Psyche in a Dress (4 page)

A
t last, she came for me

I had waited forever

I took the train home from my hell god

It was late morning

My mouth was parched

My skin felt raw

My eyes ached in the sunlight

There were bruises and bite marks

hidden under my clothes

One of my ribs was dislocated

I heard it pop out when Hades took me from behind

and every time I breathed

I felt the scrape of it

I did not think of myself as damaged, as a victim

I saw myself as a woman in love

I had forgotten that this was just maybe another trial

another task I must accomplish

another test

She was waiting for me in the lobby of the building

where I lived

Someone had let her in

She had slept all night on the horrible, scratchy sofa

She had gained weight and she had wrinkles

and she was so beautiful to me

I wanted to jump back inside of her

That was all I could think of

She didn’t say anything, she just held me

I wept into her long white linen trench coat

My rib hurt more when I cried but I didn’t care

She smelled like wildflowers, and that is not the same

as other flowers but much lighter—

a little acrid and sun-warmed and windy

She wore beautiful Italian shoes and no jewels

We went to the hotel where she was staying

It was a small villa overlooking the city

She ordered room service—

poached eggs under a silver cover, smoked salmon,

fruit and cheese, sparkling water

She made me take a bath

using the tiny bottle of green bath gel

and the soft white washcloth

When I came out

wrapped in the white terry cloth bathrobe

we sat on the bed and ate our meal

I realized how hungry I was

“How did you find me?” I asked her

“Your father”

“You went to him?

I thought you were never going to talk to him again”

“Everything was dying,” my mother said

“I was killing it; I couldn’t help myself

Without you everything was dead

and I knew I had to see him again

To find you

Anything was worth finding you”

“What did he make you do?” I asked

I knew my father. He didn’t do things for free

“Oh, nothing, don’t worry, darling,” she said

“Eat your eggs”

It was dark in the room

The pale green drapes were drawn closed

The sounds of the city were soft, faraway below us

“Now, who did this to you?”

She put her hand on my rib cage

Her fingers felt so good there, so cool

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not naïve, you know

Remember who I married?

I see all the signs”

I shook my head

“It’s not like that”

I didn’t want to tell her about Hades

Or even Orpheus

I wanted to tell her about my first lover, Love

The one who never hurt me

He killed me but he never

hurt me

Do you understand?

“I know that you are here with the god of hell,” my

mother said calmly. “I know because for me everything

is dying. I want you to come

back with me so I can come back to life. We can live together. You can go to school

there. This place is terrible for you. Look at you.”

But it wasn’t as simple

as that

What if I returned with her

and left my god of darkness?

Would I ever grow up?

Would I ever pass the test?

Would my first lover be mine again?

No, I would stay

a strange little girl, living with her mother

until they both died in some ritual

holding on to each other

the flowers blooming around them

killing them with beauty

“I can’t,” I told her

“It’s more complicated”

“Let’s go out,” my mother said

as if she wanted to show me

that the beauty of the world would not destroy me

That it was ours

The sun had come out and the city smelled of flowers

Trees were heavy with pink and white blossoms

The fog lay across the bay where Hades lived

It had not come over the bridge

My mother and I went to a café full of lovely people

We ordered brightly colored Italian sodas

and French pastries

Then we went shopping

The store windows were full of ballerinas

and brides in tulle

My mother bought me a white lace vintage dress

with a full skirt

and pale pink leather boots with sharp heels

We went to the art museum

and looked at the visiting exhibit—

boxes full of weird things

china dolls’ heads and hands

tree branches hung with crystal eyeballs

shattered pocket mirrors, a dead bird with one wing

paintings of goddesses that looked like men in drag

We sat beside a fountain and petted a golden retriever pup

Art students had set up their easels to work on the plaza

A clown was juggling

There was a skateboarding couple with dreadlocks

There was a man in a white shirt

with the sleeves rolled up, showing off

his brown forearms

He was reading a poetry book

and he smiled at us—bright teeth—

a toss of brown curls like a god in a painting

It was as if my mother had planned the whole thing

to show me what she could give me

That night my mother wanted to meet Hades

I told her no

We could go out together instead

The movie we saw

followed the lives of a group of children

Every seven years

the filmmaker made a documentary about them

The same children who had seemed so charming

and full of promise

changed

grew fat, sad, strange

I wondered how we keep from spoiling the angels

who come to us

I thought of the men I had known

what they must have been like when they were born

So gentle and small

I wondered if I could ever have children

knowing how I might damage them

Afterward my mother and I ate miso soup

and nightshade vegetable tempura

in a restaurant decorated with purple irises

She told me she still wanted to meet Hades

These mothers, they can be persistent

“It’s really not that serious,” I said

“I want you to know I don’t blame you”

said my mother

“I blame your father

And my father for setting such a bad example”

My mother’s father had swallowed her whole

and vomited her back up

My father had become a bull

a swan

a cloud

a shower

of gold

so that he could have sex with other women

It made sense that I would choose Hades

Who else would I choose?

