XXI. MEMORY BURN
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Herakles and Geryon had gone to the video store.
Full moon sends rapid clouds dashing past a cold sky. When they came back
they were arguing.
It’s not the photograph that disturbs you it’s you don’t understand what photography is.
Photography is disturbing, said Geryon.
Photography is a way of playing with perceptual relationships.
Well exactly.
But you don’t need a camera to tell you that. What about stars?
Are you going to tell me
none of the stars are really there? Well some are there but some burned out
ten thousand years ago.
I don’t believe that.
How can you not believe it, it’s a known fact. But I see them. You see memories.
Have we had this conversation before?
Geryon followed Herakles to the back porch. They sat on opposite ends of the sofa.
Do you know how far away some of those stars are?
Just don’t believe it. Let’s see someone touch a star and not get burned. He’ll
hold up his finger, Just a memory burn! he’ll say
then I’ll believe it. Okay never mind stars what about sound, you’ve watched
a man chop wood in a forest.
No I do not watch men in forests.
I give up. That would be very cold. What? That would be very cold, repeated
the grandmother from the porch swing.
Watching men in forests? A memory burn. Ah. She’s right. Yes she is she
had lung burn once
and that was cold and don’t call me she when I’m right here.
Sorry.
You got lung burn in Hades? No it was in the Pyrenees I burned my lungs I had
gone to St. Croix to photograph skiers
that would be the winter Olympics 1936 Grushenk was competing do you know
Grushenk? Well never mind he was very fast
I sold a photograph of him in his extraordinary scarlet ski pants
to Life magazine for a thousand dollars.
That was a handsome sum in 1936. Don’t be patronizing it’s still a handsome sum—
for a photograph. Herakles’ father
(she waved her hand towards the sofa but Herakles had gone back in the house)
gave me less than half that for “Red Patience”—
you took a look at “Red Patience” didn’t you? I wish he hadn’t hung it in the kitchen
much too dark in there
people think it’s a black-and-white photograph of course nobody knows
how to look at a photograph nowadays.
No I saw the lava, is it lava? Of course yes you mean at the top of the cone.
No I mean at the bottom
of the picture on the trunk of one of the pine trees little red drops like blood.
Ah yes very good the little red drops
my signature. It is a disturbing photograph. Yes. But why?
“Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.”
Who said that? Yeats.
Where did Yeats see a volcano? I believe he was talking about politics. No
I don’t think that’s what I mean.
Do you mean the silence. But all photographs are silent. Don’t be facile you
might as well say all mothers
are women. Well aren’t they? Of course but that tells you nothing. Question is
how they use it—given
the limits of the form— Does your mother live on the island? I don’t want
to talk about my mother.
Ah well. Silence then. Herakles came out the door from the kitchen.
Climbed over the back of the sofa
and subsided into it lengthwise. Your grandmother has been teaching me
the value of silence, said Geryon.
I bet, said Herakles. He turned to her. It’s late Gram don’t you want to go to bed?
Can’t sleep angel, she said.
Is your leg paining? I can rub your ankles. Come I’ll take you up.
Herakles was standing in front of her
and he lifted her towards him like snow. Geryon saw her legs were asymmetrical,
one pointed up the other down and back.
Goodnight children, she called in her voice like old coals.
May God favor you with dreams.