Far and Near

Abstract

turned on the television, and we were once again face to face. A man whom had not seen in fourteen years was looking straight into my eyes and speaking insistently. was protected by the one-way mirror of the television screen between us. sound went off for a moment, and his words were incomprehensible to me. It was a perfect instance of deja vu. program was a discussion of science fiction, and my long-- lost friend, a literary critic, was speaking on the motif of and proximity, and about various modes of resolution offered by that genre. Distance, he explained, isn't a physical condition, but primarily a state of mind. have the key to the he said in the same deep but dull voice with which he had instructed me in the past, I am separated from the garden by a meaningless length of wire mesh. If don't have it, have to go around the back of the house, through the construction site, past the shed, and down the stairs. example was particularly apt, because knew exactly which gate (construction site, shed, steps) he was thinking of. It was my gate, my garden. screen was big, and showed his face in detail. We were just as close at this moment as we had been in the past. This is a story about distance and proximity. It's not science fiction and it won't offer any new modes of resolution. sec When was twenty-two, a serious young man appeared in my life. He was perhaps about thirty-I don't know, because never asked. At that time he was a columnist for a cultural magazine, and he had read my work somewhere. We met in a coffee house. From the first moment was struck by a certain discrepancy in him. He was reserved and abstract in a way unlike any of the other men knew at the time. He appeared unapproachable. yet he sat closer to me than even the most aggressive men did. He didn't touch me. In the whole evening he didn't attempt even one accidental brush, but instead, with his face very close to mine, he slowly and seriously discoursed on various themes. listened only very inattentively, because found him unnerving. don't remember anything from that first date other than the embarrassing feeling that he was unsmilingly scrutinizing my every wrinkle and pore, the powder mapped unevenly across my face, all while talking with faint interest about sentence construction in the postwar short story. Outside the window Prague swam in evening gloom. Above the horizon a dark red stripe waved like a fluttering scarf. The stories that don't understand very well are the ones like best, he said. And of those, my favorites are those that become clear to me several years after I've read them. He wasn't referring to anything specific, but his comment certainly didn't apply to my stories. They attempted to be mysterious, but were as transparent as an aquarium and about as deep. sec was confused by the mixed signals. Here was a person who, as they say in psychotherapy, invaded other people's space. He didn't respect the invisible membrane-noli me tangere-the circle drawn around each of us with luminous chalk. Space is full of tension. We are separated by a whirling trembling force, which has its own intentions. Only love or aggression can penetrate it. In the embrace of a lover or an enemy it draws back, like a door operated by a sensor, and lets the intruder in. Each of us has a different-sized bubble of personal space. Mine is more than big enough. hate slaps on the back, over-familiarity and trust. sit in my space quite contented, somewhat disagreeable, and utterly self-possessed. sec Doctor M, as called him then, also appeared quite contented, a little disagreeable, and above all utterly self possessed. That self possession was as taut as an inflated plastic bag. Remarkably, he rarely smiled. He never confided anything. remember his scent quite well-- he smelled of toothpaste. …