I dreamed about my father last night, she said to Irene, next day.
Was it a good dream? Irene asked her.
It was, she said. I don't remember much about it except we were in Mexico, very together in our feelings, and very happy.
Do you often dream about your father?
Yes, said Susannah. All the time, now. I didn't for a long time. I shut him out when I was little. I closed the door between us. Nobody ever warned me it would take so much energy to keep it closed! Or that I would feel so lonely on the other side.
What is that cry that you sometimes hear in fairy tales? asked Irene.
There's not enough father! They both screamed in mock lament.
I didn't know how little there was until I gave mine up, said Susannah. I hadn't realized it was a luxury to have even the tiniest bit.
My father disowned me, said Irene. The littlest bit of such a noxious parent would have been too much.
And yet you inherited all his money.
And his corruption and his enemies, said Irene. The world sees a billion dollars falling into my tiny lap and it thinks I am made whole by it. What nonsense. My father manufactured arms, his company still manufactures arms, which are sold to poor countries so that the people kill each other. He owned brothels in Cambodia and Thailand. He had poor young children bought and then killed for their body parts. Ugh, she said. It is not possible to pass on clean money when the way it is made is so dirty.
Gosh, said Susannah, shocked. I don't envy you at all!
Nor should anyone, said Irene. I use my father's money to see the world, but that is only a fraction of it. The rest I must disburse in a way that does good.
When my parents went to Mexico to study the Mundo, said Susannah, they needed money very badly. No anthropological society would sponsor them. Things were very racist then. Even more than now. What a difference it would have made if someone like you had been around to fund them!
I think it is ridiculous and ultimately insulting to study people, said Irene. I think you would only need to study other human beings if you were worried you were not human yourself.
Susannah laughed. I've often thought what a European trait studying other people is. Other folk who meet strange people want to dance and eat with them, go swimming and talk about what colorful or peculiar wildlife there is about. They prefer to sit around and smoke ganja or the peace pipe, listen to music and just kick back.
That's because they haven't come to steal everything, said Irene.
Do you think Europeans are actually from here? asked Susannah. They don't seem to like the earth very much.
Where else would we be from? asked Irene.
Oh, I don't know. Another planet, said Susannah. A place where the artificial is natural.
We come from here, said Irene. But remember, we suffered the Ice Age. It came on suddenly, as suddenly as the abduction of Persephone. I've often thought the myth of Demeter and Persephone was a metaphor for the abrupt coming of the Ice Age. We were plunged into the most bitter winter, which for countless generations of our ancestors never ended.
Really? said Susannah.
Yes, said Irene. It destroyed something in us. Or deformed it badly. Something human. It destroyed our trust in nature, our belief that the earth loved us, or was even, really, our home. Everything we loved and relied on had turned on us and treated us with contempt.
Irene laughed, suddenly. And when those frozen Europeans finally stumbled into the warmth that Southern people in America and those in India and Africa had been enjoying while they were freezing, were they mad!
It is so wonderful to listen to you, Irene, said Susannah, because, as you know, generally speaking, white people almost never study themselves. As white people. They prefer to study us and write about how we don't quite measure up.
They can't believe how out of synch they are, said Irene. They can't figure it out and they're afraid to find out how different they are from the rest of the world's peoples. Rather than risk humiliation and have to own up to an inferiority complex, they've spent the last several millennia trying to prove there's something inferior and wrong about everybody else.
Irene snorted. They've catalogued their deviant behavior faithfully, however, on television. It is there for the whole universe to see. Every moment they are destroying something, killing women, and you can't look at the set without having a gun pointed back at you.
What would Tibetan television be like, for instance? said Susannah. Remembering how, in Kalimasa, the puppet show that had once amused crowds of villagers as they gathered around the tiny stage in the middle of the market, had, with television, simply been televised, and that was what the people still loved to watch. Except, eventually, Western movies and TV shows had begun to trickle in, and the scantily clad natives sat in horror as giant buildings exploded before their stricken eyes, and men killed each other over piles of money, and women prostituted themselves for fun, and everybody carried a gun.
The other thing that Europe lost, said Irene, was her mother. Her strong mother.
What do you mean? asked Susannah.
I mean that the men who controlled the Christian Church during the Middle Ages burned her at the stake. The witch burnings, remember?
Susannah sighed. Yes, she finally said, battling an unexpected wave of despair. Imagine your strongest, best, most spirited women--
And wisest, Irene interjected.
And best men, too, continued Susannah. Because the best men always love women. Imagine all of them captured, tortured, and systematically put to death, over a period of centuries!
Irene shivered.
And then these Christian sons of the Inquisition "discovered" us heathens, strolling about in a warm climate, our mothers still respected as midwives and healers, our parents still wise in the ways of plants and the earth.
The Envy! sighed Irene. It gives me gooseflesh just to imagine it. Better to chop off heads and cut Indian babies in half, or destroy black families in Africa by brutalizing and enslaving them--all of which they did--than to realize that much of the "uncivilized" world, unlike Europe, had not been forced to kill off its mother and made to shrink its spirit to half its size.
