Hunger's Brides
Page 19
My statuesque boy was turning to water before my eyes. Bright liquid poured into the spring from his lips, his eyes, his pores, his nose. I clutched at him—to keep him from melting away from me completely, to keep him from merging with the pool below. Startled from his liquid trance, he rose, reached high and broke from the tip of a stalactite a glittering slender lance. I could have stopped him. I was standing right there. But I stood rooted to the floor as he drove the crystal horn into his waxen breast … as his heart’s precious blood flowed through the ultramarine in a violet flood.
This was my moment, my big chance. I could have mirrored his gesture, pulled the stony lance from his gory chest and plunged it into my own. But I still stood rooted to the ground. Did I love myself so much?
My moment passed.
After a time, I came to see myself for what I had become—a hollow oracle at the tomb of a dissipated superman, whose shade now contemplates its shade in the river Styx, while an abandoned universe goes crashing on the rocks.
My bones have turned to stone, my skin to scales of slate, my tongue to something I have grown to hate. And still they come with questions I can only echo and restate. So, daughter, you have come too late with yours. This is where I’ve gone. This is how it was. This is what’s become of us.
He, a river of amethyst
I, a salted flood of petroglyphs
that flows
in archaic runes
to an echoic floor,
then dries—
as all things do as each settles down to die
another glittering
petrified ring
in the bole of God the tree.
Yet still the passion in her heart which drew,
Its food from bitter memory, lived and grew;
And sleepless sorrow made her body thin,
And wasting sickness shrivelled up her skin;
Till just a speaking skeleton was there.
Last stage of all, her voice was left alone,
And all her body’s remnant turned to stone.
OVID,
Metamorphoses45
Isis BOOK TWO
I am that which is, has been, and shall be.
My veil no one has lifted.
The fruit I bore was the Sun….1
CONTENTS
Needy Girl
World, in persecuting me, how do you profit?
Stone Guest
This painted semblance you so admire
The Confessions
Prolix memory
Prometheus
Walking Fish
The triumphs of Egypt
The Great Geometer
Heart of the Earth
Halls of Jade
Library
Fire-Bow
Recall the soul from its sleep
Earth Tearer
Pure waters of the Nile
Age of Iron
… that Woman, who but through sin
SeaCow
Mummy
This New Eden
Friends
Delta
Pharisees
… And though among all Princes
Palace Games
Silvio that I could err
Underworld
Taking the Veil
Beauteous Intelligence, my bride
Snake Woman
Black is the Bride
Guadalupe
Psychic Masochist
Delirious Triumph
Grace
Roughing It
Peace
Isis
NEEDY GIRL
SHORTLY AFTER HER TWELFTH BIRTHDAY, in August of 1985, Beulah began to keep a diary. We might reasonably infer that it was a birthday gift since the first entry is dated September 2. With the series spread out before me, I notice all her subsequent journals were coil-bound notebooks, but the first was in a quarto format, bound in a fine burgundy leather. The volume’s grown-up aspect is marred only slightly by My Diary printed on the front, and by the little lock of gilded tin—rather easily forced, as it turns out.
Once it is conceded that Beulah collected and made all of this available to me for some purpose, it follows that using one passage is as legitimate as using any other. I nevertheless find myself resisting. First because these early entries explain nothing; there can never be any unbreakable link drawn from biographical details to a particular work, career or psychology. This was one of the few topics on which I was confident Beulah and I were in agreement.
From problems of cause we pass to problems of content. The usual scruples about publishing any intimate document apply here. Moreover, several entries allude to acts that for the best of reasons remain taboo even in a permissive society. Permissive, yet one in which almost nothing remains of the private domain, and in which the public is inundated with denunciations, victim-scripts and the illicit, luridly exposed and confessed. More fatally, though, certain of these scripts have become stock items in publishing circles, almost a genre, and one recently coming in for a good deal of high-brow cynicism. For its practitioners, the most authentic horrors quickly lose their freshness even as the public appetite for them burgeons. So to air such things now amounts to a high-cost, low-yield venture in which everyone comes off the worse: the editor who opts to publish, the passé victim, the demonized malefactor and the media mavens moved to put their cynicism on display.
A few readers, of course, will claim that bowing to such scruples lets me suppress unflattering glimpses of myself or even incriminating evidence. So, nota bene, since I believe her journals constitute Exhibit A in my defence, I’ve decided to include virtually everything in her papers making significant mention of me.
Finally, there arise the inevitable questions as to veracity. It pains me to say this, but it is simply not possible for me to credit much of what Beulah has written.
Going at least as far back as 1985, she displayed a mania for weaving the events of her life into some vast, mythic struggle. Every windmill is a giant, every conflict with a parent or teacher, Armageddon. Regardless of what really took place she experienced it with a high quotient of pain. The mythologizing may well have been a tactic to make that pain meaningful and therefore more bearable. It may even have been the genesis of her obsessive interest in the myths surrounding her research subject.
