The Favourite Game & Beautiful Losers

by Leonard Cohen

Oh, Edith!

  I sank to my knees before your wife and I laid my mouth on her toes. The room was a mess, the floor spotted with pools of fluid and suds, but she rose from it all like a lovely statue with epaulets and nipple tips of moonlight.

  Oh, Edith! It doesn’t matter what I’ve done to you, the tits, the cunt, the hydraulic buttock failures, all my Pygmalion tampering, it means nothing, I know now. Acne and all, you were out of my reach, you were beyond my gadgetry Who are you?

  You’re not joking? Then I’m only fit to suck your toes.

  Wiggle.

  Later and later.

  I remember a story you once told me, old comrade, of how the Indians looked at death. The Indians believed that after physical death the spirit made a long journey heavenward. It was a hard, dangerous journey, and many did not complete it. A treacherous river had to be crossed on a log which bounced through wild rapids. A huge howling dog harassed the traveler. There was a narrow path between dancing boulders which crashed together, pulverizing the pilgrim who could not dance with them. The Hurons believed that there was a bark hut beside this path. Here lived Oscotarach, meaning the Head-Piercer. It was his function to remove the brains from the skulls of all who went by, “as a necessary preparation for immortality.”

  Ask yourself. Perhaps the treehouse where you suffer is the hut of Oscotarach. You did not know the operation was so long and clumsy. Again and again the blunt tomahawk pokes among the porridge. The moonlight wants to get into your skull. The sparkling alleys of the icy sky want to stream through your eyeholes. The night winter air which seems like “diamonds held in solution,” it wants to flood the empty bowl.

  Ask yourself. Was I your Oscotarach? I pray that I was. The surgery is deep in progress, darling. I am with you.

  But who could perform the operation on Oscotarach? When you understand this question, you will understand my ordeal. I had to apply to public wards in pursuit of my own operation. The tree-house was too lonely for me: I had to apply to politics.

  The thumb of my left hand was all that politics relieved me of. (Mary Voolnd does not mind.) The thumb of my left hand is probably rotting this very moment on some downtown Montréal roof, or splinters of it in the soot of a tin chimney. That is my relic case. Charity, old friend, charity for the secularists. The treehouse is very small and we are many with an appetite for the sky in our heads.

  But with my thumb went the metal body of the statue of the Queen of England on Sherbrooke Street, or as I prefer, Rue Sherbrooke.

  BOOM! WHOOSH!

  All the parts of that hollow stately body which had sat for so long like a boulder in the pure stream of our blood and destiny – SPLATTER! – plus the thumb of one patriot.

  What a rain there was that day! All the umbrellas of the English police could not protect the city from that change of climate.

  QUEBEC LIBRE!

  Alarmclock Bombs!

  QUEBEC OUI OTTAWA NON.

  Ten thousand voices that only knew how to cheer a rubber puck past a goalie’s pads, now singing: MERDE A LA REINE D’ANGLETERRE.

  ELIZABETH GO HOME.

  There is a hole on Rue Sherbrooke. Once upon a time it was plugged with the rump of a foreign queen. A seed of pure blood was planted in that hole, and from it there shall spring a mighty harvest.

  I knew what I was doing when I wedged the bomb into the green copper folds of her imperial lap. I rather liked the statue, as a matter of fact. Not a few studious cunts I fingered under those shadowy royal auspices. So I ask your charity, friend. We who cannot dwell in the Clear Light, we must deal with symbols.

  I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jackie Kennedy. She is, to my mind, a very gallant lady, victimized by whoever it is who designs the tops of her uniforms.

  It was a lonely ride the Queen and Prince Philip took through the armored streets of Québec that October day in 1964. The real-estate tycoon of Atlantis couldn’t have been more lonely the day the wave rolled in. The feet of Ozymandias had more company in the sandstorm of ’89. They sat very straight in the bulletproof auto like children trying to read the subtitles of a foreign movie. The route was lined with yellow riot squads and the backs of a hostile crowd. I do not gloat over their solitude. And I try not to envy yours. After all, it was I who pointed you to a place where I cannot go. I point there now – with my lost thumb.

  Charity!

  Your teacher shows you how it happens.

