It is this happiness, I suppose (which is really a few months old by now), that gets me to thinking upon my return to Rome that I need to do something about David. That maybe it's time for us to end our story forever. We were already separated, that was official, but there was still a window of hope left open that perhaps someday (maybe after my travels, maybe after a year apart) we could give things another try. We loved each other. That was never the question. It's just that we couldn't figure out how to stop making each other desperately1, shriekingly, soul-punishingly miserable2.
Last spring David had offered this crazy solution to our woes3, only half in jest: "What if we just acknowledged that we have a bad relationship, and we stuck it out, anyway? What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together--in misery4, but happy to not be apart."
Let it be a testimony5 to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration.
The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding6 himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to . . . stop trying to eat his soul.
So many times I had wished with David that I could behave more like my mother does in her marriage--independent, strong, self-sufficient. A self-feeder. Able to exist without regular doses of romance or flattery from my solitary7 farmer of a father. Able to cheerfully plant gardens of daisies among the inexplicable8 stone walls of silence that my dad sometimes builds up around himself. My dad is quite simply my favorite person in the world, but he is a bit of an odd case. An ex-boyfriend of mine once described him this way: "Your father only has one foot on this earth. And really, really long legs . . ."
What I grew up watching in my household was a mother who would receive her husband's love and affection whenever he thought to offer it, but would then step aside and take care of herself whenever he drifted off into his own peculiar9 universe of low-grade oblivious10 neglect. This is how it looked to me, anyway, taking into account that nobody (and especially not the children) ever knows the secrets of a marriage. What I believed I grew up seeing was a mother who asked nothing of anybody. This was my mom, after all--a woman who had taught herself how to swim as an adolescent, alone in a cold Minnesota lake, with a book she'd borrowed from the local library entitled How to Swim. To my eye, there was nothing this woman could not do on her own.
But then I'd had a revelatory conversation with my mother, not long before I'd left for Rome. She'd come into New York to have one last lunch with me, and she'd asked me frankly--breaking all the rules of communication in our family's history--what had happened between me and David. Further disregarding the Gilbert Family Standard Communications Rule-book, I actually told her. I told her everything. I told her how much I loved David, but how lonely and heartsick it made me to be with this person who was always disappearing from the room, from the bed, from the planet.
"He sounds kind of like your father," she said. A brave and generous admission.
"The problem is," I said, "I'm not like my mother. I'm not as tough as you, Mom. There's a constant level of closeness that I really need from the person I love. I wish I could be more like you, then I could have this love story with David. But it just destroys me to not be able to count on that affection when I need it."
Then my mother shocked me. She said, "All those things that you want from your relationship, Liz? I have always wanted those things, too."
In that moment, it was as if my strong mother reached across the table, opened her fist and finally showed me the handful of bullets she'd had to bite over the decades in order to stay happily married (and she is happily married, all considerations weighed) to my father. I had never seen this side of her before, not ever. I had never imagined what she might have wanted, what she might have been missing, what she might have decided11 not to fight for in the larger scheme of things. Seeing all this, I could feel my worldview start to make a radical12 shift.
If even she wants what I want, then . . .?
Continuing with this unprecedented13 string of intimacies14, my mother said, "You have to understand how little I was raised to expect that I deserved in life, honey. Remember--I come from a different time and place than you do."
I closed my eyes and saw my mother, ten years old on the family farm in Minnesota, working like a hired hand, raising her younger brothers, wearing the clothes of her older sister, saving dimes15 to get herself out of there . . .
"And you have to understand how much I love your father," she concluded.
My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her choices are massive--a long, stable marriage to a man she still calls her best friend; a family that has extended now into grandchildren who adore her; a certainty in her own strength. Maybe some things were sacrificed, and my dad made his sacrifices, too--but who amongst us lives without sacrifice?