Beulah herself seems to have taken pains to undermine the reliability of her accounts. At various junctures she has written little notes in the diary margins, often to an unspecified doctor. Which doctor?—there were several in her past. Was it a particular individual or did Beulah compile some arch-antagonist by taking features from several people? In a few cases, I was clearly the doctor in question. But this meant she had reread her early journals with me in mind, annotating them to goad or provoke, to repel or to draw me in.
The pen used for the marginalia is sometimes indistinguishable from that of the narration, but at other times the ink is of a different colour. She was aware—or even intended—that these passages would be read, which raises the question: Could entire journals be fictions—maybe even written after the fact and backdated? At what points does a testimony pass from the subjective through the fictive into the expressly counterfeit?
In light of the foregoing, in drawing from her diaries I’ve opted to include excerpts of three kinds: entries involving me, entries with dates coinciding with her research notes and her travel journals from Mexico, plus a few entries from before her researches formally began. This should suffice to give readers a flavour, and a chance to arrive at their own opinion on the legitimacy of my decision to use some materials while suppressing others.
[26 Dec 1985]
Always before it started he’d come in and say You’re a needy little girl Beulah You know that don’t you. I knew. Always when it was over smile gone soft he’d say You can have anything you want You’re going to have it all I promise you. Promise? He promised. But he doesn’t come anymore.
20 Mar [19]89
Last night before I
went out he said I could have it all just like he used to when I was little—if only I’d just get some help. Problems? They haven’t seen anything yet.
31 Mar [19]89
They want me to See Someone again. Not just them this time. Everybody. It’s all over school—the other mothers don’t want their perfect little girls near me. We’ll all go see Doctor Together—don’t doctors’ families get a discount, daddy? Discount daddy. We’ll go as soon as the bruises go away. […] Funny to hear him use those words. Eslut. I laughed in his face I couldn’t help it what was I supposed to do him calling me an eslut? An estupid eslut. An especially estupid eslut. […]
1 Apr [19]89
Goes away to Mexico now. A sudden little business trip thought he’d take in that medical conference after all. Or does he call it a composium? In daddy’s absence there’s been a little scrape with drugs—My daughter misses his steadying influence Officer…. So takin my tender age and solid family background n’all inta’count they decide to release me into the care of my doting mother.
Today mummy and I have to have a real talk. Give her some credit she made the effort. Have I ever considered what effect all this was having on my brother? Leave Gavin the fuck out of this—Okay calm down. All right we won’t talk about Gavin today. Let’s talk about you. What’d I mean the other night? […] I couldn’t know what I was saying. My father would never do anything to hurt me. He’s a doctor.
17 Apr [1989]
I just couldn’t figure it out why he did it kept thinking this wasn’t like him. Another business-trip-guilt-gift from Mexico—does he think we all don’t know why he really goes there? But not the usual airport gift-rack inspiration. So perfect … look at the binding it’s hand-sewn he says feel the soft leather—THREE POETS OF THE BAROQUE: Louise Labé, Gaspara Stampa, Juana Inés de la Cruz.2
Thanks thank you it’s beautiful. Really. Sorry for asking why are you giving me this? He looks at mummy for a second it all starts spilling out how I could still have it all, how I must know that, how I had everything beauty brains graduating not even seventeen in spite of all my—how if I would only get a little help talk some of these things out—he sees my face and stops. There’s an inscription inside.
I couldn’t remember ever seeing his handwriting. I’m sorry for all the pain you’ve had to endure. Please know I love you like a daughter. Love Jonas. Staring stupidly at him I still don’t get it.
He wanted to say first of all my mother’d always wanted to tell—but he’d been against it. Now everyone knew it had been a mistake but mistakes happen. Right that’s true. He hadn’t wanted me to grow up feeling different—she says Beulah this is going to be terrible for you. What is?—what?
Jonas … tick tick tick … was not—I knew I knew then what she was going to say, this was too good to be true come on say it—Jonas is not your real father—it feels like a dream write it down circle it with stars—***not your natural father*** My unnatural father then? Don’t—please—don’t say anything for a minute—just one minute for Christ’s sake. Your fath—Jonas thought we should wait and tell you when you were bigger.
I’m bigger.
Did I know he’d come to this country as a teenager? I knew. Enough that he was different—they never let up on him no matter how hard he’d tried to fit to learn their language perfectly he was always going to be some wog—Jonas, Joanie they called him Joanie Rhinoceros Joanie Rhino try to understand—shut up I wanted to scream shut the fuck up WHO IS MY FATHER?—
So then she wasn’t my mother? Oh Beulah—of course I am. She always suspected I knew all along. I’d always known hadn’t I it was a lie?—a white lie? Yes inside me I have always known. Jonas believes it’s where your troubles started—troubles?—you know, your troubles with reality—My troubles with reality, how sweet daddy can I still call you that?—even though it was a white lie to protect me. Protect me…. It was why I’d been having these fantasies about—about him.
