GH O TI
f
i sh
Issue No. 1
The Year of
Sighs
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“He loves, he suffers, he is
bored—like everyone else. But when he sighs, or It was the year of sighs. Beatrice
started it. I remember the moment as if it were yesterday: she was wearing
the plaid jumper and black stockings I liked so much and her hair was loose,
the strands delicate, burnished filaments in the wintry light. We’d just come
in from the theater (strange: I forget what it was; some dumb semi-farce in
which a man in a bowler hat kept forgetting where he’d left his umbrella--I
wanted to rush up onto the stage and offer him mine. Was there a rhinoceros?
A woman buried up to her neck in an ash can? Was it Beckett, Ionesco, Orton?) … Beatrice: She had a slight cold and I
poured us each a small measure of brandy when we got home—Beatrice always
liked her brandy. Then the phone rang (I’d forgotten to turn it off) and it
was Simon with the bulletin that he was leaving Judy--I remember standing
there wondering who in the hell Judy was. Was she the blonde, the redhead,
the one with the appealing lisp? I put the phone down and turned to tell
Beatrice the news and she’d fallen asleep, her goblet just barely maintaining
its balance. I took it from her hand, and, just as I did, she brought forth
this profound sigh, an elemental groan, as if an entire ship of sighs were
passing through the room—I swear the windows rattled. She was dreaming, of
course. And whatever the dream was, I remember praying to God that I wasn’t a
part of it. |
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