Thoreau Bound, page 20
Lady Loverly placed her warm hand on my forearm, then smiled to Irene.
“That’s very thoughtful of you, dear child,” she said. “And who do you depend on, Mr. Thoreau?”
Distracted by the roundness of her breasts, I first glanced at Lady Loverly’s hand on my arm, then I looked up into her radiant eyes.
“Right now? For Facts I depend on Prudence. For Truth, I depend on Kosmos. For Goodness, I depend on Irene. And for Beauty, I depend on you, Lady Loverly.”
The eyes of Lady Loverly looked happily surprised. “Be careful how you flatter a woman, Mr. Thoreau. If she disbelieves you, she will think you are a liar. And if she believes you, she will think that you are trying to get something from her. In either case, dear boy, she may fall hopelessly in love with you.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” I asked.
“For the woman it is a catastrophe,” said Lady Loverly, heaving a great sigh. “Unless the man desires to surrender his heart with the same intensity that he desires to conquer her body.”
Kosmos laughed at this exchange. Rather than attempt to interpret the hidden meanings underlying her remarks, I slyly changed the subject.
“How was your trip to Samaria Gorge, Lady Loverly?
She gripped my arm tighter.
“You change the subject so deftly, dear. Actually, the local authorities tried to discourage one-hundred women from hiking while wearing nothing but socks and shoes. They arrested us, but they wouldn’t take us to the station without any clothes. So we all wound up wrapped in the official towels that said: ‘Tourist Police.’ It made a hilarious group photo, but we never completed the hike.”
Prudence was not amused. The Tourist Police had spoiled her outing and she would never forgive them.
“Those dreadful people have no appreciation of the human body! And no sense of humor! None at all!”
Prudence slid her notebook into her handbag. Kosmos stared at her then nodded, then turned to Irene.
“Irene, would you like to have a photograph of Thoreau, and Prudence, and Aphrodite? If you like, you can eat dinner at your mother’s tonight, then visit the widow Yentagabpolis. Borrow that camera I loaned her thirteen years ago.”
Irene, thrilled at this idea, ran outside after she kissed Kosmos on the left cheek, me on the right cheek, Prudence on the forehead, and Lady Loverly on the lips. Kosmos followed her with his eyes, then turned to Lady Loverly and spoke to her slowly, with more than a twinge of anxiousness in his strong voice.
“Beatrice, we need your help,” he began. “Thoreau and I agree that it’s time for Irene to learn some things about — how shall I say it — about how to make the great transition from girlhood to womanhood.”
Raising her eyebrows, Lady Loverly smiled at Kosmos, and continued to stroke my forearm with her hand.
“Are you trying to say,” she began,” that you would like for me, with the utmost of poetic feeling, to instruct the young woman in all aspects of sexuality, including structure and functions of the sex organs, basic activities, evaluating relationships, male psychology and that hot-air balloon known as the male ego, self-defenses physical and emotional, strategies for seduction, enjoying pleasures, reducing perils, and managing exhilarating hopes and crushingly disappointing aftermaths?”
Kosmos nodded. “That would get her off to a good start.”
Playfully, Lady Loverly pinched my cheek.
“Tell me, Kosmos,” she said. “Why don’t you teach her? Or why don’t you ask Irene if she would like to take lovemaking lessons from our good Thoreau?”
Kosmos swallowed more wine as his mind groped for just the right words. As he answered, his arms and hands came alive, waving through the air in front of him, sometimes flying swiftly like two bold eagles, othertimes moving gently like two soft doves.
“Not me, Beatrice,” said Kosmos. “I am too liberated. What’s right for Kosmos is not right for everyone. Teaching by example is the only way to teach. And if I can’t teach her by example, then I can’t teach her at all.”
He pointed to me and wagged his finger.
