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Hunger's Brides

Page 112

by W. Paul Anderson


  Thresholdstoop to cough and betelspew whorly pink candyfloss on the snowycone snow.

  Pause at the door—ring the brassthroat sun’s templed gong

  Ears run blood—eggshell temples thunderhammered to tempura—

  Wash of white, skullcrush fresco of Golgotha …

  Shut the door Christ born-in-a-barn

  Can’t go up

  I can’t go on.

  This is all, all I have to give … palladial thunderstone foundered, crashed to earth. Sisyphus and stone come to final rest. Phaëthon and chariot rubble-parked. Last stop last mansion final abode. Terminus.

  Here I can rest.

  Feel better now?

  Take a deep breath / deeprest.

  It’s over. Sleep. Screen to black.

  But no, Lady Lazarus wakes! still undead—an hour a minute a year but not too late—so let it find this hadji here! Bring the mountain down to me I’m ready—pencilstub sharpened on these filed teeth—bring down the synaesthetic fusion auromantic febrifuge emesis for the gutblocked flea—

  O bring me my eyes of wonder!—synaesthesia to strip off the anaesthetic gasmask of ratio / xenophobic blindfold of Cheops / precious serpent’s turquoise mask.

  Come and get me / ready or not here I am / tabula rasa

  Come and get me

  spread out on thy razed-table—stirruped / ready to ride again!

  Ears blasted eyes blinded tongue tied ready for the extreme unction—anoint me with a thrust of transcendent vision—give o give me the green lenses of her Queen of the Sciences

  synaesthetic codex

  Mosaic tablets

  Silence’s poetics

  hearing of the Eye Restored …

  anything

  I am waiting. I am here. Kneeling at the altar wedded to this hunger bled and fasted clean.

  Please …

  Anything …

  Do you need to hear it?

  So hear: I failed her—eyefailed I’ve flailed.

  Now do I beg?

  Nothing …

  Windroar, no more.

  You are alone here.

  Foolish child silly idiot—come to the heart of Mexico to find the eye of Egypt.

  I always knew have known it in four hundred different nightmares. Funny how it feels at last to fail her … so finely, so finally. So different from all that failure dreamed. Too weak to rage now … to eke for/age …

  Too tired for shame … to weep, for shame.

  The Science Queen will have to wait. Three more hundred years at least.

  The very last thing now left to do, leave a few clues … unrepeatable record of failed experiments, cautionary diary of a lost expedition … for the sake of forsaken seekers of a future age.

  Do not attempt this at home.

  Five notepads, a dead laptop. December (?), 2295. Will they read English … read anything? Or just break it all up for kindling … a little fire … one life saved at least. Maybe two.

  For another hour. Maybe two.

  Say it was worth it, Beulah.

  Say good-night.

  JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ

  chorus

  Hear me as I sing

  of two Gypsies,

  the contrasting glories

  we find Egypt encompassing!

  verses

  To her breast, pale Cleopatra

  in love fastened the fangs of an asp.

  But how superfluous the serpent

  there where love had passed.

  Ah me, what torment!

  Dear God, how piteous!

  But to the heroic Descendant

  of an illustrious line,

  the greater the Love by which she is wounded,

  the more exalted is the death that she desires—

  yet who truly dies

  whose love has not ended?

  Fearlessly the Egyptian queen

  offers up her breast to the venom,

  for none feels the body’s agonies

  whose soul also is tormented

  (to suffer less visibly

  is not to suffer less).

  Cleopatra’s nerve and passion

  Catherine emulates, but deepens them,

  in an imitation that surpasses

  its own original:

  just as one who lives for Christ

  dies into Life eternal.

  That the Emperor Augustus

  might never put her sovereign beauty on parade,

  Cleopatra chose suicide, preferring thus

  to end her life

  than to face its debasement

  and the creeping death

  of her enslavement.

