The Sacred Beasts (22 page)

“I’m not exactly sure how I got all this information, but between
drawing, pointing, questioning and nodding, I’ve discovered that they’re all
living and working on the coast or in Northern Spain. The rest of the village
was abandoned for jobs elsewhere, too, just as you said.” She stopped to smile
at the recollection of the afternoon. She and the old woman were clearly
overjoyed to have found their common passion. “I’ve shown her the animals of
Doñana and some sketches of the women I’ll be painting. Her daughter on the
coast comes once a week with groceries and other supplies, and her whole family
has tried to convince her to move away or live with them, but she wants to stay
here, drawing and painting. She even wants to die here. She finds it beautiful
in its bleakness, as you said you did. She’s another one who loves to be adrift
in nature.”

Sylvie stopped and smiled again at her memory of the afternoon
they had spent together. “I’ve been flabbergasted. It’s as though we’ve been
talking while sketching all afternoon. We’ve been so happy here.” Sylvie
reached out and held the old woman’s hand. Again, the old woman smiled her
endlessly deep and resonant smile and placed Sylvie’s hand over her heart.

Later, as the three women drank coffee together, Ruth said to the
old woman, “I am truly killing joy, but I think it is time for us to leave. We
have found both happiness and enlightenment with you. Spain will not be the
same for us.”

“I didn’t know I was looking for you, but I was,” Sylvie said with
a smile. The old woman only smiled more deeply and held their hands to her
heart. Sylvie thought, she completely accepts our departure, takes the absence
with the presence. She is self-sufficient.

The old woman pointed to her head and then her heart. “We’ll
always remember you, too,” Ruth said. “If we’re ever in southern Spain again,
we’ll find you.” The old woman pointed to her hut and then her heart. Ruth
thought, she is saying “I’ll always be here, in the world I love.” Ah, but she
is far too precious for the word,
always
, to apply.

As they drove away and onto the coastal highway, they both sensed,
in different terms, that they were rejoining the twenty-first century. “She’s
the one I’ll miss,” Sylvie said.

“I can understand that.”

“I’m so glad we stopped.”

“Sometimes, your most instinctive feeling is the best to follow. I
have come to cherish the experiences that come from that source.”

Cherishing . . . Sylvie considered. How rarely I cherish anything
but art. Do I even cherish Ruth?

When they reached the first hill with an elevated view of the
coastline, they parked and got out of the jeep. Below, they saw an endlessly
repeating conglomerate of towering coastal hotels and entertainment palaces,
skyscrapers as high as any in Europe, stretching all the way out to the
Mediterranean, which flashed and winked its ancient, oceanic eye. “Well, hello
ugliness of modernity,” Sylvie said, “except for the Mediterranean, which
almost looks in on the joke. I don’t think I even want to swim on this
coastline. Can we swim in Barcelona?”

“Sure, it’s on the Mediterranean, too,” Ruth said softly. She,
too, felt dispirited. “I last saw this as a girl, and it was a bunch of small
fishing villages. The coast is a big economic success, I’m sure, but it’s
horrifying, too, when you remember . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Then let’s just get the Costa del Sol over with and drive
straight through.”

They alternated driving and sleeping and arrived in Barcelona
after nightfall. When they presented themselves at Monserrat’s home, she was
not there, but they were expected and shown to their rooms. They showered,
picked Ruth’s room as the one they would share, and made love with great
abandon. Ruth felt some anger in Sylvie’s passion but decided, again, that it
was impossible not to enjoy the passion of a beautiful, brilliant woman. They
did not stop until they both fell asleep with their bodies intertwined. Ah, the
sexy life of an artist, though I’m just along for the ride, was Ruth’s last
thought. I’m still going to fuck her to death here, was Sylvie’s last thought.

When they awoke late the next morning, they found themselves in a
house unlike any they had ever seen before. On the walls of their room as well
as the hallway outside, they found many small glowing sculptures of oceanic
spirals and seashells alternating with natural iconic forms like flowers,
lightning, clouds, waves and fractals, no two of which were alike. All were
attached to or a part of the walls and ceilings and made of glazed ceramic in
many different colors and geometric patterns. As they walked into other rooms
of the house, they found the walls and ceilings similarly covered with more
gleaming iconic and fractal ceramic shapes, some hanging from spirals like a
woman’s earrings. All were equally varied, no two alike. Similar patterns in
larger sculptures hung down luxuriously like great globes of fruit from the
tops and sides of the rooms, framing the space, as though the people inside
were a perpetually ongoing work of art and nature was both the artist and the
foundation. In some rooms, the varying shapes became quasi-human, child or
Cupid-like forms living within spirals and fractals, humans and nature
beginning to merge.

