Avant Desire: A Nicole Brossard Reader. Nicole Brossard

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      – Yet terror is everywhere. Ice, the sparkle of cold laughter.

      – This isn’t something we can prevent. Terror is. We can’t escape this cloud. Wired, revolted or resigned, we walk in its wake.

      – Can we constrain the story?

      – The narrative of our lives, of terror or of the impossible?

      – Merely sum up. Quite simply. Without violence, with a few markers along the way.

      – We have no markers but ourselves. We are surrounded by signs that invalidate our presence.

      – Well then let’s say that I would like for us to sum up our presence. Lorna Myher, you great dyke from Ajo, send me into raptures. Adventure me in desire. Do everything that you must, that you mustn’t, my trust is absolute.

      – I will do only what in you desires. That’s the only presence I can offer you.

       III

       The shoulder is suntanned, the skin smooth, the flesh firm. The neon lighting hugs the chest, slides over the shoulder, exposes the imago a moment, then moves back up toward Mélanie’s face.

      – It’s a beautiful night.

      – Night is what allows sudden changes.

      – Night is concrete.

      – Night is oblique. On one side beings, on the other side beasts. This is why we tremble, when night has come, about not finding our place.

      – Here we are, speaking to each other quite naturally and yet, Angela Parkins, I know nothing about you.

      – I come from the desert.

      – What do you know about the desert, the sun, and men? My mother says that …

      – The desert is a space. Men came there one day and claimed that this space was now conquered at last. They claimed they suffered over their conquest. They suffered because the desert suffers no error. But men confused error with suffering. They concluded that their suffering could correct the error of nature, the very nature of error. This is how they hooked into death.

      – It’s a beautiful night.

      – Night is always beautiful for it forces us to feel with our skin and our inner eyes. At night we can count only on ourselves.

      – Night is beautiful in sheer solitude but your presence makes this night even more real for me.

      – Night is strange.

      – That’s because the body changes rhythm.

      – At night it is especially necessary to wait for the body to change its trajectory in the universe. To move in such a way that all of our senses can transit freely. Capture the vast emptiness. How old are you?

      – I hope I never become like other people.

      – How do you know you haven’t already?

      – I know.

      – I’m thirsty. How long have you had the butterfly tattoo on your shoulder?

      – A month. It gives me strength for facing reality. It gives me wings. I’m Sagittarius. It makes me feel like somebody put their hand on my shoulder, looked at me, taught me.

      – Taught you what? You really want to be taught about life?

      – You no doubt desired that once.

      – I made my own way. I don’t owe anybody anything.

      – Do you think that’s the way to find joy?

      – I’m thirsty. I spend hours and hours resisting thirst. Waiting for sunset. I spend my life watching the horizon in detail. I’ve never given happiness a thought. I charge ahead. I troat.

      – Do you know that animal?

      – Which animal?

      – The stag. They say it is often compared to the tree of life and that it symbolizes rebirth. For the Pueblos it represents cyclical renewal.

      – Mélanie, what are you talking about?

      – What I’ve read.

      – Come closer. Let me get a good look at this butterfly. It has the thorax of a great sphinx.

      – Well?

      – Nothing. Why did you say that night changes the body’s rhythm?

      – Because it’s true. Do you think I would have dared to follow you and speak to you in broad daylight?

      – During the day I’m far away, way off in the vastness. During the day all my attention is focused on the earth’s crust.

      – Don’t you want to be loved?

      – I’m not lovable. My thirst is too great. Mélanie, you’re very young. Your mother is probably already worried about your absence.

      – My mother knows me. She knows that night and day I feel the need to run. To always go a bit beyond myself to let reality loose.

      – I think we look alike.

      – Without a mirror it would be hard to tell.

      – I think our eyes are better able to tell when there are no reflections.

      – There, I’m close to you. Do you recognize me?

      – Yes, I recognize you. It’s true that you are ageless. You have always existed. Don’t go thinking that I’m making things up. I can tell among the signs and the clues what in you is made to last. You needn’t fear time. Only speed will damage you.

      – Don’t say that. I love living fast.

      – That’s what I recognize in you.

      – Rain.

      – Stay just a little longer. Rain can only soften our lips and make the night palpable.

      – The rain on your lips is fine.

      – ‘We pray thee send forth rain, blessings, immortality.’¹

       IV

       The scene can be imagined by parting the curtain between auther and translator. The distance is abolished by imagining the two women sitting in a café. One is smoking and so is the other. Both like dealing with silence but each one here is looking to understand how death transits between fiction and reality. The language spoken is the auther’s.

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