Hunger's Brides (182 page)
Time passing. My penlight spills its dirty yellow across this glowing page. A dog tests the air, one bark without echo, issue. One roostercrow, dispirited.
Somewhere a rooster slips into the dream of a child, a dog into the dream of a hen.
The sky, a bowl of cream overturned. A landscape battered, chipped, jumbledâspent volcanic cones, moonlit spires of earthcrustâall now slump subside like ice cream melting.
Brief abeyance of the bright solar stormâNemesis met.
And sleeping at last in meâfor a minute or two this melancholy bloodhound questing bayingâscenting on a solar wind. Far, how many hours of unplanned flight at a thousand kilometres an hour? faraway the city where I was born. I come to rest in a desert on a pyramid built to the moon. What am I doing here?
Peace, I've begun to make a prayer for you here. When I am done, when I have written it, will you finally come?
And what will make you stay?
[2:34
A.M.
]
Ah, love, let us be true to one another â¦
27
What are you doing now, this minute, Professor, do you ever think of me? Remember our last night together ⦠did you dream of me watching you sleep, your nose bent, face puckered against the sheet? You said my name, I never told you. When I slipped my hand into yours, you held it there. Skin so smooth.
I never told.
It is beautiful here tonight.
I move with your breath-ing â¦
I breathe with your beau-ty â¦
28
At this moment, as I shiver through this night of shooting fireflies and boneglow pyramids are you smiling, reading, weepingâmaking love with her? To someone else? Do you need anybody, ever? Are you like me a little after all? Do you need your lovers at all, what are we to you? Do we keep you from this emptiness even for an hour?
Or does the iceman just need to come.
What would it take to make you break? How much truth can you bear? Bait the dancing bearâ¦.
Did I give you anything you really needâcomfort? peace? an instant's happinessâfurtive, fleeting, guilt-fleeced? Are you smiling now, indulgently, reading me, or have you torn this upâdo you hate me more for what I've done to you already or for what may still be done?
Are you playing with your daughter as I write this down? I know you named her CatherineâI wonder if you chose the name. It's your mother's, isn't itâoh you thought I'd forgotten. And why did I think you'd have a son? You know, I've seen herâ¦. She is an angel, Donald. Are you reading to her now, is she still too young are you a good teacher a good father to herâwill you be? Can you still learn?
[3:50
A.M.
]
This chill desert is manmade too. It reminds me of your heart. The valley of Mexico was once a chain of lakes. Now look at these stripped Saharan hillsâcracked-rib forest of galleysâO Glory of Rome! Sunken barnacle on the seafloor. And what have these fallen trees built here in México that survives ⦠us?
Feel the breeze stir now at this pyramid's peakâfeel the coldâas I whirl round and round arms out spinning on this pyramid top. Happy shades of you and me dancing glass figurines on a music box. We are that musicâwho holds the key who winds us up? Universe of glass supercooled time, viscid, freeze-driedâtremulous turning on a music box winding down to
pure
    flux
Who winds the clockworks? calls the megaton tune of sky and earthâwaltzes mountains weds seafloors to horizons rolls us in his palm makes us round? Do we make the trickster laugh, does he want ice cream, is he bored?âwith you me with everybody? And truly does this prankster / thanatical joker really just dance us in his palm as he dances himself to death / alone on time's pyramidâstaggersided like a wedding cake / whirling as I am now in his drunken wedding dance / in the empty arms of coldskied eternity teeteringâ
this flawed palindrome / inconfigurable flux
    volcanic glass that shatters minds at the touch
        that bridge too far / that frame too much
Who will teach me this, Donald? The old man in the poncho sleeping down below? Or do I go alone as Juana went, schooled on paradox and pyramids?
I shudder with cold. Cold claws my hand as I make myself writeâand my fingers cry out for rest their talon screech but there will be time soon very soon for the gnaw and clench of surceaseâquill as dagger as
ignition key under this clenched fist-heel, I scratch my graffiti into the world's enamel coatâ¦.
Dawn. I wanted promised poncho man to be down before the first sunray broke the ridge / pierced the sky but my cold-drugged knees won't carry meâtime to try these stumpy wings? or not quite yet. Pyramid climbs used to be one-way trips, on obsidian wine.
Hail! there All hailârise to toast the sun!âblue hummingbird whose blood is blinding light! There where it rises beside the Pyramid of the Sun. Manmade rock-heap miming mountain. At its tip I stand, heart in handâa clutch of precious eaglefruit raised to lure the Ascending EagleâBlueHummingbird! unhooded nowâto the jesses.
