But are you happy? Are you pleased with this turn of events? Of course not. You come home the following night pale and shaken. In a voice barely audible, you relate how the world is collapsing around you, how all the good, steady things are falling to pieces. What have I done to deserve this? you ask me. First my house goes up in flames (there’s the shell diagonally across the street, a grisly reminder, as you say); now I find the corner store shuttered and learn the owner has been brutally murdered (for your own good, I whisper, but only to myself). What’s that? The world’s up to no good, I say. You continue: Where will I buy my paper now? Where will I go in the evening to talk? About horses? I suggest. Yes. About horses and other things. Curse the idiot for dying. How dare he leave me stranded. How dare he indeed, I say, all sympathy. Aren’t you fortunate to have me, steadfast and true, ignoring repeated betrayal? I can’t talk about horses but I can still be of comfort, I can still keep you from the blows of fate.
And so, I lead you to bed, undress you and tuck you in, confident your state of grace is fast approaching. It’s like that first night, I think, with the fire roaring away. So it stays for the rest of the winter and well into spring. I have filled the house with games, from Scrabble to Chess to Go-Moku. We play them in the evening when you return from work. Or we go for walks through the local park, excited by the coming warmth, the lengthening days, the sturdy cement of friendship which no thaw can upheave or crack.
Or so it seems. For it is only seeming. It is only a preparation for further treachery, a ruse to keep me from recognizing the landscape of your cruelty. That blow comes on a hot August night as we sip homemade lemonade (only the best for Judas) in the backyard, waiting for the first stars to appear. There! I say excitedly. That’s Venus! I’ve found a new place, you say. That’s nice, I say. It’s also the Morning Star, you know…I need a place of my own, you know, you say. It’s my one chance. You can come and visit. You’ll come to visit, won’t you? Sure, I will, I say, sipping the last of the lemonade, appreciating its bitterness. Here’s a toast to your new place. Phew, you say, I didn’t know how to break it to you. I didn’t think you’d take it so well.
The following morning, while you’re on your way to work, I call the quarry where you’ve spent most of your days, hacking away at blocks of stone (much like you yourself). I call pretending to be you, imitating your voice so well, the foreman really believes it’s you telling him he’s a bastard and his parents were bastards and his wife’s a dog who’s made it with a brace of Fuller Brush salesmen. Well, I shouldn’t be, but I’m feeling genuinely sorry when you return in the evening with a black eye and can’t explain why your foreman suddenly tried to attack you with a shovel and was kept from bashing your brains in only by the intervention of the other men. Ah, now you break down in tears, do you? Now, you come running to me, crying on my shoulder. Life is cruel and confusing, isn’t it? You can’t understand what happened, why you were fired after so many years of faithful service, can you? And, dear oh dear, what’ll become of you now? I mean, you obviously can’t afford a place of your own. That’s for sure. Don’t worry, I say, patting your baby cheeks, your pink healthy skin. You can stay here for as long as you want. Really? you say. Oh, thank you. That’s right, I think. That’s right. Don’t you worry. Leave me to do all the work – I’m used to it. So what if my face is gaunt and shrivelled? So what if I’ve a twitch that won’t go away? So what if my legs are wobbly and, in my terrible confusion, I constantly mistake the Snakes for the Ladders.
