Mythic Journeys

by Paula Guran

  How do you love a beautiful woman? I thought I knew. I thought my love was enough. My devotion. I remember, when she went through that dragonfly stage and wore dragonfly earrings and we had dragonfly sheets and dragonfly lampshades and dragonfly pajamas, and I was just about sick of dragonflies, did I tell her? Did I say, Leda, I am just about sick of these god damn dragonflies. No. I said nothing. In fact, I sent away for dragonfly eggs. Eggs, imagine how that mocks me now! I followed the directions carefully and kept them a secret from her, oh it pains my heart to think of what she learned from my gift, I was like a dragonfly mother for Christ’s sake. I kept them in pond water. I kept them warm. At last they hatched, or uncocooned, however you’d call it, and still I tended them, secretly, until almost a thousand were born and these I presented to her in a box and when she opened it (quickly or the results might have changed) they flew out, blue and silver, yellow green purple. A thousand dragonflies for her and she looked at me with those violet eyes, and she looked at them as they flitted about and then she said, and I’ll never forget this, she said, “They look different from the ones on our pajamas.”

  Oh Leda! My Leda in the garden bent over the summer roses, in her silk kimono with the dragonflies on it, and nothing underneath, and I come upon her like that, a vision, my wife, and she looks up just then and sees me watching and knows what she is doing when she unties the robe and lets it fall to the ground and then turns, and bends over, to prune the roses! Ha! In the dirt, in the sun, in the night. Always Leda. Always. Except for this.

  She comes into the kitchen. Her eyes, black ringed, her feet bare and swollen, her belly juts out before her. She stands for a moment, just watching me crack eggs, and then she coughs and shuffles over to the coffee maker and pours herself a cup into which she starts spooning heaps of sugar and I try to resist the impulse but I cannot stop myself, after all, didn’t I once love her, and I say, “’S not decaf.”

  I can tell she looks at me with those tired violet eyes but I refuse to return the courtesy and with proper wrist action (oh what Leda knew about proper wrist action!) whisk the eggs to a froth.

  “How many times do I got a tell you,” she says, “it ain’t that kinda birth.”

  I shrug. Well, what would I know about it? A swan, she says. An egg.

  Yeah, he did that thing with the dragonflies and I ain’t never heard the end of it. “Don’t you know how I love you?” he goes. “Don’t you remember all them dragonflies?”

  Yeah, I remember. I remember dragonflies in the sugar bowl, dragonflies in the honey. I remember dragonflies trapped in the window screens and dragonflies in my hair and on my bare skin with their tiny sticky legs creeping me out.

  What I remember most about the dragonflies is how he didn’t get it. He always thinks he has to, you know, improve on me. That’s how he loves me. I know that and I’ve known it for a long time and it didn’t matter because he was good in bed, and in the dirt, and on the kitchen table and I thought we was friends, so what if he didn’t really understand? A nice pair of dragonfly earrings, a necklace, that would have been enough. If I wanted bugs I wouldn’t of been wearing them. Anyway, that’s how I always felt and I didn’t care that he’s kinda stupid but now I do.

  He cracks those eggs like it means something. I’m too tired to try to understand. I pour myself a coffee and he makes a big point of not looking at me and mumbling about how it ain’t decaf and I want a pour the coffee right over his head but I resist the impulse and go sit in the living room in the green recliner that I got cozied up with piles of blankets like a nest and I drink my coffee and watch the birds. My whole body aches. I should leave him. He’s failed me so completely. I sip the coffee. I try not to remember. Wings, oh impossible wings. The smell of feathers. The sharp beak. The cry. The pulsing beat. I press my hands against my belly. I should call someone but, after that first night, and that first phone call, I don’t have the energy. I’ve entered a different life. I am no longer beautiful and loved. I am strange and lonely.

  Rape hotline.

  I . . . I. . . .

  Okay, take a deep breath.

  He . . . he. . . .

  Yes?

  He. . . .

  Yes?

  Raped.

  Okay. Okay. I am so sorry. It’s good you called. We’re here to help you. Is he gone?

