I don't speak, I'm sorry.
My name is Thomas.
I'm sorry.
I'm still sorry.
To my child: I wrote my last letter on the day you died, and I assumed I'd never write another word to you, I've been so wrong about so much that I've assumed, why am I surprised to feel the pen in my hand tonight? I'm writing as I wait to meet Oskar, in a little less than an hour, I'll close this book and find him under the streetlight, we'll be on our way to the cemetery, to you, your father and your son, this is how it happened. I gave a note to your mother's doorman almost two years ago. I watched from across the street as the limousine pulled up, she got out, she touched the door, she'd changed so much but I still knew her, her hands had changed but the way she touched was the same, she went into the building with a boy, I couldn't see if the doorman gave her my note, I couldn't see her reaction, the boy came out and went into the building across the street. I watched her that night as she stood with her palms against the window, I left another note with the doorman, "Do you want to see me again, or should I go away?" The next morning there was a note written on the window, "Don't go away," which meant something, but it didn't mean "I want to see you again." I gathered a handful of pebbles and tossed them at her window, nothing happened, I tossed some more, but she didn't come to the window, I wrote a note in my daybook—"Do you want to see me again?"—I ripped it out and gave it to the doorman, the next morning I went back, I didn't want to make her life any harder than it was, but I didn't want to give up either, there was a note on the window, "I don't want to want to see you again," which meant something, but it didn't mean yes. I gathered pebbles from the street and threw them at her window, hoping she would hear me and know what I meant, I waited, she didn't come to the window, I wrote a note—"What should I do?"—and gave it to the doorman, he said, "I'll make sure she gets it," I couldn't say, "Thank you." The next morning I went back, there was a note on her window, the first note, "Don't go away," I gathered pebbles, I threw them, they tapped like fingers against the glass, I wrote a note, "Yes or no?" for how long could it go on? The next day I found a market on Broadway and bought an apple, if she didn't want me I would leave, I didn't know where I would go, but I would turn around and walk away, there was no note on her window, so I threw the apple, anticipating the glass that would rain down on me, I wasn't afraid of the shards, the apple went through her window and into her apartment, the doorman was standing in front of the building, he said, "You're lucky that was open, pal," but I knew I wasn't lucky, he handed me a key. I rode the elevator up, the door was open, the smell brought back to me what for forty years I had struggled not to remember but couldn't forget. I put the key in my pocket, "Only the guest room!" she called from our bedroom, the room in which we used to sleep and dream and make love. That was how we began our second life together ... When I got off the plane, after eleven hours of travel and forty years away, the man took my passport and asked me the purpose of my visit, I wrote in my daybook, "To mourn," and then, "To mourn try to live," he gave me a look and asked if I would consider that business or pleasure, I wrote, "Neither." "For how long do you plan to mourn and try to live?" I wrote, "For the rest of my life." "So you're going to stay?" "For as long as I can." "Are we talking about a weekend or a year?" I didn't write anything. The man said, "Next." I watched the bags go around the carousel, each one held a person's belongings, I saw babies going around and around, possible lives, I followed the arrows for those with nothing to declare, and that made me want to laugh, but I was silent. One of the guards asked me to come to the side, "That's a lot of suitcases for someone with nothing to declare," he said, I nodded, knowing that people with nothing to declare carry the most, I opened the suitcases for him, "That's a lot of paper," he said, I showed him my left palm, "I mean, that's a whole lot of paper." I wrote, "They're letters to my son. I wasn't able to send them to him while he was alive. Now he's dead. I don't speak. I'm sorry." The guard looked at the other guard and they shared a smile, I don't mind if smiles come at my expense, I'm a small price to pay, they let me through, not because they believed me but because they didn't want to try to understand me, I found a pay phone and called your mother, that was as far as my plan went, I assumed so much, that she was still alive, that she was in the same apartment I'd left forty years before, I assumed she would come pick me up and everything would begin to make sense, we would mourn and try to live, the phone rang Wand rang, we would forgive ourselves, it rang, a woman answered, "Hello?" I knew it was her, the voice had changed but the breath was the same, the spaces between the words were the same, I pressed "4, 3, 5, 5, 6," she said, "Hello?" I asked, "4, 7, 4, 8, 7, 3, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 6, 8?" She said, "Your phone isn't one hundred dollars. Hello?" I wanted to reach my hand through the mouthpiece, down the line, and into her room, I wanted to reach YES, I asked, "4, 7,4, 8, 7, 3, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 6, 8?" She said, "Hello?" I told her, "4, 3, 5, 7!" "Listen," she said, "I don't know what's wrong with your phone, but all I hear is beeps. Why don't you hang up and try again." Try again? I was trying to try again, that's what I was doing! I knew it wouldn't help, I knew no good would come of it, but I stood there in the middle of the airport, at the beginning of the century, at the end of my life, and I told her everything: why I'd left, where I'd gone, how I'd found out about your death, why I'd come back, and what I needed to do with the time I had left. I told her because I wanted her to believe me and understand, and because I thought I owed it to her, and to myself, and to you, or was it just more selfishness? I broke my life down into letters, for love I pressed "5, 6, 8, 3," for death, "3, 3, 2, 8, 4," when the suffering is subtracted from the joy, what remains? What, I wondered, is the sum of my life?
