212
PARTISAN REVIEW
atized it nor the fears that engendered it. I admitted her into the cave of
my fears even now when she was not quite defangecj, And perceiving
her gaze, more potent than her bulk, they emerged shyly, like deer. She
stroked them, regarded them curiously, the curious veining, or dap–
pling, of their flanks, approaching something like bravado. They
were going
to
turn her out of the village for consorting with me.
The pillars listened, with varying degrees of impatience, to her
defense. All of them stood at a little distance but invited her to sit.
sci
that they might lord it over her, with their deliberative pacing. She
ended up paying them
to
listen to the defense their ill-will made
necessary. I tried to help, we had tete-a-tetes among the crumbs. For she
found me in her bed when she arrived home. She was becoming used to
paying for the silence they peddled as counsel and mine was free,
therefore suspect, second-rate. And she was used to having her family
about her in times of crisis. She remembered a lagoon, flakes of willow
and the depths' capsized spire. They staged spectacles seasoned with
indictments. No member 'scaped whipping. Strangers were now taking
the place of her family, a new spectacle supp lanted the old, almost
invalidating it, a spectacle constructed and blown to bits with the help
of strangers, the spectacle of a self seeking refuge from the gestures
essential to self-defense in soft words and immobility.
It
revived her to
feel like a victim. The words she recruited saved her from the gestures
she would have made if she hadn't considered her li steners enemies.
She might have grabbed their balls, fondled their tits, distracted them,
smi ling the idiot smi le of those whose rage, whose needs, know no
bounds. And, in a sense, the spectacle had already been secreted, long
ago waiting in the blood for the plausible occasion, a ductless gland 's
trickle over epochs. The possibility of eviction was the occasion.
Had they found out about me, about my dumping into the canals.
Had someone seen me pissing in backyards. But the director and the
clerks knew nothing. Maybe it was just my living with her from time to
time. My marital status eluded them, sated spouses all. For all her
immobility and coy monosyllables she collaborated more with them
than with me, their indictment was more real than my faith, more
worthy of reverence or at least, consideration. New all egiances bloomed
in her, avid of subjugation . Her family sent her a pittance. The
installments mounted over the years and dwarfed her own earnings,
not inconsiderable. Whenever she spent a small amount it confused
her. Was she practical or prodigal. Her family liked
to
confuse her.
Maybe the money they sent shou ld have been hoarded toward some
inevitable catastrophe such as her no longer wanting it, needing it.
