CONTENTdm
Prism international 37:1 / Fall 1998
Prism international
90 Pages
application/pdf
ERNATIDNAL Contemporary ' WRITING i FROM Canada and AROUND THE WORLD 37:1 INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL Drama Editor Natalie Miesner Editor Jeremiah Aherne Executive Editor Emily Snyder Poetry Editor Miranda Pearson Electronic Submissions Manager Marita Dachsel Lee Henderson Advertising Manager Bob Wakulich Advisory Editors Andrew Gray Jennifer Herbison Production Manager Jennifer Herbison Editorial Board Kevin Chong Nancy Lee Marita Dachsel Peter Norman Shauna Fowler Katherine Young Theo Armstrong Pete Atherton Oana Avasilichioaei Catherine Chen Joy Derret Heather Frechette Readers. Linda Hargrave Doretta Lou Susan McRae Kim Minkus Leanne Prain Lottie Price Richelle Rae Katrina Sedaros Ianne Sison Barbara Stowe Michelle Tremblay A special thanks to Darcia Dahl for doing a great job as last yeaY's Fiction Contest Manager and to Miranda Pearson for staying on to act as Poetry Editor over the summer. Your efforts are appreciated. PRISM international, a magazine of contemporary writing, is published four times per year by the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1. Microfilm editions are available from University Microfilms Inc., Ann Arbor, MI, and reprints from the Kraus Reprint Corporation, New York, NY. The magazine is listed by the Canadian Literary Periodicals Index. E-mail: prism@unixg.ubc.ca WWW: http://www.arts.ubc.ca/prism Contents Copyright © 1998 PRISM international for the authors. One-year individual subscriptions $16.00; two-year subscriptions $24.00; library and institution subscriptions $22.00; two-year subscriptions $36.00; sample copy $5.00. Canadians add 7% G.S.T. All manuscripts should be sent to the Editors at the above address. Manuscripts should be accompanied by a self-addressed envelope with Canadian stamps or International Reply Coupons. Manuscripts with insufficient return postage will be held for six months and then discarded. Translations should be accompanied by a copy of the work(s) in the original language. E-mail contributors should contact us for electronic submission guidelines. The Advisory Editors are not responsible for individual selections, but for the magazine's overall mandate including continuity, quality, and budgetary obligations. PRISM international purchases First North American Serial Rights for $40.00 per page for poetry and $20.00 per page for other genres. Contributors receive a one-year subscription. PRISM international also purchases limited digital rights for selected work, for which it pays an additional $10.00 per page. Our gratitude to Dean Shirley S. Neuman and the Dean of Arts' Office at the University of British Columbia. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council ($16,000) and the Government of British Columbia through the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism, and Culture. Thank you to our donors, Cherie and Julian B. Smith, and to the RE. Fund. Publications Mail Registry No. 5496. October 1998. Da Canada Council Li Conseil des Arts FOR THE ARTS DU CANADA SINCE I957 DEPOTS I957 Contents Vol. 37, No. 1 Fall 1998 Drama Kate Siahaan-Rigg Sinta of Jakarta 7 Fiction Temma Ehrenfeld Fish 40 Lucy Miller Duchamp Today 55 Non-Fiction Julie Quick The Rub 68 Poetry Alan Levin El Camino 35 Wendy McGrath In That Same House 36 Another House Different Summer 37 Pain Not Bread Sleep 38 Good Daughter 39 Jon Thompson Walls 53 B.Z. Niditch Octavio Paz 54 Ruth Roach Pierson Infirmary Visit 64 Karen Reid Crossing 66 Karen Solie I like You 67 Rhonda Batchelor fifth Night 86 Healing Game 88 Contributors 89 Kate Siahaan-Rigg Sinta of Jakarta CHARACTERS: Sinta Mariponang, a teenage girl Sahat, her elder brother Yanti Silahuli, his fiancee Ibu Mariponang, their mother Bapak Mariponang, the father Two doctors A hospital worker A gardener A Chorus of old women of Jakarta VISIONS OF CHARACTERS FROM THE RAMAYANA MYTH: Brought to Indonesia centuries ago from India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the most widely performed legends in the country and appear in various performance genres from Island to Island (shadow puppetry, opera, ballet, dance-drama, marionnettes, ritual chant, film, episodic television, cartoon, etc.) Over the years, the Ramayana story has developed a distinctly Indonesian identity and continues to be adapted. Current events and styles are incorporated into traditional performances, keeping the epic alive and relevant grounding it in the present while preserving many of its traditional motifs. CHARACTERS FROM RAMAYANA WHO TURN UP IN THIS PLAY: THE RANGDA WITCH. An incarnation of Rahwana, king of the flying giants who kidnapped princess Sinta (represented in this play by The First Sinta"). Rangda comes from in the Balinese "Barong" dance and represents the dark side of human nature. THE FIRST SINTA. In the Ramayana, Prince Rama and his wife Sinta are sent into exile by Rama's father, the king of Kosala. While Rama is out hunting one day, in some versions for a golden deer, Sinta is kidnapped by Rahwana. The Ramayana tells the story of the battles Rama fights, enlisting the aid of many mythical creatures, to retrieve Sinta and reclaim the throne of Kosala. GARUDA. The majestic king of the eagles who is the first to spot Sinta being kidnapped. In a battle with the winged Rahwana, Garuda is hit and falls out of the sky. With his dying breath he tells Rama what has happened and points the way to Rahwana's kingdom. The image of Garuda appears on the Indonesian coat of arms and is associated with the national motto "Unity in Diversity." The characters from the Ramayana sometimes appear as shadows cast by wayang kulit (leather shadow puppets) manipulated behind the set or projected into the space. Otherwise, these visions appear in the form of masked actors. Their costumes are based on traditional dance drama styles (sarongs, vests, arm bands, etc.) and should combine Western and Indonesian colours and fabrics to give them a heightened cross-cultural feel. Doubling may include: Yanti/The First Sinta; Sahat/Rangda; two doctors/gardener/hospital worker played by one actor (in different masks); Bapak/Garuda. SET: The action takes place in the garden/atrium of the Mariponang mansion in Jakarta. The walls shimmer, and at any time may change to reveal other worlds lurking behind them. Behind the upstage scrim is an elevated platform where the land of visions can appear, a place where spirits and mythical characters hover over the action. The scrim will also serve as a screen for slides back-projected during some of the choral odes. Both shadow puppetry and shadow effects will be used. The "visions" are sometimes dreamy appearances of characters taken on by members of the cast, sometimes visions of different wayang puppets. On two risers stage left and stage right sit the musicians—ideally two percussionists and a woodwind player. It should appear as though the music and the visions are born of the same world, forming a semi-circle around the stage when they are all engaged. Masks, different wayang puppets, projections and shadows convey the classical overtones of the piece. MUSIC: In most traditional Indonesian performance styles, there is a gamelan or other traditional orchestra providing a soundtrack for the action throughout the play, with very few breaks in the music. Using modern instruments, recorded music, and live musicians, hopefully the same will be true of this play. AUTHOR'S NOTE: It is my hope that because the writing is culturally specific, that, as with Greek plays, the cast may be as diverse as possible—with the play bearing the responsibility of conveying an Indonesian setting. Unity in diversity. 1. PROLOGUE. In a space inhabited by gods and visions appears the RANGDA witch. He has a red face with gnashing pointed teeth, long black hair, wings on his back, long curling nails, and gold earrings. His sarongs are bold and he has noisy gold bracelets and anklets. Music: He dances angrily about, leaping at the audience then summoning power from the universe. Heavy percussion punctuates this speech. RANGDA Mark me! and see how ill a foreign air Will pollute a virgin's breath who daring To look beyond home, found new faces there— (from ancestral paintings, horrified staring) Mark me! Rangda of the flying giants, Cousin to Rahwana the despised king. Listen to my warning as I come flying To show you the poison from far off things. The mixing of worlds, our innocence stolen, Those strangers well-meaning our children lure. Teach without knowledge, make promises golden Then send daughters home confused and impure. I flew, armed with unbreakable grimaces, From my great kingdom, ancient Alengka. I flew through metal clouds, urban forests, To tell you of this Sinta of Jakarta: Modern daughter born of ancient princesses Her Bapak, proud progressive patriarch, Sent his Sinta off to a paler land— New mores, new women, new visions in the dark. Women there do everything, and they can... Beware! You who fly off to distant shores, If ever you intend to home again, Beware of chanting songs and other lore, Teaching you ancestral Gods to offend. (words in italics spoken by CHORUS backstage) Woman Only woman after she's a girl. Girl Until her father gives her to the world. World Of ancestors, rules, men hand picked. Virgin Owned until parental hold lifts. Pride Of family, of clans of all Batak. Virgins Who know their duty before Bapak. You noble families of Jakarta, Clans moved to cities from North Sumatra, When Sinta your world dares to disrupt Do your duty, let adat1 stay incorrupt! 2. Enter Chorus of old women. A vision bleeds in of THE FIRST SINTA, a young princess dressed in rich black red and gold sarongs. She acts out the first choral ode with Rangda. Haunting bamboo flutes. CHORUS: In the Ramayana, Sinta, the first Sinta, She that was betrothed to Rama, She that was said to have soft gossamer eyes, She that was banished unjustly with her prince To the wild forest of Dandaka, Sinta, with clear light skin like rainwater And hair that shone like the surface of Lake Toba Was left alone in that crawling forest While Rama hunted a golden deer. SINTA I saw a golden deer running through the trees, A beautiful shining fawn with flanks of gold. I would like to have it I should like to look at it every day, Touch its smooth golden body And feel rich, even here in exile. RANGDA He should not have left her so, Alone in a foreign place, Should not have trusted an innocent soul To the power of unfamiliar spirits. CHORUS: Languishing she waited alone, Weaving magic circles from palm leaves To protect herself from strangers. The clouds circled and moved in, ; adat: ancient rules of conduct and ceremony. 10 Choking the dark forest with their balmy breath. Sinta was alone, all alone in the middle of one circle Traced with a prayer in the forest floor. Percussion adds to the music, the flute is hers, the percussion far him. RANGDA(smm#): Please, please come out of Your circle, beautiful lady. Please, please clear the silk of your hair, From your eyes, And look with pity on a wandering stranger. CHORUS: From Alengka, the land of winged giants he came, Rahwana, disguised as a beggar pleading and whining, A slight doddering creature And Sinta said... SINTA No, Not at all! I must not leave this magic circle. RANGDA(s»«|g): Please gentle Miss, I am old, I mean no harm, But I am wounded by the bites of wild dogs That came suddenly from twilight And my hands tremble too much to hold bandages. Please leave your circle of palm leaves And bind my wound with your delicate butterfly hands. CHORUS: This Sinta, the first Sinta, Did not know that giants might fly Across countries, across oceans, across heartbeats She did not know that inside, Doddering, weak beings often hide Black magic giants. This first Sinta, protected By braids made of palm leaves, Ventured out of her circle woven in trust And was caught RANGDA (sung): Who will save you now? Now that I have you, Who will know to come When you call out loud? 11 CHORUS: This first Sinta, Sinta of The kingdom of Kosala, When she was kidnapped and betrayed, It took so many wars to save her. The visions ofRangda and The First Sinta fade. Music changes. PARTIAL SYNOPSIS: In Scene Three, Sinta and Yanti are having one of their first conversations. Sinta has just returned from a semester of high school in a boarding school overseas and Yanti is staying with the family in anticipation of her wedding to Sinta's brother Sahat Sinta wants to know about how the marriage was arranged and Yanti is curious about life in the West. We learn from the chorus that Sahat was in love with a Javanese woman previous to this arrangement and that Yanti is from a very poor country- cousin family to the Mariponangs. In Scene Four, Yanti's doctor arrives to give her a clean bill of health and certificate of viriginty to sanctify the marriage. Sinta requests a private examination with the doctor, citing jet lag and discomfort as her reasons. Yanti leaves them alone. Sinta then asks to be inspected to see if she really is still a virgin. The doctor protests that she must know herself, and the chorus is quite shocked at the request Nevertheless Sinta is adamant that the exam be carried out They leave the playing space for the exam, and the chorus sings of the dangers of asking questions when you are a woman. In Scene five, Yanti serves tea and Sinta demands the result of her exam The doctor is reluctant but finally reveals that Sinta is no longer a virgin and that she has a little infection which will require some antibiotics. Sinta is shaken, and Yanti at a loss for words. The chorus says, "the shame of curiosity has been eclipsed by our greatest shame," lamenting Sinta's corruption by Western influences. Sinta leaves swiftly, and Yanti is left wondering what to do. The chorus advises her to let it go, but Yanti feels responsible to her future sister. She reasons that Sinta is young and confused, and that sickness is no trifle. She resolves to at least tell Sinta's mother of the examination. In Scene Six, Yanti tells Ibu what happened. Ibu immediately tells her never to speak of this again. She then bids her to go and get Sinta. When she leaves Ibu reveals that the marriage to Yanti was a hasty arrangement to prevent Sahat from marrying outside the Batak clan system and further, to keep the Mariponang fortune within cousin families. She resolves to fix this new problem swiftly: The good of our name comes first./ It will be soiled neither by miscegenation/Or a damaged reputation." 12 Just as she reaches her decision to find out the truth about what happened to Sinta, the chorus announces the girls' approach. Enter YANTI with SINTA. IBU: Sinta! Come quickly. I wish to ask you something. And you, Boru Silahuli, stay here too. Do not be afraid child, I merely wish to talk. SINTA Oh, I am just tired, Mother. The jet lag, the heat I should probably lie down before tonight IBU: Yanti has told me you've been to her doctor. Is this true? SINTA Yes. I was feeling nauseous. IBU: And how do you feel now? SINTA Much better, thank you. IBU: And what else, Daughter? SINTA What else? Nothing else. The doctor gave me medicine I am better. I need rest IBU: And your virginity? SINTA Yanti! YANTI: I had to. I'm sorry Sinta. IBU: Well Sinta, I brought you into the world. Your body is my body. The truth. SINTA The truth is that her low-budget witchdoctor, With his antique telescope and brass stick, Found nothing. Of course I am a virgin. IBU: Why would you have this test performed little daughter, 13 By a doctor strange to our family, And without my knowledge? What happened to you— Did you meet a boy at your school? SINTA Mami, in the dizziness of flight and the daze Of day turned into night I was frightened By an itch, a cramp. And with Yanti receiving Her certificate to marry cleanly, so L. I borrowed the doctor's time just to make sure. It turns out I have a small treatable condition caused by The change of climate, stress, lack of sleep. I have no boyfriend, Mama, no time with studies and mass. I go to parties—galas held by my school—and that is all YANTI: But Sinta, you said— SINTA I said nothing. Ibu, can we talk alone? IBU: Of course. Yanti, go inside and prepare for the feast. Yanti leaves. SINTA She makes me uneasy, Mami, seriously uneasy. IBU: You will learn to think of her as a sister, perhaps. But do not change the subject Daughter. What is all this talk of your chastity? You must learn not to reveal things to anyone It is dangerous and people are jealous of our family, Of our good name. They will always try to tear at our Clan's fabric. What is the truth, Daughter? SINTA I have said. You dont believe me, Your own daughter? IBU: If this girl talks, Sinta, if she mentions this To anyone at all you have no idea what it could mean. If she tells anyone anything at all, You will not be allowed to marry, To have children, to sit in an honourable place at adat ceremonies, You will be denied your name your rank your clan, your life. You will lose everything and our family 14 Will lose its brightest jewel. Don't you realize that our bodies belong Not just to ourselves but to everyone who knows us? And what will your father say When he hears how his little girl is suspected Of having thrown away his legacy his reputation his pride? What will you say to him that can soothe The smarting of a despised household and his wounded life? How could you have been so stupid, Sinta? We gave you everything. We trusted you. You begged to study over there. How can you break your father's heart like this? No. I will not allow any of this to happen. But you must tell me everything, from the beginning. I will help you and you will save yourself. Speak, Daughter, before it is too late. SINTA I have told you the truth. If people talk, Fll just tell them they are wrong. IBU: Sinta, once the scraps are thrown outside, beggars everywhere Will swarm and tear them to pieces until there is nothing left, Do you understand? CHORUS: She remembers the time people talked about her marriage Speculated about how a woman of low birth could marry A Mariponang. There was a reason. She was not the first choice. IBU: Women! Stop babbling over there! I cannot think! SINTA Mother...L..Mother, please IBU: Daughter, calm down, and tell me. Tell me before your father hears anything. You must CHORUS: He is a quiet man. He tears lives quietly. SINTA I am just a child. I made a mistake. I should have come to you first I panicked. I asked all the wrong questions. Thaf s all. 15 IBU: And you have never had a boyfriend? Not even a friend, a close one? SINTA Mother! Please! I am ashamed... IBU: Ashamed, ashamed of what what is it? SINTA Mother, I can't talk about this anymore. I can't be deprived of husband, a family, my life. I didn't do anything wrong Mummy, I didn't do anything. Not me. Everything was a mistake, a mistake. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have come here not knowing. I am pure, I have not been a bad girl. I want to erase this day, these days, Just make it better, Ibu, please. Please Ibu help me, protect me from Father. IBU/CHORUS: But did you do it? SINTA No! IBU: Did you let someone try you? Try you out? SINTA No! IBU/CHORUS: They will call you a whore. SINTA Stop it Ibu, make it go away. Please. Please. IBU: Enough, go to your room now, dear one. Sinta exits. Ibu examines her diamond ring. IBU: Mariponang... Our name is our first duty. Ibu exits. 8. 