Dispatch from the Future

by Leigh Stein

  are you as awake as I am, will you pat my head or

  something. Stealing horses means never having to ask

  to be asked what you’re thinking. Like now, for example,

  when all I can think of is this neighborhood boy named

  Morris, the one I can see from my window at night;

  he asked me today what the horse’s name was

  and I said I’m afraid to name him in case he dies

  and the boy said, It’s like in those books with dogs

  where you know something bad will happen and

  I said, Exactly. He asked if we could go for a ride.

  This is a stolen horse, I said, possibly from upstate.

  I said I didn’t know if it would be safe, but I

  invited him up to my fire escape and we let our legs

  hang off the edge and watched the ferryboats

  in the harbor until dusk and the water darkened.

  Have you always lived on this island?, I said,

  pretending I didn’t see he had a bruise on his arm,

  and Morris said, I have a bruise on my arm, and I

  said, Can I do anything?, and he said, When you’re

  at the museum are you ever afraid of falling

  through the railings they have around the balconies?

  I nodded. There is a cautionary tale about a woman

  and a boy who comes to her birthday party to tell her

  he is her husband who died in the park and by the time

  she believes him he says nevermind. Morris, I said,

  I think terrible thoughts about those that I love.

  EURYDICE

  i

  In Philadelphia, a dying woman wants to know

  a seven letter word for “don’t look back.”

  Does it have to be in English?, her daughter

  asks. Why, she says, what are you thinking?

  I think it is seventy degrees in Alaska today.

  Last night I went to a party to find a lawyer

  to support me for the next thirty-seven years or so

  or, if not a lawyer, at least someone to spend all these

  relentless hours with me while I measure the rising

  temperature of the sea. Do you want to know

  what I do with these measurements?, I asked

  one of my prospects. He didn’t say he didn’t, so

  I told him I tear them into tiny pieces and make

  papier-mâché masks of all my friends which end

  up looking more like ducks or bears than people faces,

  but at least I am doing my part in all this.

  He said, I’m not actually a lawyer. I run a hotline

  for people who live alone. You can call in the morning

  and tell your dream to a machine. I can?, I said. Sure,

  he said, and that’s when I knew who to follow.

  ii

  This book I’m reading says I should set one small goal each day.

  Yesterday I got out of bed like there was no tomorrow.

  Today I may call you just to hear how you answer.

  This book says I shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations,

  like the woman in the parable of the woman who was killed

  by the serpent on her wedding day did. One day

  she was running happily through a meadow and she thought

  her whole life would be just like that, a handful of violets,

  but as we know now anything that is too good to be true

  is probably about to be bit by a serpent. Her husband

  followed her to the underworld but couldn’t bring her back,

  didn’t trust she’d follow. It was like she wanted to stay.

  But I plan on leaving. I have been completing the last

  of the crossword puzzles and taking a lot of hot baths.

  I would love to come back as a faucet. Or a radiator or an ice

  cube tray shaped like a dozen little fish. Everybody loves those.

  But meanwhile I will follow you back from wherever

  you find me. In the deepest valley. At the dreadful shore.

  At the end of the world I want to be in Reykjavik together,

  watching the long dark night break down our door.

  II

  Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.

  Horace

  CHOOSE YOUR OWN CANADIAN WILDERNESS

  My favorite book is the one with the woman

  who wears a balaclava every time she goes

  under the viaduct because it’s Canada, and

  because she’s married to a man who loves

  her sister, and because if her family found her

  under the viaduct, she would lose everything;

  more than that, she would lose the end of the story

  he began. Il était une fois, he said, there are rugs

  made by children who go blind and turn

  to crime, and/or rescuing sacrificial virgins

  from the palace the night before the sacrifice.

  Turn one page if you want to be the woman,

  listening to the story, but you’ll have to

  keep the hat on. Turn three if you’d rather

  be a girl alone in a bed, waiting. I was

  always that girl: you’re alone and

  they’ve already cut out your tongue

  and in the morning they’ll take you

  to the top of a high hill, so what can you

  do but follow the blind boy, watch

  as he puts the body of the strangled guard

  in your bed, in your place, follow as he leads

  you through the air ventilation system and over

  the palace walls? I never chose any other way

  because what could the woman do but love him

  and listen to a story that wasn’t about her.

