Authors: Philip Roth
I could use it now. Where is it? Here’s the watch, but where’s the strength?
In the seat to the right of where Sabbath had gone blank on “Methinks . . .” was what had caused him to go blank: no more than twenty-one or -two, sculpted entirely in black—turtleneck sweater, pleated skirt, tights, shoes, even a black velvet headband keeping her shining black hair back from her forehead. She had been gazing up at him, and it was the gaze that had stopped him, its meek, familiar softness. She sat with one arm resting on the black nylon backpack by her side, silently watching as he worked
to recall the last scene of act four: Lear is carried sleeping into the French camp—“Ay, madam; in the heaviness of sleep / We put fresh garments on him”—and there to wake him is Cordelia— “How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?” And it is then Lear replies, “You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave. . . .”
The girl with the gaze was speaking, but so softly at first that he couldn’t hear her. She was younger than he’d thought, probably a student, probably no more than nineteen.
“Yes, yes, speak up.” What he was always telling Nikki whenever she said something she was afraid to say, which was half the time she spoke. She had driven him crazier with each passing year, saying things so that he couldn’t hear them. “What did you say?” “It doesn’t matter.” Drove him
nuts
.
“‘Methinks,’” she said, quite audibly now, “‘I should know you, and know this man. . . .’” She’d given him the line! A drama student, on her way uptown to Juilliard.
He repeated, “‘Methinks I should know you, and know this man,’” and then on his own momentum proceeded. “‘Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant / What place this is; and all the skill I have . . .’” Here he
pretended
not to know what was next. “‘And all the skill I have . . .’” Feebly, twice, he repeated this and looked to her for assistance.
“‘Remembers not these garments,’” prompted the girl, “‘nor I know not . . .’”
She stopped when, with a smile, he indicated that he believed he could himself once again pick up from there. She smiled back. “‘Nor I know not / Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me, / For, as I am a man, I think this lady . . .’”
Is Nikki’s daughter.
Not impossible! Nikki’s beautifully imploring eyes, Nikki’s per-plexingly, perpetually uncertain voice . . . no, she was not merely some tenderhearted, overimpressionable kid who would excitedly tell her family tonight that a white-bearded old bum had been reciting to her from
Lear
on the Lexington IRT and that she had dared to help him remember the lines—
she was Nikki’s daughter
. The family she was going home to tonight was
Nikki’s!
Nikki was
alive. Nikki was in New York. This girl was hers. And if hers, somehow his, whoever the father might be.
Sabbath was hovering directly above her now, his emotions an avalanche rolling across him, sweeping him beneath them, uprooting the little rootedness still holding him to himself. What if they were
all
alive and at Nikki’s house? Morty. Mom. Dad. Drenka. Abolishing death—a thrilling thought, for all that he wasn’t the first person, on or off a subway, to have it, have it desperately, to renounce reason and have it the way he did when he was fifteen years old and they
had
to have Morty back. Turning life back like a clock in the fall. Just taking it down off the wall and winding it back and winding it back until your dead all appear like standard time.
‘“For, as I am a man,’” he said to the girl, “‘I think this lady / To be my child Cordelia.’”
“‘And so I am, I am.’” Undesigning Cordelia’s unguarded response, the poignantly simple iambic trimeter that Nikki had uttered in a voice one-tenth a lost orphan’s and the rest a weary, teetering woman’s, spoken by the girl whose gaze was Nikki’s exactly.
“Who is your mother?” Sabbath whispered to her. “Tell me who your mother is.”
The words made her go pale; her eyes, Nikki’s eyes, which could hide nothing, were like those of a child who’s just been told something terrible. All her horror of him came right up to the surface, as it would, sooner or later, in Nikki, too. To have been moved by this mad monstrosity because he could quote Shakespeare! To have become entangled on the subway with someone unmistakably crazy, capable of
anything
—how could she be so idiotic!
Simple as it was to read her thoughts, Sabbath declaimed, no less brokenly than Lear, “You are the daughter of Nikki Kantarakis!”