They said there was an accident when I was just a baby my father was killed—they tell you ok great news you’ve got a real father but the bad bad news is he’s dead. They were so sorry. But it was time for the whole truth. They weren’t lying now. They wouldn’t lie about a thing like this. No no of course not, nothing but the truth so help them god keep their stories straight. Jonas was your father’s best friend—so who needs enemies right?—their fathers were best friends back in Vigo. Jonas and Andy—his name’s Andy?—Andrés—my father’s name is Andrés—came over from Spain together as boys. They did everything together. Yes I can see that. Her face puffing up red like from a slap. Shut your dirty mouth—now this was more like it more like the old homestead—couldn’t I just shut it and listen? What kind of ‘accident’ was this anyway? I look him right in the fucking face she starts to bawl. Beulah please they were like brothers. Sure Cain and Abel.
He worked like an animal Honey driving that truck he was always away starting to change starting to act strange. Then it got worse. When I got pregnant with you he … he didn’t believe you were … his. Because of him. Because of that fucking hypocrite over there my own father couldn’t believe I was really his little girl. He started drinking—oh Honey we were all so unhappy then. Mummy never ever drank at all before that time if it weren’t for Jonas she would have gone out of her mind. Andy became so—she was afraid for all of us. She begged him to get help—You should get help Mummy get help getting all these people to get help.
There was an accident, with the truck. They say he’d been drinking—he was ill. In his mind. It wasn’t just the drinking. Jonas says they’ve identified genes, genetic diseases. Mental diseases passed down from one generation to—I know what genes are. We want you to go for some tests. To the hospital. Just a few tests. Just for a few days. All my problems could be from—from him—specialists developing new therapies—I thought you said tests now it’s therapy. You’re trying to do the same to me as you did to him—blame the dead guy well I don’t believe he is dead ok? I don’t believe a fucking word. You want to put me where nobody will listen where nobody can hear me. But I can hurt you out here can’t I? I want to hurt you now.
eX-daddy wanted me to stop this right this instant I shouldn’t do this to my mother. We shouldn’t do this to each other. We were a family.
8 [May 1989]
This man this great and famous […] who did these things was not your daddy. You were someone else’s little girl. And you took it all—because your daddy could never do anything to hurt you but now he isn’t your daddy […] Your daddy would never do anything to hurt you but if he wasn’t your daddy and he had hurt you it hurt so much still. But then he had a son a little boy of his own and it didn’t hurt Gavin because your daddy could never do anything to hurt you. But Gavin cried and said they hurt him too but if that was true then your daddy and not your daddy could hurt when he loved you but hurt too when he didn’t care. Or if they hurt it proved he didn’t love you so you never wanted it to and if he loved you it proved it couldn’t hurt not really. And if you loved him enough then maybe maybe it wouldn’t if you could just believe hard enough he loved you. And maybe if he was not your daddy he had to do hurtful things but not hurt you to show he loved you because if it hurt he didn’t care. He did these things […] you were little but now you’re big—
They only need you when you’re small.
And now they want to tell the world you’re crazy because of the crazy things you say.
They are trying to make me insane.
[10 May 1989]
Nine hundred eighty-two thousand four hundred twelve. Two hundred sixty nine thousand thirteen, five hundred twenty two thousand seven hundred seventeen …
4 Sept 1989
Rereading this now I have never in my whole life felt stronger but I know if not for her … with her as my guide I have learned to control my destiny. Under her protection I have learned to rule them.
Together we have learned to make sacrifices.
Mummy cried—so afraid for me she sai
d but she was afraid of me. She pretends not to know what’s happening but it wasn’t my father’s disease it was his. And now I know and I have never felt such
Pure
Clear
joy—
HE IS NOT MY FATHER. I will not eat his disease.
He tries to bully me screams at me to think of the children in Africa—good let’s start thinking about the little children now—to stop being so ridiculous.
We have stopped being ridiculous.
He pretends to be furious but he is afraid too—it has been so easy. By August they’d have done anything to get rid of us. University? Of course. Money? No problem. My own place? Perhaps it was for the best. Hospital? No, not just now, but thanks for caring.
13 Apr 1990
… Fuck. I deserve this—am I such a child to let you slip to the floor like a forgotten doll? So sure you would be where I left you lying there so sure I could go back any time and pick you up. And now to have my nose rubbed in my own shit. Someone else comes along and finds you lying there, picks you up dusts you off and now a whole nation of cattle on couches steers on sectionals munching to the rhythm of the radio3 knows more of you than I do.
You spoke to me once but I stopped hearing. You taught me secret things but I stopped learning. I’ll find you. And if you’ll only speak to me again I’ll really listen and never stop. I will do anything, I will make sacrifices—if you’ll just come back to me.
Talk to me.
Protect me.
I give you power over me.4
JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ
B. Limosneros, trans.
World, in persecuting me, how do you profit?
How have I offended, in seeking
to earn beauty of the spirit
and not sell my soul for beauty?
Never have I gain or lucre sought,