Beautiful Losers

by Leonard Cohen

  My arm struck a rack of hangers as I seized F.’s shoulders. The jangling of coins was not so loud, what with the smaller room and the noise of the machinery beyond, and the thugs retreated as we stood in a forlorn embrace.

  15

  Catherine Tekakwitha in the shadows of the long house. Edith crouching in the stuffy room, covered with grease. F. pushing a broom through his new factory. Catherine Tekakwitha can’t go outside at noon. When she did get out she was swaddled in a blanket, a hobbling mummy. So she passed her girlhood, far from the sun and the noise of hunting, a constant witness to the tired Indians eating and fucking one another, and a picture of pure Mistress Mary rattling in her head louder than all the dancer’s instruments, shy as the deer she had heard about. What voices did she hear, louder than groans, sweeter than snoring? How well she must have learned the ground rules. She did not know how the hunter rode down his prey but she knew how he sprawled with a full belly, burping later at love. She saw all the preparations and all the conclusions, without the perspective set against a mountain. She saw the coupling but she didn’t hear the songs hummed in the forest and the little gifts made of grass. Confronted with this assault of human machinery, she must have developed elaborate and bright notions of heaven – and a hatred for finite shit. Still, it is a mystery how one loses the world. Dumque crescebat aetate, crescebat et prudentia, says P. Cholenec in 1715. Is it pain? Why didn’t her vision turn Rabelaisian? Tekakwitha was the name she was given, but the exact meaning of the word is not known. She who puts things in order, is the interpretation of l’abbé Marcoux, the old missionary at Caughnawaga. L’abbé Cuoq, the Sulpician Indianologist: Celle qui s’avance, qui meut quelquechose devant elle. Like someone who proceeds in shadows, her arms held before her, is the elaboration of P. Lecompte. Let us say that her name was some combination of these two notions: She who, advancing, arranges the shadows neatly. Perhaps, Catherine Tekakwitha, I come to you in the same fashion. A kind uncle took the orphan in. After the plague the whole village moved a mile up the Mohawk River, close to where it is joined by the Auries River. It was called Gandaouagué, another name which we know in many forms, Gandawagué, a Huron word used by missionaries to designate falls or rapids, Gahnawague in the Mohawk dialect, Kaknawaké which developed into the current Caughnawaga. I’m paying my dues. Here she lived with her uncle, his wife, his sisters, in the long house which he established, one of the principal structures of the village. Iroquois women worked hard. A hunter never lugged his kill. He made an incision in the animal’s stomach, grabbed a handful of entrails, and, as he danced home, sprinkled the guts here and there, this dangled from a branch, that spiked on a bush. I’ve killed, he announced to his wife. She followed his slimy traces into the forest, and her prize for finding the slain beast was to get it back to her husband, who was sleeping beside the fire, his stomach rumbling. Women did most of the disagreeable things. War, hunting, and fishing were the only occupations a man’s dignity allowed. The rest of the time he smoked, gossiped, played games, ate, and slept. Catherine Tekakwitha liked work. All the other girls rushed through it so they could get out there and dance, flirt, comb their hair, paint their faces, put on their earrings, and ornament themselves with colored porcelain. They wore rich pelts, embroidered leggings worked with beads and porcupine quills. Beautiful! Couldn’t I love one of these? Can Catherine hear them dance? Oh, I’d like one of the dancers. I don’t want to disturb Catherine, working in the long house, the muffled thud of leaping feet tracing perfect burning circles in her heart. The girls aren’t spending too much time on tomorrow, but Catherine is gathering her days into a chain, linking the shadows. Her aunts insist. Here’s a necklace, put it on dear, and why don’t you paint your lousy complexion? She was very young, she allowed herself to be adorned, and never forgave herself. Twenty years later she wept over what she considered one of her gravest sins. What am I getting into? Is this my kind of woman? After a while her aunts took the pressure off and she got back to total work, grinding, hauling water, gathering firewood, preparing the pelts for trade – all done in a remarkable spirit of willingness. “Douce, patiente, chaste, et innocente,” says P. Chauchetière. “Sage comme une fille française bien élevée,” he continues. Like a well-raised French girl! O Sinister Church! F., is this what you want from me? Is this my punishment for not sliding with Edith? She was waiting for me all covered in red grease and I was thinking of my white shirt. I have since applied the tube to myself, out of curiosity, a single gleaming column, useless to me as F.’s akropolis that morning. Now I read that Catherine Tekakwitha had a great gift for embroidery and handicraft, and that she made beautiful embroidered leggings, tobacco pouches, moccasins, and wampums. Hour after hour she worked on these, roots and eelskins, shells, porcelain, quills. To be worn by anyone but her! Whom was her mind adorning? Her wampums were especially cherished. Was this the way she mocked money? Perhaps her contempt freed her to invent elaborate designs and color arrangements just as F.’s contempt for commerce enabled him to buy a factory. Or do I misread them both? I’m tired of facts, I’m tired of speculations, I want to be consumed by unreason. I want to be swept along. Right now I don’t care what goes on under her blanket. I want to be covered with unspecific kisses. I want my pamphlets praised. Why is my work so lonely? It is past midnight, the elevator is at rest. The linoleum is new, the faucets tight, thanks to F.’s bequest. I want all the comes I did not demand. I want a new career. What have I done to Edith, that I can’t even get her ghost to stiffen me? I hate this apartment. Why did I have it redecorated? I thought the table would look nice yellow. O God, please terrify me. The two who loved me, why are they so powerless tonight? The belly button useless. Even F.’s final horror meaningless. I wonder if it’s raining. I want F.’s experiences, his emotional extravagance. I can’t think of a single thing F. said. I can only remember the way he used his handkerchief, the meticulous folding to keep his nose away from snot, his high-pitched sneezes and the pleasure they gave him. High-pitched and metallic, positively instrumental, a sideways snap of the bony head, then the look of surprise, as if he’d just received an unexpected gift, and the raised eyebrows which said, Fancy that. People sneeze, F., that’s all, don’t make such a damn miracle out of it, it only depresses me, it’s a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too. I hate to think of the things you told Edith, probably sounding as if hers were the first body you ever touched. Was she delighted? Her new nipples. You’re both dead. Never stare too long at an empty glass of milk. I don’t like what’s happening to Montréal architecture. What happened to the tents? I would like to accuse the Church. I accuse the Roman Catholic Church of Québec of ruining my sex life and of shoving my member up a relic box meant for a finger, I accuse the R.C.C, of Q. of making me commit queer horrible acts with F., another victim of the system, I accuse the Church of killing Indians, I accuse the Church of refusing to let Edith go down on me properly, I accuse the Church of covering Edith with red grease and of depriving Catherine Tekakwitha of red grease, I accuse the Church of haunting automobiles and of causing pimples, I accuse the Church of building green masturbation toilets, I accuse the Church of squashing Mohawk dances and of not collecting folk songs, I accuse the Church of stealing my sun tan and of promoting dandruff, I accuse the Church of sending people with dirty toenails into streetcars where they work against Science, I accuse the Church of female circumcision in French Canada.

