Falling Out of Time Read online

  She slowly shuts the door. Retreats into her home. I look up to the hills.

  WALKING MAN:

  And he himself,

  he is dead,

  I know now.

  I now can say—though

  always in a whisper—“The boy

  is dead.”

  I understand, almost,

  the meaning of the sounds:

  the boy is dead. I recognize

  these words as holding truth:

  he is dead. I know.

  Yes, I admit it: he is dead.

  But his death—it swells,

  abates,

  fulminates.

  Unquiet,

  unquiet

  is his death.

  So unquiet.

  ELDERLY MATH TEACHER: … Based on my observations, I believe, my boy, that only a certain type of person is likely to notice it—the blaze. That, between me and myself, is what I call those mysterious embers.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: I met him again by chance tonight, at three o’clock in the morning. This time he was not writing exercises on the wall. Tired, defeated almost, he sat down in the dark on the street bench where I was napping. After we shared a moment of embarrassment, and after I reminded him that I had been his pupil in the first grade, and that it was in his class that I had met the woman who would eventually become my wife, we climbed up onto the bench together and stood there watching the phenomenon.

  ELDERLY MATH TEACHER: My heart tells me, my boy, that from the moment a person notices the blaze, he is destined to get up and go to it.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: As he spoke, his large feet shuddered and shook the wooden bench. My own small feet were suddenly filled with motion. I talked to him silently. I said there was a time in the world when my daughter was not in it at all. She was not yet. Nor was there the happiness she brought me, nor all these torments. I wanted him to look at me with his lost, confused gaze in which everything was possible. I wanted him to call me to a house wall again and test me on addition-subtraction for all eternity. I thought: Perhaps he also longs to be an innocent young teacher again? Perhaps I could ask my wife here, and together we could build a little class that would suffer no sorrow? I had already begun to hum “two and two are four” when he suddenly leaped off the bench—I was amazed to see how agile he still was—and stood looking at his twitching feet. Then he spread his hands before me in apology and turned to leave, mumbling to himself:

  ELDERLY MATH TEACHER:

  Here I will fall,

  now will I fall?

  I do not fall.

  Here is shadow

  and fog,

  frost

  rises

  from a darkened pit—

  now,

  now

  I will fall—

  TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

  Now, here,

  the heart

  will stop—

  it does not stop—

  here is shadow

  and fog—

  now?

  Now will I fall?

  TOWN CHRONICLER: And she walked! Walked away! Suddenly, out of the darkness, she appeared beside me on the street, then walked away without seeing me at all, moving behind the teacher as if sleepwalking. I quickly lay down on the bench and made myself as small as possible. I was very cold. I tried to fall asleep. I could not. I do not know what I shall do with myself today, and the sun has not even risen. The town is terrifyingly empty. I wander the streets. No one. I run to the wharf, dig through reeking piles of nets and dry seaweed—no one. Where will I go? There, on the hilltops, the small embers glow tonight as though each holds a beating heart. In a dark yard at the edge of the market stands an old gray donkey eating from a trough. I hold my face up to its mane and rub my nose in it. To my surprise, it is soft, softer even than the centaur’s hair. Perhaps things in the world have softened in my absence? The donkey stops chewing. He waits for me to talk. Of that thing that happened to her, to my daughter, I must never speak with any person—I explain to him—and if truth be told, I am forbidden even to mention her, although I don’t always stick to that, particularly since that man began circling the town. The donkey turns his head to me. His gaze is wise and skeptical. It’s true, I whisper, I’m not allowed to remember her. Just imagine! He twitches his ears in surprise. It was the duke, I say as I throw my arms around his neck. It was he who commanded me, in a royal edict, to exile myself from my home, to walk the streets day and night recording the townspeople’s stories of their children. And it was he who forbade me—by explicit order!—to remember her, my one. Yes, immediately after it happened, he sentenced me, after she drowned, I mean the daughter, Hanna, after she drowned in a lake right before my eyes, and I couldn’t, listen, there were tall waves, huge, and I couldn’t … What could I …

  You don’t believe me. You’re moving your ears dubiously, even crossing them as if to dismiss the possibility … I know exactly what you’re thinking: The duke? Our kind and gentle duke? It cannot be! Everyone in town thinks so, and honestly, sometimes I think so myself. Perhaps you’ve heard that we used to be good friends, the duke and I. Soul mates. Yes, after all, I was his jester for twenty years, until the disaster befell me. His beloved jester … And to think that he, of all people, decreed such a terrible decree … How did it even occur to him?

