The Sacred Beasts (36 page)

“A lot like Alex. Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s fortunate that we’re the same age this time around,” Ruth
said. Then Monserrat led her to the bedroom overlooking the Mediterranean, and
they made love without words. It was perhaps the most intense experience of
their lives. It went on for hours, entirely gentle and tender, and they often
thought they were merging, like the women in Monserrat’s paintings. When words
returned to them, Monserrat thought, of course, I must paint you. You will
paint me, I know, Ruth thought.

ALEX AND SYLVIE had, as usual, worked hard all day and, when Alex
came down to the painting room in the early evening, she saw a dramatic
painting of what looked like a Neolithic woman in a hut operating a primitive
forge. Where on earth did Ruth take Sylvie? She wondered, somewhere in the
Stone Age with wild bulls and lynxes one inch from your face, but still plenty
of prostitutes and gypsies? Sylvie may be a genius, but let me never be taken
there, she thought.

They were very hungry and immediately went to dinner at the
sidewalk café that was now their favorite. Alex decided to bring up a matter
that had troubled her during the night. “Are you very, very sure you’ve cleared
everything up with Ruth?” she asked, “or rather, have you completely given her
up?”

Sylvie instantly looked troubled. “I can give her up . . . but I
still sense that she is grieving. Somehow, I keep holding onto her because I
can’t bear her grief. Her grief is a very subtle thing, not at all obvious to
you, I’m sure, but it is to me. I imagine making love to her to relieve it,
which makes no real sense . . .” She looked even more disturbed. I’m
sure
Monserrat
is doing a great job of that! Alex thought. “Maybe there’s something I should
tell you . . .” Sylvie continued. “I made her promise that she would meet me in
a hotel somewhere a year from now, and we’d be lovers for a weekend. She said
she could easily promise something that would never happen.”

No
wonder
she laughed so hard! Alex thought and tried not
to laugh. “It may be something you can’t help her with,” Alex said, attempting
to look serious. “The subject of her book is depressing, to say the least. She
seemed happy enough to me, but you were the one talking with her.”

“I
want
to let her go. I
want you!
You must know how
much I want you!
”

Sylvie looked very fierce and very beautiful, Alex thought. She
dissolved into smiles of pure, foolish rapture. “I know that! Ah, my love,”
Alex said. She leaned over the table and gave Sylvie a long passionate kiss.
They did not notice the surprised commotion they caused on the street. “I know
what to do,” Alex finally said. “I’ll find her—tonight or tomorrow—and talk to
her. I’ll find out exactly what it is. I have so much in common with her; it’s
as though we’re related. Among other things, we both left the States in total
disgust, and that is a very powerful bond. I’ll tell you what her grief is
about and how you can help her. Then, you’ll be free.”

“Yes, do it!” said Sylvie. “It’s all strangely beyond me. I feel
helpless, and that is not an emotion I’m accustomed to.” They both smiled.

“I have a few practical questions,” Alex said. “Are you still on a
student VISA in France?”

“Oh, no! I’m a citizen of both France and Argentina through my
parents.”

“
Fantastic!
That’s just
great!
That makes it so much
more likely that we’ll end up in Paris permanently. I wouldn’t mind saying
goodbye to the violently perishing US of A forever.”

“But how will you become a French citizen?”

“In the U.S., all you need is an employer that really wants you.
They need good teachers everywhere in the world, and I’m seriously multilingual,
which should help a lot. May I ask another practical question?”

“Of course. I want to know where we’re headed, too.”

“This is hardly the time to ask, but since you’ve been with men up
till now, are you sure you don’t have AIDS?”

“Yes, this is a little late to ask that, but I’m glad you did if
it worries you. I’ve never slept with a man I didn’t completely control, and
I’ve never found a man irresistible. So, I’ve always had very safe sex, and no,
I don’t have AIDS. I want to become a great painter with an international
reputation, and dying young is hardly the way to do it.” She stared at Alex in
silence, and then asked, “Do you believe me?”

Alex paused. “Now that I consider it, it makes perfect sense. You
are one tough, gorgeous woman to try controlling.”

“You’ve never even tried, my love. We’ve been perfectly in sync.”

“Amen to that!”

