could look towards the wooded valley east
of Dému, the Bois de Mazères, where the silent burial of his mother took place
many years ago...he and his father digging and four others watching, and then,
at the end of his mother’s commitment to the earth, all of them stepped away
from the grave and went their own ways like the spokes of a cart wheel, all of
them carrying their own version of Aria, none of them wishing to share it, or
dilute it within a group. No words were spoken. He was asked to play but did
not; he would play later, when she inhabited him more, when she abided in him.
Then he could represent her, just as he knew his father would take into himself
the qualities of Aria he might unconsciously have fought against in the past.
In this way she would remain with them. He can almost see the clearing in the
forest where they took her that morning. They slipped her into the ground
within three hours, so she lived the briefest death on the earth, as if earth
were a boat that forced a quick embarkation. They had brought her back to the
landscape she was most fond of. It was about fi ve in the morning, and bird life was wild
around them, as if it was his mother ’ s leaving.
Rafael turns and walks
along the struts of the loft. He thinks he has heard Anna calling. She has
moved the ladder away and is standing there undressed, laughing at him when his
head appears through the rectangle. He drops his legs through the hole and
hangs on with his hands. When she sees he isn ’ t going
to ask her for the ladder, she scrambles to provide it, but he has already
dropped the fi fteen feet to the fl oor.
She stands there stranded,
as if discovered naked on a stage with a ladder in her arms. He walks in slow
circles around her, hemming her in....
You’ve got feathers on
you.
I’ve got feathers, at least I am partially dressed.
Let’s have a bath. I will draw it.
No. The river. As you are. There will be nobody there. You
need to just cross the meadow, then
you will be in the trees.
His callused fi ngers hold her at the wrist again. So she
goes with him down to the kitchen and out the back.
Next time don’t move the ladder.
Oh, next time I will.
It isn’t much more than a trout stream, so they lie on their backs against
pebbles in order to be fully submerged. She sees a curl of water sculpt his
hair and shoulders, as if he’s being transformed. This is a fi rst, she thinks. Then realizes so much is
a fi rst with him, her
running up and down the corridor naked, the loose grip even now on her wrist,
his almost sleepy sexuality where there seems no boundary between passion and
curiosity and closeness, unlike one of her earlier lovers, who had been ardent
but sel fi sh.
And yet he keeps far away from her what else he is. As though
he wishes in some way to remain a stranger. Why does that happen...with
such an otherwise generous man? These men with art, like
nineteenth-century botanists who, though wise and obsessive, claim only
professional affection for the world around them.
But the next day, standing in the meadow, he invites Anna to visit the trailer,
and she hesitates, thinking the offer is a commitment on his part, even a
tentative one. It implies too much knowledge of the other—his home could be a
capsule of the past or of a possible future. Her own hesitation at breaking their formality is interpreted by Rafael as shyness, or
modesty, or a desire not to take the relationship further. And in some way this
is not a misinterpretation of Anna. For she too has lived a
stranger’s life. There are layers of compulsive secrecy in her. She
knows there is a ‘ fl ock ’ of Annas, and that the Anna beside this
unnamed river of Rafael ’ s is not the Anna giving a
seminar at Berkeley on one of Alexandre Dumas ’ collaborators and plot researchers, is not the Anna in San Francisco walking
into Tosca ’ s or eating at the Tadich Grill on California
Street.
She stands looking at Rafael in the middle of that meadow. Why
of Dému, the Bois de Mazères, where the silent burial of his mother took place
many years ago...he and his father digging and four others watching, and then,
at the end of his mother’s commitment to the earth, all of them stepped away
from the grave and went their own ways like the spokes of a cart wheel, all of
them carrying their own version of Aria, none of them wishing to share it, or
dilute it within a group. No words were spoken. He was asked to play but did
not; he would play later, when she inhabited him more, when she abided in him.
Then he could represent her, just as he knew his father would take into himself
the qualities of Aria he might unconsciously have fought against in the past.
In this way she would remain with them. He can almost see the clearing in the
forest where they took her that morning. They slipped her into the ground
within three hours, so she lived the briefest death on the earth, as if earth
were a boat that forced a quick embarkation. They had brought her back to the
landscape she was most fond of. It was about fi ve in the morning, and bird life was wild
around them, as if it was his mother ’ s leaving.
Rafael turns and walks
along the struts of the loft. He thinks he has heard Anna calling. She has
moved the ladder away and is standing there undressed, laughing at him when his
head appears through the rectangle. He drops his legs through the hole and
hangs on with his hands. When she sees he isn ’ t going
to ask her for the ladder, she scrambles to provide it, but he has already
dropped the fi fteen feet to the fl oor.
She stands there stranded,
as if discovered naked on a stage with a ladder in her arms. He walks in slow
circles around her, hemming her in....
You’ve got feathers on
you.
I’ve got feathers, at least I am partially dressed.
Let’s have a bath. I will draw it.
No. The river. As you are. There will be nobody there. You
need to just cross the meadow, then
you will be in the trees.
His callused fi ngers hold her at the wrist again. So she
goes with him down to the kitchen and out the back.
Next time don’t move the ladder.
Oh, next time I will.
It isn’t much more than a trout stream, so they lie on their backs against
pebbles in order to be fully submerged. She sees a curl of water sculpt his
hair and shoulders, as if he’s being transformed. This is a fi rst, she thinks. Then realizes so much is
a fi rst with him, her
running up and down the corridor naked, the loose grip even now on her wrist,
his almost sleepy sexuality where there seems no boundary between passion and
curiosity and closeness, unlike one of her earlier lovers, who had been ardent
but sel fi sh.
And yet he keeps far away from her what else he is. As though
he wishes in some way to remain a stranger. Why does that happen...with
such an otherwise generous man? These men with art, like
nineteenth-century botanists who, though wise and obsessive, claim only
professional affection for the world around them.
But the next day, standing in the meadow, he invites Anna to visit the trailer,
and she hesitates, thinking the offer is a commitment on his part, even a
tentative one. It implies too much knowledge of the other—his home could be a
capsule of the past or of a possible future. Her own hesitation at breaking their formality is interpreted by Rafael as shyness, or
modesty, or a desire not to take the relationship further. And in some way this
is not a misinterpretation of Anna. For she too has lived a
stranger’s life. There are layers of compulsive secrecy in her. She
knows there is a ‘ fl ock ’ of Annas, and that the Anna beside this
unnamed river of Rafael ’ s is not the Anna giving a
seminar at Berkeley on one of Alexandre Dumas ’ collaborators and plot researchers, is not the Anna in San Francisco walking
into Tosca ’ s or eating at the Tadich Grill on California
Street.
She stands looking at Rafael in the middle of that meadow. Why
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