Rachel Cantor - Good on Paper

He looks dead! say the ladies — as if we’d missed the point.

When he rises from his sick bed, at long last, he thinks he can return to Life as Usual: he writes poems of praise, he prattles on about figures of speech — but Death stalks him, pulling him ever deeper into understanding, eventually taking from him everything he holds dear, which is to say, his muse, his sense of purpose, his artistic certainty, his faith in love — for Death has his eye on Beatrice: she will be the next to go.

Her death is noble, as it happens, but anticlimactic: it can’t compete with the one Dante has imagined for her. So he doesn’t write it, saying, instead, that it isn’t relevant to his theme. Whatever that means.

I didn’t want to read about Romei’s harrowing, or what passed as such. Esther’s illness, the loss of hope. There wasn’t enough hope to go around. I wished I had some PT.

I thought about dusting Andi’s Nancy Drews, or going to Cuppa Joe’s. Instead, I visited the Flying Girl.

You’re being a child, she said.

Speaks the child! I said. What do you know about the loss of hope?

I feel hope, she said, so I can imagine losing it.

I wish I could be like you, I said.

You are me. Silly rabbit! she said. Go! Read what the man has to say.

I brought the pages to Andi’s room, wrapped myself in her quilt.

But again, Romei — or should I say, Esther? — surprised me.

She left him. Twenty-five years after her husband left them, she left Romei. While he was in Kiev, being feted by the Writers’ Union in a language he couldn’t understand (an absurdity that occasions a villanelle: Romei asking repeatedly for an interpreter, his hosts replying in nonsense syllables borrowed from what we understand to be a Ukrainian nursery rhyme). He returns to find Esther gone, her suitcase and favorite clothing gone, her passport gone, mementos from her lovers gone. A note on the fridge reads: Gone to the U.S. Back soon .

Her first visit to the U.S. in a quarter century. Romei can’t imagine what occasioned this trip — and for trip he uses scampagnata for its suggestion of “an outing in the countryside” ( campagna ), an irony that points to his unwillingness to read the irony of Esther’s note, to accept that she has left him. Frantic, concerned, he thinks, for her safety, he contemplates going after her — but where? The U.S. is a big country, and he’s due to read in Dubrovnik. She has to have gone to New York. He sends a telegram to the one person there he considers a friend.

Benny. Called here, with quaint brevity, the bookseller . He begs Benny to look for her, tells him she’s unwell, hints at emotional instability. Benny develops a plan to flush her out, a colloquium on the Song of Songs . Poets, biblical scholars, a translator, even an artist or two. Romei promises to foot the bill when his ship comes in.

Benny and Esther have never met, so Romei must describe her. But he remembers only what she looked like at thirty, he has to imagine what she looks like now. He doesn’t know what she likes to wear, how she does her hair, he’s haunted by images of the distant past — Esther chewing her finger on a park bench, watching him watch her, standing elegant and tall, a highball in her hand, pushed up against a wall, responding to his kisses, yes, yes , vomiting on the cobblestones. In a mad flurry, he writes up these scenes, scenes we recognize because we’ve read them before , and faxes them to Benny, so he might, through them, recognize Esther.

Benny has a better idea: he asks all who attend to wear a name tag.

And there she is, Esther Romei. Wearing stirrup pants, a silk top the tentative color of an April sky, a scarf over her hair. She doesn’t look unstable, she looks radiant, talking with her friends — a laughing man named Kendrick Weiner-Peshat, whom Benny remembers from a Midrash conference; a rotund woman named Miriam Remez, who may be a poet; rabbinical students named Marty Drash and Hannah Sod, holding notebooks, pens, tubby bottles of Perrier.

You are mistaken, Romei says when Benny calls. That is not my Esther.

She sends her regards. We’re having dinner tonight.

Thus began one of the strangest stories I have ever read.

Benny feeds Romei information about Esther, her vibrant life in New York, the classes she takes — classical Hebrew at the university, Talmud at a women’s yeshiva. One gets the sense that, amused, she feeds Benny stories to pass on.

Romei is stunned. This is not his Esther! Who is this woman? How can a person change so much, and overnight? She has to have met another man! The idea sickens him. He takes to his bed, or so he tells Benny. Esther laughs: she is not changed, not one bit. Silly man!

In daily faxes, Benny assures him that Esther is well, she’s cut her hair short, taken up photography. They meet at Joe’s to discuss her translation, which she’s picked up again: she frets about the hapax legomena —words that appear just once, making their meaning difficult to determine.

Romei is such an ass, Benny observes: How could he let this woman get away?

Romei accuses Benny of having an affair with his wife.

Don’t be absurd, Benny says.

I’m coming to get her, Romei says. I’ll cancel the Goethe-Institut readings.

Don’t, Benny says. I strongly advise you not to. She doesn’t want to see you.

What’s his name? Romei raves, and calls Benny Galeotto , using Dante’s language to accuse him of introducing Esther to a paramour.

You’re jealous, Benny writes, but of what? You know nothing about your wife!

Romei slumps into a chair. Benny’s right. Esther is a stranger — a fascinating, enchanting, mysterious stranger, who’s left him, probably for good. He sits a long while in his chair, not shaving, getting up only to piss in the sink and to admit Emilio, neighborhood vintner and one-time lover of Esther. He brings table wine, pizza rustica , souvenirs of Esther for night-long drinking sessions that leave Romei dehydrated and sentimental.

His imagination is useless. He sits to write but the paper laughs at him. Fool! What do you see when you open your eyes, when you walk out the door? Yourself, obviously!

Does she have money, he writes finally. I’m about to sell the English rights to Baby Talk .

It turns out Esther has been left something by her mother, who on her death bed had regretted having disowned her. Esther went to the Hebrew Home, accompanied by her rabbi; she cried when the matron said they’d disposed of her mother’s effects. Naturally we thought she was alone, fifteen years with no visitors. Besides, there was only a book or two, some photos — yes, one may have been of you, how were we to know?

Don’t send money, Benny says, send something else. She may not be unresponsive. I think she still loves you.

Heartened, Romei shaves, kicks Emilio out the door, tries to imagine what he might send.

He can think of nothing.

What about some poems? he finally asks.

Heavens, no! Benny says.

Disheartened, Romei thinks some more.

Give me a hint, he says eventually.

Jesus, Benny says. Can’t you think of a way to tell Esther you love her? You do love her, don’t you?

Romei, to his astonishment, realizes he does. He flings open the door to his apartment, strides into the piazza, is stunned by the sun shining onto his face, through the water of the fountain, glinting off the tesserae on the facade of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Last he knew it had been winter. But no, it was June! In a fanciful passage reminiscent of one of Calvino’s folktales, the mendicant Romei asks a series of unlikelies for advice on how to win his Esther back.