Letter: January 26 - Blue Flowers

My darling,

Each time I close the envelope, passing my tongue along the edge of the envelope, it feels so ancient. Have I already told you I get nostalgic for an envelope that is closed with saliva, something so intimate, a secretion, a final signature? Now I think it might be the only reason for these letters, not the words, not what I say to you, what I make up, what I hide and everything else I might have said to you, not the words, but only the saliva and tongue sliding over the envelope and the taste that remains for a long time afterward. Just that, I now think. So I say: This is the penultimate letter I shall write you. A farewell? Perhaps. Something completely new, anyway.

The last day. We came back from the rental place and you were silent, then later I was wandering around the house in my pearl necklace. Then I was sitting in front of you, in a chair in front of you, my eyes red, my makeup smudged, the straps of my tank top falling off my shoulders, my hair loose, the way you liked it, remember? I wore those sandals with the really high heels, the pearl necklace, my legs on display; I was thinking about something that would make you smile and suffer, but you weren’t suffering. You were there the whole time, sitting on the sofa with a glass of vodka, or maybe it was a glass of whiskey, or of water, I don’t know, transformed into something distant, unknown. I didn’t know what to say, how to act. And I thought: say something, go sit beside you and take your hand, a casual caress and all would be well, everything would be working again. I sought you out, but your eyes reproached me, and however close I came, there was no way to reach you. And what there was, was this: you sitting on the sofa, the silence spreading and a look in your eyes. I could hear my breathing, the noise of my breathing and the effort in that improvised cadence.

That was how we stayed, you in silence and me breathing—for long minutes the only noise was me breathing. Until my moment of courage: not a full step toward you, but just an attempt, just an infinitesimal movement, an imperceptible suggestion of my approach. At a moment of courage, an imperceptible suggestion, and your immediate response. For the first time that afternoon, you looked me in the eye, a dry look, of hatred? Of rage? How was that possible? You looked at me and said, your voice harsh, your voice changed: Stand up and take off your clothes. An order, remember? Sitting on the sofa, you ordered: Stand up and take off your clothes. Just that: Stand up and take off your clothes. I didn’t move, looking at you, my eyes darting away every moment, as though looking at you were a transgression, an arrogance. I was afraid, for the first time, I really was afraid, not like in the morning, not like on the street, your fingers digging into my arm, but a different kind of fear, something much sharper, much more intense.

I stayed there, unmoving, thinking, Why did I go on, why didn’t I do anything, why didn’t I send you away, or laugh, or shout, or run off. It was as though there were something holding me, as if some voice, some power were holding me and keeping me on that chair, caught, unmoving. For how long? Minutes, hours? Until those same words once again, the same order, and perhaps a forewarning, a threat: Stand up and take off your clothes. How much time had passed, I wonder, before that repetition. Your voice sounded so strange. Tears ran down my face, again, my crying didn’t move you, again, but now it was different, now everything was different, even my tears were not so much actual crying, just a prolonged agitation. I felt you looking at me from far away, and with each movement, each detail, the words kept on echoing: Stand up and take off your clothes. My eyes darted away. Your voice hoarse and low, your voice changed. And the whole strength of your absence, of your distance.

I stood up slowly, pushed the chair to one side, so that I remained where I was, and began to take off my clothes. Not with the languor with which you undress for a lover, but as though it were cold and your body was drawing back. My clothes added up to no more than the underwear, the tank top, the sandals with the very high heels and the pearl necklace. I took the top off first, black, tight, the straps falling off my shoulders, did I tell you that already? I moved extremely slowly, and my fingers got all tangled up.

Sometimes I looked over at you, trying to identify what you wanted. But you stayed there, sitting there, unmoving. Looking at me not as a lover sitting across from a woman undressing, but as though someone very heavily clothed were exposing a naked body on a cold day, a naked body to the icy wind, a naked body in the snow.

I took off the top and stood there, unmoving, for a few moments, feeling my breasts as they moved with my breathing, my breasts revealed themselves sensitive and unsettled, decorated with the pearl necklace. I thought that my breasts had never been as naked as they were at that moment, there, in front of you. But there was nothing in your look at all. I was shivering. I stood there, in front of you, the sandals, the underwear, the pearl necklace. My whole body alert. Now you didn’t take your eyes off me. Were you angry? I thought, What if it was all just rage? All that was left. Your silence during the day, since we got back from the rental place, since the movie we didn’t watch and that character or actor who was so like you, the whole day. And now, this rage, this hatred?

I was standing there, almost naked. You sat on the sofa with your glass of vodka or whiskey, distant, and your voice ordered again: Take everything off, you said, take everything off. You said. But not with expectation or desire, as one might say those words to a half-naked woman, the expectation of the final piece of clothing removed. No. Rather more cutting, more distant. Take everything off, you said. And so I removed the pearl necklace, and as I took off the pearl necklace, it was as though I were losing an important, essential piece, an amulet that would protect and save me, from you, from me, from us. I put it carefully down on the floor, next to me. I was giving up an amulet, a sign, an omen. You sat there saying nothing. I would never say anything again.

