"But
he discovered in the end that his thoughts and inspirations were like
the intimations of a dream, which always seemed inspired at the time
but proved utterly shallow and useless to the waking mind." -
Death In Venice, Thomas Mann
"As
strange as it might seem, he never suspected the truth; it came to
him all at once. He finally understood that he could not remember
shapes, sounds or colors in his dreams, that there really were no
shapes or sounds or colors, and that they were not dreams at all.
They were his reality, a reality well beyond silence and sight, and
therefore, beyond memory." - His
End and His Beginning, Jorge Luis Borges
1
The Search
We
begin in the clarity of day. It is the autumn season, and Maria’s
husband is working at the Devorah’s farm, as he has done every day
for the past ten years. Maria is at her house washing clothes. Maria
seems, at first glance, to be the practical sort of wife who mends
and cleans the neighbors' clothes for money or food, cooks dinner for
her husband at five o'clock, and keeps the house in order. Only later
will it become obvious just how impractical she can be, how
headstrong she is underneath her charming apron and tied-up black
hair.
Right
now, Maria is washing the school teacher Yeshua's clothes. Yeshua
teaches math and science to almost all the children in the Midustan,
and teaches them Latin and Greek. Yeshua grew up a kind and
introverted boy in the small slat-built house down the road from
Maria’s house. One day, when he was a young men of eleven or
twelve, he disappeared and no one knew where he went. He was gone for
ten years. And then one Wednesday when the sky was clear and the dogs
of the village were lying under the trees with their tongues hanging
out of their mouths and the little children were swimming in brooks
or hiding in the cool branches of trees, Yeshua walked down the road
past Maria’s house. He came with a beard and a cart full of books.
He bought a small shed from Iaqoub, who still lives a mile down the
river from Maria with his dog and his blind wife, and then Yeshua
began telling all the families in the Midustan that if they wanted
their children to learn, he would teach for food, for money, or for
clothes. Above all, he would teach. For Yeshua had spent those ten
years in the schools of Johostan, and had become a wise and learned
man. Which is why almost everyone in the Midustan does not really
trust Yeshua.
Yeshua's
shirts and pants and towels are piled in steaming clumps on a
draining stone. When Yeshua brings his clothes to Maria every Monday
he licks his lips just a little bit and then looks away before
staring at her with his hazel eyes. He always asks how soon Maria can
finish them, even though Yeshua knows perfectly well all his spotless
clothes will be returned to him that very evening no cleaner than
before. Maria thinks of Yeshua's coming and going fondly - a little
guardedly, yes - but fondly. It is a game and a distraction to Maria.
She watches Yeshua's soft brown beard and red ears as he walks down
the baked and withered dirt road to her house every Monday morning,
carrying his basket full of clothes. He gives her such stares, so
full of the unfulfilled pedant's sensuality. The unspoken attention
she receives is a lovely thing for her, but it is a sweetness and a
satisfaction she cannot relate to Yeshua. Nor can she ever tell her
husband. Her husband, as the Devorah sisters love to say, is always
ready to cut the moon in two for her, and for this Maria is glad. She
loves him in return, for she knows that many are the men who speak of
the beauty of fidelity and children and love and such things, but
their eyes always flit towards the click of pretty ladies' heels, and
are driven from their women's side by the smallest of excuses.
Soon
it will be time for Yeshua to pick up his clothes, and for Maria's
husband to return from the farm. Her husband's name is Aaron. He used
to be a traveling preacher when he was younger; that was what he was
when she met him. But he fell in love with Maria, and he decided he
would settle down with her and give up his preaching. He wanted very
badly to have a son, and he did not think that a job as a traveling
preacher would be a good thing for a father. So he had stopped
preaching. But no child came. Ten years have passed and Aaron is
still a farmhand and still their house is empty of children. Sadness
has come quietly and slowly into their house, onto the dinner table
and into the pots and pans, into the songs Maria sings and into the
light that shines in the house, and most especially into the darkness
that comes at night.
Maria
is singing a song and she is cooking. Maria is recalling something;
she remembers the first man to ever smile at her. When Maria was
young there were many boys who had smiled and blushed and giggled at
her. There were boys like Yeshua who had dreamed sweaty dreams about
her, and there were boys who simply wrote poems about her and never
gave them to her - but none of them had been men. They had admired or
hated their fathers, and had been too aware of their father's
footsteps. Those boys who smiled at her had not seen their mothers as
women, as the lovers of their fathers; they had not discerned the
grace or the awkwardness of their sisters' movements about the house.
