And now, at the end of my life, I can barely tell the difference between what is real and what I believe. For example, this letter in my hand—I can feel it between my fingers. The paper is smooth, except in the creases. I can unfold it, and fold it again. As certain as I am sitting here now, this letter exists.
And yet.
In my heart, I know my hand is empty.
Or maybe the letter was from Isaac himself, who’d written it before he died. Maybe Leopold Gursky was another character in his book. Maybe there were things he wanted to tell me. And now it was too late—when I went tomorrow, the park bench would be empty.
There are so many ways to be alive, but only one way to be dead. I assumed the position. I thought: At least here they’ll find me before I stink up the whole building. After Mrs. Freid died, and nobody found her for three days, they slipped flyers under our doors saying KEEP YOUR WINDOWS OPEN TODAY, SIGNED, THE MANAGEMENT. And so we all enjoyed a fresh breeze courtesy of Mrs. Freid who lived a long life with many strange twists she could never have imagined as a child, ending with a final trip to the grocery store to buy a box of cookies she’d yet to open when she lay down to have a rest and her heart stopped.
I thought: Better to wait out in the open. The weather took a turn for the worse, a chill cut the air, the leaves scattered. Sometimes I thought about my life and sometimes I didn’t think. From time to time, when the urge struck, I conducted a quick survey: No to the question: Can you feel your legs? No to the question: Buttocks? Yes to the question: Does your heart beat?
And yet.
I was patient. No doubt there were others, on other park benches. Death was busy. So many to tend to. So that it did not think I was crying wolf, I took out the index card I carry in my wallet and safety-pinned it to my jacket.
A hundred things can change your life. And for a few days, between the time I received the letter and the time I went to meet whoever had sent it, anything was possible.
A policeman passed. He read the card pinned to my chest and looked at me. I thought he was going to put a mirror under my nose, but he only asked if I was all right. I said yes, because what was I supposed to say, I’ve waited my whole life for her, she was the opposite of death—and now I am still here waiting?
Saturday finally came. The only dress I had, the one I wore at the Wailing Wall, was too small. So I put on a skirt and tucked the letter in my pocket. Then I set out.
Now that mine is almost over, I can say that the thing that struck me most about life is the capacity for change. One day you’re a person and the next day they tell you you’re a dog. At first it’s hard to bear, but after a while you learn not to look at it as a loss. There’s even a moment when it becomes exhilarating to realize just how little needs to stay the same for you to continue the effort they call, for lack of a better word, being human.
I got out of the subway station and walked toward Central Park. I passed the Plaza Hotel. It was already fall; the leaves were turning brown and dropping.
I entered the park at 59th Street and walked up the path toward the zoo. When I got to the entrance my heart sank. There were about twenty-five benches in a row. People were sitting on seven of them.
How was I supposed to know which was him?
I walked up and down the row. No one gave me a second look. Finally I sat down next to a man. He paid no attention.
My watch said 4:02. Maybe he was late.
Once I was hiding in a potato cellar when the SS came. The entrance was hidden by a thin layer of hay. Their footsteps approached, I could hear them speaking as if they were inside my ears. There were two of them. One said, My wife is sleeping with another man, and the other said, How do you know? and the first said, I don’t, I only suspect it, to which the second said, Why do you suspect it? while my heart went into cardiac arrest, It’s just a feeling, the first said and I imagined the bullet that would enter my brain, I can’t think straight, he said, I’ve lost my appetite completely.
Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. The man next to me got up and walked away. A woman sat down and opened a book. One bench down, another woman got up. Two benches down a mother sat and rocked her baby’s carriage next to an old man. Three benches down a couple laughed and held hands. Then I watched them get up and walk away. The mother stood and pushed her baby away. It was the woman, the old man, and I. Another twenty minutes passed. It was getting late. I figured whoever he was wasn’t going to come. The woman closed her book and walked away. The old man and I were the only ones left. I got up to leave. I was disappointed. I don’t know what I’d hoped for. I started to leave. I passed the old man. There was a card safety-pinned to his chest. It said: MY NAME IS LEO GURSKY I HAVE NO FAMILY PLEASE CALL PINELAWN CEMETERY I HAVE A PLOT THERE IN THE JEWISH PART THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.
Because of that wife who got tired of waiting for her soldier, I lived. All he had to do was poke the hay to discover that there was nothing beneath it; if he hadn’t had so much on his mind I’d have been found. Sometimes I wonder what happened to her. I like to imagine the first time she leaned in to kiss that stranger, how she must have felt herself falling for him, or perhaps simply away from her loneliness, and it’s like some tiny nothing that sets off a natural disaster halfway across the world, only this was the opposite of disaster, how by accident she saved me with that thoughtless act of grace, and she never knew, and how that, too, is part of the history of love.