It is the decor of a mermaid rising from the sea with the ocean’s
creatures still clinging to her flesh, as though they would not give her up,
Sylvie thought. Everything is movement, oceanic, female, vulvar, ecstatic.

It is a space of infinite aesthetic and psychological complexity
as well as size, Ruth thought. We are in a house of enchantment with untold
powers. At last their eyes met and they looked in astonishment at one another,
having suddenly turned into strangers. Then they both burst out laughing.

“I almost asked, ‘what on earth was that?’” Sylvie said. “But you
hush. I don’t want to know what it was.”

Ruth was silent, thinking it feels as though we’ve been away from
each other and are now becoming reacquainted. Is this house a topologist that
can turn time and space inside out? Physicists claim that the universe can do
this. Who on earth is Monserrat and what sort of creator is she? Then a woman
came up to them and told them that Monserrat was waiting for them with lunch in
the gazebo. They followed, continuing to look at the walls and ceilings,
marveling as they walked.

AT FIRST, THEY were formal with one another:

“Ruth Land.”

“Sylviane Dumarais.”

“Monserrat Mistral.”

“Alex Milczek.”

They shook hands spontaneously, unlike women. Ruth wondered at the
extra formality of Sylvie’s introduction of herself, since she was Sylvie to
anyone else, intuiting that she was uncomfortable and possibly hostile.
Monserrat had returned in the early morning from a trip to her house by the
ocean in Cadaqués, and the four women were having lunch in the largest gazebo
Ruth had ever seen. Monserrat’s house seemed to be endless.

Alex towered over them all and was as dark as Sylvie, with short
hair and thick, dramatic black eyebrows behind minimal glasses. Her facial
features were strong but subtly fine-lined, giving her a look that was
perpetually intent, quizzical, and distinctive. She was striking and attractive
without beauty. Speaking Spanish fluently with a slight American accent,
everything in her self-assured manner suggested America except her fluency in
European languages. She noticed Sylvie’s beauty with a visible shock that she
made a violent effort to conceal, making it clear to all that she had just
fallen desperately in love. She detected a French accent in Sylvie’s Spanish
and spoke to her in equally fluent French. This was profoundly unAmerican but
it pleased Sylvie, as intended.

The four women instantly knew that they were two couples of
lovers. Since Alex and Sylvie were in their twenties and their lovers, much
older, a unique symmetry presented itself to them and compelled their
fascination and curiosity and, for Ruth and Monserrat, their amusement as well.

Monserrat was striking, with dark features that were very regular
and still beautiful. With expressively arched eyebrows, thick, dark hair of
medium length, and luminously olive skin, she had obviously been a great beauty
as a young woman, probably as extraordinary as Sylvie. Her features carried a
look of perpetual curiosity and intrigue, mellowed with a tenderness that
suggested natural maternal feelings. She had no children, however, and Ruth
immediately suspected that the feminist movement provided her with many
daughters. Like Sylvie, she wore colorful, deep-necked tunics that accentuated
her beauty in the simplest and least affected way.

Alex decided that Ruth was also an American and spoke to her in
English, effortlessly shifting between three languages.

Well, at least she’s not an American dunce who speaks only one
language, Sylvie thought. Damn, I bet Ruth already has me paired off with her.

Alex is perfect for Sylvie, Ruth thought. You have my blessing.

Alex’s thought was an abyss of turbulently conflicting sensations
since she had just been introduced to the most beautiful woman in the world and
who also, it appeared, was a lesbian.

What a charming chaos, Monserrat thought. I’ve finally found
someone for my Alex. Ruth and Monserrat noticed that each was trying hard not
to laugh.

Their conversation was animated and insatiably curious as the
afternoon passed. All the relevant information was discovered quickly: that
Monserrat and Sylvie were both very ambitious artists; that Ruth was a
zoologist researching and writing a book on an incipient global catastrophe and
mass extinction; that Alex was finishing her doctoral dissertation in romance
languages and literature, living in Spain on a Fulbright from the US; that Alex
was also technologically savvy and created the house’s web site and Facebook
page.

