1

Exile November 1994

Key, unlock the door, from the hallway, old linoleum

floors, slightly musty smell, into the room, the smell of old
wood. Mattress and box springs against the opposite wall,
sheets and blankets thrown over; small table, dime store goose-
neck lamp, books on the floor there. Ilona Llega con la Lluvia,
Las Últimas Tardes con Teresa are legible titles. On the left,
past the bedside table, a small window and then an armchair,
style used-60s. On the opposite wall a few cupboards, hotplate,
sink, and further down, coming back to the entrance, the door to
the small bathroom and closet.
End of the line. Turn on the heat for a while, the bill
will come later. Pull back the curtain, narrow alley, brick
wall, the rain not letting up. Glass of water, bathroom.
Today a few more students grasped a few more concepts,
 2

struggling. High school Spanish. He could be replaced; there's

no art to it. Can't dispossess art of life. Look out the
window, light and air. This room is a point of transcendence to
anguished nothingness, solitude, despair. Turn of the century
city. In a billion years the sun will engulf the earth, what
then little man? Future scenarios, that is to say in 500 years
we will look back on the year 2000 as we now look back on the
year 1500, the least to say with acceleration factored in. Man,
as he will be then, should be able to ride out the next collapse
and expanse of this universe like a god. . . or would certain
physical realities still contain him, these walls we face of
mass and energy, gravity wells, light speed, death. Lie down on
the bed. Pale existence. Wait - la bête noire - six months.
That long ago June and Salvador had been married five
years; then June asked Salvador to leave. In Paris money and
love had become difficult; at his sister's suggestion Salvador
applied to fellowship programs at various universities in the
United States. UCLA accepted him; he found out later it was
because of a paper he'd published that certain members of the
faculty, having their interests as they did, found very
fashionable, Le symbolique, l'imaginaire, le réel. June and
Salvador had met there in Los Angeles through a mutual friend, a
radical economist, first at a café, and then a philosophical
soirée. She was enchanted with his foreign accent, newly
arrived from five years in Paris; his latin color, straight
black hair and elongated structure. He saw her as a healthy
American blond, blue eyed and pretty, and comparing her to
French women as he did, still fresh and innocent. It was a
passionate romance; he bought her chic silk dresses, lingerie
and perfume, and she took him to the mountains and the beach.
The genres mixed, the sex became cheaper and better, more and
less natural at the same time. Then Salvador finished his
doctorate and accepted the best position he was offered,
teaching modern French literature at the University of Oregon.
 3

June stayed at UCLA with a year left towards her bachelors in

business law. The romance sharpened with the anguish of
separation and holiday rendezvous. June finished her degree and
joined Salvador in Eugene, and soon after obtained a position as
secretary-assistant to William James, the criminal defense
lawyer in the northwest.
The dream starts I'm walking north down a street off the
boulevard de la République in Paris at night. I go past a small
hotel. Up at the next corner there's a woman standing under the
street lamp in a long winter coat. I notice I'm wearing a
short-sleeved beach shirt but I don't notice the cold. As I
near the woman I see that she is June, who takes my hand and has
me go back the same way, ostensibly to go to the hotel. Vaguely
it seems that she had said in French, "finally," and I had
replied "it's you," between asking and declaring. As we neared
the hotel a car passed on the street, a new black Peugeot. I
saw June in the back seat and she smiled at me distantly as the
car went by. I turned back to my companion and saw she was an
ex-lover from Paris with fiery eyes, who nodded and said, "that
was her wasn't it?" Before I could answer I wake up. Marie-
José.
Six months of waiting for something to happen, a sign, a
direction. . . nothing. Go to work, come back, eat, sleep.
Inertia. I said that if nothing happened I would have to do
something. Call Bruce, see if he can get me some heroin; and
slowly turn it in, end it. Marie-José, long time since I've
thought about her. I was going home, rue Voltaire, near place
de la Nation; she was on the bus; I noticed her place de la
Bastille; we were both standing, probably early afternoon. She
looked very sad, dark clothes. We looked at each other, then
again; I went over to her, said something like you look so sad.
I can't remember if we got off at my stop or if we went on to
hers at Vincennes. Got off and went into a café. Can't
remember if she was working or was a student; one of our first
 4

rendezvous she met me at this publisher of a review called the

20ième Siècle; she worked there; I can't remember if it was in
the printing of the review or if she was a writer. After I knew
her she took me out to visit her family's place in the suburbs.
I remember her little attic room at Vincennes, one small window
looking out over the rooftops, a sink, hotplate, a mattress.
Her clothes were strewn about. She was always crying, before we
made love, after; she was very unhappy; at the time I think I
couldn't discover what made her so unhappy, and I think I
decided it was her chemicals; her eyes were always sad. We saw
each other from time to time; then I was going through one of my
periods of isolation. Lost it, took a train to London, with
only the ticket in my pocket. When I came back she was walking
towards me down rue Voltaire. She had come to see me. She
helped me come back down, slept with me, had me eat. Then I
didn't have enough patience to be with her for very long,
probably didn't understand enough.
Then six months ago June asked Salvador to leave. It took
a couple of days for him to find a room, the same one where he
is still, and then he left. He didn't ask her why.
The last time I saw her I think I figured it out. Met for
lunch downtown, months ago now. Don't think I'll see her again,
don't see why I would. She was cold, aggressive. Black
business suit, black stockings and heels. I guess we started
drawing apart when I left the university for a high school. She
saw a drop in status. The university was too sterile;
traditionally universities were isolated, set apart from
society, almost monastically, centers of learning. Still
protected from society, like grade school, they are big
business. Thought maybe teaching high school I would be more
real. True, but even less meaning, like a 5 cent truth instead
of 10 dollars. Our paths crossed, paralleled, diverged. Now I
see. She never questioned the status quo, the world is good and
just; and I had ceased to question; I knew and didn't care, and
 5

she didn't know. Black night doesn't exist; rare instances of

death and destruction, in the distance, are psychotic
perversions. She's light and beautiful. Never really loved me,
I see, my soul, but what she thought I was. Cosmopolitan
traveler, exotic animal. Didn't know that from Buenos Aires to
Paris was exile, ciudad de la furia á la ville de la lumière.
Scattered sentiments and memories; exhausted resources, mother
and father in Rio, across the border one day ahead of a décret
de régime; sister in Mexico, didn't know where, had to take the
next plane or train. Father's cousin, Armando, who put me up
for a year.
Down the hall, turn the key, open the door. Outside the
sun is becoming weaker. Sister is right about the masses.
Bruce says you don't need that, can't get it, going to have to
go to the streets. June; started going out as soon as I left.
It's true it was a false security. Nothing to teach here, spent
in the void.
The streets. My first experience was in Paris at the end
of July. In June I'd left Armando's place in Nanterre, and was
living with Jacques, an actor, at Bastille, in a converted
atelier. I'd gone to an organ concert at Notre Dame, Ile de la
Cité. Coming out afterwards, as I walked across the esplanade,
a girl caught my eye about 30 meters away; she was going towards
the Seine and the Quartier Latin. She looked back at me with a
look of follow me, or hello, if I registered what the look was,
or if I was rather drugged or pushed along. I caught up with
her. Maybe I should have been taking notes, because the details
have been lost, especially of the first month of seeing her,
when as I remember things went smoothly. My first amante
française, more French than others that followed; very nervous,
definitely neurotic, maybe hysteric; taunting virgin before,
pute during, and slut after, to resume what I remember. We
spoke in English, I think because she was using the opportunity;
when I spoke French she didn't approve. Parisians try to leave
 6

in August; I didn't know it was important to them till later.

Brigitte spoke English well, and apparently spoke German. She
was very critical, and probably thought me naive, and she seemed
older than I, though it was actually only a matter of months.
Things started to go bad in September. Always ambivalent
towards me this became more pronounced. We were fighting. We
drove her car to London. There she said she wanted a separate
room. I was becoming more and more sad and disillusioned. We
went to the coast, Cromer, a little resort town, now quiet,
raining, and our stay of a couple of nights was almost romantic.
I still have photos from there. But then back in London, before
we had got a hotel, driving still; we were fighting; I remember
the scene clearly, the street and traffic, the brick buildings.
I took my suitcase and got out of the car, told her I'd see her
back in Paris. I was extremely upset.
In Paris I moved out of the loft and into a studio just a
ways down the avenue. My French was becoming serviceable; the
next week-end after meeting Brigitte I met Joëlle and her
girlfriend, and shortly after Suzel and her girlfriend, in the
Quartier Latin, and with whom I only spoke French. Brigitte
didn't want to speak French; she didn't like my bare studio, a
mattress and a little heater, which obviously lacked the chic of
an atelier. I called her many times from a pay phone in the
metro. In the beginning she had got some hash and we had
enjoyed it. I went to Belleville, les Buttes Chaumonts and
bought some. She didn't appreciate it. The last time she made
love to me she came by unexpectedly, maybe it was her lunch
hour. It was like she was servicing me one last time.
Then I went underground. I lacked courage to go out,
except at night along the Seine. And one night I smoked hash
and went to a classical concert, sitting in the very back
balcony where it was impossible to see the performers. Summer
was over; that winter in Cuernavaca one night I would find
myself nerves wasted, weak and numb, face down in the gutter
 7

where I'd fallen, the drops of glistening rain water. The

Sorbonne had started but I wasn't there except for dropping in
on a lecture from time to time. It was in an amphitheater; one
day on the other side I saw this very pretty girl. I went over
and sat by her. We became friends, small and pretty, visiting
from Colombia; but by then I had given up.
I had some money; I called my sister, Isabel, in Rio. I
left my apartment to an American girl and took a boat-train to
London. Barely real; sleepless, desperate. I didn't perceive
it at the time but from then on I didn't own my feelings; a
rendezvous in a café, she doesn't come; I wait and then I leave;
I didn't care if she came or not, and walking down the street I
sense the sadness in the air, trying to be inside of me, but
not, the inside was stripped. On the ferry across the English
Channel, there was an Australian girl headed home from a tour of
Europe, as tall as me, dishwater blond; hardly speaking I
imagine, we went down into the hold looking for the sleeping
cars of the train, but none of the compartments were open. We
laid down in the hallway of the car and made love; I pushed up
her blouse; we pulled off our pants and threw a jacket over us
because it was cold. In the morning on the English side of the
channel we shared the same compartment going into London. Plane
to New York, then to Rio.
This morning I dreamt I had to leave, there was a parting
with someone, and the anguish was impossibly real and heavy. It
accompanied the movement. Tried everything I knew to keep from
losing her. Now feeling rides perception, rides it in from the
outside, and from the imagined, imparts a sort of texture and
substance; especially in the forest, wild and distant; there
reality does not attempt to invest me; I can color it with
desire in safety; aesthetics.
Is some sort of poetry still possible?

In the light blooms the passage sexed to outrance,

 8

Purifies the destruction until gratuitous desire

Brings renewal bleeding for her subversion.

Short-lived. Time to sleep, time to work, time to die.

Subvert the vicious circle of materialism, of production and
consumption, which has killed the spirit. Subvert disembodied
communication, vicarious (voyeur) fruition of another's past or
experiences, sans risque, sans aventure, which has killed the
soul.
Andrée, like an enigma, that one turns over and over in
one's mind for years, each surface presenting new aspects
leading to new interpretations. A section of a note she sent me
once (which I have translated):

the tension and the movements in my heart are always there;

but they are subject to the Spirit, now and for the future.
a little invisible personage has taken shape and is
constantly at my side. his eyes wide open - he takes hold of
every possible action, places it in an eternal perspective and
looks at me with his wide open eyes - Thus the illusion of
choice is demonstrated at every instant.
Because I was in duality and restlessness during almost all
of our relation, I was surrendered to myself; I couldn't have
the Spirit of God with me, the Consolator promised by Jesus.
Thus you couldn't sense through me the marvelous eternal hope
which is ours - the ineffable sweetness of eternity in the
Kingdom of God, the fullness which is there.
"What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the
Spirit is Spirit," says Jean. Vanquish the flesh and be born of
the Spirit to obey this commandment that Jesus gave us: "Be
perfect, like me or your Celestial Father are perfect," and
"Nothing impure can enter into the Kingdom of God."

I've found a poem she wrote for me, read once or twice 15
 9

years ago.

In the chest, the fiber is pushed back, compressed.

in a paroxysm the space grows

and the real and the impossible fight

alternating in a burst
of brief sparks

my life breaks against the rampart of your body

the dull black backdrop of the sequences which draw closer

defiance embraces space

measures my heart

No, you cannot be dead

love, coming from God, clears a way
above your head, above your body

space is filled, the fiber appeased

and you enter the infinite

I abandon the substance

that one impregnates and one absorbs
hour after hour
in the wait for god for life
the fiber distends, the space grows
and grows the pain
nears paroxysm
nears a resolution
Between the skies and the earth
a tension is awakened
the refusal of your death deifies me
I defy the skies.
 10

Coming from God, love

realizes the project;
your body is fashioned, vivified.

In the translucid and golden vein

my love is sustained
you cannot die

the paneling and the white wall of your room

the ceiling set in its moldings
the round table, the tender bed.

Held in the interlacing figures of the rug,

the profound scarlet
defined the space of life.

from only one place your image appears

but you fill the space
time unifies your movement
makes you hierarchical
you become symbol of the illusory choice.

Battle after battle I wash my clothes

of the tobacco of your kisses
and I ratify the renunciation

now I can take off the black shirt where your perfume had taken

because my soul wants to live.

like the vertical lances of El Greco

the ramparts protect your place
 11

where do I live?
the time which passes belongs to you
from instant to instant
the volume of time grows
the setting of the diamond grows
each of your words is a precious stone
every gesture that you made
is now right
your blue presence
oh that my soul breaks
and that you live!

your body was like an overturned cup

your arms a shield
your legs, those of a beautiful child
your head, a sentence of death

my tears were of water simply

my heart overwhelmed, a fountain of another time

love, the rough sea searching for its bed

love, the sea crashing against your cliffs of bronze

a song of love that only an echo returns

the space deserted, an immense cavern.

the smooth walls which climb to the sky

strangeness of the death. Loss of vigilance surprised.

your living heart, sovereign and hidden.

my soul reaches out to my God to join you

to join you absolutely
 12

my love is appeased
at the sources from which you come.
God is close to me
I love you

prematurely - it is too soon - it is BROKEN

my breath imprisoned - I smother

I still wanted to listen to a poem, show you a design

Listen to the silent and golden light
all the space present of your room

the soft expected rhythm of your voice

the caress of your words
your soft heart in accord with your look

an instant. I no longer see you, the screen of death passes

a simple derision supplants the reality of my heart.

that my life be
music, design, figure.
pouring out in the words
so that, rejected, I might
live without falling.

that similar to the love coming from God

the love that I give you transcends the death

or pressed by its contents

the cup is broken.

In the original French:

Dans la poitrine, la fibre est repoussée, comprimée.

 13

dans un paroxysme l'espace s'accroît

et le réel et l'impossible luttent

se succèdent dans un éclatement
de brèves étincelles

ma vie se brise contre le rempart de ton corps

le noir terne rythme les séquences qui se rapprochent

le défi embrasse l'espace

mesure mon coeur

Non, tu ne peux être mort

l'amour, venant de Dieu, se fraie une voie
au dessus de ta tête, au dessus de ton corps

l'espace est comblé, la fibre apaisé

et tu entre dans l'infini.

j'abandonne la substance
qu'on imprègne et qu'on absorbe
heures après heures
dans l'attente du dieu de vie
la fibre se distend, l'espace s'accroît
et s'accroît la douleur
approche du paroxysme
approche de la résolution
Entre les cieux et la terre
une tension est suscitée
le refus de ta mort me divinise
je défie les cieux.

Venant de Dieu, l'amour

réalise le projet;
 14

ton corps est façonné, vivifié.

Dans la veine translucide et dorée

mon amour se sustente
tu ne peux mourir

les lambris et le mur blanc de ta chambre

le plafond serti dans ses moulures
la table courbe, le lit tendre.

Pris dans les entrelacs du tapi,

l'incarnat profond
définissaient l'espace de la vie.

d'un lieu seul ton image m'apparaît

mais tu remplis l'espace
le temps unifie ton mouvement
te hiératise
tu deviens symbole du choix illusoire.

Lutte après lutte je lavais me vêtements

du tabac de tes baisers
et je ratifiais le renoncement

maintenant je ne peux quitter la chemise noire où ton parfum

s'est
pris
parce que mon âme veut vivre.

comme les lances verticales d'El Greco

des remparts protègent ton lieu
où est-ce que je vis?
le temps qui passe t'appartient
d'instant en instant
 15

s'accroît le volume du temps

s'accroît le serti du diamant
chacune de tes paroles est une pierre précieuse
chaque geste que tu faisais
est maintenant juste
ta présence bleue
oh que mon âme se brise
et que tu vives!

ton corps était comme une coupe retournée

tes bras un bouclier
tes jambes, celles d'un bel enfant
ta tête, un arrêt de mort

mes larmes étaient de l'eau simplement

mon coeur débordé, une fontaine d'autrefois

l'amour, la mer démontée cherchant son lit

l'amour, la mer heurtant tes falaises d'airain

un chant d'amour que l'écho seul renvoie

l'espace désert, une immense caverne.
des parois lisses qui montent jusqu'au ciel

étrangeté de la mort. Perte de la vigilance surprise.

ton coeur vivant, souverain et caché.

mon âme s'élance vers mon Dieu pour te joindre

pour te joindre absolument
mon amour s'apaise
aux sources d'où tu viens.
Dieu m'est proche
je t'aime
 16

prématurément - c'est trop tôt - c'est CASSE

mon souffle emprisonné - j'étouffe

je voulais encore écouter un poème, te montrer un dessin

Ecouter la lumière silencieuse et dorée

tout l'espace présent de ta chambre

le rythme doux et attendu de ta voix

la caresse de tes mots
ton coeur doux à ton regard accordé

un instant. je cesse de te voir, l'écran de la mort passe

un fait dérisoire supplante la réalité de mon coeur.

que ma vie soit

musique, dessin, plastique.
épanchement dans les mots
afin que, rejetée, je puisse
vivre sans déchoir.

que semblable à l'amour venant de Dieu

l'amour que je donne transcende la mort

ou pressée par son contenu

la coupe se brise.

Then I didn't think this poem as beautiful as I do now.

Not the influence of nostalgia, not regret. Later I understood
something about art and style, that is, take a work of art, or
literature, in the making, in trying to polish it, take out the
asperities, the roughness, make it commercial, purified of
personality, character; censure it to please the greater number.
 17

Almost a year in Rio, Ipanema really, with Isabel; parents

back in Argentina, a month there with them. Isabel, we
complement each other; now that we'd spent some time apart it
was more intensely clear. Father always said, I don't care what
you do but do something. We had to figure out what; Isabel
chose dance, and I chose literature. After leaving Argentina
she spent a year with the Ballet de Mexico, but she didn't
really get on well, and when she visited our parents in Rio she
ended up staying, joining up with the Ballet Municipal de Rio.
When I was there she had a large studio which worked alright,
because she was touring quite a bit, and sometimes I slept out.
To make ends meet she also taught at this Russian woman's
academy. But when I arrived in the beginning of December she
wasn't as busy, the summer holidays were starting and went on
through carnival in February. Neither of us ever went in much
for such festivities, barricaded ourselves in the studio or went
out of town. My health improved, with Isabel, the climate, the
people, the women. I probably shouldn't have gone back to
Paris, but I would have lost almost two years of university
work. I arrived about mid-summer. Another American girl was
in my apartment so that is when I got the studio rue Voltaire.
Towards the end of summer I met Andrée for the first time, in
the post office; she was sitting at a table looking at a map.
We looked at each other, and I asked her what she was doing; she
said she was going to go pick grapes because she needed money.
I forgot about her but then a month or two later I ran into her
again, passed her on the street, stopped and talked a minute.
Meanwhile I was back in school, and things were going fine at
first; had some casual girlfriends, Sophie, Marie-José,
Catherine. Then about Christmas I started thinking I needed
passion, started losing weight, then decided that I wanted
eternal love or my destiny clear before me. Sexual tension
built. At times I became extremely lucid, and for a couple of
months I was balanced there, but I didn't get the answers I
 18

wanted so I pushed on. Sometimes I'd go to the Café de la Paix

near l'Opéra, sit and think and watch the passer-by; met a
fellow named Christian there who was doing more or less the same
thing, writing poetry as well, though more down to earth, more
in control, though that wasn't the issue, which was memory,
divesting oneself of memory, and "ego." Lately being in control
has been an issue, where out of control is when one's behavior
is not monitored in relation to a certain norm. Christian said
he was living in the 18th century, moitié aristocrat.
Then I went almost a week without sleeping; as my
terrestrial ties became more and more painful, of anguish, they
became more tenuous. In the metro I would look at the map on
the wall, then look at the station name over the map and
remember where I was, then look at the map and find where I was
going, but when I had found where I was going I could no longer
make the connection with where I was; this cycle repeating. I
took long walks across the city. Logic warped, voices. I
walked to the Hôpital Saint Antoine to interne myself so they
would put me to sleep; I walked around there and left. Another
time I walked to Notre Dame to confess and to get a priest's
opinion about what the voices were saying to me.
I decided to go to England, find a place with a backyard
garden, have my parents come. I kept thinking that I would
throw myself off the ferry into the channel. The crossing is at
night. I slipped in and out of consciousness, sitting wired and
unwired in one or the other of the salons. A man in black was
French and following me to make sure that I didn't take out any
cultural secrets, or to make sure that I made it, or perhaps to
pass me some money, because sometimes I realized I didn't have
any. During the routine revision of passports the authorities
became aware of this; on the English side I was detained, was
sent back to France. As I remember the ferry going back didn't
have any passengers. On the French side the police questioned
me, looked at my address book, and finally decided that I should
 19

go home to Paris. Later it seems like Brigitte told me they had

called her at her parents about me. I remember being in this
small bunk room with the guards, who were playing cards, and
thinking that the game was cosmic, and playing out destinies.
They gave me a sandwich. We drove to Lille; I was in the back
seat; I remember getting very upset because I thought the driver
was going way to fast, and was asking him to slow down.
Everything had huge import, cosmic balance; universal meaning
hung on every gesture and symbolic configuration. In Lille we
pulled up to a church; why? Then immediately backed up and went
to the police station; why? I think this is where they made the
call. Then they decided to put me on the train to Paris. At
the train station the man and I warmly shook hands, I was
thinking he was like a father to me, and he gave me a cigarette.
I watched the countryside going by. On the floor was a calling
card for a Madame Rosa, in Paris, a voyante. In Paris I ran
into Marie-José. The next morning about 10 a young girl knocked
on my door and asked for Madame Rosa. I called my parents and
was surprised that they had been worried about me; I think they
mentioned strange letters that I had sent.
In the early summer I would try to rendezvous with a lover
in Norway, but the authorities in Denmark would not let me go
through their country, because of the X on my passport where
England had barred my entry. They were not so nice, I was aware
of their guns, of their distrust, like I was a terrorist or
something. I became very wired. I had money and my lover's
address; they put me on the train back to Germany. I didn't
have a ticket and the controller gave me trouble; he told me to
get off at the next stop, but I didn't and rode on into Hamburg.
At the station a cashier told me I could get a refund on the
unused portion of my ticket, but I had to buy a ticket back to
Paris. I had to wait for 8 or 10 hours; I walked in the city
for a little while and then went back to the station, which is
very magnificent, of steel and glass. When I got back to Paris
 20

it turned out to be a voyage of 35 hours.

