Andrea Dworkin - Ice And Fire

the vastness, the touch of my fingers is then carried back under

the water across the earth, and I am immortal: the ocean will

carry that touch with it forever. I breathe to the sound of it

enduring. I breathe like it does, my blood takes on its rhythms,

my heart listens to the sound of the ocean enduring and mimics

it.

After five days, my lost boy comes to visit. We swim. In the

shower we make love. We sleep on the beach, in the fog, in the

mist. Inside the huge slick bugs line the tops of the windows,

poised there to drop off or fly, but never moving, primal, they

could be gargoyles, guardians in stone but as old as the sea. I

watch them. I stare. I am terrified by them but too tired to

scream or run or move: I am restless: they sit: I am afraid: they

sit: they are long, slick brown things, repulsive, slow: I must

be here, near the ocean, or perhaps I will die: maybe they wait

for that: grotesque guardians of my lonely, tired death. I am

restless. I go inside, I go outside. I listen to music: Bach,

Chopin, Mahler, Mozart. They and the ocean are renewal, the

will to live. So is the boy, my love, sleeping on the beach. I

have left him, fragile, exposed, as I always do, to sleep alone.

128

He sleeps, I am restless, I go in and out. He leaves the next

day. I have two more days here. The ocean has turned me

nearly human: closer to life than death. Someday I want the

ocean forever, a whole life, day in and day out, a proper marriage: I want to be its human witness: near its magnificence, near the beat of its splendid, terrifying heart. Oh, yes, I am

tired: but I have seen the ocean come from the end of the

world to touch the sand at my feet.

*

He calls me, the publisher with the dripping upper lip, the hair

on it encrusted slightly yellow, slightly green. His voice is

melodious, undulating like the ocean, a soft washing up of

words on this desolate human shore: a whisper, a wind rushing

through the trees bringing a sharp, wet chill. He wants me,

wants my book: he is soft, melodious, undulating, tones like

music washing up in waves on the shore.

He calls, whispering. You are so wonderful to want me, I say.

*

He calls, whispering, a musical voice, soft, soft, like the ocean

undulating or the wind rushing through the trees at dusk, the

chill of night in the wind.

I am a writer, I have an agent, she stands between me and

every disaster, one human heart with knowledge and skill,

some common sense, and I say to her, I cannot stand to talk to

him. I don’t know what to say to him, I don’t know how to

say anything to him because anything I say has to mean: take

me: have me: I love you: I want you, wonderful you. I knew

how, certainly, once. He must be loved, admired, adored, to

publish me, whom he now adores. She tells me what to say. I

write it down, word for word, on a four-by-six plain index

card. I cross out the adjectives. I say what she tells me. I read

it, pausing where I have crossed words out. I sound breathy

and unsure. Brilliant, brave, heroic, you are so wonderful to

want me, I say.

So wonderful, so wise, so brave, so pure, so true, so smart, so

brilliant, so intelligent, so discerning, so unique, so heroic, so

honest, so sensitive, so good, so so you are you are.

So kind, so gentle, so tender, so intuitive, so sweet, so fine,

so vulnerable, so so you are you are.

129

The adjectives are all implicit, crossed out on the index cards

but whispered under the silence of the dead pauses, massing in

clusters under the throat.

*

Tell him, she says, my guardian, my friend, standing between

me and disaster, tell him that he alone of all the men in the

world has the brilliant and incredibly courageous capacity and

talent to. . .

I say that he alone— pause— breathe— breathe—is well

I don’t say this easily— breathe— breathe— he alone—

breathe— pause— breathe— has

the— breathy— breathy—

talent— pause—

I know, he says, voice undulating.

Oh, I say, breathy, breathy, talent, pause, breathy, breathy,

courage, it’s so hard for me to, pause, pause, say this, breathe,

breathe, but he alone.

I know, he whispers, voice undulating, rushing through the

trees, wind at dusk, carrying chill. I know. I will take care of

you now, he says, and hangs up.

*

Tell him, she says, this woman who stands between the abyss

and me, who believes in me, who year after year stands with

me so that I will write, tell him that you trust his judgment

implicitly because he is so special and that his incredible mind

and phenomenal intellect and brilliant ability to. . .

I say that I trust, I breathe hard, I trust, I pause, I trust him,

breathy breathy pause, and his mind is— breathe— breathe—

well it’s not often that I can honestly say— I breathe— pause,

pause— breathy, breathy— his intellect and ability—

I know, he says, breathy, undulating wind rushing.

*

He has to believe that every idea of mine is his. This is the art

of being female, but I have lost it. She tells me what to say, I

write it down, I cross out the adjectives, I say it, I read it,

breathy, full of raw nerves: but in his world the breathy pauses

mean fuck me, the misery in my voice means fuck me, the

desperate self-effacement means fuck me.

He whispers, undulating: comforts me: he will take care of

me now.

*

130

The contracts are signed. I have been breath-fucked, undulated,

through several intimate talks on the phone. The phone is

slobbered over, whispered over, bits of spit are the silent dissent. In my throat there is a lump the size of a man’s fist.

*

My throat has a rock in it, busting the seams of my neck: each

breathe-pause-breathe is a word lying down there to die,

to decompose, to be a pile of dead bone fragmented in the

throat. Each breathy hello, each breathy sentence about he is a

hero, he is a rescuer, he is a genius, he is a savior, pulls its way

past the rock, bone, graveyard of words not said, remarks not

made, a woman’s slow death, the familiar silence, the choking,

the breathy death. Oh, so quiet, so timid, so wordless, so deferential. It is the only way to absorb, to honor, to recognize, to survive, his immeasurable greatness, his sublime intelligence,

his magnificent sensibility, his superbly-intuitive understanding. Breathtaking qualities: breathtaking love: of an editor for a writer: of a man for a woman: you are so wonderful, I say.