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an excerpt from the novel
V
by Jennifer Natalya Fink
0.
This is night. A gun feels at home in night. The dark holds him in on all sides. No need for locks.
Something stirs to the left.
The ugly man grabs the gun. What was that? His palms are sweaty, his sallow fingers grip too tight.
The gun sighs. He is a sensitive instrument. He wants a light touch, not all this panicky squeezing. A gun is a woman: use a gentle hand and he'll sing all night for you. Don't you know that?
The ugly man pushes his bulk out the front door, feeling the warm night circling around him.
Sharee. What's that?
The monkey runs, a blind dash toward light. Fox is faster, fox is following, but fox won't fight with night. Does monkey know this, or is it instinct, or is it dumb blonde chance that lurches her to light?
Inside, the gun is quiet.
I.
Today is today. Tomorrow is Monday, Passover Eve, and you must walk to the Centro and buy three oranges, Veronica, and you must eat three oranges, and you must swallow the fluids passed to you by this fruit. And then, Veronica, you will join Dona Elena at the bakery for your customary elephant ear pastry. You will eat two and you will stop.
You will stop feeding flesh, you will melt down to bone, from bone to cell, and inside the cell will be a cross: two sticks, a prize.
Will it be a boy? This worries her. Veronica clasps her hands together between her legs, imagining a stick of flesh jutting out.
Will it already be saved? Will it still be her? Will it hunger?
No more than a bone hungers. No more than a bone is a boy. Will it smell? A bone smells like….
Veronica is lying in bed, smelling her meat, watching the morning out her window. A nun curses under her breath as she stumbles on the church steps, the baker twirls his green sign around, Open. Two monkeys chatter beside the sign like gossiping housemaids. Veronica likes to watch the plaza, as though it's all hers.
The bone, Veronica. Can you smell it?
She bites her lip. The nun has disappeared, but the baker still stands by his sign, watching the plaza and rubbing flour off his hands. Veronica sniffs. Bone? At least a bone can't bleed.
Outside, the monkeys cry sharee, sharee.
Think of bones.
She presses hard, feeling the bone that welds her thigh to crotch. Not the coccyx. A bladder bone? No. She is a failure at anatomy; she prefers to think of herself as a potato, white and starchy, continuous from surface to center.
But now you must find the bone, and the cross in the bone. Deeper than marrow it lies redder than blood it stains deeper than your flat blue eyes it sees. Neck in neck, bone to bone. You will wash out your flesh each morning, Veronica, with four liters of warm water until no more bleeding, only my blood now.
Do not eat. Sleep only when I enter you, full of gray light. Do not think of your deprivations, do not coddle them. Do not dream of meat.
And when you find yourself idly thinking of your swollen stomach, a blowfish belly puffed up with air, or your last birthday cake, all that lemon buttercream, then you must beat yourself to the ground until you are worshipping the floor.
Veronica opens her eyes. It is Sunday, she is lying on her bed looking out on the Plaza, the morning is too bright and she is starving. She swallows her spit, looks away, and touches her collarbone. An open plaza, black cement grimed to gray. A jungle of light.
A monkey is dead in the plaza. Another monkey is scratching itself, ignoring the corpse.
A city of tin. A city in shades of burn and brown. The jungle has a billion smells, but only the city has tin. Monkey sniffs the air, smells tin, then a riot of rat musk. Something dead, something burned, something dung. None of it hers.
Where am I? She sniffs: tin.
Where are They? Where is her smell? Where is her kin's smell? Brother was just beside her, chattering and sweaty. She paws the ground where he lies, and her own skin, as if it would bring forth his smell, sun and dirt and him. But there's only tin, and the decay of the newly dead. Monkey cries, not realizing she's running, feet on the hard road, searching soil, seeking brothersmell, smelling only death and tin.
Veronica lies in bed, sniffing, unable to smell anything except her own mucus. The São Paulo congestion again. At least it will kill her taste for chocolate and meat. At least she can sleep, unmolested by breakfast. In the plaza the clock on the church says ten past ten o'clock and the live monkey has disappeared to wherever they go and the dead monkey lies dead and though the air smells roasted, at least the day is cool.
II.
This is before. Before the ugly man, before this Passover eve, before the cross. Before the voice, her voice, called to her.
Veronica remembers: last Sunday, in Ardencia's church. She hates that it was Ardencia who started it all, a pig-tailed John the Baptist. But facts are facts, and Ardencia is Ardencia. And the story of the third Veronica is the story of Ardencia.
She'd gone to play with Ardencia on a Sunday instead of a Saturday, since Saturday was taken up with Veronica's stupid cousins, who were only interested in Marilyn Monroe's divorce, their father's new Ford, and Elvis, with his dumb hound dog. Finally, after an eternity of Lindy hopping, it is Saturday night. And since her mother had promised to let Veronica go to Ardencia's for a Saturday sleepover, Sunday morning she goes to Ardencia's church.