  They walk differently now, the young men and women of Montréal. Music floats out of manholes. Their clothes are different – no smelly pockets bulging with Kleenex bundles of illegal come. Shoulders are thrown back, organs signal merrily through transparent underwear. Good fucks, like a shipload of joyous swimming rats, have migrated from marble English banks to revolutionary cafés. There is love on Rue Ste. Catherine, patroness of spinsters. History ties the broken shoelaces of a people’s destiny and the march is on. Do not be deceived: a nation’s pride is a tangible thing: it is measured by how many hard-ons live beyond the solitary dream, by decibels of the female rocket moan.

  First secular miracle: La Canadienne, hitherto victim of motel frost, hitherto beloved of nun’s democracy, hitherto upholstered by the black belts of Code Napoléon – revolution has done what only wet Hollywood did before.

  Watch the words, watch how it happens.

  It is not merely because I am French that I long for an independent Québec. It is not merely because I do not want our people to become a quaint drawing on the corner of a tourist map that I long for thick national borders. It is not merely because without independence we will be nothing but a Louisiana of the north, a few good restaurants and a Latin Quarter the only relics of our blood. It is not merely because I know that lofty things like destiny and a rare spirit must be guaranteed by dusty things like flags, armies, and passports.

  I want to hammer a beautiful colored bruise on the whole American monolith. I want a breathing chimney on the corner of the continent. I want a country to break in half so men can learn to break their lives in half. I want History to jump on Canada’s spine with sharp skates. I want the edge of a tin can to drink America’s throat. I want two hundred million to know that everything can be different, any old different.

  I want the State to doubt itself seriously. I want the Police to become a limited company and fall with the stock market. I want the Church to have divisions and fight on the both sides of Movies.

  I confess! I confess!

  Did you see how it happened?

  Before my arrest and subsequent incarceration in this hospital for the criminally insane, I spent my days writing pamphlets against Anglo-Saxon imperialism, glueing clocks to bombs, the ordinary subversive program. I missed your big kisses but I couldn’t detain you from or follow on a trip I charted for you precisely because I couldn’t go myself.

  But at night! Night spilled like gasoline on my most hopeless dreams.

  The English did to us what we did to the Indians, and the Americans did to the English what the English did to us. I demanded revenge for everyone. I saw cities burning, I saw movies falling into blackness. I saw the maize on fire. I saw the Jesuits punished. I saw the trees taking back the long-house roofs. I saw the shy deer murdering to get their dresses back. I saw the Indians punished. I saw chaos eat the gold roof of Parliament. I saw water dissolve the hoofs of drinking animals. I saw the bonfires covered with urine, and the gas stations swallowed up entire, highway after highway falling into the wild swamps.

  Then we were very close. I was not so far behind you then.

  O Friend, take my spirit hand and remember me. You were loved by a man who read your heart very tenderly, who sought your unformed dreams as his resting place. Think of my body from time to time.

  I promised you a joyous letter, didn’t I?

  It is my intention to relieve you of your final burden: the useless History under which you suffer in such confusion. Men of your nature never get far beyond the
Baptism.

  Life chose me to be a man of facts: I accept the responsibility. You mustn’t meddle any longer in this shit. Avoid even the circumstances of Catherine Tekakwitha’s death and the ensuing documented miracles. Read it with that part of your mind which you delegate to watching out for blackflies and mosquitoes.

  Say goodbye to constipation and loneliness.

  F.’S INVOCATION TO HISTORY IN THE OLD STYLE

  The miracle we all are waiting for

  is waiting until Parliament falls down

  and House of Archives is a house no more

  and fathers are unpoisoned by renown.

  The medals and the records of abuse

  can’t help us on our pilgrimage to lust,

  but like whips certain perverts never use,

  compel our flesh in paralyzing trust.

  I see an Orphan, lawless and serene,

  standing in a corner of the sky,

  body something like bodies that have been,

  but not the flaw of naming in his eye.

  Bred close to the ovens, he’s burnt inside.

  Light, wind, cold, dark – they use him like a Bride!

  F.’S INVOCATION TO HISTORY IN THE MIDDLE STYLE

  History is a Scabbie1 Point2

  For putting Cash3 to sleep

  Shooting up4 the Peanut5 Shit6

  Of all we need to keep.7

  1. Dirty, germ-laden, infected, leading to the Scabbies or inflammation of puncture holes, blood poisoning and Hepatitis. Also blunt or rusty.

