Come Back (19 page)

Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to look at his face, as it would have been interesting to also see his expression, and whether his demeanour was as expectant as his appendage appeared to be. But in my crooked posture that would not have been possible. It was after a moment or two of this kind of contemplation that Allworth burst in. I was very happy to see him. He asked me if I was all right, and I said I was fine. And he then mentioned how appalling the Cantilevered Lady was, saying there was no getting rid of her. He whispered, “Should we leave?” And then tactifully added, “Or are you . . . busy?” Allworth is too well-mannered to have glanced at the Doll Boy's nakedness. I appreciated the notion that I might still be capable of a sexual encounter, but happily, not at all sadly, I shook my head. Allworth, once we left, was immediately apologetic. He was concerned about my welfare and not at all perturbed by the Doll Boy. I told him not to worry.

This visit to the Tranquility Spa had been a scientific experiment. It had gone exactly as I had imagined. Nothing overt had happened. I had not gone wild, or gotten extraordinarily drunk, or ended up finding someone who deals uppers (are there still such things?) and falling off the wagon. The grand finale of your imaginings would, of course, be me meticulously fellating a veritable chorus line of handsome men. But no, nothing like that occurred. You may be disappointed to hear that I simply visited a bona fide dive, that's all. I felt privileged to be able to observe the goings-on, to get out of my lair to see how the other half lives. Longing for an encounter of a sexual kind was irrelevant. I did not feel at all frustrated or disappointed that my contemplation of the Doll Boy had been interrupted. Indeed, it had been time to leave.

So that's the whole story. I hope you will not be too disappointed that I am not the reckless libertine you had perhaps imagined I was, or that I have proved once and for all that I can be trusted. You spend so much time warning me of the perils of my lifestyle. Does all this time spent curled up at home with my new, convenient integration, communicating with you re: Dash King's tragic legacy — with an occasional visit to the Tranquility Spa — constitute a lifestyle? I suppose it does, technically.

We waited until we had left the bar and passed by the nice Asian woman maintaining the spa illusion at the front door — the wait was absolutely necessary due to the looming presence of the Cantilevered Lady — and then Allworth whispered to me that maybe it would be better to come back another time, perhaps when the Cantilevered Lady was not there. We both noted that this might prove an impossible plan as she seemed a permanent fixture. Allworth said that if we ever wanted to go back he could check to see if she was present first. But it made no difference to me (although it was sweet of him to care). It didn't matter if we returned or not; returning was the furthest thing from my mind.

Please know that I am not chiding you for your concern. I love it and, increasingly, I am able to see it as a sign of love. Just remember that for someone like me, who never received any proper love as a child, who only had a controlling mother, primarily interested in corralling her daughter for her own projects, it's not easy to accept admonitions. I know you aren't looking to control me for your own purposes, that you're just trying to help. The two actions look very much the same, but I know in my heart of hearts they are not. I want you to think of how addiction operates — the vacillations between abstinence and indulgence. I want you to think of what I am suggesting as my new lifestyle — a kind of consistent voyeurism, with no possibility of veering away, or of participating in any kind of indulgence. Still, you may not approve.

I am steeling myself for your response, whatever it may be. You know, one of my doctors, nearly twenty years ago (only a year after we first met), told me about the changes that had occurred in me after I met you. I wasn't even conscious of them. “You know,” he offered, “you have always been just this side of a curmudgeon.” He said this in the way that someone informs a person of something negative about their character, or the character of someone close to them, after the fact (“I never liked your husband”). It is not easy for me to imagine myself as a curmudgeon. But maybe someone who has lived so long and is so set in her opinions (if not her ways) might appear that way to the world at large. At any rate, you have perhaps saved me from becoming one. You have taught me how to bend and sway — an apt metaphor for someone who so resembles a crippled branch. I will never forget that, whatever our differences.

I
s something missing? Something has changed in your tone. There are inconsistencies in your argument. Paradoxes even. This is so unlike you. I am not really angry, but I am feeling rebellious —
very
rebellious. This makes me less angry. It's like a child whose parents suddenly stop scolding him, when their reprimands become milder. Of course, this is just before they pull out the big guns: “You're grounded!”

I don't mean to suggest that you are going to ground me. (How could you?) But it feels like something momentous is in the air. You speak at one point of “ruining it all.” Do you remember? Of course, you must remember everything. It's just that there is a real inconsistency in your response. It's so rare and uncharacteristic. You always argue me down. I value that, I truly do. In true masochistic style, I love, and even anticipate, being vanquished — and it makes me think that something is breaking for you. Perhaps your heart. Really, you can tell me. We have been together for so long, but still there are some areas where you will not take me — parts of you that you will not allow me to see.

You would certainly not wish to tell me if your heart had been broken. How can I reassure you that I will always be there for you? But I know it's not about you doubting that. It's about you having control; you must never reveal too much, or put yourself in the position of being the passive, submissive or desperate partner. I am all of these things; it's called emotional masochism. I am ready to admit more, and I'm relatively calm about the admissions. I admit all. I have nothing left to lose, and besides, these days there isn't all that much to confess.

