Let the Dark Flower Blossom

by Norah Labiner

  And he has to start again.

  And yet one must consider Sisyphus happy.

  Like Inj says—

  At least he has a hill.

  At least he has a rock.

  Some people don’t even have that.

  Some people live their whole lives.

  Without a tragedy to call their own.

  Some brothers don’t even have a sister.

  The days grow hot, O Babylon!

  Hey Shelly, Pru would say if she read this.

  Don’t be so glum, chum.

  That’s what Pru would say.

  I forgive you, she would say.

  If she read this.

  Which she cannot.

  Because I killed her.

  I open the door to Dr. Lemon’s room.

  He is small and frail against the pillows of his bed.

  The curtains are open. If he opens his eyes, he will see—

  When darkness goes to black.

  Descending around the edges of the day.

  How even in winter the garden awaits him.

  I sit beside him.

  His eyes open.

  Does he see?

  The beauty of his kingdom?

  Dr. Lemon is dying.

  And with him will go his knowledge.

  And every story that he has ever heard.

  Though his trees will burst into bloom.

  And that summer sweetness will come again.

  He knows this.

  His will be done.

  He commands.

  He whispers.

  He asks.

  Tell.

  In the farmhouse, as the snow fell and fell, and the girl lay buried in the ground, and the ice was thick on the pond, we sat that night around the fire, the four of us. Roman told the story of the brother and sister who were haunted by a murder. We drank. I staggered to bed with Wren. Later when I woke she was gone. I lighted a candle. I walked the hallway. I heard voices, a girl. I thought that it was the girl. I thought: she is not dead. We buried her alive, and she has come back. She is back from the woods, a ghost. I went downstairs, my hand trembling as I held the candle. The wax burning my skin. There was a blaze in the fireplace. It lit, it lighted, it illuminated in shadows and shapes the room. I saw Ro and the girl—I watched them—I watched her—I did not turn away—her ghost skin; her ghost body in the firelight; the wood shifted in the fire; a flame leapt; the light caught her. I saw her face.

  I saw the girl.

  It was not a ghost.

  She turned; I saw.

  It was Wren.

  Eloise was in the kitchen.

  She was baking a cake.

  I’ll start again.

  Father taught me how to type.

  The metal key hit the paper.

  Inking each letter.

  Father taught me the truth.

  Father knew the truth.

  The world is a monster.

  Eloise and I wrote a story.

  I suppose there are worse things.

  Than killing your parents.

  In a story.

  I planned how I would kill them.

  In a story.

  I set pen to paper.

  Eloise ate an apple.

  And then they died.

  So perhaps a story is not a story.

  It is the ghost of desire.

  I told the story to Ro.

  I’ll start. I will. Again.

  This is how the first house burned.

  Eloise set the bed on fire.

  She took our story.

  Handwritten pages.

  She scattered pages.

  And she lighted a candle.

  And she set the bed on fire.

  She was named after Mother.

  And I was named after Father.

  She was under the apple tree, waiting.

  With the typewriter.

  It was fall.

  And I fell.

  We stood by the salt creek.

  We watched the house burn.

  The story should end here.

  It does not end here.

  One thing happened.

  Then another.

  We went to college.

  We met Roman Stone.

  Ro wanted a tragedy to call his own.

  Paper covers rock.

  And rock smashes scissors.

  I know that the story did not end.

  The story does not end.

  Because it is not a story.

  And scissors cuts paper.

  I’ll begin.

  Not with the rock, but the idea of the rock.

  Not with the girl.

  But the idea of the girl.

  Eloise under the apple tree.

  Susu in the dark auditorium.

  Wren with Ro.

  Pru with a paintbrush.

  Leda with her swan.

  Beatrice among the blackberries.

  Inj in the woods.

  When Inj stood in the woods.

  When Salt went on ahead.

  Through the pines.

  Blackbirds in the branches of the cedar trees.

  I said, “Don’t you have one more question for me?”

  I opened her hand.

  I gave her my key.

  Her palm caught the sun.

  And the key glittered.

  I said to her, “Now you have a tragedy—”

  She said, “You know who he is, don’t you?”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Salt,” she said.

  The wind was in the trees.

  I almost couldn’t hear—

  “He is,” she said. “He’s—”

  “Roman’s son,” she said.

  “Roman is his father,” she said.

  The jetty was up ahead.

  She kissed her hand.

  She ran.

  She ran to him.

  If you don’t believe a story can kill you—

  You haven’t heard the right story.

  In the myth: Zeus takes the form of a swan and rapes Leda. She gives birth to an egg, from which cracks Helen. Prince Paris chooses Helen as the most beautiful woman in the world; he gives her the golden Hesperidian apple—a gift that causes such envy amongst the goddesses that it brings about the Trojan War. Or does it? Were events set into motion with the cracking of an egg? Or the fluttering of wings? There is a version of the story in which it is not Helen who breaks from the egg, but her twin brothers, Castor and Pollux. In some tellings, there is no egg. There is always a swan, and a girl, and rape.