I stood in front of him.
He barely seemed to notice.
I said, “My name is Alma.”
And that’s when I saw her. It’s strange what the mind can do when the heart is giving the directions. She looked different than I remembered her. And yet. The same. The eyes: that’s how I knew her. I thought, So this is how they send the angel. Stalled at the age when she loved you most.
What do you know, I said. My favorite name.
I said, “I was named after every girl in a book called The History of Love.”
I said, I wrote that book.
“Oh,” I said. “I’m serious. It’s a real book.”
I played along. I said: I couldn’t be more serious.
I didn’t know what to say. He was so old. Maybe he was joking or maybe he was confused. To make conversation I said, “Are you a writer?”
He said, “In a manner of speaking.”
I asked the name of his books. He said The History of Love was one, and Words for Everything was another.
“That’s strange,” I said. “Maybe there are two books called The History of Love.”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes were shining.
“The one I’m talking about was written by Zvi Litvinoff,” I said. “He wrote it in Spanish. My father gave it to my mother when they first met. Then my father died, and she put it away until about eight months ago, when someone wrote asking her to translate it. Now she only has a few chapters left. In The History of Love I’m talking about there’s a chapter called ‘The Age of Silence,’ and one called ‘The Birth of Feelings,’ and one called—”
The oldest man in the world laughed.
He said, “What are you telling me, that you were in love with Zvi, too? It wasn’t enough that you loved me, and then you loved me and Bruno, and then you loved only Bruno, and then you loved neither Bruno nor me?”
I was starting to feel nervous. Maybe he was crazy. Or just lonely.
It was getting dark out.
I said, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
I saw that I’d frightened her. I knew it was too late to argue. Sixty years had passed.
I said, Forgive me. Tell me which parts you liked. What about “The Age of Glass”? I wanted to make you laugh.
Her eyes widened.
Also to cry.
Now she looked frightened and surprised.
And then it dawned on me.
It seemed impossible.
And yet.
What if the things I believed were possible were really impossible, an
d the things I believed were impossible were really not?
For example.
What if the girl sitting next to me on this bench was real?
What if she was named Alma, after my Alma?
What if my book hadn’t been lost in a flood at all?
What if—
A man walked past.
Excuse me, I called to him.
Yes? he said.
Is someone sitting next to me?
The man looked confused.
I don’t understand, he said.
Neither do I, I said. Would you mind answering the question?
Is someone sitting next to you? he said.
That’s what I’m asking.
And he said, Yes.
So I said, Is it a girl, fifteen, possibly sixteen, then again she could be a mature fourteen?
He laughed and said, Yes.
Yes as in the opposite of no?
As in the opposite of no, he said.
Thank you, I said.
He walked away.
I turned to her.
It was true. She was familiar. And yet. She didn’t look very much like my Alma, now that I really looked. She was much taller, for one thing. And her hair was black. She had a gap between her front teeth.
Who is Bruno? she asked.
I studied her face. I tried to think of the answer.
Talk about invisible, I said.
To her expression of fright and surprise was now added confusion.
But who is he?
He’s the friend I didn’t have.
She looked at me, waiting.
He’s the greatest character I ever wrote.
She said nothing. I was afraid she was going to get up and leave me. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So I told her the truth.
He’s dead.
It hurt to say it. And yet. There was so much more.
He died on a July day in 1941.
I waited for her to stand and walk away. But. She remained there, unblinking.
I’d gone so far.
I thought, Why not a little farther?
And another thing.
I had her attention. It was a joy to behold. She waited, listening.
I had a son who never knew I existed.
A pigeon flapped up into the sky. I said,
His name was Isaac.
And then I realized that I’d been searching for the wrong person.
I looked into the eyes of the oldest man in the world for a boy who fell in love when was he was ten.
I said, “Were you ever in love with a girl named Alma?”
He was silent. His lips trembled. I thought he hadn’t understood, so I asked him again. “Were you ever in love with a girl named Alma Mereminski?”
He reached out his hand. He tapped me twice on the arm. I knew he was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t know what.
I said, “Were you ever in love with a girl named Alma Mereminski who left for America?”
His eyes filled with tears, he tapped my arm twice, then twice again.
I said, “The son you think didn’t know you existed, was his name Isaac Moritz?”
I felt my heart surge. I thought: I’ve lived this long. Please. A little longer won’t kill me. I wanted to say her name aloud, it would have given me joy to call, because I knew that in some small way it was my love that named her. And yet. I couldn’t speak. I was afraid I’d choose the wrong sentence. She said, The son you think didn’t know—I tapped her twice. Then twice again. She reached for my hand. With my other I tapped her twice. She squeezed my fingers. I tapped her twice. She put her head on my shoulder. I tapped her twice. She put one arm around me. I tapped her twice. She put both arms around me and hugged me. I stopped tapping.
