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IX.

VIII.
"What do you mean by another person?" asked the man in astonishment.
"Well," replied the judge, "it appears that you inadvertently married yourself; that is a union no court has the power to dissolve."
"Oh, said the man; and he was secretly glad, for in his heart he was already longing to make it up again with his wife.

(cont)
all succeeding generations of architects. Which do you choose?"
"Oh, well," said the architect, "if it comes to that, you know—as long as it suits my clients as it is, I really don't see the use of making such a fuss."

(cont)
choice of the following alternatives: either we can let the world go on thinking your temple a masterpiece and you the greatest architect that ever lived, or we can send to earth a young fellow we've got here who will discover your mistake at a glance, and point it out so clearly to posterity that you'll be the laughing-stock of (cont)

(cont)

"And how about that famous temple that you built just before you died?" the angel continued. "Are you satisfied with that?"

"Oh, no," the architect exclaimed. "I really think it has some good points about it,—I did try my best, you know,—but there's one dreadful mistake that I'd give my soul to go back and rectify."

"Well," said the angel, "you can't go back and rectify it, but you can take your (cont)

Shortly afterward he died, and when he came before the judgment angel he was not asked how many sins he had committed, but how many houses he had built.
He hung his head and said, more than he could count.
The judgment angel asked what they were like, and the architect said that he was afraid they were pretty bad.
"And are you sorry?" asked the angel.
"Very sorry," said the architect, with honest contrition.
(cont)

A soul once cowered in a gray waste, and a mighty shape came by. Then the soul cried out for help, saying, "Shall I be left to perish alone in this desert of Unsatisfied Desires?"

"But you are mistaken," the shape replied; "this is the land of Gratified Longings. And, moreover, you are not alone, for the country is full of people; but whoever tarries here grows blind."

"That's a fine warm cloak you've got," said the first man through his chattering teeth.

"Oh," said the other, "it's none of my choosing, I promise you. It's only my old happiness dyed black and made over into a sorrow; but in this weather a man must wear what he's got."

"To think of some people's luck!" muttered the first man, as the other passed on. "Now I never had enough happiness to make a sorrow out of."

I have no mind, no body, and I am all mind and all body.

or how I see black, shiny ants devouring my girl corpse when I remember fucking my father.

I want to be a good girl. And I'm the man with the whip.

I used to go inside my father. I wanted to be the man who hurts girls.

Piet Mondrian's sharp and pure country drawings.

I pull down art books from his bookcases. I look at the carnivals in Ensor, the contorted pink and yellow faces, his fat pope, the death mask.

(cont)
I remember one time walking on our way to a Greek restaurant. As we passed a big church, my father said to us, "And this is where they rape children."

Each time we saw him—Isaac pointed out to me afterward on our way home—my father mentioned child rape or pedophilia. No matter what the conversation was about, my father found a way to bring up child rape. As a joke, or an accusation of someone, just bringing it up. I hadn't noticed this until it was pointed out to me. (cont)

The sexual desire wasn't deep and it wasn't wide. In all the years we were together, I never had a dream about him. I never wept on his chest, telling him how terrified I was.

And I knew how to leave my body behind and let things happen to it.

I also felt partly responsible for it. We can smell these things. I have a weakness that he sensed. He might not have done that to another woman, but he did it to me.

(cont)
It wasn't Lucy's Bridge to Heaven, it was one farther upriver.

Lucy and I tried to outdo each other by knowing more obscure writings by Lacan than the other. Lucy liked Derrida more than I did, and I liked Deleuze more than she did. Could Anti-Oedipus help me? I wanted desperately to find help inside it. I bought two copies in case that would help me more. I was standing on a bridge of the river when someone told me Deleuze had just died. (cont)

(cont)
She said she didn't want to drive that far. I went back to my father's house. He was standing, rocking back and forth, back and forth, on the front lawn. His eyes were other. They were possessed. He was clenching his jaw. "Merry Christmas," he said angrily, and we went inside.

and ran out and ran and ran down the street, until I saw a family walking their dog in the cold. "Merry Christmas!" they said. I asked if I could use their phone. "What's the matter?" they asked me. "I had a fight with my father."

"Go apologize to him," the father said. They let me go to their house and use their kitchen phone. I called my mother and told her what happened and asked her to come pick me up. (cont)

When the movie was over, my father came in. He was in a rage. Did you like it? Did you like it? Did you? Did you? Furious voice, furious eyes, clenched jaw, furious body leaning over us where we sat. Did you like it? His fury grew. I bet you liked it, he yelled. You did, you did you did. Did you believe her? I bet you believed her.

I remember walking down the long aisles of American food feeling like I didn't belong at all. I didn't want to come back home, but I did. I didn't want to be around my father, but I was. I kept returning to the scene of the crime. I can't get away. Even in Chile, I couldn't get away.

Salvador was now driving very fast through the city. He was angry enough about me knowing about the green and red boxer lights on top of the building that we didn't go to Act II of whatever Wagner opera we were going to see.

I already know that when the light pole blinks green, it means the Argentinian boxer won the fight, and when the light blinks red, it was the foreigner. [...] Salvador does not like this

Salvador and Valentina were thrilled by the fact that she looked just like his mother when she was young and he looked just like her dead father.

The life-size antique horse in the dining room would listen. Listen to the wife complain to Camila about her husband. Her husband, that impossible man, always doing what he pleased. First his cousin Valentina, and now that American girl.

And the girl, the American girl, would put a towel over the television that you couldn't turn off, with the pornography she didn't want there in the background. Their father would laugh at this silly girl putting a towel over the television.