He said, “Do you believe me?”
The clock was on the table.
He took her arm.
He took everything.
Was it late or too late?
It was too late.
Metaphorically speaking anyway.
Zigouiller was standing in the doorway.
Watching them.
He was angry.
He took the clock and threw it smashed it up against the wall. It stopped. He smashed the clock against the wall. He called her a whore.
It was.
It really was.
A stupid thing to say.
Wasn’t it?
Ro hit Zig.
Zig hit Ro.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
Things were broken.
Cups, the clock, a plate.
Time stopped.
Literally, figuratively.
What did it matter?
What did it signify?
Things get broken every day.
As though smashed by some invisible hand.
Glass, bottles, bones.
What happened to that black dress?
Zig smashed the clock.
Ro picked up a broken plate.
He laughed.
Ro said that he was hungry.
He asked Zig, are you hungry?
Ro poured himself a drink, and one for Zig.
They drank.
She took the eggs from the refrigerator.
She broke them in a bowl.
Zig did not look at her.
He found a screwdriver.
He had the pieces of the broken clock on the table.
He was putting the clock back together.
Shelly came in, then.
The day was hot and ugly.
The clock was broken.
Shel asked her.
Did she want to go to the hospital to see the actress?
He wanted to get flowers.
Would she go with him to get flowers?
The girl liked yellow daisies.
Zig and Ro were eating eggs.
She didn’t really want to get flowers for the girl.
But she went with Shel to that flower market.
Where you can buy flowers one by one.
He got the girl yellow daisies.
They had coffee.
They had cake.
They were like children.
They could eat cake.
And who would stop them?
Shel looked at the flowers.
Were they wilting in the heat?
He said El.
He said Sodom was sensational.
And Gomorrah was great.
California was a gold rush bust.
He said, “We can’t fall out of the world.”
He said, “We are in it once and for all.”
He ate his cake.
Chocolate, on a green plate.
Shel drank his coffee.
She drank too.
With cream and sugar.
It had cream and sugar.
But it tasted of smoke and ashes.
The daisies were tied with green twine.
“I like the yellow flowers,” she said.
He said, “But you like dark ones best.”
He went to the hospital to give the flowers to the girl.
She didn’t go with him.
Because the flowers were yellow.
And she liked the dark ones best.
Zig used to bring her licorice. In a little paper box with violets. He had a camera. He liked to take pictures in black and white. What happened to that clock? and the photographs? Those pictures that he took on the beach? Those blurry snapshots. He called her a whore.
And that was the end of it.
She had thought that that was the end of it.
If there is such a thing as an ending.
Is there such a thing as an ending?
Because here she was.
In her kitchen. And it wasn’t—
And it isn’t over yet.
All these years later.
When she met Zig he was reading a book of poetry. He was sitting outside a cinema smoking a cigarette and reading poetry. He handed the book to her. He asked her to read the line.
She said, “In the room the women come and go talking of Joe DiMaggio.”
He worked the projector.
She went to the movies.
They ate chocolate and smoked cigarettes.
They talked about the future like there was one.
Which is why he gave her the clock.
So that she could tell the time.
They went to Hollywood.
He broke the clock.
What time is it?
Late? early?
What would she do?
Play a game of chess? or stay up all night?
She could eat chocolate cake.
Or drink coffee with cream and sugar.
She could burn the house down.
Or burn down the house.
No one would stop her.
Zigouiller was in the movies.
And she was married to Louie.
Look at her house.
It’s so beautiful.
Isn’t it?
Look at her dog.
Zola chasing her ball.
She was so beautiful.
Louie wanted her story.
He said that the story is a ruined castle.
He would rebuild the ruins.
Brick by brick.
Memory by memory.
That was his metaphor.
Is it a metaphor?
Louie said that perhaps they would go away in the spring.
Louie never had a tragedy.
Nothing bad had ever happened to him. So—
He wanted her stories.
Louie wanted a story—
Louie asked her to write the story.
She couldn’t think of the word.
For what Roman did to her.
She couldn’t think of the word—
For what she did to him.
For what she wanted.
Of the word for licorice.