The sun warms my face, though I don't want it.
Pyramid of the Moon teach me how to live with loss.
Pyramid of the Sun teach me to die.
Well.
To love
it, as you do. Without desire.
On drugged knees I start down, clinging, crawling, face to the pitched steps. But I will walk the deadroad on my feet. This shameroad the FeatherSerpent walked in failure to the burning ground. From here I start down the road to the Red Lands, the Black, land of knowledge and death.
UBILEE
, D
AY
24: T
HE
B
ODY OF A
N
UN
THE PLAZA OUTSIDE THE CONVENTâMORNING
Flowers clasped in both hands, an old woman comes from the building opposite Juana's cell. Replaces yesterday's flowers in the niche altar beneath Juana's window, makes her way unsteadily back to her door. Pauses in the doorway and, frowning, watches a ragtag collection of boys playing a ball game against the convent walls. The game grows raucous. Old man comes out from a few doors down, chases the boys off. As he turns, his eyes meet the old woman's, who turns away.
INT. INDEFINITE LOCATION, INDEFINITE ERAâMORNING
Young girls in school uniforms receiving instruction from a nun. Bright, fresh faces. Intent, innocent.
INSIDE THE CONVENT LOCUTORYâMORNING, BRIGHT SUNSHINE
Before, Juana had been able to approach the window. The new grate cuts the room lengthwise. Núñez stands now between her and the light. It costs her an effort to look at him as the sun spills over his shoulder.
NÃÃEZ
Be warned that I will come twice every day until this is finished. Evening and early morning.
[turning to Gabriel] Stop hovering over me!
JUANA
Gabriel is afraid we are killing each other.
GABRIEL
Father, her tongue is infected.
NÃÃEZ
As I have been saying for years.
[squinting in satisfaction]
It hurts you to speak.
JUANA
[under her breath]
More than you can know.
NÃÃEZ
[to Gabriel]
I am told she started out before dawn to meet us here. They say she has licked clean a path of stone from her cell right up to this locutory.
[turns on her with violence]
You will
never
be mistaken for a saintânot under me!
We are now compiling dossiers on three
extáticas
. Teresa de Jesus, Antonia de Ochoa, Juana de los Reyes. Three more women passing themselves off as saintsâ
JUANA
I am no saint.
NÃÃEZ
The others will get off with a hundred lashes, or two. Not youâ¦.
[conjuring rage]
âThe body of a nun should be dead to the world! Dead to any love but that of a jealous Husband. Christ shares his bed with
no one
âleast of all the pitiful, narrow cot that is a nun's soul!'
29
V.O.: Yes, Reverend Father, quote yourself as though it were Holy Writ.
â⦠And is there any other that a bride of Christ
should
love?âJesus alone, and in what terrifying disproportion to His own love! Not only this, but she must not allow herself to be lovedâagainst all the natural inclinations of women! Womanâwho so gladly suffers being loved and celebrated. Unlike her, the true bride of Christ abominates in equal measure both loving and being loved.'
JUANA
How can I accept this?
Father, show me how
.
NÃÃEZ
Accept it? Arrogant wretch! You persist in treating your soul like some crown of jewels.
On his feet now, he lifts a face of blind rage to the dark rafters. Turns back on her furiously
.
NÃÃEZ
Before being vanquished and made a captive, the bride is first to be stripped of these and clapped in infamous irons, in the dark dungeon of her own flesh, a vile slave to her appetites.'
From the folds of his cassock, Núñez draws a leatherbound book, opens it, presses it flat against the grate
.
NÃÃEZ
Castalian Flood
âI know who emboldened you to publish this filth. And I know all about
her
appetites.
JUANA
It's been five years. The Inquisition has made no complaintâ
NÃÃEZ
Because they do not yet know what your words conceal!
Divine Narcissus
. Was Christ's martyred body not beautiful enough for you? That you should make him Narcissus!
You have sinned more than a thousand whores. He does not need
your
love! Do you hear? And He does not need that
His
Love be returned.
JUANA
But is it so wrong to fear that this vast differenceâthe self-sufficiency of His Love and the superfluousness of our ownâ
NÃÃEZ
[his face contorting with fury]
Stop!
JUANA
To feel that this disproportion debases and enslaves usâthough this defect of the heart is all our own?