  16

  It was a lovely day in Canada, a poignant summer day; so brief, so brief. It was 1664, sunny, dragonflies investigating the plash of paddles, porcupines sleeping on their soft noses, black-braided girls in the meadow plaiting grass into aromatic baskets, deer and braves sniffing the pine wind, dreaming of luck, two boys wrestling beside the palisade, embrace after embrace. The world was about two billion years old but the mountains of Canada were very young. Strange doves w
heeled over Gandaouagué.

  – Boo-hoo, wept the eight-year-old heart.

  The Heart listened, the Heart which was neither new nor old, nor, indeed, a prisoner of description, and Thomas sang for all the children, Facienti quod in se est, Dens non denegai gratiam.

  – Today you must shine,

  Quills of porcupine;

  Like summer rain

  Beads of porcelain;

  Eternal wreath

  This necklace of teeth, sang the Aunts as they dressed the child for the simple wedding, according to their custom, for the Iroquois married children.

  – No, no, cried one heart in a village.

  Strange doves wheeled over Gandaouagué.

  – Go over to him, Catherine, oh, he’s a strong little man! clucked the Aunts.

  – Ha, ha, laughed the sturdy boy.

  Suddenly his laughter ceased, for the boy was frightened, and it was not a fear he knew, not a fear of being whipped or of losing the game, but once, when a Medicine Man had died …

  – What’s the matter with them? asked the family of each child, for the families wished to secure an advantageous union between themselves.

  – Roo roo, sang the wheeling doves.

  Eternal wreath, this necklace of teeth, her Aunts’ song pierced her heart with arrows, No, no, she wept, that is wrong, that is wrong, and her eyes rolled up into her head. How strange she must have appeared to the little savage, her ravished face, her swoon, for he ran away.

  – Not to worry, the Aunts agreed among themselves. Soon she will be older, the juices will start to flow, for even the Algonquin women are human! joked the Aunts. We will have no trouble then!

  And so the child returned to her life of obedience, hard work, and cheerful shyness, a source of pleasure to all who knew her. Nor had the Aunts any reason to suspect that the orphan would not follow the ancient course of the Iroquois. Soon she was no longer a child, and once again the Aunts plotted.

  – We will set a trap for the Shy One. We will tell her nothing!

