The Lesson

The Letter, as You May Imagine

was very reasonable. That is, there was a lot of reasoning in it.

e.

It is now certain to me that something has happened. What it is, I do not know. If it is possible to write to you, to speak with you, as I always have done, when you are in some sense my adversary, hiding in plain sight, who can say? I will try it by imagining you, as I always have, as my dearest friend, and thinking that, if you hide, it is only because things that are clouded for me are equally clouded for you.

I want to be sure that what I believe is true.

My plan is as follows:

1. To try to speak through the boy, to you.

2. To try to plumb the boy’s memories, and see if he can recall anything that you or I know or knew.

There is a child’s song about a man in a marsh who is sinking out of sight. Do you remember it? I used to sing it sometimes, even though the tune is dreadful.

The man is sinking slowly out of sight and a woman who is passing sees him. She is too far to save him, but she asks for his hat, and then asks for his shirt, and for his watch and watch chain. The man throws his hat to dry ground and his shirt and his watch and watch chain. But he cannot come himself and he cannot be saved. The woman says something like:

if I’d a length of rope, I’d throw it you,

and drag you out right quick—

but i can’t and so

instead you should

throw me your walking stick…

Then the man says,

if you’d a length of rope, you’d throw it me

and save my life right quick—

but you can’t and so

as i sink i throw

to you my walking stick

Ezra, am I sinking? Or are you?

yours,

l.

PS I remain confused about what it would mean if the boy IS you. Would then the things about him that are unfamiliar to me be things that were true about you, but that changed over time, so that when you met me they had all vanished? In that sense, would I now be discovering the last of you — to find a whole that had always been lost to me?