Rachel Cantor - Good on Paper

I found my place comfortably between Dante’s lines then, his nakedness didn’t bother me.

Until it did. Romantic events shattered the pretty idea I had about God’s plan for man, and with it, any interest I had in “getting close.” I hated Dante then — Dante and his stupid Vita Nuova ! The libello , his libelous little book, was nothing more than a reminder that I’d been abandoned not just by the love of my young life, but by every hope I’d had that the world was as Dante described — ordered, designed to manifest a greater Love.

Which was when I turned to Romei. He wrote about the impossibility of New Life, the groundlessness that lies between the lines. There was no sense in Romei that language could reach beyond its limitations, or the abuse done to it, to connect one self to another. Where Celan had written, When only the nothingness stood between us, we found our way, all the way, to each other , Romei instead would write, There was only nothingness . Not just the impossibility of meeting, but the impossibility of there being an Other there to meet.

There was no Other for Romei: just Romei and the failure of language to do its job. His mind was empty — not in a cozy Zen sort of way, but in a barren, all-there-is-is-void, no-point-in-even-trying sort of way.

This had appealed to me in my twenties; not so much now. I had a family, I had my Comfort Zone — what use did I have for the void?

I was staring, I realized, out the window at People of the Book. The bookstore Benny “Jellyroll” Jablonsky ran in addition to editing Gilgul and acting as part-time rabbi to his New Age congregation. A year ago, after helping me with German translations for “Rose No One,” my story about Celan, Benny had made a pass at me, a clumsy offering between bookcases labeled Trash Novels and Filthy Lucre . I avoided the store now. But Benny had given Romei my number; maybe it was time I bought myself some books.

Inside People of the Book, a green-haired girl wearing a child’s tartan, a happy-face T-shirt (but not a happy face), and a Stop & Shop nametag that said “Hello, I’m Lila!” advised me that Benny was out. She wouldn’t look me in the eye: she needed all her concentration, apparently, for the Daily News Jumble.

I wasn’t surprised: Benny was probably at one of the rabbi gigs he took to support his literary habit (performer of interfaith marriages, virtual mohel for parents who want the celebration without the slice). Or he might be in his apartment two floors above the store, but I wasn’t about to ring the bell.

I found Romei’s books in Benny’s Great Wall of Poetry. Handsome and pricey, they’d been reissued by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on the occasion of the Great Man’s sojourn to Stockholm. His by-now-famous face, in different poses, filled the back covers: salt-and-pepper goatee, more salt than pepper. Straight brown hair, a centimeter too long. Pale, plump cheeks, pouchy eyes. Simple wire-rimmed glasses. Yankees baseball cap.

I brought the books to Benny’s folding-table café (one table, reserved for Friends of Benny), drank the organic ginger beer Lila brought me grudgingly from out back.

The store hadn’t changed in the year since I’d visited last: unpacked boxes still blocked aisles and Marla, Benny’s Persian, still held court in her book box. I went over to pay obeisance. She tolerated my head scritch, but withheld her purr, which she reserved for Benny.

How I’d missed this place! Over by the cash register, where bestsellers should have been stacked in attractive pyramids, stood that smallish bookcase holding issues of Gilgul and other literary magazines. What passed for impulse purchases among People of the Book.

I couldn’t resist: I left my table to browse the bookcase, returned to find the table gone, my books gone. Irritated, I got new copies and asked Lila if I could leave Benny a message.

Sure, she said, opening The Anxiety of Influence and handing me a pen. Go for it.

Just then, Benny appeared, trotting down the steps from his mezzanine office, ritual tzitzit fringes flying from the four corners of his garment.

Benny was six and a half feet tall; before he became a rollerblading vegan he’d looked like a dark-haired Santa, with full beard and even fuller cheeks. At his poorest, he’d nearly sold himself to Macy’s, but didn’t — bad faith like that couldn’t be atoned for in a single lifetime, he said. Also, he wouldn’t tuck in his tzitzit , which Macy’s thought might confuse the kiddies.

That was years ago. Now Benny was lean and suntanned: he said his morning prayers while gliding through the park in a cherry-red bodysuit — the only time he dressed without tzitzit .

Shir chadash! he sang out (his psalmic name for me: “new song”).

Rabbi! I shouted.

Why didn’t you tell Marie to come get me?

Marie?

Benny looked tired. More tired than usual. His owl eyes sagged, there was a softness to his patrician cheekbones, his eyebrows were turning a patchy gray.

Uh, I said, looking at Marie-cum-Lila, who looked me in the eye now, though blankly. I figured you were busy.

Don’t mind her, he whispered, pecking at my cheek. She’s brilliant but moody.

All Benny’s protégées were brilliant but moody, which was why his store was such a mess. The manic ones invented new shelving systems, the depressed ones watched as towers of dictionaries toppled onto not-so-politically-correct children’s books. Given the state of the store, I guessed his latest beauty was of the latter affliction.

Benny led me to the back of the store, where he found the folding table and opened it in front of the section marked Victimization Manuals (books you and I might call Self-Help).

She’s a graphic artist, he said, still whispering. Works exclusively on billboards.

Must not bring in a lot, I said, trying not to smile.

She’s between grants, he said. The neck of his Rainbow Gathering T-shirt was frayed; he had a spot of dried tomato on his cheek, above his beard. So! Shira! he said. Nice to see you! What’ve you been up to?

Temping in Jersey. I’m too slow to type in Manhattan! I said, laughing.

Your parents must be proud!

I stared.

It’s been a while. Sorry! Really! I forgot!

How long has it been? I asked, though I knew.

A year? he asked, as if astonished.

Did he resent being dumped? No, Benny wasn’t a hider. Everything he thought, everything he felt was writ large on his face: he was a billboard artist of the heart.

He asked about Andi. She was about to start third grade, I said. Her current ambition: to be a White House intern, so she too could be on TV every night.

Benny looked at me blankly: he wasn’t one for the evening news, apparently.

I see Ahmad now and then, he said. He single-handedly sustains my Nancy Drew section.

I laughed.

He’s greatly interested in the mystery of things, I said.

I assume you’re here because …

Yes! I said. He called!

•

Just a sec, he said, returning a kitten to Marla, who lay regal and sleepy-eyed in her Simon & Schuster box. She stood, and arched her back, and kissed Benny’s hand, apparently uninterested in her prodigal chick, then followed him to his seat and leapt onto his lap. Her purr was prodigious.

Benny asked for the skinny. I gave it to him, Reader’s Digest —style: Vita Nuova , Romei’s strange requirement that I finish by the end of the year.