Abelard: You are surprised.
Heloise: Do you think I will be parted from you?!
Abelard: And do you think I will stay in society to be a monstrous spectacle to all I meet?!
Heloise: yougivemeaway
Abelard: Retreat is the only option.
Heloise: no
Abelard: You would choose the world rather than be true to me?
Heloise: u r halfmadwithmisery and now u madden me with it
Abelard: You deny me. When all is bad enough.
Heloise: i don’t know what i do
*
Confessions.com Clearing Your Conscience For You Just Click on the Confessional Box
Should-Have-Known-Susan: I had my first baby four months ago. Nobody mentioned certain postnatal surprises at the time. Bladder control, for example. I was rushing through my local K-Mart when suddenly the floodgates opened in Home Electronics. I was horrified – had to make a dash for the main doors and leave the poor staff to assume a small child was responsible.
Absolution (Post your comments now.)
Coolcuke: Let it go. (No pun intended.)
Justjanice: Someone should have told you. That’s plain poor after-care.
Cellogirl: I know we’re not talking the same thing exactly but my waters broke during (get this) a performance of Handel’s Water Music. No word of a lie. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more embarrassed, the lead violinist slipped in it and fell.
*
Double-take Tim: I’ve been dating my girlfriend for three months now. I’m 35 and, as of now, sh**ing myself. Just found out: today’s her birthday. Her 16th.
Absolution (Post your comments now.)
Hellsangel: Rock on, Tim.
Ratman: Lock up your daughters! Tim’s in town.
Coolcuke: I can give you the number of a good lawyer, Tim.
After that, you’re on your own.
Foxysister: What was your first clue? When she started singing, ‘I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen’? Duh.
*
Abe: I cannot, like Tim, claim ignorance. There was in Paris a young woman named Heloise… I came to an arrangement with her uncle, with the help of some of his friends, whereby he should take me into his house, for whatever sum he liked to ask. As a pretext I said my household cares were hindering my studies. He was all eagerness for my money and confident that his niece would profit from my teaching. Her studies allowed us to withdraw in private, as love desired, and then with our books open before us, more words of love than of our reading passed between us. My hands strayed oftener to her bosom than to the pages.
In time, the girl found that she was pregnant, and immediately wrote me a letter full of rejoicing to ask what I thought she should do. When our baby son was born, we trusted him to my sister’s care in Brittany and returned secretly to Paris, but word was out. We had been discovered. So I removed H to a convent of nuns so she might escape the fury of her uncle’s temper. Yet, with the discovery of her whereabouts, he and his kinsmen and followers imagined that I had tricked them, and had found an easy way of ridding myself of Heloise by making her a nun. Wild with indignation they swore an oath against me, and one night as I slept they cut off the parts of my body whereby I had committed the wrong of which they complained.
Heloise agreed to take the veil in obedience to my wishes. There were many people, I remember, who in pity for her youth tried to dissuade her from submitting to the yoke of monastic rule as a penance too hard to bear, but all in vain. Admittedly, it was shame and confusion in my remorse and misery, rather than any devout wish for conversion, which brought me to take shelter in a monastery cloister.
Absolution (Post your comments now.)
Hellsangel: Ouch.
Chipofftheoldblock: French girl. Way to go.
Darklady: And you made her end her days in a convent because…?
The Late EMails
To my shining light, my solstice,
You know, beloved, as everyone knows, how much I have lost in you, how at one wretched stroke of fortune that supreme act of flagrant treachery robbed me of my very self in robbing me of you; and how my sorrow for my loss is nothing compared with what I feel for the manner in which I lost you. Surely the greater the cause for grief the greater the need for the help of consolation, and this no one can bring but you; you are the sole cause of my sorrow, and you alone can grant me the grace of consolation. You alone have the power to make me sad, to bring me happiness or comfort; you alone have so great a debt to repay me, particularly now when I have carried out all your orders so implicitly that, when I was powerless to oppose you in anything, I found strength at your command to destroy myself.