Those heavy-lipped, light-eyed boys had only seen dim and flickering
bits of beauty in Maria and all the girls and women they called
'beautiful.' But the first man to smile at Maria . . . he had not
blushed. His lips had slowly curled, maybe his eyes had gleamed -
this she could not remember, but no matter - she had seen in him what
she had never seen in the smiles of boys. Appreciation. She had
suddenly become aware of how she stood, one foot back of the other,
her lips parted without really showing her teeth, her breasts soft
and curvaceous, her body caressable. She had not felt the bitterness
of possession yet - only a feeling of confidence and vibrant
possibility. With that man, Aaron, whose smile told her she had
become a woman, Maria had known who
she was to
him - a beautiful and precocious woman. It had been she who blushed.
He was her first suitor and her last.
`He
was my first suitor.' The words are on her lips and she is repeating
them without thought or implication. The image of her husband, that
tall and sensitively aware man with the mark of knowledge in his
downward glance and the careful walk of his feet has already been
called forth and forgetfully cast aside when she sees Yeshua walking
along the road towards the house. Maria sighs and reminds herself to
smile. Sometimes it is hard to be cheerful for Yeshua, but it is what
he needs. And then Maria realizes Yeshua's clothes are not dry yet;
they are still scattered in cold wet piles on the draining stone. She
needs to hang the clothes out to dry. And in an instant she sees that
Yeshua will want to come back later that night and by then it will be
dark, and Aaron will be home. Maria grabs two piles with her small
hands and then freezes. The full weight of her thoughts strikes her
and she knows there is no plan. Yeshua must not come when Aaron is
home. Even though Aaron knows she washes Yeshua's clothes, and Aaron
innately senses Yeshua's attraction -
Aaron knows all this and is a man utterly devoid of jealousy –
Maria is worried. She is frightened of herself. It is Maria who will
be wringing her hands and blushing and looking back at Aaron every
minute when Yeshua comes to the door. It will be Maria whose cheeks
will seethe a red she cannot see when Yeshua licks his lips and turns
his hazel eyes away before returning to gaze once more upon her
married and unattainable body.
Yeshua
is now at the door. Maria still has her fists upon Yeshua’s
clothes, but has forgotten the feeling of their wetness. She is
consumed only by the implications, for she knows that through the
kitchen window Yeshua can see her back and can see his clothes on the
drying stone. She wishes he would say to her, "I can see that
you have not finished my clothes. I will come back tomorrow."
But he is not that kind of a man. Yeshua is not a bad man, for he is
good and kind and almost sad, and Maria pities him. (An alienating
and magnetic act, to pity a man, but Maria feels it is her assigned
role to pity Yeshua and smile sadly for him, to say light and
meaningless things to him every day in an effort to tiptoe around the
meaning of his loneliness). When Yeshua comes to an opportunity and a
moment such as seeing Maria, watching her lips move unhesitatingly,
and listening to the soft voice which causes him to whisper
`mellifluous' to himself every night before he sleeps, he holds the
moment. Faced with seeing or leaving Maria's beauty, Yeshua will
always do the most unwise thing, the most natural thing. Yeshua will
say to himself, "I cannot wait till tomorrow. I must see my
success or failure today, and no other day."
Maria
turns around to look at Yeshua's face. "Yeshua, I have not
finished your clothes yet. Can
you come back later?"
"I'll
come back tonight. Is that okay, or...do you want me to come back
tomorrow?" Maria will live with her guilt easier than she will
live with the thought of his sadness. "No. You can come back
tonight."
*
It
is growing dark now. Aaron should have been home two hours ago.
Yeshua will soon be here, and perhaps Aaron will not be home when
Yeshua comes to pick up the clothes, so Maria will not have to live
with either her guilt or Yeshua's sadness. There are footsteps. At
first Maria thinks it is Aaron, but the footsteps are too slow and
the feet drag in the dirt too heavily. She realizes it is the walk of
an aged man, and she looks out the window to see who it might be. It
is Maren.
Maria
waits for Maren to knock on the door, and then she gets up from her
chair and opens the door. Maren looks worried, more worried than an
old man who goes about advising and prophesying and speaking of the
Lord in his myriad manifestations ought to look. His long black hair
is sweaty and unkempt, and a few strands are plastered to the skin in
front of his ears.
