The Archivist (20 page)

This place, I said. You don’t know what it does to me. I need to come home. Matt (my voice rising, I couldn’t stop it), if you tell them to let me go, they will. I need my desk, I need the city noise, I need all my records. My own bed. I need to sleep with you.

His eyes alighting on mine.

Please don’t, he said, you make it hurt more when you say these things.

They’re hiding the world from me. You have to tell them to release me.

Words burst from him, finally.
Judith do you think I wouldn’t — oh can’t you feel it, don’t you see how you’re not ready, you know I can’t tell them till you’re ready, till you’re well again — oh please God try to understand me, Judith, hear me
—

His body unwinding, extending toward me. His hands reaching me first, grasping mine, pulling me to him. Then his arms at my sides and around my waist, pulling, the space between us collapsing. My chest against his, the bony armature, his arms still pulling, his hands first in my hair then drawing my face down to his shoulder, into the heat of his neck, its hard basis of collarbone, the tendons running upward to the jaw. His hand on the nape of my neck, thumb and third finger spread and hooked under my jawbone at either side; his legs scissoring mine hard, the bones at the sides of his knees pressing at my thighs, pinning me on top of him, not letting me move, keeping me still, holding me telling me showing me still he loves me, still.

Til I’m well again
.

Our breathing uneven, as if we had been making love, as if we had been connected.

Matt, I don’t know if I can be well again. I don’t know what it means. Do you know what it means?

No, I don’t, he whispered.

You have to help me, I said.

I can come see you, he said. It’s all I can do.

When you leave me, this is gone, I said. Then I’m alone.

(Strands of his soft brown-grey hair between my fingers.)

I know.

It’s not enough.

We have no choice, Judith.

October 31

They’ve stepped up my Miltown dosage. My entire body is leaden.

Tomorrow I will tell Clay, I’ll say to him
you fucking son of a bitch you take me off this shit or I’ll —

I can’t finish what I start, the drug short-circuits everything.

Where’s Powell? When I need him, when I need his nut-brown bittersweet gaze on me,
oh yes I know you!

Instead, Matthias. On this of all days, today, Halloween! He showed up in the late afternoon, dusk approaching. A quiet knocking, his
let me in
breaking into the room’s grey air.

Hello, Judith.

I brought you some books, he said. From Wiser’s.

The Apocrypha. The Secret Doctrine in Israel: A Study of the Zohar and Its Connections. The Kabbalah; or, The True Science of Light.

I couldn’t talk. I looked at Matt, trying to bring him into focus. The edges of him were clear but the center wouldn’t hold.

He swung one hand back and forth in a low arc while he spoke, a small self-deprecating gesture.

I thought I’d just drop in for a minute, he said. I won’t stay long. I don’t know, it seemed like the right thing to do, so I came.

His stammering voice, that hand dipping through the air. The books heavy in my arms, my entire body heavy.

Yes, I said. Come on in.

Voices. I needed to hear a voice other than his or mine, so I put Ella Fitzgerald on the record player. The tunes Matt likes. Then I watched him sit in the chair. I tried to sit on the bed but it seemed to be swallowing me, so I somehow found the floor and leaned against the wall.

You look a little pale, he said. Are you all right?

Fine, I answered. Only you did make me think of a ghost. When I first saw you.

He forced a short uncertain laugh.

Really?

No. Not literally.

It’s Halloween, you know, he said.

Yes.

Maybe that’s why you thought —

— no, I said. But it doesn’t matter. They’ve increased the Miltown, that’s probably it.

He was silent.

I don’t understand your being here now, I said.

He looked away, a wince. Pain. Between us always pain.

I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, I said. I don’t know what I meant.

He nodded, but I saw he was keeping his eyes cast down. He wouldn’t look at me. Even though I was on the floor. Down there on the floor.

Look at me, I said (the fury ignited, a bright whip-like snap), will you look at me, goddamn it?

