Thursday, December 01, 2005
The Black Maiden, Chapter One, Part Three
May worked until the light went, ate an apple and watched her newly dark fingers curl around its red skin, and turned on the powerful lamps the Artists' Guild had given her. Saint Sebastian was coming along well, with his cigar-smoke halo, his seven wounds. She thought she could finish him by the weekend and start the new week fresh with HIldegard of Bingen, seated at her typists desk, transcribing the Word.
She went around the house, closing the curtains, and watched her reflection in the glass, a pair of eyes set deep in a shadow that floated over the surface of each pane. It is always our hope, she thought, that we are only a soul in a body, and she watched her lips say that again and again in the bedroom window before pulling the curtains over it.
She sat on the sofa, which released a smell of previous owners like a cloud around her, and for a while looked at nothing at all, resting her eyes, barely thinking. By nine o'clock she was reading a book about the mistresses of Louis XIV, and by eleven she was lying in the iron bedstead, former property of the Annunciation Convent of Fairwell. A soft white light filtered in through the covered windows; no harsh, yellow chemical lights for Fairwell.
For a long time she lay there awake, and when she finally dreamed, it was of a dark forest with wet leaves breaking up into the ground. Through it, she pursued her quarry until morning.
Most of Fairwell slept as May did. Camille Lafayette, finished with her night shift, slipped through the back door of Judge Lafayette's and out into the night, to do, as her sisters said, God knows what. Charlotte Morgan sat rocking in her chair by her front window, her lights all turned out, listening to the fast squeak of her movement, scaring the dust away from her feet. Dr. Retz slept peacefully beside his wife. When she turned, in the midst of her own dreams, a corner of the bedsheet slipped from her shoulder, and the safety light that poured itself into their bedroom lit on a perfect set of bite marks on her white skin, just beginning to fade.
The moon was a small thing that night.
She went around the house, closing the curtains, and watched her reflection in the glass, a pair of eyes set deep in a shadow that floated over the surface of each pane. It is always our hope, she thought, that we are only a soul in a body, and she watched her lips say that again and again in the bedroom window before pulling the curtains over it.
She sat on the sofa, which released a smell of previous owners like a cloud around her, and for a while looked at nothing at all, resting her eyes, barely thinking. By nine o'clock she was reading a book about the mistresses of Louis XIV, and by eleven she was lying in the iron bedstead, former property of the Annunciation Convent of Fairwell. A soft white light filtered in through the covered windows; no harsh, yellow chemical lights for Fairwell.
For a long time she lay there awake, and when she finally dreamed, it was of a dark forest with wet leaves breaking up into the ground. Through it, she pursued her quarry until morning.
Most of Fairwell slept as May did. Camille Lafayette, finished with her night shift, slipped through the back door of Judge Lafayette's and out into the night, to do, as her sisters said, God knows what. Charlotte Morgan sat rocking in her chair by her front window, her lights all turned out, listening to the fast squeak of her movement, scaring the dust away from her feet. Dr. Retz slept peacefully beside his wife. When she turned, in the midst of her own dreams, a corner of the bedsheet slipped from her shoulder, and the safety light that poured itself into their bedroom lit on a perfect set of bite marks on her white skin, just beginning to fade.
The moon was a small thing that night.
// posted by Amethyst Vineyard @ 6:40 AM 
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Nice closing line, there. The way this novel opens reminds me of "The Metamorphasis" , with the main character waking up as vermin (or a wood louse). I could tell her skin is pitch black black, and not black person black, but I wonder if every reader gets it right away. I don't think you're dealing with a race thing here; am I wrong?
You are correct, sir; it's based on a fairy tale image of a black maiden who is turned white and therefore 'beautiful' by a brave prince. I hate to further define it, but I realize that I might have to insert 'not African-American' in there somewhere.
Thank you for actually reading this!
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Thank you for actually reading this!
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