Be My Knife

  Here, I’m telling you everything: I was running slowly, so that anybody who wished to catch me could, because I got excited—somehow, nobody can catch me anymore! Even if somebody caught my body, I would remain free. I made three complete circles around you this way, and I discovered that when you run naked, the coldest places of all are behind your ears, around your neck, at your waist, and behind your knees. And the whole time I was running, I was thinking in my heart, Here I am before you, Miriam, here I am before you. Perhaps you heard something in your dreams—it was my nudity shouting, it was my body,screaming with panic at what I was doing to it. If you had come outside, you would have seen how I led myself, how my soul, suddenly freed, was, for the first time, walking my body. Leading it in front of your window, showing you how pathetic and unnecessary and meaningless it is in the story we are. And how wholesale it is, my body, the cheapest part of me, the thing I don’t want to pollute you with.

  Already, in the first few naked steps, I felt it happen—I am finally freed, suddenly I am just my soul, flying free and thin and glowing—it returned, and I saw my body running after me, graceless and foolish and alien, running, stumbling after me, choking with anger, trying to jump forward and catch me every once in a while, reel me back in, but I am elusive, wily—even my own body cannot catch me, and with every step it became clearer who I am, and what it is: just a slave. Then it was a monkey, and then a clump of earth, no more than that, which rose up on two legs and growled, and I condemned it in front of your window, and presented it as a sacrifice in exchange for the lies and the pollution with which I sometimes infect you, the opaque wave rising every time—there is a bag full of bitter liquid deep down in my throat expressly for that purpose. And it splits open when you’re good to me. I don’t know why it is this way. I hope I never write any more letters like that one. I can’t promise you that yet—as I was writing it, I knew it was not a good letter, that it would cut you where you are the most sensitive. You were right not to open it. It is a good thing you have such a sixth sense about me. But you should know that I wrote it in this way also on purpose, to hurt you, scratch you, splash around in it in front of your eyes, and to proveto you—that’s it, Miriam, that’s the bitter, shitty seed—to proveto you, for instance, that I am still free of you, yes, that I am still capable of quickly returning to who I was before you, the person who has not yet been diluted by a single drop of you—to take revenge on you a little for my own traitorousness.

  And also, because of this mad reversal, that I continuously feel as if you are somehow more loyal to me than I am.

  It’s starting to grow light. I am already back at home (don’t worry—dressed). Sitting in my car and writing. Can’t stop. I will soon go inside, and prepare a grand breakfast for everyone, with omelets and cornflakes and a salad I will cut from the remains of my conscience. You have noidea what kind of story I had to invent so as not to be at home for a whole night.

  And to think I did it-I hope I don’t sound cheerful or proud of my daring to you, I don’t even know what I’m feeling. Only that, at this moment, the healthiest thing for me is not to know anything, not to think about running as I did, that it was me, running there at night, that stain.

  Yair.

  Just one more minute. Yesterday, before I left, I read Tales from Moominvalleyto Ido as I was putting him to sleep. I don’t know if you know it-I read him the part where Moomintroll, one of the creatures, hides in a big hat that completely transforms his shape. All his friends playing with him run away in fear. Then Moomintroll’s mother enters the room—she looks at him and asks him, Who are you? He begs her with his look to recognize him, because if she doesn’t know him, how will he live? Then she looks at this creature, who doesn’t at all resemble her beloved child, and she says quietly, “It’s my Moomintroll.” All of a sudden, a miracle—the way he looks changes, the stranger peels off and drops away from him, and he returns to being himself.

  Now it’s all up to you—I am leaving the matter in your hands.

  July 16

  Miriam,

  At first I had no idea what I was reading: I was searching, of course, for some response to my night run (I was, specifically, looking for exclamation points after words like “enough,” “crazy,” and “go away”), and in the meantime, my eyes became trapped in loops and buttons and hooks and embroidery and trim and other props of feminine ritual, some of which—I didn’t even know their names (what is organza? what is voile?). But I immediately surrendered and began mumbling after you … cashmere wool vest, purple blouse with bellflowers, the white one with square wooden buttons …

  You can probably guess what I said to myself while I was reading it—that it’s impossible, a woman would never do such a thing, no woman I know would do such a thing. But you know that, don’t you?

