To Know a Woman

The most difficult person to know is a deep woman, a woman who has
seen things, who has experienced the horrors of the masculine libido,
the sheer contempt she has expressed for a man's weakness, that even
the most spiritual man may be motivated by a sense of "certification"
of himself, a correspondence between himself and some "mystiqued" woman
or man he so much longs for. It is known that the Greeks indeed saw
this contradiction. There is a sculpture of Aristotle being led like an
untamed horse by a mere girl. Dante was inspired by the beautific
vision of a nine year old girl? he spends years justifying his love for
her. Socrates wrote for Alcibiades; even divine Plato must have been
inspired by no one other than Aristotle, his young and brilliant pupil.
Not only for a woman, but also a man whom these divine writers may have
seen as muses, as the ideal reader of their
dissertations.


To know a woman, "What does it mean?" Does it mean to know
her depth, her sense of compassion for even the most evil of men or
does it mean that one ought to know what line not to step over in terms
of woman. One may call a woman an "idiot" at the wrong time and she
will never speak to the man whom she personally, maliciously called a
"whore." Alas, the man may indeed have been a whore but is she so
superior to him that he may not call her an idiot? Is it possible that
woman are actually superficial creatures who know not their own depth?
only a man may know a woman, a woman becomes a woman sheerly through
her relationship with a man or does she, like so many others before
her, become through a relationship with her teacher, shaking off his
influence as a dog may shake off water, as a boy may shake off his
mother, or as simply as he is. It is strange, but I do indeed think I
love her and yet to know her is to feel an intense, malicious, cold
pain.


I first met Islava Hellermann at a lecture. I was the proud
professor, putting on airs of sophistication. She played along quite
famously:
"So you're the professor that everyone speaks of so highly?" She raised
her eyebrows. For some reason, that raised eyebrow elevated my sense of
pride in myself as though I had finally found someone who truly,
devotedly understood me. "Yes, I am the man from Tel Aviv." There is
something refreshing about living in America. Somehow one feels free to
express one's opinions in the most special of all intellectual
circles.
"Tell me, how is it possible that we too could have met in this very
room many many years ago?" She winked, and I swear, I saw
constellations in her eyes. "I was not aware that we had
met."


Later that night, she drank some wine at my apartment. "Let's
be frank with each other. We are both after the same thing? why don't
you simply confess that you fell in love with me at first sight. Now
you wish to consummate that very love."


"If i were to be completely frank, I would have to confess
that I almost adore you."
"If i were to be even more frank, I detest you." She said this with an
almost patrician grin. I must admit, I was tickled by her
comment.
"Is it not too early in the night to detest a newfangled
professor?"
"I'm afraid you are naive. You see, love is nothing but our mutual
disdain for each other. We know what silly sentimentalists we are at
heart."


It was true or is it still true, my mutual disdain for myself
and this professor who was, is able to read into my soul as if she were
indeed a clairvoyant of souls? i was deeply disturbed by her
behaviour:
"Are you playing with me?"
"No, not at all? do you (she stared at me for a long time or for what
seemed to be an eternity)? play with yourself?"
"Just what are you trying to imply?" I asked.
"I imply nothing, professor Mister professor of love?"
"I am afraid I am not the professor of love. I teach the "philosophy of
the mind." "
"Nevermind," Islava Hellermann sharply recanted.


There is a curious charm to non-sequitors, especially when
one has no idea where they come from. I suppose that Kafka in thinking
up the metamorphosis must have been dreaming of a visual nonsequitor.
IT does not follow that a man can turn into a cockroach when, on the
other hand, the cockroach could very possibly turn into a man through
billions and billions of years of evolution. Imported from Tel Aviv,
shipped to Brandeis, to face the onslaught of a female academic who is
bent of destroying my reputation.


"Why is it," she asked, "that Israelites have no good rap
bands. Of course, I ask this within a "philosophical context." "
"Well," I answered, "Rap is not a native form of Israeli culture. We do
not readily want to rap about things. We prefer to talk and surely,
talk, in our sense of the word, actually means to communicate, not
merely to say things."
"Professor Treistenburg," another mouth responded, "that was a very
profound comment. It is true, we Americans like to hear, to hear the
sound instead of listening to the message. What message have you
brought from Tel Aviv?"
"Well, certain philosophical problems may arise from the fact that
there is a, how shall i phrase it, a decoherence in a culture that
creates a dissonance. Surely it is possible for us rational and
enlightened human beings to arrive via a gate to a consensus as to who
we are."
"That is very true," Islava responded," but what makes you think that
we shall all go to the same gate?"
"Well, perhaps I am being misunderstood," Treistenburg seemed a little
bugged.
"Perhaps you are misunderstanding us. We SEE as opposed to HEAR? we
have gone beyond linearity."
"But why?"
"We never want to reach consensus. Do you suppose that consensus may be
a rather disappointing petite morte?"
"I do not understand," Treistenburg began to rub his forehead. He was
feeling a bit inferior somehow to his American counterparts. He had
never thought much of Brandeis and was so centered on enlightening
Brandeis as to the true situation of Israelites, that they were going
to be tossed into the sea via everyone else.
"That would be a nice swim," someone objected breezily.