Then I took off my underwear slowly, my fingers getting confused. I took off my underwear and left the sandals, the ones with the really high heels, the ones whose straps were tight on my feet, pain spreading up my legs. Now that I come to think about it, I didn’t take off the sandals, I didn’t take them off and you didn’t ask me to. I could have taken them off, I should have, and avoided the extreme nakedness that was a naked body balancing on something unsteady, that uncomfortable position, the straps tight on my feet. A sense of fragility reared up and showed itself. At last, it showed itself.

And when you said, Take everything off, you weren’t referring to the sandals, I knew that, and strangely, I obeyed that unspoken order. I could have taken them off, but I didn’t, and the underwear ended up as the final piece to go, the one that was left, the underwear thrown down beside me, next to the pearl necklace and the top, a composition on the living room floor, a lure among the floorboards.

I closed my eyes and felt my naked body, my breathing, the rhythm of my breathing giving my body away, and I felt your existence, aggravated. I think now: Being naked wasn’t merely not wearing any clothes, being naked was much more arduous, being naked was above all a confrontation, a battle. The nakedness of someone who disposes of an amulet, the nakedness bestowed on me by the high heels, the nakedness bestowed on me by your look, and also the nakedness that brushed against your clothed body, sitting there on the sofa. And I thought that nakedness faced with a clothed body is an unreasonable kind of encounter, an extreme gesture.

Turn to face the other way, you said. The arrogance in your voice. When I turned to face the other way, that was the most intense part, the summit. The height of doubt, of surrender, the height of nakedness, but the highest height was yet to come, we know that, don’t we? And I obeyed, once again, I obeyed. And as I turned away, the fear that was new became an ancient fear, my back turned, blind. I would never see you again, I thought, my back was turned and you could do anything: a knife in my back, a gunshot in my back or even just walk away. I was afraid of your staying; I was afraid of your leaving.

I could turn around at any moment, that constant possibility of freedom, but you knew, didn’t you? You sat there, on the sofa, in the distance. And I felt from that distance, your eyes running over my body, your rough, insistent caress. Hours, minutes, on my naked back. My hips. The outlines of my legs. The inside of my legs. Could I be beautiful enough to be like that, naked like that? Could I be strong enough? Could I be coarse enough? Or was it merely fear that kept me like that, as though captive, as though quarry?

Walk over to the table, you said. Remember? The table was right in front of me, the dining table with a jug of flowers on it, a jug of blue flowers. And it was as if I’d forgotten how to walk, moving slowly, one step after another, like somebody taking their first steps, the uncertain steps of a doll, the simple mechanism of a doll. Everything about me was new. And so, naked, I approached the table and the flowers and their jug with the uncertain steps of a doll, until I had come very close, as close as I could, feeling the wood on the skin of my belly, my thigh. I stood there looking at the blue flowers, blue flowers, I didn’t remember having bought them, at the same time there was something so familiar about them, I thought, as my belly felt the caress of the table, and you: a knife, a dagger, some sharp thing in my back.

And then the moment came. Your voice in the distance, your voice changed, your voice commanded me to bend over, you were now only this, an order. My body on the table. My torso stretched out on the table, arms behind me. As if they were tied up, though they weren’t. The wood, the jug of flowers. That bending over the table was something that demanded perfect surrender, I thought, and there, surrendered, untouchable, what would we say afterward? When I turned and we faced each other again. I could refuse, my naked body, blind, fragile, tottering on my high heels, I could refuse, but no, I obeyed, and bent over, and felt my breasts adjusting themselves to the wood and to the temperature of the wood, and rested the right side of my face on it carefully, as though I were listening to the sounds of an internal organ, an organ I did not know.

At that moment I still had some hope that you would stop, that you would laugh and say it was all a lie, all a joke, had been all along, ever since the rental place and the movie and the actor, all of it, since breakfast, since everything, a joke, a whim. I still hoped you’d call to me, stroke my face, your words soft and disarmed, a truce, an embrace. And I would be happy, relieved, my head on your chest; I’d tell you that it’s okay, it doesn’t matter.

But no, your silence continued, my nakedness exposed on the table. Because we always wait right up until the last minute. The imperceptible movement that was you getting up from the sofa, and I felt your body and the heat of your body approaching, and I was a radar, an antenna catching every movement, every outline. And you kept approaching, closer and closer, and I could feel the muffled sound of your bare feet on the wooden floor. Your bare feet. And you said nothing, and I had lost the nerve to ask, I’d never ask again, I thought, my hand never again seeking out yours, any absence, your name, and somebody waving from the other side. My hand seeking out yours.

But I remained where I was, I could have run, but I didn’t run, and that was your greatest triumph. Me, lying there, naked on the table, looking at the jug of blue flowers; I was able to run at any moment but I didn’t run, not ever.

