She slowly shuts the door. Retreats into her home. I look up to the hills.
WALKING MAN:
And he himself,
he is dead,
I know now.
I now can say—though
always in a whisper—“The boy
is dead.”
I understand, almost,
the meaning of the sounds:
the boy is dead. I recognize
these words as holding truth:
he is dead. I know.
Yes, I admit it: he is dead.
But his death—it swells,
abates,
fulminates.
Unquiet,
unquiet
is his death.
So unquiet.
ELDERLY MATH TEACHER: … Based on my observations, I believe, my boy, that only a certain type of person is likely to notice it—the blaze. That, between me and myself, is what I call those mysterious embers.
TOWN CHRONICLER: I met him again by chance tonight, at three o’clock in the morning. This time he was not writing exercises on the wall. Tired, defeated almost, he sat down in the dark on the street bench where I was napping. After we shared a moment of embarrassment, and after I reminded him that I had been his pupil in the first grade, and that it was in his class that I had met the woman who would eventually become my wife, we climbed up onto the bench together and stood there watching the phenomenon.
ELDERLY MATH TEACHER: My heart tells me, my boy, that from the moment a person notices the blaze, he is destined to get up and go to it.
TOWN CHRONICLER: As he spoke, his large feet shuddered and shook the wooden bench. My own small feet were suddenly filled with motion. I talked to him silently. I said there was a time in the world when my daughter was not in it at all. She was not yet. Nor was there the happiness she brought me, nor all these torments. I wanted him to look at me with his lost, confused gaze in which everything was possible. I wanted him to call me to a house wall again and test me on addition-subtraction for all eternity. I thought: Perhaps he also longs to be an innocent young teacher again? Perhaps I could ask my wife here, and together we could build a little class that would suffer no sorrow? I had already begun to hum “two and two are four” when he suddenly leaped off the bench—I was amazed to see how agile he still was—and stood looking at his twitching feet. Then he spread his hands before me in apology and turned to leave, mumbling to himself:
ELDERLY MATH TEACHER:
Here I will fall,
now will I fall?
I do not fall.
Here is shadow
and fog,
frost
rises
from a darkened pit—
now,
now
I will fall—
TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:
Now, here,
the heart
will stop—
it does not stop—
here is shadow
and fog—
now?
Now will I fall?
TOWN CHRONICLER: And she walked! Walked away! Suddenly, out of the darkness, she appeared beside me on the street, then walked away without seeing me at all, moving behind the teacher as if sleepwalking. I quickly lay down on the bench and made myself as small as possible. I was very cold. I tried to fall asleep. I could not. I do not know what I shall do with myself today, and the sun has not even risen. The town is terrifyingly empty. I wander the streets. No one. I run to the wharf, dig through reeking piles of nets and dry seaweed—no one. Where will I go? There, on the hilltops, the small embers glow tonight as though each holds a beating heart. In a dark yard at the edge of the market stands an old gray donkey eating from a trough. I hold my face up to its mane and rub my nose in it. To my surprise, it is soft, softer even than the centaur’s hair. Perhaps things in the world have softened in my absence? The donkey stops chewing. He waits for me to talk. Of that thing that happened to her, to my daughter, I must never speak with any person—I explain to him—and if truth be told, I am forbidden even to mention her, although I don’t always stick to that, particularly since that man began circling the town. The donkey turns his head to me. His gaze is wise and skeptical. It’s true, I whisper, I’m not allowed to remember her. Just imagine! He twitches his ears in surprise. It was the duke, I say as I throw my arms around his neck. It was he who commanded me, in a royal edict, to exile myself from my home, to walk the streets day and night recording the townspeople’s stories of their children. And it was he who forbade me—by explicit order!—to remember her, my one. Yes, immediately after it happened, he sentenced me, after she drowned, I mean the daughter, Hanna, after she drowned in a lake right before my eyes, and I couldn’t, listen, there were tall waves, huge, and I couldn’t … What could I …
You don’t believe me. You’re moving your ears dubiously, even crossing them as if to dismiss the possibility … I know exactly what you’re thinking: The duke? Our kind and gentle duke? It cannot be! Everyone in town thinks so, and honestly, sometimes I think so myself. Perhaps you’ve heard that we used to be good friends, the duke and I. Soul mates. Yes, after all, I was his jester for twenty years, until the disaster befell me. His beloved jester … And to think that he, of all people, decreed such a terrible decree … How did it even occur to him?
