We were standing outside the walls of the courtyard, a little distance from the gate, and after a while Wite went back into the trees, veering with fantastic speed toward the bluff. Before Wite left me he instructed me to spend my time with Tzdze as I had been and not to seek him out unless the Alaks came. Wite said haggardly that some other thing, beyond everything else, was worrying him. When he left, Wite was picking his legs up straight off the ground and setting them down again like crutches, and he could barely manage to walk in one direction, then his white face shot away in almost a streak into the gloom of the woods. I watched him go and went inside.
Now Tzdze and I were playing less and speaking less. What we had to say to each other worked itself out in empty translation on the board. The secrets I kept for Wite seemed to make me numb toward Tzdze. I began watching her face again as we played, and, for me, Tzdze was now simple and untroubled in such great contrast with her cousin, unconcerned and innocent. Then she told me that we would limit ourselves to one hour of play from then on, and, after we finished, suddenly Tzdze stood up and asked me to come with her. She took me to the uppermost floor of the house, leading me through passages that had been blocked to me before. I followed her through a thick ebony door, whose edges were skirted with thick leather dampers that made a seal against the frame, into what I took to be the largest room in the house. It was filled with large planters of polished brass overflowing with a weird abundance of tropical plants, although the air was quite cold. There were no windows, but the ceiling, which was peaked, and the upper part of the walls, were all thin panels of marble through which there filtered a snowy white glow. It came from every direction, so there were no shadows.
There were convoluted paths traced among the planters, where Tzdze and I walked together. As we walked, Tzdze said only that she spent a great deal of time here. Presently we came to a small fountain flanked by two stone benches, where we sat. I can see that fountain in front of me—a basin shaped like an upright shell and a stone figure leaning against it, her feet in the water: she had her arms crossed and her head was lowered, her eyes stared straight ahead; the water poured down over her in a smooth sheet, although I didn’t see how it was conveyed above her head, and it made only the faintest crinkling sound as it returned to the basin. This figure attracted my attention because, while it had been worn thoroughly smooth by the water and its features had been erased, it struck me as the image of Tzdze. I told her so and Tzdze looked at it with a complicated expression on her face. She told me that her relatives had sent a young man to pay suit to her a few days ago, and that he had only just left. I think I said only that I didn’t know anything about it or that I hadn’t seen him. Tzdze said that her relatives had never accepted her decision—her decision to remain unmarried. For their sake she tolerated these visits, although she received notice only days before her suitors were due, she was given only late notice deliberately, so she wouldn’t have time to refuse. These men were forced upon her by her family, but Tzdze didn’t seem to mind. I said I thought they were treating her badly. I remember Tzdze flexed her eyebrows at that, and said she wanted them simply to accept her decision to remain unmarried. Then she added that she would gladly receive suitors for her sister. As she said this her eyes were on the ground. Tzdze quickly told me that she was bored and lonely.
I happened to glance away for a moment just as she spoke and I saw Xchte running between a pair of planters some distance away—she had not come with us; she had come some other way. Tzdze did seem bored and alone to me. She asked me what I did with my time, and I said that I generally wandered around the house or read in one of the libraries, that I read a great deal. We talked intermittently for a while about the books we liked, although I never did enjoy reading. When I think back on our conversation, it strikes me that Tzdze and I had both been eluded. I know that in my case there’s nothing that cancels life more efficiently than pressing crowds of bodies on all sides. These four walls are about to burst in on me from the pressure of all the bodies piling up against them, and this pressure can only mount and mount. The world is filling up with people and their leavings, and as the one increases so does the other, and the horror and boredom just escalate to infinity until you’re throttled by them. My life was throttled out of me right from the start, as was Wite’s, as was even Tzdze’s. Only here and there a few chinks in the heap are still open and still present a bit of light and room, a small bit of stillness to admit some life, but there is death all around those chinks—to try to find that much space, which is tantamount to getting a glimpse of the horizon once in a while, or to claim any sort of life for yourself, life to live in that is, not life to slave in, that is next to impossible. People treat each other with terrible cruelty in all cases, and people endure cruelty in the hopes that it will be given to them one day to enjoy their own cruelty—it’s their faith that one day they will be given license to be cruel that keeps them close in with all the others and gives them strength to go on. The only sensible thing to do is leave.
Tzdze said she was worried about Wite, that she had seen him on the grounds and that he looked so miserably weak. I agreed with her and said nothing else. She was certain, as I was, that the Alaks would come, and she was frightened that Wite would do something terrible—something terrible to them. I don’t think Tzdze said nothing about herself or about the possibility that Wite would be captured. I was thinking of Wite on the bluff, staring at the stone outbuilding, thinking it over, thinking it over, thinking it over. I was sitting there looking at Tzdze, thinking it over, thinking it over. I never approach women.
