The Persistence of Mnemosyne MP3
Read by Gabriel Moreno
On her breath I smelled alcohol and lust—which are really the same smell. She was American, and therefore she was the kind of girl who believed that all Europeans are French and all moustaches are irrefutable proof of a man's sexual prowess. Mnemosyne was young enough to be my daughter, and yet wise beyond her years—behind every adolescent fantasy there is an element of truth, no?
Mnemosyne was not her name of course (who can be bothered to remember these things?) But she bore such a striking resemblance to the Rossetti painting that I immediately recognized her as the goddess of memory (even if she was too drunk to remember anything). And this girl was a better specimen than Rossetti's Mnemosyne—softer, and without those twisted sinuous lips.
“I am absolutely,” she said with great insistence—“I absolutely need another drink.”
Well, this was absolutely the last thing she needed. But I made a show of obliging. I picked up a bottle of Chateau something-or-other and held it up ceremoniously to the light.
“Is it,” she asked, “very expensive champagne?”
I twirled my moustache with a flourish: “Ah, my darling, it is exquisite.” I have no idea whether this was true—in fact, I rather think it was ordinary champagne.
She stared reverently at the bottle, goggle-eyed, as if it were her firstborn child. “Can I—hold it?”
“My darling,” I smiled, “I'll even let you open it.”
Her fingers fumbled with the bottleneck. She struggled to remove the foil capsule and her frustration built gradually, as if she were changing a diaper for the first time. She twisted the wire hood, first one way, then another. I could see the frustration bubbling up inside her. She began to shake the bottle, clumsily, like a mother shaking her firstborn child in a sudden fit of bad parenting. But Mnemosyne was too stubborn to let a little cork cylinder stand between herself and 700ml of champagne. There was a little twist and a loud pop!—
She gasped in half-surprise and half-exhilaration, as if this sudden release were the beginning of an orgiastic marathon of sinful pleasures. The bottle jettisoned the cork skyward with enough force to crack the crystal chandelier in two places (and I must say the appearance of the chandelier was much improved).
“Allow me,” I said. I lifted the bottle from her hands and tilted it forward—pouring liberally—emptying the remaining contents all over her head and shoulders. A frothing jet of warm liquid pulsed from the bottleneck and soaked her hair. The fabric of her blouse grew saturated with champagne. Her clothes became transparent and suddenly I could see right through her. Beneath the nineteen inches of lace that circumscribed her waistline there were hidden nineteen years of inadequacy and shame.
Champagne welled up on the tip of her nose. She opened her mouth and wetted her tongue with the falling droplet. And then, a look of disappointment: “I was hoping to taste a little more than that.”
“My darling,” I said, “our desires would become tiresome if we went around indulging them. It is as the poet says, the banquet of abstemiousness defaces that of wine.”
“Well,” she said, slowly unfastening the top button of her blouse, “now I’m all wet…”
“Indeed,” I nodded—“let me assist you.” With each hand I gathered up the material of her blouse and pulled forcefully in opposite directions. The screech of rending fabric filled the room. The buttons flew from their buttonholes and skittered in their various directions all across the mahogany floorboards. The mirror crack’d from side to side, I thought to myself—and in the tattered fragments of her attire I saw reflected my own brokenness.
Instinctively her hands rose up to hide her nakedness; instinctively, she lowered them again until they rested at her sides. “Goodness,” she said, “I hope your wife won't mind.”
“Of course she will mind. This whole thing will upset her terribly.”
“I don't blame her,” she smiled. “If you were my husband I'd be jealous of any girl that tried to steal you away.”
“Oh no”—I shook my head—“no, no, no. Gala is not the jealous type. She is—what is the word?—merely cantankerous. Everything upsets this woman.”
Mnemosyne giggled with the worst of intentions. Her pursed lips plotted an attack against my lips. Before she could come any nearer I clasped her shoulders with my hands and flung her violently upon the mattress. A squeal of excitement escaped her lips as she fell upon her back.
“You know,” she said as our eyes met, “this is my first time …”
Mnemosyne closed her eyes and opened her legs wide like garden shears. It was obvious she wanted me between them and my mind flooded with images of castration. I was filled with the terror of a young boy who refuses to jump into the lake for fear of drowning.
“Come here,” she moaned—“don't you dare keep me waiting.”
A thin film of champagne still clung to her skin. It was beautiful—I wanted to immortalize that sticky sweetness.
“One moment, my darling,” I said, busying myself about the room, “I am almost ready.”
Mnemosyne's moans of anticipation became moans of impatience. She peeked out from beneath her gossamer eyelashes and a look of confusion spread across her face. “Are you”—she asked—“painting me?”
“Oh, no,” I objected, “this is not a painting. I am—I am idealizing you, like an Olympian goddess!”
