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“Do you like foxglove?” I like you just the way you are now, so attached to flowers. God first planted a garden. I can get by without flowers, get by perfectly well. Vases filled with flowers are scattered around the terraces of the buildings in front; they bring them out at night so the flowers won’t wither. There are boxes with white petunias and red geraniums. Whiter than white when the sky is low and gray and threatening to rain. The gardeners in the park below bend over the plants, caring for them. The most profound thing about it. . I mean I believe it is profound. More profound than simply falling in love. I get a lump in my throat when I think about the garden at home, wretched but full of flowers. The flowers at home. . the ordinary rosebush that I grafted to the finest rosebush of all, and the graft killed them, took all the sap for itself. Deep inside that impalpable, pulsing thing is what we call a soul. Man is the wisest of all. All of him primed so that his brain lives. King man, tiger man, lion man. Man man. If the world is man then I too am man. But man is more because all of his ribs are his, while woman is made from a man’s. Woman bound to man associated with man rib wrenched from his ribs bones of man she is all man fading disappearing. The tragedy of living that man must endure from the moment he is born. War, revolution, incomprehension, stupidity, love. And death that laughs as it strips the flesh from bones, aided by white, eyeless worms, moving and moving, piled on top of each other, slithering through the windows of eyes between the teeth when no tongue is left no uvula or palate no pink gums embellishing the teeth. Like a man, and as such, my pleasure in flowers is the greatest expression of the will of God. One part feminine one part masculine. The artist. Half of an apple embedded in the other half I don’t know what I’m up to. In this weather the vases are filled with gladiolas proud flowering swords. Maybe there are people who love them, I’m referring to flowers, but there are probably few like me who want to weep because suddenly the sky is gray threatening rain and words spring to my mouth: lilac camellia love-lies-bleeding Joseph’s coat. . King Jaume Royal jasmine, starry jasmine that climbs as it arbors up the marquee, sunroot chrysanthemums dahlias flower of bergamot mad flower of the coral pomegranate and first of all to bloom the almond tree blossom. The white rose delicate flower flower of the Japanese almond tree pregnant with hard almonds placenta of roasted almonds. Angelica. Behind the flesh within the flesh I am the flowers. You, whom I have loved so deeply, what do you think? That if I weep. . many people rejoice when they make others weep. The pleasure derived from domination, victory! It has taken me a long time to realize. At this moment the pure truth my truth is that the worn-out elastic waistband will trip me half way along the corridor. I am the flowers and this allows me to vanish, do without them. I have just put on the Kreutzer sonata. I am no longer at the doctor’s office, I do not think about anything that I am saying, I am not excited. I am writing. I am writing but I can’t communicate the tremendous jumble of impressions I want to communicate. In real life no one can. Attempts, trials, experiments. Indian skirmishes with the Sioux who are the cleverest. Doesn’t make sense. The sonata on the turntable as I fill pages. I talk about myself. But I don’t. Then someone intelligent will come and say: There she is with all the cleverness of a writer who wants to deliver but can’t and when she confesses to the Lord, she’ll find herself empty-handed. I’ll say nothing. I’ll talk without talking about myself, offering nothing. I’m paralysis itself. But I’ll be empty-handed because truth is spoken by no one and besides it’s slippery. Water that slips away. And the Kreutzer sonata reminds me of my first reading of Tolstoy, when I was transported. I stop writing and listen. It is true that it is hot, I am listening to a sonata, the flower boxes on the terraces have petunias and red geraniums. Here in Geneva. And it is true that I am myself if I’m not someone else. The knob turns, the door opens, and the doctor greets me. With a gesture he has me walk before him down the corridor and nothing happens to the worn-out elastic. I enter his office. The lamp has a green shade. A porcelain hand, palm upward, sits on the table, a sign of friendship. In a corner stands a vase with red roses. Seven. I have only a moment to glance at them. The doctor sits behind his table reads my medical history raises his head and I explain the story of my foot. I have an unorganized foot, been like that for a couple of months. I explain to him all the home remedies I’ve applied. He doesn’t laugh sits seriously. He’s Swiss. As I speak I unfold myself and look at the light on the balcony, the sliver of sky, tiny piece of sky, color of Lac Leman, just a speck of sky behind the glass door to the balcony. The doctor’s hands on his desk and my file, my name, my age. I tell him my right arm was once half-paralyzed for four years and I couldn’t even write my name because I couldn’t hold a pen and didn’t have a typewriter never had a serious illness except a serious operation in Limoges after the French withdrew an old doctor performed it, had a little white beard, his blue eyes examining me. So far away. Everything disappears. I don’t know what I tell the doctor who looks at me and I ask him if he wants to know anything else. He doesn’t reply. I could initiate a corny little scene, talk about the scent of the roses in the vase, the quality of the petals,
une rose d’automne est plus qu’une autre exquise, but a few steps away the melodic contour of the violin takes flight, all because a man had madly scribbled notes across five lines — I could have said a staff but that wouldn’t be me, I would have said five lines. It is true that the roses in the vase are highly perfumed they were christened nocturne it is true that the doctor is silent and a curious complicity is established. A man and a woman. A chastity belt used to serve as an innocent defense because of this mysterious thing that is suddenly created between a man and a woman, imperceptible, but present. As slight as the dust of butterfly wings. I feel the need to explain many things and quickly. Liking Geneva didn’t come easily. I was bored to death without the Louvre, the museums, the old streets, the wide avenues. Rue de Prony. I was settled in Paris for God knows how many years. The Jardin du Luxembourg with all the saintly queens of France Saint Clotilde was missing a finger can’t remember if it was the right hand or left. When I say that the Salève is unattractive the national pride is offended and a voice reaches me from the mouth above the white coat framed by the light from the balcony. From above, seen from below. The magic fades. The sonata that inspired me I now find irritating. It’s much too good, too, too much. Stop that blasted violin, stop it. No, it wasn’t on the day of the red roses that I told the doctor that the Salève was the most hideous mountain in the world. The sonata made me write it. I grind my teeth the typewriter ribbon is stuck I fix it. I. We all stop living at the age of twelve. That’s why I continue to have this passion for flowers. It can’t be explained, nothing can. Men are asses. Sheltered by the mother hen from infant to school to university the first girl we don’t know what to do with life. Swirling skirts, an embrace and let’s get married. My wife’s pregnant and then the cliché children are the greatest thing of all for his children a father must be willing to die mother too they are all dead because of a germ that will slowly devour you forever. Very careful pregnant again maybe this time it’ll be a boy since we already have a girl and everyone thinks how nice to have the pair and then it’s another girl. The skin on my chin is rough and my hair is falling out. A lotion? Is there a remedy for baldness? The stomach swells and the tailor has to alter the clothes, stomach spilling over trousers. The children grow up all of them are away for the summer now I can enjoy myself a bit. The children laugh at their father and the father grows old. A man can go blind lose the use of his voice be ravaged by rheumatism but they say his desire never ceases. A woman passes by and he’s consumed by. . Yes, there are excellent husbands and loving children. I like flowers what a bore stop talking stop saying that your life came to a halt at the age of twelve as if you had died with soft skin and teeth of pearls and clear eyes like water sparking green beneath leafy trees. I honour you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things. Why did Sterne sneak in here like that? To establish in an unsubtle way that I’m a cultured person who reads Sterne. I’ve never finished a book of his. Not Letters from Yorick to Eliza or Tristram Shandy or The Sentimental Journey. But then maybe I enjoy tricking people and I actually do like Sterne. No way of knowing. Other emotions other manifestations of tenderness.