Mercy

you. I always want to run away from it: putting the words

down, because they’re always w rong at first and for a long

time they stay wrong, but now the cold night keeps me in, the

wind, the killer wind, I sit on the cot, I m ove m y papers to the

tiny table, I get out a pencil and I find some em pty paper, and I

start again, I begin again, I have started again over and over

and tonight I start again, and I hear the words in m y heart. I

came back with two laundry bags, like canvas shopping bags.

I carried them on the plane. T hey were m y laundry bags from

when I was a housewife. One has manuscripts and a couple o f

books. The other has a sweater and some underwear and a pair

o f pants. I don’t have anything else, except a fairly ragged skirt

that I’m wearing, I made it m yself with some cheap cloth, it

has clumps and bulges and I’ve got a couple o f T-shirts. I think

the manuscripts are precious. I think you can do anything if

you must. I think I can write some stories and I think it doesn’t

matter how hard it is. I’m usually pretty tired by night but the

nights are long and if you can write the time isn’t the same kind

o f burden; the words, like oxen, pull the dark faster through

time. I think it is good to write; I think perhaps someday I

might write something beautiful like Death in Venice, something just that lovely and perfect, and I think it would be worth a person’s whole life to write one such thing. I have an

invitation to go to Jill’s art opening, her first show ever. It is a

big event for her. Girls don’t get to have shows very easy, and

some people say it is because o f Paul; she’s resentful o f him; I

tell her it doesn’t matter one w ay or the other, the point is to do

it, just do it. I feel I should go but I don’t have clothes warm

enough for this particular night. I walk everywhere because I

don’t have money for subways, I walk long distances, I took

m y husband’s warm coat when I left— it’s the least you can

give me, I said, he was surprised enough when I grabbed it that

he didn’t take it away— it’s a sheepskin coat from Afghanistan

but it doesn’t have any buttons so you can’t stay warm in bad

wind— it’s heavy and stiff and it doesn’t close right and if

there’s bad wind it rips through the opening; I was running

away and I wanted the warm coat, I knew it would last longer

than money, I was thinking about the streets, I was remembering. And he gave me some money too, took some change

out o f his pocket, some bills he was carrying, handed it to me,

said yeah, take this too. It was maybe what you’d spend on a

cheap dinner. I wanted his coat. I was leaving and there was

m y coat and I thought about having to get through one

fucking night in m y coat, a ladies’ coat, m y wife coat, tailored,

pretty, gray, with style and a little phony fur collar, a waist, it

had a waist, it showed o ff that you had breasts, and I thought,

shit, I w on ’t live through one night in that piece o f shit, I