*
He says he sees the man sometimes, the teacher. He says he
did the one thing the man would find unbearable: talked to
him. He says to me: that’s something you will never understand. I say: never. I swear: never. I take an oath: never.
*
I am publishing your book because I know it’s true.
*
I am numb. I want to cry but I do not cry. I don’t cry over
rape any more. I burn but I don’t cry. I shake but I don’t cry. I
get sick to my stomach but I don’t cry. I scream inside so that
my silent shrieking drowns the awful pounding of my heart
but I don’t cry. I am too weak to move but I don’t cry. I
haven’t a tear for him. I sit there, immobile, watching the boy
on the table. I see him.
*
He clears the table. We go back to the sofas. I sit far away
from him. I am quiet: stunned, like from a blow to the head. I
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sit and stare. That is why, he says. It is more than a pledge: it
is a blood oath: he has run our blood together. He has gotten
my loyalty: a loyalty above personality, liking, not liking,
wanting, not wanting, outside time and daily desires. He puts
on Madame Butterfly before she commits suicide. My pain is
insane. I do not notice his horrible and cynical wit.
*
I am of course now very gentle with him: in the past I have
been harsh but now I know this, I have seen this, the boy,
raped, I know why he cares about my writing, it is a secret
reason, deep, terrifying: I must treat him with sincerity, respect,
like one of us: the raped. I must not hate him for wanting to
be close to me anymore. I must not hate him.
*
By now it is 1 1 pm. I try to go. He keeps me there. There is
another story to tell about his parents or his sister. He shows
me his bedroom: one night he picked up a baseball team and
brought them all back here and got fucked by all of them. I go
out of the bedroom to leave. There is another book to discuss.
There is another record to hear. He tells me lots of stories
about sex, lovers, adventures. I am clear, precise. I am ready to
go. There is something he must show me. There is something
he must tell me. There is something I must see. There is
someone I must meet. I am ready to go. He plays a record by
Nichols and May, a couple in bed having just fucked discussing
“ relating” through prisms of intellectual pretension. It is right
on the mark, but we are precoital. I have to go. There is a
book he must give me. There is a book he must find. There is
a drawing I must see. It is in his bedroom. We stand there
together, looking. I have my jacket on. I am like a runner,
ready to sprint. There is something he must show me. There is
something he must get me. He finds me a long-out-of-print
early book by Thomas Mann and a dozen other books, too
much for me to carry. I want the books, very much. He finds
me a shopping bag. I think about the empty streets. I need my
hands free, I don’t know if I can find a cab, I leave the books
there, I ask him to bring them to his office where I will pick
them up. It is 4 am. I run out. I am exhausted and confused. I
don’t know what he wants. I know what I want: a publisher,
not a lover; a publisher, not a barter. I think he wants me but I
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insist to myself I am me, not a woman, the signs are no longer
in my symbology, I do not speak that language, I do not
practice that religion: I have seen him, a child, gang-raped, cut
with knives, it is why he wants to be near me, I am required by my
own dumb heart to love him, he is one of us, the raped, I do not
have to sleep with him, surely that is not what he meant.
*
I know what he wanted, he wanted me to ask to see the scars, to
run my fingers over them, to love him because of them, to stay
there, touching the scars, while he bit and clawed and screwed. I
have seen such scars. Of course, I knew what he wanted: old
habits: familiarity, the smell, the language of the body: you run
your hands over scars like that and you stay the night.
*
I get home. The windows are open. The wind blows through. I
am so cold.
*
I don’t want him. I need him, oh desperately, but I don’t want
him. I have his secret, sorrow added to sorrow, pain added to
pain, rape added to rape. I am faithful to the raped, it is my
only fidelity. I have his secret. It was a blood oath but not on
my blood, my real blood, so it is not enough, I know that, he
is a man, he needs my real blood, my blood is the blood beyond
symbol, uterine blood, vaginal blood, seasonal blood, stench
blood, strong blood; it is not over because it has not been my
blood, him cutting, me bleeding, the way a man and woman
do it. Others say: oh, he is gay, don’t worry, he doesn’t want
that. Others say: oh, don’t be silly, he can’t want that. Oh, he
can’t want that. I want to buy it. He can’t want that. The
raped don’t do that to the raped, I want to believe.
