Every morning, a little more.
Once upon a time there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword. A pebble could be a diamond. A tree a castle.
Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven he kissed her for the first time. When they were thirteen they got into a fight and for three weeks they didn’t talk. When they were fifteen she showed him the scar on her left breast. Their love was a secret they told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long as he lived. What if I die? she asked. Even then, he said. For her sixteenth birthday he gave her an English dictionary and together they learned the words. What’s this? he’d ask, tracing his index finger around her ankle, and she’d look it up. And this? he’d ask, kissing her elbow. Elbow! What kind of word is that? and then he’d lick it, making her giggle. What about this? he asked, touching the soft skin behind her ear. I don’t know, she said, turning off the flashlight and rolling over, with a sigh, onto her back. When they were seventeen they made love for the first time, on a bed of straw in a shed. Later—when things happened that they could never have imagined—she wrote him a letter that said: When will you learn that there isn’t a word for everything?
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl whose father was shrewd enough to scrounge together all the zloty he had to send his youngest daughter to America. At first she refused to go, but the boy also knew enough to insist, swearing on his life that he’d earn some money and find a way to follow her. So she left. He got a job in the nearest city, working as a janitor in a hospital. At night he stayed up writing his book. He sent her a letter into which he’d copied eleven chapters in tiny handwriting. He wasn’t even sure the mail would get through. He saved all the money he could. One day he was laid off. No one said why. He returned home. In the summer of 1941, the Einsatzgruppen drove deeper east, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews. On a bright, hot day in July, they entered Slonim. At that hour, the boy happened to be lying on his back in the woods thinking about the girl. You could say it was his love for her that saved him. In the years that followed, the boy became a man who became invisible. In this way, he escaped death.
Once upon a time a man who had become invisible arrived in America. He’d spent three and a half years hiding, mostly in trees, but also cracks, cellars, holes. Then it was over. The Russian tanks rolled in. For six months he lived in a Displaced Persons camp. He got word to his cousin who was a locksmith in America. In his head, he practiced over and over the only words he knew in English. Knee. Elbow. Ear. Finally his papers came through. He took a train to a boat, and after a week he arrived in New York Harbor. A cool day in November. Folded in his hand was the address of the girl. That night he lay awake on the floor of his cousin’s room. The radiator clanged and hissed, but he was grateful for the warmth. In the morning his cousin explained to him three times how to take the subway to Brooklyn. He bought a bunch of roses but they wilted because though his cousin had explained the way three times he still got lost. At last he found the place. Only as his finger pressed the doorbell did the thought cross his mind that perhaps he should have called. She opened the door. She wore a blue scarf over her hair. He could hear the broadcast of a ball game through the neighbor’s wall.
Once upon a time, the woman who had been a girl got on a boat to America and threw up the whole way, not because she was seasick but because she was pregnant. When she found out, she wrote to the boy. Every day she waited for a letter from him, but none came. She got bigger and bigger. She tried to hide it so she wouldn’t lose her job at the dress factory where she worked. A few weeks before the baby was born, she got news from someone who heard they were killing Jews in Poland. Where? she asked, but no one knew where. She stopped going to work. She couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed. After a week, the son of her boss came to see her. He brought her food to eat, and put a bouquet of flowers in a vase by her bed. When he found out she was pregnant, he called a midwife. A baby boy was born. One day the girl sat up in bed and saw the son of her boss rocking her child in the sunlight. A few months later, she agreed to marry him. Two years later, she had another child.
The man who had become invisible stood in her living room listening to all of this. He was twenty-five years old. He had changed so much since he last saw her and now part of him wanted to laugh a hard, cold laugh. She gave him a small photograph of the boy, who was now five. Her hand was shaking. She said: You stopped writing. I thought you were dead. He looked at the photograph of the boy who would grow up to look like him, who, although the man didn’t know it then, would go to college, fall in love, fall out of love, become a famous writer. What’s his name? he asked. She said: I called him Isaac. They stood for a long time in silence as he stared at the picture. At last he managed three words: Come with me. The sound of children shouting came from the street below. She squeezed her eyes shut. Come with me, he said, holding out his hand. Tears rolled down her face. Three times he asked her. She shook her head. I can’t, she said. She looked down at the floor. Please, she said. And so he did the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life: he picked up his hat and walked away.
And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he’d never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn’t because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn’t help it. And having hidden for three and a half years, hiding his love for a son who didn’t know he existed didn’t seem unthinkable. Not if it was what the only woman he would ever love needed him to do. After all, what does it mean for a man to hide one more thing when he has vanished completely?
THE NIGHT BEFORE I was scheduled to model for the art class I was nervous and excited. I unbuttoned my shirt and took that off. Then I unbuckled my pants and took off those. My undershirt. The underpants. I stood in front of the hall mirror in my socks. I could hear the cries of children in the playground across the street. The string for the bulb was overhead, but I didn’t pull it. I stood looking at myself in what light was left. I’ve never thought of myself as handsome.