What does it matter so long as you, my friend, are about to be saved, are only a few steps away from salvation? And it will not have been in vain. For you and I are going on a picnic. Tomorrow. Don’t worry about packing. I’ll take care of that. And I know just the spot, a park filled with childhood memories and oaks. A bit overgrown, perhaps, but that adds to the naturalness of it all. Besides, you wouldn’t want one of those manicured lawn affairs overrun with brats and skimpy bathing suits. The sun is hot though, isn’t it? Here, let’s move beneath this lovely oak. I spread a purple blanket in the shade. We sit. Birds preen themselves; bees slither into golden flowers. I take out a bottle of fine red wine and pour two glasses. Let’s toast. What shall we toast? I toast the ant crawling up your thigh; you drown it in a drop that balls up with dirt. Here, then. Here’s a loaf of bread I rip apart with my own hands. Cheese, too. Ripe and crumbly. Oh dear, I think I have to shake a leg. I stand up and circle behind the tree. You take a sip of the wine, make some comment on its not lasting too much longer, especially in this heat. Then you talk of misfortune, the misfortune of your life – from the burning of your home to the losing of your job. From behind the tree, I pretend to urinate (making the noise with my mouth) while you continue talking, now thanking me for my generosity and kind-heartedness, for my saintly ability to forgive and forget. Not at all, I say, sneaking up behind you and pulling a noosed rope from the picnic basket. It snakes into the air. Before you can swallow even one bite of your thick piece of bread, I have it tight around your neck and looped over the lowest branch. Then, catching the other end before it hits the ground, I run as quickly as possible through the high grass, the prickly nettles, pulling you rudely but efficiently towards the sky. You kick and struggle, the bread vomiting itself into the air, a wetness spreading across the front of your trousers. Then, with one last jerk, I let go and you fall in a heap.
You gasp for lost breath and clutch at me when I kneel down beside you. Your eyes flutter up into your skull. Your tongue is cut almost in half. Your thighs quiver and spasm. The bruise about your neck slowly fills with red. I tilt your head up slightly towards me and allow you tiny sips of the wine. Oh dear. It’s turned to vinegar. You scream when it touches your bloodied tongue. Now, now, I say, placing your head against my chest and rocking you. It’s all right. I’m here to save you, to make you whole. Here, let me tell you how. And I relate to you all the trouble I’ve gone to, all my tireless efforts on your behalf, all the blows I’ve warded off. And what do I want in return? Why, nothing but your love. Is that too much to ask? Is it? You look up at me…your face a mask…you look up at me… Don’t look at me like that, I say…your face contorted and yet unable to scream…you look up at me…your mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, opening and closing…
Don’t worry, I say. It’s alright. There’s still tomorrow. It hasn’t come yet. We’ll have our picnic then.
Won’t we, my salvationed one?
ASGARD’S LIGHT
1. Notes to an Anonymous Friend:
You will help me, yes? Don’t make me plead. I despise pleading. More than anything I despise pleading. You’re the only one who will help me. You must. I’ve called you my friend and that might be wishful thinking. But I’m certain that, if you’re not my friend, at least we don’t know each other well enough for you to be my ill-wisher. Or, God forbid, my outright enemy, come down from the lamprey rainbow with magic sword in hand to cut me to shreds. Don’t you agree? I’m sure you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered to read this far. Otherwise, you would already have torn these notes to shreds and tossed them contemptuously in the fireplace – not even bothering to read to the point where I describe precisely those actions, so predictable yet still so heart-rending and true to life.
To tell the truth, I know more about you than I’ve let on. Let’s see if I get this right. You’re a little longer in the tooth, a little less hairy, a little more shrunken, a little further from in-between things. Yes? How’s that so far? Your face has been described as dramatic, that of a religious fanatic and repulsively attractive in its own dark way. You’ve been labelled a pessimist, a contemporary absurdist, a debunker of human feeling, a shallow involuted person and a creature atrophied by profound indifference to the world around him. Correct? You’ve no answer for these charges and, in fact, are slightly flattered by them and the righteous tone in which they’re delivered. You get along poorly indeed with your “fellow creatures.” This arises from the consideration that you are sup
erior to them because of your wit, natural aptitude for learning, creative abilities and innate sensitivities. Yes? Or is it that you don’t consider yourself human at all: at times, supra- and at others, sub-? Aha, touched a nerve there, didn’t I?
