Electra's dictionary; beth ydw i, pwy ydw i?

I know that it is some time after two in the morning.  Suddenly he asks me,

“who was your father?”

I say,

“I don't know.”

“No, I mean.... the one you think. You said was famous in politics-- I think you said-- ”

It is always strange for me to talk about this. So instead I say,

“It is ....a long story.... I don't want to talk about this.”

I know how to erect this wall

I know it well

.... data bases, search engines, old yellowed books In archives at the Library of Congress. You search.... you search to find answers...

“And why have you never found out?”he asks.

Because I already know 

But I don't answer.

He says,

“you're scared to.”

But it is much more than this. It is about a fairy tale.... a fairy tale of father. One that I am not ready to be abandoned from.

We don't talk any more about this. He knows I don't like to. We talk about other things. The edges of things that we are not ready to really discuss. Just like the indefinition of our lives. The one week in Amsterdam that has turned into two, now becomes three and is turning into four.... and now he is renting space in Ruud's office for our business. But still we don't say.

But right now I see that he is interested in discussing things,

“I didn't tell you.... because I didn't want to worry you....” and here he hesitates and studies my eyes, “Clair asked me about you before I left for Detroit to do your husband's convention.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He gets lost in thought. Then continues after a moment “....remember I told you about her friend-- you know, the one.... the one she told me who is taking the kids and the house....?” he looks at me as I nod in reply. He takes a deep, ragged breath.

But then I think he has let the subject go because he says nothing for awhile. He does not want to talk about this. I don't want to ask. But I do want to ask. He is engrossed within himself; staring inward.

But then he says,

“it was the day before I left for Detroit. She asked me: 'should I be suspicious about Beth?'”

“What did you say?”

“At first, I just froze....” he looks away. He looks at a picture that hangs there on the wall; it is an abstract with psychedelic allusions. I watch him brood in profile as he stares at it, holding my breath.  "I said 'yes'” and now he gives me a dead stare, “I said yes, Beth ….because I was sick of pretending. I wanted to finally tell her.”

“Why didn't you tell me this? But... this doesn't make sense--”

“Well.... I know..... because, later -–Beth...it's weird.... she just dropped it. She acted as if we never ... had the conversation ….I think, maybe it was like a threat, I don't know. The next day when I was leaving to go to the airport, she-- tells me she wants us to have another baby....” there is an enigmatic expression on his face as he shakes his head. And quiet rage. It seems to burn cold in his eyes. “Beth, we.... we have our kids, Clair and I, and I understand, we have all these years together....it isn't easy to let …. that go....”

I hear what he is saying, only I ask the obvious,

“Do you love her? ”

It seems like my words don't make sense to him, and he looks at me nonsensically. The creases between his brows deepen, and he says,

“sometimes you wish something to be true and you try to believe it because you need it to be true.... but it doesn't really ring true....because it is empty, an empty truth-- so do you keep forcing yourself to will something to be that you know is false?”

“Is that why it happened with her? Or did she conceive after you left Michigan?” But he is closed. There is regret but also something else. Something he does not want me to see. After some reflection on this, I say,

“so she really came to Detroit to see for herself.”

Only now as I say this I imagine being her. I feel something knot in my stomach as I think about this. The other side of jealously. When you empathize with your competitor and find sympathy. And it stabs at your core. Deep and intense.... and makes you hate yourself.

I cover my face and am filled with self-loathing.... I don't know how I will reconcile this. This is a different kind of shame. I say, “You belong to them, not me,” and now, suddenly, desperately, I need to physically get away from him. I start to push him away and as I do this his fingers grip my shoulders. I want to retreat, I want to be alone because I am filled with guilt. I manage to twist free and run barefoot on the cold wood floor towards the bedroom door. I don't know where I’m running to. I get half way across the room before he stops me and I am caught inside the vise of his arms. He whispers against my ear, “I belong to you....”

He lifts me and brings me back to bed and traps me in his limbs, folding me within his web.

“But you will go back,” I say, and then, when he doesn't answer I turn my head up to look at him. Search and fall inside those deep poet's eyes; the morass of moss,

“you know, I never wanted to destroy your life.”

He closes his eyes and holds my head to his neck,

“but you didn't. I thought you knew.... you brought me back from being dead.”

Elctra's dictionary; the bridge

The office building is in the main part of Amsterdam, I figure out how to get there and decide to walk. It is different to think about the same problems in another place, leaving to get a prospective has altered my thoughts. I had suspected it would.

But as soon as I get to the office there are problems. Of course it is the computers. I am only in the building about fifteen minutes and they have gone down and they seem embarrassed for the inconvenience. They don't know how I expected this. But this gives me time to discuss things with them. The art director seems surprised when I explain my approach to how I work, that I prefer the physical mediums to the graphics. But then we get to talk and I explain about how this country had been such an influence on me when I was growing up here. It all happened to me first here. The colors, the textures, the crudity, the humanity. I think maybe he was expecting a different kind of American. I saw his eyes change as we talked.

