of adopting a child from a small obscure Caribbean island.
But before this she dreamed of her childhood home, which had miraculously evolved into the boat. Upside down, the keel had become the peak of the roof, and, with little alteration, planks had turned to clapboard. Inside, the windows were gaping holes, providing a variety of ocean views and covered with curtains made of torn clothing and shoe laces. Her father crouched in the left-hand corner of the overturned stern, reading the Bible and writing stock market quotations in the damp sand of the floor. When we went back to sleep I dreamed I was a fisherman considering immigration to a new land.
One of the children dreamed that he could see the pattern of the boat clearly charted by stars in a navy-blue sky. It was situated right between the Big and Little Dippers. He pointed it out to a crowd that had assembled somewhere vaguely to his left but they had been unable to see even the Big or Little Dipper and spoke only of fireflies and satellites.
The next day we were all easy with the boat, as if our vision of the beach had expanded just enough to include it. And so, when late in the morning we watched the uniformed men tie theboat to their own authoritative coast guard vessel, we felt remotely sad and guilty too, as if the boat had committed some obscure crime, to which we were a party. We asked and were told that the boat would be filled with weights and sunk at sea. Our last glimpse of it was a spot of red on the horizon—its painted stern glowing in the sun.
The following week vacation ended and the children returned to their home in the north where winter gradually bleached their brown skins. When they spoke of the boat, they did so with such confusion that their mother assumed that they had been taken on a fishing excursion, and their father believed that they had been presented with an expensive toy by us, their over-indulgent grandparents. Even their drawings, which often included the boat, were quickly glanced at by their parents and then forgotten.
We quickly readjusted to our childless existence and finally forgot about the boat altogether except when it entered our unremembered dreams. Each day we went to the beach and sat beneath our colourful umbrellas. My wife knitted. We seldom spoke. I read stock-market quotations. She unpacked the Styrofoam cooler. Sleek fibreglass sail-boats and impressive yachts sailed across our constant vision of the sea. And when, a month later, our attention focused on the horizon, we did not recognize the subject of our dreams, the object of our very own design, believing instead that it was merely a wounded sea monster, thrashing and lurching in the waves. But the children had gone. This time we had caused the image, created it. This time it was our unsubstantial pride, moving slowly, painfully back to shore.
Artificial Ice
ANGER
E very night I danced
La Sylphide
, creating my reputation with them as “the daughter of the air.” Heavy blue curtains opened and closed on fantasy after fantasy—painted scenery, paper gold. But I knew the blocks of wood inside my shoes, the hard reality of the boards beneath my feet. I knew no sylph with wings could lure a man from his marriage—the cold porridge of his life. I had spoken to myself about it often. No man, I said, will break through the walls he has built for a woman who flies, whether her flight be caused by magic, or, as in my case, by days of sweat in front of a ruthless mirror. And I continued to know this even on the nights when my dressing-room filled with white roses, champagne, diamonds.
But that night, my costume was new, with real silver threads woven through the cloth. These are the trails of meteors, my dressmaker said, running her hands across the glitter. And she was right. Dressed in it I scarcely touched the ground, burned across the stage. And later I received my encores and my roseswith grace, felt, for the first time, a stirring of affection towards the
But before this she dreamed of her childhood home, which had miraculously evolved into the boat. Upside down, the keel had become the peak of the roof, and, with little alteration, planks had turned to clapboard. Inside, the windows were gaping holes, providing a variety of ocean views and covered with curtains made of torn clothing and shoe laces. Her father crouched in the left-hand corner of the overturned stern, reading the Bible and writing stock market quotations in the damp sand of the floor. When we went back to sleep I dreamed I was a fisherman considering immigration to a new land.
One of the children dreamed that he could see the pattern of the boat clearly charted by stars in a navy-blue sky. It was situated right between the Big and Little Dippers. He pointed it out to a crowd that had assembled somewhere vaguely to his left but they had been unable to see even the Big or Little Dipper and spoke only of fireflies and satellites.
The next day we were all easy with the boat, as if our vision of the beach had expanded just enough to include it. And so, when late in the morning we watched the uniformed men tie theboat to their own authoritative coast guard vessel, we felt remotely sad and guilty too, as if the boat had committed some obscure crime, to which we were a party. We asked and were told that the boat would be filled with weights and sunk at sea. Our last glimpse of it was a spot of red on the horizon—its painted stern glowing in the sun.
The following week vacation ended and the children returned to their home in the north where winter gradually bleached their brown skins. When they spoke of the boat, they did so with such confusion that their mother assumed that they had been taken on a fishing excursion, and their father believed that they had been presented with an expensive toy by us, their over-indulgent grandparents. Even their drawings, which often included the boat, were quickly glanced at by their parents and then forgotten.
We quickly readjusted to our childless existence and finally forgot about the boat altogether except when it entered our unremembered dreams. Each day we went to the beach and sat beneath our colourful umbrellas. My wife knitted. We seldom spoke. I read stock-market quotations. She unpacked the Styrofoam cooler. Sleek fibreglass sail-boats and impressive yachts sailed across our constant vision of the sea. And when, a month later, our attention focused on the horizon, we did not recognize the subject of our dreams, the object of our very own design, believing instead that it was merely a wounded sea monster, thrashing and lurching in the waves. But the children had gone. This time we had caused the image, created it. This time it was our unsubstantial pride, moving slowly, painfully back to shore.
Artificial Ice
ANGER
E very night I danced
La Sylphide
, creating my reputation with them as “the daughter of the air.” Heavy blue curtains opened and closed on fantasy after fantasy—painted scenery, paper gold. But I knew the blocks of wood inside my shoes, the hard reality of the boards beneath my feet. I knew no sylph with wings could lure a man from his marriage—the cold porridge of his life. I had spoken to myself about it often. No man, I said, will break through the walls he has built for a woman who flies, whether her flight be caused by magic, or, as in my case, by days of sweat in front of a ruthless mirror. And I continued to know this even on the nights when my dressing-room filled with white roses, champagne, diamonds.
But that night, my costume was new, with real silver threads woven through the cloth. These are the trails of meteors, my dressmaker said, running her hands across the glitter. And she was right. Dressed in it I scarcely touched the ground, burned across the stage. And later I received my encores and my roseswith grace, felt, for the first time, a stirring of affection towards the
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