Children of the Albatross (8 page)

Between the journeys of discovery he had
flickering instants of uncertainties until the sparks of pleasure guided his
hand.

Where he passed his hand no one else had ever
passed his hand. New cells awakened under his delicate fingers never wakened
before to say: this is yours.

A breast touched for the first time is a breast
never touched before.

He looked at her with his long blue eyes which
had never wept and her eyes were washed luminous and clear, her eyes forgot
they had wept.

He touched her eyelashes with his eyelashes of
which not one had fallen out and those of hers which had been washed away by
tears were replaced.

His hair which had never been crushed between
feverish pillows, knotted by nightmares, mingled with hers and untangled it.

Where sadness had carved rich caverns he sank
his youthful thrusts grasping endless sources of warmth.

Only before the last mystery of the body did he
pause. He had thrust and entered and now he paused.

Did one lie still and at peace in the secret
place of woman? In utter silence they lay.

Fever mounting in him, the sap rising, the
bodies taut with a need of violence.

She made one undulatory movement, and this
unlocked in him a whirlpool of desire, a dervish dance of all the silver knives
of pleasure.

When they awakened from their trance, they
smiled at each other, but he did not move. They lay merged, slimness to
slimness, legs like twin legs, hip to hip.

The cotton of silence lay all around them,
covering their bodies in quilted softness.

The big wave of fire which rolled them washed
them ashore tenderly into small circles of foam.

On the table there was a huge vase filled with
tulips. She moved towards them, seeking something to touch, to pour her joy
into, out of the exaltation she felt.

Every part of her body that had been opened by
his hands yearned to open the whole world in harmony with her mood.

She looked at the tulips so hermetically
closed, like secret poems, like the secrets of the flesh. Her hands took each
tulip, the ordinary tulip of everyday living and she slowly opened them, petal
by petal, opened them tenderly.

They were changed from plain to exotic flowers,
from closed secrets to open flowering.

Then she heard Paul say: “Don’t do that!”

There was a great anxiety in his voice. He
repeated: “Don’t do that!”

She felt a great stab of anxiety. Why was he so
disturbed? She looked at the flowers. She looked at Paul’s face lying on the
pillow, clouded with anxiety, and she was struck with fear. Too soon. She had
opened him to love too soon. He was not ready.

Even with tenderness, even with delicate
fingers, even with the greatest love, it had been too soon! She had forced
time, as she had forced the flowers to change from the ordinary to the
extraordinary. He was not ready!

Now she understood her own hesitations, her
impulse to run away from him. Even though he had made the first gesture, she,
knowing, should have saved him from anxiety.

(Paul was looking at the opened tulips and
seeing in them something else, not himself but Djuna, the opening body of
Djuna. Don’t let her open the flowers as he had opened her. In the enormous
wave of silence, the hypnosis of hands, skin, delight, he had heard a small
moan, yet in her face he had seen joy. Could the thrust into her have hurt her?
It was like stabbing someone, this desire.)

“I’m going to dress, now,” she said lightly.
She could not close the tulips again, but she could dress. She could close
herself again and allow him to close again.

Watching her he felt a violent surge of
strength again, stronger than his fears. “Don’t dress yet.”

Again he saw on her face a smile he had never
seen there in her gayest moments, and then he accepted the mystery and
abandoned himself to his own joy.

His heart beat wildly at her side, wildly in
panic and joy together at the moment before taking her. This wildly beating
heart at her side, beating against hers, and then the cadenced, undulating,
blinding merging together, and no break between their bodies afterwards.

After the storm he lay absoluly still over her
body, dreaming, quiet, as if this were the place of haven. He lay given, lost,
entranced. She bore his weight with joy, though after a while it numbed and
hurt her. She made a slight movement, and then he asked her: “Am I crushing
you?”

“You’re flattening me into a thin wafer,” she
said, smiling, and he smiled back, then laughed.

“The better to eat you, my dear.”

He kissed her again as if he would eat her with
delight. Then he got up and made a somersault on the carpet, with light
exultant gestures.

She lay back watching the copper bird gyrating
in the center of the room.

His gaiety suddenly overflowed, and taking a
joyous leap in the air, he came back to her and said:

“I will call up my father!”

She could not understand. He leaned over her
body and keeping his hand over her breast he dialed his father’s telephone
number.

Then she could see on his face what he wanted
to tell his father: call his father, tell him what could not be told, but which
his entire new body wanted to tell him: I have taken a woman! I have a woman of
my own. I am your equal, Father! I am a man!

When his father answered Paul could only say
the ordinary words a son can say to his father, but he uttered these ordinary
words with exultant arrogance, as if his father could see him with his hand on
Djuna’s body: “Father, I am here.”

“Where are you?” answered the father severely.
“We’re expecting you home. You can continue to see your friends but you must
come home to please your mother. Your mother has dinner all ready for you!”

Paul laughed, laughed as he had never laughed
as a boy, with his hand over the mouth of the telephone.

On such a day they are expecting him for
dinner!

They were blind to the miracle. Over the
telephone his father should hear and see that he had a woman of his own: she
was lying there smiling.

How dare the father command now! Doesn’t he
hear the new voice of the new man in his son?

He hung up.

His hair was falling over his eager eyes. Djuna
pulled at it. He stopped her. “You can’t do that any more, oh no.” And he sank
his teeth into the softest part of her neck.

“You’re sharpening your teeth to become a great
lover,” she said.

