Ice And Fire

but it makes a difference, I don’t know why, I don’t even want

it to: it just does. I am cold and I am tired and I don’t want to.

*

I am confused, but he is not. It boils over: he loves me.

I am scorched by it everywhere I turn, in private, in public, in

the little world of business where I go to meet with him, the

little world of huge skyscrapers and sterile offices. Like sunlight, it blazes. I don’t know what it is or why or what it consists of— but there is no missing it— I am his special

someone or something: he emanates it: it is no secret: every

secretary and office boy treats me like his bride. I like being

loved. He is no fool. I like being loved: so much so that I want

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to be loved more: and more: and more. I like it when men love

me. I especially like it when it starts to make them hurt. I like it

when they hurt. I am hooked enough. I am a player in the game.

*

Nevertheless I do not want it. I am proper, distant. I am formal.

I am soft-spoken: in his world it means fuck me.

*

The phone rings. His voice slithers. There is some detail of

production. I am called into his office. I am treated like the

Queen of Sheba. Everyone is both warm and deferential, respectful, amused by my jokes, I am never left waiting, I am escorted, welcomed, not just by secretaries and office boys. The president

of the company introduces himself to me, shakes my hand,

welcomes me: more than once. I am singled out: the beloved.

I go in prepared not to take up time. I am there four hours

later, six hours later. Everyone has gone home. We sit alone

high up in the sky surrounded by dusk. It gets dark. We walk

out. We walk along the sidewalks. We come to where he turns

to go to his apartment. I hold out my hand for a formal handshake. He draws me close and kisses me. I walk on, alone.

*

If I have to call him, I try to leave a message, take care of it

indirectly: I talk to my agent and ask her to call him. He always

has me come in. I go in with a list: the things that must be

taken care of. I pull out the list and say: this is a list. I cross

things off the list as we discuss them. It is never less than four

hours, six hours. I try to get it done. He must tell me this and

that. He loads me down with gifts: books. They are cheap gifts

from a publisher, but nevertheless: they are special, precious,

what I love, not thrown at me but given carefully, in abundance, he introduces me to new writers, he gives me beautiful books, he thinks about what I like and what I don’t like. He

keeps me there. My list sits. We walk out together. We get to

the corner. I go to shake his hand. He kisses me fervently. I

walk on, alone.

*

He takes me to dinner, it is the same. Romantic. He talks. I try

to end it. He talks on and on. I shake his hand. He kisses me. I

walk on, alone.

*

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The meetings go on for months. I go to his office. He keeps me

there. Everyone leaves. He tells me sexy stories, his lovers, his

adventures. I have my list out. He talks about writers. He

gives me books. He talks about himself, endless. It is dusk. It

is dark. There is a sofa in his office. He brings me over there. I

don’t sit down. I keep standing. I am formal. We walk out

together. We walk several blocks together. He does not acknowledge any of my moves to go. Finally, I go to shake his hand.

He pulls me. He kisses me. I walk on, alone.

*

It is dark. It is night. We walk several blocks together. It is

time for him to turn off to his apartment. I don’t shake his

hand. I start to move away fast, almost running, and say

good-bye once I am moving away. He grabs me and pulls me

and kisses me. I walk on, alone.

*

I dread the meetings, always four hours, six hours. Every smile

is a lie. He publishes my book with some money behind it, a

token of his esteem like a fine piece of jewelry would be. The

book is savaged. I am humiliated, ashamed. It keeps him away.

It is the one good thing. He could probably have me now. I am

too ashamed to pull away. He could wipe his dick on me now.

Why not?

*

He bought the next book before this savaged one was published. It was a token of his esteem, like a fine piece of jewelry would be.

I work feverishly to meet my deadline. I have one year. He

leaves me alone. I am desperate for money. The landlord sets

up a new exhaust system for the restaurant downstairs. The

windows are closed. I am still cold all the time but the windows

are closed. I am afraid I will suffocate, that the air is still

poison, but I am too cold to open the windows. Sometimes the

new exhaust system doesn’t work and I get sick so I am nervous

and afraid each day but the windows are closed. Sometimes

they are opened for a week at a time because the new exhaust system doesn’t work but most of the time the windows are closed. Each day I beat down the humiliation of the last

book to work on this new one: it is like keeping vomit from

coming up. I work hard. A year passes. I finish it. He

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has called to assure me of his love but he leaves me alone.

*

Then the rats come. Just as I am finishing, the rats come.

There are huge thuds in the walls, heavy things dropping in

the walls, great chases in the ceiling, they are right behind the

plaster, chasing, running, scrapping. The walls get closer and

closer, Edgar Poe knew a thing or two, the room gets smaller

and smaller. I am up each night and they are running, falling,

dropping, chasing, heavy, loud, scampering, fast. They are

found dead in the halls. The landlord says they are squirrels.

*

Night after night: they drop like dead weight in the walls, they

run in the ceiling, the walls close in, the ceiling drops down,

plaster falls, they are running above the bed, they are running

above the bath, they are running above the sink, the toilet, the

sofa, the desk, they are in the walls, falling like dead weight,

we put huge caches of poison in great holes we make in the

walls, we plaster the holes, sometimes one dies and the stink

of the rotting carcass is inescapable, vomitous, and still they

run and chase and fall and pounce: they are overhead and on

every side. I am scared to death and ready to go mad, if only

God would be good to me.

