by Anne Carson
Click here for original version
It is a photograph of a guinea pig lying on her right side on a plate.
————
She is surrounded by cabbage salad and large round slices of yam.
Two perfect tiny white teeth
project over her blackened lower lip. Her flesh still sizzling from the oven
gives off a hot glow and her left eye
is looking straight up at Geryon. He taps the flank twice shyly with his fork
then sets the utensil down
and waits for the meal to be over. Meanwhile Herakles and Ancash and the mother
and the four soldiers
(who invited them all for lunch) are chopping and chewing with gusto. Geryon
studies the room. Noon shadows
shift down from a light hole cut in the roof. A big black iron stove still crackles.
The floor is covered with mats
of woven palm and a few survivor guinea pigs are gamboling about near the stove.
Propped on three Inca Kola crates
facing the table is the TV. Jeopardy! is on, volume low. Four guns rest by the door.
Icchantikas is active yes
(one of the soldiers is telling Herakles) you’ll see when you get to Jucu.
The town is built into the slope
of the volcano—there are holes in the wall you can look through and see the fire.
They use them to bake bread.
I don’t believe you, says Herakles. The soldier shrugs. Ancash’s mother looks up.
No it’s true, she says. Lava bread.
Makes you passionate. A greasy grin passes around the soldiers.
What does it mean, Icchantikas? asks Geryon.
Ancash looks at his mother. She says something in Quechua. Ancash turns to Geryon
but one of the soldiers interrupts
speaking in fast Spanish to Ancash’s mother. She watches the soldier a moment
then shoves back her chair.
Muchas gracias hombres, she says. We go. In the cooling left eye of the guinea pig
they all stand reflected
pulling out their chairs and shaking hands. The eye empties.
XLIV. PHOTOGRAPHS: THE OLD DAYS
Click here for original version
It is a photograph of a man’s naked back, long and bluish.
————
Herakles standing at the window staring out on the dark before dawn.
When they made love
Geryon liked to touch in slow succession each of the bones of Herakles’ back
as it arched away from him into
who knows what dark dream of its own, running both hands all the way down
from the base of the neck
to the end of the spine which he can cause to shiver like a root in the rain.
Herakles makes
a low sound and moves his head on the pillow, slowly opens his eyes.
He starts.
Geryon what’s wrong? Jesus I hate it when you cry. What is it?
Geryon thinks hard.
I once loved you, now I don’t know you at all. He does not say this.
I was thinking about time—he gropes—
you know how apart people are in time together and apart at the same time—stops.
Herakles wipes tears from Geryon’s face
with one hand. Can’t you ever just fuck and not think? Herakles gets out of bed
and goes into the bathroom.
Then he comes back and stands at the window a long while. By the time he returns
to the bed it is getting light.
Well Geryon just another Saturday morning me laughing and you crying,
he says as he climbs in.
Geryon watches him pull the blanket up to his chin. Just like the old days.
Just like the old days, Geryon says too.
XLV. PHOTOGRAPHS: LIKE AND NOT LIKE
Click here for original version
It was a photograph just like the old days. Or was it?
————
He slid off the bed quickly. Thorns all around him black and glistening
but he passed through unhurt
and out the door pulling his overcoat around him as he went. Corridor deserted
except for a red EXIT sign at the end.
Pressing hard on the spring bar of the door he stepped out into a blood-colored dawn.
Not the parking lot. He was in the debris
of the hotel garden. Ruined roses of every variety paused stiffly on their stalks.
Dry blades of winter fennel clicked
in the cold air and swung low over the ground shedding feathery gold stuff.
What is that smell?
Geryon was thinking and then he saw Ancash. At the bottom of the garden on a bench
built into a big pine tree. Sitting
motionless with knees under his chin and arms folded on his knees. Eyes stayed
on Geryon as he crossed the garden,
hesitated then sat down on the ground in front of the bench. ’Día, said Geryon.
Ancash regarded him silently.
Look as if you didn’t sleep much, said Geryon.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Kind of cold out here aren’t you cold just sitting still?
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Maybe we could go get some breakfast.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Or just walk downtown sure would like some coffee.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Geryon studied the ground in front of him for a while. Drew a small diagram
in the dirt with his finger.
Looked up. His eyes met Ancash’s eyes and they both rose at once and Ancash hit
Geryon as hard as he could
across the face with the flat of his hand. Geryon stumbled backwards and Ancash hit
him again with the other hand
knocking Geryon to his knees. He’s ambidextrous! thought Geryon with admiration
as he scrambled to his feet swinging
wildly. He would have landed a punch on the pine tree and broken his hand
had Ancash not caught him.
They swayed together and balanced. Then Ancash unlaced his arms and stood back.
With the front of his shirt
he wiped snot and blood from Geryon’s face. Sit, he said pushing Geryon to the bench.
Put your head back.
Geryon sat and leaned his head against the trunk of the tree.
Don’t swallow, said Ancash.
Geryon stared up through pine branches at Venus. All the same, he thought, I’d like
to punch someone.
So, said Ancash daubing at the bright purple mark on Geryon’s right cheekbone.
Geryon waited.
You love him? Geryon thought about that. In my dreams I do. Your dreams?
Dreams of the old days.
When you first knew him? Yes, when I—knew him.
What about now?
Yes—no—I don’t know. Geryon pressed his hands over his face then let them fall.
No it’s not there now.
They were quiet awhile then Ancash said, So.
Geryon waited.
So what’s it like—Ancash stopped. He began again. So what’s it like fucking him now?
Degrading, said Geryon
without a pause and saw Ancash recoil from the word.
