The Sacred Beasts

by Bev Jafek

  As though tantalizing me with an answer, the universe unexpectedly propels another of its surprises to me. Slowly sauntering down the street in the moonlight is the French girl! As she reaches the Thing, she immediately touches it in that curiously deliberate, familiar way and then her hands retreat abruptly, as though disappointed, to a point halfway into her pockets. How elegant she is! It is a natural elegance, almost sculptural. I sense that something both momentous and precise is going on in her thoughts: perhaps a judgement of me. Well, she won’t get away from me again! I stride out to the porch and stand, grinning with secret foreboding, like my neighboring witches.

  She looks up, startled as a deer as I say, “I don’t know your name, but I’ve seen you since you were a child. Now, you must come in and introduce yourself and at least have a glass of wine. I’m dying to know what draws you to that horrible object.”

  She smiles and walks slowly up my steps; one hand still elegantly half-held in her pocket. “I am Sylviane Dumarais. Please call me Sylvie,” she says and grasps my hand.

  “I am utterly delighted to meet you,” I say. “Somehow, we have passed one another for years and never spoken. I am Ruth Land . . .”

  “Oh, I know you! Everyone does, at least in my family. We also know the friend you lived here with. I have even read some of your books, and I am so sorry for your loss.” She is very tall and slender, with dark hair down to her shoulders. Wearing nothing more elaborate than an open-necked blouse and blue jeans, she continues to seem very elegant, obviously the influence of another country and culture. Her skin is light olive and her eyes large and brown with youthful animation. She wears no makeup but is decidedly lovely. In the clear light, I now see that she resembles Katia when she was young: the jagged piece of memory stabs me.

  “You’ve read our books!” I can only repeat in astonishment.

  “Oh, yes, yours about the animals. It had such wonderful photos. You and Katia are quite famous here.”

  Another stab of memory. “Famous or notorious?”

  She blushes and laughs. “Somewhat notorious, too, yes. It is such a small town and such . . . what shall I call it? eternity surrounding.”

  Oh god, she even talks like Katia! I hope the pain does not show on my face. I decide to play the compulsive hostess, the simplest disguise. “Please sit down. May I offer you Cabernet?”

  “Oh, yes, whatever you have. Thank you.” Her Spanish has a French accent, which is unexpectedly delightful. I wonder if we should switch to French or English. Of necessity, many of us are polyglots down here, surely our only mark of sophistication.

  “Perhaps I should ask what language you wish to speak. I can manage French but am not fluent.”

  “English, if you prefer. I know you lived in America. I need practice.”

  “English it is.”

  Now we both sit, holding our wine like spyglasses, observing a novel creature we did not anticipate. But the unknown is always with us at the end of the world, and we know how to invite it. Suddenly her eyes are full of sparkle and amusement and they stray all over the walls, as though she had been trying to refrain from it. “I have something to confess,” she says with a broad smile. “I so love the photos of animals and Indians on your walls. When I was a little girl, I often took a ladder up to your windows and looked at them when you were away in America. I could never decide which I loved best, but the little furry ones with big orange front teeth are the most wonderful.”

  “The tuco-tucos,” I said, astonished. “If I’d known, I would have told Mariska to let you in whenever you wanted. She always kept the keys when we were away.” I am suddenly very excited for no apparent reason.

  “Well, you see . . . there is more to confess,” she says and now laughs aloud. “Mariska found me on the ladder and did take me inside to look at them. Several times. There were always more animals and photos.”

  I share her laughter so deeply it astonishes me. “Mariska never said a word to me about it.”

  “I made her promise not to!” Now I see the child with huge, dark eyes full of wonder, looking up not so long ago at the beauty of my beasts, then solemnly and seriously making a grown woman promise not to reveal her secrets. I actually want to cry; a strange joy possesses me. I must be careful to keep these errant emotions invisible.

  “So, I am not the only one who spies on other creatures!” I say, attempting levity.