Far more slowly and with both empathy and interest, Ruth and Alex
discovered that they had both left the U.S. in disgust with the government,
that they were both active members of Moveon.org and devoted regular time to
Internet protest. With empathy and mutual anger, they discovered that they both
had high expectations for the next American presidential election in 2008 but
thought the U.S. was a too rigidly center-right country fueled by rightwing
religion. They were in agreement that the U.S. was destroying its own middle
class by favoring a small wealthy elite of no economic, intellectual or
cultural value. They felt strongly that this was exactly the fatal structure of
a dying third-world economy, and that the U.S. would lose its political and
economic dominance soon as a result. Alex, in her youth, found this alienating
and disgusting whereas Ruth, in her age, regarded it as a tragedy that would
seal the terrible fate of life on the planet. It occurred to them both that
they were, to an extent, young and old versions of the same person. Monserrat
and Sylvie were considering a similar likeness between themselves.

Except, of course, that I’ve got to have your girl, Alex thought.

Except that you don’t know I’ve already given up the girl, Ruth
thought.

This has to be the most annoying afternoon of my life, Sylvie
thought. There they are, bonding and reveling in all they have in common, and
Alex wants to run off with me and Ruth intends to let her. Really! I want them
to fight a duel over me! Then Ruth could still die in my arms in Spain.
Sylvie’s line of thought came to an abrupt halt. Of course, she considered, a
duel is the most ridiculous act on earth, and I would never let anything
terrible happen to Ruth. This is a direct contradiction, but there is nothing
unusual about that.

Oh, most wonderful! Monserrat thought, and it will all fall into
place, too. What power this house has! It’s haunted by female spirits of
passion and play, its aesthetic oceanic and animal. We’re all in the belly of a
she-whale and ready to become new flesh, new creatures. It changes the lives of
all that come here.

IN THE EVENING the house, as usual, was filled with the meetings
of several women’s groups. They were laughing, debating, declaiming, inspiring;
they were uproarious, furious, delighted, exhibitionistic, philosophical,
political, whimsical, enamored. Excited by the house’s atmosphere, Sylvie had
worn a colorful, deep-necked dress and low heels, and several women were
staring at her uncontrollably and even following her around. Alex quickly came
up to her in a state that was alternately confused and courageous and said,
“Sylviane, I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . I mean . . . you’ve come here
with Ruth and I thought . . . I wondered whether you and she were . . . sort of
. . . I mean, if you were definitely . . .”

“Yes!” Sylvie said harshly and walked away. Alex collapsed into a
chair, utterly disconsolate, and then attempted to raise her spirits and
courage. No, don’t give up! she thought. You can’t! Briefly gritting her teeth,
she jumped up again and now approached Ruth, who was alone, filling two
wineglasses.

“Ruth, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she began again in confused
courage, “I mean, you’ve come here with Sylviane and I wondered whether . . .
that is . . . how long . . . but mainly, whether, I guess . . .”

Ruth smiled and said, “No, we’re not really committed to one
another. We’ve only been lovers for a week or so. Is that what you wanted to
know?” Alex nodded, too overwhelmed to speak, and collapsed into the same chair
again. Amazing, she thought, one says yes, the other, no. Of course, I really
meant to know whether I might have a chance, to which Sylviane said no and
Ruth, yes. This kind of thing is supposed to happen to Alice in Wonderland, not
to me. Of course, it is hopelessly complicated, well beyond any resolution I
can see; how could it be anything else in a place like this? Damn, it’s
hopeless! But no, it can’t be!

Ruth was now standing next to Sylvie and they were drinking the
two glasses of wine together. “There are about a half-dozen to a dozen women
following you around. Are you annoyed yet?”

“No, actually,” Sylvie said, smiling. “And that surprises me. It’s
annoying when men make a play for me because I always feel it means ‘well, you
look good and you’re probably a woman I can dominate.’ That’s anything but
flattering. Women, on the other hand, are doing what for them must be deviant
and nervy, and what a hypocrite I would be to forbid that.” They both laughed.
Alex saw this and assumed they were laughing at her. Again, she felt
devastated. I will turn into marble in this chair, she thought, a sculpture
they will call “Dyke, in Misery” on display at an art museum. “It was a big
mistake to wear this dress, though,” Sylvie continued. “I’m the only woman
wearing a dress besides Monserrat. From now on, I won’t change from my
paint-spattered T-shirts and jeans.”