"Maren,
it is good to-"
"Maria,
may I come inside? I have something I must tell you."
"Sure,
sure. Come on in. What is it?"
Maria
finds Maren a chair, and they sit down at the table opposite one
another. Maria offers Maren some of the beef stew that sits in the
pot on the table. He accepts and Maria watches him eat. Maren eats
slowly, and though it is apparent he is trying to chew his food
quietly, the whole house is filled with the sound of his teeth
grinding, the smack of his lips and the squirm of his saliva mingling
with the beef, the potatoes and the onions in his mouth.
Maren
stops eating after about a minute, looks around the house, and says,
"Thank you for the food, Maria. Sometimes I grow so hungry that
good food is almost a greater solace than God’s touch. For this
pleasure I am grateful to you. But I did not come here to eat your
food. Aaron has left you."
"Excuse
me?"
The
concept of Aaron leaving her is so foreign that Maria does not
believe she heard correctly.
"This
morning I was walking along the road to Leyalah when I met up with
your husband on the road. He told me he was on his way to the
Devorah's farm. We fell to discussing God, personal salvation,
ultimate knowledge, and other dangerous topics. Oh, the world of
today. It is such a dangerous place for our souls. Aaron thinks he
is missing something deep and important in his life. He told me that
for a long time he has been struggling to come to terms with society,
with himself and with his faith. He told me that you two have been
trying for ten years to have a child, and that even now your house
remains empty of a child’s laughter. If our conversation had ended
on that note, Aaron would be here eating this delicious food and not
I. But I …”
Maria
watches the shadow of complicity pass across Maren's face, and she
wishes she had not been looking.
"I
told Aaron about the Paternoster. The Paternoster is a very wise and
ancient man that lives inside a tree deep in a forest on the slopes
of a large mountain. Only the Deriads, the inhabitants of a small
village deep in the forest, know how to find the Paternoster. There
are many legends about him. Some even say that he is the same man as
Prometheus - the Titan who gave us fire and knowledge in the Golden
Age. I told him that the Paternoster, whom I myself once visited and
found to be of immense spiritual help, might be able to help him if
he could go to the Paternoster with you at some point. I told him the
Paternoster lived far away, in a land that would take months to
reach. Aaron seemed to really like the idea of going to the
Paternoster, but he didn’t think you would want to go. He thought
you would try to dissuade him from going. I then went off on a long
tangent about how sex distracts the mind from the absolute. I go on
these tangents out of habit, but this time I wish I hadn’t said
anything. It is a theme I am fond of promulgating, but it is not
something I truly believe. I only practice abstinence and preach the
intentions of God because it is my fate. It is not my faith. But I
did not tell Aaron this.”
Maria
is crying. She already knows what has happened, but she continues to
ask: “Why didn’t you tell Aaron this?”
“Because
I am weak. Because I – because I wanted him to take some of the
journey that I have taken. It is selfish of me, I know. Please do not
hate me for this.”
“It
will be hard not to. You are a hypocrite and a failure as a man. I
have always distrusted you and I never knew why. Now I know.”
“I
am sorry, Maria. I am sorry I did not try to stop him. But I wanted
him to find the truth as badly as he wanted to. I wanted his
depression and his feeling of meaninglessness to go away. Seeing the
Paternoster was the only way I knew for him to become a happier man.
I had not meant for him to leave without telling you goodbye, but he
did not trust himself or you for that. He felt you would find a way
to stop him from leaving.”
“Maren,
I love him. I would have gone with him. You know that.”
“I
don’t. You are a woman. Women love stability. Do you deny it?”
‘Yes.
I do deny it. You know nothing of my life. You know nothing of me.
You are an old man, and you have lived many years, so you think you
have seen all that life has to show. But you have not. You have not
seen me for who I am. You meant well, but you have been blind.
Because of you my husband has left me and now he will never come
back.”
Maria
bites her lip and then stands up. She walks to the door and opens it
for Maren. The sky is dark and crickets can be heard outside the
door.
“Go!
And do not come back.”
"Wait!