  My lips suddenly quiver, and the donkey cocks his head and studies them. I fear he might read in them words I would rather keep to myself, or those that I am forbidden by the edict to even utter, or remember, even the slightest hint or word or thought of the person she would be today, if she were. I may not imagine her at all, nor dream her image. Nor are longings, yearnings, and so forth permitted. Or sudden heart pangs, or churning contractions of the gut, nor any kind of crying, whether sobbing or the faintest sleepy whimper. A memory-amputee is what I am, donkey. Abstaining from my daughter. A prisoner in a tiny remote cell inside my spirit, until, as in the poem we once read together, the duke and I, “My life (which liked the sun and the moon) resembles something that has not occurred.”

  COBBLER:

  There is no longer anything in me

  of myself that used to be.

  Only motion remains.

  That is all I can give you

  today, my girl,

  only motion

  that might seep

  into the stillness

  where you lie.

  Only that,

  only thus will I know

  today, my daughter,

  how to be your father—

  MIDWIFE:

  I stood in the window

  of my home, at night,

  alone, slowly

  diminishing.

  As in a dream

  I heard a distant

  v-v-voice

  speaking to me

  in my tongue: Only that,

  my daughter, only

  thus will I know

  today how to be

  your father.

  I knew: This was

  the sign.

  I left

  my house,

  turned

  to the hills,

  closed my eyes,

  shut off my gaze,

  allowed the blaze

  to gather me in. Only thus

  will I know today how

  to be your father.

  I hurried,

  I ran to him,

  to the heavy m-m-man,

  so thick and slow,

  who suddenly

  spoke

  in my tongue.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: They walk on the hills and I follow them, constantly darting between them and the town. They groan and trip and stand, hold on to each other, carry those who sleep, falling asleep themselves. Nights, days, over and over they circle the town, through rain and cold and burning sun. Who knows how long they will walk and what will happen when they are roused from their madness? The duke, for example—who would have believed it—walking shoulder to shoulder with the net-mender, he
r fluttering nets occasionally wrapping themselves around him. And the elderly teacher, with his thin halo of hair, walking swiftly, as he is wont, hopping from one foot to the other and reaching his head out to either side with immense curiosity, even in sleep. And the cobbler and the midwife, hand in hand, eyes tightly closed, with stubborn resolve. And at the end of the small procession walks my wife, dragging her heavy feet, her breath labored, her head drooping on her chest, with no one to hold her hand.

  DUKE:

  Walking half asleep,

  a dream fragment flickers:

  the surface of a barren wilderness,

  mist and cool breeze, and a wail

  rolls over

  the desert.

  MIDWIFE:

  Over there

  a c-c-cliff

  c-c-cut into round

  smooth rocky mountain,

  and in a dream

  or half awake, I say to myself:

  L-l-look, woman,

  that is the thing, that is all,

  the answer to the great, sacred riddle,

  and there is nothing

  more,

  there is

  nothing more.

  COBBLER:

  Barren brain-hill,

  a terrible sight,

  it pulsates perhaps

  once

  in a thousand years—

  TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE:

  It is the brain of the universe,

  and it is cold, frozen. It is not

  what emits the wail. It is

  desolation, only desolation,

  mute and deaf

  and flat,

  it has no wails,

  no thoughts,

  it has

  no answers and

  no love.

  DUKE:

  And you—pick up

  a hoe and till a bed.

  Plant in it a pillow, a lamp,

  a letter, a picture of

  a beloved face, perhaps also a kettle,

  thick socks, gloves and a satchel,

  a pencil or paintbrush, a book

  or two, a pair of glasses, so that you

  can see near

  and see far.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Tell me about the rocking horse.

  CENTAUR: You again? Won’t you ever shut up?

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Tell me about the soccer ball, about the cowboy hat. About the birthdays, tell me about them. About the magician’s wand, the blue kite—

  CENTAUR: You’re torturing me.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: About the toy boat—

  CENTAUR: Junk! Memory husks!

  TOWN CHRONICLER: At least tell me something about the cradle.

  CENTAUR: How about you tell me something about yourself for a change? You’ve been coming here for weeks, ten times a day, interrogating me, turning me inside out like a glove, and you yourself—nothing! Just a clerk! Following orders! Hiding behind your royal edict, which any idiot can see is a fake, with that ridiculous drawing of the duke wearing a crown. I mean, come on! You could have put a little more effort into it. A five-year-old can draw better than that!

  Okay. I get it. I can be quiet, too. Here. Being quiet. A rock. A sphinx. You’re not looking so hot yourself either, you know, these last few days, but I am absolutely going off the deep end, yes, that’s not hard to see. This fight with it, goddamn it, is doing me in. I admit it. And this silly thing that happened to me with the desk? I bet you’ve heard the stories around town, right? For that reason alone you should have stopped bothering me with your nonsense. Don’t you have any mercy for a poor centaur? And a bereaved one, at that? Come on, look at me. No, I mean it. Climb up on this window, use both hands, don’t be afraid. What’s the worst thing I could do to you that you’re not already doing to yourself?

