Chapter OneSylvia Golubowsky1Ordinarily, I have a proclivity for bitterness.
But it still hurts me that another dear old friend is dead.
They'll have to sweep away twice her weight in leaves to open up that tiny plot.
No car doors will slam for this funeral. Her frail mourners are barely strong enough to shift the gears.
Their rusty doors fall back into place these days relying on luck and gravity.
Small, dismissable old women. Mouths sealed shut. They'll stand, chilled, until it's dangerous. So much threat from so many tiny places. Then they'll fold back into those cars.The past that I shared with the newly dead proved the falsity of the Christian Ethic.
Good does not triumph in the end. Suffering does not make you better. There is no divine reason that justifies pain, I know this because I have lived long enough to watch the biggest shits go on to fame and fortune.
I see them on TV winning every award. They never had to account. The honorable? They were not vindicated. They melted without resolution. Now that I'm an old lady I still believe what I knew at twenty-five.
Certain personality types slit our own throats because we have to.
We can't help it, we're about something larger than ourselves.
But don't slit your own throat if you're not expecting blood.
There is no cure for honor.My students never ask me about that time.
If they would, I'd have plenty to say. For example, there is no such thing as the secret to the atom bomb. it takes thousands of volumes of information to Make an atom bomb.
There's no secret ingredient like "just add water." You can't scribble the formula on a Jell-O package.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were murdered by the U.S. government in 1953 for a crime thatcould never have been committed.
This is the emblematic fact of my generation. The Rosenbergs were working-class people, and I have always believed that they were patriots.
They wanted an America that was fair. Why should the rich have everything? My final point is that there is only one country in the history of the world that has ever used an atom bomb on human beings.
That country is the United States of America. Whichever brilliant Soviet scientist it was who actually figured out how to make an atom bomb did the world a big favor.
She created a balance of power, and atomic weapons were never used again.
Try to imagine a United States let loose on a defenseless world, dropping atomic weapons whenever they choose.My students never bring this up.
They're too young, they don't know it even happened.
They've been duped into thinking only about themselves.
When has it ever been normal to be so greedy? I feel sorry for these kids. What would I advise? Outlive it. You can't beat history, but if you're young enough, try to wait out the historic moment.
Everything does pass, but unfortunately so will you.
That's why each of us has to try to hurry along the process of change in any way we can, while not becoming its victim.
It's an irony of history, but the people who make change are not the ones who benefit from it.
This is a bitter pill to swallow.In our part of the country there are occasional days that stay light until midnight and grow into full darkness by four.
Morning, by contrast, is stark and disappearing. Fruit still doesn't come in fluorescent plastic bins in this town, each apple totally green or totally red.
There is a soothing river that runs through the middle of Plainfield,Vermont.
A food co-op, a good bookstore, a good restaurant, a hardware store, and four churches.
Vermonters have excellent taste. When I was young I thought I'd never leave New York, but there came a day when I couldn't stand all the familiarity.
All those horrible people I'd run into on the street, knowing exactly what they'd done.
I wouldn't forgive them and it was their world, so I had to leave.
I'm old but I still have a job, and not just for the hell of it.
Agnes says to relax."Charge your groceries on the MasterCard," she says. "Let them try to collect."But the money does make a difference, and I like having students.
They let you change the world, one person at a time.
You can make a big impact by showing somebody one great book.
I know that the level of influence is deceptive, it doesn't add up.
But, in the immediate, it is something worthwhile to do.
Those people I was remembering, the honorable? Each one thought she'd at least have a comeback. But how can a whole nation's bad conscience be avenged?
They let you survive only if they need an exception to the rule that proves their power.
In other words, if they hated you yesterday but can use you tomorrow, they'll love you.
Truth is an entirely different matter. How can authority be obscure and poor? This is the one question my students are always about to ask.
I can see it hovering quizzically in their eyes. Thank God they're too well bred. I must retire. It's obvious. The new fascist, money-grubber administrators of this college are breathing down my neck.
They want me out. In the meantime I keep inviting students over to our house, tantalizing them -- not with fantasies of sex with old professor G., but to let them feast onmy shelves of books.
My books. All by me. Japanese editions, Greek editions, book clubs, hardbacks, and the subsequent softs.
How could a person have written so many books and still not be able to earn a living?
Still be so unknown? My students stare at the golden calf obscuring the desperation and disappointment that sits patiently in the middle of the room.
The centerpiece of my life. I don't want to touch them. I just want to show them my books, now that I'm on the verge of extinction if existence depends on recognition by others, which it does.
