What am I going to do, I need more room,

What am I going to do, I need more room, I have things I need to say, my words are pushing at the walls of the paper's edge, the next day, your mother came to the guest room and posed for me, I worked the clay with YES and NO, I made it soft, I pressed my thumbs into her cheeks, bringing her nose forward, leaving my thumbprints, I carved out pupils, I strengthened her brow, I hollowed out the space between her bottom lip and chin, I picked up a daybook and went over to her. I started to write about where I'd been and what I'd done since I left, how I'd made my living, whom I'd spent my time with, what I'd thought about and listened to and eaten, but she ripped the page from the book, "I don't care," she said, I don't know if she really didn't care or if it was something else, on the next blank page I wrote, "If there's anything you want to know, I'll tell you," she said, "I know it will make your life easier to tell me, but I don't want to know anything." How could that be? I asked her to tell me about you, she said, "Not our son, my son," I asked her to tell me about her son, she said, "Every Thanksgiving I made a turkey and pumpkin pie. I would go to the schoolyard and ask the children what toys they liked. I bought those for him. I wouldn't let anyone speak a foreign language in the apartment. But he still became you." "He became me?" "Everything was yes and no." "Did he go to college?" "I begged him to stay close, but he went to California. In that way he was also like you." "What did he study?" "He was going to be a lawyer, but he took over the business. He hated jewelry." "Why didn't you sell it?" "I begged him. I begged him to be a lawyer." "Then why?" "He wanted to be his own father." I'm sorry, if that's true, the last thing I would have wanted was for you to be like me, I left so you could be you. She said, "He tried to find you once. I gave him that only letter you ever sent. He was obsessed with it, always reading it. I don't know what you wrote, but it made him go and look for you." On the next blank page I wrote, "I opened the door one day and there he was." "He found you?" "We talked about nothing." "I didn't know he found you." "He wouldn't tell me who he was. He must have become nervous. Or he must have hated me once he saw me. He pretended to be a journalist. It was so terrible. He said he was doing a story about the survivors of Dresden." "Did you tell him what happened to you that night?" "It was in the letter." "What did you write?" "You didn't read it?" "You didn't send it to me." "It was terrible. All of the things we couldn't share. The room was filled with conversations we weren't having." I didn't tell her that after you left, I stopped eating, I got so skinny that the bathwater would collect between my bones, why didn't anyone ask me why I was so skinny? If someone had asked, I never would have eaten another bite. "But if he didn't tell you he was your son, how did you know?" "I knew because he was my son." She put her hand on my chest, over my heart, I put my hands on her thighs, I put my hands around her, she undid my pants, "I'm nervous," despite everything I wanted, the sculpture was looking more and more like Anna, she closed the door behind her, I'm running out of room ... I spent most of my days walking around the city, getting to know it again, I went to the old Columbian Bakery but it wasn't there anymore, in its place was a ninety-nine-cent store where everything cost more than ninety-nine cents. I went by the tailor shop where I used to get my pants taken in, but there was a bank, you needed a card just to open the door, I walked for hours, down one side of Broadway and up the other, where there had been a watch repairman there was a video store, where there had been a flower market there was a store for video games, where there had been a butcher there was sushi, what's sushi, and what happens to all of the broken watches? I spent hours at the dog run on the side of the natural history museum, a pit bull, a Labrador, a golden retriever, I was the only person without a dog, I thought and thought, how could I be close to Oskar from far away, how could I be fair to you and fair to your mother and fair to myself, I wanted to carry the closet door with me so I could always look at him through the keyhole, I did the next best thing. I learned his life from a distance, when he went to school, when he came home, where his friends lived, what stores he liked to go to, I followed him all over the city, but I didn't betray your mother, because I never let him know I was there. I thought it could go on like that forever, and yet here I am, once again I was proven wrong. I don't remember when the strangeness of it first occurred to me, how much he was out, how many neighborhoods he went to, why I was the only one watching him, how his mother could let him wander so far so alone. Every weekend morning, he left the building with an old man and went knocking on doors around the city, I made a map of where they went, but I couldn't make sense of it, it made no sense, what were they doing? And who was the old man, a friend, a teacher, a replacement for a missing grandfather? And why did they stay for only a few minutes at each apartment, were they selling something, collecting information? And what did his grandmother know, was I the only one worried about him? After they left one house, on Staten Island, I waited around and knocked on the door, "I can't believe it," the woman said, "another visitor!" "I'm sorry," I wrote, "I don't speak. That was my grandson who just left. Could you tell me what he was doing here?" The woman told me, "What a strange family you are." I thought, Family we are. "I just got off the phone with his mother." I wrote, "Why was he here?" She said, "For the key." I asked, "What key?" She said, "For the lock." "What lock?" "Don't you know?" For eight months I followed him and talked to the people he talked to, I tried to learn about him as he tried to learn about you, he was trying to find