Free Warsaw by Richard Foreman Page B

insulted or hassled by the clingy student. Or she would tease him.
Again and again over the next few months, without her knowing the extent of the
damage she was doing, Jessica would wound the fantasist. Yet again and again
Adam would lick and even kiss his wounds - for she had made them. He suffered.
He cried himself to sleep at night in religious admiration of her beauty; yet
sometimes he would cry in despair at not being able to possess such beauty,
flesh. Yearning. Adam was young and in love. He became ill. He lost weight. He
began to drink vodka to take the pain away and forget. He wasn't himself. He
grew desperate one day and composed a letter - inserting a number of poems in
the envelope also - that he intended to post to his muse anonymously. What
stopped him was the thought that she might never speak to him again if he did
such a thing - not that Jessica was speaking to him anyway at the time. But he
desperately wanted to declare his love in some grand romantic gesture. If they
could only get to know each other, away from society and all its charades. He
painted futures of them together, of courtship, marriage, a family. He
sometimes even stalked her. Duritz hated and became insanely jealous of her
real (false) suitors. He sometimes dreamed of being with her, sometimes had
nightmares of her being with someone else. He had to win the unattainable
prize. Life was not worth living without her, or it was but half a life.
    It did not happen overnight, although I think the year's
anniversary of his first seeing her had something to do with it perhaps, but
our poet eventually began to turn upon his cruel muse. She was ungrateful, a
snob. She must have known she was hurting him. Bitterness spread throughout his
being like a disease of the blood. She was as vain and as ignorant as her goy
boyfriends. The angel became a whore. His passionate hatred for her - and in
turn of womankind for she was a typical woman - was just as destructive and
unhealthy as his previous amorous obsession. Thankfully there was still a sage
voice inside of the student which knew that he needed to shelve her under his
past. He needed to be indifferent to her, bury her - weaned off her. After a
tortuous month thinking about it, Duritz resigned from his position in the
Goldman household. It was on the day in which he overheard one of her vapid
girlfriends asking Jessica, "So, how was Paul? What was it like?"
    Slowly but surely Duritz thought about Jessica less, though
not without the odd relapse. She was achingly beautiful. When his mother died
it was the doctor's daughter who the distraught student wished most to open up
to. Adam even pictured himself breaking down and crying with Jessica wiping the
tears away. He also secretly hoped that Jessica would attend the same
University as him. She might be more mature or appreciative if she saw him
again. Unlike high society, he was master of the academic arena. But from
thinking about her once a day Duritz eventually got it down to dwelling upon
the affair once a month. But unrequited loves are the most memorable. But Adam
eventually ploughed his energies back into his studies. He even managed to have
a couple of girlfriends, although they could never live up to the dream of
Jessica. He could be funny, engaging to women - or a puzzle they wanted to
solve - but ultimately he was a cold fish. Adam would always keep his heart
under lock and key, as if perhaps still waiting for the day when she would open
it. The melancholic was self-absorbed, non-committal. When he had the money, or
was suffering from that particular strain of depression and solitude, he
visited prostitutes. Love, marriage, was but a similar transaction he reasoned
honestly with himself. His father died. Duritz was saddened by his lack of
remorse. He felt bad because he did not feel bad.
    The student was perceptive and pessimistic enough to see war
on the horizon. He sold off the bakery and hoarded supplies - which he could
use or sell off at an