Beautiful Losers

by Leonard Cohen

  – F.! Why did you lead me here?

  And do I hear an answer? Is this treehouse the hut of Oscotarach? F., are you the Head-Piercer? I did not know the operation was so long and clumsy. Raise the blunt tomahawk and try once more. Poke the stone spoon among the cerebral porridge. Does the moonlight want to get into my skull? Do the sparkling alleys of the icy sky want to stream through my eyeholes? F., were you the Head-Piercer, who left his hut and applied to the public ward in pursuit of his own operation? Or are you still with me, and is the surgery deep in progress?

  – F., you lousy wife-fucker, explain yourself!

  I cry that question out tonight, as I cried it out many times before. I remember your annoying habit of looking over my shoulders as I studied, just on the off chance that you might pick up a phrase of cocktail information. You noticed a line from a letter le P. Lalemant wrote in 1640, “que le sang des Martyrs est la semence des Chrestiens.” Le P. Lalemant regretting that no priest had yet been put to death in Canada, and that this was a bad augury for the young Indian missions, for the blood of Martyrs is the seed of the Church.

  – The Revolution in Québec needs the lubrication of a little blood.

  – Why are you looking at me that way, F.?

  – I’m wondering if I’ve taught you enough.

  – I don’t want any of your filthy politics, F. You’re a thorn in the side of Parliament. You’ve smuggled dynamite into Québec disguised as firecrackers. You’ve turned Canada into a vast analyst’s couch from which we dream and redream nightmares of identity, and all your solutions are as dull as psychiatry. And you subjected Edith to many irregular fucks which broke her mind and body and left me the lonely bookworm whom you now torment.

  – Oh my darling, what a hunchback History and the Past have made of your body, what a pitiful hunchback.

  We stood close together, as we’d stood in so many rooms, this time in the sepia gloom of the library stacks, our hands in each other’s pockets. I always resented his superior expression.

  – Hunchback! Edith had no complaints about my body.

  – Edith! Ha! Don’t make me laugh. You know nothing about Edith.

  – Keep your tongue off her, F.

  – I cured Edith’s acne.

  – Edith’s acne indeed! She had perfect skin.

  – Ho ho.

  – It was lovable to kiss and touch.

  – Thanks to my famous soap collection. Listen, friend, when I first met Edith she was in an ugly mess.

  – No more, F. I don’t want to hear any more.

  – The time has come for you to learn just who it was whom you married, just who that girl was whom you discovered performing extraordinary manicures in the barber shop of the Mount Royal Hotel.

  – No, F., please. Don’t destroy anything more. Leave me with her body. F.! What is happening to your eyes? What is happening to your cheeks? Are those tears? Are you weeping?

  – I am wondering what will happen to you when I leave you alone.

  – Where are you going?

  – The Revolution needs a little blood. It will be my blood.

  – Oh no!

  – London has announced the Queen’s intention to visit French Canada in October 1964. It is not enough that she and Prince Philip will be greeted by police cordons, riot tanks, and the proud backs of hostile crowds. We must not make the mistake the Indians made. Her advisers in London must be made to understand that our dignity is fed with the same food as anyone’s: the happy exercise of the arbitrary.

  – What do you intend to do, F.?

  – There is a statue of Queen Victoria on the north side of Sherbrooke Street. We have passed it many times on our way to the darkness of the System Theatre. It is a pleasant statue of Queen Victoria in early womanhood before pain and loss had made her fat. It is cast in copper which is now green with age. Tomorrow night I will place a charge of dynamite on her metal lap. It is only the copper effigy of a dead Queen (who knew, incidentally, the meaning of love), it is only a symbol, but the State deals in symbols. Tomorrow night I will blow that symbol to smithereens – and myself with it.

  – Don’t do it, F. Please.

  – Why not?

  I know nothing about love, but something like love tore the following words from my throat with a thousand fishhooks:

  – BECAUSE I NEED YOU, F.

  A sad smile spread on my friend’s face. He extracted his left hand from my warm pocket, and extending his arms as if in a benediction he crushed me to his Egyptian shirt in a warm bear hug.