16 Sinta is in the wings, hovering near the musicians. Rangda's shadow oozes across the screen and then hovers around the stage. The chorus cowers. SINTA No. No. No. No. Darkness. I want the darkness. I said: No. I am scared. He said: Come on, I can feel you, lef s dance. White hands white face white sheets white Pain white banging white walls White lights flashing in the hallway. My friends, my new friends Who do not understand me, Tolong, tolong tolong tolong2 Please, I am not the same as you, I have another world, I can't Eyes squeezing white flashes white water White static my CD skipping White tuxedo white russian white party Hot wet white mouth hot pressing Unnnnnnnh. He said. If s over. And. Not. Not Not No. Rangda's shadow disappears. Exit Sinta. The chorus tiptoes into the playing space and consider the empty screen. 9. CHORUS: If I were of high birth, I would have kept my daughter at home I would have married her off immediately To a young nobleman. Or to a distant cousin. She should have stayed in this house until her wedding She should have been taught the ways to keep a house. It is ridiculous that the rich, who are supposed To lead us all with their conduct Run like wild children through the world. I heard that a son of the Istima clan Had three half-breed children in Germany Before returning to Jakarta to marry his pariban. I heard that one daughter of the Alangti clan 2 tolong: help. 17 Paid a dishonorable doctor to remove An unborn child of a Balinese dancer from her womb. If I had wealth, power, my family would be spotless. My children would learn to respect their lives at home. I would not send them away to be poisoned by chaos. 10. Enter Ibu with DOCTOR #2. IBU: First see what you discover and then we will decide what to do. DOCTOR 2: Of course, Madam. Ah, little Sinta tumbled into my hands Into the world. Any difficulty she might find there I take personally. Ah, you may, as always madam, be assured That my humble services will bring you ah good health and good luck. IBU: Yes, yes. You have always been more than helpful, Doctor. Also, I have heard that all the best families can depend on you In trying times, Doctor. DOCTOR 2: It is true, Madam I understand the needs of the noble family-lah Better than anybody. Ah, especially when they recognize in turn A hardworking professional's needs. And women always Seem to be my best customers. Their bodies, and their Predicaments are often very complicated-lah. I can help Without the nuisance of hospital records and nosy assistants. Ah, as you know I am a private doctor. My services are only available To families such as yours. Families with, ah, wherewithal to understand my, ah, needs as I understand theirs. IBU: Be assured Doctor, the Mariponang clan is used to rewarding Loyal friends. (exiting)But let us go to my daughter. Sinta is waiting inside for her examination. 11. Cheerful delicate music. Shadow puppets present this story.3 The shadows are manipulated behind a screen which is backlit by a slide projector showing various slides throughout: CHORUS: There are many stories that belong to women. Stories where women have belonged only to themselves. 18 Once there were seven young princesses. They were each SLIDE: SINTA AT AIRPORT Demigoddesses from different kingdoms. On soft metallic wings they would fly together to a secret lagoon, far removed from their palaces, far removed from their villages, far from the eyes of mortals. Carefully they undressed by the water, laying their SLIDE: AN AIRPLANE IN FLIGHT winged robes spun with gold thread, lay them gently on the ground. Each night the seven princesses bathed slowly, Allowing the soft water to flatter their bodies as they laughed And talked of secret things. A poor farmer wandering one night SLIDE: SINTA BY A POOL IN SARONG AND SHADES Spotted the seven girls. Hidden in the trees he watched And found himself smitten. "I will take one of these jewels Home with me," Creeping through the underbrush, he came To the place where the princesses had laid their clothes. Swiftly He stole one robe and hid nearby. One by one, the girls returned SLIDE: SINTA'S PROM PHOTO WITH DATE; IN A WHITE DRESS To get dressed and fly away home, until the last of the seven, Alone and naked, stood bewildered in the clearing. Before she Could cry out he appeared, and conjured her to follow him home. And being agreeable and most humble, she consented to be his wife. "I will stay with you on one condition," she said, "that you never Look in my cooking pots, or ask me about my things." She was Talking about women's things, and he accepted these terms. Although they were very poor, the couple lived content She was able to make feasts out of a single grain of rice, SLIDE: SINTA WITH FRIENDS IN DORM ROOM EATING PIZZA Make a tiny smelt fish last for two days, and always kept The house neat and in order. He marvelled at his good fortune, 3 Shadow Puppet Sequence: 1. Seven puppets fly across the screen, each puppet representing one of the seven princesses. 2. The puppets land. A farmer puppet hides in the trees. 3. Six of the princesses fly off, the firmer approaches the one remaining princess. 4. The two puppets fly to a farmhouse. 5. The two puppets copulate next to the cooking pot for awhile. 6. The princess walks off the screen. The farmer puppet goes to the cooking pot, opens it 7. The princess puppet returns, throw up her hands and her shadow gets bigger and bigger, engulfing the farmer. The house crumbles. The farmer slides off the screen, the princess flies to normal size and rejoins hersixsisters. They fly off. 19 Wondered how despite his poverty, this wife could make him Feel like a king. He kept his promise and never asked, But one day, while she was out getting firewood, he Could bear it no longer. He hadn't brought home any food For three days, and yet there was a full bowl of rice and fish Waiting for him every night when he got home from the sawah4- SINTA AND FRIENDS AT HOOTERS "I will just peek," he thought "she will never notice." The farmer looked inside the cooking pot and saw nothing But the blackened insides of a cooking pot When she Returned, she took one look at her husband, and dropped HOOTERS WAITRESS The bundle of sticks she was carrying. "You have broken Our agreement," she spoke quickly, pulling out her old robes. "I cannot stay here with you anymore." With that she slipped SELF-PORTRAIT OF SINTA DEADPAN Back into her silk sarong, and flew away. He did not understand. He spent the rest of his days miserable and railing at his bad luck. And all because he violated his sacred promise, to leave certain Things alone, that belonged to a woman. Shadow Screen fades out. 12. Enter Ibu with Sinta IBU: Do not cry any more, Daughter. You see? Your Ibu is here for you. Walk carefully, Daughter, sit delicately For you are the unspoiled flower, The jewel of the Mariponang clan And so from now, you will always conduct yourself As if there were white moths fluttering on your skin. This pain is good practice for you. You will remember it forever And it will teach you to walk like a lady. Thaf s enough now. You will feel better soon. The doctor assured me the pain will go away. He worked quickly, did he not? I have given you life for the second time. Do not cry. This pain is so little, 4 sawah: rice field. 20 So passing. It will disappear And soon be replaced by the enduring joy Of a perfect marriage, a clean bed. SINTA Forgive me mother. IBU: Nonsense. Dry your eyes, for we must now Call your father. Hold this paper, Hold onto it with your life, For what the doctor has certified here Will guarantee our happiness. SINTA Did he tell what he did? IBU: No. Only the result of his final examination; That the gate to your body is sealed And you are fresh and ready for any man. SINTA That is good. It doesn't hurt so bad. And there wasn't much blood. IBU: Yes. Rejoice my dear! And thank the gods That I found out before anyone else had to! Women, you will forget all you have heard here. And you will not gossip behind our backs. Remember that my family feeds all of yours. All you saw was a daughter-in-law trying to bring ruin On my own flesh and blood. CHORUS: That is all we saw, Mistress. All we saw. IBU (.calling): YANTI!! Yanti appears. Wait here with my daughter While I find her brother and her Bapak. Ibu exits. YANTI: Is everything alright sister? (Sinta doesn't reply) Oh no. Did your mother punish you? 21 . ( Sinta doesn't reply) Is she going to get your Bapak, to punish you? Oh, oh, Sinta, I am so sorry I only wanted to help. I never meant you to get hurt SINTA It is not I, Mistress, that shall be distressed, It is not I, Yanti Silahuli, that shall be punished, It is not I that shall find herself shamed, censured, sorry For jeopordizing the first daughter of a noble clan, For behaving like a social-climbing, two-face peasant Peasant you think this would buy you my father's favour And an inheritance? Yanti slaps Sinta. CHORUS: Did you see that? Did you see how the peasant girl slapped her mistress's daughter? I saw that. SINTA Now you will pay. You won't see a red cent Nothing. CHORUS: What will she say to her Bapak? 13. Enter Ibu, BAPAK, SAHAT. BAPAK Good afternoon, Daughter. And soon-to-be-daughter. Sahat kisses Yanti gently on the cheek. SlNTA(running over to hug Bapak): Bapak! BAPAK Whaf s this? What*s this? My little bird is shaking. IBU: 'Pak, we have some family business to discuss immediately. SAHAT: What's going on, Yanti? Why do you hide your face? IBU: Sahat move away from that girl. SAHAT: What? IBU: Do as I say. She has threatened your family. 22 SAHAT: What is she saying, Yanti? YANTt I don't know, I don't know. BAPAK Silence. Wife, what is the problem? IBU: 'Pak, I am very sorry to have to upset your afternoon. You have worked hard with the other men of the clan to Prepare the adat for tonight's program. And yet I must inform you immediately that this girl, This distant relative of mine, has brought shame on me By sinking to depths of depravity inconceivable To anyone who has lived in the haven of morality and love That we have built together in this home. She has accused Our only daughter of sexual promiscuity and uncleanliness. BAPAK/SAHAT: What? IBU: You heard me. I have called this emergency meeting to determine What we must do to ensure the sanctity of our clan. SAHAT: Yanti, what have you done? YANTI: I don't know. I don't know what to say. SINTA Then let me tell you all I was sick, And Yanti spread a vicious lie about me, Saying that I was no longer a virgin since my return, All because of an innocent check-up with her cheap old doctor. IBU: Sinta, show your father the certificate we obtained From 'Pak Salunto, our real doctor. SINTA See father? See? What he has written is true. But Yanti is trying to spoil my marriage and my future. She told me she loves living in the city, That she never wants to leave and that She wants all your money to herself so she can Enjoy the privilege of a high clan life. CHORUS: She did say she loved the chocolate and the movies. SAHAT: Sinta that*s enough! Yanti, is any of this true? 23 YANTI: No. No! I merely wanted to help her. I didn't want to hurt anyone. SAHAT: Bapak, I know this girl. She is not lying. She meant no harm She probably didn't know any better. It is a mistake. She is not marrying me to steal your money. We are going to have our own. I have a job. BAPAK Do not be hasty Sahat Without my backing Your business is like a peasant's. You need your name. But more importantly, Son: do you want me To consider the word of a simple country girl Only vaguely related to this family by marriage Over the word and the proof provided by my own Wife and daughter? No. Come stand near me, Son. SAHAT: I will stay by my fiancee. I can listen from here. CHORUS: He disobeys his own father! BAPAK As you wish. Ibu, do you have anything to add To the charges you laid against this cousin of yours? IBU: Only that I am very sorry I brought her into this house To spread rumour and slander on my own daughter. And I am sorry to have to place this matter in your lap 'Pak. But I am sure you will agree, our daughter's Safety, reputation, and value to our family is our first duty. BAPAK Quite. And you, young Miss, I am not finished with you. Have you ever made sex with a man? SINTA No,*Pak. BAPAK Have you ever been touched in dirty places? SINTA No, Tak, never. BAPAK Do you know what sex is? SINTA Not really. I know ifs more than kissing but that"s all. BAPAK Good. Have you ever been kissed on the mouth? 24 SINTA Of course not "Pak. I am ashamed to even speak of these things. SAHAT: But what about those nights you go out on dates with boys here? You go to the disco, Sinta, you stay out 'til 2 or 3 in the morning. 'Pak she sees TV, she sees movies. Sinta, how can you say You don't even know what sex is? This is not Siantar; You are not some little village girl brought up by Village women who teach only religion and cooking. You kissed that Sinala boy on our very doorstep She months ago when he took you to a Christmas dance! BAPAK Is this true, Sinta? CHORUS: The Sinala boy is very handsome. It would not surprise me If a girl were to kiss him on the mouth. SINTA Tak! He is confusing me, confusing the truth. I havent done anything. It is she Who has spread lies and hurt me. She is nobody, Tak, and yet you are listening to her And you are questioning me, your own daughter! IBU: Thaf s enough, Sinta. Let your father think. You have heard the evidence, Tak. You have seen Sinta's certificate from our doctor. BAPAK Yes. Yes. I am sorry Sahat. But you must forget this woman. And you, Boru Silahuli, please go remove your things. You will leave my home this evening. I will pay your passage back to Siantar And you will never speak of this matter again. Yanti starts to leave. SINTA Yes. SAHAT(stopping Yanti): NO! You cannot do this to me again! IBU: Sahat be still. Your father has spoken. SAHAT: No! It is his turn to listen! Father, you have made a great fortune, 25 You have built the fame of the Mariponang clan Up to the sky. All of Jakarta trembles When they hear our name, and we are proud. You have houses in every suburb, money pours in From the rents, and from poor merchants bringing tributes From the investments and the insurance and the selling. Yet, many times we have sacrificed the quality of our own lives For the quality of the clan's life. Even our own relatives Are frightened of us. They lower their eyes When we go to gatherings, They serve us the best part of the meat, They seat us in the coolest corners of the house. And in turn, we are hard. We laugh when our hearts are breaking, We sit silently and watch the suffering of our friends. We remove ourselves from difficult situations And send money sometimes, a little tiny purse In the times of greatest struggles so we don't have to care. But here, in this matter, I care. When I fell in love the first time It was as if the sun was exploding behind my eyes. I gulped back tears everyday, aching with the fury Of my love, and glad to be alive. And when you sat me down in a meeting, A wretched meeting like this wretched meeting, You told me that my love was wrong. That my love which danced on my skin like butterflies And made everything smell of sweet jasmine, Was wrong. Because she was not one of us. You spoke of the downfall of everything we had worked for, Of half-breed children, of shame that would follow Generations of Mariponang to come. And I listened. Like a wide-eyed fish I was suspended In your words, and afraid to challenge anything. You tortured me then with an unending campaign To bring me a pariban, this Yanti of Siantar Who would make me forget what you called my mistake. I fought you, but I was scared. I starved myself. I grew bitter and sour like a decaying fruit I thought I would never love anyone again, And certainly no one that you chose for me. Half-heartedly, I looked at Yanti's photograph And with half a brain I agreed to meet her. 26 I When she arrived she could not even look me in the face And so I felt ashamed of this strange custom That teaches poor girls to fear men of any means. I placed my hands beneath her chin and lifted her face So that she at least might feel less monstrous than I In our contrivance of courting. And, Father, It happened. The thing I thought impossible, The thing I had renounced with my whole soul Hit me like a tree cracking me over the head. I looked into Boru Silahuli's sweet round eyes And she was no longer a stranger, but a dear Friend, a gentle child, a warm place to come home to. So I will not I will never, I cannot Let you even begin to speak of separating me From the woman who has made me feel again. We will resolve this some other way. Sinta's reputation is intact no one has heard About this misunderstanding, we will forget. CHORUS: We shall not forget SINTA I will not forget. SAHAT: Sinta, you are a little child. You just don't know that you will forget And women, you will keep quiet SINTA Father, do not let him speak to me like that Already His little girlfriend has attempted to replace me in your eyes And of course he takes her side! She can give him... She has bewitched him with her exotic simplicity. Her little peasant walk and her little peasant accent Please, how can I live in the same house as this person? How do I know that her stupidity will not harm me again? How will I look at her without thinking of this? No. BAPAR Enough! (He rubs his chest) Sahat you rave and rave but you do not think. You never have been a thinking man. And that has always pained me. Sinta you have said enough. You are very wise for a young girl, You will do well if your man is in business. 27 Boru Silahuli, prepare your tilings. Sahat you may help her if you wish, But see she is gone by tomorrow morning. Take this money for the passage. SAHAT: I have money, Bapak! BAPAK Take this. Your money is all mine, anyway. SAHAT: I will no longer take your money, Bapak. I will no longer take anything from you at all. Even my own name sickens me to the stomach, But with h; I am leaving. Yanti, go inside: I will join. Yanti retreats. Are you happy now, Sinta? Feeling good? You can have your Bapak all to yourself And your Ibu. I know you are happy *Bu. More for You! Goody! Goody! I am leaving with my fiancee. We will be married. You will receive the announcment. IBU: It is not sanctioned by the clan, Sahat You cannot have a real wedding in the adat Without your parents. No one will come. SAHAT: So we'll get married in a church! In a mosque! By a dukun in a cave with his divining stick and raw eggs! Thank you Sinta. So, so much. Sahat exits. BAPAK Ibu, find the servants: we will change all the arrangements For the family feast Reset the tables. It will be a family meal. And that is all. Sinta go and get ready for the meal; Your aunties and uncles are anxious to meet you again. Sinta exits. 28 I 14. Ibu and Bapak look at each other. Ibu goes to touch his face. He moves away. BAPAK You did well to call me, Wife. IBU: Most humbly I beg your pardon for having to interrupt your Afternoon, Tak. Do not be angry with the child. BAPAK I am not angry with her. There is a chill. IBU: We will forget this day. BAPAK She is my only daughter. I have other sons. Garuda's shadow flies across the screen. Ibu and Bapak stare, motionless. A vision of The First Sinta appears. She is wandering about blindly. A shadow ofRangda appears on the screen. The Rangda and Garuda puppets fight. CHORUS: (Singing softly) Great is the weight that shackles a parent's shoulders Great is the burden of generation In preserving the sanctity of name. Parents must forever check the harlot shame. Sweet is it to see a young child, Innocent and ready, The proud eaglet flying from her fold Into a marriage that brings glories untold. The Rangda shadow puppet thrusts an arrow into the side of Garuda before flying off. Garuda falters. Blessed is the family Which preserves itself at all turns, Which cuts off its smallest part To preserve the lifelong beating of its heart Lights out on screen. The First Sinta clutches her heart and screams silently. Then the vision suddenly disappears. 