I stood beneath
the lamp post in front of my building and looked up and down the sidewalks,
across the street, and up at the windows of my neighbors. All was quiet and still, though it was
only just after 10pm. I have
always been a night owl of sorts, and have lived in many places where
observable nocturnal adventures are common, but here people went inside early
and, though they may not be sleeping, or may be having unobservable nocturnal
adventures, the windows and doors in this city close early to the
observer. What a challenging city
this must be for the voyeur, or the peeping Tom, at least at night, during the
hours when it is most fruitful and interesting to observe people in
secret. Of course, observance with
the ears was a different matter.
Nothing could be heard at this time of night down on the street, but
often I had heard the sounds of my neighbors through the walls, or through the
pipes if I stood quiet enough and listened, or put my ear to the plumbing. I could rarely ever hear distinct
words, but I could hear the music of conversations, the loud clashes of angry
overtures and the sotto voce of banal melody and chitchat. As the night progressed, talking was
replaced by amatory sounds, most often coming from the young married couple who
lived next to me. Grunts, moans,
an occasional scream. Once, when
the husband was away for the night after I had heard yelling from both of them
throughout the afternoon, there was an exceptionally loud explosion of moans
and screams, and the voice of a strange man yelling “oh god, mmmm” at the top
of his lungs, followed by an hour of silence and, later, by female weeping and
the sound of the man leaving, swearing as he went. Often after, whenever I
would chance to meet the couple, or worse, the husband alone outside the
building or in the hallway in front of our doors, I felt a sense of guilt,
because I had been made an unwilling and unsuspected accomplice to the young woman’s
infidelity by my own proclivities.
I carried that knowledge, and yet did nothing, said nothing. A few days after their fight, I
happened upon the husband in the hallway, and he waved and offered an apology
for the noise of a few days ago.
That was what he said: ‘Sorry about the noise a few days ago.’ The noise of a few days ago! Like he had any idea of the true nature
of the noises that came from his own bedroom that night he spent away. Yet, I couldn’t tell him what I knew,
all auditory and circumstantial and gathered by me in a dubious manner as I
listened against the wall. And I
suspected, perhaps only as justification, that the husband might have been
occupying someone else’s bed that night as well, and that there could be
another soul out there entrusted with the same silent burden of having
overheard an infidelity, though they might not know the encounter was an
infidelity at all. The young
couple possessed all of the passions of youth – they were roughly the same age
as my students –and the same impulsive flare for folly. ‘You won’t last,’ I often thought to
myself, passing judgment. ‘You’re
irresponsible and young. Your
passions will devour you. Your
flame will go out. You will grow
bored or disgusted with each other.
You cannot even whether the storm of a single evening without recourse
to an outsider’s touch, to cuckolding the one you love.’ Then I followed that though with a
reprimand: ‘I don’t know a thing about them. What do I know?’
I stood on the
street observing the shut blinds and extinguished lights, and I thought I did
know, not just about them, but about Maria as well, about what I had seen when
I looked at her, about how I’d begun to read her when she was upstairs in my
apartment, and how she had read me, too – she could also read people very well,
much better than I could, or ever would – and I thought I knew this despite
some of the truth in Maria’s words about the past. Perhaps the past is a fiction of sorts, in that we have to
remake it as we recall it, and in that our memories can never be trusted to be
faithful, because our memories are like irresponsible young lovers. Perhaps. Yet, the very existence of the past has become something to
be despised. Teachers, especially
teachers of the past, are told to make the material relevant to the student, to
make it fresh and exciting and interesting. The assumption is that the material can never be interesting
to a modern student until it involves them in some way. In other words, the past must be
spruced up to account for the selfishness of the present. People don’t want to think that great
and horrible things happened and they weren’t around to witness it, that it had
nothing to do with them and their world.
Even events such as the holocaust that robbed Maria’s old woman of her
family are not mentioned for the reason that they once existed, they are
unalterable facts, but because someone saw a movie about the event and wants to
overlap an opinion over history, wants to involve themselves, wants to give a
review, thumbs up or down, or wants to inject their sympathy or pity, which
gives nothing to the people of the past.
These interlopers are like the callers on the bridge that day Jala
jumped to her death, reporting to their unseen confessors the events, not
because they happened, but because they were witnessed. And am I not as guilty in remembering
all of this? Few are the ones who
see the past independently from themselves, with dispassionate interest. And because of this selfishness, people
often say that some long past event ‘just doesn’t interest me’ but they never
stop to think why that might be.
We fictionalize our pasts and our memories, but there are facts, events,
melodramas, happening even now that we want no part of, because on them we
cannot impose ourselves. And we
choose not to see things as they are because to do so is to make a judgment,
and such things are impossible to do on unconnected things by those who cannot
see past themselves, cannot impose themselves, or superimpose themselves on the
lives of others. And worse is when
we impose ourselves where we shouldn’t.
How arrogant modern leaders are in offering apologies for the sins of
their long-dead predecessors, and how equally vile those who accept them as if
any of them have any right to speak for the dead, as if their apologies and
forgiveness carry any weight for the victims of former ages, as if any
consolation can be given to the past.
The past, and the dead of the past, stand alone, separate and
inconsolable, pale abstracted mourners, alone in the loneliness of this hour of
the dead. And this I would learn
in the weeks after Jala’s death.
I turned away from
the shut windows and silence of the building and leaned against the door frame,
as Maria had a few hours before, and I pulled my coat closer to me as the chill
of the night began to take bigger bites at my flesh. In the distance, there was dull light, growing brighter and
more distinct as it drew closer, until it was very bright. I put my hand up to shield my eyes, and
was able to make out the headlights and top light of the taxicab. It pulled up beside me, and I got
inside.