  “No, we are all spies,” she says and smiles charmingly.

  Yes, spies after beauty and love, survival of the spirit. “Were you afraid of me?” The question escapes me, though it is dangerously intimate. I should not have asked so directly.

  Still she smiles, undisturbed, and says, “I was not afraid but fascinated, and then I heard you call your friend a bear. I was so young that I wondered if you both might be animals and the photos were . . . of your children. Of course, a child dreams up such things.”

  Not far from the truth, I do not say aloud. I must make this conversation less intimate, or I will cry in front of this wandering child, now so close to my heart. “Are you studying in France?” I ask, marvelously off the subject.

  “Yes, I am at the Sorbonne. Art will be my major. I sculpt, too.” There it is, the origin of her training and interest.

  “Then perhaps you can tell me something about that monster on my lawn. I am even planning another monstrosity. Tell me, do you think it is finished?”

  “No, very nearly, but no. Actually, I thought you might finish it today. I wanted to see it.” She is now studying me, somehow taking measure, again a practiced, trained look that is full of intensity and intelligence. I have an uncomfortable sense of being an art object.

  I continue to probe in another direction. “The Thing on the lawn, is it art or a mess?”

  “I would say it is definitely art.” She rushes to reassure me yet I have almost lost interest in the Thing since something else of breath-taking interest, an unknown girl who seems nearly a reborn Katia, is sitting in my living room. What mysterious symmetries hover over our lives, phantom lights in the middle of darkness.

  “I may finish it later,” I say. “I did suspect it was unfinished. Another idea has taken hold of me, however, and I may go ahead with it instead.”

  “Is it your first sculpture?”

  “Yes, indeed! I have never, ever made such an awful ruckus and mess in public before in my very long life.”

  She smiles and is silent, weighing some unknown issue carefully. “Is it therapy?”

  “I’m not sure if it is therapy, outrageousness or madness. I will judge by the final result.” She continues to smile, still subtly delineating a possibility in her mind. Her eyes travel over my face again and again. It is delicious to be scrutinized so carefully, yet I do not want this child to see the unholy terror of my emotions.

  “I was wondering . . .” she hesitates, “if I might do a painting of you. Your face is so distinctive, strong and proud. You are very beautiful in that way. You would not need to pose or be still. I could work while you do.” Again her lovely eyes are all over me, restless and hungry as an animal or an artist. How utterly like Katia!

  I look away and close my eyes as powerful emotions race through me, now uncontrollable. A tear is running down my cheek.

  “Oh, I am sorry!” she says suddenly. “You are grieving. Perhaps I should not be here.”

  “You should be here,” I say with certainty. “You have no idea how much your company means to me. Yes, you may paint me. Whatever you want.”

  “I should leave now,” she says very softly, fearful of hurting me. “I will come back when you are feeling better.”

  “Please come back.” How lovely that I can just smile and say no more.

  “Tomorrow,” she says slowly, as though calculating, and then leaves smiling.

  I am left to my odd enlightenment. How does she know that I will be better tomorrow, unless through her visit? What is the difference, I ponder, between art and love? Perhaps I should decide before I see t
his beautiful child again. I pour another glass of wine and feel sorry I gave away all that whisky. I would definitely have packed away another three glasses or five. What dangers, exaltations and dim blind alleys lie in wait for us. I had better be strong—though, in mid-sentence, I simply fall asleep on my couch.

  I awoke in a curious quiet, a hush, as though I had been replenished by something unknown, perhaps deeper than art. I looked out at my real and imaginary beasts while eating breakfast. There was my lively new pursuit, yet I was creating it from discardings, from death. Perhaps that was my unuttered miracle, bringing the dead back to life, one of the many mysteries of my new life that also, paradoxically, was drawing so much life to me.

