Hunger's Brides (178 page)

Will you give me leave, Juanita? To let you go. This one night at least?

What is this I see in your face, B? Is this happiness? And S, her arm across my shoulders, says Though Paz is no saint and all this expense is obscene when you think of the poor, in Mexico at least a great poet is still great—as in Sor Juana's day. Paz doesn't have much more time, his
health is failing so badly the President of Mexico has asked to pay all the expenses. Until the very end. It is one of the reasons I can still love this country, still live in this city of shit and autocrats with complicated European names.

Are you ready to meet him? This is your one chance.

Wait S not yet—a toast—a toast to the imperial city of Mexico, long live every unloved emperor dead or alive—
salud!

And just how many glasses
have you
had?—quit stalling B you know you have to meet him, you can quote me half his poetry. Look, there's so handsome Andreas who played don Carlos already in the receiving line.

Up next to the dais—next to this planter of orchestral anemones plucked by all the little silverfish of Melody—and under the warp of a white pavilion, the great man sits / his own statuary. From out behind this green-eyed Medusa of the all-seeing eye enNobelled that turns all to stone, snakes a line of supplicants, books clutched—white foreknuckled crook that marks the page for The Signing.

After a minute of eternity, up to us sways smiling blue/blur eyed Andreas—I got Paz to sign my book and stole his pen. Want it? See? Seascrawl of signature all over the frontispiece:
Five Decades of Poems by Pablo Neruda
. Do you think Paz noticed, did he
like
Neruda? Do you want to dance?

By the elbow now S takes B for a tutorial stroll through love's academy.

Come B, come meet Paz. I have a friend who can introduce us, I don't think he'd remember me. I was a little girl and he the god of my father. See that tall grey-haired man with the boyish smile? Yes very handsome. Yes he is married too. Maybe you should set your glass down now. He has been a friend to Paz, one of the few writers his wife trusts. He will present us.

I want to say good-bye. To Octavio Paz. Beulah, will you come with me?

Fidgeting S and flinching B—hanging flitches of harem beef in a chorus-line of twenty young women all in pale blue suits tight-skirted like stewardesses—turquoise colour guard of the Air Force of Poesy.

Waiting, waiting to draw near—what's this, S, are they
selling
his books even here? No no,
B, giving
them. The one thing he will sign. Once a woman from California asked him to sign her breasts, she was already
lifting her shirt. You have no idea how strange is this life of his. Everyone in the world sending him books, his name in a thousand special dedications from total strangers all across the world. He has a special desk in a special room. His secretary piles up all the books seeking benediction. Once in a while he sits down there and when he can't see out the window sweeps them into an old laundry hamper. For years like this. He must understand Sor Juana in ways no one else can.

And that house of his, full of cats, running wild, knocking down lamps. A fire hazard, as everyone knows but he says let them be. The President wants to give him a new house to die in. Luxuriously.

And suddenly we are near—thank you S for distracting me did you think I wouldn't stay for you? First S whispers a few words to the Oracle, a hello years-old from her father, kiss on the cheek, her hand squeezes the soft round shoulder. Then S's writerfriend with the sad sad eyes of a beautiful hound steps close. Your name is Beulah, yes? You are from Canada? Let me introduce you to my friend. Octavio, this is …

And time stands still.

Will things ever be the same
will
they? Will I come away from Sinai blinded thunderstuck speaking in tongues? What can I tell him say how lonely it would have been these years—without him—who never knew I existed? Will I tell him I couldn't have failed without him? Written any of this? No this is nothing for a dying man's conscience.

What will I say in this the only moment left? That none of us has much time and we two just this one instant—he is dying—see it knotted there, his dying in his eyes? The letters neveranswered don't matter. To anyone, not even me.

Thank him, tell him … but all sound the whole world over is dying out …

All senses reduced to vision, all vision narrowing to this one face edged in black felt. Jowls pulling down the mouth that once spoke so brilliantly—eyes once like precious jades in the photographs yellowed to the lour of mashed peas—
it's so unjust
what is happening to you, this slow wasting—and I am speaking at last but with no idea—jaws working, tongue of burlap flap—am I deaf, am I shouting?—as the light, the greensmoke glow in those ancient eyes gutters lanternyellow down to dim as he looks at me unspeaking.
Is it the poison in my mind that is killing him?
I look up to S who stands on the other side worryfaced and I say God S I am killing Octavio Paz.

