Finding the Seam

 

The technique of letting a story develop as you write it demands an array of unusual tactics. I thought it might be interesting to dismantle a single scene to demonstrate the process. When I wanted to do something similar for my graduation lecture at Vermont College, my professor dismissed the idea with his usual blunt style: “No one cares how you wrote your book. It’s not Anna Karenina.” Eight books later, this one won’t be much competition for Tolstoy, either. But I still find the granular details of narrative construction interesting

 

Without giving too much away, I had a scene between a married couple in which the husband was a crude, abusive bully. It worked very well, I checked the “first scene between Jan and Hannah” box and moved on. But the hero of my story is on a mission to rescue Hannah, and I needed him to encounter some difficulties en route to her apartment. “The mission was accomplished without incident” might be high praise in a military operation post-mortem, but it’s terrible for a story. I badly needed an incident or two. How about this? A couple has mounted their own escape and my hero, in military garb, is swept into the hunt for them … derailing his own plan and its meticulous timing. Two escapes, unconnected, seemed plausible but unsatisfying. What if Jan had helped them? But Hannah is part of the organization behind these exploits, and the big fight in their kitchen which opens the chapter is all about Jan demanding that Hannah stop her high-risk activities. Why would he do that if he was also involved? Bad idea, forget it. Still, the contradiction kept scratching at the door like a cat locked out of the bedroom. What if…? No. Or --? Naaa, stupid idea. I felt like I had a whole TV writer’s room in my head, staring at the white board, eating cold Chinese take out and trying the break the story. But of course, it was all just me, as usual.

 

So, how about this -- Jan got sucked into the fervor of the cause, somehow? But why? Just being around his wife’s fanatical dedication could have infected him almost against his will … only a partial explanation, but at least it makes the action seem possible. But that’s not enough. So pile on a little: the woman was the love of Jan’s life, until she dumped him – for his best friend, the husband. Still not quite sufficient, but it was enough to let me move forward.

 

“Moving forward” meant re-writing the kitchen argument to reveal these new facts … and set up enough details for my hero to grasp at least part of the situation when he encounters the couple hiding in an alley and helps them get away. Belatedly, I realized that the twist in the story, when Jan follows Hannah and my hero, winds up saving them both and sacrificing himself, was simply not supported by the evidence in the scene I had written. We saw nothing in Jan with that first draft that would make us believe he had the potential for such a noble gesture. That was why my conscious mind kept pushing and poking at the narrative: the unconscious mind was saying: do more. Give me more. Maybe I just found the one-dimensional thug boring. That was certainly part of it – but just a part. Anyway, I certainly had my marching orders.

 

In these situations, you can just start from scratch with a whole new scene, but I wanted to keep the anger I had started with. I wanted it both ways. That meant finding a seam in the argument that I could pry open to accommodate my new dialogue.

 

But first I had to write the dialogue.

 

Here’s the critical section of the scene, as it stood this morning

 

Jan knew how to take care of himself. He made sure to join the Żydowska Służba Porządkowa working with the Judenrat. But that meant Hannah’s war was over. Jan made that very clear after a brief clandestine visit from Fredka Oxenhendler, bringing precious guns and bullets through a secret tunnel beneath the cemetery wall.

That was the first time that Jan had beaten her. He took the contraband weapons and ammunition, turned them over to the SS and received a promotion in return. He couldn’t tell Obergrppenfuhrer Kellzen how the ZOB had penetrated the ghetto because Hannah wouldn’t tell him, and he couldn’t turn her in, however his feelings for her might have soured, because she was carrying his baby, and the baby might be a boy: checkmate.

Or at least stalemate.

Jan slurped the last of the thin soup and Hannah weighed the various options: frying pan to the head? Knife to the throat? Some simple poison? There would have to be something she could use at the hospital in Cyzste, if she could steal it, if there were any supplies left on the shelves, if Dr. Zielinski would help her, if was even still alive. What else? She could strangle him with clothesline – was she strong enough for that? She wouldn’t get two chances. If only she still had one of those lovely Mausers. Fredka had asked, one sardonic eyebrow lifted, “Could you really pull the trigger, Darling?”

“I know where you’ve been tonight,” Jan said suddenly, as if he was answering her, as if they were in the middle of the argument already. It must have raging in his head since she got home. “Smuggling potatoes into the Ghetto, putting our lives at risk for nothing.”