you, just as you'd tried to find me, it broke my heart into more pieces than my heart was made of, why can't people say what they mean at the time? One afternoon I followed him downtown, we sat across from each other on the subway, the old man looked at me, was I staring, was I reaching my arms out in front of me, did he know that I should have been the one sitting next to Oskar? They went into a coffee store, on the way back I lost them, it happened all the time, it's hard to stay close without making yourself known, and I wouldn't betray her. When I got back to the Upper West Side I went into a bookstore, I couldn't go to the apartment yet, I needed time to think, at the end of the aisle I saw a man who I thought might be Simon Goldberg, he was also in the children's section, the more I looked at him, the more unsure I was, the more I wanted it to be him, had he gone to work nstead of to his death? My hands shook against the change in my pockets, I tried not to stare, I tried not to reach my arms out in front of me, could it be, did he recognize me, he'd written, "It is my great hope that our paths, however long and winding, will cross again." Fifty years later he wore the same thick glasses, I'd never seen a whiter shirt, he had a hard time letting go of books, I went up to him. "I don't speak," I wrote, "I'm sorry." He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed, I could feel his heart beating against my heart, they were trying to beat in unison, without saying a word he urned around and rushed away from me, out of the store, into the street, I'm almost sure it wasn't him, I want an nfinitely long blank book and the rest of time ... The next day, Oskar and the old man went to the Empire State Building, I waited for them on the street. I kept looking up, trying to see him, my neck was burning, was he looking down at me, were we sharing something without either of us knowing it? After an hour, the elevator doors opened and the old man came out, was he going to leave Oskar up there, so high up, so alone, who would keep him safe? I hated him. I started to rite something, he came up to me and grabbed me by the collar. "Listen," he said, "I don't know who you are, but I've een you following us, and I don't like it. Not a bit. This is the only time I'm going to tell you to stay away." My book had allen to the floor, so I couldn't say anything. "If I ever see you again, anywhere near that boy--" I pointed at the floor, he et go of my collar, I picked up the book and wrote, "I'm Oskar's grandfather. I don't speak. I'm sorry." "His grandfather?" I lipped back and pointed at what I'd been writing, "Where is he?" "Oskar doesn't have a grandfather." I pointed at the age. "He's walking down the stairs." I quickly explained everything as best I could, my handwriting was becoming llegible, he said, "Oskar wouldn't lie to me." I wrote, "He didn't lie. He doesn't know." The old man took a necklace from nder his shirt and looked at it, the pendant was a compass, he said, "Oskar is my friend. I have to tell him." "He's my randson. Please don't." "You're the one who should be going around with him." "I have been." "And what about his other?" "What about his mother?" We heard Oskar singing from around the corner, his voice was getting louder, the ld man said, "He's a good boy," and walked away. I went straight home, the apartment was empty. I thought about packing my bags, I thought about jumping out a window, I sat on the bed and thought, I thought about you. What kind of food did you like, what was your favorite song, who was the first girl you kissed, and where, and how, I'm running out of room, I want an infinitely long blank book and forever, I don't know how much time passed, it didn't matter, I'd lost all of my reasons to keep track. Someone rang the bell, I didn't get up, I didn't care who it was, I wanted to be alone, on the other side of the window. I heard the door open and I heard his voice, my reason, "Grandma?" He was in the apartment, it was just the two of us, grandfather and grandson. I heard him going from room to room, moving things, opening and closing, what was he looking for, why was he always looking? He came to my door, "Grandma?" I didn't want to betray her, I turned off the lights, what was I so afraid of? "Grandma?" He started crying, my grandson was crying. "Please. I really need help. If you're in there, please come out." I turned on the light, why wasn't I more afraid? "Please." I opened the door and we faced each other, I faced myself, "Are you the renter?" I went back into the room and got this daybook from the closet, this book that is nearly out of pages, I brought it to him and wrote, "I don't speak. I'm sorry." I was so grateful to have him looking at me, he asked me who I was, I didn't know what to tell him, I invited him into the room, he asked me if I was a stranger, I didn't know what to tell him, he was still crying, I didn't know how to hold him, I'm running out of room. I brought him over to the bed, he sat down, I didn't ask him any questions or tell him what I already knew, we didn't talk about unimportant things, we didn't become friends, I could have been anyone, he began at the beginning, the vase, the key, Brooklyn, Queens, I knew the lines by heart. Poor child, telling everything to a stranger, I wanted to build walls around him, I wanted to separate inside from outside, I wanted to give him an infinitely long blank book and the rest of time, he told me how he'd just gone up to the top of the Empire State Building, how his friend had told him he was finished, it wasn't what I'd wanted, but if it was necessary to bring my grandson face to face with me, it was worth it, anything would have been. I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness, "My dad," he said, "My dad," he ran across the street and came back with a phone, "These are his last words." MESSAGE FIVE. 10:22 A.M. IT'S DA S DAD. HEL S DAD. KNOW IF EAR ANY THIS I'M HELLO? YOU HEAR ME? WE TO THE ROOF EVERYTHING OK FINE SOON SORRY HEAR ME MUCH HAPPENS, REMEMBER--