  – Thank you. Now I know that I have taught you enough.

  – BECAUSE I NEED YOU, F.

  – Stop whimpering.

  – BECAUSE I NEED YOU, F.

  – Hush.

  – BECAUSE I NEED THEE, F.

  – Good-by.

  I felt lonely and cold as he walked away, the brown books along the steel shelves rustling like windy heaps of fallen leaves, each with the same message of exhaustion and death. As I set this down I have a clear impression of F.’s pain. His pain! Oh yes, as I peel off this old scab of history, gleaming like one pure triumphant drop of red blood – his pain.

  – Good-by, he called to me over his muscular shoulder. Listen for the explosion tomorrow night. Keep your ear next to the ventilation shaft.

  Like the frozen moonlight through the windows of this shack, his pain floods my recognition, altering the edge, color, and weight of each possession in my heart.

  51

  Kateri Tekakwitha

  calling you, calling you, calling you, testing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 my poor unelectric head calling you loud and torn 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 lost in needles of pine, tenant of meat freezer, fallen on squeezed knees searching hair for antennae, rubbing blue Aladdin prick, calling you, testing sky cables, poking blood buttons, finger fucks in star porridge, dentist drill in forehead bone, broken like convict stone, calling you calling you, frightened of stew, signals filthy laundry of this mind rubber girls aside, wafer banana skins of vaudeville, black air filled with pies of humiliation, no AC outlet beneath scalped hair, testing, testing the last dance, rubber scorpion on pillow of tit, handfuls of milk flung at doctors, calling you to call me, calling you to pull me if only once, fake proof accepted, plastic birchbark accepted, calling, artificial limb accepted, Hong Kong sex auxiliaries accepted, money confessions accepted, wigs of celanese acetate accepted, come pills, postcards of old-fashioned uncle sucking accepted even as ideal brown Plato, movie seat rubbing accepted, fat stage tease accepted and lap hats hiding hairy windows of underwear accepted, gratefully accepted, astrology boredom accepted, wife limit accepted, cop-gun deaths, urban voodoo accepted, false harem smells accepted, dimes accepted, seance feels up lonely old lady thighs, criminal bridge sales accepted, Zabbatai vote buttons worn in stigmata places, market Moses horns, square earth theories accepted, microscope girdles for Tom that failed, cunt dictionaries illustrated deceptively in vellum fuzz, calling you now, all reasons accepted, rope buttock creases, luminous highway Mary houses, pharmacy visions unrevoked, Zen Ph.D. tolerated, unpolished enemas, no references required, academic fashion ecstasy believed, dirty cars, all my baffled unbelief calling you with bowed physical brain terror, testing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9, unelectric head calling.

  52

  Phrase-book on my knees, I beseech the Virgin everywhere.

  KATERI TEKAKWITHA AT THE WASH HOUSE

  (hers the lovely italics)

  I bring you linens for washing

  I need them until to-morrow

  what do you think? Can you get them ready until tomorrow?

  they are absolutely necessary to me

  especially my shirts

  as for the others, I must have them the most late until the day after tomorrow

  I want them entirely new and clear

  a shirt is missing for me, a handkerchief and a pair of stockings, too I want this back

  I want this costume to be cleared

  when can I get it?<
br />
  I have, too, a dress, a coat, trousers, a tressed waistcoat, a blouse, underclothes, stockings, so forth.

  I shall come back again after three days to get them

  please, iron them for me

  yes, sir. Come to get them

  what do you think about the trousers?

  I like it. That’s what I want

  when will my suit be ready?

  after a week

  it takes a lot of work

  I shall make you a wonderful suit

  I shall come to take it myself

  no, don’t come!

  we shall send it ourselves to your house, sir

  good. Then I shall be waiting for it on next Saturday

  the suit is dear

  the suit is cheap

  you are a good tailor

  thank you

  goodbye.

  later I shall get another one

  as you like, sir

  we shall satisfy you very much

  KATERI TEKAKWITHA AT THE TOBACCONISTS

  (hers the lovely italics)

  Can you, please, tell me where is a tovacconist-shop?

  at the corner of the road on the right, sir

  in front of you, sir

  give me, please, a box of cigarettes

  what kind of cigarettes have you?

