winter, but hunger had not reduced her to eating rats, she had endured and continued to endure real hardship but she would probably live long enough— 1 more month—to turn 31.
this was not stupid of bertha, in Amerika such measuring was
called paranoia or, by liberal psychiatrists, survivors guilt, but bertha, with her european sensibility, knew that she was a realist with a very cogent understanding of history, she didnt imagine that she
could survive atrocity but she prepared for it by constant concentration on what it would require of her. unlike her contemporaries, she believed that normalcy differed from atrocity in degree, not in kind,
it was possible, bertha knew, that she might not survive normalcy
either, harassed as she was by its unambiguous cruelty, every day of
loss and more loss encouraged bertha to wonder: will I live longer
than this terrible time which is, on the grand scale, not terrible
enough to justify capitulation, tired, she measured her fatigue
against the unspeakable exhaustion of her own relatives who had
survived the Nazi death camps, they had not dropped dead of their
own accord, a fact that provided an eloquent rule of thumb, bertha
saw loss, all loss, from this unyielding perspective, this method of
measurement was the discipline by which she maintained an optimistic belief in the likelihood that she too might endure, for this reason, when despair gnawed, she did not welcome it or romanticize
it or enjoy it. self-pity made her sicker than deprivation, and for this
reason, when lovers left her all the while hurling foul epithets or
when friends fell away like diseased flies, she did not cry. she might
well feel sorrow, but tears had to be reserved for disasters that made
tears run dry. her attitude was unfashionable in a world in which
acne occasioned more sympathy than starvation, her own pimples
and the pimples of others did not move bertha and so others, comfortable in excessive emotional upheaval, saw her as cold and rigid, and she saw them as silly and vain, bertha did not share the common
emotional preoccupations of her time, then this new cycle of loss
came, overabundant, overwhelming, and leveled her out flat, she
could not bear it no matter what comparisons she made, at first she
held on. at first she would have settled for fish and eggs and milk, a
chair to sit on, some money in the bank, and sleep every night in
which loss left her alone, she bartered with God the loanshark, time
went on and bertha was dragged out flatter and flatter until the
nerve that was pure greed was stretched out onto the surface of her
skin, exposed, raw, naked, jagged, ragingly sore, detachment was
lost, discipline was lost, bertha cursed Disembodied Wisdom as the
seducer and abandoner who had passed her on to a terrible new
master, Pure Greed, herself turned inside out. she wanted purple
velvet curtains, a red velvet couch in which she would be happy to lie
forever and die, fresh crab and vulgar lobster, and women, the
bodies of women, pure taste and touch and fingers reaching in and
bellies rubbing wildly against, sweat and goo and no tomorrows, not
like the men, not to prove or to have, but each sensation for its own
sake, each sensation the whole of life, so that greed would wipe out
deprivation, erase it and the memory of it, each time, the impossible,
forever, her heart had become hungry, ravenous, but, cursed with
the love of meaning which she could not lose no matter how hard she
tried, lust made her sad, and her own lust struck her dumb with
grief, because if dust always reduced to lust, loss had triumphed,
bertha was lost, the crime was the punishment, lust was dust, still,
nothing worth a tear.
time passed, seasons changed, lilacs came and went, roses were
bom and died, the leaves turned burgundy and orange, then fell
burying the cement and earth, then froze under the first snow,
bertha stared, bertha stirred, bertha walked, bertha sat. bertha
turned restlessly night after night, bertha buried herself in dust, and
dust herself she covered dust, she sneezed it and snorted it and spit it
out. and dust spit right back, and dust flew by, looking the other
way. sweat made dust sticky, turned it salty or sweet or bitter, the
wind blew it away and the rain washed it away and the snow froze it
into slicing slivers, dust she was and dust she always would be, phi-
losophy aside, sad dust, greedy dust, slightly silly dust, dust enchanted by dust, dust cast into air by a sigh, landing or not landing, depending on weather or whether.
the new womans broken heart
(for E. and L. )
morning broke. I mean, fell right on its goddam ass and broke, no
walking barefoot if you care about yr feet, kid.
I waited and waited, no call came. I cant say, the call didnt come
because it wasnt a question of one really, it was a question of any
one. it was a question of one goddam person calling to say I like this
or that or I want to buy this or that or you moved my heart, my spirit,
or I like yr ass. to clarify, not a man calling to say I like yr ass but one
of those shining new women, luminous, tough, lighting right up from
inside, one of them, or some of the wrecked old women I know, too
late not to be wrecked, too many children tom right out of them, but
still, I like the wrinkles, I like the toughness of the heart, one of
them, not one of those new new new girl children playing soccer on
the boys team for the first time, young is dumb, at least it was when I
was young. I have no patience with the untom, anyone who hasnt
weathered rough weather, fallen apart, been ripped to pieces, put
herself back together, big stitches, jagged cuts, nothing nice, then
something shines out. but these ones all shined up on the outside,
the ass wigglers. I’ll be honest, I dont like them, not at all. the
smilers. the soft voices, eyes on the ground or scanning outer space,
its not that I wouldnt give my life for them, I just dont want them to
call me on the telephone.
still, business is business. I needed one of them, the ass wigglers, to
call me on the phone, editors, shits, smiling, cleaned up shits, plasticized turds, everything is too long or too short or too angry or too rude, one even said too urban. Im living on goddam east 5 street, dog
shit, I mean, buried in dog shit, police precinct across the street
sirens blazing day and night, hells angels 2 streets down, toilet in the
hall and of course I have colitis constant diarrhea, and some asshole
smiler says too urban. Id like to be gods editor. I have a few revisions
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