Ghost at the Table

the empty chair

Photo by Klara Kulikova on Unsplash

You are the ghost at every table I’ve sat at over the last forty-eight years. The ghost in my bed, in my head. Your ghost taunts and haunts, flits dangerously around, and repeats triumphantly: missing! You are a ghost, you are missing, you are a ghost whose presence spells missing. You are missing in every room, every house, every apartment, every new spring grass blade, every bitter winter blast. You are missing in my body, wrapped around my body.

You are insubstantial, only a ghost, who mocks and taunts, reminding me I got what I deserved. If you won’t move with the times, you say, if you cannot embrace change, you will rot, my ghost reminds me, you reject life and growth, and so I reject(ed) you. If you expect(ed) me to remain with you in that stifling nest of yours where you felt safe, I am here to remind you that it was death to me. What was love to you was death to me. You don’t know what love is.

So says the ghost at my table, filling the empty chair with inflated transparent presence.

We have a round oak table, and the walls are painted a happy red; the moldings at the bottom are turquoise and bright blue. Bought at Horseman Antiques, Atlantic Avenue in Bklyn. In the adjacent kitchen, a red-and-white-tiled floor, another, smaller, table, a warped, round oak top, a street find, balanced on a sewing machine base. And later we will have a breakfast nook, in our new home, handmade by an artist, pine-board top — at all of these tables you were a presence, you are now a ghost. You admonish me: Nothing lasts forever, life is feelings, I must feel and express mine, you’ll get used to it, you’ll learn. You don’t know what love is.

I sit at many tables. At some point, your name is mentioned, you are mourned and remembered, and I am quiet, or I throw in a neutral comment. You, your ghost, are watching me carefully, and you laugh at me with spiteful pleasure and triumph: See, they all loved me, they didn’t pressure me, they let me fly, they know what love is.

We sat at tables everywhere. Formica, wood, glass-topped, wrought iron cafe tables, tables with white tablecloths, rough-cut peasant tables, scarred, smooth, stained, wiped clean. Luncheonettes. Diners. Chinatown. Little Italy. Family tables and friends’ tables. Ratner’s (rolls and coffee), Katz’s, Vaselka’s (kasha, mushroom soup), Koh-i-Noor (lemon pickle, biryanis, kurmas, chapatis), B&H (counter, not a table, matzo ball soup, bagels with a shmear, knishes), delis, drugstores (egg creams), coffee houses (cappuccinos), bars (bloody Marys, Scotch on the rocks, Pink Ladies), campgrounds, boats, cafes, bistros, the Automat (nickels, mac & cheese, apple pie), waterfronts: Marseilles (bouillabaisse), Athens, Thessaloniki, Piraeus, Mykonos, (glasses of clear water as soon as you sit, afga limone soup), bazaars in Turkey (yogurt, for the first time; liquid halvah, Turkish coffee), pubs: London, Ireland (ales, stouts, high tea), cafes: Paris, the Riviera (wine, espressos, croissants, croques monsieurs), the Cevennes Mountains (cheese for dessert — but you’re only supposed to cut off a small piece, not eat the whole thing while the owners stand by appalled!), Macedonian mountaintop (can’t tell what we’re eating, it’s too dark): picnic tables: riverfronts, state parks, national parks (we cook our own whatevers over campfires and camp stoves), beaches and the Yucatan, San Cristobal (gazpacho, peanuts with lime & hot peppers, chile rellenos): Mendecino, Vienna, Berkeley, Madison, Beirut, Jerusalem, Eilat , Tel Aviv, kibbutzim (humus, glorious vegetables, pita, baba ganouche, familiar Jewish foods)) Brussels (chocolate, pastries), Vienna, Graz (pastries, coffee), Damascus (hot peppers, sesame, sweet coffee), Amsterdam (ristaffel, herring, marijuana, cheese), Piazza San Marco, Firenze, Perugia (cappuccini negli bicchieri, every morning; pasta, formaggio, insalata verde, vino) … and our own, the tables of our homes (spaghetti, pea soup, rye bread, coffee, pasta, marijuana). They all crowd my heart, at each sits your ghost, and I hold on to you, ghost that you are, searching forever for the love in your elusive ghostly eyes that refuse to lock with mine.

We sat at a long table, like a library table, in a bank, signing papers, buying our house.

And there will be all the tables to come, where you never sat and never will, because you left me, and then you died. Left me and then died. But you are there nevertheless, at every table, in every room, every overgrown field or running creek or rock pile — though less substantial, more tentative. You waver, you lack definition. I have brought you with me to the table, as I bring you everywhere, to keep trying to capture your skittish shifting glance, to make a resolution, to challenge your judgment of me, and make myself whole. But you will not give me that. You enjoy the game, the tease. Telling me how I just don’t get it. Ah, my ghost. The ghost at my table, at my side, in my bed, reminding me always that I do not know what love is.

I will not let you rest in peace.