Living
with the Wind
Like my mother, who was always peering into my father's soul through the aching mist of his love for her, I am always peering through the mist of my orgasm itself. I too am seeking what is essentially beyond it.
Lily Paul looked troubled. To her what was beyond the orgasm was, hopefully, only a brief respite from orgasmic bliss.
No, said Susannah, this does not mean you have failed me as a lover. Quite the contrary, girl. You have been wonderful. You have been the lover to take me closest to the door of my own locked closet.
Susannah laughed, saying this, and met a glimmer of ironic humor in Lily Paul's limpid brown eye.
Thank you, said Lily Paul drily.
Yes, said Susannah. Without our relationship I would never have known how far away I was from what could be. What heights of spirit one might reach through such a physical act. No wonder the church has demonized it.
Thanks again, said Lily Paul. I guess.
Oh yes, said Susannah. I am grateful.
But you do not want to marry me?
If we wanted children, said Susannah. And at our age, what would we do with them?
Ugh, said Lily Paul.
Susannah grinned.
It is astonishing to me that women still have them, said Lily Paul.
Not everyone had your childhood, darling. And even you are happy you had a son. By the way, is it my imagination, or is it true that all pregnant lesbians give birth to sons?
They have more than they'd planned on, said Lily Paul. That's for sure. And there we all are, she sighed, praying for girls. It's enough to make you doubt the Goddess. But aren't you at least curious? she asked Susannah.
About having a child? No, said Susannah. I'd like to have given birth, the same way would
-be writers would like to have written. For the experience. I wonder, though, how men can stand it, she mused. Knowing the experience of giving birth is permanently beyond them. Must be quite a blow to the ego.
They couldn't stand the pain, scoffed Lily Paul; they'd faint at the sight of blood.
They've walled themselves off from woman's blood, said Susannah. But how they must miss it! It's what they're made of, after all.
That's why they go to war, of course, said Lily Paul. Why they kill each other.
To see blood? asked Susannah.
To see blood. To experience the awe, the terror, the mystery of it.
They should have just let us continue to drip, said Susannah.
No, said Lily Paul. Birth was too powerful a ceremony. It is the mother of ceremonies for good reason. A trail of blood leads you directly to it. If you erase the trail you can keep people from discovering the ceremony. You can pretend it isn't even happening; or, if it is happening, that it isn't really important. You can pretend your ceremonies were not copied from it.
I would be open to a ceremony honoring our true relationship, said Susannah.
And what is that? In your estimation.
You have been my teacher, said Susannah. You have taught me a freer and much deeper expression of sex. I am your student, she said, reaching over to kiss Pauline's hand.
Pauline snatched her hand away. Goddess, she said, sometimes you are so annoying!
It is my nature, Susannah said, and laughed.
I have learned a thing or two from you, too, said Lily Paul, after several minutes of silence.
Oh, said Susannah, becoming serious.
Yes, said Lily Paul. True education is never a one-way street.
Ouch! said Susannah.
Oh yes, said Lily Paul. I can study just as hard as you. And what I've learned from our years of mutual cramming is that I can neither have you nor be you. Nor can I have your childhood instead of my own. I'm stuck with who I am, she said, twirling a silver lock with her finger. I'm trying to learn that that's not so bad.
Not so bad! laughed Susannah. Not so bad! Darling, it's wonderful! You're gorgeous, rich, a great lover, and a very good cook. What else is there?
A life with you, said Lily Paul, stubbornly.
Susannah sat calmly, smiling into Lily Paul's eyes.
A life with me would be like living with the wind.
Blow, said Lily Paul.
The Cathedral
of the Future
The cathedral of the future will be nature, Senor, said Manuelito. In the end, people will be driven back to trees. To streams. To rocks that do not have anything built on them. That is what the Mundo believe.
This was the boy who might have been my son-in-law. Why had I been so stupid as to divert the stream of life? I might have had grandchildren who grew up to walk thoughtfully about the world teaching these things!
No one among the Mundo believes there is anyone on earth who truly knows anything about why we are here, Senor. Even to have an idea about it would require a very big brain. A computer. That is why, instead of ideas, the Mundo have stories.
You are saying, are you not, I said to Manuelito, that stories have more room in them than ideas?
He laughed.
That is correct, Senor. It is as if ideas are made of blocks. Rigid and hard. And stories are made of a gauze that is elastic. You can almost see through it, so what is beyond is tantalizing. You can't quite make it out; and because the imagination is always moving forward, you yourself are constantly stretching. Stories are the way spirit is exercised.
But surely you people have ideas! I said.
Of course we do. But we know that there is a limit to them. After that, story!
He had told me he must go away for a while. In his absence I must practice the initiation song. I was puzzled by the last stanza, the one that ends "por la luz de los ojos de mi padre."
No, no, Senor, said Manuelito. You keep saying by the light of my father's eyes. That is not correct. It is "por la luz de la sonrisa de mi padre"! By the light of my father's smile.
I shrugged. It seems only natural, I said. The eyes have light, I said. The teeth do not.