But what will be ruined? Not our relationship, not our love! Don't say that! I can't believe that. What then? My life? There's so little of it left. For how can one such as I go on? I accept that. I am almost eager for the end. Not really; one never is. I am not afraid; just a little sad. But it has been so very long, and one becomes painfully aware that there is certain ground that one goes over and over again endlessly. I remember that the last time we communicated I finished by complaining about my mother. Since my whining about her has been going on for nearly 130 years, it might be argued it's high time I stopped.

Here is the contradiction in your argument. As you are my teacher and to some degree my doctor — or at least my emotional support — it is chilling for me to do this. The really bright and loving student never wants to surpass her master! For once, I find no satisfaction in winning.

But win I must.

You present two arguments against my visit to the Tranquility Spa. I'm actually surprised you would focus on that triviality. I really didn't think it was such a big deal, honestly. The first argument appears to be eminently pragmatic and the second eminently philosophical.

On the one hand, you embark on an extensive lecture about the political realities of the world and the dangers I might face by challenging those realities. You explicate the fragile balance between the rights and freedoms we all enjoy, and the harshness of our dictatorship. I'm afraid you sound a little bit like those who were so frightened of a Turkish victory in the first place. It was no surprise to you, myself and many others that they would win. Even the Chinese — with their numbers and their technological advantage — were no match for the brute force and unparalleled devotion of the suicide bomber. It was the suicide bomber who changed the history of the world; and this was never anticipated, mainly because the West was so hidebound and hypocritical in its suspicion of superstition.

But is our present situation so different than it was in our Westernized past? It always amazed me that the American government went on and on about the oppression of women in the Near East when I would not doubt that if Hillary Clinton had ever been elected president she would have been stoned to death. It is not ironic that there was never an American woman president. It simply makes sense. I never understood why it was so much more oppressive for women to walk around in burkas than for women to force their breasts into push-up bras for the pleasure of men. Of course, we both know (you better than I) that push-up bras can sometimes be delightfully fun. Perhaps even more so for a sadist like you. You, of course, speak as a biological woman. Though I know these days you don't resemble one in any way — except for your vagina. Please don't
ever
get rid of that! Nothing could ever be more hypocritical than the way mass culture in America ate feminism. And yet somehow Western governments were able to pride themselves on how open-minded they were by supporting the rights of women, in contrast to the government-sponsored sexist oppression of Middle Eastern countries. But was the West ever really so terribly open-minded?

I don't think it is any accident that it was a group of women who actually changed the course of the history — or, anyway, a group of women and men dressed as women. But ironically, in these days of identity collapse, did it really matter that there were men under those fatal burkas that blew up the world? I know it's very hard to piece together much genetic detail from a body that has exploded. But as I remember, some of those who changed the course of history with their suicides on that fatal day were women and some were men.

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that the West was blown up by a bunch of women, or at least by a bunch of creatures in burkas. And this is while we were wasting so much time being proud of how “free” women are in the West. But, as everyone knows, the salaries women were paid never equalled men's in the free and equal United States of America.

I worked for so long as a virtual slave to the system and battered my body with pills and drugs. I don't blame L. B. Mayer; how could you? He was just a fucked-up old man. Really it's not his fault. He lived in a culture that objectified women — and certainly female children. Don't ever look at Shirley Temple movies too closely; they are grossly pederastical. It amazes me that she survived and became an ambassador to Africa — especially since her background was so much like mine. It's all in the mothers — some, thank Christ, are
not
malignant.

Sorry to bring up the
EBOAM
again.

There is actually an extraordinary amount of freedom to be found under the burka. And inside it. After all, it
is
a disguise. Where I live now, in Ontario, it was once illegal to wear a disguise — a drag queen told me this. And there was good reason; it was always very important to see the face of the person you were dealing with, to know who they were. Nowadays identity is not so very important. Except, of course, when dealing with issues dividing cyborg and human.

Though I loathe talking about this, I understand from your tone that you think this is something I need to deal with. You called me “old-fashioned” several times. Well, that's what I am. I know my 130-odd years (and they have been very odd) are no excuse. These days the issue seems more about one's identity in terms of how much of one's body is made up of fake parts, and how attached one is to a cyberspace identity. I, as you know, am attached to the idea of soul. This is actually relevant to my discussion of our religious government. But, at any rate, my attachment to what is left of my human body precludes me from taking seriously any discussion of cyborg versus human identity. In other words, I don't see the point. Though I, for instance, am perhaps 75 percent artificial, in terms of my body, I still possess a very flawed soul. We all do. This is something to be thankful for.

But back to the modern world. I'll tell you what I think we have going for us. You may say I'm a fool for counting on it, but I would say you are a fool for discounting it. The word I'm referring to here is
hypocrisy
. Never underestimate the hypocrisy of all religions, even fundamentalist ones. It is fortunate, of course, that it was not Al-Qaeda that took over the world, but the economically sound and empirically destined Turks who — out of frustration with Western imperialism — began to appropriate Al-Qaeda's tactics. And yes, of course I am thankful that we do not have an overtly fundamentalist Muslim government, but one that decided long ago it could not force all women in the world to wear burkas (nor could it police every act that happens in the privacy of the home).

