Katz or Cats: or, How Jesus Became My Rival in Love

The Beginning

1

OPENING

I STILL SEE KATZ making his way down the up escalator, shouting to me in the waiting train:

= John! Wait. I want to confess something—his words tailing away behind him.

But let’s backtrack—a fitting, inadvertent pun in the Katz style—a bit.

Katz, my months-long seatmate on the New York-bound train, had bade me goodbye and left our car. Here, in Newark, the train waited, as it usually did at 8:40 a.m., for another train on a different line, before continuing on to New York. I saw Katz ascending the escalator, and then he disappeared. In installments. First his head. Then his torso. His briefcase. His legs. His cuffed trousers.

Then came a bizarre sight. A figure was struggling, trying to force his way down against the push of the upcoming throng. A couple of people moved to the left, opening a path for the man. I saw who it was. It was Katz, a wild look on his face, determined to descend as more and more people funneled into the up escalator. The scene reminded me of a Chaplin comedy, for—zhoop!—Katz again was back up at the top of the stairs. Now once more he has to elbow his way down, battling not only crowds but gravity and the inexorable laws of physics. For a man to go down an up escalator, his descent velocity has to exceed the machine’s up speed, in conjunction of course with the resistant force of the crowd that keeps ascending, impeding his dogged downward path.

At times Katz seemingly stood still, since the speed of his descent equaled that of his involuntary ascent. And facing the wrong way too. Going up backward. Imagine being in transit, yet motionless, or seeming to stand still while in obvious kinesis. And then, like a quarterback finding an opening and rushing for the one-yard line, Katz finally finds a gap and leaps and lands on the platform. He dashes to the now closing door in my car, can’t get his foot in quickly enough stop it from shutting but shouts as the door slides shut—

= I have a confession to make, John…I’m…—he says as the door slams shut in his face, cutting off whatever he wanted to say.

My train began to move. He ran alongside. Anyone who can run down a crowded up escalator can run with a New Jersey Transit train. He ran with it, looking for an open window to shout his words in at me. But a Jersey train isn’t like a European railroad car. The windows don’t open. For some reason Katz pointed to himself; he poked his index finger into his chest. I saw him mouthing his name: Katz. Katz. Katz. Then he opened his mouth wide as though he were meowing. The Katz meow. What was he trying to tell me?

And then the train, my train, gathering speed, now really zooming, entered a tunnel and Katz—Katz vanished.

Again.

•

But let’s begin at the beginning, since what I’ve told you is almost the end.

I’m aware that some people—I’m an editor, a careful observer of readers’ habits, so I should know—have the annoying habit of opening a book and reading the last page first. For those of you who do this, please note that you’ve just read the (almost) last page.

But I assure you, you won’t have lost anything—or gained anything, for that matter—by reading this, for there’s lots and lots to learn as you keep turning the pages, and lots and lots to turn as you keep learning the pages.

So relax and enjoy this—

his

their,

our,

my,

your,

story.

2

RE: TOMMY MANNING

REMEMBER THOMAS MANNING, HERO of that touching, sometimes comic novel, Partita in Venice, a kind of antipode to Mann’s Death in Venice? Sorry, I forget the author. I should remember but I don’t. Since the title was unusual, I remember it. But not the author. Tommy was actually my neighbor in a little town outside of Manchester, New Hampshire. We went to Old Manchester High together. Not much formal religion in his house, but raised with strict New England, old-fashioned Puritan ethics. Old-fashioned, yes, but tinged with twentieth-century modernism, liberalism. Not with Cotton Mather’s mouth-foaming madness. I don’t want you to get me wrong. But we did have values.

That’s why Katz’s story is a problem for me. What would Manning have done? Can I ethically arrogate another writer’s tale even if I made variations, or am I just retelling it, transcribing it as Katz, a reteller himself, told it to me? Remember Duchamp’s Mona Lisa with the mustache? Was that theft of intellectual property, or an honest-to-goodness original variation? Whom am I kidding? Honest-to-goodness original variation is a first-class oxymoron.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just reporting on what I heard. If a journalist quotes a famous writer’s words in an interview, is that plagiarism? What will a sharp lawyer say? After all, under my by-line I’m writing down word for word what the writer said. His words—under my byline. Is that technically plagiarism? Tommy, come help me out with your New England ethical stance.

