Read Online The Last of the Wise Lovers by Amnon Jackont - Free Book Online Page B

didn't accomplish anything, either.  Finally I
sprinkled some pink powder blush over the lines and scratches - and this time I
succeeded.
       It was a letter to someone whose name
had already been blocked out by the eyebrow pencil.  I had an
unconquerable urge to copy what remained, perhaps so that I wouldn't be tempted
in the morning to think that it had never existed.  I went to my room and
came back with a pen and paper.  After an hour of painstaking work I had
deciphered almost all the words.  I've kept the whole thing to this day.
      
    "... even if you deny it, I feel that the lapses ...  are
longer, the hours stolen.  Your impatience immediately rubs off on me:
...  patience against your impatience.  That's why I sometimes talk
so much, laugh… things.  So there won't be silence, so there won't be
emptiness.
              And so, worn
out by the crazy telephone chase to arrange a rendezvous, confused by the
encounter itself, and full of guilt about Ronny sitting home and waiting
...  burst into tears.
              So this is your
big moment - you hold my cheeks in your warm palms, stare ...  my eyes and
touch me as ...  know: with sensitivity, with understanding, and, most of
all, with wisdom.
              But it only
helps a little, for ...  already mature enough and know the truth - that
beyond the denials, the attempts to hide it, the promises and vows, you are on
your way out.  It's not the first time, but it's the most painful one
...  you have something that's impossible to learn and impossible to ask and
impossible to understand, a kind of talent for love that makes you into such a
wise lover, that so wonderful and wise a lover will never ...  again.
              ...  from
your car, and I quickly ran home down the dark street, I knew I would have to
be strong, to prepare myself for what was to come.  "Farewell my wise
lover," I thought as I ran, "lover who will never come again, oh
last, wise lover ...”
     
       There was nothing more. Perhaps no
more was ever written; perhaps it was written in a different notebook.  I
thought about Dad chasing the length and breadth of America just to support us,
and about the house, which suddenly seemed neglected, and about myself, never
finding her at home.
       When the anger subsided, the sense of
revelation remained.  Suddenly I understood that Mom had been more than
those homey things, those protective, warm things I had become accustomed to
seeing in her.  She was also a person, a woman, a female like the ones I
see at the tables in the library, whose décolletage I inspect as they bend
over their books; or like the ones who look at me when I wander around after
work, on the way to the station; or like the ones who stand in the streets
around Times Square sheathed in short, short dresses; or like the ones who sit
next to me on the bus, so careful not to let their thighs touch mine; or like
Debbie, or Linda before her, or fat Lisa (the neighbors' daughter - I told you
about her once, when I discovered the pubic lice and you gave me a bottle of
copper solution); or the others whom it was easier or harder to lay, depending
on the circumstances.
       And everything all together was
awful, terrible, and at the same time curious, and filled with despair. I put
the notebook back where I'd found it and hid the page I'd copied in the gap
between the dresser and the wall, behind a piece of wallpaper that was coming
unglued. Afterwards I lay in bed, wakeful and restless.
     
    *
     
    The next morning I wanted to go back and reread
what I had copied, but something stopped me.  It was easier to make do
with what I remembered, which had become a little fuzzy and not so organized.
 Dad was still asleep, overcome with that fatigue that people bring with
them from long journeys.  Mom was again busy doing something in the depths
of the basement.  Aunt Ida was wandering around in circles on the lawn.
 I took some honey cake and