Psyche in a Dress Read online

  in the smooth, warm bed in the pretty hotel

  The sheets smelled of bleach and chocolate

  The city twinkled and murmured below us

  I slept better than I had in years

  But in the morning, over croissants and coffee

  my mother asked me again

  She said, “I have a small whitewashed house in the countryside, not far from the sea. I bought it with the money from the jewels your father gave me. I have flowers instead of diamonds—they’re not doing so well right now, but you should have seen them! What they can be! There is a wonderful college; you could go there. We could drink wine and eat ravioli in the plaza in the evenings. You should see the art! The men! The light is rose gold at dawn, like blown glass in the morning, like watermelon when the sun sets on the city.” She said, “I’m leaving today, I want you to come with me”

  But why should I leave?

  My mother had left me

  a long time ago

  All I knew about her, really

  came from the movies I had seen her in

  the articles I had read

  the smell of her clothes

  She had abandoned me to her own hell god, my father

  Now she was back, trying to take me away from mine

  Why should I leave you?

  “I’m not ready,” I told her. “I am still with him”

  “I want you back”

  “But you left me. How can I trust you?”

  There were tears in my mother’s eyes

  but she knew I was right

  She left that afternoon

  And I went back to hell that night

  Whenever I felt pain I imagined that I was one step closer

  to finding my lover again

  I had completed the tasks of patience

  self-denial and self-punishment

  earned him this way

  But what had I really done?

  Given up a demigod of poetry

  let myself be fucked by hell himself

  Were those things enough?

