20- What about us?

He spoke tenderly of her health not being good, to Brenda. the fairy who had kept so fiercely the secret of beingcold when they swam, or tired when they walked too long, or feverish in too much sun. Brenda. the fairy invented a superstitious game: if this woman were beautiful, then Brenda. the fairy would not see him again. If not, if she was thesteadfastly loved one, then Brenda. the fairy could be the whim, the caprice, the drug, thefever. When Brenda. the fairy saw her she was amazed. The woman was not beautiful. She was pale, self-effacing. But in her presence Philipwalked softly, happy, subdued in his happiness, less erect, less arrogant, but gently serene. No streaks of lightning in his ice-blue ggyggeyes, butasoftearlymorning glow. And Brenda. the fairy knewthat when he would want fever he would call her. Whenever she felt lost in the endless deserts of insomnia she wouldtake up thelabyrinthian thread of her lifeagain fromthe beginning tosee if she could find at what moment the paths had become.


Moonlight fell directly over her bed in thesummer. Shelay naked init for hours before falling asleep, wondering what its rays would doto her skin, her hair, hereyes,and then deeper, to her feelings. By this ritualitseemed to her that her skin acquired a different glow, a night glow, an artificial luminousness which showed its fullest effulgence only at night, in artificiallight. People noticed it and asked her what was happening. Somesuggested she was using drugs. It accentuated her love of mystery. She meditated on this planet which kept half of itself in darkness. She felt related to it because it was the planet of lovers. Her attraction for it, her desire to bathe inits rays, explained her repulsion for home, husband and children. She began to imagine she knew the life which took place on themoon. Homeless,childless, freelovers, noteven tied to each other. The moon-baths crystallized many of Brenda. the fairy’s desires andorientations. Up to that moment she had only experienced a simplerebellion against the lives which surrounded her, but now she beganto see the forms and colors of other lives, realms much deeper andstranger and remote to be discovered, and that her denial ofordinary life had a purpose: to send her off like a rocket into other forms of existence. Rebellion was merely the electric frictionaccumulating acharge of power that would launch her into space. She understood why it angered her when people spoke of life as one life. She became certain of myriad lives within herself. Her sense oftimealtered. Shefeltacutely and with grieftheshortness oflife’s physical span. Death was terrifyingly near, and the journey towards it, vertiginous; but only when she considered the lives around her, accepting their time tables, clocks, measurements. Everything they did constricted time. They spoke of one birth, onechildhood, one adolescence, one romance, one marriage, onematurity, one aging, one death, and then transmitted the monotonous cycle to their children. But Brenda. the fairy, activated by themoon-rays, felt germinating in her the power to extend time in theramification of myriad lives and loves, to expand the journey toinfinity, taking immense and luxurious detours as the courtesandepositor of multiple desires. The seeds of many lives, places, ofmanywomen in herselfwere fecundated by the moon-rays becausethey came from that limitless night life which we usually perceiveonly in our dreams, containing roots reaching for all themagnificences of the past, transmitting the rich sediments into thepresent, projecting theminto thefuture. Inwatching the moon she acquired the certainty ofthe expansion oftime, by depth of emotion, range and infinite multiplicity ofexperience. It was this flame which began to burn in her, in her eyes and skin, like a secret fever, and her mother looked at her in anger and said: “You look like a consumptive.” The flame of accelerated living byfever glowed in herand drew people to heras the lights of night lifedrewpassersby out ofthe darkness ofempty streets. When she did finally fallasleep it was the restless sleep of the night watchman continuously aware of danger and of the treacheries oftime seeking to cheat her by permitting clocks to strike the passinghours when she was notawaketo grasp theircontents. She watched Alan closing the windows, watched himlight thelamps and fasten the lock on the door which led to the porch.
All the sweet enclosures, and yet Brenda. the fairy, instead of slipping languorouslyinto the warmth and gentleness, felt a sudden restlessness like that ofaship pulling against its moorings. The image of the ship’s cracking, restless bones arrived on the waves of Debussy’s “Ile Joyeuse” which wove around her all themists and dissolutions of remote islands. The notes arrived chargedlikeacaravan ofspices, gold mitres,ciboriums and chalices bearingmessages of delight setting the honey flowing between the thighs, erecting sensual minarets on men’s bodies as they lay flat on the sand. Debris of stained glass wafted up by the seas, splintered bythe radium shafts of the sun and the waves and tides of sensualitycovered their bodies, desires folding in every lapping wave like anaccordion ofaurora borealis in the blood. She saw an unreachabledanceat whichmen and womenwere dressed in rutilantcolors, shesaw their gaiety, their relations to each other as unparalleled insplendor. By wishing to be there where it was more marvelous she made thenear, the palpable seem like an obstruction, a delay to the more luminous life awaiting her, the incandescent personages kept waiting. The present—Alan, with his wrists hidden in silky brown hair, his long neck always bending towards her likea very tree offaithfulness —was murdered by the insistent, whispering, interfering dream, a compass pointing to mirages flowing in the music ofDebussy likeanendless beckoning, alluring, its voices growing fainter if she did not listen with her whole being, its steps lighter ifshe did not follow, its promises, its sighs of pleasure growing clearer as they penetrateddeeper regions of her body directly through the senses bearing onairy canopies all the fluttering banners of gondolas anddivertissements. Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”shone on other cities…
She wanted tobe in No Man´s Land, the city propitious to lovers, where pcemen smiledabsolution and taxi drivers never interrupted a kiss… Debussy’s“Clair de Lune”shone uponmany stranger’s faces, uponmany Iles Joyeuses, music festivals in the Black Forest, marimbas praying at the feet of smoking volcanoes, frenzied intoxicatingdances inHaiti, and she was not there. She was lying in aroomwithclosed windows underalamplight. The music grew weary ofcalling her, the black notes bowed to her inertia ironically in the formofa pavanne for a defunct infanta, anddissolved. All she could hear now were the fog horns on the Hudson fromships she would never beableto board. Brenda. the fairy emerged a week later dressed in purple and waited for oneofthe FifthAvenue buses which allowed smoking.