[47] I learned that those who undergo
The wind, the Eternal Third. A whisper beyond the horizon, a mysterious dialogue of the air. From the window, I watch them say goodbye. When Paul comes back upstairs, I’ve poured myself a last half-glass of Tokay. I’m watching the lamplight…
[46] Johnny’s Long Night
Stories – there are a few I can describe for you, the ones that Emma carries close enough that I always see her wearing them. About the night we mixed Johnny ... I know that one from watching her face when I can tell she’s remembering it.…
[45] Spontaneity’s funereal rites
About being Jewish, according to her grandfather, it’s hardly a religion any more, even for most Jews. From what I’ve seen, in this city it’s more like a club that people who don’t belong won’t let Emma quit. You grow up hearing from…
[44] Celestial forces strike the earth
‘I’m cruel to everyone but you,’ Paul says. No, he doesn’t say it but I can hear him thinking it. No, he isn’t thinking it, but I can tell he’d accept that thought if it occurred to him. In fact, probably none of that. I’m saying…
[43] We can only conquer ourselves
I did it, twenty-two days after our return. I admitted to myself what I had no choice about. I took the lift down to the carriage hallway and Johnny-walked two doors to the Swan for the afternoon and drank a row of long pulls and played bouncy…
[42] After me there will be no time
I’ve got insight into my condition, what they called it, the doctors. As if getting better was about getting their approval. Basically, you feel bad, and then you feel worse about feeling bad, and then you feel even worse about feeling worse,…
[41] Long buried memories of utopian dreams
Paul can sit down in a room with a book, or fall asleep on the couch, or fix a faucet drip, but not until after he’s back from somewhere. It’s as if the world – the thought of it – chews on him all day in the studio and he needs to go…
[40] The sublime and final city
Colours are something the world demands you see. If I was making the world, it wouldn’t be in colour. But it does have them, so I stare them down, and then for the relief, I work in black and white and add a touch of colour as if it was medicine…
[39] Blindness, madness, other terrors
There’s a game I play within my head – when Paul goes off somewhere, I don’t ask myself where. I blot out the question. Instead I wait for him to come back, and look at him and ask myself what he’s seen. He always shows me from the drawings…
[38] Mister Professor
On the boulevard, the speed of his walk leaves passers-by in his wake, draughts horsedrawn carts alongside him. Nothing is chasing him but much is pulling him forward. A narrower street would not contain him – he would bowl over pedestrians…
[37] To look down into the drained pool
Paul thinks I’ll go home after tonight and tear a strip from him, since I’ve done it enough. But no ... I’ll go home with Paul and Johnny, and close the door behind us, and tell myself, ‘This is ours.’ Our bed, Paul’s studio, the…
[36] A forest of thronging spirits
The Aaronsons have sent a cab for us, but on the street, where grandfather is waiting, Emma tells us, ‘I want to walk.’ With the air and the pavements clear, probably she can do it, with grandfather and me carrying Johnny in his bundle.…
[35] The last fingers of leaf
I make Emma laugh. It’s the best thing I can do, because when she’s laughing she isn’t crying or arguing. She scared me that day at the Rosemeyrs’, though I’ll never tell her. It won’t help her stop being afraid, to know I was frightened…
[34] Songs humbled and stilled
Paul likes to make me laugh, because when I’m laughing I’m not crying, or arguing with him. I can’t do either while I’m laughing. Now Johnny tries to make me laugh, too. He hasn’t yet, but I can see him trying. He’s started to recognize…
[33] The sun shines on the living and the dead
We’re at grandfather’s table on a Sunday afternoon with Johnny napping in a padded cabbage crate by the stove and the remains of lunch between us, soup plates and half a rye loaf and a half-emptied carton of plum squares from the Sun Room…
[32] Miracle, mystery, authority, all three
When you’ve been with one woman for seven years, you want to tell yourself that probably you know her. It’s better to know other people. Knowing yourself is overrated – it doesn’t help much. Insight is a box with another box inside,…
[31] A form of spirited motion
Emma left before me this morning, in a cab, with Johnny, for Gus. This time I know, but when I don’t, I don’t ask her where she’s going. I ask her where she’s been when she comes back, because she likes me to, though I don’t have to…
[30] We understand and then we die
And this morning I’m going to Gus’s studio, which means another fiaker, on another day that Paul’s gone out to his models. It drops me and Johnny at the mouth to a narrow lane off the High Street of the Seventh Quarter, the carriage…
[29] Does the soul have a fate?
Since than night at the Marzipan, I’ve wanted to take Johnny to the zoo behind the Pleasure Palace at the base of the Imperial Folly. There’s an excursion for us. I want to take him there while he’s still an animal himself. So…
[28] The poorly trained soul
When I walk, where doesn’t Paul see me go? I can make the hundred metres to the tram stop without stopping to rest. Then the tram takes me across the river down the Grand Artery to grandfather’s shop on the Isle of Jews. Yesterday afternoon…
[27] The black, death dealing hand
Yesterday I pushed Johnny’s perambulator all the way up Procession Street as far as the Opera House. I’d been hearing that street through our north windows, from out of sight, and now I wanted to see it again. Mistake, with the pedestrians…
[26] Man will be cheated of experience by technology
I was meant to always negotiate my life, coming up to it sideways on soft soles in conditional mode: would, could, should, ought, a function of everyone else’s desired whims. I’m only glad my teachers were a bad example, or a reverse…
[25] The devouring of immortality
[25] The devouring of immortality
Stand on a sidewalk within sight of Poland Station for ten minutes and count all the people who pass – the ones tumbling out of the factories, the downlooking streetsweepers, the mail carriers and…
[24] Far can a single impulse extend
Our second week returned, the Friday after dinner, Paul would be playing with the little guy at home, but instead we’re going out farther than the Singing Swan (where we all can be seen every two nights or three). I need to pretend everything…
[23] Unity, visible or not
Before I left for the studio this morning, she called me into the bedroom. She was with her pants around her ankles. ‘I need those,’ she declared, and pointed to her pants drawer. I helped her step out of the old ones and into new ones,…