December 12, 2008
I have an addiction to buying books. Entering even the most insipid of bookstores posses a threat; finding the diamonds in the rough can be deadly. Few independent book stores have survived the crushing blows of giant conglomerates with monochromatic selections, and setting foot in one means leaving with an empty wallet and a strained back. In the midst of travel, the danger is two fold. Bell-boys have grunted and heaved and I have paid hefty over-weight fines, luggage stuffed to the brim with fabulous volumes that screamed out "Take me home!"
So it was with this little piece. My playmate and I swore we wouldn't set foot in a bookstore. Using all the strength we could muster, we passed its enticing door and sat down at a comfortable local burger joint. Moving onto our next adventure, we wavered, we faltered, we crumbled and went in.
I was so good. I didn't buy a single book.
My friend found Marquez. "It's a little book. It can fit in your pocket," he justified. One need not make justifications to a junkie.
He continued to explain it's particular significance to him. This is another reason I'm so enamored by the world of literature, not only do I explore our vast universe and the author, but it gives me access to the minds and hearts of my friends.
Knowing I had a giant book project, one that could take me a lifetime if I let it, I listened to his logic. It's a little book. One that fits in my pocket.
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This is an ancient tale of sleeping beauty, luxuriating in our fanciful vulnerability. A fable of escape in silence.
It is the moment when a lover covers your lips with the delicate touch of their fingers, muting words. Their whispered touch saying, Let me have this moment!
Our narrator is a scholarly old man, celebrating his 90th birthday by seeking an adolescent virgin. The madame of a brothel answers: "The only Virgos left in the world are people like you who were born in August.
He goes on to say:
"I've never gone to bed with a woman I didn't pay, and the few who weren't in the profession I persuaded, by argument or by force, to take money even if they threw it in the trash."
There is nothing degrading in his tone as the pages describe his sexual explorations. He's charming, awkward, shy, and the women of his life find love for him. He needs to return their service to him somehow, because he does not love them. He only satiates desires.
He has known need, sex, desire - but never love.
The Madame finds her. A 14 year old virgin, a seamstress in need of money and willing, though afraid. He arrives at the brothel and enters the room to find her asleep, under the spell of a bromide and valerian potion.
He pinches her nose to try and wake her, but she shakes him off and turns around, still soundly sleeping. He tries to open her thighs, but she tenses and grumbles. Unable to wake her, the night slowly unfolds, letting him carefully observe, tenderly explore.
Angels surround the bed of Delgadina. he sings.
"I ran the tip of my index finger along the damp nape of her neck, and she shivered inside, along the length of her body, like a chord on the harp."
In her sedated beauty, he names her Delgandia. In her still silence, he falls in love. It is not the girl he loves, she is a blank canvas. Naked, without makeup, movement or word, his imagination creates the woman he wants her to be. He loves the Delgandia he creates "the way she always is, without failures, without fights, without bad memories."
"...just as real events are forgotten, some that never were can be in our memories as if they had happened."
He constructs a reality where her eyes are colored according to his mood, where she is dressed to fit his whims. They sing together, they care for his old house, and ponder the mystery of their love. She is more real in his imagination than she is in the bed of the brothel. To feed these fantasies, he returns to her unconscious side, night after night.
On her bathroom mirror, in her lipstick, he writes: Dear girl, we are alone in the world.
Their room becomes his alter, as he fills the air with incense, brings over his favorite books, hangs artwork on the walls for her, and places flowers in the vases.
Any trace of the girl behind Delgandia disturbs him. He never wants to know her name. Once she speaks in her sleep, the voice foriegn compared to the Delgandia he constructed. He quickly decides he prefers her asleep.
A client of the brothel is murdered, it's doors shut and he looses his tender young girl. Searching for her amongst the waking world proves impossible. Animated, he would not recognize her. Weeks pass as his sorrow convinces him dying of love is possible.
"I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world."
Shhhhh,
Don't say it.
There will be plenty of time for sadness.
Let me have this.
Let my mind imagine,
What life cannot give me.