Went to Portland for drugs, the streets of Eugene are
clean, superficial. The bus at 7 am, crowded; a seat is vacant
next to this woman who is looking out the window. I ask if the
seat is taken; she slowly turns her head, mumbles something and
turns back to the window. I sit, look at her again, hair to her
shoulders, that covers her face that I could see, the same color
as June's. As the bus leaves the station the woman looks almost
towards me and mumbles that it is stupid not being able to smoke
on the buses. I don't mind so much for myself, but I agree with
her. She complains about the restaurants and cafés of Eugene
where one can no longer smoke, and I agree. She was in Eugene
from Portland looking for a job, something in a restaurant or
café exactly. Her eyes are watery blue, complexion pale and
flushed, oval face, small nose and mouth, a little overweight,
about 35 years old. Off and on we talk, about Eugene, Portland,
the weather. She's wearing a jacket of indefinable style over a
navy blue leotard, cut just to show the start of large breasts.
By Salem we are making out; a seat clears out in back and we
move. It's been six months for me and it seems like it for her;
so many times I see women's breasts and I think how nice it
would be to take comfort and solace there, but they are
unavailable. I throw my jacket over our laps, open her pants
and slide my hand in; she's very wet. In Portland what now; we
look at each other; she says she's hungry, come on, lights a
cigarette. We go out of the station turn right and walk about a
block; Saturday and quiet downtown, overcast; a small café, some
windows along the street, vinyl booths, coffee, breakfast. I
tell her why I've come to Portland and she says wait and see,
maybe she can help, she knows some people. After breakfast she
has another cigarette and I bum one from her. She says I've got
a flat, take the bus, only about ten minutes if I'd like. Fine.
Like a room in an old hotel, with a kitchen. We go to the
bed and make love, ardently, appreciatively. Afterwards she
 21

smokes, we bathe, she turns on the TV, black and white, soaps.
She's neither here nor there, sort of in a fog; we're on the
bed. Conversation, love-making; I notice fine lines on her
breasts, capillaries on her thighs, her buttocks are smaller
than proportion; I gather from her looks, the tone of her voice
and her remarks that she is content, especially with herself
that I am a school teacher, which seems to improve her self-
esteem, like she does not realize I am a loser. Perhaps not to
her, married to a high school athlete, she was a cheerleader;
small town on the coast; he went to work in his father's auto
shop, drinking more and more, stayed because of the children
until it just wasn't possible anymore and came to Portland, a
job as a waitress; but there wasn't any money in that it was
easy to see and so she started to look at other options, and
ended up doing little dance routines, stripping. At least that
is what she said; I glimpsed an empty envelope from the state
welfare department in a corner of the kitchen counter.

11 November, Rio de Janeiro

Dear Salvador,
I am writing even though you haven't written me back since
the last letter. I understand that a separation can be
traumatic, but that is no reason to cut off your sister;
isolating yourself only makes it worse. I think you should come
stay with me. I know how you are and I'm afraid you're going to
stay there until something breaks; end up irretrievably on the
other side. You know I love you and if something should happen
to you I would die; I won't let you slip away. You know the
meaning of life is not June, not hollow love. You need to leave
that place; you have walled yourself in with your nightmares.
You need a change of perspective. I know how claustrophobic you
have become towards big cities, but here the people are
different; even though it's crowded one respects each other's
space. It's like you want to go out in the desert staying
 22

there; the Americans I have met are hopelessly ignorant of the

flesh and the spirit; you'll be martyred for ideals. Look, I
have a larger place since the last time you visited (what was
it, some five years ago) and you could have your own room. You
needn't even think of it as a permanent move, just as a
vacation, a change of perspective; but if you should stay I'm
sure you wouldn't have a problem finding a job, and you would be
much more appreciated by the students, and you know how much
your staying would make me happy. Salvador, if you haven't
called or written in a couple of weeks I am going there.
Love, Isabel.
(translated from Portuguese)

Hollow love, corporal more like, sublimed perhaps, but

visceral, animal. . . oh dear Isabel. . . she might be right
about a change of perspective, but then the world is the world,
and there are advantages to the desert. The meaning of life is
not June is true. A long time since I reflected on that one.
In the beginning life was the escape from necessity, a slightest
move towards ever higher forms of organization, as opposed to
the ineluctable entropy of the physical universe, at least that
is what the scientists say. The philosophers say that life has
enabled spirit, and if freedom from the material world exists it
will be there. Creation, in the beginning, and now. . . the
form of the spiritual creation has changed, perhaps not, ever
higher spiritual forms. Killing time, in the mundane sense, or
the metaphysical.
No heroin; on reflection Leslie crossed my path to
sidetrack me. Said she could probably get it for me, but she
didn't have any money. Thought about it a second and gave her a
hundred dollars, thinking that even if I don't get the drugs she
could use the money. Her hair isn't really at all the color of
June's; that was part of the interference. And actually she was
pretty simple, one could even say vulgar, cooing and practically
 23

gulping the sex. Large breasts. And I was caught up in the

élan, and now comes the disillusion.
Done that a lot, never learn. First started noticing in
Paris. Get to a place where everything glows, intense,
aesthetic, mystic beauty; could be in a vacant lot full of weeds
for all it would matter; then after the first ecstasy things
begin to lose their vibrancy; with that one regrets flying in
the first place.
I supposed I loved Andrée but I was never enamored. Large brown
eyes, pubescent body, virgin, her spirit in the air. She had a
certain grace but she wore horribly plain clothes, partly
because she didn't have any money; that taste was undeveloped;
and such an obvious form of seduction, corporal, was beneath her
interest. She used a completely unenticing lime soap, I forget
the name. The first time I tried to hold her hand I was told it
was forbidden. She lived down the street with an old woman, had
a bedroom of her own. I think I only went into that apartment
once, and remember it dark and full of furniture. Then she took
a room of her own up stairs in the same building. We kept
running into each other, and then we started to make rendezvous;
she wouldn't go into my apartment and of course I couldn't go
into hers. The situation evolved. Holding hands, then little
kisses, then sitting on the stairway of my building and kissing.
Her mother died when she was very young, and her father raised
her, her brothers and sisters; he wouldn't let them go to
school. A sister was in an asylum. One brother I met was
certainly strange. Another sister and brother were "normal." I
was surprised to learn that Andrée played the piano. That
summer we took a train to Nice and then a boat to Corsica, where
we joined her brother and his wife in a vacation cabin for a
month. It was hot and dry. There was a long dirt road through
the maquis to the cabin in the hills; the beach was down on the
other side of the paved road. I floated on acute desire and
memorized Mallarmé.
 24

The image of a world. Dreamt all night. Hiding behind the

streets. Reading has led to this: we are all or some or none
slaves of the system; a comprehensive historical perspective
could be a way out; out of something exactly and into something
else, movement, perhaps progress. I don't like it when they
talk behind my back. The chemistry is accurate. Not there,
there, not there; one could disappear. La maja desnuda, le
collier de perles, les bracelets d'argent, comme on voudrait.
The air too hot or cold.
When adolescent I remember an afternoon birthday party. I
was pushing the girl I was seeing on the swing; she wouldn't let
me kiss her; and then later she would, Fauna. This slut of a
life isn't worth the trouble. Repression, in the most abstract
social or political sense, has engendered the virtual death of
symbolization. One day they will come to my door. Mr.
Guerrero? Yes. Come with us please.
The anguish is a lack of creative élan. Try to build a
system, perhaps with a solid base the vast fragile edifice can
sustain itself. For intelligence to exist there are necessary
conditions: hunger; memory or some way of recording experience,
otherwise experience would wash over consciousness like a wave
over sand, without reflection (this complex would lead to the
perception of time); perception or sensation with filters that
would allow for the distinction between self and not-self; a
capacity for movement of self and manipulation of reality (hands
work very well); enough change in the continuum of reality to
register on consciousness (the timing of self and not-self would
need to be more or less of the same speed); communication with
other entities.
Hunger, reality and the mirror. Self is distinguished from
not-self. Hunger (pleasure and pain) enforces participation.
Parts of reality are cut out, tagged with language. The rest is
superfluous. The scenario shakes down to the same set of basic
symbols: house, car, road, door, window, bed; sitting, walking,
 25

running; mystification or knowledge; desire. The process hangs

up, regresses, obsesses. One must suppose a life force, not
necessarily sexual, but without sex and corollary bonding it
would be a non-functional free-for-all. Abstract repression
creates that state, tous laissés-pour-compte. But élan vital is
a positive value, need (un manque) is a negative value, so
substitute something that requires acquisition (accretion), a
negative stasis, en deçà duquel l'organisme ressent le malaise.
Au-delà des rythmes autonomes, instinctifs, hunger and sexual
desire swell and subside, entail "organic rhythm." This is laid
to waste; the economic machine is immune to seduction and
subornation, since disembodied. Beings are subsumed; their only
way out is continued failure, which can force enlightenment,
such as unrequited love.
No one ever asks my opinion about anything. The first
part, about the necessary conditions for intelligence is
original. The second part is bric-à-brac, except for negative
stasis which came from molecular biology. The easy ideas have
been taken; it is harder and harder to be genuinely creative,
and fundamentally relevant as well; which is why some say art is
at the end. People don't change. A colleague at UCLA, a
therapist finishing her schooling, was busier than usual and I
asked her what she was doing; she said she was writing a paper
about adult personality development. I said that will be a
short one and laughed. When I once asked her orientation she
had said existentialist.
Part of the anguish is that June was reality. At first her
family and friends, the dinners and parties made me feel less a
person in exile. Her destiny, her calling went in a straight
line; there were no waverings, no hesitations, no vicious
circles; there weren't any questions, and I insouciantly went
along for the trip, at times surprised by the clear and clean
perspective. Until I came to Eugene; then something happened,
perhaps the story was getting old; by the time she rejoined me I
 26

had fallen out.

Looking back it seems like I never had a lasting effect on
anyone. Andrée sinned for my cause, but she didn't continue
sinning after I had left for the United States, rather she
sought atonement. In the beginning June and I would lie around
nude in the living room listening to Russian opera, yet now such
an idea would never occur to her. Even before we separated she
had left off feminine fashion for the sporty look at leisure and
the business look at work. The closest person to me, my sister,
lives without my influence, not that I would ever reproach her
life style; our lives at least seem to parallel, even so distant.
Through the window the clouds stream past in shades of
layers of gray; with the rain the streets are practically
deserted, and beautiful, and engaging experience; walking to
work; running in Skinner's Butte Park, along the river,
everything is wet. It seems like the last attachment; I see
films with actresses that used to move me and watch careless.
Leslie called, couldn't find the drugs, said she needed the
money to pay the rent, but she'll pay me back as soon as she
can, asked when I'd come up again.
I can remember perfectly well the house where June and I
lived, wood floors, large kitchen, but I can't remember living
there with her; I can't remember cooking with her and eating
together; to assure myself it happened I go backwards: we lived
together so we must have cooked together; we shopped together
but I can't remember.
I dreamt I was in this very large building made of cement;
I was walking down a hallway, as large as in a subway. I
perceived that I had my suitcase, old brown Samsonite, and
vaguely that I was looking for a room to stay. Then there were
a lot of young kids, in shorts, dirty and rough like Brazilian
pivetes; it was like they were swarming around me, a lot of
confusion. As I got towards the end of the hall they seemed to
clear away. I perceived that I no longer had my suitcase; felt
 27

upset thinking about the missing clothes and the suitcase I had
had for a long time and grown attached to. A man appeared, like
to show me my room; I let him know that my suitcase was missing
and he said they would look for it, which did not lesson my
distress. Then I understood that I was to be a teacher there,
like it was a boarding school and I would be living there.
Attractive, single white female, 5'9", good physical
condition, active, 35, likes horseback riding, coast, walks,
dinners at home, seeks SWM, 30-45, same interests. Box 9289. If
her criteria for beauty are the same as mine. Hard up. If I
looked twice at her in one of these supermarkets I would bet a
hundred dollars she would give me a look that would shrivel a
potential rapist. Maybe she was the woman at Sheldon Pool who I
smiled at and said hello before I asked if I could share her
lane for swimming laps, the pool being crowded, and who said, I
don't know you. Every stranger is a psychopath.
I dreamt that I was in Paris; I had stepped out to a café
to buy some cigarettes. Then I was at this apartment; there was
a small party going on, about ten people; I wasn't
participating; I found myself in this bedroom; at the bedside
table there was an ashtray with what looked like the rest of a
joint. I picked it up and lit it; it tasted strange, synthetic;
I put it out. Then I saw a joint with the paper that had opened
up and inside there was a silicon looking substance. I picked
up a bit with my fingers and put it in my mouth to taste it,
granular, tasteless. The light fixture was a strange mechanism
that I played with for a moment to figure out what it did,
complicated, bizarre. Then I was in the main room; people were
like getting together in pairs or small groups to do their
thing. I wanted to smoke some grass, but I felt shy about
inviting myself. I hesitated and then said quietly that I would
like to smoke some grass if it's possible. This girl that I had
vaguely noticed, with a little pipe, said that I could smoke
some with her. When I got over to her it was like she became
 28

busy with something; she handed me the pipe and the lighter. I
looked and it was ready to go; I lit it; one draw practically
used it up; when she turned back to me I was still holding my
breath. She took the pipe. Then we were lying on the floor;
maybe we were still going to smoke some. She was smallish,
vaguely oriental. We were getting closer; I think she was like
gently pulling me over her. She was wearing loose layered
clothing, black and violet like the radical students in Paris;
she had cloth coming down from her head mixed in with her hair,
like a Moslem; this parted just enough and she slowly started to
kiss me with just a little part of her lips; the kiss opened up
and became fuller and then she pulled away. She started saying
not to take this to mean anything to go further like she was
having second thoughts. I said no not at all, whatever she
wants. Then we started kissing again. My aroused feeling was
quite clear and I thought that it must be to both of us and that
she was accepting it; I moved my hand up under her skirt and
started lightly caressing her hip. I felt her hesitation and
excitement like she had thought me more naive and that here I
was more sure of myself than she had expected, which she seemed
to reservedly like. Then I was down on the street of a small
town late at night. I remembered that I hadn't told her I would
be right back, and I was worried she wouldn't be there when I
got back, especially since I was taking longer than I had
planned. Then the symbolism becomes too complicated and sordid,
too much to explain and it would take an analyst to unravel.
Analysts, the theories slice. It's enough to make believe
one has killed one's father to clear the terrain; then comes the
dream where one is in anguish the murder will be discovered,
they'll find the body or someone in the family will let out the
secret. A cold dark morning in December when one wakes tracked,
in a room, at the mercy of those who could know. A voice says
to me, ça suffit maintenant, il faut passer à l'acte, c'en est
fini cette subversion de toc. Terrorisme. I should carry a
 29

gun. Bombs in department stores, make it difficult for them to

face, mannequins of death. It doesn't work; the action goes
wrong; at that critical moment, the most important, it went
wrong. Transference is a letdown. I say I am in control; I
know what I am doing. There are uncited references. Lucidity
is not a criteria for judgment. Jump the boat before it goes
down, rejoin Isabel, or Paris, Mexico, save myself.
I went to the open market thinking I could find drugs
there; put on some old clothes, sweatshirt, jeans, didn't shave
or comb my hair. I went from booth to booth, looking at the
merchandise, looking at the vendors to see if they might know.
If I can't get something I will have to go to a doctor and get
some tranquilizers for work, too close to the edge, might do
something wrong, thinking it's right. After about an hour I
came to this couple selling silver jewelry. The man asked me
where I came from. Around. I looked at the display, nice work,
I said. On the rue Voltaire one morning I saw a man working
over a small flame in a small dark room. They both have long
sandy hair. I look at him, "I'm sort of looking for drugs."
The woman is slightly surprised, amused. The man looks at me
directly, then looks me over, adding in this new given. "Busts
are coming down all the time on nice people." "I'm not a narc."
"We'll see; come over this evening, 633 West 4th, I'm Jake and
this is Ana." "My name is Salvador." A couple with young boys
has come up to look at the display. I move off. Fourth, the
old part of town, two-story wood houses, a lot of large trees
make the streets dark.
I walk over there about seven; large porch, I knock. Ana
comes to the door, dark wool sweater, long dark Indian skirt.
She has me sit down, offers me tea. Jake asks what I do. "I
teach Spanish." "Habla español entonces, que tipo de drogas
quieres?" This is a test. "Opium, if not then heroin."
"That's tough, how much you want?" "I have two hundred
dollars." "You give me the money and you wait here." I drank
 30

my tea, tasted like a leafy tree, and Ana and I talked about
Mexico. Jake returned after about a half hour; he gave me a
little brown sack rolled up. I asked if he'd taken a commission
and he said yes; I said good. We said see you later.
I sent Isabel a postcard of Crater Lake - Tudo bem, te
telefono depois, te amo (all well, I'll call you later, love
you); I've never been there. I'm reminded of a saying in
Portuguese, Deus propoe e o homen dispoe (God proposes and man
disposes). Sometimes it is a matter of timing in the
metaphysical sense, if there is a proposition. Here foirer, a
French verb, seems more appropriate, something that fails
lamentably, turns on emptiness, like a screw that turns without
taking hold.
At the university library, in the PQs, I see this girl who
I vaguely recognize. I am floating, anesthetized from the opium
the night before. I had sat in the chair by the window at dusk
and smoked a little pipe full. Fluid. I imagined I was up
Black Creek above Oakridge, in the Cascades. Some of the newest
mountains in the world, sharp, virgin. Black Creek falls from
snow melt down through its canyon, cold, crystalline, splashes
down through rocks, pools. The mountain drops down to the
stream bed at sixty degrees; going down I fall and glide like a
skier down a snowy slope; the canyon floor is old fir forest,
huge moss covered trees; the ground is spongy, covered with
decaying trees, moss, clover and ferns. At one place the
mountain side has fallen in leaving a maze of uprooted trees,
slowly decaying, the forest growing over, going back to the
earth; the river goes around; at another place the river goes
under a set of five or six fallen trees cross-hatched across.
I remember the girl but I can't remember her name. A
couple of months ago I was downtown to watch some rock groups
for the annual Eugene Celebration. Too many people. In the
center of downtown there is a square; in the middle there are
groupings of cement pillars of different heights, an assortment
 31

of huge blocks, like a sculpture; the bands are playing there.

