24
In 1689 the mission of Sault Saint-Louis moved farther up the Saint Lawrence River. The reason for the exodus was soil exhaustion. The old location (at the place where the Portage River enters the Saint Lawrence) had been called Kahnawaké, or, at the rapids. Now it took the name Kateri tsi tkaiatat, or, the place where Catherine was buried. They took her body with them to the new village which was called Kahnawakon, or, in the rapids. They called the abandoned site Kanatakwenké, or, place of the removed village. In 1696 they moved once again up the south bank of the great river. The last migration took place in 1719. The mission installed itself in its present location, across the rapids opposite Lachine, now connected by a bridge to Montréal. It took the Iroquois name of 1676, Kahnawaké, or in its English form, Caughnawaga. There are still some relics of Catherine Tekakwitha at Caughnawaga, but not all. Some of her skeleton had been given away at different periods. Her head was carried to Saint-Régis in 1754, to celebrate the establishment of another Iroquois mission. The church in which the head was placed burned to the ground, and the skull did not survive.
KATERI TEKAKWITHA
Apr. 17, 1680
Onkweonweke Katsitsiio
Teotsitsianekaron
Kateri Tekakwitha
17 avril, 1680
La plus belle fleur épanouie
chez les sauvages
There! Done! Dear old friend, I did what was necessary! I did what I dreamed about when you, Edith, and I sat on the austere seats of the System Theatre. Do you know the question with which I tormented myself during those silvery hours? At last I can tell you. We are now in the heart of the System Theatre. We are in the dark jockeying for elbow dominion on the wooden armrests. Outside on Ste. Catherine Street, the theater marquee displays the only neon failure in miles of light: dropping two letters which will never be repaired, it signals itself as stem Theatre, stem Theatre, stem Theatre. Secret kabals of vegetarians habitually gather under the sign to exchange contraband from beyond the Vegetable Barrier. In their pinpoint eyes dances their old dream: the Total Fast. One of them reports a new atrocity published without compassionate comment by the editors of Scientific American: “It has been established that, when pulled from the ground, a radish produces an electronic scream.” Not even the triple bill for 65¢ will comfort them tonight. With a mad laugh born of despair, one of them throws himself on a hot-dog stand, disintegrating on the first chew into pathetic withdrawal symptoms. The rest watch him mournfully and then separate into the Montréal entertainment section. The news is more serious than any of them thought. One is ravished by a steak house with sidewalk ventilation. In a restaurant, one argues with the waiter that he ordered “tomato” but then in a suicide of gallantry he agrees to accept the spaghetti, meat sauce mistake. But this is far away from the glass pillar of stubs which the three of us passed and satisfied hours ago. Let us not forget that these doorway ticket depositories are not altogether docile. On more than several occasions I have stood behind a customer whose stub the chute rejects absolutely, and he is forced to get his money back from the contemptuous female sentry booth. They are not pleasant to deal with, these women posted in the entrances of every cinema: they are bound by choice to guard Ste. Catherine Street against self-destruction: the little streetside offices which they dominate protect the army of traffic by an administration which combines the best functions of Red Cross and G.H.Q. And what of the unacceptable patron with his money back? Where can he go? Was the cruel rejection arbitrary, in the sense that Society invents Crime so as to make itself indispensable? There is no dark for him to eat the Oh Henry! – all candy is threatened! Mere suicide vaudeville for the living? Or is there some ointment on the refusal of the toothed throat of the stub depository? Is this the kingly oil of election? Does some new hero discover his ordeal? Is this the birth of the hermit, or his equally passionate complement, the anti-hermit, seed of the Jesuits? And this chess side choice between saint and missionary, is this his first tragic testing? No matter to Edith, you and I, who have safely passed two aisles and half an alphabet, well into the bright amusement. We are now in the heart of the last feature in the System Theatre. Within severe limits, like smoke in a chimney, the dusty projection beam above our hair twisted and changed. Like crystals rioting in a test-tube suspension, the unstable ray changed and changed in its black confinement. Like battalions of sabotaged parachutists falling from the training tower straight down in various contortions, the frames streamed at the screen, splashing into contrast color as they hit, just as the bursting cocoons of arctic camouflage spread colorful organic contents over the snow as the divers disintegrate, one after the other. No, it was more like a ghostly white snake sealed in an immense telescope. It was a serpent swimming home, lazily occupying the entire sewer which irrigated the auditorium. It was the first snake in the shadows of the original garden, the albino orchard snake offering our female memory the taste of – everything! As it floated and danced and writhed in the gloom over us, I often raised my eyes to consult the projection beam rather than the story it carried. Neither of you noticed me. Sometimes I conceded surprising territories of the armrest so as to distract your pleasure. I studied the snake and he made me greedy for everything. In the midst of this heady contemplation, I am invited to formulate the question which will torment me most. I formulate the question and it begins to torment me immediately: What will happen when the newsreel escapes into the Feature? What will happen when the newsreel occurs at its own pleasure or accident in any whatever frame of the Vista-vision, willy nilly? The newsreel lies between the street and the Feature like Boulder Dam, vital as a border in the Middle East – breach it (so I thought), and a miasmal mixture will imperialize existence by means of its sole quality of total corrosion. So I thought! The newsreel lies between the street and the Feature: like a tunnel on the Sunday drive it ends quickly and in creepy darkness joins the rural mountains to the slums. It took courage! I let the newsreel escape, I invited it to walk right into plot, and they merged in aweful originality, just as trees and plastic synthesize new powerful landscapes in those districts of the highway devoted to motels. Long live motels, the name, the motive, the success! Here is my message, old lover of my heart. Here is what I saw: here is what I learned:
Sophia Loren Strips For A Flood Victim
THE FLOOD IS REAL AT LAST
Joy? Didn’t I promise it? Didn’t you believe I would deliver? And now I must leave you, but I find it so hard. Mary is restless now, she is jiggling restlessly, neither of us has any pleasure now, and some of her fluids are so ancient and unreplenished that there are pinchy paths of evaporation down my arm. Patients in O.T. are signing unfinished baskets so they can be identified in the nurse’s collection. The short spring afternoon has darkened and the tight lilac buds beyond the barred window are barely redolent. The afternoon linen has been sterilized and crisp folded beds require us.
