“Suddenly,” I
replied, “I feel quite sick.”
- - -
The storm was clearly visible as we drove through
Viseu, rumbling up the Portuguese Atlantic coastline in an ominous display of
natural indifference to our human affairs. The very air spoke of foreboding
things, things too powerful to be understood. My eyes darted from one distant
horizon to the next, scanning the clouds and their coruscating occupants with a
mixture of irrational, sublimated dread and perverse interest. It was as though
nature itself was announcing Liselle’s arrival.
I began shifting nervously as our mapped directions
made it clear we were approaching the pickup point. Dave turned to look me in
the eye, shaking his head sadly.
“I know you don’t want this, and I know that in a
way it’s my fault. I just want to tell you, before we pick her up, that if you
need any help dealing with...”
I scowled back at him. “Dave, look at me. I’ve
taken human interaction, dissected it, and studied its distilled essences. A
more thoroughly disinterested, manipulative person does not exist. I somehow
doubt I’ll be needing help in fending off Simonie’s bimbo friend.”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t mean help with
fending her off; quite the opposite. I find myself hoping you can discover the
same things I’ve found in Simonie.”
I cackled gleefully in a burst of exuberant
malevolence. “Dave, of all the absolutely stupid things...” His sharp
gesture cut me off.
“Hey, we’re here. Do you see her?”
For the first time in what had been almost half an
hour, I looked up to study our surroundings. The parking area doubled as a
tourist promenade next to the ocean, a spot for gawkers to photograph the
mysterious and elusive Atlantic Ocean. Simonie’s instructions had been quite
specific, right down to pointing it out on a faded tourist’s map she had waved
admonishingly under Dave’s nose.
The promenade ended in a rocky jut out into the
now-raging sea, a discarded-looking pile of stones that made the whole thing
look like the tenuous edge of the world. Occasional fonts of ocean water could
be seen splashing over and into the rain-soaked seawall, reinforcing my
impression that the world outside our car was indeed a wet place to be.
Dave’s throat clearing startled me out of my
reverie. “Well, go see if you can find her.”
I gazed back at him incredulously. “What. The. Fuck.”
He bobbed his head, looking for all the world like
a mediocre salesman trying to peddle me a broken vacuum. “Yeah, she’s your,
uuh, date, and whatnot. So, you go look.”
“I...” No words could accurately encompass the
vastness of my displeasure. Instead, I threw open the door and stepped gingerly
out into the storm as the screaming winds snapped my overcoat around me.
Once outside the steamed-up car, Liselle wasn’t
hard to spot. She stood on a rock at the very end of the promenade, overlooking
the startling violence of the sea. She looked like an ocean goddess from some
long-forgotten mythology, perched on that boulder; her hair dancing in the
wind, an infinity of threaded fire. Despite myself, I was awestruck at this
vision of primal beauty, and stood gazing at it for some time before the
trickling rainwater down the back of my neck drew me back to the real world. My
appreciation for the imagery had been antiseptic, devoid of association with
the person within the scene.
I slipped between the puddles of water on the balls
of my feet, instantly struck with how similar this was to that night in
Belgium, a year and a lifetime ago. A storm, puddles of water, nervous
displeasure, unwanted women; I seemed doomed to repeat the most drastically
unlikable portions of my life. I padded silently up behind Liselle.
“Enjoying the view?”, I shouted into the wind. I realized I was still speaking in English
only after I’d said the words. She didn’t speak a word of English; another tool
in my arsenal, and one for which I was grateful.
He shoulders tensed- in surprise or something else,
I couldn’t tell without seeing her face- but she didn’t turn around. “Bonjour,
Morgan. Or should I say ‘terrible day’? I’m so glad you came to pick me up, I
wasn’t sure you would and Simonie said...”
“The car is this way,” I said in French, cutting
her off absently.
“Oh, yes, I really should get out of the rain.
Thank you for your consideration.” She finally turned from the ocean and smiled
warmly. I sighed inwardly at her interpretation of my abrupt interruption.
Dave, or even Simonie, would have seen even such a little transgression of
polite norms from me as a major sign of my displeasure, but Liselle didn’t know
me. She thought she did, apparently, but her smiling face laid bare that
particular delusion with white-porcelain perfection.
Ignoring her little black suitcase- another
gesture, another lack of comprehension- I turned and walked back towards the
car. I could hear her splashing through the puddles behind me.
I smiled thinly. At least I wasn’t the only one
stumbling around.