I go over to one side and sit down against a building at a
distance from the people. Later two girls go walking by; I look
at them; one stops and then the other; the tall one says I know
you. I look at her.
"You were my Spanish teacher last year."
I remember, pretty, blond, blue eyes, an A student. No
more Spanish she said but now she was taking third year French.
I moved the conversation to French for a moment, not bad; wanted
to know about Paris; wanted more tangible progress. I said if
she went there it would be practically automatic; at any rate
the learning slowly accumulates over the years, though young as
she is she won't have noticed. I suggested that she pick up a
novel, something like that to read in her spare time. She left.
I left; the music was unsophisticated.
There between the book shelves I consider passing on by,
pause for a moment, then I move down the aisle towards her,
shuffle my feet on the carpet so I won't startle her; she turns,
I say Hello. She smiles,
"Señor. . . I mean Salvador."
"What are you doing here?"
"Looking for a book."
"Like what?"
"I asked my French teacher about a book I could read and he
said that the l'Etranger by Camus is very popular with students.
. . Have you read it?"
I think of Robe-Grillet, Modiano.
"No, I leafed through it once. Have you the call number?"
"Here."
"You're practically there. . . Let's see."
"There's Camus, La Peste, what does that mean?"
"The Plague. I once read that one."
I wait while she finds l'Etranger. I say there are some
tables over there by a window. Her hair is shoulder length,
 32

loose, straight; she's wearing a dark green hooded coat, sport,

of gortex, and jeans, light brown suede shoes.
"What are you doing here?"
"Looking for a book to read. I come here to read the
newspapers, Le Monde and El Pais. . . Do you have a library
card?"
"No, I was going to look at it here."
"I can check it out for you if you'd like."
She looks at me.
"No hay problema, if you'll bring it back to me or to the
library in a month." I take out a piece of paper. "Here's my
address and phone. . . you can bring it by anytime, if I'm not
home just leave it in front of the door." I look at her, we
smile. "Call if you have a question about l'Etranger. . . I can
remember the first novel I read in French, I started it on the
airplane to Paris, had to look up every other word in the
dictionary, and read everything twice, and sometimes it still
didn't make sense. . ."
She looks at me, registering, curious.
"A used paperback by Simone de Beauvoir that I had picked
up on the run."
She didn't ask who that was. I didn't say that the first
French book I had read was by Henri Bergson, while I was still
in Buenos Aires. We go downstairs and I check out the book for
her. She asks,
"Aren't you leaving?"
"I still have to find a book. . . unless you would like to
go get something to drink."
Pause.
"No, I need to get home. . . Au revoir."
"Tchau."
Probably is going to go to her little boyfriend.
Saturday evening, rain. Smoked, spread out. I saw her on
the bed, thin, blond, white, stretching like a sleeping cat.
 33

Then I saw Catherine, the young lycéene who was almost dragging
on a sidewalk terrace Boulevard St. Germaine some ten years ago.
With her friend at the table next to mine. They were going to a
club that opened to minors on Saturday afternoons. One thing
led to another, I don't remember exactly how, but eventually
Saturday or Sunday afternoon was reserved for her. She would
knock and I would let her in. We would make love; she was tall,
very thin, blond; she had a weak heart. Once she brought some
of her school books to show me; once some rock music in English
that she wanted me to help her understand and which was hardly
easier for me to decipher; once she brought her friend. We
hardly ever went out; I would walk her back to the metro around
five. She said there was an English boy before me, once. Later
I think she ended up marrying an English boy.
I dreamt I was walking along a dirt road in the forest; the
road had a layer of snow; everything else was black, night. I
could feel the presence of the fir trees on both sides.
A white night, call in sick. The doctor wanted to delve.
I was visibly upset, nervous. I said it is because my wife and
I separated recently; I am having trouble getting through it.
He prescribed the valium. As I was leaving he said,
"You shouldn't take valium with alcohol."
"I don't drink."
To be young again, and proclaim revolution. It is obvious
there is only one way out, outside of something for the style,
rotten destiny, which is far from me to say, stuck in a little
drama. To flower and die.
The room is bitter, my mouth tastes of metal. Santa Teresa
still lives, a fate worse than death. She brings me loveless
nothingness enveloping me like cold rain, quiet gray sheets
across the sky. She snares a tortured body, wants me to take
away; her eyes shine blackly, water running over her cold hard
breasts, thighs tensed in anguish. La visión, Jesus, la cruz
(the vision, Jesus, the cross), sent down through the rosaces of
 34

her church. By this pale light in the distance. Truth shreds

away. Ayuda me a levantar los ojos ciegos a la luz absoluta, a
su belleza perfecta. Santa Teresa da me su coraje y deseo (help
me lift blind eyes to the absolute light, to your perfect
beauty. Saint Teresa give me your courage and desire). Strip
me to the blackest orgasm. Take it away, take it away, leave me
alone. Why does she come and leave me? It is her sin, her
body, her dirt. I cannot remember how I came by her book and
the pages were sepia with the smoke of fire. I would go with
Constance now I remember her body, her face, but the other is
present. We kiss standing, I feel her body through the cloth.
Night is a barrier. Absolutely forgotten. Los siglos nos
separan, mi amor eterno (the centuries separate us, my eternal
love).
I have to work; I have to sleep; I need to bring everything
down to survival, valium. I continue to think about Victoria.
Taking maximum doses of morphine so that she can live with the
pain for as long as she lives; her body whole but out of
balance, the nerve's signals made infernal. She communicates
with uncompromising intensity, unable to relate to a world
outside of her nightmare. Reduced to thoughtlessness, what
thought does not flee, incapable of assimilation, she said,
"At least you can form projects."
In silence I looked at her, large blue eyes; a cream in her
hair that I do not understand, from time to time a little white
saliva forms on her lips, that she dissimulates, a disappearance
that I barely perceive. I should have said what project could I
have that would be worth the pain and trouble; what sort of
projects could I possibly conceive? I didn't say in your shoes
I would have thrown in the hat long ago. She would have said I
did. The rain, winter, is coloring my ideas.
I dreamt that I was going out on the ocean in a river boat
with some acquaintances. We were going to put in off an island
and ride a current that would push us in between the island and
 35

the mainland. It is raining very hard and it seems dark; I

still haven't decided to go. The ride would be thrilling, the
current very swift and the water very rough. I think that I
would be using a light wetsuit, but even then I think that if we
capsized it would be very difficult to get to shore, the wetsuit
probably insufficient against the freezing water.
The train up the Pacific coast, June and I on honeymoon.
Winter, small towns, forest covered mountains, fields and
pastures, rain and the ocean; naked in the sleeping compartment,
through the window the wet countryside. We took the ferry
across to Victoria, Vancouver Island, our faces moist and salty
with the spray. From Victoria I wanted to go into the mountains
but June didn't. Looking back it seems she was changing, no
longer the woman who took me to nature. It seems like I was
alone and I couldn't find a place to stay; I went to a
discothèque downtown to see if I could get picked up; I remember
it almost happened with a older woman at the bar, a weekday and
she had to work or something. About midnight I drove to the
ocean, past large Victorian houses and landscapes along the bay;
finally a beach where I was able to sleep, waking up cold, the
wind and waves.
Monday afternoon, no where to go, school is out for
Christmas vacation. If I had some money I could fly down to
Acapulco for a week; even if I had the money the idea doesn't
excite me. Someone is knocking at the door. . . again.
Salvador sets the book he had in his hand on the floor, gets up
from the chair and goes to the door. There is a girl there,
blond, green coat. . . Amy.
"Hello."
"Hi, I was sort of in the area and so I thought I'd stop by
and see if you were home." She holds out her hand with a book.
"I was thinking maybe you could tell me something about this
story." Salvador looks at the book, then at Amy. "I never
read it, but come on in, we'll take a look." They step into the
 36

room, the chair and bed, light from the window. They settle on
the floor, in front of the chair.
"Want something to drink?"
"Nah."
"Let's see the book." She hands it to him, and he opens
it. "1942, published during the war. . . well, the opening sets
the story. . . `Today, mother is dead.' I wouldn't start a
story that way unless it was going to be totally demented. You
know I'm probably not a good person to ask about this book."
"Go on."
"It's a bad start. `Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I
received a telegram from the asylum: "Mother dead. Funeral
tomorrow. Sincerely." That doesn't mean anything. Perhaps it
was yesterday.' There is some ambiguity here: what doesn't
mean anything? That his mother is dead, or sincerely. Why does
it matter today or yesterday; he mentions it twice." Salvador
looks at Amy, she laughs a little, embarrassed.
"I don't know. What do you mean? The guy doesn't know
what it means?"
"He doesn't seem to want to situate it clearly. `The
asylum for old people is in Marengo, fifty miles from Alger.'
So they are in Algeria, in North Africa, French colony. A
French man in Algeria, I think I read that he grew up there.
Stuck his mother away, didn't see her while she was dying. Is
he making this up or is it more or less autobiographical?"
"What difference does it make? . . I mean, what's the
difference?"
"If he is making it up then what is presented would
probably have more symbolic value than if he is merely telling
what happened to him. It would depend on how he ends up dealing
with his mother's death, but the fact that it opens the story
gives it a lot of weight in his mind. The ambiguity could be an
effort, conscious or not, to mask or diminish the symbolic
content. Is this the act of sevrage from the mother, etcetera?"
 37

"I don't understand exactly."

"It doesn't matter."
"I got the part that his mother died, and then he takes a
bus, but the rest. . ."
"That's normal, if I knew more about Camus and his work
then there would be more to say, but I don't, you and I hardly
know anything about this. Let me read ahead a bit."
While Salvador reads Amy looks around and then stops to
watch him reading.
"Then there's this scene with his boss, excusing himself
for his mother's death. It seems like he has what one would
call a weak character. Then what does the fact that Emmanuel's
uncle died a few months ago have to do with the story? To show
that death is everywhere, or did this just happen to have
actually happened?"
"What's the point, right?"
"Is he fixated, or just talking to himself, which might
mean the same? . . not that I am denigrating its possible
literary value, at least not yet."
"Like is he serious?" Amy's hand brushes Salvador's arm;
they glance at each other, look away, smile.
"Like does he really know what he is doing?" Salvador sits
back on outstretched arms, straightens his legs and looks at
Amy. "You sure you don't want a coke or something?"
"OK."
He goes down the short hallway and comes back with two
glasses and two cokes. He sits down and hands her one.
"I don't mind reading with you, it's enjoyable, but let's
take a break. . . Going anywhere for the holidays?"
"No, you?"
"Nowhere to go."
"Sure there is."
"No money."
"You must have money."
 38

"I send money to my parents in Argentina, they need it and

the dollar goes a long way in the third world. And then my ex
got everything."
"I'm sorry."
"Oh no, I'm not complaining. She has the house and car so
now she has the bills for the house and car."
"You don't have to pay like alimony?"
"No children. . . she makes more than me. It's strange,
when I was younger I was going to be a doctor. You know
étranger usually means foreigner, not stranger like it was
translated. L'inconnu means stranger, like l'inconnu dans la
ville is the stranger in town."
"Maybe the meaning will become clear later in the novel."
"Maybe."
"You are a doctor aren't you?"
"I meant a medical doctor."
"What happened, change your mind?"
"A lot happened, and my mind changed." There is a long
pause in the conversation. They look at each other, out the
window, drink their cokes. "You're not doing anything for
vacation? You have a boyfriend don't you?"
"No."
"No? A pretty girl like you."
"No. I mean I think about it. . . But they're so
immature."
"You think?"
"Don't you?"
"Depends on your point of view."
"I guess I should be going."
"You don't have to."
"You're not busy."
"Never."
She touches his arm. "I need to." Salvador begins to feel
a sensual undercurrent. Amy says, "Je t'aime," and looks away.
 39

"Tu parles."
"What do you mean, you talk."
"I mean you don't know what you are saying."
"I do."
He leans over and touches her cheek, very pure, too real.
They lean toward each other and kiss. The kiss continues. He
pushes the coat back off of her shoulders; she is wearing a
sweater. They lie back on the floor. There is an intense
energy between them; carried on, without thinking, his hands
move up under the sweater; he feels her shy.
"Are you a virgin?"
"Yes. It's okay."
"I'll try to go slow."
They go all the way through it. At one point they move to
the bed. When she shies he slows and lets her get used to it.
"When can I see you again."
"Whenever you want."
"When are you home?"
"The afternoon. Nights always. You can call. . . When do
you want?"
"I don't know. . . I love you. . . I need to think."
"Come when you want."
They go to the door. She puts her arms around him and
kisses him, "Je t'aime."
"Je t'aime aussi."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Salvador watches her leave and shuts the door. He turns
and looks out the window; it is dark out. He sits in the chair,
turns on the light and starts reading. L'âme n'engendre pas la
parole mais se produit à partir de la parole, (the soul does not
engender the word, but is formed from the word).
She is beautiful, in her, propped up on my elbows, a pure
sensuality in her face, a faint smile passes in her eyes and
 40

lips. I felt like I was disappearing in a sweet light, then she

pulled me to her. I can't fall in love with her, let her have
her fling. She'll spend out her dream sooner or later and
realize the stark reality, an empty room, poverty. She'll come
then to her senses and leave me alone to the bleak horizon.
That would be the difference between this anguish and that
despair. A vital branch stretched too far to the light that
breaks in the winter rains. She might not even come back. It's
cold. Hunger, I hardly ate anything today.
Days and nights. Sometimes I read. Où l'attente se résout
en rien (Bataille: where waiting is resolved by nothing). He
never did come to terms with evil, continued to think in those
terms. Good and evil do not exist as facts in the world, but
only as values, like beauty, as pain, as ideals. I think she
was a sign that I should interpret. The last of my destiny that
now I should drain from my veins. There is nothing to eat; the
air, the room glows with despair. She left me calm, resigned;
opium I will need in a few days, a little respite. The world is
saying this is the affair, inescapable except in the spirit;
confirmation of a logical symbolism. Then flesh is a sin.
This guy and girl are seeing each other. It's like he
might be in a band, sort of about that age and manner. They've
been staying with a friend of his. Then they are at the guy's
place which is also his father's. Nice, all the amenities.
They are going to eat. They have cleaned up from an outing; I
can vaguely remember dreaming it but I can't remember what it
was. He comes into the room and says to her that they won't
have to go to his friend's because he has fixed the thermostat,
which I now understand is why they were going there, but she is
not very happy about that; I gather from an expression that
passes on her face that it is because she actually likes his
friend. She starts to object. I wake up.
Difficult to unravel, the thermostat was very important,
and so was the outing, but I can't remember what happened. I
 41

was not an actor in the drama. Christmas eve, the pipe, opium.
The angels are starting to come out; I catch glimpses of their
wings, fleeting half-lit reflections from their celestial
bodies; I drift. Knocking at the door. . . knocking. I open my
eyes. . . knocking. Get up, move across the floor, open. Amy.
Salvador backs away and invites her to enter. He goes over
and sits on the bed while she goes over to the chair. She puts
the book down on the floor and then takes off her coat and sets
it down and sits in the chair and looks at him. Flannel shirt
and cotton pants, he seems to be floating. He looks at her,
"A mission of mercy?"
Amy sits back in the chair, dark T-shirt, sans soutien
(bra-less), an Indian skirt.
"I want this."
"I'm not in the mood for l'Etranger."
"I just brought it along. Do you want me to leave?"
"No."
She gets up and goes over to stand in front of him. He
takes her by the hips and brings her closer; his hands slide up
beneath the skirt, sans slip. She is ardent; he dreamily sends
a hand up between her thighs. The feeling is like the flow of a
river. They lie down and make love. About eight she says she
has to go and gets up and gets dressed. She says she'll come
back tomorrow afternoon. She kisses him; she leaves the book.
The next morning when Salvador wakes he sees a small sack
on the chair. . . croissants; he looks out the window and then
goes and fixes some tea. The child-mother, lying next to her,
her breast, her skin.
Christmas afternoon she comes again; she wants to read
Camus; Salvador tells her to let him read a few pages.
"It is well done, whatever he is after in the end. . .
Right away he justifies himself for the fact that his mother was
in the asylum, by way of the director. . . she was better off
with friends her own age, with more the same interests; he
 42

didn't really have the means to care for her. There is a

certain brilliance which seems to lead to a sort of epiphany,
when the friends of his mother enter the morgue: `I saw them
like I had never seen anyone and not a detail of their faces or
their clothes escaped me.' And yet irreal, `It was hard for me
to believe in their reality.'"
"What is an epiphany?"
"When suddenly one comes to see things very clearly, like a
revelation, something is revealed to the understanding,
experience is enlightened."
"So like you asked, why, where is it going?"
"Hard to say. For an epiphany this doesn't involve the
depths of being, quotidian, rather than metaphysical. Obviously
he is dealing with death. The image of the woman with a scarf
across her face, to cover the disfiguring disease that has eaten
away her nose, which is probably considered to be one of the
more hideous disfigurations. To my mind that image brings death
into focus. The scarf is white, a skull is white, and noseless,
the narrator doesn't want to see his mother. I wouldn't say she
is the symbol of death, but she forms part of the complex. The
scene turns striking, brutal."
"I didn't see that."
"What did you see?"
"Nothing."
"I was getting to that. With the image of the woman I
started reading symbolically; her presence pushed me below the
surface. Then starts the questioning. Am I reading something
in that doesn't exist? Are you going to unconsciously react to
something you didn't consciously perceive? Is Camus consciously
manipulating this scene to evoke a programmed response,
unconsciously in the reader?"
"I'm just trying to read the stupid story."
"I know, I'm sorry, but it was interesting for me: I don't
know how we are supposed to react. Often a writer makes that
 43

clear, or the reader knows from other contexts, or from others,

such as critics. . . So up to here you understand the story?"
"Yes. . . It's kind of boring."
"That's my opinion."
"Enough."
They are sitting on the floor, Salvador with his back
against the chair, Amy leaning against the bed. She scoots
closer, pulls something out of her sack, "Look what I got."
"Where did you get that?"
"I asked my brother for it, since it was Christmas he
couldn't refuse."
Salvador sort of shrugs his shoulders, "These days a lot of
students smoke."
"I don't or didn't, I don't know."
"If you are asking me if I think you should. . . Probably
yes."
"Why not?"
"Why not till now?"
"I guess I didn't feel like it, or I didn't think I should."
"And now you do?"
"Yes. . . I have the car today. . . Do you want to go
anywhere?"
"Not really. . . We can walk to the park later. . . Do
you want a pipe?"
"You're going to smoke too aren't you?"
"Sure."
"Can you do it. I've never done it before."
. . .
"Let's go."
"Where?"
"To the park."
"It's sprinkling. . . I think I'm feeling it now. . .
this is intense. . ."
"C'est magnifique, non?"
 44

"Oui. . . How far is it?"

"Three blocks."
"It's starting to get dark."
"Dusk."
"The clouds, the trees, the grass. . . everything is
different."
"It's you. . . There's no one."
"Time for Christmas dinner. There's the river."
"You didn't know it was there."
"Not so close."
"I don't know why everyone thinks this is the worst part of
town. It's close to downtown; the houses are older but more
interesting; it's close to the park, and the river."
"Crazy. . . ooo."
"You okay?"
"Everything is so beautiful."
"Follow me, let's go down by the water. . . down here. . .
I always think the river is like molten glass."
Amy comes up along side of Salvador. They are looking out
at the grey water flowing by. She takes his hand. Then she
comes around facing him. He reaches out and brushes her cheek
and hair, a little wet. She steps forward and kisses him. His
desire pushes, hers absorbs; it is more animal now. He takes
off his raincoat and puts it on the ground, looks back up the
bank, no one could see. Amy puts her coat down on the raincoat.
They take off their shoes then their pants, sit then lie back as
they push up their shirts. She starts to pull him onto her but
he tells her to come onto him. He lets her come to a climax,
and then carry him through.
They dressed and watched the river.
"What about your family?"
"I called my sister. My parents don't have a phone. I do
need to see them. I haven't seen them for five years I think.
Sometimes I think being here is selfish of me. And yours?"
 45

"We had Christmas round the tree."

"And now?"
"Visiting their families on the coast. Anyway family is
not so important to them. Their work is their life. We moved
this summer, a new house out Coburg Road; that's why you don't
see me at school."
They sat in silence.
"This is all going to change. Usually I think we are in a
privileged position in history. I realize that most generations
think that, but we should. . ."
"Explain would you?"
"Five hundred years ago man was on the brink of global
exploration, and of himself, and that is more or less complete.
We are reaping the benefits of technology, or raping, at any
rate life as we know it is ending. Nature is being destroyed.
One hundred years ago Los Angeles was little more than a pueblo.
In five hundred years, even a hundred years, all of this that we
see will be different, new trees, if they are planted, new
houses, of what form? Either man stops or man goes on - if he
stops we are seeing the start of his decline, no more
exploration, no more discovery; if he goes on we are seeing the
first tentative steps towards control of the universe, not that
control is something to be pursued in itself, nor has man sought
control in itself, but rather as an extension of himself. You
see, the alternative is stagnation and eventually extinction.
Not in terms of an impending catastrophe, but in a time scale of
thousands or millions of years. Anyway, to me it seems that
further exploration is inevitable, and given what we have done
in the last thousand years, for instance, it seems logical to
believe that we are at a crossroads."
Salvador looks at Amy. She says,
"Jesus."
"Are you spacing out?"
"I don't think like that."
 46

"I know."
"And you don't care?"
"No. . . It's cold, shall we go back?"
"Yes."
Salvador stands and helps her up. "Existence is at a
crossroads; worse, art may be at a dead end, and I care about
art."
"I'm listening."
"I'm not boring you."
"Not at all. . . Aren't you bored with me?"
"No. You are beautiful. I love you."
They look at each other. Perhaps something is being
communicated. Perhaps something alien, or universal.
"It is something I have thought, and it seems others are
thinking the same thing. The death of art, in their thinking
linked with modernism and postmodernism."
"The problem is too big for me; I don't have the tools. . .
Are there reasons?"
"Principally that all of the possibilities have been
exploited. Nothing more to create, why reinvent the wheel?
What good is a modern Shakespeare, Delacroix, Renoir,
Baudelaire? I say that new things can be created but with
diminishing relevance to life. They say that art will simply
become more and more decorative and utilitarian. Which means
that art has lost the quality of discovery. Mass consumption,
like television. I'm stopping now."
They are walking down the street; it is dark. Salvador
slows.
"Amy."
"Yes."
"I don't feel so good."
"What's wrong?"
"A malaise, don't let me talk like that again will you.
When I was growing up we were taught not to disclose; I learned
 47

it from my parents; because of the regime, and when one did

disclose a linear discourse it was laden with emotion. . . like
the logic of war. . . You are saving me."
"I felt that I think. . . You ate the croissants?"
"Thank you."
"Have you eaten anything else today?"
"No."
"Let's go somewhere and eat."
"That would be nice."
"Can I leave the grass with you?"
"Of course."
They resume walking; Amy takes his hand.
. . .
I asked Amy if she danced; she said no. I had dreamt that
I was in Isabel's dance class; the girl or woman on the other
side of the bar, who was attractive and aware of my presence,
pulled the straps of her leotard off of her shoulders and then
pulled the leotard down to her waist, baring her breasts.
I'm thinking about last week when I was coming out of a
place and there was a woman in a beige BMW who I had
occasionally seen inside. I looked at her and smiled; she
rolled down her window and said her car wouldn't start and she
didn't understand because it had never done that before. I
tried to help but the car wouldn't run. The next time I saw her
she said it had to be towed. Later I learned that Susan works
with old French texts, 12th century, she said. I said I was
resolutely modern, like I had just finished reading some
biographies, and I mentioned Lacan. She said he is popular with
French feminists. Susan is between 35 and 40 I imagine. She
has short red hair, very pretty brown eyes, a sloping up-turned
nose. She lives on what they call University Hill. Then she
left, said I'll talk to you later, like a promise, like she was
busy. I wonder how feminist she is, if she's like castrating.
I talked with her again today. Her hair didn't seem to be that
 48

beautiful red like it was before, but almost brown. I asked her
if she'd changed the color and she said that the tint goes out
after a few weeks. Then she told me that she taught a catholic
seminar for three years, and one day after class had been going
for a few weeks a student raised his hand and asked if her hair
was purple. She said custody of the eyes or you have custody of
your eyes, something like that, and explained to me that in more
ancient times men were not supposed to look at women. End of
the conversation. Now I think that she is trying to tell me
something, or was, I doubt she'll have anything more to do with
me. The whole complex must be because of her very small
breasts. I can imagine how she must have felt or started to
feel before she took defensive action, when she saw that the
other girls were already developing very nice ones.
I dreamt I was kissing a girl, slowly the tips of our
tongues met; then in the dream I was thinking I had made love to
her, like it felt like I had, but I remembered that it was only
a kiss.
I opened the door to my apartment and Amy was sitting on
the bed with a book in her hand; wearing a black knit skirt to
mid-thigh over black tights, a white blouse, jacket and shoes on
the floor. She said I had left the door open so she had decided
to wait. Asked me where I'd been and I said walking. I went
over and kissed her. She said that she wanted to smoke some of
that stuff I was smoking that one evening. While I was getting
it out she unbuttoned and took off her blouse, and then pulled
her tights off. I thought it was cold but she said it wasn't. I
would feel a desire to reach over and touch her, looking at each
other, floating in the room, the room floating. Her hair was
up; she reached up and slowly undid it. When after a long while
she decided she wanted me and as she started to undo my clothes
her fingers were cold. We read Invitation au Voyage. When Amy
was leaving she said she was going to take me out for New Year's
Eve.
 49

