brokenhearted Susu had been, at age six or was it seven? When she had wanted a part in that school play? Was it Aesopâs fables? Noâit was mythologies, ancient stories, old stories. In the tale of Pandora, Susu had wanted to play Hope, who rises up in the end in her white dress. The dark-haired green-eyed girl was cast instead as Vengeance. Well, she had looked darling in black. It suited her, even then.
Eloise dropped a sugar cube into her tea.
She turned her spoon round in the cup.
A small rock holds back a great wave.
Vengeance is a better role than Hope.
Susu on stage.
Susu in her black leotard coming out of the box.
With hands on her hips saying: take a picture, itâll last longer.
What was it and how long would it last?
Eloise in the living roomâ
She paused before the fireplace.
Took in hand a jade statuette.
Chronos, the great father who ate up his own children.
Time would swallow us all down.
Zola was sleeping on the sofa.
Zola lifted her head from the velvet pillow.
Wait, wait, Susu had played Discord, not Vengeance.
Oh, what did it matter now?
Roman Stone was dead.
That was how the story had to go.
She knew the story of old waxwinged Daedalus and his son.
She knew of Apollo riding his chariot across the sky.
Apollo had a sister. A girl running through the woods.
Eloise knew of Discord and her golden apple.
She knew all that there was to know, and this knowledge was no consolation.
Eloise stood barefoot on the Persian rug.
Zola watched her.
Stared at her mournfully.
Eloise sat at her writing desk.
She unfolded the letter.
She read the letter again.
It was only a few words.
How could these few wordsâ
Like petals on a wet, black boughâ
Hold the possibility to change everything?
She picked up Zola and held her like a fat bullish baby.
8.
âWhy do you write in the dark?â Beatrice asks.
Beatrice stands in the doorway, as though to remind me with her slight youthful presence, that the things of which I have written happened a long time ago. That 1979 passed into 1980 with neither too much sturm nor nearly enough drang.
She goes about the room, turning on lamps. And she brings about the illumination of objects. Magic, miracle; magically, miraculously: things appear.
The fear of objects follows the illumination of the thing.
The room suddenly becomes itself.
We become ourselves.
The chairs, the tablesâ
No longer simply words to replace the real, but real .
Where there was darkness there is light.
Beatrice comes to me at the desk. She leans over my shoulderâ
Beatrice picks up the pages.
She sits on the sofa and begins reading.
Ro finished his manuscript. He got it to a literary friend of his father, and through a chain of vaguely shrouded and loosely nepotistic associations, the book was published in our senior year. Newsweek called Roman Stone: the face of the 1980s . And Time hailed him as: the voice of a generation . It was funny. It was a riot. I didnât take his success very seriously. I had other things on my mind. Like aurochs and propheticsonnets. Like durable pigments and the immortality of art. Although perhaps the immorality might have been more useful in the end. After graduation, Eloise landed a fellowship in Paris studying linguistics with a famous semiotician. I went to California with Ro. He got tan, took pills, tore through actresses. He was Ro, the real thing. I was Shel, the sidekick. We lived in a house on the beach. I set my typewriter on the kitchen table. Do you know the joke: why did the man throw his clock out the window? Ro liked that one, but it isnât a joke. Itâs a riddle. He wanted to see time fly . A year later: Eloise found us in our golden state. She brought Ro a tin of hand-fluted madeleines. And she gave me a volume of Balzac.
And, oh, Eloise brought back something else from Paris: her new husband.
He was an actor. His name was Zigouiller. He was called Zig. He had rough leading-man
Eloise dropped a sugar cube into her tea.
She turned her spoon round in the cup.
A small rock holds back a great wave.
Vengeance is a better role than Hope.
Susu on stage.
Susu in her black leotard coming out of the box.
With hands on her hips saying: take a picture, itâll last longer.
What was it and how long would it last?
Eloise in the living roomâ
She paused before the fireplace.
Took in hand a jade statuette.
Chronos, the great father who ate up his own children.
Time would swallow us all down.
Zola was sleeping on the sofa.
Zola lifted her head from the velvet pillow.
Wait, wait, Susu had played Discord, not Vengeance.
Oh, what did it matter now?
Roman Stone was dead.
That was how the story had to go.
She knew the story of old waxwinged Daedalus and his son.
She knew of Apollo riding his chariot across the sky.
Apollo had a sister. A girl running through the woods.
Eloise knew of Discord and her golden apple.
She knew all that there was to know, and this knowledge was no consolation.
Eloise stood barefoot on the Persian rug.
Zola watched her.
Stared at her mournfully.
Eloise sat at her writing desk.
She unfolded the letter.
She read the letter again.
It was only a few words.
How could these few wordsâ
Like petals on a wet, black boughâ
Hold the possibility to change everything?
She picked up Zola and held her like a fat bullish baby.
8.
âWhy do you write in the dark?â Beatrice asks.
Beatrice stands in the doorway, as though to remind me with her slight youthful presence, that the things of which I have written happened a long time ago. That 1979 passed into 1980 with neither too much sturm nor nearly enough drang.
She goes about the room, turning on lamps. And she brings about the illumination of objects. Magic, miracle; magically, miraculously: things appear.
The fear of objects follows the illumination of the thing.
The room suddenly becomes itself.
We become ourselves.
The chairs, the tablesâ
No longer simply words to replace the real, but real .
Where there was darkness there is light.
Beatrice comes to me at the desk. She leans over my shoulderâ
Beatrice picks up the pages.
She sits on the sofa and begins reading.
Ro finished his manuscript. He got it to a literary friend of his father, and through a chain of vaguely shrouded and loosely nepotistic associations, the book was published in our senior year. Newsweek called Roman Stone: the face of the 1980s . And Time hailed him as: the voice of a generation . It was funny. It was a riot. I didnât take his success very seriously. I had other things on my mind. Like aurochs and propheticsonnets. Like durable pigments and the immortality of art. Although perhaps the immorality might have been more useful in the end. After graduation, Eloise landed a fellowship in Paris studying linguistics with a famous semiotician. I went to California with Ro. He got tan, took pills, tore through actresses. He was Ro, the real thing. I was Shel, the sidekick. We lived in a house on the beach. I set my typewriter on the kitchen table. Do you know the joke: why did the man throw his clock out the window? Ro liked that one, but it isnât a joke. Itâs a riddle. He wanted to see time fly . A year later: Eloise found us in our golden state. She brought Ro a tin of hand-fluted madeleines. And she gave me a volume of Balzac.
And, oh, Eloise brought back something else from Paris: her new husband.
He was an actor. His name was Zigouiller. He was called Zig. He had rough leading-man
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