I slept next to my mother

in the smooth, warm bed in the pretty hotel

The sheets smelled of bleach and chocolate

The city twinkled and murmured below us

I slept better than I had in years

But in the morning, over croissants and coffee

my mother asked me again

She said, “I have a small whitewashed house in the countryside, not far from the sea. I bought it with the
money from the jewels your father gave me. I have flowers instead of diamonds—they’re not doing so well right now, but you should have seen them! What they can be! There is a wonderful college; you could go there. We could drink wine and eat ravioli in the plaza in the evenings. You should see the art! The men! The light is rose gold at dawn, like blown glass in the morning, like watermelon when the sun sets on the city.” She said, “I’m leaving today, I want you to come with me”

But why should I leave?

My mother had left me

a long time ago

All I knew about her, really

came from the movies I had seen her in

the articles I had read

the smell of her clothes

She had abandoned me to her own hell god, my father

Now she was back, trying to take me away from mine

Why should I leave you?

“I’m not ready,” I told her. “I am still with him”

“I want you back”

“But you left me. How can I trust you?”

There were tears in my mother’s eyes

but she knew I was right

She left that afternoon

And I went back to hell that night

Whenever I felt pain I imagined that I was one step closer

to finding my lover again

I had completed the tasks of patience

self-denial and self-punishment

earned him this way

But what had I really done?

Given up a demigod of poetry

let myself be fucked by hell himself

Were those things enough?

Still, I told myself, I will keep trying

Until I am too old to want to be immortal

I dropped out of school and stayed with Hades

Every day was the same

I would wake late in the morning and make his coffee

After his shower I would help him to dress

combing his hair, choosing his rings

making sure his black leather pants fit smoothly

buckling his belt

helping him with his boots

When he left to make his rounds

I would do the marketing—

Chinatown for spices and dead chickens

Little Italy for fresh pasta and strings of sausages

The Lebanese market for rosewater and lamb

I spent the rest of the day cleaning Hades’s house

polishing the black floors, dusting the artifacts

scrubbing the toilet

and cooking his evening meal

Before Hades came home I made sure I had bathed

put on makeup and a beautiful

dress

We ate together and drank red wine

at either end of the long table

We rarely spoke anymore

After dinner Hades left again

Sometimes he took me with him

to an opening of a club or to hear a new band

I held his hand and was very quiet

Usually I wore a dark lace veil over my face

When we returned home

the sky had turned pale with fog like a bride

Sometimes Hades grabbed me

in the large black bed

and sometimes he fell asleep

without touching me, his face to the wall

This went on for six months

I cannot say I was unhappy

I kept thinking that I was paying some important price

My dreams were full of dark treasures

china dolls’ heads and hands, shattered pocket mirrors

a dead bird with one wing

I collected them to my breast

gathering my strength

After a while, I packed my things

and took an airplane to stay with my mother

Demeter lived in a whitewashed cottage

in the green hills above the sea

Every day was the same

I woke at dawn and bathed

helped my mother prepare breakfast—

muesli and fruit and cream

Then we went out into the garden and planted

pulled weeds and watered until the leaves

were emeralds

We went into the village

with cobblestone-paved streets

and bought fresh eggs and opalescent milk

Sometimes we went down to the beach

and swam in the sapphire water

We basked in the sun in giant hats

In the evenings we put on lipstick

and flowered gauze dresses we had made

and went to sit in the cafés

We ate pasta and drank wine

and watched each other glow in the candlelight

Men emerged from their marble prisons

So many speaking statues, perfect stone beauties

but we never went home with them

In the morning we gathered blossoms

that had bloomed overnight

This was the life my mother had bought

with the devil’s jewels

I cannot say I was unhappy

But sometimes I would wake at night

in my mother’s bed

and the smell of flowers through the window

made me wheeze, gulping for breath

Love, he was not there

Every six months I returned to Hades

Then to Demeter’s garden

Back and forth between them aimlessly

I belonged to them

And there was something peaceful about that

So, finally

still seeking some kind of punishment

I went back to the city where my father lived

It is always possible to exchange

one hell god for another

I
hadn’t seen my father’s girlfriend for so long

I didn’t recognize her at first

She was sitting in the front of her shop

fingering her dresses

as if she were touching flesh

There were some gardenias floating in bowls

It was a terribly hot day

and the air conditioner was broken

But Aphrodite never breaks a sweat

Cool as white flowers in a case of glass

I looked around the store

at all the things Aphrodite had made

There were dresses of petals

jackets of butterfly wings

or bird feathers

cloaks of leaves

coats of spiderwebs

Aphrodite and I spoke awhile

I told her that I was looking for work

and she asked about school, why I had left

I talked about Hades

It was hard to resist

confessing to a wide-eyed mother figure

She wasn’t disturbed by what I said

I think she even smiled a little

Maybe just appreciating

a good story

“You could work for me,” said Aphrodite

You are one of my girls already”