My lips suddenly quiver, and the donkey cocks his head and studies them. I fear he might read in them words I would rather keep to myself, or those that I am forbidden by the edict to even utter, or remember, even the slightest hint or word or thought of the person she would be today, if she were. I may not imagine her at all, nor dream her image. Nor are longings, yearnings, and so forth permitted. Or sudden heart pangs, or churning contractions of the gut, nor any kind of crying, whether sobbing or the faintest sleepy whimper. A memory-amputee is what I am, donkey. Abstaining from my daughter. A prisoner in a tiny remote cell inside my spirit, until, as in the poem we once read together, the duke and I, “My life (which liked the sun and the moon) resembles something that has not occurred.”
COBBLER:
There is no longer anything in me
of myself that used to be.
Only motion remains.
That is all I can give you
today, my girl,
only motion
that might seep
into the stillness
where you lie.
Only that,
only thus will I know
today, my daughter,
how to be your father—
MIDWIFE:
I stood in the window
of my home, at night,
alone, slowly
diminishing.
As in a dream
I heard a distant
v-v-voice
speaking to me
in my tongue: Only that,
my daughter, only
thus will I know
today how to be
your father.
I knew: This was
the sign.
I left
my house,
turned
to the hills,
closed my eyes,
shut off my gaze,
allowed the blaze
to gather me in. Only thus
will I know today how
to be your father.
I hurried,
I ran to him,
to the heavy m-m-man,
so thick and slow,
who suddenly
spoke
in my tongue.
TOWN CHRONICLER: They walk on the hills and I follow them, constantly darting between them and the town. They groan and trip and stand, hold on to each other, carry those who sleep, falling asleep themselves. Nights, days, over and over they circle the town, through rain and cold and burning sun. Who knows how long they will walk and what will happen when they are roused from their madness? The duke, for example—who would have believed it—walking shoulder to shoulder with the net-mender, he
r fluttering nets occasionally wrapping themselves around him. And the elderly teacher, with his thin halo of hair, walking swiftly, as he is wont, hopping from one foot to the other and reaching his head out to either side with immense curiosity, even in sleep. And the cobbler and the midwife, hand in hand, eyes tightly closed, with stubborn resolve. And at the end of the small procession walks my wife, dragging her heavy feet, her breath labored, her head drooping on her chest, with no one to hold her hand.
DUKE:
Walking half asleep,
a dream fragment flickers:
the surface of a barren wilderness,
mist and cool breeze, and a wail
rolls over
the desert.
MIDWIFE:
Over there
a c-c-cliff
c-c-cut into round
smooth rocky mountain,
and in a dream
or half awake, I say to myself:
L-l-look, woman,
that is the thing, that is all,
the answer to the great, sacred riddle,
and there is nothing
more,
there is
nothing more.
COBBLER:
Barren brain-hill,
a terrible sight,
it pulsates perhaps
once
in a thousand years—
TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:
It is the brain of the universe,
and it is cold, frozen. It is not
what emits the wail. It is
desolation, only desolation,
mute and deaf
and flat,
it has no wails,
no thoughts,
it has
no answers and
no love.
DUKE:
And you—pick up
a hoe and till a bed.
Plant in it a pillow, a lamp,
a letter, a picture of
a beloved face, perhaps also a kettle,
thick socks, gloves and a satchel,
a pencil or paintbrush, a book
or two, a pair of glasses, so that you
can see near
and see far.
TOWN CHRONICLER: Tell me about the rocking horse.
CENTAUR: You again? Won’t you ever shut up?
TOWN CHRONICLER: Tell me about the soccer ball, about the cowboy hat. About the birthdays, tell me about them. About the magician’s wand, the blue kite—
CENTAUR: You’re torturing me.
TOWN CHRONICLER: About the toy boat—
CENTAUR: Junk! Memory husks!
TOWN CHRONICLER: At least tell me something about the cradle.
CENTAUR: How about you tell me something about yourself for a change? You’ve been coming here for weeks, ten times a day, interrogating me, turning me inside out like a glove, and you yourself—nothing! Just a clerk! Following orders! Hiding behind your royal edict, which any idiot can see is a fake, with that ridiculous drawing of the duke wearing a crown. I mean, come on! You could have put a little more effort into it. A five-year-old can draw better than that!
Okay. I get it. I can be quiet, too. Here. Being quiet. A rock. A sphinx. You’re not looking so hot yourself either, you know, these last few days, but I am absolutely going off the deep end, yes, that’s not hard to see. This fight with it, goddamn it, is doing me in. I admit it. And this silly thing that happened to me with the desk? I bet you’ve heard the stories around town, right? For that reason alone you should have stopped bothering me with your nonsense. Don’t you have any mercy for a poor centaur? And a bereaved one, at that? Come on, look at me. No, I mean it. Climb up on this window, use both hands, don’t be afraid. What’s the worst thing I could do to you that you’re not already doing to yourself?
