The Sacred Beasts (32 page)

ALEX WOKE UP late and Sylvie was gone. Where . . . ? She thought
sleepily but with dismay. Of course, she’s in the painting room. Alex washed,
dressed and hurried there. Sylvie was working with such obviously intense
concentration and emotion that Alex did not want to interrupt her. She did
watch, however. Monserrat provided a big supply of free canvases for all the painters,
and Sylvie had covered more than a dozen with images and colors that struck
Alex with awe: the face of a lynx that looked like an Egyptian god; a wild bull
rising out of a lake; fabulously colorful birds that Alex could not name; a
street prostitute with a harsh, unsettling stare; a gypsy flamenco artist who
seemed to be merging with a huge, turquoise bird; a gypsy dancer in a yellow
gown, dancing with a golden dagger; fantasy sequences, nude women and giant
insects in the Gothic Quarter, women making love in a night sky full of stars.
What was pouring out of Sylvie? She always said that she was painting Spain,
Alex recalled. Where on earth had she been? Alex could only marvel and smile. I
am in love with a genius in art, unpredictability
and
sex, she thought.
I hope I am her equal. That thought sent Alex quickly back to her own work.

RUTH AND MONSERRAT were now in a study beside their bedroom,
preparing to work. “There’s something I’ve never told you,” Monserrat said. “I
have a great theory, too. I wonder what you would think of it. At some point in
prehistory or history, Spain was matriarchal, according to some historians.
I’ve studied Spanish art and see some signs of it.”

“That’s right up my alley!” Ruth said enthusiastically. “You must
tell me your theory.”

“It begins in the first Neolithic art. The caves in Northern Spain
show representations of humans solely as handprints; they are obviously without
gender. The caves are in El Castillo, Santander and Alta Mira, and the images
were made between fifteen thousand and twelve thousand years ago. The greatest
animal paintings were done in Altamira—bison, horses, deer, bulls, even goats.”

“I’m familiar with them,” Ruth said. “The cave paintings were
found by the young daughter of a Spanish nobleman in the late nineteenth
century. So, women have even introduced them to us. The images seem to show a
time celebrating the magic of animals and the hunt and may very well have been
egalitarian.”

“It gets even more interesting in the Neolithic caves of Southern
Spain. In Teruel, you see the first representation of an entire human being
painted roughly ten thousand years ago, a woman who is climbing a tree.”

“You can’t imagine how exciting this is to me! There is no more
essentially bonobo behavior than that, and I had no idea this image was painted
in Neolithic Spain. Go on, please!”

“Well, in the southern caves, you also find the first
representations of group religion as a circle of men around a standing woman.”

“So, the power of animals and women were the first sources of
artistic and religious inspiration and expression. This is how we began.
Amazing! I wish we could get back there. I wouldn’t need to write my book if we
had a bit of Neolithic values.”

“Then, in the earliest Iberian art, appearing around the fifth to
the third centuries BC, you see a marked difference in the way men and women
are represented. Always more detailed, the women are motionless, symmetrical
and often open-armed, displaying a kind of cosmic power that is life-giving and
nurturing. Perfect stillness as cosmic power has a similar meaning in the
earliest Egyptian pharaonic art. I have a photo here in this book of one of the
earliest sculptures of an Iberian woman. It arouses very complex responses in
me. What do you see?”

Ruth stared for several minutes. “She is wrapped very gracefully
in a head-to-toe garment . . .”

“A manto,” Monserrat said.

“The rippling folds of the manto, the large roundness of her head
and her regular features—large eyes, thick Levantine brows—show perfect symmetry;
you’re right. There is also a more subtly balanced symmetry in the mirroring
roundness of her shoulders, the reversed positions of her hands—one open and
sloping upwards, one closed and sloping downwards—and her feet, which create a
base or altar. She stares in a trance-like state. Yes, I naturally think of a
self-sustaining cosmic unity suggesting a deity. There is also an intimacy and
charm to her; she looks as though she could fit into my hand.”

“The representation of men is all movement and asymmetry. It is
more primitive and less delineated.”

“Monserrat, you must publish these ideas! You must write a book. I
want to reference you in my own book.”

“You mean we’ll all be writing a book? Alex is writing at least
one, possibly a half-dozen.”

“So, we’ll all do it! They will be about our explorations,
discoveries, our passions. Why not do that?”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to be lagging behind everyone else.”
They smiled and began to caress one another’s faces. She gives me so much
pleasure that I want to do it and show it to her, Monserrat thought. “But poor
Sylvie,” she added, “she isn’t writing one.”

