The Sacred Beasts (18 page)

THEY ENTERED SEVILLE in mid-afternoon, driving first along a wide
avenue lined by mansions on huge estates filled with palm trees and jacarandas
casting trails of purple petals over endless lawns, all exuding the smell of
orange blossoms. I can see why it has the reputation of being Spain’s most
beautiful city, Ruth thought. The heat seems to make luxury and history bloom
as one, a unique charm. Again, the heat is part of all thought and sensation.
You are moving yet part of a flaming still point that is Spain of previous
centuries.

Overcooked exotica, Sylvie thought. A nude woman covered with
those wet purple flowers, a furry marsupial with sleepy eyes hanging from a
palm tree, a jungle full of moisture and fire. No, the marsupial and jungle are
South American, not Spanish, and moisture can’t coexist with fire. The heat and
scenery are putting me to sleep. I am in a waking dream, she thought, and
gently punched Ruth on the arm. Ruth gently punched her back. “Good,” said
Sylvie. “I had almost fallen asleep. All that luxury is facile beauty, and this
city is too hot for me.”

“We’ll go straight to the old city. Thick stones stay cool
longer,” Ruth said. Soon they were passing tall baroque buildings built in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on narrow circuitous streets dusted by
golden late afternoon light. Ruth parked and said, “We walk from here. You
can’t see it in a car.” Sylvie suddenly grabbed Ruth and kissed her slowly and
passionately, as though they had all the time they wanted for love on a hot
summer day. Ruth could not resist cupping Sylvie’s breasts in her hands.

“Now I’m waking up,” Sylvie said, smiling.

“But we’re no longer in a forest,” Ruth answered. “Look.” Four men
were pressed to the car, their faces against the windows. Ruth and Sylvie
quickly got out of the car and elbowed their way through the crowd. Hearing
whistles and catcalls, Sylvie thought, eat your hearts out, assholes!

In a short time, they found themselves in a winding city of ochre
stones and narrow alleyways with orange trees and buildings trimmed with iron
latticework, all seeming to pulsate and glow in the soft orange light. It was
only slightly cooler. Their pace quickened as a curious thought came to both of
them: that they were part of an enigma, and it was unfolding as streets before
them, perhaps ultimately leading to the unknown heart of an ancient, sensuous
Spanish city. The streets were filled, too, with hungry male eyes that always
rested, lingeringly, on Sylvie. So distracting, Sylvie thought. Without them, I
would be generating ideas and images like a fountain. Ruth thought, it will be
like this for her in every big city. The fishing villages on the coast were
much less intrusive.

They stopped in front of a chapel that intrigued them for reasons
they could not fathom, perhaps a hint of the bizarre. “Let’s have a look,” Ruth
said, and they walked in together. Their sight could hardly take in all the
statues of virgins, cherubs, angels, crosses, horns, scrolls, pennants,
heavenly circling clouds; all winged, robed, and haloed; cheek by jowl but for
space covered with religious paintings; altogether barely allowing pews. “I
believe we’ve been saved,” said Ruth. “It must be salvation. What more could
they stuff in here?” They sat in a pew.

“How absurd to just pile together all this stuff,” Sylvie said.
“There is literally not an inch without religious symbols.” Here’s my
surrealist painting, she thought. I will cover every inch of the canvas with
cherubs, virgins, crosses, etc., all this religious paraphernalia, but alter
the viewer’s distance perception several times so that there are large figures
seemingly close to you and also more distant, smaller ones tilted at different
angles. It will feel as though many dimensions are crushing themselves together
as they rush to envelope you in not art but religious symbolism. My title will
be “Heaven.” Maybe Spaniards need piles of religious symbols to restrain
themselves, she thought.

“I almost feel like hiding here rather than being followed by all
those male stares,” Sylvie said.

“We can’t have you remembering this as Seville!” Ruth said. “Let’s
go get lost in quaint baroque chaos on the streets instead. At some point, it
will become too complicated for them to follow us.”

