Paul Theroux - Picture Palace

I tried to reply, but nothing happened. I wasn’t there — my body wasn’t. I had shrunk to a vivid speck suspended in circular time.

— Look at all the pretty pictures . Lengthened voices, ribbons of them repeating ictures, ictures . The conical echo of that room.

— I’ve seen them all before .

— Cookie saved everything. That’s a sign of loneliness .

— Put them away .

— No. There you are. Your white dress. Your hat .

— And you showing off .

— There’s Papa .

— That’s all .

— Wait. Her boogie-men. And this must be Florida .

They were children in danger. I wanted them to stop, to go away, for their own good. But they were stubbornly playing, toying with risk. I thought: The past is not illusion — it is ignorance, it is all needless danger; inaction saves us. But they would not go away. They continued to sift through the trunk of pictures, compelled by their curiosity and the love that made them foolishly bold.

— Oh, God. Look .

In that moment they were lost. The water surrounding me rubbed their moans in my ears.

— How could she?

— It can’t be us .

— It is. I won’t look at it .

— We’ll have to do something .

— Put it away. Pretend we didn’t see it .

— It’s too late. She knows. She always knew .

— Put it back!

— She wanted us to see it .

The speck I inhabited trembled tamely touching bottom.

— We’re sunk .

— I won’t give you up .

— It’s impossible .

— I don’t care if they find out .

— They’ve found out .

— They’ll have to forgive us .

— No. There’s only one way they’ll understand .

— Tell me .

— Don’t make me say it .

A chance current disturbed the ribbed sea-floor and took their voices away. I was still listening, but their voices were gone. Ploop, ploop— a fish tank’s murmur. There was a shadow, time turning blue; day, night; light, dark; the light changed, nothing else did.

— You’re wrong. It’s not a choice. It’s the only thing left .

— But so soon. You!

— Don’t cry .

But they were both crying and I knew that this sea I was lost in and had no hope of leaving was made immense by their tears. In this moonstruck tide I was pushed by their sorrow.

— I can’t live without you. So I’m not afraid to die .

— What they know won’t die .

— I want them to know everything .

— Then we’ll leave the picture and go .

— I’ll go anywhere with you .

— There’s only one place for us. There .

Now a small flare of heat in that ocean of tears, the winking deception of this depth in which nothing solid moved — only the light invading from above and losing itself at this motionless limit. I had died. I knew what they didn’t. But I couldn’t save them. His courage was partly pretense — he had gone too far to deny it. And she who had been quick to love was impatient to die, recklessly believing her passion to be reason enough.

— People kill themselves for less .

— Maybe they only kill themselves for less .

Not even worms lived here. The dust-motes and droplets of color simulated life among the shell splinters, stirred like me in the shallow troughs of the sea bed. Did they know that beneath the erupting waves the sinking light was pulverized to dust and darkness?

— We’ll show them .

And they showed me I deserved this death for my blind treachery. They were whispering, excited, full of plans, setting sail. Soon they were tacking toward the open sea. In all that buffeting they were silent and the voyage out was over before they knew it — too soon. Already he was dragging the sail down, paying out the sea anchor, comforting her as they bobbed madly in the little boat, prolonging the moment.

— Let’s wait till it gets dark .

— Then I won’t be able to see you. I want to hold you. Will it hurt?

— Not if you keep swallowing .

— I’m afraid. I want it to happen, but I’m afraid. Help me .

— I love you .

— Yes, yes .

— What’s wrong?

— I just thought of Maude .

— Poor cookie .

— Poor everyone .

A boom ran through the sea, causing a swell, lifting the boat, tipping it and rattling the lines. The shoreline, lightly penciled on the horizon, was indifferent. Neither earth nor sky mattered. So they kissed, their feet already in the water.

— It’s cold!

— Easy does it .

They slipped through the window of this great silent palace and were happy again paddling upright and awkwardly until they grew tired and leaned back. Gulping, they ducked under and did not begin to struggle until it was too late. They ceased to move their arms or legs.

They fell slowly, wrapped together and dropping like a harmless spider on a strand of tiny bubbles. Though I passed within inches of them — and now I was rising: their dying had released me from the scrub of purification — they did not see me with their white eyes. Not a look, not one more word. They were below me, simplified to a blur, a pool of lowering light. The moment they were lost I broke clean through the surface.

NEW YORK, a wet November evening. I was walking by the museum when I saw the posters, printed on six square feet of the beatific breast-feeding shot, The South Yarmouth Madonna .

MAUDE COFFIN PRATT RETROSPECTIVE FIFTY YEARS

I was out of habit of seeing my name written so large. It stopped me. Passersby were slowing up near the posters to look. I got a kick out of my anonymity, reading over their shoulders and hearing their grunts of approval: know-it-alls boasted to their dates that they knew my work. I lingered long enough to watch some invited people go in to the preview dressed in fancy clothes, animal pelts on their shoulders, diamonds around their necks, gold on their wrists, — wearing their wealth like the rankest trophy-hunting savages. But they were hopeful, squealing in anticipation, with that just-washed look of partygoers. And they were so intent on making a graceful entrance they were unaware that on the sidewalk, in the lights of the museum marquee, I stood with my face hanging out.

I slipped in by the side entrance so that no one would see me; no one did.

The party was in progress on a second-floor landing. To call it a landing was not to do it justice. It had an immense stone rail on one side which overlooked the staircase, and on the other side an entire wall of glass gave a grand view of the garden courtyard with its floodlit mobiles and imprisoned statuary. On the stairs to the landing people were propped, as if they owned the place, and braying.

‘‘I am perfectly capable of finding it myself,” I had said to Frank over the phone, a week before this preview. I looked for him — we had agreed to meet at the show’s entrance — but if he was there I didn’t see him. I assumed he was lost in the same crowd that had swallowed me.

The poster — the one I had seen out front — was plastered on the landing, rising from floor to ceiling, repeating my name and the picture, so big and numerous, was no longer mine. This was someone else’s red-letter day.

“You made it! Aren’t you thrilled?” screamed a woman with an animal pelt on her head. Thinking that she might be addressing me I smiled. Then she walked past me. Oughtists , she said in that New Yorker way to a beaming midget, ought and oughtists .