Hunger's Brides (167 page)
            anything
I am waiting. I am here. Kneeling at the altar wedded to this hunger bled and fasted clean.
    Please â¦
      Anything â¦
Do you need to hear it?
So hear: I failed herâeyefailed I've flailed.
Now do I beg?
Nothing â¦
Windroar, no more.
You are alone here.
Foolish child silly idiotâcome to the heart of Mexico to find the eye of
Egypt
.
I always knew have known it in four hundred different nightmares. Funny how it feels at last to fail her ⦠so finely, so finally. So different from all that failure dreamed. Too weak to rage now ⦠to eke for/age â¦
Too tired for shame ⦠to
weep, for shame
.
The Science Queen will have to wait. Three more hundred years at least.
The very last thing now left to do, leave a few clues ⦠unrepeatable record of failed experiments, cautionary diary of a lost expedition ⦠for the sake of forsaken seekers of a future age.
Do not attempt this at home.
Five notepads, a dead laptop. December (?), 2295. Will they read English ⦠read anything? Or just break it all up for kindling ⦠a little fire ⦠one life saved at least. Maybe two.
For another hour. Maybe two.
Say it was worth it, Beulah.
Say good-night.
UANA
I
NÃS DE LA
C
RUZ
chorus
Hear me as I sing
of two Gypsies,
the contrasting glories
we find Egypt encompassing!
verses
To her breast, pale Cleopatra
in love fastened the fangs of an asp.
But how superfluous the serpent
there where love had passed.
Ah me, what torment!
Dear God, how piteous!
  But to the heroic Descendant
of an illustrious line,
the greater the Love by which she is wounded,
the more exalted is the death that she desiresâ
yet who truly dies
whose love has not ended?
  Fearlessly the Egyptian queen
offers up her breast to the venom,
for none feels the body's agonies
whose soul also is tormented
(to suffer less visibly
is not to suffer less).
  Cleopatra's nerve and passion
Catherine emulates, but deepens them,
in an imitation that surpasses
its own original:
just as one who lives for Christ
dies into Life eternal.
  That the Emperor Augustus
might never put her sovereign beauty on parade,
Cleopatra chose suicide, preferring thus
to end her life
than to face its debasement
and the creeping death
of her enslavement.
  Just so, did a heroic Catherine
bare her throat of ivory
to an inferno of blades:
(Hell itself would never break her faith)
and so, in dying, triumphed over
the one who took her life.
  For Cleopatra, infamy or death:
by each, a precious life was threatened;
her choice was death, borne
as the lesser evil
to one who cherishes honour
more than life itself.
  In like fashion
did the greater Egyptian, Catherine,
offer up her lovely limbs to the wheel of knives
and thus to triumph gallantly aspire.
By dying,
to reach Eternity.
ARLEQUIN
: S
OUND
B
ITES
        M
Y LAWYER PAUSED ON THE WAY
out the courthouse door to give me a free image-consult.“The girl's become a
cause
, Professor. If only the photos they're running were a tad less attractive. You understand, they want blood. Remember: bland, bland, bland. No quotes. Absolutely. You can't believe how stupid and self-serving they can make you sound. And whatever you do, don't say âno comment.' Say it wouldn't be appropriate to comment at this time. Better yet, say nothing. Got it?” He pulled a black woolen scarf out of his briefcase, shrugged on a grey overcoat.“You might straighten your tie. And
relax
, will you? Take a deep breath. I've seen you on TVâtry looking less guilty.”
My lawyer, my defender, guarantor of my rights and freedoms, bucking me up.
A string of news vans is parked along the sidewalk. Exhaust tumbling up from the tailpipes of passing cars ⦠slish of tires on wet pavement. April weather can be the most disappointing. Bare branches, tiny buds of green candied by the sleet. A sparrow's forlorn twittering echoes in the portico. Overhead, black clouds mass sharply as if painted over glass. Cameramen of competing networks huddle together, smoking. Journalists, wide-scattered, perched on their islands of ambition. We are spotted at last. Television to the front, radio and print on the peripheryâthey rush up the steps, jostling as they close in.
Icy, the granite stairs. Headline:
Philandering prof splits swollen melon on courthouse steps
.
Malicious whine of motor drives, bursts of light, seethe of flashes rechargingâ¦.
“Professor Gregory! Professorâwhy was the civil suit dropped? You cut a deal?”
“No comment.”
“Still expecting criminal charges?”
“That would be a question for his lawyer,” said mine.
“Doctor.” A familiar voice, a sardonic voice.“Have you nothing to say for
yourself?”
“Sorry.”
“Are
you? Can we quote you on that?”
I know this voice.
“That's not what Iâ”
“Then you're
not
sorry.”
“I have nothing toâ”
“Come on.” A hand tightening on my arm. “Let's go.”
“To be sorry for?”
“Nothing to
say
. It wouldn't be appropriateâ”
“What's appropriate here? A girl lies dyingâ”
“Who said she's dying?”
