Scissors (21 page)

I should never have sold my rose window.

MARIANNE

How could a person die so senselessly?

Nobody deserves an end like that.

What saddens me the most is that he never wrote me. I could have told him … I could have warned him against those people.

No, I don’t think it was his decision. I think he was manipulated. He met up with a guru. Some guy stronger than he was. Even so, seventy people, and they all died in the fire. No. I don’t think they’ve identified his body. One of the investigators told me, “The problem with sects is they burn their records. The archives go up in flames along with the members.” That contributes to their mystique, he explained.

Crazy, huh?

I knew Edgar was a mystic, but I didn’t think he was nuts.

So what are you doing for her birthday? She’s three, I can’t get over it. Oh, don’t say “young,” don’t say I’m a “young grandmother.” I feel old. Even more so since … You talked to him? How’s he doing? No, I haven’t heard from him since … He’s been out of the country. He always is, I believe.

With that tramp.

Do you know I spoke to her two months ago? My bad luck. I called up to talk to Raymond and she answered the phone. Yes, I know they’re living together, but all the same. I have every right not to get used to it.

Anyway, I call up and that tramp answers. I try to be polite and not gnash my teeth. But after a few minutes I can’t hold out any longer, and I say, “I’m surprised Ray doesn’t want to see his family more often.” I emphasize
more often
, like I’m
wondering what in the world the reason could be. And you know what she says? No joking, you know what she says? She says, “Ray has to leave the elements of his past life behind. That’s the condition for him to stay sober.” She dared to tell me that! “Look,” I say, “are you calling me an element? My name’s Marianne. It isn’t gin or Scotch or vodka.”

And then I hung up on her, but she hung up before I did.

I love this place. Everything’s so calm here. Have I told you how much the chestnut tree has grown? You have to come here with the little one. I’m going to have a swing installed in the backyard. You could all come. Leo and Greta, you and Chris, all my grandchildren. Three generations around the chestnut tree. We could invite Raymond. After he gets back.

I know. She’d never let him come.

I feel a little lonely, to tell you the truth. In spite of the people who stay here. “Spiritual coach,” that’s how I present myself. I listen to their problems, I identify whatever’s not going right. Sometimes they ask me, “How about you? How did you manage to pull through?”

I’m not so sure I’ve pulled through.

I read Ray’s stories and I realize he’s never stopped writing about us, about him and me. He reopens our wounds. He displays them to the whole world, and the whole world applauds.

That’s what’s called fiction, but readers forget there are people behind it. Readers forget the elements of the fiction. No, I haven’t pulled through.

It’s my success, too. It’s ours, you know. Your father’s success is ours.

Even if we’ll never see any money.

JOANNE

April 30

I’m writing this in the garden of the Hotel de Russie, a haven of peace in the heart of Rome. Ray hasn’t gotten up yet. Last night’s dinner exhausted him
.

Magdalena, his Italian translator, served as our interpreter. When the three editors seated near us started to quarrel over the rights to Ray’s next story collection, we retreated to a corner to talk with her. To our amazement, this petite and very lively lady turned out to have been Hemingway’s translator too. She described in great detail her meeting with him sometime in the 1950s. As we listened to her, I felt as though we were on a boat headed out to sea. With Hemingway at the helm
.

Ray devoured the
puntarelle
and asked for a second helping of the truffle risotto. I pointed out to him that we weren’t at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but Magda encouraged us to make ourselves at home. I told her we didn’t eat that well at home. Ray’s appetite always surprises me. He needs to compensate for the lack of sugar
.

He smokes too much. I tell him it’s not real smart to stop destroying yourself with your right hand if you’re just going to speed up the process with your left. He’s right-handed, but he uses his left hand when he smokes. I’d like to write a poem on that subject—I’ll call it “Smoking Left-handed.”

Yesterday he explained to a journalist that alcoholism was doubtless a metaphor for his social condition. The journalist pretended he understood what Ray was talking about, but Ray looked at me as if he himself didn’t. He loathes interviews. He feels obliged to come up with statements people will want to quote, whereas in his stories he avoids that sort of thing like the plague
.

The day we arrived, while he was taking a nap, I went out and explored the neighborhood. I discovered a little bookstore behind the Trevi Fountain (I’ll go back there tomorrow and get the name of the street). A very old man wearing spectacles was the shopkeeper. I could hardly make out his eyes through the lenses, which were as thick as magnifying glasses. On a table where books were spread out in a disorderly jumble, I found a volume of Cesare Pavese’s poems. I copied out a few lines in my notebook:

I told myself I’d give the volume to Raymond as a present, even though he doesn’t understand a word of Italian. Poetry’s never as beautiful as it is in the languages one doesn’t know. When I realized I didn’t have enough money on me, I put the book back where I’d found it. I wasn’t actually unhappy to leave it behind, because the poem in question talks about …

And I’ve always been superstitious
.

RAYMOND

I’d never have thought it could be so short. It’s true I had a premonition. I even wanted to get it over with, more than once. But I’d put that off until tomorrow. Like with drinking. For ten or fifteen years, I’d think,
That’s enough. I’m stopping
. I’d admonish myself:
You hear, Ray? This is the last of a long line. After this one, you’re stopping
. I’d pour another drink and
make a silent declaration:
Tomorrow, I’m stopping
. I persuaded myself that each drink was the last. But there was always a tomorrow, and life would start over again.

I’ve just been told it won’t be starting over anymore.

Sometimes, when fear loosens its grip, curious thoughts arise in me. Like bubbles.

This one, for example:
Good thing I write short stories
. If they were novels, I’d feel I was being interrupted in the middle. There’s a novel I’ve always wanted to write, but alcohol stood in the way. Short pieces were all I could manage.

Yet I don’t want to give up on that novel. I feel like starting work on it even if I have to die tomorrow. It would be a way of protesting, a refusal to be a pushover.

Tackling a novel when you’re at the end of the road, writing the first sentence on the day you’re condemned to death—what could be more human than that?

And the bubbles expand; they become hope.

MARIANNE AND
RAYMOND

“Are you in pain?” I ask him on the telephone.

“They say I’ll be in even more pain if they interrupt the treatment. But what’s the use of continuing the treatment if … What’s the use?”

“There must still be some hope. Don’t you want me to come?”

“What’s the use?”

I say it again: “Don’t you want me to come?”

“What’s the use?” he repeats.

The same words with a different meaning.

He lets a few seconds pass. Then he says, “Disease is making me a minimalist.”

“No it isn’t. You’re anything but a minimalist.”

That makes him laugh. I regret the remark instantly, because it hurts him to laugh.

We keep talking. I do my best not to make him laugh again, but once or twice I can’t stop myself.

He didn’t marry me for nothing.

RAYMOND

When my daughter was born, my father was a patient in the same hospital. One floor up. He was gravely ill. The day Marianne had the baby, he came close to breathing his last. A birth, a death. Tit for tat. He passed away a few years later.

If Leo’s wife were about to have a baby one floor down, I’d prefer not to know it. I’d be glad to hear it, but I’d just as soon not be told. Or be told later.

The truth is, at the baby’s first cry I’d have the feeling I should hurry up and complete the exchange. I’d hear the creditor knocking on my door.

Ah, I sound like I’m dead already. But in fact I’m still alive. As long as it doesn’t get into my brain, I’ll stay alive. That’s what they told me this morning. “Above all, we want to prevent it from going to your head.”

I told them not to worry. I’ve always been humble, I said. It’s true, ask your friends. They’ll say, “Whatever happens to him, nothing goes to his head.”

I’ve got my first sentence.

If there was one thing people appreciated about him, it was that nothing went to his head
.