Frantically pulling open the straps of her knapsack, the girl tried to locate her purse and find money to give him, money to make him
go away
. But Sabbath had to see once more the fact that
was indisputable—that Nikki lived—and turning her face with his crippled hand,
feeling Nikki’s living skin
, he said, “Where is your mother hiding from me?”
“Don’t!” she screamed, “don’t touch me!” and was swatting at his arthritic fingers as though a swarm of flies had attacked her when somebody came up from behind him and with jarring force hooked Sabbath under the arms.
A business suit was all he could see of his powerful captor. “Calm down,” he was being told, “calm down. You shouldn’t drink that stuff.”
“What
should
I drink? I’m sixty-four years old and I’ve never been sick a day in my life! Except my tonsils as a child!
I drink what I want!
”
“Calm
down
, Mac. Cut it out, calm down, and get yourself to a shelter.”
“I caught lice in the shelter!” Sabbath boomed back. “‘Do not abuse me’!”
“
You
abuse
her
—you’re the abuser, chief!”
The train had reached Grand Central. People rushed for the open doors. The girl was gone. Sabbath was freed. “‘Pray you now,’” shouted Sabbath as he wandered off the train alone, looking in all directions for Nikki’s daughter. “‘Pray you now,’” he exclaimed to those standing back from him as he strode majestically along the platform, shaking his cup out before him, “‘pray you now . . .”’ and then, without even Nikki’s daughter to prompt him, he remembered what is next, words that could have meant nothing at all to him in the theater of the Bowery Basement Players in 1961: “‘Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.’”
This was true. It was hard for him to believe that he was simulating any longer, though not impossible.
Thou’lt come no more;
Never, never, never, never, never.
Destroy the clock. Join the crowd.
______________
1
What follows is an uncensored transcription of the entire conversation as it was secretly taped by Kathy Goolsbee (and by Sabbath) and played by
SABBATH
for whoever dialed 722-2284 and took the thirty minutes to listen. In just the first twenty-four hours, over a hundred callers stayed on the line to hear the harassment from beginning to end. It wasn’t long before tapes reproduced from the original began to turn up for sale around the state and, according to the
Cumberland Sentinel
, “as far afield as Prince Edward Island, where the tape is being used as an audio teaching aid by the Charlottetown Project on the State of Canadian Women.”
What are you doing right now?
I’m on my stomach. I’m masturbating.
Where are you?
I’m home, I’m on my bed.
You all alone?
Ummmm.
How long are you alone for?
A long time. Brian’s at a basketball game.
I see. How nice. You are all alone and on your own bed masturbating. Well, I’m glad you called. What are you wearing?
(Babyish laugh)
I’m wearing my clothes.
What clothes are you wearing?
I’m wearing jeans. And a turtleneck. Standard wear.
Yes, that’s your standard wear, isn’t it? I was very excited after I spoke to you last time. You’re very exciting.
Ummmm.
You are. Don’t you know that?
But I felt bad. I felt like I disturbed you when I called at your house.
You didn’t disturb me in terms of my not wanting to hear from you. I just felt it was a good idea to stop that before it went any further.
Sorry. And I won’t do it again.
Fine. You just misjudged. And why not? You’re new to this. Okay. You’re alone and you’re on your bed.
Yeah, and also, I wanted . . . Last time we talked you said . . . about . . . I told you I felt disgusted, you know, when I get really disgusted . . . and you said about what, and I said whatever I said, like I said, my lack of ability in workshop . . . and then I think I was just very evasive, like, I didn’t really, like, I felt that I couldn’t really tell you
(embarrassed laugh)
. . . . It’s much more specific. . . . I’m just, like . . . well, maybe it’s just now. . . it’s like I think about sex all the time
(confessional laugh)
.
Do you?
Yes, I do. I just feel I can’t do anything about it. It’s very. . . I mean, it’s very . . . It’s very good, sometimes.
(Laugh)
You masturbate a lot?
Well, no.
No?
Well, I don’t really have the opportunity. I’m in class. And it’s all so boring and my mind is just elsewhere completely. And ummmm . . .
You have sex thoughts.
Yeah. Constantly. And I just . . . I think it’s normal but sort of extreme. And I feel—guilty, I guess.
