There is nowhere in the world where I can wrap myself in my shadow, there is no such place, and the body is not simply a polite convention … but even so, even so, I will not praise what I have no wish to praise, and I do not wish to praise and I will not praise, I will not praise the metal body.
Even if it’s impossible in a cloud, even if it’s impossible in smoke, even if it’s impossible to walk on water, I will not praise the body.
Alek was waiting passively for me at the airport, a body wrapped in a gray coat, the cigarette in his hand had gone out, and I can swear that he touched me with all of himself as soon as he saw me, as soon as I began to be sucked towards him, when there were still a few steps left, none but a few steps left, only a few steps left.
EPILOGUE, SUMMARY
She won’t go anywhere; not to a more monastic monastery, nor to him to be taken to oblivion, because there is nowhere to go.
She won’t kill herself in a foolish attempt to float from the window, and she won’t crush her Nira Woolf under the engine of a train. Already in the weeks to come Weber will make Woolf dance like a graceful bear in the squares of the city of J and the coastal plain. And she herself will applaud her, clap her hands.
Already in the coming months she will find herself some new job that will take her out of the house on a regular basis, because living like this without any order isn’t good for her.
• • •
Something else will happen, something else will happen one night, when a voice calls her from outside her dream. It will happen when a mean, mad orange moon hangs in the sky, and absence calls her name from the threshold. Perhaps her hair will stand on end, perhaps she will want to howl to him like a she-wolf, surely she will howl like the last she-wolf, surely she will arch herself to him when he comes. With eyes of darkness I will be able to see him coming closer, with eyes of darkness I will see his face taking on substance, and the body of shadow becoming tangible like a last need.
Something else will happen one night, when a voice calls, and a crouching body hides the mean orange moon and the sky in the window. Then with eyes of shadow I will gaze at his flesh, and I will rise and hold out arms of shadow to touch him. Like a last need I will shed my body before him, and as from a last need my soul will flee from him. Alone I will pass through the gate.
Outside the sky streams onto the city. Outside the night glimmers and clears. My vision clears of itself. But there is no face between myself and the streaming. And there is no longer a face between myself and the night.
A man will remain behind in my house, in his house, and I will not look back at the gate. It is not him I seek, it is not him I sought, not a man. Wrapped in the streaming I shall go, consoled by the abundance, by the awakening night, in the light of the moon I shall see by myself how the city bursts forth.
Now even if they come to seek my soul, they will not be able to take it.