Ann Goldstein

And you’ll never know the law

that I, like so many, have learned—

and that has broken my heart:

Outside Limbo there is no Elysium.

For me his words were divorced from every earthly reason and value. I heard them as one hears a sacred liturgy, where the drama recited is no more than a symbol, and the ultimate truth it celebrates is bliss. This last, true meaning is a mystery that only the blessed know: pointless to seek an explanation by human means.

Like the mystics, I wanted not to receive explanations from him but to dedicate my faith to him.

I kept on day after day, committed to asserting, with increasing thoroughness, to the teachers, to my classmates, to myself my application and diligence. But inside I felt a growing sense of solitude, I felt I was learning without energy.

“I’ll kill you both.”

“With me you can try right now.”

Marcello left the lamppost in a rush, but, with a kind of death rattle, he bit his clenched right fist until it bled.

“I love you too much, I can’t do it.”

“Then get your brother, your father to do it, some friend, maybe they’re capable. But make it clear to all of them that you had better kill me first. Because if you touch anyone else while I’m alive, I will kill you, and you know I will, starting with you.”

I knew—perhaps I hoped—that no form could ever contain Lila, and that sooner or later she would break everything again.