  And the plain dresses and the fancy ones, those that cover you and those that reveal you (I can’t help but chew on this for longer, it gives me so much pleasure), and the classically cut one with the open back, and the femme fatale, and the purple with the round collar—I figured out that purple is generally your color—the one that feels like silk but is not silk, very airy, and clings only to your chest, and the rest of it touches you but is not quite touching (don’t disturb me, we’re focusing here!)—and the other purple with a boatneck open from shoulder to shoulder that falls this way on your bottom and thighs …

  I’m reading this and laughing because, for me, clothes are the fastest way to hide myself, and I truly feel that, for you, clothing is another living layer of your being. Even though you are incapable of giving up some noises of complaint—somewhat artificial, if you ask me. It seems there are still some conventions you’re committed to, the posh grousing over your fat thighs, the search for one perfect dress that will draw attention to your chest and obscure your hips (I have no idea what you’re complaining about, lady, from a frankly exploring look, your ass looks wonderful to me, two cheeks of soft, glowing moons—do me a favor and leave this business to the experts).

  Can I hold you and caress you a little longer?

  There was a moment I thought you were mocking me—I’m always on guard for that possibility—but I was not tempted by the thought—and immediately I return, sinking into cataloguing magic. What little bird revealed that I am completely helpless in the face of the magic of Bureaucracy—unconscious, smiling stupidly to myself, I cocooned myself in all the silk webs surrounding your skin—silk and cotton and wool and lace and embroidery and satin and muslin—the one you made for your high school graduation dance, with the shining trim embroidered in DMC thread (how can you remember such things? I can’t remember what I wore yesterday!), and it’s impossible, I’m telling you again—no normal woman would, in this manner, in this state of pure fetal innocence, give up all her little secrets. No normal woman would serve up to me, with such an amused practicality, her bras (leave two of those for me, the ones with lace on the top, for my next life); they, by the way, delighted me in their complete simplicity, a little anachronistic alongside the temptations of our current market—oh, my girl with the fifties face, it won’t help you one bit.

  But best of all, I liked the smile you wore when you wrote this (did you notice it?), it’s a new smile between us, that of a woman occupied with some private, intimate feminine craft—and even though the action itself doesn’t excite her especially, she already knows the pleasure it will bring her and her man when they come together, because of her little preparations, this kind of private purification.

  It suddenly occurs to me—

  You wrote the entire letter completely naked.

  Yair

  July 16 (evening)

  Here I am in front of you, you said.

  Yes.

  You know, I’m slow sometimes to get it.

  Upon my first reading, I thought you were offering me your clothes to cover up my nudity—but this kind of logic doesn’t suit you. On the contrary. After that, I thought it was a very original invitation to temptation,
odd, a little funny, a little clumsy. A verbal striptease. But even if that was how you started writing the letter, the tone of your voice slowly changed.

  Here is nudity, you say (at least this is how I’m reading it right now), nudity which is not like a knife and not like a wound. Exposed nudity, vulnerable, a little ashamed and merciful. Like yours exactly, the imperfect nudity of a woman my age. Look, you tell me my nudity is a little unsure of itself, my body is being assisted along by all kinds of little tricks to conceal its defects—but is willing to immediately give up those tricks for whoever wishes to look upon it with an appreciative eye.

  Here is nudity that uses clothes (you keep saying?), blouses, dresses, bras, belts, in the same way people use words, “their” words, but you can come and touch, feel it; here is nudity that can also heal.

