Priya, picking a book from the shelf. Reading: Who, if I cried out, who would hear me among the angelic orders? Poems about angels. Do you believe in angels, philosopher?
Fallen angels, maybe, I say. And the Nephilim, who were the offspring of fallen angels and human women.
I don’t care about Nephilim, Priya says. Rainer Maria Rilke: I’ve heard of him, I know the name; don’t think I’m totally ignorant. The Dunio Elegies. Is the kind of thing you read – really? … It’s like intruding on something, opening these pages. On some old European dream … What’s wrong with us? Why can’t we be reached by this stuff? Why aren’t we touched by this?
Speak for yourself, I say.
This just zooms over your head, too, Priya says. Don’t pretend. This doesn’t mean anything to you either. Except as some talisman. As something to worship from afar. When Rilke wants to open us … to God, or whatever. To the sky, or whatever. To death, or whatever. All those things. All those things our great-great-grandparents might have understood …
Once upon a time … once people would have set themselves to learn it by heart, Priya says. To be able to quote this. To remember it all, line by line …
All your books, philosopher … These old books, Priya says. They’re from a different time and about a different time, only you haven’t understood that yet … They’re outdated … they’ve been left behind. Haven’t you realised that yet?
You know what I think about your book-filled bedroom? Priya asks. About your life up here? You’re playing at being a philosopher and I’m playing at having an affair with a philosopher. 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 … Which will only last for a while – that’s what I tell myself. 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.
And you’ll still be with hubbie? I ask.
That is my fate, I’m sure, Priya says. I’ll be with him forever … It’ll just go on and on …
One day, a long time from now, you’ll tell your husband all about our affair, I say. One day, when you’re feeling particularly close. On your fiftieth wedding anniversary, or something. On his birthday, or yours … You’ll tell him about your love affair – that’s what you’ll call it. About reading Rilke with your philosopher lover. Reading Rilke in bed, the pair of us! The Dunio Elegies! High modernist stuff about angels!
That’ll teach him not to take you for granted, I say. To show him that you 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 …
You know, if you met someone else, I’d be terribly jealous, Priya says. Which makes me think you should be more jealous of my husband than you are. Unbearably so. Tormentedly so.
I am jealous, I say.
Don’t feign, Priya says. I know when you’re lying. See, I’d like to matter. Like everyone wants to matter. I want to be someone for whom someone else would live or die.
Your husband, I say.
Maybe him, though probably not, Priya says. Okay – I want you to want me. Desperately. Seriously.
You said we were just going to burn ourselves out …, I say.
But that could be fun, right? Priya says. That could be fiery.
I do want you, anyway, I say.
I want you to want me more, Priya says. Not to be able to go on without me.
You’re actually married, I say. Which makes you very greedy.
Well maybe I don’t want to be married to him, Priya says. Maybe I’d leave him for you. If it wasn’t for … your work. Your life or death work which comes between you and me.
See, you think you’re exceptional …, Priya says. That you’re better than the rest of us … to stay up here in your eerie and write your stuff … You and your philosophical muse.
Maybe you’re my muse, I say. My new muse.
Maybe you’ll have to court me – properly, Priya. You have to make some effort. Everything just comes to you. I just drive out here.
I’ll write you a love letter, I say. I’ll send it right to your door. Rilke wrote a lot of love letters, you know. He wandered round Europe writing to various women.
It’s easy to love people when they’re absent, right? Priya says. You can imagine me exactly as you like. A philosophical me. A profound me. Who could join you in revering these old books. Rainer Maria Rilke, or whoever …
Work in Progress 