Ardencia is Veronica's fruit: peach skin, plum mouth, strawberry hair. Veronica smells vanilla biscuits and oranges on her when she sweats. Her mouth is a purple-red oval, oh. Her breath is always a little sour. Veronica can't look at Ardencia without wanting to do something to her mouth: bite, slap, kiss it. A dessert of a girl.
"Let me choose which game we play for once, Veronica," the dessert pouts, but Veronica won't let her.
"You choose such stupid games. Let's play hopscotch; you like that one."
Ardencia is a bit of a goose, it's true; Veronica can beat her at Rummy, Ace's Wild, Old Maid. Ardencia always loses, even games of chance. "Oh, Veronica! How come you always win? You must be cheating."
They are Catholic, which makes Veronica's mother tense her mouth into a plastic smile whenever Ardencia's name is mentioned. "Oh, the Columbotas. Seu Columbota has really managed to make a killing in rubber. And Dona Columbota, well, she is… a lovely wom-an." Her mother's face pinches a bit whenever she said "Dona Columbota." That pinch just makes Veronica crave the Columbotas all the more.
Ardencia wears a tiny gold cross on a wisp of a gold chain that she fingers when she loses. Veronica imitates her, fingering her imaginary cross, "Look at me, I'm Ardencia Idiota, and I've lost to Veronica the Queen of Rummy again!"
The dessert doesn't reply; she just bites her lip, making Veronica's teeth jealous.
"Time for church, girls!!" Ardencia's mother is Ardencia, but overcooked. A burned apple tart, with bubblegummy lipstick and bleached hair even butterier than Ardencia's. Veronica makes a pig-face at her as she leaves the room, reducing Ardencia to a puddle of giggles. But it's time for church, so they get in the Ford with the squishy seats. ("Imported, mas que coisa! How do the Columbotas possibly afford it?" Veronica's mother sniffs when Dona Columbota comes to pick Veronica up.) Veronica pretends she's driving, hands turning on an imaginary wheel; Ardencia tries to swallow her squeals.
Inside, smoke. It smells like Tante Anna's closet burning, cedar and dried lilacs. It's crowded, not just with people, but with statues, flowers, paintings, alcoves. So much more frenzied than synagogue (which Veronica's only been to once for Cousin Alexei's bar mitzvah), and the seats are harder. Bored, Veronica elbows Ardencia as they bow their heads down, Ardencia's mother giving a sharp shh with her bubblegum lips. And on it goes, the hard wood seat pressing against Veronica's ass as the prayers and smoke drone on.
But then Veronica is seized by the alabaster man.
The alabaster man, mounted on the wall above the priest, naked but for a loincloth, his face swirled with pain. He looks hungry, his ribs sticking out like the dirty campenonês who trudge along the red dirt highway near Veronica's school with loads of corn. ("Why don't they just eat their corn?" she whispers to Ardencia, as their bus clouds the campenonês in rusty dust.) But what grabs her, and holds her tight, is the red slash across his chest. Blood, dripping down the alabaster man. Veronica feels a rush of relief. At last blood is visible, not hidden, not running its covert operations beneath the skin. Free of flesh, pure liquid. She clenches her hands together, feeling bone. What if I have no blood? Only bone, skin, solids.
"This is where we drink the blood and eat the wafer," Ardencia whispers. "But we can't. You're a Jew, and I've sinned-I ate a chocolate in the car. I forgot about the fast." Veronica nods, though she has no idea what Ardencia is talking about. "You can't receive communion if you eat beforehand," Ardencia keeps explaining, but Veronica stares through her, watching the alabaster man.
Veronica hasn't noticed the cross on which he's strapped. Just the alabaster man, his ribs, her blood, this smell. She is choking on the burnt Tante Anna smell, preparing to vomit into her daisy-patterned handbag that her mother sewed to match her daisy dress. She has a daisy dress and a strawberry dress, both with tiny patterns and handbags to match. Veronica prefers the strawberries. She smells them, overripe strawberries dotted with white mold, and heads for the exit. Standing at the big double doors of the church flung wide for Sunday, she prepares to vomit into the daisies.
Instead, she stares straight at his blood.
Veronica. Take my blood, and I'll take yours.
Veronica turns away from the alabaster man, and stares outside through the stained glass windows. The world is blued by them. Outside, it's raining, the air saturated, no empty space, everything filled with blue earth and water. Inside, blood.
Listen, Veronica.
A line has formed. Ardencia's mother leads it; she is always first. Up the people go to the pulpit, eyes closed like birthday girls at the piñata, swallowing a biscuit, sipping the wine. Veronica thinks of fish feeding. Cousin Alexei shaking the flakes over the bowl, the fishmouths reaching out of the water.
I don't want fish or biscuits. Just blood. Your hands.