– Bow wow wow! Bow wow! Grrrrrrr!
– What’s that commotion outside, Mary?
– Just the dogs.
– The dogs? I didn’t know there were going to be dogs.
– Well, there are. Now hurry! Pull it out!
– My hand?
– The package! The oilskin package!
– Must I?
– It’s from our friends!
With some fishlike movement she maneuvered her haunches, altering all the internal architecture of her cunt reception. Like a trout dragging the hook into the roof of its mouth, some blunt delicious shelf of miniature fountains applied the oilskin package to my hooked four fingers, and I withdrew it. Her wide white uniform shielded me from curiosity as I read the message. I am reading it now, as Mary Voolnd insists.
ANCIENT PATRIOT
FIRST FATHER PRESIDENT
THE REPUBLIC SALUTES YOUR SERVICE
WITH ITS HIGHEST HONOR
the escape is planned for tonight
is scribbled in invisible ink which her lubrications have activated! Tonight.
– I’m frightened, Mary.
– Don’t worry.
– Can’t we stay here a little longer?
– See the pretty lines, Mary?
– Too late for sex, F.
– But I think I could be happy here. I think I could acquire the desolation I coveted so fiercely in my disciple.
– That’s just it, F. Too easy.
– I want to stay, Mary.
– I’m afraid that’s impossible, F.
– But I’m right on the edge, Mary. I’m almost broken, I’ve almost lost everything, I almost have humility!
– Lose it! Lose everything!
– Help! Haaaaaaallllllpppp! Somebody!
– Your screaming can’t be heard, F. Come along.
– HAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLPPPPP!
– Click, clickclick. Bzzzzzzzzz. Sputter!
– What’s that funny noise, Mary?
– Static. It’s the radio, F.
– The radio! You didn’t say anything about the radio.
– Quiet. It wants to tell us something.
(DOLLY IN TO CLOSE-UP OF THE RADIO ASSUMING THE FORM OF PRINT)
– This is the radio speaking. Good evening. The radio easily interrupts this book to bring you a recorded historical news flash: terrorist leader at large. Only minutes ago, an unidentified Terrorist Leader escaped from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It is feared that his presence in the city will touch off new revolutionary extremes. He was aided in his get-away by a female accomplice who had infiltrated the Hospital Staff. Mutilated by routine police dogs in a diversionary tactic, she is now undergoing surgery, but is not expected to survive. It is believed that the escaped criminal will attempt to contact terrorist strongholds in the forests beyond Montréal.
– Is it happening, Mary?
– Yes, F.
– Grrrrr! Chomp! Arararara! Erf!
– Mary!
– Run, F.! Run. Run!
– Bow wow! Hoooowwwwllll! Grrrrrrr! R-i-i-i-i-p!
(SALIVATING POLICE DOG JAWS TEAR INTO THE FLESH OF MARY VOOLND)
– Your body!
– Run! Run, F. Run for all of us A——s!
(CLOSE-UP OF RADIO EXHIBITING A MOTION PICTURE OF ITSELF)
– This is the radio speaking. Eeeek! Tee hee! This is the ah ha ha, this is the hee hee, this is the radio speaking. Ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh ho ho ho, ha ha ha ha ha ha, it tickles, it tickles! (sound effect: echo chamber) This is the radio speaking. Drop your weapons! This is the Revenge of the Radio.
And this is your lover, F., finishing the joyous letter which I promised. God bless you! Oh darling, be what I want to be!
Yours truly,
Signé F.