bed pushed
against the corner as if it had been flying and had collided against an
obstacle, she did not feel as other voyagers: “I have arrived at my destination
and can now remove my traveling costume,” but: “I have been captured and from
here, sooner or later, I must escape.”
No place, no human being could bear to be gazed
at with the critical eye of the absolute, as if they were obstacles to the
reaching of a place or person of greater value created by the imagination. This
was the blight she inflicted upon each room when she asked herself: “Am I to
live here forever?” This was the blight, the application of the irrevocable,
the endless fixation upon a place or relationship. It aged it prematurely, it
accelerated the process of decay by staleness. A chemical death ray, this
concentrate of time, inflicting the fear of stasis like a consuming ray,
deteriorating at the high speed of a hundred years per minute.
At this moment she was aware of her evil, of an
invisible crime equal to murder in life. It was her secret sickness, one she
believed incurable, unnamable.
Having touched the source of death, she turned
back to her source of life; it was only in Stravinsky’s The Firebird that
Sabina found her unerring musical autobiography. It was only here she could
find the lost Sabina, her self-revelation.
Even when the first sensual footsteps of the
orange bird first appeared, phosphorescent tracks along magnolia forests, she
recognized her first sensations, the adolescent stalking of emotion, of its
shadow first of all, the echo of its dazzling presence, not yet daring to enter
the circle of frenzy.
She recognized the first prologue waltzes, the
paintings on glass which might shatter at the touch of warm hands, the moon’s
haloes around featureless heads, the preparations for festivities and the wild
drums announcing feasts of the hearts and senses. She recognized the crimson suspenses , the elevations which heightened the pulse, the
wind which thrust its hieroglyphs through the swan necks of the trombones.
The fireworks were mounted on wire bodies
waving amorous arms, tiptoeing on the purple tongues of the Holy Ghost, leaping
out of captivity, Mercury’s wings of orange on pointed torches hurled like
javelins into space sparring through the clouds, the purple vulvas of the
night.
On many of the evenings Sabina spent with Mambo
they did not go anywhere.
On evenings when Sabina had agreed to return to
Alan at midnight, her going out with a friend would not have been fatal or too
difficult to explain; but there were evenings (when she wanted to spend a few
whole nights with her lover) when she had been obliged to say she was
traveling, and then when Mambo suggested: “Let’s go to a movie,” the conflict
was started. She did not like to answer: “I don’t want Alan to see me.” This
made her feel like a child being watched, or a woman in a state of subjection,
so much did her feelings about Alan seem not like those of a woman wanting to
be faithful or loyal but those of an adolescent escaping home for some
forbidden games. She could only see Alan as a kind father who might become
angry at her lies and punish her. She would also, if she mentioned Alan’s
rights, be forced to confess to Mambo the division in her affections. At times
her lies seemed to her like the most intricate act of protectiveness instead of
the greatest treachery. Other days she felt tempted to confess, but would be
blocked by the knowledge that even if she were forgiven, Alan would expect then
a change of life, and this she knew she was powerless to achieve.
At mention of the movies she would assent, but
as if it were a game of chance she were playing, each time that Mambo suggested
one movie, or another, or still another, she weighed them not so much for their
qualities as movies, but according to what quarter of the city they were shown
at, whether or not it was a movie Alan might care to see, whether it was near
at hand (knowing
against the corner as if it had been flying and had collided against an
obstacle, she did not feel as other voyagers: “I have arrived at my destination
and can now remove my traveling costume,” but: “I have been captured and from
here, sooner or later, I must escape.”
No place, no human being could bear to be gazed
at with the critical eye of the absolute, as if they were obstacles to the
reaching of a place or person of greater value created by the imagination. This
was the blight she inflicted upon each room when she asked herself: “Am I to
live here forever?” This was the blight, the application of the irrevocable,
the endless fixation upon a place or relationship. It aged it prematurely, it
accelerated the process of decay by staleness. A chemical death ray, this
concentrate of time, inflicting the fear of stasis like a consuming ray,
deteriorating at the high speed of a hundred years per minute.
At this moment she was aware of her evil, of an
invisible crime equal to murder in life. It was her secret sickness, one she
believed incurable, unnamable.
Having touched the source of death, she turned
back to her source of life; it was only in Stravinsky’s The Firebird that
Sabina found her unerring musical autobiography. It was only here she could
find the lost Sabina, her self-revelation.
Even when the first sensual footsteps of the
orange bird first appeared, phosphorescent tracks along magnolia forests, she
recognized her first sensations, the adolescent stalking of emotion, of its
shadow first of all, the echo of its dazzling presence, not yet daring to enter
the circle of frenzy.
She recognized the first prologue waltzes, the
paintings on glass which might shatter at the touch of warm hands, the moon’s
haloes around featureless heads, the preparations for festivities and the wild
drums announcing feasts of the hearts and senses. She recognized the crimson suspenses , the elevations which heightened the pulse, the
wind which thrust its hieroglyphs through the swan necks of the trombones.
The fireworks were mounted on wire bodies
waving amorous arms, tiptoeing on the purple tongues of the Holy Ghost, leaping
out of captivity, Mercury’s wings of orange on pointed torches hurled like
javelins into space sparring through the clouds, the purple vulvas of the
night.
On many of the evenings Sabina spent with Mambo
they did not go anywhere.
On evenings when Sabina had agreed to return to
Alan at midnight, her going out with a friend would not have been fatal or too
difficult to explain; but there were evenings (when she wanted to spend a few
whole nights with her lover) when she had been obliged to say she was
traveling, and then when Mambo suggested: “Let’s go to a movie,” the conflict
was started. She did not like to answer: “I don’t want Alan to see me.” This
made her feel like a child being watched, or a woman in a state of subjection,
so much did her feelings about Alan seem not like those of a woman wanting to
be faithful or loyal but those of an adolescent escaping home for some
forbidden games. She could only see Alan as a kind father who might become
angry at her lies and punish her. She would also, if she mentioned Alan’s
rights, be forced to confess to Mambo the division in her affections. At times
her lies seemed to her like the most intricate act of protectiveness instead of
the greatest treachery. Other days she felt tempted to confess, but would be
blocked by the knowledge that even if she were forgiven, Alan would expect then
a change of life, and this she knew she was powerless to achieve.
At mention of the movies she would assent, but
as if it were a game of chance she were playing, each time that Mambo suggested
one movie, or another, or still another, she weighed them not so much for their
qualities as movies, but according to what quarter of the city they were shown
at, whether or not it was a movie Alan might care to see, whether it was near
at hand (knowing
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