What's in a Week?

"Truly, with hardship comes relief." (94:6)

Part 1: Me

Why do we appreciate difficulty in fiction but not in people, in life? The romance of struggle looks good on the page, but the experience of it is unbearable. The ability to face difficulty is a moral question: it deals with obligation, with patience, with suffering. Struggling is a discipline, it is disfiguring, it transforms. It demolishes just as much as it creates. And it exists on many planes: there are struggles of the mind, struggles of the body, struggles of the "system" and the universe, those that are implanted with very little warning and without the consent of the struggler. 

I am, and have been for my entire life, a person of the mind: most of my time has been lived internally, with no physical evidence, extrinsic validation, record of existence. Some of it is dreaming, or fantasy,  born of the desire to have something of my own, that follows my rules and isn't subject to the shocks of the real world. A lot of it is fear: an avoidance of the possibility of failure, of unsavory outcomes, of embarrassment. The majority of my life has been spent just thinking: productive contemplation, yes, but also about all of the ways my life could go wrong. My overactive mind creates a paralysis in my body, eschewing risk for the illusion of comfort, creating a life without roots, a life that melts into air. 

Bad things happen to me in my compulsive evasion of them. Through my pathological terror of consequence, I shield myself from the experience of difficulty. God intervenes: it is only when I have to reckon with my own avoidance that I grow, and become closer to who I really want to be. In order for me to be more free in my life, these things happen so that I am forced out of the smooth prison of my own imagination and shot into the real world.  

I am more scared than I realize, and more fragile, and breakable. I thought that I knew myself, but I'm realizing that I've just been doing a lot of intellectualizing. The heart suffocates when it is choked by the brain. I'd always wanted to be soft, to be a warm person, more likable: I will always admit to rigidity but was never able to acknowledge the tendency to shatter that always comes along with hardness. I want to have confidence in myself, and I feel like I need these difficulties to remind me of my own abilities, to remind me of forgiveness: that I can be forgiven, that I can forgive. That I can be humble, brave, resilient.  

Part 2: You

I think a lot about the role that trust has played in my life since meeting you. I've had to reckon with trust in a way I never have before-- trust in myself, in my life, in the people around me. Do you trust me? It's been much harder than I thought it would be to trust you. It's hard to accept that you love me, too. In the same way I think these bad things happen to me so that I learn to trust myself, I've had this nagging thought that maybe I need all of these accidents and horrors to trust in us. I wish that your words could be enough, but real life is different than letters and broken clocks. I hope that you'll forgive me.

This is part of it, too: the world between us has its own rules of time and space, its own mechanics and scientific laws and governing bodies. So much so that our confrontations with the outside world have been violent, like we have to fight our way through an army after being awoken in a daze from our shared reverie. Through these trials we are creating the places to fall that we never knew we had (within one another, outside of ourselves). Instead of being mortally terrified of plummeting, or thinking I have to catch myself, I'm finding there are other ways.

There is a concreteness to these problems that are arising, in opposition to the made-up obstacles of our minds, the dilemmas concocted in our heads that chase us around like unwitting subjects. These are the things that keep us in the waiting game: the attacks from the universe give us something real to contend with, they force us into action, take us out of our brains. Otherwise, where would we be?

When something stressful happens, people like to proclaim, "Well that just took a week off my life!" But what I'm noticing is that time stretches between the two of us-- not in actuality but in our experience of it. It expands into something malleable, something that we can mold and shape and rest in. Sometimes a week can hold within it the experiences of a lifetime, and sometimes it seems as though nothing happens at all. We're being impelled to make everyday into something new, into something that means something, something real.

Part 3: Us

It always seems that destruction comes much faster than construction. It can happen more swiftly, without intention. To build requires effort, resolution, commitment to see through. Specifically, to build something meant to last, something meant to withstand inclement weather, something for the future, something that will not vanish into the ether, something that will not evaporate into a mere memory. Something that leaves a physical mark, a real record of its existence. These are the bricks we are laying, the nuts and bolts we're screwing together, the nails being driven into the walls: that of something real. 

All of these miniature disasters, these slight calamities: these will fade. The older I get the more I understand the adage that it is not what happens to you but what you do with these blights that create your life. All of this will pass, and none of this has to mean anything. What will last is the way that we stuck it out, the way that we chose each other. The way we faced it all head-on and opted to banish it to the annals of the past instead of carrying it with us.

What will last is the way we hold each other, the way we rely on one another, the way we glide over these waves with ease and meet each other, always, where the tides break. What will last is all of the little ways our lives have been changed by knowing one another, and the ways that the threads of our lives are slowly being sewn together, piece by piece, with a teeny tiny needle. What will last is the danger, is the remedying of regret and choosing the hard road, the one not just less traveled by but the one completely uncharted. What will last is the fact that we love one another, and all of the ways that we do it. These are the real things.

The Garden of the Dead, Pt. 1

Emma watched as the excitement of their lives whirled around them, sitting at the dinner table. These were the busiest people she knew: marginally employed, few hobbies outside of general consumption, incredibly vain. They didn't do very much in a day, and they didn't feel the need to. What sprinklings of "things" they managed consisted of never-ending appointments and that which was pleasurable, nice. 

