The coldness of childhood weighs upon my lips, hardening and growing in the darkness of the street poised for the boiling-up of light from the great lamps crowd-ing on their new red posts... So why should I not answer an invi-tation to a dinner? To sucking at a drink that runs dry? To a dance that shrieks and wallows, or to sipping a listless cup of coffee?

I shall not sleep tonight,

for the smell of sleep chokes me, and the specter of my bed scratches at the pupils of my eyes, to pluck them out. And the heaps of books scattered on my pillow, and beneath it, kindle in my fingers a lust for tearing, and striking, and deserting this torpid pen.

Tonight I want to strike with the heel of my shoe, violently... with tremendous violence... until the bright floor tiles split in every span of the ground, and until my pampered heel breaks. And until my leg twists, and its allure withers on it, and the terror that threatens me in the dark, in bed, in the delirium of rapture on a drunkard's mouth, melts away!

He...

He was kind, and invited me.

Did he sense my weeping need for a human being in whose palm I could hide my face, into whose breadth and depth I could pour out all that scatters me, while he stays calm? Listening. Reverent. Bowing his head from time to time to kiss — and only that — my tousled hair and murmur to it? And I would tell him about yesterday:

"I was climbing the stairs slowly, pulling off my glove, when I bumped into a cheerful colleague who greeted me gently, then van-

ished... before I could return his greeting... vanished... And then a scene: his swift appearance before me, and his swifter disappearance, spattering my face with yellow blotches. Blue. Red. I started, and rushed to a drawer in my desk, opened it, and pulled out the pack of cigarettes I had stolen from the house, meaning to burn away with it my vexation at this monotonous work. I tore it to shreds. Then I put the papers in order and wiped the dust from the chair. And I left the keys in the lock, because perhaps... perhaps tonight I shall die.

And I put on everything new for sleep, before burying my body under the quilt. For I am ashamed to die in pajamas worn through at the elbow, most of their buttons fallen off. I was right in my laziness and my dawdling over preparing the subject of that tiresome thesis... No, no, I did not dare close my eyelids. I am afraid to die... I am afraid of the drunken man.

Because Mother exploited my terror of a carouser who stopped, when I was a child, beneath our balcony in broad day, to fight my

stubbornness. She was forever threatening me: if you wake your sister, I will throw you to the drunkard; if you walk in the rain, I will call the drunkard; if you break your plate, the drunkard will break your hand. If... and if...

But did he invite me so as to listen to strange chatter?

Will fleeting moments suffice me, in which I lean on a strong arm that floods me with reassurance, to put an end to my loneliness and my lostness? Then... then the arm moves. And drops me down among the feet, and I am shattered. And I crawl on my belly, begging for other fleeting moments so as to lean on an arm... then the second throws me off, and I plead for a third... and a fourth... and a fifth...

And he —

he makes his way to his house and raps on his door in safety and confidence... And his wife pushes the covers off two legs he has grown weary of, and fingers that played with him for a time, and so grew rough. And the poor thing flies to him barefoot, and hangs upon his neck — and he yawns. And she lifts her cheek... lifts it... and upon its dry summit he spits a kiss of disgust.

Then the sly one understands that in the depths of his eyes a young girl lies hidden, so she smothers the surge of her anger and drags him, submissive, to his place... It is enough for her that he comes back, every time, to his place. And that people acknowledge her ownership of him. And that the other women remain curses on tongues, and brief instants within the realm of the possible!

I shall not answer his invitation,

for I know the meaning of mastery over the toys of others: the sight of my doll pressed to the chest of the neighbors' girl, her clutching at it, used

"I Live" — Published by Dar Majallat Shi'r

Published by Dar Majallat Shi'r

simultaneously with this issue

"I Live"

A new venture in the novel, in which the rising, rebellious woman of letters

Layla Baalbaki

treats, in her ardent, original style, the anxiety that rules the life of the young generation