(
So I can make you real
— I should’ve said it —
so it won’t be a ghost, our love!
)

I can’t right now, he whispered. I just came to be with you for a little while. It’s what I can do.

His eyes down, still down.

Leave, I said. Leave me.

Judith, he said, don’t.

No, I said, no, just leave.

Somehow he’d gone. I lay on my side on the floor, listening to Ella — her voice so rich and deep and dense on the last few terrifying bars of that absurd ballad —

I’d like to gain complete control of you

to handle even the heart and soul of you

November 16

So what do you think of our new president, I began.

How did you hear about the election results, Clay said.

Don’t be an idiot, I said, everyone here talked about the election. You don’t need a newspaper or a radio to know the news. Even here. Even with these crazy people.

What do
you
think, he said. Of our new president.

I think Kennedy is young and handsome (I rattled on) but probably smart and certainly preferable to his opponent, who makes me think of certain caricatures I’ve seen of evil Jews. You know. Big nose, shifty eyes, dark brows, heavy beard growth.

You find Kennedy’s opponent compelling, Clay said. Does he remind you of any man you know?

Oh yes, I said (trying to look sincere; I’ve learned which of my expressions appear convincing to Clay). He reminds me of most of the men I know.

Why is that?

Because most of the men I know are untrustworthy, I said.

Are you reminded of Sam? he asked.

Oh yes, more than anyone else, I said. I’m sure my father was very much like that — crafty, wily, argumentative, a bit morose, self-absorbed. He must’ve been that way.

Why is that?

Because he was a Jew.

You’re not taking this seriously, Judith.

But I am, I said. What are you expecting me to say?

I expect you to say what you really feel.

Ah, I said. Well, I feel that Sam is very dead. So I can think of him as a man like Nixon, or a man like Kennedy, or a man like Matthias, or Len, or you. It doesn’t much matter, does it?

Yes, he said, it does, because the way you think of Sam helps us see why you have trouble letting him go. Why you still require his attendance at the drama of your inner life.

Oh fuck my inner life, I said. The most dramatic thing about my inner life is how dried up it’s become in this place. I can’t write here, can’t think here, can’t stay in touch —

— with what, Clay broke in, with what aren’t you in touch? What is it you’re really missing?
Who
is it?

All of them, I said (but not to him; only to myself). The millions in Europe, the two on lower Broadway — the ones who might’ve seen things differently —

December 31

A note from Matt, delivered by Powell.

Missing you, thinking of you
.

And then this, copied out from the book of Auden poems I no longer own, the one I threw away:

In the depths of myself blind monsters know

Your presence and are angry, dreading Love

That asks its images for more than love

Yes, I remember that poem; and the two of us reading aloud, in bed that first winter, our legs tangled for warmth. I remember this, too:

On a high chair alone

I sat, my little master, asking why

The cold and solid object in my hands

Should be a human hand, one of your hands.

1961

April 25

Spring. The earth has finally thawed. Its muddy surface is such a relief.

More newspapers. Today, Len and Carol’s first visit this year. A quick here-and-gone. They like being the bearers of news, it gives them a reason for visiting me.

Len paced and smoked and told me about Gideon Hausner, the Israeli prosecutor who made the opening statement at the Eichmann trial last week.

A dumpy little Pole, he said, but smart. You’ll read about him.

Eichmann’s got six volumes of testimony, said Carol. Can you imagine? The lawyers are going to be reading the stuff for months.

No, said Len. Hausner’s all set for this. He knows exactly what’s in those pages. His team’s all set to go.

They say Eichmann wants to make like he was just one of the foot soldiers, said Carol. You know, the whole following-orders bit.

No dice, said Len.

He sounded tough, but I could see he was nervous. Distracted. When they left, Carol handed me a couple of records and some cookies.

I made them yesterday for Lenny, she said, but he’s eaten too many already, why don’t you take the rest?

Len stood in the doorway. He turned suddenly and gave the sill a fast, hard jab with the heel of one hand.

