Can’t you short circuit it? I asked, trusting that he’d forgive a mixed metaphor.
Insight hasn’t done the trick, he said. Forgiveness. That’s the answer.
Hmm. What would you say to yourself if you were a member of your, uh, congregation?
Benny laughed.
I’d say, as a Jew — a professional Jew — you have to believe in return! T’shuvah, the guarantee that, repentant and ready to make amends, you can break the cycle. That’s what new life means for us, our burden and our blessing. If I follow the cycle of weekly Bible readings, monthly new moon celebrations, seasonal festivals, I’ll never find myself trapped in a circle: I’m on an individual and collective spiral, endlessly revisiting the same meaningful lateral coordinates, presumably on ever higher planes. That was quite a sentence, he added, wasn’t it?
When I do that, Ahmad says, “Real people don’t talk like that.”
Here’s to not being real people, Benny said, extending his glass. I clinked and waited for him to continue. He seemed lost.
You think forgiveness is key …, I prompted.
Yes, and we’ve established that this is something of which I am not capable.
You know, I said after another pause, I don’t think everything can be forgiven.
What would it take for you to forgive your mother?
Case in point.
Well?
Off the top of my head I’d say nothing. There’s nothing she could do after forty years to make up for forty years of doing nothing.
Nice chiasmus!
Thank you.
Not even if she were on her death bed and asked for forgiveness?
If she wanted absolution, she should talk to the Pope. Billions of people are going to Rome next year to ask for indulgence. I’d say, join ’em. Assuming she’s alive, which I doubt.
You think she’s dead?
Why not?
You think that because she’s absent: you can’t imagine her.
When I was a kid, I imagined she was dead. I found that easier than admitting she’d left us. She’d been assassinated on her way to the airport.
Assassinated?
There was a spy subplot.
Benny laughed.
What did your father say?
I knew if I asked him, he’d crumble like stale bread. He was always so sad.
So you know nothing about her — not even why she left?
I’m pretty sure she joined the circus.
You never tried to contact her?
No interest. No idea where she is. I don’t even know her maiden name.
What was her first name?
I stared at him.
Eleanor. Can we change the subject?
You think she’s Catholic? You said that bit about the Pope …
She went into churches and lit candles. I assumed so.
Your father didn’t talk about it?
Religion didn’t interest him. He cared about archaic Archaic statues, quiet drinking, getting blown by the maid. What else? Scrabble.
I picked up my glass, was disappointed to realize it was empty. I held it anyway, my finger worrying the chip on the bottom.
He never remarried?
He never went out with anyone. Not more than once.
That you know of.
He didn’t, I said, aware of how defensive I sounded. I found myself wishing I had a Marlboro, a whole pack of them, taped under the coffee table.
That hardly seems healthy.
He was taking care of me! What’s wrong with that?
A man’s got to have a life, no?
He seemed content.
You said he was sad.
He was both.
What would it take for you to forgive him?
My father? I asked stupidly. What’s to forgive?
I’ve made mistakes, he’d said before the nurse wheeled him away. Please don’t hate me.
We’ll talk about it later, I’d said, thinking there would be a later.
Forgive me, he’d said. Contrition, one-size-fits-all. No confession, no reparation.
You sound angry, Benny said.
I’m angry. What’s your point?
I don’t have a point.
Oh, I said.
I’m just trying to understand.
Oh.
Benny took a moment to sip his drink. You know, he said, if my father had taken just one step in my direction, I’d have jumped over the abyss to meet him.
Well, I said tightly, you’re a better man than I.
That’s not what I meant, Shira.
What did you mean?
What I meant was, all I ever wanted was one stupid gesture, one lousy pat on the back — it could have been anything, it wouldn’t have mattered. I’m such a cliché!
He pulled his legs off the table, leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.
He was your father, I said. You loved him.
I leaned over, touched Benny’s shoulder. It was trembling.
Shit, he said, and got up. I need a drink.
•
Sorry, he said when he got back. How’s the work going?
He’d brought the bottle and sat next to me on the couch so he could pour for both of us.
Slowly, I said. You sure you can talk about this?
Are you being sarcastic? Benny asked. His eyes were red.
No! I swear!
Of course I can talk about it.
Okay, I said, and told him how I kept finding what seemed like references to my stories in Romei’s pages: images, the odd phrase.
Benny crinkled his nose.
Odd, he said. Why do you suppose he’s doing that?
I liked that Benny didn’t second-guess me. Did he trust me or did he know what Romei was capable of?
I was hoping you’d tell me, I said.
Me?
Yes, you. Why not you?
What do you think?
I haven’t the foggiest.
I’d like to think he read your work and was unconsciously affected by it.
Not likely. He’s way too self-conscious a writer. He put those images there on purpose.
That sounds reasonable, Benny said. How does it make you feel?
You sound like Sigmund! I said, laughing.
Sounds like he’s trying to manipulate you, elicit a reaction of some kind.
Interesting, I said. I hadn’t thought of that.
What’s your reaction?
Well, I said, it confuses me, it makes me angry, like he’s stealing. And mocking me, because who am I? I’m just the translator!
Does it affect how you read the story?
How I read the story? You mean how I feel about his characters?
I guess. Whatever.
They pissed me off from the start …, and I told him how I believed Romei was writing a self-serving piece to justify his adultery, how Esther seemed less a muse than a sloppy projection of his fantasies. Then I thought about the last section, their defeat by the husband, how that twist had defeated my expectations as well as theirs. Maybe I didn’t hate them after all.
I don’t know, I finally said.
So Dante embeds poems from an earlier time into his narrative, and Romei embeds bits of your work. It’s as if yours were the original work, the proof-text!
The what?
The proof-text. The original authoritative bit of Bible that “proves” a rabbinic argument.
You’re drunk. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Benny shrugged.
Right on both counts, he said, and pulled a handkerchief from his gym shorts, looked at it puzzled for a moment, then blew his nose. In what context does he quote you?
You name it, I said, then thought about the images: Romei blocking the sun as Esther sits on her bench, Romei watching Esther from a tree in the park, Romei throwing stones at her window, Romei kissing her for the first time on the neck. Scenes of seduction, I said.