I was crouched low to the ground flipping frenetically through out-of-print editions. Vsevolod Garshin found me the day before at the Metropolitan with Grace, and I went home to read all of his work. Yes, all. Muses don't come by as often as they used to. Inspiration had been buried under a quieter life and the polar vortex-- the embers had pressed themselves inward. Inspiration was no less existent, but overlooked... that is, until Four Days detonated within me. Vsevolod's interior monologue captures a wounded soldier left immobilized and face-to-face for days with the corpse of a young soldier he had killed. I needed to get my hands on a physical copy.
I had been meaning to visit all the dying, forgotten bookstores of the city before I left. But when Tuesday rolled around, I was late from work and had gotten lost somewhere around Union Square. I settled accordingly on visiting The Strand, a home I love and hate all at once. Sarah browsed patiently as I searched high and low for my new lover, who was not to be found in the entire establishment.
Disappointed, we settled on a more traditional night out and found ourselves walking towards SoHo, through another wonderful bookstore and into the tiny, European comforts of YN, the best girl-date bar in New York City (in my and Very Highbrow's humble opinion). We talked, at first tentatively, as it is with most humans, until we couldn't.
- You've never seen the face of a man you love deeply, you've never mutilated that face to a thing you hardly recognize... Parting ways with him was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And the fact that in all my legalistic torture-- I put him there? What the hell is an unequal yolk? Some people endure suffering as victim, as the persecuted. Their hands are clean. Amy's mom died, David's mom died, Franz-Pol's mom died, Daniel's mom died. And their stories came to me like burning coal on my soul. There are so many aspects of their protracted suffering that make me angry, that make me humble, that drive me to the end of all my questioning. But there's another kind of suffering when you are the harbinger of pain, when you bring the destruction-- that's altogether different. When you look that squarely in the face, you'll never think of yourself in the same way.
She looked at me as if she was looking inside of herself. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, so laughed saying,
- Sarah, I mean, I was so distraught that-- you know that virus that plagues only the frail and elderly? Yeah, I gave myself shingles. Anyway, it was a million years ago.
She almost snorted. We went on to talk about God and life, and about the real strength of women.
We parted ways at the top of the island. I stood waiting for a tardy bus, and arrived at home at an obscene hour. But in this very small hour of morning, I found a small red book at the bottom of my bookshelf. Johanna had bought me a collection of Great Russian Short Stories when she had visited some time last year. I had read through them all in a day. Voraciously. And then had forgotten: Vsevolod was with me all this time.
Instead at The Strand, I had purchased my favorite. Keats. I bought this monetarily worthless copy because I found a cutout quotation from a playbill within. Fitzgerald has haunted me in NYC, in ways I can't yet understand. I always thought I outgrew him sometime between ages 15 and 16, but his ghost seems to have sought me out. Maybe I will always be that fanciful. I always say I ought to have been born in a different century. Sometimes, I find myself in old paintings and poems. Like here,
... Already with thee! tender is the night
And then I found Shirley, littered with Chenier. Chenier, who understands-- the desire to finish a year and see the harvest. Who knows why I'm always listening to the rules. Who knows why I am going where I am going. I am ever a slow, plodding wanderer, and not for want. In the words of a dear friend, desire is a function of will. Perhaps one day more of my emotions will align.
No comments:
Post a Comment