I was still shivering a little

from the smile I thought I’d seen

a glimmer on her lips

like a trace of saliva

But I said yes anyway

That was how I began

I worked at the shop six days a week

I never even took a break

just wolfed down a sandwich in between customers

hiding the greasy paper under the counter

wiping mustard off my fingers

as I jumped up to help people

With the money I made

I was able to move out of my father’s house

He hardly noticed

Since I had stopped performing in his films

I just wasn’t useful

I rented a tiny one-room guest cottage

nestled away in a canyon

You had to take a steep path up behind the main house to my miniature door

Morning glory vines grew over the roof

There were amaryllis and blue iris in the garden

Tomato vines and sunflowers

Blue glass wind chimes and a path of tiny stepping-stones

Inside, everything was so small I was always stooped over

There was no closet

so I gave away most of my mother’s devil-dresses

washed my lingerie in the garden birdbath

and ate outside off a doll’s china tea set

and seashell bowls in a ring of tea lights

When I was uncomfortable

I pretended I was in a storybook

In the evenings after work I hiked through the hills

and picked wildflowers for my hair

Sometimes I went alone to the local pub

and had a beer in the dark

watching the boys play pool

Then I came home to my room

with the claw-foot tub and the single bed

decorated with lace and cloth blossoms

from the ninety-nine-cent store

In this cottage I thought I had escaped my hell god

Maybe I had just found his female counterpart

Some days the shop was full of customers

buying up everything

and then Aphrodite was happy

She took me out after work

and ordered sushi and beers

She promised me a life of glamour, travel

wonderful dresses, any men we wanted

I got drunk and said I didn’t want any man except one

“Who is that?” she asked, smiling wickedly

I told her about the god who had once come to my bed

The one I thought was a monster

“Oh, Psyche!” she said

“Is beauty monstrous?

What does that say about me?”

Some days no one came into the shop

and Aphrodite called every hour

to see if I had made a sale

her voice more and more frantic

Finally, she stormed in the door—

a whirlwind of red roses—

and demanded that I clean

I got down on my knees

and scrubbed the floor in my white clothes

while a few customers strayed in

stepping over me in their high-heeled shoes

I dusted the shelves in the back of the store

until I was caked with filth

I sorted through boxes of tiny beads and baubles

blue glass stars, abalone fish, quartz roses

jade teardrops, crystal moons

Aphrodite insisted that I organize them perfectly

without a single mistake

“Look at you!” Aphrodite shrieked

“There on the floor covered in dirt

How do you expect any man to want you

let alone that one?”

She put on a dress made of eucalyptus bark

snakeskin and rabbit fur and went off

to dance at a wedding

While she was gone the ants

crawled in from outside and helped me sort the beads

into their own little boxes

Aphrodite came back at midnight, drunk

“Slave,” she said

“Witch”

She turned me into a moth

and shredded my wings to make dresses

But then she needed someone to work for her

so she changed me back

My hair was a little thinner after that

but otherwise I felt all right

She made me into a red rosebush

and plucked all the flowers for her dresses

While she worked she said

“Once I was in love like you

I pricked my finger on a thorn

when I ran to help him

My blood made the white rose red

so pretty

but what’s the point?

He died anyway”

When she changed me back

my lips and nipples were paler than before

I guess I am lucky

Some girls never return to their original form

In this town there are a lot of dangerous types

I brought Aphrodite wool from the vicious golden sheep

to make her sweaters

I brought her drinking water

from a pool

guarded by dragons

I even went back to the underworld

to find the beauty cream to keep her young

Hades had a new girlfriend, who manufactured it

She was very sweet, actually

She reminded me of myself when I lived with him

wearing a veil, quiet, insecure

except she had a thriving business

called Deadly Beauty

On my way home to Aphrodite

I stayed at a motel on the coast

There were sea lions on the rocks

coughing their warnings

In the darkness of my room

I opened the jar and touched my little finger

to the pearly surface

patted it on my cheek

I was working at the shop when I got the call

My mother was dead

Before I dropped the phone

I saw the large black butterfly

beating its wings against the window

That was how I fell into an enchanted sleep

Why hadn’t I decided to stay with her?