  It was a lovely night for the simple ceremony, which involved nothing more than a young man entering his bride’s cabin, sitting beside her, and then receiving from her a gift of food. This was the complete ceremony, the participants having been chosen without consultation by an agreement between their respective families.

  – Sit still, Catherine, all the chores are done, darling, we don’t need any more water, winked the Aunts.

  – How cold it is tonight, Aunts.

  The autumn moon sailed over Indian Canada, and the Three-Whistle Bird discharged his song like aimless vertical arrows from the black branches. Tcheue! Chireue! Tzeuere! A woman drew a wooden comb through her thick hair, stroke after stroke, as she mumbled phrases of a monotonous mourning chant.

  – … walk with me, sit beside me on a mountain.…

  The world moved closer to its little fires and pots of soup. A fish leaped out of the Mohawk River, and hovered above its splash till the splash sank away, and still the fish hovered.

  – Well, look who’s here!

  The great shoulders of a young hunter filled the doorway. Catherine looked up from her wampum, blushed, and returned to her work. A smile played on the sensual lips of the handsome brave. He licked his lips with a long red tongue, tasting traces of the meat he had killed and on which he had but lately feasted. Such a tongue! wondered the Aunts, digging their knuckles into their crotches under their sewing. Blood rushed into the young man’s groin. He inserted one hand under the leather and seized himself, warm handful, thick as a swan’s neck. He was here, the man awaited! He crossed like a cat to where the girl squatted, shivering, working the tiny shells, and he sat beside her, deliberately stretching his body so that thigh and hard buttock were presented to her view.

  – Heh-heh, said one Aunt.

  A strange fish hovered above the waters of the Mohawk River, luminous. All at once, and for the first time, Catherine Tekakwitha knew that she lived in a body, a female body! She felt the presence of her thighs and knew what they could squeeze, she felt the flower life of her nipples, she felt the sucking hollowness of her belly, the loneliness of her buttocks, the door ache of her little cunt, a cry for stretching, and she felt the existence of each cunt hair, they were not numerous and so short they did not even curl! She lived in a body, a woman’s body, and it worked! She sat on juices.

  – I’ll bet he’s hungry, said another Aunt.

  So bright! the fish which rose over the river. She felt in her imagination the circle of this hunter’s strong brown arms, the circles he would force through the lips of her cunt, the circles of her breasts pressed flat under him, the circle of her bite marks on his shoulder, the circle of her mouth lips in blowing kisses!

  – Yeah, I’m starving.

  The circles were made of whips and knotted thongs. They bound her, they choked her, they tore her skin, they were shrinking necklaces of fangs. Her tits were bleeding. She was sitting on blood. The circles of love tightened like a noose, squeezing, ripping, slicing. Little hairs were caught in knots. Agony! A burning circle attacked her cunt and severed it from her crotch like the top of a tin can. She lived in a woman’s body but – it did not belong to her! It was not hers to offer! With a desperate slingshot thought she hurled her cunt forever into the night. It was not hers to offer to the handsome fellow, though his arms were strong and his own forest magic not inconsiderable. And as she thus disclaimed the ownership of her flesh she sensed a minute knowledge of his innocence, a tiny awareness of the beauty of all the faces circled round the crackling fires of the village. Ah, the pain eased, the torn flesh she finally did not own healed in its freedom, and a new description of herself, so brutally earned, forced itself into her heart: she was Virgin.

  – Get the man some food, commanded one beautiful Aunt ferociously.

  The ceremony must not be completed, the old magic must not be honored! Catherine Tekakwitha stood up. The hunter smiled, the Aunts smiled, Catherine Tekakwitha smiled sadly, the hunter thought she smiled shyly, the Aunts thought she smiled slyly, the hunter thought the Aunts smiled greedily, the Aunts thought the hunter smiled greedily, the hunter even thought that the little slit in the head of his cock smiled, and maybe Catherine thought her cunt was smiling in its new old home. A strange luminous fish smiled.

  – Smack, smack, yum, said the hunter inarticulately.

  Catherine Tekakwitha fled the squatting hungry people. Past the fires, the bones, the excrement, she rushed through the door, past the palisade, through the smoky village, into the vaults of the birch trees standing palely in the moonlight.

  – After her!

  – Don’t let her get away!

  – Fuck her in the bushes!

  – Give her one for me!

  – Hoo hoo hoo!

  – Eat hair pie!

  – All the way!

  – Turn her over and do it for me!

  – Cover her face with a flag!

  – Drive it home!

  – Hurry!

  – The Shy One flies!

  – Screw her in the ass!

  – She needs it bad!

  – Tcheue! Chireue! Tzeuere!

  – Up to the hilt!

  – In the armpit!

