The glare of the lightbulbs was naked. The pink paint flaked
and rubbed off to the naked touch. The heat enveloped one,
the skin burned from the hot water in the air. I immersed myself
in the bathtub: in the heat one never got dry: and lived between
the desk and the mattress on the floor: writing and sleeping:
concentrating: smiling at the red rug with the big flower. I
learned to be alone.
*
The apartment was painted Mediterranean pink, the paint was
powdery, I found some remnants of cheap cotton in a textile
store and tacked them up over the windows: light came in
unimpeded, the heat of the burning sun, the red searchlights of
the military, the red alarm of fire, danger, must run, must
escape, will burn. The walls between the apartments were thin.
There was a thin wall between me and the man in the next
apartment, a tiny man of timid gentleness. I heard long conversations and deep breaths, discussions about the seasoning in soups and the politics of anal warts, both subjects of his expertise. At night I would dream that there was a hole in the wall, and everything was like a play, the extended conversations, a two-person domestic drama: I knew I was sleeping but I believed the hole was real: and I knew I was sleeping but
the conversations must have been real, in their real voices with
their real inflections, as they sat there in my view. We had no
secrets and at night when I would scream out in terror at a
bad dream, I would alarm my neighbor, and the next day he
would ask me if anyone had hurt me: late, timid. Above me
the man would get fucked hard in the ass, as his expletives and
explications and supplications and imperious pleadings would
make clear. The two male bodies would thump on the floor
like great stones being dropped over and over again, like dead
weight dropping. Sleep could not intervene here and mask the
121
sound for me in flashy narratives of story-within-the-story,
play-within-the-play: the screams were too familiar, too close,
not yet lost in life rushing forward.
I slept when I was tired. I wrote. Sweat poured out. I took
long walks. My dreams were like delirium. I did not have hours
or days. I simply went on. There was a great, soft stream of
solitude and concentration and long, wet baths, and timid trips
to the toilet. Oh, yes, I had a terrible time getting money and I
don’t want to say how I did it. I lived from day to day, stopping
just short of the fuck. I had odd jobs. I did what was necessary.
I was always happy when I was alone: except when restlessness
would come like a robber: then I would walk, walk.
*
The pink walls and the red carpet with the huge flower were
my indulgences. The rest was austere, the heat prohibiting
excess, poverty offended by it. The single mattress was like a
prayer.
I came alive again: in solitude: concentrating: writing.
*
