Page 51 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

ries, weary of his fixations—yet also anxious. Ardent and his towering manias were back in her life.
He turned toward her, his lips forming the trace of a smile.
“How about a walk around the grounds?” ~
Or’s land was marked with posts in some places, but more often the only things that demarcated her property were towering shrubs of feral bougainvillea in riotous bloom, and dark copses of dankly scented, tangled pitch pine. Soon they found themselves in sight of the crags that faced the river. Or sensed no hesitation in Ardent’s stride. He was about to make
a revelation. He walked alongside her beyond the overgrown fissures in the hill to a small stone ringed with brambles.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked. “A stone in a field,” Or answered.
“Narrowly true,” Ardent replied while gazing up at the milky sky. “This stone was set here on the site where Anton Van Zunder bought this island from the natives under a tulip tree. The tree lived a few hundred years, and when it died it was replaced by a stone. It once had a tablet on it, but it’s long gone. It was all a legend anyway. None of it happened. No one remembers why anyone bought this malodourous island. Really, who remembers anything, anymore?”
“You remember things,” Or said. “Things you should well forget. All those notes and poems and tales about carnal hurt. You know, you once sang a very different song; you enjoyed the things that happened at the Zonder Estate. You treasured them. I’m quot- ing you here.”
“A treasure is nothing,” Ardent answered. “We think something enriches us, but it makes us poor. We create pretty stories about the past, about fondling breasts be- neath verdant trees and thumping rumps on trampled dahlias. We damage each other in such places. Some remember the pain, while others forget – as if to calm their scruples. And therein lay my problem: not a single thing about the Zonder clan I recited was true. I made
it all up. Every poem, genealogy, narrative. I formed it from the smoke of my breath.
“Oh, for a while, I thought it real. I’ve always been keen on self-delusion... you of all people know that! But
lies slither along like snakes in brambles until they
are upon you, and it is too late. That happened to me.
“They packed lightly, but Or felt a
heavy permanence about the trip.”
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