They smiled and Sylvie touched Alex’s cheek. “Let’s go and listen
to the stories about mothers again tonight,” Alex said. “Last night utterly
amazed me. I loved it! After tonight, though, there won’t be any groups meeting
for two days. There’s something private going on tomorrow night; I don’t know
what. Then, the next day is Gay Pride Day, and everyone will be all over the
city. We’ve worked awfully hard, and this is the perfect time for a short
break. I know a place in the countryside that you’d love. It’s a Basque
shepherd’s hut beside a small lake, all very remote. I’ve gone there to get
away from the city several times, and I know the couple who rent it. We can swim
naked in the lake, and part of the hut’s roof is open to the air. We’ll take
pillows and blankets up there, and I can make love to you while you look at the
stars.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Sylvie said. “When you started talking
about a break, I was going to nix it, but who could resist that! No wonder I’m
crazy about you!” Why is she so utterly the One? Sylvie thought. Because there
are no limits. She is my adventure.

Alex smiled and stared at Sylvie with love. Crazy, crazy love, she
thought.

RUTH AND MONSERRAT were swimming naked in the moonlight in a
small, isolated cove that was beside Monserrat’s house. Floating together, they
saw the moon and the stars. Then, they swam in sync together and watched the
waves they created. “I feel like one of the women in your paintings who merged
with the cosmos; nothing is visible but the starry night. We’re swimming in the
firmament together,” Ruth said. “
This
is the way to live!”

“To love, too. Merging happens all the time.”

“I suppose it does. I’ve more often experienced it alone, camping
out in Patagonia.” But that day making love with Sylvie in the rain in Doñana,
Ruth thought, that was merging with the world. Actually, it almost always
happened with Sylvie . . . I hope everything is resolved with her . . . Ruth
looked at Monserrat, who was floating and glowing in the moonlight, and she
suddenly felt overwhelming desire. She drew her body into shallower water,
parted her legs and made love to her orally while holding her above the water.
She had no sense of time passing and could not have said how long they made
love. She heard Monserrat crying out. Later, when she became aware of herself
again, she was on the wet sand, and Monserrat was leaning over her, giving her
one orgasm after another. They both forgot the world again and lost
consciousness.

SYLVIE AND ALEX returned to the house and were watching the women
talking with great excitement. The atmosphere was very festive and many women
were obviously celebrating Gay Pride Day early. The house was packed with
women, too, since the word had gone out that the previous night was something
very special and the women would continue telling the stories of their mothers.

“We’re sure to hear more heroic stories, and no one will ask us
questions about our embarrassing mothers,” Alex said in excited anticipation.

Sylvie kissed Alex’s shoulder and said, “You’re so funny about
that! I’d never apologize for my deadbeat mother.” She saw Pilar and Libre and
remembered the paintings she wanted to do of her and Malena, one of the very
most charismatic mothers, Sylvie was certain. She began to think about the
project and saw an impediment. “I’m going to paint Pilar and Malena, but I
can’t visualize Pilar’s body,” she said. “She wears bulky clothing all the
time. I want to see her nude, but I can’t imagine how to ask her to pose. I
don’t know her at all. The easiest way to do it would be to just sleep with
her.”

“
What!”
Alex nearly shouted. “I can’t believe you said
that! I don’t know what to say! Well, holy shitty pie, for starts. No, you’re
not
going to sleep with her and me, too! I don’t want you sleeping with anyone but
me! How could you have thought that? How have you been living? Hell, forget
about it if you want me, because that’s just not in sync at all!”

“I . . . I’m so sorry,” Sylvie said.

“That’s just not good enough!”

“I didn’t realize you would respond this way .
. . I keep forgetting that women are so different from men. Please accept my
apology because I don’t think I’ve ever apologized to anyone before in my life,
certainly not to a man who was my lover.” She looked up at Alex in great
distress, took her hand, and kissed it. “I’ve never done that before, either.
Forgive me.”

Alex suddenly burst out laughing. “Your apology just keeps getting
worse and worse!” She began to laugh uncontrollably. “This is the funniest
thing I’ve ever heard a woman say! I must praise your utter lack of humility in
this life. No wonder your mother is a wimp. How else could she get along with
you? You just astonish me!” Her voice ended in a sigh of relief and she hugged
Sylvie. “I forget, too, what an utterly bad-assed woman you’ve been all your
life and gotten away with it. No one else does, let me tell you!”

Sylvie threw her arms around Alex’s neck and whispered, “Thank
you! Thank you! I thought that I’d have to get down on my knees.”