Things have fallen into place; my desires are fulfilled;

but I'm not sleeping, I still feel goaded. When I talk to
people in the city there is an artificiality, like they know I
am imbalanced and they are acting like I am normal. I can read
again and focus my thoughts for longer, but contact with daily
reality is fleeting when it is not slipping towards dullness;
there are blanks. Something is wrong, I can feel it. Maybe I
should go somewhere else but I don't know where and I don't have
any money to go there, and that would be running away. School
is going to start next week; I don't know if I can hold it
together. What's worse is Amy will go back to classes; she will
see her teachers and she will think that I must be like them,
old and boring, and then she won't want to see me anymore.
I dreamt all night. I was taking someone across the
border; we were in this tunnel that would supposedly take us
across, it seemed like I knew the way, but then I was starting
to crawl into this small passageway in dirt; then there were
boards nailed into place along the top of the passage which I
had to pull out as I went along to make enough room to pass;
there was light up above but I wasn't interested in going up but
rather ahead. The next one I was a student. The class seemed
like a Spanish language class in Argentina. The teacher was
picking up work, like accumulated over the term. I was
supposedly a good student but I didn't have any work. I went
with him over to the files where we could also keep it and they
were all empty. I am saying to him well I hope you have it. In
the next one I was again a student; the teacher was out and I
was filling in for him. I was sitting at this big table with
five or ten other students. When the teacher comes in I say
here you go sir and get up quickly to give him his chair. He is
tired and hungry like he had a very hectic day and didn't even
have time to eat.
New Year's Day. It is very cold; I look out the window at
the fog. What happened last night? Amy came in the middle of
 50

the afternoon. She sat in the chair and I was on the bed. She
said I seemed very nervous which was true; I felt like I was
coming apart. Amy was animated, that evening she wanted to go to
the WOW hall to see the Brothers of the Baladi, a rock group. I
thought it would be noisy and crowded and I wondered if there
was something else we could do. We thought about it; she
agreed, the music wouldn't be that great. I suggested a small
restaurant bar, a table in a dark corner, dancing in the half-
light. Good idea she said, but I couldn't get in. We were
disappointed but we decided that we would think of something
later. I was acutely nervous, perceptions were taut, wired; I
seemed half oblivious, empty. Amy thought I was in a state and
asked me if I was on something and I said not since the last
time with her; she asked if it was her and I told her of course
not, and I explained that in the afternoons I was always
nervous. She must have decided that I was hopelessly strung
out. She looked at me and then got up and took off her clothes.
I was etherealized. She came over and had me get up and then
took off my clothes. She sat me in the chair and then sat on my
lap facing me. She slowly brought me to her and we came. We
took a shower and moved to the bed. We spread out, she was
lasciviously wet.
Around six she called out for pizza, then put on her dress.
(She said she wore a dress because we were going out.) We ate;
I had settled down and so we read for a while. Then she said it
was time to go and we smoked some grass. She said we'd go see
what was happening and I said okay. We walked to the WOW hall;
music was already playing, people standing around outside,
coming and going, young people, hippie looking, punk looking. I
thought I might see one of my students. Inside it was crowded,
we sat back up on the last row of these seats like bleachers,
and watched and listened. After about an hour Amy went to the
bathroom and when she came back there was this girl with her.
She introduced her as her friend, Sarah, and me as her friend,
 51

you know the one she had mentioned. She told me that we had
already met at the Eugene Celebration, but I didn't remember
her. They sat and talked, the musicians had stopped for a
break. Tall, brunette, a little stiff or inhibited, almost
mannequin. When the music started again they decided we would
dance. It was okay, couldn't move too much because of all the
people. Amy and Sarah were beautiful; Sarah was very friendly
to me. Then after a while I got tired and went and sat down; a
few songs later they joined me. The night went on like that.
At midnight they screamed and we all kissed. I got the
impression that Sarah had been with other friends, but that she
stayed with Amy because she was her best friend. We left in
Sarah's car; they dropped me off; Amy said she'd stop by soon
and they went home.
That night I dreamt that I had met this girl who was a
little crazy, loose, a small Indian girl; she was perhaps in an
asylum or at least there were intimations of that, maybe even I
was talking to her there. She was drawing this little map and
showing me where she had lived when she was a girl, this place
up in Alaska. Then I was with her in bed and we were making
love; she still had on her panties. It was like I was at home
and then I realized that a woman, perhaps my wife, was there
across this big room, like working in the kitchen, like a large
rustic cabin made of very strong wood; perhaps there were
children present. For a second I was conscious of her presence,
almost as though she was complice and tolerating my frasque.
Then the girl lifted off me exposing herself to take off her
panties. We are going to put it in her and I wondered if she
was clean. Then I am at this gathering of people, maybe the
same place but now there are people around dressed like for a
holiday get-together. This woman walks by me and at first it
feels like she was the one I was in bed with; I take her hand as
she walks by; she's wearing a nice chiffon dress. She stops and
sits down and asks what I've been doing with myself. I see it's
 52

not the same person; more like a normal woman, like a wife with
some sophistication and I know her from the past. Then I
receive these pieces of paper; maybe it is she that hands them
to me; they are from the Indian girl, a little message and this
map drawn on these little torn pieces of paper, about 2 by 3
inches. I am looking at the map thinking how well she did it,
like from memory. I remark to the woman, who says but she tore
it out of a map, and she turns it over and starts to unfold it
and I see that it is part of a map. I'm looking for the place
she mentioned to show the woman, Carbough or something; the
woman almost knows. Then I start to tell the woman like what I
had been doing with the girl; her children come in, two I think,
six to eight years old. Then some people sitting further away
apparently had overheard me, like I had been indiscreet, and
here I was flirting with this woman. My grandfather walks by;
it's like he is leaving; I hold out my hand to shake his, to
have him stop. He only reluctantly takes mine or doesn't. Then
my father is there and they say I won't ever do that again, like
this whole scandalous behavior. The girl was like this girl,
Selma, that I knew in Brazil.
The people I meet have their distance. They don't seem to
think. I know too well the persuasion of discourse. That
deluded by reason, están enganados (they are fooled); not their
error, the species adopted or adapted to a logic of control,
power. La technique de pointe, déployée à l'exclusion des
autres. Like in war where one front is extended which weakens
the others. I understood war. I was giving it up when I met
June. Then I could afford it, a position, established; June saw
where I had risen. Amy woke it, wanting to know what I was, and
I gave her something she could understand.
. . .
Monday.
Tuesday. Work. Day by day. At night feelings push.
Read. "Una especie de loco peligroso, un esquizofrénico. . .
 53

Te conocía, dijo que había estado contigo un par de veces y que

no le gustaron tus remilgos, y que se quedó con las ganas de
zurrarte." (A sort of dangerous crazy person, a schizophrenic. .
. He knew you, said that he had been with you a couple of times
and that he didn't like your preciosities, and that he felt like
giving you a beating. Juan Marsé, Un día volveré) Thoughts are
pushed away, an image, Amy, Sarah, Amy must be busy; no work in
school, it just started. I am holding it down.
. . .
Time.
No rain the last week, which makes it colder. Here, night,
alone; emptiness, pieces of the day, bits of lesson plans,
questions and answers, students filing in, sitting; try to keep
to the agenda, chapter seven by week's end; can't sleep, pieces
of images turn to disembodied thought, repeating over and over.
2 am. Amy. I've forgotten that dream from last night; woke and
remembered it, very interesting, then couldn't remember it in
the morning. Silence. . . an occasional train that passes some
three blocks away. Can't think of a girl that left without
saying something, like goodbye; we might have parted without
firming our next meeting, leaving it indefinite, and then never
meeting again. Marie-José, crying all the time. . . in some way
perhaps she foresaw how her life was going to be and it made her
sad. Andrée, didn't expect anything from the future except in
the next life. It is like they understood or saw something that
I couldn't.
I dreamt I was talking to my mother; it was like out on
this devastated terrain which I didn't notice at the time but
only after waking, and when I asked myself what it resembled I
found the opening of a crypt in the desert. She wanted me to
come out with it, the truth; I was saying that when I had come
back I told her she was, they were my father and her, mucking up
their lives and she should stop drinking and get it together; I
felt again the alienation that this had caused between us. She
 54

said yes I know, like she understood I had been hard on her for
her own good. Then she asked but what about you? I maybe
looked up at the sky, picked up some dirt, and I said I was
going after the big one. I said out there, and imagined black
space, there are five meter cubes and I'm going to find one.
During the dream I pictured one and their actual size seemed
much smaller, but that was the dimension I was saying, un cubo
de cinco metros; not necessarily metallic or stone, not
necessarily natural or alien. It was like they were associated
with the door to the universe, complete knowledge.
About three hours earlier I dreamt that I was in the
kitchen and the light wouldn't work; I went out into the hallway
to turn on that light and it didn't work either. I looked out
into this very big room and I couldn't see the other side
because it was too far and too dark, but I felt someone's
presence there. I said hey! . . hey!, and then I woke up. When
I said hey it sounded like I was saying it in my sleep, it was
hard to articulate, dampened.
. . .
Salvador is home from work; he is sitting in the chair; he
looks out the window. Grey sky, perfectly homogenous, almost
fog, drizzle. Friday, then Saturday. Maybe Amy will come by,
who knows? Time to fix dinner. Kitchen light, toasted cheese
sandwich, bread, cheese. . . knocking. . . knocking. . . the
door. . . open. . . three policemen, hands on holstered
pistols, "Doctor Salvador Guerrero?"
"Yes."
One of them holds up a folded paper, "We have a warrant for
your arrest." He has another paper, "Search Warrant."
Salvador moves back into the room; they enter. "What for?"
"Statutory rape, contribution to the delinquency of a
minor, and possession of drugs." The other two officers start
searching. The remaining officer reads Salvador his rights.
"What rape? Minor? Drugs?"
 55

"A Miss Amy Sundquist. The drugs we are checking now. . .

Why'd you do it? . . a doctor, supposedly. . . she's only
sixteen."
"That's insane."
"I found a stash, grass and something else," yells an
officer from the kitchen."
"Tell it to the judge. Get your stuff, you're going to
jail. You'll need your papers."
"Papers?"
"Passport, green card, social security card, driver's
license."
. . .
Cement walls, bunk, blanket, bars. Did Amy turn me in?
She wouldn't. . . how could she? That wasn't rape. What
happened? Took a valium while leaving, thank God. Still
shaking, mouth dry.
. . .
A couple of hours sleep last night. They brought me to
this white room, a desk, two officers in suits, a mirror.
"Sit down, Mr. Guerrero."
"What's this about?"
"You are charged with statutory rape, contribution to the
delinquency of a minor and possession of illegal drugs; it
appears one is a narcotic. We'd like to ask you some questions."
"I need a lawyer."
"First we'd like to ask you some questions."
"Not until I have a lawyer present."
"Maybe next week. Your passport is expired."
"Is it?"
"Your green card could be invalid."
"Doubt it."
"We're getting in touch with immigration now. We're also
checking this PhD, see if it isn't a damn sham. You're in deep
shit, Sal."
 56

"Salvador. Check away. UCLA, that's the University of

California at Los Angeles in case you didn't know."
"Why'd you do it?"
"I didn't do anything."
"People are saying you did a lot. Mr. Sundquist. . ."
"Mr. Sundquist?"
"He's a big man in this town; he wants your balls."
"Un maricón."
"What?"
"I want a lawyer."
"Where'd you get the drugs?"
"A lawyer."
"What'd you do to Amy?"
Silence.
"You won't be teaching again."
Silence.
"You're going to get ten years for this. . . Get him out
of here."
. . .
Salvador is taking a tray with his breakfast to a table in
the cafeteria.
"Hey you!"
He continues walking. Three men plant themselves in front
of him. The one in the middle says, "I was talking to you."
Salvador sets his tray on a table and steps back, takes in
the three. The one who spoke seems mad; the other two are along
for the ride.
"I don't like rapists."
"Probly put a knife to her back some parkin lot," adds the
guy to his right."
Salvador says, "You ever fuck a chick?"
The guy is thinking, looking for a trap. "Yea, so?"
"What do ya call it when ya screw a cunt and she keeps
coming over to yer place for more, that rape?"
 57

"I heard she was damn young."

"She wasn't a pre-schooler."
"What?"
"I'm saying she's past puberty."
A guy sitting at a nearby table, one of the many taking in
the scene, says, "He's saying she had hair, ya know, on her
cunt. . . and tits."
The brute belligerently, "You trying to get smart with me?"
"What's your beef?"
Salvador and the brute stare at each other, aggression has
reached the snapping point, both of them have doubled fists.
The guards are watching at a comfortable distance. The same guy
at the table adds, "Hey Jock let him off, huh, I heard she was
this society bitch."
"That so?"
"Could be."
The brute glances around, sympathy has finally swayed in
Salvador's favor. "Yea, alright. . . Yer a stupid fucker ta
come in here for a piece of pussy."
"Yea, what'd you do?"
"Some shit. . . Robbed some places."
"Yea, if I'd known I was going to jail I could a gone in
for it."
"He's cool Jock man, finish yer breakfast."
"Later."
"Yea."
. . .

Flat on my back looking up at the ceiling. Seems like they

dimmed the lights hours ago. That's love, huh Amy. Puta. Puta
vida. Life has always been out to crush me. Now I survive.
Until it is my life again. Here they say they get their just
desserts. How can they be so stupid. They believe in earthly
justice. Then a set-back, an unforeseen mishap; they see
 58

injustice, a crime against their bien-être. They get by, they

get around, and they forget; all returns to the just and true.
There, righteous, they laugh at the misfortune of others behind
their smiling faces. Well I played the cards on the table and
the message is clear. Wait and see I said, and waited for the
issue to force itself. See where it went. Hah. Nowhere. That
is what is great about being down, there is no where to fall.
Hah. The cell is warm, food isn't bad, free, get my books and
it'll be back to normal, except I won't use up my time spoon-
feeding knowledge. A few days, weeks, it doesn't matter, and
I'll be free from the world; it will fade away. Purity, like a
monk. Bliss. No God, none of his tortures.
. . .

"Hey Salvador, get up, someone's here to see you."

Down the hallway past other cells. Someone asks, "Hey man,
ya gettin out?"
"Fat chance."
Small room; a man stands up; shaking hands.
"Salvador Guerrero?"
"Yes."
"My name is Christopher Norman; you can call me Chris.
I've been appointed your lawyer."
A big man, blond, blue eyes, could have played football at
university, a little out of shape, prominent cheeks and chin;
professionally dressed; seems amicable.
"You going to get me out of here?"
"We'll see what we can do?"
"You know what you're doing, you any good?"
"I know my stuff. Hey, it's okay. I know your wife, your
ex-wife I mean; when they gave me your case I called her. She
said you're alright."
"That's nice."
"Said she respects you but you're not compatible. What I'm
 59

saying is I'm on your side. You got lucky, sometimes a court

appointed lawyer doesn't give a hoot. I'll do whatever I can
here. You need anything?"
"Some cigarettes? . . Can you get me my books?"
"No problem."
"What's happening?"
"For now all I know is what you've been charged with, same
as you. I wanted to see you first thing, then I'll check into
the dossier. . . Were you framed; did you do what they say?"
"I was seeing Amy, yes; but I didn't force her to do
anything. . . I don't think she turned me in. . . I don't
know."
"I'll see what's going on; see you tomorrow about the same
time okay? Don't worry. Cigs and books, right?"
"Thanks."
"What kind?"
"Marlboros."
"I'll drop them by."
"Thanks."
"No problem. Guard, we're done."
. . .

I dreamt I was in the department office of a university,

probably foreign languages. There were other people there; I
had come to give this class that I was supposed to be doing as a
replacement for the regular professor. I was picking up books
and notes. I realize that I hadn't been filling in like I was
supposed to, like I had missed two or three classes before this
simply because I had gotten busy, forgot, or simply didn't feel
like doing it; and I notice that I am dressed rather sloppily.
I feel the other people, and perhaps especially the secretary,
watching me. I realize that a colleague was covering for me the
other times and that he has apparently already come by the
office and picked up what he needed to do the class again. I
 60

realize that the others are aware of this but to cover up no one
has spoken with the people in charge. I feel somewhat miffed
because the person is supposed to be my friend and here he is
taking advantage of the situation and taking my class when I am
there; then I am not so upset with him and I think I'll go see
if I can get the class or team up with him or something.
Into the new world. Walking along a forest trail; it is
raining. A terribly pretty girl is with me, sometimes ahead,
sometimes behind; I don't know her name and I don't know
anything about her; we have never spoke, like we have no common
ground, like we are alien to one another and ignorant of each
other's capacities of experience. We are wearing light
synthetic rain clothes and we could be on an exploration of
earth or an entirely different place. In the trees in the rain
there are small fires here and there; there's a house, intact,
we go in, empty. We sit on the floor in the big room, leaning
against a wall at ninety degrees from each other. When I look
at her I feel something sharp in my body, our eyes meet darkly
and veer away. We start moving around, and watching each other
move, avoiding earthly contact, perhaps trying to scream or
pressing against the walls and floor, pausing to look out the
windows or doorway.
How far does she want to go; it's a trap and cold gnarls at
bones, what was once a bloody revelation. Repress the memories
and let them disintegrate or let them form and coalesce. An
image of a rose no longer enchants and clear water grows murky.
Diaphanous silk, still a delightful lure. A rushing mountain
river, not a meandering brook, greater forces. I want to be in
it, ineluctable attraction; approach, touch it, be swept along,
control distance on the edge of annihilation. More, more, too
soon, too late. All is lost.
Like Andrée. I think of her, then her poem, then her; I
imagine I am in an apartment in Paris, walls, windows, doors,
like a dream, a hallway, the light of night. 3 am, someone is
 61

knocking. She comes in, what she carries in her large brown
eyes, a little uncertain, suspended, almost innocent or feigned,
a hint of love, slightly sensual, a spark of curiosity. Never a
master could paint that look, the defeat of art, simple and yet
ineffable, untamable. I come to my senses, creative failure.
And stare at the ceiling in the pale light of the cell.
And Amy. Her poem would be different, light, innocent,
rebellious, and then sad.

You were hiding

Hadn't eaten or slept for days
When I found you
You were washed out
And acted so alone
You could fall away from me
Sinking into misery
Hold my hand and
Everything was in a kiss
Life and death
And you were living
And I made you smile
But everything went wrong.

If she knew what she was doing, and sincere, as if it mattered.

. . .

"Come along Salvador, your lawyer's here."

Down the hallway and into the room.
"Salvador."
"Chris. . . Thanks for the cigarettes and the books."
"No problem. . . You're due for arraignment tomorrow."
"Do you know if Amy turned me in? . . the rest. . ."
"Doesn't really matter to you."
"No."
 62

"Here's the story: Amy has a close friend and when Amy
started seeing you that friend felt neglected and jealous;
naturally Amy told her that she was seeing someone without
thinking that there could be fallout. This girl perceived that
Amy was acting different and mentioned it to her parents, who
knows out of concern, spite, whatever. Her parents called Amy's
parents, who saw you coming out of the WOW hall that night with
the two girls; they pressed Amy and then filed charges."
"Good then."
"There's more. Amy refuses to testify, and so does her
friend after seeing what came down, as if her testimony would
help a prosecution. Amy's father has marshaled her off to a
sort of clinic, something half mental, half medical and
expensive; rumor is she is pregnant. . ."
"I need to call her."
"Can't, father put a restraining order on you. . ."
"What?"
"A court order: You aren't to approach or communicate with
her in any way."
"Damn."
"Rumor has it her father doesn't want the pregnancy to
become news, and that he is coercing her to abort. . ."
"He can do that?"
"Pretty much. . . She can continue to refuse. . . and he
can keep her put away in the clinic, not locked up but
virtually."
"Nothing I can do."
"Nothing I can see. . . Normally, marry her, but. . ."
"I get the picture."
"So the charges relating to Amy have been dropped. . ."
"And the drugs?"
"The marijuana is a misdemeanor; normally the opium, being
such a small quantity and you being a first offender, would have
got you a slap on the hand, but this Sundquist owns whole
 63

shopping centers, friends on the city council and everywhere,

probably golfs with the judge. They're going to stick you with
the maximum."
" . . ."
"Which is five years."
" . . ."
"After a couple of years, when things have cooled off and
assuming Sundquist doesn't have influence on the parole board,
you can get out on parole. . . Not bad considering what you
were facing in the beginning."
" . . ."
"I suggest you plead not-guilty and we'll see if we can't
weaken their case. You know they are working on having you
deported after you've served your sentence."
"I was legally married."
"This will be taken up separately; it's looking like
they're going after something like a threat to national
security, terrorism, contraband, precedents in Europe, South
America. . . They might try to extradite you to Argentina to do
your time, in the hopes that Argentina will add more time for
good measure. . . but I think that unlikely."
"Ridiculous."
"Yes, but. . ."
"I know."
"Tomorrow at the arraignment I'll see about getting you out
on bail."
"I don't have any money. Besides what good is that if I'm
going to be back in again."
"Never say die, they haven't got a conviction yet."
"Sure."
"I've seen worse scenarios turn out better."
"Okay."
"Need anything."
"No thanks."
 64

"See you tomorrow then."

Chris gets up, goes to the door and calls the guard. As he
is leaving Salvador says, "Hey Chris, thanks." Chris waves it
off.
. . .

Sleep here in my apartment tonight; figure out what I am

going to take with me. He got me out, $5000 bail. I said I've
only got $2000 and I would need that to live. Chris said one
doesn't have to pay it all, but only a portion. Stupid, I said,
why set bail at $5000 when it is only $2000. He just looked at
me and said that June was paying it, said she owed it to me; he
had her check. He said she wanted him to relay a message, said
run for it, there's nothing here for you. No passport, $2000,
no ticket to anywhere. Run for it. Getting into Mexico is
supposed to be easy, just drive through I've heard. People in
LA I could call, maybe they could help me. This old suitcase
and a nylon bag; put them on the bed and sort things out; won't
need the heavy clothes. How could I get a message to Amy?
Impossible. In that clinic. Hell. Take a valium. Catch the
bus in the morning. A couple of hours sleep. It is raining
hard; the rivers are flooding. Huge, brown, fast, sweeping
along, floating branches and logs, a torrent. The rivers are
filling with silt and emptying earth into the oceans; rain and
wind are eroding the land, washing it into the rivers; the
rivers are spreading out into vast estuaries; the oceans are
rising, beaches are receding. One day it will all flood.
. . .

