I lay down, exhausted, pressed my body into his and draped an arm across his chest.
“Papa . . .” I whispered. “Papa . . .”
Without warning, he gave a sharp mechanical start and stirred brusquely. He opened his eyes wide and jerked upright until he sat over me, gasping for breath. His body was violent and strange, a sudden colossus in shadow. He stared down for a long moment, breathing painfully, then formed his hands into a fist. I watched as he raised it shakily over his head. He opened his mouth wide and produced a long choking rattle. His old teeth emerged, and along with them that ancient sentry, his great tongue, sitting silently in his mouth. Our eyes locked in the dim light, and perhaps for the first time, he saw something of himself in me. His hands began to tremble and his arms flinched, high over his head.
I hesitated before reaching up and swaddling his doubled fist in my fingers. The struggle continued, brief, flagging, until I felt his muscles slacken and, finally, the old man surrendered. A tear formed on his cheek. He lowered his hands until theyrested on my belly where I held them, warm, the knuckles pressing into my flesh. He sat like this, immobile, staring at me, his body shuddering. Tears were running down his cheeks and his chest heaved from the exertion. His silent sobs shook his figure and, brilliant against the light shining in from the bathroom, the ridgeline of white hairs along his arm and shoulder stood erect and fierce.
Solzhenitsyn in Vermont
I
ANTON SUGGESTED IT. HE SAID, HEAD TILTED BACK AND arms raised in a V of supplication to the changing weather, “You don’t get it. The game has rules. You’re not supposed to be yourself. These girls want intensity, they want someone to talk big ideas. Books! Read all those weird writers with weirder names. That’s the only way you’ll get into these chicks’ pants.”
In my time at Columbia I’d had no more than a handful of dates, with two ending drunkenly in unpleasant and fumbled lovemaking, where I felt like a deep-sea diver who had descended too far, too quickly, racing urgently to the surface.
“Start with Kafka,” Anton recommended, exhibiting a personal trainer’s authority. “He’s hardcore.”
I was never much of a reader. In freshman comp I paid friends to write my papers or ordered them from an ad in the back pages of The Village Voice . Like most in my family, I was uninterested in the turmoil and dislocations I guessed literature examined. My father was a GP, born in Ludhiana, India, who came to New Jersey in the sixties and founded a small but thriving practice. Mom was a dentist fromneighboring Jullundar. The marriage was arranged, in the modern sense: they were allowed to meet several times and each decided they could live and, with luck, fall in love with the other. But instead of love, and after years of skirmishes and battles, an uneasy truce endured. My brother and I grew up in a simulacrum of stability, and I vowed at a young age that I’d do better, that this would never happen to me.
That night I read The Metamorphosis . Gregor Samsa’s story immediately gripped me. How strange, funny, moving, yet also, I quickly recognized, how possible . Kafka had written something so outlandish it circled back, a ship sailing for a far continent that rounds the globe and returns home, and the story opened a door inside me to a room I never suspected was there.
Soon I was devouring one after another of his works, the novels, stories, parables, letters. At one store, I almost leapt on an elderly woman who reached for the sole copy of Letters to Elena . She must have sensed a feral quality in my eyes because she surrendered it without a word and hurried away. There were others: Dostoyevsky, Broch, Zweig or, in Anton’s words, those weird writers with weirder names. The phone sat unanswered, dinner no more than the odd slice of pizza, and though I accomplished my coursework, all concentration rested on the books.
“Papa . . .” I whispered. “Papa . . .”
Without warning, he gave a sharp mechanical start and stirred brusquely. He opened his eyes wide and jerked upright until he sat over me, gasping for breath. His body was violent and strange, a sudden colossus in shadow. He stared down for a long moment, breathing painfully, then formed his hands into a fist. I watched as he raised it shakily over his head. He opened his mouth wide and produced a long choking rattle. His old teeth emerged, and along with them that ancient sentry, his great tongue, sitting silently in his mouth. Our eyes locked in the dim light, and perhaps for the first time, he saw something of himself in me. His hands began to tremble and his arms flinched, high over his head.
I hesitated before reaching up and swaddling his doubled fist in my fingers. The struggle continued, brief, flagging, until I felt his muscles slacken and, finally, the old man surrendered. A tear formed on his cheek. He lowered his hands until theyrested on my belly where I held them, warm, the knuckles pressing into my flesh. He sat like this, immobile, staring at me, his body shuddering. Tears were running down his cheeks and his chest heaved from the exertion. His silent sobs shook his figure and, brilliant against the light shining in from the bathroom, the ridgeline of white hairs along his arm and shoulder stood erect and fierce.
Solzhenitsyn in Vermont
I
ANTON SUGGESTED IT. HE SAID, HEAD TILTED BACK AND arms raised in a V of supplication to the changing weather, “You don’t get it. The game has rules. You’re not supposed to be yourself. These girls want intensity, they want someone to talk big ideas. Books! Read all those weird writers with weirder names. That’s the only way you’ll get into these chicks’ pants.”
In my time at Columbia I’d had no more than a handful of dates, with two ending drunkenly in unpleasant and fumbled lovemaking, where I felt like a deep-sea diver who had descended too far, too quickly, racing urgently to the surface.
“Start with Kafka,” Anton recommended, exhibiting a personal trainer’s authority. “He’s hardcore.”
I was never much of a reader. In freshman comp I paid friends to write my papers or ordered them from an ad in the back pages of The Village Voice . Like most in my family, I was uninterested in the turmoil and dislocations I guessed literature examined. My father was a GP, born in Ludhiana, India, who came to New Jersey in the sixties and founded a small but thriving practice. Mom was a dentist fromneighboring Jullundar. The marriage was arranged, in the modern sense: they were allowed to meet several times and each decided they could live and, with luck, fall in love with the other. But instead of love, and after years of skirmishes and battles, an uneasy truce endured. My brother and I grew up in a simulacrum of stability, and I vowed at a young age that I’d do better, that this would never happen to me.
That night I read The Metamorphosis . Gregor Samsa’s story immediately gripped me. How strange, funny, moving, yet also, I quickly recognized, how possible . Kafka had written something so outlandish it circled back, a ship sailing for a far continent that rounds the globe and returns home, and the story opened a door inside me to a room I never suspected was there.
Soon I was devouring one after another of his works, the novels, stories, parables, letters. At one store, I almost leapt on an elderly woman who reached for the sole copy of Letters to Elena . She must have sensed a feral quality in my eyes because she surrendered it without a word and hurried away. There were others: Dostoyevsky, Broch, Zweig or, in Anton’s words, those weird writers with weirder names. The phone sat unanswered, dinner no more than the odd slice of pizza, and though I accomplished my coursework, all concentration rested on the books.
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