Then she was looking up at the unhinged diagonal teetering of the bookshelf and
glancing back at this strewn rubble of books girded about her on the floor. She
judged that the bookshelf and the diagonal teetering of a mind were analogous
to each other not so much from what they lacked as from what they possessed.
Both were on one last hinge really, neither one was completely gone, and both
could continue on in this state for as long as the elements that made them did
not unravel by decay or degeneration.
She guffawed and the guffaw droned on monotonously into a dry acrimonious
hysteria precipitated by a need for relief from loss, lament, and this feeling
that she was vile for being violated in this most repugnant way; but this
laughter was essentially the revelatory irony that madness, in whole or in
part, was willed into existence, or at least hers was — she who was a
consummate actress unto herself.
She had missed her suicidal exit from sensing that the right bounce before the
leap would bring it all down, and it had, making the wish to live more dominant
than the wish to die. Now with bruised buttocks there in the rubble of ideas,
unable to think of any reason that she had averted her demise, pain tore at her
inside and out.
Conscious will had devised suicide that the instinct to live had thwarted.
Before this, somewhere early into the "madness" when the shock of this horror
had passed, her ongoing madness into the hours had been merely a conscious
choice. Both had been her own scheming, her own devising.
She got up in full recognition of herself, her surroundings, and the memory
that thumped inside her brain. This memory of the rape played over and over and
the monotony exacerbated the thumping. As a living entity, one lived without a
clue to the reason of it all. One rose in pain and moved as she was doing now,
for how could even a creature of contemplation contemplate without movement
away from the sedentary gaze of one specific thing? Did she really contemplate
more than others, and were here contemplations more trenchant than others? She
assumed so and that it was a mixture of her own genius and her obdurate wish to
not be one of the herds. It was her wish to be a unique person who was not
afraid of homesteading in the self and listened to and experimented with
original thoughts that a good intelligence removed of cacophony devised. It was
her belief that this was the only real life for it was beyond delegated roles
and instinct.
But as she went into the bathroom to vomit she thought such a reaction was as
feeble and absurd as homesteading within the herds. Should she throw up what
little energy she had? Would she let an external event discombobulate her in
such a nervous disorder? This thing that happened to her was repugnant rape
but, she argued, only societal norms made it viler than other forms of rape. It
had not harmed her irrevocably. Only the horrific memory would harm her and it,
memory, was within the self. Only she could create pain to herself. Only she
could continue self-flagellation lodged there in the brain whipping herself in
memory. No, she answered herself, she would not let memory maim her.
She filled up the tub with cold soapy water. Going to extremes by the attempt
at sterilizing herself in hot water would have been a natural response, and it
was in the fear of scolding herself that she avoided the tab controlling the
hot water altogether. She liked the coolness and the vibrant stimulation that
it saturated onto her body. In the frothy suds she tried to sculpt the rough
external shapes of the ice sculptures that she and Kato had made during the
snow festivals of Sapporo. With her fingers she traced these suds-sculptures
the way they once were as ice, but the suds only lasted for a moment, a
reminder that time went by like a shell-shocked soldier.
But there was only so much enjoyment that one could have in hell, and one
thought kept pecking like a vulture on the corpse of her brain: was she
cleansing it all away? The semen had gone to the uterus and then into the
oviduct or the fallopian tubes. How would she get it out now that it was there?
Menstruation and those hungry janitor cells called macrophages that were
responsible for dead cell removal would cleanse her of such things in the
course of time. She needed to wait without going out of her wits. This was what
he told herself, and yet still she poured half of a bottle of shampoo onto her
head and body and the rest she poured into her vagina and began to scrub. "If
only," she told herself, "I had a washcloth with that scouring side like those
one gets in a Japanese sento!" Having none, she scrubbed even harder. "Still,"
she said, "this is absurd. Nothing will get it out but natural processes over
the course of time. As repugnant as it is by instinct, it is no more repugnant
than him having grown in me to begin with. I must override instinct with logic.
Stay calm. Stay calm."
But one moment her equilibrium tilted and she found that the control of her
thoughts was slipping away. She thought of her mother braiding her hair when
she was a very young girl, and how Peggy had often taken her out for ice cream.
Were these women so unforgivable, so unreachable now? She just wanted to grab
them by the sleeves and yank them back to her but all had gone to the point of
no return and these situations of estrangement were, she believed, the
unparalleled human tragedy. And then she thought of how, after walking with
Nathaniel through Cornell University and eating ice cream sandwiches with him
one time, she took him to a mall to buy for him clothes that she could not
easily afford. She remembered how during this time she went with him into the
men's bathroom to get him started on his own "Go to urinal 425. It looks
lower." "Urinal 425" he repeated in delight as he read 425 from the wall.
"Lady, what the hell are you doing in a man's bathroom," demanded a uriner.
"Peeing," she told him coldly. "Zip it up, man. Zip it out, Adagio." Was the
boy too so unforgivable, so unreachable now? This sweet lost boy she too wanted
to take by the sleeves and yank back to her but he too had gone to this point
of no return. This estrangement was, she believed, the unparalleled human
tragedy of all unparalleled human tragedies.
