The Write Thing

My last week in Houston for now. Leaving Friday for the Buenos Aires chaos so familiar to me. On my last Sunday in this city I decided that another visit to Galveston was a good idea. Galveston is the nearest port to Houston, and a small town very much in the American fashion. It looks highly conservative, as I imagine Cape Cod to be. There is not a hint of the Austin bravado, with naked gay parades and the like. No, sir. Galveston is prim and proper, a lady in a fake New Orleans dress.

Today I headed for Harborside Drive, on the other side of the sea, right at the tip of the island. I had a good lunch at Willie G’s Seafood and Steakhouse (well, I must finally face the good old days of fancy French restaurants may be over — at least for a while), and walked around the other side of town, closer to The Strand, right in the heart of the city. I saw a sign that read “antique books” right before me. That combination of words would be enough to draw me into the worst of suburbs in any city, or put me at risk of being kidnapped by guerrilla soldiers. No need here, where security standards differ highly from those I was forced to come to terms with in Bogota a week ago. As I walked enthusiastically to meet the lovely end of the corridor in the galleria that housed the store (imagine a Gallerie Vivienne, in pastel colors but with a touch of TGI Friday’s), I paused before the dark, spacious premises. The shop was closed. The sign declaring bankruptcy was slightly ambiguous. I think it read:

Antique books are out of business. Please ask for a key at shop number 2 if you are interested in buying books

Shop number 2 seemed on the verge of meeting a similar death, in the hands of capitalism gone sour. I should read this as a symbol of the decline of the American Empire, much in line with the death of Ancient Rome. Or else, I can simplify the issue, be less dramatic, and simply say that books are out of business in Galveston….Gumbo anyone?

So I heard it again. I had promised myself I would not let that language reach me too deep. I would phase it out slowly, confine it to a corner where it would no longer upset me. I would leave it for the inevitable conversations with Paris colleagues and, even then, I would let the Saxons take over if it was possible. But it happened. The other night. The voice pestered me two nights in a row, right when I was trying to fall asleep and accommodate to the compulsory early morning rise the next day. Lying in bed, my eyes focused on their flickering pre-REM effort, I heard her. She was clear, her French was tuned so that I would not have to question the accuracy of verbs or conjugations. I calmed her down, moved over to the other side of the bed, and invited her to lie beside me, in silence. She did.

The next night, she forced me out of my worked-up slumbering endeavor, furious with me and insistent on the manifesto she wanted me to put on virtual paper. I agreed. There would be no escaping her. I had to get up, put on the hotel bathrobe, and sit at the ample desk to write her statement onto a clean Word document. Mind you, this is just a voice. I have no means of fighting her, or perhaps I no longer want to. Perhaps it is time, the great leveler. Aging makes you face some of your choices more boldly.

I have always wanted to keep French at a distance. Deliberately, as if the language, once it had taken over my Zelig-like self, would annihilate me, empty me of the animal English identity I have always treasured. Now it seems both coexist musically, blurring each others’ borders until I have to think hard to tell the difference (and cornering their Torquemada descendant into a lingua franca precariousness).

Here it is, the voice. I will let her speak for herself.

Reviens-moi. Comme la première fois, inévitable, toi et personne. C’est vrai, le vide m’accablait autrefois, quand je ne connaissais pas la puissance de mon être. Maintenant les extases maitrisées, la vie ordonnée comme un jeu de cartes auquel on triche très bien, je suis prête au nouveau défi de toi. Viens plus près de moi, lance-toi à ma conquête, comme si je n’avais jamais été acquise, et donne-moi la preuve que rien n’a changé. Je t’attends, même avant que tu ne sois partie. J’ai traversé les rivières, j’ai porté mes chaînes et m’en suis libérée pour être prête à jouir avec toi et pas derrière. Encore une ou plusieurs fois, je veux t’entendre gémir au dessous de mon corps, je veux sentir ta peau s’élargir à ma touche, un univers nouveau se générer entre deux esprits qui ont toujours dessiné leurs propres visages. Laisse-moi me perdre dans la mer de ta bouche, l’immensité de notre propre création, le calme de notre ancienne connaissance. Ne t’inquiète pas pour moi. Je saurai me retrouver à la fin, quand tu commenceras à fuir. J’ai déjà surmonté l’espoir de toi. N’hésite pas, il n’y a rien à craindre. Reviens-moi.

T and I started this game after our first meeting in Buenos Aires last month, which failed to produce an expected one night stand that we will never know how it would have been (ah, the cruelty of third conditionals! They can only keep us thinking). It turned out to be that, despite the fact that one of us got rebuffed in her propositioning the only night we met, we kept on talking, especially as I was supposed to be in America for quite a while. She gave me her cell phone number, and I gave her mine in the US. However, we continued a nice email exchange in the meantime. We would talk on the phone once a week or so, and would have fun with our conversations (I know I should not be saying this, but I am really charming…Woolfian rules! . One day she was about to ask me something a little too intimate, and she did not dare. I encouraged her, to no avail. Therefore, I thought she could ask her questions by email and provide a multiple choice set of answers to choose from. She laughed at this, but was enticed by the idea.

I was particularly intrigued by the fact that she has an identical twin who is also gay. Therefore, I shot first in the realm of questions. The following is a sample of the first multiple choice between us:

Would you ask your sister to “validate” someone you are dating in some physical way, just to be totally convinced that your girlfriend is right for you?

a) No, because my sister and I have different taste in women
b) Yes, because it’s always important to have a second opinion, and my sister’s taste is better than mine.
c) No, she will always ask me to validate her women, but I kiss too well and then her girlfriends want to keep on dating me.
d) None of the above, and you are a twisted person, W!

Oh yes, I am a twisted person, but just think of the possibilities that having an identical twin could provide! And, by the way, you call me twisted but…aren’t you dying to know what she answered?