doesn’t she wish
to visit her lover’s home? She is curious, after all. But she knows this
romance is a romance, in no way an agreement towards permanence, even though
much of her wants to see his silhouette moving within that suitcase of a
home that once belonged to the mysterious Aria. She wants to climb onto his
narrow bed with him and brace her arms against the ledge of the window, look
down on his weathered face and slowly bring her head to the patch of his body
that smells of basil, next to his heart.
One of the dearest possessions that Anna has is an old map— La Carte du
Tendre Pays —sweetly named, of emotions that fi t into the shape of France. It was
composed by women in an earlier century, during an era of male exploration and
mapmaking. But this was a map of yearnings that courteously avoided sexual
love, except for a darkly etched thicketed region in the north, listed as
‘Terres Inconnues.’ Well, times change. By the time she earned and saved enough
money to pay for her university studies in French, she was told by a dean that
the best way to learn French was to take a French lover.
In spite of everything that had existed between Coop and Anna for those two
months on the Petaluma farm, they had remained mysterious to each other. They’d
really been discovering themselves. In this way they could fit into the world.
But years later, never having married, never having lived with anyone in a
relationship that intended permanence, she still sidled beside her lovers as if
she were on Coop’s deck, glowing in secret with the discovery of herself. So
there had always been and perhaps always would be a maze of unmarked roads
between her and others. That emotional map of France was still true in the
present, full of subtexts, social intricacies, unspoken balances of power. One still needed to move warily, with hesitance, within it.
She sits on his bunk, next
to the sacred guitar.
So this is it.
Yes.
No books.
No.
No pictures.
He brings out a photograph of Aria. Anna looks for the person who has distilled
in her mind as a result of his stories. There’s a whimsy in his mother’s face
that Anna had not expected.
And your father? Do you have one of him?
He does not respond to this at fi rst.
Somewhere I have a photograph that he is in, but you cannot
see him clearly. He didn’t like being photographed. You get in their
books, he’d say, and you can never get out. If he ever needed a passport, he
would use someone else’s. Someone roughly the same age and
hair colour. No one looks like their passport picture. Do you? Do you
have a sister? You could probably use your sister’s passport if you needed to.
I don’t have a sister.
Don’t you? I thought you did.
She shook her head.
She was lying again to a lover. Had a sister. Had a past. She
would not tell him. Later, if she were brave enough. About their father
turning like an axe on Coop, and her praying for his breath beside him, even
for a small rise of his chest, the rest of her life splintered at that moment,
with her becoming a creature of a hundred natures and voices, and with a new
name. She envied this man beside her, as close as Coop had been to her on that
cabin fl oor.
This man ’ s life seemed
innocent. She envied the delightful adventures of his father and Aria. Perhaps
she needed a man as content as this to tell her past to.
All your stories,
Rafael—tell me, was there nothing terrible? Oh, many things. Many things
changed me. There was a love affair with a woman that silenced me, there was
the writer who lived in the house you are staying in, there
were the donkeys....
See , that’s what I mean!
Rafael ’ s fi rst encounter with a
girl was when he was seventeen. On a Friday evening he was to walk the few
miles into town, have a picnic with her beside the bridge, and then go to a
cinema. He carefully picked some marigolds, and then, because he was late,
decided to hitchhike. He felt the evening should go only one way, which was
that he
to visit her lover’s home? She is curious, after all. But she knows this
romance is a romance, in no way an agreement towards permanence, even though
much of her wants to see his silhouette moving within that suitcase of a
home that once belonged to the mysterious Aria. She wants to climb onto his
narrow bed with him and brace her arms against the ledge of the window, look
down on his weathered face and slowly bring her head to the patch of his body
that smells of basil, next to his heart.
One of the dearest possessions that Anna has is an old map— La Carte du
Tendre Pays —sweetly named, of emotions that fi t into the shape of France. It was
composed by women in an earlier century, during an era of male exploration and
mapmaking. But this was a map of yearnings that courteously avoided sexual
love, except for a darkly etched thicketed region in the north, listed as
‘Terres Inconnues.’ Well, times change. By the time she earned and saved enough
money to pay for her university studies in French, she was told by a dean that
the best way to learn French was to take a French lover.
In spite of everything that had existed between Coop and Anna for those two
months on the Petaluma farm, they had remained mysterious to each other. They’d
really been discovering themselves. In this way they could fit into the world.
But years later, never having married, never having lived with anyone in a
relationship that intended permanence, she still sidled beside her lovers as if
she were on Coop’s deck, glowing in secret with the discovery of herself. So
there had always been and perhaps always would be a maze of unmarked roads
between her and others. That emotional map of France was still true in the
present, full of subtexts, social intricacies, unspoken balances of power. One still needed to move warily, with hesitance, within it.
She sits on his bunk, next
to the sacred guitar.
So this is it.
Yes.
No books.
No.
No pictures.
He brings out a photograph of Aria. Anna looks for the person who has distilled
in her mind as a result of his stories. There’s a whimsy in his mother’s face
that Anna had not expected.
And your father? Do you have one of him?
He does not respond to this at fi rst.
Somewhere I have a photograph that he is in, but you cannot
see him clearly. He didn’t like being photographed. You get in their
books, he’d say, and you can never get out. If he ever needed a passport, he
would use someone else’s. Someone roughly the same age and
hair colour. No one looks like their passport picture. Do you? Do you
have a sister? You could probably use your sister’s passport if you needed to.
I don’t have a sister.
Don’t you? I thought you did.
She shook her head.
She was lying again to a lover. Had a sister. Had a past. She
would not tell him. Later, if she were brave enough. About their father
turning like an axe on Coop, and her praying for his breath beside him, even
for a small rise of his chest, the rest of her life splintered at that moment,
with her becoming a creature of a hundred natures and voices, and with a new
name. She envied this man beside her, as close as Coop had been to her on that
cabin fl oor.
This man ’ s life seemed
innocent. She envied the delightful adventures of his father and Aria. Perhaps
she needed a man as content as this to tell her past to.
All your stories,
Rafael—tell me, was there nothing terrible? Oh, many things. Many things
changed me. There was a love affair with a woman that silenced me, there was
the writer who lived in the house you are staying in, there
were the donkeys....
See , that’s what I mean!
Rafael ’ s fi rst encounter with a
girl was when he was seventeen. On a Friday evening he was to walk the few
miles into town, have a picnic with her beside the bridge, and then go to a
cinema. He carefully picked some marigolds, and then, because he was late,
decided to hitchhike. He felt the evening should go only one way, which was
that he
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