America, thought Treistenburg, was a superficial hub of the
events that were constantly brewing around the world. He read Saul
Bellow voraciously as if he were eating salad at a off-Broadway
restaurant. Somehow, he longed for spirituality, for something eternal
to hold onto, not the AMPLIFIED, GLORIFIED image of a BURGER or a
SUPERSTAR, but something real, permanent and loving. Islava, despite
her strange bends and turns of language, he found to be completely
charming.


"Do you suppose that we could love each other?" she
asked?
He kissed her, "Is this not enough?"
"I was thinking of a diamond love?"
"A diamond love?"
"Yes a diamond love?"


He had a surprize for her. They would go to the museum in
Boston.
"It's always sunny with the impressionists, n'est pas?"
He could not deny it. It was indeed sunny with the
impressionists.
"It's almost as though you could cook an egg within the context of an
impressionist painting."


Treistenburg excused himself and almost died laughing in the
restroom.
"Are you finished with the excuse me room?" she asked, outside the
door.


They were dining. There was a desert that was missing in
their lives, something haunting about the rococo texture of his new
lifestyle. Everything was more or less meaningless. He stared into her
eyes blankly. Is it possible that they did not know each other at
all?


"Why do you wear masks?"
"I am afraid of being known? I detest everyone."


What if God were able to see us? Would he die laughing at our
frailties? Would we simply be amusing or would we elicit some pity or
pathos even? Was God wearing pajamas like Hugh Hefner? After all, here
is a spiritual man, Professor Treistenburg, and the first thing he
looks for in a new country is a young woman who could rejuvenate his
sense of life and although his life is being taken apart, he is very
much enjoying the pain that is growing, gnawing at him with the teeth
of a rabid dog.
A few members of the Brandeis community asked the illustrious and
brilliant Professor Treistenburg to introduce himself. He did very much
accordingly:
"It is certainly a pleasure to be asked to introduce myself via such a
daring poet and such a famous writer. It is a crying shame that I am
unable to produce such stellar credentials for myself as you others. I
was professor of philosophy at Hebrew University in Israel. I have a
Ph.D. in Philosophy from Sorbonne. Those are my credentials I suppose.
(the more he found himself glorifying himself in front of others, the
more he saw the smiling, condescending face, her face HER FACE, almost
amused by him, laughing madly at his show of angry humour? he almost
found himself lost for words). Although I may not feel completely at
home here, SHE, she (he tried to remember her name cept that her name
was not a name to be know) Islava has helped me accustom myself to this
new environment. (ISLAVA STARTED TO CLAP ENTHUSIASTICALLY. He found
this gesture to be absolutely charming.) )))))))He wanted to kiss her
and imagined kissing her and he was floating off out into the stars,
lost?((((((( somehow not himself completely.) I find Brandeis to be an
extremely exciting place to be at such a time."


"You've found someone, darling? finally, someone who loves
you and cares for you?" Gabriel asked as he kissed her.
"He's nothing like you. He's got a heart."
"We should definitely consider the Ignoble Prize of Peace for
him."
"You would ne'er understand Gabriel? I may even leave you?"
"How beautiful of you?"


Professor Treistenburg was thinking of composing a love poem
for Islava. Little did he know that she was composing a love poem for
him:
"How shall I phrase it, Gabriel?"
"Dearest Treistenburg, you've opened the gates of spiritual philosophy
for me. I did not know that you could open those portals?"
"Gabriel, I can't write e-mail if?"
"I suppose I could write it for you?"