The loudest and most uproarious group, Mujeres Libres, the
contemporary version of the 1930s Spanish anarchist women’s movement, was
meeting beside Alex’s chair. They were all wearing T-shirts with “Mujeres
Libres” printed across them. Alex was wearing one of these T-shirts, too, but
she was not following the group as usual. She stared at Sylvie with a look of
longing and despair, realizing how difficult it would be to seriously interest
her.

And now, Ruth thought, I leave you both to your fates of adventure
and love. Monserrat had asked to see her alone in the gazebo. Sylvie did not
notice that Ruth had left.

At that moment, the women of Mujeres Libres were debating an
addition to their web site. Several wanted the original Mujeres Libres anthem
from the 1930s but couldn’t remember the lyrics. They were also debating what
their current mission statement should include. They were so loud that they could
be heard throughout the house. Alex made a comment to them, and one of the
group members said, “Hey, you’ve got an accent! Where are you from?” When Alex
replied that she was from the US, several women jumped to their feet in
excitement. “
Go home immediately!”
one of them shouted.
“Your country
has been taken over by maniacs!
They’re menacing the whole world, and all
the Muslim countries will think they’ve got to have nuclear weapons!” The rest
of the group noisily agreed.

Alex blushed deeply and felt even more miserable and exasperated.
She had often heard comments like this at Monserrat’s house; but now, with
Sylvie able to hear every word, she could not bear to be criticized in addition
to her other torments, particularly by the shamelessly loud, vehement voices of
Mujeres Libres, second to none in volume of noise. “Look,” she said, “I’m
politically active here, a member of Moveon.org. I do an hour’s worth of
Internet protest every day, just as I’d do if I were in the States, and I
always vote by absentee ballot. Those maniacs are just damned hard to get rid
of. One person can’t do it, and hell, you can be sure I never voted for them!”
She looked up to see Sylvie smiling and following the altercation. Then she
lowered her head in rage and despair and said, “By the way, the Mujeres Libres
anthem, published in Valencia in 1937 with lyrics written by Lucia Sanchez
Soarnil, goes like this.”

Fists
upraised, women of Iberia

Toward
horizons pregnant with light

On paths
afire

Feet on the
ground

Face to the
blue sky.

Affirming
the promise of life

We defy
tradition

We mold the
warm clay

Of a new
world born of pain.

Let the
past vanish into nothingness!

What do we
care for yesterday!

We want to
write anew

The word
WOMAN.

Fists
upraised, women of the world

Toward horizons
pregnant with light

On paths
afire

Onward,
onward

Toward the
light.

Alex recited it perfectly from memory, and her delivery was
impassioned, since it allowed a channel for her frustration and despair over
Sylvie.

The inconceivable and impossible then occurred: the noisiest group
in all of Spanish feminism, fully equal to any ambulance or police siren, was
completely silent, all staring at Alex. She had obviously impressed them
deeply.

Alex continued to look down as a tidal wave of emotion engulfed
her. She decided to risk everything: she would cut a magnificent figure, since
everyone in the house could hear. She would be either a genius who could win
Sylvie or a fool who would lose her forever. She decided to describe a new
Mujeres Libres web site that would be the most brilliant and original on the
Internet. “You’ll have a truly original mission statement and web site if you
use the poetry written by Spanish women instead of a boring and predictable
essay. For example, here’s your position on women’s identity in the words of
Gloria Fuertes.”

Birds nest
in my arms,

On my
shoulders, behind my knees,

Between my
breasts there are quails,

they must
think I’m a tree.

The swans
think I’m a fountain,

They all
come down and drink when I talk.

When sheep
pass, they pass over me,

and perched
on my fingers, the sparrows eat,

The ants
think I’m earth,

And men
think I’m nothing.

Again, Alex recited the lines perfectly from memory with the
energy conferred by absolute despair. Poetry continued to be an outlet for the
love and desperation she felt at that moment.

Again, the members of Mujeres Libres stared at her in amazement,
silently regarding her as an upstart marvel with enormous creative chutzpah
that went entirely beyond what they imputed to themselves. All the groups in
the house were now silent, watching the encounter. To be worthy of the Mujeres
Libres’ silence, which they had never before seen, must be the mark of
greatness.

