JOHN SHEA
201
face. Love letters . Dearest Goddess,
I. . ..
What have I gotten
myself into, he wondered.
Grazie.
IV
So the first letter had come, only a few days after their conver–
sation, and she had brought it over to be translated. The decoding
was fairly easy: apparently lovers articulated the same universal
thoughts, often in the same images and rhetoric. This Italian archi–
tect searching for a job , at any rate, expressed himself within the
tradition . It was fairly easy, yes: but there was something peculiar
about it. There were the same impassioned universal thoughts to be
exchanged, but without him as intermediary they would not be
spoken, would not be properly imparted . She held a letter in her
hand full of the most earnest words, but without him it was only a
silent symbol. And silent symbols, he observed, apparently did not
carry the same weight as an open letter.
And it was indeed an open letter. How strange, he found
himself thinking as he read to her the passions of a man he had never
met, speaking as it were for him, bringing to life the indecipherable
letters on the page. They were not two people discussing a lyric
written, perhaps , for a lover in years past but now an object of dis–
passionate scrutiny. Here, as she sat alternately with eyes closed or
peering with a kind of pained eagerness into his face-although, it
seemed, not seeing
him-
there was little aesthetic distance. These
words meant exactly what they said, and she to whom they were
addressed, whom they were to enflame or soothe, was only a few feet
away, a living, tangible presence. And they had their effect: she
would smile, or lapse into a still sadness; a range of emotions, often
in paradoxical combinations, could be seen, glimpsed, surmised,
animating her face . While he spoke, weighing each word or phrase
as it came, he tried to decide how he felt. "Your caress," he said,
pausing to complete the sentence smoothly, "was like a paradise on
earth, and I felt myself falling . .. happily, without question ...
into your enchantment, under your spell, I guess. How can I go on,
here, alone, so many kilometers away ... after having something
.. . after having kissed your lips, touched your breasts, so like the
peaches of ... some place. I can't make it out." He took a quick look
at her. She was quiet, head bowed . His uneasiness was keen: he had
just openly described her bare breasts , to her , the woman sitting
