Hunger's Brides (197 page)

Everything is different now. How the world changes in a week, a night, an hour. A month ago he was growing into the life he and Madeleine had made. It was something real and sane and solid for their daughter, for her future. Something he could take some credit for building.

How different everything is now. Brittle silences shattered by the jangling of the phone. It's never her. Never while they're home. The man and wife take turns finding excuses to run to the corner store, files forgotten at the office.

Saturday's forecast: High grey gauze of cloud, mercury falling, hard. Slow rise of tension to the breastbone, a blunt pressure.

In their daughter's eyes burns a bright anxious fever. Teething, probably, the paediatrician said yesterday. Catherine starts to cough. Once or twice. Soon more frequently. Teething does not make a baby cough. They spend supper time at Foothills Emergency.

“It's nothing, Dr. Gregory. Her temperature is not even 39—”

“How high is 39?” This is his daughter, he needs Fahrenheit. One hundred point two. Hundred and
two?
Sir,
point
two….

As the troubled family comes through the door from the garage, the answering machine winks hello. They put their daughter to bed.

“She knew we were out, again,” Madeleine says.“I'm telling you, that was not long distance.
Listen …
” She plays the call again.

“We can't be sure. Technology today …”

“She's
watching
us. Has a call come with us home—even once? How many times are we going to call that coincidence? Thursday I took Catherine for a walk.
Fifteen minutes
. Yesterday one came while I was in the shower.”

“So she knows when you're showering too.”

Madeleine stands before him in a full-length flannel nightgown. Tiny purple flowers on a cream background. It is unbuttoned at the neck. He sees the cords at her throat merge softly with her collarbones. He no longer looks readily into her eyes.

“We are being watched, Don. We are being
stalked.”

They are standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Madeleine moves stealthily to the living room window, parts the drapes with a finger. “She's probably out there.”

“Where—in
this
cold? Show me a car we don't recognize.”

“I want you to call the police.”

“And tell them what? Somebody keeps calling? No, Officer, we haven't actually seen her. No, sir, no threats either—”

“She knows our schedules—”

“What does she
say
, Constable? Well, she wants us to do dinner.”

“Knows about our barbecues—”

“Everybody
barbecues.”

They have been married for almost ten years. It comes to him that she is about to ask how much he tells his one-night stands. He thinks he will answer by asking how much she used to tell hers. He is thinking it might make everyone feel better if she hit him.

“She's studied you and now she's watching us. She's out there. I can feel it.” Madeleine turns away from the window, faces him. He sees how tired she is. He must also be this tired. “What does she
want
, Don? What does she want from you?”

But he does not answer, he does not know how. He has withdrawn, an escape trick of his. She is already on her way up to bed. He has a lot on his mind. He too feels that she is near—how close? The sexual predator has become the quarry. The calls are not long distance anymore.
How long has she been watching? Planning … planning what? It comes to him, again, how much he has to lose.

His daughter is ill, his wife is exhausted. As he is, but he busies himself. He does not want sleep. He tends to his daughter, checks on her twice an hour. He sits in her room, or in the kitchen while the milk warms. Once, near four, he feeds her mashed potatoes and apple sauce.

At dawn his wife finds him dozing on the leather couch in the den.

She is covering him with a yellow woollen blanket. He sits up. “With Catherine sick and you not sleeping nights, I'm wiped out.” She looks it. Her eyes hollow and blurred, skin drawn tight at her temples. “I need rest, I need to
sleep
. Just a few days. If you wouldn't mind … sleeping down here. Don, honey, I don't want you to misunderstand. Just for a couple of days. Just till we work this out.”

“Won't it make things worse?”

“No. Not worse.”

He is aware now of the one thing he has not proposed, has not offered to do. The one thing on his mind and Madeleine's. See her.
Go to her
. He has been telling himself he will not play into Beulah's hands. Emotional blackmail—we do not negotiate with terrorists. Not in our state.

It's over. She
ended it. And anyway what would he say?

There is nothing to say.

But the truth is simpler. He is afraid to face her. The prospect fills him with dread. He has long harboured a dim idea of the minuscule events set to deflect the entire course of a life—a rotted rung, a film of ice, a quarrel in a parking lot. It is the butterfly of chaos theory, that flaps its wings in Canton, to trigger a typhoon in Madagascar.

He is exhausted but begins to see now what it is she wants. He thinks he understands at last.

She wants him to murder her.

He returns to Catherine's room, watches her sleeping, a sheen of fever on her cheeks, her face working, a restless furrowing of her brow. Her eyes make sidelong shifts beneath the petals of her lids, soft as moth wings. Everything moves him tonight, in his shallow way. Straining at the darkness, he senses, in the air around her crib, slippages, shadows, shapes of collapse. Tears threaten at any moment to scald him—hot, fat, sputtering gobs of mawk, painful in their superficiality, like burns in the first degree.

B
ONFIRE
        

[18 Feb. 1995]

S
WAMP
O
PHELIA
, soggy manatee slipping out to sea, adrift under
el Peyotl's
hotstarred constellations … smear of prisms in a red dwarf shift. Tiny disk under the vast flaming stars far from shore she spins … weightless. Yardarms snapped little sailor drifting off the map. To wrestle with dragons, to swim with seamonsters.

She will not write it. She will not write this death. She has learned a new trick see she is never too old never too close to the end.
Listen
instead. To the breathless roar inside these seashell ears, a nightsea roar that pulls her down into a well of raven ink. Feel the stitches soften. Feel the hole reopening. Black oceans welling up, she is drowning in the hole in her chest.

Drift, then. Sink down on this gulfstream to the sea's deep trenches. Follow where it leads….

But no … it only carries her in. Gently in. Mustn't hurry. Drowsy head bumping bumping on the hourglass sand, run aground on unknowing's vastest sea. Turn and kiss the grainy glitter. Claim this new shore for the Science Queen.

Lie and heave a bit. Try to keep the buttons down—retch a sear of bile, they said it would be bitter said take them with bread. But I am not afraid of bitterness, bile is my good-humoured friend. Watch the clouds slip in from the west, hitch a lift—now, little explorer. On. Up and on. To the bonfire, dead ahead, not far left. She has debts to pay, party favours to share. On Nanautzin, Scabby One. Ever on,
Bubosillo
, one last test.

The more she lets them touch the less she has to feel.

Call the night to fill her—darkfelt rag that plugs this emptiness. Walk on. The found must first be lost.

Lowering swab of cloud, soft hover of far off pulses, spectral colours—sheet lightning crackling. Over the sea a sheen of violet, faintest green. Pale sand a cream tickle of velvet underfoot. It crunches like fresh snow in new winter boots. Barefoot she steps, how chilly in this dress.

A soft whisper from behind—she turns to say hi—to the swiftshape rush of black hounds casting swirling without sound. Faintest whines
that close to snap and chop riprending her flowerdress to allfalldown to hush. Hollow clop of jaws, pearlgleam teeth hideous but no pain no pain—is this how it happens how it ends—without pain? chopped down for kindling—

Hotmeat breath in face on thighs and knees.

Then gone. The sand is whispering….

Try to stand try to stand. Judder of elbows, shuddering knees. Warm forehead propped in cool cool sand. Shooting streaks of violet, ear canals red coils of drybaked heat—little ear-ovens of solar energy. Only now the horror comes. A writhing up the back—churn and tumble of guts—hot clear scald of bile again over these hands of accident, into this sandy haircurtain in clumps.

Crawl then. Crawl, if you can't walk. Crawl to the rainbow fire.

Closer now. Flames flutter and start like jewels. All the wondrous shades!—blues and lemons, vermilion and rose. She will draw strength from this—from the holocaustic heat / flame's cauterous tongues—these cruel blasts of laugh for ambience. Stand, stand and greet your new oldfriends.

Muchachos
, look! Our friend has been swimming out there in the dark with the sharks—all alone no man for protection such a crime—
¿verdad? ¿no están de acuerdo, hombres?
—and so very dangerous.
Ven amiga
, come-come to the fire, warm yourself you are shaking you are naked underneath let us help warm you up. Are you hurt? your dress—who did this, dogs? you are sure? we are here to service and protect. Come I will pour rum on you.
Y un traguito para ti
—
toma, ándele. Otro
. Swallow it all at once there that's good. And once more for your wound. Turn to the fire—no not so close not so rumsoaked—here this way so I can see too. Ah, not so bad, maybe a bite, maybe not. Hold still.

This will only hurt a little.

You will be fine sit for a while then maybe you will dance with my friends. To warm yourself. You have been thinking about yesterday, what I said. You are ready right now? Good tonight we will all dance with you.

The Great Hunter cranks and cranks the handle. She is that music box all wound up. Watch her dance, dance nameless with her new friends.

Come for her now, sweet Xochiquetzal. All these men. She is still afraid of this. To go all the way to the end. But you, precious flower, she will follow you. Dance closer, please, slower for her, whisper sweetly in her ear….

Ah, Captain Offlitch. She is here as you asked. As you see she has already started to dance with us.

Thank you, Diego. You and your people may go now.

Greet the smiling young masks of an ancient martial loathing—
slut
, they know her now. Hatchet faces glue-dead eyes. Remember they are only boy soldiers fighting for toys / all buckles and belts—boys with guns / running glue.

Now
señorita
I will dance with you.

Yes dance with the tall Captain—pulling rank in the rancorous swirl of feral revelry of soldiery and jackalry mingling so angrily now—no no cut in nicely don't quarrel one at a time there's enough to go round and round.

Off the tail-tucked jackals slink into the palms. The Maya sergeant not far behind.

Slowdance now with the tall blondbeard legionnaire / roaming shatter-hands over the ass / hike up the dress / put on a bravo tango show for the enlisted men. Well yes okay Captain if you want to impress let's show them your spectacular FIREDANCE. No we haven't practised yet but give it a whirl / till the flames lick up like jewelled birds to peck at this rumdrunk serpent skirt / till slim coral snakes lift from this seaweed hem in a greenwood hiss—too hot for you Captain even in boots?—her gorgonkiss.

Captain Slowdance stalks up the beach.

So we pull rank in reverse pull dress over head to entertain the enlisted men. Who needs a flowerscreen,
compañeros
, when we are all such good friends just us kids nekkid under nightshirts let her go first—
olé!
all the fireside boytoy soldiers laugh uproarious / stamp out the flameshirt weft specially for her. Liquid tar in their conscript eyes. Hardening. Well OK if you must touch her run your hands all over all at once—come rub your genie numb. Go on. Head to foot yes all the way down she feels it now a slowdance of fear thrilling her guts—so nice to be kneaded demi-urgently cupped / in the palms of new friends in boots dipped in ashtray sand and flourdust. The more you touch the less she feels. Dance closer dance harder—this is
cumbia?
Smell the musk of fuck gathering / feel its answer in her now netherly—oh yes she will eat your disease.

Feed the hole.

Leave them the body now. Like a tip. Just cast it aside, there look up at the bright night so wide
open
, spirals of sparks—smoke-dragons in diamond-back quilts, vision serpents writhing up—stare ever on ever skyward through these eyes brimming prisms—
stare on
as one final fiery
THOUGHT scales now the pyramid of the last First Cause—THIS IS HOW IT ENDS. Tomorrow these eyes will know what to do, when the last humpback firedance is done, at dawn she will burn these eyes blind to everything but you—track the sun from the kerosene sea up through the dawn's red palaces. Track it unblinking up to the nightsun's eternal noon, with eyes burnt cold as coals—for you jealous Apollo, for you. From now on she sees no one else.