  This is the place to start.

  Start with the girl, the god, the rape.

  Prometheus steals fire.

  Pandora lifts the lid.

  Eve eats the apple.

  Lot’s wife looks back.

  Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land after forty years in the desert.

  He comes down from his mountain, and he smashes the commandments. In every version of the story there is a broken law.

  Time is a winter evening.

  Time is a white sheet of paper.

  Snow White eats the poison apple. When the woodsman, who has come from the wicked queen, finds the girl fallen in the forest; she is so beautiful that he can’t bring himself to kill her with his hatchet. He kills a deer; and with his knife cuts out the heart, puts it in a box, locks it with a key, and he brings it to the queen.

  Egg.

  Apple.

  Swan.

  Shell.

  Rock.

  Stone.

  Water.

  Law.

  Hatchet.

  Knife.

  Heart.

  Hope.

  Oh, and the girl.

  I mustn’t forget the girl.

  In every version of the story there is a girl.

  Time is no measure of meaning.

  Snow is falling.

  This afternoon—just when I thought the story was ending—

  A strange thing happen
ed.

  And everything began to begin again.

  I heard a knock on the front door.

  I thought that perhaps they had come for me.

  I waited. I waited.

  Beatrice came into the library.

  “There’s a girl here,” she said.

  There was a girl in the kitchen.

  A girl—

  Susu Zigouiller in her coat.

  Susu sat at the kitchen table.

  Her dark hair damp with snow.

  “God,” she said. “It’s taken me forever to get here.”

  “How did you find the place?” I asked her.

  “Whatta question,” she said.

  Susu looked around the kitchen.

  “This is a nice house,” she said.

  “Whose is it?” she said.

  “My father’s,” said Beatrice.

  “Oh,” said Susu. “May I have some cream?”

  “I got to the island. And I started walking,” Susu said. “I saw the lights, your lights, and I followed them.”

  “Through the woods?” said Beatrice.

  “I love the woods,” said Susu.

  Beatrice gave Susu the cream.

  Susu poured it into her cup.

  We sat at the table.

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  I asked, “How did you get across the lake in this weather?”

  Susu held the coffee cup in both hands.

  She said, “I gave a coin to the ferryman.”

  Happiness is a monstrosity!

  Punished are those who seek it.

  I am winding my way through the labyrinth. I am chased by fate. I avoid one monster to fall on another. Has Beatrice shored up enough against the ruins to keep us safe here? Will the wine hold out? Will there be sugar and salt enough to see us till the end of time and beyond? Will I devour like the locust? Will I obliterate like the flood? Will the dove find the fresh green breast of the new world? How many times can the hourglass be upended? I will run out of soap and flour and milk. I will run out of truth and beauty. I will run out of things to run out of. I will run out of the desire of wanting. I will run out of the fear of objects. I will run out of tragedy. I will speed to my fate. So slowly. So slowly. That I will miss it as it happens. Though it is happening now. I am speeding to my fate. I will run out of girls.

  I will never run out of girls.

  Dr. Lemon entrusted me with his greatest treasure.

  Not a painting. Nor a vase.

  Not a signed first edition of a leather-bound tome.

  He asked me to take care of his daughter.

  When he was dead and gone.

  No one is ever dead and gone.

  I said, yes.

  I will devour, like the locust.

  Like the flood.

  Like the flame that turns to holocaust.

  Everything before me.

  I said yes.

  As a symbolic gesture.

  Before I realized that there is no such thing.

  Not an eagle or a trumpet.

  Not a buttered scone or crumpet.

  Later, in the evening. Susu closed the door to the doctor’s library behind her, and she said to me, “I came here to tell you what really happened.”

  Susu told me what happened.

  “Roman found me,” she said. “The day after you introduced us. Do you remember? At that lecture? The reading? We were late. We walked in late, remember? He called me. I went to him at his hotel. It was so—so sophisticated. You don’t know how a girl longs for that.”

  She said, “To be sophisticated. To be grown up.”

  I was silent.

  In the library.

  I waited.

  “We got along so well,” she said.

  “Do you want me to tell you how it was,” she said. “Between us?”

  “Do you want me to be vulgar?” she said.

  She stood at the window.

  “I can be vulgar if that’s what you’d like,” she said.

  I said nothing.

  She went on.

  “I went away with him,” she said. “We ate oranges. We swam in the sea. He called me his fate. Is that stupid? I know it’s stupid,” she said.

  She laughed.

  “We saw ruins,” she said.

  “He wrote his book,” she said.

  “Did you read it?” I asked.

  She said, “What good can a book do for me? I went to the beach. We were happy. He said that we were happy, anyway. I never really think about things like that.”

  “That’s when it happened,” she said.

  “What?” I said.

