Now she will ask a question for the magic value of the spoken words. Joseph has always wanted to make her happy, but if he thought something was important, that she wasn’t quite telling the truth or allowing herself to see the truth, he would go silent. No matter how much he knew what she wanted to hear.
“Do you think she’ll die?”
And he says the thing she needs to hear, which she knows he believes, because he doesn’t say what he does not think is the truth.
“No, I don’t think she’ll die,” he says. “You won’t let her.”
Travelers
2
When you have decided that you will die—which is a different thing from knowing that you want to die and different, too, from the idea that you no longer want to live—when you’ve come to that point, nothing is difficult. You are in love with your own lightness. You grow radiant to yourself. Transparent. You can take in anything and nothing can be taken from you.
This is who and what I am.
. . .
This is who and what Pearl Meyers believes she is, who and what she is to herself. But what is she to us? A twenty-year-old woman. A woman who is starving, a woman chained to the flagpole in front of the American embassy in Dublin, Ireland. A woman who is lying on the ground.
But who am I? you may be asking.
Think of me this way: midwife, present at the birth. Or perhaps this: godfather, present at the christening. Although of the three people with whom we are concerned, perhaps the most important, Pearl herself, was never christened. If not the christening, then, perhaps the naming. Present at the naming. At the speaking of the most important word.
Perhaps you cannot bleach a certain criminal association from the word
godfather
. But I would ask you to consider that, for two of the people with whom we are concerned, the word
godfather
signified the protector of the child from the world, the flesh, the devil, long before Marlon Brando changed its meaning for people like you and me.
I would, if I could, protect them, all of them, but I have learned that I cannot.
Let’s get back to Pearl. The Irish government does not want to be seen using force against an American. The American government does not want force used against one of their own. The police could cut through Pearl’s chains. It would not be easy, she’s made sure of that, but it could be done. She has handcuffed herself, looped one medium-width chain through the handcuffs, looped a thick bicycle chain through that and around the American embassy’s flagpole on a tile pavement a few feet below street level on the Aylesbury Road. They are giving her a chance to free herself; for the moment they are only speaking to her. They will try other methods: unlocking the cuffs with their keys and, if that doesn’t work, cutting through them with something like gardening shears. The chances of hurting her, of wounding the delicate flesh of the underside of her wrists, is great if she resists.
Pearl is, thus far, resisting. When the police have approached her she has thrashed and kicked. So for a while they are only talking to her. The Irish are a civilized people; the Dublin police are known to be humane. And she is on embassy ground; the embassy staff has been in charge. Doctors have been consulted, experts in the field, people who have had experience with this sort of thing. This is, after all, Ireland, and hunger strikers are not unknown.
What is she doing here? is a question people keep asking. You may be asking it yourself.
What are you doing here?
Isn’t this always a hostile question? Doesn’t it always imply,
You have no right to be here, you should be somewhere else
? It would be very easy to say that both these sentences are true in relation to Pearl Meyers. Only, she is American. The embassy is technically her country, although it is in Ireland. You could say she has no right to chain herself to the flagpole on pavement that dips down a few feet from the high embassy ground. And if you said to her,
You should be somewhere else,
she would deny it. She would say,
I am where I belong.
. . .
There are reasons. You may not believe there is any reason for a young woman like this to want to die. By which you would mean any good reason, a reason that would be good enough for you to understand. You may never have wanted death yourself. But Pearl experienced the desire for it as a kind of thirst. Do you remember, as a child, waking thirsty in the middle of the night? Getting up, walking into the kitchen, the air cool against your arms and legs, exposed except for the thin cotton of summer pajamas. Filling a glass from the faucet, carefully, right to the brim. The water running out of the spigot with a
swoosh,
tasting sweet. Because you were so thirsty. It was strange, wasn’t it? It was exciting, drinking water in the dark room. Strange to be drinking water in the darkness all alone.