“And as for Thoreau, he’s a good man, but he’s not the right one for the job. Sexwise, he is too inhibited. Too restrained. Too ethical. He needs to learn how to loosen up, how to cut the rope that binds him to his oldfashioned ideas. The sex problem is ripping him in two. His conscience pulls him West, his desires pull him East. A most dangerous crisis in a young man’s life: too old to like his conscience, and too young to trust his desires. Thoreau thirsts for freedom, but he knows he’s not quite ready for the necessary responsibility that leads the free man from the gutter to the stars. He’s so close to Paradise he can reach out and touch it: but because he does not dare to seize it, that Paradise could be a billion miles away. All because he does not dare!”
Lady Loverly smiled at these revelations, staring at me all the while, as if she were trying to determine which, if any, of these penetrating words were true.
“Perhaps, Kosmos, you underestimate our remarkable Thoreau,” said Lady Loverly. “His heart is in the right place, he’s gentle to women and children, and he’s thoroughly sincere. And that’s all he needs to make his way, through oceans and deserts and starry nights, and all the traps we wily women lay.”
Beatrice smiled brightly, like the sun and all her sister stars.
“In any case,” she said, “of course I will be pleased to accept this tremendous task of teaching your daughter the incomparable arts of love. I have time to begin later tonight, if Irene is willing.”
Kosmos clapped his hands together and breathed a loud sigh of relief.
“She will be willing,” he said. “Thank you, Beatrice. Thank you.”
Prudence, who had all-the-while been humming to herself, now pointed to the image on the wall that had divided her attention.
“Hopefully more willing than that satyr in the painting,” she said.
Lady Loverly cocked her head as her eyes opened at an embarrassing discovery. Her comely face flushed red.
“Look, Prue! Doesn’t the satyr in the painting resemble our handsome Thoreau! ... No, I am mistaken, it can’t be him at all. If it were Thoreau, then we would see the entire forest of nymphs tugging at him, not merely four.”
At these remarks, Prudence and Loverly exploded into fits of giggles, falling into each others arms as they laughed and laughed. Kosmos stood up, circled the table, slapped my shoulder, then led me into the kitchen.
“Come on, Thoreau, it’s getting hot in here. Help me with the soup.”
Kosmos swirled the kitchen knife like a Samurai warrior, and side-by-side we chopped bulbs of garlic then dropped the pungent slices into the simmering soup. He sang for a few moments, glanced at me, then decided to unburden himself of secrets so weighty he could no longer carry them alone.
“Thoreau, there are some things about you that I can’t understand at all! You’ve hardly looked at her all evening. What a knockout that woman is! She’s driving me insane! I can’t keep my eyes off her! Imagine what a Raphael would do with a woman like that! Sensuous. Savage. Uninhibited. Beneath that calm mountainous exterior, a volcano ready at any moment to erupt. My pistachios are trembling like two eggs rolling around inside a pot of boiling water. If I don’t go to bed with her tonight, I’m going to explode. I’ll have to find a sheep, do the job seven times with the woolly beast, and wake up the whole neighborhood with squeals and bleats. Go back and join them, Thoreau. I can finish here ... Thoreau?”
“Kosmos?”
“I was joking about the sheep. Where could I find a sheep at this time in the evening? ... But I was serious about everything else.”
The roguish saint Kosmos was on fire once again. He danced back into the dining room, carrying a tray with breads, cheeses, and steaming bowls of his special garlic soup. As he served us he danced around the table, singing wildly, like a man en route to the bedroom of his mistress for a night of indescribable love. An improvised song burst from the lips of Kosmos, as he placed the first bowl in front of Lady Loverly.
“There was a lad loved by a lass,
O troll-dee roll-dee ray-o!
But he was such a stupid ass — ”
A bowl of soup from the hand of Kosmos was slammed down onto the table in front of me.
“With her he would not play-ay-o,
With her he would not play-o.”
It was hard to tell which essence aired more powerfully: the scent of steamy insinuations or the aroma from the spicy garlic soup.
“What’s that tune, Kosmos?” I asked.
“It’s an old English folk ballad, Mr. Thoreau,” said Lady Loverly. “Sing more for us, Kosmos.”
Kosmos nodded and sang on.
“The just-filled gods cut off his rod
And flung it to the tay-ay-ble — ”
Here and now, onto the center of the table, Kosmos placed his great creation: a two-foot tall sculpture of a phallus. It had been shaped from a heap of taramosálata— a paté of smoked cod’s roe blended with garlic, lemon juice, cold water and olive oil.