  Yes.

  Are you safe?

  What?

  Is anyone with you?

  My husband, but. . . .

  Your husband is with you now?

  Yes, but. . . .

  If you give me your address I can send someone over.

  I. . . .

  Okay, are you crying?

  He. . . .

  Yes?

  Raped me.

  Your husband?

  No, no. He don’t believe. . . .

  I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.

  It happened.

  I know. I know. Okay, can you give me your address?

  A swan.

  What?

  Horrible.

  Did you say swan?

  I always thought they was so beautiful.

  Swans?

  Yes.

  What do swans, I mean—

  I was just taking a walk in our yard, you know, the moon was so pretty tonight and then he flew at me.

  The swan?

  Oh . . . god . . . yes. It was horrible.

  Ma’am , are you saying you were raped by a swan?

  Yes. I think I could recognize him in a lineup.

  Could, could you put your husband on the phone?

  He don’t believe me.

  I would really like to speak to him.

  I showed him the feathers, the claw marks. I got red welts all over my skin, and bites, and he, do you know what he thinks?

  Ma’am—

  He thinks I cheated on him. He thinks I just made this up.

  Ma’am, I think you’ve called the wrong number. There are other help lines.

  You don’t believe me either.

  I believe you’ve suffered some kind of trauma.

  You don’t believe a swan raped me, do you?

  Ma’am, there are people who can help you.

  No, I don’t think so. I think everyone loves birds too much. Maybe not crows or blue jays ’cause everyone knows they steal eggs and peck out the brains of little birds, but swans, everyone loves swans, right?

  Please, let me give you a different number to call.

  No. I don’t think so.

  Yes, I remember that particular phone call. It’s always bothered me. What really happened to her? Or was it a joke? We do get prank calls, you know, though I can’t imagine how confused someone must be to think calling a rape hotline could be entertaining. I mean, after all, if I’m talking to someone who isn’t even serious, I’m not available for somebody who might really need my help.

  What? Well, no, it wasn’t a busy night at all. This isn’t New York, for God’s sake, we average, maybe, two, three rapes a year.

  Well, she said she was raped by a swan. How believable is that? Not very, I can tell you. But I don’t know . . . ever since then I’ve thought I could have handled that call better, you know? I’m a psych major and so I wonder, what really happened? What did the swan symbolize? I mean it’s a classically beautiful bird, associated with fairy tales and innocence. Sometimes I wonder, was she really raped?

  What? No. Of course I don’t mean by a bird. I said a psych major, not a fairy tale believer. I mean, I know what’s real and imagined. That’s my area of expertise. Women are not raped by birds. But they are raped. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what happened, you know, she was raped and it was all so horrible that she lost her mind and grasped this winged symbol of innocence, a swan. I mean let’s not be too graphic here, but after all, how big is a swan’s penis?

  Excuse me? Well no, of course I don’t mean to suggest that the horror of rape is measured by the size of the instrument used. What newspaper did you say you’re from again? I think I’v
e answered enough questions anyway, what can you tell me about this girl, I mean, woman?

  WOMAN LAYS EGG!

  Emergency room physicians were shocked and surprised at the delivery of a twenty-pound egg laid by a woman brought to the hospital by her husband Thursday night.

  “She just look pregnant,” said H. O. Mckille, an orderly at the hospital. “She didn’t look no different from any other pregnant lady except maybe a little more hysterical ’cause she was shouting about the egg coming but nobody paid no attention really. Ladies, when they is in labor say all sorts a things. But then I heard Dr. Stephens saying, call Dr. Hogan, and he says, he’s a veterinarian in town and that’s when I walked over and got a good look and sure enough, ain’t no baby coming out of that lady. It’s a egg, for sure. But then Nurse Hiet pulls the curtain shut and I’m just standing there next to the husband and so I says, ‘You can go in there, that Nurse Hiet just trying to keep me out. You’re the husband, right?’ He looked kind of in shock, poor guy, I mean who can blame him, it ain’t every day your wife lays a twenty-pound egg.”

