is another view.
This window is emptier. The cross-references are cryptic. As we scroll down it, looking for something familiar, we seem to be scrolling into another self—one we recognise but cannot place. The co-ordinates are missing, or the co-ordinates pinpoint us outside the limits of our existence.
If we move further back, through a smaller window that is really a gateway, there is less and less to measure ourselves by. We are coming into a dark region. A single word might appear. An icon. This icon is a private Madonna, a guide, an understanding. Very often we remember it from our dreams. ‘Yes,’ we say. ‘Yes, this is a world. I have been here.’ It comes back to us like a scent from childhood.
These lives of ours that press in on us must be heard.
We are our own oral history. A living memoir of time.
Time is downloaded into our bodies. We contain it. Not only time past and time future, but time without end. We think of ourselves as close and finite, when we are multiple and infinite.
This life, the one we know, stands in the sun. It is our daytime and the stars and planets that surround it cannot be seen. The sense of other lives, still our own, is clearer to us in the darkness of night or in our dreams. Sometimes a total eclipse shows us in the day what we cannot usually see for ourselves. As our sun darkens, other brilliancies appear. And there is the strange illusion of looking over our shoulder and seeing the sun racing towards us at two thousand miles an hour.
What is it that follows me wherever I go?
She touched my hand and said, ‘Will you always follow me?’
‘Is life a straight line?’
‘Isn’t there a straight answer?’
‘Not in my universe.’
‘Which one is that?’
‘The one curved by yours.’
‘I love the curve of your back when you sleep,’ she said.
‘Then why did you get up and disappear that night in Paris?’
‘I had to.’
‘To save your skin?’
‘To save my sense of self. You make me wonder who I am.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Someone who wants the best of both worlds.’
‘So you do believe in more than one reality?’
‘No. There’s only one reality. The rest is a way of escape.’
‘Is that what I am? An escape?’
‘You said you wouldn’t pin me to the facts.’
‘The fact of your marriage?’
‘Why do you keep thinking about it?’
‘Because you do.’
She said something about life for her parents’ generation. How it had been enough to raise a family, make a home, keep a job. Why isn’t it enough anymore?Why does everyone want to win the lottery or be a film star?
Or have an affair.
I took her hand. I was happy. I couldn’t help it. She was here. I was happy.
‘Come with me to the showjumping.’
‘The what!’
‘Concorso Ippico. Eleven o’clock tonight. Now.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘No I’m not. I like horses. Come on.’
Looking at me very suspiciously, as intellectuals do when you mention animals, she took my hand and we walked together down the Via Boffe towards the Damacuta. Already we could hear the canned microphone voice of the commentator and see the floodlights of the stadium.
The air was hung with the scent of bougainvillaea, and as we walked past the muddle of houses crushed above the street, broken bars of music dropped through the open windows. A dog barked. Somebody turned up the television.There was the sound of a hosepipe and a trickle of water ran under our feet.
As we turned into the Damacuta, the route to the stadium was lit with flares. Kerosene had been poured into shallow terracotta saucers, each with a wick, and these flares, placed on the ground, lit up the feet of the crowds. We looked like gods with feet of fire. We looked like lovers blazing for each other.
Fire-paced, we found our way to the terraces and squatted right at the front with a load of children shouting excitedly about the horses. The loudspeakers were playing
Swan Lake.
Then the riders came out, white jodhpurs, jackets
This window is emptier. The cross-references are cryptic. As we scroll down it, looking for something familiar, we seem to be scrolling into another self—one we recognise but cannot place. The co-ordinates are missing, or the co-ordinates pinpoint us outside the limits of our existence.
If we move further back, through a smaller window that is really a gateway, there is less and less to measure ourselves by. We are coming into a dark region. A single word might appear. An icon. This icon is a private Madonna, a guide, an understanding. Very often we remember it from our dreams. ‘Yes,’ we say. ‘Yes, this is a world. I have been here.’ It comes back to us like a scent from childhood.
These lives of ours that press in on us must be heard.
We are our own oral history. A living memoir of time.
Time is downloaded into our bodies. We contain it. Not only time past and time future, but time without end. We think of ourselves as close and finite, when we are multiple and infinite.
This life, the one we know, stands in the sun. It is our daytime and the stars and planets that surround it cannot be seen. The sense of other lives, still our own, is clearer to us in the darkness of night or in our dreams. Sometimes a total eclipse shows us in the day what we cannot usually see for ourselves. As our sun darkens, other brilliancies appear. And there is the strange illusion of looking over our shoulder and seeing the sun racing towards us at two thousand miles an hour.
What is it that follows me wherever I go?
She touched my hand and said, ‘Will you always follow me?’
‘Is life a straight line?’
‘Isn’t there a straight answer?’
‘Not in my universe.’
‘Which one is that?’
‘The one curved by yours.’
‘I love the curve of your back when you sleep,’ she said.
‘Then why did you get up and disappear that night in Paris?’
‘I had to.’
‘To save your skin?’
‘To save my sense of self. You make me wonder who I am.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Someone who wants the best of both worlds.’
‘So you do believe in more than one reality?’
‘No. There’s only one reality. The rest is a way of escape.’
‘Is that what I am? An escape?’
‘You said you wouldn’t pin me to the facts.’
‘The fact of your marriage?’
‘Why do you keep thinking about it?’
‘Because you do.’
She said something about life for her parents’ generation. How it had been enough to raise a family, make a home, keep a job. Why isn’t it enough anymore?Why does everyone want to win the lottery or be a film star?
Or have an affair.
I took her hand. I was happy. I couldn’t help it. She was here. I was happy.
‘Come with me to the showjumping.’
‘The what!’
‘Concorso Ippico. Eleven o’clock tonight. Now.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘No I’m not. I like horses. Come on.’
Looking at me very suspiciously, as intellectuals do when you mention animals, she took my hand and we walked together down the Via Boffe towards the Damacuta. Already we could hear the canned microphone voice of the commentator and see the floodlights of the stadium.
The air was hung with the scent of bougainvillaea, and as we walked past the muddle of houses crushed above the street, broken bars of music dropped through the open windows. A dog barked. Somebody turned up the television.There was the sound of a hosepipe and a trickle of water ran under our feet.
As we turned into the Damacuta, the route to the stadium was lit with flares. Kerosene had been poured into shallow terracotta saucers, each with a wick, and these flares, placed on the ground, lit up the feet of the crowds. We looked like gods with feet of fire. We looked like lovers blazing for each other.
Fire-paced, we found our way to the terraces and squatted right at the front with a load of children shouting excitedly about the horses. The loudspeakers were playing
Swan Lake.
Then the riders came out, white jodhpurs, jackets
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