Eve Out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi

your way. Here, nothing belongs to me except for you. I hear my father’s impatience as he waits for the treasure chest to open for him. I hear my mother’s incredulity as she listens to him daydreaming and sneers at him. I try to listen to myself, but all I can hear is the air going in and out of my lungs. The body’s automatism. And the lack of life.
    My little bag stays in my closet, still full, still waiting for my decision to leave.
    The smell of food makes me think that you are hungry but do not know it, you who only nibble on bitter fruit.
    Don’t you think my face is shaped like a mouse’s? you asked me one day.
    I kiss your mouse-shaped face. You’re the world’s beauty, its light.

EVE
    The sea surges, escapes, scatters. It moves a thousand memories and a thousand scraps. Papers, cans, broken glass, smells of death. The neighborhood’s life is dragged away by stream waters, swelling and bursting its banks.
    I wait for the stream to subside so I can go back. I don’t want to see anyone. I wait for night to fall and cover everything, including the shapes of people nearby and even the shapes of things.
    The other day, in the office I’d been called to, I looked at the city and I saw it as it had been that morning with Saad at the statue of the Virgin Mary. Pale and sleepy. From high up, everything was smoothed out. The sharp edges were worn down, the holes filled in. The air-conditioned office, cushioned with carpets, smelled like new leather. You wanted to snuggle up in the armchairs. There was a huge painting reflected in the window. It winked at me. I recognized it. A teacher had told us about the artist, Malcolm de Chazal. I could see within his potbellied dodos and cheerful flowers those childhood dreams that had long since been forgotten.
    I could have slept here, sheltered, in this bubble at a remove from reality. I could have slept in the foreign leather and the hissing air conditioner and the smooth, monotonous light. I could have slept in this white place, where I would have been protected from sunlight and screaming. In this twilight, not of the day but of the senses, I feel all right. But I know that if I slept there I would wake up with my heart frozen. My body numb from the lifelessness. Maybe that’s what the man drinking one glass of whiskey after another on the other side of the desk is trying to exorcise through me.He needs a body to thaw himself in. He needs a life to make himself feel alive. I understand him: he struggled for so long to get here and now that he’s here, he doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He’s made a life, but not a home.
    He looks at the girl with childlike eyes, standing in front of the window. I’m not in a rush. I wait. I look. I’d look all night, if he left me here. The city, the night, the void.
    What you’re looking for isn’t here, I wanted to tell him. But I can hear him replying: Nor is what you’re looking for, either.

    You’recalm. Your hair makes black splashes. Your face is serious. He’s heard about you. He’s been told, she’s not like the others. He sees that it’s true. He’s been told, she does everything. He doesn’t know if it’s true. You don’t ask for anything. You’re stern and bewitching, that’s what he thinks of you. But they also told him what they did to you. Parties where you were alone and they were many. How one morning they left you almost lifeless not far from your neighborhood.
    It’s not hard for him to imagine it. Your bones are so thin.
    What do you want? What are you looking for?
    At that moment, you turn around and he gets up, unbuckling the belt of his pants.

EVE
    The stream quiets down. I do, too. One day, I was left here by men who had gone crazy, drinking from my body. They hadn’t taken me to an air-conditioned office but to an island right by the island, an island full of winds, birds, scrub, and