The Closed Doors

by Pauline Albanese

No. It’s a kiss full of teeth, and a metallic taste on your tongue, the pain under the stomach, there, just there, where you hide your fear and your power.

Each one of my ribs—I will open each one of my ribs with fingertips, break each one of my ribs, and allow you to dive your hands into my chest so you can feel the beating of my heart. I will show you that life isn’t always warm, isn’t always veiled in dusk and emerald.

I chose you because darkness held you like a hook in the navel. I only had to pull slowly on the hook, slowly, without hurting you, and you came to me, closing your velvet eyelids, closing your snow-grey lips. You came to me.

I chose you because you’re an orchard of ripe fruits, and I want to lay my sufferings in the shadows of your arms, of your belly. I chose you because your tears remind me of September rain. Because of the sun I see in your pupils. You cannot run now, can you? You have found your home. Do you feel the darkness in the hollow of your plexus? Don’t you understand? Your darkness was your secret, and she whispers to mine.

Do you hear my echo? He touches her through the white dress, on the hollow star where ribs join, where breathing is born. He looks at her without flinching; she listens very carefully. She doesn’t escape his gaze. HADES You came to answer my echo. You heard me calling. You couldn’t bear to hear the lies of the sun and of the earth anymore. It was a game of hiding, hiding from your soul and from your mother and from the world. You weren’t a child anymore. And so you followed the six pomegranate seeds without hesitation, without slowing, and you broke them on your tongue to taste the flavor of the awakening. You had fragile legs and vivid eyes. You didn’t scream when the earth collapsed. You knew I was coming for you. PERSEPHONE I couldn’t imagine it. She knows. She doesn’t know. She will know. HADES Maybe you did, just a little. Already, you knew the crystalline, ivory skulls glowing in human dust and the blue and grey plants we find here in sooty corners. You heard about the millennial throne, the translucent river, its unalterable lament. You had perhaps read that we bathe in the warm blood of fallen warriors, brush our hair with rodent teeth, that our jewels resembled glass eyes, gold-filed molars, broken arrowheads found sunken in corpses; didn’t you? You could already feel the damp, soft river bank that the souls graze and stroke, the arches of the great tunnels, feel the infinite labyrinth. You understood that we held between our innumerable, entwined hand...

He smiles and steps back. She doesn’t move, not at all, she’s very still. She’s still aware of him, the closeness, the words. The strong presence of the King of the dead. HADES I will give you my throne. A silence. PERSEPHONE, fighting still, voice sharp, trance broken No! I didn’t want to, I lied! I’m scared here, of the screams. I’m scared of the dark. Someone knocks politely on the door.

The door isn’t even locked. It was never locked at all.

I am not an orchard. I am not Summer. My tears do not resemble rain. The sun is not in my pupil. You have no right to love me as one loves the fantasy of an inaccessible world. He stays silent. PERSEPHONE I am weak, I cry salt, and my eyes are abyssal; you are weak, you cry salt, and your eyes are darkness; you, and me, and them, and the world is terribly human, terribly monotonous. I will never bring to you the beauty of June fields, the smell of ripe apricots and wild berries. I will not be able to exhale the friskiness of the mountain stream on your tongue. I cannot give you the world above, I cannot light up the shadows. I don’t want to be the only receptacle of life in the midst of death. I am rotting like the others, you know. She leans towards him, and brushes his wreathed forehead, his dark hair. PERSEPHONE You are lying to yourself if you think I will vanquish your melancholy. HADES I have learned a long time ago not to lie to myself. A silence. Their eyes are locked. HADES I haven’t made a chimera out of you. I know what you are. I am not longing for the world above, only for you.

PERSEPHONE You said— HADES I know what you are. I know that you are a damn brat, a capricious child, a beloved child, and that you only know light. I know that shadows pervaded you in secret, like a disease, and that the forests of Greece weren’t enough anymore. I know that you are trying to escape innocence without knowing how, that you keep your eyelids closed, that you walk blind in life and in death, hands outstretched, cold cheeks —violent heart. I know that you are the one feeding on ideals, but you will survive disappointment. I am alone here, you know. I feel like a thousand years. I read in you as if you had welcomed me inside of your skin. Persephone gets up. She’s listening and worried and feverish and suspended. HADES I am here, and you are here, because I answered your cry, and I recognized my mind in yours, and my words in your head. And your words in my head. They gaze at each other. HADES You could not change my hopes and my grief. You couldn’t erase the loneliness of millenniums, nor fight the power of frozen time or the grace of

Hell. I don’t want to lie to you, either. I suffered through my ostracism and was tortured by my crown. She still burns my temples when night falls outside but merely stays here. I am revengeful, powerless, incapable. I beat on stoned walls and spat on the dead, I cursed my brother, and light, and the world; I wanted to refuse, I wanted to rebel, then I wanted revenge; I stirred my grudge, I cried in the silence. I waited for a long time. I dreamed a lot. Then, I forgot what I had lost. I finally opened my arms and accepted in my breast the greatness, the violence of my throne. I don’t want to lie to you: I am giving you a burning crown, clawing walls, singing corpses. I am giving you the weakness of a god who let himself, once, suffer like a mortal. She’s still in front of him, gleaming in the penumbra, serious. She lifts her hand to him. She’s going for the crown, fingers trembling, slow palm. She understands. PERSEPHONE, small voice, secret voice Sometimes I am afraid, here. I was never afraid there. Hades waits for her to touch him, to reach her prize; but the silence is broken when the door slams open.

he gazes at her as if she was already lost.

Tell them that you weren’t hungry, tell them you followed the pomegranates seeds because they tasted like blood, like love. A silence. HADES That you wanted to escape your body and the light because darkness held you by the belly and by the heart. A silence. HADES, whispering now Tell them you chose to come. A silence. A long silence. Only the screams outside. Persephone starts to walk, slowly. She reaches him and clings to him. The wreathed head touches her dark shoulder, adjusts against her throat. There is, in this slight hand stroking his pale neck, in this kiss laid upon his temple, in these arms hooking her waist, in their embrace, all the appeasement of the world. PERSEPHONE I will tell them I came for me and stayed for you.