Sometimes, Gabriel would follow Islava on her dates with
Professor Treistenburg. He would see them at an opera or some other
event and introduce himself to the Professor as Islava's friend. There
was something miraculous about her eyes, the beauty of them as if he
were staring into black pearls, someone deeply mysterious and yet
lonely. He would see them conversing together and wonder what they were
saying:
"I don't see what you find so fascinating about her," Etienne would
say, "She's nothing remarkable. She seems rather naive even." That's
what he had found so charming about Islava? her infinite optimism, her
sense of her happiness, even her jouissance. He could not deny that he
loved her very much but that it made him feel so vulnerable and even a
subject of ridicule from his French friends.
"Etienne," he responded, "you are so impolite."
"And you are so particular, my little darling."


The more he saw Islava together with the Professor, the more
perfect they appeared to be together as if they were made for each
other, soulmates or lovers, someone genuine, someone more of her
kind:
"Who was that woman whom you were with?"
"Etienne, surely you know each other."
"I've met her a few times. It's not serious, is it?"
"We are just friends?"
"Gabriel, sometimes I suspect that you are hiding something from
me."
"Contrare Islava, surely you would have found out if I were indeed
hiding something from you."


Was it love that he felt or lust? did he have any genuine
feeling left in him? What had happened to his grand passions, his love
and his desire, his sense of well-being and youth and vibrance. He felt
older and more mature, somehow not ready for the life that he would
lead. Did he deserve this little life of his? Was it real or just
imaginary? He loved Islava and yet felt that he could not make her
happy. He was miserable with her even? was their relationship going
anywhere or were they simply going around in circles, waiting for
someone to take them away from each other? He remembered times when
they were so completely together, so happy, so unhappy to be separated
for even a moment and NOW, where were they?
Is it personal love that is the very begunning of the light of
spiritual growth, Gabriel wondered: after all, when one was in love,
waves of feeling broke through the walls that we had built to protect
ourselves from being wounded, pained by comments or even gestures, eyes
which condescendingly regarded us as either irrelevant or cold, useless
gestures in the wind: he thought, what if he could really love Islava
or even regard her as an equal, would life then blossom into that
miraculous bouquet, that wonderous flower which would overflow with the
coloured buds of one's most cherished feeling. He regarded Islava as an
equal, as someone whom he could frankly speak with, without worrying
about what she may say, some secret light, lighting his soul up into a
realm of mystery, but that EVEN THAT had disappeared into a dark night.
He felt lost? life seemed to give way and he wondered if he felt
anything at all when he kissed or loved. Everything seemed to be a
meaningless gesture, a parade of etiquette, meant to preserve nothing
but the present circumstance. He was wondering where his youthful
passion lay. Could he really only find it by retreading the past where
the snows fall, where it had been blanketed, sleeping in its own
corner, seeing only bits and slices of the pleasure and joy he once
knew:
"You are so kind," Islava commented.
"Do you suppose that we could let go of our fierce prejudices for a
while?"
"Only if you whisper."


They kissed and he could only think of how much pleasure it
brought him that she could feel such innocence and joy with Professor
Treistenburg. Why was she so happy with him? He felt a fierce and
uncontrolled jealousy rising in his heart. It is true that he was
sophisticated, elegant and even possessed manners that were sublime, if
he could imagine words to describe what he felt towards him, but there
was something else also. He was Jewish and Gabriel was not. It made him
feel inferior to someone whom he barely knew, as if this foreign
professor could bring her something that he could not. How could he
explain this to Islava though? Was she even aware of the dark feelings
rising within him, feelings that were boiling underneathe his calm
facade. Somehow, it seemed that a contest was started to see who was
the better man and he did not enjoy such contests. Is this what brought
a woman happiness, that two men would fight in a dual to see who was
better at this or that and then Islava could do a cost/ benefit
analysis on the two males whom she had chosen to be her lovers or even
confidants. This could not be:
"I invited the professor for dinner tonite," she smiled wickedly as if
evil and happiness went together like kids and marriage.
He stared at her for a while and then his gaze turned into a
smile.
"He is an excellent choice. I hope you are not going to have him for
dinner."
"I believe that you will be serving the main course, darling," she
replied.