Two seats to myself. Poor people, old and young. Young

mother with a baby, leaving her husband and going home to her
folks. Young man, mill worker, might have heard there was work
in Yreka. Welfare, unemployment and social security. Old man
going to or coming from seeing a daughter or son, what's left of
 65

his scattered family.

Down the freeway in the rain. Cottage Grove twenty miles
south, the end of Willamette Valley, up into the mountains.
Roseburg, Myrtle Creek, Canyonville, Wolf Creek, grazing lands,
some places no more than a gas station and a freeway on ramp.
They call it the I-5 corridor, Interstate 5, civilization; it
looks desolate. Grants Pass, Rogue River, Medford. The bus
goes into town, quiet, simple. Half hour stop, down the street
a café, yes they're still serving breakfast, the waitress has
been here forever; once she was a belle; she knows the
customers, the rain, the rivers. Breakfast, coffee and a
cigarette; windows, air, light. The bus is almost full with new
passengers. Ashland, home of the Shakespeare Festival, Siskiyou
Summit, snow on the hillsides, California.
Down the mountain, the flat lands, south for 1000
kilometers, agriculture, east and west as far as the eye can
see, Mexicans in the fields, wetbacks they call them, swam the
Rio Grande. Dozing off, motor hum, rain, the water on the road.
Gringo, hardly more than a trickle now, all the water used
upriver; no more water, deeper and deeper, all used up; they're
moving farther and farther north. What was that logic? . .
Almost asleep, the thought slipped away, seemed important,
irretrievable.
I dreamt I was in bed with this person. I remember the
head of the bed, metal that made a half circle, with vertical
bars. We were smoking grass and making love frenetically. The
person seems like a boy but the sex is a girl's so it doesn't
bother me. I must have been on top because at the same time he
wanted me to disconnect these electric wires between the bed and
the wall; they were connecting and shocking, sparking, or it was
the joint that was very badly made and falling apart, the
cinders falling and burning my fingers; apparently we climaxed
at the same time. Then he has rolled another joint; I see this
one is very well made; I am a bit reluctant to smoke it because
 66

of what happened the last time but he convinces me, and we are
starting to smoke it and then to make love again, but then I
think maybe someone comes in or I'm worried that someone comes
in, like his parents, and he hides it over to the side of the
bed or tosses it on the floor. I wake and there's lights; we're
in this town. Thinking back the person seemed like this girl I
once talked to in the library who was reading Milton's Paradise
Lost for a Survey of English Literature class.
Stopover in Redding. Sandwich. Who can I call in Los
Angeles? No one. The Angels, miles and miles of pavement, una
locura humana, una ratera (a human folly, a rat's nest). Paul,
our neighbor, boy came out from Chicago, had a BS in biology;
happily married to a nice girl; then he took graduate work in
film. What spooked him? Let the whole thing go to come to
Hollywood. Paper pusher in an office that takes care of the
mundane financial affairs of rich people, writing rejected
scripts, three, four, thinking about going back and working for
some local television station, no girl; after a year, drinking
gin and smoking cigarettes. He was thinking about buying a car
then, maybe he'll have one by now, unless he moved, maybe even
gave up. Gave him my address, said write if something changes;
never did write. See if he's still there.
. . .

Bus station, downtown L.A., sunshine, smog. Bus out

Wilshire Boulevard to Mariposa, Catalina Hotel in Koreatown, a
bed, sleep. 7 pm, bus out Olympic to La Brea. Big stucco
house, light green, steps, porch, painted rust-colored, door and
letter box, Latoya Smith. Paul is gone. Leaving, looking back,
the second floor reminds me, wonder if that crazy black woman is
still there, a wig hardly better than the real thing, voice that
rasped cigarettes and beer; called me a dirty Russian among
other things. Think she went by the name of Gurdy. The bed in
the hotel; end of the line. Think, think. I control my
 67

destiny, there's a window, light, air. Best do it now, Macarthur

Park, buy works, inject it all. I miss the north, space, rain,
cold fresh air. Teaching wasn't so bad; the kids were decent,
respectful, conscientious; once one realized that their learning
the specific subject matter wasn't necessarily, as they say, the
be all and end all. Often it was more like transference.
That's finished.
There's Liz, must still have her phone number. Met her
during teacher training, had a lot of classes together. She was
already teaching middle school English in South Central with an
provisionary license. She was nice to me, perhaps just a touch
maternal. Fine straight auburn-red hair, strong well-delineated
facial features, hips a little wide. Drank a lot of coffee, a
little insecure, nervous, 35 years old, single. I always
considered her neurotic. Lives in Santa Monica somewhere.
There's her number. . . No choice. Dial. Recording. Hello
Liz, this is Salvador, remember? I'm in town, could you call me
at the Catalina Hotel? Number 213-344-9047. See you later.
It is starting to hurt again. . . hunger. Inside it feels
like I'm strung with wires, metallic taste. I could go back and
do my time, but then what if I couldn't handle it. It wouldn't
be a good place to die. Better here or further down the road,
master of my fate. I could take a walk. It's night, you could
get shot or stabbed out there. Doesn't matter. But if they put
you in the hospital your name will go in the computer; if your
name is in the computer it will be part of the machine; it goes
everywhere; they'll find out where you are and come and take you
back.

You won't have any choice.

Never have had.
It is always move or be crushed,
as if by machine.
Le pis-aller, the lesser of evils,
 68

less pain.
Pain comes from the body and it's in the mind,
so say it doesn't exist. . .
say nothing exists and be done with it. . .
say it is cursed. . .
I am cursed.
Amy.
Without pain and its suite of horror people would be hard-
pressed to say there is evil.
Lovely.
I am free again.
I pulled it out of the English word.
I am out of the English word.
The memory is painful.
. . .

I dreamt there was a dark pool of water and on the other

side a woman was sitting on rock, maybe against a cliff; I can't
remember if she was naked. I went to her.
. . .

Empty day. I liked Los Angeles, and then I realized it was

empty, and then I didn't like it anymore. I used to think there
was a lot of wasted talent, and now I think maybe not; imagine
taking all the time to learn the script, or to write it in the
first place, of something insipid.
9 pm and Liz still hasn't called. I can't stay here
forever; nice room, $35 a day, bigger and cleaner than most of
the second rate hotels, and the minimum price for anything is
$35, but that is too much; in Tijuana I can probably get
something for $7 or $8. Dial her number.
"Hello."
"Hello, Liz, this is Salvador."
"I got your message; I didn't have time to call you back."
 69

"That's okay."
"Is June with you?"
"No, we split up."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"I'm over it."
"What are you doing down here? Vacation? Job?"
"I've got a problem."
"Like what?"
"I got in trouble in Oregon. This girl, some drugs. Can
we get together? I'll explain then. I need a little favor."
"I'm working."
"I know. . . Look, I can't stay here very long."
"What about Saturday evening?"
"What day is it today?"
"Thursday."
"Okay. Your place? I'm not into public places, and my
room here is a bit austere."
"Alright."
"Address?"
"2550 18th Street #3, it's off of Ocean Park Boulevard, #3
is on the second floor."
"Thanks."
"Hey Salvador, come for dinner, around six."
"Thanks."
. . .

I was visiting this person and in this hotel lobby or

school room. The person leaves this other person in charge,
like his girlfriend, and we leave in his car. I am worried
something isn't right, I don't know what. He goes out on this
road, like in this bog; he's like checking the area like a
forest ranger. There's a river going by. Water and land are
meshed together. He drives the car off the road and into the
mud, which is like soaked with water. The car rapidly sinks down
 70

but I see that it has four wheel drive and then he backs it out.
I look over and there coming towards us from town this car
crashes into the mud and sinks in the water; then another at the
same place; then this woman in a pickup is driving down the road
and has stopped at this intersection. Water, like a wave,
crashes over the cab; I see the wave washing over her head.
Then back in the schoolroom, then I and this woman, it seems
like but it isn't clear, are checking out of this hotel. We go
out and maybe downstairs and then across this lobby, an old
cheap hotel now, at one time luxurious; the lobby is spacious,
old carpet and furniture groupings, walls are like a dull blood
red. Then I remember we have to pay; I worry for a second that
we'll be detained, I'm thinking what to say, like to get out
rapidly, like we were here 3 nights, Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday, but then I realize that the people at the desk are
just lackeys; when we get up to them the person says that will
be $42.50, like he was expecting us. I calculate quickly to
myself and think it isn't a bad price.
. . .

"Sure you don't want any wine?"

"Don't drink."
"You know what your problem is?
"What?"
"You don't love."
Pause.
"Love. . . what is love?" I think, you could count the
times you've been to bed with a man and she says love.
"Love of life, of people; you don't connect with people,
you don't feel. You're like a ghost."
"I think I feel."
"You see, you're too intellectual."
"But I do feel. . . after the fact."
"You repress your feelings, you see."
 71

I think, she's so neurotic. She invests her life in these

kids; she is safe; they don't threaten. "I see what you are
saying. It is chemistry."
"Chemistry, that's a good one."
"No, it's my chemistry; it's my life, everything slips away
from me. It is in my dreams."
"You're hopeless, dreams aren't life."
I knew she would say that. "For me they are real."
"I always thought you didn't really care about people. I
guess you can't."
"I do."
"It doesn't seem like it."
"Let's drop it, we always get in one of these
discussions. . . You're never going to leave L.A. are you?"
"I guess not."
"For a while there I thought you would; after you got your
teaching license I thought you'd head out for better ground."
"I thought about it. . . I don't know. . . I like my
students."
"A bunch of gangsters, no? Didn't you tell me that back
then?"
"Yes."
I think, too hard to change. I don't need to put her on
the spot; let it go. "I understand."
. . .

Part II (Translated from Spanish)

Standing here, on the Avenida Revolución. Finished two

tacos al carbón (barbecued tacos) from a little stand. Dusty,
dirty side streets, putas (whores), washed out façades, one and
two stories. 7 pm, night is cooling, almost quiet. I can
breathe; I can be what I am. Down a block off of la Calle 2a I
have a room, the Hotel Juárez, first floor, window on an alley;
 72

the woman offered me a room on the street, more lively she said,
but I said I needed something quiet. Had to beg Liz, had to
promise that there was nothing I could do for Amy. I am out of
there. In a couple of days I could start looking for some kind
of work, a receptionist in a hotel, a barman, something where
they need English and a decent appearance.
I'm in this cafeteria in the back, or a place that deals
with the production of food; there are large halls and large
cooler doors, heavy duty counters. Maybe it's like I'm learning
the job. I start remembering the dream when I have to go pish
and decide to go on something in this long narrow sink thinking
that it is garbage or it will be washed, but I think that one of
the women there doesn't think this is cool at all. I go down
this hall and come to this room. I pick up this container made
like a modern doctor's suitcase, but out of galvanized steel,
like would be used in a dairy. I pick it up by the handle, and
there are two latches. I change the position of them to
facilitate carrying it. There are compartments inside like in a
doctor's case but no contents. I pick up one and start to go
and then go back and get another. Maybe someone comes and says
I'm not doing it exactly right or maybe I just wonder if I am.
Then I'm at this fair; I'm sitting on the first row of bleachers
and I'm thinking about selling lemonade there. There are people
vaguely around me that I seem to know, like family or friends.
Then I am outside and I am thinking about setting up my lemonade
stand there, like where people go by, but then I look up at the
sky and think that later the sun will be shining right where I
am thinking of being, so I think about being inside again.
I come to this house, like I had moved out of it or had
thought about moving into it; I'm going to go up and look at it;
it's like a cabin in the hills; the terrain is like northern
Mexico; I get up to it and I see a old VW bug in front of it.
I'm a little disappointed because someone is there; I think it
is this couple that I know, and that they must have got the
 73

house. I knock and someone opens the door, and there are quite
a few people there, older, younger, like an old world extended
family, and they seem Jewish or eastern European. They
introduce me; one older woman mumbles something in French, and I
think that she can't speak English so I say parlez vous
français. She says something but the last word I don't
understand, like she turns away. I ask her to repeat it, but
she is like going away acting like I don't really speak French.
I am upset for a second and then decide that that was her way of
getting out of talking with me, and that that way I don't have
to talk with her. I ask to see the place or they decide to show
me, all this stuff is newly moved in; it looks about done; the
house is large and modern, not anything like the cabin appeared
to be. I see in this room there is a commode with all of this
crystal on it, verroterie, goblets, figurines, etc. I say how I
like this, and then I say and or picture to myself one
Christmas; I have a box of verroterie, like at this party, and I
am sitting on the floor and taking everything out of the box and
I have it all spread around and then I worry about someone
stepping on it. Then I am outside, like thinking about leaving,
or someone is going to show me around. We come upon this pond,
something about a big tree that I can't remember. It is like an
idealized pampas. Then the water is beautiful, down quite a
ways across this rock, like turquoise and clear, like a pool in
a river. There are three or four boys swimming. It is very hot
and I would like to go, but I don't have sandals to go across
the rock and I don't want to go barefoot. I look again at them
swimming there; it is so beautiful and it is so hot. I look at
the rock to figure out the best way down; I am moving along; I
get past this narrow part that I hadn't noticed, and just after
I get past the rock falls by and I see that it had been held
there by a wood barrier which has given way. I think now I'll
have to repair it.
I don't know why I am doing this; it seems senseless,
 74

standing here on the sidewalk; move back out of the light, lean
against the building wall. There was a girl, sixteen, short
black hair, dressed in black, short skirt and black tights, a
little ring in her eyebrow and her little nose, heavy mascara
and red lipstick, soft ripe body. The first thing she said was
that her mother when looking at jewelry was always treated with
distrust by the sales people. She shows off her large ruby ring
but that doesn't help; even the amulet with a large costly green
stone from Africa. Her father's girlfriend is conservative she
says, long hair down her back.
Smell of gasoline and exhaust. Old cars and trucks with
noisy motors, curtain tassels across the top of the windshield,
statue or photo of Jesus on the dash. Occasional note of ranch
music from a radio. A dull white Chevrolet pickup pulls up.
These studs get out and start to unload it. The one closest to
me has a long scar running down the back left side of his head,
from a cut or burn, and long greasy black hair. They are
arguing about what to take next. The other guy moves something
and an old armchair slides and drops, which angers the first
guy. There's another armchair there and an old coffee table
with a battered top. I start slowly walking. There are
entrances to clubs, a man out front tempting clients. The
sidewalk isn't crowded yet; later it will be like Pigalle in
Paris. Affiches of the strippers and dancing girls, Gloria,
Barbara, Rosa, long black hair and fiery eyes, Indian blood and
tanned skin, pale and white, negligee and garters in red and
black. The man watches me look at the poster of Rosa.
"Hey man, her show starts in fifteen minutes."
I look at him.
"She's the best. You'll like her."
"Another night." I move on. "See you later."
It is like time has stopped here. Nowhere to go, nothing
to do. Escape to where you can.
They come here from towns, El Socorro, Soledad, San Felipe,
 75

San Lusito, desperately trading off the sun, starry sky and
earthen floor. This place délabré, pale and dirty. Strip and
swivel their hips, drag their sex across the stage, touching
themselves; purse their lips, profile, eyes darting fire, dusty
beauty, lust over emptiness; in their gestures the force of
hunger, muscles contracting, controlled contortions, pulse of
light, dancing for silver, cliquetis des bracelets, a piece of
silk.
A hooker sees me, coming towards me. She is wearing a
silver belt.
"Hello gringo."
"Good evening, kitten."
"You speak Spanish?"
"So it seems."
"Oh."
"Come closer, let me see you."
". . ."
"How old are you?"
"Eighteen señor."
"The girl is very pretty."
"Thank you."
"How much for the night?"
"Fifty dollars."
"Let me see if you are good."
Bend over and kiss her. She kisses back. My hand goes up
her skirt between her legs. She still kisses.
"I'll give you twenty for the night."
"Thirty."
"I am poor."
. . .

I wake in my room; thin walls letting in sounds around me,

mid-morning light through the window. An image passes, a woman,
passes; it's a picture. . . a name, Rosa. I remember now the
 76

club and the affiche. Then a blank. Think back. Nothing. It

is hard to say when something is missing. I think it started
when I was coming to Los Angeles. I dreamt there was a remue-
ménage in one of the streets, a large boulevard, people in cars,
lined up like for a parade or waiting to cross the border. I
felt almost like I was on some mission from school; at any rate
I enter a black sedan somewhat down the line. Then I see these
people like police at the front, and from behind another group
comes, like they are looking for someone; the group coming from
behind looks more menacing. Then they know and they come up to
the car I am in and open the back doors. Their rifles are
unshouldered and ready. I have put up my hands in fear. Then I
turn around and see a dark man in a white shirt, like an
official, and he gets out of the car and they take him away.
Then as a denouement, sort of a way to wrap up the dream, I get
out of the car and go to the group that was in front, like I was
from them and I understand from one of them that I was lucky,
that sometimes they keep them for hours or days as hostage.
. . .

Buy some books. In the room reading. Go out to eat, a

taco, burrito. The noises of the street are fading; the light
from the street lamps pulsates on the pavement, cars and passing
figures; the sidewalk cement feels like a reef rasping the soles
of my shoes; the walls of the buildings are like cliffs holding
in the torrent of people like slaves fulfilling a plan. An old
man, tanned, wrinkled face and silver hair appears before me:
"This is the reality; you were living a dream. The air is thick
with poison; look at these poor slobs, eyes red with fear and
worry, mouths moving, gulping air, tortured, their arms flaying,
backs twisted with the weight of years." He waves his hand and
his eyes take in the scene, "parasites, islands of rot and
decay, oozing phlegm and bile. Try to remember." His eyes
pierce mine, he turns and walks away. Scratched the surface,
 77

the aesthetic patina. I say, you don't know everything; memory

is anguish, like sucking on an empty tit.
I dreamt I was undercover, like with the military. It is
time for me to get out. It is late evening and dark; I am on
the edge of this field, like part of a compound. I am trying to
think how to get out, which way to go. Tomorrow early in the
morning there is going to be some sort of pass, but then I would
be on my own. I think about leaving now and imagine alternative
routes. I think that out in the forest it would be nothing for
them to shoot me, that I wouldn't get very far; I think I need
someone to come in to get me out, that I can't do it on my own,
but they can't send anyone. Then a man is there, stocky and
tough, a soldier, and he hands me a heavy automatic pistol; I
weigh it in my hand. We are talking; he is concerned about my
leaving the next morning; after that it would be too late, but
he doesn't think it would be safe. I know him and he still has
business to take care of which is perhaps why I hadn't
considered his help. He says how about we do it now, how do you
feel about going for a drive now. I say, like we take the car
now? Yes, I could probably get you further towards safety than
otherwise. I understand like to town or almost, and I think
again about going into the forest.
I'm with two women, like we have been out on the town; now
we are in this room, maybe five meters square. One leaves, she
won't stay, like my girlfriend. She goes out the door. The
other says she wants to smoke a joint. Now it's like she hasn't
left and she is smoking a joint, sitting on this couch. It
seems like another woman is there or maybe it is just me. I
have a really intense need to make love, and the woman is
smoking this joint, and then she's leaving. I say don't leave.
She has taken off her blouse and I go over to her.
. . .

I break away from the police and start running. My sister

 78

is doing a job, a robbery, down the road about a mile. I am

talking to someone as I am breaking away and running and they
are telling me where it is, saying not a big job. I understand
a restaurant or donut shop, then finally understand a blue
restaurant that I see down the road on the right, sky blue with
a tall steep roof. I keep running. The police are busy with a
diversion and right now I seem to be in an alley. I look back
and my sister is back there and she is running after me, like
she had helped me escape. Then she has caught up with me and we
will be clear.
. . .

While buying mangoes at the market my vision crosses that

of a woman.
Long black hair, pale white skin.
Our vision meets on some middle ground.
Black sun setting into molten earth.
No end to the darkest night.
Insides twist and burn like whipped flames.
The rustle of dead leaves in the wind,
singed, dry and dusty air.
Lips, painted carmine, of raw flesh.
Crimson depths. The eyes are naked black windows, fierce
weapons.
I take a short acrid breath;
She turns and disappears.
Emptiness, a whispered name,
Rosa, Rosalyn, Renata, forgotten
as the wave of reality engulfs me again, clanking of carts and
the hawker's screams, chants of a thousand voices.
. . .

I dreamt I was teaching this class on the second floor of

an old wood building; it's a fairly large room and the windows
 79

run all of one wall. I'm giving a spelling test, to like a

remedial English class. Walking around reading the word or
phrase. The students, maybe all boys, are sitting around in
every sort of manner. There aren't very many, maybe ten. There
is a group down the room and one student is wheezing a lot, like
he is having an asthma attack, and he is also coughing. I walk
down that way as I give the words. There is smoke, a sweet
smell. The window is open and a student has about a half a
joint in his hand. I say no wonder the other student is
coughing and they should put it out; not because of the smoke
from the others but because every time it comes around to him he
has to take a toke. I say come on put it out, and they throw it
out the window without any problem. I turn to walk back towards
the center of the room and the principal and two or three other
people walk in the door I am heading towards. I think oh I hope
he doesn't smell it. He is an older man, reasonable as far as I
know. I look for his eyes to say hello; he doesn't look
directly at me so I just say hello. Their group disperses like
they are walking around looking at what the students are doing;
I see no signs that they have perceived anything wrong. I
continue giving the words. I think that now the students will
listen to me for sure since I just saved them and I from a major
hassle. I am noticing that the spelling list goes on and on,
page after page, many different smaller tests added and pasted
together, of different print formats and styles. The officials
seem to have left except one woman down past the door who is
looking at these tapes on a sort of old raised stage. I go down
there; she is going through them; they are hers from some time
back I gather. She mentions that she would like a copy of my
spelling test some day, when I make a collation. I say sure, no
problem. I walk back towards the students continuing to give
the test. Now there are quite a few short phrases instead of
just one word.
In the dream, the darkness, anxiety spreads itself out,
 80

dilutes; vague forms displace, take on more or less consistence,

outlines in the ténèbres filled in with dark grains of
substance, a rich baroque spectacle, grey dramatic figures
moving, staging against a moon-lit decor.
I was driving, like on a long exhausting trip; I come to
this large city, like after driving all day. I'm entering the
city like in the industrial area; I'm not sure where I'm at;
then I see a boulevard that I vaguely recognize or the direction
seems right to me, that is it is going in the direction I think
I need to go. I follow a lane branching off to the right in a
crescent and almost go through a red traffic light. I start to
go on through anyway because there isn't much traffic, but then
I see a police car back over to the right. I back up a little
when his car has moved and changed his angle of sight. Then the
light changes; in front of me there are two or three large
streets leading away in the same general direction; it is like
the industrial area and they are going to the docks. At first
the city seemed like Paris but now it rather seems like the port
area of Buenos Aires. I go up this steep incline but the car is
very weak and stops so I back down and take the other less steep
road. Then I am getting out of the car and going into this
place like a swimming pool; it is a very old cement building,
like a bains. I go up these stairs, that go one way and then
come to a landing and then go back in a zigzag. There are naked
boys and men, some together standing and sitting on the stairs,
one boy plastered face first against the wall, a couple sitting
on the landing, what looks like a girl, and then another with a
man. I go past or hesitate or turn around. There's a blank.
Then I am leaving and I feel like I have bathed, and more
refreshed. The key to the car is like in this bundled up
handkerchief in my hand with change. I open it and get the key.
Then I am in the car and I have decided that I really need a
rest and that the best place for me to go is to my parent's
place, which is where I start to go. Then I arrive there and it
 81

is like they were expecting me for dinner but I am significantly

late; maybe they have saved something for me. It seems like a
place out in the country; maybe there are guests taking it easy
out front when I arrive.
. . .