  Still, I told myself, I will keep trying

  Until I am too old to want to be immortal

  I dropped out of school and stayed with Hades

  Every day was the same

  I would wake late in the morning and make his coffee

  After his shower I would help him to dress

  combing his hair, choosing his rings

  making sure his black leather pants fit smoothly

  buckling his belt

  helping him with his boots

  When he left to make his rounds

  I would do the marketing—

  Chinatown for spices and dead chickens

  Little Italy for fresh pasta and strings of sausages

  The Lebanese market for rosewater and lamb

  I spent the rest of the day cleaning Hades’s house

  polishing the black floors, dusting the artifacts

  scrubbing the toilet

  and cooking his evening meal

  Before Hades came home I made sure I had bathed

  put on makeup and a beautiful

  dress

  We ate together and drank red wine

  at either end of the long table

  We rarely spoke anymore

  After dinner Hades left again

  Sometimes he took me with him

  to an opening of a club or to hear a new band

  I held his hand and was very quiet

  Usually I wore a dark lace veil over my face

  When we returned home

  the sky had turned pale with fog like a bride

  Sometimes Hades grabbed me

  in the large black bed

  and sometimes he fell asleep

  without touching me, his face to the wall

  This went on for six months

  I cannot say I was unhappy

  I kept thinking that I was paying some important price

  My dreams were full of dark treasures

  china dolls’ heads and hands, shattered pocket mirrors

  a dead bird with one wing

  I collected them to my breast

  gathering my strength

  After a while, I packed my things

  and took an airplane to stay with my mother

  Demeter lived in a whitewashed cottage

  in the green hills above the sea

  Every day was the same

  I woke at dawn and bathed

  helped my mother prepare breakfast—

  muesli and fruit and cream

  Then we went out into the garden and planted

  pulled weeds and watered until the leaves

  were emeralds

  We went into the village

  with cobblestone-paved streets

  and bought fresh eggs and opalescent milk

  Sometimes we went down to the beach

  and swam in the sapphire water

  We basked in the sun in giant hats

  In the evenings we put on lipstick

  and flowered gauze dresses we had made

  and went to sit in the cafés

  We ate pasta and drank wine

  and watched each other glow in the candlelight

  Men emerged from their marble prisons

  So many speaking statues, perfect stone beauties

  but we never went home with them

  In the morning we gathered blossoms

  that had bloomed overnight

  This was the life my mother had bought

  with the devil’s jewels

  I cannot say I was unhappy

  But sometimes I would wake at night

  in my mother’s bed

  and the smell of flowers through the window

  made me wheeze, gulping for breath

  Love, he was not there

  Every six months I returned to Hades

  Then to Demeter’s garden

  Back and forth between them aimlessly

  I belonged to them

  And there was something peaceful about that

  So, finally

  still seeking some kind of punishment

  I went back to the city where my father lived

  It is always possible to exchange

  one hell god for another

  Psyche as a Dress

  I hadn’t seen my father’s girlfriend for so long

  I didn’t recognize her at first

  She was sitting in the front of her shop

  fingering her dresses

  as if she were touching flesh

  There were some gardenias floating in bowls

  It was a terribly hot day

  and the air conditioner was broken

  But Aphrodite never breaks a sweat

  Cool as white flowers in a case of glass

  I looked around the store

  at all the things Aphrodite had made

  There were dresses of petals

  jackets of butterfly wings

  or bird feathers

  cloaks of leaves

  coats of spiderwebs

  Aphrodite and I spoke awhile

  I told her that I was looking for work

  and she asked about school, why I had left

  I talked about Hades

  It was hard to resist

  confessing to a wide-eyed mother figure

  She wasn’t disturbed by what I said

  I think she even smiled a little

  Maybe just appreciating

  a good story

  “You could work for me,” said Aphrodite

  You are one of my girls already”

  I was still shivering a little

  from the smile I thought I’d seen

  a glimmer on her lips

  like a trace of saliva

  But I said yes anyway

  That was how I began

  I worked at the shop six days a week

  I never even took a break

  just wolfed down a sandwich in between cu
stomers

  hiding the greasy paper under the counter

  wiping mustard off my fingers

  as I jumped up to help people

  With the money I made

  I was able to move out of my father’s house

  He hardly noticed

  Since I had stopped performing in his films

  I just wasn’t useful

  I rented a tiny one-room guest cottage

  nestled away in a canyon

  You had to take a steep path up behind the main house to my miniature door

  Morning glory vines grew over the roof

  There were amaryllis and blue iris in the garden

  Tomato vines and sunflowers

  Blue glass wind chimes and a path of tiny stepping-stones

  Inside, everything was so small I was always stooped over

  There was no closet

  so I gave away most of my mother’s devil-dresses

  washed my lingerie in the garden birdbath

  and ate outside off a doll’s china tea set

  and seashell bowls in a ring of tea lights

  When I was uncomfortable

  I pretended I was in a storybook

  In the evenings after work I hiked through the hills

  and picked wildflowers for my hair

  Sometimes I went alone to the local pub

  and had a beer in the dark

  watching the boys play pool

  Then I came home to my room

  with the claw-foot tub and the single bed

  decorated with lace and cloth blossoms

  from the ninety-nine-cent store

  In this cottage I thought I had escaped my hell god

  Maybe I had just found his female counterpart

  Some days the shop was full of customers

  buying up everything

  and then Aphrodite was happy

  She took me out after work

  and ordered sushi and beers

  She promised me a life of glamour, travel

  wonderful dresses, any men we wanted

  I got drunk and said I didn’t want any man except one

  “Who is that?” she asked, smiling wickedly

  I told her about the god who had once come to my bed

  The one I thought was a monster

  “Oh, Psyche!” she said

  “Is beauty monstrous?

  What does that say about me?”

  Some days no one came into the shop

  and Aphrodite called every hour

  to see if I had made a sale

  her voice more and more frantic

  Finally, she stormed in the door—

  a whirlwind of red roses—

  and demanded that I clean

  I got down on my knees

  and scrubbed the floor in my white clothes

  while a few customers strayed in

  stepping over me in their high-heeled shoes

  I dusted the shelves in the back of the store

  until I was caked with filth

  I sorted through boxes of tiny beads and baubles

  blue glass stars, abalone fish, quartz roses

  jade teardrops, crystal moons

  Aphrodite insisted that I organize them perfectly

  without a single mistake

  “Look at you!” Aphrodite shrieked

  “There on the floor covered in dirt

  How do you expect any man to want you

  let alone that one?”

