Page 50 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

Devoted (continued form preceding page)
striking a field of corrugated furrows. Rising from
bed, Or swung open the door.
“I forgot them all!” Ardent screamed above the rain. His gray clothes were soaked to black. He shivered in the steaming mist of the entryway like a man with palsy.
“Forgot what?” She yelled. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t remember a single poem, story, genealogy. Not one... it’s as if the Anton van Zonder and his clan never existed. They’re gone. All of them....”
And he slouched to the marble floor of the foyer and cried.
~
Zonders were ubiquitous. They slouched like soulless bodies, unaware of their magnificent past, and dead
to their uncertain future. Anton Van Zonder had purchased the island from the aborigines in the hoary days of cold winters, bright spring days and autumnal crispness. The family had gathered power, churning out mayors, governors, constables, viceroys, chancel- lors, landed gentry, and lords of every stripe. Now they were crofters with little ambition – guided by narrow concerns, involved in small-time racquets, members of price fixing guilds, or factotum to petty bosses. Then Ardent appeared, unheralded, bold, fierce with pride
– and the city roused, and sang a new song of their founding family, and the hazy, somnambulant dream of the past was suddenly as concrete as stone.
~
He sat on the patio facing the green ribbon of river, sipping mint tea, wrapped in a kimono too small for his substantial bulk. Ardent gazed at Or, red-eyed and unfocused as he spoke.
“You shouldn’t have opened the door,” he chided. “What if I was one of those people?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she answered, handing him toast. “Those grease people don’t knock on doors. They just break in!”
“Don’t be prejudicial,” he scolded primly. “Not all of them are covered in grease. Anyway, you try keeping while residing in a crack in the earth. They are closer to us than you think.”
“Why are you here, Ardent?” Or asked, nearly an- noyed. “I haven’t seen you in more than two years.”
“It happened again,” he told her. 43
“What?” she asked.
“A breakdown,” he answered, turning his back to the river.
“I don’t understand... tell me,” she demanded. “What have you forgotten?”
“Everything,” he answered. “It was like this: four days ago I was down at the Kegel Green Bar. The place
was packed. Everyone was so intent on being silent, to hear me, that there was nearly a hum in the air: a discharge of silence like a whirling fan. I was telling
a story, stringing it along, part by part, bit by bit, and
I felt a shutter of dread. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to rattle me. Still I continued, but with more words, the crack widened. At first it was just a hint
of doubt about a word or two, no more. I continued for five, then ten minutes, thinking, this will pass. The crack widened to a gaping hole. I couldn’t leap over it. So I stopped. Everyone there, including me, especially me, were alone in their terrible, broken worlds. I’ve never been more terrified in my life. So I ran out of the bar all the way here in a monsoon.”
“That’s it?” Or asked. “You blanked out on stage? That’s the crisis?”
Ardent shook his head vigorously. “You don’t under- stand,” he pleaded. “When I stumbled over the words, when I stopped, it all collaped. I couldn’t remember
a thing. It was back... the breakdown. I had broken down, and everything I had been reciting for years collapsing in my head with the finality of a falling brick wall.”
“You should rest,” Or told him gently, reaching out and grasping his beefy hand. “You’ve been working too hard. You don’t have a settled life. Take time away. Wander around the property. Get some sleep. It will all come back.”
“Where are the writings I’ve been sending you?” “Safe,” Or answered. “I file them by date.”
“I want to look at them,” he demanded. “It’s impor- tant.”
“Don’t you want to rest?” Or asked. “You look terrible.” “Or, I said it was important.”
~
Ardent laid every scarp he had written about the girl cousin on the floor. Or watched as he read the frag- mented poems, disjointed notes, and dead-end sto-