Reality is wrung out, dripping piece by piece in my hands.

There is a long formula involved, and she is very pretty. Time
is involved, and resistance; the end of time, the end of
sleeping and waking, the end of feeding and dreaming, all played
out, all over. Saintliness, pale cheek and long black hair;
stretch my fingers to touch her beauty, brush away pain, the
walls of oppression, when one can't move with the will, or feel.
Without memory there is no time, or spiritual anguish. The
formula, to turn the tables; everything held in place, puppet to
master to absence, uncover the form and destroy it, strip it out.
. . .

I am in Paris, like I had just arrived; I am looking for a

place to park and I don't find any, looking down the side roads
and all of the meters have a car at them. Then it is like I am
looking for a spot along the street to put something I am
carrying, I don't remember what. Then I have my shirt in my
hand and I am walking. I go into a cinema on Faubourg St.
Antoine, corner Bastille. I am inside and I walk past the
ticket window, unlatch the door and go outside. Then it is like
I've gone into these living quarters annexed to the theater.
I've still got my shirt in my hand, and wearing a t-shirt
débardeur. I come upon a domestic who reluctantly takes me to
the woman of the house, who is middle-aged, chic and gentille.
We sit down to talk and she asks the domestic to bring her her
rolodex cards; the cards fall on the floor and I pick them up;
they have names and addresses and the idea is that I'll be able
to call on them and say I've come with this woman's
 82

recommendation and be received in all these places. Then we're

sitting and she is looking at my camera, and I am saying it is
too bad she can't see the pictures, and I am thinking of all the
pictures in it, imagining them spread out on the table, things
that I have seen, and especially of my wife.
. . .

Midnight. Get up, put on pants and a shirt, shoes; go out

of the room, down the long dim hallway, doors at every few
meters. There is a man and woman embraced against the wall; I
didn't see them. Outside, shapes passing, deadened sounds,
brushing the nerves. Stop at the corner of this building; it's
an alley, narrow; some of the street light reaches in; something
white down against the wall; move closer, don't know what it is,
looks like someone, back against the wall, legs outstretched in
the dirt; looks like a man, his skin is glistening, long oily
black hair, head down to one side; his fist seems clinched,
there's a needle in his arm, drops of dried blood. Can't tell
if he is breathing, can't do anything, they would want to see my
papers; besides, he might be dead; otherwise he'll wake up.
Back to the corner of the street.
A woman came up to me and asked me if I would like her. I
thought she was very Indian, really too much so for my taste; I
must seem a soft touch I thought, the way she hit on me. When I
paused she must have thought it was inexperience or shyness, and
she was saying how she takes care of everything. I was thinking
how much and she really didn't turn me on. She would go for
twenty dollars and I thought okay. On the way to my room she
didn't want to talk. Inside she dropped her skirt and took off
her blouse; she sat on the bed and told me to come over to her.
She was saying let me take off your pants, how I was a dear and
she really wanted to make it with me and I must be a real cat;
her sugared hands working as she cooed a routine. Then I felt
like she was condescending to me, maybe I only imagined it, like
 83

I must be a loser to have to pay a whore to get laid, like I had

hang-ups; and she wasn't turning me on and I was flaccid, and
she started going on how not to worry these things happen and
she could fix it, she'd just give it a little suck and it would
be so good, and she started sucking and sometimes moaning like
it was delightful; and I started slipping, I don't know what
happened, anger; I must have hit her, she was holding her cheek
and looking at me; I must have been saying stop it, stop it; her
fear turned to pity in her eyes and she started talking again,
like a wind up doll, like I was impotent and what did I really
like, what really turned me on. I must have started to call her
names, telling her shut her clap the bitch, cheap hooker,
vulgar; she kept on. I must have hit her again and said shut up
she was just a bitch. Panic flashed across her face and she put
out her hands to protect herself and push me away. I slapped
them down and pushed her back on the bed; she tried to kick me
but I was between her legs and grabbed her hands. She was
thrashing around and I slapped her again, told her to lie still
or she'd get a beating, ripped at her panties and jammed it in;
she tried to squirm out from under me and then she started to
scratch me; I must have grabbed her throat and pressed, said
quiet, slut, or you'll wish you were dead; she stopped moving,
her body heaving with breath, nostrils flaring, cheap perfume,
sweat, alcohol; with the other hand I grabbed her ass and
started pushing into her; took the back of her neck and started
kissing her, saliva, sucking on her mouth, she was getting wet.
I must have cummed, I remember vaguely sharp jerking. There
must be a blank.
. . .

It seems like an anxious dream from which there is no

escape; the center has disintegrated, nothingness, a thought
passes homeless, vectorless, flashes of light, rows of shadows,
endless gray, fans of black; nerves jaded to inconsistency,
 84

mindless, severed from the body which sends out vague signals of
movement and sentiment. In a brief moment of apparent lucidity
I start to question the possibility of. . .
I recognize this room; the bedspread vaguely reminiscent of
Indian craft, a wooden crucifix on the faded wall, bare linoleum
floor worn through in places. I take it all in again, with
intensity. Things are not what they seem, they can't be the way
I remember; like a nightmarish drug, always the same.
Now the street, cars passing like demons, dried sweat on my
skin, my hands and feet feel like they are caked with dust.
Throat dry, thirst; bright light burning my eyes, reflected off
of the mirrors of white, buildings, signs, cars, in jagged rays.
People walking too fast; they are going to hurt each other, no,
their bodies are impervious; they reflect the light or absorb it
and then it harmlessly dies. A cacophonous rhythm is pounding,
battering, breaking through everything nevertheless, din of
metal and machine.
There is no proof; it is like nothing ever happened;
depression is sucking in my mind, feeding it grotesque images,
as though I were branded and then banished from reality, marked
as alien, impure, twisted; but no one knows this; it is
unconscious in a dark alley.
I was teaching and had gone home for lunch. I smoked some
shit and it turned out to be very good, better than I thought; I
must have spaced out because I got back to school very late. I
go into the office to sign in; the principal goes by and looks
at his watch but doesn't say anything, like he doesn't know when
I have my prep period, but like it seems to him I am out of the
classroom at a very strange time. I go out thinking it is sort
of a test, like I was always wondering what one could get away
with. I am going to room 300 and I thought it was just down
this hallway but when I go down there it isn't there at all; I
ask some students and they say that it is in a completely
different part of the school. Walking down the hallway I look
 85

at my watch and the last class is almost over. I am wondering

if another teacher covered the class or if the students took
care of it themselves.
I am out of school on a lunch hour and I am in this small
city on the coast. I am going to go across the street to this
Safeway to get something to eat but the street is very wide.
Waiting to cross I overhear this woman saying that she wants
some strawberry or blackberry jam, like for the holidays. I
must not be in the north anymore because I think that this is a
rather exotic desire to fulfill. Then I am going into this
shop. I ask if I can telephone home, long distance. The man at
the counter is thinking I will call collect. I ask him if he
knows the code but he doesn't; I am thinking I really need a
calling card. Then I am thinking there will be a lot of noise
from the shop while I am talking on the phone. Somehow related,
the shop seems more like a Radio Shack than a Safeway and now I
am looking for an alligator clip, like to make this connection.
I am thinking I will have to order it special, but then this man
says very routinely that they have various types down the aisle
over there. Now I am thinking it is for smoking joints or he
might think it is.
It starts out at a house where I am living; this person
comes to the door; I am doing something, like in the kitchen and
they come in and say something like they need to use the phone
book to find this place; finally I get to them to find out what
the place is. They're saying it's supposed to be around here
and say some name like some restaurant; I think I recognize it
to be a few blocks away. Then these people are coming in and
out of the house through different sliding glass doors, and they
are like mingling in the back yard. I go out to get this
movement stopped and going out through the door I see that the
screen has come out of the its aluminum frame. I start to put
it back in but then I see that it had been ripped some time ago,
like when another person was living there, and they had started
 86

to fix it with tape. I was trying to get it together, like when

one is trying to fix a broken zipper and getting the two sides
aligned and meshed, and then I came to a place where it was just
too badly ripped and there was this scotch like tape everywhere.
I tried to use some of the old tape to get it back together and
to hold until I could get some new tape and fix it properly;
there was still a gap. Then it is like I am in this field.
These people, like they are all part of the same family or
village, are accusing me of something, and they are trying to
grab me. It seems like mostly women, maybe all. I keep getting
away or moving back to keep away from them. Then this man like
a pastor comes and they seem to be happy because now he will
help them settle it. And the whole movement of them being after
me and grabbing at me takes on a rhythm, like the rhythm takes
over what is happening, and then it grows, like oscillating, and
finally they all topple forward. Then this woman, she is like
crazy Mary, comes by and says now's the time for me to make a
break for it, to run. It seems like I vaguely recognize her
from some time before, maybe she was the one that came into the
house; I start to run and think about which way to go.
. . .

I remember thinking that starved the seething would stop

like exhausted flames. Empty spaces without desire; then I am
conscious and something is pressing and twisting. It is night;
it must be late; there is that chill that comes after midnight;
the passerby are smothered. A club where I have stopped, the
name in red light, The Night Cat, a poster of a woman stretched
across the floor, skin glistens, muscles, breasts full and
round, turning at the waist, silver g-string; it is signed Rosa.
Something is pushing me; I nod at the half-asleep man at the
door as I go in. Obscure, smoky, a passionate Mexican love song
in the background; only a few clients left; I sit at a small
table to the right of the stage. I hear a voice but I cannot
 87

find the speaker, "The last show of the evening, the most
spectacular Rosa." Silence. A slow beat, then accelerating to
mid-tempo, it must be flamenco; it has been so long and I can't
remember. Dark red satin dress spreading out, passes across my
sight, comes back and stops, a beautiful hand, bejeweled, lifts
the hem to mid-thigh, black stockings, tapered legs turning; the
leg lifts, the hands sweep, the mouth laughs and the head is
thrown back, trailing silken black hair. It's her. Walking as
though she were in a chic salon or a shopping street in Madrid,
coquette, measured eyes of black velvet. She stops; I look
around, and see no one. She unbuttons the top of the dress and
slides it down off of her shoulders slowly spinning to the music
until she is bare to the waist. Slowly turning and the naked
shoulders begin to oscillate, the arms floating forward almost
inviting, loose, and her breasts trembling. A sensation of soft
cream, sensual. As though she were in her boudoir, intimately,
she takes her hair and slowly coils it up, in the rhythm, and
then lets it fall and lifts her arms up over her head. Demi-
tour, and her leg lifts like a ballerina, step, demi-tour and
lifts again, her body falling, fading away. She drops the dress
and slides into the splits, stretches across the floor and
arches over, and then comes around and hesitates, letting the
music pass around her, then falling forward and splaying her
hands on the wood. She looks at me and smiles, and then turns
to the side, touching herself, caressing, lifting and teasing;
she rolls over, turns, raises her head, the hair falling round,
brushing the wood with her breasts, pelvis pressing at an angle
then another. A void is opening up inside me; I try to hold on
to something, something.
Street. Flickering lights, signs, lamps, reflections,
shadows. "Gringo!" Pushing me, back in an alley. Strike out,
catch a face, flesh and then bone. "Knocking around Xochilt,
come from Argentina and think she's just a Mexican bitch." Try
to run, pushed back. One has hit me in the kidney. Back to the
 88

wall. Three of them. "Scum." Swinging, hit in the stomach,

the mouth, the side of the head. "Leave our girls alone you
fagot." Down, get up and run; kicked in the side; kneed. Face
in the dirt, blood in my mouth. "Won't hit a Mexican girl again
will you." Kicking me. Curled up, arms around my head.
Kicking me. "Snob." "You're fucked gringo." "Let's see if
he's got any cash." Slipping. "He's out." "A few pesos, cheap
bastard." "You think he's dead?" "Who cares. . . Let's split."
"Fucker's bleeding good." "That'll teach him."
I am with a woman and we are looking at a large relief map
of the western United States; we focus on a river that is
running through the middle of Arizona, a large blue line. Then
we are there, this mountainous desert terrain. We are in a
vehicle and we have stopped; there is a feeling of something
ominous. We are on a dirt road alongside this ditch or creek
with a little water in it, which was the river on the map. I
think water is water, there's enough for life. The ochre red
mountains, the stream, it all seems beautiful though it is
pathetically desolate. Then I see one bird high up off in the
distance, and I realize that it is the only bird there.
I am going to pick up this old car; I had to have it towed
and now I am going back to get it. I have arrived in this big
city and I need to find a hotel first and then go get the car.
I need to cross this big avenue; there is a crossing up a ways
and down a ways; I decide to go to the one down a ways; there
waiting I see that there is a pedestrian passage that goes over
the street between the two. The buildings are large and black
with soot. I am at this hotel. I am thinking about the car. I
need this piece of plastic about a quarter inch thick to wedge
in the carburetor to make it run otherwise it runs and then
stops, and I am looking for a room where I could also find this.
It is very hot and all the outside rooms have been taken. I go
up one floor and down this hall; it is just wide enough for me
to go through, very narrow and dark, like a passageway made of
 89

plywood; doors for the rooms are one after the other; at the end
of the passage a door opens on this dead end and there's a
toilet cubicle in the back, only just large enough for the
toilet. I am thinking I will have to take it because I need to
get going and get the car. I am worried that I won't be able to
get it running and that I won't have enough time before it gets
dark.
There is a group of us and we are out partying; we've
decided to go someplace else. There is an official with us,
maybe a principal. I am realizing that I drank too much and I
am thinking someone else should drive, but there isn't anyone
except him and I am worrying that he will get in my car and see
the little sachet of drugs in the front, but then I see that he
is getting into another car. Then it seems like the whole group
hasn't left at all but is starting to leave. I've got on ahead
and I start to go back and I hear arguing. I approach them; now
they are like strangers and they are arguing, maybe about where
to go or what to do, and so I keep my distance. Then I am in my
room; it is very small and like in a dormitory. I am thirsty,
like I've been drinking, and I am drinking a big glass of water
which is refreshing. Then I am thinking about when I wake in
the morning and that someone will perceive that I've done
something wrong, I'm not sure what. Now they are like vague
family members.
. . .

After midnight Rosalía leaves her dressing room, goes down

the hallway in the back of the nightclub, and out the side door
into the alley. In the dim light she hardly notices the dark
mass stretched out on the ground. For some reason she slows,
something stops her to look at the shape. An unconscious man,
from his appearance not an addict or a gangster. She hesitates,
thinks, and then says, "Hey. . . Can you hear me? . ." The
man's hand twitches, there's a short groan, cut off.
 90

"I'm going to get help, okay?"

"No!"
"You're hurt."
"No, don't!"
He rolls over a little. She steps back. She asks, "What
happened?"
There is a pause as the man reflects, visibly in pain. "I
don't know."
"Can you sit up?"
"I don't know."
She decides that he isn't threatening and moves to help
him. The man sees her face as it comes out of the shadows. In
vague recognition he mumbles, "Rosa."
"Rosalía." His face is cut and bruised, covered with dirt
and blood. She helps him lean against the wall. "You need
help; you can't stay here. . . Where do you live?"
"A hotel."
"Where?"
"Around here. . . Suárez?"
"Juárez, I know it. Do you think you can get up?"
. . .

I was at this soirée; then I decided to leave; it was late

at night and other people were coming in from walks. I came
upon a campsite, a trailer; the women were all taken. I saw
another trailer behind it and went around towards it. I saw two
women talking and one that looked nice, a fresh cotton skirt and
blouse. When I went by them she took her leave of the other and
was walking alongside me for a second. I let my arm brush her
lightly around the waist. She came nearer to me as we were
walking and we went on together.
She helps him walk; in front of the hotel he virtually
collapses. They stop at the desk and she gets the key. The
woman at the desk says, "What happened? It's been a couple of
 91

days since he's been in. I thought maybe he wouldn't be back."

He falls forward going up the stairs; she helps him up. They go
into the room and she puts him on the bed. She gets a towel and
goes down the hall, wets it and returns. He has passed out
again. She cleans most of the dirt and blood from his face and
hands. It is about three in the morning; she leaves, taking the
key with her down to the desk where she leaves it, saying she
will be back later.
In suspension over an abyss, a bridge of granite blocks in
a sweeping arc of pillars and cables stretched between rocky
mountainsides of a lost or forgotten architecture. Below, the
dark flow of water, in the glass and swirls the black reflection
of a starless sky; slow surge of voluminous liquid in an almost
imperceptible sliding and rolling of murky backwash along the
shore. Further on the river feeds into the endless expanse of
ocean, and beyond the horizon water and air blend seamlessly.
The bridge a vague shadow, ridges a charcoal trace over the
black mirror fading into the massive deep.
It seems like a scene from the north, on the coast. Maybe
it was a vision, of a cross with footing in the sea of eternity.
"Rosa?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing here?"
"I said I was coming back."
"Why?"
"Because."
"But why. . . Leave me alone."
"You need help. You're wasting away."
"Why help me?"
"I don't know, for some reason it feels right. . . Why
does anyone do anything?"
"I can't stay here. Rosa, this room is bad, bad memories.
I need to go to another room."
"I know; this is a cesspool. Come stay with me, there's a
 92

taxi, for a few days, until you get better. I'll get your
things."
. . .
"Come on, here, I'll help you get up."
. . .

"Where to lady?"
"La calle 12, 1374."
. . .

They're after us. We've gone into this dark old wood
house. I go down the hall, I'm getting away. Somehow she goes
up the stairs. They're going to follow her. I need to get to
her. Then I'm with her and she has fallen and she's all scraped
up, her knee and hip and cheek; I'm looking at her; I need to
get her out of here.
"We're here. Would you like to sit at the table? You're
so weak. Are you in pain? Maybe you should lie down."
Another place. Other walls. There are coins on the table;
they must have meaning. What is it? Dispersed in a pattern of
struggle. Dead end, dead end, no way out. But wait, they are
aligned: chance could conceivably affect me in an endless flow,
but it is impossible to lift it out of the dirt imbedded, and
slowly dying. No, it means deception. Oh yes, I can sense it.
I need to stay calm. I remember they were taking me to the
hospital; I was lying on the back seat; they were talking about
me and they must have thought that I couldn't understand them.
Then I became too excited and they injected thorazine in my
thigh, but that was later. The cube of stone, that is the
passion. What is going on? Rosa isn't alone here, she can't
be, it doesn't make sense; there's another woman, or girl. The
seductress. I'm not ready for this; it is all out of balance,
no, no. They want me to be calm, that's what they want.
"Maybe you should lie down. . . God, his eyes are glass."
 93

No, no, I'll find the answer. I can't give up. It is war,
beneath, or overhead, but no one knows; I'll stall. I know too
much so they are going to sacrifice me. They are just waiting
to make sure. Scorn, murder. I have a mask and they can't see
behind it. But what if there is a pattern and they trace it
back to the source. What if my mask is obvious? It might be
transparent. I need to see like they see, be a mirror, enter
their reflection.
She is pulling me to the bed.
"You're safe now. . . It's over."
"I need some valiums, I need to sleep. Can I sleep?"
"Yes. Where are they? Oh, here they are. . . Is your
name Salvador, I see it written on this envelope."
"Yes."
"Don't worry; I'll be here."
She is kissing me.
. . .

I'm lying on the floor next to the stereo; it is late at

night and I'm supposed to be sleeping. I've turned on the
stereo very quiet and I am listening to it at the same time I am
sleeping. I am trying to prove something to myself or to
someone else that there is really music or that I can listen to
it or that it is in my sleep. Just when I seem to be satisfied
I sense a presence there, a dark shape; I've grabbed the foot of
this person standing over me. He seems to be my father, like he
had heard the music and has come in to see what I am doing,
probably not to scold me but to see if I am alright. Then I am
teaching this class; it feels like it is in French in Paris,
like to lyceen age students, but I'm teaching it like college,
that is I am explaining some verses of poetry and my explanation
has taken them all to understand their sublimity, that the
meaning of this poet is not something that can be said, that
these four lines mean such or such and the next four lines
 94

something else, but that often one word holds most of the
meaning, and maybe that it is like a note in music. I look at
the piece of paper in my hand and there isn't the poem in
stanzas but rather this notation spaced around the page and that
has a meaning; I notice marks that look like French accents and
especially the accent circonflex. About when I finish my
exposition the class is over and everyone crowds out and I need
to get my things, books and notebooks, up off of the floor as
they are going by. Then I am with colleagues and I seem content
with the class. It seems like I had asked to teach it, not for
money but to see if something was possible, like if they could
understand. While I was lecturing I felt that they were
following my thought and feeling, and it was like I was proving
this to myself or to someone else.
I am walking with someone up this road alongside this
stream and everything is silver; it is like a story of fantasy;
everything, the ground, road and stream are like sprayed with
silver, like otherworldly. We go a long ways, go around this
corner and see a very long stretch going up this hill. I think
it isn't that steep, about 30 degrees; after that we go around
some bends with the stream right by the road; it looks like it
would be nice to swim in, the currents and pools, but the liquid
is an opaque silver and I wonder if it would be safe. Further
along there is ground water coming down this hillside we are
moving up and I touch it and it is cold; maybe that it is
frosted. One has to be careful because there are dangers, some
little known by me. We arrive at a sort of make-shift road
house at the top. The other person is taking care of business.
I look across this sort of courtyard inside and see this man
with dark hair and eyes looking at me from inside a room and I
try to make a vague gesture of peace. Then I notice this small
creature on the ground, a couple of shades of bright red, and I
start to smash it with the toe of my boot; it flies up and then
I catch it under my boot again; it is very elusive and
 95

resistant; it is very much like a scorpion and I understand that

the idea is to separate it in two or otherwise it is still
dangerous, which I eventually manage to do with my feet.
. . .

