The Anatomy Lesson (12 page)

“
But it
’
s not a matter of whether you
’
re an authority. It
’
s a matter of people reading what you say because at the moment you
’
re very famous.
”

“
So is Sammy Davis. So is Elizabeth Taylor. They
’
re even more famous. And they
’
re real Jews who haven
’
t ruined their credentials writing vulgar books. They haven
’
t set loose the illicit forces that are now corrupting the culture. Why doesn
’
t he ask them, if he wants somebody famous? They
’
d jump at the chance. Besides, that I
’
m famous for what I
’
m famous for is precisely what makes me reprehensible to Appel.
That
’
s
what he
’
s scolding me about. He actually seems to have read that book as a manifesto for the instinctual life. As if he
’
d never heard of obsession. Or repression. Or repressed obsessive Jews. As if he isn
’
t one himself, the fucking regressive nut! Diana, I have nothing to say, at Appel
’
s request, about Israel. I can write an essay about a novelist, and even that takes six months, but I can
’
t write an essay about international politics, not for anyone. I don
’
t do it,
I
never have. I am not Joan Baez. I am not a great thinker like Leonard Bernstein. I am not a political figure—he flatters me to suggest that I am.
”

“
But you
’
re a Jewish figure. Whether you want to be or not. And as you seem to want to be, you might as well do it. Why are you making it so difficult? Just state your opinion. It
’
s as simple as that. Where you stand.
”

“
I will not make atonement on the Op Ed page for the books he
’
s accused me of writing!
I
cracked a few jokes about playing stinky-pinky in Newark and you
’
d think I
’
d blown up the Knesset. Don
’
t start confusing me with your Wasp clarity—
’
there is no problem.
’
There is! This is not my maiden appearance in the pages of
Foreskin
as their Self-Hating Jew of the Month.
”

“
But that is a petty little ghetto quarrel of no interest to
anyone.
How many Jews can dance on the head of a pin?
No one cares.
You can
’
t really remember what some silly magazine has said about you—your mind would just be muck. If the magazine is as awful as you say, why should you even bother to worry? Besides, the one subject is so big and the other is so tiny, and the two have come together for you in a very strange way that I
cannot
understand, no matter how many ways you explain it. To me it seems like you
’
re balancing a very large mountain against a very tiny molehill, and,
truthfully, if anybody had told
me you were like this before I met you… or that Jews were like this. I just thought they were immigrants—period. No, I
don
’
t
understand. Maybe I
’
m only twenty, but you
’
re forty years old. Is this really what happens when people hit forty?
”

“
You bet. They
’
ve had it up to fucking here. This is
exactly
what happens. Twenty years into your livelihood, and whether you know how to do it, whether you should be doing it at all, still a matter of public debate! And still in doubt yourself. How do I even know that Appel isn
’
t right? What if my writing
’
s as bad as he says? I hate his guts, and obviously the sixties have driven him batty, but that doesn
’
t make him a fool, you know. He
’
s one of the few of them around who make any sense at all. Let
’
s face it. even the worst criticism contains some truth. They always see something you
’
re trying to hide.
”

“
But he
exaggerates
it. It
’
s all out of proportion. He doesn
’
t see the good things. He won
’
t even acknowledge that you
’
re funny. That
’
s ridiculous. He only sees crudely what you fail at. Well, everybody has failings.
”

“
But suppose he
’
s right. Suppose nobody needs my books. Suppose I don
’
t even need them. Am I funny? And if I am, so what? So are the Ri
t
z Brothers. Probably funnier. Suppose what he implies is true and I
’
ve poisoned their sense of the Jewish reality with my vulgar imagination. Suppose it
’
s even half true. What if twenty years of writing has just been so much helplessness before a compulsion—submission to a lowly, inconsequential compulsion that I
’
ve dignified with all my principles, a compulsion probably not all that different from what made my mother clean the house for five hours every day. Where am I then? Look, I
’
m going to medical school.
”

“
Pardon?
”

“
Medical school. I
’
m pretty sure I
’
ve got the grades. I want to be a doctor. I
’
m going back to the University of Chicago.
”

“
Oh, shut up. So far, this conversation has just been depressing. Now it
’
s idiotic.
”

“
No, I
’
ve been thinking about this for a long lime. I want to be an obstetrician.
”

“
At your age? Really? In ten years you
’
ll be fifty. Pardon me, but that
’
s an old man.
”

