Perfect Architect

by Jayne Joso

  Halfway through a cigarette, Gaia picked up the two parts of the letter, ashamed at her violent thoughts, alarmed by her own language. She rarely swore, and when she did, her vocabulary was limited. How incredible are the barriers that extreme emotions tear through. Somehow there were no limits. Not anymore.

  She realised that until now she had worked on the assumption that the relationship was entirely down to Charles, that he must have taken the role of predatory, pursuant male, when on the contrary it might have been in the grips of the female. Selené, what woman are you?

  She sobbed and beat the pillows of the sofa-bed. She knew that dramatic explanations pushed away the more plausible, more painful scenarios, but simply couldn’t bear to think of their being in love in some substantial tender way. And all this emotion was taking her strength by stealth. Such erosion leading to greater and greater slips, she might soon face a more complete collapse.

  The end of the pack. Ripping the cord of another, but the tension in her chest forced her to release her grip. The fresh cigarettes tumbled to the floor, and she slept.

  The reply would come soon enough.

  A Spanish Architect…

  In Northern Spain, Carlos Santillana wanders about the local market, reflecting on the design meeting from that morning, and unaware that he will soon be one of a select group of architects invited to compete in designing a home for The Architect’s Widow. A home for Gaia Ore.

  Carlos describes his work as sensual architecture, “Buildings that connect with the same number of senses any good person might possess, and more!” He laughs mildly to himself, thinking back on the fool engineers he has been in meetings with, at how senseless, how impotent they seem. He thinks, in fact, that all people have at their disposal far more senses than they ever care to mobilise. Engineers! Argh! How could you expect sensitivity! He laughs again, and finds himself under the perusal of a small girl at the hem of her mother’s titanic skirt. Big eyes. He laughs some more in response and smiles in her direction, she quickly smiles back, then embarrassed, coils herself in the flow of skirt, and is entirely lost save for two stick legs and tiny feet in her new textile habitat.

  Following his death, Charles Ore assumed a level of acclaim that far outshone his idolisation in life. Perhaps that now made him a saint among architects, though doubtlessly he’d have favoured such adoration to acknowledge him for having a devilish more than saintly nature, and that would have been far closer to the truth. Charles became known as The Architect of the Age, an achievement that is sadly only ever offered posthumously. And as competitors, the dead always prove the most difficult to defeat. Carlos, however, always took life’s trials in his stride, and to him, an epitaph was simply that, it held little currency as far as he was concerned, in the living world. The two men had had little in common, but their drive and passion for architecture had run almost parallel, and whilst Charles lived, they had been contenders.

  Carlos drew his inspiration from nature and from his studies of nomadic tribes; and he talked about his profession, as he did his children, with the deepest and most profound love. “You know what’s great about architecture?” and like the world’s best storytellers he would wrap you gently in words and warmth, “Well… let me tell you. It’s that you start with nothing, from nowhere; a ground with nothing on it, empty, and you draw something, something that’s going to come out from the earth. You can take anything, anything at all, the most basic materials, sticks, rocks, anything you like… cow dung if you choose!” His big eyes glistened, “Dung, nice… it can make very good rendering… adequate at least… from horses, from cows, whatever’s nearby!” His hands now moulding the air, sketching in space, “You can even make bricks from this shit if you like! You would have to compress them… coat them in something, conditions must be right… no rain, but the point is that you must not feel limited!” And then slowing up smoothly to regroup his thoughts, “But the excitement, the real excitement about architecture comes from seeing this nothingness change… an empty space transformed, maybe a habitat emerging there, a little oriental tearoom, a school, a hospital, a gallery… something comes where once it was not.” He rubbed his ample belly in gentle satisfaction, “That is what’s great about architecture.”

  Carlos’ current preoccupation, nay obsession, with transient architecture would regularly send him into a state of complete delirium. His wife, Fabiola, would try to restrain more than calm him. Her device, heavy cooking, nutritious no doubt, but with the accent firmly on cementing her husband to the spot for a period of more than thirty minutes, lest he run wild again with ranting, and wake the children! They had five, and more would surely come; natural rhythms they did indeed triumphantly embrace, yea, endorse! Trumpets yielding, bugles hollering, a regular sexual fanfare. Charles, on the other hand, had always felt that a degree of sexual tension was a necessary spur to the creative spirit, and that to merely give in to it in so obvious a way was to render oneself slave to one’s ‘sexual self’. Carlos was given to the view that the natural release of sexual energies would lead to the promotion of entirely new and intensely invigorating ones, at least as rich and strong as their seed. Charles would never have accepted such a theory, advocating restraint to the point of abstinence, and celebrating with great pride his own capacity for discipline in this area. His energies would not be so diffused. For Carlos such a mindset was far too serious, too far from what nature intended, too much at odds with the balance of life.