I changed clothing along with my mind, in order to prove you the sole possessor of my body and will alike. It was not any sense of vocation which brought me to accept the austerities of the cloister, but your bidding alone. If I deserve no gratitude from you, you may at least judge for yourself how my labours are in vain. I can expect no reward for this from God, for it is certain that I have done nothing as yet for love of him. When you hurried towards God I followed you. Indeed, I went first to take the veil. Your lack of trust in me over this one thing, I confess, overwhelmed me with grief and shame. I would have had no hesitation, God knows, in following you or going ahead at your bidding to the flames of Hell. My heart was not in me but with you, and now, even more, if it is not with you, it is nowhere truly. Without you it cannot exist.
God knows I never sought anything in you except yourself. I beg you, think what you owe me, give ear to my pleas, and I will finish a long e-missive with a brief ending: farewell, my only love.
H.
*
To my sister in Christ,
If since our conversion from the world to God I have not yet written you any word of comfort or advice, it must not be attributed to indifference on my part but to your own good sense, in which I have always had such confidence that I did not think anything else was needed. If, in your humility, you feel that you have need of my instruction and writings in matters pertaining to God, write to me what you want, so that I may answer as God permits me.
Your loving brother
*
Peter,
Of all wretched women, I am the most wretched, and amongst the unhappy I am unhappiest. The higher I was exalted when you preferred me to all other women, the greater my suffering over my own fall and yours, when equally I was flung down; for the higher the ascent, the heavier the fall. If only your love had less confidence in me, so that you would be more concerned on my behalf!
I can find no penitence whereby to appease God, whom I always accuse of the greatest cruelty in regard to this outrage. By rebelling against his ordinance, I offend him more by my indignation than I placate him by making amends through penitence. How can it be called repentance for sins, if the mind still retains the will to sin and is on fire with its old desires? It is easy enough for anyone to confess his sins, to accuse himself, or even to mortify his body in outward show of penance, but it is very difficult to tear the heart away from hankering after its dearest pleasures.
In my case, the pleasures of lovers which we shared have been too sweet – they cannot displease me, and can scarcely shift from my memory. Wherever I turn, they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not let me sleep. Even during the celebration of the Mass, when our prayers should be pure, lewd visions of those pleasures take such hold upon my unhappy soul that my thoughts are on their wantonness instead of prayer. I should be groaning over the sins I have committed, but I can only sigh for what I have lost. Everything we did and also the times and places where we did it are stamped on my heart along with your image, so that I live through them all again with you. Even in sleep I know no respite. Sometimes my thoughts are betrayed in a movement of my body, or they break out in an unguarded word.
Men call me chaste; they do not know the hypocrite I am. I can win praise in the eyes of men but deserve
none before God, who searches our hearts and loins and sees in our own darkness. To me your praise is all the more dangerous because I welcome it. I beg you, be fearful for me always, instead of feeling confidence in me, so that I may always find help in your solicitude.
Yours, ever,
H.
*
Ellie,
Accept his will. You must understand that it has been most salutary for me – and will be for you too, if your transports of grief will see reason. All that came upon us came upon us justly, as well as to our advantage and I will prove it to you now.
When you were living in hiding in the cloister, beyond your uncle’s reach, you know what my uncontrollable desire did with you there, actually in a corner of the refectory, since we had nowhere else to go. I repeat, you know how shamelessly we behaved on that occasion in so hallowed a place, dedicated to the most holy Virgin. Even if our shameful behaviour at that time was all, this alone would deserve far heavier punishment. Need I recall our previous fornication and the wanton impurities, when I deceived your uncle about you so disgracefully, at a time when I was continuously living with him in his own house? Who would not judge me justly betrayed by the man whom I had first shamelessly betrayed? Do you think that the momentary pain of that wound is sufficient punishment for such crimes?
