398
PARTISAN REVIEW
parently necessary
in
the New World than the Old. Years , decades,
centuries later they were full of foolish tales, babbled in languages
that grandsons neither understood nor cared much about. But each
grandfather had this one moment of undisputed, noisy triumph that
would quietly resonate through future generations .
•
•
•
There is another version of Chaim Baer's swim. Perhaps
there is even another Chaim Baer. Maybe it is one of those little jokes
that God or somebody using his name sometimes plays (especially,
the Jewish people like to think, on them) . What happens is this : in
the middle of the river, Chaim Baer really takes to swimming. Sud–
denly, it is as if he was born to swim. His arms and legs prove in–
credibly powerful, his lungs are tough as leather. Romania seems
too close, too easy, too dull. Instead of crossing, he turns down–
stream. He lets the current carry him while the feel of the water stirs
some pre-Cambrian impulse in the marrow of his genes. The Pruth
disappears into the broader Danube, which passes through towering ,
fortress-like, stony mountains, then widens into a sluggish brown
delta and gently sweeps him into the waters of the Black Sea .
Now his body becomes smooth and sleek. He is a salmon , a
dolphin, a streamlined sea creature born to fuck and swim . His arms
- or are they fins - begin to flash, and his legs - or are they fins–
kick with a steady rhythm. There is joy in the power of such move–
ments, a surge of freedom. He turns instinctively to the right and
churns in an ever-deepening wake towards the south. In the narrow
Bosporus there is heavy traffic of small boats with carved prows and
billowing, colored sails, and the ugly, angular shapes of gray , iron
ships darkening the sea and sky . No sign of recognition touches the
watery brain as he passes the crenellated, brown stone battlements
of Rumeli Hisari, where Muhammed the Conqueror waited ever so
patiently during the siege to free the prize of Constantinople from
the Christians . There go the glorious domes of mosques on seven
hills, guarded by phallic minarets, and then Topkapi on its head–
land, aglow in the setting sun, its block outline concealing the deli–
cate shapes of mosaic floor and carved wall, the curved legs and
breasts of several hundred women caged in the narrow quarters of
the
serai.
The Sea of Marmora crackles with electricity from stars;
the Dardanelles are low banks of earth where the moon vanishes into
early morning sand.
In the Aegean, the waters are thick with civilization . Sun blesses
