterly short of breath. Nonetheless he managed a sharp, shrill cry, and raised his eyes to heaven.
Which was where the pen took a turn in its flight. It arched—ever so slowly—over the frame of the window, and missed his wife’s head by no more than a hair. She parted her painted lips; her smile was tinged, he noted, tinged with revenge.
She held out her hand, waiting calmly for the thing to reach her. Having clasped it, she started dangling the pen playfully, leaning over the two men lying there, one on top of the other. A thought flashed in Mr. Schriber mind: Whom would she choose? Would it be him? Does she still love him? Does she hate—
The pointed nib gave a steely glint.
The last thing he saw, just before passing out, was her eyes. At that instant, he thought he saw a flash of insanity. She winked at him, and he yearned for her, he could sense the beating of her heart, the danger. Then, with a swift motion, she took aim...
How long has he stayed there? Mr. Schriber has no idea; it could have been seconds or hours. He cannot recall how he managed to free himself from the weight of the man on top, or even if there was such as weight at all. Nor can he remember the way back, how he carried himself back home.
But somehow his confusion starts to clear up. Now he knows, deep inside, how she must have felt all these years. Confined. Caged. He has a sudden sense of her anguish. No longer does he wonder why, why she would wish to hurt him. To his surprise, he finds himself coming, at long last, to accept her way of looking at things. He embraces what she has been giving him. He takes it in, her hate.
Is it too late for him? Too late to turn a new page? Can he hold on, just long enough to try, try to tell her he is sorry? At this point Mr. Schriber grips the arms of the chair and with great effort, lifts himself into it. Then he leans over his desk, feeling tired, and older than he ever felt before. From time to time he presses one hand to his temple, where a sharp pain shoots through him. His other hand clutches the weapon: his pen.
He can tell, there is not much time. The ending has come to him at long last; and so the battle between the writer in him and the editor, the battle that has been waged inside his mind, turns easy all of a sudden, and the triumph—joyous.
The pain recedes, and now he pours his heart out, filling one sheet of paper after another with his bold, fluid stroke, a stroke that drives through the spikes and valleys in the shapes of the letters, at a steady slant. In this landscape of blue ink, he writes without stopping, without editing or crossing anything out. He feels the urge. Time is running out.
Then Mr. Schriber lays his head on the wooden surface of the desk. Time to give up control. Time to give up... So he listens to the pen rolling softly away from his fingers, farther and farther out of reach, until there is nothing there, nothing but silence. He lets his eyes fall shut and at long last, falls asleep.
In his dream he views this last sheet of paper. Its texture, seen at an extremely close range, is that of crushed, flattened pulp. He notes each and every fiber. Yes, he imagines can tell them apart by the subtle changes in direction, and in the shades of their whiteness. The paper carries a faint but indelible imprint, a stain that has, by now, seeped through the entire stack. But if you passed a finger over it, it would feel dry to the touch.
At this moment the stain seems to have changed colors; it has turned dark brown, even inky in places. And here, close to the edge you could find a fingerprint. This is the writer’s signature, this and no other, because sleep came abruptly, before he had time to spell out his name. And there—scribbled with a strained gesture, directly above this signature—are these last words:
She said, Time to go. He asked her forgiveness, and then she left him.
Blade
Uvi Poznansky, 20042
I have no will. I have no curiosity. Of its own, my finger is passing with barely a touch along the blade until suddenly, catching on a spot, it halts. Rust, perhaps. I raise my hand over to the light, careful not to tighten my hold over the thing. A cold shine can be seen in intervals, shooting up and down between my fingers along the metallic handle. I can sense the edge.
I can see my wrist, a vein twisting through it with a hard pulse. I can see the delicate lines, guessing their way across the skin. How frail is life. Better close your eyes. Close your eyes, I say. Do it.
I close my eyes and with a light, effortless relief, my thoughts are lifted, flying away from the moment. They are lifted, turning over the edge, cutting up and away, heading for a far, far time in the past.
I have no will. I have no curiosity.
What now, I ask. What if I have no blood. What if I am no longer here.
Even One Mark
Uvi Poznansky, 2010
She wanted to write about her life; but looking at the empty page, the top one in a stack that laid there in her lap, she found the idea of writing intimidating. If she were to put down even one letter—even one mark—it would mar the purity of the page, and replace it irrevocably with clutter.
She was afraid, so afraid now, of clutter.
Lately she found it more and more difficult to follow the thread of her thought. She was lost, lost in her own labyrinth. Fragments of ideas floated dreamily across her mind, stumbled by foreign-sounding words and interrupted, from time to time, by images of faded faces, images that were yellowing and crumpled around the edges like old photographs.
How much longer could she pretend to be holding it together?
The air was no longer still. A sudden gust of wind ruffled through the pages. Soon the evening breeze would come passing through. She could see the bony white knuckles as she clutched at the pen. She wanted to write about her life, and tried to remember who she was, to whom she was writing, and for what purpose.