Eyes widening, hand to her mouth / instant of pause a peal slips unsnuffed through her fingertips—hard she grabs me by the arm we stagger off simpleton smile smears across my mouth. What is this S, this giddiness this heart tickle/lift—is this happiness?
Carcajadas
—blasts of bellylaugh, hers, ours together.
Ours
… So this is laughter.

This place hasn't killed us, S. Not yet.

S—head bent to my breasts—gasp/hitch of little sobs, helpless cling to my shoulders sliding down my arms.
I am killing Octavio Paz
, oh B, your face, you should have seen—

Oh Beulah, I haven't laughed like this in years.

Midnight anti-climax of NewYear horns bugling revelry. The band packs up their strings. Paz gets up to leave, a hundred eyes filing after as to a tiny shuffling iron mountain of enormous drawing power. Heavy lean on the arm of his empress, he passes where we sit, falters, turns. Disengages. Shuffles a doddering step toward us, then another. Ten metres over uneven stone. We are all frozen now … the anguish—will he stumble will he fall?
is he coming to make me answer for my laughter? Is he coming to answer my letters?

But no he comes for her not me, little brass soldier—for
her
, for the tall dancer Sor Juana, looking up now at the platinum stars.
She doesn't even notice—oh but she does. Coqueta
. He comes to stand before her, straightens, puts out a hand—
carajo
Beulah I don't believe this, look at them—

Buenas noches, señora
, my name … is Octavio Paz.

Moment of magic … O remember this instant, take this with you to the end.

Breathing again, S whispers,
I'm sure he hasn't introduced himself in thirty years…
.

Little bent dwarfgod in a rumpled black suit, shuffling shyly out through the gates of horn.

Good-bye.

Green Eyes.

She loved to dance—did Juana ever dance out here? Under these stars three hundred years younger then—dreaming maybe of her own queen, the Countess María Luisa?—dancing as S and B are, in each other's arms losing track losing count…. Is she watching us, smiling down from
Sirius? At S, blackbright eyes, falcon mask, body so beautiful in this dress, my breasts' green satin glide over hers of red velvet.

Couples around us now dancing … over the speakers a song a duet—an African man a woman, American.
Seven Seconds
tick past … I am humming contented cricket into the shell of her ear. You know this song? S whispers.

Oh yes S I know, this song I have loved…. This night, I know every song ever sung.

O if I could just
cease upon the midnight with no pain…
.

Juanita, will you let me? With so much left undone, unsaid these three hundred years? Give us this night at least, will you give me leave? Give us this last dance, two hands clasped at her redvelvet hip, mouths filled with jasmine….

Oh S, What can go wrong now? nothing can touch us. Not in your arms. Not in this bliss. Is this joy, rapture—this?

Arms that protect, her eyes pent with a need so long deferred … mingled in a diffident grief that will not forget, will not release her, to me. He's gone, S, it's not your fault. Hunger-eyed but so patient in her aching. Oh S I can bring you the sweetest relief, for an hour. I can do this for you. For this, your gift of laughter to me.

Let me clasp this falcon mask between these two cool palms, probe those ebon eyes with mine, coax groans deep from the place where your laughter comes. Let me. Sweet S who rescued me, let me ease the furrows of your brow.

Let me shift them to your panting throat, work the delicate bellows of your ribs.

S, let me stoke you, notch you on my tongue. Like an urgent errand knocked to a bow. Score each bump of gooseflesh with a tongue of arrowsong—scale a shy breast, gather it in, the clustering of a single grape—let me, S—try its resistance between teeth fastidious as the stepping of a deer … into wine.

Ruin everything, S, how could we?

O, S, let me feel your small hands on me, submit me … to the blind imperium of a single fingertip, chart its long decline on the scroll of one vellum hip. Touch me. Cover me with salt seashell glyphs. Scorch me with Ss—quick brushfire of your lips.

S, O S, who says we're not ready? A year for me, two years for you he's been gone. Was he kind? Was he true was he good to you? No no S,
no—we don't need even the best of them—swarming explorers planters of their million teeming little flags, steeping in the green of our need. All that bumping, the lunging, the caliper eyes, the chiselling tongues, mouths caved in marble.

We let them into our guts. Invitation that becomes an invasion—invictus—enough! let's
evict them
now cough them up. Oh S, it's been so long. You don't know how to begin? let me show you.

It begins like this….

Dawn.

Ruin everything—how can we?