  This symmetry continued to tantalize me as I drove to see the Aussie. At the dump, I encountered a scene even more unpredictable and astonishing: enormous shapeless heaps blown wildly about by the wind and held to the ground with stakes. The Aussie now had the reddest eyes I’d ever seen outside of Fra Angelico’s painting and a stentorian rasp of a voice, as though he had been shouting all night. He probably has been shouting all night, I thought; I’ve been doing some of that myself lately. I hoped he had not dispatched all that whisky in one night. With neon eyes and gravel-voice, he told me that these Things were polyethylene bags filled with sterile plastic cups and bottles as well as soda cans and that the only way to keep them from blowing away in the Patagonian wind was to drive vampirish stakes through them into the ground.

  Amazed, I stared beyond him to those gigantic balloons changing shape in the wind, rearing against their stakes, foaming into a continually more startling and ridiculous whole. I began to laugh and then utterly lost control of myself until tears were rolling down my cheeks. “Well done!” I congratulated the Aussie. Perhaps I should leave these Things unaltered on my lawn as a stupendous image of reality in flux, I thought. How I would love to have shown them to Bear. She would have claimed they were exemplars of literary Modernism.

  It was difficult to pack those shapeless wonders into the back of my truck; they were nearly uncontrollable, but somehow we did it and I was off. I felt the Things continually undulating all over the top of my truck and, still laughing, wondered if I would not be even more notorious in town now. I stopped at the liquor store for more wine in high spirits. As I received my sidelong evil eye from the Arab, I couldn’t resist saying, “It will provide ambience for extended, mild conversations with a beautiful young virgin. It happens in this world, too.” I smiled sweetly and left but soon excoriated myself. For all I knew, this man could be violent, collecting facile fatwas to have my throat cut. How on earth did he justify owning a liquor store, I wondered, unless he was part and parcel of the end of the world like the rest of us?

  When I reached home, the wind was still high, and one of the Things nearly galloped away from me before I could stake it into the ground. When I finished my demanding task, I continued to watch the Things ballooning in one direction, then another, from my porch steps and laughed myself silly. But, there was still much to do in the next few hours, I reminded myself. I must buy paint in many colors, brushes, tools for cutting and pasting as well as adhesive tape and glue. That meant a trip to both a hardware store and an art store and I was quickly off in my truck again.

  When I returned, I had many heavy parcels to carry inside and, after depositing them on the living room floor, I dropped gratefully into a chair and nearly fell asleep. Something roused me, however, and as I opened my eyes, I once again found Mariska and Nadia on the sofa opposite me, their kindly blue eyes intently focused upon me, their mouths set firmly in virtuous intent.

  “Oh goddess of blasphemy, you’re not here to check on my sanity again!” Their eyes veered off to the side like cats, as though aware of invisible shadows, perturbations, phenomena beyond the range of human senses. They were obviously weighing what to tell me. “Oh, not again!” I protested. They looked at me in surprise, as though requesting an explanation. “Your witchcraft or whatever it is,” I said half-heartedly. “You always look as though you can see or hear something beyond my sensory range, like animals.”

  Oh that, their faces said, wordless, but that is nothing. Then both somehow flexed their psychic energy and continued to look at me steadily and kindly, seducing an explanation from me as to why those amorphous Things, that now looked like absurdly inflated gloves waving at one another, were rolling all over my lawn. “How on earth can you look at them and not laugh?” I brusquely demanded, almost angry. “Here, let me get you some wine. You need a change of perspective.” When I returned, they were looking out the window and laughing.

  “We can’t divine the purpose of those things. Are you amusing yourself?” Nadia asked.

  “Those huge bags have hundreds and hundreds of sterile plastic cups and bottles, soda cans and the like. It’s the material for my next sculpture. I intend to cut them up and paste them into aberrant new shapes and then paint them. Some may ultimately be quite beautiful, but all will be very, very strange; that you can count on.” They looked at one another again in surprise and finally burst out laughing. They now seemed more sensible to me. It must be the wine, I thought.

  Mariska, ever the more ceremonious, now said, “We must toast these new creations.”

  “The answer, they sing, is blowing in the wind,” I added to the ritual.