- - -
Simonie and Liselle fell into each other’s arms in
a flurry of greetings and rapid-fire French exchanges of pleasantries that Dave
couldn’t follow and I didn’t care about. Both Dave and I were pointedly
ignored, something that I found amusing given the purpose of this get-together
appeared to be to attach me to Liselle- willingly or not. Dave sighed with some
exasperation, rolling his eyes and nudging me in the ribs.
“Let’s head to that little bar across the street, I
need a drink.”
“Sounds good to me, I doubt they’ll miss us
anyway.”
Simonie overheard the exchange and turned to Dave.
“Before you miscreants head off to divulge this city of its collective
virginity...”
“Ooh, nice turn of phrase!”, I interjected, once
again appreciative of just how intelligent Simonie could be when I was in a
generous mood.
She shot me a dimpled smile before continuing. “We
should decide on what we’re doing tomorrow.”
I waved my hand dismissively, indicating I had no
interest in where I was dragged along to accompany Liselle. Dave shrugged.
“Something historic would be nice, I think. We
don’t get much of that back home.”
Liselle nodded thoughtfully. “The Royal Botanical
Gardens here in Madrid are supposed to be beautiful. I know where they are,
though I’ve never been inside.”
Simonie clapped her hands happily. “Perfect! We’ll
pack a picnic lunch and head out late tomorrow morning.”
“Fine, whatever”, I mumbled. “Fucking flowers. Why
don’t we just traipse around the woods while we’re at it? I hate nature.”
Simonie pointedly ignored me.
Dave nodded in agreement. “Sounds good. If you need
us we’ll be across the street at the jazz bar for a while, then...”
Simonie sighed before adding, “Yes, you’ll be
god-knows-where. Well, if you find anything interesting, call my cell and maybe
we’ll join you.” I shot Dave a look when she turned to Liselle that said, ‘Yeah,
like that’s happening’. He snickered softly.
“To the bar, Watson!”, I cried in English, striking
a heroic pose and pointing a finger to the door. The women stared at me in a
mixture of wariness and pity, but I had long ago stopped caring what Simonie
thought. Liselle was a special case- I cared even less what her opinion
was.
“Hey, maybe we can score some wonderful Spanish
pharmaceuticals while we’re out...”, I heard Dave mumbling from inside his
jacket as he put it on.
“Yes, une pilule diabolique! Great idea.”
“That’s not right,” he shot back with a grin as we
stepped out of the flat.
“Whassat?”
“We’re in Spain, now- it’s “los pildora malévolo”.
“I stand corrected, then. If I’m going to get
really fucked and let it all hang out in a foreign town, I want to do it right.”
We laughed all the way to the bar.
It was still empty, the locals still in bed or at
the very least having lunch. The simple logic in that struck me again as we
stepped out of the insane heat of the street and into the marginally cooler
bar, Dave’s sigh of relief mirroring my own feelings. It had thick stone walls
that looked positively ancient, though the decorations had been modernized to
match that strange temporal state that every jazz bar in the world seems to
inhabit- almost futuristically retro, an indefinable era that might have come
sometime in the 50’s that nobody but the dimly-lit-room-inhabiting jazz
communities of the world had noticed.
“It’s like a press club, but without the grumbly
foreign correspondents and the crazies,” I mused.
“Hmm?”
“Oh, nothing, just talking my thoughts. God, I need
a drink.”
Dave smiled. “Go sit down, I’ll get us something.
Rum and coke?”
“Yeah, make it a double- and grab an ashtray. I am
in such a fucking foul mood right now.”
He shook his head, but whatever reply he had for me
was put on hold while he went for drinks. I sat down at a small table in the
back, next to the vacant performance stage.
Dave trotted back shortly thereafter with my
requested drink. “I asked for a triple, and the guy looked at me like I was
insane. I told him it was for my friend, and he looked over at you slumped in
your chair and asked if it was woman troubles. Hah!”
“Woman troubles are what normal 17 year old guys
have. I’ve got a disturbingly aggressive 20-something French poet who wants to
bear my children.”
“An attractive one...”, he mused.
“Yeah, I can here your question right through your
head, Dave. Why don’t I just bang her and be done with it?” I shook my head in
disgust, drowning half my drink in one sip. “She’s probably my ideal woman, in
just about every measurable way, and I fear that. And because I don’t want
to, for reasons too complicated to explain. And because I’m beginning to
suspect I never will. And because even if I did, I don’t want to be
pressured into it by you and her and Simonie.”