As a child my mother and my aunts used to tell me that I would grow up to become handsome. It was clear to me that I wasn’t anything to look at then, but I believed that some measure of beauty might come to me eventually. I don’t know what I thought: that my ears, which stuck out at an undignified angle, would recede, that my head would somehow grow to fit them? That my hair, not unlike a toilet brush in texture, would, with time, unkink itself and reflect light? That my face, which held so little promise—eyelids as heavy as a frog’s, lips on the thin side—would somehow transform itself into something not regrettable? For years I would wake up in the morning and go to the mirror, hoping. Even when I was too old to continue hoping, I still did. I grew older and there was no improvement. If anything, things went downhill when I entered adolescence and was abandoned by the pleasant attractiveness that all children have. The year of my Bar Mitzvah I was visited by a plague of acne that stayed four years. But still I continued to hope. As soon as the acne cleared my hairline began to recede, as if it wanted to disassociate itself from the embarrassment of my face. My ears, pleased with the new attention they now enjoyed, seemed to strain farther into the spotlight. My eyelids drooped—some muscle tension had to give to support the struggle of the ears—and my eyebrows took on a life of their own, for a brief period achieving all anyone could have hoped for them, and then surpassing those hopes an
d approaching Neanderthal. For years I continued to hope that things would turn out differently, but I never looked in the mirror and confused what I saw for anything but what it was. With time I thought about it less and less. Then hardly at all. And yet. It’s possible that some small part of me has never stopped hoping—that even now there are moments when I stand in front of the mirror, my wrinkled pischer in my hand, and believe my beauty is yet to come.
The morning of the class, September 19th, I woke in a state of excitement. I got dressed and ate my breakfast bar of Metamucil, then went to the bathroom and waited in anticipation. Nothing for half an hour, but my optimism didn’t wane. Then I managed a series of pellets. Full of hope, I waited some more. It’s not impossible that I will die sitting on the toilet, pants around my ankles. After all, I spend so much time there, all of this raising another question, namely: who will be the first person to see me dead?
I gave myself a sponge bath and dressed. The day crawled on. When I’d waited as long as I could, I took a bus across town. The newspaper ad was folded into a square in my pocket and I took it out a few times to look at the address, even though I knew it by heart. It took me a while to find the right building. At first I thought there was some mistake. I passed it three times until I realized it had to be the one. It was an old warehouse. The front door was rusted and held open with a cardboard box. For a moment I let myself imagine that I’d been lured there to be robbed and killed. I pictured my body on the floor in a pool of blood.
The sky had gotten dark and it was starting to rain. I felt grateful for the feel of wind and the drops on my face, thinking I had little time to live. I stood there, unable to go forward, unable to turn back. Finally I heard laughter coming from inside. See, you’re being ridiculous, I thought. I reached for the handle on the door and just then it swung open. A girl wearing a sweater too big for her came out. She pushed up her sleeves. Her arms were thin and pale. Do you need help? she asked. There were tiny holes in the sweater. It came down to her knees, and under it she was wearing a skirt. Her legs were bare, despite the chill. I’m looking for a drawing class. There was an ad in the paper, maybe I have the wrong place—I fumbled in my coat pocket for the ad. She gestured upstairs. Second floor, first room on the right. But it doesn’t start for another hour. I looked up at the building. I said, I thought I might get lost so I came early. She was shivering. I took off my raincoat. Here, wear this. You’ll get sick. She shrugged, but didn’t move to take it. I held my arm outstretched until it was clear she wasn’t going to.
There was nothing more to say. There were steps, so I went up them. My heart was beating. I considered turning back: past the girl, down the rubbish-filled street, through the city, to my apartment where there was work to be done. What kind of fool was I, to think they wouldn’t turn away when I took off my shirt and dropped my pants and stood naked before them? To think that they would observe my varicose-veined legs, my hairy, sagging knedelach and, what—start to sketch? And yet. I didn’t turn back. I gripped the banister and climbed the stairs. I could hear the rain on the skylight. A dirty light filtered through. At the top of the stairs there was a hallway. To the left was a room where a man was painting a large canvas. The room on the right was empty. There was a block covered in a length of black velvet, and a disorganized circle of folding chairs and easels. I went in and sat down to wait.
After half an hour people started to wander in. A woman asked me who I was. I’m here about the ad, I told her. I called and spoke to someone. To my relief, she seemed to understand. She showed me where to change, a corner where a makeshift curtain had been hung. I stood there and she pulled it around me. I heard her footsteps move away, and still I stood there. A minute passed and then I removed my shoes. I lined them up neatly. I took off my socks and put those into the shoes. I unbuttoned my shirt and took that off; there was a hanger, so I hung it. I heard chairs scraping and then laughter. Suddenly I didn’t care anymore about being seen. I would have liked to grab my shoes and slip out of the room, down the stairs, and away from there. And yet. I unzipped my pants. Then it occurred to me: what, exactly, did “nude” mean?
Did they really mean no underwear? I deliberated. What if they expected underwear and I came out with my you-know-whats swinging? I reached for the ad in the pocket of my pants. NUDE MODEL, it said. Don’t be an idiot, I told myself. These aren’t amateurs. The underwear was down around my knees when the woman’s footsteps returned. Are you all right in there? Someone opened a window and a car splashed past in the rain. Fine, fine. I’ll be out in a moment. I looked down. There was a tiny smear. My bowels. They never cease to appall me. I stepped out of my underwear and crumpled it into a ball.