The black licorice, that at first she hated, but then she came around to it.
To love a thing, you must hate it first.
You must come around to the worst of it.
Underneath the salt, she found the sweetness.
She loved the salt.
She never lied.
She told the truth.
Even though she did not believe in such a monster.
It was Louie who wanted more.
Louie didn’t want the story to end.
He wanted one more twist, a turn.
So she changed it.
She told it to him again.
It was the story of a brother and a sister.
They lived by a salt creek.
There was a garden with an apple tree, with plums and roses and lilies.
In the woods among the rotting rotten things, the flowers, the mud and the birds, the leaves, the branches, the moss, and vine and violet; they wrote a story.
They locked the story in a cedar box.
She read books. She dreamed.
She wanted. And then she went to Illyria, and she met Roman Stone.
She told Ro the story.
The night they met.
Told him in a doorway.
Dark fluttering wings—
She was the one who found them.
Mother was on the bed.
Father was beside her.
She lighted a candle. She took the candle and went room by room. Lighting small fires as she went. The house was on fire. Everything was burning but she walked through it, and nothing could or would stop her. There was a cake on the kitchen table. She cut a piece of cake, and she ate with her fingers. While the house burned. The door to the cellar was open. She took the steps one by one, down. Down down—she went down to the cellar. Father’s
design was unscrolled. She read and read until she could read no more. She read until she knew all that there was to know. She touched the black keys of his typewriter. There was a sheet of paper rolled in the carriage. There was chocolate on her fingers. She could taste smoke and chocolate.
Maybe it didn’t happen like that.
But that’s how she remembered it. Louie had heard the story a thousand and one times. Each time it was not quite the same. She remembered. Or she forgot. Once she was certain of every object in each room. Like the clock on the table. And the nightdress on a chair. Like a book. And a shoe. Like the cups. One had fallen to the floor. Louie told her—
Louie said that the evidence is crucial to an understanding of the event.
Once she told him of a typewritten note.
She didn’t remember that now.
She didn’t remember that it said: At the heart of all things is a knife.
How could she remember a thing like that?
She remembered the cold night sweetening the hard apples.
And that Father had left the door to the cellar unlocked.
Mother had baked a cake.
Roses grew by the salt creek.
Even the flowers tasted of salt.
The cake was on the table.
There was a knife beside it.
She told Sheldon what she saw.
She saw their bodies.
And so she knew what it meant.
To come to the end of things.
She ate chocolate cake.
She burned the house down.
She took the typewriter.
Shel wrote stories on paper.
And the house burned to ashes.
She told Roman.
She told him that she had burned down the house.
She told him the story.
One night in Illyria. Along those shady lanes. Ro kissed her in the darkness and she didn’t know why.
He said that he had always envied orphans.
She pitied him then.
She mistook cruelty for kindness.
And envy for sweetness.
She told Ro everything.
No one had ever envied her.
Or kissed her in a doorway.
He listened while she told her story.
She told Ro.
That was a long time ago.
What about now?
And what about now?
Ro died.
Had they come to the end of things?
She did not believe—
That they had come to the end of things.
Even now.
There was.
There is no ending.
One night in California.
Ro told her about the girl in the woods.
“Shelly killed her,” he said.
“Shelly killed the girl,” he said.
She told him to be quiet.
She was quiet.
Then she said—
“Promise me something.”
He smoked in silence for a while.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
She said, “Wait.”
“Wait?” he said.
He thought about it.
She could tell that he was thinking about it.
He filled his glass.
He filled hers too.
He said, “Your brother killed that girl.”
She said, “And you want his story.”
He said, “El, I didn’t kill the girl.”
“Just wait,” she said.
“For what?” he said.
“For him,” she said.
He said, “Jesus.”
“Please,” she said.
“Let him tell the story,” she said.
“Wait for him to tell it,” she said.
“Jesus,” he said.
“Do you think that he’s going to confess? He won’t confess,” said Ro.
“I saw what he did to that girl,” he said.
“Please shut up please,” she said.
“Zig will be back soon,” she said.
He said, “How does the story end?”
She said, “I’m not the writer.”