  After you get over the walls you run

  through the darkness, the darkness that isn’t

  darkness to the blind boy because of his blindness,

  the silent darkness to you who can’t describe it,

  you run until you turn the page, but then instead

  of safety, a valley, the woman under the viaduct

  puts her skirt on and goes back home and you think

  you’ve ended up in the wrong story, but months later

  she gets a phone call saying the man was killed

  in the Spanish Civil War and that’s the end

  because the only person who knows

  what happened to you is dead.

  THE FORBIDDEN CHAMBER

  There are things you do when left

  alone you wouldn’t otherwise do, like

  leave the house without your phone or

  marry someone you’ll wish would leave you

  later or throw a party like in the ancient legend

  of the call girl who falls in love with a Fabergé egg

  instead of her young employer. In this tale, she

  steals it from the mantel of his Glencoe mansion

  and carries it in her smooth, white hands

  while she looks for hidden rooms to enter.

  It is apparent how anyone could love her

  forever if she didn’t cost his parents so much

  money. I’ll be late for school, the guy says, please

  be gone when I get home. There are things

  you can do if you look like Rebecca De Mornay,

  including do whatever you want, which means

  stumbling upon a room she shouldn’t ever see,

  where the master of the house keeps an armoire

  full of limbs of all the girls that came

  before her and she drops the egg, which doesn’t

  shatter, but then the blood won’t come off and

  what is she supposed to do? He’ll kill her, too.

  No matter what she does he’ll kill her, too,

  and this is not only true of legends, but

  als
o true of life: if you’re pretty, if you go

  where you’re not supposed to, looking for things

  not meant for your eyes, then you will have to explain

  the blood on your hands somehow or else

  have a few brothers to break down the door

  when you are kneeling on an expensive rug

  some day, and there is a famous movie star

  standing above you with a great big knife.

  EPISTOLAPHOBIA

  Is one of the symptoms remembering the ghosts

  one has seen? I am not going to sign my name

  to this postcard because who knows whose eyes

  will see it besides yours and you should know

  who is in Mogadishu right now and who is not.

  The passwords to my accounts are hidden

  somewhere in the following true story.

  When I was fourteen, my father promised

  me to a man who lived in the forest.

  I never went to his cabin; he always came

  to mine. When he asked me why I never came

  I said I did not know the way and so

  he tied a rope to all the trees and asked my father

  to see that I followed it. Sometimes we put ourselves

  in danger just to live and tell about it.

  And sometimes we put ourselves in danger

  because our fathers betroth us to murderers.

  When I finally found the house no one was home

  so I hid and I waited. Blood as red as apples,

  apples as red as blood, skin as white as snow,

  snow as red as blood: no one has seen what I

  have. My betrothed came home with some men

  and a girl and I still have her finger to prove it.

  (Is one of the symptoms a constant dull ache?

  Don’t answer that; I don’t have an address.)

  I ran out of his house when he fell asleep

  and I kept her finger under my pillow and I did

  not tell what I had seen. Sometimes we

  are so close to running, but we do not;

  we’d rather sleep on a piece of a body

  than steal a boat in the middle of a moonless

  night and sail to the northern country where

  the people assume you’ve done no wrong,

  but if you have done wrong, they forgive you,

  always, and maybe one of them forgives you more

  than the others, and he takes you on long walks

  in shady arbors and you want to tell him how

  much you like his sweater, but ever since

  the forest you’ve been mute, so you write

  how much you like his sweater with a stick

  in the ground and he gives it to you

  off his back. Then you start to write all

  that’s ever happened to you, but

  the best parts disappear into the grass

  and he doesn’t give you anything else, but

  he does say that maybe you should run away

  and you think he means he will come with,

  but when the stars are all out

  and he’s still not at the pier to meet you, you sail

  from that barren land without him

  and send letters to show you forgive him

  for staying. Is one of the symptoms a feeling

  like you’ve been here before? I have not

  been to a place yet that was not somehow familiar.

  This is the end. The sun is just coming up

  over the sea. In the desert they dream of water

  and snow-capped volcanoes. I dream of amnesia.

  IF YOU SEE THEM TELL THEM I’M STRANDED

  In the play everyone thought he was a Croat

  because he said his girlfriend bled to death

  in his arms, but when they re-enacted her death

  it was a convenience store robbery. Can you imagine

  being so disheartened? I can imagine bleeding to death

  in someone’s arms. You reminded me of my husband

  just then, who has the same name as your friend.

