The Sacred Beasts (25 page)

RUTH AND MONSERRAT were still in the Gothic Quarter, looking out
at the area from a cathedral roof. The view was full of towers, crosses,
cupolas and patron saints in close proximity. “We have ascended to all that
really exists of heaven,” Ruth said. “What do you see?”

“We’ve intruded upon a Catholic chess game played by the holy
saints who don’t exist. The pieces on the board are towers, cupolas and patron
saints.”

Ruth laughed. “Yes, I can see that, even their vanished holinesses.”
Sylvie would think of something like it, she thought. “What else do you see?”

“Old friends, old haunts, definitely not heaven and then, though I
don’t know why, freedom. What else do you see?”

“I am most struck by the colors and the light since everything
below looks like black and white photography at this time of day. The tops of
these buildings are shades of yellow, orange, brown, even pink, the colors of
clay, though everything is made of stone. The colors seem to be those of the
city itself and therefore a quality of the light. The clay-colored stones never
shine or reflect light; they drink the light and color, like clay. Barcelona
seems to be a city of earthen clay. These same buildings are black and gray
below, reaching for the sky in a facile spirituality. From here, you can see
the reality: the pure expanse of sky—and yes, it’s freedom, too—and the colors.
The great horizontal of nature reclaims the world and the spirit, making
religion paltry. You could go walking over these roofs, drink wine, have a
picnic, and we should do it sometime. And then we could . . .”

“Could what? You were going to say it’s a great place to make
love.”

Ruth laughed but felt startled. “Apparently, you can read my mind.
I better watch what I think.”

“I’ll bring a blanket and pillows next time.”

“That would be lovely! As lovers, we would become women of the
earthen clay, and this clay of Catholicism, after all its failed religion,
would pleasure itself.”

Monserrat laughed. “Once again, you are unique.”

“Plain old bawdy, if you ask me. Is this one of your favorite
places?”

“Yes.” Ruth kissed Monserrat, who pressed her body into Ruth’s
large, lean frame.

“If you keep doing that, which I love, I will have to make love to
you here without blankets and pillows.”

“Wait until tonight, my love. Show your restraint and chivalry, in
spite of the exorbitant temptations I present to you.”

“Clay is only clay, I’m afraid. I will take
every temptation you offer me.”

ALEX AND SYLVIE were outside Casa Battló
,
beginning
Sylvie’s discovery of Gaudi. “This is a good building for a first look at
Gaudi’s architecture,” Alex said.

“Oh, this really
is
a delight!” Sylvie said. “What a child
he is and what a dragon and what a clam and even a sea scallop. One day, he
must have crawled out of the ocean and decided to entertain those fools walking
upright who were so impossibly self-centered. I could go on and on. You’re a
writer; what do you see?”

“Unfortunately, I thought of Disneyland’s iconic castle when I
first saw it but then, in abject humiliation, I looked more carefully. In a
way, it’s a story, a fairy tale.”

“Oh, please tell me your fairy tale! I see everything in colors
and images. You must see things differently.”

“You will have to pay the storyteller.”

“Of course,” Sylvie said and smiled, thinking, I will have given
you my body before this day is done, which is what you really want.

“Well, there was a princess, dreaming underwater. She knew it was
trite to be a princess, so she deliberately made herself more creative and
unique by falling asleep underwater, which had never been done in a fairy tale
before. Everything was blue and green, and all the things around her seemed to
be rising from the ocean floor, just like the facade of Casa Battló. Suddenly
she sensed a great mystery in the world: it seemed that she was being
entertained, even wooed, by someone invisible to her. It must be a prince, she
thought, since she was very modern and knew she lived in a fairy tale. The
balconies over the windows were conches and frog faces, just as you see them on
Casa Battló, and they begged to be eaten. The circles on the facade seemed to
be golden coins blowing upward like bubbles. She had only to cup her hands and
receive limitless treasure from the prince as well as satisfaction of her needs.
And, when she saw the tower of Casa Battló, which looks like a very plump cross
on top of an ice-cream cone, she knew that all of her aspirations and strivings
would be fulfilled, too, since carrying her cross would be as easy as eating an
ice-cream cone.

“She had only to accept the prince as her husband, sight-unseen.
So she did. Then the prince came to her, shaking the facade, for the prince was
the building itself. Then all, all was revealed to her: the prince was a great,
round oceanic dragon like Casa Battló. The roof was his back, covered with
scales. The circles were not coins but reptilian markings on his skin. The
balconies were not conches or frog faces, but his many tentacles. The windows
were his many eyes and mouths, rectangular just to be more unique and dreadful.
He was standing before her, ready to carry off his bride. The story ends in
horror: the princess had agreed to marry a monster!”

