In the morning, Benny said.
Right, I said. It’s not important — thinking that Romei had again described me as innocent, untouched, only now it was the adult Shira he described in this way, the thirty-five-year-old author-of-the-story Shira, despairing Shira, Shira who’d just left her husband and had no idea who she was and what she wanted, who believed in nothing except this quaint idea that she might write — it was this Shira he described as innocent, not the girl who’d danced for a boy in her high school chem lab.
How could he have been so sure?
Whatever I was now, I was further than ever from that girl — right? Walking a tightrope between rage and self-revelation, holding at arm’s length a wonderful man who might or might not crush me like a grape, unsure how to love my daughter, forever pulling and pushing at my friends as if they were yo-yos. My mother on her death bed, and I with nothing to offer, no comfort, no consolation, my arms closed tight against her like a child, protecting myself from what? A hurt that was finished but still real, still a part of me after nearly forty years?
Do you think there’s a kernel of innocence inside us? I whispered.
An inner Shulamite?
I guess.
Shuvi, shuvi ha-Shulamit, Benny said. That’s the beginning of the epigraph Romei gave your story. The translation he cites renders this as Again, O Shulamite, dance again. But literally it means Return, return, O Shulamite. Phrased in the imperative.
Return in the sense …
In the sense of t’shuvah. Return through repentance.
Is that what you think? Repent and ye shall be saved?
Come back from the place of error, return to your self. That’s what I tell my flock.
You think it’s there still, inside me.
The flying girl? I can see her.
I don’t. I don’t see her.
Dance for me, Shulamite, Benny whispered. Let me see you dancing.
You’re kidding.
Benny shook his head.
I want to watch you dancing.
I can’t. Don’t ask me to do that.
Someday. Then you’ll know she’s still there.
I looked at him. I wouldn’t be afraid, he must have known that, I couldn’t let myself be afraid. Romei was right: I would always read the telegram. I disengaged myself, stood before my lover, naked. My character Rosaria had agreed to dance for her husband, but his purpose had been shame. Dancing in shame was not the way. I found Benny’s eyes in the half-light; he smiled, I closed my eyes, began to move. I swayed to music I remembered from a room that smelled of formaldehyde: Santana, Hendrix, Joan Baez at Woodstock, a guitar riff licking my skin. And before me, T., his eyes filled not with lust but with love, as if I’d misread him, or maybe those were Benny’s eyes. I lifted my arms and swirled, and dropped my head back, as the rhythm hitched itself to my hips and gathered in my thighs with the pounding of my heart, the blood rushing through my body, my innocent body, into my arms and breasts … Swirling, my arms uplifted, I felt myself rise, wings extended above me, covering me, all of my characters, all of me, Elena, the scared child, Cora, the heartbroken mother, the Shulamite, joyfully wanton, Salomé, bitter and vengeful, Rosaria, ashamed and ill-used, Janey, remorseful and supplicant, Rose, naïve and lost, the wings of an eagle spanning the decades, protecting me, lifting me, all of me. And Benny was there, pulling me toward my center, his fingers tracing my backbone, the web that connects us, his hands on my hips, pulling me toward him. Still dancing, I moved my hips around his, I moved my hips and sang. For some reason, I began to sing.
EPILOGUE
“In that part of our book of memory, before which little can be read, we find, under the heading The New Life Begins, the words I have transcribed here, in this little, this libelous book. Incipit vita nova.” So says Dante.
That part before which little can be read—you know that part of my book better than anyone. The part before the beginning, when even you believed in new life.
Through events remarkable and unexpected, I have learned something of that story. I offer it to you here — the beginning, as I understand it; the middle, as I’ve lived it. The ending remains to be seen — I hope we can write it together.
•
Ahmad went to Pakistan, as promised. When the uncles didn’t allow him into their house, he shouted his sons’ names — their names, his name, the name of his hotel, the fact that he loved them and would always love them, shouted until an uncle, mortified, punched him in the jaw. One of his sons, Amir, the second oldest, came to his hotel. Afraid, but not afraid enough. Too early to know what will come of this, but Ahmad is different now, he’s softer.
He tried to find Shamseh, the girl with the Internet portal, discovered she didn’t exist.
The millennium is with us and the world did not end. Millions of pilgrims will go to Rome this year, millions of romei seeking indulgence. I owe Romei a great deal — you now know how much. Maybe he deserves indulgence, for his tremendous act of love.
What will the millennium bring? No apocalypse, but change, as they say, is afoot. Benny and I have agreed not to discuss marriage until spring. Don’t tell anyone, but when he asks again, I think I’ll say yes. No guarantee that he’s changed, or that I’ve changed, no guarantee that we’ll be safe with each other, but I want to be near him, I want to be seen forever by those kind hazel eyes. In the meantime, I’m working at the bookstore — I manage it, actually, as Benny works on Gilgul. There’s been great interest in the translation Benny published last month, as you probably know.
We’re still in the Den. Andi’s settled into her new life, more resilient than we knew. Hopeful about Amir, Ahmad has made an offer on a house. He plans to bring Andi there on weekends; she’s aware she might meet a brother there. I can join them, if I want — there’s room, there will always be room. It’s going to work out, I truly believe this: our new life.
So what is this new life?
Romei helped me understand. Celan’s chasm cannot be crossed, there is no true translation, no absolute fidelity. I still think this. And yet, miraculously, it can be, there is, and there is. We experience the new life in glimmers, I think, in moments when we apprehend the possibility of new life. When we choose to love through our innocent selves, and not just our damaged parts. When we love through what hurts us, when we step willingly into shalhevetyah, love’s great flame, knowing we won’t be alone. Or leap into the void, knowing that despite the emptiness that lies between us, we can sometimes find our way, all the way, to each other. Then change, real change, becomes possible.
If you’ve read this far, you know all there is to know about me, I’ve opened my heart to you like a flower, I am your flying girl. Your silence mystifies me, I can’t pretend it does not. It makes me realize what Romei knew all along, that forgiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Nice if the offender can account for herself — confess, be contrite, make reparations, change. Nice if we can put ourselves in the offender’s shoes, as if she were a character in fiction: recognize her humanity, identify with her, empathically imagine our way to forgiveness. But ultimately, forgiveness begins not in the intentions of the offender, but the heart of the offended.
Benny tried to teach me this, but I had to learn it for myself. Some offenses are unforgivable, others will not be confessed: we can’t always wait for penance. Sometimes we have no choice but to step into the flame. We know this, you and I, because we know how it is to close our heart around a hurt. I remember you, Mother, I remember that you once loved my father, I remember that once you loved me.