29 15. Enter a HOSPITAL WORKER. WORKER Bapak Mariponang And Mistress Mariponang, I come to you from the hospital in the neighboring Lampungan suburb. IBU: That is the hospital frequented by that girl, Pak. It is where she went for her checkups With treacherous, lying doctors. WORKER Most revered Ibu and Bapak, Please hear me. I have run ahead To save you the shock of seeing police officers Sully the clean marble walls of your home With brusque manners and rough talk. They have your daughter. Something has happened. IBU: Sinta! BAPAK For God's sake. What happened? WORKER With a jet black pen, the kind that cannot be removed, Sinta had blacked out the last two pages of her file, Covering most of the doctor's reports and writings. It is a municipal offence to tamper with hospital records But I am sure, that with a little of your encouragement The officers will see reason. Bapak reaches into his pocket and hands the Hospital Worker a few bills. BAPAK Thank you. Come. Come wife. Let us meet these men at the door. They exit. A vision of Rangda appears. CHORUS/RANGDA We do not speak of these things. Rangda dances angrily. 30 CHORUS: I cannot even think of these things Without also thinking that my pondering on them Might be a doorway for some further calamity. There is a fever that comes from all directions at once When the air around a family is filled with secrets. Rangda disappears. 16. Enter Sinta. Lights up on screen. Garuda is still faltering. A shadow of Rama appears. Garuda points with his wing, then dies. The puppet Rama's shadow gets bigger and stronger. SINTA I have done nothing wrong. I have done nothing wrong. Nothing. I am a child. I know nothing. I have seen nothing. I am nothing. And I will be good. I promise, Mummy. I am the brightest jewel of the Mariponang home And nothing bad happens to bright jewels. I did nothing wrong, do you hear me? I will not throw my life away for you, I will not give you that too. It is mine to keep, intact restored, perfect I have a clean piece of paper And one day I will have a husband. And as we lay in our perfect white bed with white sheets, Perhaps he will teach me things and finally I will be able to say, aaahhh. Now I know. I will be allowed everything. I will understand. I will have a name for things that hurt No doctor, no peasant girl, no scratched piece of paper Will take my name from me. My honour. My father. I am clean again. I am whole. My dress is white, my hands are clean. There are no fingerprints on my body. I am happy, happy. I smile. I will smile so sweetly everyone's heart will break. 31 The day I get married and my sweet smile disappears. All will be as it should be. CHORUS: We must make ourselves forget what we have heard. Shadow screen out. 17. Enter a GARDENER. GARDENER Sinta Mariponang! Daughter of Bapak Mariponang, Come quickly! Your mother has sent for you, she is already on her way. SINTA On her way where? GARDENER To the hospital where your father has been taken. I am very sorry. He fell suddenly. He was speaking to The security men in grey uniforms who brought you home. I was working just outside the door, in the stone garden When I heard him fall, and your mother cry out his Given name. I rushed in and saw him lying on the ground, His eyes very wide like a fish his mouth opening and closing. One of the guards left to call an ambulance, and your driver Has gone ahead of you taking your mother to him. SINTA Why? GARDENER A heart attack I think. He was clawing his heart And opening and closing his mouth. You must come right away. SINTA Will he die? Is he dying? GARDENER Come at once. Your mother left this for a cab. I have called. SINTA Where is Sahat? GARDENER Your mother said only you should come. Sahat is not to be sent for. But you must come. They exit. 32 18. CHORUS: (Sung) They told us it was safe to send our children out They told me it was safe to talk to strangers, They told us people speaking different languages Might learn to love each other and help each other out Every time a child comes home from that world outside She is broken, and another piece of us has been left to die. I will shut my doors with steel locks and wooden bars, I will shut my ears with my hands when those voices call, I will shut my eyes when bright photographs entice me, I will not touch hamburgers and hot dogs and fishsticks, Poison myself with the greed of industry. There is nothing I can learn outside my own back-yard Except how to spoil young children and tear apart my family. And when I am tempted by things I cannot make here, I will think of Sinta of Jakarta, who brought sickness From far away, and infected her whole house. I will shut my soul with a prayer from the past The shadow of Garuda flies around the stage, then appears large on the screen. Garuda, king of birds, Noble warrior and ruler of the skies, Warn us of impending doom Fly over us and report all that you see That we might also see the truth about our daughters, That we might see from above the wars Fought all around us in invisible battlefields. Report all you see to Prince Rama, Ancient warrior prince and forthright brother of Lesmana Who rescued Sinta with your faith and righteousness And who returned with her from exile to rule Kosala Show him what is, so that he might save us from giants. Save us from what we cannot prevent Save us from the terror of our women's lives. Chorus pass through the screen one by one and enter the shadow of Garuda. 19. EPILOGUE: Other Images of Garuda, projected and in shadows, appear all over the playing space. There are coat-of-arms Garudas, the airline symbol, shadow 33 puppets, comic renderings, etc. A vision of Garuda, in mask and with giant wings, appears and dances as he speaks. When Garuda speaks, it sounds like all the images are speaking. GARUDA I came to warn you, From the brink of death, I came to warn you. Everything must change. Hear me young people, Venturing outside, Leaving your parents And then looking back. And hear me elders Refusing to see Crass footprints children Leave in other homes. You must find each other Again. You must look With fresh eyes to see Truth about each other. We have all been kidnapped, Some by the past and Some by the future. Look for each other. There is no golden deer. No prize in the forest Our clans must expand In order to preserve. Look to each other. Without regrets and Without averting your gaze And you will find the way. All Garundas disappear. A lone flute plays. A vision of the first Sinta appears. She is tied up, as in Scene Four. Sinta enters the vision space. She begins to untie the first Sinta. They dance together for a few moments, then take hands and look at each other. Blackout. 34 Alan Levin El Camino In July my brother will get out and then he will take me to Nagodoches in his El Camino. He has a girl there called Ysabel who works in the office of the cotton grower and I have seen her photograph in a small blue bathing suit We will come at night for Ysabel and her sister Dorotea who is one grade above me only. We will help them climb down the pepper tree that grows against their father's house and walk barefoot across the wet lawn whispering. My brother will put broken ice and cans of beer in the Coleman cooler for when we sit on the dock with our feet in the reservoir and I can drive the El Camino when we reach the place where the roads become empty. 35 Wendy McGrath two poems In That Same House I am lying in my bed floor shining back at the sun it is afternoon and I am expected to sleep but all I can see is the sun bright with its own expectations I cannot sleep and my father is sitting on a chair too small beside my bed tells me he will stay until I go to sleep and my hand is holding his tight beside my pillow calloused and tbick-fingered from swinging a hammer hitting nails and I say stay stay until I go to sleep stay and the sun is shifting its position on the floor my father stays holds my hand looking out the window as if to see something I don't know that expression and I say stay just until I go to sleep stay 36 Another House Different Summer made a tent from a good white sheet clipped its two corners its middle to our whitewithcoraltrim fence clothespins pulled apart became pegs pointed pieces of wood driven into the ground with my father's hammer inside that tent hair wet read about anne wanting my hair green ran fingers over two braids my mother made felt the furrowed part white cool middle pulled the elastics off the thin points my hair became at the end of each braid tips of paintbrushes unravelled lengths of hair made perfectly equal waves cool damp from swimming ran my hands over the waves cool still damp picked a wide piece of grass held it tight between my thumbs and blew its thin green tongue spoke 37 Pain Not Bread two poems Sleep (From the Late Tang) The blossoming of shadows on the inner walls slowly turns into evening. The stars look down on a myriad of unmoving doors. Unable to sleep, you hear the wind, and imagine jade bells that announce the arrival of minor officials, dismounting hurriedly on their way to morning audiences with the emperor. But tomorrow morning is still sealed business. Between now and then you'll frequently ask yourself what night is truly like, how it ever came to be this long, or this dark, and for just one moment you'll see that blackened sky, so much bigger than you ever imagined: a piece of paper unfolding nine times until it blocks out everything. No wonder the stars look down on us, and run so quietly on their rails. Don't sleep then. Listen to what you only imagine: metal on metal, jade bells, papers being opened— and then sleep. 38 Good Daughter (An Introduction to Du Fu) Our generation is like a fine lady living in obscurity in some now-emptied valley. We say to ourselves that we were good daughters of good families, but the truth is that for us fortune hides in the grass, and that year after year has fallen to some advancing rebel army no high office could have protected us from. I can't find either the bones or the flesh of the period we were born into. I don't know whether to say that the world's feelings are decayed, or that it feels a kind hatred for everything thaf s finished. But that kind of hatred flickers like an oil lamp with each passing breeze. Every husband's fickle, and thinks a new woman is as beautiful as jade. Well, there are trees here whose leaves fold up at night as if they know it's time. I see new women's smiles in old women's weeping. I suppose you'll say that intellectuals are always patching holes in the roof with some still-living vine, that this is the sort of amateurish and ineffectual thing one can always imagine them doing once if s too late, in their thin blue sleeves, when the weather is already turning cold, and the evening is searching for someplace to lean its long bamboos. 39 Temma Ehrenfeld Fish When it's slow, I'm closing the office, grief comes up in me. I take deep breaths. When I'm done logging out and locking up I can go to the fish store. The aquarium store, I mean. These aren't fish to eat The store's down 8th, right before the train. The first time I went in I was just putting off going down to the station; there's an ad for a clinic right where I stand. Every time I have to stand by that ad, I hear my mother in my head. I know what she'd say if she knew. She'd say, what are you waiting for? Make that appointment I'm at 9 weeks. All I see on the street is babies and people smiling and googling at them. The ad says up to 24 weeks but thaf s sick. That's murder, I don't care what anyone says. But it's not like if s ever not murder, I know this in my heart I go to the fish store. The sales kids all know me now and they leave me alone. I'm the girl who's been coming every day and sometimes twice, walks around and doesn't buy. The right side of the store is freshwater, the left side salt I always go down the lake side and stop at a dark tank featuring an ugly gray fish. He's big. If s funny how something that means nothing to you at all can get to mean so much. I never thought about fish before. I never even thought I might be thinking about fish. If you asked me I guess I would have said fish are a cold interest There are happy fish and sad fish. Stoned happy, hanging around with no work. Busy happy, eating every second. Sad pressing up against the glass. I used to feel like a spy, seeing what I wasn't meant to see, these lives from a place I can't breathe. The fish kind of look at me and through me at the same time, as if they can't tell whaf s the person and whaf s the light and motion behind me, but they sense me looking. The kind of sense that makes you turn around when someone is looking at you from behind or far away from a 40 window. The only difference is the fish can look right at me and they don't know I'm whaf s making them feel that way. I see them looking at me, the girl with the braids in a chunk on her head. Human being, I say, funny-looking. African-American and also some white. Can't mate or eat me, but here I am. On the fish level is what is meant by the word fetus. Fetuses have fins. They go through a fish stage. There are two tanks right at the entrance; an ocean tank like a disco: painted blue background, weird white and purplish mountains I used to think were rocks. Really, they're coral, and alive. The fish in there are so pretty and geometric they look fake. There are green and red striped fish, and black ones with white polka dots; a blue one with a yellow tail. Thaf s the ocean tank. People ooh and ah over the ocean and walk right by the lake, even though the lake tank is the same size. The ocean just looks bigger because if s more exciting. The lake tank is full of plants, tall yellowy-green plants that sway with the water and tiny blue sparks of fish darting between them looking happy. There's a couple of fat orange fish with bulging stomachs and complicated, fluttery fins. If s green in there. It makes me think of the spring grass down South where my mother's from. We go for Faster. All day long I had to do stuff over at work, the insurance forms wouldn't come out right The printer was spitting paper and I was ready to lie down on the floor. This is the situation. Max did junior college and he's earning now. But he's too bright to stay where he is. He wants to get into lighting design, and there are a lot of things that have to happen first I did City all four years but I have more school to do. I'm going to be a physician's assistant My mother, if she knew I was pregnant and thinking the way I am, she'd say I used her tolerance to ruin my life. Right after I got through City, we agreed just a job for a while would do me good. Fm no good on tests and I'm taking a rest before biology. She said any more than a year and I'd slip into not going. Slip just the way I slipping. Maybe a man, maybe a baby. If s too insecure. I'm pretty dark and I won't straighten my hair and that makes a difference in job interviews. Even with my college degree, it took me too long to get my job, reception and insurance forms at Dr. Welder's. And IVe got mornings off in the fall when I start my science classes and more time if I need it to study. Dr. Weider really liked me. She made an exception for me. She's giving me my chance. The fat gray one's pressing against the glass. Nothing out here for you; I say it out loud to this sad open mouth. 41 You'd be dead in a second. Nothing out here for you. I say it again. Quiet so nobody hears. Lots of fish in the sea. Thaf s what they say when you don't get the one you want I told my mother the other day about sudden death. I read about sudden death in the fish hobbyist book at the store. Sudden death is when the environment turns and all the fish die at once, maybe overnight It can be coming on a long time. This is what happened at my mother's office—she's an administrator in insurance. Everybody was worried about the new boss and then one day all her friends got called in one by one and then everyone was gone in a couple of months. They didn't like the new boss or got fired or offered work they won't do. My Mom's staying. But to her if s like her family breaking up. My mother loved hearing about sudden death. If s a big joke to her. She told everybody in her office about sudden death. She likes me being bright and all my comparisons though she wishes for my sake that I had good scores on tests. I told her this is how I am now, relating everything to fish. I told her about going to the store, and how I like the lake better than the ocean because it reminds me of Faster down South. We talked about going down for a visit soon, and she made me hot milk with vanilla in it not chocolate syrup because syrup is sugar and I'm eating right for the baby, though I didn't tell her that I go down the lake aisle and back up the ocean side. There's a whole aisle like one big disco. Max and I met at the Roxy. The Roxy's a disco that turns into a rink on Wednesday nights. My friends took me there even though I was still new at blading and slow. Max was going too fast to stop and there was no room to go around me, so he put his hand on my waist and moved me around at his speed. All the guys at the Roxy do that because if s a little rink and they don't have time to stop. I didn't like it when anyone else tried spinning me around after that I got good at staying out of their way. But Max I liked. At the Roxy, you drink a little and go around the floor enough times and the place seems fantastic, huge. Thaf s at night Max told me how he was there one time during the day to pick up something and it wasn't much, it was just little and dirty. He wished he hadn't gone. This is what I liked about him right away. He seems like he's not like me, but he is. He's restless and all in his head. I'm moody. We know what if s like to be changing all the time. 42 The first time I was with Max, we fell asleep and when we woke up, he said, I'm not black. I thought Oh lord. I've only prayed a few times outside of church but this was one of them. I was praying that Fd heard him wrong. Then I dealt with it, I said, You mean you wish you weren't and I was going to leave. I mean, Max is lighter than me but he looks black and Fm mixed and my mother's African-American and I won't listen to any disrespect We got through that What he said he meant is Fd referred to him as black the night before and he's from Puerto Rico—he never says Puerto Rican—but if he'd been African American he'd be proud of that too. I said his mother probably wished she wasn't Puerto Rican either or why did she name him Max? What kind of Spanish name was that? He said he's Maximo and there was a Roman emperor named Maxunian born in Spain and I'd better not talk about what I didn't know anything about I said Fm leaving and I did. But when I got home I called him and apologized for walking out and he was so scared and happy I knew we were serious. I told my mother even though I knew I wouldn't like what she'd say, which used to happen to me all the time, but hadn't happened since Fve been working. She said not black my butt I worry about you, you have to toughen up. Well, I defended him and I was half right He loves me too much now to talk like that His mother better be proud he has a girl who's been through college and has plans. His mother who named him Maximo. I was so happy when he told me there was hole, the condom was dripping. I was happy doing the test I tell myself: This is like when I had the six numbers on my Lotto ticket but three were in one game and three in the other. Close, but you need better than close. You need everything all lined up. Thaf s my lecture. I want to smash the glass, see the water pour into the store. I want to get a big hammer and smash so the store is full of water and the fish are all free. They'd be dead then. I have to remind myselt They'd be dead. My Mom always said, I want you to have some kind of life. Thaf s what she'd say when she was all worn out Fm back at the lake tank. I can't go on out the door. I'm stuck at the lake tank, dreaming. Church at Easter, me squeezed tight a thigh against my mother, my grandmother on the other side, until everybody was up and Fm allowed 43 out into the aisle so I can run through the people to the door, where the light is sWning. Fm blinking. If s green. Eleven o clock bright and green, brighter than when we'd gone in and another world from the darkness inside. Everybody walks right through the lake section. The salespeople explain that tropical is the hardest but not too hard if you make enough of an investment right from the start. People get excited. The boys want a lot of equipment in the house. Ill bring Max here and ask him which environment he likes. If he picks the lake, 111 tell him about the baby. Freshwater would be the sign. This is stupid, I know. I could be six years old, thinking like this. My stomach growls. I'm not eating enough for the baby. Nothing looks healthy enough. I want to stay home and do nothing but steam vegetables. It used to be when I was coming near my period when I saw Max I'd put my hand on his neck. His neck is always warm because he's an athlete. Thaf s what he says; he says it's his circulation. His warm neck would make me cry. Right on the street He didn't ask questions, he said he could see hormones just looking at me. Now I know what all that emotion was about It seems a waste. But if s about the baby not being born. I have that same grief now. I told Max I needed some privacy so this weekend he borrowed a car from a friend and we went to the Jersey shore. Max's apartment is with his brother who's always in the living room wanting to talk. I. live with my mother. We never get a whole night. I was going to tell him about the baby. I was going to say I was considering having it and giving it up for adoption. That seemed the best option, considering my feelings and my situation. But I didn't say anything Saturday on the ride down because Max was cursing out the traffic. Being trapped like that makes him wild. Then he had three beers. First thing Sunday morning he has to put on the news, has to know whaf s going on, even on a Sunday. That radio voice took me right out of my sleep. I almost told him then, almost yelled at him ifs because youre so selfish I don't know what to do. But if s not him, I know. I go home and if s the usual thing, you know; I make a salad and I'm meaning to try to cheer up my Mom. I sit down on the sofa, and it just comes out like this: "If you hadn't had me, would you have had a better life?" 