Pricksongs & Descants (4 page)

○ ○ ○

At times, I forget that this arrangement is my own invention. I begin to think of the island as somehow real, its objects solid and intractable, its condition of ruin not so much an aesthetic design as an historical denouement. I find myself peering into blue teakettles, batting at spiderwebs, and contemplating a greenish-gray growth on the side of a stone parapet. I wonder if others might wander here without my knowing it; I wonder if I might die and the teakettle remain.
“
I have brought two sisters to this invented island,
”
I say. This is no extravagance. It is indeed I who burdens them with curiosity and history, appetite and rhetoric. If they have names and griefs, I have provided them.
“
In fact,
”
I add,
“
without me they
’
d have no cunts.
”
This is not (I interrupt here to tell you that I have done all that I shall do. I return here to bring you this news, since this seemed as good a place as any. Though you have more to face, and even more to suffer from me, this is in fact the last thing I shall say to you. But can the end be in the middle? Yes, yes, it always is
...
) meant to alarm, merely to make a truth manifest—yet / am myself somewhat alarmed. It is one thing to discover the shag of hair between my buttocks, quite another to find myself tugging the tight gold pants off Karen
’
s sister. Or perhaps it is the same thing, yet troubling in either case. Where does this illusion come from, this sensation of
“
hardness
”
in a blue teakettle or an iron poker, golden haunches or a green piano
?

○ ○ ○

In the hexagonal loggia of the mansion stands a grand piano, painted bright green, though chipped and cracked now with age and abuse. One can easily imagine a child at such a piano, a piano so glad and ready, perhaps two children, and the sun is shining—no, rather, there is a storm on the lake, the sky is in a fury, all black and pitching, the children are inside here out of the wind and storm, the little girl on the right, the boy on the left, pushing at each other a bit, staking out property lines on the keys, a grandmother, or perhaps just a lady, yet why not a grandmother? sitting on a window-bench gazing out on the frothy blue-black lake, and the children are playing
“
Chopsticks,
”
laughing, a little noisy surely, and the grandmother, or lady, looks over from time to time, forms a patient smile if they chance to glance up at her, then—well, but it
’
s only a supposition, who knows whether there were children or if they cared a damn about a green piano even on a bad day,
“
Chopsticks
”
least of all? No, it
’
s only a piece of fancy, the kind of fancy that is passing through the mind of the girl in gold pants who now reaches down, strikes a key. There is no sound, of course. The ivory is chipped and yellowed, the pedals dismembered, the wires torn out and hanging like rusted hairs. The girl wonders at her own unkemptness, feels a lock loose on her forehead, but there are no mirrors. Stolen or broken. She stares about her, nostalgically absorbed for some reason, at the elegantly timbered roof of the loggia, at the enormous stone fireplace, at the old shoe in the doorway, the wasps
’
nests over one broken-out window. She sighs, steps out on the terrace, steep and proud over the lake.
“
It
’
s a sad place,
”
she says aloud.

○ ○ ○

The tall man in the navy-blue jacket stands, one foot up on the stone parapet, gazing out on the
blue sunlit lake, drawing medi
tatively on his pipe, while being sketched by the girl in the tight gold pants.
“
I somehow expected to find you here,
”
she says.
“
I
’
ve been waiting for you,
”
replies the man. Her three-quarters view o£ him from the rear allows her to include only the tip of his nose in her sketch, the edge of his pipebowl, the collar of his white turtleneck shirt.
“
I was afraid there might be others,
”
she says.
“
Others?
”
“
Yes. Children perhaps. Or somebody
’
s grandmother. I saw so many names everywhere I went, on walls and doors and trees and even scratched into that green piano.
”
She is carefully filling in on her sketch the dark contours of his navy-blue jacket.
“
No,
”
he says,
“
whoever they were, they left here long ago.
”
“
It
’
s a sad place,
”
she says,
“
and all too much like my own life.
”
He nods.
“
You mean, the losing struggle against inscrutable blind forces, young dreams brought to ruin?
”
“
Yes, something like that,
”
she says.
“
And getting kicked in and gutted and shat upon.
”
“
Mmm.
”
He straightens.
“
Just a moment,
”
she says, and he resum
es his pose. The girl has accom
plished a reasonable likeness of the tall man, except that his legs arc stubby (perhaps she failed to center her drawing properly, and ran out of space at the bottom of the paper) and his buttocks are bare and shaggy.