He lurched out of his chair, took two steps to the counter by the sink where Hannah had filled a cracked china bowl with two dozen of the lovely small kartofla wiosennas, her favorites, from the evening’s haul. He grabbed a handful of them and threw them at her. One struck her forehead. “And you bring the evidence home! How are you going to explain these, if there’s a raid?”

She reached up to touch her forehead. It would bruise soon. “I thought we could eat them, Jan. Then the Schutzstaffel pigs could investigate our toilet for the evidence.”

“So, this is a joke to you?”

“It’s a mitzvah. I know you love those pickle potatoes.”

“We don’t need your dirty loot, your nielegalne zyski! I get all the food we need.”

“I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy to die for your arrogance and vanity? So you can pose and strut for your radical friends? Look at me! The future mother of the Erez Israel kibbutzim, Queen of the underground freedom fighters! You child! You truant little girl, skipping school on Dzien Wagarowicza! Getting me shot in the head so some toothless grandmother can eat her placki ziemniaczane! You make me sick.”

She shook her head. “You understand nothing.”

Tactical blunder: silence was always best. Now her tone of tired contempt ignited his rage again and he bounded across the room at her, shoving the table aside. The empty soup bowl shattered on the floor, their last decent bowl. He jammed her against the cabinets, hands at her throat.

Could I pull the trigger, Fredka?

Just watch me.

“You were forbidden to do more smuggling! I forbade you to do that! You disobeyed me! You lied. You lied to me, you dirty little klafte.” 

She couldn’t breathe. “Jan --Jan, please … the baby …”

He seemed to come to his senses. He released her, stumbled backward. “The baby. Always the baby. That’s your secret weapon.  I’m going out. I need a drink. Tadeusz has some good vodka.

And I smuggled it across the wall for him, you fucking chazer! she almost shouted after him. But it was better to let the chazer go.

Choose silence for once, Hannah -- before it’s too late.

 

Six hundred and sixty-six words; and somewhere in that passage, a seam I could open up to insert the dialogue that would shift and deepen the story. It was only in the actual writing of the new dialogue that the final piece of the puzzle fitted itself into place. I was flying improvising … and I stopped short. Had I gone too far? The revelation scared me, but the best ideas always have that element of risk and the flinch you feel is virtually a guarantee that you’ve found something good. The insert slipped easily into the seam I found,  neatly sealed at both sides, beginning an end, highlighted in boldface:

 

She couldn’t breathe. “Jan --Jan, please … the baby …”

He seemed to come to his senses. He released her, stumbled backward. “The baby. Always the baby. That’s your secret weapon.

“I’m not Mala.”

“Don’t say her name.”

“You can’t stop me. Mala. Mala, Mala, Mala. I’ll say it as much  as I want.”

“We are not speaking of Mala tonight.

“Yes we are! Of course we are! That’s all we speak of, even when we’re speaking of the weather.”

“That’s the past, Hannah. Can’t you let it be the past?”

“Answer that one for yourself.”

“Every honest word I have ever uttered in your presence I regret.”

“Jan -- ”

“I should have taken a vow of silence. My father told me. ‘Lock your heart. Leave that door open and the thieves will steal everything from you’. I should have listened.”

“I’m no thief. And your father was a drunk. A bitter, mean-spirited drunk.”

“How dare you --”

“It’s true and everyone knows it. But you’re different, Jan. You’re not that way. You helped Aaron and Mala.”

“Because of you! All your wild talk. I started to believe it, God help me.”

“That’s not why.”

“No? You tell me why, then.”

There was no going back. “Mala is pregnant. And the child is yours.”

He gaped at her. “No one knows that! How could you know that?”

“I didn’t. But I do now.”

Silence dropped over them like a blanket on a rat – the smothering darkness and the stillness of panic. She could hear Jan’s breath, and a rattle of coughing from the back room. Starving dogs, streets away, barked and howled, fighting over something dead.

“Got in Himmel,” Jan said finally. “How did we wind up here?”

“Fredka will help them.”

“If she can. If they even get that far. Probably they will both be dead before morning. Anyway, we’ll never see them again.”

“Until we meet in Shamayim.”

“Shamayim! Your optimism is poison to me. Poison! We are all doomed. We are going to hell. And your cheerful brainless chirping just makes everything a thousand times worse. You make me sick. I’m going out. I need a drink. Tadeusz has some good vodka.”

 

And that’s where the scene stands today, all finished … until I have to go back and change it again.