“And, last but certainly not least, because doing
it spites her and your precious painter. I’m nothing if not a political
creature- strife like this is more fun than a quick fling ever would be. What
does physical satisfaction have over mental satisfaction? Mindfucking that
French wench is better than just plain fucking her any day of the week.
I might not be moved to be so cruel, were it not for the unwantedness of the
whole situation. It makes me faintly queasy.”
“Long story short; right now, at this moment, I’m
getting off on being contrary. My misery is just part of the fun- I’m beginning
to think I’m not truly happy unless I’m stressed, anxious, and cranky. Which,
I’m not mistaken, is what you were in Belgium and Paris and every other place in between. If
getting laid ruins that for me, like it apparently has for you, then no
thanks.” I finished off my drink with one final, spiteful gulp.
He was silent for a time, staring at his drink and
idly playing with the coaster. Finally, he spoke.
“Whatever I lost, I gained a hundredfold. I only
wish you could understand...”
“Yes, yes, love is so fantastic,” I interrupted
sarcastically. “To each his own, I guess, but I know that if I ever found love
I’d also find all those other emotions I don’t need- hate, jealousy,
sadness. Emotional neutrality gives me room to maneuver, something I’m not
inclined to give up. Especially if what Allen told me in Paris is true.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Oh, fuck, nothing you’d want to hear.”
Dave harrumphed, but didn’t press me for details.
“So, how do you plan on avoiding Liselle for the foreseeable future?”
“Aha! Glad you asked!”
He shook his head in wry amusement. “I knew you had
something in mind, you incorrigible dog.”
“Don’t I always? It’s simple, really- I just won’t
sleep.” I waved the bartender over for a refill.
Dave paused for a moment. “Excuse me? That’s your
plan?”
“Think about it, Dave; how can she sink her claws
into me if I’m always out all night? I’ll stay hopped up on whatever drugs I
can find, and sleep only when she’s not around. I’ve always wanted to see how
long I could last on a long burn anyways, now I’ll have some incentive.”
The bartender waddled up to our table and put two
of my selected drinks down in front of me. He looked at me, shook his head in
sympathy, and left. Dave looked at them bemusedly before continuing.
“Not only is this the most insane plan I’ve ever
heard, Morgan- it sounds like fun. Count me in.”
“I knew you had it in you! And for that reason, I
took into account that you might want Simonie along. Liselle is inevitable
then, too, so that’s fine. I don’t care if she’s behind me or beside me, as
long as she’s not on top of me.”
“Eloquent as always, you insane Canadian bastard.”
I held up both drinks, one in each hand. “Cheers,
fucker!”
- - -
We wandered through the Royal Botanical Garden the
next afternoon, it’s ancient architecture merging with the floral smells and
striking colors to create a strangely captivating, multi-sensual assault on the
mind. I silently directed our small party simply by leading the way, too
frustrated with the situation to even bother asking for consensus. Dave and I
hadn’t told them of our plans for that night, though our furtive expressions
and obvious hangovers sat ominously with Simonie. Liselle, as always, was
oblivious.
Eventually I made some sense of the Spanish on the
map-brochure and wandered us into a room filled with orchids, their strange
petals resonating with my own peculiarity. I cocked my head and gazed out into
a particularly large batch of white and purple orchids, the flowers looking
ghostly there, surrounded by stone walls.
A poem came unbidden to me, jumping from my mouth
before I had time even to consider its quality.
“One thousand orchids / each one more pale than
the last / speak of life and death”
Dave paused beside me, looking at me intently, his
lips moving silently as he counted to himself.
“Five, seven, five...” He grinned. “Another
spontaneous haiku, Morgan? You really need to stop doing that.”
I shrugged absently, still entranced by the
flowers.
Liselle murmured from behind us. “Composing poetry?
I certainly hope you’ve never done that for a lady; we’re helpless against that
sort of thing.”
I turned to her, the faintest of smiles playing on
my lips.
“I rather suspect I need to care about someone
before I go composing them poetry.”
Not waiting for her reaction, I slipped between her
and Simonie, heading to the next chamber. As I passed them, I spoke over my
shoulder.
“Let’s go have that lunch you promised, I’m getting
hungry.” I turned slightly. “Why don’t you ladies go get the food while Dave
and I find a spot in the park?”
Simonie gazed back at me coldly. “Yes, fine. Pick
someplace where we can find you.”
