Priya, picking a book from the shelf. Reading: Who, if I cried out, who would hear me among the angelic orders? Is this poetry? The kind of thing you read? … It’s like intruding on something, reading this. On some old European dream. What are you doing, reading this kind of thing? Who is it for?
I don’t know, I say. God, maybe.
I don’t know what God means, Priya says.
Is God manifest as the sky? This rather, I believe, I quote.
Who said that? Priya asks.
Another poet, I say.
Priya, reading: For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror / which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so, / because it serenely disdains to destroy us. / Every angel is terrible.
What’s wrong with us? Priya asks. Why aren’t we reached by this? Why aren’t we touched by this? Why don’t we have the time for this sort of thing? It should open us … to the infinite, or whatever. To the sky, or whatever. To death, or whatever. All those things. All those things our great-great-grandparents might have understood …
This poetry just zooms over my head, Priya says. Over our heads, because I don’t think you understand it either. It’s so beautiful. And too beautiful for us, for the likes of us. Once upon a time … once people would have set themselves to learn it by heart. To be able to quote this. To remember it all, line by line …
All your books, philosopher, Priya says. These old books. They’re from a different time and about a different time, only you haven’t understood that yet. They’re outdated, just as you’re outdated. Do you think you can live like this – like those old-time thinkers, in old-time jobs, in old-style unis?
You know what I think?: You’re playing at being a philosopher and I’m playing at having an affair with a philosopher, Priya says. You’re following your blind alley, as I’m no doubt following mine.
What’s your blind alley? I ask.
Romance, maybe, Priya says. This romance …
Silence.
It’ll only last for a while – that’s what I tell myself, Priya says. And then we won’t know each other …
Don’t say that, I say.
It will last for a while and burn itself out, and then you’ll forget me, and I’ll forget you, and that’s how it should be, Priya says.
And you’ll still be with him? I ask.
Sure I will, Priya says. I’ll be with him forever, I’m sure. It’ll just on and on.
And one day you’ll tell your husband all about it, I say. One day, when you’re feeling particularly close. On an anniversary, or something. On his birthday, or yours. You’ll tell him about your love affair – that’s what you’ll call it. It’ll all come out. To teach him not to take you for granted. To show him that could have lead an entirely different life had you chosen to. That would add an unexpected twist to your anniversary dinner, wouldn’t it? That would make him sit up and listen …
Silence.
We’re always at a remove from everything, aren’t we? Priya says. We’re always stepping out of the moment and looking down at it. Or looking up at it. Or looking sideways at it. But we’re never in it, are we? Or perhaps you are. But I’m not. Don’t get me wrong – I like being here with you. I like our erotic afternoons, but we’re so meta- … Talking about this stuff. Instead of … whatever …
Talking’s part of it, I say.
We’re always talking about it – our … relationship … such as it is … such as it isn’t, Priya says. It’s … parasitical. But what is it, really? Our ‘love affair’ in inverted commas? Our being together?
A way of warding off the afternoon, I say. As a way of using the afternoon. For ourselves. Not just … doing whatever we’d do.
Live like normal people, you mean? Priya says.
Maybe, I say.
And in the meantime, it’s at work, Priya says. It just chugs along. Does its own thing. Brings us together. Makes us … kiss. And fuck. And hang out. It’s working through us. It’s doing things to us – with us. It’ll get tired of us at some point.
What’ll get tired? I ask.
It – just it, Priya says. Our romance …
And then what’ll happen? I ask.
The enchantment will lift, Priya says. The spell will be uncast, or whatever. And we’ll wake up wondering what happened … Like Bottom’s dream, or whatever … And we’ll be none the wiser. And this whole affair will be like something we just dreamt up …
God, who else talks like this? Priya says. About life and death and everything? You’ve infected me with philosophy. You’ve made it okay to talk like this – as no one should be allowed to talk.
And there’s the patch of light, quivering, Priya says. How symbolic. How perfect. Is it supposed to teach us something? Something about our futility, or something. About true poetry?
Work in Progress 