You’ve been forced into accepting a menial, unrewarding position, a position not at all in keeping with your education and potential social status, until such time as your particular worth is recognized. No, scratch that. That’s utterly wrong. Like me, you’re more than satisfied with the task of prime machine-tender for the automatic box maker. Your duty is to oil it every hour or so, to keep its parts from seizing, to make sure its timing isn’t off by more than a microsecond for every inspection period. Do you love the machine? Ah, love is such an illogical step one’s always hoping to take it without having noticed taking it. You know what I mean, don’t you? Besides, it could lead to a serious mangling if you’re not careful. The machine, I mean. I know. By sheer coincidence, I too tend a machine – but one that does exactly the opposite job.
You constantly rail against daily routine, would neither eat nor sleep if it were possible and begrudge the toilet its share of what you engagingly call your post-essence. There’s something more than slightly distasteful about you, in the manner in which you dress, talk, walk, stammer, shop. Small things frighten you; phones make you seize up; mosquitos drive you into paroxysms of slap-happy madness which you’re fond of analyzing as they’re taking place. The idea of suicide you’ve converted into your own personal domain, though you realize you’ll never kill yourself. It’s the thought that counts, n’est-ce pas?
Lastly, you have no use for physical affection of any kind, let alone sex, both “normal” or of the aberrated variety. And yet, you have been and still are involved in an intense sexual relationship with a woman of carefree tendencies who suffers from the peculiar illness of being in love with you. Yes, I know. It’s the type of word best left out of a serious discussion. This woman uses it in the same way she would “bread” or “run” or “Kleenex”. It is her standard curse. You don’t show it but it angers you to the core: like the sight of Canada geese heading south or talk about the “natural order of things”. You lash back with all your considerable and deep-cutting wit. Okay, okay. So perhaps “wit” isn’t the right word. A shrugging of the shoulders when she says something (the sunset as an example par excellence) is beautiful; an enraptured and joyous overture to describe an object (wet dog turd?) she loathes; the refusing of the slightest intimacy when she’s in heat – and vice versa, a constant pestering like a whining pet at the most inopportune times. Later, of course, there must be the “making up.” Ah, the making up. And the all made up.
You possess a personal yet highly codified set of moral rules more strict than those objectively offered by the state – or by anyone else around you. That’s because, while the majority tends towards mediocrity, you are extreme – in the extreme. Scruples are your main characteristic (the building of categorical imperatives) and they bracket your personality like ever-tightening braces. You are, in other words, constantly reconstructing the cell around you that others, in the mistaken belief you wish to escape, persist in tearing town. You join no movement, be it political, social or artistic; are neither conservative nor liberal (neither left of right nor right of left); can’t be carried away by the infection of the crowd; and despise being held up as the mirror for someone else’s actions. A case in point: At the time of the bell-bottomed jean craze, you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing bell-bottom jeans for fear you’d be identified with the other bell-bottom jean wearers. The moment they fell out of fashion, however… You’ll never laugh, ride bicycles, swim, enjoy yourself or, in general, forget who you are. At least, not without a generous quantity of wine. Or beer. Mead? Hard liquor? Drugs? It’s a matter of taste. You prefer to be a majority of one, stranded in your corner with wet paint all around you and that snaking rainbow bridge too far for you to reach. Nothing will induce you to stamp yourself with any identification marks whatsoever. You’re pleased as punch when someone says he/she has known you for a donkey’s age and yet still doesn’t understand you, still hasn’t fathomed you. And, true amoeba, you’re always ready to shift allegiance (or better still to split) the moment someone comes too close to what you think yourself to be, to that hiding place where your “true” nature is kept. These mercenary actions don’t affect your moral standards in the least – they’re at your core, remember – and tend rather to build up an orchestrated pattern of mystery around you.
You’ll help me then because I know you so very well and yet not at all. You’ll visit me and tell me what to do, how to go about freeing myself from the consequences of my actions. Why I picked you for this task is perhaps uppermost on your mind at this moment, isn’t it? You’ve never involved yourself with anyone before – not even with your own relatives, with those who have a natural claim to you – so why should you involve yourself with me, right?