That night I dreamt, or fantasized, I was in the greenhouse, or whatever it was, that I had gone there perhaps to look for Tzdze. It was cold and the light from the ceiling and walls was fading, and it was growing steadily more quiet—I was surrounded by towering vines, broad leaves, and gigantic flowers, and then as it grew darker and quieter still, I was alone and stilled in the vaults beneath the house. I could see the tombs of Tzdze’s ancestors all around me, where no light was, but I could still make them out. A spirit is obscure even in plain view, but most of my power had lodged in my eyes, I had the keenest sight of any spirit-eater, and I could dimly see them. Their bodies were withered away, but they remained whole and undiminished. I was unable to look at them directly, but sometimes I would turn and inadvertently I would see one so clearly that almost I could feel his breath on my face or even taste the taste of her mouth as if it were mine. They looked remembered. They were all familiar. Each was endued with an old life.
I stood among them and the tombs, which were all covered with carvings of their faces and with dust, and I heard nothing but quiet and spiders. Sometimes it would rain outside and the water might trickle in. Occasionally the door would open for another one, who would enter headfirst and on the back. I could see thick stone columns and the tombs very faintly from the light that shone under the door. I heard footsteps coming very faintly near. Then they were close, heavy, and uneven. I saw a shadow appear in the strip of light under the door, all but blocking it totally—the door began crashing in its frame as whatever it was on the other side was battering it and I knew that the door would give way and something insanely violent would come bursting through. These same sounds woke me in my room, and part of me was still dreaming, downstairs in the vault, while I ran down the stairs and found the doors there standing open and I followed down the steps to the basement and the sub-basement, and from the inside, in the dream, I felt and saw the door burst open and crash shuddering against the wall with Wite standing in the doorway; he didn’t come rushing in, but something of him came gaping in. I saw him standing in the doorway as I came down the stairs, and by the time I reached the floor he had raised his arms, his hands were shaking and I could see his knees were trembling too, and his whole body seemed brittle, painful, and weak to me. Wite lowered his hands. I stopped; I felt the air in front of me grow dense and it pushed me to the floor like a weight; when I looked I could see a very faint strea
k of light in the air in front of Wite, curling around his two lowered and outstretched hands in the shape of a diamond; I was smothering. I felt a draft from the door that steadily increased as the density of the air grew less and I was being blasted backward so I couldn’t stand up, while Wite stood in the door with the tails of his coat flying back and his hands clawed the air, and I was thankful that I couldn’t see his face; part of me still dreamed and saw his face, saw that what he was doing was deliberate. I remember thinking that he was drawing up into himself the strength to die. The pathetic and withered relics that lay all around me shivered apart and collapsed utterly; the whole vault was pandemonium as they were sucked out, and I had to watch everything. I watched it. Wite pulled them, the spirits of Tzdze’s ancestors, out and devoured them one by one, and they were pleading with him and calling him by name while he was doing it, his own ancestors. I could see his cold face as he was doing it.
When Wite lowered his hands I came fully awake as the draft stopped and he turned to me, I powerlessly looking up at him from the floor, he looking back at me coldly, shocked. Wite was well-fed; his hands had stopped shaking and his legs were steady, his back was unstooped and his eyes had cleared from milky gray to green. He very simply walked past me and went vigorously up the steps. I was back on my feet by then, as he was reaching the top of the steps. Even from where I stood I could see that the vault beyond was empty and suddenly immemorial.
Chapter Six
I was unsure, I was unsure, I was thinking it over, whether or not to tell Tzdze what Wite had done. I don’t want to think about it, I’ll confess I wanted to keep it from Tzdze, I had no idea what I wanted. Tzdze and I were spending almost all of our time together. I’d never spent much time together with any one in my life. I didn’t want to think about anything else—but of course I had to tell Tzdze in time. Tzdze and I spent all our time together and it was unheard of for me to spend so much time in someone else’s company, even my wife’s. At this point as I look back and remember I can only babble about Tzdze. I can’t speak responsibly about her. I know I’ll have to be more responsible. I get overly filled up with my memories of her.
Tzdze and I stopped playing backgammon altogether very soon after Wite robbed the crypt, because Tzdze wanted to make a portrait of me. She had decided to make a portrait of me entirely on a whim. She had no idea what Wite had done in the crypt. We had been standing in front of a portrait of Xchte, which had been made when she was only four or five years old, one that Tzdze had painted, and Tzdze said all at once that she wanted to make my portrait. I had been loitering in the portrait gallery alone, sitting still and staring at the air in front of me without thinking as always, when I looked up and saw Tzdze, and she glided in and began showing me the paintings. Very vividly I remember a family scene of Tzdze as a child with her parents, and Wite as well. Tzdze was ten when the portrait was made, and inside the frame her image was reclining in the grass at the foot of her mother’s divan, lightly grasping a tiny hammer in one hand and a few nails in another, and there was a miniature house standing in front of her on the ground. Tzdze explained that she had loved building things when she was a child, and that she had gone on to build many pieces of furniture in the house, including the backgammon table. But she had given that up, that is building, some time ago. Inside the frame, Wite was standing next to her and nearby in the family portrait, playing good-naturedly with a dog. Tzdze showed me, pointing, that there was candy in his pockets, his pockets were stuffed with candy. We found the painting Tzdze had done herself, a portrait of Xchte when she was four or five years old. Tzdze showed it to me without comment and said she wanted to try painting me. She asked me unhesitatingly, and I agreed to sit for her unhesitatingly. At the time and at present I felt Tzdze had paid me a high compliment by offering to make a portrait of me, although I’m certain she felt she was inconveniencing me by asking. I’m certain she never understood how grateful I was to her for that compliment.