“Never worry about her. She is one of the most driven women I’ve
ever met,” Ruth said. “She’ll have her own art shows soon enough. Besides,
there is no reason the muses can’t inspire and worship one another.” They
laughed. Such a pagan, Monserrat thought, but one who loves me. “Go on, then,”
Ruth said. “I am your most enthusiastic audience on the topic of women in
Spain.”

“Here’s another sculpture from the same period, now part of the
collection at the archaeology museum of Barcelona. It was found in Ibiza, a
priestess wearing a large necklace, also open-armed with huge eyes and
beautifully regular features. The cosmic power is there again in her symmetry, open
arms, and hands partially closed, as though her spiritual power must also
return to her and sustain itself, similar to the meaning of closed finger
positions in ancient Buddhist art.

“You see?” Monserrat continued. “The art of men in this period is
still quite primitive in comparison. One piece of art is marvelous, though. The
Spanish always have their own interpretation of another cultural influence,
which is primarily ancient Greece at this time. This photo shows a scene
painted onto an Iberian vase now held by the archaeological museum in Madrid.
You see a dark Spanish man, naked and riding a horse bareback, who suddenly
encounters a winged god with a classic Greek demeanor. The horse, startled,
rears up, but the man smiles. You feel you can read his thoughts: ‘You, deity,
are what they told you to be, but I am as I please.’”

“That’s delightful!”

“Yes. So, the theory is not pure. There are exceptions.”

“Inevitable.”

“Here’s another, an Iberian priestess with clear Levantine
features. What do you see?”

“She holds a vessel out as though intending to pour a libation to
the gods and thereby protect her world. There is perfect symmetry in every
aspect—face, bodily position, clothing, ornamentation and headdress. Her face
is very serious, probably in a trance, with huge eyes. The unity is more
complex here, though. Her clothing, sloping both horizontally and vertically,
balances the sculpture’s other primary shapes, which are arched and pyramidal.
I see the center and giver of cosmic power. When did the ax fall on
matriarchy?”

“It was probably eclipsed by this time, which was one of endless
warfare between different ethnic groups; the art shows remnants of it, no more.
But, we still have the most brilliant example of all early Iberian sculpture.
Look at this photo of the ‘Lady of Elche,’ now at the Prado in Madrid. You see
an intricately huge, regal headdress and rich jewels covering her entire torso
to the waist. Her face could reflect no greater gravitas; she is as opulent in
her power as a queen or goddess. You see the entranced, cosmic
stare in a more penetrating form, enhanced by
realistic depiction. The point, of course, is that the most regal, cosmic,
powerful and complex art of this
earliest period represented only female
subjects. The male subjects look highly active but infantile, coarse and
primitive in comparison.”

“So, we begin with the power of women and animals as the basis of
religion and art, a power that nurtures life and is non-violent; after, male
dominance comes along with violence, aggression institutionalized in religion
and ethnicity.”

“That’s the story or rather, the book.”

“You must write it! You might also expand your study to include
the earliest art of other European countries and perhaps even further afield. I
bet you’ll find similar patterns and intriguing points of comparison. We’d then
have a full picture and might even be able to date the fall of matriarchy and
study what kind of culture emerged during and after its reign. That is why you
must write this book. It’s yours!”

IN THE LATE afternoon, Alex broke from her work and returned to
the painting room to find Sylvie. The painting of the Spanish dancer was
finished, and it was clearly the most brilliantly colorful and powerful
painting in the room. Sylvie lay beside it, asleep on a pillow from a couch in
the living room. Alex smiled: she could understand how Sylvie had exhausted
herself. She bent forward on her knees and slowly caressed Sylvie’s face.
Sylvie awakened with a smile, threw her arms around Alex and kissed her.

“Fuck me,” she said.

Alex blushed and laughed. “Sure. Come upstairs.” She pulled Sylvie
to her feet. Sylvie was suddenly wide-awake, watching Alex’s face carefully.
“Are you bothered by that language?” she asked.

“From you? Oh, no! Far from it. Besides, you’d make such a great
American.”

They made love in the room Sylvie had shared with Ruth this time;
they had been alternating between the two bedrooms on Sylvie’s impulse. Their
love was passionate, fast and a bit rough. Alex could now immediately sense
when Sylvie wanted this and also when her love was gentler. It was early
evening when they finished and then lay together, tenderly caressing one
another. “It will be perfect if you recite some poetry to me now and then we go
to dinner,” Sylvie said.