Well, I could say you’ll help me out of self-pity. You were walking down a deserted street in the early morning, down one of countless similar if not quite parallel streets in an area of the city caught between deepening squalor and surface respectability. Returning from a night of multiple fornication perhaps? Or smoky games of chance with an ace up your sleeve? At any rate, you were suddenly confronted by the pitiable figure of a cripple (sorry, handicapped person) holding a lunch bag in his rotting claw. As you weren’t about to get out of his way, he avoided you by moving into the centre of the street, wading knee-deep in crumpled cigarette papers and chocolate wrappers. His particular mode of locomotion – a shuffling of uncontrollable itches followed by a mucoid spoor – was enough to turn your stomach. You wished the bag in his hand might be a merciful bomb with which he would embrace his unwholesome – and not very potent – God. You waited patiently for the explosion, the flying bits of flesh and bone and brain, confident you could dodge the shock wave with minimal damage because you, at least, weren’t crippled (sorry, differently enabled). Instead, he collapsed unceremoniously on the street, fell with a violent thud and then struggled fiercely to right himself. This proved difficult, gravity being what it is in this part of the universe. A street cleaner chugged by unconcerned, narrowly avoiding him with its armoured wheels and spraying him with a combination of mud and water. He groped, slithering, reaching for a nearby lamppost. He grovelled, suddenly grown articulate, fixing your eye with his: “Help me. Please. My mother almost miscarried me, suffering from scissored legs, squeezing my poor soft grey matter between her vice-thighs till I popped out into a light that wasn’t natural, a light that was as blinding as the end of the world.” Imploring, he held out his claw, but as you reflected on the sorrows and deprivations suffered by the handicapped (crippled, disabled, differently enabled) and other uncompleted, imperfect creatures, your feet carried you away. Carried you forever into the murky realm of a hopeless self-pity.
And so who will help you? An anonymous friend in turn being helped by another anonymous friend? The beauty of that system lies in eternal non-contact, in the fact a handicapped (maimed, disadvantaged) person might be helping you or you a handicapped (paralyzed, amputated) person without ever running the risk of being disgusted. Particularly appropriate for leper colonies turned into mental hospitals and old age homes. No slavery is involved. No mumbled thank you’s or polite bowings of the head. How may I help you? Scrape, scrape. Ah, the whispered obsequence of a thousand department store clerks, hands held in prayer before them. How can you help me? It’ll be obvious once my story unfolds. You who are so like me and yet so utterly different…you can fail me. I rely on our shared demon to communicate what I can’t.
Yes?
The story:
At the time the police brought me in for questioning, I firmly believed I was innocent. Murder? Did they mention previously the nature of the crime or did I simply jump to that conclusion, surmising my guilt from the looks on their faces? At any rate, I could prove that on the night the crime was alleged to hav
e been committed I was in my studio painting. I remember clearly, for it was my masterpiece, my definitive statement, the oeuvre with which I would make my mark. I called it Full Lunacy Over Valhalla: one thousand square feet of solid blue on which was surmounted a large orange ball, darkening at the edges. You must see it. I insist. It will serve to change your life around, one of those seminal visions. My key is beneath the welcome mat. After trying to open the door with it and finding it’s the wrong one, you’ll simply turn the handle and go in. The painting will be there against the far wall – to catch the north light, of course, the light of Asgard, where the numb feeling of cold is all there is and all there’ll ever be. And you will undoubtedly gasp at the sight of it, at the raw majesty it suggests, at the hopelessness of its vision.
I said that, at first, I was convinced absolutely of my innocence. I was, after all, a pacifist, not in the least inclined to violence. Later, I became uncertain. The police presented unshakeable evidence of my guilt – a gory dagger with my fingerprints on it and a child’s pair of black patent leather shoes stained by long gashes of dried blood. This blood, as well as the drops on the dagger, proved to be that of the murdered person. It seemed like paint to me when the shoes were presented as evidence at the trial. And perhaps it was. But I was so swept away by the force of the prosecutor’s impassioned argument I forgot to whisper my suspicions in the defence lawyer’s ear.
The Photographer in Search of Death Page 5