Adam Levin - The Instructions

And Oh My Dear, My Gurion,

I thought how if you didn’t even know what the doubling cube was, then it was likely that you didn’t know that when I was breaking up with you it wasn’t because I wanted to break up with you but because I wanted you to kiss me, the exact opposite of breaking up. And I have been getting less and less angry at you because it is not your fault that you don’t know how to double, and I’ve just kept remembering that all week long. But then today I waited in the cold on the stoop, and you weren’t acting happy to have the opportunity to give me your jacket, and you definitely weren’t offering it to me nicely. You were acting like I was being dumb and you didn’t even think about it. You didn’t even think: Esther isn’t dumb, Esther must be telling me something. You just didn’t think! And it made me angry and lonely all over again, so I didn’t offer you a grape. But now I’m here at my desk in my room and I am thinking: Gurion isn’t dumb. Gurion is the smartest (and the handsomest) boy there ever was, and so he knew what he was doing on the stoop today! He was doubling you! He wanted you to apologize for doubling him on that fateful Shabbos when he didn’t know he was being doubled, and he would have gladly given you his jacket, held it open for you to put your arms in it, and even maybe hugged you once you got your arms in, and when you hugged him back maybe even kissed you if only you’d thought to apologize. And so I am sorry, Gurion Maccabee. I am sorry and filled with regret for misunderstanding and treating you badly and I want you to know that I’ll accept your double if you offer it to me again.

I love you,

Esther Salt

Esther’s letter was too flowery to think about, and not just because of the Oh s and Dear s. I took it upstairs and rewrote it til it made sense:

Gurion, please be nice to me even though I have tortured you with shadiness for eight weeks.

I know I told you that I broke up with you because you caused me pain, but the real reason I broke up with you was to manipulate you in such a way as to get you to stop respecting the traditions of my family. Even though you wrote me poems and were always kind to me, I didn’t believe you when you said you loved me. I thought you were only saying it and writing those poems because you were a highly dedicated sycophant of my father’s and you knew that showing love for me would please him. When I broke up with you, I believed that you knew I was doing it to manipulate you. I thought that you were only pretending to think I was being forthright so you could get out of our relationship without having to break up with me yourself.

But then, when you came over to play backgammon last week, I realized you were a dumb shmendrick who never even suspected anyone might try to manipulate him, and that made me happy. It made me happy because it meant that you’d been straightforward all along, which meant that you actually had loved me and still did love me, even though I kept being so shady to you.

And now I’m thinking that if you were a dumb shmendrick then, you might still be a dumb shmendrick. In fact, I’m all but certain that you remain a dumb shmendrick, and this letter is evidence. After all, if I weren’t counting on your continuing to be a dumb shmendrick, how could I — unless, I, myself, am a dumb shmendrick — think that a letter such as this would bring you back to me? For who, besides a dumb shmendrick, would ever return to a girl who tortured him with deliberate shadiness for eight weeks and then sneakily called him a dumb shmendrick with flowery words rendered in my favorite font, Lucida Calligraphy? I am sorry for not realizing you were a dumb shmendrick sooner.

Please continue to be a dumb shmendrick.

Esther Salt

I reread the rewrite and thought: Gurion ben-Judah let himself be tricked by love’s smelly version into saying he was in love with Esther Salt, which was a lie. Esther knew it was a lie even though Gurion believed it, and because she knew it was a lie, and because she wanted it to be true, she told lies to Gurion that he thought were true. And only now that Gurion knows his love was a lie does Esther think his love was true. And only now that Esther thinks his love was true does she stop lying, and reveal that she thinks Gurion is a shmendrick, a shmendrick who she believes she loves. But Gurion is not a shmendrick, so Esther can’t possibly love him. Esther cannot be in love with a shmendrick who is Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee because there is no such person. So she has also let herself be tricked by the smelly version of love.

We lied about the same thing, but the lies we told were different.

I saved and closed the document and was about to attempt scripture when a plate of cut-up apple appeared beside my keyboard.

“I hear you have had no dinner,” my mother said.

I blanked my screen.

He called you? I said.

“I am told you have learned to make Jews of Junes.”

My notifier chimed.

I’ve got email, I said.

“I am told you have learned to make Jews of Junes,” my mother said again.

That’s not nearly as funny as you think, I said.

“You are laughing,” she said.

Because you think alliteration is funny, I said. I said, I’m laughing at you.

She kissed my cheek. “One day,” she said, “you will look back and be amazed at how much of a little shit you were to your mother who loves you, and you will come to me, and you will say, ‘Ema, I was such a little shit to you. I was such a little shit! I said cruel things to you so casually. So often I spoke to you like you were a stupid immigrant, or someone with mental illness. I spoke to you like people speak to stinking, drunken beggars who approach them in the rain. I had so much contempt.’ And I will say to you, ‘Gurion, you remember through the eyes of a boy. I saw your small cruelties for what they were. You were only trying to be charming. You read Portnoy’s Complaint and believed it was charming to have contempt for your mother, to be cruel to her, and you acted as charming as you were able.’ Have some apple I cut for you.”

I’m sorry, I said.

“I do not want you to apologize. I want you to be kind to me. I want you to speak kindly to me.”

I handed her a piece of apple. She had a bite, then set it on the plate and took my thumbs in her hands. “What happened to the makeup?”

I showed June, I said. I said, She has the same freckles on her wrists.

She kissed my thumbs and let go of them. “The same ones?”

They’re pink, I said, but they’re the same size, and they’re definitely yuds.

“I wish you would have covered them after you showed her. You will cover them again tomorrow, yes?”

Yes, I said. Are you upset with me?

“Why should I be upset? Eat that apple.”

I had a bite of apple. I said, It doesn’t make you angry that I showed June the freckles?

“Were you trying to make me angry?” my mom said.

I said, I was trying to show June how we were the same.

“If I had strange birthmarks, and I met someone who had the same kind, and I liked that person, I would also show that person. I would think it meant something.”

So you think it means something? I said.

“If it does not mean something,” said my mother, “then you risked nothing by showing her, and my worries about others seeing the marks are senseless. In either case, there is no room for me to be angry. I am not a policewoman. I would not have you obey me only for the sake of obeying me. I just want you to be careful. It is careless that you did not cover them again before going to your teacher’s house, but it does not seem that he saw, and if he did see, he did not think enough of the marks to even mention them to me in passing. So no harm has been done. Just cover them tomorrow before you leave the house. Do not become careless.”