Liselle just stared at the ground, her cheeks a
notably-embarrassed red. Obviously, I had finally made a point with her.
I turned my back to them again. “Ah, wonderful, I
can hardly wait. Come on, Dave.” I swept past rooms containing roses and
carnations, and other strange flowers I couldn’t identify. Dave struggled to
keep up.
“What was that all about, Morgan?”
“I want to have lunch in the Retiro. Someplace
shady, preferably.”
“Not that...what you said to Liselle. Was it really
necessary?”
“Truth is never necessary, Dave.” I smiled
viciously, seeing him alongside me now out of the corner of my eye. “But as for what I said to her...I’m
beginning to think I need to be painfully blunt with Liselle to make my point.
She doesn’t react to anything else.”
“Did you ever think that maybe she was just
pretending not to notice, playing her own little game?” He laughed, a sharp
crack of amusement. “How very much like you.”
I faltered mid-stride. The idea that Liselle could
be as conniving and tricky as Dave or I had never occurred to me; I had
automatically assumed she was as politically clumsy as Simonie.
I straightened up, and turned to face him. We were
standing in an exit archway, the bone-white stones flashing painfully with
sunlight. Dave looked at me, his simple pleasure at my sudden discomfort
obvious.
“I suppose that would explain why she’s so intent
on this pursuit. Still, if she’s anything like me...all the more reason to keep
her away. Come on, let’s find some shade, I’m too pale for this obscene
daylight.”
Not wanting to continue that particular line of
conversation, I changed the subject to something philosophical. Dave could
always be counted on to pick up on such things and run with them.
“Did you ever wonder about...well...the way things
are for us?”
Knowing a vague prompt when he heard one, Dave
played the straight man impeccably. “What do you mean?”
“Well, take Simonie. She’s beautiful...”
“Very”, he interrupted me, a goofy smile on
his face. I shook my head in irritation before continuing.
“Yeah, right. She’s also intelligent. Same goes for
Liselle. And remember Lucille in Belgium? Or Monica? Or Claudine?”
“Yes, they were all very pretty and smart. What’s
your point?” A look of epiphany crossed his face. “Oh...”
“Yes, you begin to see now. Doesn’t it seem at all
odd that all these women we keep running into, even the ones we hate or vice
versa, seem to be gorgeous and smart and witty? Not only that, but the
stupidest little things we never considered. We ran into Allen and his friends
totally by accident, and finding the Beaudoins to stay with of all people was
another fluke. Allen led to Simonie and Liselle, not to mention all that good
time in Paris. We see perfect sunsets, drink fabulous wines, and cavort with
wonderful and attractive people. It’s all fucked up, like a thin veneer of gold
over, well, something else.”
“Surreality”, he punctuated. “And you’re right, it is
rather surreal. Not to mention, we’re no slouches in the looks department.” He
flashed his trademark perfect grin, making his indisputable point evident. I
couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yes, true. And take us as the perfect examples...”
“I see what you mean now. We’re hyper-intelligent,
mature beyond our years, funny and self-assured...”
I nodded. “Exactly- that’s all just to the cursory
observer. Underneath...well, I can’t speak for you anymore, but I know that I’m
something else entirely.” Something...distant, I left unsaid.
He nodded again. “Ok, I see your point. We’re
living out this false shell, an unreal existence. Europe is just the stage.”
“Right, it’s like a kabuki play. Everyone is
singing and dancing, and we just wander along bemused by how we fit into it.”
“And when we go home...” He trailed off.
“When we go home, it’s another kind of surreality.
We’ve seen the play, now, but nobody else understands. To them, we’re just a
pair of teenaged guys with smart mouths.”
“Hah, ‘we’ve seen the play’. You and your
turns of phrase, Morgan, I never know what to expect.” His face hardened
suddenly. “But yes, I see what you mean. We don’t really fit in either place.
Here, it’s all impossibly beautiful and false, and back home it’s ugly and
grey.”
“Yes, grey, exactly. Flat. I find myself
having to crawl along just to get moving every day, when I’m in Vancouver. What
do I care what my teacher thinks of some boring writing assignment I barely got
done, when I was doing freelance work for Allen in Paris? What do you care
about high school soap-opera relationships, when you have Simonie? The ennui is
positively heavy, like the lead vest they make you wear for X-rays.”
“You know, this is just plain sad.” He shook his
head, but an amused twinkle in his eye made me suspect he had something in
mind.
