David Grossman: Falling out of time

came to singe

my limbs.

I was touched,

I was blighted

by the frost

of randomness.

TOWN CHRONICLER: She forcibly shuts her mouth with both hands. Her great black eyes fill with terror. If you ask me, Your Highness, the poor woman has not the slightest comprehension of the words that leave her lips! Incidentally, I think she truly believes that if I only came and touched her, this false spell would be lifted. But it has been almost thirteen years since I touched another person. Now I must hurry, Your Honor: it is almost midnight, and I cannot be late for my wife.

TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

A clear corpuscle

glowed inside me, a golden

granule gleamed. I knew that

it was me, my soul,

my core, it was the purpose

of my being. Born

with me, I thought, and so

would die with me—

I did not know that I might live

long after it, that I would be

diaspora,

deciduous.

A liar, too—

the kind who easily,

no eyelid batted,

dared to speak of:

me.

WOMAN WHO STAYED AT HOME:

I sank my teeth

into my flesh. I did not

go. I dwindled

like a candle.

Only he still lay

awake in me: now seeing,

now remembering, now crossing

through a hell. Now quiet

with his son. Or

laughing. Tasting

crumbs of happiness

with him—

Do not breathe,

or think

of what he sees, what he recalls,

what ails

his heart — wounded inside him.

Inside me

an extinguished eye lit up,

the eye of a half-devoured beast

in its predator’s mouth.

What does he see

there, I asked, I screamed, I slammed

my head against the wall, and how

swept up, how peeled away, and how

far has he gone

toward the darkness?

WALKING MAN:

I seem to understand

only things

inside time. People,

for example, or thoughts, or sorrow,

joy, horses, dogs,

words, love. Things that grow

old, that renew,

that change. The way I miss you

is trapped in time as well. Grief

ages with the years, and there are days

when it is new, fresh.

So, too, the fury at all that was robbed

from you. But you are

no longer.

You are outside

of time.

How can I explain

to you, for even the reason is

captured in time. A man from far away

once told me that in his language

they say of one who dies in war,

he “fell.”

And that is you: fallen

out of time,

while the time

in which I abide

passes you by:

a figure

on a pier,

alone,

on a night

whose blackness

has seeped wholly out.

I see you

but I do not touch.

I do not feel you

with my probes of time.

CENTAUR: Take you, for example, Town Chronicler, or whatever it is you call yourself. You’re a real sight for sore eyes, you are. Get a load of that bowler hat, boss! And the tie, and the satchel, and the pencil mustache— mwah ! It’s just a shame you look so bedraggled and filthy, like some kind of tramp. And also — I’m sorry — but you reek like a fresh pile of droppings. Other than that, though—

All right, all right, no need to get in a huff! What are you talking about? Insulting a civil servant? Hah! Lighten up, pencil pusher, I’m just joking around. Besides, you should know that it’s all from jealousy. Yes, write that down in the biggest letters you can make: The centaur is jealous of the clerk!

No, you tell me: Isn’t it incredibly fortunate that you, as part of your job, and undoubtedly in return for a handsome salary, can spend as much time as you want peering into other people’s hells, without dipping so much as your pale little pinkie inside them? Think about it! What could be more titillating than someone else’s hell? And besides, I’m sure you’ll agree that secondhand pain is far better than firsthand. Healthier for the user and also more “artistic” in the sublime — I mean, the castrated — sense of the word. Take you, for example: it’s been at least a week now since you’ve been coming here, just by chance, walking past my window three or four times a day — yesterday it was five, but who’s counting — hurrying about your business, lost in thought, when suddenly: Bam! A screeching halt! A surprised blink! What do we have here? Why, it’s a centaur! And a bereaved one, at that! Two for the price of one! I’d better quickly put on an expression of tender sorrow and commiseration, and in a flash I’ll dip my silver-plated quill in its black ink, and one-two-three, I’ll ask about the son, ask about the son, ask about the son! And if the subject’s answers are not satisfactory, I won’t give up, no, I won’t give up, I’ll come back in an hour or two, and tomorrow morning again, and I’ll ask about the son again, and I won’t relent even if the subject grits his teeth and bites his tongue until it hurts, and please tell me what he was like as a baby, what he liked to eat, what he built with Legos, which lullabies you sang to him … Well, listen up, you black-inked tick: even the inquisition’s tax assessors didn’t torture people like this! And then all of a sudden, psshh ! The town clock strikes, ding-dong, see you later, thank you very much, it’s been a pleasure, the quill goes back in its case, the notebook in its folder, and the pencil pusher is on his way home, open parenthesis, what does he care that I’m sitting here bleeding, ripped apart, slaughtered to pieces, close parenthesis, clerko hums a happy tune and ponders the leg of lamb waiting for him in the oven, and probably the legs of some lady or other … What? Hey? Did I grab you by the what’s-it or didn’t I?

TOWN CHRONICLER: Enough is enough, Your Highness! I have reached the end of my tether! From here on out, your town chronicler adamantly refuses to meet with this despicable creature. You may kill me, my lord, but I shall not go back to him !

WALKING MAN:

I heard the voice

of a woman

coming from the town:

That every man is

an island ,

that you c-c-cannot

know

another

from within—

I persist in trying: I resuscitate,

awaken, endlessly clone

cells of yours that still

live in me, the final imprints

of being that have not yet

faded from the tips of my sensations—

the touch of your child-skin,

your voice still thin

and secretive, yet lashing out already

with a sharp salvo of irony, an impression

of your torso moving,

passing quickly,

sliding (how happy I was

when they said

you walked like me).

The corner of your mouth

tugs with a fragile flash

of doubt—

I continue, I preserve,

I treasure

and revive the child

you were, the man

you will not be.

You may laugh: What is this, Dad,

one-human-subject research?

I shrug my shoulders: No, it is a

life’s

work.

Look, I suddenly exclaim,

I will create you,

or at least

one life-twitch

of you, and why not,

damn it, why

give up?

I’ve done it once before,

and now I want

you

so

much

more.

WOMAN WHO STAYED AT HOME:

I drew

all the blinds. I dimmed

all the lights. My skin grew covered

with wounds and blisters. Dark

silence, dark

silence, days

and nights I was

inside it, an overdue

embryo, ossified,

conceived by the tragedy

in its senescence.

Until I emerged

from my torpor, and a voice

was conjured up from deep

inside me: I am