The Sacred Beasts (23 page)

Alex’s eyes followed Sylvie at each visible point. When she saw
Sylvie leave, she swiftly asked if she could e-mail the lyrics to her beseecher
and even add other poetry written by women so that the group could make the
final choice. This was enthusiastically accepted; she had the address in her
pocket and, fleet as a fox, she was out into the cool and forgiving, the
unspeakably intriguing and erotic, night.

Sylvie had just turned the corner at the far end of the street,
and Alex ran to the corner; then walked more slowly to her side. Sylvie was
shocked to see Alex. “That was fast,” she said. “I thought you were reciting
all that poetry again.”

“We just decided to e-mail,” Alex said in French. “Too much
material.” She spoke French from then on, which further endeared her to Sylvie.

Sylvie was silent a long time, then stared at Alex gravely. Alex
basked in the stare that, such a short time before, had been a cutting
dismissal. “Congratulations,” Sylvie finally said. “It will be a wonderful new
web site. None of those women would ever have thought of it.” May all web sites
rot in hell, Alex thought; I’ve got the girl. “Those poets are fascinating,”
Sylvie continued. “I want to read them all and even illustrate them.”

“I’d be delighted to give you my books, Sylviane,” Alex said. I’ll
give you anything you’ll accept, she thought. Alex smiled and looked at Sylvie
with great tenderness. She wanted to kiss her and stroke her cheek. She did not
look victorious, Sylvie again noted.

As Sylvie finally looked away, she thought, Ruth was right. She’s
perfect for me. “Please call me Sylvie,” she said.

“Could I call you?” Alex asked.

Sylvie only sighed. “Ruth and I swore off our cell phones for the
summer. It’s locked in her glove compartment. Too, I hate all the zombies
walking around with their cell phones, bumping into one another, seeing nothing
of any value. At some point, I’ll probably throw the damned thing away.”

“Well, could you come out with me tomorrow, say afternoon and
evening, see the city, have dinner?”

“I’d love to,” said Sylvie. “I’ll paint all morning. We can go
after that.” She smiled up at Alex. I know what you’re asking, she thought, and
I will, even if it’s up against a wall in an alley. She laughed and said, “We
should go back. They don’t know where we are,” meaning Ruth and Monserrat.

“Ah, them.” Alex was silent, then she decided to continue being
risky. “You know, Monserrat told me I could not possibly have a committed relationship
with a woman of her age; that I would have to leave her very soon for a younger
woman with whom I could share my life.”

Sylvie laughed uproariously. “Ruth said the same thing to me, the
exact words even.”

I sure hope she means it, Alex thought.

Those arrogant bitches, Sylvie thought. They think they’re
goddesses, knowing everything. Of course, they were right, but that is entirely
beyond the point.

Well that settles it, Alex thought. They walked up the stairs to
Monserrat’s house and rejoined the groups. Without thinking, Sylvie took Alex’s
arm. Alex closed her eyes and thought she might faint from pleasure. It was
perfect, every piece in place, as Monserrat conceived it before, when it seemed
impossible and chaotic to everyone else.

RUTH AND MONSERRAT were together in the gazebo
during the encounter between Mujeres Libres, Alex and Sylvie. Ruth felt very
young and light on her feet as she approached the gazebo; she nearly ran.
Monserrat was smiling and luminous when she entered. They immediately embraced,
like women who had known one another for years and been inexplicably separated.
“I’m so glad you’ve come to me,” Monserrat said.

“I am, too,” Ruth said. She looked at the intricate design of the
gazebo’s surface in the moonlight. It seemed to be a palace of the forest
ordered by tangled vines, flowers, trees, even a canopy, waiting only for them
and silvered by the moon. “It’s a place of enchantment, and you are very
beautiful.”

“Can you give her up so easily?” Monserrat asked.

“I already have. Only a fool would interfere with young love and
at her age; she really
must
have someone to blunder with.”

“Alex will do that very well. She has already started blundering
with her.” They both laughed. “But, how will you feel at the moment she
leaves?”

“Instantly, a knife in the heart. The world
is
that
beautiful. But then, will you be there?”

“Oh, yes,” Monserrat said.

“Then I will find my good fortune scarcely believable.” She traced
one finger down the soft inside of Monserrat’s arm. And it was as simple as
that: they became lovers. They kissed passionately and held one another like
young lovers.

You’re the one I’ll never leave, Ruth thought.

You’re the one, Monserrat thought.

When they separated again, Ruth said, “Tomorrow, let’s see the
city together. After all that’s happened to me since Katia died, I have the
strangest feeling of being homesick for your home.”