'What kind of question is that?" "Just a question." "I can't imagine my life wifhoutyou. I want to know why you're asking." 44 "I just wanted to hear you say it* "I wouldn't change a thing." We talk about other things. I know my mother's wondering now about me. Fm thinking about asking her if she ever thinks about my father. But its not a good question. He stopped calling. He stopped sending checks. This was all a long time ago. I tell her I'm tired and I go to my room. Even being so sad is something I could get used to. I could do this forever, carry my baby around and be sad. Except the problem is, she's not going to stay there forever. She's getting big. I go to sleep thinking about this. Four o'clock, Fm pushing down the grief. I lie there, squeezing my pillow, until seven-thirty when I'm supposed to get up. I put on my new tough boots. I don't like these boots, but I bought them so I could be strong. They're combat boots. Dr. Welder's with a patient behind a closed door; I lift my heel and let it down hard under the reception desk. I hate these boots. If s been a surprise to me all day that people looking at me in these boots can't see whaf s in them. I can feel it seeping up, gripping my ankles. The patients come up asking for their insurance forms and the ones that never notice me don't look at me and the friendly ones pick up where our last conversation left off. I always say Hello, and their name when they came in and they're pleased if they don't know me. I've got the name written down in the appointment book right in front of me. But people are pleased. They're lonely, it just goes to show. I'm smiling and talking. Max called early and we went over what we're doing this week and Sunday didn't come up. He goes to dinner with his family practically every Sunday, and he's never invited me. I'm taking him to the store. I could tell him how much I like the lake tank. Depending on his mood, he could go up to the register and say how much for that tank just the way it is with everything in it Last week he took me with him to Crazy Eddie to show off how he could spend his paycheck on a 27-inch TV, and I was supposed to enjoy this. Fm not going to tell him anything. Fll just watch him, see where he stops. The first time I ever noticed the fish store was when Max stopped at the aquarium in the window because Max is that kind of person, curious about everything. I was telling him about the kitten I couldn't keep because I was allergic and Fm allergic to dogs too. I was talking about Omelet I had her a couple of months when I was little before my mother gave him away 45 because my eyes wouldn't stop watering. I called her Omelet because she was white with gold patches. We were passing the store. He looked at the window, looked at me. You could get fish, he said. I thought he was teasing me, but he was serious. I wasn't used to him yet. I thought he was cold. A kitten is not a fish. But now I've got a whole different feeling about fish and also I know it's just him being mental and restless. As soon as I see Max, I want to cry. Sometimes I resent this, that he's got this power, like Fm the water and he's the moon, and he's pulling me around.-1 don't touch his neck, because then Fll cry. He's carrying a shopping bag. We go to the bench in front of the basketball court because there's just a couple of guys playing and no crowd. What he s got for me is a stuffed kitten, white with gold patches. So I cry He says, hormones, and smiles. Which makes me mad. But I dont tell him then. Fm glad Fm mad because it stops my crying. I say, you hungry? I want to go look in the fish store before we go eat He says, You seriously want fish? And he's excited. Max likes anything new, he's such a kid. So what do you think? He likes the ocean tank. He hardly looks at the lake, walks right on by. So no surprise. I mean, I was setting him up, giving him a test like that Just punishing myself. Fm carrying the shopping bag with my stuffed kitten in it and if s not my birthday, and we havent had a fight and we've been together six months. I should be appreciating him, not giving him tests. I told myself this while he ran through the freshwater section, leaving me behind. He's all excited about the fanciest salt fish in the back, the ones that cost $150.00. I want to smash those tanks. I tell him Tm tired, I dont want to eat I want to go home. He says, You seriously want fish? I say, No. He says, what about a snake? I walk out. I stomp out in my boots. Max takes his time following me, he's stubborn, I've gone down the street and crossed at a light and am halfway down the next block, thinking he's going to let me go all the way home when Max comes up behind. He doesnt speak. Makes me talk first 46 I say, How come your mother won't have me in her house? He says, What? I say, You are a racist He says, Back up. He stops. I stop. But I'm not going to cry. He says, What is wrong with you? And I hit him, right on the street So we go to a tiny Arab place Max likes and I let him order for me, I am so wiped, and we still have to talk. He orders healthy like he always does, eggplant and humus and salad. He says, after we re served and eating, First of all, my mother wants you to come to dinner. She's been asking to meet you. You have that all wrong. I nod. I know this is what he'd have to say. You just made that up. I nod. Second, my family doesn't decide for me. I say, Decide? He looks at me straight and says, Decide. I say, I didn't think that was where we were at I didn't think you were deciding anything about me. I am softening. Sure I am, he says. What about you going into electronics design? I can think about more than one thing at a time, Charlene. But Fm evil in these boots. I look at him, and I don't see the father of my child. I see someone with too much power over me. He's thinking, but meanwhile Tm a mother. He's cold, with his thinking. I don't need to think to know who I love. Thaf s fine, I say. You think. And I shove some eggplant in my mouth. He is so hurt and surprised, I see him again. Max with his complicated expressions that change so fast I think, He just got me a present today. I say, I have something to tell you. Fuck, is what he says. He hangs his head down in an awful silence. Then I see a smile. If s a scared sick, stunned smile, but a smile. What I say. You know those pictures you showed me? The ones down South? Yeah. What? You were so cute. You on the lawn. 47 I know the pictures he means. We took one every Easter. Fm two, Fm three, Fm four. I'm in a white dress. Fm one toothy smile. The lawn is green. But he doesn't want it We keep eating and after a while Max asks me what Tm thinking of. I say I'm scared. I say I can't murder a baby. I say I want it hut I know if s not the right time. He says he wouldn't say murder. He would say manslaughter, or killing in self-defense. I argue that the baby isn't trying to kill me. He says, I can't handle it T want you, but a baby now would murder both of us. Charlene. Bfs too much. I say, you're using murder just as a word. This is real murder. He says, I can't I say nothing. I am getting ready to go. He says, I want us to have the next one. Are you sure? I say. He says, Will you marry me? I say, Oh god. Then I say Yes. We decide on adoption. I dream Tm in a bed with my baby. The nurse is huge, a big white woman and she opens her mouth and a loud wind comes out and sucks the baby out of my arms into the wind. I get out of bed and throw up. Fm throwing up now mornings. Fm like that another week. I tell Max adoption will murder me. Now Tm the one using a word to make it equal Kill me, murder me, I know this is a lie. If s not murder, he says. What week are you at? 10 weeks I'm thinking about sudden death. Tm thinking about how the whole environment turns What about the other children? They'll have a ghost behind them. Tm selfish now. We cant be happy with this as our first decision. I go back to the fish store. I tell him I can't Max talks. He's someone who can talk on the spot He turned me around the rink and Fve wanted him ever since. Max and I are right together. I let him talk. We've got big plans. He wants to take me scuba diving. He wants me, he says. And weVe got to be smart I can't be talking about ghosts. He says the other children never have to know. If s 11 weeks. Max doesn't want me to go to a clinic. I tell Dr. Weider I 48 have a friend who needs an abortion. Who would she recommend? She gives me a name and also says she'd understand if I wanted to take an afternoon off to go with my friend. Just not on a Friday, if possible, because thaf s the hardest day to get a temp. She smiles at me. A sad sympathetic smile. I don't want her sympathy. Dr. Weider's got a pinched up face and thin brown hair, and all she ever wears is brown and beige. You know she's someone who would make herself think what Fm doing is okay. All day long, she's looking at vaginas. But she doesn't do this procedure herself. She's like people who're too weak to not eat meat and too weak to look at a butcher's window. She gave me a chance. I hate her for that This is what I got I don't make the appointment right away. I give Max enough time to tell his parents he's engaged and have me to Sunday dinner. Okay, I trust him. Still have to see how this dinner goes first I wear nice-girl shoes to help me out black flats with a bow like ballerina shoes. Everybody's kissing me and eating and joking. They're doing everything they can. Max is bright with them and silly, too. This is my family, and one day Fll be the mother of one of them. Max looks so happy and proud all through dinner. Happy and proud, like a father. I haven't told my mother. If s strange; his mother knows before I tell mine. His mother kisses me on the cheek in the kitchen and says, We thought this would happen. I ask Max, So why didn't you ever have me to dinner? He says, I was thinking. I was going to. And I'm thinking this is what the baby was for then, to push him past thinking. There had to be a reason for her life, right? If s a good thing I like medical offices. I want to help people and I want to be in a place that is clean and calm. I cope all right but only because I like that kind of environment I even like the smell of medical places. Also, I'm relieved Max isn't there. If s 13 weeks. This means they're doing D&E and they use a thing that looks like a pliers. Max can't know. I was worried about what I might say. I could be like a woman having a baby who curses out the man who did this to her, except I mean it. I didn't want to have to worry about my mouth or hear my curses and worry the memory of them would stick forever. I don't bleed much. I don't even want to call him afterwards. But he said he'd be standing by the phone, waiting. So I call. He says he loves me and I say Yeah and hang up. 49 I go home and stay in bed over the weekend. I tell my mother I have flu symptoms. Max calls and calls and my mother has to say Fm too sick to come to the phone. This is mean of me. He could think Fm bleeding to death. I don't care. Sunday night I walk into the living room where she's reading and I tell her I'm going to marry Max. She looks at me hard. She says, You're still going to go to school? Yes. Are you pregnant? No. So why didn't you talk to him all weekend? So I tell her. She hugs me hard and we're sad. We're sad all evening. We watch TV and we don't talk. At ten o'clock, she says, Max is smart I say, yes. At ten thirty, she says, Better call him. I call and tell him if s all right He gets over being angry at me fast Max guesses, but my mother knows. She knows if he didn't ask me to marry him when he did I would have had our baby and never talked to him again. My mother knows because she kept me. It would have been the three of us then. But the way Max handled ft, I had to choose between the baby or him. I know she knows because she's so grateful she practically kisses the floor when he comes to the house. He can do no wrong. This makes me laugh, because up until now no man could do anything right. Max doesn't even notice. His mother feels the same way. Her big happy eyes are just mother's eyes to him. There's sudden death. I waft for sudden death. I signed up for biology. Max's taking his steps towards his program in electronic design. Also we talked about my working on my temper and him not spending so much. This came up when he went and put cash down on a tank. Not the biggest one in the store, but ft was big, and just the tank without most of the equipment cost his paycheck. I was mad. I said we couldnt afford it and besides I didn't need a reminder. He was cold to think I could even look at fish now. I buy you something and Fm cold? What's going on with you, he says. I almost hit him But I didn't Fm never going to hit him again. 50 > It took me a day and a half to figure out that I never told him I was going to the fish store while I was making up my mind. I never told him I was talking to the baby through the tanks. How could he know? So I apologized. I explained that it wasn't the money so much as the reminder and told him about talking to the baby in the tanks. He said he'd get the store to take ft back or maybe get a friend to buy ft from him. He was so sad. So sad my mood changed to the exact opposite. I said maybe the tank would help me get over ft. I said maybe Fll do it tropical. The salt tanks remind me of how we met The bright lights. He was happy. But at the store I picked a lake. I like green. Every night, I look at my fat orange fish sashaying and the blue sparkles through the swaying green plants. I don't focus on one too long before I go to sleep because one fish alone could be sad. It could start to seem as if its circling around because if s sad and trapped. This has happened to me and I wake up in the night with the grief and the tears I have to hold the pillow to fight down. In the morning I want to smash the tank. But I know that would just kill them all. So I feed them, watch them come up to the top and eat My mother is glad Fm with Max, but otherwise I've never seen her the way she is now. She's not eating well. There are new people in the office but I dont know their names. She doesn't talk about them. I just hear the old names She likes the lake tank. She comes into my room and gets lost in the green with me. I sit on my bed and she sits on the chair. I think about Max and if s terrible to say but I'm glad Fm never going to be alone the way she is now. I wait for sudden death. I fuss with my controls. One little thing wrong with the environment is all it takes. Last week, I came in and a gold one was lying on the top of the water. I scooped it up with a spoon and flushed it down the toilet I got out my calendar, just to see. If s 24 weeks Thaf s how old she'd be. But I stayed calm I went to the store and asked a hundred questions. They all said a fish dies sometimes. This happens with fish. It was just one. I was afraid to go into my bedroom when I got home. Then I went in. My plants were swaying. The blue ones darting around. The gold ones sashaying. Max stays over with me now. We'd been out and I hadn't seen the tank 51 in a few hours. Fm going into the bedroom. I've got to check the tank, I say. Max follows me. He's standing in the door. You can't come in. Chariene. There could be another one dead. You can't see me cleaning. Go in the living room. Max looks at me funny. I stare back. I just got to see if it's sudden death. He says, You're never going to forgive me. But I know and he knows this isn't just about him or even us or me and my mother either. If s about me. Fve had a few more fish go since then. I keep a spoon by the tank. Thaf s cold, but ft*s what I do. I wont say Fm not waiting for sudden death anymore, because I am. lam. On the other side of ft, if s good for me to have a pet thaf s like flowers. They die. You get another one. Fish are a cold interest and they're helping me be a woman and not a child. I like this I like that they die just one, and I scoop ft out and my tank goes on. 52 Jon Thompson Walls See the saffron light suffusing the temple the distant triangular roof high above the walls the hard-packed ground what did it mean to you this wholeness without suffering or resurrection just the patient mdwelling the waiting the clean movement from one breath to the next from day to night from emptiness to emptiness from form to form as twilight closes in in the rising darkness there is the loveliness of no becoming the walls and trees are already shadows they have become the song of what they always were 53 B.Z. Niditch Octavio Paz (In Memoriam) 1914-1998 The earth is an empty frame now through labyrinths of Mexican body you walk no longer in the green metropolis yet your body of praise shouts its own monologue passed lands of the pampas among the disappeared ones those who study nature near the llama's desert where sister waits for summer rains, now you do not run to the sea your unfinished consolation, nor by the iguana stone where each life is a miracle and the sun is taken from Klein-blue Aztec hills your vision continues by its own lucky legacy hearing ancient anarchic voices with the proud fragrance on the face of a child who reads you by the hazel tree. 54 Lucy Miller Duchamp Today She met him on the steps. He above, her below, a misfortune since every woman should be cast descending a staircase. But there she was, rising through sweat and laboured breath to greet her beloved. Eighty-two steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum spread out below her as she spied him just behind the Lipchitz. The spring sun, like his good suit became him. "Good morning, Bedford," she panted. "Good morning, Florence. Duchamp today?" "Absolutely," she agreed, as they took the last ten steps to the entrance. After all, she had concluded, love affairs in your fifties were carried on in museums not motels, fraternity houses or, God forbid, the back seats of cars. This would be a proper one, without guilt—the marriages were almost over anyway—and surely, surely the kids wouldn't care, his or hers, since they all had their own ways. Sarah already divorced at twenty-five, Alice dancing, and Robbie dropping out of school and heading west with his girlfriend. Bedford fared better with one son in advertising and the other in law school. The almost ex-wife had her own career. Interior design. Had John not been so tied up in his work, had she been firmer, maybe they would have survived, Florence thought As it was, they had slopped through life, neglecting each other and winging it with the kids. They left behind them now a wake of missed signals, lost opportunities, and unaddressed questions. Their lives lay in a tangled heap which no amount of doing or undoing could rectify. They had simply exhausted their marriage. With Bedford leading the way, Florence passed now through the revolving door to the staircase beyond, another thirty-five steps to the statue of Diana. She paused for a moment before the perfect Classical body with its uncanny balance on one toe while she drew her bow and arrow. Diana, protector of women. Bedford hurried ahead, taking the steps easily, his English shoes almost silent on the marble. Florence trailed behind, her running shoes making an odd sucking sound on the same surface. She wore them out of a conviction that the crackle of leather soles on gallery floors was a distraction. Bedford had quiet shoes. 