“You're saying the seriousness of her condition is
exaggerated?”
“Let's
go.”
If the steps had been less slippery he might have pulled harder.
“They're being cautious, naturally.”
“Because her father is a high-profile surgeon you mean?”
Two steps, a pause.“I said nothing of the sort. It'sâ”
“That's
enough.”
An angry warning in Eric Heffner's voice.“Thank you all. My client has no further comment at this time.” We were moving more briskly now.
“Was your client about to say she's not the real victim in this story? Maybe he is â¦?”
“The CBC hires telepaths now?” I called over my shoulder.
“Shut up.”
“You're not to blame thenâshe wanted to be stopped, wanted attention. That it? Maybe this was all a set up? Don Juanâ
victim
. That the real story? Girl bites dog.”
“That's enough. You are harassing my client.”
“He
is
a victim, then. First of circumstance, now the media. What about the other co-eds, Professor? Who else harassed you?”
“Let us through please.”
Questions shouted from all sides in a strident rush as we elbowed our way towards the taxi stand. Electric cords whipped clear of shuffling feet. Faces and microphones thrust across my line of sight.
“We're obstructing
you?
Are
we
obstructing justice too? Wait! Do you deny you've been victimized? Shall we take your silence as confirmation? Is that how you want the story to read?”
The public pillory. She'd foreseen it. Fifteen minutes. I get to be the entertainment. Pathetic sinner. Feed the enormous all consuming maw. The information hole. That which feeds the emptiness. Feel the
hole ⦠feed the whole. Time to
prepare a face to meet the faces that you greet ⦠to murder and create ⦠lift and drop a question on your plate â¦
I stopped at the cab and faced them. “No.”
“No what, Doctor? What's your story?”
“No, I am not a victim here.”
I turned and reached for the door handle ⦠sequined droplets on chrome.
“Dr. Gregory, one more thing: why would a widely published academic be calling vanity presses in Ontario? A respected intellectualâ
self-publishing?
Who wants attention, Doctor, who wants to be stopped?”
OLSTICE
        [20 Dec. 1994]
C
EDAR MAN WITH THE BARITONE EYES
/ river of dancing hands. Smile â¦
Pah! I see you have waited for us before climbing to the top but there are better days to go for a walk. You are much stronger than you lookâso are we all,
verdad?
âbut it takes more than lungs to climb Popo, you need to eat. Don't look so sad
hijita
, at least you left the treeline behind this time. The sickness can strike even the strongest at this height.
Ahh señorita que amable! gracias
for the cactus flower there are few women I accept such bouquets from anymore though of course many try.
Meet my wife's baby brother, Gregorio. It is his tent you slept in. Find you?âno magic we looked here because there is no point looking for you out there.
Not howâ
why
.
Yes I understood you the first time but we can talk when we are down. No no we cannot go back without you. The code of mountaineers is to take down what you have brought up. You remember. You are perhaps too tired now to smile. We are all tired.
Right now the snow is not yet too deep but in an hour it is maybe too late. 4,460 metres, this hut. Would you want us to be discovered up here next spring in metres or feet? 14,633. You have done well and so have I. Almost three of your miles in the air no? You are very light and Gregorio is strong but it is so very high, and I am old. So we must ask you to help us. The three of us together we can help each other. You have the young lungs, together we can find the legs we threeâ¦.
No listen please. We are friends now, I see in your eyes you see this. I know many things as I have told you and you would not leave a friend up hereâI know you maybe better than you think so do not ask this of me. But wait, before you answer me I will answer youâ¦.
Yes, for one minute we should be serious. I came up today for a son everyone loved. For fifteen years. Our last, the youngest. Pablito. He was touched a little, like you. But in the end he could not stay.
I am not here because I need to save someone. But know that each kindness to you is like a smile hello to him.
Entiendes?
A precious flower.
And from Gregorio here,
tambien
. Pablito was his favourite nephew.
Come down with us. We are asking you in my son's name.
Take my hand.
And we begin.
Twilight of thickflake snow shin-deep. Roam and swerve of dogs and goats among the tents. Indios blanketed, sexless bundled wool, old and young alike. Breaths of spume, bent on kindling fires with grasses and dung. What century is this what season what worldâbelow this snow, this cloud, the stonethroes of smog-choked cities. Five million souls east on the plains, twenty-five more in the valley westâ¦.
Hijita
I see you were not expecting people still here so late. Yes the snow, of course. It is dangerous to go back down to the village now. But most would stay tonight anyway. It is the solstice. You did not know. They have asked that you eat with us. Not muchâthey respect your fast. Simple food. Mostly of cornâa
pozole
, and a broth of chicken and
chipotle
with lime. Tortillaâdid you know we import corn now from Gringolandia?âwe who brought the world the civilization of the Corn. It would be enough that you hold a bowl in your lap, to join with us.