The Woman in Oil Fields (24 page)

______

8/1/88. “This will be my last letter to you, Will. My task has been enormously complicated. For the past several weeks Azziz has been sulking because I've paid more attention to the women than to him. Then this morning I discovered I was pregnant. I've been queasy at dawn, feeling weak. This local doctor told me … never mind. The point is, Azziz – the only possible father – is ecstatic. He's asked me to forget my plan and to marry him.”

(Our child, C, the little angel – last night I thought I saw him near the twin stars, Castor and Pollux. A faint object, I couldn't be sure … he dimmed, then disappeared …)

“I've decided to stick with my convictions.”

______

I try to imagine what you'll look like – to extrapolate what I can't yet grasp from things I
have
experienced. Flames. Your body.

A mathematical model of fire. It must take into account the following variables:

1) The heat combustion of the volatiles.

2) The thermal conductivity of the char as a function of its mass retention fraction and temperature.

3) The specific heat of the char.

Where do you fit in this equation?

All that remains of the human body after cremation, I've read, is the canine maxilla, fragments of the parietals, occipitals, facial and palatal bones, ribs, vertebral drums and spine, the calceneum, the talus, and perhaps the tibial and humeral shafts.

______

To see a faint object, look away. It's there in the corner of your eye.

______

9/3/88. You feel dead to me, Claire. Are you dead? Solid in memory, no longer fluid as you were when your letters still came. The certainty of your presence, even at a distance from me, meant that the circumstances of our being together – past as well as future – could be changed, just as you could alter your appearance or opinions any time you liked.

Your death, on the other hand, illuminates – no,
contextualizes –
the past. Wrongly, perhaps. The cold, opposing currents that ran in you always can now be seen as a kind of order. A conflux of passions impelling you to sacrifice yourself as you did.

______

You stand in the middle of a square. Noisy brown children, chickens, dogs. One or two American cars. Slowly, you remove your dress, pulling it up over your head, revealing first your knees then your belly and breasts. You shake your short black hair. White skin, lightly tanned in the sun. Azziz hands you the kerosene. Lifting the can, you douse your face and shoulders. Rivulets run down your back, pool at your toes. Sad smile. Look of resolve. Then you open the matchbook, tear out a stick.

______

Two
A.M.
, pyramid dark, I throw the switch. For a moment nothing happens – I fear a short in the circuit-then red lights, blurry in the mist, ignite the leaves of the trees. The woods sizzle, then flash. Houston dims, the chemical swamps simmer and boil. Barbed-wire melts, smoke begins to billow from the trailer home park. Families pour out, sweating. Macon's men run, steaming, from the bushes where they've hidden. The car lot bubbles and pops. Rust softens and flakes from tankers anchored in the shallows, mosquitoes spark into flame in midair. I'm peeling off my shirt. The bay's drying up. Come back to me, Claire, come back, my garden is charred, the beets have withered, the potatoes have burst. I close my eyes, my eyes, C, my goddamn open eyes –

______

The stars won't settle down until ten tonight. It takes that long for the ground to cool. Patience, more patience is what I've learned.

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