  “I met him one night—in the hotel bar. He wasn’t alone. He was with a man. An old friend whom he hadn’t seen in forever. They drank. I drank too. Then it was late. I didn’t, I don’t know where the waiter had gone. The friend went to find the waiter. And Ro, he turned to me. Ro asked me to—” she said.

  She waited.

  “He told me what he wanted me to do.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this,” I said.

  She had her back to me.

  She turned.

  “May I have a drink?” said Susu.

  I poured her a glass of vodka.

  “I did what he asked me to do,” she said.

  “I always did what he asked me to do,” she said.

  She drank.

  “I spent the night with his friend,” she said. “When I went back to our room in the morning—Ro was gone.”

  “He left you there?” I said.

  “He left a plane ticket for me. That was it. I don’t know,” she said. “I went home. I went to the movies every day. I saw everything at the Cineplex. One day, or maybe it was night, I saw this picture—this movie about the Trojan War. Have you seen it?”

  “No,” I said.

  “The man,” she said. “Ro’s friend. From the bar. He was in the movie.”

  Susu said that she watched the movie. With a terrible ominous feeling. She waited for the credits. And then she saw the name of the actor who played Priam.

  “The king,” I said.

  She said. “The king.”

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  “Zigouiller,” she said.

  “Zig,” I said.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “In the hotel—” she said. “Where we stayed. There was a statue in the lobby. Ro called her Our Lady of Situations. There was a story that she could heal the sick and all that. It made the place popular with tourists—they came to see the lady. To take a picture with the lady. It bothered Ro that the place was becoming popular with tourists. He said, he said—‘the world may change, but not me.’ That’s what he said. So he always tried to knock her over,” she laughed. “When he walked by. Gave her an elbow—a shove. He couldn’t help himself. Some people said the hotel had been built around the lady. But the night porter’s wife told me that the owner of the place won the statue in a card game.”

  She laughed.

  “I knew that Ro was going to Iowa,” she said. “He had told me about it. How he was going to give a graduation speech. At his old school. So I went to Illyria. I went to him. He was staying in a guesthouse. The door wasn’t locked. I walked in. He wasn’t even surprised. He asked me was I hungry? He had just ordered dinner. ‘I’m so happy that you came,’ he said. ‘You always know what I want. Just when I want it,’ he said. I—I told him about the movie, that I saw, that I had seen the movie. That I knew who his friend was. He laughed. He said, ‘So you saw Zig?’ He said, ‘Poor old Zig.’ He said that he had never liked Zigouiller. He said that actors were stupid parrots; weren’t they? I asked him why did he trick me? I asked him why did he do that to me? He seemed, oh—sad. ‘To you?’ he said. ‘What does it have to do with you?’ he said. It was a joke on Zig. That’s what he said. He said, ‘Zigouiller has nothing to do with us.’”

  “And then I knew,” Susu said.

  “Or maybe I had always known,” she said.


  “Knew what?” I said.

  She looked at me.

  Her smooth forehead. Her moon-round face.

  Her green eyes. Her dark hair.

  “I knew that Roman was my father,” she said.

  I was looking at Susu.

  “You don’t mean?” I said.

  “You mean—?” I said.

  “Don’t be vulgar,” she said.

  “He said that we could go away together. Someplace where things like that didn’t matter. I wanted to go with him. I really did,” she said.

  “I asked him, ‘What about my mother?’”

  “‘Your mother?’ he said.”

  “Do you know what he said then?”

  “He called her a whore.”

  Susu laughed.

  “Whore is such a funny old-fashioned word,” she said.

  “‘Your mother,’ he said, ‘lost a bet, and here you are.’”

  “‘Do you believe me?’ he said.”

  “Did I believe him?

  The television was on. He was watching a baseball game.

  He said that it was just us now.

  And didn’t we have an understanding?

  Didn’t we get along so well?

  He came toward me.

  There was a pearl-handled letter opener on the table.

  Wasn’t that just like him?

  To leave such a dangerous thing lying around?

  A sharp silver knife.

  A beautiful thing.

  He came toward me.

  He didn’t stop.

  He saw me looking at the knife.

  He said that he had gotten it for me as a gift.

  Because it was so beautiful.

  Because I was beautiful.

  And because I always liked letters so much.

  That I should have a silver letter opener.

  He handed it to me.

  Its handle toward my hand.

  I took the knife from him.

  I pushed it in.

  As hard as I could.

  I stabbed him.

  He fell back.

  I took the knife.

  He wanted me to have it.

  It was such a beautiful thing.

  Oh, and this. His watch.

  Because mine had stopped.

  He didn’t need his anymore.

  What could time mean to him?

  Do you think it’s ugly?

  I’ll sell it when I run out of cash.

  I took the watch and the knife.

  Then I left.

  I got on a plane that night.

  I haven’t been back since.

  And now here I am,” she said.

  Susu sat by the window—

  Just as Ro had all those years ago.

  “I look like him, don’t I?” she said.