Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(167)
We ate some cake, we cleared out the dining room and did some silly dancing, we used paper plates and disposable cutlery.
The magician stuck around for a while, doing close-up magic for whoever would pay attention.
“That was really great,” I told him, patting him on the back, surprised and repelled by his skinniness. “Just perfect.”
“I’m glad. Feel free to recommend me. It’s how I get my jobs.”
“I certainly will.”
He did the classic linked-rings trick for me. I’d seen it countless times, but it was still a thrill.
“My dad was the magician at my fifth birthday,” I told him. “He opened with that.”
“So you know how it’s done?”
“Broken rings.”
He handed them to me. I must have spent five full minutes searching for what had to be there.
“What happens if the trick goes wrong?” I asked, not yet ready to return the rings.
“How would it go wrong?”
“Someone takes the wrong card, or lies to you, or the deck falls.”
“I never perform a trick,” he said. “I perform a process. There’s no outcome I need.”
I told that to Julia in bed that night: “There’s no outcome he needs.”
“Sounds Eastern.”
“Definitely not Eastern European.”
“No.”
I turned off the bedside light.
“That first trick. Or process. Max really said your card?”
“I didn’t actually pick one.”
“No?”
“I wanted to, but I just couldn’t bring myself to.”
“So why did you cry?”
“Because Max still could.”
HOW TO PLAY NO ONE
The night I came back from Islip, I went straight to the kids’ rooms. It was three in the morning. Benjy was contorted into one of those almost inconceivably bizarre sleeping-child positions: his tush way up in the air, his legs rigid, the weight of his body driving his cheek into the pillow. He had sweated through his sheets and was snoring like a tiny human animal. I reached out my hand, but before I’d even touched him, his eyes sprang open: “I wasn’t asleep.”
“It’s OK,” I said, brushing his damp hair with my hand. “Close your eyes.”
“I was awake.”
“You were doing sleep-breathing.”
“You’re home.”
“I am. I didn’t go.”
He smiled. His eyes closed too slowly for it to be voluntary, and he said, “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
He opened his eyes, saw that I was still there, smiled once again, and said, “I don’t know. Just tell me.”
“I came home.”
He closed his eyes and asked, “Did you win the war?”
“You’re asleep.”
He opened his eyes and said, “I’m only thinking about how you were in a war.”
“I didn’t go.”
“Oh. That’s good.” He closed his eyes and said, “I know what it is.”
“What what is?”
“The n-word.”
“You do?”
“I googled it.”
“Ah. OK.”
He opened his eyes. And though he didn’t smile this time, I could hear, in his full exhalation, that he was again relieved by my permanence.
“I’ll never use it,” he said. “Never.”
“Good night, love.”
“I’m not asleep.”
“You’re falling asleep.”
His eyes closed. I kissed him. He smiled.
“Is it a g like gun?” he asked. “Or like ginger?”
“What’s that?”
“The n-word. I don’t know how you say it.”
“But you’re never going to say it.”
“But I still want to know how.”
“Why?”
“You aren’t going to go away again, are you?”
“No,” I said, because I didn’t know what to say—to my child, or to myself.
HOW TO PLAY LOVE
Love is not a positive emotion. It is not a blessing, and it is not a curse. It is a blessing that is a curse, and it is also not that. LOVE OF ONE’S CHILDREN is not LOVE OF CHILDREN, is not LOVE OF ONE’S SPOUSE, is not LOVE OF ONE’S PARENTS, is not LOVE OF ONE’S EXTENDED FAMILY, is not LOVE OF THE IDEA OF FAMILY. LOVE OF JUDAISM is not LOVE OF JEWISHNESS, is not LOVE OF ISRAEL, is not LOVE OF GOD. LOVE OF WORK is not LOVE OF SELF. Not even LOVE OF SELF is LOVE OF SELF. The place where LOVE OF NATION, LOVE OF HOMELAND, and LOVE OF HOME meet is nowhere. LOVE OF DOGS is to LOVE OF ONE’S CHILD’S SLEEPING BODY as LOVE OF DOGS is to LOVE OF ONE’S DOG. LOVE OF THE PAST has as much in common with LOVE OF THE FUTURE as LOVE OF LOVE has with LOVE OF SADNESS—which is to say, everything. But then, LOVE OF SAYING EVERYTHING makes one untrustworthy.
Without love, you die. With love, you also die. Not all deaths are equal.
HOW TO PLAY ANGER
“You are my enemy!”
HOW TO PLAY FEAR OF DEATH
“Unfair! Unfair! Unfair!”