Alma, I said.
She said, Yes.
Alma, I said again.
She said, Yes.
Alma, I said.
She tapped me twice.
THE DEATH OF LEOPOLD GURSKY
Leopold Gursky started dying on August 18, 1920.
He died learning to walk.
He died standing at the blackboard.
And once, also, carrying a heavy tray.
He died practicing a new way to sign his name.
Opening a window.
Washing his genitals in the bath.
He died alone, because he was too
embarrassed to phone anyone.
Or he died thinking about Alma.
Or when he chose not to.
Really, there isn’t much to say.
He was a great writer.
He fell in love.
It was his life.
Winner of BOMC’s Best Literary Fiction Award of 2005
Winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction
The History of Love was selected for the following Best Books of the Year lists:
Washington Post (Ten Best Books of the Year)
Amazon.com (#1 Novel of the Year)
Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle
Chicago Tribune
BookSense
Toronto Globe and Mail
Rocky Mountain News
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newsday
More praise for Nicole Krauss and The History of Love
“Vertiginously exciting . . . vibrantly imagined. . . . Krauss [is] a prodigious talent. . . . Beyond the vigorous whiplash that keeps Ms. Krauss’s The History of Love moving (and keeps its reader off balance until a stunning finale), this novel is tightly packed with ingenious asides. . . . Even at their most oddball, these flourishes reflect the deep, surprising wisdom that gives this novel its ultimate heft. . . . Krauss’s work is illuminated by the warmth and delicacy of her prose.”
—Janet Maslin, New York Times
“The novel’s achievement is precisely this: to have made a new fiction—alternately delightful and hilarious and deeply affecting.”
—Claire Messud, LA Weekly
“The History of Love is a significant novel, genuinely one of the year’s best. . . . Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense.”
—New York
“Confirms the depth and breadth of [Krauss’s] talent.”
—Vogue
“Devastating. . . . One of the most passionate vindications of the written word in recent fiction. It takes one’s breath away.”
—Spectator
“Even in moments of startling peculiarity, [Krauss] touches the most common elements of the heart. In the final pages, the fractured stories of The History of Love fall together like a desperate embrace.”
—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“A witty, emotional and ambitiously literary work . . . populated with sharp, deeply sympathetic characters.”
—Rolling Stone
“Wonderful and haunting . . . deftly layered. . . . Its mysteries are intricate and absorbing and its characters unforgettable. . . . Not quite a thriller, not exactly a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust memoir, The History of Love manages to be all three and also something more: a breathtaking meditation on loss and love. It’s the sort of book that makes life bearable after all.”
—Miami Herald
“Moving and virtuosic.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“[Krauss] reveals the characteristics of humanity that transcend time and the experience of living. . . . The characters are compelling and true, and the reader will come through the book not just caring about but wanting to heal them.”
—Denver Post
“The History of Love has perfect pitch and does its dance of time between contemporary New York and the wanderings of the Jews with unsentimental but heart-breaking grace. [Krauss] also happens to write like an angel.”
—Simon Schama, Guardian
“Astounding, moving, very funny . . . a joy to read. Leo Gursky is brilliantly drawn.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“When Nicole Krauss published her first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, at age 27, reviewers described her as a young writer burning with promise. Three years later, she seems to have proved them right . . . one of the most highly anticipated literary novels of the spring.”
—Wall Street Journal
“A beautifully constructed, frequently funny and ultimately moving tale . . . The History of Love unspools a number of disparate story lines—about a lonely Polish immigrant, a teenage girl, a grieving widow—and then delightfully pulls them together into a striking coherence.”
—Time Out New York
“An accomplished acrobatic feat.”
—Boston Sunday Globe
“Extraordinary. . . . The History of Love is a complex, funny, sad, elegantly constructed meditation on the power of love, language and imagination. . . . Krauss’s beautifully imagined characters are funny, rueful, smart and sometimes almost unbearably poignant.”
—Seattle Times
“[A] breathtaking sophomore novel. . . . Luminous. . . . Krauss is a masterful storyteller . . . of astonishing breadth. . . . With luck, Krauss has many decades ahead of sculpting deliciously witty, complicated novels. Let’s hope she does.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A tender tribute to human valiance. Who could be unmoved by a cast of characters whose daily battles are etched on our mind in such diamond-cut prose?”
—Independent on Sunday
“The History of Love by Nicole Krauss . . . is a novel to remind you of the power of fiction—funny and sad and devastating and hopeful often all at the same time.”