“That would be worse than death for someone like you!” Alex said,
still roaring with laughter. When they grew quiet again, she said, “It’s so
noisy here that I don’t think anyone heard us, which is good. I’d like to keep
this a secret.” She held Sylvie very tight and stroked her great mane of hair.
I’m holding her, but she could be a wild animal, Alex thought. I’m right beside
a wild animal, and it’s not safe, but here I am, doing it. She looked into
Sylvie’s eyes. This is not the first time I’ve thought this. It’s not safe, but
I won’t let go of her, no. Finally, Alex said, “Pilar is a very powerful woman,
too, not someone to play with, ever. I’ll go ask her to pose for you. I’ll do
it. I know her.”

Sylvie watched Alex make her way through the crowd, find Pilar,
and begin talking to her. They spoke for some time, and Alex was obviously
making small talk so that her request would not sound shocking. Suddenly, Pilar
looked startled, then angry, then proud, angry, and bellicose. Alex had
evidently just made her request. Pilar’s face was brilliantly alive with rage.
She elbowed her way directly over to Sylvie and stared at her, finally staring
her down.

“You know,” Pilar said, “some people look at me and think ‘here
comes trouble.’ Sometimes they even tell me that. I’ve seen you here, and you
know what I thought? I thought, ‘here’s trouble coming at you like a bull.’
There are some idiots following you around, all of which goes to show that
people never learn what’s good for them.” Pilar looked up at Alex, who had
joined them and heard the last few words, which caused a look of agony to pass
over her face.

“Alex, you are one of the women I most respect here, so I will not
tell this unmentionable exactly what I think of her. I will pose for you,
Sylvie, since Alex says you are a very serious artist. Whether you are serious
in other ways, I don’t know. So, here’s what will happen. When I pose naked for
you, you will be naked as you paint me. It will not happen any other way, I
assure you.” Again, Pilar took a long, severe look at Sylvie in perfect silence
and then walked away. It was clear that the sitting might or might not occur,
but no hanky-panky would ever follow.

Sylvie and Alex were silent for a long time and then looked
intently at one another. “If you laugh in this room, with her seeing you, she
might kill you, I warn you,” Alex said. “She carries a knife.” Sylvie nodded
with a completely serious expression on her face. “I warned you about her,”
Alex continued. “It’s no small thing that she grew up in a gypsy camp and made
it here with a college education.”

“You did warn me. And, I’ve just seen what may be the greatest
painting I will ever do.” She was magnificent, a wild animal! Sylvie thought. I
was standing right beside a wild animal, and it wasn’t safe; yet I was glued to
the spot and didn’t want to be anywhere else. “Thank you for introducing me to
that force of nature. I hope that I can win her respect one day, and I envy you
that you have it.”

A loud voice called out to the room from a member of the Mujeres
Libres group. “OK, everybody, we’re going to sit down now and tell the story of
our mothers, who they were, how they lived their lives, just as we did last
night. Who wants to start?” The women sat down, settled themselves and were
soon looking from one face to another with great interest.

The first woman who spoke was from the writer’s group, a poet who
supported herself through various part-time positions—fellowships at the
university, teaching, and journalism. “My mother and I are from the Basque
country, another region that is matriarchal. My mother has always been a
cyclone of energy and creativity. Our village is full of competitions in Basque
games and arts, most of which are held in the village tavern, as well as
outdoor competitions in sports. My mother is the village’s finest bertsolariak,
or spontaneous reciter of original poetry. In this Basque artform, you are
given a lead for a poem from a previous reciter as well as a particular meter,
and then you must continue or even complete the poem. There is applause and
cheering after my mother’s performances because she always completes the poem
brilliantly, dramatically and resoundingly. She has no equal, not even me. The
poems are never written down or published, and my mother has scorned my
attempts to do this for her. She loves the pure lawless fire of her imagination
and doesn’t want it to be limited in any way, even by a printed page that she
will never read.

“Poetry is by no means her only skill. She is also one of the
village’s best gamblers, for which there are tavern competitions, and she is
the finest and most dramatic player of the alboka, a Basque bull horn that
makes a sound similar to that of bagpipes. As though that weren’t enough, she is
one of the village’s best hill walkers as well, for which there are outdoor
competitions. The villages of the Basque region are often very poor, and paid
employment is difficult to find. Our village would be impossibly dull without
these competitions, which are an important part of our culture and economy.