  Charles had been irked by his Spanish counterpart, and this was made evident, as always, in his choice and misuse of words, “No, over-indulgence in the sex act, it don’t lead that way, no, not to the promotion of new energies, it leads only to the production of babies!” And this with the flavour of his abhorrence of reproduction in general, and overpopulation in particular.

  In conversation with the mailman, Charles had been much softer and more tolerant of the idea of the large family. But Tom had a quality that touched Charles in a way that almost no one else could. And the fact that Tom’s procreation had some real purpose behind it, namely creating the band members for Poochi’s Poops, was close enough to justifiable reason in Charles’ mind. Making people for no reason, the result of mere contraceptive negligence, well that was no good reason at all. Making a band, well, there was a place for that, if people will have children. – Charles voiced his opinions fervently until he finally realised his minority view largely fell on deaf ears.

  During his university days, women were infuriated by him, arguing that all mothers and would-be-mothers should be given help and support by society. Charles agreed, “Yes, certainly they should. Society should tie their tubes at twelve! And they should remain that way until they can prove themselves and the fathers, capable of good parenting; until they can offer good reason for adding to an already overpopulated world, and until they can financially and emotionally support both themselves and their offspring!” Eventually, he would grow tired, “There’s no point in talking with fools, people will do what they will, and I… I will do… what I will!”

  The discussion of population growth and its social and architectural implications was one that architects came back to time and again, particularly those who designed for cities. Charles and Carlos had not often crossed paths but when they had, Charles would berate the Spaniard, “In the coming twenty-five years, the population will explode by half its number again! Fifty per cent increase, doesn’t that frighten you?” But fear could not penetrate this most positive of souls, and Carlos would never envisage new lives as anything less than the world’s rich bounty. “Just think how much more love there will be in the world, Charles, with all those new hearts beating.”

  Charles would have easily committed Carlos Santillana to memory in the pejorative sense, were it not for the fact, that despite talking almost nothing but utter drivel, the man stood on the point of the architectural horizon that glows brightest. Santillana was one of a generation of
maestro designers and creators, and not even Charles could deny it.

  Chapter Five

  The Reply

  Selené to Gaia

  Dear Mrs Ore,

  I should like to call you Gaia, but make no such presumption, though I very much feel I know you, and sense a closeness to you without ever having met. No, I must remain formal. I sense my knowledge of you might be greater than yours of me, and so you are at a disadvantage. I hope this will not always be the case. My dear girl, how horribly unhappy you must be. I share in your grief, but naturally, as his wife, you must be in such awful pain, oh dear me, would that I could come there and comfort you. However, I am perhaps the most afflicted misanthrope, and suffer various other indulgent phobias, probably mostly imagined, as Charles would say, but nonetheless I really cannot for the life of me leave my home, much as I should like to. Please accept my great affection towards you, oh dear girl.

  Once you feel able, I hope that you might write to me again. I think there are things you may be desirous of knowing; Charles, he was a secretive soul.

  My deepest sympathies

  Selené

  Gaia felt the disadvantaged position Selené spoke of, and how she felt it. She had achieved the initial goal of having Selené reply, but the letter betrayed almost no new information. What it did succeed in was feeding an already distraught soul, and affirming certain suspicions.

  I hope that you might write to me again. I think there are things you may be desirous of knowing.

  How dare this woman be so bold as to invite the widow’s questions, weren’t these hers by right, and not at the co-respondent’s leisure? And what shameless vanity, that Selené seemed so willing to parade her relationship with Charles. Enough of this! Gaia knew what she wanted. Clarity. Direct answers to direct questions.

  She looked over the letter again, examining it closely, she felt it mocked her; and now she also deeply resented the degree of familiarity in which it was written, the assumed sense of closeness. It grated.

  No more of this.

  The gloves were off.

  Things I’d be ‘desirous of knowing’, damn you! That’s exactly right, Selené!

  Gaia took up her pen.

  After a determined start, Gaia’s rage lost its impetus, and the letter was to become a simple one. In truth, all the aggressive, angry emotions were something of an anathema to her, and try as she might, they were not robes cut to her more tolerant, tranquil shape.

  Her thoughts soon directed her towards retaining a certain amount of civility, for the time being at least, lest she accuse the adulterous woman of further crimes without sufficient evidence. – And whatever her feelings, this correspondence had to be maintained, the letter had to be sent, and the faster she sent it the faster the reply would come.

  Letter: To the Co-respondent

  Gaia to Selené

  Dear Selené,

  Why do you address me as – My dear girl? I can’t imagine why you should choose such language.

  It appears that Charles was indeed secretive. Your relationship seems to have quite a history, perhaps it even predates his and mine? You suggest I might want to know more of your relationship. I do.

  Bereaved as I am, finding out that another woman has shared your husband comes as perhaps an even greater shock than if he were still alive. But I do not want sympathy.

  In one of your recent letters to Charles you spoke of ‘little ones’, will you enlighten me? I thought I had many more questions, but somehow that’s sufficient for now.

