Four. Five.
Some of the children counted.
The annual winter solstice all-night party begun at Ava Klein’s (well her parents’ house) in the country convenes.
The yearly cast of characters gather.
Who else shall we expect?
Oh the usual assortment. And here they come now.
The Horse of Frost
Black Peter
Old Bronzen Face
The Romulus
Welcome my heavenly creatures. Come in come in!
The Godiva, the Big-Bristled Pig, Raven, the Gifting Stag. The Red Fox in disguise.
The Raven has stolen the sun!
The Raven has stolen the sun and now the children being chased shout The Raven has stolen the sun! The Raven has stolen the sun.
Isabelle and her new love do the Horn Dance. Jack is here. And Paris!
Let the Wild Rumpus begin!
Huge racks of reindeer horns adorn Olaf.
The children clamor. A case of vintage Chateau Le Bois to pour on the yule log.
Stop drinking the yule log wine Frank!
Mr. Shanks!
More Horn Dancers
The entryway suddenly quite congested.
Sing the Wren Song for us Ava Klein.
Oh not yet—
When exactly does the party begin do you suppose? This, my first Ava Klein Solstice Night Extravaganza.
In the cacophony Anatole quotes Bazin:
“See how the action is not bounded by the screen, but simply passes through it.”
The Rules of the Game.
Ava smiles—
How is this for a beginning? Someone propose a first toast.
The Swedish Mystic speaks lifting a glass of aquavit.
To the solstice. The night we have waited all year for. When the conviction that the sun will return remains in doubt and the gates between worlds stand ajar.
The gates ajar.
Not closing. The gates are open.
Then another toast: may we be reminded once again to take nothing for granted—pondering the precious handful of solstice nights allotted.
Do you know the story of aquavit? Rocked in the waves in the night in a cask …
Hints of caraway and star anise. Secret spices and herbs.
From Oslo to the equator and back.
Originally made this way because there was no direct transit.
The rocking motions.
A kind of magic. The swaying and lolling waves. Oh Nippy, you’re making me positively seasick.
Meanwhile Clive is providing pony rides there on his hands and knees and the children in their velvets and vests and patent leathers knock each other down, jockeying for spots.
Me first
Giddyup.
So poetic these toasts Flo, don’t you think?
Yes, no matter how bitter January is, it won’t be getting any darker—rest assured this solstice moment we celebrate is fleeting.
Spoken like a true optimist Flo.
The years as they dwindle.
Still the thrill of the dark—and the still quite certain notion that—oh quite—that we might have—time to flourish—a fair surmising—that the darkness sooner or later certainly but not yet—that the darkness more or less will give way—oh at least once more.
But is anything more beautiful than the end of things? Things that die to disappear forever.
Chased by a solstice ghost and Old Horst, the children raced through the house, taking circuitous routes, so as not to be accidentally caught under the mistletoe or the kissing ball.
Well that won’t last long will it?
Nor any of it I’m afraid.
Enter Rose St. Eclair, recently deceased.
The Goddess of Melancholy is Black. Her light is all inside.
Cheer up. Annika Britta is here with her first batch of Christmas beer.
I for one am happy to be sheltered tonight by this necessary shade.
The world is round like a ball turning upon itself and resting on nothing. This from his dictées. He’s never forgotten it. This oft-quoted bit of wisdom from Anatole’s geography book when he was a child in the South of France—
up, up the mother coos and then lifts the child from the floor—it’s like flying, it’s a little like flying.
Anatole, gracing us with your presence! How nice to see you!
She walks in beauty
And the steering of beauty into the remote little nook near the coat closet. Me Too—the movement—still decades away.
Because anything can happen in the night
Eyes glowing under the chaise
Mr. Black, her mother’s cat, carrying the night on its fur, Friday its day, darkness its element.
Mr. Black!
At long last—Herman and Louisa arrive—it’s nice isn’t it this annual gathering of the tribes—as we hurl fire in the direction of the darkness—
I like that “in the direction of”—sweet to think it does not engulf us utterly, utterly, entirely—(touching isn’t it that one might actually point to its general vicinity—the darkness, that is)
Shine a little desk lamp on the thing if you can old Mullen McCoy laughs—these parties, consecutively held—these offerings to the eternal dark—
I’ve missed you old boy, Ava Klein whispers and how did your semester go?
Ohhh—please don’t ask—I’m too old anymore for this sort of thing, and yet—one must—one does—they’ll be carrying me out of there in a pine box—my Friday afternoon survey class oh good God—wrapped up like Lowell’s mum—
Panettone was it?
Or melon in prosciutto …
Yes thank you. Hors d’oeuvres floating by at eye level.
May I offer you a cup of Night?
Mr. Black, surveying his bowl, slips in and then out.
When the time span during which melatonin is secreted is extended an animal knows that night is longer, and that winter is approaching.