And so it was: “Here’s your position on the male world,” Alex
continued with a confidant smile. Privately, she thought that the top of her
head had just unscrewed and was floating in the air.

The scrawny
women of the foundry workers

are still
giving birth on trolley cars or at home.

The boys,
some of them, go to the city schools

and learn
about rivers, why not, it’s harmless enough.

The girls
go to the Sisters, who teach them

girl work

and how to
say their prayers.

The traces
of mortar fire slowly fade from the city.

So many
months have gone by!

...

But in my
dreams I am looking at certain gentlemen

who sit
around a conference table discussing exchange

rates,

discussing
tankers and aircraft, and cornices

just about
to fall as the bombs hit.

And I beg
forgiveness of the Almighty Whoever He Is

for wishing
them all a shining coffin

and four of
the finest candles.

Again, Alex gambled everything since greatness or hopelessness
were her only options. The web site of the Mujeres Libres would be a work of
impossibly frustrated genius, since that was exactly what she felt at that
moment. “And here’s your position on religion,” Alex said and again recited
perfectly and with great feeling:

With her
nylon veil

and
electric crown,

with
dry-cell batteries

in her
breast, and a dismal smile,

she’s on
display in all the shops

and on the
dusty shelves of poor Catholics.

In New York
City, above the bedstead

this white
virgin watches over

the
washstands of Negroes . . .

Crossbreed
of Fatima and Lourdes,

lightweight
model stamped “made in USA,”

with
streaming hair and open hands,

she’s
washable and shatterproof.

Comes in
three colors

—white,
pink, and blue—

available
in three sizes

though even
the big one is small.

There
without angels,

virgin
Virgin,

I’ve felt
so bad for you

—pure
virgin of plastic—

I can’t
bring myself

To ask for
one miracle.

The members of Mujeres Libres continued to observe Alex in
silence. They would have sat at her feet for hours like children, listening to
the words of the prophetess of poetry. “And if you want a position on
materialism, even one on death, I’ll recite more poetry written entirely by
Spanish women. The point is, every word of your mission will burn with
inspiration; nothing will be mediocre!”

The women of Mujeres Libres looked at one another, nodding and
smiling. “Compañera,” said the woman who had shouted at Alex, “I will
personally, and with gratitude, write down every word you have recited, and it
will become our mission statement.” She looked around at the other women, who
nodded their agreement. “We’ll have the most striking, moving and original web
site in all of Spain. Please forget what I said to you; I’m grateful that
you’re here—a sane genius from one hell of a crazy country. Good work,
compañera!”

“In fact,” said another woman, “you deserve a round of applause.”
The women of Mujeres Libres gave Alex the loudest applause that had ever been
heard in the house, accompanied by some high whistles, cheers, catcalls, two
bazookas, and even ululations, since the Mujeres Libres were nothing if not
anarchical. Alex only continued to look down, overcome, which was interpreted
as abject humility in the face of unsought praise. In fact, Alex was thinking,
may your web site sink to the bottom of the ocean; I just want the girl. The
group then broke up and Alex’s former antagonist remained behind, writing down
the anthem and poetry Alex had recited. Alex closed her eyes in deep relief and
then, regaining courage, at last looked up at Sylvie and smiled wistfully and
humbly.

Sylvie, who had followed the entire exchange in fascination, as
had most women in the house, blushed and suddenly felt devastated. She realized
that Alex had deeply impressed her, as well, and that wistful smile at the end
was the perfect close to the performance. There was nothing arrogant,
triumphant, or domineering in it; it only asked, dare I hope? Sylvie then
became aware of intense, disturbing feelings towards Alex: already, she was
proud of her and felt possessive. Worst of all, she knew that she had never
failed to make love with anyone to whom she felt this powerful urge to
appropriate and still worse, she had always done so at the first opportunity.

Sylvie was now so distraught that she walked out of the room, went
upstairs and sat on the bed she had shared with Ruth, touching the sheets upon
which she had felt uncontrollable passion. Ruth was right, she thought, Alex
will be my lover within twenty-four hours. She laughed at the absurdity of it,
but it only increased her agitation and she walked downstairs and out the door,
into the soft, cool night. At no point did she realize that Ruth had left her;
Ruth’s prediction had so much presence that Sylvie did not feel alone.