of everyday talk, light things up with a word.
So, yes, Miriam, it will be so simple and honest and natural—the compassion in nakedness. (One minute, I hear a key at the door. Have to stop
(False alarm. The cleaning lady.)
But in the meantime, where were we, what are all my noble thoughts worth, in the meantime the entire world is dressed and armored and
there is only us, hugging and wet and shivering from the cold, or from whatever makes you shiver. And my eyes were in your eyes, and the true weight of a woman’s body was in my body, an alien soul fluttered freely in my soul, and I didn’t contract and spit it out like a pit stuck in my throat; on the contrary, I inhaled, breathed her into me more and more, and she enfolded my body within herself, and I understood the beautiful expression “the creatures of my torso” for the first time …
And later (I’m a bit drunk on thoughts, do you mind?) both of us, hand in hand to my car, cheerful, but just a little cheerful, if only because of the dry knowledge, which had waited patiently and with vengeance outside the Isle of Water that we were for a moment, and is starting to sneak into our heart (that is also a great photo, the one of all the splashes of water coming together into a trunk of blue. It’s hard to believe that you haven’t held a camera in your hands for seven years). And next to my beat-up Subaru (yes, of course it’s a Subaru), you let me dry your beautiful thick hair with the old towel that had been rolled up in the car. After I shake off everything that has clung to it since it was new: the grains of sand from family trips, twigs from the last Independence Day bonfire, and the stains of chocolate pudding and chocolate milk wiped off one particular small mouth, a quarter to five years old. If you really want the dirt on me—this same bold towel of mine treasures all manner of perfectly good stains from my life, my life which I like a lot, but—I wish now you could understand more—how my soul is constantly torn in two, help me! A devoted family man, and one capable of writing you such letters, and to whoever solves that correctly is promised eternal peace of the soul, even a temporary one will do.
And your forehead is revealed to me again, out of the wild of your hair, and your brown eyes, wide open and serious and questioning me under your full eyebrows—and your eyes are terribly sad, I wish I knew why, and, anyhow, in every letter I feel how in an instant they are so ready to illuminate, to rise—your Giulietta Masina eyes (at the end of Nights of Cabiria , do you remember it?), and you’re asking me again with that look—Who are you? No idea. I want to be whatever your eyes will see in me, yes. And if you are not too frightened to look—then maybe I will be.
And I hold your face gently in my hands. I’ve already said that you’re a bit taller than me, but when we are together we fit, and it doesn’t look ridiculous. I feel your warm face in my hands and think that almost all
the other faces I meet in my everyday life are made up of expressions that are only fragments of quotations of others’ expressions. But your face—and then I pull you to me and kiss your hungry and thirsty mouth for the first time, placing my lips exactly on your lips, soul to soul, and your mouth is very warm and soft, and you pull your upper lip a bit higher—you have that motion in you, I’ve seen it—and I of course will wonder for a moment if maybe I could sleep with you before I know your name—don’t forget that I’m still a man and have this rooster’s dream (which has yet to come true). But then, just because, against my self and my stupidity I quickly ask, What’s your name? And you say, Miriam. And I say, Yair. You murmur, with a cold, shivering smile, that you have a very thin skin; and I listen, with care, to what you whispered to me in that smile: that I have to treat you gently, not rudely, not as a stranger, not touch you with
So, yes, Miriam, it will be so simple and honest and natural—the compassion in nakedness. (One minute, I hear a key at the door. Have to stop
(False alarm. The cleaning lady.)
But in the meantime, where were we, what are all my noble thoughts worth, in the meantime the entire world is dressed and armored and
there is only us, hugging and wet and shivering from the cold, or from whatever makes you shiver. And my eyes were in your eyes, and the true weight of a woman’s body was in my body, an alien soul fluttered freely in my soul, and I didn’t contract and spit it out like a pit stuck in my throat; on the contrary, I inhaled, breathed her into me more and more, and she enfolded my body within herself, and I understood the beautiful expression “the creatures of my torso” for the first time …
And later (I’m a bit drunk on thoughts, do you mind?) both of us, hand in hand to my car, cheerful, but just a little cheerful, if only because of the dry knowledge, which had waited patiently and with vengeance outside the Isle of Water that we were for a moment, and is starting to sneak into our heart (that is also a great photo, the one of all the splashes of water coming together into a trunk of blue. It’s hard to believe that you haven’t held a camera in your hands for seven years). And next to my beat-up Subaru (yes, of course it’s a Subaru), you let me dry your beautiful thick hair with the old towel that had been rolled up in the car. After I shake off everything that has clung to it since it was new: the grains of sand from family trips, twigs from the last Independence Day bonfire, and the stains of chocolate pudding and chocolate milk wiped off one particular small mouth, a quarter to five years old. If you really want the dirt on me—this same bold towel of mine treasures all manner of perfectly good stains from my life, my life which I like a lot, but—I wish now you could understand more—how my soul is constantly torn in two, help me! A devoted family man, and one capable of writing you such letters, and to whoever solves that correctly is promised eternal peace of the soul, even a temporary one will do.
And your forehead is revealed to me again, out of the wild of your hair, and your brown eyes, wide open and serious and questioning me under your full eyebrows—and your eyes are terribly sad, I wish I knew why, and, anyhow, in every letter I feel how in an instant they are so ready to illuminate, to rise—your Giulietta Masina eyes (at the end of Nights of Cabiria , do you remember it?), and you’re asking me again with that look—Who are you? No idea. I want to be whatever your eyes will see in me, yes. And if you are not too frightened to look—then maybe I will be.
And I hold your face gently in my hands. I’ve already said that you’re a bit taller than me, but when we are together we fit, and it doesn’t look ridiculous. I feel your warm face in my hands and think that almost all
the other faces I meet in my everyday life are made up of expressions that are only fragments of quotations of others’ expressions. But your face—and then I pull you to me and kiss your hungry and thirsty mouth for the first time, placing my lips exactly on your lips, soul to soul, and your mouth is very warm and soft, and you pull your upper lip a bit higher—you have that motion in you, I’ve seen it—and I of course will wonder for a moment if maybe I could sleep with you before I know your name—don’t forget that I’m still a man and have this rooster’s dream (which has yet to come true). But then, just because, against my self and my stupidity I quickly ask, What’s your name? And you say, Miriam. And I say, Yair. You murmur, with a cold, shivering smile, that you have a very thin skin; and I listen, with care, to what you whispered to me in that smile: that I have to treat you gently, not rudely, not as a stranger, not touch you with
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