  Hospital officials refuse to comment on rumors that the woman is still a patient in a private room in the hospital, where she sits on her egg except for small periods of time when her husband relieves her.

  An anonymous source reports, “None of us are supposed to be talking about it. I could lose my job. But, yeah, she’s in there, trying to hatch the thing, and let me tell you something else, she’s not too happy of a lady and she wants to go home to do this there but she’s getting a lot of attention from the doctors and I’m not sure it’s because they care about her. You know what I mean? I mean, remember that sheep that got cloned? Well, this is way more exciting than that, a woman who lays eggs. You ask me, there’ll be some pressure for her to do it again. It ain’t right really. She’s a woman. She’s gonna be a mama. She ain’t some pet in the zoo. Don’t use my name, okay, I need this job.”

  Sometimes she falls asleep on the egg. My Leda, who used to be so beautiful. Why did this happen to her? Why did it happen to us? I lift her up. She’s light again since she’s laid that thing. I lay her down on the bed. Her violet eyes flutter open. “My egg,” she says, and struggles against me, “my baby.”

  “Sh,” I say, “go to sleep. I’ll sit on it,” and I do. I sit on this egg, which is still warm from Leda’s upside-down heart-shaped ass that I used to cup in my hands and call my favorite valentine, and I think how life seems so strange to me now, all the things I used to know are confused.

  Leda sleeps, gently snoring. I readjust my weight. It’s rather uncomfortable on the egg. Even in sleep she looks exhausted. I can see the blue of her veins, new lines in her face. I never believed she was raped. By a swan. And now there’s this, this impossible thing. Does it mean the whole story was true? If so, I have really failed her. How will I ever make it up to her? If not, if she cuckolded me, an old-fashioned word that seems so appropriate here, then she is making me into a laughingstock. You should hear the guys at work. The women just look at me and don’t say anything at all.

  I dream of a gun I do not own. I point it in different directions. Sometimes I am a hunter in red and black, stalking swans. Sometimes, I bring the gun to work and spray the office with bullets. Sometimes I point it at a mirror. Sometimes it is Leda’s violet eyes I see. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t really care about anything now. Except this egg.

  He lifts me off the egg and carries me to the bed. “My egg. My baby.” I’ll sit on it, he says, and he does. I sink into sleep. I dream of feathers falling like snow. The sweep of wings across the sky. The pale white moon. My garden roses closed in the night. The sound of wings. A great white bird. White. I dream white. Silence and emptiness. The inside of an egg. A perfect world.

  When I wake up he is still sitting on the egg. “Are you crying?” I say.

  “Yes,” he says, like it’s something noble.

  “Get off,” I go, “I’ll sit on it now.”

  “Don’t you want a know why I’m crying?” he says.

  “Get off. I don’t want you making the baby sad with all your sad energy, it’s had a hard enough beginning already.”

  “Leda, I’m sorry,” he goes. “Get off!” I shout.

  “Get off! Get off!”

  He stands up.

  A bunch of hospital people run into the room.

  “Leave us alone!” I shout.

  He turns to the hospital people, those tears still on his face but drying up some, and he goes, “We need to be alone.”

  “No!” I shout. “You go too. Leave me and my baby alone.” Then I pick up the egg.

  They all gasp.

  The egg is very heavy. I hold it close to my chest. “Forget it. I’ll leave,” I say.

  That Nurse Hiet steps toward me but Dr. Hogan, the veterinarian, puts up his hand like a school crossing guard and she stops. “We don’t want her to hurt the egg,” he says.

  Which shows how they don’t understand. Hurt the egg? Why would I hurt the egg? My baby. It’s not my baby’s fault what the father did.

  They all take a step back. Even my husband, which just proves how whatever he was loving it ain’t about me. It was someone he imagined. Someone mean enough to crush my baby just to make a point.

  I hold the egg real close. I am leaving the hospital. I was not prepared for the photographers.

