The Chandelier

  After obtaining the material, in a slump of exhaustion she could lose her desire to make figurines. Then she’d go on living forward like a girl.

  One day however she was feeling her open and thin body and deep down a serenity that couldn’t hold itself back, alternating between not recognizing itself and breathing in joy, things incomplete. She herself sleepless like light — wild, fleeting, empty, but deep down an ardor that was a desire to head toward one thing only, an interest that would make her heart speed up without rhythm . . . suddenly how vague it was to live. All this could pass too, night falling suddenly, the darkness upon the warm day. But sometimes she’d remember the wet clay, run fearful out to the courtyard — plunge her fingers into that mixture, cold, mute, constant as waiting, kneading, kneading, slowly extracting forms. She’d make children, horses, a mother with a child, a mother alone, a girl making things out of clay, a boy at rest, a happy girl, a girl seeing if it would rain, a flower, a comet with a tail sprinkled with washed and sparkling sand, a wilted flower beneath the sun, the cemetery of Upper Marsh, a girl looking . . . Much more, much more. Little shapes that meant nothing but that were in fact mysterious and calm. Sometimes tall like a tall tree, but they weren’t trees, they weren’t anything . . . Sometimes like a little running river, but they weren’t a river, they weren’t anything . . . Sometimes a little object in an almost starry shape but tired like a person. A task that would never end, that was the most beautiful and careful thing she’d ever known: since she could make anything that existed and anything that did not!

  After they were ready the figurines were placed in the sun. Nobody had taught her but she would deposit them in the patches of sun on the ground, patches with neither wind nor heat. The clay would dry gently, keeping its light tone, not wrinkling, not cracking. Even when it was dry it seemed delicate, evanescent, and moist. And she herself could mistake it for the sticky clay. Those little figures seemed quick almost as if about to move. She was looking at the immobile figurine. Out of love or merely going on with the work she’d close her eyes and gather herself into a live and luminous force with the quality of danger and of hope, into a silky power that would run through her body quickly with an urging that was destined for the figure. When at last she let go, her fresh and tired well-being would come because she could send something away though she didn’t know what. - - - maybe. Yes, she sometimes had a taste inside her body, a high and distressing taste that would tremble between power and fatigue — it was a thought like heard sounds, a color in her heart. Before it smoothly dissolved quick in her inner air, forever fleeting, she’d touch an object with her fingers, surrendering. And when she wanted to say something that came subtly, dark, and smooth and that could be dangerous, she’d rest just one finger, a pale, polished, and transparent finger — a trembling finger pointing. In the slenderest and most hurt part of her feeling she would think: I will be happy. In fact she already was in that instant and if instead of thinking “I am happy” she sought out the future that was because she was darkly choosing a forward movement that would serve as a form for her feeling.

  Thus she had gathered a procession of tiny things. They sat almost unnoticed in her bedroom. They were figurines as skinny and tall as she was herself. Detailed, slightly disproportionate, joyful, a bit surprised — sometimes they looked like a lame man laughing! Even her most mellow figures had a watchful immobility like a saint’s. And they’d seem to lean toward whoever was looking at them like saints. Virgínia could stare at them all morning long and her love and her surprise would not decrease.

  “Pretty . . . pretty as a little wet thing!” she’d say surpassing herself in a sweet rush.

  She was watching: even when nicely finished they were rough as if they could still be worked on. But she would vaguely think that neither she nor anybody could try to perfect them without destroying the thread of their birth. It was as if they could only perfect themselves by themselves, if that were possible.

  And the difficulties would arise like a life as it grows. Her figurines, thanks to the light clay, were pale. If she wanted to darken them she couldn’t do it with the help of colors and because of that shortcoming she even learned to give them shadows through their shapes. Then she invented a freedom: with a little dry leaf beneath a thin smudge of clay she achieved a vague coloring, sad and frightened, almost entirely dead. Mixing clay with earth she’d obtain another less plastic material, though more severe and solemn. But how to make the sky? She couldn’t even start. She didn’t want clouds — which she could obtain at least crudely — but the sky, the sky itself, with its inexistence, loose color, lack of color. She discovered that she needed to use lighter materials that couldn’t be so much as touched, felt, perhaps only seen, who knows. She understood that this could be achieved with dyes.

  And sometimes with a crash, as if everything were purifying itself — she’d settle for making a smooth, serene, united surface, in a delicate and tranquil simplicity.

