WEBVTT

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Tintin was his
hero, because he was

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a boy who saw
justice, and fought

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to set the world right in all
places and in all times of day.

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"What does that ship
want out there, dad?"

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He asked.

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"Who knows?

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Nothing much.

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It's just floating about until
something better comes along."

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The odd truth was
that she didn't

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drift much the whole day.

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Her position they stayed--

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her position, staying
fixed as the sea itself,

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dragged it out of its anchor.

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And the wind pulled her from
stem to stern, roving it about.

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"You know," he said, "there is
a ship just like that in Tintin,

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where the sailors keep
the captain drunk so they

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can do whatever they want."

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"What do they want, my son?"

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"To do mischief, dad."

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You must know a lot about
that stuff," I said.

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"Not me, dad I just
do good mischief."

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"The mischief is that
you just tricked me

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into letting you stay up
awake for three more minutes."

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He left, having seen
the justice in that.

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"Good night then, dad."

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He waited for me to kiss him,
the final one until morning,

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and the protective seal
against the bumps in the night.

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I turned out the light and
left the door open a fist wide,

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so that he'd see the reassuring
hall light if he woke up

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in the dark.

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I stood by the
door a few moments

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until I was certain he was
asleep and safe in his dreams,

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then I made another visit.

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My mother was in
her room, reading.

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Ever since I could
remember, she read in bed

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before going to sleep--

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one of a few certainties.

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"Everything else just slips
away," she always said--

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as her husband did in
good health, in good mood,

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in love with his wife, with his
work, with his son, with me.

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In a second, he was gone.

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Mid-sentence so to speak.

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On the phone, laughing with
an old friend one minute,

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and in the mute
other world the next,

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the phone still in his hand.

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Comical actually, as if death
had no interest in hearing

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the whole conversation.

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What is so pressing that
makes death so curt, so

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interruptive of the narrative?

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Death clearly has
no sense of desire

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for the complete story, which
means, he has no curiosity.

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Which is why he is
so flat, so empty.

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Just the silhouette of action.

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"Reading again, mom,
after lights out?"

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"Oh, just catching up
at the past," she said.

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She had earlier gone
down to my library

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and pulled out Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress.

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"A heavy stone before
sleep, don't you think, mom?

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Not heavy enough."

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She said.

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"I was looking for
the Magic Mountain,

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but you seem to be all out."

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"I'll have it for
the next time."

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I said, and in German.

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"Does he miss her very much?"
she asked, too abruptly.

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He doesn't say.

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But until a little
while ago, he used

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to call out for
her in his sleep.

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"You know, I
generally love you,"

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she said, turning from her book.

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"But I love him much more."

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"Maybe you just love him
more freshly," I said.

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"In any case, I
would feel the same."

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"I'd like to be around a little
while longer, long enough

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to see him when he
first falls in love.

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That would be sweet," she said.

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"He's always in
love now," I said.

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"Every week, a new fling."

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"Not that way," she said.

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"The passionate way, I mean."

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She was once a beautiful
woman, my mother.

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She was a handsome one now--

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more vain of her figure
than when she was young,

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when she said that
only the mind mattered.

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While the body
grew old and ugly,

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the mind lasted in
its attractiveness.

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Mothers always tell
sons that, hoping they

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will not be stupid
when they grow up.

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Hoping they will not
mistake the beautiful form

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for the soul in it,
although sometimes,

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the two may be joined.

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"You mean, the sexual way,
mom, isn't that what you mean?"

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"That too, of course.

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But mostly, I want to be there
to help mend his broken heart,

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the first time it gets broken."

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"Anyway," I said, mouthing
the platitude, one--

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mouthing the platitude,
one says to the old.

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"You still have a long
time ahead of you."

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She gave me a sly look,
"who's kidding whom?" it said.

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"Let me have 10 more
years until he's 17.

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He'll be fully ripe
for love then."

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"What about you, mom?"

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I asked.

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"Are you ripe for another love?"

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"Not just now," she said.

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"Right now, I'm just roving.

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I'd rather meet a new
book than a new man."

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"I thought you had
read them all," I said.

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"Just the good ones," she said.

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I took her hand and kissed it.

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"You'll outlive us
all mom," I said.

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"I'd rather not," she said.

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"I'd just be left alone with
bad books and bad bindings."

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I kissed her hand
again, longer this time.

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And then once again.

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It was an old hand, like the
parchment of a pirate map.

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"Sweet dreams," I said,
"till morning," I said.

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Exactly her words
to me at bedtime

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when I was my son's age.

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She'd blow me a kiss, and I'd
imagine a cloud of her breath,

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coating me with an
invisible armor against all

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the world's harm.

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"I may make an early
start," she said,

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"I may be gone before you wake."

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I shrugged and turned up
my palms as if to say,

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as you wish.

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My protest would
have been pointless.

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Not my son's, though.

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What's more persuasive after
all than a child's earnest plea.

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I went out and across
the field to my studio.

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My mother's light was
still, on even some while

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after I started trying to work.

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Where was she now in
Bunyan's Pilgrimage?

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I wondered.

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And what was so
compelling about it

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to keep her awake for so long?

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The world and its stories.

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We're famished for them.

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And maybe, I thought, that is
why death is so jealous of us,

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since he has no story and is
just an agent of terminations.

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