And so it was wholly just and merciful – although by means of the supreme treachery of your uncle – for me to be reduced in that part of my body which was the seat of my lust and sole reason for those desires.
You know too how when you were pregnant and I took you to Brittany you disguised yourself in the sacred habit of a nun, a pretence which was an irreverent mockery of the religion you now profess. Consider, then, how fittingly divine justice brought you against your will to the religion which you did not hesitate to mock. See how greatly the Lord was concerned for us, as if he were reserving us for some great ends, and was indignant or grieved because our knowledge of letters, the talents which he had entrusted to us, were not being used to glorify his name.
My love, which brought us both to sin, should be called lust, not love. Notwithstanding that, whatever is yours cannot, I think, fail to be mine, and mine, yours. Christ is yours because you have become his bride, and I praise God for it. All along, it was he who truly loved you, not I.
Your servant in Christ,
P.
*
You are cruel. You are cruel in order to teach me to accept a situation we cannot alter. I know you. Even now I know you. Your case is sound, yet it serves only to remind me how our words and logic have failed. So I whisper these last tender syllables.
I am with you until you fall asleep, even as you once said. I am inside your breast for ever.
Be not bereft.
H.
Dirty Weekend
Paris 2001
Easter weekend. We were lucky to get a room.
At reception, Monsieur can hardly bring himself to look up. He has already noted the grizzled and wind-blown mane of your hair. He observes the stains on your jacket and the regrettably wide lapels. His greeting is tepid, and my good French does not mollify. He passes us a key with few words, and we cross to the lift where you hit all the buttons at once, imitating, as the doors close, the sour twist of Monsieur’s face. Indeed, so occupied are you by your performance that you fail to notice the doors have opened again.
At the desk, Monsieur is watching us with masterly sangfroid.
So I am not surprised that the room smells of cigarettes. Or that the paint is blistering. Or that there is an empty, still lubricated, condom packet under one corner of the bed. We peer around the bathroom door – the shower drain seems to double as a toilet – and we retreat again. I unzip my bags. Behind me, the wardrobe lists like a drunk. Whenever you pass it on the way to the window, its door flies open, as if a body is about to tumble out.
Never mind, we say. Never mind. We’ve made it. Paris. The trees in bud. The wind, gusty off the Seine, blowing off winter. You are as happy and insistent as a child. You give me ten minutes to unpack and mop up my eye infection while you calm yourself with a Hamlet on the street below. Then out.
On the other side of the street, across a large junction constipated with traffic, there’s a brasserie too basic in its offerings to tempt anyone other than locals. ‘Our brasserie,’ you say, grinning, your dark Irish eyes alight. ‘As of now, it’s our brasserie. Everyone else can say au revoir toot de sweet.’ You turn to me, screwing up your eyes up as if measuring the situation. ‘Or not. Should we let the fuckers stay? Are we in a holiday mood?’
‘We are.’ I take your arm. ‘I’d say we are’
Inside, we relax in the dense and familial cloud of smoke. I sip my espresso. You light up. We toe each other under the table. To my left, a man with very small reading glasses and a gargantuan bottom orders coffee at the bar before spreading and smoothing his newspaper across one of the small black tables. He scans the room and spots something of interest by the window. It is not easy for him to manoeuvre his girth in the close confines of our little place, but we believe cosiness is what brings our customers back, time after time. He returns, panting slightly, with a second chair held at chest height. Then he seats himself or, more precisely, each buttock, one per chair.
I take a pen out of my bag. You are ready with a paper napkin. ‘Forget A Room of One’s Own,’ I scribble. ‘Think: A Chair of One’s Own, the heretofore unpublished rallying cry of the anonymous buttock who would be ignored no longer.’
You take the pen and continue. ‘The story of the buttock who yearned for café society, for romance, for a private income.’ You glance, quickly, over your shoulder and shake your head, making a clicking noise with your mouth, as if to say, the news isn’t good. ‘Get a boil on that backside,’ you write, recalling your own former plight, ‘and we’ll be looking at a three-chair outlay. For Christ’s sake, does he think he’s our only regular?’
