It was cool on the VERANDAH. (Night Five.) Seeing as a smallish walking tour had passed through roped off portions of the mansion during the day the feeling now was intimate. Entrancing. She explained that this
the last time she had seen him
was at nighttime. Hearing something
Had a funny feeling she said.
she had gotten out of bed gone downstairs to the kitchen seen him leaving through the kitchen door. She said And after that I went into the sitting room. Just waited.
We were enjoying dinner on the VERANDAH after having spent the afternoon down by the BOATHOUSE so as to avoid the guests when they were passing through the mansion with their guide.
She said But trying now to figure out what was significant about that sighting would
Require fabrication on her part he interrupted.
That is what he always says she said. What do you think?
was
navy
too
with
speckles
woven
in
the
navy
that
were
white
not
hungry
gnawing
stomach
so
I
lowered
my
uneaten
dinner
down
into
the
He said I’ll be back.
She said Me too. We’ll be right back.
Within the interval of their absence I became aware of something troubling in the atmosphere that permeated not just the VERANDAH but the whole of the estate. I also felt it all around the car two evenings later when I got into their car when they showed up to take me to the train.
Unlike the other nights on which I
402
had been awakened
407
by those cries that I could neither locate nor identify
On this night
503
the sound was more like singing
faintness having been the likely explanation for its failure to awaken me from dreaming. In the dream I slept inside a room that as I understood was mine. I heard the softest sound a singing barely more than whispers. In its failure fully to awaken me it caused in me a kind of split.
The room in which I slept was perfumed with the scent of roses. When I heard this voice that only partially had awakened me
the waking part of me
as if it had been touched in ways the sleeping part could never have been touched
then lifted out of me. It was an airy being peeling layer off of layer from my sleeping body in the bed. This being’s lifting off of me had caused my eyes to open. Watching from the bed I saw it hover then advance until it stopped. It then began to right itself into a pose like someone standing
feet remaining off the ground
then floated toward the door which opened as it neared it. From the bed I tracked its floating out the door into a darkness that I understood as dangerous but there was nothing I could do. The being’s sleeping dress was just like mine in back. It had my hair. My body’s shape. I tried to call to it. I even tried to get up out of bed go after it. No use. It disappeared into the dark. What’s more I had already drifted back to sleep. My point of view then transferred from the body in the bed
from me
to her
into the body that had floated out the door. So watching from my brand new floating self I looked back quickly checking taking note of
503
before emerging down the hall of darkness leading into still more halls of darkness. One by one they pulled me through them tilting me then sliding rocking sinking me as if I went through water. That the voice did not get louder softer meant that I was never getting closer to it
farther from it.
Suddenly I saw a tiny window lit up in the distance. Black lines crisscrossed on the window which was round. The window was
as I could understand with zero doubt as I was sinking closer to that crisscrossed iron pattern window
where the voice the singer was. Indeed as I approached I saw that there was someone in there backlit looking out at me.
But when I looked out from behind that window I forgot about the singer.
I
my point of view that is
You see my point of view had transferred to the pair of eyes behind the window instantly it seemed.
Through those dark eyes I looked out through the bars
for me
for her
There was nobody there.
THE NIGHT WE MET I also met a man whose question about a ride I answered in accordance with my policies on rides.
Awakened suddenly I got out of the bed put on my coat my boots my stomach digging at me no snacks left no interest. I went out into the hallway took the elevator all the way to 8 where down the hall wedged open was a door that led me to another staircase leading to the roof. I’m getting out of this I told myself as I emerged onto the roof. Tomorrow I am going home.
He stops looks up from where he stands but suddenly his vision is obscured not by the raking sun but by a kind of glaze that coats his eyes. He turns back heads in the direction of the park where he will hesitatingly
You should not go in there. You have a job to do.
proceed in the direction of the shimmering autumn colors lake.
Day 5
Next morning after breakfast I walked through the playground then the park returned to the hotel to pick up all my things to drop the key into the slot head for the station catch the first train home get back in time for work. However as if acting in accordance with the orders of an unknown mechanism operating from an unidentifiable location I betrayed my plan by opening up the guidebook after exiting the patio then taking turns resulting in my after quite a hike arrival at the waterfront. From there I took the (Transportation: Ferry) to the Summer Castle nearly hidden behind apparently impenetrable hedges. This one was the most romantic most enchanting underappreciated as the guidebook put it (Peak: Spring/Summer) of the (Recommended: Y).
From where he stands outside the gate the park appears to have transformed itself into a broad arcade of mirrored corridors that lead to spaces that have been closed off. The glaze upon his eyes distorts his vision. Marble columns
terra cotta columns
plaster
seem pulled out of their alignment
propped up. Smells of autumn leaves. The smoke from nearby chimneys.
Longing for a rest he walks until he finds the benches that surround the lake.
The park seems recently to have been rearranged along two overlapping axes that produce a pair of vistas. Space that once flowed freely into space now seems to have been cut up walled off into regions into which no one can pass. Is someone sitting next to me? He looks then looks behind him slantwise peering back at rows of glowing gray divisions separating corridor from corridor discerning statues that are still from statues moving under coverings he knows as treetops. All of this reflected in tall mirrors framed by spaces in between the columns. From these figures he hears laughing. Talking. Squinting he would swear that he can even hear some kissing. Generally speaking this whole place expresses attitudes of mind that are unfeeling unconcerned entirely ignorant of his suffering. Turning again
Real suffering.
he looks across the lake.
Unlike the park itself which seems to have been cut up separated into parts the lake has spilled into a wide expanse of brokenness. He sees it as a lake of heavy gilt framed mirrors laid down side by side as if across a surface that the undergrowth combined with what’s pushed up from down below has made uneven all the varying angles of reflection having come together in a glittering array of shattered light.