  2. Drug addict’s argot for the hypodermic needle (No. 12).

  3. Underworld argot for the conscience, the brain, or any kind of painful consciousness. I have not heard the word used outside of Montréal and environs, and there mainly on Blvd. St. Laurent and the now defunct Northeastern Lunch. It is popular among the criminal element of both French and English extraction. A long period without narcotics, an accidental encounter with a relative or former parish priest, an interview with a social worker or jazz anthropologist is known as “Cash-Work” or “Un job de cash.”

  4. The introduction of the narcotic into a vein. The hypodermic needle is secured to a common eyedropper by means of a narrow cardboard “collar.”

  5. Coprophagist’sab argot for anything fake or artificial. Originally a term of scorn, it is sometimes employed as an expression of surprised endearment, as in “Why, you little peanut!” or the more explicit French “Queue cacahuète!” The term originated among the orthodox when a splinter group of “Marranos” in Ontario began using peanut butter in cult rituals in a bid for respectability and community acceptance. In the addict’s vocabulary it describes a pure drug which has been adulterated with flour, milk sugar, or quinine so as to increase its volume and multiply its market value.

  6. Originally heroin and the “hard drugs,” but now in general use for any euphorant from the harmless Indian hemp to the innocuous aspirin. It is interesting to note that users of heroin are chronically constipated,c the drug rendering the bowels inactive.

  7. “To keep” or “to hold” can mean, in addicts’ argot, the condition of possessing narcotics with a view to selling them rather than consuming them oneself.

  a. ĸοπρος (kopros) – Greek for dung, of course. But compare with the Sanskrit čakrt, meaning manure. Think of yourself as a sponge diver, darling. Do you comprehend how many fathoms crush your mossy fumbling?

  b. φαγειν (phag-ein) – to eat, in Greek. But look at the Sanskrit: bhájati – to share, partake; bháksati – to enjoy, consume; bhágaš – happiness, wealth. The very words you use are shadows on the sunless ocean floor. None of them carries a lesson or a prayer.

  c. Con-stipatum, Latin past participle of stipare – to pack, press, stuff, cram. Cognate with the Greek στîφος (stiphos) – “a heap firmly pressed together.” Today in modern Athens το στîφος means a thick crowd, a swarm, a horde. I’m feeding the cables down to you, friend, so that you can begin to breathe, and soon, because of me, you will grow your own lovely silver gills.

  THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF TEKAKWITHA’S LIFE

  AND THE ENSUING MIRACLES

  1

  There was a convert to Christianity named Okenratarihen, who was an Onneyout chief. He was very zealous in his new faith, just as he had been in his old life. His name means Cendre Chaude, or Hot Cinder, and this was a description of his nature. It was his dream that all the Mohawks would embrace the new pale God. In 1677 he organized an apostolic mission into the territory of the Iroquois. He took with him a Huron from Lorette, and another convert who, by “coincidence” (if we wish to diminish Providence by the term), was a relative of Catherine Tekakwitha. The first village they came to was Kahnawaké, the same village where lived our neophyte and her confessor, le P. de Lamberville. Okenratarihen was a superb orator. He held the village spellbound, and Catherine Tekakwitha listened as he told about his new life in the mission of Sault Saint-Louis.

  – The spirit was not with me before. I lived like an animal. Then I heard about the Great Spirit, the true Master of the sky and the earth, and now I live like a man.

  Catherine Tekakwitha wanted to go to this place which he described so vividly. Le P. de Lamberville wished to secure the remarkable child in a more hospitable Christian environment, so he listened sympathetically to her request. Happily, her uncle was at Fort Orange (Albany) trading with the English. The priest knew that her aunts would not resist any plan that removed the girl from their midst. Okenratarihen wished to continue his mission, so it was decided that Catherine should escape with his two companions. The preparations were brief and secret. Early in the morning they launched their canoe. Le P. de Lamberville blessed them as they paddled into the drifts of mist. In her hand Catherine held a letter to the Fathers at Sault. She whispered to herself.

  – Goodbye, my village. Goodbye, my homeland.