Their stories mostly belonged to other people, but were relayed in a tone and with an enthusiasm which signified that they had expropriated those stories and now claimed them as their own. Their lives were only as interesting as the stories they were able to tell, or the anecdotes freely available to the embellished narratives they recounted. What was shared between them was not any sort of ethical code, moral solidarity, or even mutual affection, but rather a mimicry of these. They said all the right things, toed the correct lines, sanctimoniously grumbled over the approved injustices to complain about.  

She, on the other hand, never said the right thing. Emma toyed too freely with ideas outside of the prescribed realm of possibilities, pushed the carefully constructed boundaries to the brink with thoughts that found their way through the cracks of the drop-down menu. These people were a mystery to her, an almost unreality taking the form of human beings. When she looked at them, listened to them speak, she saw and heard algorithms, sequences, programs: calculated, refined perfection. 

While around them she was confused about what constituted a life. Is this a life?

They didn't seem to share her reality with her, one full of grey areas and complexity and volition. In her reality, the one she believed to be true, the question of "or" didn't exist. There was no such thing as endings, or beginnings, or of a case being closed. Humility, compassion, courage: these were virtues in her reality, not pathologies. They didn't seem to share this reality with her, so she turned to the stars, books, anything that would make her feel alive and less like a machine. 

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Her childhood home, where she now lived alone, was situated along the river, surrounded by trees and long, meandering footpaths carved out by her father. Across the way was Apex One, the nuclear power plant, with its bulging towers puffing thick, white smoke into the air at a constant, creeping pace. You could see the plumes from wherever you were in town, from the lowest point in the valley to the peak of the nearest mountain. 

She remembered sitting on the bank of the river watching the swells come out of the towers, trying to decipher the forms and hidden figures as she would with the clouds in the sky. She remembered never finding anything that resembled life at all. She remembered thinking that God hadn't touched those clouds, but was certain that He shaped the ones of the heavens. The smoke coming from the towers never evaporated or naturally phased out as it rose: it just seemed to hit a point in the sky and stop. 

Soon after her father's passing, Emma planted flowers along the riverfront, and overtime her small patch grew into a thriving garden. The new insects that arrived with the flora brought about new creatures, who deposited their own seeds into the ground, and the garden evolved beyond a signification of her own personal contrivance: it was taken back by the Earth, and she let it be so. She, too, was taken back by the Earth, finding companionship amongst the beings that could withstand seasons and understood responsibility, and beauty. 

Resentment grew in her, too, of the void of her childhood, the vacuousness of the world she was brought into. She was grateful that nature had reclaimed the garden for itself, because her motivation to maintain it, her desire to create, to build anything for the future, waxed and waned with unpredictable rigor. The disorientation of what was considered to be twenty-first century life stifled her will, and the thought of her own uselessness replayed in her mind all the time. She learned what it meant to have to fight: to fight for that which she knew was hers in the first place.

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One day the garden began to wither. This happened slowly: leaves began to shrivel up and turn yellow, falling to the ground unceremoniously. Trees wilted from their upright positions and took the form of something that looked completely tattered, haunted. The grass that lined the paths looked scorched, and made a gritting, grating sound when walked on. The typically steady streams of smoke from Apex One had become more erratic, sputtering out of the towers, and took on a hue that darkened with each day. 

Emma began to wither, too: the circles under her eyes became darker, the fat on her limbs dissipated, her hair thinned. The daily motions of her life became comically monotonous, requiring little thought, just the movement of her weakening body. She felt like she was dead, or at the very least completely flayed. It was a deliberate choice she made, every second of every day, to believe and re-believe in the idea that there was something salvageable here, something to struggle for. 

Her friends made jokes: don’t we all feel like we’re dying nowadays? Is anyone really happy? We all hate our lives, our jobs, our bodies, the country is burning down… join the fucking club. They never noticed the power plant, or never cared to pay attention to it. They didn’t have to: they were so busy with their agreeing and their nonchalance and their therapy to try to sort out the “issues” that their psychologists told them were from their parents. Amidst this raucous laughter and apparent relatability, Emma felt the need to lay her head down and sleep for a very long time.

Couple in a Café

 

The setup is as follows: Stierlitz, the man at the beginning of the above clip, is a Soviet spy deep undercover in Germany from the late 1920s to the spring of 1945. He dedicates nearly two decades to working his way up the ranks of the Nazi machine as a counterintelligence officer, all the while relaying secret operations to his counterparts in the USSR and sabotaging fascist plots on the ground. 

In this scene, Stierlitz is at a café that he frequents, going through the motions of his clandestine life to keep up appearances, when a woman that he recognizes comes through the door. She doesn't see him, and it's hard to say whether he wants her to. His eyes follow her as she is led to a table across the room. She's waiting for something, nervously, a bit excitedly. Stierlitz looks on with longing, pain, with an attempt at comprehension, with reserved hope. 