55 They turned right and took another fourteen steps to the second floor. "Slow up," Florence begged. Bedford turned and looked at her with disbelief. 'With all that Duchamp ahead?" She strode forward, determined, but with something failing in her at every step. They turned left at the top and ran into Arms and Armor. Bedford, disgruntled, consulted the floorplan. Florence suggested they take a peek as long as they were there, remembering fondly, for a moment, how Robbie had loved that room before he learned of Greenpeace and Amnesty International. Mommy please lef s see the ka-nights, he would beg. She always agreed eagerly, as eagerly as she took Sarah and Alice to the Betsy Ross House, as eagerly as she and John took everybody six times to Independence Hall, as happily as they went to the Philadelphia Zoo and considered it enlightened because the lions appeared to roam freely behind their artful confinement "First floor through European painting," Bedford ordered as they returned to the stairs. He descended quickly at a handsome angle, Florence noted, and beelined through European art while Florence looked over her shoulder at polychrome virgins "Oh, Bedford, the Flemish!" "Now, now," he admonished, "we're off to see a real woman." Heigh-ho, she thought, a real woman, like the real Wizard of Oz. Bedford slowed his pace briefly as they hooked a right into Early Twentieth Century, but seemed unmoved by Lachaise's sumptuous Standing Woman with her brazen welcome. Good, Florence thought he doesn't like full figures, thinking of her own which had taken on a number of imperfections over the years but not much mass. "Duchamp?" Bedford addressed a guard. Florence never would have asked, would have just wandered until she happened on the room, or missed it as the case may be. "All the way back to your right," the guard snarled. Bedford arched his brow and thanked him with what Florence couldn't decide was good manners or condescension. Never mind. She thought of all the times she and John had disagreed about directions. He believed in asking. She always wanted to tough it out. Ahead lay the Duchamp room. As they entered the gallery, Bedford surveyed the walls, quickly passing over the angles and planes of forty paintings. Florence's eye rested, as it usually did, on the early works, loving portraits in pale and tender tonalities. She wondered what mysterious process changes a palette, how we move from light to dark without knowing it. 56 "Ah, there she is," Bedford exclaimed. Yes, straight on was the object of his desire, her sharp nude body clattering downward. He pulled the fingers of his right hand together, drew them to his lips, and sent them flying forward in a kiss. Bedford in love, Florence thought They had met at the second wedding of a mutual acquaintance, an updated affair in which the bride and groom promised to be friends to each other's children while the respective offspring looked warily on. At a large reception afterwards, the bride gave a speech about the misery of her life before Number Two came into it And there was Bedford to rescue Florence. Tall and in good shape from tennis, he seemed sent to her by some divine intervention. She questioned his references to trouncing his tennis partners, but this time she was not going to be so intolerant That seemed minor compared to John's critical absences and glaring omissions He was simply never there when she needed him. She had anniversaries, birthdays, and babies alone and even buried the family dog by herself It was awful, the kids all crying as she carried old Luke, wrapped in a make-shift winding sheet to his grave. She remembered feeling like a carved figurehead as she strode forth with her sad little cortege behind her. Although Florence and Bedford had just met they appeared as a couple seated among the many others in the church. Florence marvelled at how easily that identity slips over people. Everything is for two: dinner, theatre tickets, beds, and cemetery plots. To be alone is singular and strange, so strange that Florence turned to Dorothy LeBlanc, her friend who had introduced them and who now, with her husband, flanked them in the pew. "Where's Mrs. Bedford?" Florence whispered. "Separated," Dorothy mouthed back, her brows lifting with cleverness. Florence turned to Bedford, so new beside her. As the minister launched into an extended metaphor on music and marriage and as it grew out of proportion, they exchanged amused glances and sealed their interest in each other. She felt his attractiveness wash over her. They were assigned different tables at the reception, but Bedford found his way back to hers after dinner. She felt his hand on her shoulder and noted the looks around the table as he bent to speak. "Save the next slow one for me," he demanded, his ardour refreshing. "If can find my dance card," Florence shot back, the last smart thing she said to Bedford. They danced, then, in what was called in the sixties The Philadelphia Bounce. Bedford's current version was to temper the 57 extended elbows and pull Florence insistently against him while the whole town watched. Later they talked about their failed marriages and plotted their new course unwittingly, giddy with possibilities. "Look at this, Bedford," Florence called, drawing his attention to The Chess Game, an early Duchamp in which men played chess while women poured tea. "Dick reads. Jane cooks." "Oh, come on," he berated her belated feminism and turned again to his beloved nude descending in a whorl of sharp blades. "She's so—noisy," Florence observed. "Yes," Bedford agreed with satisfaction. Florence was glad they agreed on something and was about to voice that cliche but held her tongue, thinking of all the times she hadn't Bedford stood long before Duchamp's triptych of nudes, the middle one on loan in Venice. 1916 dominated 1911. Florence was taken with the bare space between the two. Something about a painting removed reminded her of a divorce when things are divided and one is always left with something absent some dangling light bulb on a bare wall. She thought of the apartment John had taken in the city with the remnants of their things and of her own house with its missing pieces and empty drawers. Leaving is an act quite separate from any decision to do so. You argue irrationally and are finally silent and sensible. You agree. Then at an appointed hour, like an execution, you pick up a picture, a book, a spoon and put them in a box. You walk down a hallway, open a door and close it behind you as you've done a million times, but only now are you conscious of it The dog lies with his head between his paws, his eyes anxious as if this were a vacation when he will be left behind. You search for some humane way of doing this, but you fail and simply carry on, finding some kindness in detail. Florence worried what she would call him. Of course, one didn't call Bedford anything but Bedford. She imagined crying out his name in ecstasy, long and slowly. She tried to imagine him, overcome with passion, calling out hers, but it wouldn't come. Florence always had trouble getting beyond hello in a fantasy. They went to bed on the third date. She was amused how, in thirty years, standards hadn't changed. Actually thirty years ago Florence hadn't gone to bed with anyone on any date, but she thought about ft and heard that the third date, if things were right was the time. Before that was rushing it She went to bed with John for the first time on their wedding night she remembered with a rush of tenderness and embarrassment Two weeks before they slept together, Bedford and Florence lunched 58 at the top of the Bellevue in a respectable version of foreplay. They needed, Bedford said, to see each other in the light of day. From lunch Bedford ushered Florence to the swank office of his law firm where she looked out on Broad Street met his obedient secretary, and saw an old picture of his sons with their mother, as he respectfully called his former wife. The furniture and art in Bedford's office reflected conservative taste, but the surrounding hallways were hung by a sharp and forward-looking eye, the eye, Florence suspected, of a clever and knowing woman. They walked then, on Groundhog Day, to the Academy of Fine Arts where Florence looked upon the paintings of Cecilia Beaux with great affection and where Bedford confessed love to a rosy-cheeked girl in one of them. Florence's shoes clicked that day since she was dressed to be seen, not to look, and since they were the only visitors in the gallery on a Tuesday afternoon while the rest of the world worked. They held hands like the lovers they were soon to become. Their third rendezvous was a high-heel dinner, certainly a step in the direction of romance. Florence suggested a concert in fact bought the tickets, and Bedford reluctantly agreed. She could not grasp his hesitation. If he liked art that much surely he had to love music. Dinner before or after, he wondered. Before, she said, keeping her options open. Bedford chose a romantic restaurant and, over good wine, their conversation grew animated and intimate. Florence almost suggested that they skip the orchestra, but winced at the ninety dollars worth of tickets. Besides, she had conceived of the concert as a kind of protection from things to come. They crossed the street then to the Academy of Music where Rachmaninoff seduced Florence with his second symphony, the music searing through her. She wondered why, at her age, she was still subject to it, why it still pulled at every tattered remnant of her being. Bedford, to her surprise, seemed as moved by the music as she. He looked at her during the Adagio and they left, crawling over irate Philadelphians, and headed, through the cold February night to the Bellevue, its good drapes, soft carpets, and thick towels. In the Library Lounge which held real books, they paused for a drink, a night-cap Bedford called it from another generation. Florence chat-, tered nervously about the copy of Gilbert Stuarf s The Skater that hung above the fireplace which burned brightly now with a late winter fire. The kindly figure leaning gracefully forward reminded her of her father who would bend down in the cold to lace her skates before he set her down, wild with joy, upon the ice. She started to tell Bedford about that memory, but he interrupted her. "I am going to kiss you," he said. 59 He gave her then a formal and public kiss that held other promises and which ended her chatter. "We can stay here," Bedford said, his patrician lisp lingering for a moment on his statement as they sipped Stingers. The practical housewife rose in Florence. 'Why not your miserable apartment?" she asked, using the term he had applied to his separation digs. "You dont want to stay there." Actually she did. She wanted to see what Bedford had made of himself, how he dealt with loneliness. Were there paintings and pillows or merely microwaves and phone messages? Did he treasure the same aspects of the solitary life as she did? Did he die with the whim-whams? Did he feel old and young at the same time? "I'll get a room," he insisted. In her second of hesitation there came from his lips a statement old and comforting, one that Florence thought was lost somewhere in a better time. It sang out there in the Library Lounge Atop the Bellevue, as effectively as it had in any fraternity house across the years. Its syllables warmed her, and she smiled in relief. "We can just hold each other and talk," he said. "Yes," she said, thinking of her body programmed by synthetic hormones. Tomorrow was day twenty-eight and any moment she would have her simulated period brought on by heavy doses of estrogen. "Fll get my bag from the car," Bedford said. Florence and Bedford stared at The Bottlerack, one of the ordinary household items Duchamp bought signed, and therefore elevated to art Just as easy as that Art Florence remembered a professor saying, is sometimes in the concept rather than the execution. Not like a marriage where the execution must continually support the concept or the whole thing blows. They looked, too, at a Sink Stopper, an elusive Dart Object, and an erotic Female Fig Leaf detached from genitalia of any sort. Bedford snickered. Florence thought of the hapless form of birth control she and John had used resulting in more children than they planned. They went then, to a room in the Bellevue where they undraped their aging bodies and old habits and made love or, as the children would say, fucked their brains out Except Florence's brain didn't go out It stayed with her throughout the night, and while Bedford slept she lay staring at the darkness, covered with the tapestry of her life and the beautiful white sheets of the Bellevue stained now with her medicated blood, a talisman of teenage days. Contrary to his earlier promise, Bedford said 60 it was a romantic notion that they should hold each other all night long. She thought of how she had clung to John sometimes even in anger. Before he left, it seemed only polite that they draw to distant sides of the bed. In some odd deference to the children they had never withdrawn to separate rooms. Bedford slept on his back, flat on his back, frustrating Florence's need to curl against him. She had once read in a quasi-scientific article that couples who slept in what experts called the spoon position were deeply in love. Or deeply habitual, she thought Bedford extended one arm for her, but ft went uncomfortably under her neck and she feared, too, that the weight of her head might cut off his circulation. But Bedford rolled away soon after he fell asleep. Florence, as she lay there, knew that somewhere in Bedford's imagination she was someone else and that his valiant efforts to shape her into that design were as comic as trying to turn a Modigliani into a Rubens. Maybe she could shape herself into that person. Maybe if they gave it time, but time, of course, was the one thing they no longer possessed. "Whaf s this?" Florence asked pointing to the dark little room at the left of the household objects and beyond the famous nudes. "Oh, Fd avoid that ft I were you," Bedford cautioned. "No way," she insisted and proceeded across the brief space to the set of doors made alluring by a crude peep hole. Florence looked through the opening and saw a nude woman splayed out upon the grass, her genitals exposed to the world. The peep hole lent the work a third dimension. The woman appeared real except that her right leg was broken off like a mannequin's, a jagged edge of plaster just below the calf To be shocked in one's fifties, Florence thought is a curious thing since, after all, one has been through courtship and marriage, childbirth and menopause, death and heartbreak. A mannequin with a vagina and a shattered leg is hardly cause for despair, but despair ft was that set hard upon her as she peeped like a voyeur through the hole in that door rancid with the breath of others. "Come out of there," she heard Bedford command. Florence was rigid and awake when Bedford turned to her in the morning, the gray hint of a Philadelphia dawn creeping beneath the heavy drapery she had forgotten to leave open a crack or Bedford had closed without her knowledge. She and John had always left their door ajar for a frightened child or a worried cat Not a good practice, she supposed, but it was theirs, irrevocably theirs. "You are the most restless person—" "You ever slept with," she finished for him. 61 Surely he knew that menopausal woman were restless—restless, distracted, and forgetful. Memory shot to hell except for blinding recollections spun out like Catherine wheels. Florence tried to forget them while she made love to Bedford softened now by sleep and familiarity, or so she thought until she felt him take her wrists into his hands. Her mind shifted as he pulled her arms above her head and fixed one wrist over another on the pillow beneath her. She searched his face for meaning but saw nothing there but his closed eyes and his mouth drawn into a kind of grimace. She struggled to free her wrists but could not Moments later when he released her, she seemed to have stopped breathing. Without a word, they finished their lovemaking. Later, like a husband, Bedford read in a chair while she dried her hair. Because John had always hated room service, Florence elected for breakfast in the Bellevue's dining room where they took their showered selves. Bedford, ready for his day, wore a freshly-starched shirt beneath his pin-stripe suit which he had placed on a hanger before they went to bed, carefully matching the creases in the trousers exactly the way Floence had seen John do thousands of times. Florence, barely recovered from love-making, wore yesterday's outfit and stabbed at her updated pancakes made with ginger ale instead of milk. They saved the famous Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) for last Free-standing on a metal framework near the center of the gallery, the great work loomed above them, its awful serendipitous crack, an accident in shipping, spreading its power over them. Light from the window behind filtered through the glass embedded with the lead foil and wire, silver leaf, and oil paint which told the awful tale. Florence thought of the limitless human imagination and wondered why she was so confounded by ordinary life. What cruel experience gave birth to the bride, unrecognizable here except for her intimate parts strewn about while nine men reach for them? What fractured life was left for her or for those who dismembered her? "J* this work," Bedford read, "Duchamp hoped to return painting to the service of the mind." Florence turned to argue the point but thought better of it There was no more to say although phrases regularly employed by her children came to mind. How foolish they would have sounded on her lips. No, there was nothing, no words, no time. She saw Bedford raise his arm in defense or otherwise, she will never know, as she closed in on him and lifted her cushioned foot to his groin. But Bedford was tall, taller than she, and he pushed her backward toward the Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass). 