The Laboratory of Love, page 24
Careful, I tell myself.
Watch out, danger warns.
For several days after this near encounter, I stayed away from his hiding place. Allowed time to erase any inkling he might have of me; reformulated the correct equation between hunter and prey. From belief that my mental waves had the power to carry across the city and blemish the innocence of his air, I eschewed even fantasies of him. Denied myself the pleasure of conjuring his image into this shabby room, deep inside the Macarena’s twisting maze, which suffices as my base of operation here. Refrained from musing upon the fact that when revealed to me—finally, after forever, at long last—his face failed to inspire the intense emotion that might have been expected. How I have not dwelled on shape of lips, colour of eyes; how neither architecture of bone nor features’ arrangement dictate my waking dreams. His whole canvas is my concern, I realize with the force of renewed revelation, gazing into the pearled flame of a candle at rest on my dark room’s desk. Yes, the entire expanse of his skin waits to receive my gift. Yes, the potential of this flesh exposed itself five days after happening on him, when I spied his naked surface still sheened by the shower, a flash and gleam through his dim domain. In the courtyard where I watched, this sight caused my left hand to clench and unclench; my fingers curled with desire to wield the instrument that would exact my art. With satisfaction, I noted that his skin has not been tainted by tattoos; only several scars from injury and faint lines of age decorate this breathing paper in a way that does not decrease its usefulness but renders it precious and unique.
On the day after my first visit in the night, certain of its success, I reward myself with contemplation of his alarmed waking. How he finds that a candle blown out before bed burns unaccountably at dawn. A door believed to have been bolted stands unlocked. He searches for explanation of these ciphers, wonders whether they result from falling upon the pallet in an unsettled state of mind the night before. Had writing in the notebook been especially disturbing? Some aspect of those words provoked preoccupation to the point that the candle was left illuminated, the door carelessly unlocked? Then he discovers that his notebook was violated in the darkness. Neither burning candle nor unfastened door is a result of his oversight, he understands now. No. While he was sleeping, an intruder withdrew the bolt, lit the wick, placed hieroglyphics upon a page. Who? He bends over my precisely presented symbols, seeks to decipher them. His lips move in an attempt to solve mystery by shaping it. Abruptly, he rises from the desk and crosses the room with three strides. Flings open the shutters, peers into the patio, bangs slatted wood shut again.
A knock interrupts my contemplation. Without waiting for an invitation, the pension’s owner opens the door. Señora X, I baptized the woman upon arriving here. My lack of luggage roused suspicion since heightened by an extended stay. When I find myself compelled to speak my plan out loud, to air what otherwise curls silently inside me, Señora X listens from the passage beyond. She investigates the room during my brief absences. Returning, I check that her inquisitive hands have not unearthed from hiding the tools that will be vital to my love’s articulation.
“You had a visitor last night,” says Señora X today.
Is there a knowing look in her eyes?
A sly expression as she adds that no message was left for me?
I am unable to summon back my former sense of his reaction to my visit. Can only muse vaguely whether he manages to dismiss evidence of an intruder as some quirk of the night. Has he found a way to resume his labour as if nothing alarming has occurred? Does he bend over the notebook, move pen rapidly across page after page? Continue to write in a script I cannot read? Create meaning I cannot understand?
I blame Señora X for destroying my seemingly clairvoyant vision of my lover. For keeping me from further insight into his current condition, from what would aid my effort to accomplish the second stage of possession with maximum efficiency. For distracting me with what must be a mistaken message. No one knows I inhabit this city. Except for fleeting strangers in the night, my whereabouts have been secret since my search for him began.
Later, I will doubt this conviction.
I will wonder: Did he not awaken alarmed after my first visit because he wasn’t sleeping during it?
