Wollstonecraft when she’s in Paris “covering” the French Revolution. It’s in his book
Footsteps
, in which he follows difficult artistic people through their lives—though long after their deaths—and tries to figure them out, and therefore himself. I’m currently reading it desperately as though somewhere in its pages are containedthe directions to hell’s only exit. It was my father and my sister who constantly beseeched my mother and me to read more, to find succour for life in books, to soothe our aches and pains with words and more words. Write it all down, my father would say when I went to him in tears about god knows what little injustice and here, read this, my sister would say chucking some tome at me when I asked her questions like, Is life a joke?
Well, Elf, no. I won’t take you to Switzerland.
Please, Yoli, I’m asking you to do this one last thing for me. In fact, I’m begging you.
No. And don’t say
one last thing
. That’s so morbid.
Do you love me?
Yes! Which is why!
No, but Yo, if you truly love me …
Does it work that way? Don’t you have to have a terminal illness?
I do.
You don’t.
I do.
Well, no, you don’t.
Yolandi.
Elfrieda! You are asking me to take you to Switzerland to be killed. Are you out of your fucking mind?
Yoli, said Elf. She was whispering. She mouthed the word
please
and I looked away.
Did Elf have a terminal illness? Was she cursed genetically from day one to want to die? Was every seemingly happy moment from her past, every smile, every song, every heartfelt hug andlaugh and exuberant fist-pump and triumph, just a temporary detour from her innate longing for release and oblivion?
I remembered something I’d read, after my father’s suicide, in Al Alvarez’s book
The Savage God
. It had to do with some of the writers and artists who lived, and killed themselves, under Russia’s totalitarian regime: “And, as we bow in homage to their gifts and to their bright memory, we should bow compassionately before their suffering.”
I asked Elf if she was thinking at all of reasons to stay alive or if she was only trying to figure out an exit. She didn’t answer the question. I asked her if those forces were constantly battling it out in her mind and she said if they were then it was a lopsided fight like Rodney King versus the LAPD. I asked her if she had any idea how much I would miss her. She looked at me. Her eyes filled up with tears. I shook my head. She didn’t speak. I left the room. Then she called my name and I stopped and said, What.
You’re not a slut, she said. There’s no such thing. Didn’t I teach you anything?
I went to the nurses’ station and asked to speak to Janice. She came out of a little office holding tubes of paint and rolls of paper. Art therapy, she said. People love it. Yeah? I said. It’s easier for a lot of our patients to express themselves with these—she waved the tubes around—than with language.
She took me into a little room with a gurney in it and a calendar and a chair that wasn’t ripped. She pointed to the chair and I sat in it and she came over and put her hand on my shoulder. I took big breaths. She asked me how I was doing. I shookmy head for such a long time. Just sat there with my index finger pressed to my lips, locking in the words, the way my father used to, staring at the calendar that was still in March when it should have been April and shaking my head. I wondered if she’d offer me a tube of paint and a piece of paper. She didn’t move her hand from my shoulder. Finally I asked Janice about the pills. I asked her what was in them. What was the active ingredient? Do they give her the impression that there is meaning to life or do they flatten her to the point where she doesn’t care if there is or isn’t? Or do they enhance what is already in her mind and make it all right so that Elf could conceivably jump out of bed some morning and say hooray, it’s true, there is no meaning to life
Footsteps
, in which he follows difficult artistic people through their lives—though long after their deaths—and tries to figure them out, and therefore himself. I’m currently reading it desperately as though somewhere in its pages are containedthe directions to hell’s only exit. It was my father and my sister who constantly beseeched my mother and me to read more, to find succour for life in books, to soothe our aches and pains with words and more words. Write it all down, my father would say when I went to him in tears about god knows what little injustice and here, read this, my sister would say chucking some tome at me when I asked her questions like, Is life a joke?
Well, Elf, no. I won’t take you to Switzerland.
Please, Yoli, I’m asking you to do this one last thing for me. In fact, I’m begging you.
No. And don’t say
one last thing
. That’s so morbid.
Do you love me?
Yes! Which is why!
No, but Yo, if you truly love me …
Does it work that way? Don’t you have to have a terminal illness?
I do.
You don’t.
I do.
Well, no, you don’t.
Yolandi.
Elfrieda! You are asking me to take you to Switzerland to be killed. Are you out of your fucking mind?
Yoli, said Elf. She was whispering. She mouthed the word
please
and I looked away.
Did Elf have a terminal illness? Was she cursed genetically from day one to want to die? Was every seemingly happy moment from her past, every smile, every song, every heartfelt hug andlaugh and exuberant fist-pump and triumph, just a temporary detour from her innate longing for release and oblivion?
I remembered something I’d read, after my father’s suicide, in Al Alvarez’s book
The Savage God
. It had to do with some of the writers and artists who lived, and killed themselves, under Russia’s totalitarian regime: “And, as we bow in homage to their gifts and to their bright memory, we should bow compassionately before their suffering.”
I asked Elf if she was thinking at all of reasons to stay alive or if she was only trying to figure out an exit. She didn’t answer the question. I asked her if those forces were constantly battling it out in her mind and she said if they were then it was a lopsided fight like Rodney King versus the LAPD. I asked her if she had any idea how much I would miss her. She looked at me. Her eyes filled up with tears. I shook my head. She didn’t speak. I left the room. Then she called my name and I stopped and said, What.
You’re not a slut, she said. There’s no such thing. Didn’t I teach you anything?
I went to the nurses’ station and asked to speak to Janice. She came out of a little office holding tubes of paint and rolls of paper. Art therapy, she said. People love it. Yeah? I said. It’s easier for a lot of our patients to express themselves with these—she waved the tubes around—than with language.
She took me into a little room with a gurney in it and a calendar and a chair that wasn’t ripped. She pointed to the chair and I sat in it and she came over and put her hand on my shoulder. I took big breaths. She asked me how I was doing. I shookmy head for such a long time. Just sat there with my index finger pressed to my lips, locking in the words, the way my father used to, staring at the calendar that was still in March when it should have been April and shaking my head. I wondered if she’d offer me a tube of paint and a piece of paper. She didn’t move her hand from my shoulder. Finally I asked Janice about the pills. I asked her what was in them. What was the active ingredient? Do they give her the impression that there is meaning to life or do they flatten her to the point where she doesn’t care if there is or isn’t? Or do they enhance what is already in her mind and make it all right so that Elf could conceivably jump out of bed some morning and say hooray, it’s true, there is no meaning to life
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