  She also liked to supply herself with stones, stones, and stones and then throw them one by one far, far as an echoless scream. And sometimes she’d just sit with her head down, her eyes squinting until the trembling and confused ground would near her face and lazily back off merging with the heat. In the summer sky a fluttering of wings would rapidly whisper. She was thinking about whether it was worth lifting her head and looking. And when she finally made up her mind, the sky was already hovering clean and blue, without the bird, without expression, eyes barely open. She’d move her head in a slow search. Sleeping, a few dry branches were growing motionless against space, splintered sounds dangling in the air like clouds. In a tenuous awakening she would feel that in that same instant many things were existing beyond the ones she saw. So she made herself firm and subtle wanting to inhale all these things into her center after a brief pause. Nothing was coming, she was looking at things gently gilded with light — without thought she was getting satiated, satiated, satiated like the ever sharper and faster sound of water filling a canister. She would stand and walk, walk until passing through the school from which was sweetly born a smell of children mixed with that of new varnish and bread with butter. Some girl was crying suddenly giving an odd happiness to the air, the teacher’s voice was rising, rising until falling and the whispers would return docile, sniffing. Nearby the new and flavorless houses were lying under the sun exposing their small gardens, shining and poor. A woman was outside speaking to someone inside the house, giving orders. There was little old Cecília, who had told them with goggling eyes, while they’d covered their mouths in order not to laugh: violent death, kids, be careful, both of you will meet violent deaths, as she looked at the dirty and empty palms of their hands. Cecília yelled with a voice that always hovered a tone above her stature — and she’d stand on her toes as if to reach it:

  “How’s Mama . . .? . . .”

  Virgínia straightened her body, in an inspired and free moment, released the answer in a voice as joyful as clothes fluttering on the line:

  “Fine . . . thank you . . .!”

  Old Cecília would wag her thin arm, her head, showing that she’d heard, had heard, a great breeze was shushing everything, carrying far away the murmurs of the place where they’d halted, slipping among the leaves of the trees, making a person stop and smile feeling her skirts, her hair flying coldly. Yes, the impression that some thing was then going ahead. She kept going until leaving behind the houses and the school. She was once again entering open country. As the long walk went on, her waist, her legs, her arms were being reborn lightly, asking for movement. She was running and through her half-closed eyes the green would muddle into a single bright and moving stain, with flashes of flowing water. Until she’d stop tired and panting, holding back her laughter for some reason. She’d look around, there were the thin weeds hiding the nakedness of the ground, the mountain covered by new grass, and near her body a sparkling beetle bending the stalk of a shrub — then, as if something were
missing in all that and she could supply it, she’d cup her hands around her mouth, close her eyes, and her heart beating furiously, scream with strength beyond the mountains:

  “I! . . . Daniel! . . . World! . . . I! . . .”

  The first scream was difficult like a first boldness and was shattering the air in every direction. She was waiting thrilled, her heart hurrying, scared. But then it was the countryside itself that was screaming: “I! . . . Things! . . . Daniel! . . .” She’d stop. What? some quick thought, a spark that flees. She wanted to say and though she didn’t know what, the only reason she didn’t say it was because she didn’t dare. She’d murmur quietly with a deaf violence: arrh, arrh. She’d forget the need to scream and sit on a still-burning rock, waiting for some thing inside herself. Slowly she’d tilt her head back, her eyelids lowered and trembling in a smile, in a shudder as if someone had touched her. Her face would brighten, flower in an almost charmed half-laugh, fluttering atop her skin, almost repugnant, intimate. She’d let herself remain in a calm celebration, gently excited; the confusion made her eyes damp and hesitant like a woman’s. “Ah, so that’s what happened? but I didn’t know . . . Ah, ah, ah . . . As the saying goes, that’s very funny . . . ,” she was rehearsing with a small and affected voice. Thus she’d hover until nothing was happening, her heart slowly cooling, she’d awake disappointed and dry, opening her eyes, hurting them in the violence of the light. She’d peek for an instant, lips open, serious. Little by little, deeply offended, she’d bring her head toward her body and her face would gather in shadows.

  In the winter life would become focused on itself, understanding and intimate. The smell would grow gentler, mud would pacify the countryside. Her voice which was silent for hours sounded hoarse and dull. The air was humid, the things in her bedroom were isolating themselves through the cold and only darkness would melt the furniture. Outside rain was falling without power, without pause. The lowered glass of the window was weakly lit by the sleeping light of the courtyard. Drops were running trembling, sparkling, secret, down the windowpane. But the leaves were letting go of the trees and dragged by the wind thrashing against it with an almost imperceptible whisper. She would have liked to tell or hear a long story made only of words, but Daniel at such times would stay silent and difficult, almost inexistent in the mansion. She’d grow more and more alone, watching the rain. She’d feel purplish and cold inside, in her body a little bird was slowly asphyxiated. But it was so much living that the hours would roll by happy and distant as if already marked by longing. From her wide bed she could make out the ceiling lost in the shadows, the walls fusing in half-light. Only the window was calmly shining, only the wet incessant noise. In the air a pent-up breathing was hovering in the dark like the continuous beating of a butterfly’s wings. She’d turn her back to the window, move slowly in her grandmother’s double bed. The existence of the butterfly kept gasping with its eyes fixed on her. A wind of screams was coming from inside the forest like souls fleeing in despair. It was a mixture of the voices of the owl and of the waters, of the chafing of the leaves, of the last dry cracking before the moisture, all united in the same sharp wild flight, a wind of screams piercing the mansion like a breath. Virgínia would pull the hot and thick bedspread with a slight smell of ash. Underneath it, her body and the narrow space that her body was occupying would become a familiar world. She’d then let fear finally flow, now that she was sheltered. She’d even try not to fall asleep in order to feel everything until everything got along by itself and transformed itself into something else besides fear. In that way she’d miss nothing of the silence of the winter night. The days were of a perfect sadness that ended up overtaking itself and sliding toward a limitless stillness. The branches were bending nervously in the wind, water was flowing quickly and sparkling through the leaves, a push without direction would torture the trees and from the murmur without rhythm was being born like a great fresh wind the hope of loving and living.