I frowned, puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”
He grinned again, his moment of self-reflective
darkness passed. “We’re becoming existentialists because we have a propensity
for dealing with attractive women!”
“Wouldn’t anyone?”
“This is true.”
“Go get the ladies; I doubt they want to see me
now. I’ll save us a spot here.” I waved vaguely to the tree we were standing
under. “They should be at the car.”
“Right. This is one fight I want to watch from
close up!” He grinned again before turning to leave.
“Oh, Dave, before you go, some food for thought as
you walk.”
He turned around, standing between the light of the
sun and the shadows cast by the tree. “Oh?”
“What makes you think I’ve been really trying with
Liselle yet?” I quirked an eyebrow slightly to punctuate the statement, then
smiled. “Go get them.”
He laughed, shook his head again, and walked away
into the light.
- - -
The next few days went more or less as I had
planned them; a raging torrent of tribalistic instinct, a constantly moving
worship of hedonistic gods unnamed and unnamable. Madrid was the hot, bright
cradle of that nascent self-gratification, the four of us morphing into
permanent chevaliers of sin. The occasional return to reality we endured
came with an icy shock, forced away ritually with a dutiful regimen of rich
Spanish food, alcohol, drugs, and the ever-present drone of club music.
The women had greedily taken up our challenge,
embracing the descent like true celebrants of self-destruction. Dave and
Simonie seemed to continue along whatever path they had chosen, an organic
connection growing between them in poignant contrast to the artificial
flavoring of our existence. I, too, became slowly more comfortable with
Liselle’s presence, but stayed ever vigilant against giving her the false
impression of affection. We had reached a strange accord, whereby she would
constantly push herself into my sphere of comfort, and I would rebuff her with
a practiced flair bordering on the sublime. Balance was thusly maintained
between the two pairings- the yin and yang of blissful relationships.
It was during one of our unfortunate moments of
sober reality early one night that Dave and I took stock of our supplies.
Simonie and Liselle were asleep together in the larger bed, leaving us a moment
of peace through which to thread the mutually fraying filament of abused and
loathed consciousness.
“We’re out of booze, which is no big deal, but...”
He blinked slowly once, twice.
“We’re out of drugs, too?” I finished for him.
“Looks that way. I guess we...”
“Have to go back to...”
“Fausto.” He finished our collective thought with a
wince.
“Ugh. That man freaks me right out, and that’s
saying something for me.” I absently fingered the long scratch Liselle had
playfully left on my arm. “I guess we should go before the ladies wake, though.
I’m not going anywhere near Liselle until she’s stuffed with downers.”
Dave cocked his head, the vertebrae of his neck
audibly popping- a bad habit he had acquired from me. His eyes danced with the
laughter he seemed disinclined to voice; perhaps he feared Liselle, too. “True.
Let’s go.”
We padded silently out into the hall and the
greater darkness without. The streets were still ghostly empty, the combination
of seasonal habit and time of day making it seem as though every last living
being had been plucked from the streets of the great city and sent to the other
side of the world. Australia, maybe; someplace hot, certainly.
Stumbling, dancing, floating and prowling down
narrow corridors and expansive thoroughfares, we made our way through
modern-ancient Madrid with a purpose that seemed wholly appropriate to the
surrounding vacancy. The last two people in the city were foreign sinners bent
on self-destruction, and it seemed the Virgin Mary had seen fit to save the
locals.
“By sending them to Australia!”, I cackled
insanely.
Dave rather judiciously chose to ignore my
comments.
After
an indeterminable length of time, we came to the tenement block that housed
Fausto, the disreputable Madrileno drug-dealer
we sought out only with the greatest trepidation.
“You buzz his apartment this time,” Dave murmured
nervously.
“Love to, babe, but I don’t speak fucking
Spanish. Think of this as payback for all the times I bailed you out in
Paris and such.”
Grumbling, Dave pressed the chipped plastic button
that nested beside a small brass placard labeled “Fausto”. All the other
placards had two names but his; an omen I had failed to note on our first
visit. Notable, too, was the fact that Fausto’s buzzer looked slightly the
worse for wear, while the other buttons were arrayed in impeccable, gleaming
rows.
“Looks like whoever buzzes old Fausty has a problem
with manicuring,” I announced with false cheer. Dave shot me an evil look over
his shoulder before conversing with the befuddled, tinny voice then wafting out
of the speaker.
