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You pay back everybody who upsets you, even me. If only you’d shout and scream — but all you do is smile. You’re the most vengeful person I ever met. You sleep with a knife under your pillow, and you wait till the time comes to stick it in. If it’s something really bad you don’t just scratch — you kill.”
“Yes, that’s him,” she replied, to the question I had not asked. “When he left me I found the cat, the multicoloured one; the one that was hanged. There’s no need for pity. I don’t deserve it. You should never love anyone, or any animal, that much.”
No-one could gaze at the kitchen with such utter devotion, watching what was taking shape from the raw ingredients, as he. It was impossible to keep him away from the cooking area, though in fact no-one ever wanted to, because at such times he became a devotee, perfectly disciplined, but always waiting for some special morsel.
His longing had its own peculiar sound, as if he were sighing, and always, in response to this doleful note, the person standing at the stove would throw him something. These sighs too are often brought back to me by the stream of memory.
What did I want from her? Friendship, or to be fondled like a close relation? “Your ideas about everything are very different from mine. You were taught how to do a thousand things, but not to be aware of what really matters. Can’t you see that there’s no point in trying to dazzle me? I don’t want anyone unless they are completely mine. You like to put everyone in a box, and then produce them whenever they’re needed: this is my girlfriend, this my cousin, and this my elderly godmother. This is my love, this is my doctor, and this pressed flower is from the island of Rhodes. Just let me be.
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Emerence made it a condition that if you loved her, she should be the leading figure in your life.
She also demanded of me that, in my art, it should be real passion and not machinery that moved the branches. That was a major gift, the greatest of her bequests.
When you do something truly unforgivable, you don’t always realise it, but there is a certain inward suspicion of what you have done.
The prize, I reflected bitterly, had already begun to work its influence. I had rushed off in a TV car towards its radiance, away from illness, old age, loneliness and incapacity.
Emerence no longer wished to live, because we’d destroyed the framework of her life and the legend attached to her name.
I had long known that the more simple a thing was, the less likely it was to be understood; and now Emerence would never have the chance to make anyone understand either herself or her cats.
Again no answer was possible. It was true that my husband had never lied. But then again, the Lieutenant Colonel was one of the most admirable men I had ever met. As for me, I am what I am. And this is what I am: I went off to Athens.
Like a truly great commander she settled everything around her in person, with a single impressive gesture.