62 She saw its shattered reflection above as she hit the iron framework on which ft stood and as she sprawled beneath it on the polished wood floor of the gallery. "Madam," the guard shouted, pulling Florence to her feet "Madam, please leave the gallery at once." Suddenly there was another uniformed body beside her, and she was marched from the room. Without the weight of time, Florence fled through the Johnson collection where she caught the glance of an anonymous Seated Bishop from the thirteenth century. Without grace she descended the staircase past the great Chagall hangings which told the tale of Aleko and his unfaithful Zemphira and passed through the revolving door at the west entrance of the museum into the uncluttered air of spring. 63 Ruth Roach Pierson Infirmary Visit My always impeccably groomed mother sits bare-assed, tied to a potty chair on wheels, scant apron across her lap: private parts no longer private here. Age has strip-mined her mind, stretched the skin on her head skull-tight shrivelled her body so thin the wedding ring she wore for more than fifty years slipped off her finger. Front tooth chipped, she gives me a hag's leer, grabs my hand, begs take me out of this place anywhere home. But home has suffered a diaspora: the objects that defined her life dispersed to nephew, niece, neighbour— muffin tins, piano, embroidered pillow cases— a household hit by hurricane. I spoon ice cream between her gums; she confides in me, a stranger, how hard ft is to mother a daughter who expects too much, demands that she be perfect 64 Leaning in I whisper but you were: it was so easy to leave in your hands the iron you snatched from mine, to leave to you the needles and pins, scrub mop, the crack in the lid of the flowered tea pot. 65 Karen Reid Crossing Tomorrow she will leave, follow the falling snow east IVe spent my life trying to catch up to her; born five minutes before me. Both of Us placed together inside an incubator; outside a blizzard stilled the city in white air. I watch her from the kitchen window as snow freezes on her bangs and covers the creek's layers of ice, pockets of running water pushing through. I remember crossing the first time. Current pushing my legs, water arriving and leaving at the same time. She calls to me from the other side, pointing out shiny rocks for me to brace my feet. I watch her from behind glass. She waits for me, snow falling on her shoulders. I want to walk to her across snow and leave no footprints like children who leave their snow angels alone, floating into the sky. Outside, I follow the pink of her jacket as white folds us into itself like snowflakes. 66 Karen Solie I Like You You name garden pests in order to better identify the dead. The diazinon has taken care of the Johnsons, you said, coming in from the yard, and made me a salad without washing your hands. If s no wonder I feel weak. And my medicine is three days gone. I could never keep a thing from you. Sometimes if s better not to speak. Your sentences are ghastly henhouses, each word a plank. After every lunch I must be quarantined. But you come and hold your hand to mine against the glass. You are a friend, I think, even though my hysterical math can't discern your sevens from your nines, and we disagree on the function of a denouement You said, only a coward reads the back page first Or was that me, dear, I forget. 67 Julie Quick The Rub It was my then-boyfriend, Ted, who encouraged me to see the professional He said I wouldn't believe how good ft makes one feeL He was referring to a massage at a certain day spa. He had already been once, arriving virginal and eager, and clearly the experience had been nice, very nice. And with a woman. Now he wanted me to go. This was in Madison, Wisconsin, 1994. Is something wrong between us? I'd wondered. Are you unhappy? Do you think / am? I was quite pleased with the back rubs, etc., that he was giving me. So was he the unhappy one? If he was, even in the slightest he did not let on. But I had other reservations, too—of a utilitarian sort Weren't masseuses kind of expensive? Didn't you go to them only after you owned a Jacuzzi and maybe your own little plane? We could buy a lot of things with such money, I was thinking. A lot of nice stuff, pretty knick-knacks for people to come over and look at for years to come. Or canned goods. Rent' At the time, Ted was a typically overworked, underpaid medical resident, and I was tinkering in a transitional job—an hourly-wage thing. We were in no position to fritter. T dont know," I said to Ted, "Maybe HI go. Well see." I must have watched him then, staring off, a brilliant daydream emerging before him. I remember thinking, No matter, ft*s not for me—this extravagance, this frivolity. This...this...expensive other woman. Then I wondered, What did she have that I did not? They led me to a softly lit room with music: cellos, pan pipes, whales. I should make myself comfortable, the masseuse advised. She pointed to a narrow bed. I could take off my top, she said, lie down and cover up with the sheet Take off my top and lie down? I thought For a stranger in white who's not going to prod me with metal tools or operate? The masseuse was gliding out the door, speaking soothingly: Take my time, please, all the time I needed; she would be back when I was ready. How will you know when I'm ready? What if you walk in and Fm still fumbling with my bra? She returned when I was ready, exactly ready; she was all-knowing 68 and remarkably calm, something utterly holy about her. This is how I remember her now. I was lying on my belly, blouse off, cool sheets across my back, and my head resting over the edge, in a soft hoop, an earthly halo. The masseuse came close and murmured soothing phrases, creamy white words. Then she began. Firm hands, all-knowing hands. Cellos, pan pipes, whales. The slowest smoothest pushing off: a sleigh ride through the quiet of one's body and mind. This is the free love of the nineties, I would eventually see. This is how couples stay together for half-centuries. They come here, then they go home again—everything right with the world. I returned the following week, to the soft, cool sheets. Cellos, pan pipes, whales. Entering placid waters, cool caves of myself. Ted was returning too, different times, different days. We never attempted to arrive together. We had a silent understanding, I believed: this place, this experience—it had a distinct aura, otherworldly, mystical. If it were to be sustained, you couldn't be bumping into people you knew, especially not those you lived with. We each went again and yet again, and as I remember, again. Back home in our apartment we were smooching more than ever—and so on. In between we painted our future, vast and thrilling strokes: husband and wife, lucky, inseparable; homeowners, lucky, rooted, cozy; parents, lucky, tireless, hip. Don't speak too loudly, I thought lest we be awakened from the dream. In the summer of '95, we made a rather serious mistake. It involved a move to Iowa, me pursuing an MFA and Ted, a doctor's career. We unpacked boxes, made friends. The fallout emerged soon after. It was Ted who sought out the first massage. He was quickly drowning at work—the numbers of sick and injured in rural Iowa!—getting nearer everyday to the end of his rope. He was in serious need of a professional. He found the operation, close to home, a total hair and body place: cuts and perms, makeovers, pedicures. From the outside it looked inviting enough. I watched him drive off to the masseuse, for the first time waited for him to return a new man. Ted was subsequently squeezed, gripped, nearly pummeled by a woman who was not more than five-foot-three and neither heavy nor overly muscular. (Months later she would be pointed out to me.) She looked nice the kind of person who could forget to eat She tore into Ted for a full hour. "It made me wince," he confessed after. "She took my breath away"— but not in a good way, he quickly reassured me. During the session, the 69 masseuse had repeatedly reminded Ted to breathe, as though, I imagined, he were about to give birth, square on his belly, contractions keening through his back. Breathe, Ted. Dont forget to breathe. The experience cost him forty dollars. He was sore for days. "Ted, remind me," I inquired at some point later, "Did you ever ask her to ease up, ever indicate that you had something different in mind?" Ted shrugged then looked away, shaking his head and mumbling, something about pride and machismo. Two months later he returned to the same masseuse. Something to prove, I guessed, to himself—or to her—that he could take it or that he could teach her a thing or two, make a proper masseuse of her yet "How was ft?" I asked after, tentatively. "Better. Not bad." He started for the bedroom, hunched over, I thought, and limping, is he limping? Ted stopped going to the masseuse, all masseuses. And so did L for how could I continue when he was not? In romance, is there not a delicate balance to maintain, a variable Yin wedded to a correlative Yang, which is perhaps inversely and yet closely related to the I-Quft-You-Quft Principle—all addictions and severe fondnesses included: smoking, gambling, veganism, alternative methods of sex, ballroom dancing, weekly churchgoing—which in turn is closely related to the principle of If-You- Start-Up-Again-Then-So-Shall-L No more massages, I thought. None. Not until you give the word. We began to live restlessly, crankily, like addicts coming off a powerfully good thing. We blamed every bad moment in our lives on Iowa. In July of '97 we moved again—to St Louis, our hometown, settling finally, once and for all. (We were engaged by now and envisioning our wedding—intimate, low-key, thrifty.) We unpacked boxes, began renovating room after room invited neighbours in to see. On occasion we strolled past a day spa or a body emporium—two, maybe three, in the chi-chi part of town. Holding hands, we'd linger before the wide, glistening windows, everything inside white and clean and soft heaven as retail. We spoke quietly, reverently. Me (nose pressed to the pane): "It looks so luxurious, doesn't it? Tempting." Ted (hanging back but not unmoved): "Yes, wow. It really does." We fogged up the windows, breathing—or panting? Were we actually panting? "Maybe, " I began, "we could..." Then I felt a tug, on my heart—or 70 hand. A silence, thick and gloomy, falling over us. I believed we were of one mind: We have a house now, our seventy-year-old house—the hefty mortgage, the perpetual renovations: crumbling mortar, bannisters half- installed, guys in overalls loitering in our foyer, waiting on deposits, payments-in-full. We couldn't keep enough checks in the house. And then there was Iowa—we could not forget Iowa (the pain, the suffering). Through the wide window I saw a masseuse float by, beaming, holy. Herds of strangers clomped through—measuring, hammering, running thunderous saws. They stepped over us and we over them, manoeuvering through our own arduous tasks. Ted, keen like all doctors to the dangers of a home, outfitted us in white respirator masks and rubber gloves. After painting the bedroom ceiling, I ached so badly I believed I needed a walker as well. Or a professional. But this was not to be. Summer slid by—a blur of home improvements. In time we began to hear unbelievable stories from others: Massage Victims, Survivors. First it was Mark, riding in the back seat of our car— he and his wife, my friend, Fiona—in from out of town. They had recently been to Maui. In the car, Mark began to describe a massage experience there, a kind of pre-massage rubdown actually, involving a loofah, salt and another man's hands, the combined feel of which Mark likened to an orbital sander being applied to his naked back. In the visor mirror I watched him reenact the experience—harsh twisting motions across the air with the flat of his hand. "Really?" I craned my neck around to see him better. Fiona was nodding vigorously. Yes, yes, it's true. The spa package included the painful rubdown, a honey wrap and steam treatment followed by an hour-long massage. The cost: $180. (Months later Mark would acknowledge that the actual massage was wonderful, but it was the pre-rubdown that clearly weighed on him, all else about the experience virtually falling away.) In the car, Mark's voice soared higher and higher, insinuating utter disbelief I was thinking of Iowa, the mousy girl with the vise-grip hands. "Mark," I said, "tell me, did you ever ask the guy to ease up?" "No," Mark confessed. Once rubdown man had finished with Mark's back, he instructed Mark to roll over so that he could proceed with the front Though privately unwilling, Mark obeyed. "Being the compliant schmuck that I am." I giggled, got a little giddy. "Something like that happened to Ted in 71 Iowa! Didnt it, Ted?" Ted kept drvnng. I patted his leg. You see? You—we—are not alone. I began to ask questions, to conduct a survey. I told our neighbours across the street Tni writing an article about professional massages. Have you ever had a painful experience?" Lauren smiled, remembering. "Oh my god, ft was awful." We were at a bar/restaurant she and I, and her husband (Charlie) and mine-to-be. The band was rocking, apparently testing the limits of five-foot amps and human hearing. Through the din, I heard Lauren enunciate "burning sensation" and something about trauma. Then she leaned across the table to shout she had been in an auto accident which had eventually led to the massage, so her experience, she explained, was something rather unique: "They call it a therapeutic massage!" I nodded knowingly: Therapy equals pain. She proceeded to elaborate, I watched her mouth move, attempting to read her lips, then finally heard, loud and clear "But it was a good kind of pain, you know?" I nodded more. I had to sit back and breathe. To my right Ted nursed a beer, fighting back a look of distress. "What about you?" I wailed at Charlie. He was across the table getting the lowdown from Lauren. Soon, he leaned in. "Oh, yes, it was painful!" He was grinning ear to ear. "But I asked for ft!" The entire room was vibrating. I felt the hair on top my head periodically lift and fall from the force of the sound. "It was like she was doing a handstand on my back!" Charlie continued, then demonstrated—smiling as he did—a forceful (frilling motion with his elbow. It looked like a wrestling move. The check arrived. I tried not to look. How much could such an experience be? The music was moving toward the level of blitzkrieg. My hair bounced atop my head. Ted was hunkering down, clutching his beer, going fetal. Charlie and Lauren meanwhile smiled and nodded to the beat Soon, Charlie was getting out money to pay—tens, twenties, handing them over, grinning all the while. Good kind of pain. Good pain. I took notes. I wanted to understand. In our free time, Ted and I kept going at the house; caulking, plastering, sanding, painting. As we completed the living and dining rooms we filled them end to end, purchasing hundreds of dollars in furniture, then paying cash on delivery—or very soon thereafter. Meanwhile, a battalion of locksmiths came through, one by one checking out a certain set of locks that needed reinforcements. The men drew impressive tools from their holsters; they circled round the doors in question, snorting and nodding, then sticking tools in various door ori- 72 fices and joints. Eventually, each of them said of course he could fix these locks; they spouted off estimates (parts, labour), sizable figures. Then they were out the door, flying off in their trucks, to get a certain part Always it was a different certain part None of them have ever returned. In early autumn the appliance repairman arrived, here to fix the broiler and dishwasher; the latter had begun to make suspicious sounds, like a helicopter coming in for a crash landing. Both were appliances "covered" under a home warranty plan that came with the house. The repairman pulled up in a black Camaro and entered the kitchen, wearing a leather jacket and big gold rings. He set down his tool box, stooped near the oven and pulled out the broiler drawer. As usual, it crashed three inches to the floor. "There's really nothing wrong with this broiler," the man said to me. He was reaching up and turning the black knob to "broil," the gas whooshing on. "You see," he said. "If s operable. Thaf s what the warranty company looks for—operabilfty." "But the failing," I said, the crashing-" I eyed his black leather, his heavy gold. I thought is he in the right house, the proper profession? He proceeded to examine the dishwasher, pressing buttons and pushing on rubber seals, then sticking his ear to the door as though it were a shell, or a pregnant woman's belly. Eventually he informed me that this machine was intended to run exclusively on one cycle: Pots and Pans. So from now on, he said, only the one. "But I want all the cycles!" I lamented. I pointed to the silver buttons, all of them there in print Normal. Economy. No-heat dry! He shook his head woefully. "Ma'am, this is really a matter of education. Consumer education." I didn't know what I was asking for, I was out of my realm, he was trying to say. Then he was packing up and heading back out to find a certain glider-gizmo for the broiler drawer. But he warned, a piece like that for a stove that age could be very difficult to track down. He promised to return as soon as possible. He alluded to used-parts dealers in sections of town that sounded made up. The men, always they were men, continued to come: telephone repairmen, more swaggering locksmiths, a sect of carpenters specializing in doors. And then the plumber who yanked out the garbage disposal, slipped in a new one, then instinctively mounted the stairs, heading straight for the toilet and laying the leak there to rest—all for fifty dollars and in forty minutes flat I thought I was falling in love. Approximately one hour later the bathroom floor was covered in water. 