XXVI

Spring night.

What do you want from a spring night?

You, an old woman, who can hear death breathing outside your door, waiting to come in; what do you ask of a spring night?

That it bring you the time to do what you still must do, perhaps. That something might happen that doesn’t entirely depend on you, that someone might find the courage to speak, that someone else might find the courage to say yes. That someone who is in love might not condemn himself to a lifetime of loneliness, when you have gone for good. That spring might make the blood quicken in the veins, that recklessness might win out over fear.

This is what you’d ask of the spring night that scatters perfume through the streets.

And you, what is it you’d ask of a spring night?

You, who lie drowning in the silence of wine, and look at your hands as you think of what they’ve done and in the fear of what they could still do, what do you ask of a spring night?

That it might give you back that smile, perhaps. Even if just once more, even just one miserable moment. To hear the word that she would have said to you, and understand, and feel, so that you can dream. To be able to breathe again.

This is what you’d ask of a night that brings wind.

And what would you ask of a spring night?

You who look back on the women of your past, so different and so beautiful. So dead. With their bodies you tried to satisfy your own, from their hands you desired the pleasure that you only ever had from one woman, one woman who is gone now. What do you ask of the spring night?

That it might sweep her memory from your mind, perhaps. So that you can bury behind the image of her corpse this side of your mind, this shadowy side, this dark side. And that you might see others respect you again, that you might see your son respect you again.

This is what you’d ask of the night of new scents.

And you? What is it that you’d ask of a spring night?

You who continue to cry into your pillow, unable to find peace in sleep. You, who are rich, and beautiful, and desired, and loved, and who feel that you’re the ugliest, poorest, and most woebegone woman on earth. What do you ask of the spring night?

That it might help you to forget about love, perhaps. That it might chase away from your night those green eyes that stare at you out of the darkness, making your belly churn and stabbing your heart. That it might help you to resign yourself to the loss of hope.

This is what you’d ask of the night of sea foam.

What about you? What would you ask of a spring night?

You who sit up, wakeful, with your aching body, from the thousands of bruises and aches and small wounds that you know so well. Because you’ve lived through another first day of this terrible profession, your body bearing the brunt of the vices of so many men who lack the courage to seek from their wives what they truly desire. What would you like from this spring night?

Perhaps a man. Just one man. However many vices he may have, however desperate he may be. No matter how much pain he wishes to inflict, no matter how much pain he wishes to suffer. One man, who stays to sleep at your side, when he’s finished searching for his own frenzied desire with blind fury. Just one man, who is still there when you wake up.

This is what you’d ask of the night of newly sprouted leaves.

And you? What do you ask of the spring night?

You who have spent the whole day trying to fend off disease, pain, jealousy, anger. You who have administered medicines, you who have stitched up wounds and injuries. You, who when you finally got to bed, expected to drop into deepest sleep, and instead find yourself still there, staring at the ceiling that is a black screen for your memories. Tell me, what do you want from the spring night?

A new world, perhaps. A different world, where causing suffering isn’t a virtue, a good to be pursued. Where one’s true homeland is the whole universe, where borders don’t need to be expanded with arms. Where pain comes only from natural causes, not from human hands. Maybe, not to feel that everyone else’s suffering is also yours.

That’s what you’d ask, of this night full of fresh magic.

And you, you: what is that you’d wish for on this spring night?

You who are so excited you can’t get to sleep. You who are just discovering the smells, the spaces, the territories inhabited by the man you love, as you drink in his movements, as you imagine his expressions. You who caress his fabrics, his curtains, his armchairs, absorbing the glances of those eyes which preceded your touch. What do you desire from this spring night?

Perhaps that space might fill up for you, in your days and in your life. That he might understand, the way that you’ve understood, that the time has come, that by now the days of fingers brushing, the days of love are finally coming, just as the summer of light and dreams is on its way.

That’s what you’d wish for, in this night of a thousand deceits.

And you? You, what is it you’d ask for from this spring night?

You who felt her presence in your belly, and now she’s dead. You who saw her walk her first steps and heard her speak her first word, and who glowed with pride at how beautiful she was. Who dreamed of her as a bride, but never saw it. Who imagined her giving birth as you held her hand, but that too was denied you. Who tell everyone willing to listen how much you hate her, that you’ve never forgiven her for the shame she brought you, that you disown the whore that she became. So then why can’t you sleep, on this pleasant spring night?

Perhaps it’s because she’s dead now that you find her sitting here on the edge of your soft feather bed, which she bought you in silence, without ever seeing what she paid for. Because her corpse looks at you and doesn’t speak, it looks at you without reproof and without love, it looks at you and nothing more. And it waits for a word you can’t utter, because corpses don’t listen, because corpses have no ears. And in the sleepless night, you can’t even think it, that word.

That’s what you desire from this night of sad silence.

And you? You who never ask anything, what would you like from this spring night?

You who are no stranger to nights spent staring into the darkness in pursuit of a dreamless sleep that is always slow to come. You who feel echoing in your chest the voices of the living and the dead, and chase after a logic you never find, what is it you seek and what is it you find in this spring night?

Perhaps you seek one face and find another. Perhaps you’d like to find the image that brings you peace, a sweet left-handed silhouette that moves placidly through its familiar spaces, dreaming of making those spaces yours. And instead you see the deep dark eyes that swim with tears thanks to your gratuitous insult. And you recognize this new fragility, a gap in the armor of a heart you long thought strong and independent, and you now reckon with a new tenderness.

And perhaps those eyes transform themselves into a dead face, expressionless, with a vague memory of beauty in its features, a face that demands justice without asking it, or revenge for the life stolen from it, for its unknown future.

You’d like just a little peace from the night of stirring blood.

And then there’s you.

You who have killed. You who are one of these people, or who are something else entirely, you who waited until there was no more breath left under that pillow, for the body that was once warm to cool, for the blood to stop flowing through her veins.

You, what is it you would ask of this spring night?

Perhaps you’d ask it to rub out a shadow of remorse. You’d ask it to call you right, when you thought that there could be no life, with her still in the world. That there would be no hope, no peace, with her. That the spring night might convince you that it will be possible to go on living without her, that you weren’t wrong, that everything will turn out all right.

That it wasn’t revenge, that it wasn’t anger. But necessity. Not despair, but hope.

That the spring night might convince you that there was only one way, and that you did what you had to do.

That in order to be reborn, one must necessarily die.

That’s what you’d like to hear from the night that cannot give you peace.

Because it has none.