The Wood of Suicides (28 page)

August 8, 2003

Carmel-by-the-Sea
Monterey County

Lady Steadman,

I pray that you will forgive me for taking the liberty of writing to you, although we have never been formally introduced. If what I have been told about you is true, then I may presume that you are a wise woman, a compassionate woman, a woman who will grant my words her gentle consideration. Even so, I am aware that what I am asking of you is the height of presumption; that you have no reason to show me any consideration, let alone mercy; that I am as low before you as any whore would be, before a lady of your virtues.

I have loved your husband—as much as a weak, heartless girl of my type is capable of loving. In return, he claims to love me, to the point that he wishes to start a life with me. He wants a life with me. He does not realize that such a life is impossible; that I am, in fact, death.

Death can be pretty. It can be young fruit, blushing amid the branches. It can be lips and hair and bare legs. All the same, it is death, and should not be treated as anything other than such. It is not art, it is not poetry, and it is certainly not life.

Your husband has been foolish. He has allowed himself to be seduced by death, in the guise of a virgin. Please, do not hold this against him. You are his true wife, and he loves you, as he cannot possibly love anyone else. You have a life together. You have a son and a daughter and a greenhouse. Without this life, there is nothing left for him but death.

I do not doubt that he will come back to you. When he does, if you can, I beg that you forgive him. His sins are mortal, yet, unlike mine, they are forgivable; they need not extend to the grave.

Sincerely,

Ophelia (a drowning girl)

I
HADN
’
T
intended to still be alive when my letter reached Danielle Steadman, nor when the hornet man returned with his bag of poisons. That time around, we watched him from the safety of the poolside, equally transfixed by the removal of that malign growth. For two months, I had watched the nest grow at the same rate as my anxiety over Steadman’s impending arrival. I stood beside my mother and hated her for being the cause of it all, the only one with the power to stop it. I began with the words that I had prepared a day earlier; words whose veracity I still cannot vouch for. “I didn’t want it. I didn’t want it at all . . .”

I
T
’
S
SPRING
now in Pennsylvania and the Bryn Mawr girls can be seen walking around without stockings. I watch the prettiest ones go by over my coffee, which I drink black and with two sachets of sweetener. I’m still drinking it when I get to my mailbox, which I haven’t checked since the beginning of the week. I spent last night in Dani’s dorm and am running on only four hours of sleep. I remember tripping over her books in the dark this morning, Kristeva and Rilke and
The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
I remember her sighing and curling up deeper inside her nest of red sheets and strawberry blond hair. He’d probably appreciate the irony of me finding a Danielle of my own.

My tongue is still furred with the taste of her, acrid and persistent through the sweetness of my coffee. I don’t know if I like this taste, but there’s satisfaction in what it recalls. Dani’s lips. Dani’s hair. Dani, wet and glistening in the dark.

There are two envelopes waiting in my mailbox. The first is postmarked from California and is addressed in my mother’s rounded, rather infantile hand. I haven’t told her about Dani yet and am in no hurry to, though I’m sure she’ll take the news easier than last spring’s bombshell. The second envelope looks older. It boasts a foreign postmark and a charming, almost illegible scrawl of red ink. There is no return address.

I have trouble concentrating in my comparative-literature seminar, and not only from lack of sleep. In the pocket of my camel-hair coat, the unopened envelope burns, hot as a summons to hell. Of course, I haven’t heard from him in months; not since he fled prosecution last fall. At the time, I thought his flight for the better. As soon as class is over, I rush out into the fresh April morning, my hands in my coat pockets. Here, I have no laurel groves to retreat to. I make do with crossing Merion Green and finding a place beneath the oaks. I breathe in and take out Steadman’s letter.

April 10, 2004

Fiesole
Italia

Laurel
—

Don’t fret. This isn’t a declaration of Lust. As far as you are concerned, I am a eunuch now—I haven’t the heart or the balls to desire, anymore. The nymphs of Toscana are free to frolic around me. I’ll look on coldly—if I look at all.

I had hoped for a new existence here. But my promised land is really more of a St. Helena. I don’t know if my little life warrants such a grand Exile.

You will be finishing your first year of college, I suppose. I suppose you will have a boyfriend by now. It must be wonderful, having your whole life ahead of you. It must be wonderful, being free of my affections.

Europe seems to me such a dry, dead place. At least the nights are getting shorter now. I’ve taken to avoiding rooming houses altogether—there are better ways to spend what remains of my money. Sleeping out is not too unpleasant, in this climate. I’ve grown a beard, but don’t feel too bad about this.

Were you never happy with me? Were my attentions misguided? Could I have been more tender? I don’t suppose I’ll ever get an answer, but I’m entitled to ask, at least. I remember us laughing about the illegality of it—as if
you
would never have anything to do with my ruin. Now I am a “sex offender,” a “perver,” a “statutory rapist”—not because of what I did, but because you were not ready to take me seriously.

I think about Hell. I think about Heaven. I am done wanting you. There is nothing more that I care to know about you. Find a mild, faithful lover. It will be enough for you.

Yours,
Hugh

I fold up Steadman’s letter and put it aside. I can feel my insides squirming, my heart hammering inside my chest. Closing my eyes, I lean my back against the oak’s broad trunk, and try to summon something of that old tenderness, but everything old is bitter. Everything old is repellent to me on this fresh spring day.

Perhaps in Tuscany there are still nymphs that rise out from the tree trunks, leading grown men astray. Perhaps there are girls who defy death by dwelling outside life, in the greenness of old woods, young suicide. In Pennsylvania, however, there are no nymphs—only college girls, who look just as good as schoolgirls without their stockings. I am one of them. I rise from the grass and brush the dirt from my raw knees, leaving his letter behind for whatever wind or rain may come. I cross the green.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

L
aura Elizabeth Woollett was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1989. Her initial inspiration for
The Wood of Suicides
came after looking up the origins of her name, and discovering the root “Laurel” and the myth of Apollo and Daphne. She began writing the novel as an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne, where she was exposed to further influences like Freudian theory and the Romantic poets. In 2012, she earned an honors degree in creative writing. While Laura continues to be interested in the mythical, she has recently turned her eye toward more contemporary subjects. She is at work on a collection of short stories about the lovers and accomplices of evil men,
The Love of a Bad Man.