Never mind. I’ll just put down what Katz told me and what I experienced with the girl I met. Then you can put our two stories together and have a double matinee. And maybe I’ll use someone else’s name.

And if there’s a problem, well then—

Like one of the chaps in Guys and Dolls says:

So sue me!

3

FIRST MEETING WITH KATZ ON THE TRAIN

FOR A MOMENT I raised my eyes from the manuscript I was editing and looked out the streaked plate glass (New Jersey Transit doesn’t do windows either) at the drab towns racing by, on their way to some unknown western destination. A man sat next to me. I didn’t look at him but I saw his well-pressed, superbly tailored trousers and Gucci loafers on his stretched-out feet. I’m tempted to say that he looked like a man who would comb his hair before making an important phone call. I sensed him watching me work. Another nosy guy, I thought. Any minute, I imagined, I’d hear him say: My brother is a writer; or, my niece wants to write; or, isn’t that interesting, I always wondered, what does an editor do? Pretty soon, from his sleeve, like a magician, he would draw a manuscript and present it to me. Although I had been deeply immersed in my work since I boarded the train in Trenton, I felt this man had slipped in next to me for a reason. And since such nosiness, or, to be generous, curiosity, annoys me, I try to tilt the pages toward me to show they’re mine.

But he still hadn’t said a word, which completely disarmed me. From his briefcase he took out a Wall Street Journal and began reading. He’s an analyst for a brokerage house, I thought, or perhaps a compliance officer at a hedge fund. What links do these guys have to literature?

Finally, I turned to him. He gave me a fetching smile, this well-dressed, handsome man in his mid-fifties, but he said nothing. Now I was about to speak. This later amazed me, for when I’m working on the train I don’t initiate small talk. But this quiet chap was turning the tables on me. Even without speaking he radiated energy, magnetism, drawing the iron filings of my attention. I felt I was in an inside-out conversation, in a mirror-image, effect-and-cause world. While praying my seatmate wouldn’t talk to me, I was half expecting him to. Change that to expecting him to. His surprising silence hexed me into talking to him. I opened my mouth and was about to say, I sense you’re interested in writing, but caught myself at the last minute.

What’s the matter with you? I asked myself. Soon you’ll ask him to favor you with one of his manuscripts. Come on, just pull it from your sleeve and I’ll start reading it now. Or maybe, even more absurdly, I would proclaim, I’ve got this great manuscript for you to read, and he would respond, using my favorite line, I’m so sorry, our publishing house doesn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. We deal only with accredited literary agents.

But the fact is I didn’t tilt my manuscript toward me. Didn’t use it as a place of refuge. I turned to him and he uttered a curt, = Hi.

I waited for him to continue. But, again to my surprise, he said nothing more. He was frustrating me, my taciturn seatmate.

Then, finally, he said, = Looks like you’re either an editor or—

I was about to respond amicably, but he stopped in mid-sentence.

I don’t know if he picked up his Wall Street Journal, for I turned from him and looked out the window.

Then softly, so seductively I had to face him, he continued:

= What a fortuitous meeting! I’m a writer. And I have an unusual love story I’d like to show you. You see—

Another love story, I thought. Everyone has a love story.

= Forgive me for interrupting you, I said, looking him in the eye, = but I get this all the time.

His face reddened, which immediately made me feel bad. What could I do now with this seemingly gentle man with thick black curly hair with a bald spot on the top of his head and a few strands of gray threading here and there? It’s always hard to say no, especially in person.

= I don’t want to be mean or sound abrupt, but the small publishing house I work for—you guessed right, by the way, I am an editor, but I could be an author too, you know, correcting my own manuscript—doesn’t do fiction. We used to, but not anymore.

The man nodded, absorbing the disappointing news. And, in any case, how could I afford to read a manuscript by an unknown? Take any ten people in a room, twelve of them claim they are, used to be, or want to be writers. Most people assume writing is calligraphy: take a pen in hand and start writing. But it’s not handwriting; it’s think-writing, for which the hand is only an instrument, a faithful intermediary, sometimes a less-than-willing amanuensis.

I looked out the window at the Jersey swampland. Just a few minutes earlier, trees in their June green were whizzing by. And now the swamp. I imagined I was a tourist in some Asian country. It looked rather appealing in the early morning sun, as does most anything in sunlight. I felt my seatmate’s tension and dashed hopes, vivid and palpable, stirring in the small space between us.