73 By the time Ted came home from work, there was a palpable heat in the house. I dont remember what was said exactly or which of us began, but the conversation went something like, "How was your fucking day?!" "Oh, yeah, well that was a pretty stroll through the park compared to my crappy day!" A house can do things to people. We were learning how. The following day Ted went atthe still-leaking toilet Eventually I found him downstairs, hanging a cardboard sign on the front door, the letters scrawled in big black letters: FOR SALE. There there," I said, then other things equally, lamely supportive. "I love our house. Dont you? Look how much we've done to ft." I waved an arm across the living room. But Ted was unappeased. He sat on the couch, staring ahead, alluding to worries—money. I swiftly sent letters and e-mails to long-distance friends, former colleagues Tm writing a twelve-part series on costly and disappointing fun. For instance, have you ever had a professional massage? If so, was it painful? Please describe." I got a fast reply from Mitchell who's been all over the world, traveling and writing about ft for decades. "I last had a massage in Helsinki," he wrote back, "given me by an ancient old crone who despised me at first sight I saw her hostility when I dropped my robe and I would have called it off then but for manners installed in me by my mother. She (the crone) gave me a special Deluxe Agony rubdown, then ice-cold water, then walked on me grunting in delight as I squirmed and pled to be let up." An embellished account? Possibly, but not likely from Mitchell. The man has seen most everything. He wrote on, reliving another massage; on the rooftop of a Sonoran desert resort—startling as the first account if not violent "No more massages," he concluded. "Prices have been forgotten but not the dread." The dread—ft was begiruiing to seem all too common. Helene calls from the West. "It was painful," she states point-blank. "I actually burst into tears." Turns out she is referring to emotional pain, "a regression," she says, all the way back to her childhood. "The massage brought out all these strange emotions" "I haven't had a massage since," she sighed. All those tears! Who could blame her, I thought "But I want to." Of course she did. Of course again. Good kind of pain. Good pain. I drove the city streets. I began to encounter road rage—my own. I was flipping people off, cutting in, swerving out I felt a general disturbance 74 in the air, or in my mind, settling, oozing down into my spine. I was snapping at Ted, at TV news anchors, the air. But why, why exactly? I did not know, I could not understand. During this period I was also teaching freshman composition at the community college. I was new to both the school and the course, and I worried frequently, as teachers often do, I assume, that I was not getting through to many students, that I was rarely being heard. Indeed, my students' questions often echoed my lengthier explanations and contentions but in a manner that suggested I was only conveying key words, merely serving as a vehicle for a kind of scholastic subliminal advertisement (Me: "..And so, again, I would like to suggestthat Jamaica Kincaid's essay is yet another excellent example of the multitude of ways that writers—such as you students—might effectively shape, or organize, your essays." Student hand raised, twenty minutes later "I was just wondering, do you want us to organize our papers in any certain way for this course?") I racked my brains, consulted other instructors. How to reach the students, how to be heard? I believed, for a while, that this was why I lost sleep, this seeming failure. I could not see then that the true substance of my anxiety was much deeper, heavier, historic—and personal. I drove everyday with purpose. At higher speeds I approached seemingly important revelations. On the road, two lanes, black and empty. Finally, it came to me, the buried memory, or I came to it Via travel, or transcendence—or or or via regression, yes, it was a regression (how quickly a word so right comes to you). A slow whirling through the past emotional and cosmic. Whirl, whirl, scoop, spin. Then stop—the memory, the very day. I was back in Wisconsin with Ted and Henry, our friend. We were strolling down the street when we came upon the sign: "Massages. No appointment necessary." Ted and Henry moved longingly toward it I, ever wary, stood back. It was a tiny storefront operation, the window set with incense and tarot cards, bath beads, candles, a plant hanging in the corner, dying off. "Look. No appointment necessary." Ted was at my ear, a raspy whisper, a come-on. Here? I thought This place? He was gently pushing me through the door, Henry leading the way. Immediately I saw the "massage room," off to the left, half-partitioned, half-exposed. I ribbed Ted, whispering, "No privacy!" He seemed not to hear—or mind. And no massage bed, I noted, and no earthly halo, no saints in white floating by. Instead, the masseur was a muscular guy in a red golfing shirt, standing with his hands folded like an usher, a funeral 75 host beside the chair. The Chair one of those strange pseudo-furniture contraptions, the kind you see in malls—Massages on the Go!—no one ever actually in them, the wood bending this way and that like a petrified, polished Japanese tree sprouting padded, carpeted boards. It was kitty-scratcbing-post cum prayer-chair cum whipping-post "You first" I motioned to Ted and Henry. "Sure, ni go." Henry walked over and manoeuvered himself into the chair, like tins?" He rearranged his limbs. "Like this?" He shifted again. "Good, now?" The masseur was gesturing vaguely. Henry, scooting upward, then downward, now inching sideways. The masseur was nodding still, a "not quite" look on his face. I finally walked away. I browsed the soaps, New Wavey CDs, pillows for the eyes. I held one up to Ted, snickering. A cloth bag filled with beans—pintos, maybe jellies? He searched for the price tag. Twenty minutes later, Henry emerged. "It was wonderful It was spiritual, it was—" Henry was speaking softly, reverent as a priest "It was completely exquisite." Ted seemed pleased. He gave me a look: Did I want to go next? I glanced back at the masseur, the Atlas physique. The Chair. "You go," I said. "I'm still shopping." I browsed the stock three, four times over. "Do you need help, Miss?" I looked up at the voice—a large woman shifting behind the counter, stoking saucers of incense. She had already helped us a short while earlier, quoting the price for the masseur Fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes. "A dollar per minute!" I had announced. I looked at her now. Did I need help? What business was ft of hers? I pawed an astrology book, one's life mapped out in the stars. Where might I be? "Just looking," I said. I went round the tiny store again, Henry following closely behind, telling me how wonderful the massage was going to be, how worth the wait The incense was overpowering—I grew nauseous. Minutes passed, quickly ticking away. My turn was upon me. I entered the "room," nodding to the masseur (Good afternoon) and lowered myself into the contraption. "Like this?" No, he nodded patiently. "Like this?" No. He gestured directions, a private language. "This good?" No. "This?" No, nope. Maybe I could use up my fifteen minutes, I was thinking, simply by eternally shifting around. I could throw an ankle up onto the chest rest then pretzel a leg around the trunk of the chair, while clutching the curvy body of the thing—then hang there for a quarter of an hour like a monkey. The masseur suddenly took charge, wrangled me into it, chest 76 floorward, head down, arms out in front Ah! Like a guillotine, I thought. The masseur was silent. He moved here then there. Then he was laying into me—kneading, pinching, gripping, tugging. "Softer." I gasped. "Softer is fine." I waited. I wondered whether it was possible that discs were being rearranged in my upper spine, very close to my brain. I waited a bit more. "Please." I coughed. "Gentler." Perhaps he hadn't heard. Historically, people have had a hard time hearing me. The examples are endless. I go for a haircut; they start of course with a shampoo; the water is boiling (bacteria free!) the kind for birthing babies. "Cooler, please?" I ask ever so politely. "Not so hot?" But to no avail; the shampooist is high above in another stratosphere. "Cooler? Colder? Less scalding..." Somewhere along the way I begin to berate myself: Just tough it out. Be a big girl, be strong. Do you hear anyone else in this shampoo lineup complaining? No, you don't. So maybe the problem is with you. I closed my eyes and held my breath, began to make a mental list of all moments in a life that could be much more horrific Dying from strangulation. Dying by drowning. Being eaten alive by bad-breathed cannibals. It was a game Td played before, a self-help tactic, a trick of the scaredy- cat mind. Wherever you are, Fd tell myself, it could be much much worse. Being attacked by rats—thousands of rabid, cavitied teeth. Being forced eternally to wear big hair bows. Accidentally killing someone you loved. On and on in this way Fd go, like counting dangerous, devastating sheep. I dont recall when the massage finally ended. And I don't remember exiting the store, still. The moments from the chair to the rest of my life are missing, vanished, a smear. In my mind, the large woman still waits at the counter. Fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes. Now, I remember ft like yesterday. But what is significant most troubling? It is that this, not the holy place, had been the site of my last massage. How could I have forgotten, buried it so deep and long? Do you need help, Miss? Possibly I did. I drove the streets, drove and drove. Now and then, in between, I was making wedding plans—a June affair. I contacted harpists, photographers, wedding officiators: "How much?" "How many?" "Of what bent?" Over tiie months our quiet inimed^te-famuy-omy ceremony had ballooned into something akin to a state fair. I tallied and re-tallied the budget; I tried to fudge figures, fool my own self We were about to spend what someone might on a mid-sized automobile—a used one perhaps, but no clunker. 77 "Ted," I suggested one winter evening; we were in the sun room, Ted yanking moldy paneling off the brick walls. "I've given it some hard thought and I just want you to know that I am not opposed to eloping." I had never been opposed. Between us, all along, I had been the staunch- est supporter of elopement—but I tried now to make it sound like a new idea "Do you like this car?" I might ask next I saw myself holding up a picture of a '97 Ford Taurus. "We could buy this car and get married in it" Ted was wielding a hammer now, prying the paneling from the underside. Between us, he and I, Ted was the fondest of ceremony, the expansive public event—a festive gathering of all our family and friends, whereas I had forever wavered—massive/teeny-tiny, dazzling/muted; conflicting visions see-sawed in my mind. What I truly wanted, I finally concluded, was the big, many-peopled, talked-about affair, but only to look back on, not to actually attend, not to wade across present time, parading through the swarm (How are we doing? Who do we visit now? Have I yet offended anyone? Be completely honest—how long has the back of my dress been hiked up into my pantyhose?). I wanted the To-Do to be already done, in memory, in photos, in handwritten notes, keepsakes that I could arrange to my liking and comfort, not awkward, unpredictable immediacy, but history, story. 'Ted," I saw myself offering next "we could easily walk from City Hall to Brandt's cafe for an intimate celebratory meal. Party of two. Or three! Fll give in to three—the Justice of the Peace. Just peace. Wouldn't that be nicer* "I want to get this paneling off," Ted huffed, "before my dad comes over to install the heater." I supposed I could pick up a hammer and help. I felt a pang of guilt, recurring, growing guilt because Ted was now doing all the hard labour around the house, the stripping and tearing away, the resurfacing and rebuilding. I believed that he was not going to stop until the house was gleaming head to toe, a Martha Stewart specimen. As for me, I had lost considerable momentum back around the time the smoke alarms had let loose in the house. (Yes, the alarms had let loose in late fall as smoke from the fireplace filled the house. Never mind that we had paid $560 to prevent such a scene—the flue clogged or it snapped shut These are the unsolved mysteries of a house.) Perhaps, for better or worse, the piercing alarms had inflicted a kind of permanent brain injury in me, a home owner's stroke, my entire body now going slack at the mere site of wood filler, drills, caulking guns. I had become willing to let the remaining ugly and unkvable rooms just sft, close them off entirely (glue them shut!), maybe see if they wouldnt in good time simply fix themselves, grow better with age, something. I 78 had quietly relegated myself to the more everyday domestic chores— dishes, bed-making, laundry (never mind that Ted was doing these things too)—jobs that I could accomplish within half a day and without goggles. "When is your dad coming next?" I asked, eyeing the yards of paneling still stuck to the walls. What exactly, I wondered, was the deadline here? Ted yanked off another jagged piece. "Tomorrow." "Oh." He would never finish alone. "As in the day before the day after tomorrow?" I dont think Ted heard. The concrete men would be coming soon, too. They would size up the sun room, scribble mysterious notes, then mail us bids on leveling the floor. $500; $3,500; $3,300—for a boring load of concrete. Even five hundred dollars would seem high to me, and of course the least expensive was not necessarily the best Indeed, the cheapest could be dangerous, this much we knew. You had to narrow it down with these home- fixers; you could not hire them based simply on the looks of their ads or their sheer congeniality. You had to get in their faces and ask extremely tough and pointed questions I gathered paper and pen, sat down at my desk and began to formulate the list "Is it very pretty concrete?" "Your machinery—is ft rather loud or on the quieter side?" "Exactly how many weddings have you officiated?" A person could begin to confuse her lists, the months of research—the budgets, the issues, all worries merging. "Have you ever had a painful massage?" An e-mail arrived post-Christmas from Louise in New York: "I had a face massage once that cannot be believed." More squandered money, more disappointment At last whaf s not to believe. "Never went back," Louise concluded. Never went back, never went back. Aren't these lyrics to a song? I felt myself becoming maudlin, nostalgic—regressive, actually. I was regressing now as never before. I used to room with Louise—and Vanessa—in Brooklyn. This was in the late eighties, early nineties Our landlady, Alima, owned the house— we lived above, Alima below. One winter, the heat went out ft was off for a good while before I finally knocked on Alima's door to complain. As always, she kept her door mostiy closed, sticking her head through the crack to listen, as though after two years, I was still not to be fully trusted. She peered through, narrow eyes, hearing me out "We are very cold!" I concluded. Alima nodded solemnly, then asked if I wouldnt come down into the basement with her to assess the trouble. She was opening the door. Her arms were thick with sweaters. 79 She led me through her home, down the basement steps, then back to the boiler. She pointed. There was a hand-sized jagged hole in the top; presumably the metal had rusted or burned through. Over the hole, Alima had set a black frying pan, which she held up now so the damage could be viewed. Inside the pan was a painted miniature, a plastic Virgin Mary. I stared. In what home repair book, I wondered, had Alima found this one? I peered into the furnace—Were we about to die?—no odd odors, no visible flames I said then to Alima that these icons were all very nice but that possibly a repairman was in order, too. An expert with welding guns and fancy gauges is what I meant As I remember, she just looked at me, nodding doubtfully, as though someone like that would be a last resort First, she'd waft and see how the Virgin Mary panned out so to speak. Then she murmured—a prayer, I figured—while placing the pan back over the hole. She turned then, shaking her head and walking back toward the stairs, alluding to worries, money. I couldn't believe my ears. She owned two houses, this woman, two! One in Brooklyn, another in the Catskills. And what did we own, Louise, Vanessa and I? Some clothes, some books, a motley collection of furniture—fifth-generation hand-me-downs, stuff nobody on earth would have when we were through. If anyone here among us had worries, it had to be us three. So how, I wondered, could Alima, multi-homeowner, stand before me, Virgin Mary in her hands, crying poor? I believe I understand her better now. In early January Ted and I went out for Thai food. We were dining with two of his colleagues, Natasha and Muriel. I had a fork in one hand and a pen in the other. I felt undecided on which to use. "Go ahead," Ted whispered. "Do you want to ask them about massages?" I shifted uneasily in my chair. My eyes were watering from the Paht Ped Pla. I had requested "medium" spiciness—we all had, so why were at least three of us chugging water and waving hands across our mouths? I moved to make a note about relativity—about certain things (massage pressures, spiciness, poverty) all being really, like beauty, in the beholder's eye. "She's writing a story," Ted said, pointing at my pen. "Yes, Fm writing a piece." I cleared my throat Tm doing research for a piece on professional massages; specifically, the client's experience." Natasha, across the table, gave me an encouraging look. Muriel, to my left, was calmly nodding, obviously conjuring up a past experi- 80 ence. I said, "Have either of you ever had a professional massage?" Silence, waiting. "And if you have, how would you describe it?" Natasha answered first "No. I haven't But I didn't feel I needed to. I was with someone, married for years." I nodded, writing it down. I wanted to believe there was great truth in what she was saying. Still, today, Natasha raises two children, bravely, gracefully on her own. So why not a professional massage for her now—or even long ago? Marriage: does it exclude one from such needs, such professionals? Do people take vows and automatically have the hands of a trained therapist suddenly the talents of a saint? This kind of thinking (we didn't need a professional) is why some people are no longer married. I looked to Muriel now, sipping her martini, cool as slow slow jazz. She obviously had her own story to tell. And she, too, was married once. "Muriel?" "Yes." She set down her drink. "It was a fabulous experience. It was intoxicating, like having the best libation you can think of." She paused, remembering, then continued. She and her former husband had seen a certain masseuse once a month for a year. A treat to themselves, she said. This was in Springfield, Missouri, 1991 or '92. The cost Forty-five dollars an hour. Worth every penny, Muriel said. She went on to describe the room: quiet dimly lit Soothing music. "Oh, yes," I said enviously, the lighting, the music..." I was drifting back to Wisconsin now. "Relaxing right down to your fingertips," Muriel said fondly then, her eyes about to close. "When it was over, I would just have to sit a while, or ft would have been like driving drunk." "Oh, I understand, Muriel, how I understand," I said—or thought maybe I was only thinking. In all my research, hers was the first fond memory I had encountered, the first case history free of pangs. I felt weepy—nostalgic again, regressing in spite of myself. Lovesick, lovelorn. Cellos, pan pipes, whales. How long had it been, how many years? "But no bad experiences?" I asked Muriel. "Nothing?" Maybe deep down I wanted there to be, some shady history, a gnawing moment of pain, a reason for me not to yearn suddenly so. "No." Muriel shrugged, a quiet apology moving over her face. "No, truly. This woman was wonderful." She sipped her (irink, then stared off into the distance, that love-af- fafr-of-a-lftetime look filling her eyes. If s difficult to know to whom the look was directed—to the masseuse or to her former husband or to them both—or to that era in a life when everything seems uncannily good and true, exactly, unalterably right I am aware of why Muriel and her husband divorced; it is for reasons outside the realm of malice or blame. It is a departure beyond the most 81 savvy marital counselors, beyond well-meaning priests, wise rabbis, supportive, hopeful friends and, yes, the most extraordinary masseuse. Muriel held the martini up near her chest stirring it with a red plastic sword. She is an intelligent woman, witty and fun. You want only good things to happen to her. "Muriel," I said softly, "Have you had many memorable massages since?" She shrugged. "No..." A nonchalance or possibly regret seeped into her voice. "None, really. I just haven't made the time. And financial resources..." She trailed off I was writing it all down, professional, objective. "Time. Financial resources. The best libation one can imagine." I drive and drive. Snow falls. It is late January, 1998, the new year unfolding fast. The wedding looms—five months away. In the middle of the month, I have missed a period. I am on the pill, very careful on the pill, I think—but this has happened before, twice before in the last year, these misses, near-misses (meaningless misses?)