burning city.
His mouth tasted bitter. He murmured: “Everything seems primed for the farewell. Road, sea, memory, wooden death stools, crystal seals.”
He laughed. “The stage set for Inés.”
Inés made no effort to return to London. And she did not return to rehearsals for The Damnation of Faust. Something held her here, as if she were condemned to live in this house facing the sea. She walked along the seashore and was afraid. With ancestral fury, a battle among the winter birds erupted in the sky. The savage birds were fighting over something, something she couldn’t see, but something sufficiently prized to justify pecking each other to death.
The spectacle terrified her. The wind scattered her thoughts. Her head felt like a crystal worn smooth.
The ocean terrified her. She remembered, with terror …
The little island terrified her, more clearly defined every time she saw it outlined between the coasts of England and France, beneath a flat-ceilinged sky.
It terrified her to think of starting down the deserted road, lonelier than ever—worse, with its murmuring woods, than the silence of the tomb.
What a strange sensation, to walk beside a man along the shore, each attracted to, each frightened of, the other … Gabriel
had left, but the nostalgia he had sown in her remained. France, the beautiful blond youth, France and the youth united in the nostalgia Gabriel was able to express openly. Not she. She felt bitter toward him. Atlan-Ferrara had left her with the image of something she could never have. A man that from this time forward she would desire but could never know. Atlan-Ferrara did know him. The face of the beautiful blond youth was his heritage. A lost country. A forbidden country.
Her instinct communicated to her an insurmountable separation. A prohibition now stood between her and Atlan-Ferrara. Neither wanted to violate it. But prohibition violated Inés’s instinct. Alone, mulling over these things, on the way back to the house, she felt trapped between two temporal boundaries that neither of them wanted to cross.
She went into the house and heard the stairs creaking, as if someone were going up and down, impatiently, uninterruptedly, not daring to show himself.
Then, once back in the house facing the sea, she lay down between the two funerary stools, stiff as a corpse, her head on one support and her feet on the other, and upon her breast the photograph of the two friends, comrades, brothers, signed To Gabriel, with all my affection. Except that the beautiful blond youth had disappeared from the photo. He was no longer there. Gabriel, bare-chested, one arm held open, was alone. That arm wasn’t embracing anyone. Inés placed two crystal seals on her transparent eyelids.
After all, it wasn’t difficult to lie there, stiff as a corpse, between the two funerary stools, buried beneath a mountain of dream.
3
Y ou will stop and look at the sea. You will not know how you got here. You will not know what you are supposed to do. You will run your hands over your body and it will feel sticky, smeared from head to toes with the same viscous substance that will coat your face. You will not be able to clean yourself with your hands because they too will be covered. Your hair will be a tangled, filthy nest and a thick paste will dribble down into your eyes, blinding you.
When you wake you will be perched among the branches of a tree with your face cradled against your knees and your hands covering your ears to block out the screeches of the capuchin monkey that will club to death the serpent that will never reach the leafy branches where you will be hiding. The capuchin will be doing what you would like to do yourself. Kill the serpent. Now the serpent will not prevent you from climbing down from the tree. But the strength the monkey will reveal as it kills the
serpent will frighten you as much as the threat of the snake, or maybe more.
You will not know how long you will have been here, fem,
His mouth tasted bitter. He murmured: “Everything seems primed for the farewell. Road, sea, memory, wooden death stools, crystal seals.”
He laughed. “The stage set for Inés.”
Inés made no effort to return to London. And she did not return to rehearsals for The Damnation of Faust. Something held her here, as if she were condemned to live in this house facing the sea. She walked along the seashore and was afraid. With ancestral fury, a battle among the winter birds erupted in the sky. The savage birds were fighting over something, something she couldn’t see, but something sufficiently prized to justify pecking each other to death.
The spectacle terrified her. The wind scattered her thoughts. Her head felt like a crystal worn smooth.
The ocean terrified her. She remembered, with terror …
The little island terrified her, more clearly defined every time she saw it outlined between the coasts of England and France, beneath a flat-ceilinged sky.
It terrified her to think of starting down the deserted road, lonelier than ever—worse, with its murmuring woods, than the silence of the tomb.
What a strange sensation, to walk beside a man along the shore, each attracted to, each frightened of, the other … Gabriel
had left, but the nostalgia he had sown in her remained. France, the beautiful blond youth, France and the youth united in the nostalgia Gabriel was able to express openly. Not she. She felt bitter toward him. Atlan-Ferrara had left her with the image of something she could never have. A man that from this time forward she would desire but could never know. Atlan-Ferrara did know him. The face of the beautiful blond youth was his heritage. A lost country. A forbidden country.
Her instinct communicated to her an insurmountable separation. A prohibition now stood between her and Atlan-Ferrara. Neither wanted to violate it. But prohibition violated Inés’s instinct. Alone, mulling over these things, on the way back to the house, she felt trapped between two temporal boundaries that neither of them wanted to cross.
She went into the house and heard the stairs creaking, as if someone were going up and down, impatiently, uninterruptedly, not daring to show himself.
Then, once back in the house facing the sea, she lay down between the two funerary stools, stiff as a corpse, her head on one support and her feet on the other, and upon her breast the photograph of the two friends, comrades, brothers, signed To Gabriel, with all my affection. Except that the beautiful blond youth had disappeared from the photo. He was no longer there. Gabriel, bare-chested, one arm held open, was alone. That arm wasn’t embracing anyone. Inés placed two crystal seals on her transparent eyelids.
After all, it wasn’t difficult to lie there, stiff as a corpse, between the two funerary stools, buried beneath a mountain of dream.
3
Y ou will stop and look at the sea. You will not know how you got here. You will not know what you are supposed to do. You will run your hands over your body and it will feel sticky, smeared from head to toes with the same viscous substance that will coat your face. You will not be able to clean yourself with your hands because they too will be covered. Your hair will be a tangled, filthy nest and a thick paste will dribble down into your eyes, blinding you.
When you wake you will be perched among the branches of a tree with your face cradled against your knees and your hands covering your ears to block out the screeches of the capuchin monkey that will club to death the serpent that will never reach the leafy branches where you will be hiding. The capuchin will be doing what you would like to do yourself. Kill the serpent. Now the serpent will not prevent you from climbing down from the tree. But the strength the monkey will reveal as it kills the
serpent will frighten you as much as the threat of the snake, or maybe more.
You will not know how long you will have been here, fem,
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