= But I didn’t finish my sentence, he said.

= Sorry. What were you going to say?

= That this isn’t a run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen love story. Did you ever hear of a love affair where a guy’s rival is not the fellow next door, but Jesus?

It took me a moment to absorb that.

= Well, that is interesting, I said. = You mean the girl has an infatuation with Jesus.

= You’ll see how it plays out.

= All right, I’ll make a deal with you, I suddenly said.

The man brightened. = You won’t be disappointed, I assure you.

And I’ll make a deal with you. If it isn’t worth your while, I’ll buy you a yearly pass.

I laughed. = I admire your confidence. And thanks for your generous offer. But that won’t be necessary. Do you take this train every day?

= Well, almost.

= I take this one Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday I take an earlier one. How far do you go?

= Penn Station, the man said.

= Me too. My name is John.

= So what’s the deal? the man asked.

= I’ll be frank with you. I won’t be able to read the manuscript, but you’ll narrate the story for me. And by the way, telling a story is the best way to fine-tune it, to make it clearer and sharper. But you still didn’t tell me your name.

= Call me Katz, he said. = Katz is how I like to be called. Okay, I’ll narrate the story, but would you mind if once in a while I read from the manuscript?

= That’s fine with me.

= Okay, it begins like this. My hero, who is separated, but maybe not, we’re not sure…

= We? I interrupted. = Who’s the we?

Katz raised his index finger, requesting patience. = I’ll tell you in a minute. The hero, also named Katz, met this girl about twenty years ago, almost the same way I met you, on a train. Actually, a waiting room in Boston’s T, the trolley car line that goes in to the city from the western suburbs. And she tells me, I mean him, my hero, her name. Wait! Why should I break my tongue, like the Italians say, and keep saying him and he, when I’m writing the story in the first person? Though it didn’t happen to me.

= To be sure, I said. = It’s just a narrative device. And I thought to myself: I haven’t yet met a writer who will honestly say, Yes, that first-person hero, that’s me.

= Exactly, a narrative device, Katz was quick, too quick in my estimation, to reply. Then he added, = Actually, to be perfectly honest…

At that I shut my ears. Whenever I hear that phrase it sounds discordant, like two elbows on a keyboard. Hearing it I immediately brand the speaker an inveterate liar.

= Actually, it’s not my book. It’s my brother’s fiction, I heard Katz say.

= Ah, I said. = There’s that we.

= Yes, John. It’s his work. My brother’s. I must accent this. Please understand that the Katz who is the protagonist of the novel should in no way be confused with Katz the author, and certainly not with his brother, me, Katz the reteller. I’m just retelling his fiction. I told you I’m a writer because everyone probably begins his spiel to you by saying, my brother is a writer. But in this case, my brother is the writer... Okay, although I have a good memory—my brother says I have total recall—I still won’t be able to repeat word for word what’s he’s written, but I’ll look over the pages the night before and try my best.

= Fine.

= You’ll see, he’s a terrific writer with great imagination. I too wanted to become a man of letters, Katz said wistfully, = but it didn’t work out. My brother became the writer, but of course he has a day job, and I ended up in business. Still, I wish I could write.

And, at once, blindsided, I fell into his neatly baited trap.

= What would you write?

= Wrongs, he said, and again gave me that wicked, engaging smile.

It took a while for that wordplay to sink in.

Then I admitted to Katz that one of my ambitions too had been to become a novelist or short story writer, but I wasn’t good enough. But since I had a good literary sensibility, I got a job as an editor.

= How long you been at it?

= About twenty years.

Then I panicked, fearing the question Katz might ask me. But to his credit, he was discreet enough not to ask the name of my firm.

= Got my first job soon after I graduated college. And since I did so well, I capped the flame of my ambition to write fiction.

To which Katz responded, = That’s why Balzac said, It is as easy to dream up a book as it is difficult to put it on paper. And the American novelist C. L. Eviant once wrote: Fiction is like dreams, imagining and vivifying the impossible. And me, I have dreams, can’t write them down. So I admire my brother for his determination. Sometimes, when I read his book, I feel I’m entering a magical world, where the page splits and two new, previously unseen pages appear, and you enter a dream world…

Then I added:

= And the great Argentinian short story writer, Jorge Luis Borges, who never wrote a novel, once said something similar. To imagine the plot of a novel is a happy task. To actually write it is an exaggeration. You’ve read Borges, right?