“Then you know it’s your home, too. Of course, we might cross
paths with them.”

“We are all protected by a sense of humor and by love.”

They kissed again and touched one another’s faces. “Isn’t it an
adventure, always, women’s love?” Ruth asked.

“Yes, I have no idea what will happen. There are no limits.”

That’s it exactly, Ruth thought, no limits, pure adventure. Like
the house. “It happens immediately or never, and means everything or nothing,”
she said.

“Yes, always like that. It’s magical,” said Monserrat. Their hands
moved gratefully over their new bodies, now baptized as lovers. Ruth felt a
voluptuous shape that bent itself completely and unexpectedly to her body. She
kissed Monserrat’s neck and breasts. Monserrat felt a trim, muscular,
large-boned body that seemed Greek and held her fiercely. They would have made
love then if they were not so close to the others.

“After a day or two, come away with me to Cadaqués,” Monserrat
said.

“Is it a secret place?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you hide it or rather, who has been there?”

“Only Damiana, my lover who died.”

“No one else at all? Not Alex?”

“No. Only my beloved can come there.”

“Then I’m homesick for it, too.”

Inside the house, the evening was drawing to a close and, as often
occurred, a few members of different groups stayed behind, joining what became
a large, animated and irreverent group discussion among women on any subject
that crossed their minds. Alex and Sylvie stood watching this group. Franco,
always referred to as El Caudillo, had somehow become the subject. Some women
from the journalist’s group and the fiction writers’ group were present, and
these two groups loved to bait one another, attempting to prove, in a contest
that no one took seriously, whether journalists or fiction writers were more
imaginative. One of the journalists began the mock contest. “I heard that El
Caudillo was really gay. All his attempts to domineer women occurred because he
had no idea what to do with them.”

One of the fiction writers immediately took up the bait. “That’s
right, of course. I heard that the American FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover, was his
lover. Hoover came to Madrid all the time to fuck El Caudillo. Their sex began
with the inherent ferocity of a double dictatorship but then, over time, they
grew to trust one another. Then they became romantic. They did a lot of nude
sun bathing on the Costa del Sol since El Caudillo could have any beach cleared
out by arresting everyone else. They screwed tenderly in all the hidden coves
of Cadaqués.”

Another fiction writer instantly continued the banter. “I heard
that one day, they went to the Dali Museum and decided that they were the two
most powerful dictators and the two greatest absurdists of the twentieth
century. They arranged to have their bodies stuffed by a taxidermist after
their deaths and put on display as the major exhibit in the Dali Museum. When
they went back to El Caudillo’s palace, they wore pink silk gowns all the time
and admired one another’s secret femininity. Finally, they demanded that a
fallen priest marry them. After the ceremony, El Caudillo shot the priest in
the head for having desecrated the Catholic religion.”

The contest seemed to have been soundly won by the fiction
writers, but one of the women from the media professionals group, who had never
seen the bantering contest before, made an irrelevant comment. “You’re making
all that up. Aren’t they, Alex?”

Alex, who was a member of the fiction writers’ group, wanted to
maintain the mood of levity. “The sign of the greatest writers is that when
they describe their own knowledge and experience, they have no idea what is
true or false because they’ve done so much embroidering. So, these stories are all
both true and false; they heard and did not hear these things.”

One of the gypsies, a woman who called herself Libre, growled in a
froggy voice, “So does that mean you’ve told someone that you fucked the black
cat sculpture in the Raval?” Libre wore her hair in an orange-tinted Mohawk and
was the lover of Pilar, a gypsy in the fiction writers’ group.

“No,” said Alex. “That cat is too butch for me, and it has the
face of a Catalan saint. I find the elephant in Cuitadella Park more sexually
appealing—all those curves.”

The journalists and fiction writers were bored with this intrusion
and wanted to finish their contest. “Actually, I heard El Caudillo kept a bunch
of castrati at his palace to handle his wives, who had formed a harem,” said
one of the journalists.

“I heard he woke up one day as a cockroach,” countered one of the
fiction writers. “It took the military ten hours to squash him, after which
Spain was liberated. So, it took Kafka to finally liberate Spain, the only
logical outcome for a country so full of rigid religious and political
beliefs.”

Another fiction writer decided to administer the coup de grace. “I
heard that one day, he woke up covered with orifices. They began to drip and he
was filled with horror and wanted to die. Instead, immediate use was made of
his ‘readiness.’ The palace guards began fucking his many orifices at once and
even the castrati and the women got involved. He had so many orgasms at the
same time that he died a happy man.”