Her thirst for death has been like that, like the imagination of that water. As she began to starve herself, her weakness had a sweetness, her exhaustion was as desirable as the slaking of a thirst. To fail to live. To fail to live up to things. Simply to fail. A sweet exhaustion, like a bluish gas or a white fog. No longer to base your life on a series of actions, but to say that one action, in its absolute visibility, its absolute meaningfulness, is worth your life. The giving up of which is nothing but a lovely handing over. The delight of giving over, of giving up. To lie down in the snow or in the woods. In darkness. No longer to go on.
But what, you ask me, could have been the source of such a thirst? She is a fortunate girl, you are telling me: beautiful, healthy, American.
Perhaps we should begin with the document on the ground beside her. It is in a clear plastic envelope, transparent, secured by a device: a cardboard red circle, around which is looped a white string. Let’s call it a document, or perhaps it would be better to call it a statement. I don’t know what it really should be called. In any case, I offer it to you exactly as she wrote it. These are her words:
I have not eaten in six weeks; I have drunk nothing in several days. I have decided to do this, to chain myself here, because of my conviction that the only important thing I can do with my life is to offer it in witness. I am doing this here, in Ireland, on what is officially American soil, because what I am doing is connected to the history of Ireland, even my method, and yet I am not part of the history of Ireland. I am American, and so I find it proper to do what I must do here on what is legally American soil. To be American is to be paid attention to.
First and most important, I am giving my life in witness to the death of Stephen Donegan and to the goodness and importance of his life. Second, to show my support, my admiration for the peace agreement, and those who have worked toward it. Third, to mark the human will to harm.
I am, in part, responsible for Stephen Donegan’s death. This is because in being caught up in an idea, I forgot a living person. He became, to me, invisible. This made it easy, even natural, for me to insult him. This insult was a form of violence. They said he died because of an automobile accident, but he died as a result of my insult. The death of Stephen Donegan was an event in history, a loss to the world.
My insult was a private act, an act of private violence, and yet its source was the Troubles of Ireland. Stephen Donegan was a victim of the Troubles, but he is not being mourned as that. I insist by my death that he be mourned as a victim of the Troubles. And so, because I believe that nothing I could do with my life can be as powerful as the power of my death, I give my life in witness to the goodness of Stephen Donegan, and to the goodness of the peace agreement, and to protest the evil of continued violence.
The idea of the peace agreement and its reality will bring about a cessation of some death. I know it to be true that the diminishment of the possibility of violent deaths is an entirely good thing. I know too that the peace process is in danger because of those who love violence and death more than peace. I understand this impulse to violence because of the violence of insult I committed against Stephen Donegan. And I see this impulse—in myself and in those who would put the peace process in danger—as part of a larger impulse, which is true, I believe, of human beings: they possess the will to harm. And my witness to this impulse, my desire to mark its strength, is the third reason for my decision to be here as I am.
I believe it is a good thing to offer my life in witness to these things I know to be true. My death will be a far more powerful witness than my life or anything that could be accomplished by a life such as mine. I act in perfect freedom and in certainty that what I am doing is right. No one has influenced me in this choice.
Pearl Meyers
In the large transparent envelope, along with the document, there were two smaller, ordinary envelopes, one addressed to her mother, one to Joseph. She addressed the one:
For my mother, Maria Meyers, Personal and Confidential.
And the other:
Mr. Joseph Kasperman, Personal and Confidential.
Was she aware that she used the intimate form for her mother, the official one for Joseph? Perhaps because there was no name for her relationship to him. Or perhaps because she could not think of Maria Meyers in any other way except: my mother.
Here are the letters. I call them letters, as opposed to the other words she wrote, which I call a statement, unsealed, unaddressed, its envelope transparent: inviting anyone’s attention, everyone’s. We might as well begin with her mother’s. It doesn’t matter, really, but a letter to one’s mother would seem to take pride of place. This may not be correct, but it would seem most ordinary.
Mother:
Try to call on the values you have given me: a love of justice, a need to bear witness to the truth. I am doing this in the name of justice, in witness to the truth. I am marking a wrongful death, for which I was responsible, and other public wrongs that will lead to death and more death.