What would have been so bad about that life?

The gardens and the sea and the cafés

Was it only that I was afraid

what others might have thought?

Or had I sacrificed her to my lost lover

as I had sacrificed everything

He was still gone

And I had lost Demeter

I had chosen Aphrodite instead

I walked through my life in this strange trance

My eyes were glazed and my mouth was sealed

I worked at the shop all day and played pool at night

because it seemed like a good pastime

for a zombie in a dress

Even Aphrodite acted concerned

One day she came into the shop and handed me a book

“Read this,” she said

It was so like my life

that I wondered if the author knew me

There was no photo

But it said where he lived

In my trance I wrote to him

Sent it to the publisher, never expecting a reply

I said that his book was just like my life

and that I would be in his city

Aphrodite was sending me there

to prepare for a trade show

A few weeks later a letter came

We met in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying

It was a small, romantic place with thick Persian carpets

striped satin chairs

marble and brass counters

flowers everywhere

I sleepwalked down the stairs

wearing Aphrodite’s white peony dress

Love was waiting in the shadows

I had found him again

He stepped into a circle of lamplight

and it did not burn him

“I should have known it was you,” I said

“You did,” said Eros

“I wrote it so you could find me”

We stepped into the evening with hardly a word

It was summer and the sweat popped out on my skin

before I could take a step

The city was deserted this time of year

As I remember, there was no one on the streets

Eros and I walked along, speaking softly

He towered over me

even in my high heels I barely reached his armpit

A summer rain began to fall

misting my hair with a veil of drops

Eros took off his light tweed

jacket and draped it gently over me

His body was very thin but his shoulders were broad

We came to a small restaurant covered

inside and out

with broken bits—teacups, plates, figurines, glass

I wondered who had smashed the mirrors

not fearing bad luck

Eros and I sat across from each other drinking

white wine and eating

grilled salmon, couscous and salad

I couldn’t remember having taste buds before

We were the only people there

The food just came to us by itself

“How did you write that book?” I asked him

“It’s exactly my life. Have you been following me?”

Eros grinned a crooked smile

It was the first time I had really looked into his face

His head was shaved, laugh lines around his eyes

a nose with a bump, as if it had been broken

He had changed

“Maybe a part of you has been following me, my Soul”

Eros walked me back to my hotel

We shook hands in the lobby

No one was there

I could hear the rain on the glass

I didn’t let go of his hand

Instead, I led him up the stairs to my room

He hesitated at the doorway, standing in the dim hallway

There were green cabbage roses on the carpet

faded gold and green striped wallpaper

A cart with some leftover baguettes and mineral water

stood outside someone’s door

but no one was there

The only sound was the ice machine down the hall

The city so strangely quiet

Everyone was away, where it was cool and dry

The rain had stopped

“I’m sorry,” I said, letting his hand drop

“No, it’s not you”

“I shouldn’t have assumed anything after so long”

“It’s not you…I just…it’s been a hard time”

I nodded and stood on tiptoe to kiss

his cheek without touching him

He steadied me with his hands

They were huge and bony

Most men’s hands

are not bigger than mine

“Do you want to come in and talk?”

I turned on the lamp

He sat in the large cream damask chair by the window

The lights from the city shone in, fuzzy with the rain

I sat on the bed

“I would like to stay with you tonight,” Eros said

“Just tonight

Then I have to leave”

I could feel my throat closing with tears

But what is real?

Maybe Eros and I stayed a month

a year

Who is to say?

Maybe we are still there now

When our lips touched

our clothes fell away

dissolving from our bodies

the white peony dress scattered its petals on the carpet

underwear disintegrating like cobwebs

Eros lifted me onto his hips

and I wrapped my legs around him as he fell

back into the cream damask chair

we kept falling as if through shifting

clouds

I could feel him inside of me

and that is how I awoke from the sleep of deadly beauty

After, we bathed in a tub that became the sea

with liquid topaz water and a beach of pulverized pearls

and we swam there and made love again

Then we ordered room service at midnight

ate omelets and grapes and bread in our bed

and the bed became an island

—covered with aphrodisiac flowers—

where we slept until late in the morning

Every day

I put on one of the dresses from Aphrodite’s sample rack

And we ordered books and films and food

brought to the room

We lay in bed

reading and eating and memorizing each other’s bodies

We wrote a play together based on his book

In the evenings we danced on the rose-covered carpet—

our ballroom

It went on like this for a day

a month

a year

I still don’t know

I know only

that when Eros finally left I had his child inside of me

That was what made it possible for me to release him

even after the sacrifices I had made

even after waiting for so long

Do you want to know the name of the child

of Love and the Soul?

This is her name:

Her name is Joy