  Just so, did a heroic Catherine

  bare her throat of ivory

  to an inferno of blades:

  (Hell itself would never break her faith)

  and so, in dying, triumphed over

  the one who took her life.

  For Cleopatra, infamy or death:

  by each, a precious life was threatened;

  her choice was death, borne

  as the lesser evil

  to one who cherishes honour

  more than life itself.

  In like fashion

  did the greater Egyptian, Catherine,

  offer up her lovely limbs to the wheel of knives

  and thus to triumph gallantly aspire.

  By dying,

  to reach Eternity.

  HARLEQUIN: SOUND BITES

  MY LAWYER PAUSED ON THE WAY out the courthouse door to give me a free image-consult.“The girl’s become a cause, Professor. If only the photos they’re running were a tad less attractive. You understand, they want blood. Remember: bland, bland, bland. No quotes. Absolutely. You can’t believe how stupid and self-serving they can make you sound. And whatever you do, don’t say ‘no comment.’ Say it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment at this time. Better yet, say nothing. Got it?” He pulled a black woolen scarf out of his briefcase, shrugged on a grey overcoat.“You might straighten your tie. And relax, will you? Take a deep breath. I’ve seen you on TV—try looking less guilty.”

  My lawyer, my defender, guarantor of my rights and freedoms, bucking me up.

  A string of news vans is parked along the sidewalk. Exhaust tumbling up from the tailpipes of passing cars … slish of tires on wet pavement. April weather can be the most disappointing. Bare branches, tiny buds of green candied by the sleet. A sparrow’s forlorn twittering echoes in the portico. Overhead, black clouds mass sharply as if painted over glass. Cameramen of competing networks huddle together, smoking. Journalists, wide-scattered, perched on their islands of ambition. We are spotted at last. Television to the front, radio and print on the periphery—they rush up the steps, jostling as they close in.

  Icy, the granite stairs. Headline: Philandering prof splits swollen melon on courthouse steps.

  Malicious whine of motor drives, bursts of light, seethe of flashes recharging….

  “Professor Gregory! Professor—why was the civil suit dropped? You cut a deal?”

  “No comment.”

  “Still expecting criminal charges?”

  “That would be a question for his lawyer,” said mine.

  “Doctor.” A familiar voice, a sardonic voice.“Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Are you? Can we quote you on that?”

  I know this voice.

  “That’s not what I—”

  “Then you’re not sorry.”

  “I have nothing to—”

  “Come on.” A hand tightening on my arm. “Let’s go.”

  “To be sorry for?”

  “Nothing to say. It wouldn’t be appropriate—”

  “What’s appropriate here? A girl lies dying—”

  “Who said she’s dying?”

  “You’re saying the seriousness of her condition is exaggerated?”

  “Let’s go.” If the steps had been less slippery he might have pulled harder.


  “They’re being cautious, naturally.”

  “Because her father is a high-profile surgeon you mean?”

  Two steps, a pause.“I said nothing of the sort. It’s—”

  “That’s enough.” An angry warning in Eric Heffner’s voice.“Thank you all. My client has no further comment at this time.” We were moving more briskly now.

  “Was your client about to say she’s not the real victim in this story? Maybe he is …?”

  “The CBC hires telepaths now?” I called over my shoulder.

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re not to blame then—she wanted to be stopped, wanted attention. That it? Maybe this was all a set up? Don Juan—victim. That the real story? Girl bites dog.”

  “That’s enough. You are harassing my client.”

  “He is a victim, then. First of circumstance, now the media. What about the other co-eds, Professor? Who else harassed you?”

  “Let us through please.”

  Questions shouted from all sides in a strident rush as we elbowed our way towards the taxi stand. Electric cords whipped clear of shuffling feet. Faces and microphones thrust across my line of sight.

  “We’re obstructing you? Are we obstructing justice too? Wait! Do you deny you’ve been victimized? Shall we take your silence as confirmation? Is that how you want the story to read?”

