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By Root 891 0

I was pacing through the house while Esther did her sewing. I was trying not to think of Aaron but could not help myself. To block my worries, I had taken up Kierkegaard and was deliberating over the Wittgensteinian pronouncement in Repetition (Wittgenstein, who admired Kierkegaard enormously, was the Knight of Rules) that “He who knows how to keep silent discovers an alphabet that has just as many letters as the ordinary one.” What does it mean, knowing how to keep silent? What kind of silence would this be? How do such silences differ from one another? How does this particular silence contrast with being morosely mute? What is a knowledgeable silence? How would we know or for that matter recognize this knowledge? And what, if I may ask, is the nature of this silent alphabet?

Wittgenstein regarded metaphysics as the lint on a suit. However, after he picked off the lint, the suit itself vanished.

Perhaps these musings would find a chapter in my new book, a refutation of the tendentious and mannered arguments concerning Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein in Herbert Quain’s The Labyrinth of the God.

Outside it was snowing, a dreadful December snow, wet and clumped and cumulative. Sitting in my study, mulling over K’s notice that all life is a repetition — these silent alphabets must have existed before us — but actually visualizing Aaron’s wanderings over the face of the earth, I peered through the window.

I imagined my son pursued by barking dogs.

Helpless in my imaginings (where was Lisbon? my city had faded with the pitiless evanescence of all fantasy), I imagined Aaron, hapless and lonely, an orphan of this midwestern storm, pelted by wet snow, one of the wretched. I would like very much to say that I did not think of Aaron at all and that my thoughts were free, but my son, having disappeared, commanded my thoughts entirely in his absence and silence. At that moment it occurred to me that Aaron had discovered Kierkegaard’s secret alphabet and was writing letters to me, employing it.

A car rumbled out on the street. It was not Bradley’s car, which I recognized, but one of an unknown pitch and timbre. The driver stopped the car, opened the door — it squeaked — and slammed it.

I am not inclined to magical thinking. Nevertheless my breath quickened, I must tell you, at that moment. My heartbeat increased. I stood up and approached the front hallway. Aaron had at last come home, was my intuition. He had given up his rebellion and had returned, remorseful, quite possibly drug-free, and grateful for our forgiveness. Perhaps he would bring someone with him. There would be wildfires of contrition on all sides. Fine, fine. I made my way toward the foyer.

A fist knocked against the door. A hoarse boyish voice called out for help. I opened the door a crack and sniffed the winter air. Aaron, I said. Is that you? Aaron?

Pulling the door open, Esther standing behind me, I saw not Aaron but Chloé, the coffee waitress and recent widow, her face pale and airless and stricken and terrified.

CHLOÉ, I SAID. What is it? Come in. Please come in.

He tried to rape me, she cried out. And I stabbed him and now they’ll arrest me and take me off to jail. I’m done for.

Esther brushed me out of the way. She reached for Chloé’s ungloved chapped hand. Come in, dear, she said, come in right this minute. Esther pulled Chloé inside and shut the door behind her, turning the lock. She did not let loose for a moment her grip on Chloé’s palm and fingers. Esther unzipped Chloé’s jacket — the girl did not at that moment seem capable of this simple action — and took it off. Then she unlaced and removed Chloé’s big shoes and led her into the kitchen, where she sat her down at the dinette table. Shoeless, the girl scattered snow from her jeans down the hall, past the ticking clock. Don’t say anything, Esther instructed her. Just warm up for a moment, and I’ll make you some coffee. No, not coffee. Tea.

He tried —

— Just a moment, please, Chloé. Just wait, Esther said. Then she turned to me. Harry, you must leave us.

Nonsense, I said.

It’s okay, Chloé said.