Are you awake? Oh my darling I’m so sorry. I am so ashamed of myself. I was drunk, I’m sorry. I have a poor head for alcohol. I’m so sorry. I always knew she kind of had a thing for me but I never expected. I have sent her away, we will never see her again, I swear to you, she is out of my life, she doesn’t exist anymore. Please forgive me. I love you, please forgive me this one time and you will never have to forgive me again. I will make it up to you in one hundred ways, you will see, it will be my daily business to make you forget this and forgive. I was drunk so I became a little curious, I don’t even like women, I’m not that way, I didn’t even like it, actually I just passed out and went to sleep and when I woke up of course I was horrified, my God, what have I done, that man who has only been good to me, I apologize from the bottom of my heart, I kiss your feet, I wash your feet with my tears and dry them with my hair, I even thought for five seconds that maybe it will excite you, this was stupidity, stupidity caused by drink, I’m so sorry, when I’m drunk I can become a little irresponsible, a little wild, this is why I will never get drunk again except if you want me to, only if you want me a little wild and irresponsible in your arms, then it will be my complete pleasure to please you in that way, forgive me, accept my shame and my humble apology, where are you, let me come to you. Let me just come for one moment and apologize to your face, and then if you tell me to go, I will go, I will have deserved it, I know this, but do not make me go without one chance to tell you to your face that excuse me, I did a wrong thing, a very wrong thing, but I was drunk, and I ask you to see me standing before you in shame, and maybe you can find it in your heart to excuse me, to see in me all the love all the gratitude all the love standing before you and for the sake of that you may let me in, you may not shut the door in my face, you may see the truth in my eyes and forgive me, and if you do not then I have no rights, I will bow my head and go and you will never see me again, never see again my naked shame, never see my body trembling and sobbing before you for my shame, you will never see me, I will never be able to touch you again, so many things, never again, so many things that will never happen again, if you send me away, I will go, but maybe, for you are a great man, you will let me stay, it takes a great man to forgive, and this was a nothing, a mistake, a stupidity, and you may see that and let me stay, but let me come to you, I will come to you now, just as I am, wherever you are, if you want me to kneel naked at your door I will do it, I will do anything, everything, only let me come, where are you, only let me come.
So this is the moment. He can hang up on her, cut his losses, be free. He has seen who she is, the mask slipped and she revealed herself, and all her words can’t make him unsee what he saw or unfeel what he felt when they turned the lights out and went into his bedroom—his bedroom!—and closed the door. He can walk away.
She has bet everything on the one shot she has: that he will want to make himself unsee that sight, unfeel that feeling. That he will want to turn on the light, open the bedroom door, and find her there, alone, and waiting. That he will tell himself that story, the story of true love, and step into that tale.
He doesn’t hang up, but listens. He goes back to the apartment where she is waiting. And of course she offers up her apology in many ways, and many of those ways are pleasing to him, but that is only the surface. Below that veneer is the truth, which is that she knows her power now, knows that in their relationship she is and always will be the stronger one, and that there isn’t much he can do about it.
La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall.
MONOLOGUE OF V. ARSENYEVA CONCERNING LOVE AND NEED
Please. I require no sympathy regarding the poverty of my origin. Only those who have never been poor think there is anything sympathetic about poverty, and for this point of view the only proper response is contempt. I will not pause long to describe the hardships of my family though they were various. There was the question of food, and the question of clothing, and the question of warmth, but somehow there was never any question about a sufficiency of drink for my father, I might say an over-sufficiency. In my young years we moved to the town of Norilsk near the former gulag Norillag which of course shut down like sixty years ago but left behind the town, which the prisoners had originally built. At age twelve I learned that the town was forbidden to all non-Russians and so also not so easy to leave. So I understand the Communist oppression and also the afterwards not-Communist oppression but I have no interest in discussing. Also my father’s drunkenness. Poverty is a disgusting condition and to fail to emerge from it is also disgusting. Fortunately I excelled at all things both physical and mental and so I have been able to come to America and I am grateful for it but also I know my presence here is the fruit of my own labor so there is nobody actually to thank. I leave the past behind and I am myself in this place, wearing these clothes, now. The past is a broken cardboard suitcase full of photographs of things I no longer wish to see. Of sexual abuse also I will not speak though this also occurred. There was an uncle and after my parents’ divorce there was a mother’s boyfriend. I close the suitcase. If I send money home to my mother it is to say, please, keep the suitcase closed. Also for my father now are hospital bills for the cancer. I send money but I have no relationship. Case closed. I thank God I am beautiful because it allows me to leave ugliness out of my life. I am focused forward, one hundred percent. I am focused on love.
What people call love, cynics say, it is really need. What people call forever, according to the cynical loveless, is really rental. I rise above such considerations, which are base. I believe in my good heart and its capacity for a great love. Need exists, that is clear, but must be satisfied, that is a precondition without which love cannot be born. One must water the soil so that the plant may grow. With a great man one must accommodate his greatness and he in turn will be great in his kindness and come to an agreement, and this is normal, it is, one may say, the watering of the soil. I am a matter-of-fact person, so I know a house must be built before one can live in it. First build a solid house, then have a happy life therein, forever. This is my way. I know his sons are afraid of me. Maybe afraid for their father, maybe for themselves, but they are thinking only of the house and not of the life within it. They do not think about love. The house I am building is the house of love. They should understand this but if they do not I will go on with the construction work nevertheless. Yes, they call it the golden house, but what is that if there is not love in every room, in every corner of every room? It is love that is golden, not money. They have never needed, those sons, what did they ever need? They live inside a magic spell. Their self-deception is very great. They say they love their father but they are confusing need with love. They need him. Do they love him? I will have to see more evidence before I can reply. He should have love in his life while he can.
That one with his witch, he should understand: his father is the wizard of his life. That one with his strange girl, he should understand: his father is his identity. That one with his broken head, he should understand: his father is his angel.
Their worry is about inheritance. They should understand three things. In the first place, is it right that after I give this man my love, that I should be put out in the street? Of course not, and so provision must be made, that is matter of fact. In the second place, I have signed the agreement regarding our relationship he gave me to sign, just as he wanted it, without argument, this is my trust, this is my loving confidence. So they are all protected and need not fear me. In the third place, what they fear most of all is the coming of a brother or a sister. They fear my womb. They fear my womb’s desire to be filled. They don’t even know if their father is capable any more of fathering but they are afraid. To this, I shrug. They should understand that I am a person of great self-discipline. I am the general of myself and my body is the foot soldier that obeys what the general commands. In this case I understand what he has said, the man I love. He has been clear. At his age he is not prepared to go back to the beginning of being a parent, to have a baby, its squealing, its shit, to have a child whose adulthood he will not see. This he has said. This clause is in the agreement I have signed. I have signed the baby away. I have so instructed my body, my womb. There will be no baby with this man I love. Our love is the baby and that baby is already born and we are nurturing it. This, he wishes to do, and I also, his wish is also mine. This is love. This is how love triumphs over need. Those sons with all their need, let them learn love from their father, and from me.
MONOLOGUE OF BABA YAGA INSIDE ARSENYEVA’S SKIN