  She’d go to the back of the mansion with the old cape over her body. For an instant more she would stop to look at the half brightness of the rain flowing and then go on. She couldn’t see much in front of her, her eyes would bump up against the rain that seemed to rise from the earth in a thick smoke. With a cold face she’d move ahead and something was pungent, high, and indecisive in her heart. She’d part her lips receiving the frozen mist in the warm center of her body. She’d walk pushing off the branches that were heavy with water, painful, trembling. She’d look back and could no longer see the mansion, rain, only rain. Then she’d say out loud in a voice that sounded strange and daring amidst the murmur of the dripping water:

  “I am alone.”

  As if she’d said more than she could she’d bow her head for an instant, scared, happy, wondering. She lifted her wet face and needed to say some thing more than herself, more than everything.

  “I’m alone, I’m alone,” she was repeating like a small rooster singing.

  Then she went back. She’d put on dry clothes, smooth her wet and limp hair, taking care of herself with seriousness. Her image was reflected in the old yellowing mirror among the shadows of the guest room and there she was hesitant and damp like the brightness of a rainy dawn on a travel day. The white face floating above the thick blouse was strange and young, her eyes were hiding in warm light and her lips were breathing calm, innocent. Some thing in her was sweetly shining in the glory of ignorance as in a god with an exposed heart, there was in her existence the afterlife of martyrdom but she hadn’t been martyred, she’d been created many times. She was looking at herself quietly hearing the rain fall in a single canticle. There she was flickering like light slow flames, her shapes in shadow and light animating the mirror.

  “I,” she said to the frozen mirror in a silky and hoarse voice. And her body dissolved with the sound in the dark air of the room.

  The end of the year was approaching, classes were coming to a close and Virgínia was attending the lessons sitting among the truants. The school’s glee club was strained and shaky, Virgínia would sing with squinting eyes without hearing her own voice, her fingers would wander distractedly across the nearby wall. She knew how to fake a concentrated face while checking out in an instant. Sometimes the teacher would join the choir, vigorous, ardent. And sometimes in a fleeting moment that would long ring in the body the voices would join in a full and fast line, in a single vibration, drawn and tense, as if being born from the cave into the light. Virgínia would open her eyes astonished, the instant that followed was new and bristly, she was peering at the world with its smooth surface, the sun more pale and happy, the girls’ dresses with white, red trappings, moist mouths opening, flickering in a breath of light. Sharp as if to surprise all things into confessing that same moment, she would point her head in a second, without prior notice, toward a piece of furniture — toward the inside of the school — toward the students’ feet . . . In the sky, through the window, white clouds were coming undone, running loose from the calm blue. The windowpane isolated itself from the classroom and the courtyard, sparkling with steely light. A cone of brightness was lighting a whirlwind of dusts that were dancing with hallucinatory slowness . . . Virgínia awake in the hurried instant was turning back, lightly in order not to destroy anything, and yes, there was the slate half burning alive under the heat of the sun, half coolly black . . . dead and morose, a lake in the forest. Virgínia was breathing, her face mobile, loose. Without seeing, she could nonetheless surprise the shady field behind the school, the long weeds vibrating nervous and green in the wind. A moment later, in a tiny and silent crash, things were rushing into their true color. The classroom, the sky, the girls, communicated amongst themselves with distances already established, fixed colors and sounds — the unfurling of an oft-rehearsed scene. Virgínia was understanding, disappointed, that everything had been seen years before. In order to distinguish once again what she’d seen and which had now fled as if forever, she was trying to start from the
end of the feeling: she’d open her eyes very wide with surprise. But in vain: she wouldn’t make the same mistake again and would see nothing more than reality. She was drawing back. Now the sheaf of voices was separating into fragile shafts and these were breaking an instant before they reached the center of the sounds; the other things too now were slack and nothing was touching any longer the living point of itself. Virgínia would be quiet for the rest of the afternoon, vague, misty, distant, slightly tired as if something had actually happened. There were days like that, when she’d understand so well and see so much that she’d end up in a gentle and dizzy drunkenness, almost anxious, as if her perceptions without thoughts were dragging her in a shiny and sweet swirl to where, to where.