The Melancholy Korean

Late summer, and at midnight I smelt the heat of the day:
At my window over the hotel car park
I breathed the muddied night airs off the lake
And watched a young crowd leave the discotheque.
Their voices rose up thick and comforting
As oily bubbles the feeding tench sent up
That evening at dusk - the slimy tench
Once called the “doctor fish” because its slime
Was said to heal the wounds of fish that touched it.

A girl in a white dress
Was being courted out among the cars:
As her voice swarmed and puddled into laughs
I felt like some old pike all badged with sores
Wanting to swim in touch with soft-mouthed life.

(Seamus Heaney)

No more opera in the park

Or lazy gumball days

Or girls in summer dresses

No more late night movies

or early afternoon drinks, midnight rides on the New Haven Line or dinnertime conversations that begin “I’m getting married.”

No more throwing up on a hot and crowded train and emails sent days, months, years too late — “it’s too late now,” she told you, “you had your chance” — no more solitary walks along the beach, silent prayers to the gods, demands for one more chance; no more fearsome imprecations, when you realize the gods have turned a deaf ear to your plea, their tinkling laughter like cold champagne at a cocktail party, civilized and not malicious, yet so much worse for that; no more shouts of “Aphrodite, you goddamn bitch,” or fists shaking at the sky, or unbent knees, or bold claims you could never meet:  “You’ll never defeat me,” you told the goddess, “I will not serve,” but your voice, hard and bitter and without humor, gave you away. She’d already won.

No more Friday night visits to art galleries or postprandial drinks at the Pierre or desperate, soft-mouthed kisses under the elms.  No more light or warmth, beauty or love.  No more Kitty.  No more Kitty.  

No more, Kitty.  No more.

No more cryptic messages from the old man who lives by the sea: 

When you look upon beauty, you yourself become beautiful.

He was lying. But you believed him.

So when she said she loved you, the one from Italy, the one you followed out into the sea that clear evening, the night of cloudless climes and starry skies, when you were both drunk, she had a head start and even though the moon was full and bright, you lost her in the distance, and so you ran as fast as you could in the water, which was slow, unbearably slow, until in the middle of the sea, in the darkness lit only by the moon, you found her, and then you held out your hand to hold her steady because both of you were so drunk and chest deep in the salty water and could have, maybe even should have, drowned, you pulled her close to you and kissed her and kissed her again, and a hundred and then a thousand kisses, you were shipwrecked in that sea, and, as Leopardi wrote, it was sweet, so sweet, to you:  

E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

But she did not walk in beauty, in the next morning’s daylight that was clear to you, and all that was dark and bright did not meet in her aspect and in her eye — so you thought — so you pushed her away, because if beauty makes you beautiful, then ugly makes you ugly, and ugly was disgusting and would never touch your body or your soul, you swore this oath before and you would swear it again, and then she said it again, I love you, it was the day before both of you had to leave Italy, you back to America and Yale, she to France, and again you said nothing, you were on land now, the two of you standing outside her apartment, but she pulled you close anyway, and you touched soft-mouthed life, that one good line from that lousy Nobel-winning poet from Ireland, the one memorable line in all his work, soft-mouthed life, you touched it that last day, but you pressed your lips together, hard, to keep her away because you had enough, my God, it was enough, because she was not beautiful enough for you.

No more lonely birthdays, interrupted by kindness

“I’ll make a cake for you,” you said. “No one should be alone on his birthday. We’ll celebrate together.” 

You picked me up, we drove into the dark wood…

“I don’t want this.”

Reverie interrupted.

“Why, oh why, won’t you stop? Stop. Please stop.”

Whence the voice?

“Happily or not, I’m married. Married, Melancholy. Don’t you understand?”

Unsheathe your dagger definitions!

“‘All women marry down.’ That’s one of your famous sayings, isn’t it? Here’s another: ‘a woman always feels like she could have done better.’”

(beat)

“Maybe so. But I made my choice.”

As if, Kitty, I had a choice?

***

I wrote the scene, so that I could forget:

“Don’t you want to date me?”  Kitty was confused.  He had been working at the bank in Connecticut almost three years, and in those three years, his only connection to the world outside the money pit was Kitty. He had taken her to countless restaurants and hotel bars in New York. The maitre d’hotel at the Pierre even started to recognize him.  All the men, once they saw his date, treated him like a god.  

“No.”

Their final conversation.

“I don’t understand. Isn’t that what we’ve basically been doing all this time? Why are you doing this?” Kitty, normally so in control, was on the verge of tears. “Why are you doing this?” she asked again.

“Because I don’t trust you.”

No more false notes, or crocodile tears, or hopes raised, then smashed to bits. No more sincere regrets, insincerely misremembered and publicly disowned, hastily taken back (yet still too late—the cut got infected, Kitty) and angrily denied:

“It’s not like that. Not at all.”

(silence)

“You don’t understand. You can’t understand, Melancholy. When we first met…”

Marco.

“He would take me camping. The woods, Melancholy. Nature. We would go hiking for miles. The flowers, and trees, and fresh air—it was so beautiful.”

“You’ll never understand. You hate nature, Melancholy. What’s your idea of fun? Oh, that’s right.”

“Museum gala. Gallery opening. Art. Always the same: art. Art, art, art!”

(beat)

“I would sometimes think of you, Melancholy. When we were making the fire and pitching the tent, I would look up at the stars and think of you and imagine what you were wearing to that night’s party…”

“while we, Marco and I…”