So it looks like my time here will be delayed. The art director's name is Ruud. We have been working with sketch pads for ideas because of the computer situation. He has purchased art mediums for everyone to work in, mostly gauche and water color pencils, some clear film, transfer paper, etc; old school. The older artists there have no problem with it, the younger ones seem out of their element. The week is turning out more interesting that I could have anticipated. I am in an oddly great mood.

Each day I walk back to the flat with something I buy on the way, so the flat is beginning to look a lot less impersonal. I buy flowers. That is something I always did when I lived here. What is it about flowers? It is that element of being reborn, the fresh optimism, the innocence. I bring magazines filled with more art, stopping at newsstands every day. I buy a sketch pad and graphite. I am like a flower that is being reborn. And each day I force myself to do a quick sketch on the way home, do it until I feel too cold as the evening temperature drops.

I like the bridges over the canals. I have been drawing those the most. From every angle. I like the bricks, the iron, the bare trees, their reflection in the water, how you can see the apartment buildings in the water too, their odd gables and the furniture hooks. I love those buildings. There is so much texture here. 

And while I feel so small here because they are mostly so tall and boisterous, I feel somehow less timid because there is no masked politeness to many of these personalities I encounter. I have missed that sense of being under fire, it is like waking up, to be challenged by this flow of wit.

Once I realize that this will not be wrapped up in a week I have to talk to my daughter and her dad, work out things, but he has been surprisingly cool about this. I tell Dean simply in a few texts that I should be here for awhile.

By the second week it seems like my whole life back there is a dream and that this life here is the real life. I start to wonder who that means I really am. Who have I been all this time? I think now too about Electra and the confusion over my identity, the father complex, etc. and somehow ….it feels different; seen from the altering of the prisms. It is so obvious now. That place is choking me. How can I go back there now?

****

And then one day I am walking home and he is standing there waiting for me.

I don't see him at first. I walk down the brick street looking into the canal, absorbed. I was thinking about him, so at first it doesn't register because I thought I imagined it, because it seemed so natural to see him. But then I stop. He is several feet away leaning on the railing of the bridge and he is watching me as I walk. He looks so good in these surroundings.... so at first I can't do anything but see this because I am an artist that is a slave to the visual. He is all dark and beautiful, the contrast is startling; dark mop of hair, looking more longish now, like a poet, the dark beard cut close to his face so that it outlines his jawline. He is wearing his navy blue coat over a rust colored sweater and brown corduroy. He looks like a poet. He makes my head go light.

I walk slowly wondering what I am going to say, wondering what this means. He waits for me to come, just waits and watches me, his eyes looking right into mine as I walk closer, he never looks away. His eyes are intense, like dark opaque moss textured stones, like the kind you see on the beach, washed up on the shore. He is rustic beauty. I know he did this on purpose.... he looks amazing.... the state of his groomed appearance says so much. I smile when I think of this because I know this is all for me and I think this looking up at him now. And now he smiles at me and he is even more perfect. There is gray in his hair, maybe more so now than there was the last time I saw him, but it looks good on him, I like how it goes with the colors around us. I am distracted and my brain foolishly on pause.

He removes himself from the railing and closes the space between us so that he is standing inches away and now he leans down to kiss me but stops and looks at me,

“may I?”

He waits and our eyes lock. He is asking for more than a kiss. His eyes ask me. He asks too much. He asks for everything. And then moves to kiss me anyway, first just his lips, but even that is possessive. He puts his hands on the top of my coat to grab me by my shoulders there and pulls me but waits looking down into my eyes. As soon as the tension leaves me he pulls me into his arms and kisses me hard, lifting me.

“We should talk,” I manage to say because I know where this always leads with us. But it is hard to say this because he is still kissing me, not letting me go, he has kissed off all my lipstick, he has rumpled my hair. “We should go somewhere....”

“Let's go inside,” he says now. When I hesitate he smiles at me that wicked smile and he says, “don't you trust me?”

I shake my head no.

“Come on,” he says and drags me with him across the street to the door of the flat, his arm around my shoulders and then we wait at the door as I consider this. I look at him and give him my best impression of a school teacher giving a student a lesson on obedience. Then take out the key and open the door.

He walks around the place, then goes directly to the living room and sits down on the couch. It is only now that I see his stuff in a corner of the living room. I see his bag, I recognize it.

“You have a key too?” I ask him.

He shrugs,

“I don't have to stay here but I did come here to see you.”

“Maybe we should go out somewhere,” there is a mirror in the dining room and I look at my reflection. He has made a mess of me, I am a smeared mess. “I'll go run up and change and then we can go somewhere.”