  Before we could marry, Raul traveled to Djibouti

  and toiled in my father’s salt fields for seven years.

  For seven years we are on the sea but we are thirsty.

  For seven years we ride our camels at dusk

  across the desolation. How do I know you love me?

  How do I know that when I sleep you don’t write

  letters to someone who can read them? Raul says

  there is no wasteland he wouldn’t cross barefoot

  if I was crying on the other side: for seven years

  we have no idea what’s going on. How could we

  have known, in the bliss of such tranquility,

  the terrible awfulness which would befall us?

  You tell me. At the end of seven years we marry

  beneath a canopy of some breathtaking rocks; I

  think of what a good story this will be for our children:

  at the altar I said I love you and your father said,

  How do I know? I said, the life expectancy here

  is pretty low, Raul. My father told him not to

  raise his voice at me and I removed my veil.

  Let us dance, I said, until all the stars are out,

  and we did, and that was the last night I saw him.

  All I’ve ever wanted is to ask the same question.

  To answer he sends me sealed, empty envelopes.

  HOW TO READ THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF THE PHARAOHS

  I am afraid that if they build a sarcophagus

  exactly to your measurements and then

  invite you to a party, the sarcophagus

  will be there and you will climb inside

  and fit and then they’ll shut the lid

  and throw you into the river and you

  will drown and what will I do then?

  I couldn’t sleep alone after I saw the movie

  about the chariots and bloody ostrich hunts,

  in which one man kills his brother and the wife

  of the dead one has to wander around the desert

  until she has picked up every piece of his body

  and put them back together with the magic

  tricks she knows. He doesn’t live, but

  he does get to go to the underworld, and the rest

  of the movie is all about her life as a priestess

  because when she asked if she could go with

  him he said no, but I know that if I put you

  back together I would follow you

  to the underworld even if you said

  you didn’t want me to, even if you said

  there were not enough seats in your chariot

  or riverboat or rickshaw because when two

  people spend as much time together in a small,

  enclosed space such as we have in this one,

  they will follow each other to future small,

  enclosed spaces. This is a pretty long book

  inscription, but when you leave I want you

  to keep this with you at all times, in case

  you need a curse, a lament, a mirage

  or incantation. To speak the name of the dead

  is to make them live again. I will never forget

  when I was just your sister in the acacia

  tree of our childhood and at night the chariots

  and thrones and arrows and birds and twins

  in the stars foretold our future ruin. I’ve heard

  it said that he who loves you swallows stones

  for you while your enemy waits for you

  to birth a son to avenge his father’s death

  by causing a tempest to flood the earth.

  FOR THOSE WHO HAVE EVERYTHING, SAY IT WITH CONCRETE

  I have been lost before, but not with this many broken bones,

  and I had a brighter torch. If you were l
ying in wait in a cave

  like I am, right now, in the darkness, and you didn’t know

  when the next sandstorm would be, and you didn’t know

  if the next morning the war would start, and you didn’t

  know how long your torch would last, would you still

  write letters with your only hand that wasn’t useless?

  Yes. And let’s say that at this point you still believe

  that the person who has promised to come back

  for you is coming. Let’s say you haven’t started

  to wonder about your flare gun yet and what

  it’s good for inside the cave. Can anyone ever

  foresee that they will end up like this, in love

  with a faceless, amnesiac cartographer?

  I have learned from the Sahara the necessity

  of white dresses and small airplanes. They didn’t

  think I belonged, but I waited my whole life to see

  the ancient drawings of the ancient people swimming

  in the ancient place. I was not in Italy, swinging

  from a chapel ceiling. I was not in Cairo, bathing

  in a clawfoot tub, because that hadn’t happened

  yet. I was just in love with the one person I wasn’t allowed:

  you, who I write letters to while I hemorrhage to death

  in a place that no one knows exists. It is not on any map.

  The map has not been made. I am starting to think that

  the only way I’ll ever be found is if you, the cartographer,

  trade your topographical secrets, your photographs, your

  name, to the Nazis in exchange for a jeep. Please. The light

  is fading. If you can’t tell, the picture I drew in the corner

  is of a scorpion in an amulet on a chain I wear under my dress