Behind me, your presence, your breathing. At first, only your fingers were around my neck, heavy and at the same time gentle, as though the whole thing was no more than a lapse, a random act, almost a caress. Then straight after this, do you remember? I wonder if you also sometimes recall this, on a walk, in a meeting or for no reason, just with the passing of time, this memory comes back, because it does keep coming back. Straight afterward, do you remember? Your impossibility. Which had never happened before, that impossibility of yours, you who had exposed me, secret, closed off. Something prevented you, just as desire, just as rage, just as hatred, or the impulse for desire or hatred prevented you, however much you insisted, however much you wanted it, your body refused. At each attempt, your body refused. Or maybe the refusal was mine, that smile, could I have been smiling? Could I be smiling, you thought, mocking this setback of yours, this defeat of yours, with a shy happiness. Our small battle. Me smiling and you standing there, behind me, behind my bent-over body, my secret body, like an altar, like a prayer, silently repeating your name again and again, at every moment. But isn’t that just what battles are like? Lost battles. Your greatest defeat. You stood there, unable to take possession of what was yours, offered up to you like that, open, servile.

And then, do you remember? I wonder if you, too, sometimes recall this on a walk, in a meeting, or perhaps for no reason, just with the passing of time, this memory comes back, always comes back. Do you remember what came next? Afterward, when there is nothing left to say? Do you remember? I do. Your desire and its strategies were finally taking shape. Remember? A knife, a dagger, your flesh tearing mine, at last, do you remember? I do. Your flesh tearing mine. Like a weapon. And the tearing of my skin, the most intimate and exposed of my skin. Do you remember? I do.

And I thought, How was that possible, that violence and that fascination, that invasion and that distance. How was it possible? And I gripped hold of the vase of blue flowers as though it, too, were gripping on to someone, but there was only us.

You were holding on to me hard, angry, and from up there, you were looking down at me, thinking me fragile, too fragile, too gentle, too thin, my narrow shoulders, my narrow hips, and the feeling of my being so intimate to you and also now unknown, something lost to you, how was that possible, you thought. Something that should be only yours, you thought, only yours, even if only quick and fleeting in your hands, my neck, which you could squeeze if you wanted to, and the other hand, which you could open, if you wanted to, and my silence, which you could prolong if you wanted to, and the tears you could provoke, and you did want to. An ancient desire, kept secret, hidden away, an act of revenge, something to make me smile or suffer. Because finally you had lost your fear, for the first time, things no longer half finished, something to make me smile or suffer, even if there was something in me that dissipated and died away. Someplace within me, someplace there was you, now, within me; something that was yours, only yours, something that belonged to you; your hands, the delicate border separating us, because that is what love should be, you thought, that’s the only thing love could be, an ecstasy, a rapture and one body inside another body, undoing it in an impossible symmetry, you thought, that’s the only thing love could be, this conquest, this capture, since now all that was mine was yours, my waiting, my fear and all the joy and all the amazement, and even the words I didn’t say were yours, and you thought that this is what love should be when you lose your fear, and there is nothing else that can hurt you, nothing else that can escape you, now that you’re capable of anything, now that my disorder is wrapped around you, wound around you. Because ultimately our strength and our weakness and the obsessions and the distance is a line that connects us, as though you had created a shortcut, a bridge, between us, and said again and again, endlessly, that what you wanted was yours now, because that’s what love is; when at last we lose our fear, the fear that paralyzes us, the fear that holds us back, we become capable of the most beautiful, the most amazing things, like loving and building a bridge across to another body, and you thought that this should be love after the war and the defeat and the fear, love, that bond that unites us and destroys us, and you thought, that’s what love should be, stretching a bridge out and crossing it and destroying it behind you, so that on the other side, in the other body, there’s the discovery of something that nothing but pain can appease.

But pain, you thought, pain would never be enough to appease the pain; you gripped hold of me, angry, furious, feeling me getting away, feeling the distance between us, and you held me tight and shouted, your hands surrounding me, that pain, that pain would never be enough to appease the pain, and the desire for something that would make me smile or suffer, something in me, in you, now we are even, this impossible symmetry, my desire yours, my space yours, my defeat yours, our truce, our battles, and you thought that this is what love should be, and realized, frightened, clinging to me, to something within me, that this is what love should be, while on the other side, way over there, out there, I could feel, I could feel, your hand opening, like a rose, like a bud, your hand opening, and hear you exhausted saying that love, that love could never be enough to appease love. To appease love, I heard you say, to appease love, way over there, out there, to appease love, I went on, and when you finished, wanting, thinking, when the desire and the confrontation and the enchantment finally dissipated, when everything finally dissipated and died away, and you moved away, shaking. Frightened? Repentant?

When it was finally all over, and you were covered in secretions and aromas from the inside of another body, my body was bent over the table, open, defeated. You moved away secretly, silently, and left that body there, the enveloping body, the receptacle body. An empty body, there, on the table, gripping on to a vase of blue flowers that wasn’t itself gripping on to anything at all.

A.