Sylvie smiled throughout and then laughed at its close. “Let’s go
inside. Maybe we’ll find her there, half-digested.”

Inside, Sylvie walked around in a state of astonishment and was
silent. Alex enjoyed simply watching and following her. “I’ve studied Gaudi, of
course, and seen photos of his buildings before, but this is my first time for
the real thing,” she finally said. She thought, all is spherical; the
horizontal and vertical have been annihilated, yet it is a building and I am in
Wonderland. The gallery and largest window are pure oceanic wave honed from
wood and stained glass, blue and green for the sea. It looks more like
biological cells or floating sea creatures than a living-room window. The
rounded ceilings and relatively straight pillars look more like the shapeless
oceanic being kindly moving his bulk so that we can pass. I see a stairway
shaped like a vine or sea scallop leading to a floor that does not exist.

The real stairway is equally undulant and flanked by octopus eyes
and tentacles. We walk upstairs and in doing so pass an irrelevant pillar that
seems to be floating in air; it looks like an Egyptian god crossed with a
winged insect, poised to dive into water. The next floor has a hearth in the
shape of a cave and a ribbed roof like an animal’s mouth. It utters the law of
all animals: come eat and be eaten. And out the window is the roof—oh, what a
thing! It definitely shows the dragon’s backbone with blue scales on one side
and smooth orange on the other only to be eccentric, a dragon and its
photonegative. It makes me feel like a very young child. I believe that I can
just walk out this window and sit on the dragon’s back, take the ice-cream cone
for myself, flicking the cross off with one fingernail, and fly away. What a
wonderful, unexpected creature of a building to find in Catholic Spain!

Then, for the first time since entering the building, she became
aware of Alex, who was just standing and looking at her. They were holding
hands like children. From the silly smiles on their faces, they both realized
that they had been entertained to the point of ecstasy, Sylvie by Gaudi and
Alex by Sylvie. Alex had hardly taken her eyes off Sylvie throughout their
exploration of the house.

“And now you must pay the storyteller,” Alex said quietly.

“The story teller must seize me and take her payment.” And, there
was their first kiss, in the most perfect place and moment. It did not seem to
end. Sylvie felt a lean body that towered over hers but was muscular and held
her tightly, reaching and touching everywhere, overwhelming her slowly. Alex
felt the body of a Hindu goddess, alive and pliant. Slowly, Sylvie realized
that Alex had maneuvered them against a wall in a dark corner, and she was glad
for that because she would have fallen over. Urgent words they would never have
predicted escaped from them. “Tonight!” Alex almost shouted and looked like a
maniac.

“Oh, yes!” said Sylvie. She was breathless. “Sooner!”

Without a word, Alex took her hand and rapidly led her out of Casa
Battló. I think I am going to find that sex maniacs can be adorable, provided
they are women, Sylvie thought.

RUTH AND MONSERRAT were standing outside of Casa Battló for one
last look at its facade. They had already seen the interior and also visited
another building designed by Gaudi called La Pedrera. A few hours had passed
since Sylvie and Alex had left.

“Well, my love, what do you see now in Gaudi?” Monserrat asked.

“I see a message from the universe saying that all life curves
like a wave, turns spherical and comes from the sea, a scientific fact made
into a bakery confection with astounding ingredients: dragons, waves, worms,
tides, bits of masks, textures of flesh but also rich cloth like satins,
brocades, and amassed spider webs. What have you seen?”

“That and more in the confection: cushions, origami, beans,
confetti, a big ice-cream cone in that tower in front of us, at La Pedrera
columns like stamens of flowers or legs of crustaceans and a house based on the
image of the wave and the spiral. It would seem impossible for the whole world
to be incorporated into a house, but this is precisely what Gaudi wants to do.”

“Now you really have me thinking or rather
seeing
, you
absolutely brilliant artist!” Ruth said. “There’s more; you’re right: bubbles,
eerie musical instruments I do not know playing sounds of life underwater,
animal cries by the seashore, that immense metal profusion of spider-webs that
serves as a doorknob at La Pedrera, those chimneys on the roof that look like
children of the gods of Easter Island, a light fixture as a million webs
assembled and draped by a fashion designer, the annihilation of the most common
human symbols—the cross, the symmetrical arch and pillar. It all says humans,
you can only go so far, achieve so much. I am here not to conquer but to
encompass you, unify you (which you badly need, breaking into fragments of
thought so readily); but more, I am here
to
astonish you and make you laugh, as an infant does when it is surprised. I will
tease you, tantalize you. I am childish laughter incarnate in stone.”

