The Tower

I brought you here to try a slice of my chocolate cake. Do not be deceived; the slap-dash smear of soft, buttery icing conceals dense layers of inscrutable depth and complexity. It is not, in other words, the signature of an amateur, or merely imitative, baker. This cake is a metaphor, from which we might borrow one decadent slice.

I invite you, from the outset, to consider the sort of baker who made this cake. Recall the great visionaries who thought of hippodromes, helicopters, and laptops. Must this baker have had in mind the tower of Babel, reaching flagrantly to the heavens? Did this baker plan for winding staircases, up which supplicants might scramble to meet their salvation? Or had the baker a secret, shameful wish — that God himself should smite the cake?

In truth a baker of such unchecked passions rarely produces a cake that can be enjoyed – except, perhaps, by her fellow bakers, who, clicking their tongues jealously, admire the dreams and ambitions behind such a cake without the smallest hope of realizing it.

No, such a cake as I have made, and present to you here, is not that cake; but layer by layer, it finds articulation. You will notice the frosting has given way to moist, effulgent fluff. Is your palette entertained? Does the warmth, like Earth’s mantle, signal to you a richly molten core?

I will judge you for what you think of my cake. You may consider it your shipyard testing stone, a granite mass you will attempt to lift for me — and if your back bends or your hands cling desperately to its sides without lifting it an inch, I will know not to trust you with anything hefty, difficult, or supremely important.

The recipe for this cake was my great-grandmother’s. I know nothing about her except that she was born in Odessa and died in Jerusalem. I can infer, however, that she was a cold and intolerant person; that she disliked her servants and held unfavorable opinions on current events. And in fact I hardly follow the recipe as she meant it.

I would like to know, before we continue: are you the type that likes a cake to be eaten, or do you prefer abstaining coyly from its gustatory delight? Please note, I have nothing against the latter; in fact I deny myself much more than a slice of cake, preferring instead to watch from afar. I have even, on occasion, written letters to cakes and never sent them, and am currently involved in several of these winsome correspondences. At night I dream up their responses, but I find the cakes are disappointed in me, and in the end I know that I must keep my letters to myself.

But we’ll wander away from the question of the baker — it was never important — and henceforward penetrate yet another layer. In fact we’re reaching the core of the cake, the keystone on which the weight of this metaphor has firmly settled. It’s a shame what gravity does to cakes and metaphors; I often wonder about bakers in space, what they will bake, and whether cakes will be successful on Mars.

The last layer of this cake eludes us. The metaphor is collapsing into a puddle of melted ice cream. Is it not most often the case that the very last bite of cake is no more than an infinitesimal morsel, which we must chase vainly with our fork? We never realize it’s over until the plate is taken away from us, we cannot look on anymore, we have really already enjoyed too much cake.