Pilar, the gypsy girl who was one of the house’s strongest
personalities and a favorite of Monserrat, said, “Tonight, ladies, you are
really
raw,
just the way I love you. You’re the
real
women of
Spain.”

One of the artists commented, “I’m going to paint him as a
cockroach. His face will be very recognizable.”

Another of the artists said, “I definitely prefer to paint him
covered with orifices. We give our thanks to the fiction writers for the most
shameless absurdities.”

One of the journalists was still unwilling to give up. “I heard he
kept women chained in dungeons in his palace, like Medieval Spain. One night,
they got loose. They ran, shrieking, all over the palace in their rags, found
him, and tore him apart. It was like Orpheus except they fed the pieces to the
pigs.”

“Not exactly,” said one of the fiction writers. “Most of that
happened, of course—a shining moment in Spanish history—but they actually made
a stew of him. This dried out and hardened somewhat, and they then created
loaves of bread from it. This was given to the Catholic Church for Communion,
where it was highly prized.”

The fiction writers silently declared themselves victorious, and
the house began to empty. Suddenly, Ruth was at Sylvie’s side. She smiled and
said, “Well, what do you think of the house and its atmosphere?”

Sylvie laughed out loud. “Of course, I love it! It’s a whole house
full of women who break every rule in the book.” She was then silent and
thoughtful. “I’ve never been part of an atmosphere like this before. Are
feminists and lesbians always like this?”

“It only takes a place to meet and the freedom to speak. Then they
are similar the world over, or so I’ve always thought. There’s a place in
Paris, too.”

“I must find it.”

Alex decided it would be best for her to leave then. “See you
tomorrow,” she said to Sylvie with a smile.

“Oh, yes,” Sylvie said, smiling back.

Ruth decided to say as little as possible about a relationship
that was just beginning. Later, when they were preparing to sleep and Sylvie
pressed Ruth for her opinion of Alex, she said, “Alex reminds me of myself when
I was her age, including the occasional awkwardness.” This deeply impressed
Sylvie, since she thought of Ruth as the most flexible, sophisticated and
self-possessed person she had ever known. Then they made love as passionately
as ever. I’m not at all sure how this ends, Sylvie thought. I can’t sleep with
both of them at the same time. It’s right on schedule, Ruth thought, just as it
should be.

AT THAT MOMENT, Monserrat and Alex were in bed together in another
room, quite near Sylvie and Ruth. “I’m going out with her tomorrow, afternoon
and evening,” Alex said.

“I’m so glad, Alex,” Monserrat said. “Take the night at least or
even a few days if she wants to. I already know that you want to.”

“Was I that obvious at lunch?”

“You might have fooled some men but women? Never.” They both
laughed. “Keep in mind, though, that she will test you,” Monserrat continued,
“and she’s creative enough that no one can possibly predict what it will be
like.”

Alex sighed. “I’ve already been tested! You have no idea what an
obnoxious evening I’ve had. Mujeres Libres jumped all over me for being
American. I could only shut them up by imagining a magnificent new web site for
them. It was all silly, of course, but Sylvie would never have become
interested in me if it hadn’t happened. What a mess! I don’t know how I
survived it.”

Monserrat did not smile, as Alex expected. “The real test hasn’t
even begun yet, Alex, but it surely will tomorrow. What happened tonight was
only enough to engage her interest. You want her love.”

“Are you serious? Why is she so much trouble?”

“She has been with a lot of men who’ve tried to dominate her. She
sent them packing, but she’s still very angry about it. She will want you to
prove that you’re completely different.”

“How do you know so much about Sylvie?”

“She reminds me of myself when I was her age.”

“Oh . . . yes. I can see that.” Alex was thoughtful and then
became dreamy again. “Well, I’m ready for her.”

“Stay ready when it gets really wild, because it will. Your girl
is part tigress, at least for now.”

“What’s underneath all that?”

“Maternal feelings, I would guess. She will want to have a child
at some point. If I were young today, I would have children. In my day, it
seemed impossible. But, Sylvie doesn’t want anyone to manipulate those
feelings, which run deep. My guess is, she despises the childishness of men who
need to dominate a woman.”

“Will she always be part tigress?”

“No. If she’s in a good relationship, she will become very loving,
supportive and maternal.”

“Wow,” said Alex with a sigh. She was shocked by Monserrat’s
description. “Wow. It would have taken me years to figure that out.” They made
love tenderly, as they always had, with empty minds, brimming hearts, and a
deep sense of what pleased the other. Alex’s last thought was, how much longer
for this? It’s so lovely. Can I really give Monserrat up for a gorgeous tigress
that wants kittens?