Suddenly, the woman's companion whispers something, calling attention to the man who's been watching her since she entered the building. The surprise on her face evaporates into a warm, quelled excitement, and she looks up to meet the eyes of Stierlitz. It is this look, this concentrated, immediate look, that makes it clear that he is her lover. (In the novel, it is stated that this woman is Stierlitz's wife. In the series, you don't need to know this-- you can see it, instantly, intuitively. They can be nothing but.) 

His face is similarly awestruck, maybe a bit self-conscious, like this is the first time someone has looked at him in the eye for years. In actuality this is the first time in years that anyone has seen him as Maxim Isaev instead of his cover Max von Stierlitz. It's the first time in years he's being recognized as himself. She, too, has a moment of this overwhelm, looking down for just a second before meeting his eyes once again with a blazing, almost playful confidence: in him, in her, in this reality they're sharing. Her companion, sensing his obtrusive role in this reunion, excuses himself to the bar to give the couple some "privacy." 

The next minute is one of the most beautiful, most romantic minutes in all of cinema, consisting of alternating shots that present a conversation without words, as follows: 

The woman initiates the exchange with the question of "why." Why are we here in this moment? Why are these the circumstances of our lives? Why can't I go to you? Why can't you come to me? Why must it be this way? A look of uncertainty, of a yearning for something to grasp onto. Her jaw clenches, and all of the words she's unable to say are swallowed down. 

His answer to her questions is a pleading, a deference, an imploring. Again the self-consciousness creeps up: he is in a position of constraint, and she's caught him in the midst of living his artificial life. He cannot go to her, he cannot express all that is welling up inside of him, lest he risk the ruin of his entire operation. He knows that she knows this, and he's wondering if she remembers: how much he loves her, how in love they are, all of the reasons why he must do what he's doing. He's wondering if she remembers that it is not the lack of love but rather the overflowing of it that causes him to stay where he is.

There is a challenge. She locks him in to a challenge: prove it. Though his path is noble and, yes, she remembers it all, she's allowed to be angry. She's allowed to wallow, to think selfishly for a moment. Enough time has passed, enough has changed in both of their lives. She can see the little swastika pin he wears to keep up appearances and is disgusted by it, disgusted to see the man she loves wearing it. She feels pity for what he must be reduced to for the sake of his mission. There is a challenge of his personhood, of who they really are in that moment. 

He meets the challenge with a steady gaze. If it is reassurance she seeks, that is what he gives her. If she is looking for acknowledgement of his love, of their mutual sacrifice, of her sacrifice in particular, that is what his eyes say. He gives it all to her. He's sorry for her pain, but then shows her a world that they created between the two of them long ago: one of freedom, of love, of beauty, of dignity. 

She remembers this world, this shared vision of the future. Of the days they spent dreaming of something better, of a liberated society. She thinks of the late-night discussions they had about what this world would look like, and all of the ways that their sacrifice would contribute to its manifestation. She remembers how it was this vision that made her fall in love with him, how much respect she had for his choosing the love of humanity and his commitment to its emancipation from the chains of fascism. She acknowledges her role in this shared vision, too: they're doing this together. He's not alone in it. 

He's feeling nostalgic: for her touch, for perhaps the last conversation he was able to have freely, as himself, with her. Maybe he's remembering her laugh, of the way that she said she'd wait for him, how she would love him always, and loved him especially for who he was, and what he was giving up. He's remembering a time when he felt stronger, when he didn't feel so limited, so imprisoned. Now it's his turn to be emotional, to question, to ask: Why? Will we survive this? He looks for the answer in her. 

She replies: I understand. This is all for a greater purpose: I understand. She tells him that she doesn't believe in the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, that the lover's choice isn't always to turn around, to take a risk for love. She reminds him of the responsibility of love, of duty, of something bigger than the two of them. A whirlwind romance wasn't in the cards for them, at least in this moment, but it is their sacrifice in love, of a giving themselves over to a larger love of humanity, that will provide an endless stream of life for future generations. A seed is being planted: they are laying the groundwork for an entire forest, of which they will never live to sit under the shade of its canopy. This is not just about them. She replies: I love you, because you understand this, too, and you won't give it up for me.

This is the woman he loves. He tells her that she is his strength, that his sense of duty and integrity is watered by her, that he wants to help create a world that is worthy of her. He wants her to know that this is not all for her, that their love no longer exists just between the two of them. Their love has expanded beyond the bounds of two people, their relationship is the fertile soil of a new world. He wants her to know that this is only the beginning of the fight for the world of their dreams, that they have such a long way to go, but that he has hope.

For her, that doesn't make it any less painful. This is it, for now: this shared fantasy, this world that exists within the space between their pairs of eyes across the café. She will return to her life in Russia, without him, and he will contract once again into his undercover life in Berlin. Their separation holds the world in its balance, and their commitment to one another is not just a symbol but a real materialization of a principled solidarity. This second departing is even more agonizing than the first: the initial steps at the base of a mountain are easier to take than those strode after a few hours of hiking. 

And just like that, he is alone again, coming to terms with the meaning of the word sacrifice, of what it means to give oneself over to something greater than oneself. He must remember that it is in struggle that the soul continues on; that optimism is a virtue, not a naive shortcoming; that in the offering up of his own life he creates the conditions for the free, dignified lives of future generations; that this is not for nothing, it is for everything.