  CHICKEN WOMAN ESCAPES HOSPITAL WITH EGG! EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS

  Well, I thought they were artists or something like that. I was very surprised to learn that he is an insurance salesman. There’s not much I can really tell you for certain. Their house is set back, off the road a bit and for most of the year it’s well hidden by the foliage. During the winter months I’ve seen it, from a distance. It looks cute, bungalowish. I have a friend who knows somebody who once went to a party there, before they owned it, and she said it was very charming. The only personal experience I have had with either of them was a couple of springs ago when I was at Flormine’s Garden Shop and she was there looking at rosebushes. I remember this so vividly because she was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She had purple eyes, quite striking really, pale skin, blonde hair, a striking figure. Everyone noticed her. When I look at these photographs, I have a hard time believing this is the same person. What happened to her? She looks quite frightened, doesn’t she? I can’t comment on the egg. I mean it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? I don’t know how she fooled the doctors but of course she didn’t lay that egg. She’s an ordinary woman. And by all appearances she needs help. I wish everyone would forget this nonsense and just get her the help she needs.

  When he came home I had to let him in because sometimes I would get so tired I’d fall asleep and then when I woke up, I was kind of only half on the egg and half off and so I let him in if he promised to sit on it and he goes, “Leda, I love you” but I’ve heard that before and it don’t mean nothing anymore from him. “Leda, please forgive me,” he goes. I say, sit on the egg. I ain’t got the strength to begin forgiving and I don’t know if I ever will. I go upstairs and stare out the window at the garden which is all overgrowed now and I think how sorry just ain’t enough.

  We just made love, me and him and he fell asleep like he does, and I thought it would be nice to walk near my roses underneath that pale full moon and I put on my dragonfly kimono, it’s silk and it feels so nice against my skin and it was a beautiful night just a little bit smelling of roses and I thought I was happy and then that swan comes swooping down and for just a moment I thought it was a sign, like of a good thing happening to me ’cause I ain’t never seen a swan in my garden and I ain’t never seen one flying and then it was on top of me. It was much heavier than I ever thought and when it flew into me I fell to the ground and I couldn’t imagine, it was all feathers and wings and claws and beak and I was hitting it and trying to get away and also, at the same time feeling like why would a bird attack me and I didn’t wanta hurt it I just wanted out and then, my god, I felt it, you know, and my mind
could not, I couldn’t . . . a swan doing this to me. I hit at it and clawed at it and it bit me and scratched me and the whole time those wings was flapping and. . . . So now people are making jokes about it, about me. I ain’t stupid. I know that. Don’t tell me about some lady I never met who feels sorry for me because she don’t really believe it happened. I don’t give a shit. And when my husband keeps saying, sorry, sorry, what am I supposed to do with that? This happened to me and it was horrible and when I needed him most he was making three-egg omelets and trying to figure out who I cheated on him with. So, he’s sorry? Well, what’s he gonna do about that? I can’t take care of him. It’s all I can do to take care of myself and my baby.

  Also, one more thing. Since it’s truth time. It did occur to me once or twice to break the egg, I mean in the beginning. What will I do if I hatch a swan? Thanksgiving, I guess. Yeah, sometimes I think like that and don’t gasp and look away from me. I ain’t evil. I’m just a regular woman that something really bad happened to and when it did I learned some things about the world and myself that maybe I’d rather not know. But that don’t change it. I stand at the bedroom window and watch my garden dying. What do I believe in now? I don’t know.

  I don’t know what to do for her. I sit on the egg and remember the good times. Leda laughing. Leda in the garden. Leda dancing. Leda naked. Beautiful, beautiful Leda. Beneath me I feel a movement, hear a sound. I sit very still, listen very carefully. There it is again. “Leda!” I shout. “Leda!” She comes running down the stairs. Where’d she get that robe? I didn’t even know she owned such a thing. Blue terry cloth, stained with coffee. She stares at me with those dark-rimmed eyes, wide with fright. “What?” she says.

  “Baby’s coming,” I whisper and slide off the egg.

  We stand side by side watching the egg shake. I can hardly breathe. A chip of eggshell falls on the quilt. I find myself praying. Just a general sort of plea. Please.

  Please let my baby not be a swan.