= Read him? Katz said indignantly. = I wrote most of his stories, including "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote."

= Mmm, I said, not really knowing what to say. At times I felt I was talking to him in foreign tongues.

I didn’t want to ask Katz what he did. That is, I did want to ask him, but the protocol of train friendships forbade it. Like giving your last name. But perhaps my silence spurred Katz on.

= So I became a surveyor. I’m principal of a land surveying company.

= Well, well. K the Land Surveyor. How interesting!

= I never thought of the similarity of initials. So you know The Castle.

Katz didn’t phrase it as an interrogative, but I sensed the question lurking.

= Why do you ask? You can see I’m making reference to Kafka’s famous novel.

= Not necessarily, he said. = Some people read reviews or dust jacket flaps and think they’ve read the book.

= Did you major in land surveying, if there’s such a thing?

= I majored in comp lit but sort of sidled into land surveying, but let’s get back to my brother’s novel. The hero doesn’t usually give his name because he’s a very private person. Quite shy. Just like my brother. But for some reason he can’t quite explain, maybe because the girl is so appealing, after she introduces herself, he gives her his name right away.

= That’s amazing, I said.

= What’s amazing, John?

= I don’t like to give my name either, I said. = On planes, when a stranger starts talking to me and asks my name, I give the guy a card that a previous nudnick had given me and which I keep for just such an occasion.

= What a terrific idea! Katz said. = I’m going to remember that. Only problem is now both of us will be suspicious that we’ve given each other false aliases.

= Fear not. It will be all right.

= So as soon as I tell her my name, she says: The author of Travels in Bessarabia. And I say, That book was published more than fifteen years ago. How do you remember that one? And she says she used it for her trip to Romania after a Jewish friend gave her that book…one of the best-written travel books she ever read. Soon as she said, ‘a Jewish friend of mine,’ I knew for sure Maria was Christian. That’s not her real name, by the way. That’s what my brother calls the heroine to protect her privacy.

Katz pronounced the word the British way, with the short i, as in ‘privilege.’ I couldn’t tell if it was an affectation. Then he stopped and gazed out the window.

= I wonder, Katz continued, where she is now, after all these years. Probably back in Romania, helping the poor gypsies again, for her goal was to help poor people in Seventh World countries perfect their shoplifting and wallet-snatching skills.

= What’s the novel about? I asked.

= What’s it about, you ask? It’s about a guy named Katz and a girl named Maria. They get to know each other, but she’s a deeply devout off-the-wall Protestant, and how this love affair of hers with Jesus, which complic—but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

= You said you had a brother.

= Had? Why had? He’s still alive. The author of the book.

= Okay. So what do people call him?

= Katz. He doesn’t like first names either.

= So how do you, or your mother, or anyone else distinguish you from him?

= By the pronunciation.

And Katz, that rascal, didn’t even smile. I decided to drop it. He was either being purposely obtuse or didn’t know when to stop teasing. But Katz continued as though our conversation had not taken an untoward turn.

= So we hope this book, with its unusual theme and plot, will work for him. My brother wants to see this book published so badly.

= Then he should come to our house. We publish all our books badly.

Katz disregarded my joke.

= He doesn’t want it to be part of that ever-growing library of imaginary books, in the uncatalogued collection of the Universal Library of Non-existent Books of which Borges is the Honorary Head Librarian…Oops, here we are. My stop.

= But it’s only Newark. I thought you were going to Penn Station.

= Newark has a Penn Station too. You New Yorkers, with your transito-geographic chauvinism! If we both make it through the night alive and well, I’ll see you Wednesday for another installment of My Love Story Which Jesus Elbowed Into, which, by the way, is not the title of my brother’s book. Which station do you get on?

= Trenton. And you?

= Princeton. Save me a seat, okay? See you tomorrow morning, Katz said.

4

FIRST MEETING WITH MARIA ON THE T

= THANKS FOR SAVING me a seat, John, Katz said as he slid in next to me. = Shall we begin? And before I even had a chance to nod, he began his narrative.

•

How did we meet? In the Boston T waiting room in Newton while I was on the line to buy tickets. She sort of stood outside the line. But I could see she wanted to get to the clerk. I motioned her ahead of me. She was a tall, fairly good-looking girl, I’d say in her mid-thirties, with an open, innocent, sort of longish face.

It’s okay, she said. I just want to say hello to the ticket agent.