I will go. I have hurt you and I was not honest with Aaron. But let
me tell you something before I go. Now, you and I have always known
Aaron to be an impractical and philosophical sort of man, right? But
I have also always known him to be a man who is loving and fond of
humanity, and more importantly, a man fond of your touch. He has
always been deeply in love with you. So I could not understand why he
would make such a rash decision. It is true, I did not tell him of
the reason for my lifestyle, and I did not tell him that happiness
with a woman is infinitely more satisfying than life alone. I did not
tell him that satisfaction with life and with God tends to come
easier for the man who is satisfied with his body and his wife than
it does for the man who has left all women behind for the company of
a fleshless God. I did not tell him the truth of these things because
he would not have listened. He is the kind of man who needs to find
these things out on his own. He needs to make the truth his own, and
if I had told him of my sadness, it would not have meant anything to
him. He needs to make the journey I have made, but he is a better
man, and he will not make the same mistakes I have made. He will come
back to you. He will not give up. He will discover that his life is
beautiful wherever he is, but most especially with you. It is going
to take a journey for him to find that he already has the best life
he can ever have.”
Maria
looks with uncertainty at Maren. She does not know what to say. She
feels there is truth in what he says, but he has betrayed her. She
wants to hit him and call him foul names, but she does not. Maren is
sitting there in the chair and Maria looks at him. He looks very old
to her. He looks weak and he looks wise. She remains standing and she
listens as he continues to talk.
"I
know Aaron should not lead the life I lead. I am a sad and lonely
man. But I am a full man, and daily I feel God's presence about me.
Sometimes he is with me in the marrow of my bones. You see, he is so
heavy, oh so desperately heavy on my tongue, and I can feel his
fingers on my eyes, his rich laughter ringing on my teeth, and there
are times when God becomes painful, and I must bite my fingers in
order not to yell out. But I did not choose this life. If I had a
choice, I would be a married man with some children and a small
house, and a job, any job, and probably a small garden. You see, when
I was a young man, only fifteen, my path was chosen for me. I lived
in a Midustan much like this one, and two miles from where I lived
there lived another family. There was a mother and a father, and they
had only one child - a beautiful daughter, whose name was Athmina.
Her hair was long and her mother would every day plait it into
braids, and she had sparkling eyes, and a quick long laugh. I had
grown up with her, playing games by the river with her, listening to
my father preach in the temple while she sat by my side and her
parents sat next to my mom. It was clear to me that she was the girl
I was meant to love. Every word she said I treasured. Then a day came
when I went to her house to ask her parents if I might play with
their daughter, and I was met at the door by her father's sad and
terrible-to-see face. I asked him what was wrong, and he began to
wretch and to sob, and he gripped the walls with his white-knuckled
fingers. I knew instantly my life was over. She had drowned in the
river, he did not know how or why, only that she was dead. And I left
him, and returned to my house, and sat in my father's study, and
stared at his bible. I did not bother to ask God 'why'. It was my one
bit of wisdom in this life, to know not to ask God why. I simply saw
it was so, and that I had to leave. I felt that I would never call
anything home again. So I stole my father's bible and went away. God
repaid my theft and my loss with his presence, and I have lived with
him and that stolen bible ever since.”
Maria
looks at Maren and wonders where God is in all this, how God can fit
into Maren’s bushy black eyebrows, and then she decides it does not
matter. She is alone now. That is all that matters. Aaron has left
her for the forest, for God, for answers she could not provide. This
has been coming for a long time. The sadness has been in the house
for so many years, and though she has felt some of that sadness, the
sadness has been largely his. It is, in fact, an emotion deeper than
sadness. It has driven Aaron out of the house and back into the
world. Though she is stunned and sad and angry and unbelieving, left
with colliding images of all the things she has been led to believe
are the marks of love between a man and a woman, she is not ready for
despair. She thinks of Yeshua. She gets up and thanks Maren, and when
he asks her what she plans to do, she says she does not know. Maren
finishes his food, and then clumsily and self-consciously walks out
into the night air. Maria listens to his footsteps and thinks of
Yeshua’s footsteps, whose pace is so much quicker and so much more
anxious than Maren’s.
For
perhaps thirty minutes Maria feels nothing. She needs to give Yeshua
his clothes. For thirty minutes Maria tries to avoid thought, and
very nearly succeeds. Then she hears Yeshua walking down the road and
she hates herself instantly. When she hear his steps she realizes she
has been waiting for Yeshua to come, she knows what she is going to
do, and she knows it is the wrong thing to do. She does not care
enough any more to stop him or herself. Yeshua comes to the door and
asks for his clothes. Maria opens the door, and takes Yeshua's hand.
"Come
in."
