David Grossman - Falling out of time

she from within ,

he from without—

untangle the shock

around her body .

The chronicler and his wife

quietly help each other

remove their torn clothes ,

both excited ,

agitated ,

and suddenly

they look

so young .

Naked

we stand ,

taking our leave

with a gaze. Each of us

alone again .

Each bent over

his crater ,

each descending

to her grave .

Then ,

like a predator ,

fast and sharp ,

the night

lunges .

CENTAUR:

Now at last I understand:

The father does not move

his child. I breathe life

not into my son.

It is myself whom I adjure,

with words,

with visions,

with the scarecrow figures

glued with straw

and mud, and with

a poor man’s wisdom,

lest I cease and turn to stone.

Lest I cease and turn

to stone.

In the cold white space

between the words,

it is my spirit

that is felled.

I alone flutter like prey

caught in the jaws

of finality.

For myself,

for my own soul, I fight

against that which diminishes,

which decimates

and dulls.

My whole life

now,

my whole life

on the tip

of a pen.

WALKING MAN:

It was

silent.

I lay

yoked

by loneliness:

the dolor

of a man

in earth.

The quiet voices

of the night

rolled in from afar,

clouds blew toward me

heavy, low, hiding the sky

from my eyes. The walls

of the pit drew close, closed in.

The earth is learning—

I sensed — measuring,

gauging: how it might

ingest me.

TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

We will be punished. I shivered

from the cold and fear. I thought:

People must not do

this sort of thing. I thought

about my beloved jester,

so miserable as he lies near me

in this bed of earth. And all the while

I felt the blood, blood dripping from me,

flowing into soil, reaching

all the way to him, seeping through his veins,

then coming back to me and melding.

Now it is our blood, and it is her blood now,

and both of us

conceive her

once again

from blood and earth.

I became dizzy,

and drowsy, and suddenly

it seemed so light,

as if time had also

loosened its bite.

I breathed. I slowly,

slowly breathed. I hadn’t

breathed like that since then.

I haven’t ever breathed like this.

My insides were exhaled,

then drawn back to me

like a gentle dance—

WALKING MAN:

Then I awoke

from frenzied dreams

that I could not remember.

The sky turned

lucent, the wall

towered up to split it.

I could not hear

my earthen neighbors, did not know

if they were here or gone.

Though I was cold, my fingertips

smoldered and hummed:

I will not be — they pulsed. They murmured

in ten voices, a cheerful choir:

I will

not be.

One day,

I will not beeee!

And from within the will-not-be

there rose the flavor

of my being. I knew

how much

I had been,

while I was. I knew

down to my fingertips.

It was wonderful

to know, to remember:

how very much

I’d been,

and how

I would

not be.

TOWN CHRONICLER:

I hope I forget your name,

my girl, the music of your name

inside my mouth, the sweetness that would spread

throughout my body.

You were so small,

yet so much in you to forget,

and not to want a thing that was once

yours,

nor even you

yourself—

DUKE: Who is that? I think I recognized my jester’s voice.

TOWN CHRONICLER: Indeed, my lord. It is I, your servant.

DUKE: My soul mate.

TOWN CHRONICLER: It’s been a long time since those days.

DUKE: More than thirteen years since you imposed this terrible exile upon yourself. Now tell me about your daughter.

TOWN CHRONICLER: I cannot, Your Honor. The day disaster struck, you ordered me to forget her.

DUKE: My beloved friend, you know better than anyone that such an order could never have entered my mind. Tell me about her.

TOWN CHRONICLER: No, no, my lord, I cannot. Your order still stands!

DUKE: Then, jester, I order you: Forget her to my ears!

TOWN CHRONICLER:

I forget her fine short hair.

I forget her pink, translucent fingers.

I forget she was my delicate, delightful girl.

I forget the way she—

the way you would get angry if I forgot

to separate the omelet from the salad on your plate.

And when I bathed you,

you would cheer and slap the water with both hands,

and I would lift you out and wrap your body

in a soft towel and ask:

Who is this strange creature inside?

CENTAUR: My friend the chronicler talked and talked. A wellspring of forgotten gleanings erupted from him. From my window I looked out on the horizon. Between two hills I saw the vast, empty plain where the pits were dug. Fragmentary droplets shone in the starlight. The many branches of a single, giant tree swayed slowly in the wind, as if to welcome or to bid farewell.

Then a shadow suddenly moved upon the plain. It was a woman extracting herself from the earth. She took a few slow, heavy steps. She stood hugging herself. Her head was slightly lowered.

TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

Who will sustain her,

who will embrace,

if our two bodies

do not

envelop

her?

CENTAUR: She looked around, studied the wall at length, then disappeared down into the earth, into the neighboring trench. After a minute or two I saw a notebook hurled out of it. It flew through the air for a moment, its white pages swelling and glimmering in the darkness, then vanished.

WALKING MAN:

I thought about the earthly

beings next to me. I thought

about my son. The earth

grew warm under my body.

I spoke to him in my heart.

At least we parted without anger—

I told him—

and without resentment.

You loved us, and were loved,

and you knew that you were loved.

I asked if I could make one more request.

I’d like to learn to separate

memory from the pain. Or at least in part,

however much is possible, so that all the past

will not be drenched with so much pain.

You see, that way I can remember more of you:

I will not fear the scalding of memory.

I also said: I must separate

from you.

Do not misunderstand me

(I felt the stab of pain

pass through him

right in my own flesh) — separate

only enough to allow

my chest to broaden

into one whole breath.

I smiled, because I remembered

that was what the teacher asked for.

The ocean sky rustled,

and a smile seemed to open up

above me. Someone may have understood,

or felt me. I breathed in

the full night. The sky

no longer weighed on me,

nor did the earth,

nor me myself.

Nor you.

You—

where are

you?

TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

Perhaps I need no longer reach

the very end of ways,

the final destination?

Perhaps this walk itself is both

the answer and the question?

Perhaps there is no there ,

my girl, perhaps, too, no more

you?

But as I lie here, in the belly