“But it is your own making. We are simply the ones who can’t be mystified and entangled in your appearance. We’re simply the ones who did not get lost in the labyrinth you create. You hide yourself and then you weep because people get lost in all this external form of your life. It’s only locking doors against those who wish to come near, the same door that you locked against your husband.”
Such simple words he said, yet Lilith left him feeling a great warmth towards him, something that resembled love. She was falling in love with the Voice. She felt that he was the subtle detective who made all these discoveries in her, who made her state the very nature of what hurt her. He liked the game of tracking down her most difficult thoughts. It was only after many detours that she could make these long revelations. It was if he possessed her, somehow, in a way she could not explain to herself. There was a silent, subtle force in him. It was not in the words he said. It was something he exhaled. He confronted one with one’s self, naked, one’s true self as it was at the beginning. He destroyed the deformations, one by one, the acquired disguises of the personality. It was like a return to the original self. It was a return to the beginning where everything was pure.
He took her back, with his questions and his probings, back to the beginning.
She told him all she could remember about her father, ending with: “the need of a father is over.”
The Voice said: “I am not entirely sure that the little girl in you ever died, or her need of a father. What am I to you?”
“The other night I dreamed you were immense, towering over every one. You carried me in your arms and I felt no harm could come to me. I have no more fears since I talk to you like this every day. Yes, one more fear, only one. I find it hard to tell you. The day I left school, the day I wore my hair up for the first time, I examined myself naked in the mirror, looking for the first real proofs of the metamorphosis. It was in the moonlight, because I believed in baths of moonlight. I was looking for the woman, and I decided that my breasts were too small. I thought: ‘nobody will love me’.”
The Voice laughed a little: “But of course, that is not true. You only imagined this because you compared yourself to your mother. Didn’t you tell me she was like a Rubens woman?”
“Yes, and I used to think at times that if I were a man I would love women like my mother. I liked her heaviness, her richness.”
“But you are not the mother type, are you? It was all due to your admiration of your mother. You never saw yourself as others see you.”
“But you don’t know really. What I say is true. If you don’t believe me… You are the only one I can ask this from. Will you really tell me? Will you tell me the truth? I’ll show you.”
She unstrapped her blouse and exposed her breasts. She heard him stop breathing. She looked at his face. She saw a smile, a brilliancy in his eyes she had never seen. She had never seen the blood in his face. He made a gesture of the hand, as if to show her they fitted in his hand. He could not speak. Lilith now laughed to think of herself looking at the Voice with round eyes, the eyes of Virgins on stained glass windows. She laughed now at her fear, at the question she put and at his answer. It took him a long time to say finally:
“The breasts of Diana the huntress.”
After this she would not lie down any more.
She sat up and faced him.
“Lately I have become aware that you are not happy. I think of the way you play upon souls. It must give you a feeling of great power, the way they expose themselves.”
“Power, yes… power. But every moment the human being in me is killed. I am not permitted any weaknesses. It’s true, I could take people’s great need of love and understanding and play upon it. When they open their secrets to me, they are in my power. But I want them to know me, and they don’t. Even when they love me, it is a love that is not addressed to me. I remain anonymous. I am only allowed to watch the spectacle, but I am never allowed to enter. If I enter into a life I am still the oracle or the seer. You are the first one who has asked me a question about myself.”