“I call this work of art,” said Kosmos, ‘A Prick of Remorse.’”
The women laughed riotously.
“Was Thoreau your model for this masterpiece?” Loverly inquired. “And if yes, who was the fortunate woman who helped him to pose with such poise?”
Kosmos answered with a smile and then continued his song.
“And now the lad eats hay and nods
Inside a donkey’s stay-ay-ble.
Inside a donkey’s stay-ble.”
“Kosmos,” I said. “You can’t leave us hanging like this. I hope there’s a happy ending to this song.”
“There is, Thoreau,” Kosmos said. “But only for those who are free.”
And more he sang.
“Another lass so fair came by — ”
Here, Kosmos placed a plate of Greek hors d’oeuvres onto the table in front of Prudence.
“Another lad so trim — ”
Now he set down a plate of savory delicacies in front of the place where he would be sitting.
“He merely winked his smiling eye
And down she lay with him — troll-dee-ray-hee!
And down-own she lay-ay with him.”
We applauded the song as Kosmos filled three goblets with the thick Cretan wine — and one goblet, mine, with thick Cretan apple cider. He raised his glass.
“First,” said Kosmos, “let us give some drops of this drink to the gods who have blessed us with freedom and friendship and health.”
We all followed Kosmos’s example as he spilled a few droplets of drink from his goblet into a wooden bowl.
“Drink with us, O gods. And be quick about it, or else I’ll forget about you, and guzzle it all down myself!”
Kosmos placed his arm around my shoulder.
“And now,” the great seducer continued, “let us praise Lady Loverly and Prudence. The halls of Olympus darkened when these two beauties flew to Earth, to brighten our table with their burning charms.”
The women laughed, and their laughter encouraged the man, who had learned from his heroic Greek ancestors to be a lyre with two strings: to be a doer of deeds, and a speaker of words.
“Tonight I speak with your voices, O Muses wise! Don’t wait for paradise: live and work to make a paradise out of the muck on earth. Don’t search for truth: listen to your heart. Don’t fret about goodness: treat each living being tenderly. Don’t circle the globe for imagined beauty: reach out and touch the real beauteous globes that are here at hand.”
Lady Loverly and Prudence applauded this double entente, then filled their plates with food. With wine flowing, women laughing, food on the table — that looked like it had walked out of a cookbook specializing in aphrodisiac delights — the room was beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable for an eligible young man.
Kosmos sensed my uneasiness. Compassionately, he looked at me.
“Is there something wrong, Thoreau?”
“I’m not homophobic, Kosmos,” I said. “But I’m having trouble eating with that phallus standing on the table four inches from my nose. For me, sex is something private. An activity that a man and woman share together with the hearts open but the doors closed. When I’m in bed with a woman I don’t want to eat pie, and when I’m eating dinner I don’t want to look up at a giant penis.”
Kosmos laughed and slapped his hand onto the heavy table.
“You see? Once again, the cold hand of conscience wraps itself around the hot phallus of desire. Which one is stronger? Does the hand freeze the phallus, or does the phallus burn the hand? ... Thoreau, I promise you one thing. If I take away this taramosálata sculpture, it won’t stop you from thinking about sex. So tell me, my troubled friend — what solution to this problem do you propose? I make you a gift of this mouth-watering appetizer, to do with whatever you please.”
All creativity comes in two basic flavors: seeing something new, or seeing something ordinary in a new way. Six lips were smiling and six eyes were watching me as I stood up.
“A Greek legend, Kosmos, says that the first drinking cup was molded on the breast of Helen of Troy. And if a cup can be molded on a breast, then versa vice.”
I drank the cider in my goblet, turned it upside-down, then pressed this goblet on top of the taromosálata penis, transforming its shape into a woman’s breast.
“Bravo, Thoreau!” shouted Kosmos, clapping his hands. “You make me laugh like no man has made me laugh before!”
He refilled all the glasses then raised his own.