  – … walk with me, sit beside me on a mountain.…

  – Puff! Puff!

  – Do her a favor!

  – Screw the pimples off her!

  – Gobble it!

  – Deus non denegai gratiam!

  – Piss in it!

  – Come back!

  – Algonquin hussy!

  – Stuck-up Frenchie!

  – Shit in her ear!

  – Make her say uncle!

  – That way!

  The hunter entered the woods. He would have no trouble finding her, the Shy One, the One Who Hobbled. He had followed swifter game than she. He knew every trail. But where was she? He plunged forward. He knew a hundred soft places, beds of pine needle, couches of moss. He stepped on a twig and crac
ked it, the first time in his life! This was turning into a very expensive fuck. Where are you? I won’t hurt you. A branch struck him in the face.

  – Ho ho, the voices of the village drifted on the wind.

  Above the Mohawk River a fish hovered in a halo of blond mist, a fish that longed for nets and capture and many eaters at the feast, a smiling luminous fish.

  – Deus non denegat gratiam.

  When Catherine Tekakwitha got home the next morning the Aunts punished her. The young hunter had returned home hours ago, humiliated. His family was enraged.

  – Lousy Algonquin! Take that! And that!

  – Pow! Sock!

  – You’ll sleep beside the shit from now on!

  – You’re not part of the family any more, you’re just a slave!

  – Your mother was no good!

  – You’ll do what we say! Slap!

  Catherine Tekakwitha smiled cheerfully. It wasn’t her body they were kicking around, not her belly the old ladies jumped on in the moccasins she had embroidered. She looked up through the smoke hole while they tormented her. As le P. Lecompte remarks, Dieu lui avait donné une âme que Tertullien dirait “naturellement chrétienne.”

  17

  O God, Your Morning Is Perfect. People Are Alive In Your World. I Can Hear The Little Children In The Elevator. The Airplane Is Flying Through The Original Blue Air. Mouths Are Eating Breakfast. The Radio Is Filled With Electricity. The Trees Are Excellent. You Are Listening To The Voices Of The Faithless Who Tarry On The Bridge of Spikes. I Have Let Your Spirit Into The Kitchen. The Westclock Is Also Your Idea. The Government Is Meek. The Dead Do Not Have To Wait. You Comprehend Why Someone Must Drink Blood. O God, This Is Your Morning. There Is Music Even From A Human Thigh-Bone Trumpet. The Ice-Box Will Be Forgiven. I Cannot Think Of Anything Which Is Not Yours. The Hospitals Have Drawers Of Cancer Which They Do Not Own. The Mesozoic Waters Abounded With Marine Reptiles Which Seemed Eternal. You Know The Details Of The Kangaroo. Place Ville Marie Grows And Falls Like A Flower In Your Binoculars. There Are Old Eggs In The Gobi Desert. Nausea Is An Earthquake In Your Eye. Even The World Has A Body. We Are Watched Forever. In The Midst Of Molecular Violence The Yellow Table Clings To Its Shape. I Am Surrounded By Members Of Your Court. I Am Frightened That My Prayer Will Fall Into My Mind. Somewhere This Morning Agony Is Explained. The Newspaper Says That A Human Embryo Was Found Wrapped In A Newspaper And That A Doctor Is Suspected. I Am Trying To Know You In The Kitchen Where I Sit. I Fear My Small Heart. I Cannot Understand Why My Arm Is Not A Lilac Tree. I Am Frightened Because Death Is Your Idea. Now I Do Not Think It Behooves Me To Describe Your World. The Bathroom Door Is Opening By Itself And I Am Shivering With So Much Fear. O God, I Believe Your Morning Is Perfect. Nothing Will Happen Incompletely. O God, I Am Alone In The Desire Of My Education But A Greater Desire Must Be Lodged With You. I Am A Creature In Your Morning Writing A Lot Of Words Beginning With Capitals. Seven-Thirty In The Ruin Of My Prayer. I Sit Still In Your Morning While Cars Drive Away. O God, If There Are Fiery Journeys Be With Edith As She Climbs. Be With F. If He Has Earned Himself Agony. Be With Catherine Who Is Dead Three Hundred Years. Be With Us In Our Ignorance And Our Wretched Doctrines. We Are All Of Us Tormented With Your Glory. You Have Caused Us To Live On The Crust Of A Star. F. Suffered Horribly In His Last Days. Catherine Was Mangled Every Hour In Mysterious Machinery. Edith Cried In Pain. Be With Us This Morning Of Your Time. Be With Us At Eight O’Clock Now. Be With Me As I Lose The Crumbs Of Grace. Be With Me As The Kitchen Comes Back. Please Be With Me Especially While I Poke Around The Radio For Religious Music. Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President’s Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.