“Si, Dave”, he loudly repeated for the
fourth time. There was a reluctant pause before the door latch popped. I
gestured Dave in ahead of me with a reckless grin and morbid eyes. Muttering
under his breath, he stepped in.
The inside of the tenements smelled exactly as it
has the last two times we had visited; a strange brew of cat piss, spicy
cooking, and the pheromonal odor of violence. The carpets were a mottled
near-beige, the perfect compliment to the puke- (avacado?) green wallpaper.
Still muttering, Dave lead the way up the narrow staircase to the third floor
and out destination.
When we had initially paid call to Fausto, the
first number normally on his door- a 3, we knew from the intercom directory and
his chosen floor of residence- had been missing for in indeterminate amount of
time, leaving the remaining two numbers a lonely and forlorn pair. The next
time we had visited, the second number had vanished too- we assumed it had
followed its compatriot, wherever that was.
“Hey, look!” Dave cackled sharply, caustic echos
bouncing off the vomitous-vegetable-paint covered walls and ringing off into
the distance. “The last number is gone!”
Fausto’s door was now completely unadorned. I
shuddered. Whatever mysterious fate had befallen those numbers, I didn’t want
to know.
“More room for you to knock- so hurry up and do
it.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Dave’s timid pattering on the naked portal proved
sufficient. After a short pause, it cracked open a few inches. A single eyeball
was made visible, followed shortly thereafter by a tremulous- and thoroughly
crazy, I knew- voice.
“Que?”
“Est Dave.”
“Si. Venido en.”
Fausto’s apartment was the same dimly lit purgatory
of unidentifiable noises and unwelcome smells as it had been on my first two
visits. I didn’t bother looking at the decor; previous experience had taught
that it was either shrouded in the shadows of strategically placed lamps, of no
real interest, or disturbing enough to be of nightmare-caliber. I simply sat
down in one of the two chairs next to his dingy coffee table, waiting for Dave
to take the other and let the negotiating begin.
Once we were all seated, Fausto mumbled something
to Dave in Spanish- much to fast for me to follow. I resigned myself to picking
out the occasional word and following the punctuative tone changes for a
general understanding of the proceedings.
A short period of what I took to be haggling
followed, whereupon Fausto produced a small box, which we knew contained his
chemical treasures. While rooting through it for our requested product, he
absently withdrew a small object and half-tossed it onto the table at his
knees. The few still-functioning portions of my primal subconscious immediately
identified it as a handgun, though Fausto looked to have no idea.
Dave, it seemed, had recognized it too. “Urk,” he
said quite distinctly under his breath.
Seeing that Fausto had apparently taken no notice
of our reaction, I warmed to the artifact with an abandon borne of uninhibited
inebriation.
“What is that, Dave- a Sig P229?”
“Might be a USP .45.” Dave, it seemed, was equally
facinated.
“Mmm, USP .45. That’s sweet.”
“Yeah. Shit, it could be a Desert Eagle .45, too.”
“Certainly too small to be a .50.”
“Yup.”
Fausto interrupted out deliberations by directing a
question at Dave. Dave nodded, and Fausto replied in kind, sealing a bargain I
was ignorant of. A small vial was exchanged for an unkempt wad of bills- Dave
was never one to store money with precision. At last, Fausto stood and escorted
us to the door.
“Adiós,” he rasped wetly. His barren door
shut, the missing numbers unnoticed.
I turned to Dave, who wore a befuddled expression
on his face and was still grasping the vial of amphetamines like it was his
firstborn son.
“I still say it was a Sig.”
He shook his head. “No, USP.”
“Fuck you, it was a Sig.”
The argument continued for some time, though we
both agreed early that whatever it was, it certainly was unpleasant. Guns have
a dampening effect on good conversation.
- - -
“We’re back!”, Dave cried into the room. Simonie
and Liselle were bent over the table, eating breakfast-dinner and murmuring
softly to one another in French.
“Where did you go?”, Simonie queried pointedly.
“Supplies...don’t ask.” I grunted, heading for the
balcony door. Liselle quickly downed the last of her meal and moved to join me.
Dave was already beside Simonie, the two of them kissing and fondling one
another in a disconcerting manner. Everything they did seemed disconcerting,
but public displays of affection made me itch with displeasure.
The night air was still warmer than the interior of
the apartment, and I took in the sky with the standard and well-practiced
detached admiration.
I kept staring up at the stars as Liselle sat down
beside me, the flare of her lighter providing a miniscule counterpoint to
Nature’s pale display.
“Can’t see much from inside the city,” I murmured.
