David Grossman: Falling out of time

reaches simply

for bread—

Amid all this, I suddenly

plummet,

plunge,

a mere

shadow

of he who walks there

alone, of he who,

with heavy steps,

chisels the verdict

on my land:

all that is,

all that is

(oh, my child,

my sweet, my lost one) —

all that is

will now

echo

what is not.

TOWN CHRONICLER: “It’s like a murmur,” the centaur explains when I pass by his window the next evening. “A murmur, or a sort of dry rustle inside your head, and it never stops.”

Not willingly, Your Highness, does he give his testimony. Only after I show him the royal edict with your seal and portrait does he realize that he has no choice but to collaborate.

CENTAUR: “ Veritably ”? You need to know what’s going on with me? You’re telling me the duke could give two shits about what is veritably buzzing around in my head? Okay, then, gird your gonads and do some chronicling. Write down that it’s, let’s say, like dry leaves. What are you ogling at like an idiot? Leaves! But dry ones, right? Crumbling. Dead. Did you get that? And someone keeps stepping on them, over and over again … So? Is that veritable enough for you? Will the duke be pleased? Will his face glisten with delight?

TOWN CHRONICLER: My own honor, my lord, is easily put aside. But I am absolutely unwilling to allow your representative to be humiliated this way, and so I immediately turn to leave—

CENTAUR: What’s that? Without a kiss? Get back here right now! I believe, pencil pusher, that your edict explicitly requests “ all the information required for the authorities, without omitting a single detail ”! True or false? Well then, open up your little notebook right this minute and start chronicling:

“Someone keeps treading on them, on the dry leaves”—write this! — “walking around and around in a circle, dragging his feet …” Now make a note of this: khrrrsss khrrrsss . Like that, yes, with three s’s at the end. I bet that little detail will clarify the situation for the duke veritably ! That will get it up for him in no time! Are you getting the picture, lap-clerk? Has anyone ever told you your face looks like a waif’s?

TOWN CHRONICLER: While I pretend to be writing down this foolish drivel, I periodically stand on my tiptoes to steal a glance at the heaps crammed into his room. I make a quick list: wooden cradle, pram, tiny bed, lots of deflated soccer balls, colorful little chairs, rocking horse, toy boat, rusty cars from an electric train, cowboy hat, Indian feather chain, endless pages of drawings and doodles … Incidentally, this whole assemblage is covered with fly droppings and cobwebs. It all seems withered and brittle, and every object looks as though it might crumble at the slightest touch, if not a mere look. The creature in the window keeps on prattling, cursing, and slandering. I persist. Gym shoes, skates and sandals, books, books everywhere, a small school desk, pencil cases, a green chamber pot, a little bicycle with training wheels … He can blather on all he wants with his filthy curses. I nod at him once in a while. Even twenty notebooks would not suffice. This place contains an entire museum of childhood — or perhaps the museum of one child. Rubber fins and swim goggles, wool teddy bears, furry lions and tigers—

He’s stopped talking. He peers over his glasses at me. He might suspect something. A little accordion, backpack, tin soldiers, paintbrushes, not good, I am disquieted, those bloodshot eyes. I’ll stop soon. Hey, board games! Beloved Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, decks of cards, props for the budding magician, Boy Scout uniform, goody bags from birthday parties, bow and arrow — how can you even breathe in this room?

CENTAUR: You can’t. And now, if you value your life, hireling, get lost and don’t come back. Off you go! Pronto!

TOWN CHRONICLER: Picture albums, masks, toy gun, pacifiers, whistles, flashlight—

CENTAUR: Scram, you leech! Otherwise I’ll come out to you—

WOMAN WHO STAYED AT HOME:

Five years after my son

died, his father went out

to meet him.

I did not go with him.

I did not go. I did not go so much

that I foundered. I sat

cross-legged, displaced. I listened

to a voice that reached me

from afar: he

walks, he walks. I did

not go.

I did not.

Not

there.

My heart beat:

he walks. My blood

pounded: he walks.

Spoons and forks clattered, mirrors

glittered, signaled: see

him, see him, day and night, he

walks. I would go with him

to the end

of the world. Not there,

not

there.

DUKE:

… he might be an insurgent; I am

uncertain. My scouts say

he poses a danger:

the coolness of the unruly, of a

stubborn, wayward man.

But his eyes — they report—

shine with the pale blue light

of a child’s gaze.

MIDWIFE:

You will n-n-never know,

my d-d-daughter, that every man

is an island,

that you c-c-cannot know another

from within. A son’s own

mother cannot

be him, even for an instant,

cannot sustain

him, self-sustain herself

in him—

TOWN CHRONICLER: The town streets are thick with fog. The midwife is at her window, her eyes on the hills, her lips almost kissing the pane as she whispers feverishly. Fragmented vapors appear on the glass like hieroglyphics and quickly vanish, sometimes before I can write them down. From my post — this time behind the crumbling well in the yard — I notice her husband sitting on his stool, watching her longingly, hammer in hand.

MIDWIFE:

Nor will m-m-my self adhere

to your self any longer,

nor will my self

to myself adhere. It has all come apart. They say

there are things in the world. They say things

are c-c-connected. I look in the f-f-faces

of those who say, and see

holes

and crumbs,

specks

of limbs.

CENTAUR: He keeps stepping on the leaves in my mind, trampling them, day and night, always the same rhythm, never changing, fifteen years it’s been, since then , even when I sleep, when I shit, yes, write that down, it should be written somewhere, and there are whispers, too, all the time, like this: Hmmm … hmmm … And then he lunges like a swarm of wasps, buzzzzzzzz , drilling through my brain: it happened, it happened, it happened to him, it’s forever, it’s forever, and he won’t, he’ll never—

Ummm, look, lackey, this is just inside me, right? You can’t hear it, can you?

TOWN CHRONICLER: After I left him this evening, I turned around for another glance or two. His large, pale face in the window grew gloomier as I walked away. His long eyelashes moved with incredible slowness. A slim band of light suddenly glowed from the lakeside and quivered over the dark sky. I ran to see—

WOMAN IN NET:

Two human specks,

a mother and her child,

we glided through the world

for six whole years,

which were unto me

but a few days,

and we were

a nursery rhyme,

threaded with tales

and miracles—

Until ever so lightly,

a breeze

a breath

a flutter

a zephyr

rustled

the leaves—

And sealed our fates:

you here,

he there,

over and done with,

shattered

to pieces.

TOWN CHRONICLER: Now she notices me and falls silent. The entire pier lies between us, but she reaches out as though I were standing right beside her.

WOMAN IN NET:

I was cut

with scissors

from the picture,

solitary ice

of absence