They quickly walked along a street chosen at random and
discovered, three streets and a corner later, that it opened upon a dimly lit
ancient square. The sky was full of orange and red streaks of color, yet the
light mysteriously did not penetrate this square, as though it held a secret
that could repel nature. Strange, they both thought. They retraced their last
steps and followed another random street only to find, four streets and two
corners later, that it opened upon a lovely old fountain, pouring streams of
golden water in the light. I sensed it was an enigma, Ruth thought. “This seems
to be arranged as a baroque game,” Sylvie said.

“Delightful,” Ruth said. “Let’s keep playing.” After retracing
their last steps, they picked another street at random and found, two streets
and a corner later, that it opened upon a miniature park with benches, gardens
and a pool of water burnished golden red in the light of sunset.

“It does seem to be a game,” Ruth said, “as though we were being
entertained by the stones.” To Sylvie, the buildings seemed to be crowding
together to watch them. “On with the game,” Ruth said with a smile. They
retraced their steps and followed a random street; then, four streets later,
they found that it ended in an enclosed space with a statue of a robed male
saint and an old church behind. The saint’s eyes reflected the red light of
sunset in an inhuman and ominous glow. “So you are responsible for this game,”
Ruth said, and to Sylvie, “will you continue playing?”

“Why not?” said Sylvie. They retraced their steps and picked
another random street only to find, three streets and a corner later, that it
ended in still another enclosed space occupied by the bright neon lights of a
small bar. “Some would definitely need liquor at this point,” Sylvie said.

“You?”

“No, not me, but you see, we’re lost in this maze.”

“It’s fun to be lost.”

Sylvie began to imagine a surrealist painting of sentient stones
re-arranging themselves into perceptual tricks. An aerial view would reveal
their strategy, she thought, but two people would be caught in the game below
at street level. The game would be played until . . . what? Something horrible,
she sensed. This city is ancient and full of secrets. I sense violence just
below the surface of Spain, and its treatment of women can be no exception. Why
should any woman love or trust its beautiful complexity? In one direction,
Sylvie saw a large expanse of sky, now full of golden red light. Perhaps we can
break out of this game after all, she thought. “Let’s go this way,” Sylvie
said, “and turn no corners.”

At last, they reached a wide avenue that permitted vehicles and
might be a major thoroughfare of the city. A slightly cooler wind now blew
along it and they were suddenly aware that it was late sunset, nearly twilight,
and they were in a dusty, run-down part of the city. Prostitutes sat on chairs
along the street against a sky of dark red. Sylvie began to stare fixedly at
the nearest prostitute. That hungry look is coming over her face, Ruth thought.
She will paint that woman from her memory of this moment. Until now, I have
seen her look intrigued but not hungry and impatient, as she does when she will
devote her full artistic power and vision to a subject. What does she see? The
woman seems so alone, nearly lost, on a cheap metal chair, and the sky is
apocalyptic. The heat intensifies everything we see and think. I will not move
or interrupt her. She is perfectly focused on her art.

You are the horrible thing, the Minotaur at the center of the
maze, Sylvie thought. The game has always been designed to lead to you. How
well I know you. I can tell from your skin that you are no older than I am, yet
what an imprint your life has made on your body. Your breasts and hips are
heavy and loose, the forced voluptuousness of so much sexual intercourse. They
call it slatternly bulk. It is more important that I paint you than anything
else in Spain. I would give all of lovely Seville to render you just as you
are. Against this sky of dying crimson and massed cloud layers of the purest
black, I will paint you. Your humanity is bleeding away from you like the light
and something darkly hostile and destructive slithers, inking itself across the
sky to swallow you and Seville in total darkness. Now it is your turn in this
city and your face is intent and feral, your mouth open with frustrated desire,
your eyes finding an offense in this red twilight world. Your expression is
hard and cynical, yet you were once a soft young girl who would cling to her
mother. In the harshness and glitter of your predatory eyes, I see the great
absence that immerses you at every moment. That absence is the Seville we see,
overflowing with the lovely minutiae of tantalized senses, the most beautiful
city in Spain, Ruth says; the one only you are denied for only you can’t
breathe, walk and live with dignity anywhere in it. You are marked; even I can
see it. You are lost in your maze and the painting will be titled “Her
Labyrinth, Unchosen.” In your loss, I see the absence of humanity that is the
true Seville and probably all of Spain. Yes, how well I know you.

