Page 91 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #2

"I don't have tea," he said to me. "I have coffee. One day, more than a year later, I walked in to
That will have to do." find both Moby Dick and Clarel laid out on the
table, at the place where I sat each and every
At first, his directness cut me like a new- time we were together. Cautiously, I picked the
ly-sharpened knife—but I had learned over the books up. I knew better than to ask why they
past months to let his manner settle quietly, were there. Stan stood on ceremony, followed
away from me. We had been reading Hebrew the proper order of things. It was his dance,
together for some time, always at his house. not mine.
Stan had been guarded from the moment we’d
met, and this gesture was an important transi- After letting me in, Stan—as he always did—
tion in our relationship. I decided to accept the took to the kitchen to brew coffee. I had come
coffee without comment; it was the first time to relish this ritual and enjoyed the dark aro-
he had offered me anything. ma that settled over the house.

As I watched him prepare the beverage, it was When the coffee was ready, Stan filled our cups
clear that coffee was to him what tea has been and took his usual seat. He did not, howev-
to me. I listened to him talk about the brand, er, open his Biblica Hebraica as he had done
the beans, the best brewing method. I didn’t without fail for several years. He looked over
say a word. the rim of the cup at me, hesitantly.

As with my tea, the warm, smoky essence of "You know, he was writing about you. Mel-
the coffee rose into the air around me. I took ville."
one long, patient draw of the aroma, then
brought the cup to my lips. As the caffeine I must have looked perplexed, because Stan
rushed through my body, everything I touched sat taller in his chair and appeared to be
seemed alive. The emotions evoked in me were searching for words. Rather ironic, since he
overpowering. was so articulate.

"What's the matter?" Stan asked, almost in- I was without words—not because I was con-
dignantly. fused, but—because he was correct.

"I have never had coffee before,” I explained. While I had read Moby Dick in my teens, I had
“I drink tea." not initially seen a connection. In fact, given
the nature of how I saw the world at that time,
"Well, I don't drink tea," he said, seemingly I found the book strange. Darkly weird. Even
offended. though I was about to begin dressing in black
and my curiosity regarding all things macabre
We returned to the task at hand—reading He- was starting to emerge, I didn't get Moby Dick.
brew. He was an American Lit doctoral stu- And even though I sensed on some level that
dent and he was as rebellious in his thinking as there was more to it than what it offered on the
I was in my discipline. And the more we read surface, since I could not reduce its truth to a
Hebrew together, the more apparent it became neat mathematical formula, a quest for deeper
that intellectually there existed some manner meaning was of little interest to me.
of a connection. The focus of his attention was
Melville's Clarel, while my concentration was But in this moment, I knew. I knew Stan’s re-
on “death” in Hebrew scripture. mark to be true. And even though this was so,

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