  So? Nice, isn’t it? Aesthetically pleasing. Have you ever seen such grafting? Such a curse? Half writer, half desk? Well, there you have it. You can get down now. Finita la tragedia. What do you say? It’s quite a thing, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell you there was nothing as pleasurable as other people’s hell?

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Your son once lay in that cradle.

  CENTAUR: And now he has a different one.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Help me, Centaur. Those piles of yours are driving me mad.

  CENTAUR: I’ll never leave this place.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Thirteen years ago I lost my daughter.

  CENTAUR: These last few days, when you were being a real pain in the ass, I was beginning to think it might be something like that.

  TOWN CHRONICLER: I can’t talk about her.

  CENTAUR:

  I built the cradle

  with my own two hands. The day

  he was born, from branches of oak. My wife

  painted the two ducks.

  She painted so beautifully.

  She was a quiet,

  gentle woman. She left me,

  three years after

  the boy did. If I could have,

  I would have left me, too.

  Adam—that was his name.

  Adam. I placed him

  in the cradle

  after he was born. He lay there

  with his eyes open, looked

  at me, studied me with his gaze.

  He was so serious! He always was,

  his whole life. His whole

  short life. Serious

  and slightly lonely. Hardly

  any friends. He liked stories.

  We used to put on plays,

  he and I,

  with costumes and masks. You asked

  about the cradle. My wife padded it

  with soft fabric,

  but he could only fall asleep

  with me, on my chest. He would cling

  to me.

  I just remembered, you’ll laugh,

  but there was a special sound

  I used to make to put him

  to sleep on me. A sort of quiet,

  deep, trembling

  moan. Hmmmm …

  Hmmmm …

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I also …

  CENTAUR: Not at all … Hmmm …

  TOWN CHRONICLER: Hmmm …

  CENTAUR and TOWN CHRONICLER: Hmmm …

  WALKING MAN:

  Walking, walking,

  neither awake nor

  asleep, walking

  and emptying

  all my thoughts,

  my passions,

  my sadness, my fervor,

  my secrets, my volition,

  anything that is me.

  Look at me, my son:

  here I am not.

  I am but a platform of life,

  calling you to come

  and be through me—

  to occur, if only for a moment,

  to once again be purified

  by what is.

  Come, do not hesitate,

  be now,

  I am gone,

  the house is yours,

  and it is furnished with every limb.

  Flow into it, pool in it,

  this blood is your blood now, the muscles,

  your muscles. Come,

  be present,

  reach your arms

  from world-end to -end,

  rejoice from my throat, laugh, vibrate,

  celebrate,

  all is possible at this moment,

  everything now is yes,

  so love and burn and lust

  and fuck.

  My five hungry senses

  are at your command like

  five horses foaming at the mouth,

  stomping, raring

  to gallop to your never-end.

  Do not stop, my boy,

  your time is short, meted out,

  my eyelids are trembling now,

  soon I will come home,

  soon my pupils will contract

  in the light of confining logic. Quick,

  taste it all, devour, be deep,


  be sad,

  determined, delighted, roar,

  tremble with pleasure and power,

  my pleasure is yours, my power, too—

  enchant, shower your soul,

  be the swing of a sower,

  a cascade of grain and

  golden coins streaming

  like light—

  be engorged like an udder,

  and torrid as midday,

  and rage, and rave,

  tighten your hand into a fist until

  arteries swell in your neck,

  and be thrilled, like a heart, like a girl,

  be agape, thin-skinned, alight

  with the glory of

  one-off wonders,

  be a whole,

  momentary fraction

  of eternity.

  And as you do so, pause suddenly, breathe, inhale, feel the air burn your lungs, lick your upper lip, taste the salt of healthy sweat, the tingle of life, and now say fully: I—

  (Damn it, I realize now:

  that pronoun is also

  lost, it died

  with you, leaving me

  with only he and you

  and us, and no one

  will ever again

  say I

  in your voice.

  That too. That, too.)

  Just hurry, my boy,

  dawn is rising, the magic

  soon will melt, so you must love,

  and, even if betrayed,

  even if you taste the venom

  of disdain, love

  and be brave, but be cowardly, too,

  be everything, touch defeat,

  touch failure, hurt someone,

  disappoint

  and lie.

  Quick, my boy, pass through all these,

  there is no time to linger,

  such illusions are so brief,

  but you must touch, caress

  a warm body, a woman,

  bounteous breasts in your hands,

  the head of a newborn child, unborn

  to you.

  Quick, quick, the first strip

  of light—

  see the world you never saw: New York,

  Paris, Shanghai, so many faces

  in this living

  world—

  No, no, stop—