I thought: Maybe I’ve come here to die after all. Wasn’t it true that I had never seen the warehouse before? Maybe these were what they called angels. The girl outside, of course, how could I have not noticed, she had been so pale. I stood without moving. I was starting to get cold. I thought: So this is how death takes you. Naked in an abandoned warehouse. Tomorrow Bruno would come downstairs and knock on my door and there would be no answer. Forgive me, Bruno. I would have liked to say goodbye. I’m sorry to have disappointed you with so few pages. Then I thought: My book. Who would find it? Would it be thrown away, along with the rest of my things? Even though I thought I’d been writing it for myself, the truth was that I wanted someone to read it.
I closed my eyes and inhaled. Who would wash my body? Who would say the Mourner’s Kaddish? I thought: My mother’s hands. I pulled back the curtain. My heart was in my throat. I stepped forward. Squinting in the light, I stood before them.
I was never a man of great ambition.
I cried too easily.
I didn’t have a head for science.
Words often failed me.
While others prayed I only moved my lips.
Please.
The woman who’d shown me where to change pointed to the box draped in velvet.
Stand here.
I walked across the floor. There were maybe twelve of them, sitting in chairs holding their drawing pads. The girl in the big sweater was there.
Anything that feels comfortable.
I didn’t know which way to face. They were in a circle, someone was going to have to face my rectal side no matter which way you cut it. I chose to remain as I was. I let my arms hang at my sides and focused on a spot on the floor. They lifted their pencils.
Nothing happened. Instead I felt the plush cloth under the soles of my feet, the hairs rising on my arms, my fingers like ten small weights pulling downward. I felt my body waking under twelve pairs of eyes. I lifted my head.
Try to keep still, the woman said.
I stared at a crack in the concrete floor. I could hear their pencils moving across the pages. I wanted to smile. Already my body was starting to revolt, the knees beginning to shake and the back muscles straining. But. I didn’t care. If need be, I would stand there all day. Fifteen, twenty minutes passed. Then the woman said: Why don’t we take a quick break and then we’ll start again with a different pose.
I sat. I stood. I rotated so that those who hadn’t gotten my rectal side now got it. Pages turned. It went on, I don’t know how long. Once I thought I would pass out. I cycled through feeling to numbness to feeling to numbness. My eyes watered with pain.
Somehow I got back into my clothes. I couldn’t find my underwear and was too tired to look. I made it down the stairs, clutching the banister. The woman came down after me, she said, Wait, you forgot the fifteen dollars. I took it, and when I went to put it into my pocket I felt the ball of underwear there. Thank you. I meant that. I was exhausted. But happy.
I want to say somewhere: I’ve tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in. I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back. We were locked in a stare of m
utual disgust. I used to let the door slam in people’s faces. I farted where I wanted to fart. I accused cashiers of cheating me out of a penny, while holding the penny in my hand. And then one day I realized I was on my way to being the sort of schmuck who poisons pigeons. People crossed the street to avoid me. I was a human cancer. And to be honest: I wasn’t really angry. Not anymore. I had left my anger somewhere long ago. Put it down on a park bench and walked away. And yet. It had been so long, I didn’t know any other way of being. One day I woke up and said to myself: It’s not too late. The first days were strange. I had to practice smiling in front of the mirror. But it came back to me. It was as if a weight had been lifted. I let go, and something let go of me. A couple of months later, I found Bruno.
When I got home from the art class, there was a note from Bruno on my door. It said: WARE ARE YOU? I was too tired to climb the stairs to tell him. Inside it was dark and I pulled the string for the bulb in the hallway. I saw myself in the mirror. My hair, what was left of it, stuck up in the back like a wave at its crest. My face looked shriveled like something left out in the rain.
I fell into bed still wearing my clothes minus the underwear. It was past midnight when the telephone rang. I awoke from a dream in which I was teaching my brother Josef how to pee in an arc. Sometimes I have nightmares. But this wasn’t one. We were in the woods, the cold bit at our behinds. Steam rose from the snow. Josef turned to me, smiling. A beautiful child, blond with gray eyes. Gray, like the ocean on a sunless day, or the elephant I saw in the town square when I was his age. Plain as day, standing in the dusty sunlight. Later no one could remember having seen it, and because it was impossible to understand how an elephant would have arrived in Slonim, no one believed me. But I saw it.
A siren sounded in the distance. Just as my brother opened his mouth to speak, the dream broke off and I woke up in the darkness of my bedroom, the rain pit-pattering on the glass. The telephone continued to ring. Bruno, no doubt. I would have ignored it if I hadn’t been afraid he’d call the police. Why doesn’t he just tap on the radiator with his walking stick like he always does? Three taps means ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one, NO. We only do it at night, during the day there are too many other noises, and anyway, it isn’t foolproof since usually Bruno falls asleep wearing his Walkman.