Eventually, Tzdze decided she wanted to paint me in one of the unused lumber rooms on the ground floor. There were only a few old furnishings put out of the way there, and an angled bench that fit into the corner opposite the fireplace. Tzdze sat me on the bench, by the window, saying, “I like the stark light here for you.” When the day was overcast, as in that season it always was, the light from the window was stark white. I sat in the corner and Tzdze looked intently at me, and said, “You’re most evenly lit when you sit with your arm on the sill.” I had lain my arm on the sill when I sat down, and she painted me in that posture. She first had one of her servants cut my hair. I was accustomed, in the city, to wear my hair as short as possible, but since I had left it had grown at random. One of the servants cut my hair in my room with the sheepshears, and then I went downstairs to begin sitting for Tzdze. She had a chair brought in with the easel, and sat sketching me first. After spending a day sketching me, Tzdze and I would meet in the lumber room each morning and she would paint me as slowly as possible. We never spoke while she painted. I sat as Tzdze instructed me to sit and kept still, and although I began to ache after a while, I was not in an uncomfortable posture. Tzdze painted only very slowly, looking from me to the canvas, from the canvas back to me, at long intervals, without speaking. I didn’t speak and was content to remain silent with Tzdze. I was in her presence and I was the object of her complete attention—what did I have to say to Tzdze then? I spent all day sitting with Tzdze and I was content to be silent and motionless in front of her canvas and receive her gaze at intervals. My head was not turned, I was not a foolish old man. Tzdze did not make a fool out of me. If I am a fool, I was a fool before Tzdze met me. Tzdze never treated me like a fool.
I don’t know whether she is alive or dead, but I sense her in the earth, in the air, here with me, in this cell, she is here with me now! The sigh that is torn from my breast goes out to meet the chime that chimes from her without wavering—I’m hoping the guards don’t come in and disrupt, that they would hear me sobbing out and look in on me, they are always as gentle as possible with me; they are Alaks and have no reason to hate me. Their faces are always full of sympathy when I see them, but sympathy is confined to the breast that bears it and does not come out into the air like Tzdze’s ringing arms to hold me, something I never felt in life. Tzdze and I never touched, but I feel her arms around me this moment—my lungs are filling with her breath, which is numbing them, they’re expanding and I’m taking the first full breaths I’ve taken in weeks. Tzdze has given me my life’s only freedom. I feel her breath going into my blood, numbing my heart. As I lie in bed at night I seem to see her face as smooth and polished and white as porcelain, looking straight down at me, calmly, exactly as she did when we, Wite and I, appeared beneath her balcony. I simply allow my eyes to open upwards and soon her features become gigantic, spacious, and I can blow across the landscape they make, like dead leaves across the perfect surface of the moon, where I am always free to visit the peacefulness. Tzdze is with me and she breathes peacefulness to me.
When I die, beautiful things will sprout peacefully from me and release themselves out of me. I know what’s going to happen, where I’m going, and when my dead body blooms, if what blooms from it is beautiful, then it was Tzdze that made them beautiful things. Tzdze prevented Wite from annihilating me. I was not annihilated by Wite, because I knew Tzdze, and for me knowing her was enough. From the moment I met her, my attention was divided between her and Wite, and that preserved me. The part of me that I gave over to Tzdze was a reservation, and was not devoured by Wite as so much else of me was. Even before I knew that I loved Tzdze—imagine my falling in love with her!—that love remained possible for me made it possible for me to love Wite. Where Tzdze remains, I know she has escaped Wite and has nothing to fear from him, because Wite never resisted Tzdze in anything, Wite deferred to Tzdze in everything with only the one exception, and that was possibly intentional, if I assume that Wite fully understood what Tzdze would do. I bear Tzdze with me, wherever Tzdze is I be
ar her with me now, she wears the white veil of her will. She is my only infinite future world. I intend to go out to meet her soon, as I know I will go out like a light I will go out to see Tzdze, if only to take my final leave of her—and I believe I will see Wite again. Wite is always almost imperceptible. In person, he brought along an interposing distance, and that remains. As he is now, Wite wants us to imagine him like rivers of lava under cool earth, like the sap that rises in the trees. Wite says he is the sap running in the boughs that weave together from tree to tree, which, according to Wite, link every tree in the forest to each other, and that the entire forest has one steady pitch-pulse that he determines, and as the pitch rises in the trunks it somehow forces the roots deeper together, weaving them together also, under the ground, and driving them into the rocks and streams of melted rock. Wite insisted there were streams of melted rock under the forest floor, and said that there were roots of precious stone waving in a white stream of melted rock beneath our feet, which was, according to Wite, identical to the white seam between thunderheads for example or at the horizon for example. These were some of the things Wite actually said to me directly, or attempted to say, but much later, after all this.
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