The
minuscule resistance of his wrist tells Maria that his body knows
where he is going but that his mind struggles for a second to
comprehend. His confusion is the result of a strange mixture of joy
and disbelief. Maria leads Yeshua to the bedroom and closes the door.
She does not turn the lamp on, but takes his shirt in her hand and
whispers for all the room to hear, "I'll get your clothes in a
second."
Yeshua
stands helpless without these words -
what a comfort words can become when the facts are undeniable but
beyond understanding. Yeshua stands with the lie, "I'll get your
clothes in a second" and these words are all he needs to forget
the man he is betraying, to forget Maria's oath of faith in years
gone by, and to know only her flesh against his. For the moment his
hands hang useless by his side, but this will change. Maria grips
his shirt tightly and begins to pull it off. Yeshua is not even that
attractive a man. He is simply a lonely man, and she has suddenly and
ravenously, like feet slipping off the cliff, become a lonely woman.
Yeshua
at last touches her hips with the tips of his fingers, and then it is
his palms against her shoulder bones, and her arms have come around
his waist, and though it becomes apparent Yeshua does not know how to
kiss, they are pulling each other together. They remember the bed,
turn around, and blindly navigate their way. The entire experience
must be blind - if they look to see who
they have become for each other, there might be shame, there might be
caution, there might even be hate. And there can not be anything
resembling a pause - this must be a
breathless, wordless, sighing, panting meeting of hands and breasts,
stomachs and chests, lips and noses. They are intensely aware they
are creating a new memory, forgetting this realization every second
so they can find it again in a new scent, a new touch, a new grasp of
flesh.
They
come together in the night because of loneliness, and in the morning
they see each other and are sad. The loneliness has not gone away,
and neither Yeshua nor Maria can pretend they are in love. It was
gratification and revenge and sensual delight and panting and
unraveling, but it was not love. They will leave that reality to
someone else. Yeshua knows he must leave and he does not even wait
for breakfast to gather all his clothes together and runs out onto
the road, hastily tripping on his yet unbuckled pants as he crosses
the threshold.
It
is only after Yeshua has left that Maria acknowledges both her regret
and the fact that she still has a husband. But regret is in this case
either a weak word or an outright lie: people like Maria do not
regret. They either cave in on themselves with utter self-loathing
and hate, or they refuse to acknowledge their misdeeds and live their
strong-willed lives without questioning. Maria is a case of late
strength - she grew up a girl who did not ask many questions and
suddenly became a woman who did not need to ask questions. She simply
is, as few people ever are.
We
do not know what leads Maria on this day to become wretched with a
sense of irretrievable loss. Perhaps it is the recent memory of that
man, that stranger, inside her, inside her home, lying upon her bed.
Perhaps it is the smell of beef, onion and potatoes still lingering
about the kitchen. Perhaps she looks out the window and realizes once
more that Aaron did not come home the night before and is out there
in the world without her, with no intention to return. He has
unknowingly carved out a piece of her thoughts, taken a bit of her
scent and her hair and her skin with him. Perhaps she wants herself
back, all of her, but knows it is too late, not because Aaron is
gone, but because she has taken Yeshua into her, and then let him
leave. There is nothing but an arid intellect for her with Yeshua.
Perhaps Maria feels cut into fragmented memories with this man she
called `husband' gone from the house. Perhaps we are being too
sentimental. We can
say
with certainty Maria is not quite sure whether she should have
believed Maren so quickly - there is still a good chance Aaron will
change his mind and come home. For Aaron questions everything
unceasingly, and it will not be long before he questions his decision
to leave her. But sometimes in life there gathers about a group of
words, about a small article of assumption such as `Aaron has left me
for God,' a nebulous but unshakeable insinuation of truth, despite
all common sense and reason. Time has shown again and again that this
small nebula of truth is the greatest and most dependable sort of
truth we humans can ever sense. Maria innately senses that Aaron has
truly gone, and does not plan to come back. Maria, though she does
not often use the word, loves Aaron. She does not want to lose
herself - and she feels lost. So though
we
do not know what exactly leads Maria to be consumed by loneliness, we
know it is loneliness that leads Maria to leave her home this
morning. She wakes up and sees a man lying next to her and wonders
why he is so close to her face and why his limp penis is so close to
her knees. She is filled with revulsion. She watches Yeshua hurriedly
gather his clothes together and run down the road at a brisk trot,
and then she herself hurriedly gathers her clothes into a small ball
that she ties to a stick. And then she walks off down the road in
search of her husband.