  We have excellent cigarettes

  I want some tobacco for pipe

  I want heavy cigarettes

  I want light cigarettes

  Give me a box of matches, too

  I want a cigarette-case, a good lighter, cigarettes

  how much do all these cost?

  twenty shillings, sir

  thank-you. Goot-bye

  KATERI TEKAKWITHA AT THE BARBER’S SHOP

  (hers the lovely italics)

  the hair-dresser

  the hair

  the beard

  the moustache

  the soap

  the cold water

  the comb

  the brush

  I want to shave myself

  please, sit down!

  please, come in!

  please, shave me!

  please, cut my hair very short behind

  not very short

  wash my hair!

  please, brush me

  I shall come back

  I’m pleased

  until when is the barber’s shop open?

  until 8 o’clock in the evening

  I shall come to shave myself regularly

  thank-you, good bye

  we will treat you as well as we can, because you are our client

  KATERI TEKAKWITHA AT THE POST-OFFICE

  (hers the lovely italics)

  where is the Post-Office, sir?

  I’m a foreign here, excuse me

  ask that sir

  he knows French, German

  he will help you

  please, show me the Post-Office

  it’s there on the opposite side

  I want to send a letter

  give me some postage-stamps

  I want to send something

  I want to send a telegram

  I want to send a package

  I want to send an urgent letter

  have you your passport?

  have you your identity?

  yes, sir

  I want to send a check

  give me a post card

  how much will I pay for sending a package?

  15 shillings, sir

  thank-you good-bye

  KATERI TEKAKWITHA AT THE TELEGRAPHIC-OFFICE

  (hers the lovely italics)

  what do you want, sir?

  I want to send a telegram

  with a paid answer?

  how much does the word cost? fifty pence a word

  a telegram for

  it’s dear, but never mind

  will the telegram be late to go?

  how long does it take to go?

  two days, sir

  It isn’t a long time

  I shall send a telegram to my parents to

  I hope that they will take it tomorrow

  there is a long time and I didn’t get any news from them

  I think they will answer to me telegraphically

  take, please, the money for the telegram

  goodbye. Thanks.

  KATERI TEKAKWITHA AT THE BOOKSELLER’S

  (hers the lovely italics)

  goodmornig, sir

  may I choose any books?

  with pleasure. What do you want? Choose!

  I want to buy a journey book

  I want to know England and Ireland

  Do you want anything else?

  I want a lot of books, but, as I see, they are dear

  we shall do a little decline of prices for you if you get many books

  we have books of every kind. Cleap and dear

  do you want them bound or not bound?

  I want bound books those they aren’t destroyed

  here they are

  How much does it cost?

  four dollars

  have you any dictionary?

  I have

  please, envelop them

  I shall take them with me

  thank you very much

  good-bye!

  O God, O God, I have asked for too much, I have asked for everything! I hear myself asking for everything in every sound I make. I did not know, in my coldest terror, I did not know how much I needed. O God, I grow silent as I hear myself begin to pray:

  My Dear Friend,

  Five years with the length of five years. I do not know exactly where this letter finds you. I suppose you have thought often of me. You were always my favorite male orphan. Oh, much more than that, much more, but I do not choose, for this last written communication, to expend myself in easy affection.

  If my lawyers have performed according to my instructions, you are now in possession of my worldly estate, my soap collection, my factory, my Masonic aprons, my treehouse. I imagine you have already appropriated my style. I wonder where my style has led you. As I stand on this last springy diving board I wonder where my style has led me.