The prostitute had noticed Sylvie’s stare, and now a deep, cracked
voice came from her. “For you, I’m free, my beauty,” she said. Sylvie could
only open her hands, and a pained expression came over her face. She doesn’t
want to deny this woman anything, Ruth thought. “Ah, so that’s how it is,” the
low voice said with a gentle smile. “You can’t. You look at me the way a young
man once did. He looked hungry, too. He was a painter, and he loved and painted
me for three months. It was short, of course, but it was one of the good loves.
We didn’t hurt each other. There aren’t many of those.” The woman smiled in
recollection and obviously did not feel slighted. “Now go, my beauty. Leave me
to my work. They call for their slave again.”

Sylvie’s eyes closed in pain and she took Ruth’s hand, leading
them in the opposite direction. After several minutes, Ruth said, “You need to
eat as well as create art, my love. Let’s find a restaurant.” They stopped at
what looked like a tapas bar and restaurant and ordered the local fare—bull’s
tail and tomatoes soaked in oil and herbs and some kind of sliced, marinated
fish along with a bottle of Spanish wine. Sylvie felt better instantly with the
food and wine and Ruth was relieved. A flamenco group was performing on a small
stage, and the dinner crowd began clapping and dancing among the tables. “The
music is really great!” Sylvie said in surprise.

“We’re in Andalusia,’ Ruth said, “home of gypsy flamenco.” The
clapping and stomping of the crowd grew noisier, and Sylvie began to feel an
all-too-familiar irritation. The men were all staring at her, wordlessly trying
to compel her to rise, dance and become sensuous with them. Here it comes
again, Ruth thought.

I would paint this day very fast and only in outline, Sylvie
thought, a painting covered entirely by male faces and their eyes, eyes
everywhere. Their faces will look slightly downward—banderas and beards, rough
gypsies and stevedores, elegant older men with expertly styled hair—but their
eyes are all the same. You’ll all be looking at a woman you have pushed beneath
you, and your title will be “Unavoidable Spain.” The clapping and stomping grew
louder and heavier as Sylvie continued to ignore the men. Ruth thought, it
would have been so lovely to linger here with the wine and music. It might have
been our fondest memory of Seville. But now, Sylvie’s the show again.

“Let’s get out of here and go directly to a hotel,” Ruth said.

“That sounds wonderful!”

Outside, a cool wind was finally blowing off the Guadalquivir
River. “Let’s not get lost in the maze again,” Sylvie said.

“No, I saw a very nice hotel two blocks away and we’re going
straight there.”

“Good!”

They gratefully entered a small, very baroque and historic hotel
that might have been there for centuries. Ruth immediately asked for a map of
the city as she signed them in. No more mazes, she thought. Upstairs, they
found the renewed luxury of showers, hygiene, and soft clean beds. “I had
almost forgotten,” Sylvie said. “This is perfection. Let’s clean up and shower
together and then go to bed immediately.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do,” Ruth said. They began
to make love in the shower while soaping each other and then moved to the bed
quickly after drying themselves. The heat is still stimulating us, Ruth
thought. “Now, my beauty,” she said, “the one all of Spain wants . . .”

“Close your eyes or I’ll scream,” Sylvie said and kissed the words
out of Ruth. After ten minutes, she said, “We’re in a hotel, and I keep
thinking ‘this hotel sex,’ which makes me think of pornography. Are you up for
something pornographic?”

Ruth threw her head back and guffawed. “Good-lord, I truly have no
idea what will come out of you from one moment to the next. Pornography . . .
well, as you know I am open to anything erotic except that which causes pain or
humiliation.”

“Good. I’m going to . . . sort of, arrange you. Stay loose,”
Sylvie said as she kissed Ruth’s breasts and torso. She put one of Ruth’s arms
behind her head and widely parted her legs.

“I just realized this is verboten, too,” Ruth said. “You see, I
can’t move now, and I feel overly controlled by you. That’s too close to
humiliation. Take a look, by the way, at the room we’re making love in. It has
a very high ceiling with wooden shutters for windows, probably built in the
seventeenth or eighteenth century. Real pornography rather than simple
bawdiness is modern and has no place here.”