  The public pillory. She’d foreseen it. Fifteen minutes. I get to be the entertainment. Pathetic sinner. Feed the enormous all consuming maw. The information hole. That which feeds the emptiness. Feel the hole … feed the whole. Time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you greet … to murder and create … lift and drop a question on your plate …

  I stopped at the cab and faced them. “No.”

  “No what, Doctor? What’s your story?”

  “No, I am not a victim here.”

  I turned and reached for the door handle … sequined droplets on chrome.

  “Dr. Gregory, one more thing: why would a widely published academic be calling vanity presses in Ontario? A respected intellectual—self-publishing? Who wants attention, Doctor, who wants to be stopped?”

  SOLSTICE

  [20 Dec. 1994]

  CEDAR MAN WITH THE BARITONE EYES / river of dancing hands. Smile …

  Pah! I see you have waited for us before climbing to the top but there are better days to go for a walk. You are much stronger than you look—so are we all, verdad?—but it takes more than lungs to climb Popo, you need to eat. Don’t look so sad hijita, at least you left the treeline behind this time. The sickness can strike even the strongest at this height.

  Ahh señorita que amable! gracias for the cactus flower there are few women I accept such bouquets from anymore though of course many try.

  Meet my wife’s baby brother, Gregorio. It is his tent you slept in. Find you?—no magic we looked here because there is no point looking for you out there.

  Not how—why.

  Yes I understood you the first time but we can talk when we are down. No no we cannot go back without you. The code of mountaineers is to take down what you have brought up. You remember. You are perhaps too tired now to smile. We are all tired.

  Right now the snow is not yet too deep but in an hour it is maybe too late. 4,460 metres, this hut. Would you want us to be discovered up here next spring in metres or feet? 14,633. You have done well and so have I. Almost three of your miles in the air no? You are very light and Gregorio is strong but it is so very high, and I am old. So we must ask you to help us. The three of us together we can help each other. You have the young lungs, together we can find the legs we three….

  No listen please. We are friends now, I see in your eyes you see this. I know many things as I have told you and you would not leave a friend up here—I know you maybe better than you think so do not ask this of me. But wait, before you answer me I will answer you….

  Yes, for one minute we should be serious. I came up today for a son everyone loved. For fifteen years. Our last, the youngest. Pablito. He was touched a little, like you. But in the end he could not stay.

  I am not here because I need to save someone. But know that each kindness to you is like a smile hello to him. Entiendes? A precious flower.

  And from Gregorio here, tambien. Pablito was his favourite nephew.

  Come down with us. We are asking you in my son’s name.

  Take my hand.

  And we begin.

  Twilight of thickflake snow shin-deep. Roam and swerve of dogs and goats among the tents. Indios blanketed, sexless bundled wool, old and young alike. Breaths of spume, bent on kindling fires with grasses and dung. What century is this what season what world—below this snow, this cloud, the stonethroes of smog-choked cities. Five million souls east on the plains, twenty-five more in the valley west….

  Hijita I see you were not expecting people still here so late. Yes the snow, of course. It is dangerous to go back down to the village now. But most would stay tonight anyway. It is the solstice. You did not know. They have asked that you eat with us. Not much—they respect your fast. Simple food. Mostly of corn—a pozole, and a broth of chicken and chipotle with lime. Tortilla—did you know we import corn now from Gringolandia?—we who brought the world the civilization of the Corn. It would be enough that you hold a bowl in your lap, to join with us.

  It is part of our faith, which is the land, this mountain that flattens churches and villages, even the capital. Mexico City in ’85 was like the end of the world I was there. The earth itself died that day. There is much we could teach you about loss. Before you eat they wish you to understand something.

  Some say tomorrow is the first day of a new sun. We will make a special ceremony borrowed from what is still known of the old days. They have built an effigy of our San Gregorio del Popo—a volcano from seeds of amaranth and on it put a mitre and sambenito as though the mountain itself is jury and judged, saviour and condemned. Then we eat—we cut it up and every one of us gets a part to eat of the mountain of seed that consumes us until the end of time—but each time it dies leaves the richest soil behind.