  Miriam, twenty times a day I tell myself, She really, truly wants to help you. It’s a wonder to me, because deep in my heart I still don’t know what you see in me, it is hard for me to believe that this is happening to me, you and me. Us. Tell me, just once, what am I capable of giving you?What do I give you? And what about me arouses you in this way—to me? Sometimes I actually argue with myself, shouting to myself: At least help her to help you! Come and stand in front of her as you are, in the open. Without all your games and your guillotines. What are you so afraid of, read what she is writing, it is so clear …

  And more than that. Even when I only try—right now—to think of that place in my brain without you, without your eyes reading me—it immediately seals off to me, cools down, shrivels up. This is exactly what happened when you returned my letter to me, sealed, without reading it. I froze. I thought to myself, This is it, you’re doomed. You wrote to me, not long ago, that if anyone either refuses or rejects a strong emotion of yours, you feel as if he is nullifying you, practically killing you; at that moment, the expression struck me as overwrought—but when you returned my letter, and I thought you didn’t want me anymore, didn’t want the feelings of me, of me-to-you, I understood the precise meaning of your “nullifying”: I had a few hours in which I actually ran around inside the hollow of my head and couldn’t find that place, or the way to it, and knew that it was starting to die again, and I was afraid that if you didn’t want to be there with me, I could never find the way alone.

  I know I’m babbling here, but I also know you understand. Who, if not you? You told me a bit about the bad years, the years of internal Siberia from your first marriage. I don’t know exactly what happened to you there, but you described how you felt your very existence sucking all the flavor out of your “private ore” because there was no demand for it in the world, no one even knew it was possible to ask it of you … You wrote three or four sentences like that. And you then, all of a sudden, gave me a name. You named the ore that I am; only by touching me, you catalyzed the process of it, my ore started changing color and temperature and density, and the contrast of its molecular structure, noble, elevated—with what had been its baseness—what else can I say?

  You revealed to me so courageously, openly and courageously, that if you weren’t so sure I would eventually return to you, you would have already broken things off with me. I know, but deep inside, I am also scared that you won’t make it, I want to help you terribly and am incapable of doing so. Understand this, I am incapable by law, my screwed-up law system—something lame there in the white empty spot in the center of being, somebody is lying very dead. I am allowed only to watchyour heroic attempts at resuscitation, like a helpless spectator, no more, and pray that you won’t give up.

  July 17

  Just a scribble on a café table. Mainly for the pleasure of sending you something from Tel Aviv. I had some business here today in the North around Bet Lessin, and I finished early, and instead of going straight back home, I walked around a little and thought how much fun it would be if you were here with me.

  Not to do anything particularly daring—just to walk with you, hand in hand, and sit together in a café—I even ordered two coffees, black.

  It’s nice to relax with you this way. You sometimes complain that I am pushing too hard, as if there is some kind of “goal” I am desperate to reach with you (“You’re alert, you’re always on the verge of readiness”).

  Apple cake? With cream and to-hell-with-the-diet? All right, one plate, two forks. The waitress smiles and people are looking, let them look, you put your hand on mine and we talk delightful nonsense. You pull your dress up a little and show me your shoes under the table, and you ask me whether to buy another pair like these in a dark orange—sporty, aren’t they? I feel like splurging on shoes, you say, and I swallow your long, fair legs with my eyes and say, Why not? They’ll suit you—will you let me pay for them? You’re smiling at me, asking me if I still hate your glasses so much, and I consider them, thoroughly, for just a moment—

  (My heart simply burned to a cinder this instant, when I recognized the trap that awaits me in your face between those glasses and those lips—but still, they’re too big and too serious …)

  You’re letting me blather on, and you stroke my hand. And I ask—and you say no. And I ask you again, and you tell me that you already told me twice. Told me what? I sass back at you, and you sigh and tell me again how you succeeded in finding that Chinese girl you knew years ago at university, and how she helped you locate the address of the newspaper in Shanghai. And I’m looking at you and swallowing every word from your beautiful lips—how is it that I didn’t come up with such a wonderful idea? I should have thought of something like that.