When desire overtook him he always had a moment
of wildly beating heart, almost of distress, before the invading tide. Before
closing his eyes to kiss her, before abandoning himself, he always carefully
closed the shutters, windows and doors.

This was the secret act, and he feared the eyes
of the world upon him. The world was full of eyes upon his acts, eyes watching
with disapproval.

That was the secret fear left from his
childhood: dreams, wishes, acts, pleasures which aroused condemnation in the
parents’ eyes. He could not remember one glance of approval, of love, of
admiration, of consent. From far back he remembered being driven into secrecy
because whatever he revealed seemed to arouse disapproval or punishment.

He had read the
Arabian Nights
in
secret, he had smoked in secret, he had dreamed in secret.

His parents had questioned him only to accuse
him later.

And so he closed the shutters, curtains,
windows, and then went to her and both of them closed their eyes upon their
caresses.

There was a knitted blanket over the couch
which he particularly liked. He would sit under it as if it were a tent.
Through the interstices of the knitting he could see her and the room as
through an oriental trellis. With one hand out of the blanket he would seek her
little finger with his little finger and hold it.

As in an opium dream, this touching and
interlacing of two little fingers became an immense gesture, the very fragile
bridge of their relationship. By this little finger so gently and so lightly
pulling hers he took her whole self as no one else had.

He drew her under the blanket thus, in a
dreamlike way, by a small gesture containing the greatest power, a greater
power than violence.

Once there they both felt secure from all the
world, and from all threats, from the father and the detective, and all the
taboos erected to separate lovers all over the world.

Lawrence rushed over to warn them that Paul’s
father had been seen driving through the neighborhood.

Paul and Djuna were having dinner together and
were going to the ballet.

Paul had painted a feather bird for Djuna’s
hair and she was pinning it on when Lawrence came with the warning.

Paul became a little pale, then smiled and
said: “Wafer, in case my father comes, could you make yourself less pretty?”

Djuna went and washed her face of all make-up,
and then she unpinned the airy feather bird from her hair, and they sat down
together to wait for the father.

Djuna said: “I’m going to tell you the story of
Caspar Hauser, which is said to have happened many years ago in Austria. Caspar
Hauser was about seventeen years old when he appeared in the city, a wanderer,
lost and bewildered. He had been imprisoned in a dark room since childd. His
real origin was unknown, and the cause for the imprisonment. It was believed to
be a court intrigue, that he might have been put away to substitute another
ruler, or that he might have been an illegitimate son of the Queen. His jailer
died and the boy found himself free. In solitude he had grown into manhood with
the spirit of a child. He had only one dream in his possession, which he looked
upon as a memory. He had once lived in a castle. He had been led to a room to
see his mother. His mother stood behind a door. But he had never reached her.
Was it a dream or a memory? He wanted to find this castle again, and his
mother. The people of the city adopted him as a curiosity. His honesty, his
immediate, childlike instinct about people, both infuriated and interested
them. They tampered with him. They wanted to impose their beliefs on him, teach
him, possess him. But the boy could sense their falsities, their treacheries,
their self-interest. He belonged to his dream. He gave his whole faith only to
the man who promised to take him back to his home and to his mother. And this
man betrayed him, delivered him to his enemies. Just before his death he had
met a woman, who had not dared to love him because he was so young, who had
stifled her feeling. If she had dared he might have escaped his fate.”

“Why didn’t she dare?” asked Paul.

“She saw only the obstacle,” said Djuna. “Most
people see only the obstacle, and are stopped by it.”

(No harm can befall you now, Paul, no harm can
befall you. You have been set free. You made a good beginning. You were loved
by the first object of your desire. Your first desire was answered. I made such
a bad beginning! I began with a closed door. This harmed me, but you at least
began with fulfillment. You were not hurt. You were not denied. I am the only
one in danger. For that is all I am allowed to give you, a good beginning, and
then I must surrender you.)

They sat and waited for the father.

Lawrence left them. The suspense made him
uneasy.

Paul was teaching Djuna how to eat rice with
chopsticks.

Then he carefully cleaned them and was holding
them now as they talked as if they were puppets representing a Balinese shadow
theater of the thoughts neither one dared to formulate. They sat and waited for
the father.

Paul was holding the chopsticks like impudent
puppets, gesticulating, then he playfully unfastened the first button of her blouse
with them, deftly, and they laughed together.

“It’s time for the ballet,” said Djuna. “Your
father is evidently not coming, or he would be here already.”

She saw the illumination of desire light his
face.

“Wait, Djuna.” He unfastened the second button,
and the third.

Then he laid his head on her breast and said:
“Let’s not go anywhere tonight. Let’s stay here.”

Paul despised small and shallow waves. He was
drawn to a vastness whic corresponded to his boundless dreams. He must possess
the world in some big way, rule a large kingdom, expand in some absolute
leadership.

He felt himself king as a child feels king,
over kingdoms uncharted by ordinary men. He would not have the ordinary, the
known. Only the vast, the unknown could satisfy him.

Djuna was a woman with echoes plunging into an
endless past he could never explore completely. When he tasted her he tasted a
suffering which had borne a fragrance, a fragrance which made deeper grooves.
It was enough that he sensed the dark forests of experience, the unnamed
rivers, the enigmatic mountains, the rich mines under the ground, the
overflowing caves of secret knowledges. A vast ground for an intrepid
adventurer.