A sufficient amount of inviolate time must be allowed to pass after my inaugural intrusion. He has to be lulled into believing that the incident was nothing more than a freakish phenomenon; it is essential he regain a sense of safety in order for my next manoeuvre to be made without detection. Perhaps he wonders, during these dozen days, whether isolation has started to play pranks upon his mind. I have heard him mumble monologues in his vacant room. I have seen him stride the confined space in circles that grow increasingly tight until they leave him turning in place like an unsteady top. So well known to myself, these responses to solitude make me smile. I almost wish circumstances allowed me to share further strategies to survive seclusion, to defeat invasion. Certainly his measures of security are painfully ineffectual. Before bed, he checks and rechecks the door to ensure it has been locked; in the middle of night, his eyes open to divine whether a candle burns. Perhaps he measures the wand of wax at morning to satisfy himself its length has not been reduced by flame that flickered while he slept unaware. Peers at the pen to judge if ink has drained from it during darkness.
I run subjunctive scenarios through my mind, edit them in various order; splice them in a special way, study the flow of images in sensual slow motion.
Hold breath while Señora X haunts the hallway, play dead as she listens for informing noise to cement her apprehension.
My fingers itch. My skin burns.
During my second trespass on his sphere, he seems to sleep more deeply.
Lighting the candle and settling at the desk, I wonder if he has resorted to drugging himself before bed to encourage unconsciousness during a time of special strain. Is his breathing unusually heavy, suspiciously laboured? What I find in the notebook cancels out the question.
My page of hieroglyphics has been removed.
I glance into surrounding shadow, seek sight of a crumpled paper ball. Regard him with irritation; from frustration, sigh. The first night’s work must be recreated; a primary step repeated. I am no nearer to approaching my real objective. With perfect memory, upon a fresh page, I trace hieroglyphics; surprisingly, they are more difficult to replicate than to originate. Too weary to proceed with my undertaking when this restoration has been completed, I am only able to examine his text.
Is his handwriting more legible because more familiar?
Am I almost able to understand one word here, half a phrase there?
Bird, I murmur to myself.
Wing knows flight.
Startling me, the candle spits.
I have risen from the desk to stand above the open notebook. Viewed from greater distance, his words seem to assume a collective shape, swim into some significant whole. My eyes blink, tear. I rip his last page of text from the notebook, stuff it in a pocket. The sound causes him to sigh and then stir; it pulls the prayers of insomniac nuns through stone wall, through my defence against desire. I bend over him. Touch his left shoulder, feel his bare skin. Allow my caress to linger long enough for its warmth to penetrate his dreams.
Steal past the burning candle, feather its flame in passing. Slip out into the hollow courtyard and look at the spread of sky two storeys above. A quarter moon carves a crescent upon squared darkness, influences me to leave his door ajar behind my back.
“He came looking for you again last night.”
I close the door against the gleaming eyes of Señora X. Did she place ironic emphasis on the first word of her message? My mind fumbles with the question, fails to arrive at an answer; it feels clouded and dull this morning, as though impaired by excessive narcotics during the night. As I consider then reject asking Señora X to describe my visitor, I become aware that my left shoulder burns. The sensation is sufficiently strong to urge examination in the speckled mirror. Adequately intense that a reflection of unmarked flesh evokes surprise.
I inspect the page of text abducted from his notebook, speculate whether he simultaneously studies the leaf my hand adorned last night. Hope dwindles then dies that familiarity with his script might abet understanding of it: with protracted appraisal, his words cling more stubbornly to concealed meaning; nor does significance leap from their whole when the page is viewed from greater distance. A disquieting notion nudges my mind: could what I assumed to be words be a variety of hieroglyphics instead? Does he possess his own symbolic language? It has been placed into the notebook as an initial step of some operation involving me?
I hold the sheet of paper to the mirror, hope its contents decode when reflected in reverse. Drop the disappointing page upon the bed, watch it flutter downward like a broken wing, feel my body imitate the fall.
When I wake, the room is dark. I try to determine time by aural evidence. Sounds in the street beyond suggest late evening. I have slept too long on this crucial night; hours invaluable to the execution of my plan are lost. A panicked spring from bed rustles the page upon which my head has been dreaming, whispers words into the dark.
