William Gass - Middle C

This was not endearing. The priest, however, while he wished to win her to his side, meant only — we must imagine — to the side of religion. You must return to the church, you must purge yourself of every taint of Jewishness, no matter how feigned; for it was sacrilegious to have behaved as your husband did; did she realize he had endangered their souls, the souls of her children as well as her own? I wouldn’t wear a wig, Miriam said in her defense. I never really kept kosher. I didn’t eat with noise. I didn’t hide money under pillows. I had no family, no friends. My husband — I didn’t walk behind. I didn’t learn jokes or how to tell them. She remembered Yankel’s favorite, though, which he had memorized for her use, and whose form he had carefully explained, failing to realize that it was never the women who told them. It seemed there were ladies having tea at a fine house. That was the setting, the situation, he said, ladies, tea, fine house. The hostess, a woman rather well off in the baking business, is passing and repassing a huge plate of butter cookies. That was the action, the send-off, passing and repassing the cookies, he insisted, the joke is now on its way. I already ate three, one of her visitors is supposed to say, sighing as she eyes the full fan of delicacies the cookies form on the plate being held out to her. That cocked the pistol, it was the setup, he explained. Excuse me, her hostess then says, you’ve had five, but take another, who’s counting? That, Miriam instructed the priest in her turn, was the clincher, the blow, the snapper. She remembered, and her voice was full of satisfaction. The joke, he said, was clearly not Catholic.

The priest could hear how Miriam’s heart remained faithfully beating in her husband’s chest, and perhaps it was then that he decided to desist from his social attentions and help her as her confessor should, instead of watching her face in wonder as he might the moon. Miriam must join her husband in America, retie her family ties, and give the absconder one great big surprise. Because Raymond Scofield had obligations: he had mouths to feed, children to raise, and a wife to instruct. The trouble was, no one knew where he was, who he might be at the moment, or whether he was even alive.

Oh, how I wish we were ordinary, Dvorah wailed whenever she was given the opportunity. Couldn’t we be common? just plain people? normal even? Only in Austria, her mother always answered in tones of such triumphant outrage that Dvorah shut up and went into a sulk so severe a little wailing would have been a comfort.

The magic formula that determined Miriam’s frequent appeals to numerous authorities went this way: Miriam and the children needed to join her husband and their father, whom she retained in his role as a Jew for strategic reasons she saw no advantage to mention. Reuniting families was a holy and patriotic duty. So Miriam and the children, now some years later, set sail for the New World, perhaps not as their husband and father had, in flight from a contaminating present, but to secure a past that had seemed to Miriam to have been at peace. This world may be new, she told Debbie and Joey, but we shall remain as we were, as old as an Alp. Remember that.

The fear that the human race might not survive has been replaced by the fear that it will endure.

Joseph Skizzen caught himself looking at the sentence as if he were seeing his face in his shaving glass. Immediately, he wanted to rewrite it.

The fear that the human race might not endure has been succeeded by the fear that it will survive.

Now he saw that the balance of the first fear with the second was too even — what did one say? Steven — even steven — so he gingerly removed a small amount of meaning from the right pan. This move saved the first “that” at the expense of the second.

Skizzen swung his foot at the soda can but missed it.

The fear that the human race might not endure has been succeeded by the fear it will survive.

Was it fear, or was it merely worry; was it the sort of anxiety a sip of sherry and a bit of biscuit should allay? He liked the words “might” and “race” where they were, and “succeed” was sufficiently ironic to make him smile, though mildly, as he was at heart a modest man, though not in the realm called his mind.

How could he have missed? The can was in perfect position. A remedial kick struck the tin a bit high so that it clipped the top of the target box at the other end of the attic.

The first “fear” was a fear all right, but a fear measured by the depth of concern inside it and by its abiding presence, not one of surprise or sudden fright as at a snake or burglar in the night; whereas the second “fear” was a fear like that for death — the ominous color of a distant cloud. Nonsense, he shouted. Professor Skizzen spoke harshly to himself — to his “you”—as he was frequently forced to do, since his objectified “other” often required correction. You are thinking nonsense again! You are a dim head! A buffo boy! A mere spear bearer! He could shout quite safely. Even when practicing to be an Austrian whose small mistakes might be endearing—“spear” instead of “cup bearer,” for instance. His secrets were safe. No one would hear him. He could kick the can like a kid on the street. Mother lived like a toad in the garden, far away and well beyond the house’s walls, among bushes, behind the red wild bee balm, and was somewhat deaf to boot. So he shouted at himself, as if he were a bit deaf too. Well, he must be deaf; did he listen? Did he heed?

What he hated most was fetching the missed shots back to their launch site.

The comparison with death was incorrect — inadequate — inaccurate, because the fear in question was for life itself — life — human life was the threat: multitudinous, voracious, persistent, pitiless as a plague … of army ants … Japanese beetles … of locusts, the insect Joseph Skizzen thought we most resembled; yes, it spread itself out, life did, and assumed the shape of a swarm. We devoured one another, then the world, and we were many … many; we darkened even the day sky; our screams resembled stridulations. The professor could have howled like Mr. Hyde. There he was … there … seeing himself in his shaving glass. He took inadequate aim. He altered, yet heremained he. Austrian to a T. Mustached. Goateed.

One’s concern that the human race might not endure has been succeeded by the fear it will survive.

“One”? A word that distanced responsibility. A cowardly word, “one.” Why not another number? Why not the can in a corner pocket? “It” … “it” was the concern of not one but three monkeys, or was “it” that of “sixty-five”? “Five hundred thirty-two citizens of Oakland, California, said they were worried that their neighbors might survive the next fire.” A cowardly word, “one,” because it refused to choose: anybody, whoever, what’s the diff? Okay, so perhaps write “our worry” instead. What did the pen — the page — the sentence think? Yes, the difference between “concern” and “worry,” “worry” and “fear,” “fear” and “apprehension,” “anxiety” and “unease,” must be respected — represented.

Professor Skizzen made his way slowly toward the north end of the attic where cans that missed their cardboard goal could be found. On the way back he would imagine he was a damp dog and shake his sentence free from his wet ruff. Then he would kick that damn thing through the wall.

If “one” was merely an elision whose omitted matter might be restored, would sense be thereby achieved? By substituting “Someone’s concern that the human race …”? perhaps “Anyone’s concern that the human race …”? or “No one’s concern that the human race …”? Absurd. Absurd. You will never understand this language. Skizzen spoke aloud in his own space. You will never understand this language, even though it is your nearly native tongue.