Artemis Artemis graced me with abundant verdure the days when I celebrated glorious, free ancient spring charms ravines with oleanders deep chasms filled with the song of Eros a meaning as easy to decipher as kissing the soft mound of a woman time of the vernal equinox truth, no less important than my sexual arousal deep in moist caves where my mind always ran what I always wanted innocent shivering lip of the virgin just before a kiss like the other side of the sky where something hides as close as in my soul like a wishing fountain full of coins dreams that appeared before the end of a day’s toil another martyr another sacrifice another blessing
…unimaginable—slipped like a cold draft between the ancient walls, disturbing the settled kingdom of silence scented with incense, centuries- old furniture, glue and leather-bound books, and reached us, first-year theology students, whom the authorities had ordered—for the first time in the country’s history—to report for shortened military service. Standing there, looking at one another in confusion, with bitterness thickening inside us, we felt that a new will, a new blind and impersonal force, was sliding into our lives. We packed. Then each of us set out for home by bus, train, whatever he could find, so that the next day he could report to the draft board corresponding to his place of residence. There we underwent the examinations. Naked, we had to stand before the officers seated at a long table and the military doctor, who declared every recruit fit for service. Afterwards, hundreds of young men lined up in the courtyard, waiting for their names to be called and for the slip of paper to be placed into their hands, before setting off toward the station with their wooden suitcases under the supervision of a corporal. I was sent to Sfântu Gheorghe. The barracks we entered resembled nothing I had known before. There was no sense of home within it, but neither was there outright cruelty—something even worse filled the place: walls built out of a peculiar indifference, a world in which suffering was not punishment, but a natural condition. The company assembled from Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant seminarians seemed like some grotesque metaphor, as though the many stories, ideas and hopes hidden behind different religions had all been stripped bare at once, only to freeze together into a single common experience: subjugation. Among the officers there were some who treated the whole thing as an amusing game; for others it seemed almost a ceremonial duty to show us—those who spoke about God, prayed to Him, followed His commandments—what it was like when not heaven commanded, but they did. And we, who until then had believed the suffering of the body to be only temporary, now discovered that the suffering of the soul was far slower, far more insidious and enduring.
This time, like no other, I think of you lonely soul, stranger passerby. Friends and lovers were around you (am I right or your eyes were saddened?)
Not even one lover or a friend who in an hour such as this hour would shake your hand. (Can I protect your legacy from the false fame?)
No one stood close to you, no one was there even one you might dare call your friend your Fate’s provocation, your shriek in the silent loneliness that scares you.
Hideously alone, with the chiton of your dream permanently ripped you marched to a famous country that vanished in the deep heart of infinity
“It may arrive in time for Christmas. Santa Claus will bring it to you.” Caitlin straightened her body in the bed. Michael pulled back the clothes and looked at her almost flat stomach. “You can’t see anything yet.” “Not for a while,” Caitlin said, straining her eyes and neck to look at her belly. “But it’s there all right. I’ve been awfully sick, Michael.” Michael kissed her and softly, almost reverently, caressed her stomach. “I can hardly believe it. Isn’t it strange, Caitlin? We’ve been making love for five or six years and once we decide to get married you become pregnant.” “That should make you happy and more at ease,” Caitlin said. “Why?” Michael asked. “It’s a good sign. It’s a gift from God to let us know there’s no curse on our marriage. It’s been blessed in heaven.” “That’s nice,” Michael said. Caitlin held up her arms. Michael lowered his head to her breast, and she clasped him round the neck. “I love you, Michael,” she murmured between kisses. “I love you so very, very much.” She stroked his back and buttocks as he lay half across her with his chin on her shoulder and his cheek held tightly to hers. “What’s wrong, Michael? Don’t you want to? On our wedding night?” Michael did not move. His voice came muffled from the pillow: “I can’t.” “Why?” Caitlin asked. “I don’t know,” he replied helplessly. “It’s just that … Well, I keep thinking there’s a baby in there. My son. Perhaps even a daughter. A little living thing.” “But it’s been there for weeks now,” Caitlin argued. “Yes, but now I know it’s there. That makes a difference.” “No it doesn’t. Or it shouldn’t.” Caitlin smiled. “But it’s perfectly all right, Michael. It can’t come to any harm. It’s protected like a seed in an apple.” “But it’s not a seed in an apple; it’s a live human being with eyes and hands and heart and brain.” “Michael, don’t be silly. Come on. It’s all right, I tell you. Make love to me, tonight above all nights.” “It wouldn’t work, Caitlin. I just can’t do it.” Caitlin lay still in disappointment. Then she smiled and stroked Michael’s back. “Don’t worry, Michael. It’s all right. I won’t force you.” Michael rolled over on to his back.