Go ahead, I said. I have my ticket. I just need a timetable.

She went up to the clerk and wished him a happy new year. She apologized for the belated greeting but she’d been away for three weeks.

I watched them speaking. You should have seen the shy smile on that overweight clerk’s shiny moonface. Every pore in his cheeks was beaming. Every hair of his little black Charlie Chaplin mustache shone.

When she finished talking to him, she handed me a timetable. I was impressed by her demeanor and commended her gentilesse.

I said we don’t see such considerate behavior toward our inferiors anymore. She smiled a hesitant smile, wondering if I was serious or not. We began chatting, and as the tram pulled in I asked her:

How far are you going?

To the last stop. I had expected her to say: All the way, and then blush.

Me too, I said. Let’s sit together.

Do you like the window seat?

Makes no difference to me, I said, studying her green eyes. I surely won’t be looking at the scenery.

At once she told me her name: Maria Christian—but I was unsure if the last syllable was sen or son.

Sen, she said. Danish descent. Here’s how I spell it. And from her colorful bag that looked like it was knitted in Africa, she pulled out her card and gave it to me. Then she took out a little white leather-bound book and placed it on her lap, the sort that looked like a pocket Bible or a Siddur that Bar Mitzva boys get as a present and which is never ever opened.

What’s that, your Bat Mitzva present?

Close. It’s my Bible. And she opened the well-worn book to Luke. In the margin were small, handwritten annotations. It’s my daily tram reading. I hardly read anything else.

Do you know what language the book you call the Old Testament is written in?

English? she said, wide-eyed. "Just kidding. It’s Ivrit," she said, using the Hebrew word for Hebrew.

Very impressive, I said. So go ahead. Read. I don’t want to disturb you.

No no no. It’s fine. Let’s talk.

Within a couple of minutes, we learned that we both lived in Waltham and drove to Newton to catch the T. We had both gone to Brandeis, she some years before me, and had majored in comparative literature; her minor was labor arbitration, mine psychology.

And now, she said, smiling at me, now you have to tell me your name, you know.

Although I don’t usually give strangers my real name, I told her, "My name is Katz. It’s a Hebrew acronym for kohen tzedek, or, righteous priest."

No first name?

Katz is what my friends call me. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been called Katz.

Okay. Katz. She brightened. A great name. Katz. I love it. Would your first name by any chance be—?

I was hoping, I was praying, she wouldn’t say pussy. If she says pussy, I thought, she’s finished for me.

"…by any chance be M? The only Katz I know is M. Katz, the author of Travels in Bessarabia, a book that was so useful when I was traveling there."

The coincidence, the serendipity, astounded me. But, instead of exclaiming, all I could say was: You must love travel to remember that book that came out, oh, let’s see, about twenty years ago.

•

= Excuse me for interrupting, Katz, but didn’t you say fifteen years ago the other day?

= I may have. But these aren’t my changes, John. They’re my brother’s. He’s constantly revising.

•

I do like to travel, Maria said, but I remember the book because the writer is, you know, knowledgeable, witty, detailed, with a very personal approach to travel. That combination made me remember the book.

What did you do in Bessarabia?

I volunteered, as part of my desire to make real Jesus’s teaching, to help poor gypsy children…

…improve their pickpocketing skills. And I must say you did a great job. They nabbed my wallet in Bucharest.

Maria assumed I was joking. I asked her where else she had traveled; she said Israel. I looked at this Christiansen girl. Did I tell you she had long brown hair with a reddish tinge? And a face as goyish as a face could be.

And what did you see there?

I spent two weeks touring the Christian holy sites. I loved it. Seeing the sites where Jesus walked was thrilling.

Thrilling? I couldn’t imagine being thrilled by that. Would I be thrilled walking where Moses walked? Where David danced? Thrilling? How thrilling?

But Maria did not get my dig.

Because it made Jesus come alive for me. I saw him more clearly than ever. That’s what those two beautiful weeks did. And I can’t wait to go back.

Two weeks for that? I thought one could see the Christian sites in two days.

But of course I saw the Jewish sites too….But you still haven’t told me if you’re M. Katz, author of that marvelous book.

