Rachel Cantor - Good on Paper

There would be no sleep tonight. I put my father’s bathrobe on and set some water to boil. Then returned to the study with some PT. It was three in the morning and I was sipping tea, my hair a fright about my head, taking notes about Dante’s straight line to salvation, his meaningful march toward The End, that great resolution in the sky — and checking lines, first one, then another — and why not begin at the beginning? Next thing I knew, I was reading the thing. The dreaded Vita Nuova .

You know what? I didn’t collapse. Dante’s libello didn’t reach its razor edges into my soft, my throbbing heart. I wasn’t overcome by memories — of T., of romantic failure, the loss of love. I didn’t think of the past at all. I thought about Romei’s work, excited to get to it.

Go figure.

Tink, balanced on my pyramid of books, just stared at me.

I told you so, he seemed to say.

On Monday, I was putting away laundry and explaining to SuperTemps that an opportunity had arisen that required me to suspend relations with their fine establishment — temporarily, that is, till Y2K — when I heard the low hum-whir of the fax across the apartment. Anon! It had arrived! I did a little dance, right there in front of the linen cabinet, something between a hora and the pogo.

You sure the aliens aren’t making you queen of Venus? Durlene asked.

They haven’t been in touch, I said.

If so, I’ll have to leave you to it.

No need to leave me to it, I said.

My best bookkeeper is waiting for the Second Coming in a potato field, she said.

Silence from the study. Paper jam? I dropped a stack of tea towels back into the laundry basket and brought the phone to the fax.

You sign with someone else? Durlene asked. What did they offer? We’ll match their rate, more or less.

I lifted the pages from the tray. Ten pages, numbered in fine European lettering. The A4 size, slightly longer, more narrow than our standard letter. Strange in my hand, that unfamiliar shape.

Ten pages, there were no more.

I got a job through a friend, I said, jerking open the paper tray and checking for jams.

A friend, Durlene said. Is that a euphemism for competitor?

I’d never sign with anyone else, I said. Now as to the question of my hourly rate …

Ten pages? Maybe Romei was having technical difficulties. Maybe I was having technical difficulties. I unplugged the fax, plugged it in again.

Shira? Are you there? Mr. Ferguson was quite upset.

Why?

You quit without notice! Durlene said. Look, I’m authorized to offer you an additional twenty-five cents an hour.

The fax whirred and hummed but there were no more pages. I plopped onto the velveteen loveseat, pages on my lap.

Fifty cents, Durlene said. That’s my final offer.

•

Ten pages. I didn’t know what to make of that.

I put a Pop Tart in the toaster, then went to visit the Flying Girl.

The Flying Girl was Ahmad’s most treasured possession, drawn by Jonah the day he died. I often snuck into the studio to see her. She flew above a light-soaked table, in a drawing of Jonah’s mother pointing (with a chicken bone) at a childlike me, floating over his mother’s head like an angel: fourteen-year-old Shira leaping for a volleyball.

I’d immortalized Jonah’s drawing of the flying girl in “Tibet, New York,” a story I wrote about Jonah’s last weekend.

I don’t understand, I said, sitting cross-legged before her like a devotee. Is Romei testing me? He’s in an almighty hurry, but he only sends ten pages? Am I translating on spec?

Sometimes the Flying Girl spoke cryptically; today she just said, You’re dropping crumbs! Ahmad won’t like that!

Oops.

Have you looked at the pages? she asked.

Not exactly, I said.

You’re fearful, she said.

Never!

You know I’m right.

I knew she was right.

I needed courage. Because now that the pages were here, it was obvious: I would fail. I’d be revealed as the dilettante, the fraud I knew myself to be — an unworthy, pretending to be People of the Book. Romei would find someone else — a poet, someone with a track record. His former translators — a dashing Poet Laureate, a fashionable translator of literary theory — were dead, but surely they’d been survived by folks more qualified than I!

Normally I could turn to Ahmad for a pick-me-up. He’d understand. But he was cranky, for some reason, on the subject of Romei: I wasn’t in the mood for another lecture about the UN. My best girlfriend Jeanette should have been good for a pep talk, but she wasn’t talking to me.

Look out the window, the Flying Girl said. Your answer’s right there.

Benny? I whispered.

Silly rabbit! she said. Go!

It had been two and a half decades since I was lyricist for the proto-punk band Gory Days ( What’s behind Door Number Two? It had better not be you, you, you! ). In our Den of Propinquity, we listened to qawwali and Raffi, but sometimes when I was alone I played the band’s one cassette — the relentlessly pornographic Second and Third Coming —tapping my tambourine ironically against my thigh. When I entered People of the Book, and heard that Benny’s raga had been replaced by a grunge band I didn’t recognize, I felt old. I also felt like pulling my ear drums out with my fingernails.

And there she was, our sleepy connoisseur of noise, head resting on a pile of lit mags. Snoring, her hair no longer green but red, white, and blue. Dreaming up her next billboard, I was sure.

Hello! I shouted in her ear. When she didn’t respond, I went behind the counter and switched CDs: out with the Bloody Monkeys, in with Nikhil Banerjee.

Hey! Marie said, lifting her head. Who said you could do that?

I’m looking for Benny. He around?

No, she said, and put her head back down.

Yo! Girlie! Look at me!

Marie looked up, confused. I could see her T-shirt now: cotton-candy pink with glittered words: All-American Girl — which I guess explained the star-spangled hair.

Where is he? It’s important.

Out, she said, blinking.

I took out my cell phone and called Benny. I could hear the phone ringing in the Annex, then I heard Benny — in stereo, as it were.

Sleeping Beauty says you’re out, I said, glaring at Marie, who was upright now and pinching her cheeks. Benny laughed and walked down the stairs.

Wanna share the joke with the rest of the class? I said, putting my phone away.

Benny introduced us. I was a “talented writer,” Marie an “innovative artist.”

Grab a table, he said. I’ll be with you in a sec.

As I started toward Benny’s ad hoc café, I heard him say: You okay, pumpkin?

To borrow my daughter’s language: it made me want to puke.

Then, heaven help me, the girl began to cry.

•

It was ten long minutes before Benny made his way to the table.

You didn’t say anything, did you? he asked.

What could I have said? She said you were out.

She’s on some new meds. They’re making her sensitive.

Whatever , I thought, unsure why she should stir such emotions — in either of us, for I hadn’t mistaken the look in his eye.

Two visits in two days! he said. To what do I owe the pleasure? That it? he asked, and walked two fingers toward my folder. I pulled it away.