Waterweed in the Wash-houses Quotes

“They say there should be no crying out. They say what they had closed should not have been reopened. They say that's why they locked you up.
They're right. I'm going to die of these words. I'm going to die of being closed in. I don't want to. It's too late. There should be no consent. But I'm not the one. I'm not the one who cries out. I'm not the one who writes. I'm another woman. She lives in my body. She doesn't have my horrid severed fingers. She loves the fields and the rivers. She loves the baskets and the cherries. She loves them so much that she wants to join them, be one with them. Her name is eternity. She's called memory. She's called death. She pursues me. She clings to me. She talks to me of former times. She talks to me of before. She settles down in me. She grows there. She invades my flesh. She takes my life.”
― Jeanne Hyvrard, Waterweed in the Wash-houses: A Novel

“You call me but I can't hear. I speak a language you don't know. The body falling by the side of the bed. Eyes closed contemplating the night. I conjugate language that doesn't exist. The imaginary and its child the failurative. I speak stiff, the language she didn't teach me before she left. I speakstiff with all my stiffened body. I want to come back to you but I can't. Because of the red liqueur which is spreading in my blood. Because of the red liqueur which paralyses my brain. I can't come back to you. I'm slipping out to sea as I look back at the harbour. You're holding my hand but you're only holding on to wood. You're speaking to me but I hear only the walls. You're smiling but I'm on the other side of the mirror. The woman in mauve is carrying me off to her castle. And the silent coachman accompanies her.”
― Jeanne Hyvrard, Waterweed in the Wash-houses: A Novel

“I know nothing but my open body giving birth to words. Until the pain is over. Until the end of living. Until the end of utterance. Since they have condemned me to say what they want to forget.”
― Jeanne Hyvrard, Waterweed in the Wash-houses: A Novel

“Here again are the words. My enchanters. My companions. Words winnowing the night. The stones of the wine-press. The blood of the hour-glass. Here again are the words. Companions of everything. Except hope. Words I can no longer silence. Words that bear on their brow the mark of their own need. Words that have been pouring over the bridge of my hands. For all the centuries I have kept the memory of them. For all the centuries I have been holding on to them.”
― Jeanne Hyvrard, Waterweed in the Wash-houses: A Novel

“They say they have remedies. Medicines. Drugs. They say I can be cured. They think they know but they refuse to know. They want only to make us like them, confusing contrary with negation. They want to cure us. Of what? They invent illnesses to make us forget. They invent symptoms to cool our ardour. They invent remedies to silence us. They want to cure us of what finally? Of obstinacy? Of refusal? Of fidelity?”
― Jeanne Hyvrard, Waterweed in the Wash-houses: A Novel