○ ○ ○

“
It
’
s a sad place,
”
he says, contemplating the vast wilderness. He turns to find her grinning and wiggling her ears at him.
“
Karen, you
’
re mocking me
!
”
he complains, laughing. She props one foot up on the stone parapet, leans against her leg, sticks an iron poker between her teeth, and scowls out upon the lake.
“
Come on I Stop it!
”
he laughs. She puffs on the iron poker, blowing imaginary smoke
-
rings, then turns it into a walking stick and hobbles about imitating an old granny chasing young children. Next, she puts the poker to her shoulder like a rifle and conducts an inspection of all the broken windows facing on the terrace, scowling or weeping broadly before each one. The man has slumped to the terrace floor, doubled up with laughter. Suddenly, Karen discovers an unbroken window. She leaps up and down, does a somersault, pirouettes, jumps up and clicks her heels together. She points at it, kisses it, points again.
“
Yes, yes!
”
the man laughs,
“
I see it, Karen!
”
She points to herself, then at the window, to herself again.
“
You? You
’
re like the window, Karen?
”
he asks, puzzled, but still laughing. She nods her head vigorously, thrusts the iron poker into his hands. It is dirty and rusty and he feels clumsy with the thing.
“
I don
’
t under
stand
...
”
She grabs it out of his hands and—crash!—drives it through the window.
“
Oh no, Karen! No, no
...
!
”

○ ○ ○

“
It
’
s a sad place.
”
Karen has joined her sister on the terrace, the balcony, and they gaze out at the lake, two girls alone on a desolate island.
“
Sad and yet all too right for me, I suppose. Oh, I don
’
t regret any of it, Karen. No, I was wrong, wrong as always, but I don
’
t regret it. It
’
d be silly to be all pinched and morbid about it, wouldn
’
t it, Karen?
”
The girl, of course, is talking about the failure of her third marriage.
“
Things are done and they are undone and then we get ready to do them again.
”
Karen looks at her shyly, then turns her gen
tl
e gaze back out across the lake, blue with a river
’
s muted blue under this afternoon sun.
“
The sun!
”
the girl in gold pants exclaims, though it is not clear why she thought of it. She tries to explain that she is like the sun somehow, or the sun is like her, but she becomes confused. Finally, she interrupts herself to blurt out:
“
Oh, Karen! I
’
m so miserable!
”
Karen looks up anxiously: there are no tears in her sister
’
s eyes, but she is biting down pain fully on her lower lip. Karen offers a smile, a little awkward, not quite understanding perhaps, and finally her sister, eyes closing a moment, then fluttering open, smiles wanly in return. A moment of grace settles between them, but Karen turns her back on it clumsily.

○ ○ ○

“
No, Karen! Please! Stop!
”
The man, collapsed to the terrace floor, has tears of laughter running down his cheeks. Karen has found an old shoe and is now holding it up at arm
’
s length, making broad silent motions with her upper torso and free arm as though declaiming upon the sadness of the shoe. She sets the shoe on the terrace floor and squats down over it, covering it with the skirt of her yellow dress.
“
No, Karen! No!
”
She leaps up, whacks her heels together in midair, picks up the shoe and peers inside. A broad smile spreads across her face, and she does a little dance, holding the shoe aloft. With a little curtsy, she presents the shoe to the man.
“
No
!
Please!
”
Warily, but still laughing, he looks inside.
“
What
’
s this? Oh no! A flower! Karen, this is too much!
”
She runs into the mansion, returns carrying the green piano on her back. She drops it so hard, one leg breaks off. She finds an iron poker, props the piano up with it, sits down on an imaginary stool to play. She lifts her hands high over her head, then
comes driving down with extrava
gant magisterial gestures. The piano, of course, has been completely disemboweled, so no sounds emerge, but up and down the broken keyboard Karen
’
s stubby fingers fl
y, arriving at last, with a cre
scendo of violent flourishes, at a grand climactic coda, which she delivers with such force as to buckle the two remaining legs of the piano and send it all crashing to the terrace floor.
“
No, Karen! Oh my God!
”
Out of the wreckage, a wild goose springs, honking in holy terror, and goes flapping out over the lake. Karen carries the piano back inside, there
’
s a splinterin
g crash, and she returns wield
ing the poker.
“
Careful!
”
She holds the poker up with two hands and does a little dance, toes turned outward, hippety-hopping about the terrace. She stops abruptly over the man, thrusts the poker in front of his nose, then slowly brings it to her own lips and kisses it. She makes a wry face.
“
Oh, Karen! Whoo! Please! You
’
re killing me!
”
She kisses the handle, the shaft, the tip. She wrinkles her nose and shudders, lifts her skirt and wipes her tongue with it. She scowls at the poker. She takes a firm grip on the poking end and bats the handle a couple times against the stone parapet as though testing it.
“
Oh, Karen! Oh!
”
Then she lifts it high over her head and brings it down with all her might—wham!—poof! it is the caretaker
’
s son, yowling
’
with pain. She lets go and spins away from him, as he strikes out at her in distress and fury. She tumbles into a corner of the terrace and cowers th
ere, whimpering, pale and terri
fied, as the caretaker
’
s son, breathing heavily, back stooped and buttocks tensed, circles her, prepared to spring. Suddenly, she dashes for the parapet and leaps over, the caretaker
’
s son bounding after, and off they go, scrambling frantically through the trees and brambles, leaving the tall man in the white turtleneck shirt alone and limp from laughter on the terrace.