And the question now for me is, What are my choices to be? What do I believe that I deserve in this life? Where can I accept sacrifice, and where can I not? It has been so hard for me to imagine living a life without David in it. Even just to imagine that there will never be another road trip with my favorite traveling companion, that I will never again pull up at his curb17 with the windows down and Springsteen playing on the radio, a lifetime supply of banter18 and snacks between us, and an ocean destination looming19 down the highway. But how can I accept that bliss20 when it comes with this dark underside--bone-crushing isolation21, corrosive22 insecurity, insidious23 resentment24 and, of course, the complete dismantling25 of self that inevitably26 occurs when David ceases to giveth, and commences to taketh away. I can't do it anymore. Something about my recent joy in Naples has made me certain that I not only can find happiness without David, but must. No matter how much I love him (and I do love him, in stupid excess), I have to say goodbye to this person now. And I have to make it stick.
So I write him an e-mail.
It's November. We haven't had any communication since July. I'd asked him not to get in touch with me while I was traveling, knowing that my attachment27 to him was so strong it would be impossible for me to focus on my journey if I were also tracking his. But now I'm entering his life again with this e-mail.
I tell him that I hope he's well, and I report that I am well. I make a few jokes. We always were good with the jokes. Then I explain that I think we need to put an end to this relationship for good. That maybe it's time to admit that it will never happen, that it should never happen. The note isn't overly dramatic. Lord knows we've had enough drama together already. I keep it short and simple. But there's one more thing I need to add. Holding my breath, I type, "If you want to look for another partner in your life, of course you have nothing but my blessings28." My hands are shaking. I sign off with love, trying to keep as cheerful a tone as possible.
I feel like I just got hit in the chest with a stick.
I don't sleep much that night, imagining him reading my words. I run back to the Internet cafe a few times throughout the next day, looking for a response. I'm trying to ignore the part of me that is dying to find that he has replied: "COME BACK! DON'T GO! I'LL CHANGE!" I'm trying to disregard the girl in me who would happily drop this whole grand idea of traveling around the world in simple exchange for the keys to David's apartment. But around ten o'clock that night, I finally get my answer. A wonderfully written e-mail, of course. David always wrote wonderfully. He agrees that, yes, it's time we really said good-bye forever. He's been thinking along the same lines himself, he says. He couldn't be more gracious in his response, and he shares his own feelings of loss and regret with that high tenderness he was sometimes so achingly capable of reaching. He hopes that I know how much he adores me, beyond even his ability to find words to express it. "But we are not what the other one needs," he says. Still, he is certain that I will find great love in my life someday. He's sure of it. After all, he says, "beauty attracts beauty."
Which is a lovely thing to say, truly. Which is just about the loveliest thing that the love of your life could ever possibly say, when he's not saying, "COME BACK! DON'T GO! I'LL CHANGE!"
I sit there staring at the computer screen in silence for a long, sad time. It's all for the best, I know it is. I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises. I know all this. But still . . .
It's David. Lost to me now.
I drop my face in my hands for a longer and even sadder time. Finally I look up, only to see that one of the Albanian women who work at the Internet cafe has paused from her night-shift mopping of the floor to lean against the wall and watch me. We hold our tired gazes on each other for a moment. Then I give her a grim shake of my head and say aloud, "This blows ass16." She nods sympathetically. She doesn't understand, but of course, in her way, she understands completely.
My cell phone rings.
It's Giovanni. He sounds confused. He says he's been waiting for me for over an hour in the Piazza29 Fiume, which is where we always meet on Thursday nights for language exchange. He's bewildered, because normally he's the one who's late or who forgets to show up for our appointments, but he got there right on time tonight for once and he was pretty sure--didn't we have a date?
I'd forgotten. I tell him where I am. He says he'll come pick me up in his car. I'm not in the mood for seeing anybody, but it's too hard to explain this over the telefonino, given our limited language skills. I go wait outside in the cold for him. A few minutes later, his little red car pulls up and I climb in. He asks me in slangy Italian what's up. I open my mouth to answer and collapse30 into tears. I mean--wailing. I mean--that terrible, ragged31 breed of bawling32 my friend Sally calls "double-pumpin' it," when you have to inhale33 two desperate gasps34 of oxygen with every sob35. I never even saw this griefquake coming, got totally blindsided by it.