I have considered, of course, the sorrow this will cause you. Yet I know that you are a person of hope, a person at home in this world, and that you will go on. Try to understand that I am not a person of hope and I am not at home in this world, which I believe to be a place of harm. And though I am a person of no force, I have learned that I am capable of harming. This consideration has led me to believe that it is best that I remove myself from this life and my own life and become, rather, a witness. Also, having seen the possibility of harm within myself, I have become more convinced than ever that the darkness is stronger than the light. At least it is stronger than I am. I know what you would say: Focus on the light, focus on what can be changed. I believe that I can change nothing by my life, but that my death has the possibility at least of shedding some light. I have not said these things in the statement I have left on the ground here at the embassy. What I believe about the nature of the world is not for the eyes of the world but for yours and Joseph’s. You will be witness to this thing that I believe. You, a person of greater force, can use your force, perhaps, in some way I cannot imagine.
I know that you love me. Please know that I have loved you. You may think I should live for you, to keep you from this sorrow, but I cannot. It is better that I am not in this life.
Please understand that this has nothing to do with you. There is nothing you could have done.
Your loving daughter Pearl
And here is what she wrote to Joseph:
Joseph:
I believe that of all people you will understand this best, will comprehend most fully the decisions I have made. A boy died because of me. Because I rendered him as nothing in my self-righteous blindness in the name of an idea. I made a thing of him. I stole his faith and hope.
I know about some things that you and my mother never told me: faith, hope, and love. I have never been naturally a person of hope. Nor, I believe, are you. I have lost my faith in the goodness of life. Replacing that belief: a belief in malignity. In the will to harm. And the dismay that this impulse is in myself.
Still, I know some things are better than others. The peace agreement will lead to things better than endless violence. I give my life, however ludicrous it seems, in witness to this. And in witness to the commonality of the impulse to harm.
Take care of my mother and yourself.
Thank you for years of love and care.
You have done nothing but good to me. When I think that there might be one person in the world free of the impulse to harm, it is you. For this, I honor you.
I know you understand what I am doing. You have always understood me. This has been a gift I am more grateful for than I can say.
Take care of my mother and yourself.
Your loving
Pearl
Now what do these explain—the statement, the letters? They sound rather different in some ways, don’t you think, one from the other? The statement is quite cool; you may find it confusing in the way it mixes categories: terms. The letter to her mother is protective—or does she want to keep her mother at arm’s length? I think she must have been farther along in the process of starvation when she wrote to Joseph. She repeats herself; she must have begun to lose control. What do these words tell you about this young woman with a thirst for death? You can see she is serious, intelligent, thoughtful, but tormented in her seriousness. She believes she has done wrong. She believes her life is nothing. This is what these words say: that her life is no use of itself, only as witness.
Do these words help you to understand why a young woman, a healthy, fortunate American woman, would do what she has done: starved herself to the point of death and chained herself to a flagpole at the embassy?
I want you to understand that although you may think of her death as a suicide it is also more than that. She wanted to die to be out of this life, but she also wanted to use her death. Her death was the vessel of her hope. She could use her death as she could not use her life. Her death would be legible, audible. Her life, she believed, was dim and barely visible; her words feeble whispers, scratches at the door.
As she gave up eating, this sense of purpose, the joy of pure statement, pure act, took her over. She felt at rest. In emptying herself, she was turning from body to idea, the idea that a chosen death could serve as a marker for a wrongful death. The idea that, like the Irish hunger strikers of the 1920s and the 1980s, she was giving her life in witness to a good much larger than her own survival on the earth—where, living, she would make no mark.
And yet you will say she is different from the hunger strikers who went before her in Ireland. The hunger strikers hoped against hope that they would be stopped, that they could stop before their death. Pearl doesn’t want to stop; she wants her death for its own sake, as a release from being overwhelmed. Her death is desirable to her: a glass of water in the darkness. This act is full of contradictions, you might say. What is it: suicide or hunger strike, private act or public statement?