Only the bird knows the wing.
Switch on electricity, shake the non sequitur from my mind.
Does a scent of wax infiltrate the air?
Is the candle on my desk shorter than when I blew out its flame?
Less ink engorges the adjacent pen?
My left shoulder shoots with sharpened pain, as though pounded by fists during sleep?
From their hiding place, I collect the trio of tools that will be necessary tonight. My reflection in the mirror freezes me. Moist sleep has transferred a paper pillow’s ink onto my face, patterned it with blue. Smudged tribal markings; enigmatic tattoos. An unknown owner’s brand. I lean over the corner sink, scrub with soap and water. Re-inspect my image, assure myself its muted marks would be discernible only to a knowing glance. For example, that of Señora X. Her eyes narrow then widen as I rush by, as I fall into the demanding night.
Several things are different.
The candle burns upon his desk in anticipation of my return.
It illuminates that he has retired to the pallet fully clothed.
I smile at his vain attempt to equip himself to spring from bed upon feeling my touch, to pursue me without the delay of dressing. The vial in my pocket whispers a promise to vanquish his measure with its vapour. I touch the other pocket’s softer shape, confirm that it scabbards a third tool. With satisfaction, note that my replicated hieroglyphics remain intact within the notebook.
Now these perfect signs and symbols may be copied upon his skin.
At last he will be branded permanently as mine.
My left hand twitches with excitement, removes the scalpel from its sheath, tests the sharpness of the blade.
Wait.
Something is wrong.
Does he lie too silently upon the pallet? Does he breathe at all?
In response to my uncertainty, prayer from next door once more penetrates the wall. This time it swims sickeningly around me. Sacred words chloroform the air before I can unscrew the vial and drench the handkerchief and press upon him the state of oblivion that will permit my artistry to be inflicted.
He has feigned sleep during each of my intrusions?
Dervish shadows whirl, the candle quivers crazily.
A sly smile curves his lips?
Song swells, air blurs, desk tilts. The notebook slides into my hands. I gather that a page of hieroglyphics has been added after mine. Flipping between the two sheets, I quickly become confused and panic from inability to distinguish his symbols from my own. Hymn rises rapturously around me, pollutes my perfect memory, renders both sets of shapes equally unfathomable.
I swiftly sketch new symbols, consume as many as twenty notebook pages, pray for significance to lift from them. Approaching dawn pressures me to work with haste, which puts in jeopardy several decades of judicious preparation. It is clear that inadequate hours remain to realize my dream tonight. It is obvious that no future opportunity for fulfillment will be afforded.
This is your last chance, chants the cresting choir.
Dropping the pen, I am aghast to confront only senseless scribble still.
I turn to his text with hope that meaning will emerge from it in fair compensation for vanishing from mine. I have always trusted in the purity of balanced equations. I have always worshipped the god of immaculate logic: his skin is blank so my hieroglyphics may adorn it; my blade is sharp so his surface can receive it. At this critical moment, when I need him most, my theoretic deity proves fickle, offers unacceptable equations.
My search for him has been precisely proportionate to his for me.
His flight from me has possessed the same value as mine from him.
I must abort my mission. I must adjust the plan. I must reverse an equation.
From the notebook, I rip pages that exactly number those left behind. Cunningly, he resists reacting to the tear of paper; a smirk still freezes his lips. When I reach down to shake his shoulder, he coldly continues to play dead. My prodding releases scent that rises around me, insinuating.
It is time to end a stalemated charade. Time to allow him reciprocal opportunity to realize our love. Time to flee a chant-filled room with twenty pages of his text in one hand, the scalpel in the other. To leave the door open wide behind my back. To invite him to pursue, find, possess.
Shining cobblestones evidence the effort of street cleaners who, late each night, when the pavement has been deserted by a sleeping population, unleash hoses and brooms to purify the city for another soiling day. My darting steps leave dry impressions upon a rough, damp surface; he has a distinct trail to follow. At the brief block’s end, the barrio church looms in darkness. Laughing lightly, still believing in the beauty of algebra, I slip toward the building. My talent to escape easily equals his to capture. Hasn’t his hunger for my skin been successfully outwitted for just as long as I have been driven by similar desire?