“Yes, it’s a shame...I love the stars.”
“We should go out into the country and check them
out tonight...we won’t be here much longer, I expect.”
I winced as soon as I made the offer, but it was
too late to retract it. I silently hoped she wouldn’t read into it, but I knew
that was a futile wish- what could be more romantic than stargazing in the
country? I might as well bring a violinist along.
“Oh, that would be lovely! Yes, Dave said you’d be
leaving at the end of the week. We should do it tonight, before we forget.”
“Fair enough. If you don’t mind, though, I’d like
to finish some writing I’ve been working on before then...”
“I thought Dave was the writer?”, she posed, the
amusement in her voice much clearer than the impotent stars above us.
“We both are, you know that...I’ve been diddling
with some poetry since we began traveling together. I’m sure most of it is
crap, but I keep at it anyway.”
“Sounds interesting...like what you did in the
Botanical Gardens?”
“Better than that, I hope.”
“May I read it?”
“Perhaps later...let me finish what I want to do
tonight, and we’ll see. Go tell the lovebirds we’ll be leaving for the clubs
early, so that you and I can break off for the countryside early enough to beat
sunrise. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the time alone,” I added sarcastically
with a glance at the writhing bodies on the now-vacant table.
“Ok.” She smiled at me in a way that told me I had
given her the worst possible impression, before opening the sliding door as
noisily as she could. Dave rolled off Simonie so fast it was as though he had
never been there.
‘Nice going, slick,’
I thought bitterly. ‘She’s too smart, too beautiful, too much trouble for you
to go fucking up like that. Watch it.’
I took the chair
Liselle had vacated, and began scribbling on my much-travelled notepad. I felt
particularly inspired; a rare feeling for a person who put words to paper with
the trepid sensation of committing some grave sin against the English language.
I began connecting the scattered and often-poetic observations I had made about
Madrid and our travels in general, my insight drawing them to the cusp of
narrative form through sheer weight of epiphany.
The sensation faded after less than an hour, and I
began to feel restless and hungry. I slid the door open and stepped inside.
Dave and Simonie were still at the table, though they were now picking at a
collection of Chinese takeout food.
“You were out there writing for quite a while,”
Dave observed wryly.
“Oh, yes, forty-five whole minutes of it. Some
writer I am. Tolstoy is rolling over in his grave.”
Simonie wheezed as laughter and an egg roll
collided in her throat. After a sip of water and a fluttered hand to shoo off
Dave’s concern, she turned to me.
“Can we read it, anyway? I mean, if you don’t
mind.”
I shrugged with synthetic nonchalance. “Sure, but
it’s never any good.” I tossed the notebook across the table and sat down
across from them.
“Me first,” Dave said as he grabbed it. Simonie
muttered something dire in French, but acquiesced.
I toyed with a box of fried rice as he read it. I
had always been torn between fearing my work was somehow inadequate and
wanting, needing to hear praise from people I respected. The
incompatibility of those two was not lost on me, and I was prone to being
somewhat neurotic about my writing.
Dave grunted as he finished. “More there than I’d
have thought,” he said simply. He pointed a thumb at Simonie as he passed the notebook
over. “I won’t comment until she’s done.”
Simonie took only a few minutes longer than Dave
had. Silently, she closed the book and placed it on the table in front of her.
She stared at it for a long moment, until finally speaking.
“It’s...I don’t know what to say.” Finally, she
looked up at me. “It’s beautiful, in its own strange way. I love it, but I also
fear it. You describe the same sights and places I’ve seen, and I can see their
beauty in your mind’s eye, but it’s...alien.” She shook her head slightly, more
a shiver than a conscious gesture. “You make beauty seem terrifying.”
Dave spoke up. “I think I understand both where
you’re coming from and where a reader would view it from, Mor. Simonie is
right, you have a very strange way of viewing things. I get this sense of a
terrible weight of... poetic tragedy.” He smiled. “Yes, it’s like you put
poetry into prose, an eulogy for beauty.”
I shifted nervously. They were too close to the
truth. “Well...”
Just then, Liselle reappeared from the bathroom.
“Well, I’m ready to go, are you?”
“We were just discussing Morgan’s writing, Liz,”
Dave announced. I masked a wince with some difficulty; was he going out of his
way to make things harder on me?
“Oh, that’s ok, I can read it when he and I get
back.”
Simonie quirked an eyebrow. “Where are you two
going, without us?”