Alex recited:

Love turns
you into a rosebush

and in your
heart grows

a thorn as
big as a spike

from which
the devil hangs his costume.

Playing
with the parts you love you scorch your fingers,

and you go
on and on and on until you’re all ashes;

later,

on your
feet again,

your body’s
something else,

. . . the
statue of a dead hero who got it somehow,

and none of
the wounds show.

Sylvie laughed uproariously. “That was wonderful, just wonderful!
I can just see them all intertwined—a woman perhaps masturbating, though perhaps
I am too literal, and the head of a Greek god that seems to be shouting at her,
all drawn together by the profuse branches and huge thorns of the rosebush. A
Catholic cross is hovering in the air over them.”

“Wow!” said Alex. “Now I can see them, too.”

“But give me another, my muse.”

“The male poets are all writing about abstruse, cosmic matters,
you see, and then there’s the woman, far more original, who wrote this:

These
things, our things,

how they
want to be wanted!

The table
purrs under the weight of my elbows,

the chair
when I collapse in it,

the door
asks to be opened and closed,

the wine to
be purchased and drunk,

my pencil
undoes itself when I take it and write,

the closet
shudders when I open and peek,

the sheets
are sheets when I stretch out,

the bed
moans when I get up.

What will
come of things when we’re gone?

They’re
like dogs that can’t make it without their masters.

“Lovely,” Sylvie said. “I can’t tell you all the images passing
through my mind. Let’s hear another song, my muse.”

“This is entitled ‘Prayer,’ declaring, like the previous poem, no
meaning but in things:

You are
here on earth, our Father,

for I see
you in the pine needle,

in the blue
torso of the worker,

in the
small girl who embroiders

with bent
shoulder, mixing the thread on her finger.

Our Father
here on earth,

in the
furrow,

in the
orchard,

in the
mine,

in the
seaport,

in the
movie house,

in the
wine,

in the
house of the doctor.

Our Father
here on earth,

where you
have your glory and your hell,

and your
limbo in the cafes

where the
rich have their cool drink.

Our Father
who sits in school without paying,

you are in
the groceryman,

and in the
man who is hungry,

and in the
poet—never in the usurer!

Our Father
here on earth,

reading on
a bench of the Prado,

you are the
old man feeding breadcrumbs to the birds

                              on
the walk.

Our Father
here on earth,

in the
cigarette, in the kiss,

in the
grain of the wheat, in the hearts

of all
those who are good.

Father who
can live anywhere,

God who
moves into my loneliness,

you who quiet
our anguish, here on earth,

Our Father,
yes we see you,

those of us
who will see you soon,

wherever
you are, or there in heaven.

Sylvie smiled and kissed Alex for her
performance. “My muse,” she said.

“You’re my inspiration, too. There is no reason the muses can’t
inspire and worship one another.”

“I’m all for that!”

“I’m all for dinner. What a day!”

The cooler air from the Mediterranean passed over them as it grew
dark and they sat in a sidewalk café, eating dinner and drinking wine. “Is
there any way this life could be more perfect?” Sylvie asked.

“Actually, there is one. I’ve been tossing it
around in my mind. I’m doing an English translation of Spanish women poets as
my second book after the dissertation. It shouldn’t be much trouble getting an
American academic press for it or even a bigger publishing house. Monserrat has
a feminist book publishing company operating out of the house, and she has
offered to publish the original Spanish edition. I’d love to have you
illustrate it. That would make a very beautiful edition, a real work of art.”

“Oh, I’d
love
to do that!” Sylvie said in excitement. “Of
course, I want the widest possible audience for my work.
Thank you!
” She
immediately thought that may be the only time I’ve ever meant those two words.
“So now, I’m doing a book, too,” she continued and smiled, “like everyone else.
I wouldn’t want to lag behind on all of this inspiration. But poor Monserrat!
She’s not doing a book.”

“Never fear for Monserrat. How pathetic can the editor-in-chief
be, after all?”

Alex reached over the table and shook Sylvie’s hand as though they
had concluded a business deal and then, with a smile, also kissed her hand as
lewdly and sententiously as a Frenchman. “Grow famed along with me,” she said.
“The best is yet to be!” They both smiled and saw the lights of the city in one
another’s eyes.