Mnemosyne opened those rose-blossom lips and said—well, no matter what she said. I must admit I wasn't listening as closely as I could have been. The important thing to understand is that her body stretched before me like a garden whose forbidden fruits were still ripening. Her eyelashes fluttered on the verge of closing like apple blossoms looking up at a perpetual sunset. Her hair, still half-drunk with champagne, curled into a tangle of creeping tendrils, liable to burst forth at any moment with clusters of thick grapes. And anyone could see her nipples were two cherry blossoms trembling in the wind, afraid of losing all their delicate petals before they could bear fruit.
I loaded up my palette in a frenzy with ever more shades of green and violet. As the oil paint began to dry along the bristles, my paintbrush stood erect, firmly stroking the canvas in rhythm with Mnemosyne's incessant breathing. Short and rapid brushstrokes gave way to sustained and sensual strokes of passion as I translated her sighs into raspberry blooms.
As her sighs intensified, I became aware of an unfortunate development: Mnemosyne was bored. Malaise dimmed her eyes with a faint sense of urgency, like a sapling languishing in the shadows, aware that there was sunlight to be had. With every sigh her navel rose and fell, rose and fell in rhythm with an imperceptible breeze. Up the bellybutton went and down again it came, frustrating my intention to affix it on a two-dimensional plane. My good friend Pablo would simply have painted it from every angle (and would have thought himself quite clever in doing so), but I couldn't manage this for the obvious reason that lilacs look the same from all perspectives.
In the sound of Mnemosyne's breathing I could hear a distant echo from a simpler time. Or perhaps the echo was coming from down the hall …
“Salvador”—Gala's voice rang out through the master bedroom—“Why is there a naked girl in my bed?”
“Ah, this is an excellent question my love. And the answer is that the bathtub was unavailable.”
Gala must have been satisfied with this response because she did not press the issue further. She disrobed absentmindedly and let the bath towel crumple to the floor. Suddenly I was faced with two naked women in my room, which is twice the stress that any man should ever have to deal with.
“Hello,” said Mnemosyne, raising her head from the pillow to address my wife. Her face crinkled into a cellophane awkwardness. “It's a pleasure to meet you.”
But this was a lie! A terrible lie! It was obvious to everyone that there was no pleasure in this gesture. This was not at all the kind of pleasure that Mnemosyne had wanted. She abandoned her pose and closed her legs, drawing the sheet around her shoulders. And it was there, between her thighs, that I ended my painting with a solitary stalk of sedge: the most tragic of all flowering plants because it bears no petals.
“Salvador,” said Gala flatly, “have you seen Jorge?”
“Jorge?” I parroted, without recognition.
“You know,” she said, “the handsome gardener.”
“Ah yes,” I nodded. “He is handsome.”
“Well”—said Gala, looking at our young guest with disapproval—“I suppose I'll have to take Jorge into the upstairs bedroom.”
These words had the unfortunate effect of sobering up Mnemosyne, faster than the blackest coffee. Something fluttered up from deep inside her and thrust itself against the blue panes of her eyes. She watched me, moth-like, from behind those windows. Her spirit rushed to meet me, flitting for an instant with exhilaration! But it was the exhausted passion of a dying moth—a final gasp of recognition that the wide world stretched before her, and she never could escape herself to become a part of it. And her eyelids closed again like curtains over nineteen years of expectations.
Mnemosyne had always known her first time would be painful. But this was not the kind of pain she had expected. It was as though she had lost more than she had budgeted for, and gained nothing in return. An evening's worth of corked frustration finally released itself in the form of a solitary tear.
“What's wrong with you?” she whispered, choking back the impulse to begin sobbing—“you were supposed to make love to me—and then you were supposed to paint my portrait—and all you've scribbled is a goddamn bouquet of flowers! And you—” she growled at Gala: “you're even worse than he is. You're crazy, both of you!”
As she ranted, a few stray drops of spit escaped from her mouth and dotted the canvas, putting the finishing touches on one of my liveliest paintings. Mnemosyne sulked off to the bathroom—whether to relieve herself, or dry her tears, no one will ever know.
“Poor girl,” I said, shaking my head with the sincerest sympathy. “If she thinks this is only a bouquet of flowers, I fear she is the one who is insane.”
(c) Michael Skansgaard, 2016
Michael Skansgaard is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in Literature (poetics). When inspired by a beautiful sunset, or by a bottle of tequila, Michael sometimes puts his academic work aside and writes the silliest story he can think of.
Gabriel Moreno (right) hails from Gibraltar and is a published poet in English and Spanish. Also a spoken word performer and singer/songwriter, he can be found hosting The Lantern Society folk/Americana night at the Betsey Trotwood and is a co-founder of The Poetry Brothel, London.
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