He was seated next to the bed, leaning forward, holding the boy’s hand. As far as I could see, his eyes were closed, while the boy was lying still in his crib with his eyes wide open, gazing at his grandfather’s face. I stood breathless outside the pane of glass and watched them, waiting for a motion, for something to happen. But nothing changed, nothing happened in there. Dad kept his eyes closed and held the boy’s hand and they were both completely still. It was like a tableau vivant, and I couldn’t help myself, I felt calm; it was a beautiful and strange image. It was also quite incomprehensible. Why had Dad traveled here, and who had told him about the boy? It couldn’t be my older sister; since Mom had died, she hadn’t spoken to Dad once. It really made no difference who’d told him; what I couldn’t understand was that he’d ventured to visit my boy. That he’d traveled here to visit a child who was neither healthy nor normal.
I couldn’t make myself enter the room. It wasn’t only the unpleasantness or fear of meeting him. I also didn’t want to interrupt the picture, to upset it, because there was something peaceful about it, something beautiful. It affected me somehow, like a miracle-making icon. My father’s slightly lifted face expressed a simple tenderness that I’d never seen before. I sensed more than I could see that he felt a deep concentration; something in his face flowed through his arm to his fingers, which clasped the boy’s small hand. The boy seemed focused too; his gaze exuded a pure and direct presence steadily directed at my father.
The tears running down my cheeks brought me back to the present moment. Annoyed, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket and looked around, suddenly aware that anyone could pass by and see me. I didn’t want to stand there crying in the corridor. What I ought to do was go and ask my father what he was doing here with my son. What right did he have to be here, and why was he sitting there like an idiot with his eyes closed, holding the boy’s hand? But I couldn’t. I just wiped away my tears and stood there. I didn’t know what to do. You can’t love a father like mine. It’s not possible.
At last, Dad opened his eyes; he probably felt he was being watched. I quickly moved away from the window and half-ran to the bathroom. I closed the door behind me without a sound and locked it, but I didn’t turn on the light. Instead, I sat in the dark with my head in my hands and allowed everything that wanted to tear me apart to rise to the surface. Tear me into pieces, I thought, tear me into a million different pieces. I can’t hold myself together anymore.
I sat there for a long time before I turned on the light. Then I carefully washed my hands and face before I opened the door and went out again, firmly determined to go in to the boy whether my father was there or not.
But he’d already left. Perhaps there was something of him left in the room when I entered it; a scent, a presence, I couldn’t quite tell. Later, I thought that maybe everything I’d seen that day might have been a dream. I could have asked the nurse about it, but I didn’t. It felt best if it remained a dream vision.
The next time I found an envelope with my dad’s handwriting on the hallway floor underneath the mail slot, my first impulse was to throw it away. But instead, I put it unread in the drawer where I kept all my letters. Not until many years later, when I learned from my brother that Dad was dying of cancer, did I read it.
“Dearest Marta,” it began. “I don’t want you to be angry with your old father if he were to tell you that he has visited your son in the hospital without asking your permission.”
It was a real letter this time, not just a greeting on a note card.
“But I did it because I’d heard that your little boy was very sick. In a lecture on the radio, I’d heard the theory that a person can transfer their strength and health to another human being if only they want it wholeheartedly and if they hold the other’s hand and put all their energy into it when they meet. I don’t want you to think that your father has gone and lost his wits. Dear Marta, I wanted so much for your son to heal that I was willing to try everything! Perhaps this may seem to you like I’m trying to redeem myself too late, but I want my girl to know that her father deeply regrets the ill deeds he exposed his beloved family to. He understands fully that he can never be forgiven for such acts. But I want you to know, Marta, that I regret what I did, every day, all the time.” It would have been simpler if I’d been able to hate him completely and fully, if I’d been able to feel nothing but hate, the way my sister did. Nor did she ever understand what God had whispered in my ear when we were young — that I had to look, that I had to be a witness. That’s why I went to see Dad on his deathbed and sat with him for a few hours. I’m not entirely sure if he could see me, but I think he knew that I was there even though he lacked the strength to show it.
It was difficult to sit with him. I couldn’t make myself touch him. He died later that night, when I was on my way home on the train. My brother called and told me, the one brother who for some reason had kept in touch with Dad all those years.
April 11
It’s been a long time since I wrote anything. But now I’ve terminated the lease on my apartment. I know it’s crazy and I can barely admit to myself what I’m doing, but I think I have to respond to life in some way; it has held me accountable and I have to say something, do something, prove I take it seriously. Inside my head a voice whispers: You’re allowed to die. You can do it. And I’m trying to understand these cryptic words, the strong sense of relief they awaken in me. Suddenly, I’m no longer anxious. Life doesn’t have to be preserved at all costs. But it has to be lived, that’s what the words are telling me. I’ve found the door that leads to life, and to my surprise, I’ve discovered that it’s marked Death. You’re going to die, the voice tells me; therefore, you’re allowed to live.
With respect to practical things, I’m trying to be systematic. I’m going to sell or give away most of what I own. I’ll use the money to buy a car, a used but robust car that I can sleep in if I need to. I’m going to pack some books and papers, letters, photographs, and other memorabilia in the big, coffinlike trunk I inherited from Dad. I will have to ask my sister to keep it in her attic for a while. That’s the hardest part of all these preparations. We’ve barely communicated the last few years, mostly just called on each other’s birthdays. But I have to tell her I’m leaving, even if I won’t specify exactly where I’m going, or why. I’m not going to mention Kosti. Maybe I’ll say that I’m moving to the countryside, that I’ve rented a cottage somewhere, something like that. I know how she’ll look at me when we meet, how her eyes will move across my face while she thinks: My, she’s old. Or: Has she gone crazy again?
I can imagine how I will respond, with a stern gaze and controlled expression: No, I’m not going crazy; I just want you to keep my trunk for me.
When I’ve left, she’ll call some of our siblings that she’s in touch with and tell them:
“Marta’s moving. Somewhere in the countryside.”
Then they’ll talk about me. I’m not entirely sure why, but the mere thought makes me squirm; the fact that they’ll talk about me, mention my name, kind of touch me in my absence. As if by doing so they touched me intimately, touched something that ought to be kept hidden, that no one should deal with except me. My name. My life. My shame. It’s that creature inside me that doesn’t want to be seen. The one that wants to live without a face. I don’t want anyone to touch or poke that creature.
I’m not really leaving because of Kosti. It’s quite plausible he has already left Mervas. But if there’s anything in my life that isn’t broken and ruined, I want to find it and take care of it before I die. Last year, I turned fifty. Many people die in their fifties. It could happen to me. Perhaps I have to be taken off track to find my way, to find what’s right.