I spread twenty unnumbered pages across my bed, position them several ways, arrange them again. Love enlightens me when the correct order has been found, when the right moment has arrived. His hieroglyphics do not themselves receive my scrutiny. Their meaning has never been relevant to our purpose, sharply informs the scalpel’s unsheathed blade.
It gleams upon the desk, insists on being exploited.
Here, now, at once.
A bucket clangs significantly beyond the door. When I returned here at dawn, Señora X asked when I would be leaving. Today? She posed the word less as a question than as a command.
Despite the pressure of time and the scalpel’s impatience, I don’t begin my work at once. I wish to savour this occasion; the right to relish each sacred second has surely been earned by now. Allow me to appreciate that this ceremony has been fated from the start. Let me feel his spirit with me, however far away his form may stray. Give me grace to guide him as he wanders lost within the distant barrio where I left him before morning; inspire me to sustain his stumble through tangled streets, which teem with forlorn gypsies and edgy addicts and scores of bodies for sale. Pity that he walked more and more slowly while darkness died; less and less certainly as hope of finding me waned. Bereft of bearings, he still hesitates on every corner, blindly searches thin boys awaiting buyers in each bodega doorway, attempts to incarnate one forlorn figure into me.
We don’t need him to begin, whispered a scalpel in one hand.
All you require is us, twenty pages murmured in the other.
Walk away, advised my pocket’s vial.
He can’t find you unless he loses you, reminded my aphoristic god.
I left him then; I leave him now.
Move nakedly toward the beckoning blade, grasp its power in my hand, poise above the instructive bed.
Carve his cryptic shapes into the canvas of my skin. Slowly, carefully, precisely. No margin for error exists; no possibility to reconsider. This surface is limited to a single use; it is as precious as unique. My throbbing shoulder distracts me from fully feeling the scalpel; fresh pain encourages alertness, preserves attention. I discover how to slice skin for greatest effect: deeply enough to create an indelible impression, shallowly enough to discourage blood from muddying a beautiful design. I am ecstatic at my successful manipulation of this equation. Enthralled by the power of art. Elated that an incisive inscription of my torso has splattered a minimum of crimson drops on the blueprints scattered across the bed.
For a single pulse, his hieroglyphics release meaning: what my eyes could not interpret sings clearly from my skin.
Only the bird knows the wing.
The knob of my locked door rattles.
Only the wing knows flight.
“When are you going?” Señora X inquires impatiently from the hall.
“Soon,” I shout.
She coughs in annoyance, moves heavily away.
Her interruption has cancelled comprehension. Never mind. The significance of his symbols lies beyond the sphere of my concern. Their presentation upon my skin is only for his understanding eyes.
For them to see his desire for me spelled out as it has never been before.
From the beginning this has been the hallowed plan; it receives lustration now.
In an urbanización at the far side of the city, where he has ended up, his head suddenly lifts. His nostrils quiver, detect the perfume of my plasma, draw him to its source.
The room descends into dimness, plummets into cold. I am reluctant to switch on electric light, to subject my exquisite art to harsh glare. A shaking hand lights the candle on the desk, seeks sustenance from the flame. Now his symbols must be peered at from an inch away so I may copy them onto my skin. The mirror is required to engrave my face. There, ink marks faintly visible from last night aid a delicate phase of operation, instruct the scalpel where to carve. My effort proves less than satisfactory. By now my left arm aches; its muscles twitch, complain. This key area of flesh should have received attention first. The scalpel grows heavy, my hand trembles, there is a bad gash in my right cheek. I reach for the handkerchief beside the vial on the desk. Dab blood that insists on flowing, that won’t cease. My pulse pounds more rapidly; my manipulation of the scalpel turns panicked. A dozen separate sites spurt.
