oblivion. ‘If we play thunder bolts against the sky,’ said Meil Wah. ‘If we laser the night, then we could make destruction rain upon White Stone,’ replied the Empress Wu. All night, the two planned the light shows of erasure, the rubbing out of memory, the deletion of tape, and the high cocktails invented a life in which all could be shot anew, recorded over, and a walk through a village, the maintenance of an empire, could be edited and refined, taken by angles, and never present the inconvenience of discovery and destruction.
In the morning, Teresa entered her mother’s suite. Curtains had not closed all night and sun streamed through the wide sky-framing windows. Two cocktail glasses and many miniature paper umbrellas littered the marble veneer table. Stretched across the couch was her mother with a grin of such satisfaction that it was ridiculous tosuppose she was asleep – but she was far away, playing in the high morning, racing the chariots, commandeering the lychee orchards of heaven, seducing under the branches of red fruit some boy who would become mayor of an unimportant village, while she would become the Empress of the World. Ah, the heaven-play of those who are cloud-born and lychee-fed, of those who can command the thunderbolts and have access to the moon’s herd of white horses, can call each of them by name, and ride them like something earned, like something deserved, ride them across untouched acres of sky like compensation.
Teresa called up for coffee. It arrived in two vase-shaped pots. She poured it into Ming-play cups. A few dynasties after the Tang, she thought, disapproving of a China with its own absurd Chinoiserie. She balanced the hot, almost translucent cup on her mother’s forehead. The moxibustion of coffee, giggled Teresa, and waited for Meil Wah’s eyes to re-enter her only twentieth-century body. ‘Come in from way out there, mother,’ she sang, like a parent to her child, but the child was way out there and came in, not deeply, enough to flutter lashes, with the grumbly reluctance of a spoilt princess. ‘At least that’s wiped your hideous grin,’ said Teresa. ‘Now, take a gulp, deep gulp, swallow it down. Come on, two more gulps, three seconds between each gulp, and you’ll see the brave world has been cured.’
‘Don’t want this brave world,’ but drank the coffee anyway… held the telephone a long way from her mouth and ordered pineapple slices, a very English bacon and eggs for two, with cream cakes for breakfast dessert, and more coffee. ‘What was that poem? The one he wrote..?’ ‘Which poem?’ ‘No, no – it’s coming to me now.’
Arden, dressed in imperial
armour, snarling angry breath from iron
chariots. Arden choosing thrones on tours
of the empire. Dispensing damnations to
princes in black robes.
‘Ah, Teresa, for a while last night I toured the empire and put the world to rights. There was no more pain or suffering. Lions lay downwith lambs. Men beat their swords into plowshares. I conjured up a great abyss to swallow all the unrighteous, and I restored the family tree with fresh plaques of oak.’
‘And you sent shafts of light into the sky,’ said Teresa, ‘and light chimed in the hebrides of heaven.’
‘Just so, just so… Don’t mock… The day will come when we must find some space inside each of us for this cosmic clutter.’
‘Just dreams, mother, just dreams. You’ve just had a dream.’
‘Perhaps life is best lived, perhaps saved, as a dream. Don’t deny the perpetual dream manifesto which both liberates and trains the soul.’
8: Mangere
At a time when his soul was still complete, the Patient Heart landed in New Zealand. Tired, slightly ill (his plane had been tossed through a remarkable storm which had lit the night sky), hungover, still unshaven, and cursing the grey of morning, he called up a taxi and deposited himself in the back seat like a heap of soiled baggage.
Drove off from the uncompleted
In the morning, Teresa entered her mother’s suite. Curtains had not closed all night and sun streamed through the wide sky-framing windows. Two cocktail glasses and many miniature paper umbrellas littered the marble veneer table. Stretched across the couch was her mother with a grin of such satisfaction that it was ridiculous tosuppose she was asleep – but she was far away, playing in the high morning, racing the chariots, commandeering the lychee orchards of heaven, seducing under the branches of red fruit some boy who would become mayor of an unimportant village, while she would become the Empress of the World. Ah, the heaven-play of those who are cloud-born and lychee-fed, of those who can command the thunderbolts and have access to the moon’s herd of white horses, can call each of them by name, and ride them like something earned, like something deserved, ride them across untouched acres of sky like compensation.
Teresa called up for coffee. It arrived in two vase-shaped pots. She poured it into Ming-play cups. A few dynasties after the Tang, she thought, disapproving of a China with its own absurd Chinoiserie. She balanced the hot, almost translucent cup on her mother’s forehead. The moxibustion of coffee, giggled Teresa, and waited for Meil Wah’s eyes to re-enter her only twentieth-century body. ‘Come in from way out there, mother,’ she sang, like a parent to her child, but the child was way out there and came in, not deeply, enough to flutter lashes, with the grumbly reluctance of a spoilt princess. ‘At least that’s wiped your hideous grin,’ said Teresa. ‘Now, take a gulp, deep gulp, swallow it down. Come on, two more gulps, three seconds between each gulp, and you’ll see the brave world has been cured.’
‘Don’t want this brave world,’ but drank the coffee anyway… held the telephone a long way from her mouth and ordered pineapple slices, a very English bacon and eggs for two, with cream cakes for breakfast dessert, and more coffee. ‘What was that poem? The one he wrote..?’ ‘Which poem?’ ‘No, no – it’s coming to me now.’
Arden, dressed in imperial
armour, snarling angry breath from iron
chariots. Arden choosing thrones on tours
of the empire. Dispensing damnations to
princes in black robes.
‘Ah, Teresa, for a while last night I toured the empire and put the world to rights. There was no more pain or suffering. Lions lay downwith lambs. Men beat their swords into plowshares. I conjured up a great abyss to swallow all the unrighteous, and I restored the family tree with fresh plaques of oak.’
‘And you sent shafts of light into the sky,’ said Teresa, ‘and light chimed in the hebrides of heaven.’
‘Just so, just so… Don’t mock… The day will come when we must find some space inside each of us for this cosmic clutter.’
‘Just dreams, mother, just dreams. You’ve just had a dream.’
‘Perhaps life is best lived, perhaps saved, as a dream. Don’t deny the perpetual dream manifesto which both liberates and trains the soul.’
8: Mangere
At a time when his soul was still complete, the Patient Heart landed in New Zealand. Tired, slightly ill (his plane had been tossed through a remarkable storm which had lit the night sky), hungover, still unshaven, and cursing the grey of morning, he called up a taxi and deposited himself in the back seat like a heap of soiled baggage.
Drove off from the uncompleted
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