John Hawkes - The Blood Oranges

“Cyril,” she whispered, “Cyril …”

Her free hand gripped the back of my head, she held my head exactly where she wanted it and nuzzled my face and stared at me with her eyes that were like dying doves. With all the care I could summon I rested my right hand on the wrist of the hand that was driven so beautifully into the tight blue pit of the open slacks. Slowly I propelled my own hand down until it very nearly covered hers, and for a moment I thought that even Fiona had become insensible beneath the pressure of her hand and mine. But then it became evident that Fiona, my ageless tree, was still willowy, rational, self-possessed, and I was proud of her. Because now with considerable strength and slow determination, she began to inch her hand from under mine.

“Wait, baby. Wait a minute. Meredith isn’t watching us again, is she? I don’t want her watching us through the cypresses. OK?”

“Of course she’s not watching us,”I whispered, though I knew that Fiona did not intend me to turn now and study the dark green wall of cypresses for the little flashing white signs of Meredith’s face. I merely answered Fiona’s question as she wanted me to and pressed on.

Fiona’s hand came loose, my own impossibly large weathered hand was stuffed once more inside my wife’s unzippered pants.

“Baby … oh baby …

I forced my hand down and suddenly, as if to achieve nothing less than absolute display of her presence of mind, Fiona tilted up her pelvic area to meet me, and in my wet palm I held her eagerness and felt the center of her life beneath the brief pattern of hair like sandy down. On my part it took some presence of mind, finally, to disengage my hand, pull down her sky-blue pants, toss them aside with my own white marble shorts among all the bright orange marguerites.

And later, much later, both nude, she on her stomach on the flimsy rattan settee and I seated on the ground with knees drawn up and cigarette lighted and heavy shoulders drifting to the slow massage of her strong hand: “Why can’t they all be like you, baby? Why?”

THEY HAVE GIVEN HER RABBITS. YESTERDAY I FOUND CATHerine not wrapped in her blanket on the silent balcony as usual but rather sitting on her heels before the cage of rabbits. It was the moment of transformation, the beginning of Catherine’s cure, the first hopeful sign of metamorphosis cast in the powdery blue light from the reflecting tiles. My guide, the small fat woman in dark blue apron and wooden sandals, led me to the balcony and pointed at the blanket, the empty makeshift lounging chair. Her little round face and upraised pudgy arm were bright with unconcealed pleasure, as she watched my own responses to the obvious fact that something had changed in Catherine’s life and mine. Then she pointed in a different direction, beckoned me on to a fragment of whitewashed walls, warm cobblestones, empty sky, the low cage raised on a slight altar of stones and pink succulents. Again the matron pointed and of course I knew before looking that the large woman sitting on her heels and peering without sound into the rabbits’ cage was Catherine.

She was unaware of the little fat woman and myself now standing side by side behind her, was obviously unaware of her own dark jersey and faded maroon-colored shorts and the strand of hair hanging from the bun she had fastened indifferently at the back of her head. She was resting with her hands on her bare knees and leaning heavily forward into the darkness of the wooden cage and sweet smell of the shadowy rabbits. The jersey, I noticed, had pulled loose from the elasticized waistband of the cotton shorts, and in a sudden return of poignancy I found my consciousness brimming with the sight of this brief once familiar strip of nakedness.

I smiled, thinking of my now ruined bicycle, my hot climbs to the sanctuary, my playful smoke rings and patient monologues, all the ingredients of my timeless fidelity which had accomplished nothing, after all, had not moved Catherine to a single word or even to tears. But thanks to what I could only assume to be the sudden emergence of primitive intuition in the little fat untutored woman at my side, and to the curative powers of two large sable-colored rabbits, now Catherine was kneeling with open eyes and heavy girlish concentration and was slowly reaching toward the rusty hook on the little door of the cage. The life I had failed to arouse was now being restored by two soft mindless animals and a woman who was perhaps unfamiliar with even the crespi fagag alternative in her own language. The cure was obvious, I told myself, since for certain temperaments the presence of gentle animals is magical. Yet I my-self could not have thought of it. I watched Catherine’s fingers touch the hook, heard the twitching and chewing sounds of the rabbits.

Yes, I thought, Catherine’s large amber eyes must now be meeting the fearless but vulnerable eyes of one of the rabbits. Catherine lifted her upper body away from the naked heels, waited a moment, and unhooked the sagging wire-covered door of the cage and swung it open. Her arms were moving, a rip in the side of the maroon-colored shorts still betrayed some small long-forgotten carelessness, the jersey rose another few inches on her bare back, the sudden new smell from the cage might have burst from the slit belly of a golden faun brought down by a loving archer.

I felt the tugging at my sleeve and saw the large docile rabbit in Catherine’s arms. The sable-colored head was on her shoulder, one of the long soft ears was brushing against her neck. I nodded and retreated silently without disturbing this brief portion of my old tapestry that would now undulate forever, I thought, with gentle yet indestructible life.

Had she known I was there? Had she in fact cradled in her arms the warm trusting rabbit for my benefit as well as her own? Might she have heard my breathing, seen my shadow, and busied herself with these simple mysteries for the sake of the large perspiring middle-aged man who was the only lover she had ever known? The plain shorts, the kneeling position, the silken animals — were these fresh omens, the unmistakable signs that Catherine had finally changed her mind and retracted her vow of speechlessness? Yes, I thought, unmistakable. And striding down the caramel-colored hillside path with its purple rocks and white streaks of dust, and far below, the vista of the slick dark village and empty sea, walking more quickly and hearing my own hot dusty footfalls, the heavy irregular sounds of my lonely but powerful descent, at that moment I knew at last that it was only a question of time and that my final visit to the sanctuary was drawing near. If Catherine had begun her metamorphosis and could play with the rabbits, she could also return to my villa among the funeral cypresses and share with me the still music of what I had already come to think of as our condition of sexless matrimony.

After that, who knows?

TWILIGHT WAS ALWAYS MY FAVORITE HOUR, AND SO IT remains. At twilight I stroll, I smoke, I hum to myself, I inspect my lemon trees which are at their peak of bearing, and inspect my arbor thick now with hanging tendrils of grapes no larger than small warts or the heads of pins, mere intimations of all the bunches of fat clear green grapes to come. I stroll among my trees and under the arbor and then say good night to Rosella and sink into the darkness, sleep alone. And my nights are never sleepless. My concentration is quiet and slow paced, after all, and filled with purpose. My large hand never shakes. The headless god? Perhaps. I eat my lemons as other men eat oranges. In my slow mouth the lemon pulled by Rosella from one of my twisted trees and thoughtfully sliced by me with my faded gold-plated pocketknife is sweet. I think, I chew, I suck my cheeks. My mouth hardly puckers. I sleep in peace.