but felt by those feeling parts of us that are usually dormant.
What people can get used to . . . People managed a routine even at Dachau; they found ways to survive psychologically—harder than surviving physically.
In Cambodia, in the days of the Khmer Rouge, peopleadapted to being forced into an insane plan for an anti-intellectual agrarian utopia, a utopia based on mass murderand the destruction of ideas and common sense; masses ofpeople, after seeing their loved ones butchered, forced fromthe cities onto farms, forced to work fourteen-hour days,seven days a week, 365 days a year; to give up all theirold culture, their music, their traditions, every single one of their beliefs; to wear black pajamas and nothing else ever;to be slaves to a demented scheme of social engineering. They adapted; they survived.
Demons invade the world; people find ways to adapt, to get used to the horror.
Is it, really, any worse than the Killing Fields?
But often I felt a craving for the ordinariness that had reigned before the demons, for the very banality I had sometimes railed against. The mindless, childish ubiquity of mass media and consumerism; the welcome distraction of dealing with traffic and laundry and phone bills. What a relief real banality would be . . .
We passed the time as we might, making a pact, for the sake of sanity, to leave the TV and its battery in a closet, and listen to a radio news show only once a day. After two weeks Melissa asked me to listen alone, away from her. She spent the time meditating, every so often muttering in some language she shouldn’t know; in reading, writing feverishly in a journal.
She encouraged me to paint, to draw, with whatever was handy. I felt tense, my art balled up inside; I was reluctant to let it out, to express it. But she gently insisted and came to muse over my drawings, my pen and inks made with all the wrong sorts of pens and inks.
Sometimes, as I drew, I seemed to see, in my mind’s eye, a pentagram superimposed over a city I didn’t recognize. I reproduced the city as a simplified map, street lines intertwined with hermetic symbols, and figures of myth.
One night, in the light of battery-operated lanterns, we sat around the living room, trying not to hear the distant soundsof shouting, combat, sirens, and, from far off, the crump of what might be a plane crashing. Some nights were worse than others; this was one of the bad nights.
She’d asked me to read to her, anything I wanted. I chose the Sufi poet Rumi—consciously or unconsciously. I glanced up at her from time to time as I read. She was curled sideways in an easy chair, with two cats nestled in her hollows; she wore a dark purple sari, no shoes. Her feet were drawn up onto the cushion, one hand toying with a silver ring on a toe, her eyes hidden by the drape of her hair. She made me ache.
“A lover gambles everything, the self,
the circle around the zero! He or she
cuts and throws it all away.
This is beyond any religion.
Lovers do not require from God any proof,
or any text, nor do they knock on a door
to make sure this is the right street.
They run and they run . . .”
I felt her looking at me then and glanced up at her, and our eyes met. Her gaze seemed open, as never before. I found myself putting the book aside and crossing the room to her, bending to kiss her. She lifted her head to return the kiss, and moved aside on the big chair so I could slide in beside her, the cats irritably jumping to the floor and slinking away. Then Melissa eased herself onto my lap, and I drew her into the circle of my arms. We kissed more deeply. My hands found their way to her thighs, and she let them explore upward from there. . . .
Suddenly I stopped, and looked down at my hand. It was as if there was a cold, bony grip on my wrist, holding it back, though nothing could be seen. Nothing except a blue-gold sparkling, a throbbing shimmer, that never quite declared itself. Did I
What people can get used to . . . People managed a routine even at Dachau; they found ways to survive psychologically—harder than surviving physically.
In Cambodia, in the days of the Khmer Rouge, peopleadapted to being forced into an insane plan for an anti-intellectual agrarian utopia, a utopia based on mass murderand the destruction of ideas and common sense; masses ofpeople, after seeing their loved ones butchered, forced fromthe cities onto farms, forced to work fourteen-hour days,seven days a week, 365 days a year; to give up all theirold culture, their music, their traditions, every single one of their beliefs; to wear black pajamas and nothing else ever;to be slaves to a demented scheme of social engineering. They adapted; they survived.
Demons invade the world; people find ways to adapt, to get used to the horror.
Is it, really, any worse than the Killing Fields?
But often I felt a craving for the ordinariness that had reigned before the demons, for the very banality I had sometimes railed against. The mindless, childish ubiquity of mass media and consumerism; the welcome distraction of dealing with traffic and laundry and phone bills. What a relief real banality would be . . .
We passed the time as we might, making a pact, for the sake of sanity, to leave the TV and its battery in a closet, and listen to a radio news show only once a day. After two weeks Melissa asked me to listen alone, away from her. She spent the time meditating, every so often muttering in some language she shouldn’t know; in reading, writing feverishly in a journal.
She encouraged me to paint, to draw, with whatever was handy. I felt tense, my art balled up inside; I was reluctant to let it out, to express it. But she gently insisted and came to muse over my drawings, my pen and inks made with all the wrong sorts of pens and inks.
Sometimes, as I drew, I seemed to see, in my mind’s eye, a pentagram superimposed over a city I didn’t recognize. I reproduced the city as a simplified map, street lines intertwined with hermetic symbols, and figures of myth.
One night, in the light of battery-operated lanterns, we sat around the living room, trying not to hear the distant soundsof shouting, combat, sirens, and, from far off, the crump of what might be a plane crashing. Some nights were worse than others; this was one of the bad nights.
She’d asked me to read to her, anything I wanted. I chose the Sufi poet Rumi—consciously or unconsciously. I glanced up at her from time to time as I read. She was curled sideways in an easy chair, with two cats nestled in her hollows; she wore a dark purple sari, no shoes. Her feet were drawn up onto the cushion, one hand toying with a silver ring on a toe, her eyes hidden by the drape of her hair. She made me ache.
“A lover gambles everything, the self,
the circle around the zero! He or she
cuts and throws it all away.
This is beyond any religion.
Lovers do not require from God any proof,
or any text, nor do they knock on a door
to make sure this is the right street.
They run and they run . . .”
I felt her looking at me then and glanced up at her, and our eyes met. Her gaze seemed open, as never before. I found myself putting the book aside and crossing the room to her, bending to kiss her. She lifted her head to return the kiss, and moved aside on the big chair so I could slide in beside her, the cats irritably jumping to the floor and slinking away. Then Melissa eased herself onto my lap, and I drew her into the circle of my arms. We kissed more deeply. My hands found their way to her thighs, and she let them explore upward from there. . . .
Suddenly I stopped, and looked down at my hand. It was as if there was a cold, bony grip on my wrist, holding it back, though nothing could be seen. Nothing except a blue-gold sparkling, a throbbing shimmer, that never quite declared itself. Did I
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