Who is that gnawing at my neck?
aroused are you by the little lovely melatonin story it’s all so …
And on the refrigerator, a child’s drawing of the sun, and as if on some cue:
Madame Soleil waltzes in in crimson. Here I am and not a minute too soon! And she sets up shop: a card table, a velvet tablecloth, a crystal ball, a deck of cards
Arriving with a flourish. In the parlor she sets up her futuristic café,
something about the Twins, a conflagration, an Antichrist, a man in an ostrich skin suit, all the children lining up for small pox vaccines, children in cages. The burning earth. And the sun shall shine but it will give no light. Darkness streaming—
and those baffled and dizzied by her predictions come out reeling. Disoriented. Trust me she says. Harrowing as they are—
You really know how to liven up a party Soleil.
Masked, hooded, and cloaked figures to dance around a fire. The beating of breasts.
Where the gates of the Solstice opened up to the immensity of the soul’s great journey … the belief that the human soul entered and exited life through the gate of the solstices.
… From the eyes of the dead: visions: a fire will ignite, an eclipse of snow, duplicates. A flurry of children will signal the end.
And she thought of those duplicates. People who recalled other people she had known or loved—and it was not so much that they were shadow versions, but rather here now augmented and in some way more vivid versions of original longings, or more present, returned again. Slightly altered. In the man Peter who brought Harry back, and she spoke to him and to Harry simultaneously in beautiful, contrapuntal echoing and felt sorrow and gratefulness—a certain sense of—that reverberation.
Figments—
one would scarcely believe so real he seemed before me, she said.
The world vast, unfathomable.
What is yet to come: unimaginable.
Ah yes but not all of it. Not all of it unimaginable.
Yet
to come:
By night’s end I suppose Fiona will ride the Porters’ Saint Bernard across the blue snow lit lawn—hugging on for dear life, the flask secured around the poor creature’s neck—a tradition of sorts, at this point—once it must have been amusing, yes? Now it is more startling than anything—how drunk she is and the dog now ancient, drooling, yes do you think he might bite her this year?
Yes, there’s a chance.
This dissipated, still dark night.
One more game of checkers before bed, the children beg.
Oh and don’t forget
Yet to come:
Enid and the conch
But dear God, not yet.
Anatole drifting through his inscrutable universe.
In another era the women might have whispered behind the silk screen or their fans: “He is incomprehensible—like Chinese,” while the great moon filled the window
Anatole glimpsed through the cheval glass. The wings etched …
In the years she was unattached—Ava was known to—oh well never mind—
Anatole so nice to see you. You might take off your jacket and stay awhile n’est-ce pas?
Against that brilliant scrim—bereft—so stunning a contrast to his wife’s joie de vivre—well, opposites do attract—how lovely an idea when you get it right—
Have you seen my husband, Ava Klein asks, why yes—but now where has he gone?
Oh Anatole, he was just here.
I trail your trace in light and shadow.
Ava lifts a glass: may we honor the Presence of Mystery among us on this the year’s longest night.
Transfigured.
Vous-voulez quelques chose?
If you could make one more wish.
Madame Bartek pipes up. Yes to live a few more years. If I could make one wish, I suppose that would be it.
This rarefied company—professors and the like—we’re a dying breed. We’re vanishing right before our eyes. Like the pterodactyls, we’ll be extinct soon enough.
Extinguished
I say all the more reason to celebrate.
When I was a child I liked to read from the Children’s Encyclopedia.
What do you remember?
Cumulus Clouds.
The city of Baghdad.
The migration of birds.
Julian Westney, recently divorced, huddled in the corner with his hors d’oeuvres and his small entourage of women says, The soul on the way to find God must learn to know him by what he is not, rather than what he is. After it has freed itself from the love of the things of the world—
Now the profound emptiness, he whispers …
Oh to be quoting St. John of the Cross, this early in the night!
And if he thinks this is some sort of seduction speech …
I’m afraid you’ve encouraged him Ava Klein!
Leonardo, I believe is his name. Francesco’s younger brother, now him I’d like to see.
And that young man over there? Who is responsible for him?
A bonfire was being prepared for the sojourn to the next house on the itinerary.
It is three thousand years before the coming of Christ. Darkness envelops the world. To those alive it must seem as if the light has been banished forever. Crops have turned purple, then withered, then disappeared. A black light flares from the periphery. These are shadowy uncertain times when the conviction that the sun will return becomes doubtful, and when the gates between worlds stand ajar. A veil flutters at the window.
The sun might never return and so it was imperative that the fire remain alive.
Gently, she whispers, gently this time as he caressed her from behind. Witnessed on the back stairs by the children. Shoo, to bed, and they are off madly giggling
Not all: the older girl was horrified and would never forget it.
That sound.
And then silence. And then a lull.
Floating voices—dalliances—the way the days passed, a little hopelessly, but not terribly so.
Melissa seemed to be drifting off …
Yes, she’s sleeping, let her be.
So many pledges whispered in the night.
Perhaps we are simply the figments in a sleeping woman’s dream as we make our way now—get up everyone—through a storm of melatonin. Soon enough,
Onward, to the next abode. Get up while you can.