He said, “How would you end it?”
She said, “The girl doesn’t die.”
He said, “What happens to her?”
She said, “She sails away to Byzantium.”
She laughed.
It wasn’t funny.
But that didn’t matter.
She laughed.
She said, “She lives by the sea. And has a dog.”
He said, “That’s how it will end.”
The clock ticked.
They didn’t speak.
It seemed like forever.
He smoked.
He ashed his cigarette.
Then he said—
“Rock, paper, scissors me for it,” he said.
“What?” she said.
He said, “Rock, paper, scissors me for the story.”
He set down his glass.
“Really?” she said.
He put his hand over hers.
And rolled it into a fist.
He took his hand away.
“One, two, three,” they said.
“Go—” they said.
And hit the table: one, two, three times.
He opened his fist.
She opened her hand.
She was scissors.
And he smashed her with his rock.
She lost.
“Jesus,” he said.
“You always choose paper,” he said.
He refilled his glass.
He drank.
He said, “Shel killed that girl.”
“He’s my brother,” she said.
“I have to take care of him,” she said.
“He killed that girl,” he said.
“Stop,” she said.
“Stop saying it.”
He drank.
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“But you won,” she said.
He said, “I’ll look out for him.”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“It won’t make things any better,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
“Every time that you look at him,” he said.
“You’ll see what he did to that girl,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
“You’ll hate him,” he said.
“I won’t,” she said.
“You should,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
“I’ll wait,” he said.
He said that he would wait.
And he would look out for Shelly.
He would wait to write his story.
She started to get up from the table.
He put his hand on her arm.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Do you believe me?” he said.
And didn’t she feel terror then?
She knew all that there was to know.
And this knowledge was no consolation.
He held her arm.
She struggled.
She stopped struggling.
He let go.
She stood.
He said, “I promise.”
He said, “I promise to take care of your brother.”
The sky was light.
The stars were gone.
“I’ll keep his secret,” he said.
“I’ll look out for him,” he said.
“Just say that you believe me,” he said.
He pushed back his chair.
Ro stood.
The sun on the water.
He said, “Do you believe me?”
Ro in sunlight.
He looked. He looked—
Ancient.
Did she believe him?
He waited.
He waited.
She said, “Yes.”
He kissed her.
He kissed her the
n.
It was too late.
It was early.
The sun was coming up.
Isn’t that stupid?
The sun coming up.
Like Apollo riding his chariot across the sky.
The waves were crashing against the shore.
Like Poseidon in his kingdom.
And the sea girls singing each to each.
Isn’t that stupid?
He tore her dress.
Her dress was torn.
He did not know.
And she did not see.
The shadow in the doorway.
Like Odysseus to Penelope.
The sky was red like pomegranate seeds.
Like the eyes of old weeping Zeus.
Like the Sirens singing sailors to the rocks.
The door opened.
Zigouiller stood in the doorway.
He had brought her licorice.
He called her a whore.
He broke the clock.
She broke the eggs.
Roman and Zigouiller ate.
Because they were hungry.
Isn’t that stupid?
Zig collected the pieces of the clock.
There was no hope for them after that.
Was there?
It seemed that there wasn’t.
But here she was.
In another year.
Another winter.
It’s so cold.
Should she start a fire?
She could have cake.
Or stay up all night.
Or sleep.
And dream of great fallen Babylon.
She had a brother.
She did not hate him.
She loved him.
Jesus, what a thing to say.
It’s funny how things go.
She saw the actress. The girl—
She saw Harlow on television the other day.
She was on a soap opera.
She played a widow accused of murder.
Funny.
Roman kept his promise.
He never told the story.
He died and a little bit of the story died with him.
But not all of it.
Roman Stone is dead.
Fate is a girl with scissors.
She’s so beautiful.
Zig asked her to choose.
How could she choose?
When she was a character in someone else’s novel?
Louie told her to write the story.
How could she write a story?
When someone else was already writing it?
It was the story of a sister and a brother.
How could she write; how could she destroy a story?—when she was, when she had always been—a reader.
She found the bodies.
She started the fire.
Let the Dark Flower Blossom Page 23