XLI.
- I go to Tetsuwan in the night.
<She goes down the stairs, exits the building
turns right and knocks at the door.
She knows this is the room he is usually in - the door inside the
building gives onto
the storeroom>
- Hi, missing Lynx.
- Have you really missed me?
<They smile at each other. He waves her inside>
- Where have you been?
- Detroit. I needed to see it again, I needed to
see the 11 years passing of time in one
instance. For my memory, it was the same as then. Soon, I will go to
Japan, for the same
reason. I have some bad memories there. I need to clean up and out
before I leave here.
- I might go with you. My father, you know, my
real father, abandoned me, when he
became convinced I would never grow into a man. Of course, the man
who adopted me,
ah, quantum mechanics was his field, he's dead now, but his family,
my family now, no...
What do you say?
- Yeah. Good idea.
<He sits facing her cross-legged on the mat>
- Tell me about Detroit.
- In the wake of the Dragon the wind changes and
with it our faces at that moment become frozen
in form forever as our grandmothers foretold us
our bodies remembering their own pulses in time.
The Dragon before I was born which swept over
the whole Earth I needed no telling, and Detroit
was not alone. The marks of 23 years I could see
etched dully on the faces of the street, the windows
of the soul each one broken over empty others
boarded and bolted inscribed later by passing
street fiends caressed by the rolling tumbleweeds
discarded wrappers the foods of the fin de siecle.
Elated and laughing I walked the wide pavements
alone my eyes running skywards its mouth full
of jagged teeth their pinnacles decorated also
by stone carvings who'd scampered up their sides
to collect at the tops in a frenzy where together
they wailed the story of a vast transgression,
of an economic prosperity built on the shoulders
of those not included. In their fear they climbed
the walls and abandoned the streets
their gutted temples left to moulder. In shame
they tried to resurrect the body and erected
even taller glass temples along the riverside leering
at canada soulless and isolated shoulder to shoulder
guarding the scene of a city's decline. These things
formed my memories. Down in the alley mentary canals,
in underground clubs and bars, music and dancing raw
power gay abandon and becoming in fragments
they gathered the others who watched
weather eyes out for Pan's herald,
the Year of the Dragon once more to cross hold.
Eleven years passed since the last time I was
there and the cycle continues the city on crutches,
now hobbling slowly, the old towers some still standing homes for
those left behind and tourists
for dollars since then never arriving the dragon's destruction too
vast to repair, no one returns,
except me, with six months in the city never mine - yet still I go
back, the demons raised in my
mind, I put them to sleep in the rotting motel room we stayed the
first night, the ride from the
airport truncated with the room next to the highway, innocent then I
was happy eyes open.
Sorrow I now for the wide streets hardly travelled, stores never open
people all gone and
expansive destruction, the fissures in the facing, cornices tumble
and lay where they fall the
weeds taking over the cracks in the mall bands no longer playing in
bars I once knew the
Harvest Festival finished, all Carnivals over.
<She turns her head to look around the room. He
says nothing.
She is about to ask him a question>
- Any news from Japan? What is there now?
- I, like you, do not know anymore. My step
brother writes only of family. I don't read the
news and avoid tv broadcasts. I believe it continues much as before.
An old saying comes to
mind - No news is good news.
- What does that mean? It is a very ambivalent statement, don't you think?
- It is suitable for that country.
- When shall we set out?
- Whenever you like.
- I do not wish to stay away long. The cycle
starts again soon, I can't be late. When he passes
this way again on the road back to the cold land I have never been, I
will go with him. All my
Prrecious bags are packed.