I awake before dawn. Some light comes in through windows;

they must look onto an inner court because one is open and it is
very quiet. There is the table across the room, to one side a
sofa covered in a chintz of tropical floraison and a matching
armchair, to the other side a passage to what must be the
kitchen and bathroom. I am in a large soft bed. I remember
long black hair brushing across my face, breasts touching my
chest; I turn over and
I don't see Rosalía. She must have made love to me, voluptuous.
And it seems like I have returned to my body after a long
absence, brought back in; that presence which seems to be the
touchstone of my being, the structural pattern of divagations.
Falling back asleep.
I am going down these stairs in this big old house; at each
flight I am looking to see if I'll be able to stop but each time
the people there, maybe children, are tough and mean and so I
don't stop. I get to the ground floor or basement and not
seeing anyone I enter a hallway. Then I am outside; there's a
river, in some places deep and others shallow. I've crossed one
part and now I'm running in this open field with water which is
cold, and I'm getting my feet wet; it's only a couple of inches
deep, part of the river I am going up. Then I see that I am
completely on the other side and I look across and vaguely see
or sense the other people, like from the house. I am still
walking up stream and have almost arrived where I want to go. I
take in the traverse; the river is quite branched out from what
I see, and I see that I'll probably have to ford some deeper
water to get back, but I think I can take off my shoes and if I
pick my spots it won't be that deep. Then it is like I wave at
 96

everyone who has now come outside or anyway I know that they see
me and are trying to figure out how to get across to where I'm
at, but I don't think they can.
. . .

Waking. Morning, sunlight, fresh air from the window. The

room; there is an adolescent girl sitting in the armchair,
reading; white shirt and beige pants, simple, cotton, barefoot;
black hair and lashes, long and fine; tall, thin, legs extended,
draped with ease; olive complexion and an oval face, features
sharp and gentle. She is reading calmly, contemplatively,
quietly. She looks at me and then looks away.
"Mother should be home soon. She said you would be staying
with us for a while, that you were a friend, that when you woke
I should get you breakfast."
She looks at me.
"My name is Teresa."
"Mine is Salvador."
"I know, mother told me. I'll show you the bathroom."
She sets the book on the floor and stands up, effortlessly,
supple and light. I follow her into the hall.
"That's my room and here's the bathroom. If you need
anything let me know."
"Thank you."
In the mirror. How many days this beard, four or five at
least. A cut in the corner of my eye, bruised; a scrape on the
opposite cheek, swollen; a cut lip; bump and bruise on my thigh,
more on an upper arm, ribs, back of the head. A border town.
There's no future for me, or for anyone. Teresa; she appears
saintly, ethereal; it must be my imagination. Shower, shave.
. . .

Rosalía said her husband left their village and went across
the border to look for work. She came here to wait for him, and
 97

then he never called or wrote. That was a couple of years ago,

and now she is waiting for a chance to cross herself.
. . .

There on the floor is the book that Teresa was reading.

Pick it up. For a moment I thought I felt a shock or a burn and
almost dropped it. Quevedo's sonnets.

*(Ah de la vida!+ . . . )Nadie me responde?

"Ah, of life!" . . . No one answers me?

(Aquí de los antaños que he vivido!

Here, of the past ages that I have lived!

La Fortuna mis tiempos ha mordido;

Fortune my time has bitten;

las Horas mi locura las esconde.

the Hours my madness has hidden.
. . .

(Fue sueño ayer; mañana será tierra!

It was a dream yesterday; tomorrow it will be earth!

(Poco antes, nada; y poco después, humo!

A little before, nothing; and a little after, smoke!

(Y destino ambiciones, y presumo

And I destine ambitions, and presume

apenas punto al cerco que me cierra!

hardly an instant in the enclosure that surrounds me!
. . .
 98

Perdí, con el desprecio y la pobreza,

I lost, with the contempt and the poverty,

la paz y el ocio; el sueño, amedrentado,

the peace and the leisure; the dream, in fear,

se fue en esclavitud de la riqueza.

went away in slavery to riches.

Quedé en poder del oro y del cuidado,

I was left with the power of the gold and the cares,

sin ver cuán liberal Naturaleza

without seeing that a liberal Nature

da lo que basta al seso no turbado.

gives what is necessary to the unperturbed mind.
. . .

Vivir es caminar breve jornada,

To live is to walk a brief day,

y muerte viva es, Lico, nuestra vida,

and living death is, Lico, our life,

ayer al frágil cuerpo amanecida,

yesterday to the fragil body waking,

cada instante en el cuerpo sepultada.

each instant in the sepultured body.

Nada que, siendo, es poco, y será nada

Nothing that, being, is little, and will be nothing
 99

en poco tiempo, que ambiciosa olvida;

in little time, that ambitious forgets;

pues, de la vanidad mal persuadida,

that, of the vanity badly persuaded,

anhela duración, tierra animada.

seeks duration, a lively earth.

Llevada de engañoso pensamiento

Carried away with the deceiving thought

y de esperanza burladora y ciega,

and with blind and mocking hope,

tropezará en el mismo monumento.

it will stumble on the same monument.

Como el que, divertido, el mar navega,

Like he who, diverted, the ocean navegates,

y, sin moverse, vuela con el viento,

and, without moving, sails with the wind,

y antes que piense en acercarse, llega.

and before he thinks of being near, arrives.
. . .

While conquistadores were searching the new world for gold,

Quevedo quietly engraved his thoughts at the court, navigating
an inner world. Now that all of the riches have been carried
away his thought has meaning here.
 100

. . .

Dearest Sister,
I am in Tijuana, having escaped from the North, and for the
time being free. Don't worry. A woman has taken me in. I am
trying to put things in order. I will write again soon.
Thinking of you always. Love, Salvador.

Rosalía is dancing and Teresa is sleeping. The saints are

whispering promises of immortality, but I can't believe them.
Incorporeal, desireless, roving; not even androgynous angels
roaming aimlessly, or seeking a dark corner away from the
luminescence in which to sleep or perhaps to ultimately die.
Eternal ecstasy would seem a figment of a fiery imagination
rooted in a miasma of hunger and infinite silent night.
. . .

To Teresa (A sonnet)

In this crowded room of what would have been

An ocean of clouds that swirls the vision
Shadows of incense a past profusion
Dreams pale light to the figurants given.

Turning in her eyes reflections hidden

The dust of the earth seeking conclusion
In rich images silver in fusion,
Baroque the anguish the death arisen.

Statuettes amid storms and colored urns

She closes her eyes with silken lashes
In seduction tormenting the robes wild.

Like the red light from lamps the fever burns

 101

Within the veins, cathedrals in ashes,

The race of those spheres no longer a child.

March 22, 1995

. . .

I've left this class and am walking around the halls like
in a high school. The class was stupid or I didn't have
anything to do or had finished what I needed to do. I end up
sitting in this chair in the hallway outside a door; the chair
has a little bit of cushion like an old leather chair. Other
students are mulling around. Then this girl comes around very
frolicsome, lively, casually teasing or touching the boys.
She ends up coming over and sitting next to me; she is smoking a
cigarette and almost burns me when she turns to talk to me. I
think she's not that great but then up close I see that she is
pretty. Then we are sliding down and kissing like we have a
blanket over us and I'm hoping I won't get in trouble and her
hands start moving around touching me.
I wake, early morning; the cream colored curtains have been
closed. I see a pile of clothes on the old wooden piano bench
next to the bed and against the wall, black bra and panties, an
evening dress of black crêpe. I turn and see Rosalía; she came
home some time last night then; sleeping quietly like a
feline. . . Later I hear Teresa moving around. . . Rosalía
opens her eyes and sees me looking at her.
. . .

She said she loves to dance; it is her pleasure; after she

came here she wasn't making enough money as a waitress, couldn't
find anything else; even if she made enough money as a waitress
she wouldn't stop; and even going out with individuals was
amusing; besides she couldn't stop any of it even if she wanted
to, because she needs the money. I asked her, and then she said
 102

don't worry about it. She said I was looking better, and must
be feeling better by the way we made love. We got up; Teresa
came out; breakfast. She said Saturday she does her shopping
and left for a couple of hours.
. . .

To Rosalía

Into the woman that gathered my rests,

Curled on the white sheets a shape that would sear,
Contours of limbs, arabesques of désir,
Her waist twists and exposes lovely breasts.

Dreaming in her eyes of jet, vast forests

Sensual, and stretch my hands to a sheer
Gauze, a haze where a roundness might appear
And nipples erect the female divests

Again faint allusive virginity.

The sex coming to me beautiful flesh,
Watery dawn, light, moving the pelvis.

Sliding slowly around infinity,

Falling in our arms that may all enmesh
The dance in silence, and absorb the kiss.

March 25, 1995

. . .

I dreamt we were all around an amphitheater; adolescents

and we had taken very heavy doses of psychedelics. There were
lights and music, like we had control at our fingertips. At one
point I became overwhelmed, like I had taken way too much, and I
hid myself or buried myself away. There were platforms and
 103

stages set up around the area where people were. From across
the way a friend was calling me out. I was very surprised, and
I didn't want to fight him and I didn't understand why he would
want to fight me; we were on good terms. I am looking at him
standing there making aggressive gestures, and he isn't tough,
it isn't that I could be scared of him and we were very good
friends. Then he wanted to listen to my music, like a fancy
walkman, with attached psychedelic paraphernalia, like a trip in
itself, but that might have just been a pretext to get to me;
and the others were in a very hostile mood. I couldn't decide
what to do; it was like fight him or leave a coward and there
was no place to go. Then his sister is next to me, a presence
of a boy beside her. She is tall, light brown hair, a snake
skin like dress, long and molding her body. She is saying let
me help you come down. I question this to myself, like what is
she going to do, is this some treachery? She was with her
brother before. But then she slides around with her body and
says now, and the presence there reaches a vague hand to a
zipper on her shoulder and motions as if to start unzipping it
to show me what she has in mind; at the same time as she is
looking at me and saying come on, come on, and then I realize
that she is inviting me to go with her, now and not later, and
it is not a trick at all and so I start to go off with her.
When I wake and reflect on the dream I think that maybe I had
imagined all of the hostility, like I was having a bad trip.
The place was like this amphitheater on the top of the Pão de
Açucar in Rio de Janeiro where I had once been to see Kid
Abelha, a pop music group; a large round area where there was
plenty of room to dance and steps going up around the sides; the
group was on a stage set up at a point on the circumference.
. . .

A few days later at dinner, Rosalía, Teresa and Salvador at

the table. Rosalía asks,
 104

"You are from Argentina right; that is what I decided but

it isn't clear; but your accent isn't exactly Argentinean, and
why would an Argentinean come to Tijuana?"
"I was born in Argentina but my family had to leave when I
was eighteen."
Teresa asks, "Why did you leave?"
"Problems with the government, back when it was military;
there was a lot of political oppression. It was especially
because of my father who was an active figure in the political
left."
Rosalía asks, "You can go back now, can't you?"
"Maybe. My parents returned. I was living in the United
States."
"So why are you in Tijuana? Why were you unconscious in
that alley?"
"It's a long story. I had to leave the United States; they
found out about the political problems in Argentina. You know
with all the propaganda that they put out to say they are
enlightened and liberal, they aren't really; still carrying on
the witch hunt same as ever. They invented some stuff about my
papers not being in order. A friend let me know that they were
on my trail; I had to leave as quickly as possible."
Teresa exclaims, "My God, that is terrible."
"Yes. I barely got away in time."
Rosalía says, "Now you could go back to Argentina."
"The problem is that when the government went after my
father they accused me of terrorism. They wanted to make the
case cut and dried, and they thought that a young student would
be less able to defend himself."
"You could get a lawyer and he could clear it up."
"I don't know."
"Anyway, you can stay here, get a job."
"But I don't have any papers, and I am wanted by the United
States. As soon as my name appears somewhere they will be after
 105

me. Otherwise I could publish my writings, but I can't."

"I will see, I have some friends, sort of, with
connections."
"It wouldn't be very safe; you can't trust anyone, even
now."
Rosalía asks, "Who beat you up? It wasn't something to do
with politics, was it?"
"I don't know why, three thugs, said I was a gringo. They
robbed me."
There is a pause and then Rosalía says, "I knew you were
from Argentina, you can tell from your manner; they say that
Argentineans are arrogant."
"Arrogant?"
Teresa adds, "It's true that is what they say, but I don't
know what they mean exactly."
Rosalía continues, "Yes, sort of snob, presumptuous."
"Maybe so, maybe I was raised that way. . . Could it be an
attitude of assurance, I don't know, of a certain power, that
Mexicans perceive as arrogance?"
Teresa says, thinking, "Not snob or rude; you can tell that
he isn't that. Maybe your interpretation is right, Salvador."
"People say that the French are snobs, and I didn't think
so."
Rosalía asks, "You were in France?"
"When I left Argentina I went there to go to school."
Teresa adds, "That must have been exciting."
"I was very troubled. Paris is not fun and romantic like
everyone seems to think."
Rosalía says, thinking, "Still, to live in Paris. . . So
you speak French and English. . . Your family must have money
for you to go to Paris and then the United States."
"My parents had some that they had saved up. My father's
organization helped out; they could hardly let us go to prison.
Anyway they lost everything in exile."
 106

There is a pause and then Teresa asks, "You are writing

something aren't you; I saw you writing."
"Just a sonnet."
"Will you let us see?"
"Maybe later, after I've written some more, if I write
more; this is the first thing I've written in a long time. I'm
afraid that it could fall into the wrong hands. . . You
probably wouldn't like it."
. . .

I'm with this girl, a friend that has come to visit. We

are sitting on the living room floor talking. I like her a lot
and it is like her last night and then she is going to leave.
While we are talking I approach my mouth to hers; I sense a
moment of hesitation; she doesn't move away. I stop talking and
start kissing her lightly; she still doesn't move away. Then
there is like a subtle change of scene, almost like a different
dream, like now I am with this woman and at certain intervals we
have to stop our lovemaking for some time and then we can renew
it, and I picture these couples dancing and when they come into
this certain area they stop until they pass through it. Then
the scene goes back to this girl and I. At first I thought she
was this friend with a full body but now she is very skinny, I
notice the bones of her pelvis. This doesn't bother me, I just
notice, and for a while have thoughts of the other, with whom I
have never made love. We are rolling on the floor. I am
surprised that she is letting this happen. During a pause she
asks if wouldn't it be better if we went in on the bed. She
asks as if she doesn't know and when I answer and say yes we
could but my wife is sleeping and she probably wouldn't
appreciate it; I say it like she has simply forgotten. She
shrugs it off like oh, it is probably nicer here anyway, and we
resume our lovemaking. I am kissing her while I undo her
blouse. I think about when we end up naked and that she could
 107

come out there but then I think she wouldn't. On reflection it

seems like the living room was like the one in Eugene.
. . .

Sitting in this café; away from the apartment; I know what

they want. Impossible to lose myself in the passer-by,
everything and everyone reminding me of stark reality. It comes
back to me no matter what I do to avoid it. I don't know why I
seem to be the focus of the debacle, coming through my eyes,
shaking my nerves, the realizations sending shocks into my body.
I haven't gone far enough; the slow decline of the American
Imperium should be accompanied by some meaning; on the contrary,
the all-leveling discourse is more dominant than ever, liberty,
equality, fraternity, mashing out the differences, popular
culture. America is the last one to fall, already on borrowed
time: the end of progress. Insipid death, no style, no glory;
dull, blunted hostility beneath the surface. I know where it is
going and I can't put it out of my mind. Run while I can.
. . .

I've moved into this house; I come home late, like I'd been
working or out drinking. In the entry there is this stuff, like
from moving, that I hardly notice, some boxes of flooring or
tiling. Then there's a blank. I have on a robe and I am
opening up the door again to get the mail; there are a couple of
things for me, a large manila envelope, a letter, and like a
cassette, probably with a computer disc. There is also a couple
of large envelopes with very strange addressees, like they've
been sent to the wrong address but the name is very strange,
like from a country I don't recognize. I set them on the floor
and start arranging the mess in the entry; now I see more
clearly that the painter or plasterer has really made a mess of
the carpet, white smeared in, especially around the boxes. Then
I go into my roommate's room, a friend, like a Jewish
 108

intellectual, from Buenos Aires. I was going to do something

but when I get in there I see he is sleeping; it is very dark
and I try to find the light switch of this little lamp that he
has on this dresser by the door. It looks like there might be
another person in the bed. I can't remember what I was going to
do, maybe just see if he was alright. Then this girl is there,
about thirty, blond. She is telling me that I brought her home
with me or I understand this, like I ran into her in this club.
She is naked or her dress or bath robe has opened up, a firm
body, not too curvaceous but alright; I notice her breasts and
stomach. After a moment I say to remind me of her name,
deciding that it would be better to know in case it comes up.
She says Diane. She reminds me of a girl I knew in Los Angeles,
I ask, is she her? She says no, her hair was more curled, and
she turns her head showing me hers, which is almost straight,
very full, shoulder length. We are going to sit down at this
table and have a cigarette or a drink. Another roommate has
arrived, a ballerina from England that I met in Eugene. She and
maybe some friend of hers are bringing in some of her things. I
look across the room and notice how big it is, and I see her in
the entry hall that has been more or less cleaned up now. She
comes by and gives me a kiss. I think this is going to be nice
us three living together, everyone's friends coming by. I
remember my correspondence and go to get it. Then I notice that
Diane has left. At first I don't think much of it, like it's
not a big deal, but then I decide that I liked her a bit, and
that I had neglected to ask her for her telephone number, like I
hadn't shown enough interest in her and so she left. Then she
is there again, like she had just stepped out for something, but
she has brought some friends and left them there while she has
run off. I see her down the road; somehow I am able to do this
though I am inside; and in the distance I see she is with this
boy, standing together, like lovers; it is raining. And she has
left her friends, these men or something, with whom I don't want
 109

to deal with. Then there is some cold air, a wet wind, and I
look up and see that some panels are open in the glass roof. It
is beautiful, but a couple of panels are open; I think about
getting a ladder. Then I am outside, an isolated desert
terrain. It is like one wall of the house is earth. I have to
climb up this dirt to get to the roof; there is a small cliff,
just a few feet high; I walk down a bit and there it is lower
and I step up. Now I am on a plateau where there is also the
glass roof. I remember a scene up here with a couple of dead
animals, like rabbits, on the ground; now they're not here but
someone has broken a couple of green sauterne wine bottles, and
for a moment I feel angry that someone is already messing it up.
I am walking over to the glass roof; it is covered with mud and
I can't see the opening. Still approaching, suddenly I realize
that I am walking on the glass; it is not very solid; I throw
myself out flat on it and look again for the opening which I
don't see. It never becomes clear where the house is.
. . .

In a café.

Dust

Which like a stellar array often sought,

Fine jewels in the dark the spirit famish,
Arid solitude burning to perish,
Covers the walls of the city distraught.

These sequins on the dress of the harlot,

She in a deaf revolt, cornered, garish,
Like the rest of the crowd, eyes that tarnish,
And wait out dim projects with each their lot.

Like wasted virus sublime grains infest

 110

Provisional structures fashioned of dirt,

Dull colors crumble in dry air; tacit

Ententes have become decadent incest.

The hands that design the mystical flirt
Thin waifs the alleys of symbols surfeit.

March 31, 1995

. . .

I've come to this school escorted by someone; we are

inside; it is all cement and very massive, halls and rooms. To
get to this room we have to pass through this other. There
isn't anyone around, totally bare; then we have to wait; there's
a couch there and a young girl is reclining; she is dark, about
ten years old, third world, with a dress that is practically
rags. I am supposed to sit by her I understand from my
companion or my companion is in complicity when I sit next to
her. She leans against me; she has a faint bitter smell like
she hasn't washed for a while. I lightly caress her chest or
stomach almost absent-mindedly like to console her but then I
begin to feel moved. I see her naked pubis; there is a strip of
cloth around her waist with a spot of red that I imagine is from
a menstruation but then I see a small cut on her lower stomach.
Then I am going across a border; it is the same sort of cement,
unpainted and porous; we are walking and now I am going through
this checkpoint. There is a military type who is checking me.
I am speaking Spanish with him, just things like nice day, etc.,
but usually no one talks to him so he likes it. I sense that
this could be considered as fraternizing with the enemy but it
goes easier that way. Then I am walking; I need to get on this
ferry. As a friendly gesture the guard has followed along and
he shows me where to go up this ramp over to one side, like
where cars would normally go. There is no one around. I
 111

understand that they have been waiting hours, perhaps days to go

across. Then I enter this house, a small living room; no one
there. I hear voices in the other room. The room is bare,
third world, clay floor and rough plaster walls; it is almost
like a rebels' hideout. I go into the other room; a man is
sitting at the table writing. These people are a family or
comrades in the cause. I talk to him but he is nervous and gets
upset because I am too loud and might wake some others sleeping,
but I don't remember anyone sleeping in the other room and even
if there was I wasn't that loud. Then this woman comes in and I
understand that I am supposed to be writing a letter to others
in the movement, like these three brothers or sisters, like a
letter of condolences or just something to bolster their
spirits, like they've just lost someone dear or they've been
incarcerated.
. . .

It is late evening; I am writing on the bed. Teresa is

sitting on the sofa, a light blue cotton robe, her hair pulled
up and held with a porcelain comb. She has finished her
homework and is reading a romance novel, one like those that are
found in the magazine stands. Only occasionally do we speak,
when she might ask me a question about her literature class,
like the meaning of a word. The sonnet is finished.

El Drama

At war with the heavens the form's intent.