So? Nice, isn’t it? Aesthetically pleasing. Have you ever seen such grafting? Such a curse? Half writer, half desk? Well, there you have it. You can get down now. Finita la tragedia. What do you say? It’s quite a thing, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell you there was nothing as pleasurable as other people’s hell?
TOWN CHRONICLER: Your son once lay in that cradle.
CENTAUR: And now he has a different one.
TOWN CHRONICLER: Help me, Centaur. Those piles of yours are driving me mad.
CENTAUR: I’ll never leave this place.
TOWN CHRONICLER: Thirteen years ago I lost my daughter.
CENTAUR: These last few days, when you were being a real pain in the ass, I was beginning to think it might be something like that.
TOWN CHRONICLER: I can’t talk about her.
CENTAUR:
I built the cradle
with my own two hands. The day
he was born, from branches of oak. My wife
painted the two ducks.
She painted so beautifully.
She was a quiet,
gentle woman. She left me,
three years after
the boy did. If I could have,
I would have left me, too.
Adam—that was his name.
Adam. I placed him
in the cradle
after he was born. He lay there
with his eyes open, looked
at me, studied me with his gaze.
He was so serious! He always was,
his whole life. His whole
short life. Serious
and slightly lonely. Hardly
any friends. He liked stories.
We used to put on plays,
he and I,
with costumes and masks. You asked
about the cradle. My wife padded it
with soft fabric,
but he could only fall asleep
with me, on my chest. He would cling
to me.
I just remembered, you’ll laugh,
but there was a special sound
I used to make to put him
to sleep on me. A sort of quiet,
deep, trembling
moan. Hmmmm …
Hmmmm …
TOWN CHRONICLER: Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I also …
CENTAUR: Not at all … Hmmm …
TOWN CHRONICLER: Hmmm …
CENTAUR and TOWN CHRONICLER: Hmmm …
WALKING MAN:
Walking, walking,
neither awake nor
asleep, walking
and emptying
all my thoughts,
my passions,
my sadness, my fervor,
my secrets, my volition,
anything that is me.
Look at me, my son:
here I am not.
I am but a platform of life,
calling you to come
and be through me—
to occur, if only for a moment,
to once again be purified
by what is.
Come, do not hesitate,
be now,
I am gone,
the house is yours,
and it is furnished with every limb.
Flow into it, pool in it,
this blood is your blood now, the muscles,
your muscles. Come,
be present,
reach your arms
from world-end to -end,
rejoice from my throat, laugh, vibrate,
celebrate,
all is possible at this moment,
everything now is yes,
so love and burn and lust
and fuck.
My five hungry senses
are at your command like
five horses foaming at the mouth,
stomping, raring
to gallop to your never-end.
Do not stop, my boy,
your time is short, meted out,
my eyelids are trembling now,
soon I will come home,
soon my pupils will contract
in the light of confining logic. Quick,
taste it all, devour, be deep,
be sad,
determined, delighted, roar,
tremble with pleasure and power,
my pleasure is yours, my power, too—
enchant, shower your soul,
be the swing of a sower,
a cascade of grain and
golden coins streaming
like light—
be engorged like an udder,
and torrid as midday,
and rage, and rave,
tighten your hand into a fist until
arteries swell in your neck,
and be thrilled, like a heart, like a girl,
be agape, thin-skinned, alight
with the glory of
one-off wonders,
be a whole,
momentary fraction
of eternity.
And as you do so, pause suddenly, breathe, inhale, feel the air burn your lungs, lick your upper lip, taste the salt of healthy sweat, the tingle of life, and now say fully: I—
(Damn it, I realize now:
that pronoun is also
lost, it died
with you, leaving me
with only he and you
and us, and no one
will ever again
say I
in your voice.
That too. That, too.)
Just hurry, my boy,
dawn is rising, the magic
soon will melt, so you must love,
and, even if betrayed,
even if you taste the venom
of disdain, love
and be brave, but be cowardly, too,
be everything, touch defeat,
touch failure, hurt someone,
disappoint
and lie.
Quick, my boy, pass through all these,
there is no time to linger,
such illusions are so brief,
but you must touch, caress
a warm body, a woman,
bounteous breasts in your hands,
the head of a newborn child, unborn
to you.
Quick, quick, the first strip
of light—
see the world you never saw: New York,
Paris, Shanghai, so many faces
in this living
world—
No, no, stop—