“You’re great, Tamara. God, I like being with you. I can be anything.”
“So can I.”
And Shell with her open gift, it struck him, forced him into a kind of nobility.
“Let’s resort to everything.”
They left the room at five in the morning to eat a huge meal at the China Gardens. Laughing like maniacs, they fed each other with chopsticks and decided they were in love. The waiters stared. They hadn’t bothered to remove the paint.
Walking back, they talked about Shell, how beautiful she was. He asked Tamara if she would mind his phoning New York.
“Of course not. She’s something else.”
Shell was sleepy but glad to hear from him. She spoke in a little girl’s voice. He told her he loved her.
He took the early morning bus back to camp. Immortal Tamara, she walked with him to the terminal. After one hour’s sleep he called that real affection.
15
Now we must take a closer look at Breavman’s journal:
Friday night. Sabbath. Ritual music on the PA. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. The earth is full of your glory. If I could only end my hate. If I could believe what they wrote and wrapped in silk and crowned with gold. I want to write the word.
All our bodies are brown. All the children are dressed in white. Make us able to worship.
Take me home again. Build up my house again. Make me a dweller in thee. Take my pain. I can’t use it any longer. It makes nothing beautiful. It makes the leaves into cinders. It makes the water foul. It makes your body into a stone. Holy life. Let me lead it. I don’t want to hate. Let me flourish. Let the dream of you flourish in me.
Brother, give me your new car. I want to ride to my love. In return I offer you this wheelchair. Brother, give me all your money. I want to buy everything my love wants. In return I offer you blindness so you may live the rest of your days in absolute control over everyone. Brother, give me your wife. It is she whom I love. In return I have commanded all the whores of the city to give you infinite credit.
Thou. Help me to work. All the works of my hand belong to you. Do not let me make my offering so paltry. Do not make me insane. Do not let me descend raving your name.
I have no taste for flesh but my own.
Lead me away from safety. There is no safety where I am.
How shall I dedicate my days to thee? Now I have finally said it. How shall I dedicate my days to thee?
16
Dearest Shell,
Your jade earring with the filigree silver. I pictured it on your ear. Then I pictured the side of your head and the wind-paths of hair. Then your face. Finally all your beauty.
Then I remembered your suspicion of beauty’s praise, so I praised your soul, yours being the only one I believe in.
I discovered that the beauty of your eyes and flesh was just the soul’s everyday clothes. It turned to music when I asked it what it wore on Sabbath.
All my love, darling,
LAWRENCE
17
Anne and Breavman were on night duty together. They sat on the steps of one of the bunks waiting for the counsellors to check in.
Yes, yes, Krantz was in the city on camp business.
Her braid was like a thick twisting river. Fireflies, some as high as the tops of the pines, some beside the roots.
Here is my poem for you.
I don’t know you, Anne.
I don’t know you, Anne.
I don’t know you, Anne.
Eternal theme: small flies and moths flinging themselves against the light bulb.
“This is the kind of night I’d like to get drunk,” she said.
“I’d like to get sober.”
A light rain began to fall. He turned up his face, trying to give himself away.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“May I come along? I don’t mind asking because I feel I know you. Krantz has told me so much.”
It rained for ten seconds. They walked down the road to the village. They stopped where the pine scent was heaviest. He found himself swaying back and forth as though he were in a synagogue. He wanted her, and the more he wanted her the more he became a part of the mist and trees. I’ll never get out of this, he told himself. This is where I’ll stay. I like the smell. I like being that close, that far away. He felt he was manufacturing the mist. It was steaming out of his pores.
“I’ll go back if you want to stay alone.”
He didn’t answer for a thousand years.
“No, we both better go.”
He didn’t move.
“What’s that?” Anne asked about a noise.
He began to tell her about swallows, cliff-dwelling swallows, barn-dwelling swallows. He knew everything about swallows. He had disguised himself as a swallow and lived among them to learn their ways.
He was standing close to her but he received no trace of the radar signal to embrace. He walked swiftly away. He came back. He pulled her braid. It was thick, as he imagined. He strode away again and snatched a stick from the bushes by the side of the road.
He swung it wildly, smashing the foliage. He beat the ground around her feet. She danced, laughing. He raised the dust knee-high. But the bushes had to be attacked again, the trunks of the trees, the low yellow grass, white in the night. Then more dust, the branch nicking her ankles. He wanted to raise the dust over both of them, slice up their bodies with the sharp switch.
She ran from him. He ran behind her, whipping the calves of her legs. They were both screaming with laughter. She ran to the lights of the camp.
18
Dear Anne
I’d like
to watch
your toes
when you’re
naked.
Which he delivered to her several hundred times with