NÃÃEZ
How has this piece of heresy
so taken hold of you?!
He hurls her collection at the window. As it strikes the iron bars it splits. Part falls into the dirt beneath the window.
NÃÃEZ
Gabriel. See that no one touches Sor Juana's book. We will see how well her work endures.
[shakes his head in disgust]
You have made a mockery of the articles of Our Faith. You have violated a sacred trust, the holy sacrament of confession, and for twenty-five years harboured these abominations of the imagination and the flesh.
Speak!
JUANA
Yes.
NÃÃEZ
Leave me nowâ¦
If I return we will see about curing this sick soul of yours. We will come to the end of your lusts. This is the source of these crazy ecstasies.
And in the meanwhile, take care of that tongue.
UBILEE
, D
AY
28: B
LACK
B
EAST
INSIDE THE CONVENT CHAPELâNIGHT
The chapel is empty but for her. Dozens of votive candles flicker on the altar. Juana stands. Clasps a single candle in her hands. Faintest starlight through stained glass windows. Camera slowly circles herâ¦.
Just audible now the first bars of Arvo Part's
Miserere
. ⦠counter-tenor, oboe, counter-tenor, oboe, countertenor, bass clarinet, counter-tenor, oboe counter-tenor bass clarinet counter-tenor tenor camera accelerating oboe counter-tenor bass clarinet oboe counter-tenor tenor clarinet counter-tenor organ tenor camera rising circling circling counter-tenor organ tenor counter-tenor organ tenor countertenor bass clarinet oboe counter-tenor tenor clarinet counter-tenor oboe bassoon camera risingâTENOR COUNTER-TENOR SOPRANO BASS OBOE BASSOON KETTLE DRUM
Rising wheeling wall of soundâlight recedingâaltitude volume rising sheerâaltar to nave, stars to heavenâcamera the eye of godâfar below a soul is dying a great spirit is struggling for life very far belowâat last a pillar of sound and lightlessness rising up from the altar to heaven drives her to her kneesâ¦.
FADE OUT
INSIDE LOCUTORYâGREY MORNING
NÃÃEZ
[beckoning to her]
Come closer.
Juana kneels close to the grate as he stands on the other side
.
NÃÃEZ
Gabriel, how does she appear to you today.
GABRIEL
Worseâ¦
NÃÃEZ
As I expected. She hardly knows now when she is defying me.
[to Juana]
The Prioress says your mortifications have become excessive.
JUANA
Precision and rigour ⦠rigour and precision.
NÃÃEZ
You think you can escape me as you did the Carmelites.
JUANA
There is no escaping.
NÃÃEZ
Confess your ambitions.
JUANA
Wherever I run my enemy is waiting.
NÃÃEZ
Confess your ambitions.
JUANA
I have no ambitions left.
NÃÃEZ
Confess
.
JUANA
My ambitions were grotesque.
Her lips move slightly, but no sound emerges
.
NÃÃEZ
Speak! sinner. Make yourself heard.
JUANA
⦠They watch my every gesture.
NÃÃEZ
[sneering]
Yet they do not see you, do they? Do you even exist any longer? They see only the brazen idol you have built for them.
Only
I
see you now as you really are
. Deny it!
JUANA
These past months ⦠It's as you said, my example has the power to do great evil.
And it is as I told youâ¦. I have brought down upon myself and upon the capital a flood of debates and envyings, wraths and strifes and backbitingsâ
NÃÃEZ
Stop these blasphemies!
JUANA
Whisperings and swellings and tumults. These are mine, for He has given them to me, the penalties of my adulteriesâ
NÃÃEZ
You would drive me away now that we have come this far?
JUANA
Every crime, every sin and fear, each cloud of ignorance, each hurt and crueltyâ
NÃÃEZ
You would flee into a feigned lunacy!
JUANA
These months of calamity are mine. The weevil that infests the crops is the worm in my soul.
NÃÃEZ
It is just as I predicted.
JUANA
The blight is the blight on my flesh. The riots and rebellion begin with meâ
NÃÃEZ
Preposterous. Have you communicated with the leaders of the insurrection? Do you even know their names?
JUANA
I have incited the Indians to revert to the worship of their idolsâ
NÃÃEZ
Did you send out secret circulars, preach to them their pagan doctrines? Give me the specifics.
JUANA I
have brought the floods.
NÃÃEZ
Vomiting blasphemy!âboasting of an entire continent punished just for
you
. Tell me how!