Produced by the pineal gland in the night
crucial to an animal’s well-being, ensuring that animals mate according to seasonal patterns of fertility and that reproduction is connected to a particular season
Our hopefulness, these cycles, despite everything.
And why not?
Eternal return, the young man shall continually cut himself on the punch bowl. The night has its own logic. Its erotics. Night after night. Its own magic.
Ah yes, Madame Soleil smiling in the conflagration. In the world’s end. She sees little incinerations—
Save the last dance for me. She sighs, always to know the future, but never to be believed. Comes with the territory she says cheerfully.
Counterfeit forms and monstrous faces:
Those born men are clothed in women’s dresses. Auguries, revels. Expressly devised to distract the mind from the real fear that the new year may not actually dawn, or the light come back. To placate the gods, to call back the sun. Animal skins, men in masks, a solstice child fathered by one of the masked ones.
My pagan! Who wears his hunchback and his tinkling bell.
Now filing in: the Cowhead, the Hobby Horse, the Devil
May I offer you a cup of night? Oh yes Ava Klein
In darkness under snow the roses are asleep. Annaliese Troche, the night nurse, crosses the threshold.
Outside, the bonfire: animal totems in night, ancestral figures—it’s getting very New Agey in here.
Yes very Hobbit don’t you think,
Dawson hauling in his new paintings: his maypoles, shepherds, bonfires, primordial rituals, they’re very beautiful I might add Dawson. His Solstice Processions in the Magdalenian Era series.
Horst! His nostrils flaring.
Hello Horst. Horst with his panpipe. How have I found myself hoof to hoof with Horst again?
The body is a flute for as long as it lasts. Put your lips to it.
I hadn’t understood that she had been asleep all those years so I could scarcely have fathomed what it could mean to have her awakened—sexually that is.
I was with stunning rapidity in way over my head. Her level of need …
Older men constantly marrying younger women they had no aptitude whatsoever for.
That bewildered look: shopping sprees … zumba … salad bars …
And as if on cue: Enid.
Enter Enid and this year’s harem
And you were up to the challenge no doubt I imagine.
Yes, Enid sighed, someone had to meet it.
Paul is seeing stars. Enid drives him wild. Always has. Sing a little Schubert song, why don’t you—the one about the linden tree—
It’s the time apparently for Enid’s story of the girl and the conch
Already?
Not already?
For what would the solstice party be without it?
Yes Enid says. Well, having knocked on my door she announced that it was her birthday, and that her visit to me was a gift, she was giving herself a birthday gift, I don’t recall ever seeing her in my life. A present to herself, she said unbuttoning her coat. Underneath which she was completely nude.
And? Don’t forget Enid.
And she was carrying a conch shell. Shiny. Slippery.
And what kind of coat Enid?
Oh a trench coat! Can you imagine?
Yes we can.
Later I was the one blamed for having taken the bait as it were. Oh to be a cult figure, Enid sighs, to never be seen for who one actually was—always outside of one’s actual life.
Intoxicating night,
when modesty leaves us.
A burden I’d like to have for sure.
Yes, yes, a student from somewhere surely—but not mine.
But to have allowed her in! She might have murdered you don’t you think? A complete stranger at your door?
And how would she do that do you suppose?
I don’t know, asphyxiation?
Nonsense, Zenka says evenly. Women don’t harm one another. Despite your garish fantasies, Paul.
Here, here, let’s lift a glass to that one.
A conch shell. Oh do tell. The dark allows for delicious confessions does it not? Yes—and year after year we have to hear this.
Glimmering.
Does it ever get old?
No, it does not.
A trench coat of all things …
Let me get this right. She had assessed your interest somehow several days earlier, amongst the library stacks apparently, and it had given her courage. Something about the way your eye had rested on the small of her back. There is no other word for it—the way she looked that April night at my otherwise rather unremarkable door.
“From Everest Mountain I am falling at your feet forever Mrs. Everling.”
She was glistening—there is no other word for it …
The audience sits transfixed.
Aldo’s immune system, utterly compromised.
Oh not the jeux de vérité—not yet, not this early, let’s wait a little bit if we can.
Reveal Charles, Dorothea Daitch screeches, that great golden phallus to us now and get it over with! No, no, not yet. At the stroke of midnight and not a moment sooner. And they look grimly to the clock.
And on the list of things to look forward to—
The children dropping off one by one as if administered, on the staggered half hour, a potion.
Ava being summoned to the night nursery.
Where’s she going?
Have you seen Anatole by any chance?
Passing under the mistletoe—at your own risk, the slightly shy Alexandra Miller, chirps—anything might come of this night, might happen on a night like this—and he flashes her that smile:
the young Ted Hughes, someone remarks.
When I think of Sylvia alone with those two babies freezing in that flat I simply cannot bear it.
Ah that boy over there is bleeding!
Marie Claude don’t forget we need to hear from you and Zenka tonight about the war before memory fades.
Nocturnals Page 30