At this time she picked up her mobile telephone and dialed Information to get
the number for a rape crisis hotline. However, as she was in the process of
making the call she could not think how mere mortals could guide the more
advanced creature, or perfected mutant, that she was. Assessing that it should
be she who should be giving crisis intervention to the herds it suddenly dawned
on her that working at some type of crisis hotline might be her part-time
vocation for the future. She would only need to pick up a telephone, reflect
feelings the way a calm stream might cast one's reflection, subtly throw in
ideas for them to ponder that would challenge them in new directions according
to her training as a counselor, and guide them to social work agencies and
resources in the community. She would never need to see the faces of fellow
counselors or fellow victims of abuse and madness; and furthermore her thoughts
would not be stymied within the paperwork of regular psychologist-prostitutes
by such a dabbling.
And yet it was an entirely different phone call that she made instead, and
after making it she then asked herself whether she should make another one. She
wondered if she should call the man with the unmemorable name. "No," she
thought. "There are realities that if words are used to describe them people
will sic the men in white coats with their strait jackets on the verbose
culprit." She didn't want her words to be mistaken as a source of mad delusion
as they no doubt would be.
She would just dress herself blandly after a time of soaking in the tub--not
that even hours spent there would make her feel clean unless she controlled her
feelings and willed concluded cleanliness into her thoughts. And after that she
did not know. She sliced off an ice cap of a mountain of soap and it flew
toward her like a garuda. Yes, she told herself, "I will fly on Garuda
Indonesia Airlines and mingle with common people of Jakarta -- paint the world
as it is." But as she thought about it, the subject seemed more of a distant
plan. "Before this I need to sell off this inane property that I have, but that
can't be done in a day. Maybe in the meantime I could go to the industrial
sector of the city and get a job in the new Tyson's tortilla factory stuffing
dough into the machines. They are hiring now. I could blow kisses to men in
hairnets. I've always been curious what these simple folk are like. Maybe their
lives are better. Anyhow, it would provide me with some experiences that I
could sketch. I need to practice sketching for a while and regain my talents,
anyway. Yes, I need to practice before I go off to Jakarta and do it for real.
Oh, and I would need to train someone else to be the slave manager of the shop.
I can't train any one of my employees immediately. It takes time and I would
need to witness them in action before I would ever sign someone over for such a
feat. I can't even go back to work until I recuperate. But no matter what, I
have to live here until I can sell this place off; so to make that bearable
there must be a great conflagration of all things that belonged to that devil.
There should be no reminder of him. Whatever can't burn can go to the Salvation
Army. And about this man with the unmemorable name, if I can't say the name by
this point, that should tell me something. And what good would he be, as a
husband, if I cannot tell him about any of this....well, maybe I can but I
presume that I can't--not to anyone. One is merely married to herself. That's
all there is."
She tore off the loose threads of her washcloth and tied them onto one of her
fingers. Then she loudly asked and proclaimed, "Do you take this woman to be
your lawful wedded wife to have and to hold until dead do you part? I do. And
do you take the same she, yourself, to be your wedded wife to have and to hold
until death do you part? I do! I, by the power vested in me proclaim you and
thee married until death do you part and a little time afterward when not all
cells have come to a cessation" She smiled and puckered her mouth into a kiss
toward her reflection in the mirror. And as she was playing in the suds,
singing the song, "Alone Again Naturally" by the Monkees the doorbell rang. She
got out of the tub, not bothering to take a towel to the frothy suds that were
still on her naked body, and went downstairs. She looked out the window and
then opened the door. The Pizza Hut delivery boy gasped.
He stuttered. "Ah-ah-I am su--supposed to da-da-deliver a pizza."
"Deliver it then," she said. Her eyes were like the coal of a snowman.
"You ha-ha-have to pay for it."
"Is that a fact? Have you always had this stuttering problem?"
"Ma-mu-ma'am, you are na--ked."
"I'm in my own home. Can't I be naked in my own home?"
He took in a deep breath. "Well, most people aren't when they come to the
door."
"Well, I'm not most people. What does it do to you to have to deliver a pizza
to someone not wearing any clothes?"
"It ba-bu-bothers me."
"It bothers you because you are revolted by it or because it excites you?"
"It's exciting."
"But I'm sure that if I were twenty years older it would be revolting to you,
wouldn't it?"
"Uh-uh-I don't know. I suppose so."
"And yet it would be the same body. The same type of replication of cells, just
not as beautifully rendered. Not worth stuttering over. If I were you I would
go to a speech therapist and get that cured.
"Yeah, maybe I will."
"Good. How much is it?"
"Seven dollars. Should I cu-cu-cu-come inside?"
"No one comes inside me, buddy. Wait there." She took her pizza and slammed the
door shut. When she returned to the door she only slid a ten-dollar bill
beneath it and fastened more of the locks.