8th Day of the Week, Al Kessler
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Excerpt from 8th Day of the Week, Al Kessler |
MONDAY
'Don't look at everything,' my father said. His arm was around my waist as we turned in everlasting circles. He had taken me for my first merry-go-round ride, standing beside me as the horse with the wooden head and the smiling mouth went up and down, heedless of its rider. I was frightened. The world was going in one direction and I in the other. I had grabbed the horse's neck and closed my eyes.
'Now, open your eyes. Slowly. And look at only one thing at a time.' My father's voice was deep and his speech unhurried as if every word was important. 'Look at something that's standing still, something that's going in the same direction as you are. Look at the girl's head in front of you, the little blond girl who's sitting on the rabbit. Concentrate on her head and you won't feel dizzy.'
***
Seeing her in her usual place, I look past her into the mirror behind the bar as I do each evening, trying to postpone the meaning of her face, allowing her mouth, her nose, the depths of her blue eyes to grow on me gradually, to give me courage, to erase memories I do not want.
The mirror, yellow with age but spotlessly clean, reflects the familiar signs of the storefronts across the street, their inverted lettering confusing me as much today as it did when I was a young man. Only the mysterious scrawls in Arabic that have always seemed directionless to me calm my mind.
The street outside is quiet now. It's too late for traffic, too late for the lingering strains of Levantine music to drift from the stores as effortlessly as the exotic odors from within and, at this time of year when the evenings are hot from the setting sun, it's too early for the weight of night and the glare of street lights to oppress me. Only those like ourselves are about - the diversion of a restaurant, the comfort of a bar. Others who have lives to lead are already home.
She has crossed her legs and is seated comfortably on the high stool. As is becoming for her age, she pulls her skirt to her knees covering the still sharply outlined prominences of her smooth bones then touches her glass to her lips.
That's my signal, the touching of the glass to her lips, the sign that tells me it's the moment to approach her. I pick up my martini. It's already half empty. My hand shakes just a little. The green olive sits in its depression above the stem as if captured by its own weight like a bottom scrounging fish rocking imperceptibly with the gentle movements of the depths.
By necessity I nurse my martinis. I also have memories of martinis that I wish to avoid. My limit now is three per evening. And always with the same olive. The salt I used to love has also been limited by the medical dictates of everlasting life.
I'm standing next to her. In the mirror our eyes meet for a moment then hers drift back to her drink searching for the response she knows she will give.
"You have a very fine face for a woman leaning on a bar." Turning to her, I smile, the smile that others used to call charming. "Or should I say that I can see that at one time it was a fine face."
"Thanks a lot." She doesn't look at me but, as she touches her lips once more to the edge of the glass, I see the lines in her skin through her makeup. The web of crisscrosses are more obvious when her face is still than when she moves - pursing her lips, drinking, talking, doing something purposeful.
"More than fine," I say, motioning with my hand in her direction.
"Intelligent."
I long to touch her face, to take her chin between my failing fingers and turn her head to me. But I'm afraid. Like the martinis and the salt, we too have set our limits. She must accept my stare and see my desires on her own.
She must want them.
"Or is fine a better word than intelligent? A face with breeding behind it."
She laughs, the controlled calm notes of one who is amused. Still she doesn't look at me.
"May I sit with you?" I ask.
About the Author:
Born in New York City, Alfred Kessler received a B.S. degree from Fordham University, an M.D. from Duke University then spent two years as a medical officer in the U.S. Navy in Europe before training in neuro-surgery at the University of Chicago. After practicing neuro-surgery for almost 10 years in Spokane, Washington, he gave up private practice and followed his urge to explore other interests. With five children, he and his wife, Charlotte, went to Europe where, except for a three-year period of neuro-physiological research in Washington, D.C., they have remained ever since. A painter as well as a writer, Kessler has had numerous gallery and salon exhibitions in Europe including a two-and-half-year tour of museums in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Armenia. For the past several years, however, he has been writing as much, or more, than painting. His primary interest in writing is to explore an individual's inner make-up, how an ordinary person reacts to a problem, a trait in character, or a situation. His art reflects his belief that most of the action in our lives takes place within ourselves.
About this book:
Set in Brooklyn Heights, The 8th Day of the Week is a novel of obsessive guilt and regret gnawing at the heart of a prominent doctor. His ambition has estranged his wife, contributed to the death of a son from an overdose of drugs and culminated in his allowing a brain-damaged child of his wife and another man to die. A last chance to regain the wife he has lost begins to unravel as the doctor confesses the story of his life during the seven days of a week to a sympathetic woman sitting at a bar. Yet the reality he relates in his conversations contrasts with the elusive relationship he has with the woman he is talking to and with another woman sitting alone at a table, as well as conflicting with the fanciful workings of his mind. Two childhood visions, one of a merry-go-round which and the other the words of advice from his mother, keep recurring throughout his story, explaining much of his adult behavior. As the novel progresses, the reader discovers a secret about the woman at the bar and begins to understand her sympathy with the emotions that had driven him. The book is part mystery, part emotion-driven drama, a tale which unfolds to reveal such an immense depth of passion and fear within the doctor that one turns the pages with tremendous anticipation and tension, with a sense of trepidation, in fact.
Comment:
"This is a book which makes you think about the nature of reality and relationships, the possible and the impossible, the bizarre manifestations of what we call love."
William Wharton, author of Birdy