Upon the dark-lit scene the comet's fall
Etched on the player's masks of mineral,
The chorus murmurs of occult portent.

Beneath flowing costumes the tare latent,

Red satin, purple silk, ethereal
 112

Lures and perfumes, the myth corporeal,

Rites of passage abysmally silent.

Therein the anguish; a single victim

With brazen eyes and twisting hands would dare
The vision of future devastation.

Past wounded lips the rage of breath a whim,

A floral logic, a smothered nightmare,
A slow venom in the varnished fiction.

April 3, 1995

I take it over to Teresa. The other evening she read Dust; she
said she wasn't sure if she understood it and I said it didn't
matter, some of the meaning seemed too difficult to try to
explain. She reads El Drama and I go back over to the bed.
Finally she says she likes it; she says that it has a resonance
that she hadn't noticed so much in Dust.
. . .

I am driving an old pickup and I have my mother and father

with me; it is like we are returning home from an outing. We
see a group of people, almost like through a window and we see
that it is a wedding. I recognize the people from the past,
like from my father's business, but I don't know the young groom
and just barely recognize the bride from another place, like he
has come since I've been away and I remember her from when she
was much younger. My parents don't seem to know them any better
than I. I am thinking I would have liked to visit with them and
then I think we might join them at the reception, which for some
reason I am thinking will be at my parents. Now I have gone
down off of the road to the right, like a short cut or maybe the
road is this way; the road is hardly more than a trail but it
 113

doesn't seem to bother me. The way is along this river. I

drive under this bridge perpendicular to my path. Now I am
noticing that the road isn't very good; it is on the edge of the
river on the mountainside. Then there is another bridge and the
clearance is very close and it looks almost washed out, like
with wood strewn in the way. I give the truck gas and go on
through it. Then it seems like I have stopped and gotten out
and gone ahead on foot to check out the terrain. I come out,
like from beneath a bridge and I see this water coming down the
mountain in front of me; it is a very large cascade, somewhat
muddy, like it has flooded. I look back and there is another
one about half the size. I wonder where all the water came from
because I can't remember it raining lately. I look at the water
flowing past and decide that it is impassible even on foot. I
look back and up thinking that maybe the road must double back
and go up but I don't see where it does. I resolve to go it
like that anyway.
. . .

Just before dawn Rosalía wakes me. She has opened the
curtain slightly. Still wearing her dress, like silk and dark
blue, she comes over on top of me. Her make-up is heavier than
I have seen, mascara a shade of blue, dark red lipstick. She
says take me, take me, and puts me inside her; she is very
nervous; she is crying. I think she must have taken cocaine.
Her skin is glistening with sweat; inside she is very hot and
wet. She is moving frantically, almost hysterical; she starts
sobbing. I pull her down to me, embracing her; she has an
orgasm. She starts moving again slowly; I caress her, the thin
fabric sliding on her hips, her breasts. She is quieter now and
pauses for long moments, almost shivering. She starts kissing
me very deeply, almost hard. I don't know if she is impervious
to me or not; she is very guarded; I don't know how conscious
she is of the effect she has on me. With her pelvis she is
 114

holding me firmly and profoundly, oscillating very slowly. We

pass into another world.
I haven't got up from the bed. Rosalía is moving
distractedly around the apartment. Teresa has already gotten
up, ate breakfast and gone off to school. Rosalía took a
shower, spent a long time in the bathroom; came out wearing a
long white T-shirt and her hair wet and went into the kitchen
and made nervous noises and shortly came out with a cup of
coffee which she drank at the table; she went back into the
kitchen and must have been putting things in order, though
Teresa usually takes care of that in the evening. Finally she
came over anxiously and sat on the bed. We hardly speak to each
other, neither of us having much to say; sort of waiting for
time to take everything where it is going, if it is going
anywhere. She starts talking, hardly more than mumbling, not
wishing to expose herself but unable to keep everything in. She
is more beautiful troubled and almost vulnerable. She is going
on about the nights, looking at me from time to time to
communicate that I really shouldn't pay too much attention to
her ravings. I must be lonely. . . she needs an income. . .
Teresa needs security. . . men are so heartless. . . this town
is a sewer. . . everyone is using you. . . no family. . .
trapped. I move over next to her and put my hand on her thigh;
with light caresses I try to reassure her. Things would work
out, we would figure a way out, she was just coming down. Even
though I know that it is more than that, the cocaine is just the
last step in the process, the outward sign of something deeper.
But what can I say, I can't make promises she knows I can't
fulfill, I can't say my papers are getting straightened out, my
writing is going to be published, I've got an interview with a
nice private school to teach English and French, nothing. I say
she is beautiful, I love her, she saved my life. She starts
crying again quietly; I sit up and hold her, hesitantly giving
her caresses and kisses. After a while she begins to respond,
 115

she kisses me back; we slowly become aroused; I pull off her T-

shirt; her physical force and sensuality return.
. . .

Sitting in a café over a cup of coffee. I push Rosalía out

of my mind; concentrate on the cars going by outside, the
passer-by. A woman goes by with a suitcase and then gets in a
cab. For some reason this reminds me of June; I picture her;
she is preparing for her trip to Los Angeles. We had been in
Eugene for a year and she had decided to visit her parents for a
month in the summer. I couldn't go, must have had a class to
teach; I was secretly glad that I wasn't going; we would have
stayed at their house, which was spacious. . . I remember her
in the living room, a navy blue blazer and slacks; she is asking
me if I am going to take her to the airport. I think of
driving, which I don't enjoy, of the airport, the lights, the
people, the loudspeaker, the ticket counters, and then the
ambiguous feelings, like the beginnings of disagreeable
associations. I say no if that's alright; she could take a cab
and it would be so much easier for me. She knows I don't like
to drive but she starts to insist, how we won't see each other
for a month and all that, but she sees that my mind is made up.
I call the taxi, carry the luggage out when he arrives and kiss
her good-bye. I felt a certain liberation then, some freedom,
not that I had felt oppressed before, but now I could sleep
alone, eat alone, and I wouldn't have to respond to anyone; it
seemed like a nice change; back to the old days. I didn't even
think of being liberated like being single again, only that I
could enjoy some solitude. When she returned so did routine,
but there might have been something different then; I hardly
noticed. I have become so ineffectual. I think of Amy. I
didn't do anything about the outcome; I couldn't. That was
convenient for me; maybe I unconsciously engineered it that way.
I didn't do anything to keep June, just let her slide from my
 116

fingers. Maybe it is cowardice. Now Rosalía and there doesn't

seem to be anything I can do. . . I concentrate on the people
going by, focus on their faces, their clothes, the pretty young
ladies busy with the day's affairs.
. . .

To Isabel

A la danseuse, la délicate princesse

Of fanciful air; like a sonata
Her écartés of purest nostalgia
And sweet modest smile that conjures distress.

Glissades of symbols utterly weightless

And pirouettes twirling in taffeta;
Open hips in aesthetic magenta
And a reverie of trifling undress.

Cambered waist sublime of grace abstracted,

And arms in flowing arcs of light satin,
Distant and the curves enrobed evocative

Of a bird of fire in protracted

Flight, a suite of bourrés of a virgin,
Untouched bust quivering and elusive.

April 9, 1995
. . .

A series of vignettes. I was in a tall tower looking out

the window and then I went down and walked over the horizon or I
was watching others pass over the horizon. In another dream I
was in Paris and went out to look for patisseries in the
bakeries; I ran into this woman, like a stranger in the street,
 117

and went with her. In another this blond girl was driving out in
the country; I was in the front seat with her and it seemed like
there were others in the back seat. The road was going up and
down these deeply rolling hills. It was dark and she hadn't
turned on the lights and we almost had an accident with oncoming
traffic; I thought to turn on the lights and we swerved out of
the way. Then we stopped at a fancy commercial freeway
shopping; going into the bathroom I noticed that I was barefoot
and felt a little self-conscious but then decided it was okay.
. . .

In the morning Rosalía comes in the door after the night

out. She walks over and hands me a book where I am sitting on
the couch. I look at it and observe, "Brazil. . . by John
Updike. . . What is this for?"
"You can translate it."
". . ."
"A friend of mine comes here from Mexico City on business;
his brother is an important publisher. I mentioned that he owed
me favors and that I had a literary acquaintance that could use
a break. . . He wants to see the first chapter before he can
guarantee anything. . . You can translate it can't you?"
"Yes, it's just a matter of time. But. . . What about my
name and all that? . . It could be translated anonymously, that
is sometimes done I suppose."
"We'll use my name; they won't ask any indiscreet
questions. It will be like you don't exist."
. . .

I can write it now, secretly, using the translation as a

cover; it will be the final cosmology, Millennial, and it will
be based on the mere footprint on the path that extends forever,
the major arcanas of the tarot placed symbolically between past
and future.
 118

. . .

I am having a big scene with my wife; it is like we are

back from vacation and she has been listening to this loud music
all day. I keep going out of the apartment and then going back
in; there's no place to go. I am thinking I can't take this
anymore, this coarseness. Then I am out on this terrain. There
is a lake or the ocean further on, like just over this rise.
There is a pipe like a whistle to let off steam and further on a
smoke stack coming out of the ground. It is like we are at war
and this is our industry working on production. Then time seems
to have passed and I am back here again, and now there is much
more smoke and this signifies more production and this is like
accompanied with music like a film score, like a slow crescendo
or a victory march. Then I have gone for a walk at night, like
2 or 3 in the morning; I couldn't sleep, like I had gone out
from a house in the country, gone to the outskirts of town and
now I am going back. I meet up with this young man who is maybe
accompanied by a friend who is coming back to town, like at a
fence or some sort of barrier of the town. One of us has an old
wooden wagon, like a wooden cart. I can't remember what was in
it. He is like trying to emulate me and I ask him how far he
went and he has to admit or his friend says oh really not very
far, like only a fraction of what I do. Then I start walking on
my way back. Then I am going for another walk, like another
night, and it is about 3 or 4 in the morning. It is dark and I
am walking along this mountain trail, not too far from
civilization. I feel a little cold and I think I should have
put on more clothes but then I just think I'll have to move a
little faster. I hear a noise and look further up the path and
there is this young man coming down the mountain side. He has a
gun and what looks like a dead dog in his arms; then like two
dogs. I think he must have killed them and make to walk on by
him, not wanting anything to do with him, but then I see that he
 119

is a hunter type and he has put three rabbits on the ground and
he is showing me; and then he is telling me how he got them and
there is this picture of a boy and girl in this boutique, seen
through the window, like vendors there, and he says the rabbits
were looking at them from the woods, like they had their heads
up and he got them from behind. He shows me in the picture how
the two in the boutique have little coins in their mouths to
attract the rabbits. I say but then he is firing towards the
boutique but somehow he explains this away; and I wonder why he
didn't just go buy rabbit in the grocery store, but then I
understand that these are much better. Then I am walking again.
I come down this decline; there is brush; then I come out along
a lake; the trail is right next to the water and there is hardly
room to go by. Then I am totally anguished because I am at the
end of my patience with my wife and I am going to have to leave
her but I can't stand to be alone. Then I am out walking again.
Then I am in this apartment; I am standing there and this girl
walks in, like it is her apartment and she has just come home,
and I have somehow gotten in there without her knowing. It is
about 3 AM. She is blond and full-bodied, dressed in a white
cotton blouse and pants, very sweet. She is like telling me to
leave and I am saying no please you are so sweet just let me
stay here with you for a while; she gradually mollifies. She is
sitting in this armchair and I am sitting on the floor beside
her leaning on her leg, talking to her softly and maybe brushing
her leg with my hand. She is starting to accept me; she has a
sort of cloying smell, maybe slightly bitter, like a virgin, and
her mouth is small with thin lips, and she is saying are you
sure you like me, and I have reservations that I didn't have
when I first saw her but I am thinking how soft and sweet her
body is and I am saying yes.
I am at this big party, like adolescent or college age;
lots of people are there. There is a blond girl that I am glad
to see and then another from one of my classes and I am talking
 120

to her and we are playing around. Then I go into this bedroom

and I think that I can sleep there the night. I go out and see
how many people are there and I say that I am going to sleep in
the other room and is that alright with everyone, like will they
have enough room to sleep there, and they say yes. The bedroom
is upstairs. I go in; it is like the owners are gone for the
weekend. Now coming in it seems like I hear someone. I try to
turn on the light but it doesn't come on. I think maybe it has
some sort of delay. I go to the next light switch, like at the
entrance to the next room and it doesn't turn on the light
either. I use my lighter and click it a few times; then the
lights come on dimly. On a little shelf I see a couple of
little pieces of hashish that I vaguely remember having seen
when I had come in the first time and I had thought about
smoking it but I didn't. Someone is sleeping in the bed I had
chosen, which now seems small, like for a child; it is a white
metal frame bed, rounded and with vertical bars. I go over to
this shelf where there seems to be a stereo or something. I
turn this knob thinking it is the on-off switch; it is spring
loaded and clicks into place; this TV set comes on across the
room. I try to turn it off with the switch but it doesn't turn
off. I decide it must have to run its cycle. The person in the
bed wakes up; he is pretty messed up, long thin oily hair,
clothes unkempt; he gets up and starts making a fuss. I am
wondering where I am going to sleep and then I see another bed
in line with the first one along the wall, the same kind and I
see that it has a lot of pillows and more covers stacked in a
corner; he has seen this too and is taking some for himself. I
am leaving and I realize that my cigarettes must have fallen out
of my pocket, like with my lighter. I go back in and find the
pack on the floor; I pick it up and look at it and see that it
is almost out when it seemed like it was almost full, and the
top has been ripped all the way open. I accuse the guy of
taking them, and he says yes, not making much of a deal of it,
 121

and fumbling around getting out his pack, and he hands me about
three, one is broken, another is wet. Now it seems like there
is a friend with him and when I leave he is like brushing his
face in the other's hair. I go back out thinking I should go to
the store to get some more cigarettes and looking for someone to
go with me, like the girl from before or this other. In the
first room there are only guys, and in the next also, and I
realize that it has gotten late and now only the die-hards are
left and all the girls have gone home.
. . .

Millennial

Le Bateleur

Like the alchemist who on the outcome

Of the formula stakes his consciousness
And dark hope; the knife unsheathed and timeless
Steel that strikes fire on the palladium

Of polished stone, the centuries of some

Eternal return; seven disks useless
On the table while he wanders listless
The lands and waters of diluvium.

Who was the guardian of the threshold,

When the precious ore melted and exposed
Shadowed analogies as on a glass.

The obscure night of what had been foretold

Wherein he might have erred and now were closed
The distorted avenues of trespass.

April 12, 1995

 122

. . .

La Papesse

Pure memory, the misty portico

Of sanctuary, virgin nocturnal
Daughter of lunar beauty mystical
Isis veiled in a darkening meadow.

Dreamt of Leutha's mystery, a grotto,

A fountain beneath cold stars, denial,
Moist light reflected and past betrayal,
A small clandestine vial of indigo.

Dreamt flowing waters of generation,

Drinking oblivion, initiate
In the chaotic chapel of dismay.

And of the eternal emanation

Capricious, the morning inviolate,
Diaphanous and shallow disarray.

April 15, 1995

. . .

L'Impératrice

Splendor unveiled in a verdant garden,

Urania and the petals of nature,
Mid-day heat and her forms couched in moisture
A goddess in the light softly woven.

Supine on the earth gorgeously loosen

Bare hands in the soil opening mature
 123

To the cycles of physical rapture,

Of amour and desire left swollen.

Parted lips exhausted the eyes stinging

Of essence immersed and impure intents
Nervous tangles of ravished wilderness.

Arching back on outstretched arms and yielding

Frantic to a dark flood of elements,
An inner panic of fluid caress.

April 19, 1995

. . .

L'Empereur

Of realm, cubic stone and solemn sceptre

Spoken in a metaphysical sense
As of the force of law and eminence
Our slow progression of pomp and lustre.

Royal fate or blindest chance, the spectre

Torments with dread these walls of opulence;
We the ruler of our state and presence
Ransomed conquests with bloody theatre.

Of the wretched court and pawns disdainful,

With baubles and gilded titles lavish
Ornamental beauties of our chamber.

And of this our blemished crown distrustful,

Secret enemies, jealousies banish
With singular will and sudden anger.
 124

April 20, 1995

. . .

Le Pape

Massive arched portal of revelation,

Brick basilica of somber matter,
Organ's hymn of profound choral prayer,
Priests in scarlet robes of incarnation.

Sculptured pillars of illumination,

Men of faith breathing of sacred letter,
Path of the cross, frescos of a master,
Gleam of candles of purification.

Carved bronze altar of redemptive service.

Seraphims aloft, encrusted in shrine,
Ogives bent in vaulted severity.

Absolution, holy water, chalice,

Blessed rising in benediction divine,
Dark stained windows of religious mercy.

April 21, 1995

. . .

Les Deux Routes

Before illusion, the ancient Maya

Of naked beauty, wishful opiate,
Nude and lush, nothingness deliberate,
Senses in dreamlike melancholia.
 125

Or the flowing discourse of dilemma,

Mystic silken dress of forms inchoate,
Oh fleeting bliss in passion consummate,
One's love is sworn worldly Urania.

But pause, if in blind worship of Being,

Tempted by a concealed charm of poison,
Now a symbolic sophistication.

At the moment of her white hands bleeding,

Hopeless division, depressive reason,
Clandestine and erotic perversion.

April 22, 1995

. . .

Le Chariot

Battle car shifting, barrel erected,

Gyres turning on the rubble amorphous,
Clouds of dust whirling black and sulfurous,
Crimson cataracts of flames ejected.

Triumphant advancing in projected

Annihilation, slow and rapacious;
Conquering, in bloody war glorious,
The shadows with mortal wounds subjected.

Throbbing streets in massacre erupted

With brutal weapons, of earth's ancient laws,
Arcane forces set in vicious motion.

Archetypes that thrust their engines corrupted,

Clutching vanquished daughters with gnashing claws
 126

In the throes of death and revolution.

April 25, 1995

. . .

La Justice

She seems all acceptance and softest smile,

Knowing eyes covered by a golden band;
A go-between that seems to understand,
All of time the balance to reconcile.

Universal will blithely regards while

A sword empowers with fateful demand,
Astral harmony acting underhand
To confuse, oppress and subtly beguile.

Bleak cards of condemnation nothing show,

Quarrels, cavils and repudiation,
Deep spirals of memory unredeemed.

Currents of corruption that tainted glow,

Devouring the chaos of creation
Since the offended beauty had not screamed.

April 27, 1995

. . .

L'Ermite

Cloaked in mortal grey, a shrouded lantern,

Far from city walls, dark solitary,
Withdrawn in night dense and visionary,
Unsettled dream world and troubled pattern.
 127

Vague analogies, an ancient cistern,

A forest absent of corollary,
Through naked branches a sanctuary,
Yet of no way the senses to discern.

Of clairvoyance exists no virgin text,

Strange symbols acting in gleams corrosive,
Intrigue entangled in nocturnal winds.

Lightly flatters nervous allures and next,

In too distant encounters seductive,
On landscape straying lost exotic ends.

April 30, 1995

. . .

Le Sphinx

Cassandra pierced the flux of fortune's wheel,

Her wisdom expiring half-remembered,
With black murmurs of the Sphinx encumbered,
Onyx eyes void when queried of the real.

Life's rise and fall no destiny reveal,

The shrewd acquiesce in descent sobered,
Of loves cautious that they be not rendered
To vicious spiral closed with occult seal.

Too late the charm, savoir faire imprisoned,

Too soon abandon, given over to flight;
Torpid flow reversed, crush of loose caress.

In alternation vain knowledge sanctioned,

 128

Turning curses against sublime delight,

Mute oracles of a dire mistress.

May 4, 1995
. . .

La Force

Genesis surging phased with energy,

Pulses of crimson down silver wire,
Luminous zones of illusion transpire,
Light unreal impelled towards polarity.

Vital circuits of enforced agony,

Metal luring in arteries of fire,
Radiance scathing animal desire,
Mass fissured in savage intensity.

Burning sign of Babylonian whore,

Woman, violence, excess and seizure,
Tearing at the world while chafed power sears.

Seduction, anguish, incandescent sore,

Fury defiled, untenable rupture,
The core a tempest wherein nothing nears.

May 5, 1995
. . .

Le Pendu

So many figures carry this arcane,

Bear the cross for the grace of idea;
A tragic turn in roots of nausea,
 129

Stunned with repulse on the rack of profane.

Bitter torments of tortured mind sustain

The measured drip of saintly morphia,
The rupture in restless hysteria,
Memories hanging in ecstasy strain.

Plight of anguish like a jilted lover

Bloodied in the midst the cheated stone
Draws being with timely immolation.

What was crucified and is no longer,

Ascetic wretches suspended alone
Risk nothing of flesh save desolation.

May 11, 1995

. . .

La Mort

As in a remote room dark and quiet

Dreamlike contours and textures narcotic
Beauty of a Lilith esoteric,
Mirrored as nude in purest white toilet.

Or extended, skin, light, bed like velvet,

On night pale and still ideal erotic,
Married, transformed on breast's mortal fabric,
Tender vial inert of the Styx inlet.

. . . with countless flaws

In fatal coil consumed . . .

. . .
 130

Epilogue
It isn't known exactly what happened. The woman had left a
small town with her daughter; her husband had kicked her out for
whoring, and there was no place for her there. Desperate, she
thinks that he will save her, or at least help her. He tells
her he can't do anything but she doesn't believe him. She
continues to work at night, perhaps with the idea that jealousy
will get to him. He goes to watch her dance again; she has
invited him; and afterwards they make love passionately in her
dressing room. That will be the last time. Teresa will come to
him because she can't sleep. And she will come again. For some
time she comes to him every night. Rosalía will gradually
become aware of their entente and finally in anguish kick him
out. She reconsiders and sends her daughter to him. One night,
impatient, he sends her away. The next morning she comes back
with a bruise on her cheek; her mother had hit her because it
had to have been her fault. Salvador tells her that if she
still wants him, later. . . he gives her his sister's address
in Rio. At the end of his money he takes a bus to Veracruz.
There, he manages to find a tanker going to Rio and obtains a
job as the cook. They call him the French chef. Nearing Rio
one of the men talks about this black girl, black as night, Ana,
the most perfect breasts in the world. Salvador arrives at his
sister's; she's not home; he sits down against the door to wait
and goes to sleep. She comes home, wakes him, and kisses him on
the mouth.