Rachel Cantor - Good on Paper

I opened my Door Number Two notebook, wrote halfheartedly about terza rima , then stopped. My nerves felt brittle from too much caffeine, too little sleep. I wanted to rest my head on the table and dream — about sexy Italian conferences, poets claiming my time till 2020—but turned instead to “Screen”: Romei joining Esther and lo sposo for dinner, pretending to be an expert in the Bible.

And saw that he’d done it again. Syllepses this time. A figure of speech where a word is placed once in relation to at least two others, each instance suggesting a different meaning: He bought the sales pitch and the Brooklyn Bridge. She caught hell and a cold after staying out in the rain . All untranslatable. A figure of speech used here (I guessed) to show the divisions in Esther’s world, the different things she meant to her two very different men. I pulled Romei’s earlier books out of my bag to see if other translators had been faced with this challenge. They hadn’t. I knew they hadn’t.

My head was thudding. Everything about this work, absolutely everything , was untranslatable. Not just individual poems, not just the occasional phrase or play on words — but everything! The false friends, syllepses, paronomasia, the goddamned pantoums. An extended family of monkeys could try for all eternity and never manage to translate even one line.

I felt broken. And had the irrational feeling that this had been Romei’s purpose — to break me. Not to compose a prose-and-poem work as gift to his wife, not to produce a work establishing his rightful place at the head of the canonical class, but to write the ultimate untranslatable work, to prove that I was right about the futility of translation and, in the process, break me.

I trudged back to the Den with groceries, then called Benny, ostensibly to confirm dinner.

He’s not here, Marie said.

I was wondering about dinner, I said. Do I bring red or white?

He’s out of town, she replied.

How about I try him at home? I said, and hung up. Then lay on Andi’s bed, staring at her metamorphosis mural. Can I offer you some change? No thanks, I’m fine the way I am . Was I fine? I didn’t feel fine. I felt like an odorous object. I’d failed, just as I’d known I would fail.

The Flying Girl called out to me in her stupid Flying Girl voice: Visit me! We’ll talk!

What if I don’t want to talk? I shouted back.

That shut her up.

When Andi returned from school, I was still on her bed.

Have you been reading my Observations Notebook? she asked.

Never! I said.

That’s my bed, you know.

I know, lovebug. Snack?

Of course, Andi said, plopping her Pretty Princess backpack onto her desk.

I got her Kool-Aid and a pink thing with coconut, and sat by her at the dining room table as she ate.

Pammy was angry with Martina, she told me. Martina had spilled Pammy’s Jell-O into the sewer: green was Pammy’s favorite flavor and she wouldn’t share. Martina explained that she’d done it by accident, which Pammy accepted, though Andi didn’t see how you could kneel down in the road and scoop Jell-O into a drain by accident. So now Pammy was angry with Andi.

You guys are friends again. I hadn’t realized.

We just had a fight, Mom, weren’t you listening?

I meant from the other day, sweetie. You said you had a fight the other day.

Andi looked at me blankly.

What about Ovidio? Does he play with you, too?

How can he if he’s not real?

What do you mean, not real?

How can he if he’s just a story? she asked, perplexed and licking the pink off her fingers.

A story? I asked, equally perplexed.

Don’t tell me you’ve never heard an Ovidio story! she said, shaking her braids. Were you raised by wolves?

I shook my head, amused by my daughter, and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

Ask Ahmad, he’ll tell you one.

I’ll do that, I said. She’d finished her pink thing; I reached for a remnant on her cheek.

How about a movie! I said.

She squinted at me.

I’m not going to any stupid Samurai movie, she said.

Understood. Your choice.

Hmm, she said, and, delicate chin in hand, pretended to deliberate: The Thinker with magic marker fingers, Kool-Aid lips.

I’ll go to Toy Story II , but only if I can have Raisinets. My own Raisinets, no sharing.

You drive a hard bargain.

And the aisle seat, she said, hand and cast at her hips.

Don’t push your luck, I said.

•

I made my escape that evening as Andi described the high points of Toy Story II to Ahmad — before he could ask where I was going or tell me I was ruining our lives.

It was still light out, but People of the Book was dark. The boys with boomboxes, even the drunks, were gone. Reflexively, I looked across Broadway for Nate; he still wasn’t back. Where was Benny? His last-minute message had been clear: Meet me at the store, not the house .

I banged on the door — no answer — then saw him approaching, a grocery bag in each hand. He had a black eye, a cut down his right cheekbone.

So what did you decide? he said instead of kissing my cheek. Red or white?

What happened?

Were you trying to cause trouble? I ask because I told you I was making pasta. Pasta goes with white, right?

Uh oh, I said, leaning against the shop window.

She chased me down Broadway, throwing books.

I put my hand to my mouth, then looked down the street as if I might find them there.

I ran like a coward.

She chased you down Broadway?

Up Broadway, actually. Throwing books. Dummy books, must have been a whole case of them …

A case of the Dummy books!

Don’t you love that? Benny said, half smiling, hand in his beard. Salt Mining for Dummies, Agitprop for Dummies …

Dental Hygiene for Dummies …

For some reason, this cracked us up.

She thinks you’re the devil, he said, putting his bags down. She sees things — ghosts, spirits, she sees people’s intentions, like auras around their heads. Yours is green, in case you didn’t know; it means you’re up to no good.

Exorcism for Dummies , I said. Benny smiled and dug a key out of his pocket. She said it was either her or you. I had to choose.

You’re kidding!

Relationships for Dummies , he said, inserting the key in the lock.

•

Marie had wrecked his store. With the force of a whirlwind, she’d pushed books from their shelves; knocked the antique cash register and smaller bookcases to the ground, then left the door propped open. Marla was missing, two kittens had been crushed under a pile of dictionaries.

Benny had gone looking for Marla. The kids in Slice of Park pointed to the China Doll: chop suey by now, they said. He offered them ten bucks to help find her; they laughed. He went back to the store, locked the door, and cried.

Then he buried the kittens in Riverside Park, said Kaddish without a minyan.

I buried them with a book about Africa, he said, so they could dream about being big cats. I once wrote an ode to Marla in which I imagined her a cheetah trapped in a housecat’s body. One of the reasons I failed as a poet.

He took a nursing bottle from the grocery bag, filled it with milk, and tried to feed one of the two remaining kittens. But the nipple was too big. I picked up the other, plopped it onto my lap. It stuck its chin out bravely, started wobbling toward the abyss.

You wanna know what I said? When she asked me to choose?