Eteocles’s pocket is full of stones and on his back he carries a hunter’s bag with food for later. Anthony carries an empty hunter’s bag for what they might get today. In ten minutes they are away from the houses and under the protection of the olive trees. Here the morning sounds are different: muffled echoes from the rustle of the breeze in the tree branches and cries of the occasional startled bird as it flies from the trees or the osier bushes they pass here and there. The morning star is slowly fading and the first rays of sunlight are not far off now. Irma plunges into the thickets of osiers or bunches of cane fields trying to spring a rabbit from these property dividers that make a good hiding place for rabbits. Anthony loads his shotgun and nods to Eteocles to be vigilant and to watch the dog closely. They both know that, when Irma gets agitated and wags her tail, these are the signs that a rabbit is close. Eteocles stops and Anthony moves forward ten steps, enough to give him the openness of the field in case he has to shoot. A few minutes later Irma begins wagging her tail excitedly. Anthony encourages her with a familiar call, “Eheheheheh…Irma…” and the eager dog intensifies her search around an osier bush when, suddenly, a rabbit is spooked and dashes out of the bush to Anthony’s left. He follows the animal for a second or two with the barrel of the gun and then fires. The rabbit seems to jump in the air before falling on the ground dead. A delighted Irma runs and grabs the animal in her jaws, then brings it back to her master and proudly stands in front of him with the limp body in her teeth. Anthony takes the rabbit out of the dog’s mouth and weighs it in his hand. It’s still small, a yearling, but a good start to the day nevertheless. They already have their first catch and it isn’t even full daylight yet. Excited with this early success, they carry on walking among the olive trees. the light rustle of the leaves and the chirping of the awakening birds create a natural symphony conducted by an invisible maestro. Eteocles tunes his ears to the avian arias, eager to identify one close enough to try a shot.
Confession My confession was simple: Father, I said, I’ve sinned guilt of the universe sits heavy on my chest forgive me that I passionately loved the bloomed hyacinth and the flight swings of swallows yet my greatest sins my unmeasured love for the child’s laughter and for the beggars standing with extended hands filled with good wishes. My confession was simple: Father, I said, I’ve sinned Straight to the Purgatory the priest opined
(Perhaps we, hidden as we were, looked to find our bearings: the direction of where behind the mountains behind the clouds was George’s sheepfold surrounded by tree branches, and George, so young, surrounded by a great circular loneliness. Would his hands remain as strong, as unquestioned during such a rain?) The last flies swirled around the rooms, as if drugged almost dead like tiny inkwells full of black ink that fell off the shelf of a childish disease; a passing troupe performed in the big café of the upper neighbourhood; the troupe also included two midgets. Children had great fun; they felt that they had suddenly grown; they could now look deep in the water well or to climb up to the attic and scare away the small geckos and cockroaches. Ribbons, tied on the hair of the girls, became alive, pinned the hair behind the ears of the girls, their necks leaving their faces clear, powerful like steel (those kids of another era, of the upper or the lower neighbourhood?)
August Your sign under the grapevine and the heatwave of August sweat under your armpits the body’s salt taste of the world as the thought of winter comes like a perennial thief to erase the heat off your forehead and off the wings of the sparrow that suddenly started chasing the cicada which quite unexpectedly performs strange mid-air configurations just to avoid the sparrow’s beak enough to manage to reproduce the new generation of cicadas and you took my hand, together to help the cicada in its task
– Ed wins again, someone hissed, he dies. – Ladies and gentlemen, O’Donnell began, reaching inside the oil can . . . Members crossed fingers and nibbled hangnails. They squeezed crosses, mouthed prayers, stroked lucky charms. – The winner of the Spring Festival draw this year is . . . My friend says it was so quiet inside Ed’s garage that night you could hear air escaping a radial. For the winner of the Dodge Car Club draw the experience was everything the previous attendees had said it would be. Five leggy beauties piled into the vehicle for the languorous cruise along the parade route. Miss Brake & Muffler was instantly besotted with the club’s appreciative representative. Later that same evening, the smoke from the barbecue pits dissipating, the last notes from the bandstand fading, the couple took a spin up Little Mountain. There, under a draping laurel vine, the beauty queen shared with the lucky draw winner the qualities that had earned her that esteemed title. Alas, it was the club’s final involvement with the festival. Ed’s garage, encouraged by the cumulative efforts of termites, flopped over on its side one gusty afternoon. Adulthood beckoning, the membership soon disbanded. Because he didn’t know what else to do, Ed applied to the military. Because its brass couldn’t convince anyone else to sign up, he was accepted. As for the Dodge, the central character in this story, it vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. I didn’t see much of O’Donnell afterwards. Sgt. McManus retired to a place not unlike the lake of his imaginings. On torpid summer afternoons, his rowboat drifting in the afternoon breeze, he often wondered about that car and the ruffians who deified it. McManus went on to an old folks’ home and then a grave without learning more. Years later a police museum was built at the rear of the station house. A call went out for exhibits. McManus’s widow was invited to submit items of interest. She donated her late husband’s many citations, his oft-used hickory stick and, because he always wrote everything down at the end of each shift, his logbooks. They hadn’t been opened in decades.
