Chapter Forty-Eight
Monsieur Lapin-Défunt’s head fit perfectly into the concavity of Deirdre’s belly. She stroked his hair. He wished for nothing else in life; he begged God, in Whom he only occasionally believed, to raze the outside world from existence and allow him the blessing of remaining like this for all time.
He winced when she broke the silence: “I’ve decided something,” she said.
“Yes?” He was sure she was going to return the sentiments of love he’d been constantly expressing to her; or, perhaps, finally allow him to attempt to render her erotic satisfaction, something for which he’d been petitioning since they’d started their intimate acquaintance.
“I will never find my father. It was just not meant to be.”
She’d told him about her search for her father. She’d treated it as the reason for her being bothered to keep alive, the excuse of which she’d had to consistently remind herself in order to justify, or at least withstand, the indignities of her earthly existence.
“So. . .what does that mean—in a practical sense?” he asked.
“That there’s no point in going on.”
He sat up. “But I disagree! Deirdre. . .” He seized her hand, which was, as always, cold. “I saw no point in going on, but I did, and now I’ve found you! Now I’ve found purpose in my life! So you wouldn’t rob me of that, would you?”
“Something would happen. I would anger you, you would annoy me, one of us would die, or become incapacitated, or we’d both grow old and ugly. . .”
“That’s all perfect nonsense. Do you think I haven’t felt love before? I have—crude children’s crayon renderings of love, many times. Which is why, when I come up against an authentic masterpiece in oil, I know it! I know it!”
“What a clumsy analogy.”
“Then let me put it this way: I’ve been like a single-minded fish swimming up and down the same river. . .” He saw the ridicule glowing in her eye. “No? Then how about this: I the hunter, womanhood the stag; which is admittedly slightly contradictory, but hear me out!”
“Why don’t you just make it a doe?”
“All right, then, a doe! A herd of does! And I, chasing after one after another, momentary pleasure after momentary pleasure, ad infinitum, to the point of mutual revulsion, the original motivation, whatever it had been, long lost—as the only way, a deluded way, of outrunning death.”
“So what am I?”
“What are you?”
“In this extended metaphor?”
“Ah. . .I’ve got it—Diana, the Huntress! And I, the hunter become the hunted!”
She shook her head. “Diana is pure.”
“And what are you, my dear?”
“I’m all too mortal. For which I’m grateful. If I couldn’t die, I would be in agony.”
“Are you not in agony?”
“I don’t want to be a goddess. Pick another analogy.”
“All right, then, if you insist—I will rely on an unequivocal cliché, and compare myself to a rider on a carousel.”
An eyebrow raised. “And I the wooden horse?”
“No.”
“Let me guess: the golden ring?”
“No. Each turn of the carousel is another cycle in my life: a new mistress, discovery by Petunia, angry scenes, mercantile reconciliation, then on to the next mistress. In amongst all that are the loathing of ourselves and one another, the guilt of failing to sire children, the pointlessness of my career, and what have you. But now, you!”
“Me! What am I?”
“You, my dear, are the clear field outside the carousel—into which I must jump!”
She considered. “A field. . .devoid of body. . .a subtle consciousness, expressed through the growth of grass. . .”
“Permanence.”
“The cycles of the seasons. . .no conversation. . .”
“Peace.”
“I suppose there are worse things one can wake up in the morning to find oneself being.”