  I am writing this last letter in the Occupational Therapy Room. I have let women lead me anywhere, and I am not sorry. Convents, kitchens, perfumed telephone booths, poetry courses – I followed women anywhere. I followed women into Parliament because I know how they love power. I followed women into the beds of men so that I could learn what they found there. The air is streaked with the smoke of their perfume. The world is clawed with their amorous laughter. I followed women into the world, because I loved the world. Breasts, buttocks, everywhere I followed the soft balloons. When women hissed at me from brothel windows, when they softly hissed at me over the shoulders of their dancing husbands, I followed them and I sank down with them, and sometimes when I listened to their hissing I knew it was nothing but the sound of the withering and collapse of their soft balloons.

  This is the sound, this hissing, which hovers over every woman. There is one exception. I knew one woman who surrounded herself with a very different noise, maybe it was music, maybe it was silence. I am speaking, of course, about our Edith. It is five years now that I have been buried. Surely you know by now that Edith could not belong to you alone.

  I followed the young nurses to Occupational Therapy. They have covered the soft balloons with starched linen, a pleasant tantalizing cover which my old lust breaks as easily as an eggshell. I have followed their dusty white legs.

  Men also give off a sound. Do you know what our sound is, dear frayed friend? It is the sound you hear in male sea shells. Guess what it is. I will give you three guesses. You must fill in the lines. The nurses like to see me use my ruler.

  1. _____________________________________

  2. _____________________________________

  3. _____________________________________

  The nurses like to lean over my shoulder and watch me use my red plastic ruler. T
hey hiss through my hair and their hisses have the aroma of alcohol and sandalwood, and their starched clothes crackle like the white tissue paper and artificial straw which creamy chocolate Easter eggs come in.

  Oh, I am happy today. I know that these pages will be filled with happiness. Surely you did not think that I would leave you with a melancholy gift.

  Well, what are your answers? Isn’t it remarkable that I have extended your training over this wide gulf?

  It is the very opposite of a hiss, the sound men make. It is Shhh, the sound made around the index finger raised to the lips. Shhh, and the roofs are raised against the storm. Shhh, the forests are cleared so the wind will not rattle the trees. Shhh, the hydrogen rockets go off to silence dissent and variety. It is not an unpleasant noise. It is indeed a perky tune, like the bubbles above a clam. Shhh, will everybody listen, please. Will the animals stop howling, please. Will the belly stop rumbling, please. Will Time call off its ultrasonic dogs, please.

  It is the sound my ball pen makes on the hospital paper as I run it down the edge of the red ruler. Shhh, it says to the billion unlines of whiteness. Shhh, it whispers to the white chaos, lie down in dormitory rows. Shhh, it implores the dancing molecules, I love dances but I do not love foreign dances, I love dances that have rules, my rules.

  Did you fill in the lines, old friend? Are you sitting in a restaurant or a monastery as I lie underground? Did you fill in the lines? You didn’t have to, you know. Did I trick you again?

  Now what about this silence we are so desperate to clear in the wilderness? Have we labored, plowed, muzzled, fenced so that we might hear a Voice? Fat chance. The Voice comes out of the whirlwind, and long ago we hushed the whirlwind. I wish that you would remember that the Voice comes out of the whirlwind. Some men, some of the time, have remembered. Was I one?

  I will tell you why we nailed up the cork. I am a born teacher and it is not my nature to keep things to myself. Surely five years have tortured and tickled you into that understanding. I always intended to tell you everything, the complete gift. How is your constipation, darling?

  I imagine they are about twenty-four years old, these soft balloons that are floating beside me this very second, these Easter candies swaddled in official laundry. Twenty-four years of journey, almost a quarter of a century, but still youth for breasts. They have come a long way to graze shyly at my shoulder as I gaily wield my ruler to serve someone’s definition of sanity. They are still young, they are barely young, but they hiss fiercely, and they dispense a heady perfume of alcohol and sandalwood. Her face gives nothing away, it is a scrubbed nurse’s face, family lines mercifully washed away, a face prepared to be a screen for our blue home movies as we sink in disease. A compassionate sphinx’s face to drip our riddles on, and, like paws buried in the sand, her round breasts claw and scratch against the uniform. Familiar? Yes, it is a face such as Edith often wore, our perfect nurse.