—no baby, anyhow, to my relief, was ever on the way. So I took the home-pregnancy test for a third time—contestant number three!—this last time blase, almost cocky; I am on to my body now, its familiar pranks and misleading innuendoes. Still, when the results showed up negative, I gave Ted a goofy high- five, accompanied by loud whoops and leaps. Then I made a note: "See doctor, soon." More inquiries, more research. Why not see Dr. Ted, one might ask. Why not ask the live-in? Because, for one, I have already consulted him about approximately two hundred and fifty-seven ailments in the last six months, and also because Ted hasn't seemed overly worried about this specific symptom, whereas I personally would prefer to worry about ft at length, check out thick journals and weighty books on the condition (already I have made ft into a condition). And also because, above all else—a fiance should not also be one's doctor. This seems to be an important answer—familiar, recurring—probably even a Tenet. No one can be all things, no one, to anyone. So what is up with my body, I will ask the doctor. Or what is up with these pills? I will set the pill pack on her doctor desk, let her size up the type and dosage. Am I giving my body grief, Doc? Tell me the hard facts. Because, Doc, I want kids. One day. But not now—now is not good. When? When we have more money is when. Also, when I'm legally married, which more specifically means fully insured, off this skimpy shoestring policy of mine—this free-lancing, freewheeling, catastrophic "plan." (Does my baby have to be a catastrophe?). Doc, I will say, I am thirty-three 82 years old. Is this a problem? On the record or off—your choice!—all these missed periods, Doc, is my body delivering signs, or is ft simply giving me ordinary grief? For the moment I flip through my existing notes, the answers reeling by: 'Time. Financial Resources. Pain, good pain." How many more answers in a life could there be? You could go on asking, seeking, forever. I believe, I fear, I might I pick up the phone. Hello. "When can we sample and choose food for the reception? Oh? It costs to sample the food." "Do you lay wood subfloors?" "Do you fix locks?" 'What is the price?" "What is the fare?" 'Tell me, have you ever had a massage, one that made you feel drunk— memorably, beatifically so?" "How much is that massage in the window?" I drive and drive. I find myself unexpectedly, unavoidably in the chi-chi part of town. I am getting out of my car, I am floating toward a day spa, then entering its glistening portals. Inside, I am peering down the corridor, then moving toward the light soft and warm, redemptive. Then I hear from behind, the most soothing of voices, Can someone possibly help me? Would I like to reserve some time? "Yes," I say. Then, "No!" Is this a dream or real? I can't be sure. I feel suddenly flush, embarrassed, caught "No thank you. No. Just looking." February arrives. Ted works and works on the house. I sit at my desk, attempting to write, assemble facts, or stare off, pretending. Imagined scenes emerge. Ted," I say. In a rehearsal, I say this to him. "I think I need to see a professional." In my mind I clear my throat and step a little closer. Then: "Maybe we should see a professional, the both of us. Before the house is finished and before we get married, before..." I stop myself What am I about to say, think? Before? Before we take the vows? Vows of what? Vows of poverty? Of commitment? Are we committing ourselves or what? To the loony bin, is that it? I have, in fact seen married people—not all, but some—go downright loony. Ted, Why is that? He will be down on his hands and knees in the sun room, pulling up old carpeting, making way for the new floor, struggling in tiny spaces with heavy, awkward tools. Ted?" He will stop, look up, stark solemnity moving over his face. Then maybe he will shake his head and say, This is harder, a whole lot harder, than I ever thought it would be." And I will nod. 'Yes, yes! I know." I will come closer, looking him in the eyes. This is exactly what Fm saying. If s very hard sometimes. Unimaginably difficult" He will turn his head then and look behind him, assessing how much 83 he's done, then, looking ahead, how far he has to go—a long, long way. Then maybe he will wonder fleetingly why he didn't hire an expert for this job; how long could an expert take, how much could he have possibly cost? Ted will look back at me then and smile and say he's really not worried about money at all, only sometimes, unexpectedly he feels it this dread. In uncontrollable waves, hell mean, like nausea. "I've got a great idea," I'll say then and wink. "A penny-pinching scheme just came to me." Ill put my fingers together snap. "Why dont we go down to City Hall and just elope!" And he will grin and give me an endearing look: Now there's a joke I haven't heard before. Then he will move his hand to the carpet edge and fiddle with the loose threads there, while pondering...the future, I imagine, because when it comes right down to it our lives, at the moment seem infinitely perched; we've a number of years behind us, yes, and there is always the present immediately under foot but a good portion—well, more than haft—still lies ahead. "When the house is finished..." "When we are married..." "When our first child is born..." Children, number one and numbertwo, we think about them quite a lot Indeed, we think about them with such frequency and specificity that we very nearly have them now in our minds, we have dreamed them up, provided them names and personalities, given them voices, even, playing house around the house. We are weirdos, maybe, but happy weirdos when submerged in such fanciful acts. I suppose we could go on like this forever, our lives together perched and winged, leaning out half- imagined still—nothing has yet to go wrong, not truly, in our imaginations. Ted, Fll say then, Don't you remember Wisconsin? Cellos? Pan pipes. Whales! Ted, why have we abandoned such rituals, why why? I will speak quickly again before he can answer. Legitimate Professionals, I mean, Ted. Real Pros! Not the counterfeits, the hacks, the boors, but beings who understand perhaps better than we the complicated terms of our desires. Ted, I will say then, what is that look you're giving me? A look I have not seen on any human being before. Ted, I cannot read you on this. I will have to trust you're still with me. Of course the greatest Professional of all is God. But I don't believe he is for hire. I could call, though, Ted. I could ask the pointed questions: Where in the hell have you been? And why, really, is there pain? Also, exactly how many weddings have you officiated? Do you lay wood subfloors? I will wait for the answers, and then I will wait some more and perhaps a while more. But historically, Ted, as you know, I have not been easily heard. 84 True, Ted, yes, maybe God feels the same, like a teacher who is not getting through. As though most of what he's saying is received as subliminal ad, all his best lectures coming back to him as strange and obtuse questions (How much is that massage in the window?). Surely there are explanations, proverbs, comforts that we've not yet begun to comprehend. We could wait together to ponder, to see, then we could wait and wait some more. But as you know, Ted, we don't have an eternity. Til death do us part this is all as I understand it And so it is, Ted, because I want you to stay to the end that I ask you to go for now—to be taken to that place in the body and mind where everything is most quiet and right—and where money has no meaning, where it is beside the point because the ultimate point is us, the communion and longevity and sanctity of us. All else (children, home, jobs) shall turn finally on this—you and me How are we doing? Are you worried, much? We are—aren't we?—the most important point And when I go to Ted, when I kneel near him as in a prayer, he will be giving me that look still—unreadable, not of this world. Then he will take my hand and say, "Yes, sweetheart love of my life, I have been thinking the very same words" 85 Rhonda Batchelor two poems Fifth Night I can stand my own company just so long; it doesn't bear the scrutiny of hours this close. There's a danger when I'm given this much time that the focus grows too sentimental and soft or else turns harsh in its blaming, cuts too sharp. Either way if s never enough to completely heal all the hurt I've caused or to forgive and heal all the wounds others have caused for far too long. There's nothing that hurts as much as your sharp scorn, corning, as it does, from one so close; it doesn't take much to level your aim to the soft heart of my fears, to take the time to lash out in passing or to allow all time to carry an unspoken barb. How can I heal from a future blow? My heart is soft with imagined pain. I've waited this long expecting the worst it justified never coming close. Yet picture our lives apart just how sharp a shock that would be, and a sharp lawyer or two would be there in no time to study the stunned and bleeding parties up close. More lives than our own would be left to heal. You and I have treaties to sign and in the long and the short of it if s no time to be soft From where I sit with my own thoughts soft firelight tempers the dark. At 12:20 sharp tomorrow afternoon 111 board the ferry for the long journey home and it will seem as if this time I settled something or at least began to heal. I will know for certain when you hold me close. 86 Outside, a cold December moon seems close enough to touch. I want it to shine in a soft halo while I sleep tonight and heal all traces of the scars whose sharp edges I thought I'd memorized for all time. Like forgetting the pain of childbirth, if s not long before Fm willing to believe in the sharp swimmer who will make it to the estuary this time. I can stand my own company just so long. 87 Healing Game and you live right here in the day til we get the healing done. Van Morrison I linger in the yard, idly throwing pine-cones for a small spaniel to chase and chew and not return. Overnight a storm blew in, obscuring first the moon and now the sun. Early spring is a muddy pallet of greens and browns. The only promise of warmth hides in the muted red of an arbutus trunk—and that proves cold enough. The fact that I think of another as my hand caresses the seamless curve, that its broad smoothness recalls my lover's naked back, won't surprise you. If you're watching from some shadow or can read, as I believe you can, all my thoughts, you'll know already how much I want him and how I can't live on in the past Not yet a full year since you left, the hours have piled up nonetheless. Fm at a loss what to do with all this time, except to stroke the trees and curl my hands around small, wet pinecones to throw for a small, wet dog. Soon I'll chop some wood, make lunch and sit quietly watching the wind churn the surface of the sea In truth, Fve no clue if you're with me or in those rainclouds over Vancouver Island or in the spirit of that gorgeous eagle soaring just off the point The point is (and the truth gets truer each day Fm without your solid company) you will not be forgotten. But neither, love, will my own life, neither will my joy. 88 Contributors Rhonda Batchelor of Victoria is the editor of Reference West publishing the long-running Hawthorne Series of chapbooks. In her spare time, she manages a bookshop and tries to manage two teenagers. In her spare, spare time she tries to write. A new book is rumoured for the spring of 2000. Temma Ehrenfeld's reporting appears regularly in Newsweek and The Washington Post syndicate. Her literary writing has been published in The Hudson Review and The Michigan Quarterly Review. She is currently at work on a novel about a radio psychic. Alan Levin hails from the home planet. Thanks to a misplaced transfactor in the time continuum, his novels may not begin to appear on Earth for several centuries. His poetry, however, recently appeared in Event, Windsor Review, Fan, and PRISM (36:2). Wendy McGrath is an Edmonton writer whose work has appeared in Room of One's Own, Tessera, NeWest Review, Dandelion, CV2, blue buffalo, ORBIS (UK), and absinthe. Her poetry has been broadcast on CBC Radio, and last year she was a runner-up in the League of Canadian Poets annual poetry contest. Lucy Miller lives and writes in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where she is also Founding Director of Market Square Concerts, a chamber music series. B.Z. Niditch is the artistic director of THE ORIGINAL THEATRE. His work appears in Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, International Poetry Review, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), PRISM international, and Jejune (Czechoslovakia). Crucifixion Times, a new collection of poetry, will be published by Aegina Press in 1998. Pain Not Bread is a collaborative writing group consisting of Andy Patton, Kim Maltman and Roo Borson. Its work was a winner of the 1993 Malahat Long Poem Competition, and was short-listed for the National Magazine Awards in 1993 and 1998. The poems here are from a manuscript in progress titled Introduction to the Introduction to Wang Wei. 89 Julie Quick has served as a staff/writer editor for various publications— Birnbaum Travel Guides, Teen Beat and the St. Louis Business Journal, among them. She is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently at work on a novella. Ruth Roach Pierson has published poetry in CV2, Intersections 94, Canadian Forum, People's Poetry Letter, Grain, Room of One's Own and Not to Rest in Silence: A Celebration of People's Poetry, edited by Ted Plantos (Pittsburgh & Hamilton: UnMon American, 1996). Karen Reid grew up in the Okanagan and recently moved to a small town in northern Japan. "Crossing" is her first published poem. Kate Siahaan-Rigg was born in Toronto to an Indonesian mother and an Australian father. m/OTHER/land, her first play, was produced in Toronto, Melbourne and New York. She is a graduate of the University of Melbourne, where she majored in subculture, and of the Juilliard School's Drama Division. Her new musical, Pictures of Dorian Gray, is being produced through Juilliard in November 1998. Karen Solie has work appearing in the Two Twenty-Four Poetry Quarterly, Dandelion, and Breathing Fire: Canada's New Poets. She has a chapbook of poems forthcoming from Vancouver's Smoking Lung Press, and is currently writing her doctoral dissertation in English at the University of Victoria. Jon Thompson is an Associate Professor in the English Department at North Carolina State University where he teaches twentieth-century literature. "Walls" is from a book-length manuscript of poems, "Pictures of a Floating World", which is loosely based on an album of photographs taken during the American Occupation of Japan. He has work forthcoming in The Iowa Review, The Ceniennial Review, Alkali Flats, and louvert. 90 INTERNATIONAL is pleased to congratulate Stephen Guppy author of "Downwind" (PRISM 35:4) and Jean McNeil author of "Bethlehem" (PRISM 35:3) for being included in the 10th edition of the Journey Prize Anthology. L PRI/M INTERNATIONAL announces its 13th Annual Short $2.000 Grand Prize Fiction 5 runner-up prizes of $200 each Contest plus publication payment! Contest Judge: Greg Hollingshead, author of The Roaring Girl — winner of the 1995 Governor General's Award for Fiction. Maximum 25 pages per story, typed and double-spaced. Unpublished original work; translations eligible with permission of original author. Entry fee: $20 plus $5 for each additional story, no story limit. Non-Canadian residents, please pay in U.S. dollars. Each entry receives a one-year subscription to PRISM. Winners will be announced in June, 1999, and published in PRISM's Summer Fiction Contest Issue. Entries should be postmarked no later than December 15th. 1998. Send entries to: Prism International Fiction Contest Buch. E462 -1866 Main Mall Vancouver, BC V6T1Z1 Canada For full contest guidelines, send SASE to address above, or e-mail us at prism@unixg.ubc.ca or visit our website at: www.arts.ubc.ca/prism Creative Writing M.F.A. at U.B.C tm The University of British Columbia offers a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing. Students choose three genres to work in from a wide range of courses, including: Poetry, Novel/ Novella, Short Fiction, Stage Play, Screen & TV Play, Writing for Children, Non-Fiction and Translation. A course in Managing, Editing and Producing a Small Magazine is also offered. All instruction is in small workshop format or tutorial. The thesis consists of imaginative writing. The Creative Writing Program also offers a Diploma Programme in Applied Creative Non-Fiction. \ IB5^ m Faculty Sue-Ann Alderson Keith Maillard George McWhirter Jerry Newman Linda Svendsen Peggy Thompson Bryan Wade For further information, please write: Creative Writing Program University of British Columbia Buchanan E462 -1866 Main Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6T1Z1 Or check out our web-site at: http://www.arfcubc.ca/awr INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTION TRUST FUND In order to create a more stable financial base for the continued operations of PRISM INTERNATIONAL, a trust fund has been established through the University British Columbia. Proceeds will be used to offset production costs. Tax deductible donations can be sent to: * (Me fflng Program, ixmi of m Coma, The 1998 Fiddlehead Contest for Poetry & Fiction has an open theme and introduces the brand-new Ralph Gustajson $1,000 Prize jbr Best Poem and $1,000 for Best Story plus publication fees Fiction: One story of up to 25 pages per entry Poetry; Up to 5 poems per entry Entry fee: $20 includes a year's subscription to The Fiddlehead (additional $6 for US & overseas) No multiple submissions and no previously published — or accepted for publication — submissions. Manuscripts will not be returned. Deadline: December 15, 1998 Send submissions to: The Fiddlehead Contest Campus House UNB PO Box 4400 Fredericton NB E3B 5A3 Canada Quarry Magazine Fiction Contest: Ufe in* the Modern* H/orfct Be weird, be ironic, be real. We're looking to define the times and we want you to do it. 1st Prize $500.00 2nd Prize $200.00 3rd Prize $100.00 Honourable Mention •Entry Fee is $19.98 (includes a one-year subscription) •$5.00 for each additional story (maximum of 2 additional stories) •Deadline for submissions: December 31,1998 •Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with a check or money order for $19.98. Print name, address and telephone number on title page. Print only the story name on each numbered sheet of the manuscript •Send to: Quarry Magazine (Modem World), PO Box 1061, Kingston, ON K7L4Y5 —' PRISM international fiction drama poetry translation creative non-fiction $4.5D Rhonda Batchelor Temma Ehrenfeld Alan Levin Wendy McGrath Lucy Miller B.Z. Niditch Pain Not Bread Ruth Roach Pierson Karen Reid Kate Siahaan-Rigg Karen Solie Jon Thompson Julie Quick You name garden pests in order to better identify the dead. — Karen Solie, Page 70 Cover: Balinese street-painting of Sinta, from the Ramayana myth. ISSN DD32.879D
Periodicals
English
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Vancouver : The Creative Writing Program of the University of British Columbia
Materials provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from the Prism international: http://prismmagazine.ca
Creative writing Periodicals
Poetry--Periodicals
Canadian literature -- Periodicals
Text