*
Others say: oh, don’t be silly, he can’t want that. I am dense,
troubled but dense. Before I knew what he wanted and how he
wanted it, but now I am blinded, because the raped don’t do
that to the raped. I decide: he can’t want that. I don’t believe it
really, but others say he can’t want that, so I don’t really know
what he wants, not that, I say. I pick a posture: he has told me
a secret: we are colleagues with a special understanding: his
secret: I will be patient and loyal because of his secret: because
I hurt in his behalf. I am always astonished by the cruelty of
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rape. I am awed by the enduring of it. I am awed by those who
carry the secret: those bodies carrying it, burned in; those minds
collapsing under the weight of vivid recollection that doesn’t
pale with time. I am awed by the intensity of the never-
assuaged anguish. I am confused. I don’t know what he wants
from me. He can’t want that. In private, I am troubled. In public
I am dense; we are colleagues with a special understanding.
*
I feel dread, confusion, panic: he can’t want that. That is so
simple and this whole routine is so complex. I need him but I
don’t want him. I am cold, the wind blows through the apartment, I am destitute and I have nowhere left to go: I don’t know what to do except to walk away: and I can’t do that
because I am too desperate and he is one of the raped.
*
I have nowhere else to go. I have no money, no hope of being
published elsewhere, by anyone else, my work offends everyone
else. Life is dead ends, ghostly alleys. I need him. I am so
confused, so cold, unhappy. I don’t know what he wants.
Others say: not that. I think: well, it can’t be that.
*
Underneath, inchoate— it is that. I want him to stay away. I
know he is coming closer.
*
I even say to myself: just do it. Just do it. But I don
’t want to. I
say to myself: just do it, in the long run it will be so much
simpler, get it over with, just do it, he will get tired of you
soon, what difference can it make to you, one more or less—
but it makes a difference, I don’t know why, I don’t even want
it to: it just does. I am cold and I am tired and I don’t want to.
*
I am confused, but he is not. It boils over: he loves me.
I am scorched by it everywhere I turn, in private, in public, in
the little world of business where I go to meet with him, the
little world of huge skyscrapers and sterile offices. Like sunlight, it blazes. I don’t know what it is or why or what it consists of— but there is no missing it— I am his special
someone or something: he emanates it: it is no secret: every
secretary and office boy treats me like his bride. I like being
loved. He is no fool. I like being loved: so much so that I want
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to be loved more: and more: and more. I like it when men love
me. I especially like it when it starts to make them hurt. I like it
when they hurt. I am hooked enough. I am a player in the game.
*
Nevertheless I do not want it. I am proper, distant. I am formal.
I am soft-spoken: in his world it means fuck me.
*
The phone rings. His voice slithers. There is some detail of
production. I am called into his office. I am treated like the
Queen of Sheba. Everyone is both warm and deferential, respectful, amused by my jokes, I am never left waiting, I am escorted, welcomed, not just by secretaries and office boys. The president
of the company introduces himself to me, shakes my hand,
welcomes me: more than once. I am singled out: the beloved.
I go in prepared not to take up time. I am there four hours
later, six hours later. Everyone has gone home. We sit alone
high up in the sky surrounded by dusk. It gets dark. We walk
out. We walk along the sidewalks. We come to where he turns
to go to his apartment. I hold out my hand for a formal handshake. He draws me close and kisses me. I walk on, alone.
*
If I have to call him, I try to leave a message, take care of it
indirectly: I talk to my agent and ask her to call him. He always
has me come in. I go in with a list: the things that must be
taken care of. I pull out the list and say: this is a list. I cross
things off the list as we discuss them. It is never less than four
hours, six hours. I try to get it done. He must tell me this and
that. He loads me down with gifts: books. They are cheap gifts
from a publisher, but nevertheless: they are special, precious,
what I love, not thrown at me but given carefully, in abundance, he introduces me to new writers, he gives me beautiful books, he thinks about what I like and what I don’t like. He
keeps me there. My list sits. We walk out together. We get to
the corner. I go to shake his hand. He kisses me fervently. I
walk on, alone.
*
He takes me to dinner, it is the same. Romantic. He talks. I try
to end it. He talks on and on. I shake his hand. He kisses me. I
walk on, alone.
*
140
The meetings go on for months. I go to his office. He keeps me
there. Everyone leaves. He tells me sexy stories, his lovers, his
adventures. I have my list out. He talks about writers. He
gives me books. He talks about himself, endless. It is dusk. It
is dark. There is a sofa in his office. He brings me over there. I
don’t sit down. I keep standing. I am formal. We walk out
together. We walk several blocks together. He does not acknowledge any of my moves to go. Finally, I go to shake his hand.
He pulls me. He kisses me. I walk on, alone.
