Giannina Braschi - United States of Banana

I had tried to convince Tess to leave before but she insisted on going up to the penthouse. And when we came down to the lobby — I realized I had no shoes on. So, we went back to my apartment, got my shoes and my manuscripts, and came down again. To the lobby. By then the building was rumbling — smoke everywhere — dogs running — doormen crying — mothers with baby strollers. My neighbor passed me her dog. And the handyman broke open the first-aid cabinet and gave out masks. Outside it was snowing debris. We couldn’t see where we were going. We ran toward the strobe lights of a patrol car — and knocked on the window:

— How do we get to the other side?

— On a prayer.

— Which way do we go?

— Choose your own destiny.

We headed south toward Clinton Castle, past the Chapel of Elizabeth Seton, the home of the first American saint and the birthplace of one of my masters whose bust is in the wall with the inscription:

— Here was born Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick .

On the shores of Battery Park I saw a boat, and the captain was Charon sailing us through the waterways of Acheron — Tess was Virgil — and these were the waters that would lead us through hell. The captain announced the destination:

— Liberty Island!

At that moment, I held my neighbor’s dog tight to my soul, reminding me of my own long-lost Scottie, Dulcinea — and looking back at the black clouds of Manhattan — the smell of Dulci’s hair, greasy and soothing — I breathed deeply, that is where my inspiration comes from — from those white breasts — two breasts leaking — two towers falling — and the clouds keep hanging on — hanging on — and I feel the pressure of the hanging, that can hang me from a rope — tie me in knots — drive me into a toil — it is the hanging of expectation — of not knowing when or how — because I know not how it will fall, with fire, with choler, with water, or with death.

Isaw a beautiful daguerreotype of a poet, in a shop window, dressed as a Harlequin. I am not sure if it was Baudelaire or Artaud. It had the eyes of Baudelaire and the nose and the mouth of Artaud. What are my masters doing in the window of A La Vieille Russie? I entered and to my surprise behind the counter was Vasily Vasilyich Gurevich, the owner of the most exquisite optik in New York, between Madison and Park Avenue, on 61st Street. From him I had acquired a collection of antique glasses from Russia, France, and China.

— Gurevich, what are you doing here? Business must be going well. Congratulations! Now you have two of the finest boutiques.

— Braschi, not really, I had to close my optik.

— Oh, no, my optik.

— The economy, Braschi. After September 11, I didn’t sell a pair of glasses in three months. If it’s not made in the USA, it doesn’t move. How could I pay the rent? I had to close the business and get a job here. Look at this cabinet. I have these glasses that were from my optik. Try these on.

— No, what I love here is the installation. The theatrical experience.

It’s not only the glasses, it is where you hang them. From the eye socket of a skull, that is optik unique.

— Braschi, if I tell you it belonged to Sarah Bernhardt, would you believe it?

— The glasses?

— The skull. Look here, at the inscription on the back:

— Squelette, qu’as-tu fait de l’ame.

It was a gift from Victor Hugo to Sarah Bernhardt. And she used this skull as her prop in her legendary production of Hamlet.

— You know, Vasily Vasilyich Gurevich, the British criticized Bernhardt because the skull was too white and clean — and it was not believable that this white skull could have been under the earth for more than 23 years. And she looked at the skull with adoration when she should have dropped it with disgust following the stage directions. What a mentality, I tell you! Of course she was fascinated. To see her future condensed in her past. Because the beauty of contemplating a skull — is that when you look at it — it is the moment when the past and the future unite in the present. Only in a skull do you see what you were and what you will be. I tell you, when my friends heard about the collapse — some of them smiled and wished me dead so they could relate more closely to the tragedy. I hate telling my story to these splinters who don’t understand — and they don’t care to understand — all they want is the scoop — and they’re happy with the splinter and the splint. It’s like misery loves company. Join the club of splinters and split your hair with a bobby pin. One of them said:

— Finally, the empire is falling. This is the beginning of the upset. What a defeat.

— Not because they fall will you rise. Why are you gloating?

— Because the fall will make other towers rise.

— Okay, okay. But the towers that will rise will not be the ones that laughed when our towers fell. It’s not the laughter that rises. What rises is the curtain.

— What is a ruin?

— What remains as a thought — without a body — a ghost of dust and soot and debris.

— Would a skeleton be a ruin?

— Yes, but not a ghost.

— But why do ghosts appear in ruins? Why are their apparitions more certain when you have a skull in front of you? And even more disturbing.

— Because, I suppose, you have there the condensation of spirit and matter.

— Matter that is dead as a ducat, dead.

— Because both are ruins — and reminders of what was a memo, a syllabus, a footnote. If you tell me to choose between flesh and bone. I’m a dog. I take the bone because I have something to grasp. And figure out. Something to bury. And dig up again.

— And the body?

— You mean the flesh? Ah, well, you know the flesh flashes like teeth but doesn’t have the durability. Phone books are cemeteries. That’s why my number is unlisted. We are somber creatures with inclinations that twist us over edges as unpredictable as the flashback that is a ghost.

— Now, look at the floodlights.

— It looks like the projection on a movie screen.

— Look at the diversity of shadows — projections of ruins — reminding us: Keep hope alive! Keep digging! Maybe you’ll find a hero in an air pocket where a bird laid an egg.

— Look at this twisted stump of petrified bone. A still life vanitas, a memento mori of what is left after we are all gone. See how, how a being after it is underground for more than eight years can still have hands and ribs and toes without a pound of flesh to cover the loins that are my bone marrow structure, my skeleton, my horse, my hobbyhorse. That’s when the ghost comes in and drills into the skull all what inspiration is about.

— About what?

— Teeth — teeth that smile with little holes — pockets — air pockets — where a tongue can show its side — wet — to what avail.

— No purpose whatsoever.

— Except the liberation of thoughts.

— Hear the smoke of the ambulance. Ambulances always come with clouds of smoke. And then they disappear in a whistle. But what they bring is fear. Not freedom. Feardom is what they bring. And they bring fire and smoke. Oh, my nerves are bad tonight, yes, bad. I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom.

— This is too eerie for my ears to hear.

— Be placed at the ear of the conference like the dead body of Polonius that I carry on my back. And be happy. The worst remains behind this stump of luck. What do I see? Whose burial? Ophelia’s? No, it can’t be.

— It is a coffin. It looks like a pack of cigarettes. But it’s a box of matches with nails inside. Who are they burying?