"6, 9, 6, 2, 6, 3, 4, 7, 3, 5, 4, 3, 2, 5, 8, And I went on and on.
It took me a long time, I don't know how long, minutes, hours, my heart got tired, my finger did, I was trying to destroy the wall between me and my life with my finger, one press at a time, my quarter ran out, or she hung up, I called again, "4, 7,4, 8, 7, 3, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 6, 8?" She said, "Is this a joke?" A joke, it wasn't a joke, what is a joke, was it a joke? She hung up, I called again, "8, 4, 4, 7, 4, 7, 6, 6, 8, 2, 5, 6, 5, 3!" She asked, "Oskar?" That was the first time I ever heard his name ... I was in Dresden's train station when I lost everything for the second time, I was writing you a letter that I knew I never would send, sometimes I wrote from there, sometimes from here, sometimes from the zoo, I didn't care about anything except for the letter I was writing to you, nothing else existed, it was like when I walked to Anna with my head down, hiding myself from the world, which is why I walked into her, and why I didn't notice that people were gathering around the televisions. It wasn't until the second plane hit, and someone who didn't mean to holler hollered, that I looked up, there were hundreds of people around the televisions now, where had they come from? I stood up and looked, I didn't understand what I was seeing on the screen, was it a commercial, a new movie? I wrote, "What's happened?" and showed it to a young businessman watching the television, he took a sip of his coffee and said, "No one knows yet," his coffee haunts me, his "yet" haunts me. I stood there, a person in a crowd, was I watching the images, or was something more complicated happening? I tried to count the floors above where the planes had hit, the fire had to burn up through the buildings, I knew that those people couldn't be saved, and how many were on the planes, and how many were on the street, I thought and thought. On my walk home I stopped in front of an electronics store, the front window was a grid of televisions, all but one of them were showing the buildings, the same images over and over, as if the world itself were repeating, a crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, one television, off to the side, was showing a nature program, a lion was eating a flamingo, the crowd became noisy, someone who didn't mean to holler hollered, pink feathers, I looked at one of the other televisions and there was only one building, one hundred ceilings had become one hundred floors, which had become nothing, I was the only one who could believe it, the sky was filled with paper, pink feathers. The cafés were full that afternoon, people were laughing, there were lines in front of the movie theaters, they were going to see comedies, the world is so big and small, in the same moment we were close and far. In the days and weeks that followed, I read the lists of the dead in the paper: mother of three, college sophomore, Yankees fan, lawyer, brother, bond trader, weekend magician, practical joker, sister, philanthropist, middle son, dog lover, janitor, only child, entrepreneur, waitress, grandfather of fourteen, registered nurse, accountant, intern, jazz saxophonist, doting uncle, army reservist, late-night poet, sister, window washer, Scrabble player, volunteer fireman, father, father, elevator repairman, wine aficionado, office manager, secretary, cook, financier, executive vice president, bird watcher, father, dishwasher, Vietnam veteran, new mother, avid reader, only child, competitive chess player, soccer coach, brother, analyst, maitre d', black belt, CEO, bridge partner, architect, plumber, public relations executive, father, artist in residence, urban planner, newlywed, investment banker, chef, electrical engineer, new father who had a cold that morning and thought about calling in sick ... and then one day I saw it, Thomas Schell, my first thought was that I had died. "He leaves behind a wife and son," I thought, my son, I thought, my grandson, I thought and thought and thought, and then I stopped thinking ... When the plane descended and I saw Manhattan for the first time in forty years, I didn't know if I was going up or down, the lights were stars, I didn't recognize any of the buildings, I told the man, "To mourn try to live," I declared nothing, I called your mother but I couldn't explain myself, I called again, she thought it was a joke, I called again, she asked, "Oskar?" I went to the magazine stand and got more quarters, I tried again, it rang and rang, I tried again, it rang, I waited and tried again, I sat on the ground, not knowing what would happen next, not even knowing what I wanted to happen next, I tried once more, "Hello, you have reached the Schell residence. I am speaking like an answering message, even though it's really me on the phone. If you'd like to talk to me or Grandma, please begin at the beep sound I'm about to make. Beeeeep. Hello?" It was a child's voice, a boy's. "It's really me. I'm here. Bonjour?" I hung up. Grandma? I needed time to think, a taxi would be too quick, as would a bus, what was I afraid of? I put the suitcases on a pushcart and started walking, I was amazed that no one tried to stop me, not even as I pushed the cart onto the street, not even as I pushed it onto the side of the highway, with each step it became brighter and hotter, after only a few minutes it was clear I wouldn't be able to manage, I opened one of the suitcases and took out a stack of letters, "To my child," they were from 1977, "To my child," "To my child," I thought about laying them on the road beside me, creating a trail of things I wasn't able to tell you, it might have made my load possible, but I couldn't, I needed to get them to you, to my child. I hailed a cab, by the time we reached your mother's apartment it was already getting late, I needed to find a hotel, I needed food and a shower and time to think, I ripped a page from the daybook and wrote, "I'm sorry," I handed it to the doorman, he said, "Who's this for?" I wrote, "Mrs. Schell," he said, "There is no Mrs. Schell," I wrote, "There is," he said, "Believe me, I'd know if there was a Mrs. Schell in this building," but I'd heard her voice on the phone, could she have moved and kept the number, how would I find her, I needed a phone book. I wrote "3D" and showed it to the doorman. He said, "Ms. Schmidt," I took back my book and wrote, "That was her maiden name."