  And when it is done—down to the last seed, we cry—

  Teocualo, god is eaten … do you say this still?

  Yes, child, we say this, you know even this. We believe nothing escapes the cycle of the suns. Not even the mountain, not the gods themselves—and who is around to eat god if not us?

  Will you eat with us?

  Cedar man with the laughing eyes so strange jesterfriend I know now what you’ve come to do, why you’ve come so late.

  When the music’s fled.

  I have lost the music. I’ve lost, and it’s like you say. It is loss you’ve come to teach. You came for me. I’ve never had a friend like you. How strange, a friend. Here, now in this noplace….

  Yes cedar man I’ll eat. For you.

  It is pulque they drink. Would you like to taste?—fermented cactus juice a very ancient recipe.

  Yes this sacred drink is a must. I can get through this, I try to be calm. Here, pruébalo, ándale. Sip of latex over the tongue, ferment of saliva and bile, rolling pincushion of pricks behind these thimblejaws. Old seamed faces smile and nod around the fire. Black glitter of eyes rimmed in cup. All huddle for warmth of shoulder and hip. Tanglehair waif scratches her pet piglet’s pink gut / plucks out a snuffled melody of love and contentment.

  This old man would like to talk with you. Will you allow me to translate from our tongue?

  Susurrus of a soft, clicked sibilance … this is Nahuatl.

  Raúl here says you are from the North, young one, yet I see you feel cold just like us….

  They say gringos have walked on the moon what do you say to that?

  How far do you think the moon is tonight just behind the snow, white with the moon’s snowwhiteness?

  I have heard a man could walk up to her in ten thousand days, or if he is lazy, twenty….

  Ah here comes the food I hope you will find it savoury.

  I can get throu
gh this—skip the thick redstew pozole, take the bowl of peppery broth instead feel its burn untouched in this lap of ice. How nice how nice until it cools….

  But then they bring in the tall coneycake, volcano of seed feel the pitch and yaw / chaw and cheer near and nearing—this I have to eat they are watching me. Tanglehair waif shares out the cake on pigscent fingers what difference can it make? Rage of hunger blast of whine through the mind time to eat IT’S TIME—come home Beulah come home for supper—what was their ancient recipe for obsidian wine? you’ve done everything / tried all but this—

  Try then, try. Take the cake open your lips—swallow the earth that vomits life as time runs down to die, chew the seedy mountain of molarshards all crumble and thrash / tongue bracts of godchaff to a slime of honeyed amaranth / bolt loss’s sup / suck and flush the cosmogonic cud—stomach the stormseed of theomachy sweet theodicy diced and iliac / Godflayed flesh threshed / gutted, quelled. And all shall be well and all shall be well—

  No! You WILL eat—for him—you said you would you can.

  You are tired and sick, you have lost and it’s done let it go give it up get over it get on with it, do you understand?—enough.

  When you taste the cake this little girl gives, see her sweetness as what you eat. There, see? This meal, this night you can, even in front of them.

  Especially them. Just eat, and sleep.

  I wake from a dream. They are all watching TV. This is why the car battery, sisyphean haul up and down the mountainside for evenings televised at ten thousand feet.

  Tentwalls spill the blue caravan of icons across a desert screen—shadowmask fire fed on optic cones and rods. Soft disembodied bundles here we sit stranded before garlanded ads for retirement beaches, and operatic soaps—O the creole heartbreak of blond Mexican elites! Then, this truth stranger than the strangest dream … ‘we pause for station identification, this is channel 13—TV Azteca.’

  Here at last we are arrived at the thirteenth level of heaven.

  Aztec TV. Channel 13.

  Here beneath the snow in Cortés Pass, Indian mothers—bodies workbroken and careworn—slump in wonder before nymphs blue-eyed like Jesus in white bikinis, stunning icons of statuesque perfectibility—

 

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