  You have no idea how much your explanation pleases me—that onlythe two of us, out of a billion Israelis, will receive this newspaper once a week. And I am reciting you, soundlessly, with my lips: “Why, even ‘four billion Chinese’ require double-checking,” and we both laugh about you and about me, Mir Yam and Ya Ir.

  Listen to this—a little girl asked her father a moment ago to make his lowest sound. He produced this kind of “baaa,” strong, like a bull—and immediately, from all ends of the café, rose the similar voices of all the men trying theirs …

  What do you think? Of course I did it, too.

  Do you, by any chance, know the name of those trees with red blossoms? And who was Bet Lessin named after? First, tell me how you used to play with Anna when you were a teenager. But I already told you all about that as well.So, why do you mind telling me about it again? Actually—right now, I can’t remember if I already told you about our trips to Haifa, to visit Bayer’s Note Shop on Herzl Street in Beit ha-Kranot?(You did, but I remain silent.) I did write to you about the beautiful book of music we bought there, though—with Chopin’s Impromptus and Schubert’s Military Marches—I just can’t remember if I was playing the melody or the harmony—but hold on, that’s enough, I know I told you all that!Well, yes, you did, but you never told me about it in Tel Aviv, and not while wearing that purple dress (with a very tight bodice, almost see-through, and the skirt made of—hold me back, the voile!). And besides, I like hearing you say “mew-ssic,” until you I always pronounced the word “muzic.” Really, I didn’t notice. Sure; you also pronounce “Parisian” “Parician”—or a “physsical thing.” (I have the evidence—it’s all written down!) Oh, Yair, you can’t imagine what a physsical thing I am saying now …

  Or maybe Anna will appear, by chance, passing by in one of her dazzling straw hats, and we will invite her to sit with us. She’ll sit down, her legs will barely reach the ground, and she’ll appraise us with that sassy look, shifting her eyes from you to me, and will understand everything. Not one word will be said, but everything that ought to be known will be, and I will feel as if I’ve been accepted into some small, selective club. Perhaps I won’t even be afraid that we have a partner in our secret, because—as you keep telling me—you can trust Anna. (But don’t tell her yet.)

  I envy you for having such a friend, a soul mate.

  Me? Do I? The same kind of friend as Anna is to you? I wish. There are all sorts of substit
utes, from the army, work; if you combine all of them, they might amount to something near it.

  There used to be one. It’s over. It’s a shame.

  (What a sun, Miriam, what a wonderful sun, I’m closing my eyes in front of it, trying to see you.)

  July 19

  A letter still has not arrived. I went to the box again, on my way home, and there wasn’t any. I don’t know what’s with me today, I’ve been running restlessly since morning, as if some part of me, an internal organ, is wandering alone in the world and I have no clue what’s going on with it.

  It’s the middle of the night and I am completely awake. I’ve been enjoying a little sleep disorder for a few weeks now. Maya bought me sleeping pills, and I throw them down the toilet and tell her nothing helps. Want to sleep. Want not to sleep. As you said, the nights are our time together.

  (And I’m being asked why I am so awake at night, and what I am writing all the time. My explanation isn’t so very far from the truth—I’m telling her that, for the first time, I’m trying to write a story.)

  The day before yesterday, in the coffeehouse in Tel Aviv, just in that moment of glamour and sunshine, a kind of dark, elemental thought that has been wandering through me for a while now suddenly rephrased itself—that I am some kind of “black twin.” I mean (do you understand? Should I elaborate?)—one who killed his twin in the womb. I know you’re not laughing at this thought—it has always been with me, ever since my very early childhood, like a shadow—that I am a little cracked in my being, I was damaged and wounded beyond repair because I strangled my twin in the womb. Who was he? I don’t know. Why must I have killed him? I don’t know. The thought itself always remains fetal for me. He was only a very tiny, shiny little body; I see him surrounded with a yellow or golden glow, some kind of little enwombed body, yet divine and glowing. I mean, a quiet, continuous, uninterrupted, beaming light emanated from him. And I killed him.