It would have been so much easier to write from a point of view other than herself. Perhaps the point of view of some inanimate object. A doorknob. It would be simple to pretend to be—no, to become one. The notion of being a doorknob—of it seeing her as she was, surrounded by her children, it seeing each one of her children as they grew up, crossing the threshold, coming in and out over the course of a lifetime—that notion somehow appealed to her.
At first, she imagined, the doorknob would reflect, with its shiny distortion, the image of her youth. It would feel her hand—warm and firm, in those days—as she pushed the door open, letting the children out to play, and later calling them back in for lunch, after which she would clear the table, mop the floor, wash the dishes and wipe them dry. She would even wipe the doorknob. It felt polished and happy.
In the course of time, when the children left home, and especially when they moved oversees and took the grandchildren with them, the doorknob would lose its smoothness. It would become uneven, even cloudy; she could no longer trust the distortion it offered. Maybe things never really happened the way it mirrored th
em.
Now she could get a narrow glimpse of the sunset. The door was ajar, twisting in the cold air. After a while, its hinges started to creak. She retreated to her kitchen, although there was no one there anymore for whom she could cook. For a long time she listened to the leaves blowing across the street, out there in the distance where children could be heard laughing. She listened to the door creaking in the wind, and waited patiently for a sign, a note, a word of some sort; kept on waiting until—with one croak—the door closed.
She locked herself in and started writing letters, some of which were never sent, for fear of revealing too much of her loneliness. Other letters she embellished along the margins, with a hand heavy with years but with the manner of a schoolgirl: She embellished them with pink flowers and long sequences of x’s and o’s for kisses and hugs, and then she sent them to that foreign sounding address, so that her grandchildren, who rarely came to visit, would know she loved them.
How would a doorknob feel to be barely touched, its latch rarely released, the lock always bolted shut? How would it feel to be in the grip of rust?
She glanced at the doorknob. Would it retain a memory of her touch, even when she is gone? Would it keep, in its own transparent ways and despite all that polishing, the layers upon layers of all their fingerprints?
She wanted to write about her life, and tried to remember who she was, to whom she was writing, and for what purpose; but if she were to put down even one letter—even one mark—all her love, all her loneliness, and all that bitter disappointment that this was all life had to offer in the end, would come rushing out, and nothing in the world could hold her together any more.
So without looking at the empty page, without embellishing the margins with pink flowers, and without long sequences of x’s and o’s for kisses and hugs, she marked one single, long line, as if writing with her trembling hand the whole length of the story of her life. Then, with a sense of finality, she crossed it. An X.
The wind whipped the pages out of her lap. They flew around her, some settling to the ground, some flipping higher, flapping into a big clutter in the air, then floating dreamily away across the landscape. In years past she would get up, catch them one by one and stack them back, with a strict attention to order; but now she didn’t care anymore. For a moment she thought she could see that page, the one she had marked X with a trembling hand. There it was, a white glimmer soaring out of reach above her in the wind. And then, in one puff, it was over.
Somewhere inside, a doorknob broke. A door flew open.
Don’t Open Your Eyes
Uvi Poznansky, 2004
Don’t open your eyes
Try not to see
Things are no longer
Where things ought to be
That voice—is it her?
Behind a closed door
She calls you a stranger
Your mother no more
Breathe through the moment
Turn, turn your eyes
The past you imagined
Was all lies, lies, lies
Things are no longer
Where things ought to be
Who is this stranger
Is it still me?
This Tissue Is Me
Uvi Poznansky, 20123
Shimmering luster, let me try, let me reach you
Layers beyond layers of red, all aglow
With trembling fingers I touch... Flimsy tissue
It comes down upon me, folding high into low
I dance with abandon, with no inhibition,
Entangled in fabric, I can no longer flee
Can't breathe, for now I can sense the strange fusion
Now I know: this tissue is me—
Be Still, A Poet’s Heart
Uvi Poznansky, 2012
Be still, poet's heart, this moment is rare
Stop this hammering, why would you dare
To set up a challenge, to write your own fate
Be still and accept, perhaps it's too late
Unlucky the number, unlucky the day
Still, welcome the future, come what may
Set yourself free, apart from love
Change whatever was decreed from above
Sing out a ballad of passion and hate
Sing it out as you drown, and ignore that date
Someone may notice, may listen out there
So quicken the pounding, sing out with a flair
The flood is abating, release the dove
Pray to find yourself a part of love
A Diamond Short, A Decade Late
Uvi Poznansky, 2007
A diamond short, a decade late
I come to stand outside your gate
Unlock and open, let me in
Forgive me, love; what is my sin?
I fled from you across the land
But now I ask you for your hand
A decade late, a diamond short
I can't imagine why you snort
My limbs are frail, my breath is cold
I must admit I may look old
I fall, I kneel, why—I implore
You are the woman I adore
I feel so weak, I feel so brittle
Don't touch! I may be impotent a little
You loved me once—or so I thought
Stop! Take your fingers off my throat—
Zeev Kachel
(Blue Wolf)
Poems
Translated from Hebrew by
Uvi Poznansky