to a post and lit my fuse and I spun and fizzed and blazed and everybody was delighted. Who would have thought she had it in her, they said, such strength of character, such spark, such zip and zup and get up and go!
We had come home from Midnight Mass, Papa, Celine and I, and by the fire were my shoes with presents in them, just as they had always been at this time. I would always go upstairs and then come down again to open the presents and provide delight for my father, my King, with my cries of pleasure. However, on this night, as I was going up the stairs, I overheard my father saying impatiently, ‘Thank goodness this is the last time we
The Space Between the Bed and the Wall 67
shall have this kind of thing. Next year Therese will be too old for this.’ I was filled with grief. Celine saw my distress, and said I should not go down and open my presents at all, since to do so would cause me too much pain. Ah, but Celine did not realise that the Therese she was speaking to was not the same Therese she had seen five minutes before. In those moments between my father’s words and Celina’s concern, I had grown up. I suppressed my tears and ran downstairs. I picked up my shoes from where they sat on the hearth, and I opened my presents one by one, exclaiming with joy. The clocks made and tended by my father’s hand ticked in the house like the beating of happy hearts.
I have heard that the length of the pendulum determines the ratio of the wheels and pinions needed to show true time. True Time. Fine time, nice time, true time of time and tide, and how time flies. Time Bomb. True time is a time bomb. The time of vibration of a pendulum depends on its length. The vibration of love depends, I have heard, on its depth and intricacy. Still waters run deep, and deep in the heart you will find the heart strings, thick and thin smooth shining strings for plucking and playing tunes. True Love is determined by the time of vibration which depends on its length. But if the thread of the heart string gets loose and the bobbin begins to unwind, you can wind the bobbin to the length you want and finish by winding the thread twice round the neck of the bobbin and pulling it tight, tight, tight. Snap. You can snap a heart string, twang, like that.
Twang.
On that Christmas day the third period of my life began, and I decided to dedicate myself to snatching souls from hell.
For my first soul, I chose the soul of a murderer, a man by the name of Pranzini who was condemned to die for his crimes. I prayed that God would forgive this man, and I asked for a sign.
To my great joy my prayer was answered. I read in La Croix that Pranzini had mounted the scaffold, still without confessing to his guilt, and when he was about to thrust his head beneath the blade of the guillotine he suddenly turned around. With a fierce 68
The White Garden
and urgent gesture he seized the crucifix from the hands of the priest and he kissed with passion the Sacred Wounds. ‘Pranzini was my first child’. I would from that time forward snatch many souls back from the fires of hell.
When Violetta scratched her legs on the blackberry bushes at the bottom of the garden, she lay down on the grass and we watched the bright bubbles of beady blood as they pushed up through the slits in the skin. ‘Kiss them,’ she said, and I kissed her wounds with passionate kisses, licking and sucking her sweet bubbly blood. She moaned and spoke of death and smeared my face with blood and blackberry juice. We ate blackberries until we were sick and I spattered pink gobs of vomit all over the grass as we rolled around in agony. Poisoned. We had been poisoned. Somebody had sprayed the ripe blackberries with a deadly thing. We would die, die together in agony and blood.
We rushed for the hose and drank from its long red snake, splashing water into our mouths, spraying each other until we were drenched and the danger had all passed.
It was a most dangerous time of life. I was
We had come home from Midnight Mass, Papa, Celine and I, and by the fire were my shoes with presents in them, just as they had always been at this time. I would always go upstairs and then come down again to open the presents and provide delight for my father, my King, with my cries of pleasure. However, on this night, as I was going up the stairs, I overheard my father saying impatiently, ‘Thank goodness this is the last time we
The Space Between the Bed and the Wall 67
shall have this kind of thing. Next year Therese will be too old for this.’ I was filled with grief. Celine saw my distress, and said I should not go down and open my presents at all, since to do so would cause me too much pain. Ah, but Celine did not realise that the Therese she was speaking to was not the same Therese she had seen five minutes before. In those moments between my father’s words and Celina’s concern, I had grown up. I suppressed my tears and ran downstairs. I picked up my shoes from where they sat on the hearth, and I opened my presents one by one, exclaiming with joy. The clocks made and tended by my father’s hand ticked in the house like the beating of happy hearts.
I have heard that the length of the pendulum determines the ratio of the wheels and pinions needed to show true time. True Time. Fine time, nice time, true time of time and tide, and how time flies. Time Bomb. True time is a time bomb. The time of vibration of a pendulum depends on its length. The vibration of love depends, I have heard, on its depth and intricacy. Still waters run deep, and deep in the heart you will find the heart strings, thick and thin smooth shining strings for plucking and playing tunes. True Love is determined by the time of vibration which depends on its length. But if the thread of the heart string gets loose and the bobbin begins to unwind, you can wind the bobbin to the length you want and finish by winding the thread twice round the neck of the bobbin and pulling it tight, tight, tight. Snap. You can snap a heart string, twang, like that.
Twang.
On that Christmas day the third period of my life began, and I decided to dedicate myself to snatching souls from hell.
For my first soul, I chose the soul of a murderer, a man by the name of Pranzini who was condemned to die for his crimes. I prayed that God would forgive this man, and I asked for a sign.
To my great joy my prayer was answered. I read in La Croix that Pranzini had mounted the scaffold, still without confessing to his guilt, and when he was about to thrust his head beneath the blade of the guillotine he suddenly turned around. With a fierce 68
The White Garden
and urgent gesture he seized the crucifix from the hands of the priest and he kissed with passion the Sacred Wounds. ‘Pranzini was my first child’. I would from that time forward snatch many souls back from the fires of hell.
When Violetta scratched her legs on the blackberry bushes at the bottom of the garden, she lay down on the grass and we watched the bright bubbles of beady blood as they pushed up through the slits in the skin. ‘Kiss them,’ she said, and I kissed her wounds with passionate kisses, licking and sucking her sweet bubbly blood. She moaned and spoke of death and smeared my face with blood and blackberry juice. We ate blackberries until we were sick and I spattered pink gobs of vomit all over the grass as we rolled around in agony. Poisoned. We had been poisoned. Somebody had sprayed the ripe blackberries with a deadly thing. We would die, die together in agony and blood.
We rushed for the hose and drank from its long red snake, splashing water into our mouths, spraying each other until we were drenched and the danger had all passed.
It was a most dangerous time of life. I was
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