Tuesday Focus: The Wonder of Victoria Redel's "Talking Angel"
It was an American Bluebird—painted turquoise, racks for
backpacks, hash rolled with tobacco. It got stuck overnight at
the Swiss border. She says she watched an Australian woman
fuck the bus driver. It is my roommate's story from her trip
across Europe. I keep asking her to tell it to me. She says the
driver said something over and over. The seats, covered in
green plastic, made a damp popping noise. A word starting
with the letter D. Tonight I tell her he was cooing Mon Dieu,
though other nights it has been doucement or diable. Last time
they were sitting up. She was crouched above him. Now he is
kneeling, her back to him, an outline of moisture where her
hands press on the window. Her brother is on the bus asking
questions. "Where is the food?" "Where is the extra blanket?"
At dawn the bus continues to Athens. They all get off. Now my
roommate wants to tell me what else she saw. It is all
monument and historic event. I say, "The popping noise, that's
the Australian girl." If months later the girl tried to lift the
driver's face up to the face of her imagination, I could not say.
And could I say if later the brother and sister spoke of the
night or could never speak of the night? I want to know who
my roommate would be if she could be any of them. "But I was
there," she says. I tell her I am the girl. I am her shadow flung
across other seats. I am that girl talking angel. She is talking
angel rising, blue wing net, angel updraft, wing beat. He says
this time in slow American, "Damn baby, that's nice." My
roommate says, "One more time. And then that's that. There
was snow. That was why we waited out the night." "By the
end," I say, "it wasn't really sticking, just flurries settling on the
window sashes. The driver could have continued." Think of the
shushing sound that cars make, tires passing over snow, yellow
light from headbeams slicing through the bus. Think of the
light slipping over the spent couple. That is something, don't
you think? To wake for a second, see a thing all lit up. What
was it? Whatever it was, now it is everything.
I love the way it shushes, slices, slips, how afterwards I walk around repeating "racks for backpacks," the something that appears early and later and its transformation into everything, how one truly coos in reading the French Mon Dieu, that "outline of moisture where her hands press on the window," American, Australian, Athens, questions, the could I say, wondering, the indeterminacy of it, something, whatever, a word, brother, sister, roommate, girl, the angel rising, blue wing net, angel updraft, wing beat, how I am there and not there, shadow flung, and how one can spend hours, a day, a lifetime on end repeating "I am that girl talking angel" and never find the same meaning twice.
("Talking Angel" © Victoria Redel and appears courtesy of the author)
Post Your Comment