Think of the smile as the crescent moon, he said, high in the night sky. Though turned sideways to North Americans, in our hemisphere it is turned like a bowl, or a boat, so that it is like a smile in a dark face, is it not?
Oh, I said. I had never really thought about the moon.
Do not worry, Senor. All you need to do is practice. When the time comes, you will understand.
Why must you go away? I asked.
Remember how I told you that everyone who dies has two tasks? Well, the one that I have to do that does not involve you and Magdalena is in Vietnam.
I realized what this might mean for him. I held out my arms. I am sorry, I said, embracing him.
Do not be sorry for me, Senor. After all, I am safely dead. And as you see, it is not a bad life. But in Vietnam there is a child, a little girl whose spirit died the moment her parents were killed. She is now a prostitute on the streets of Da Nang, and dying of AIDS.
Did you murder her parents? I asked.
I did, he said, simply. After I hid her in a granary basket, through whose chinks she apparently peeked. Our orders were to destroy the village. We destroyed it.
How will you face her? I asked.
She will die, and then it will be easy.
But she will hate you, I said.
No, he said. She will understand immediately that I am bringing back something she has lost. It is what she most wants to take with her into her death.
What is that? I asked.
The moment just before her parents were shot. The last moment of being herself. The last moment of being whole. Of having a soul. It is amazing, is it not, to think that that moment is one we shared? We two, alone of all the world. Complete strangers. Neither speaking the other's language, except through the eyes. And yet, I saved her because she reminded me of Magdalena, the first day we met, the day she stepped on my foot.
Manuelito laughed.
How can you laugh! I asked.
Oh, Senor, he said. Laughter isn't even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don't you think?
And so you laugh, I said.
I laugh, he said, waving his hand in the air, attempting to disguise a tear.
Bears
Susannah is lounging in a deck chair on the deck of Irene's yacht. She is wearing a red, scoop-neck T-shirt and dark green shorts that close along the side with black buttons. On her feet are white espadrilles. Her hair has grown longer since she's been traveling with Irene, and is in glossy, silver-streaked locks that resemble Pauline's; her left nostril sports a twinkling golden stud; her lanky frame seems deeply bronze against the khaki of the chair. She is reading a letter from Pauline:
The first thing that happens to women after they've seen how being with one another can work, is that they have a case of the frights. It is as if they look into each other's eyes and discover they've been trasformed into bears.
My daughter smiles at this image, enjoys this turn of her former (she thinks) lover's mind, and looks out on a glass-smooth sea. She only misses Pauline when she doesn't hear from her. This puzzles her. The minute she gets a letter, she feels she doesn't miss her at all. But now she thinks: Is this simply a part of being, and of perceiving, the bear? She holds the letter in such a way that it shades her eyes from the sun.
I miss you, the letter continued. Shamelessly. I think about you all the time. Every minute of the day. In fact, I create extra minutes in the day in which to miss you. In my derangement, I have created a new dessert, a completely healthy and delicious blackberry shortcake. Its name is "Oh, Susannah!" Diners are in love! Susannah stretches her arms above her
head and inadvertently smells her armpits. She imagines Pauline's head, her silver locks, nestled there. Startled, she blinks her eyes.
It is never smooth sailing, she read. Whether with woman, or, as I imagine, with man. In fact, one of my friends tells me that the surest way to have sympathy for a man is to start sleeping with women. Did you think I would be problem free? Better than Petros? More soulful than that other guy you never liked to talk about? I have problems. I work on them. What more can anyone do?
At this, Susannah sat up. It was time for lunch, and she saw Irene coming toward her.
Did you notice that the boat has stopped? asked Irene, as one of the crew laid out bowls and salad forks.
Has it? asked Susannah, in a daze. She was still thinking of Pauline, and, in fact, mentally writing a response to her which she would later wire from the office-study Irene had thoughtfully set up for her on the astonishingly well-run and self-sufficient boat. She was stuck on one line, the most honest she would ever bring herself to write: You are a bear; I am a bear; yes, I am afraid.
It is over there, just by that outcropping of rocks, that I will place my mother, said Irene, pointing at a sloping hillside that seemed to be sliding into the sea, and on which yellow grasses and bright windflowers winked in the sun. No matter how much sun Irene got, she never seemed to tan. Now she squinted in the direction she pointed, her skin as white as paper and mottled by brown liver spots.
Ah, said Susannah, seeming to relax into the spectacular view. It is stunning. What a view she will have!
Yes, said Irene, mopping up goat cheese and salad juices with a piece of bread. It is not a bad place to spend eternity.
Eternity. The word made Susannah think, quite firmly, of the moment. The moment in which she sat immersed in the daughterly intentions of Irene. Every once in a while, lately, perhaps because she was getting older, she had these moments that seemed dense and deep, true and eternal. They seemed outside of and beyond time, somehow. And in this particular moment, she was languorous from the stately, nearly imperceptible roll of the boat, the excellent grilled fish and opulent Greek salad, the ticklish white wine, and the face of her friend, as Irene looked at the Greek island landscape and straight into her abused and rejected mother's heart.