Once I heard praise like that, I couldn’t help myself. Despite her longish chin, this girl was appealing, although she did have an ungainly way of walking: sort of self-conscious, and high-shouldered, which contradicted her pleasant face. She loved the book. I couldn’t resist the deception. Sometimes deception comes as naturally as breathing. And so I passed off my brother’s book as my own. Then I had a moment of fear. I couldn’t recall if his book had an author photo. I had misplaced my copy years ago. And I think to myself: Maria goes home, looks for the book, sees the photo of my brother, and…Then I relaxed. Even if the book did have a photo, it was a picture taken years ago. And, anyway, my brother and I resemble each other. It’s a family trait. My father and his brother also looked almost alike, and they weren’t even related. Even my mother and father looked alike; if my father put on lipstick, you couldn’t tell my parents apart.

Here’s a cute story. My brother and I went to different schools, but once I played hooky and attended my brother’s class. We had cooked up a trick. We both wore white shirts and brown pants. We sat in the back. We must have been eight or nine. The teacher, an old man with glasses, called on my brother. We both stood up. The teacher says, I see two of you. No, my brother says. There’s only one of me here. You’re seeing double. The befuddled teacher sat down, took off his thick specs, and covered his eyes. That gave me time to run out…But that’s neither here nor there.

So then, are you M. Katz? Maria insisted.

I looked down modestly.

My, what a memory you have, I told Maria. My book came out years ago. I still can’t understand how you remembered the author. The book’s title I can understand. I read a book and as soon as I finish it, the author’s name slips away from me.

Well, if your name had been Jones, you know, I might have forgotten it. But Katz is such an unusual family name. How could I forget Katz? You’ll have to, you know, autograph that book for me.

Sure. Gladly.

If I can find it.

I’ll sign it anyway, I said.

She didn’t even react to my absurd remark. I saw her staring at the slightly open door between the two joined streetcars. She looked ill at ease. What was bothering her?

Suddenly, she jumped up. I’m sorry. I can’t stand open doors. And she went and shut it.

Me neither. I smiled with satisfaction."

Wow! Maria said. Me too. Amazing.

I don’t believe it. I never thought I would find another loon like you and me.

And then, without even thinking, I put my arm around her shoulder and drew her to me. She didn’t resist. On the contrary, with a happy looked she pressed even closer.

I just had to hug you for that consanguinity of ours.

I love that word, ‘consanguinity.’ I love words altogether.

So you must love the dictionary.

Are you kidding? It’s my second-favorite book. Maria looked pensive. Do you know what words in a dictionary do at night when you don’t consult it, them?

No. I never gave it a thought. At night I’m too busy shutting doors.

The words get together, you know, she said, and conspire to bring in new words from botany that hadn’t been included before. Botany words are my pet peeve. They should be in an encyclopedia. Not a dictionary. From week to week my unabridged dictionary gets fatter and weightier from the totally unnecessary botanical words stuffed into it.

Do you leave your unabridged open?

Yes. Of course. Always. That way it’s, you know, available when I want it. Why?

You see, that’s the problem. Make believe it’s a door. Close it. If it’s open, then the dictionary is bridged. The invasive botany words use the pages as a bridge to get in. If it’s closed, then it’s un-a-bridged and the words can’t get in.

What an idea! she said and nodded, seriously considering my suggestion.

Have you ever been in a library after midnight?

No.

You told me what words in a dictionary do at night. Now I’ll ask you, do you know what books do late at night?

Gossip about who has run off with an overdue book?

No, but good try. They read each other. They socialize. They copulate.

Populate? Populate what? The shelves?

You misheard. But you’re not too far off. They copulate and, in their own mysterious way, create more books. Just like your dictionary secretes more words, libraries make their own books. Endlessly.

The Good Book knew that thousands of years ago. Maria pointed to her little white Bible. That’s why Ecclesiastes 12:12 says: ‘Of making books there is no end.’ He witnessed it himself.

I’d substitute ‘love’ for ‘books’ in that verse, I said.

That was the tenor of our talk during our first meeting. We played with, sparred with, words. We flirted with words as if they were love darts. It was the beginning of what would become for us a continuing game with words, sending us deeper into that zone we lovingly call same wavelength.

I have to put the story in reverse to make an observation. I think it’s an important one. When I told her I knew why she shut closet doors, she asked me, You do? Why? As she said this, I think I noticed a slight—the very slightest—tremor in her voice, a faint vibrato in the vowels of those three words, like a shudder through thin glass, indicating nervousness, insecurity, perhaps even fear. She probably didn’t