“When I graduated from the university and became a well-published
poet, my mother was very proud of me. But, she also believes that spontaneous
poetry is the larger share of poetic greatness and has a more direct
relationship to the spirit, which she thinks of as a kind of creative fountain.
My mother is surely a fountain, but I wouldn’t say that for the rest of
humanity and its inspiration. I, on the other hand, believe that the finished
poem is greater, since it is the final and cumulative act of a spirit or self
that must be tested and harshly trained to channel and understand its
inspiration and the universe that has formed it. Because of this, many poets
think of themselves as people who must wait patiently in a thunderstorm for the
whole of their lives—and are only struck by the lightning of brilliant
creativity a few times. Similarly, others think of themselves as cosmic
interlopers—perhaps half-human and half-divine—who receive the visit of an angel
only a few times in their lives and must create their own inspiration and
poetry from such strange, marvelous and ambiguous material. These are ways of
metaphorically speaking about inspiration on the one hand (and those are only
metaphors poets use, not real angels or lightning), and on the other hand the
long hard toil that at last becomes great poetry. That’s my belief, anyway.

“One night when I was very young, my mother and I got a bit too
drunk in the village tavern and decided to compete as poets. I gave her a lead
from a published poem of mine in a certain meter, and we compared her
spontaneous completion of the poem with my own labored one. We did this several
times and then defended our poems passionately until at last we began to cast
original and elaborate curses at one another, which is a precursor to poetry
and also done in our village. Soon, we were competing through both curses and
poems. The whole village gathered around us in astonishment for the poem after
poem and curse after curse that poured from us. I must say that it was one of
my life’s most utterly magnificent moments, and I treasure it for both its
absurdity and its strange splendor.

“Eventually, we were too drunk to remember who had won, and the
villagers said they could not possibly decide between us. The next morning, we
could hardly stop laughing as we remembered what we had done, but we both
silently decided that any attempt to compare ourselves was impossible and that
we could never know what form of poetry was greatest. Only the metaphorical
angel would know, and there was nothing but silence from her. I think all poets
are conversant with metaphorical angels and devils, since poetry is in some
ways a truce between the two. So, we had no more discussions about the greatest
poetry or further escapades in the tavern that no doubt gave the village such a
great entertainment.

“My mother is profoundly apolitical, as you might guess. Both ETA
and the fascists much earlier as well as the resistance—anarchists, socialists,
and communists—have tried repeatedly to recruit her, since all could see her
unsurpassed energy and creativity. No one has ever succeeded, however. My
mother accepts no master—be it political, cultural or artistic. She says that
she honestly has no idea who my father was. But, she is certain it was an
itinerant poet, a group for which she has a secret relish. The perfect man is
one who will please her for an extended poetic moment and then depart for good.

“My mother has been poor for most of her life, as have the other villagers.
She inherited our house from my grandmother and has lived on the money won in
many competitions as well as government handouts that are common among those
who live in the Basque region. As soon as I graduated from the university, I
tried to give her money, but she was too proud to accept it. However, she does
keep the money I leave behind in the house after a visit, ‘gifts’ that seem to
be the work of providence or the supernatural. Her ‘logic’ is probably as
original and complex as everything else in her mind. She values herself
greatly, and perhaps it strikes her as natural that ultimate reality should do
so as well. Too, her spirit is so much that of a creator and gambler with life,
and there may be a certain logic to the notion that she ‘wins’ an unknown and
inscrutable ‘lottery’ from time to time. I do know that she does not believe
the money comes from me; she would throw it into the street behind me if she
thought so.

“I must say that my mother is the most complex and difficult
person I have ever known, though I love and admire her very much. I am always
grateful to have escaped from my Basque village, however, and to have found my
true freedom here in Barcelona. I’ve tried to convince my mother to come here,
if only for a visit; but she refuses, claiming that she, like the other
Basques, is of the original wild, historical stock from which the civilized
world evolved. She says that she is part savage and can’t stay in a truly
civilized place comfortably. I find this argument very disconcerting because,
though wild and strange, it has a certain truth to it. I have also read some
scientific studies—in archaeology, genetics and linguistics—that give some
credence to her claim. And, I can’t deny that she is happy in her ‘wild’ state.

“I have a lot in common with my mother. I, too, accept no master,
and I treasure individuality and human beings as they naturally are. This
infuses my poetry, and it is my personal answer to the question of my life’s
meaning, recognizing that all answers to such a complex question are
incomplete. Though my mother and I have sparred with one another like enemies,
she is a big part of who I am. That is the simple truth, and perhaps the only
simple one in the wonderful conundrum that is my mother.”

The room was now full of the sounds of many women commenting to
one another in soft voices. They were becoming more comfortable with the ebb
and flow of the stories, which individually were very dramatic and created a
room of complete silence around the storyteller. Slowly, they began to look
around themselves again, and the expectation of another story was clearly
present.