“Oh my, now you’ve really got me
thinking
as well as
seeing,” Monserrat said. “Yes, the buildings speak and they say, you think that
I am art, but I am nature looking back at you. How could you ever have thought
that you control me? It is I who make you strive for meaning, create symbols
and art, but here’s my real trick: I take them all back and render them into
myself, my body that is the world. Yes, I will tease and tantalize you, even
tickle you. I will laugh with and at you.”

“It reminds me of the Gaia hypothesis,” Ruth said, “a scientific
theory that the earth is in fact alive. All of its life processes, taken
together, comprise a living organism with its own evolutionary path. More than
any other artist I know, it is Gaudi who unleashes this idea. He astonishes and
delights us but more, he reminds us of a primordial memory we had as children,
when we truly believed that all we saw was alive. Animism becomes not a
primitive concept, but a modern one.”

“You are an absurdly brilliant woman, both a scientist and an
artist!” Monserrat said.

“You’re making me into the artist,” Ruth said and thought, Sylvie
did that, too. She was a major spark in my transformation. I gave her so much
but I took from her, too. I wonder what is happening to Sylvie at this moment.

“THAT I WANT very
slowly
, my maniac love,” Sylvie at that
moment was saying to Alex as Alex began to undress her. Alex had taken Sylvie
to a hotel she chose for its name, “Pension Dali,” its eighteenth-century
windows, its cheap price suitable for artists and scholars, the noise outside
the window since it was somehow at the center of the world, and because the
room was filled almost entirely by a very large, very soft bed, exactly where
she wanted to be with Sylvie.

Alex instantly understood that Sylvie found it erotic to be
undressed and this, in turn, she found erotic. She kissed Sylvie’s thighs and
moved her hand into her underpants while lowering them slightly and then
returned to removing her brassiere. I will take hours at it if she wants it,
Alex thought as she kissed Sylvie’s breasts, which were even fuller than she
had imagined. She felt a tremendous energy and knew she could fill many hours
in all parts of the ritual of love. She was as slow, reverential and naked as a
poem before this woman, nearly denuded, that she so loved and desired. “You are
the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and you have the body of a Hindu
goddess,” Alex said.

“Which goddess am I?” Sylvie asked.

“Parvati,” Alex said and began to kiss Sylvie’s shoulders. “You’re
definitely not Durga. Ultimately you are Uma,” and then Alex was lost in
Sylvie’s breasts and navel. The underpants were now gone and Alex caressed
Sylvie’s genitals lightly, which caused her to groan.

Then Sylvie laughed. “You’ve forgotten to take your own clothes
off, my maniac love. I’m doing my best with these buttons, but I am failing due
to a monumental distraction.”

“You made me forget; it was your goddess-like power.” Alex shifted
her efforts immediately to her shirt and pants and then was rid of them all at
a remarkable speed. Now she is very clever in desire, Sylvie thought. I like
that.

Then they were naked and free together. Alex’s hands were
everywhere, caressing and kneading Sylvie’s skin, relaxing every muscle of the
body she worshiped, needing only to feel its most intense response. I should
roll over on top of her, Sylvie thought and then forgot. “What do you like
best, my goddess?” Alex asked.

“You. Lie on top of me, first. I want to feel you completely.”
Alex smiled and uttered an “ah” of pleasure. Sylvie felt the whole weight of
this woman who was so much taller than she and the hands that were everywhere,
exactly where she responded most and then carefully, lightly. Sylvie forgot
everything but these adept hands and the tall body that loved and adored her.
With her arms and legs, she embraced this body that felt magnificent to her and
began to respond.

This woman is no maniac, Sylvie thought; she perfectly channels
her desire. You are a complete surprise, my love. You seem to be hearing a
slow, ancient rhythm, a deep drum, a crude pipe, the sound never to be ignored.
You’ve mesmerized me with it. I’m already breathless and making sound, not
loud, not yet. In time, Alex circled Sylvie’s labia with her knuckle and then
took her clitoris into her mouth while lightly caressing her nipples. Then
Sylvie’s cries began.

The ritual of love was repeated again and again, in many different
ways. I’m not stopping until she passes out, Alex thought.