  After an hour or two, I was alone again, free to play with my imaginary beasts. I went out on the lawn and opened one of the bags, which was full of plastic yogurt and fruit containers. I took out several and began cutting and pasting. An Argentinean frog was one of my visions; it would become my first creature. For the entire afternoon, I was completely engrossed in the unique project of creating a giant frog from plastic garbage. It deeply pleased me, and I began to imagine painting the eyes and skin. I wanted him with a puffed gullet and tongue fully extended. What others? As many as possible. Just for Sylvie, I would have to work in some tuco-tucos with big orange teeth, and there must be some means of connecting them all into my very own psychic spider web.

  In mid-afternoon, a hand gently touched my shoulder. Somehow not startled, I looked up and saw Sylvie, who now belonged to my ruckus. She had a delighted smile on her face. I rose immediately and we looked at the great, amorphous Things expanding and contracting, jumping up and down, pure foolishness rolling all over my lawn. We both broke into helpless laughter. She seemed to understand everything at once, and our arms were suddenly around one another’s shoulders, like old friends.

  “Amazing!” she finally said. “Is this the next thing?”

  “The material, yes, though I’ve been wondering whether I should change them at all. The Things themselves are so expressive of the human condition.” Again, we looked at the wildly careening balloons heaving into the Patagonian wind and continued laughing. “Would you like to go in and have a glass of wine?” I asked.

  “Very much,” she said, “but I want to begin drawing you first. I have brought paper and charcoal.” I saw it resting on my porch steps.

  “Fine with me. I will be sitting here in the grass, creating a giant Argentinean frog with pasted plastic containers. If you can bear such circumstances and are not too distracted by those balloons that nearly seem alive, then you can draw me in the middle of my madness. I intend to reassemble and paint the plastic material in the bags for my next sculpture.”

  Her eyes were intensely bright. “It will be perfect for me to draw you in the middle of this. I want to see your eyes and face while you are completely immersed in it.”

  “I won’t move away. This frog seems to have eaten my soul.”

  “I know the feeling.” She immediately sat on the porch and began to draw on paper with charcoal.

  At first, I was acutely aware of her presence and unable to concentrate on my frog, then mysteriously the beast again swallowed my soul and I followed its directives wherever they took me. It was sundown before I returned to myself again. I looked around for Sylvie and found, to my astonishment, that she was sittin
g directly in front of me, inches away, with her paper and charcoal. That restless hunger was all over her face, that amazing likeness to Katia, animal, artist. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and refused to cry. Then I saw four charcoal drawings lying in the grass. The balloons were still; the wind seemed to have vanished. I was alone with this beautiful creature and her images of me. “May I see?” I asked softly, feeling quite vulnerable.

  “Oh, yes!” she said. “They are just preparations for the painting.” I studied four images of a face I was seeing as for the first time. I looked ferocious, wintry, hungry, a falcon, an eagle. My brows and the crease between them were heavier than my memory of them.

  “I look as though I will either devour my frog or tear it to pieces,” I said and realized that I probably did look like this: Sylvie’s impressive talent was portraiture, something of the Renaissance in the powerful, sinuous lines of Van Gogh. It was astonishing: she seemed to have captured all that was transforming me, my spirit, even my movement toward healing. “Extraordinary!” I whispered. Her face lost its tension and melted into a smile of pure joy. She obviously wanted me to love her art. This was, perhaps, the love we would share. “Thank the goddess we only look like this when we are creating. We would terrify our babies, pets and grandparents.”

  “I think you look like that anytime you are really interested in something. We only see our faces when they are static in a mirror. Reality is fluid and passionate,” she said and smiled again, now with the confidence of a hostess. “Let’s have that glass of wine.”

  Inside, something deliciously dangerous was in the atmosphere. I poured her Cabernet carefully as though before a lioness. I decided to protect myself by plying her with very concrete questions. “How long have you been involved in these heady artistic pursuits?”