“Denn
wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt, sondern die zukünftige suchen wir,” I tell
her who is, and who is not. If you know the difference between ser / estar, you’ll get it.
“Marc?”
she responds from Strasbourg, “are you quite all right?”
“I
wasn’t,” I told her. “In fact, yesterday I simply abandoned all hope, since I
was very much in the first clause of ‘Denn wir…’”
“And
that would be?”
“’For
here we have no continuing city,’” I tell her. “It’s the first line of the
sixth movement of the German Requiem….”
So
then I have to confess: I have spent seventy minutes or so weeping softly in a
corner of the café, because paradoxically, when thousands are gathered outside
the Stonewall Inn, or in the streets of London and Paris, nothing much is
happening in Puerto Rico.
Is
it homophobia? Or is it that we are all too stunned, and depressed, to act?
Because in the space of four or five days, we learned that the House had passed
the Fiscal Control Board, that the Supreme Court of the United States was
perfectly happy to tell us that we didn’t have sovereignty, and that 23 of our
(for the most part) sons had been murdered. And so my friend Keith in Michigan had dragged
out his bass, and undoubtedly shed blood on the fingerboard in a hastily-called
performance of the Mozart Requiem. (I mean it about the blood—imagine rubbing
your fingers up and down a thick wire for over an hour. Wouldn’t you be
bleeding, too?) But here, in Puerto Rico, nothing much was happening. No
candlelight vigils, no marches, no ecumenical services. And so I was left with
Facebook, which doesn’t provide catharsis as much as it deepens whatever woe
that leads you sobbing for catharsis. And what tipped me completely into a
major depression was a clip—with 22 million hits, and I kid you not—about how
to survive a mass murder attack.
“For
here we have no continuing city,” I told Lady, “or in other words, what have we
become? And when did our city stop continuing? Because now I have to sit here and try to
figure out—what should I do if, at this very moment, the terrorist / s enter
into the very door, their AR-15's blazing?”
“I
know what you’d do,” said Lady, “I’ve seen it a thousand times: you’d finish
your coffee!”
Actually,
just thinking the scenario made me chug it down….
“Not
funny,” I told her. “The problem is that I have two options, since the
third—hiding under the table—is a little out.”
The
table would barely cover my belly.
“So,
I could run for the bathroom, and barricade myself in it. But the problem is,
how do I know if anybody is in the bathroom? If so, I’d lose precious
seconds instead of doing what I should have done, which is go into the gift
store, up the stairs, and—if needed—go up to the roof. But of course, I don’t
know if the door to the stairs is locked, either. Oh, and if I barricade myself
in the bathroom, presumably the killer would have the sense to shoot the lock,
and there I’d be—a sitting duck….”
“Marc….”
“And
don’t tell me that that’s not going to happen, because 49 people never went out
to the nightclub last Saturday night expecting to come back in body bags. No,
the whole thing is about making everybody crazy….”
“Marc,
I hardly think….”
“Anyway,
so yesterday I got into the darkest funk possible, since it dawned on me that I
haven’t even checked if the door into the gift shop is open, in which
case I would be losing valuable seconds….”
“Marc….”
“So
now I’m going to have to check all the doors to everywhere, and then I’m going
to have to keep a running tab on who is in the bathroom, though what if someone
sitting behind me uses the bathroom? Do I have to change my table to the
one closest to the bathroom? Or maybe we should get a bell that rings
discreetly when someone goes into the bathroom? Or a rear view mirror for my
table? Close captioned video? There’s gotta be some technology….”
“Marc,
honey….”
“And
the other thing is, what about Felix? He’s sitting right in front of me, and
granted, he’s a little weird, but he is a musician. So should I tell him to
follow me, up the stairs, and onto the roof? But he’d probably just be stunned,
and not prepared, as I am, with the 22 million people who have watched the
video. So there again, those precious seconds….”
“Well,
you could….”
“And
the thing is, I know perfectly well what I would do, in the event of a mass
attack by assault wielding ISIS-supporting terrorists, and that is sit
stone-still at my table with my mouth agape. Not a pretty picture, but sorry,
that’s what I’d be doing. Because I have this quirk: I have to figure things
out. I don’t react quickly, or on instinct. Or rather, I do, and my instinct is
to freeze and process the mass murder that is going on around me. Which means
curtains! Hasta la vista, Baby! Kiss Marc’s sweet bottom goodbye!”
“Surely….”
“And
so, I got into a full blown, major depression, and then I started off into the
land of anxiety; I had had just seen the road sign for the city of Panic
Attack, when Saul came in….”
“Saul?”
“Saul—we
used to hang out with him. And now he has a 9-month old baby, and she could
sell baby food to a nursing home, she’s so cute. So we talk about that, and he
asked me if I’m playing the cello, and I told him no. Why, he asked. So I told
him about my back, and how I need to rest my back after being up all morning.
So no more cello playing at 5 PM. All that’s in the past. For here we have no
continuing city….”
“So
what did he say?”
“He
got really concerned, and told me that I had to go back to the cello. He said
it was a gift, that people really got moved by the sound of the instrument,
that God had given me something special.”
“Well,
he has….”
“He’s
given us all something special,” I told her, “presuming he exists. Or
not. Anyway, Saul goes off. Then he comes back, and tells me, ‘I used to come
here with my soul broken, and your music healed me,’ and I thank him, and sit
down to look at the door he is going out of, with his 9-month old little daughter,
and that’s when I saw the mass murderers with their AR-15’s come in, and the
first person they shoot is the little….”
“WHAT!”
“OK—so
there were no mass murderers, and Saul and his daughter are fine. For now.
Because who knows? And then I realized, that for us….”
“Yeah?”
“…we
who have no continuing city….”
“And?”
“…well,
my soul is broken, and who is there to heal me? Because here I am, waiting for
the mass murderers to break through the door, and everybody else is drinking
coffee, or putting their 9-month babies into the stroller. Their city is
continuing. Mine, not. So that’s when I turned to the Brahms German Requiem,
and that’s when I learned about the city I live in, no longer continuing. You
know, the first part of line I quoted.”
“And
the second part?”
“Sondern
die zukünftige suchen wir,” I told her. “But we seek the future.”
“Yes,”
she says, and smiles distantly from Strasbourg, and then drifts out the door,
patting it gently as she leaves the terrorists far, far behind.
Click here for an excellent translation
