ANGELA HIMSEL
687
to always do things only because they're fair, but to be more conscious of
showing mercy and forgiveness."
''I'm glad you told me that," Marvin says.
Then he kisses her again and his hands roam over her body, up and
down, from the cedars of Lebanon to the streets of Ashkelon, he merisms
her. Is that a word, my love? Let me know.
Two weeks later Victoria lies in her bed with Ariel. Her arms are
linked around his neck, completing the circle. Nothing can possibly
penetrate their aura for they are bound flesh to flesh, rib to rib; his body
in hers, and his naked, hairy chest like a warm rug against her smooth
breasts. They are on display to one another, not even glass walls between
them.
"There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four
which I know not.
"The way of the eagle in the air, the way of the serpent upon a rock;
the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a
maid." Proverbs 30: 18-19.
Before the emanations outward can occur, the vessel must first be
broken. Victoria has no need of plastic salami wrappers. When Ariel
breaks her final barrier she too, technically, becomes used merchandise.
Now that he isn't hers, Victoria finds it perfectly natural to do what she
has never done with any man: let him inside her. Isaac Luria, the dead
mystic, would approve of this contradiction.
She binds Ariel to her, weaving his body into hers. At the moment
the vessel shatters, a few of the ancient sparks in the universe are mended
and Victoria and Ariel spin together in a circle in their private, separate,
mystical quest for union, spiraling off of each other until they find them–
selves back at the beginning again, but a different beginning, for travelers
journeying together inevitably arrive at a different point than the place
they started. God has obviously read and responded to the letter she
posted to Him at the Wall, unsigned and unsealed.
Ariel says, "I love you." And she says, "Me too."
How do you stop being reserved and Christian and pensive? How do
you stop giving yourself pop quizzes in the middle of sex? How will you
stop loving someone, seeing someone who is stamped with another
woman's seal?
That's an essay question it will take years to answer.