Really? What do you feel guilty about? Having sex thoughts all the time? Everybody does.
You think so? I don’t think most people think like that.
You’d be surprised at what most people think like. I wouldn’t worry about it. You’re young and you’re healthy and you’re lovely and so why shouldn’t you? Right?
I guess. I don’t know. Sometimes I read in psych about people, you know, diagnosed, like, “hypersexual,” and I’m, like, “Hey.” Now I feel I’m just gunna, like, you’re gunna think I’m a nymphomaniac and I’m not. I don’t . . . whatever . . . like, I’m not out having sex. I don’t know. I think I just sexualize every interaction I have with people, and I feel guilty. I feel like this is . . . you know . . . no good.
You feel that with me?
Well, ummmm . . .
You sexualized our phone calls, I sexualized our phone calls—nothing wrong with that. You don’t feel guilty about that, or do you?
Well, I mean . . . I don’t know. I guess I don’t feel guilty. I feel very empowered. But, nevertheless, I’m just, like, saying, like, in general I don’t sit around thinking I lack ability. I sit around thinking,
What
is going on in my head? I can’t stand it.
So you’re going through the time when you’re obsessed with sex. It happens to everybody. Especially as nothing in school is interesting you.
I think that’s the problem. It’s like I react to it. I have to rebel or something.
It doesn’t engage your mind. And so your mind is empty and something moves in and what moves in—because you’re frustrated, the thing that can answer the frustration is sex. It’s very common. There’s nothing on your mind, and it’s filled by this thing. Don’t worry about it. Okay?
(Laugh)
Yeah. I’m glad. . . . You see, I feel like I could tell you this but
I couldn’t tell anyone else.
You can tell me and you have told me and it’s fine with me. You’re in Levi’s and you’ve got on your turtleneck shirt.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
You know what I want you to do?
What?
Unzip your Levi’s.
Okay.
Undo the button.
Okay.
And unzip it.
Okay. . . . I’m in front of the mirror.
You’re in front of the mirror?
Yeah.
Lying down?
Yeah.
Now pull your Levi’s down. . . . Pull ‘em down around your ankles.
(Whispered)
Okay.
And take them off. . . . I’ll give you time. . . . Did you get them off?
Yeah.
What do you see?
I see my legs. And I see my crotch.
Do you have bikini underpants on?
Yes.
Take your hand and put your finger right on the crotch of your underpants. Just on the outside of the underpants, rub it up and down. Just rub it gently up and down. How does that feel?
Good. Yeah. It feels real good. It feels so nice. It’s wet.
Is it wet?
It’s really wet.
You’re still outside the underpants. Just on the outside rub it. Rub it up and down. . . . Now move the underpants aside. Can you do that?
Yeah.
And now put your finger on your clitoris. And just rub it up and down. And tell me how that feels.
It feels good.
Make yourself excited that way. Tell me how that feels.
I’m putting my finger in my cunt. I’m on top of my finger.
You on your belly or on your back?
I’m sitting up.
You’re sitting up. And looking in the mirror?
Yeah.
And you’re going in and out?
Yeah.
Go ahead. Fuck it with your finger.
I want it to be you, though.
Tell me what you want.
I want your cock. I’ll get it really, really hard.
Want me to stick it in you?
I want you to stick it into me hard.
A nice stiff cock inside you?
Ummmm. Oh, I’m touching my breasts.
You want to take your turtleneck off?
I’m just lifting it up.
You want to put the nipple between your fingers?
Yeah.
How about wetting it? Wet it with your fingers. Wet your fingers with your tongue and then wet the end of your nipple. Is that good?
Oh, God.
Now fuck your cunt again. Fuck your cunt.
Ummmm.
And tell me what you want. Tell me what you most want.
I want you on top of my back. Your cock inside me. Oh, God. Oh, God, I want
you
.
What do you want,
(bleep) ?
Tell me what you want.
I want your cock. I want it everywhere. I want your hands everywhere. I want your hands on my legs. On my stomach. My back. On my breasts, squeezing my breasts.
Where do you want my cock?
Oh, I want it in my mouth.
What are you going to do when it’s in your mouth?