They better hang that son of a bitch, he said. And they better not waste any time. Or there’s going to be a bunch of very angry Jews in America.

I wanted to laugh at him: Len Rubin, the now-angry Jew who managed to sit out the entire war.

When Bud Powell lost Richie and Nancy, he knew he’d lost segments of himself. And now when he plays, he knows he’s retrieving the shards, bits of the
ein-sof
, slivers of light. This is his Repair. Playing is painful for him because slivers enter his skin as he strikes the keys. In his fingertips, up the shaft of each finger, across the palm of each hand are stabs of pain. But he keeps playing,
in memoriam
, for everyone gone.

America is punishment for Powell. He thinks it isn’t safe here, and he’s right. So he goes to Paris, but even there he meets up with all the deaths when he plays.

LeRoi Jones:

Smiling & glad/in

the huge & loveless

white-anglo sun/of

benevolent step

mother America

Len and Carol swear they’re safe. Oh, they swear it. But Lenny grows nervous.

June 9

Matt’s here once a month, for maybe an hour each time. We go outside — I still can’t sit in the room without ending up on the floor, but outside I feel stronger. We walk, often in silence. Between visits I get little notes from him. They are emptily sweet:
How are you? Hope this finds you calm
. And:
Thinking of you
.

I read them and give them to Powell. I don’t care what you do with these, I tell him, but don’t even think of saving them. They aren’t for safekeeping.

He nods, he understands.

Matt brings books, mostly poetry, things I don’t feel like reading. Last week he brought a small narrow box. I opened it; inside was a strand of pearls identical to those I no longer have, but with a different clasp.

I looked at him. He smiled at me uncertainly.

Carol mentioned you’d got rid of your necklace, he said. I thought maybe you’d be missing it. You used to always wear it.

How does Carol know what I’ve kept or not kept, I said. And why is she telling you?

My voice was a slap bringing color to his cheeks.

Last year you asked her to give away a bunch of your clothes, he said. When she sorted them out, she found the pearls and gave them to me, and I had them cleaned and re-strung for you.

Wait, I said. First you threw out all my files without asking me. And then you and Carol saved a necklace that
I
didn’t want to see again,
ever
. Take these fucking pearls away and go yourself, go now!

He must’ve tried to speak because I began saying
don’t talk to me
. It turned out I was yelling without realizing it. The door opened and Powell was standing there, watching me.

He motioned to Matt, and Matt walked out quickly, as if in danger. And I knew it would be a while before I’d see him again.

August 16

Earlier this humid evening, Len and Carol brought the latest news. The court had adjourned after hearing all the Eichmann testimony.

It’s going to take a couple of months for them to come to a verdict, said Len.

Carol handed me the pile of newspapers and put the blue bag by the door.

We can’t stay long, she said, we want to get back in time to catch Bill Evans’s first set.

Where’s he playing, I asked.

Someplace uptown, said Carol. Lenny, check today’s paper for the club, would you?

Len lit a cigarette and flipped through the paper on top of the stack as Carol chattered about her job, the humidity, a new restaurant on West Fourth Street, her recent disappointing haircut, the prices of sheet music — everything’s going up, the city’s getting so damn expensive.

You forgot to tell her about the Wall, said Len, looking up from the newspaper.

What wall, I said.

In Berlin, he said, handing me the front page of today’s Times.

A photograph showed a city street lined with flat-facaded apartments. Down its middle ran what looked like a fence of barbed wire. Groups of soldiers were building a stone foundation for the fence as other armed soldiers stood by, preventing any crossings.

What’s this, I said.

The border between East and West Berlin, said Len. The East Germans got tired of people leaving. The other day they circled the western part of the city with wire, and now they’re putting up a real wall, and they’re shooting anyone who tries to cross over. They’ve killed some people already.

They threw the whole thing together overnight, said Carol. Just like that. People woke up and found themselves completely cut off — from neighbors, family, friends. It’s terrible. Kennedy’s got a real mess on his hands. I don’t know what he’ll do.