Hot Milk

by Deborah Levy

‘That is a vervet from Tanzania. An electricity pylon killed him, then he was taken to the taxidermist by one of my patients. After some thought, I accepted his gift because vervet monkeys have many human characteristics, including hypertension and anxiety.’ He was still staring intently at my mother’s tongue. ‘What we can’t see is his blue scrotum and red penis. I think the taxidermist removed them. And what we have to imagine is how this boy played in the trees with his brothers and sisters.’

I used to say to my classes that the ways to get insight are: to study infants; to study animals; to study primitive people; to be psychoanalysed; to have a religious conversion and get over it; to have a psychotic episode and get over it.

A poster of three unattractive employees stared at us from the wall, all of them laughing. The woman was in a female suit (jacket with skirt), the men in male suits (jacket with trousers), their message conveyed our similarities and erased our differences; we are sensible dreamers with bad teeth just like you; we all want a place of our own to argue with the family on Christmas Day.

‘I am an atheist, Mr Gómez,’ Rose said sternly. ‘And I do not believe that women who give birth are virgins.’ ‘But Rose, she is made from a delicate marble that is the colour of mother’s milk. It is white, but slightly yellow. So perhaps the sculptor was merely paying his respects to the act of nurturing. I wonder, did the virgin’s only child call his mother by her first name?’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Rose said. ‘It’s all lies, anyway. And by the way, Jesus called his mother “woman”. It translates in Hebrew as “Madam”.’

‘Jodo is my true love,’ he said. The cat rubbed its face against his open palm. ‘She is very gentle. I am just sorry we do not have mice, because she has nothing to do all day long except to love me.’

‘You know, Sofia, when Nurse Sunshine – or Julieta Gómez, or whoever she is – squeezed those drops into my eyes, I’m sure she smelt of alcohol. In fact, she smelt of vodka.’ ‘Well, it is her birthday,’ I said.

‘There is a problem, Zoffie. Pablo’s dog has been badly treated. He will not know what to do with his freedom. The dog will run through the village and eat all the babies. If you are going to unchain him, you will have to take him to the mountains and let him run wild. In that way he will be truly free.’ ‘But he will die in the mountains without water.’ Now she was looking at me. ‘What is worse? To be chained all day with a bowl of water, or to be free and die of thirst?’

is likely, he said, that she will discover that the buzzing sound, often so irritating to the human ear, resembles the timbre and pitch of Russian folk music.

‘You are sitting in the sunshine, Mrs Papastergiadis. The vitamin D is good for your bones. You must drink water. Now, I have a serious question. Tell me why you English say “wi-fi” and in Spain we say “wee-fee”?’ Rose sipped her water as if she had been asked to drink her own urine. ‘Obviously, it’s about a different emphasis on the vowel, Mr Gómez.’

Perhaps Rose’s memories are in her bones. Is that why bones have been used as divination tools from the beginning of human history?

Gómez had told her that she should draw a picture of the cat on the soles of her feet. That way she could stamp on Jodo all day long. I thought his comment was a clever way of getting her to walk.

‘Sofia, I feel completely safe in your hands. Just one observation.’ ‘What?’ ‘In Spain, you drive on the right-hand side of the road.’

My love for my mother is like an axe. It cuts very deep.

She is not exactly a wife. More like a cocktail waitress who is also an athlete and a mathematician. She has studied geometry and she is a seamstress with clients in China. She is also ‘a big, bad sister’, but she doesn’t want to talk about that.

There are debates in the scientific community about sunshine. It warms the planet every day, but it also makes us blind.’ ‘Blind to what?’ ‘Our everyday responsibilities. It is very seductive.’

‘You have become used to administering your mother’s medication. So perhaps it is as if you are coming off medication, too? You are using your mother like a shield to protect yourself from making a life. Medication is a ritual which I have now erased from both your lives. Attention! You will have to invent another one.’

I asked Julieta again why she called this process physiotherapy. Is it because my mother’s memories are held in her bones and muscles?

Is Donald Duck a child or a hormonal teenager or an immature adult? Or is he all of those things at the same time, like I probably am? Does he ever weep? What effect does rain have on his mood? When does he say no and when does he say yes?

Neither a god nor my father is the major plot in my own life. I am anti the major plots.

I was staggering through the park in black suede platform sandals, and my father was staggering through the park with the burden of the small portion of guilt that his god had not entirely absolved. We were staggering in silence.

gave my unspoken consent because I want to know what’s going to happen next, even if it’s not to my advantage. Am I self-destructive, or pathetically passive, or reckless, or just experimental, or am I a rigorous cultural anthropologist, or am I in love?

She was a voyeur. Of her own desire.

I used to say to my classes that the ways to get insight are: to study infants; to study animals; to study primitive people; to be psychoanalysed; to have a religious conversion and get over it; to have a psychotic episode and get over it.

I confess that I am often lost in all the dimensions of time, that the past sometimes feels nearer than the present and I often fear the future has already happened.

I dreamed again of the Greek girl. We are lying on a beach and I put my hand on her breast. We both fall asleep. When she wakes up she shouts, LOOK! She is pointing to the print of my hand. It leaves a white tattoo on her skin where everything is brown. She says, I will wear the print of your monster claws on my body to frighten my enemies.

I wanted big music like fire to burn away the random terror that was crawling under my skin.

‘We have to mourn our dead, but we cannot let them take over our life.’