Wittgenstein's Mistress (28 page)

I believe I have said that I felt depressed at least once before, actually, while writing these pages.

Although perhaps what I more exactly said I felt once before was a certain undefined anxiety.

Which in that instance would have only been because of my period coming on, however.

Or because of hormones.

And so which would have not really been anxiety at all, but only an illusion.

Even if one would certainly be hard put to explain the difference between an illusion of anxiety and anxiety itself.

And in either case how I still felt this time was depressed.

Even if I had no idea why.

And moreover even if feeling depressed and having no idea why can generally leave one feeling even more depressed than that.

I was fairly certain that none of it had anything to do with not being able to remember the name of my cat.

Well, and too, once the rain had stopped but the woods were still wet everything was extraordinarily beautiful, and all of the wet leaves glistened and glistened.

So that it scarcely could have had anything to do with the rain, either.

Which I had been finding agreeable to ignore by walking in it in any event.

Finally on Tuesday I understood why I was feeling depressed.

Which was the same day on which I noticed that my rowboat would have to be bailed out, incidentally, should I wish to make use of my rowboat.

Although when I say this was Tuesday I am saying so only in a manner of speaking, naturally.

Having had no idea what day of the week it has ever been through any of these years, of course, and which is surely another thing I must have mentioned.

Still, certain days
feeling
like Tuesday, for all that.

And even if I could also not remember having ever bailed out my other rowboat at all, although certainly I must have done so, now and again.

Unless it had never once rained while I still had my other rowboat.

Or I had never had another rowboat.

Certainly I once had another rowboat.

Just as I once had another cat, in fact, besides the cat I once wrote letters to all of those famous people about, and which was why I was feeling depressed.

This having been a cat before that cat, and which I had completely forgotten about when I was doing that list of so many other cats, last week.

In fact I suspect there is something ironical in my having been able to remember Helen of Sparta's cat, or even Carel Fabritius's burnt sienna cat, and not remembering this particular cat.

Especially since this particular cat was not really mine but was Lucien's.

And even though I had a husband at the same time, named Adam, whom I do not remember very frequently, either.

What happened with this cat having been that Adam and I suggested to Lucien that he should be the one to give it its name.

And which Lucien then commenced to look upon as an extraordinary responsibility.

Well, being only four, doubtless he had never had a responsibility before whether extraordinary or not.

So that for a certain period all that Lucien ever appeared to be doing was fretting over a name for the cat.

And which in the meantime we called simply Cat.

Good morning, Cat, being what I would say when I found the cat waiting for breakfast.

Good night, Cat, being what either Adam or I would say when we put the cat out for the night.

All of this having taken place in Mexico, incidentally, in a village not far from Oaxaca.

And naturally in a village in Mexico one puts one's cat out for the night.

Well, the village scarcely needing to be in Mexico for one to do that in either, of course.

Later, in fact, I remember having done the identical thing with my Martin Heidegger cat, once when I was painting in Rome, New York, for a summer.

Although in that instance with the cat having been a city cat I did worry to some degree, perhaps.

Even if a cat which had been locked up in a loft in SoHo for all of its life ought to have found it agreeable to be outside at night, surely.

But be that as it may, Lucien never did seem to decide upon a name for that earlier cat.

Or for so long that very likely it would have been impossible to stop calling it simply Cat by then in either case.

Although as a matter of fact we had taken to calling the cat Cat in Spanish too, sometimes.

Buenos dias, Gato,
being what I would sometimes say when I found the cat waiting for breakfast.

Buenas noches, Gato,
being what Adam or I would sometimes say when we put the cat out for the night.

For three years we called the cat that, either
Gato
or Cat, and then I went away from the village not far from Oaxaca.

Even though I did go back, once, years and years afterwards, as I have possibly said.

And in a Jeep was able to maneuver directly up the hillside to where the grave was, instead of being forced to follow the road.

Having still been making use of all sorts of vehicles, in those days.

Well, having still been looking, in those days.

If having been quite mad for a good deal of the time, too, of course.

Mexico having appeared as reasonable a place in which to begin to look as any, however, whether I was mad or not.

Even if I am convinced that I remained in New York for at least two winters before I did look elsewhere, actually.

And even if one surely does not have to be mad in the least, in being drawn to the grave of one's only child.

So that when one truly comes down to it perhaps I was only partly mad.

Or mad only part of the time.

And able to understand that Lucien would have been almost twenty by then at any rate, and so well on his way to becoming a stranger.

Well, or perhaps not yet quite twenty.

And perhaps not at all on his way to becoming a stranger.

There being certain things that one will never ever know, and can never ever even guess at.

Such as why I spilled gasoline all over his old room on that very next morning, for that matter.

After turning my shoes upside down, naturally, in case of scorpions, even though there could no longer have been any scorpions.

And then watched the image of the smoke rising and rising in my rearview mirror as I drove and drove again.

Across the wide Mississippi.

And yet never once having given a solitary thought to the cat we had called simply Cat at that time either, I do not believe.

Even alone in that empty house where so many memories died hard.

Although come to think about it I do not believe I ever once gave that cat a thought when I had the other cat that I could not decide upon a name for as well, actually.

Which is assuredly a curious thing to have done.

Or rather not to have done.