*

I live like this for months. The publisher has promised to publish a secret piece of fiction only he has read. He read it months before, in the privacy of his love for me. Now I have submitted

it officially. He has promised me, money, everything. I am

entirely desperate for money. I am so afraid. He knows about

the rats. He knows how poor I am. He knows I am ready to

leave the sleeping boy, who sleeps through the jumping and

chasing and great dull thuds. I am, frankly, too desperate and

too tired to love. I am too afraid. The boy sleeps. I do not.

This constitutes— finally— an irreconcilable difference.

The editor tells my agent he must talk to me about structure:

ideas he has for the piece of fiction: this means he will publish

it, but he has these ideas I must listen to.

I call to make an appointment at his office.

He insists on dinner.

There is dinner, coffee afterward: a restaurant, a coffeehouse. He talks and talks and talks. I drink and drink and 142

drink. I am waiting for the ideas about structure. He orders

for me. He smothers me with talk. I drink more. I ask in the

restaurant about his ideas about structure. He ignores me and

keeps talking. I drink. He talks about sex. He talks about his

life. He talks about his lovers. I say: well we must get absolutely

sober now so I can hear your ideas about structure. We go to a

coffeehouse. He talks. He talks about how he has to love an

author. He talks about the authors he has loved. He talks about

someone he is involved with who is writing a novel: he talks

about visiting this author and that author and what they drink

and how they love him and how they want him. I say I want

to hear his ideas about structure. He tells me he is going to

buy a beach house, a house by the ocean, where I can come to

live and write. He says he has found it. He says it is right on

the ocean. He says he can picture me there, working, undistracted, not having to worry about fumes and rats and poverty. He tells me that as long as he has a home I have a

home and that this home, on the ocean, is very special and for

me. He knows it is what I have always wanted, more than

anything: it is my idea of peace and solace. I say thank you but

I had a rather strange childhood always being moved from

home to home because my mother was sick sort of like an

orphan and I am not too good about staying in other people’s

houses. I ask him about his ideas about the structure of the

novel. He says that his involvement with the work of an author

and his involvement with the author are indistinguishable, he

has to love them as one. He tells me about the house he is

buying right on the ocean where I will go and work and finish

the novel. He tells me he sees me in it working. I ask him

about his ideas about structure. He tells me that he wants me

to understand that now I have a home, with him, by the ocean,

he has bought a home there where I will live and write, his

home and my home. We leave the coffeehouse. We get to the

corner where we go in different directions. I ask him if he

wants to tell me about his ideas about structure so I can think

about them. He tells me that the publishing company is my

home too, as long as he is there, and he wants me to see the

house on the ocean which is my home: and the publishing

house is my home, because wherever he is is my home. He tells

me to call him, day or night. He tells me to call him at home. I

M3

look blank, because I am blank; I am blank. He kisses me. I

walk away, alone. He calls after me: remember you have a

home now. I met him at six for dinner, it is now three in the

morning, I don’t know his ideas on structure. I walk home,

alone. The rats are in the walls. The walls are closing in.

Someone, a stranger, blond, six feet, muscled, curled in fetal

position, is sleeping. I do not call the publisher, no, I don’t, I

wait for his offer of money on my novel. Months go by. I

don’t call him, my agent keeps calling him, he says he is

working on it, trust him, six or seven months go by, the

stranger in the next room and I barely speak to each other, the

rats are monstrous, I am hungry. I say to my agent: you must

find out, I must have money. She calls. He says he doesn’t do

fiction. He doesn’t do fiction. My book that I finished when the

rats came is published a few months later. He lets it die, no gift

like jewelry for me anymore. He preordains its death and it dies. I

see my house, the ocean so near it. I see the beach, smooth wet

sand, and the curve of the waves on the earth, the edge of the

ocean, so delicate, so beautifully fine, lapping up on the beach

like slivers of liquid silver. I see the sun, silver light on the winter

water, and I see dusk coming. I am alone there, in winter, ice on

the sand, silver waves outside the window. I see a small, simple

house, white and square against the vast shore. I see the simple

beauty of the house absorbing the dusk, each simple room

turning somber, and then the dusk reaching past the house onto

the wet beach and finally spreading out over the ocean. I see the

moon over the ocean. I see the night on the water. I see myself in

the simple house, at a window, looking out, just feeling the first

chill of night. I sit in the apartment, rats are running in the

walls, the walls are closing in, writing my poor little heart out:

in a terrible hurry to tell what is in my heart. You have to be

in a terrible hurry or the heart gets eaten up. There is a carcass,

sans heart, writing its little heart out so to speak: in a terrible

hurry: and somewhere an ocean near a house, waiting. He

can’t want that, they said, oh no, not that. I am a writer, not a

woman, I thought somewhere down deep, he can’t want that.

Now I am in a terrible hurry to tell what is in my heart. Who

could hurry fast enough? Brava\ whoever managed it!

Did I remember to say that I always wanted to be a writer,

since I was a little girl?

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