The door opens and a four-foot-something-high woman with huge eyes and relentless eye-shadow walks in and joins the queue for cigarettes – ‘Edith Piaf,’ I write. You nod, nonchalant. The queue is restless, urgent, yellow-fingered. Edith is followed by a small man with an intelligent face and frizzy white wings of hair. We have run out of room on our napkin. ‘I didn’t know Einstein frequented our brasserie,’ I mumble through the side of my mouth.
You turn to look. ‘Word gets round.’ Then you smile, faux-smug, meaning, that’s the kind of establishment you and I run.
That night, we run up rue de I’ Odéon, looking for the ghost of Joyce. We lay hands on the green-painted brickwork of the shopfront that was once Sylvia B’s. We talk dirty for Molly Bloom. We scoff at the hallowed Shakespeare & Co. and its grumpy owner who refused, on a sudden whim, to sell me the first-edition Winter Pollen. At last we walk back along the cold calm of the Seine, both of us wrapped in the bad fit of your jacket.
We sleep like apple seeds, bending towards one another. In the night, you knee me, sudden and hard in the stomach, and wake us both with the force of it. ‘Sorry, darling. Sorry, sorry.’ You were back in South Armagh, cornered. I stroke your head, rub your shoulders. In time, you turn me on to my other side and fold me against your chest.
In Montmartre, it’s obscenely cold. I buy a scarf from a stall. A pashmina. Or a good fake, rather. Pale pink. You bundle me up in it and stow my hand in your coat pocket, wrapping my fingers in yours. On the steps of Sacre Coeur, we gorge on the views. It’s Good Friday: pilgrim nuns wait on their knees as hundreds gather for the next Mass. We move on to the stairs but get no further than the wall of the faithful.
You, however, will not be deterred. You drop down a step and are suddenly at my back, pretending to take me from behind as you shunt me up the steps, one by one, against the press of the crowd. Inside, I find a space on one of the pews and fall into the trance of the Mass while you pace like something feral at the back of the nave. Later, we walk the seedy length of rue Pigalle, the neon sails of the Moulin Rouge spinning wea
rily in the night. You cover my eyes, playing father while stocky men in bad suits tout for business outside clubs. ‘Monsieur et Madame…?’ they inquire.
‘Virgin!’ you bark, nodding to me.
‘Monsieur et Madame…?’
‘VIRGIN!’ you shout. People stare, but you smile to yourself, your own happy Theatre of the Absurd.
As we approach the last suit, you consult me briefly on a point of vocabulary. ‘Monsieur et Madame?’ comes the call.
‘VIERGE! ELLE EST VIERGE!’ Then you turn to me, as if considering the prospect, and your eyebrows flicker darkly.
On Easter Saturday, it’s the Gare-du-I-forget-which because you want to see the great surrealist heap of clocks outside the station. We stand before the twenty-foot tower and behold: dozens of clocks, black-rimmed, white-faced. Some, large and round, like those you’d find in an examination hall. Others, small and square – the no-nonsense bedside alarms of this world. It’s as if clock after clock has been carelessly tossed on to the concrete plinth, from which one will at any moment fall, bringing down all of time with it.
It is five to ten. It is also twenty past eight, ten past seven, fourteen past three and twenty-one minutes to eleven; we take a strange comfort in the different lunatic time on each face. I dig for the camera and catch you in the viewfinder. You stand with your foot on the edge of the plinth, like a hunter with his foot on big game, as if you have overcome the merely chronological.
We lunch in the restaurant across the street where corpulent, Renoiresque couples enjoy weekend roasts and bonhomie. Is it that afternoon that we shop? Or rather, I shop and you recline, happy, easygoing, in a wicker chair, as I try on boas, scarves and chapeaux. A childish ritual but I am shameless.
Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction Page 6