  Yours

  Gaia Ore

  Letter: To the Agitated

  Selené to Gaia

  Dear darling Gaia,

  Dearie dearie me, your pain is almost palpable! It is to be expected of course. But how I wish I could be of some help.

  You seem most distressed somehow by ‘me’? Is it so very awful not to have been singular in Charles’ affection? It comes as something of a shock to me, but perhaps it is due entirely to Charles having kept us secret. I have to confess, that was at my request. Something I made him commit to as a child, and he, as diligent and loyal a man as he grew to be, did not fail me in that, as he would no one. But then that must be obvious to you now. I’m sure such qualities are part of what must have drawn you to him.

  Oh, and I am all but forgetting your questions, you see, I am of far less reliable character than Arles! Now then let me just pour myself a drink, I feel most drawn to tears again, quite sentimental, and after my drink I shall return to what you ask.

  Now, where was I? Ah yes, my relationship clearly does predate, as you put it, yours and Charles’.

  You mention the little ones, yes and now I must tend to their needs. I do hope this letter helps you some. Write again soon dear.

  With love

  Selené

  Letter: In Anger

  Gaia to Selené

  Dear Selené,

  You do lack Charles’ diligence, yes! You have not answered my questions, not at all. You just pussyfoot around. Haven’t you done enough? Is it your aim now to torment me?

  When I said that your relationship was longer than mine, I wanted to know exactly how long? I thought that would have been obvious! Alright, you’ve known him since childhood, but have you been close all that time, were you childhood sweethearts before becoming adult… adult lovers?

  And you evaded entirely my enquiry as regards the little ones! What game do you play?

  Yours

  Gaia Ore

  Letter: To the Mislead

  Selené to Gaia

  Dear Gaia,

  Firstly, let me offer my profuse apologies to you dear girl. What have I done!

  Although I was kept secret from you, in my own silly way I somehow thought that you had now come to know me. Thoughtless of me really. And I suppose it is a kind of arrogance in my character that has assumed that I can actually put myself in my letters. I was at pains to work out your anger until your line about childhood sweethearts and adult lovers. Lovers! Goodness me, Arles and I? No! Darling Gaia, my sweet sweet girl, I am above seventy! So you see, some thirty years plus when he was but a child. That was in the days before I became so reclusive; I knew his parents quite well. I probably shouldn’t say this, but a part of me is flattered that my hand and turn of phrase has not betrayed my age. I look back at your earlier letter and see that you did ask me something about the language I use, and that you couldn’t quite fathom it. But I think that were you not already in a state of grief, your normal faculties would have cleanly traced that I belong so much less to your time, and so much more to an elder one. Sweet jealous Gaia. You know, Arles would have been so proud to have raised such intense emotion in you. He loved you so. I hope this knowledge allows you to relax in some measure. No my dear, I was never your husband’s lover, I was merely an old, adoring, not-even-blood-related sort of aunt.

  Now then, where was I up to with your questions? Ah yes, ‘little ones’, my King Charles spaniels, darling. I have six. Little tinkers! I hope, given the great misunderstanding, that you were not under the illusion that I had borne Charles any children. Heaven forbid! I can’t really follow that if you did; he so proudly showed off the receipt for his vasectomy, I remember it very clearly. His parents were mortified, and that shortly before their deaths. Terrible. He was just twenty-six as far as I remember.

  As for myself, I have taken many lovers over the years, and saw no need to take a husband. And not inclined towards children I have none of those either. I have very little inclination toward people at all, save from a distance.

  I do hope I have covered everything this time. Oh you poor girl, do not despair. I also hope that our early correspondence will, in time, prove to be the subject of laughter in future years. Of course, you cannot see it now, but believe me, your life will on, it will
on and on darling. I sense your weakness now, but you will not pass away with Charles, so help me, you will not.

  My greatest affection

  Selené

  That the peculiar turn of phrase turned out to be that of an elderly aunt figure and not of a patronising seductress, was substantially humbling. Gaia collapsed into herself as the news intensified and fell upon her in monstrous embarrassment. The relief she should have felt, knowing she had not been betrayed to any great degree, if at all, was withered by the knowledge of her own gross foolishness and sheer misplaced spite.

  She had designed Selené in full; flesh, disposition, age… yes – and what had she for material? Arguably almost nothing. She had designed her from the spaces between the lines in three brief letters. She had made far too much from far too little. But the boxes! Three boxes! But she hadn’t examined the contents, and had she done, she may so easily have allayed all her own fears. She could have done so, and without having humiliated herself.

  Whiskey and cigarettes.

  And more cigarettes.

  The last letter contained so much, she read it over, brushing the curls from her eyes and forehead, and tears that had fallen to her cheeks. Yes, there it was, vasectomy at twenty-six. Charles and Gaia had never had secrets, but Charles had. Yes, Charles had had secrets, and Charles and Selené had had secrets.