We live freely within our bondage. It is thus as it always has been. It seems that mankind is married to marriage, to sexism and to those fundamental gender differences that are imagined but that, unfortunately, operate beyond the law. We have sharia now, but it is so rarely exercised. All the controversy over it still seems to me just talk. Doublethink was ever so in Victorian times, and it is ever so today. I know that many today would not trade the bondage of our quasi-Muslim society for the even more subtle hypocrisy of Western quasi-Christian culture. There is something fundamental about the oppression of women. But we have learned that we can escape that if there are no more women. The solution to the problem of this oppression has been to abandon gender categories. It is, I think, the only solution.

However, even the Muslims in power cannot escape two things: technology and hypocrisy. Both are more powerful than any government. They cannot stop ideas because no one controls cyberspace. We all know — even though it is only discussed in the most remote cyberspace groups — that though the Muslims rule the world, technology rules them.

I remember meeting a Catholic production manager on the set of
I Can Go On Singing.
She was a great friend of Dirk Bogarde's. I think she was in love with him. Thank God it was her and not me. I neatly avoided
that
cul-de-sac. She was a devout Catholic. We got drunk one night and she revealed that she had had several abortions. This made no sense to me at all. Not only was she born Catholic, she claimed to be religious. And in typical, paradoxical, human form she was conflicted about being in love with Dirk because she knew he was a homosexual. She didn't like that, didn't approve, wanted to change his sexuality. . . . On the other hand, all this said, she had had countless abortions (to me, four
is
countless). When we were really smashed, I asked her about this. She said, “Well, that's religion, that's God, that's one thing. And then there's my life.”

And then there's my life.
Has it not
ever
been thus — with all religions? Who could ever live by the Book, the good word of
any
God? Only those dour men who usually, whatever the fundamentalism, have beards and funny hats and walk with dutiful fuckbuddies whose vaginas are covered in drab, floor-length gowns, and whose faces are carefully obscured with funny hoods or hats. No one will ever be as devout as Jesus or Mohammad — this is written into all their texts. And as painful as that may be for the believer, it is a blessing for the rest of the world. Even fundamentalism forgives us our humanity — because we are all sinners.

Dash mentions Barbara Pym in the final passage I will quote below. He was a maniacal fan of hers. I too have enjoyed her novels. But what is so amazing about a Barabara Pym novel is that the women in them are always going to church — but mainly because the pastors are attractive single men. Never has religious hypocrisy been captured so acutely; it's almost painful in a delicious way.

You might understand.

So we go to mosque in cyberspace; we observe the niceties. We are dutiful Muslims. But your first and most pragmatic argument is that I may be arrested for my actions or perhaps for my thoughts. But I won't be — I know. All that's important is that we
go through the motions
. Because the motions are all that matters.

Your first argument is about the practical dangers of me possibly being caught at the Tranquility Spa (doing what?). But the irony is that, though I am high-profile, I am not. What I mean is there is a belief among the academic powers that be that jail would kill me — and that, of course, it is important to keep me alive. The reason? I am heroically old and was once famous. Yet no one is actually clear on what practical purpose keeping me alive might serve. So, on a pragmatic level, people don't care enough about me to worry about what I get up to. But they certainly, in an abstract way, would not wish to learn of my untimely passing. This contradiction works in my favour. But you are also suggesting that the situation,
in reality
, is that I may be arrested. I would assert you have no real proof of this; there is no reason for your worry.

Yes, one of the great ironies of the West's downfall was, as I have said, the underestimation of the burka. But just as crucial was the underestimation of the irresistible attraction of death. Let's face it, we have our present government because the Turks best understood Freud's death instinct. Oh, in sunny America, you never die, just “consume, consume, consume. . . .” No one could imagine a people so fundamentally in love with death that they would actually long to die for their beliefs. I know that fundamentalists don't see their death as a termination. They see it as afterlife — as
soul
. But in Freudian terms, it's about ending life on earth, and this is what a suicide bomber is intent on doing.

You talk about how the Tranquility Spa is illegal, and how I might go to jail. You say I am seriously jeopardizing my life. But, as I've said earlier, I don't value my life all that much now. Each of us will die; I don't want to live forever — certainly not like this. And, let's face it, I always was a little in love with death. So perhaps I take these little trips rather than returning to drugs — which I think even you, by now, realize I will not do. Perhaps I am flirting with danger by going to the spa. But that's as close as I'm going to get to lying stoned in an alley somewhere, fellating an army of homosexuals.

I don't know if I ever really told you about
that night
. I will soon. I think you should hear it.

So much for your practical worries. Your second argument is a fundamental philosophical challenge to the real. You can't say that I am in danger in the real world, while at the same time — following your argument to its logical conclusion — you assert that there is no real world at all. If I understand you correctly, this is what you are saying. There are flaws, too, in your argument against reality. They are easy enough to pinpoint, but I am insecure about doing so. I'm also insecure about what might impel you to project this argument at me with such force.