JUANA
Couldn't it be?
NÃÃEZ
It is just as I told them. She will confess responsibility for the whole but claim innocence in the particulars. What are you trying to deflect me from?
I know you. You still doubt this.
JUANA
I am the lock, you are the key.
NÃÃEZ
You are nothing but an empty vessel.
JUANA
Emptiness itself.
NÃÃEZ
Look into the pus-hole that is your self! You would disdain His Grace so as to nurture
this?
Purge yourself of this sick pride!
You rebel because you fear union with Him. You fear the tidal power of His Love. You fear annihilation yet long for it.
[with disgust]
But no, still you withhold your consent, still you would deny Him. You are utterly and absolutely unworthy of His Love!
Yet even now he offers it, while you cling to this abomination that is your
self
.
You claim you cannot feel His Love. But you are terrified you
will
.
You have spent a lifetime walling in this black beast of yours. Verses are the scraps you feed it on.
But now you wake in the middle of the blackest night of all, and discover even the beast of your nightmares has left youâ¦.
Now what remains insideâyour tower of empty speeches.
With difficulty she rises, comes to the grate, standing before him yet looking past him to the light
.
NÃÃEZ
Tell me about your lusts. Tell me about your dreams, this unspeakable hunger that possesses you.
[more gently]
Juana, do you think you are the first? I have taken the confessions of hundreds of nuns. Understand that in this, at least, you are not alone. You are just like them.
It comes into their sleep as a succubus.
JUANA
[voice faint]
Is there no limit to what He can forgive?
NÃÃEZ
No child, none whatever.
Tell me how it began. Juana, I warn you, this confession must include those events that brought you to meâto Mother Church.
JUANA
[very pale]
I have confessed this once.
NÃÃEZ
Yes, and had I handled things properly then, you might not have had to wander lost these past twenty-five years. It is the work of a Jubilee to till the fallow field, harrow it, root out all of its pernicious errors.
Tell me about this black beast
.
JUANA
[lips white, trembling]
I have gloried in the corruption of my flesh. And in corrupting others. My hunger has whored and defiled meâ
NÃÃEZ
You will give me much more than this!
She raises a hand to the grate to steady herself
.
JUANA
I have harboured thoughtsâthoughts you know too well, Father.
NÃÃEZ
Tell me!
She kneels, clinging now with one hand to the grate, head and shoulders bent
.
NÃÃEZ
This is not what I need! You will confess again to me in detail what happened
and how it felt
.
JUANA
I couldn't breathe! It was as something gross and malignantâswallowing ⦠me.
She slumps to the floor, body jammed against the grate, arm bent up and back at a sharp angle, fingers still clinging to the bar
.
GABRIEL
Father Núñez!
NÃÃEZ
What is it Gabriel? What is happening? Fetch some water, quicklyâand bread! Be quick about it.
Núñez, about to stroke her cheek, restrains himself
.
NÃÃEZ
[whispering]
You will not escape me, child. You think I cannot follow, but I will wait for you ⦠even on the other side.
GABRIEL hurries in with a pitcher
.
NÃÃEZ
The bread!
GABRIEL
I sent them for it.
Núñez pours water over his fingers, using them to guide a trickle of water over her cheeks, her forehead, a few drops on her eyelids. With trembling fingers he parts her parched lips, letting the liquid run over his fingers into her mouth ⦠She stirs
.
NÃÃEZ
Learn from my errors, Gabriel. I have let her grow too weakâand at this most
critical
moment!
A NOVICE enters from inside the convent
.
NOVICE
Bread, Father. Fresh.
NÃÃEZ
It will have to do. Give it to me.
Hands trembling, he tears off a piece, still warm, and holds it beneath her nose, presses it to her lips; her eyelids flutter
.
NÃÃEZ
[whispering]
I will feed you, Juanita. From my hand you shall eat of this bread. Then you will rest.
The young novice who brought bread stands over Sor Juana
,
wringing her hands, face unsure. Núñez is trying to feed
her through the bars though she is barely conscious
.
Blindly filling her mouth with bread. Sor Juana revives, coughing up bread
.
NÃÃEZ
I will be back early tomorrow and we will finish what we have started here todayâ¦
Gabriel leads him away, the novice helping Sor Juana to a sitting position. At the door, Núñez pauses
.
NÃÃEZ
Gabriel, have them bring back the chairs.
FADE OUT