Rachel Cantor - Good on Paper

Topeka! Andi cried, jumping up. We’re going on an excursion!

Ahmad had a 1986 Mercedes SLE, with leather seats and a faux-wood dashboard, which he stored at great expense and rarely drove. Andi hopped in circles and shouted again, We’re going on an excursion! We’re going on an excursion! Then ran out of the room to get dressed.

You can come, too, Ahmad said, in what sounded like an afterthought.

I didn’t think so. Ahmad’s excursions usually involved traveling to outer boroughs to find curry ingredients he could just as easily find in Manhattan or driving along Riverside Drive so Andi could count boats on the Hudson. Then they’d find themselves in a park so Ahmad could read economics journals and Andi could play. Not my idea of a good time. Besides, I had work to do.

I spent that morning considering Romei’s first poem, looking for antecedents in his early books. I’d been right: every line was a fragment of an earlier poem. He’d employed his earlier “anti-narrative” poems to tell a story — of how Esther refilled his inkless pen, allowing him to write “anti-narrative” poems. Twisted!

I had already read all the pages Romei had sent me, I’d read them carefully more than once. It was time to “trot” the work: I’d retype the original, leaving five or six spaces between each line, then handwrite a quick “literal” translation above each line, adding towers of alternative translations above problem words, which is to say most words. I’d use different colored highlighters to note difficult phrases or lines I didn’t fully understand. If its rhythm was complex, I might scan the work, or I might note its rhyme pattern. On the back, I’d make notes about possible approaches, which elements seemed most important, what the author was getting at; I’d also start a leitwort lexicon, for key words that appeared several times. I’d end up with an indecipherable page, full of color, ornament, and scrawl, which I’d then throw away so I could get down to the real business of translation, trusting that everything I’d noted had sunk into my cells, available when I needed it.

And if it hadn’t, there it was, in the wastebasket, where it would remain till I was done.

I left the house just three times: to get a mocha frappe from Joe, a dunedog from Cohn’s Cones (Cohn’s served all manner of beach food — wieners, pretzels, slush), and another frappe from Joe. After the latter, I snuck over to Benny’s side display, which now featured books about motherhood and Jimmy Hoffa. Labor? Going into Labor? Labor Day!

But thinking about Benny made me angry, so I returned to Joe’s for a cookie and ate it in Slice of Park. Benny and Marie were probably on an excursion, too, it being Saturday, when Benny always closed his store — everyone excursioning but me!

I’d just finished my cookie when Andi called.

I made a friend, she shouted. Her name is Lisa. She has a hamster, but she thinks it’s dead. She doesn’t mind being my best friend if I don’t make her play Chutes and Ladders. She’s nicer than Pammy. Now that Pammy’s got chicken pox she thinks she’s so cool, but she’s not!

I couldn’t remember the last time my daughter had strung together so many sentences.

That’s nice, I said. Where did you meet her?

But Andi had passed the phone to Ahmad, who promised fried clams, then said, What? What? You’re breaking up!

•

I was setting the table for dinner. I thought fried clams was a joke, but was bringing out the Bounty just in case. And rehearsing what I should have said to Benny three days before, what I’d definitely say next time I saw him, which would be never.

Ahmad was first in the door.

Don’t be alarmed, he said as Andi burst in behind him, her arm in a cast up to her elbow, shouting, Look, Mommy! Look! Look!

Andi! I cried, dropping the Bounty. What happened?

Look what I got! she shouted, raising her cast in the air. Her name was already written in sixteen colors along the ulna, and along the other side, Ahmad had drawn her, making a comical face and falling out of an apple tree.

Which was when I saw the cardboard tub: Mystic Clam Shack .

Mystic?

You took Andi to Connecticut and she fell out of a tree?

Look, Mambo! Everyone can sign! Ahmad got me magic markers that smell like fruit!

How wonderful for you, I said, glaring at Ahmad, who shrugged. Do you want to tell me how you fell out of a tree?

Headfirst, she said, chasing a squirrel at our new house.

Into the kitchen! You, Ahmad! Into the kitchen!

•

Ahmad claimed not to understand. Kids hurt themselves all the time. It’s just a fracture, and besides, he wasn’t buying, just looking.

Just a fracture? I shouted. Just looking?

There were too many things for me to be angry about to know where to begin. He let Andi go up a tree? He’d taken her to Connecticut? To see a house? If he’d thought it was okay to take her to Connecticut, why hadn’t he told me?

It’s not like you asked, he said. You could have asked.

Why should I ask! You know how I feel about Connecticut!

You were happy to be rid of her, Ahmad said softly.

How dare you! I shouted, then lowered my voice. How dare you say I was happy to be rid of her! That’s a terrible thing to say!

That’s why you didn’t ask. Because you didn’t care. You wanted to work.

I didn’t ask, I said, my voice rising again, because I trusted you!

A small voice behind me said: Ahmad, would you draw my bath? Tink already burned himself.

Ahmad shot me a look that sent a cliché of shivers down my spine.

We ate our clams cold and in silence, in front of the TV.

After the Friends rerun, Andi wanted Ahmad to tuck her in, but I insisted.

C’mon, kiddo, I said, and she led me, reluctantly, to her room. Her pajama tops were on backwards. How many days had she worn them? Another night wouldn’t hurt. Her room was more or less in order: on the floor, a Barbie at the Beach coloring book, Monica Lewinsky paper dolls (Monica was Andi’s idea of a superhero: on TV every night, everyone talking about her clothes. Monica’s job may have lasted a minute, but she was no temp!). On her child-size desk, a children’s dictionary, a half-empty box of crayons. In the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, dozens of Nancy Drews, also a four-poster bed for Tamika.

Where’s Tink? I asked.

In exile, she said.

Again? I asked.

He wouldn’t do as he was told so I put him in the bathtub.

You didn’t drown him, did you?

How could I drown him if he’s not real?

Okay. Into bed.

She hesitated.

I want to say my prayers, she said, and got into position.

You kneel beside your bed?

That’s the way Pammy does it.

I knew she’d started doing this, but I didn’t know she kneeled — like a cherub in some Jerry Falwell newsletter. I called on my father’s ancestors for assistance.

You know, Jewish girls don’t kneel when they pray.

Really? she asked, interested. What do they do?

I didn’t know. I tried to remember scenes of synagogue prayer from movies.

They sit, I said. Sometimes they stand.

Pammy kneels.

Well, she’s not Jewish, is she? I said, beginning to despair.

I want to do it like Pammy.

Okay. I’m just telling you. So you know.

Now I lay me down to sleep …, my daughter from another planet said, then scrambled into bed.

Do you say that because you’re afraid? I asked, aware too late that the question was leading.