Zoologies
by Deborah Ostrovsky, translated from Laurence Leduc-Primeau
The man puffs on a pipe, with a monkey in his arms. One time out of every second exhale, he disappears behind plumes of smoke. Come in, he says, when I’m already inside. Swallows and umbrellas are perched in a tree above a velvet rug. The man, who doesn’t have a monocle, points me to a photo of his uniformed son under a pile of bird droppings.
Every place has its thing. Every thing has its place.
The man rises in an arabesque and places a wig on his bald head. Once he’s standing, he’s small. Powdered curls tumble over his shoulders. The monkey, long gone by now, has run off to join the birds. He’s keeping watch over the son. The man looks at me, puffing on his pipe.
I’ve got nothing to say. You’re not there.
You press your forehead against mine, lifting me up in a porté. The air shimmers and your eyes are pitch black in the night. My legs are wrapped around your waist, your breath tickles my neck. You put out your hand and you pull. You pull out my hair, fistfuls of it. When my hair gets stuck in your fingers, you look at it, mesmerized. It’s like tinsel on a Christmas tree.
With each batting of our eyelashes, the translucid white filaments hanging on branches start to multiply. The extent of my unknowingness astonishes me. They’re like living creatures, beings endowed with feelings that, one day, we’ll dissect and pin to the walls. The mother-of-pearl forest thickens around us. Gets denser, fuzzier. Fingers fall off when they freeze. Haven’t you noticed? You weave a crown and a cape and offer them to me. There you go, you say, cloaking me.
Snowflakes fall on your nose, your cheeks, your eyebrows. Your cracked skin glimmers and a bell rings, but the sound doesn’t make its way to us. You, me, woven together as one. We walk. Our feet leave footprints behind us, and the trail they leave is beautiful. At the end of it: a castle. I retrace your name in the snow. I write it on my mittens. You take them off, blowing on them, forming heart-shaped condensation with your breath. It makes the mittens melt. Your name.
At high noon, dismembered mannequins stand to attention at the castle entrance. I realize that sound no longer follows the movement of your mouth, and I can only see your face, your profile. I hold my breath. You blow up the water wings on your sculpted arms and plunge into the water. A few wavelettes form before they disband. Our colour filter is all off and we’re badly dubbed.
Pastels trace the way from sky to earth. I touch you and can hardly believe it. Our castle. With turrets made of marzipan dragons and the turquoise water of lovers. Your torso glows. I yell again, again. I spit confetti, crying a bit. You laugh a deep-throated laugh and kick your legs. And then you swing from vine to vine without using your hands.
All the Queen’s court looks up at you and admires you.
And yet you hesitate. The memory of otherwise and elsewhere distracts you. It’s true that each of our dreams remains etched on the walls. The Queen with a crown of roses — you chose her. The palms of our hands are at the ready, sharpened, moving between the grinder and the millstone. The Queen, her lips pursed, has a head bigger than her heart. She’s trying to suffocate herself, her epaulettes get stuck in her corsage. She’s turning red. Applaud the Queen, Gentleman. A drop of sweat rolls down your face. All cards are on the table, the roses too. Bottoms up. Your turn, Go Fish.
The lake is deep. Every day men sink and men drown. You dive. Into the lakes. You’re not scared. You’re tall and strong. You topple anything that moves. The Queen yells. Then, she bursts into petals. You stay focused, calm. With your calculated posturing you pick a card. The Jack, the cards, form castles. Heads or tails. Cards face up, I got you and you look at me. Cards face up, l look at you and you got me. The first one to laugh.
Oh, the stories we invent, my dear.
ABOUT THE CREATORs
Deborah Ostrovsky is a writer, translator, and editor. Her previous translations of Quebec authors have appeared in The Minola Review, Maisonneuve Magazine, carte blanche, and Montreal Writes. She is a recent alumna of the Bristol Translates literary translation summer school and the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference.
Laurence Leduc-Primeau works from a place of deep instinct to carve out writing that draws the reader in, never leaving them unscathed. She is the author of À la fin ils ont dit à tout le monde d’aller se rhabiller (Les éditions de Ta Mère) translated by Natalia Hero as In The End They Told Them All To Get Lost (QC Fiction). Zoologies and her non-fiction, Lettre à Benjamin, are published by Éditions La Peuplade.