When Gabriel saw the Professor during the dinner, he could
not deny that he was a good man, even intensely sophisticated. He could
tell that the professor was rather uncomfortable in his new
situation:
"We are just friends, Islava and I, just friends."
"I did not know that friends lived with each other."
"In America," Islava interrupted, "It does happen. He cooks." She said
this with a kind of malicious joy. "You should meet his girlfriend,
Etienne? she is so very particular."
"What is it that you teach, Mr. Treistenburg?"
"I teach philosophy," he answered.
Gabriel chewed his food slowly, savouring the dish. He kept on chomping
and chomping as to keep his envy at bay.
"Which philosopher do you admire the most?" asked Islava.
"Bergson. He saved me from an existential hell."
"Really," Gabriel readily snapped, "I did not know that existentialism
was anything but a hell." He dug sharply into the liver, trying to eat
it without really thinking about the taste. The silver teeth of the
fork gleamed with a naive and daring joy.
"You know how a person has feelings, thoughts, and even intuitions.
These are internal events that are generated by our sense of limited
time. In extending these events into an objective form like an artwork,
we find freedom."
Gabriel stared at him, chomping on his liver over and over again,
trying to hate this man. He almost choked on a piece of liver that got
caught while travelling down his mouth into his throat. He was thinking
of excusing himself when:
"I agree completely," Islava's eyes positively brightened into
sunshine.
"Well, it is one thing to speak about freedom, but what freedom is
there in showing one's interior self in art or in philosophy for all
that matter. It does not really prove anything. One's true freedom lies
in hiding oneself like a turtle. An intensive act can also be a free
rebellion against the world at large."
He could hear Islava saying, "A hit, a hit? a veritable hit. Irrelevant
Gabriel, what does that have to do with the argument." He hated hearing
Islava's voice, urging him on and on toward battle. He liked being
lazy. Why wouldn't she just leave him alone? How had her voice entered
his brain anyway and furthermore, which door of his consciousness did
it enter through? Who had let her in? Why had he let her in? He liked
to be private. Sometimes, he felt as though she had entered a private
screening of his own film, a film that ought not or should not be seen.
Who was she? Who was he? How had she gotten such control over his
life.
"An internal rebellion would be fruitless. We all wish to make homes
for ourselves and your house would be, how shall I phrase it, not
really built."
"Maybe I am not a housebuilder like you," he snapped angrily, chewing
the rind of the apple angrily, trying not to think about what was going
on or OFF. He really wanted to go off like a rocket but he didn't. He
eyed Islava angrily but somehow he maintained his delicate
composure.
"Perhaps I should leave," responded the professor.
"Perhaps Gabriel should leave."
"I prefer to stay."
He wanted to say something excruciatingly clever but could not find the
words. In his silence, he repented for all his sins, thinking the
situation may improve. He began to sweat and lose his cool. What was
all this about, anyway? Was it an etiquette test or something?
"Perhaps it is personal love, the love that two people share for each
other that brings about a conversion of an intension into an extension.
The poems are sculptures are formed as an act of love. To add: is it
not true that without love, there can be no faith for how can we have
faith in a being who does not truly love us," Islava interrupted.
"It's a beautiful thing, isn't it," Professor Treistenburg continued,
"God is our freedom from the mechanics of the universe. We posit a
being who loves us and cares for us in order to live, to love and even
to create. Islava, you are so very clever."
"How is it that," Gabriel's tension lessened and lessened, "we cannot
live without a person who truly loves us as we are and we only change
with the love that is graciously granted us?"
"Gabriel," Islava continued, "What would you know of love? You know
only of competition and of prizes."
He was earnestly asking these questions for the first time. It seemed
that she knew himself better than he did?


"I suppose that words are the formulation of internal events
like emotions or thoughts that correlate to our understandings of "real
events." When our word constructs such as "sentences" correspond to the
pattern which is set by our value system, our morality, we achieve a
resonance, a happiness even in knowing that we are truly what we think
we are, not simply facades, creating as from the filiaments of our own
imagination," Gabriel said.
Professor Treistenburg responded, "That is very true Gabriel. She spoke
so glowingly about you that I did not realize why she had found your
interpretation of Bergsonian philosophy to be so exciting. However,
your theory makes hypocrites of us all for who is actually who he
thinks he is?"
"I suppose that God would be that person," Islava
posited.


I would often see Islava at the ballet with the Professor.
You must excuse me, but I can't readily say his name. It stuck in my
throat somehow as perhaps a thorn sticks out of the throat of a rose or
something. Sometimes, the only thing that I could think about was how
graceful they looked together. SHE, with her exotic fabrics, her love
for even the most Oriental of all colours. She loved desert dyes as she
used to say and often, she imagined herself aligned to the Egyptian
deities, but not Isis, perhaps Hathor or Nephthys or some other deities
possessing of the power to fly as birds or eagles do fly. Her dark eyes
shone with a deep inner purpose. He wanted to say something to her but
Etienne often stopped him:


"She's so vulgar, to dress like that in Boston of all
places."