“May every meal we eat be blessed by beautiful and cheerful company like this. And may we wolf down everything in front of us, and laugh like lions roaring, because when Aphrodite on Olympus hears laughter and sees good appetites, she sends Eros to shoot us full of arrows, and make us wild with love.”
A table overflowing with splendid things to eat is not the place for shyness. For the next minutes I forgot the friends around me and dove headfirst into the sea of food. Prudence cupped her hand and whispered into the ear of Lady Loverly.
“Look at that poor starved young American!” she said. “He hasn’t had a good meal in as long as I haven’t had a good male.”
Lady Loverly tapped my shoulder.
“Mr. Thoreau ... Mr. Thoreau. I apologize for interrupting your feeding session at the climax of its unbridled frenzy. But dear boy, mere quantity will never satisfy you. Yin and yang desire to merge harmoniously, in every individual, in every relationship, and in every belly. You must have a balanced meal. Shall we share this succulent dessert? ... Don’t be shy, dearest, you won’t be expelled from Paradise if you consume my fruit.”
She split a pomegranate in half, then placed one half into her mouth and the other half into mine. I chewed the seeds and sucked the tart red juice.
“The apple and the pomegranate are the two fruits of paradise and love,” she said. “The names of the paradises in Greek and Arthurian mythology — Elysium and Avalon — both mean ‘apple land’. At the other end, Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, could not be released from that hell because she ate pomegranate seeds, symbols of both fertility and death. ... Mr. Thoreau, when you were a little boy did any little girl ever place a buttercup flower beneath your chin, pretending to determine if you liked butter?”
“My chin turned yellow every time,” I said.
“There’s a similar superstition about pomegranates,” she said. And with a mellifluous mezzo-soprano voice the woman sang:
“If his tongue is turning red, then he wants your burning bed!”
The man-savvy woman grasped my bottom lip. “Stick out your tongue, Thoreau,” she said, “and show the world how much you desire me.”
The tongue outstuck was colored so deep red-purple from the pomegranate seeds, that Kosmos and the women laughed like they would never cease.
Lady Loverly carried my hand to her lips and kissed it gently.
“Mr. Thoreau, I’m so sorry! Your poor embarrassed face is redder than your tongue! You look like a hero in a Greek tragedy, mocked by irony, plagued by prophecies, berated by the chorus, then clobbered by the cudgel of a stunning discovery about his dubious life in the past. Whatever it is, dear one, you can lighten the burden by sharing it with your friends. Wholehearted self-discolosure is the first steep step to free yourself from the fatuous fingers of the Fates.”
“I want to confess something, Lady Loverly,” I said, “because a pound of honesty today saves a ton of heartbreak tomorrow.”
“Go ahead, Thoreau,” she said. “Pound me with your honesty. And call me Beatrice, please.”
Still red-faced and burning with embarrassment, I looked at her bright face.
“Lady Loverly ... Beatrice ... Since the day we met at the Meteora, I imagined that you were a perfect woman, and I have been searching for you all over Crete.”
“Is that all?” said Kosmos. “That’s what made your face redder than my best wine? Tell us something more embarrassing than that, Thoreau!”
“Kosmos,” said Lady Loverly, “let the dear boy idolize me if he wishes to make that mistake. Don’t we all believe in perfect love? The Italian poet Dante met his Beatrice when he was only nine years old. He didn’t see her for another nine years after that, and from that moment until she died he exchanged with her hardly a dozen words. With nothing more than those brief encounters, he loved her so devotedly that he gave the remainder of his life to making poems that glorified her goodness. Her glance made him a poet, and his words made her immortal. And no powers in the world can transform persons in that way, except the magic of all-embracing Love.”
The warm consoling arm of Lady Loverly fell lightly around my shoulders.
“And now that poor Thoreau has bared his soul and confessed his secret passion, he needs our unconditional approval and support.”
Lady Loverly hugged me, pressing the side of my head against her gleaming breasts. Kosmos, his face red with envy, glanced at Prudence, then glared back at me, then stood up.
“Young Werther,” said Kosmos, with a twist of irritation in his voice. “I mean, young Thoreau. Tear yourself away from paradise and help me with the coffee.”
