– That’s better.
– That was a distortion of the truth, which, I see, suits you very well. I distorted the truth to make it easy for you. The truth is: ordinary eternal machinery.
– Was it nice?
– It was the most beautiful thing I have ever felt.
– Did she like it?
– No.
– Really?
– Yes, she liked it. How anxious you are to be deceived!
– F., I could kill you for what you’ve done. Courts would forgive me.
– You’ve done enough killing for one night.
– Get off our bed! Our bed! This was our bed!
I don’t want to think too much about what F. said. Why must I? Who was he after all but a madman who lost control of his bowels, a fucker of one’s wife, a collector of soap, a politician? Ordinary eternal machinery. Do I have to understand that? This morning is another morning, flowers have opened up again, men turn on their sides to see whom they have married, everything is ready to begin anew. Why must I be lashed to the past by the words of a dead man? Why must I reproduce these conversations so painstakingly, letting not one lost comma alter the beat of our voices? I want to talk to men in taverns and buses and remember nothing. And you, Catherine Tekakwitha, burning in your stall of time, does it please you that I strip myself so cruelly? I fear you smell of the Plague. The long house where you crouch day after day smells of the Plague. Why is my research so hard? Why can’t I memorize baseball statistics like the Prime Minister? Why do baseball statistics smell like the Plague? What has happened to the morning? My desk smells! 1660 smells! The Indians are dying! The trails smell! They are pouring roads over the trails, it doesn’t help. Save the Indians! Serve them the hearts of Jesuits! I caught the Plague in my butterfly net. I merely wanted to fuck a saint, as F. advised. I don’t know why it seemed like such a good idea. I barely understand it but it seemed like the only thing left to me. Here I am courting with research, the only juggling I can do, waiting for the statues to move – and what happens? I’ve poisoned the air, I’ve lost my erection. Is it because I’ve stumbled on the truth about Canada? I don’t want to stumble on the truth about Canada. Have the Jews paid for the destruction of Jericho? Will the French learn how to hunt? Are wigwam souvenirs enough? City Fathers, kill me, for I have talked too much about the Plague. I thought the Indians died of bullet wounds and broken treaties. More roads! The forest stinks! Catherine Tekakwitha, is there something sinister in your escape from the Plague? Do I have to love a mutant? Look at me, Catherine Tekakwitha, a man with a stack of contagious papers, limp in the groin. Look at you, Catherine Tekakwitha, your face half eaten, unable to go outside in the sun because of the damage to your eyes. Shouldn’t I be chasing someone earlier than you? Discipline, as F. said. This must not be easy. And if I knew where my research led, where would the danger be? I confess that I don’t know the point of anything. Take one step to the side and it’s all absurd. What is this fucking of a dead saint? It’s impossible. We all know that. I’ll publish a paper on Catherine Tekakwitha, that’s all. I’ll get married again. The National Museum needs me. I’ve been through a lot, I’ll make a marvelous lecturer. I’ll pass off F.’s sayings as my own, become a wit, a mystic wit. He owes me that much. I’ll give away his soap collection to female students, a bar at a time, lemon cunts, pine cunts, I’ll be a master of mixed juices. I’ll run for Parliament, just like F. I’ll get the Eskimo accent. I’ll have the wives of other men. Edith! Her lovely body comes stalking back, the balanced walk, the selfish eyes (or are they?). Oh, she does not stink of the Plague. Please don’t make me think about your parts. Her belly button was a tiny swirl, almost hidden. If all the breeze it took to ruffle a tea rose suddenly became flesh, it would be like her belly button. On different occasions she covered it with oil, semen, thirty-five dollars’ worth of perfume, a burr, rice, urine, the parings of a man’s fingernails, another man’s tears, spit, a thimbleful of rain water. I’ve got to recall the occasions.
OIL: Countless times. She kept a bottle of olive oil beside the bed. I always thought flies would come.
SEMEN: F.’s too? I couldn’t bear that. She made me deposit it there myself. She wanted to see me masturbate for the last time. How could I tell her that it was the most intense climax of my life?
RICE: Raw rice. She kept one grain in there for a week, claiming that she could cook it.
URINE: Don’t be ashamed, she said.
FINGERNAILS: She said that Orthodox Jews buried their fingernail parings. I’m uneasy as I remember this. It’s just the kind of observation that F. would make. Did she get the idea from him?
MAN’S TEARS: A curious incident. We were sunbathing on the beach at Old Orchard, Maine. A complete stranger in a blue bathing suit threw himself on her stomach, weeping. I grabbed his hair to pull him away. She struck my hand sharply. I looked around; nobody had noticed so I felt a little better about it. I timed the man: he cried for five minutes. There were thousands stretched on the beach. Why did he have to pick us? I smiled stupidly at people passing, as if this loony were my bereaved brother-in-law. Nobody seemed to notice. He had on one of those cheap wool bathing suits that do nothing for the balls. He cried