“
And in sixty years I
’
ll be a hundred. But I
’
ll worry about that then. Why don
’
t
you come with me? You can transfer your credits from Finch. We
’
ll do our homework together.
”

“
Do you want to write the piece about Israel or not?
”

“
No. I want to forget Israel. I want to forget Jews. I should have the day i left home. Take your penis out in public and of course the squad car comes around—but, really, this has gone on now a
little
too long. The way I found to spring myself from everything that held me captive as a boy, and it
’
s simply extended the imprisonment to my fortieth year. Enough of my writing, enough of their scolding. Rebellion, obedience—discipline, explosion
—
injunction, resistance—accusation, dental—defiance. shame—no, the whole God damn thing has been a colossal mistake. This is not the position in life that I had hoped to fill.
I
want to be an obstetrician. Who quarrels with an obstetrician? Even the obstetrician who delivered Bugsy Siegel goes to bed at night with a clear conscience. He catches what comes out and everybody loves him. When the baby appears they don
’
t start shouting,
“
You call that a baby? That
’
s not a baby!
”
No, whatever he hands them, they take it home. They
’
re grateful for his just having been there. Imagine those butter-covered babies, Diana, with their little Chinese eyes, imagine what seeing that does to the spirit,
that
every morning, as opposed to grinding out another two dubious pages. Conception? Gestation? Gruesome laborious labor? The mother
’
s business. You just wash your hands and hold out the net. Twenty years up here in the literary spheres is enough—now for the fun of the flowing gutter. The bilge, the ooze, the gooey drip. The stuff. No words, just stuff. Everything the word
’
s in place of. The lowest of genres—life itself. Damn right I
’
ll be fifty next time I look. No more words! On to the delivery room before it
’
s too late. Headlong into the Cloaca Maxima and all the effusions thereof. Leave Finch and fly out to Chicago with me. You can go to school at my alma mater.
”

“
Leave Finch and I lose my trust fund. You don
’
t want me anyway. You want a nursemaid. You want a governess.
”

“
Would it make any difference if I said I
’
d marry you?
”

“
Don
’
t fuck with me.
”

“
But would it?
”

“
Yes, it would, of course it would. Do it. Do it now. Let
’
s get married tonight. Then we
’
ll run away from your life and you
’
ll become a doctor and I
’
ll become a doctor
’
s wife. I
’
ll take the phone calls. I
’
ll make the appointments. I
’
ll boi
l
your instruments. The hell with my trust fund. Let
’
s do it now. Let
’
s go out tonight and get the license and the blood tests.
”

“
My neck hurts too much tonight.
”

“
That
’
s what I figured. You
’
re full of shit, Nathan. There
’
s only
one thing for you to do and that
’
s
to get on with it.
WRITE ANOTHER BOOK.
Carnovsky
is not the end of the world. You cannot make yourself a life of misery out of a book that just happened to have been a roaring success. It cannot stop you in your tracks like this. Get up off the floor, get your hair back, straighten out your neck, and write a book that isn
’
t
about
these Jews.
And then the Jews won
’
t bug you.
Oh, what a pity you can
’
t shake free. That you should still be aroused and hurt by this! Are you
always
fighting your father? I know it may sound like a
cliché
, probably it would be with somebody else, but in your case I happen to think that it
’
s true. I look through these books on your shelves, your
Freud, your Erikson, your Bettel
heim, your Reich, and every single line about a father is underlined. Yet when you describe your father to me, he doesn
’
t sound like a creature of any stature at all. He may have been Newark
’
s greatest chiropodist, but he sure doesn
’
t sound like much of a challenge otherwise. That a man of your breadth of intelligence and your total freedom in the world … that
this
should beat you down. That you should be so broken down from these
Jews.
You hate this critic Appel? You don
’
t ever want to stop hating him? He
’
s done you such a
grievous
injury? Okay, the hell with this crazy little four-page letter—go bonk him on the nose. Are Jews scared of physical confrontations? My father would go and punch him in the nose if he thought he
’
d been insulted the way you do. But you aren
’
t man enough to do that, and you aren
’
t man enough just to forget it—you aren
’
t even man enough to write for the Op Ed page of
The New York Times.
Instead you lie there in your prism glasses and make up fairy tales about medical school, and having a doctor
’
s office with a picture on the desk of a doctor
’
s wife, and coming home FROM work and going out TO RELAX, and when someone on a plane faints and a stewardess asks if anybody here is a doctor, you can stand up and say I am.
”