Kate Zambreno: Green Girl

The pull, the blood, the cry.

The agony of becoming.

I gaze down upon her. She is without form, and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep. Cast in the likeness of her creator. I give birth to an orphan girl.

Now I must name her. Ruth. A hopeful name. No, maybe not Ruth. Perhaps Julie or Kathy. Aah, that’s it. Julie or Kathy. No, no. Ruth. She is a Ruth. She is Ruth.

I can’t see her. I squint, steady: nothing. I cannot resurrect her. Who is this girl?

I look at a Diane Arbus photograph of a young Mia Farrow. Perhaps this is Ruth. My actress. I try to trace her outline. I learn her curves. The slightest bit of flesh caught in between strap and armpit. The shadow of a line down her stomach, like a bisected butterfly. The slim arms and shoulders. The curve of hair arranged around her breast like a question mark. She is a question mark, a mystery, even to herself. The dark triangle her graceful legs make, toes pointed like a dancer’s.

I try to sketch her face, over and over and all I come up with is a furious pencil cloud. She appears. She forms. Yet she is an indistinct blur. She is not fully formed. Dull lines for hair. A furtive little pout. Gray eyes, lead-poisoned. Sad sea eyes. Sometimes an astonishing whirlpool, summer children scampering around the edges, the waters loaded with bodies, bodies, more bodies, their pure velocity forcing through the surface, warding off the evil spirits of change darkening the waters. If only they knew how lovely their proud, brown, hard bodies are, so soon to be trapped inside grave caves of white flesh. Ruth is still lovely as I see her. She is lovely perhaps in her impending decay, like a red rose whose petals are beginning to brown, her last gasp of girlhood. I want her to be young forever. My wonder child, wandering wild.

I am trying to push her out into the world.

The establishing shot.

Train about to depart. Mind the gap. The doors shut like a silencer. Shooosssh. Crowded car. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Ruth remains standing, gripping the metal pole to steady herself. Maybe it’ll miss the tracks next time, she thinks. She imagines her face smashed, unrecognizable. Gone in pieces like a porcelain doll.

The tube jerks about on the tracks, like teeth grating. She jerks with it automatically, seeing through into the next car coiling like a snake. More bodies, bodies, bodies.

She gasps a violent inhale. Eyes warm her. She relaxes her face blank.

She leans forward to check the watch of the man reading a Metro . The silver timepiece rests on a thatch of black. She is going to be late. Eyes will swivel to regard her as she hurries in to work. Eyes will swivel. Eyes will roll. The terrible girls with their bloodless faces. She will not fall into the pits of their cruel eyes. She gazes at four blonde women, their gold wedding rings clicking against the pole, which they clutch as if drowning. They are wearing sandals and knee-length shorts despite the chill. She pretends to ignore them. She basks in feelings of superiority. She is sure they are going to Horrids. She imagines them ooh and aah at the impressive store towering like a giant stone wedding cake, at the doormen in regal green, scurrying through the revolving doors to become ants in the teem and buzz.

The train suddenly lurches. The four women sway and fall forward. All together. Blonde, blonde, blonde, blonde.

Ruth allows the shocks to jolt through her.

They get off with her to transfer to the Piccadilly, Ruth’s face still a cool Noh mask, them chirping, flustered, as they plop gingerly onto the platform. She follows their fat white calves, flaky with dry skin, up the escalator.

Would you like to sample Desire? Ruth smiles at two well-enameled women, their feet shoved into shiny black heels. They glare at her and click past without comment.

Ruth does not depart from her script. Her face smoothes again into her pleasant mask.

Would you like to sample Desire?

An Indian woman walks by Ruth, on each hand twin boys, twin sneakers. She waves Ruth away, as if she was a fly in front of her eyes.

Would you like to sample Desire? She carefully spritzes onto a stick of paper for a bored-looking Italian woman who flaps it underneath the nose of her leather-jacketed husband. Thin red lips almost sunk into her face. He must have to go deep-sea diving for her mouth. She gives back the stick, which Ruth crumples up and thrusts into her apron.

Would you like to sample Desire, ma’am? to an elderly women dressed in bright purple. Bright purple birds nested in gray waves. What’s that you say, dear? It’s so loud in here I can’t hear a thing. She comes up close to Ruth, who repeats herself. No thank you dear, I’m afraid that’s a bit too young for me. Again, that pleasant mask. Ruth resists the urge to grab her arm and press into those spots like bad fruit.

A gaggle of London teenage girls, saucily slung things, delicate limbs belted here, flowing there, stomp up to Ruth. Reeking of youth. Can we have some? they demand. She sprays five sticks for them. They gather around the lead girl to smell hers and receive her validation, which comes after a thorough sniff. S’all right. The girls trot away, waving their sticks under their noses.

The girls slinking up the aisles have a rehearsed quality to them, their purses positioned just so on their shoulders, their eyes downcast yet somehow watchful. They cannot escape this self-awareness. They are playing the role of young girls, girls younger than Ruth. Ruth looks at them and feels old.

I look at all of them and feel ancient. (When did I grow old? When did I learn to survey the world through clear eyes?)

A booming voice. Good morning. One of the haughty Horrids heads. Ruth jumps a little. Deer caught in headlights. Good morning, sir, she articulates carefully. The voice comes out little girl’s. Her accent makes her appear even more childlike and faltering, her hesitation to say things the way they say them, as they train you to do by failing to understand you otherwise.

She is Eliza Doolittle: Good afternoon, good evening, fare-thee-well. Good morning, good evening, how-do-you-do.

A bit late today, were we? He harrumphs. He always wore one of a series of expensive suits that stretched over his large belly. One of her colleagues, a German girl named Natalie, usually signaled his arrival by miming a pregnant woman with one hand stroke. He would be just starting his third trimester. He liked to perform his morning tours around the departments, straightening a perfume bottle here, a purse there, fanning out a wave of managerial intimidation.

Sorry, Ruth murmurs. She is not really there. Not really there. Best to go blank, to retreat inside. Just be sure to see our un-time-li-ness does not occur again, he hmm, hmm, harrumphs, hand on protruding stomach.

Yes — is all that Ruth is able to squeak out before he cuts her off.

And how are our customers enjoying Desire? In the hierarchy of the fragrance department, Ruth is assigned to the lowest caste, that of the celebrity perfume. She is supposed to shill this perfume by an American teenage pop star with the name that makes Ruth feel a bit demoralized every time she says it. The scent is a waft of innocuous rose, housed in an ornate pink ornament laced with silver and crowned with a pastel-purple tassel. She is supposed to hold it like a chalice delivering holy water to the masses.