I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that,
said Geryon but Ancash was gone across the garden. At the door he turned.
Geryon?
Yes.
There is one thing I want from you.
Tell me.
Want to see you use those wings.
A silence tossed itself across the tall gold heads of the fennel stalks between them.
Into this silence burst Herakles.
Conchitas! he cried stepping out the exit door. Buen’ día! Then he saw Ancash’s fa
ce
and looked toward Geryon and paused.
Ah, he said. Geryon was groping in the bottom of his huge coat pocket. Ancash pushed
past Herakles. Vanished into the hotel.
Herakles looked at Geryon. Volcano time? he said. In the photograph the face of
Herakles is white. It is the face
of an old man. It is a photograph of the future, thought Geryon months later when he
was standing in his darkroom
looking down at the acid bath and watching likeness come groping out of the bones.
XLVI. PHOTOGRAPHS: # 1748
Click here for original version
It is a photograph he never took, no one here took it.
————
Geryon is standing beside the bed in his overcoat watching Ancash struggle awake.
He has the tape recorder in hand.
When he sees Ancash’s eyes open he says, How long are the batteries good for?
About three hours, Ancash answers
sleepily from the pillow. Why? What are you up to? What time is it anyway?
About four-thirty, says Geryon, go back to sleep.
Ancash mumbles a word and slides back under his dream. Want to give you
something to remember me by,
whispers Geryon closing the door. He has not flown for years but why not
be a
black speck raking its way toward the crater of Icchantikas on icy possibles,
why not rotate
the inhuman Andes at a personal angle and retreat when it spins—if it does
and if not, win
bolts of wind like slaps of wood and the bitter red drumming of wing muscle on air—
he flicks Record.
This is for Ancash, he calls to the earth diminishing below. This is a memory of our
beauty. He peers down
at the earth heart of Icchantikas dumping all its photons out her ancient eye and he
smiles for
the camera: “The Only Secret People Keep.”
XLVII. THE FLASHES IN WHICH A MAN POSSESSES HIMSELF
Click here for original version
Flour powders the air around them and settles on their arms and eyes and hair.
————
One man shapes the dough,
the other two shovel it on long handles into a square hole filled with flames
cut into the back wall.
Herakles and Ancash and Geryon have stopped outside the bakery to stare
at the hole of fire.
After quarreling all day they went out to walk the dark streets of Jucu.
It is a starless windless midnight.
Cold drills up from the ancient rocks below. Geryon walks behind the others.
Little spurts of acid
keep filling his mouth from two red pepper tamales eaten fast a few hours ago.
They are following the palisade.
Pass down an alley then turn a corner and there it is. Volcano in a wall.
Do you see that, says Ancash.
Beautiful, Herakles breathes out. He is looking at the men.
I mean the fire, says Ancash.
Herakles grins in the dark. Ancash watches the flames.
We are amazing beings,
Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire.
And now time is rushing towards them
where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces,
night at their back.
INTERVIEW
(STESICHOROS)
I: One critic speaks of a sort of concealment drama going on in your work some special interest in finding out what or how people act when they know that important information is being withheld this might have to do with an aesthetic of blindness or even a will to blindness if that is not a tautology
S: I will tell about blindness
I: Yes do
S: First I must tell about seeing
I: Fine
S: Up to 1907 I was seriously interested in seeing I studied and practiced it I enjoyed it
I: 1907
S: I will tell about 1907
I: Please
S: First I must tell about what I saw
I: Okay
S: Paintings completely covered the walls right up to the ceiling at the time the atelier was lit by gas fixtures and it glowed like a dogma but this is not what I saw
I: No
S: Naturally I saw what I saw
I: Naturally
S: I saw everything everyone saw
I: Well yes
S: No I mean everything everyone saw everyone saw because I saw it
I: Did they
S: I was (very simply) in charge of seeing for the world after all seeing is just a substance
I: How do you know that
S: I saw it
I: Where
S: Wherever I looked it poured out my eyes I was responsible for everyone’s visibility it was a great pleasure it increased daily
I: A pleasure you say
S: Of course it had its disagreeable side I could not blink or the world went blind
I: So no blinking
S: No blinking from 1907 on
I: Until
S: Until the start of the war then I forgot
I: And the world
S: The world went ahead much as before let’s talk about something else now
I: Description can we talk about description
S: What is the difference between a volcano and a guinea pig is not a description why is it like it is is a description
I: I take it you are speaking formally what about content
S: No difference
I: How about your little hero Geryon
S: Exactly it is red that I like and there is a link between geology and character
I: What is this link
S: I have often wondered
I: Identity memory eternity your constant themes
S: And how can regret be red and might it be
I: Which brings us to Helen
S: There is no Helen
I: I believe our time is up
S: Thank you for this and for everything
I: It is I who thank you
S: So glad you didn’t ask about the little red dog
I: Next time
S: That’s three
A Note About the Author
Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living.
Other titles available by Anne Carson in eBook format
Red Doc> • 978-0-307-96058-0
For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com
Acclaim for Anne Carson’s
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED
“Wildly imaginative … [a] masterful, quirky prose poem … unsettling and strangely moving.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
“Memorably passionate … bravely original … whimsical and delightedly peculiar.”
—Boston Phoenix
“A modern reimagining of an ancient myth … full of small, deftly wrought delights.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Carson’s prayerful electricity is charged by the lustration of writing.… A brilliant book.”
—The Nation
“Oddly affecting and technically brilliant … one of the most interesting novels of the year.… It is generous, sweet and absolutely sui generis.”