Poor Giovanni! He asks in halting English if he did something wrong. Am I mad at him, maybe? Did he hurt my feelings? I can't answer, but only shake my head and keep howling. I'm so mortified36 with myself and so sorry for dear Giovanni, trapped here in this car with this sobbing37, incoherent old woman who is totally a pezzi--in pieces.
I finally manage to rasp out an assurance that my distress38 has nothing to do with him. I choke forth39 an apology for being such a mess. Giovanni takes charge of the situation in a manner far beyond his years. He says, "Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots." He gives me some tissues from a box in the back of the car. He says, "Let's drive."
He's right--the front of this Internet cafe is far too public and brightly lit a place to fall apart. He drives for a bit, then pulls the car over in the center of the Piazza della Repubblica, one of Rome's more noble open spaces. He parks in front of that gorgeous fountain with the bodacious naked nymphs cavorting40 so pornographically with their phallic flock of stiff-necked giant swans. This fountain was built fairly recently, by Roman standards. According to my guidebook, the women who modeled for the nymphs were a pair of sisters, two popular burlesque41 dancers of their day. They gained a fair bit of notoriety when the fountain was completed; the church tried for months to prevent the thing from being unveiled because it was too sexy. The sisters lived well into old age, and even as late as the 1920s these two dignified42 old ladies could be seen walking together every day into the piazza to have a look at "their" fountain. And every year, once a year, for as long as he lived, the French sculptor43 who had captured them in marble during their prime would come to Rome and take the sisters out to lunch, where they would reminisce together about the days when they were all so young and beautiful and wild.
So Giovanni parks there, and waits for me to get a hold of myself. All I can do is press the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to push the tears back in. We have never once had a personal conversation, me and Giovanni. All these months, all these dinners together, all we have ever talked about is philosophy and art and culture and politics and food. We know nothing of each other's private lives. He does not even know that I am divorced or that I have left love behind in America. I do not know a thing about him except that he wants to be a writer and that he was born in Naples. My crying, though, is about to force a whole new level of conversation between these two people. I wish it wouldn't. Not under these dreadful circumstances.
He says, "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. Did you lose something today?"
But I'm still having trouble figuring out how to talk. Giovanni smiles and says encouragingly, "Parla come magni." He knows this is one of my favorite expressions in Roman dialect. It means, "Speak the way you eat," or, in my personal translation: "Say it like you eat it." It's a reminder--when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words--to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman food. Don't make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table.
I take a deep breath and offer a heavily abridged44 (yet somehow totally complete) Italian-language version of my situation: "It's about a love story, Giovanni. I had to say good-bye to someone today."
Then my hands are slapped over my eyes again, tears spraying through my clamped fingers. Bless his heart, Giovanni doesn't try to put a reassuring45 arm around me, nor does he express the slightest discomfort46 about my explosion of sadness. Instead, he just sits through my tears in silence, until I've calmed down. At which point he speaks with perfect empathy, choosing each word with care (as his English teacher, I was so proud of him that night!), saying slowly and clearly and kindly47: "I understand, Liz. I have been there."
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收听单词发音
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1
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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2
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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3
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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4
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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5
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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6
withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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8
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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9
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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10
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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11
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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12
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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13
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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14
intimacies
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| 亲密( intimacy的名词复数 )； 密切； 亲昵的言行； 性行为 | |
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15
dimes
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| n.（美国、加拿大的）10分铸币( dime的名词复数 ) | |
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16
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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18
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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19
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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20
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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21
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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22
corrosive
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| adj.腐蚀性的；有害的；恶毒的 | |
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23
insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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24
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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25
dismantling
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| （枪支）分解 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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27
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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28
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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29
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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30
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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31
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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32
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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33
inhale
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| v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟) | |
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34
gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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35
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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36
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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37
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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38
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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39
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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40
cavorting
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| v.跳跃( cavort的现在分词 ) | |
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41
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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42
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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43
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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44
abridged
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| 削减的，删节的 | |
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45
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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46
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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47
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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