My hands? Veronica raises her hands, the prayer book falling to the floor.
Your nails. The new growth. The growing. And the marrow. And the hair rooting its way out of your head. Whatever pulses. Whatever moves. Whatever bleeds.
Veronica slumps down, dizzy. She swallows, breathing out, Tante Anna strawberry mold voice gone. The organ plays, rusted tin and hymns, they stand up, they sit down. A choir sings, they bow heads, Veronica bows with them and moves her mouth with the alien words, Christ our savior, blessed be he, hoping no one can see she's not singing. The alabaster man has long brown hair like an indio, and a sad, starved face. There is a parade through the aisles, but she and Ardencia are not allowed to join. "You were a piggy, Ardencia; don't think I didn't catch you eating chocolates in the car. And you…" Ardencia's mother looks away and scurries to join the line, a fat hedgehog wrapped in mink. Veronica thinks of her own mother in her fox stole, nothing hedgehoggy about her.
Veronica watches the spectacle, missing the fox. A parade and a snack and none of it for Veronica. She watches the mouths open, the throats wobble, the eyes clench tight. A biscuit is placed in each open mouth. She closes her own eyes, and a dream flashes: she is inside the biscuit, she is a fish, she must eat her way out.
Veronica. Wake up.
You will leave now.
Veronica looks around. Ardencia is sitting beside her, quiet and serious, hands cupped together. Her butter mouth isn't moving.
You will go to the plaza and find the holy pastry.
Holy pastry?
Yes, Veronica. The pastry of the elephant.
She looks at Ardencia, to make absolutely sure it isn't just Ardencia playing ventriloquist, silly goose, getting back at her for cheating at cards and calling her an idiota. But Ardencia's head is bowed in prayer, her mouth pink and wet, mumbling along with the rest: blessed are you among women. Veronica would like a scoop of her.
She cranes her neck to look at the figure on the cross. The alabaster man is glowing butterscotch in the dark of the church. His face is smooth, his expression flat, bordering on bored. It's his bones that speak to her.
Leave, Veronica, third Saint of the Veronicas. Run to the café. Dona Elena's.
Go to the café and find the ugly man and convert him.
The ugly man? Who's he?
Go, Veronica. Run and don't question. Find him. And convert him and be saved.
Outside it's a gray day. June, the month before the hurricanes. No sun, no rain, just this flat sky, gray and still. Veronica cranes her neck into it as she runs, runs harder than the coming rain, runs right past the café, and has to back up.
"Good afternoon, Senhorita, what an ugly Sunday. Coffee?" Dona Elena never goes to church, though no one knows why, since she reads her bible almost as religiously as she listens to her radio soap operas.
"No, pastry. Elephant ears." The words come from elsewhere: his, the alabaster man's.
"Goes good with a taça de ouro, Senhorita."
"No gold for me. Just elephant."
"O infante, o elefante: all good for a Sunday, Senhorita." Veronica hadn't even thought of that until now: the alabaster man and the elephant ear share the same word, almost. Elephant infant.
Veronica takes her drink, her pastry, and her seat, and waits. But no ugly man arrives. No ugly man, and no voice; the alabaster voice has vanished.
She drinks, she picks at the pastry, and she waits, until the sky is turning to tin and Dona Elena is closing up, playing the radio too loud as she sweeps around Veronica.
So Veronica runs, back to the empty church, back to Ardencia's where her mother is waiting, the stole twisted tight around her neck, an angry fox ready to pounce.
"Veronica! I've been half-mad with worry!" They are lined up like can-can dancers in a row outside Ardencia's house: Ardencia, her father and mother, Veronica's mother, and some policeman in britches and a pistol.
Veronica is sullen, offering no explanation, even after her mother threatens and delivers the punishment, the prize of bed with no dinner.
In bed the voice hugs her tight. You are chosen, Veronica, to be mine.
But you told me to go to the café and find the ugly man, and he wasn't there. You lied to me!
No, Veronica. You didn't wait long enough. Did I tell you to leave? You must listen. Go, tomorrow, and he will come.
Jennifer Natalya Fink is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Burn and co-editor of Performing Hybridity. She is a professor at Georgetown University, and the Founder and Gorilla-in-Chief of The Gorilla Press. She lives in a farmhouse in upstate New York.
Read
On Brazil, Bubbemeisers, and Being God:
Steve Almond Interviews Jennifer Natalya Fink.
Read
Infecting the Reader: D. Travers Scott
Talks with Jennifer Natalya Fink about Burn.
Read an excerpt from Burn.
Visit the Jennifer Natalya Fink webpage.
email Jennifer Natalya Fink
an excerpt from V © 2006 Jennifer Natalya Fink
author photograph © 2003 Frances Sorensen
The work featured in this journal is under copyright protection
by the individual authors and artists and may not be duplicated
or reprinted without their permission.
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