... I lived in the guest room, she left me meals by the door, I could hear her footsteps and sometimes I thought I heard the rim of a glass against the door, was it a glass I once drank water from, had it ever touched your lips? I found my daybooks from before I left, they were in the body of the grandfather clock, I'd have thought she would have thrown them away, but she kept them, many were empty and many were filled, I wandered through them, I found the book from the afternoon we met and the book from the day after we got married, I found our first Nothing Place, and the last time we walked around the reservoir, I found pictures of banisters and sinks and fireplaces, on top of one of the stacks was the book from the first time I tried to leave, "I haven't always been silent, I used to talk and talk and talk and talk." I don't know if she began to feel sorry for me, or sorry for herself, but she started paying me short visits, she wouldn't say anything at first, only tidy up the room, brush cobwebs from the corners, vacuum the carpet, straighten the picture frames, and then one day, as she dusted the bedside table, she said, "I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back," she walked out and closed the door behind her, I didn't see her again for three days, and then it was as if nothing had been said, she replaced a light bulb that had worked fine, she picked things up and put them down, she said, "I'm not going to share this grief with you," she closed the door behind her, was I the prisoner or the guard? Her visits became longer, we never had conversations, and she didn't like to look at me, but something was happening, we were getting closer, or farther apart, I took a chance, I asked if she would pose for me, like when we first met, she opened her mouth and nothing came out, she touched my left hand, which I hadn't realized was in a fist, was that how she said yes, or was that how she touched me? I went to the art supply store to buy some clay, I couldn't keep my hands to myself, the pastels in long boxes, the palette knives, the handmade papers hanging on rolls, I tested every sample, I wrote my name in blue pen and in green oil stick, in orange crayon and in charcoal, it felt like I was signing the contract of my life. I was there for more than an hour, although I bought only a simple block of clay, when I came home she was waiting for me in the guest room, she was in a robe, standing beside the bed, "Did you make any sculptures while you were away?" I wrote that I had tried but couldn't, "Not even one?" I showed her my right hand, "Did you think about sculptures? Did you make them in your head?" I showed her my left hand, she took off her robe and went onto the sofa, I couldn't look at her, I took the clay from the bag and set it up on the card table, "Did you ever make a sculpture of me in your head?" I wrote, "How do you want to pose?" She said the whole point was that I should choose, I asked if the carpeting was new, she said, "Look at me," I tried but I couldn't, she said, "Look at me or leave me. But don't stay and look at anything else." I asked her to lie on her back, but that wasn't right, I asked her to sit, it wasn't right, cross your arms, turn your head away from me, nothing was right, she said, "Show me how," I went over to her, I undid her hair, I pressed down on her shoulders, I wanted to touch her across all of those distances, she said, "I haven't been touched since you left. Not in that way." I pulled back my hand, she took it into hers and pressed it against her shoulder, I didn't know what to say, she asked, "Have you?" What's the point of a lie that doesn't protect anything? I showed her my left hand. "Who touched you?" My daybook was filled, so I wrote on the wall, "I wanted so much to have a life." "Who?" I couldn't believe the honesty as it traveled down my arm and came out my pen, "I paid for it." She didn't lose her pose, "Were they pretty?" "That wasn't the point." "But were they?" "Some of them." "So you just gave them money and that was it?" "I liked to talk to them. I talked about you." "Is that supposed to make me feel good?" I looked at the clay. "Did you tell them that I was pregnant when you left?" I showed her my left hand. "Did you tell them about Anna?" I showed her my left hand. "Did you care for any of them?" I looked at the clay, she said, "I love that you are telling me the truth," and she took my hand from her shoulder and pressed it between her legs, she didn't turn her head to the side, she didn't close her eyes, she stared at our hands between her legs, I felt like I was killing something, she undid my belt and unzipped my pants, she reached her hand under my underpants, "I'm nervous," I said, by smiling, "It's OK," she said, "I'm sorry," I said, by smiling, "It's OK," she said, she closed the door behind her, then opened it and asked, "Did you ever make a sculpture of me in your head?" ... There won't be enough pages in this book for me to tell you what I need to tell you, I could write smaller, I could slice the pages down their edges to make two pages, I could write over my own writing, but then what?