“Morgan wants to go see the stars from outside the
city.” She grinned. “I would have told you, but you were...busy.”
Dave coughed slightly before returning her grin. “Well,
you two kids have fu...”
I kicked him under the table, hard. Neither woman
noticed his grimace.
Resigned, I stood to leave. “We won’t be long, I
think.” I cast a cool gaze at Simonie. “No, not long.” She returned my look
with a tranquil, unreadable one of her own.
“Anyway, let’s get going,” I said. “We have
nightclubs to hit!”
‘And new lows to hit, too,’ I added silently with a
glance at Liselle.
- - -
She had picked the perfect spot, which should have
increased my dread. I felt unburdened and light, though, and finally spoke my
mind to Liselle.
We lay out on the grass, staring up at the stars
that shone so vibrantly away from the city. The warm breeze drifted over us
like a blanket, and I felt more relaxed than I had in over a year.
Liberated from Dave’s inability to speak French at
a fluent speed and Simonie’s naiveté, we had begun speaking at an intellectual
clip I found heady and addictive. It was perfect understanding, similar to the
friendship I shared with Dave but made foreign and perfected by her femininity.
Ideas flipped back and forth in half-finished sentences, even the mellifluous
beauty of our chosen language proving unable to express the illusions of our
runaway minds.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” I said at one point,
speaking of our inability to put words to our thoughts.
She giggled, a sound that made me frown. I’d have
smiled, had I thought myself worthy of either the laughter or the pleasure it
brought me. “Not really; you must know by now that you’re smart, Morgan. Too
smart. You’re destroying yourself.” She sounded glibly serious, which of course
was the perfect tone for the subject. She saw the incongruity of it all.
“You too, Liselle,” I countered truthfully. We were
all too smart for our own good, with nothing to show for it. A foggy, dreamlike
ineffectuality had settled over our lives, and we flirted around the accessible
normalcy we both shunned and craved. Dave’s book, my poetry, Simonie and
Liselle’s paintings- they were all less expressions of artistic spirit than
manifestations of a beautiful delusion. Ironic symmetry was maintained by our
full embrace of that delusion, the conscious mirage of lucid dreamers.
She laughed again at my praise. “Society is a giant
machine, designed to encourage mediocrity and beat out the irregular. The
mediocre don’t make the wheels bump. But the point is, I’ve found myself
increasingly giving up on the verbal; it’s just so hard for me to plod out
words to match the jumps my mind takes. Is that what you meant?”
I smiled at Orion’s belt, which held up his pants
with a permanence I both admired and hoped to imitate. “Yes, exactly. It’s
strange how you, Dave, and I all think like that.” My smile disappeared
suddenly. “Is that why you pursue me so thoroughly?”
The silence that passed was notable in both its
length and its depth. Finally, she spoke, her soft voice almost lost even to
the gentle plateau breeze. “I suppose that’s part of it. It... well, for many
of the reasons Simonie loves Dave, I guess. But more so- you are more intense
than he is, Morgan. He is the actor, you are the poet.”
I laughed slightly. “You people keep calling me a
poet tonight. I’d like to think I am, but I doubt it’s true.”
“It’s hard to explain...” She broke off, the pain
in her voice audible even to me.
“I’m sorry, Liselle.” I was startled to realize I
almost- almost -was. “I wish it were different...”
“Why, Morgan? Why can’t you love me?” Her voice was
the ocean, the moon, a thousand different beautiful things that all terrified
me in the same way. I was already forming the requiem for Liselle’s passion in
my mind.
I rolled on my shoulder, looking her straight in
the eye. I smiled crookedly. “Because I don’t love myself- but then you know
that, don’t you?”
She nodded sadly in the darkness, her red hair glowing
like copper in the starlight. “I suppose I do. I just wish I knew why.”
I laughed softly, masking the tension I felt with
the practiced skill of a master performer. “So do I, Liselle...so do I.”
“Could we...”, she sighed before continuing. “Could
we make love, just once? It’s such a beautiful night...”
“That wouldn’t be fair to you, Liselle. I have
nothing but my honor, and it is rigid. How could I make love to you when
I feel no love at all?” I shook my head. “No, it wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
“I know. That’s why I love you.”
I slowly edged a hand
through the dry grass, seeking out hers. They met, and stayed linked in the
darkness until dawn. But my resolve rose steadily with the sun, until at last I
was once again as cold as the plateau was hot, as distant as I had always been.
I didn’t write again while in Madrid.
