party. My linen jacket. A silk tie. It didn’t take long. I let the moment stretch, lingering in the closet there amongst her clothes. I touched one of her dresses, the sheer fabric, remembering her once upon a time as she leaned against the wall at some party, a little drunk, dallying, waiting for me to come to her, to take her outside and lean against her in the dark. I touched the collar now, I touched the hem. I let my fingers drift down the buttons.
On the dresser, there was a picture of her from when she was a child, maybe six years old, in a checkered pinafore with a wide collar. I picked up the picture and studied her eyes and they were the same eyes I knew so well, taking you apart in a glance.
At length, I left the closet. I found her at the kitchen table with books and papers spread all around.
“Research?”
She nodded, giving me the barest of glances then bowing her head to the papers. “You got what you came for, I assume.”
“I’m glad to see you getting back to it.”
“What?”
“Your book.”
“I never really left off.”
It wasn’t exactly true. The last couple of years, after her father’s death, she’d pretty much abandoned the project. On the table now lay the weather-beaten copies of some old folk tales, raw material for the analysis she’d started not long after her first divorce: a reinterpretation of the transformation stories from the point of view of depth psychology. Bluebeard. The Bears Son. The Handless Maiden.
I knew her thesis. Stories like these were not just cautionary tales but talismans, messages from the nether land beneath human consciousness—and as such were vehicles for the re-integration of the self, the joining of the conscious and unconscious.
“What chapter you working on?”
“The last one.”
“What’s the title again, of the last chapter?”
Elizabeth was shy about this conversation, a little reluctant. Or maybe she just wanted me to leave her be. The truth was I already knew the answer. We’d had this conversation before.
“The Demon Lover,” she said.
In her book, the last chapter and the first shared the same title. That was the way the Jungians were. Everything circled upon itself. When Elizabeth and I had gotten together, she’d been exploring the anarchic principle, and the importance of welcoming it into your life.
“How are they different,” I asked now. “The first chapter and the last?”
Elizabeth pursed her lips, hesitating. She was a bright woman and understood my interest was not without ulterior motive. Even so, she couldn’t resist talking about her work.
“The opening concerns itself with the act of seduction.” Her eyes skittered over me. On the stove, a teapot had just begun to simmer.
“And the conclusion?”
“With fidelity. The union of the lovers forever.”
Her face reddened. Elizabeth was a fair woman and reddened easily—sometimes for no reason at all, it seemed—but it was embarrassing her, this conversation. The teapot grew shrill. She pushed her hands against the table and stood up, brushing past me as she went.
I could ask her about the in-between chapters, I supposed, but I knew that answer as well. The middle chapters would be about the process of transformation: the movement from one state of consciousness to the other, and acceptance of the fact that each mode had within it the seeds of the other.
I watched her at the counter, steeping the tea in a china cup. “Is there anything else?”
She stood with her back to me, in her white sweater and her slacks and her silver thongs.
“I just have a few things to get from my desk.”
The truth was, though, there was nothing in my desk I wanted. I lingered in the hall, looking at pictures from our life together. Snapshots of our honeymoon in Bangkok. Our vacations in Cancun and Santa Barbara. The Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were pictures of her family, too: her mother, her father, her maiden aunt. The pictures went back to when she was a
On the dresser, there was a picture of her from when she was a child, maybe six years old, in a checkered pinafore with a wide collar. I picked up the picture and studied her eyes and they were the same eyes I knew so well, taking you apart in a glance.
At length, I left the closet. I found her at the kitchen table with books and papers spread all around.
“Research?”
She nodded, giving me the barest of glances then bowing her head to the papers. “You got what you came for, I assume.”
“I’m glad to see you getting back to it.”
“What?”
“Your book.”
“I never really left off.”
It wasn’t exactly true. The last couple of years, after her father’s death, she’d pretty much abandoned the project. On the table now lay the weather-beaten copies of some old folk tales, raw material for the analysis she’d started not long after her first divorce: a reinterpretation of the transformation stories from the point of view of depth psychology. Bluebeard. The Bears Son. The Handless Maiden.
I knew her thesis. Stories like these were not just cautionary tales but talismans, messages from the nether land beneath human consciousness—and as such were vehicles for the re-integration of the self, the joining of the conscious and unconscious.
“What chapter you working on?”
“The last one.”
“What’s the title again, of the last chapter?”
Elizabeth was shy about this conversation, a little reluctant. Or maybe she just wanted me to leave her be. The truth was I already knew the answer. We’d had this conversation before.
“The Demon Lover,” she said.
In her book, the last chapter and the first shared the same title. That was the way the Jungians were. Everything circled upon itself. When Elizabeth and I had gotten together, she’d been exploring the anarchic principle, and the importance of welcoming it into your life.
“How are they different,” I asked now. “The first chapter and the last?”
Elizabeth pursed her lips, hesitating. She was a bright woman and understood my interest was not without ulterior motive. Even so, she couldn’t resist talking about her work.
“The opening concerns itself with the act of seduction.” Her eyes skittered over me. On the stove, a teapot had just begun to simmer.
“And the conclusion?”
“With fidelity. The union of the lovers forever.”
Her face reddened. Elizabeth was a fair woman and reddened easily—sometimes for no reason at all, it seemed—but it was embarrassing her, this conversation. The teapot grew shrill. She pushed her hands against the table and stood up, brushing past me as she went.
I could ask her about the in-between chapters, I supposed, but I knew that answer as well. The middle chapters would be about the process of transformation: the movement from one state of consciousness to the other, and acceptance of the fact that each mode had within it the seeds of the other.
I watched her at the counter, steeping the tea in a china cup. “Is there anything else?”
She stood with her back to me, in her white sweater and her slacks and her silver thongs.
“I just have a few things to get from my desk.”
The truth was, though, there was nothing in my desk I wanted. I lingered in the hall, looking at pictures from our life together. Snapshots of our honeymoon in Bangkok. Our vacations in Cancun and Santa Barbara. The Mardi Gras in New Orleans. There were pictures of her family, too: her mother, her father, her maiden aunt. The pictures went back to when she was a
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