*
It is dark. It is night. We walk several blocks together. It is
time for him to turn off to his apartment. I don’t shake his
hand. I start to move away fast, almost running, and say
good-bye once I am moving away. He grabs me and pulls me
and kisses me. I walk on, alone.
*
I dread the meetings, always four hours, six hours. Every smile
is a lie. He publishes my book with some money behind it, a
token of his esteem like a fine piece of jewelry would be. The
book is savaged. I am humiliated, ashamed. It keeps him away.
It is the one good thing. He could probably have me now. I am
too ashamed to pull away. He could wipe his dick on me now.
Why not?
*
He bought the next book before this savaged one was published. It was a token of his esteem, like a fine piece of jewelry would be.
I work feverishly to meet my deadline. I have one year. He
leaves me alone. I am desperate for money. The landlord sets
up a new exhaust system for the restaurant downstairs. The
windows are closed. I am still cold all the time but the windows
are closed. I am afraid I will suffocate, that the air is still
poison, but I am too cold to open the windows. Sometimes the
new exhaust system doesn’t work and I get sick so I am nervous
and afraid each day but the windows are closed. Sometimes
book to work on this new one: it is like keeping vomit from
coming up. I work hard. A year passes. I finish it. He
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has called to assure me of his love but he leaves me alone.
*
Then the rats come. Just as I am finishing, the rats come.
There are huge thuds in the walls, heavy things dropping in
the walls, great chases in the ceiling, they are right behind the
plaster, chasing, running, scrapping. The walls get closer and
closer, Edgar Poe knew a thing or two, the room gets smaller
and smaller. I am up each night and they are running, falling,
dropping, chasing, heavy, loud, scampering, fast. They are
found dead in the halls. The landlord says they are squirrels.
*
Night after night: they drop like dead weight in the walls, they
run in the ceiling, the walls close in, the ceiling drops down,
plaster falls, they are running above the bed, they are running
above the bath, they are running above the sink, the toilet, the
sofa, the desk, they are in the walls, falling like dead weight,
we put huge caches of poison in great holes we make in the
walls, we plaster the holes, sometimes one dies and the stink
of the rotting carcass is inescapable, vomitous, and still they
run and chase and fall and pounce: they are overhead and on
every side. I am scared to death and ready to go mad, if only
God would be good to me.
*
I live like this for months. The publisher has promised to publish a secret piece of fiction only he has read. He read it months before, in the privacy of his love for me. Now I have submitted
it officially. He has promised me, money, everything. I am
entirely desperate for money. I am so afraid. He knows about
the rats. He knows how poor I am. He knows I am ready to
leave the sleeping boy, who sleeps through the jumping and
chasing and great dull thuds. I a
m, frankly, too desperate and
too tired to love. I am too afraid. The boy sleeps. I do not.
This constitutes— finally— an irreconcilable difference.
The editor tells my agent he must talk to me about structure:
ideas he has for the piece of fiction: this means he will publish
it, but he has these ideas I must listen to.
I call to make an appointment at his office.
He insists on dinner.
There is dinner, coffee afterward: a restaurant, a coffeehouse. He talks and talks and talks. I drink and drink and 142
drink. I am waiting for the ideas about structure. He orders
for me. He smothers me with talk. I drink more. I ask in the
restaurant about his ideas about structure. He ignores me and
keeps talking. I drink. He talks about sex. He talks about his
life. He talks about his lovers. I say: well we must get absolutely
sober now so I can hear your ideas about structure. We go to a
coffeehouse. He talks. He talks about how he has to love an
author. He talks about the authors he has loved. He talks about
someone he is involved with who is writing a novel: he talks
about visiting this author and that author and what they drink
and how they love him and how they want him. I say I want
to hear his ideas about structure. He tells me he is going to
buy a beach house, a house by the ocean, where I can come to
live and write. He says he has found it. He says it is right on
the ocean. He says he can picture me there, working, undistracted, not having to worry about fumes and rats and poverty. He tells me that as long as he has a home I have a
home and that this home, on the ocean, is very special and for
me. He knows it is what I have always wanted, more than
anything: it is my idea of peace and solace. I say thank you but
I had a rather strange childhood always being moved from
home to home because my mother was sick sort of like an
orphan and I am not too good about staying in other people’s
houses. I ask him about his ideas about the structure of the
novel. He says that his involvement with the work of an author
and his involvement with the author are indistinguishable, he
has to love them as one. He tells me about the house he is
buying right on the ocean where I will go and work and finish