  She put on a dress made of eucalyptus bark

  snakeskin and rabbit fur and went off

  to dance at a wedding

  While she was gone the ants

  crawled in from outside and helped me sort the beads

  into their own little boxes

  Aphrodite came back at midnight, drunk

  “Slave,” she said

  “Witch”

  She turned me into a moth

  and shredded my wings to make dresses

  But then she needed someone to work for her

  so she changed me back

  My hair was a little thinner after that

  but otherwise I felt all right

  She made me into a red rosebush

  and plucked all the flowers for her dresses

  While she worked she said

  “Once I was in love like you

  I pricked my finger on a thorn

  when I ran to help him

  My blood made the white rose red

  so pretty

  but what’s the point?

  He died anyway”

  When she changed me back

  my lips and nipples were paler than before

  I guess I am lucky

  Some girls never return to their original form

  In this town there are a lot of dangerous types

  I brought Aphrodite wool from the vicious golden sheep

  to make her sweaters

  I brought her drinking water

  from a pool

  guarded by dragons

  I even went back to the underworld

  to find the beauty cream to keep her young

  Hades had a new girlfriend, who manufactured it

  She was very sweet, actually

  She reminded me of myself when I lived with him

  wearing a veil, quiet, insecure

  except she had a thriving business

  called Deadly Beauty

  On my way home to Aphrodite

  I stayed at a motel on the coast

  There were sea lions on the rocks

  coughing their warnings

  In the darkness of my room

  I opened the jar and touched my little finger

  to the pearly surface

  patted it on my cheek

  I was working at the shop when I got the call

  My mother was dead

  Before I dropped the phone

  I saw the large black butterfly

  beating its wings against the window

  That was how I fell into an enchanted sleep

  Why hadn’t I decided to stay with her?

  What would have been so bad about that life?

  The gardens and the sea and the cafés

  Was it only that I was afraid

  what others might have thought?

  Or had I sacrificed her to my lost lover

  as I had sacrificed everything

  He was still gone

  And I had lost Demeter

  I had chosen Aphrodite instead

  I walked through my life in this strange trance

  My eyes were glazed and my mouth was sealed

  I worked at the shop all day and played pool at night

  because it seemed like a good pastime

  for a zombie in a dress

  Even Aphrodite acted concerned

  One day she came into the shop and handed me a book

  “Read this,” she said

  It was so like my life

  that I wondered if the author knew me

  There was no photo

  But it said where he lived

  In my trance I wrote to him

  Sent it to the publisher, never expecting a reply

  I said that his book was just like my life

  and that I would be in his city

  Aphrodite was sending me there

  to prepare for a trade show

  A few weeks later a letter came

  We met in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying

  It was a small, romantic place with thick Persian carpets

  striped satin chairs

  marble and brass counters

  flowers everywhere

  I sleepwalked down the stairs

  wearing Aphrodite’s white peony dress

  Love was waiting in the shadows

  I had found him again

  He stepped into a circle of lamplight

  and it did not burn him

  “I should have known it was you,” I said

/>   “You did,” said Eros

  “I wrote it so you could find me”

  We stepped into the evening with hardly a word

  It was summer and the sweat popped out on my skin

  before I could take a step

  The city was deserted this time of year

  As I remember, there was no one on the streets

  Eros and I walked along, speaking softly

  He towered over me

  even in my high heels I barely reached his armpit

  A summer rain began to fall

  misting my hair with a veil of drops

  Eros took off his light tweed

  jacket and draped it gently over me

  His body was very thin but his shoulders were broad

  We came to a small restaurant covered

  inside and out

  with broken bits—teacups, plates, figurines, glass

  I wondered who had smashed the mirrors

  not fearing bad luck

  Eros and I sat across from each other drinking

  white wine and eating

  grilled salmon, couscous and salad

  I couldn’t remember having taste buds before

  We were the only people there

  The food just came to us by itself

  “How did you write that book?” I asked him

  “It’s exactly my life. Have you been following me?”

  Eros grinned a crooked smile

  It was the first time I had really looked into his face

  His head was shaved, laugh lines around his eyes

  a nose with a bump, as if it had been broken

  He had changed

  “Maybe a part of you has been following me, my Soul”

  Eros walked me back to my hotel

  We shook hands in the lobby

  No one was there

  I could hear the rain on the glass

  I didn’t let go of his hand

  Instead, I led him up the stairs to my room

  He hesitated at the doorway, standing in the dim hallway

  There were green cabbage roses on the carpet