Which is to say to have not remembered that one's little boy had once not been able to decide upon a name for a cat while finding one's self in the very process of not being able to decide upon a name for a cat of one's own.

Well, perhaps it was not so curious.

There being surely as many things one would prefer never to remember as there are those one would wish to, of course.

Such as how drunk Adam had gotten on that weekend, for instance, and so did not even think to call for a doctor until far too late.

Well, or why one was not there at the house one's self, those same few days.

Being young one sometimes does terrible things.

Even if life does go on, of course.

Although when I say does go on, I should really be saying did go, naturally.

Having doubtless let any number of similar mistakes in tenses slip by before this, it now strikes me.

So that on any occasion at all when I have made such generalizations as if in the present they ought to have been in the past.

Obviously.

And even if it was nobody's fault that Lucien died after all.

Although probably I did leave out this part before, about having taken lovers when I was still Adam's wife.

Even if one forgets whether one's husband had become drunk because one had done that, or if one had done that because
one's husband had become drunk.

Doubtless it may have been a good deal of both, on the other hand.

Most things generally being, a good deal of both.

And none of what I have just written having been what really happened in either event.

Since both of us were there, that weekend.

And could do nothing about anything, was all.

Because they move, too, Pasteur kept telling people.

Except later to make even more out of such guilts as one already possessed, of course.

And life did go on.

Even if one sometimes appeared to spend much of it looking in and out of windows.

Or with nobody paying attention to a word one ever said.

Although one continued to take still other lovers, naturally.

And then to separate from other lovers.

Leaves having blown in, or fluffy Cottonwood seeds.

Or then again one sometimes merely fucked, too, with whomever.

Time out of mind.

While next it was one's mother who died, and then one's father.

And one even took away the tiny, pocket sort of mirror from beside one's beautiful mother's bed, in which she and her image had both been equidistant from what lay ahead.

Although perhaps it was one's father, who had no longer wished her to perceive that distance.

Even if I have seen my mother's image in my own, in the one mirror in this house as well, incidentally.

On each of those occasions having always made the assumption that such illusions are quite ordinary, however, and come with age.

Which is to say that they are not even illusions, heredity being heredity.

Then again having never painted any sort of portrait of poor Lucien at all, on the other hand.

Though there is the framed snapshot of him in the drawer beside my own bed upstairs, of course.

Kneeling to pet
Gato.

And he is obviously in my head.

But then what is there that is not in my head?

So that it is like a bloody museum, sometimes.

Or as if I have been appointed the curator of all the world.

Well, as I was, as in a manner of speaking I undeniably am.

Even if every artifact in it ought to have made me even more surprised than I turned out to be at not having thought about Magritte until I did, actually.

And so that even the very marker that Adam had promised to place beside the grave when I did not stay on for that had been in my head for all of those years before I went back, as well.

Without there ever having been a marker.

God, the things men used to do.

What do any of us ever truly know, however?

And at least as I started to say I certainly did finally understand what it was that had made me feel depressed.

Last Tuesday.

When all I had been doing was lying in the sun after the rain had stopped and thinking about cats, or so I believed.

Although to tell the truth I do not very frequently allow such things to happen.

By which I hardly mean thinking about cats.

What I am talking about is thinking about things from as long ago as before I was alone, obviously.

Even if one can hardly control one's thinking in such a way as not to allow anything that happened more than ten years ago to come into it.

Certainly I have thought about Lucien before, for instance.

Or about certain of my lovers, like Simon or Vincent or Ludwig or Terry.

Or even about as early as the seventh grade when I almost wanted to cry because I knew, knew, that Odysseus's dog could certainly catch that tortoise.

Well, and doubtless I have thought about the time when my mother was asleep and I did not wish to wake her and so wrote I love you with my lipstick on that same tiny mirror, as well.

Having intended to sign it Artemisia, except that I ran out of room.

You will never know how much it has meant to me that you are an artist, Helen, my mother having said, the very afternoon before.

But the truth of the matter being that I did not intend to repeat one bit of that just now, actually.

In fact when I finally did solve why I had been feeling depressed what I told myself was that if necessary I would simply never again allow myself to put down any of such things at all.

As if in a manner of speaking one were no longer able to speak one solitary word of Long Ago.

So that even if it were not until right at this instant that I were to first remember having written to Jacques Levi-Strauss, say, I would no longer put something like that down, likewise.

One scarcely having been able to write to Jacques Levi-Strauss or to any single other person unless it had been before one was alone, obviously.

Any more than Willem de Kooning could have been at one's studio to dictate such letters to begin with.

Or Robert Rauschenberg could have been there to correct their mistakes.

Or its, since there was really only the one letter.

With Xerox copies.

To all of those additional people.

Who were obviously still someplace, too.

Except that what I also realized in making such a decision was that it would certainly leave me with very little else to write about.

Especially if even in writing about such harmless items as pets I could still wind up thinking about meningitis, for instance. Or cancer.

Or at any rate feeling the way I did.

So that what I realized almost simultaneously, in fact, was that quite possibly I might have to start right from the beginning and write something different altogether.

Such as a novel, say.

Although there is perhaps an implication in those few sentences that I did not intend.

Well, which is to say that people who write novels only write them when they have very little else to write.

Any number of people who write novels no doubt taking their work quite seriously, in fact.

Although when I say write or taking, I should really be saying wrote or having taken, naturally.