It seemed refreshing, the way she dressed and the colours of
her outfits caught his eyes perhaps as the plumage of a peacock could
catch the eyes of a vain man who stares into the fan of the plumage as
if he were indeed the one whom the peacock decked herself out for.
"Swan Lake" was in season. He tried to watch the
dancers.


"Aren't they sublime?"


Gabriel thought that they may be sublime but sublime things
no longer elevated his heart onto the highest penthouses of
civilization. He no longer read Shakespeare rapturously, trying to
catch the notes of the melody, the musical context of Shakespeare's
thoughts. He knew that Eliot was listening to the Four Quartets of
Beethoven when composing the Four Quartets, but such thoughts or
emotions no longer captivated him. He felt that the music he had once
heard was no longer sweet nor charming, something perhaps with a dying
fall:


"The dancers, they are as light as feathers," Gabriel
remarked.
"It's good to see you Gabriel, not being sarcastic for once. Life does
have a meaning you know, not only a personal meaning," the profeSSOR
remarked.
"It's also a pleasure to see you," and then his eyes alighted on
Islava's eyes and stayed there as if they were dark, charming boughs on
which the bird of his eyesight could rest for a while.


She glanced down, "Surely, you should introduce Etienne to
the professor."


"It's been so long since you've looked so debonair," Gabriel
said.
"It's been a long time since a compliment was issued," Islava
continued.
"Is the professor everything you imagined him to be?"
"That really depends on what you mean."


Why did she appear so attractive now that she was with
someone else? He would spend time washing dishes in the apartment,
looking out at Boston: ALL THOSE LIGHTS, EACH LIT for each one of the
inhabitants of BOSTON, was there anyone washing dishes as dreamily as
he was? What was there about the professor that was so compelling to
Islava and why could he not provide the same sort of comfort, unity,
and comraderie even if that could be applied to people who were not
Communists. He washed the glasses lazily as these thoughts swam slowly
through his mind.


Islava stared into the rounded glass: "See those spots? See
how something that appears to be so clean can actually be spotted so
haphazardly?" Gabriel washed the glasses over. He could have used the
dishwasher, but he preferred to handwash the dishes. It made him feel
that he could better understand a woman if he did some of the tasks
that she was used to doing at their apartment. THAT was how he could
understand some of her thoughts, by thinking about what she may be
thinking when she did the dishes or the laundry. Doing the laundry, he
separated the whites from the colored. He pressed the cool wash button
for the whites and for the coloreds, he pressed the warm wash button.
Was he right though? Was it the other way around? He tried also to go
through Islava's purse and try to see how a woman organized her purse.
It was all thrown in there: receipts, lipstick, cash, and even more
personal matters. It shocked him that Islava did not have a wallet. He
would surely buy her a wallet. He opened her bedroom door and saw the
face of the professor near where she slept. He had such a congenial
face, something glowingly nice about him. It was not like the face of
the strange and neurotic man whose face was over the decaying fields of
modern civilization in "The Great Gatsby." The Professor was serene,
but condescendingly ironic or even erotic. "He had a beautiful face,"
Gabriel thought. Before he knew what he was doing, Gabriel found
himself kissing the citation of the man's face. Islava watched him from
behind the door, her eyes amused beyond all amusement. It was as though
she were watching a very delicate scene in a film, but had found the
homeliness of the scene to be a bit too banal.


Were our emotions formed by a repetition of a pattern of
internal events through which we tried to act in a manner that would
formulate an external event called an "emotion:" the showing of the
emotion through our speech patterns and our bodily gestures? We smiled
when an "event" stimulated a pattern of correspondences which
constituted a "smile." Gabriel felt lonely as he looked at the
photograph of the professor. He felt lonely because he was deeply
afraid of showing what was inside of him. What lay inside of him,
hidden away in the attic of his mind, was the sum total of his
repressions, hatreds, and insecurities: ideas or thoughts had never
really materialized into anything for him. It was true that he was a
professor at BU, but he found more and more that he was unsure of what
he was saying at all. Or what he was saying was really coming out of
his heart for the first time. For some reason, his heart had remained
pure, undisguised and even deliberate.

Etienne and Gabriel attended a Chopin concert: it was raining, the
sound of it, the drizzles and then the dazzlingly plush drops of rain,
one after the other, following, dreaming, drifting into a world of its
own, the sound of the drops: Gabriel tried to keep his tear back, to
roll them back into his eyes even if he could; he was so saddened, and
the more he thought or the more he knew, the tears began to come dimly
out of his eyes: "it's just so pretty and so lonely."