  They followed the Mohawk River in its eastern course, then north up the Hudson River, which was laced with vegetative obstacles, huge overhanging branches, tangled vines, impenetrable thickets. They entered Lac Saint-Sacrement, which today is called Lake George, grateful for its still waters. They continued due north, into Lake Champlain, up the Richelieu River to Fort Chambly. Here they abandoned the canoe and traveled by foot through the thick forests, which, even today, cover the south bank of the Saint Lawrence River. In the autumn of 1677 the three reached the mission Saint-François-Xavier de Sault Saint-Louis. That is all you have to know. Do not ponder the promise to her uncle which Catherine Tekakwitha broke. It will soon come clear that Catherine Tekakwitha was not bound by secular vows. Do not worry about her old uncle humming a desolate love song, as he tried to pick her trail out of the falling leaves.

  2

  I’ve got to go fast because the organs of Mary Voolnd will not buzz forever in sexual surprise like an eternal pinball machine and maybe even my four-fingered hand will tire. But I will give you everything you have to know. The priests in charge of the mission were le P. Pierre Cholenec and le P. Claude Chauchetière, our old sources. They read the letter which the girl carried: “Catherine Tegakouita will live at Sault. Kindly assume responsibility for her direction. Soon you will know the treasure we have given you. Qu’entre vos mains, il profite à la gloire de Dieu and to the health of a soul which assuredly is dear to Him.” The girl was assigned to the cabin of Anastasie, an old woman who was one of the first converted Iroquois, and who, “coincidentally,” had known Catherine Tekakwitha’s Algonquin mother. The child loved the mission, it seemed. She knelt at the foot of the wooden cross on the shore of the Saint Lawrence, and there beyond the boiling water, the distant green horizon, and the mountain of Ville-Marie. Behind her was the tranquil Christian village, and all the meaningful tortures which I shall describe. The place of the cross by the river was her favorite spot, and I imagine she spoke to the fishes and raccoons and herons.

  3

  Here is the most important incident of her new life. In the winter of 1678-1679 another marria
ge project developed. Everybody, even Anastasie, wanted Catherine Tekakwitha to have her cunt opened. Here in this Christian village, or there among the heathens, it was all the same. Every community was, by its nature, ultimately secular. But she had sailed her cunt away and it did not matter who came to claim it, a Mohawk brave or a Christian hunter. There was a nice young fellow they had in mind. Not only that, but the relative who had rescued her and who provided for her sustenance hadn’t thought for a moment that misty morning that he was assuming a lifetime economic obligation.

  – I won’t eat anything.

  – It’s not the food, dear. It’s just unnatural.

  She ran in tears to le P. Cholenec. He was a wise man who lived in the world, lived in the world, lived in the world.

  – Well, my child, they have a point.

  – Arrrrggghhhh!

  – Think about the future. The future starves.

  – I don’t care what happens to my body.

  But you care about her body, don’t you, my old friend and disciple?

  4

  There was great fervor in the mission. Nobody liked his skin too much. Their pre-baptismal sins hung about their necks like the heavy tooth necklaces they had thrown away, and they sought to erase those old shadows with rigorous penitence. “Ils en faisaient une rigoureuse pénitence,” says le P. Cholenec. Here are some of the things they did. Think of the village as a mandala or a Brueghel game painting or a numbered diagram. Look down at the mission and see the bodies distributed here and there, look down from a hovering helicopter at the distribution of painful bodies in the snow. Surely this is a diagram to be memorized on the cushion of your thumb. I haven’t got time to make this description gory. Just read it through the prism of your personal blisters, and of those blisters choose the one you got by mistake. They liked to draw blood from their bodies, they liked to pull some of their blood outside. Some wore iron harnesses with spikes on the inside. Some wore iron harnesses to which they attached a load of wood which they dragged everywhere they went. Here is a naked woman rolling in the 40-below snow. Here is another woman buried up to her neck in a drift beside the frozen river, reciting her Rosary in this strange position, and let us remember that the Indian translation of this angelic salutation takes twice as long to say as the French one. Here is a naked man chopping a hole in the ice, and then he lowers himself in up to his waist, and then he recites “plusieurs dizaines de chapelet.” He pulls out his body like an ice mermaid, the erection perpetuated as it formed. Here is a woman who took her three-year-old daughter into the hole, because she wanted to expiate the child’s sins in advance. They waited for the winter, these converts, and they stretched their bodies before it, and it passed over them like a huge iron comb. Catherine Tekakwitha got an iron harness and she stumbled through her duties. Like St. Thérèse she could say, “Ou souffrir, ou mourir.” Catherine Tekakwitha came to Anastasie and asked: