The Sacred Beasts (30 page)

“And they create professional niches for themselves,” said a
writer. “I’ve read that seventy percent of Spanish chemists are women. Health,
education and law are all niches full of women. There are nearly as many women
lawyers, doctors and judges as there are men.”

“The board-room is still the glass ceiling,” said a professor. “So
few women are heads of corporations.”

“Also, home life has never changed,” said a senior. “It’s just as
it was in the 1930s when women entered the anarchist, socialist, and communist
movements. Spanish men pretend to support women’s rights and then refuse to do
housework and childcare. Women have to work as professionals and then be
mothers and homemakers, too. That’s exhaustion, not emancipation.”

“And there are plenty of men who frankly
prefer that,” said a media professional. “The family has more money, and he’s
still lord and master.”

“That’s probably why the birth rate is falling all over Europe,”
said a journalist.

“So, who wants to get married?” asked a writer with a grin, still
half-wanting to bait a journalist.

The room was silent.

“Hey, now we know how to shut up an uppity woman. Just ask whether
she wants a husband,” said the writer.

Everyone laughed; then they began speaking in smaller groups.
Several noticed the time and left. The evening was ending. Alex looked at
Sylvie and discovered that they were both smiling. “Such a great place,” Alex
said. “They can say anything.”

“And do what they want!” Sylvie smiled, lightly pushed Alex
against the wall and kissed her.

Alex was enthralled. “Let’s get a bottle of wine and drink it
together upstairs.”

“I’d have had to seduce you right here if you hadn’t said that.”
They were suddenly thrilled at the prospect of making love in this house,
Monserrat’s magnificent house full of living spirits that changed the lives of
those who came to it.

 . . . AND STILL ANOTHER day with my love in the city that is ours
but dazzles me as though I were a stranger to it, Ruth was thinking, walking
and holding hands with Monserrat. Where was that stained glass window in the
shape of a rose? A woman was being crowned in the central sphere of it, and the
golden light of paradise radiated out from them as though a pagan sun god was
being immortalized. Angels were floating in a circle about them like petals of
the rose. It must be the Virgin Mary, but the concept is a Platonic abstract of
the ideal rose as a woman. Where did we see it? A Gothic Church. I kissed her
there since she brought me to it, and why should the rose not have one more
petal . . .

 
. . . I love her, Monserrat was
thinking and walking with Ruth, and my love is that rose window at the Church
of Santa del Mar where we kissed. Now we are walking in the Ribera, broad
thoroughfares where we can stroll without cars. The complexity and intricacy of
the building facades reflect so many architectural periods, all with sparse
trees rising up to the white sky, that it gives me a sense of radiantly dappled
light. The sky is broken into so many pieces by the trees and buildings that
the light is confetti being tossed up as my love is leaping up, and all because
I love her . . .

 . . . How incredible that it is a building, Ruth thought while
walking with Monserrat, the Palace of Catalan Music, yet it is such a profusion
of color, design and floral exuberance that it has the energy and life of a
rainforest. Flowers are becoming brocades becoming seashells becoming columns
becoming humans in all their magnificence, to the sound of trumpets and all of
it hurled by comets. I do not exaggerate. What a perfect shape for performances
of music, the art that stimulates the entire brain at once. Then we are inside
and the interior is the jest intensified—sculpted lights and walls that are
jungles of whorled and foamy organic shapes. Yet it is nothing compared to the
skylight in the shape of a black hole. Directly beneath it, we see the big bang
of the universe explode outward in golden tentacles of energy, at last
dissipating into human life at the periphery. We look at one another and burst
out laughing. It is the only sane response to such a phenomenon. I kiss her
impetuously, or does she now expect it . . .

. . . We are back in the Eixample where my house is, Monserrat was
thinking as they walked. After the roar of Gaudi, it’s the echo of so many
Modernist architects and craftsmen who finished the city in an orderly
octagonal pattern. Yet, it has its own mad genius. The interior walls of its
houses have ceramic reliefs that are part luxurious fabric, part sea star,
walls with ceramic textiles in the shape of enormous pectorals, brilliant
evening necklaces for women. There are marble reliefs in which humans and
dragons are so entangled in conflict that they become one another. We’re
passing Casa Calvet with its rich wooden door having a metal peephole that has
the detail and majesty of a mandala, a world in a secret. My love will
appreciate that . . .

. . . I have gone crazy with love for her, Ruth was thinking and
walking. This city is a perfect home for us, made by cosmically love-addled
brains. Now we are wandering along a block called the Apple of Discord, where
all the famous Modernist architects created their buildings side-by-side to
maximize the spectacle. But I have my limits: my delight is the stained glass
windows of Casa Morena. I love the immense dignity of the chickens walking in a
line, contrasting with the wild birds that can still soar through the air. Thus
the domesticated and wild go to their fates with an animal passion and
intrinsic nobility. I love them as much as anything on this street, but how
much more do I love her . . .

. . . But of course we had to end up on the Ramblas, Monserrat was
thinking and walking, as all humanity must pour over these streets and be
entertained by any kind of street performer, assuming the shapes and miens of
angels, apples, robots, reptilian-mammalian monsters, a human strawberry, a
figure with black bags and silver spray paint who is impersonating a
constellation of stars, for why not? The whole street asks, why not? The
thoroughfares are covered with spherical mosaics by Miro. It is late spring,
which brings out the delicate green-toned plane trees. Inevitably, we are by
the sea, yet she is taken by the lions at Columbus Circle, so purely noble that
their billowy manes are fallen haloes. Will she kiss me here? I have only to
look at her. But of course, she does . . .

. . . a state of mad love and confusion, Ruth thought as she
walked. Where did I see a building roof in the shape of a rainbow striped
butterfly? Where was that interior wall that was covered with ceramics in the
shapes of orifices and octopi? I think it was Casa Sayrachs. It was Casa
Comalat that had interior walls forming the evolutionary progression of
seashells through the ages and an exterior of innumerable blue-green swaying
forms, sea-foam in which I could see painted eyes and butterflies. Another
building had inner columns topped by shapes that could be eyes, flowers or
octopi. Where did I see that sculpture of a bronze giraffe reclining on its
back with the protuberant neck and face of a Sphinx? Where did she delight me
by standing and taking a dance pose in the middle of a circle of stone Catalan
dancers? Where did we come upon that androgynous nude sculpture of a
woman—Morgen or Morgana—her arms above her head, dancing to a wild music, every
line of her body revealing the witchery of its rhythm? She was the perfect
summation of it all, but I only wanted to touch Monserrat and kiss her again .
. .

. . . I feel my power over her, Monserrat was thinking. Ruth was
looking outward for much of the day, but now it is nightfall and she can only
see me. We could go on celebrating our love throughout the night on the city’s
bell-like stones, resounding with thousands of years of Mediterranean
pageantry, but what for? I’ll take her home instead and love her as I have all
day, over and over, again and again, how I will love her . . .

ALEX WAS ASTONISHED at Sylvie’s immersion in her art—the length of
time she could paint in a day (ten to twelve hours, if not more), her complete
absorption in it, with breaks only for food, water and the bathroom—and the
equally astonishing colors and images that appeared over her canvases. When she
took a break, she would find Alex and kiss her passionately and then race back,
wordless, to her work. It had happened for the first time this morning. Sylvie
began in the painters’ room at seven am and broke for water at around ten am.
She found Alex standing in the room, pushed her to the wall and gave her a kiss
lasting many minutes, then was back at her canvas as though nothing else
existed. When Alex looked up, she saw several envious eyes on her. She smiled
in shy, self-conscious delight and returned to her work.

In the evening, they had dinner in the Eixample and felt the
excitement of the city again. Still, Sylvie returned for a last few hours of
work and then wanted nothing but wine and love; which Alex, who adored her,
found the most exquisite part of the day. Alex quickly noted that Sylvie’s
intense work on her painting acted as a mysterious stimulant and made her even
more passionate as a lover. By the end of the first day, just past midnight,
Alex decided that this life was perhaps the most beneficent thing that could
happen for her ability to finish her dissertation and several other
intellectual projects, and it was also the best thing for her body, health and
well-being. And here, Monserrat was encouraging them to stay, or so her phone
messages said, since they had still not met Ruth and Monserrat at the house.
What a terribly fortunate outcome, Alex thought; that is, what a hard-working,
productive and blissfully sexy way to live. Ah, the life of an artist and oh,
the life of an academic living with that sexy, beautiful artist! Alex smiled;
her concept of “the good life” had taken a new turn.

Her second day living with Sylvie was a repeat of the first, utterly
blissful and productive. Alex began to feel that Sylvie was ravishing her
throughout the day. Each time Sylvie left her to return to work, Alex thought,
good-god, this woman does not care what anyone sees her doing or what anyone
might think of her! Alex always blushed deeply, though the greater part of it
was pleasure.

In the evening as they had dinner at a sidewalk restaurant, Sylvie
became interested in Alex’s dissertation. As the cooler night air came in from
the Mediterranean, Alex said, “It’s on the subject of Spanish women poets of
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, up to the present. They’ve gotten a
raw deal from nearly all the critics, who see the twentieth-century up until
Franco as a ‘great period’ in Spanish poetry, all written by men. The Spanish
women poets in this time period are, in my opinion, every bit as striking and
far more original than the highly celebrated male poets. Feminist critics have
observed some of this, but my book will go much farther. It will include
contemporary lesbian poets in Spain, too, who are also very original, I think.”

Alex was silent, considering how much of herself she really wanted
to reveal, then decided to be honest. “That’s why I can quote so much poetry
from memory. I’m reading the poetry written by Spanish women all the time I’m
working. So, I’m actually not the great genius the Mujeres Libres labeled me as
being, though I did let them think so.” There now; you’ve told her, Alex
thought. Of course, she had allowed Sylvie to think so, too.

Sylvie smiled, realizing that this was a modestly guilty
confession. “I’m still madly in love with you,” she said. “But please continue;
tell me another secret, something really shocking. I will reciprocate, if you
wish.”

Alex appreciated Sylvie’s playful mood but was alarmed at the
prospect of a genuine secret from a woman as uninhibited as Sylvie. She began
to advance on shaky ground. “I was once . . . watching a nature show on TV, and
there was a section showing a tigress that lived in a Siberian forest. A helicopter
flew past, part of the group that was filming her, and she climbed up a tree
very fast, raced up it, really, to threaten the helicopter. She was huge,
beautiful, and powerful. Her paws were enormous, and she actually reached out
to the helicopter and threatened it from the top of the tree, roaring all the
while. If the helicopter had been closer to her, she might have brought it down
with her paw. God, she was so ferocious, proud, and gorgeous! She actually
attacked something as big and noisy as a helicopter because it was flying in
the air over her forest, her territory. Instantly, I loved her. In fact, I
thought that if I could make love with her and not get myself killed in the
process, I might just do it.” Alex blushed furiously and looked up at Sylvie.
“There. Was that juicy enough for you?”

Sylvie laughed uproariously. “Oh, yes,” she said. “That was
utterly unexpected. Actually, I can easily imagine it. I’d love her, too.” She
continued to smile and stare at Alex in deep appreciation. I know you, Alex
thought. You’re thinking that you’re the closest thing to that tigress I’ll
ever have. But Sylvie was actually thinking, how you please me, lover! She
continued to smile at Alex, whose tension began to mount at the prospect of a
confession from Sylvie.

“I don’t have anything really shocking, I’m afraid,” Sylvie
finally said. “But since you’ve said you want to live with me in Paris and even
marry me, you should know that I want to have a child at some point. Not now. I
would have to be in a better position economically, and there’s plenty of time.
But at some point, I will want to have one and that means my lover will have to
want the child, too. How does that make you feel?”

So that’s it, Alex thought. She has been trying to tell me this
for some time; that’s why she brought up secrets. “Do you know the father?
Would you be close to him?”

“No, everything would be anonymous. I don’t want any men
complicating my life.”

“How would you see me relative to the child?” Alex watched Sylvie
in fascination. She had never seen her look so disturbed. She’s afraid of
losing me, she thought.

“As father or mother to the child, too,” Sylvie said. She was
suddenly terrified at the prospect of Alex rejecting the idea, for that would
ultimately mean losing her. “As my husband,” she added.

A smile of startled delight passed over Alex’s face, simply by the
words,
husband
and
father
, relative to the woman she adored.
Something fell far down into the bottom of her mind and stirred deep waters.
She was silent in astonishment for a long time, thinking about a child of
Sylvie’s and a life with it. Sylvie watched her face very carefully. “I never
knew I wanted a child,” Alex said softly, almost whispering.

There was something new in the world, again.