Bethesda

I had just come out of my episode. I had been standing over the Bethesda Terrace, looking out at the fountain and the little frozen lake behind it and all those people milling about, throwing grey snowballs. The episode was one of those lonely ones, when you forget that you have anyone who cares for you, and the fact that nobody else cares for you makes it difficult to have a case as to why you yourself should care for you. For me they are usually caused more by forgetfulness and tiredness than actual loneliness. For instance, the morning of this day that I am about to describe, I woke in the arms of my then lover. And yet I still felt that whirlpooling sense of absolute loneliness during my walk of yearning. Turtleneck and all, it’s funny, really.

A light snow had started to fall, the little flakes resting on my red hat and in the crevices of the curls of hair around my ears and neck, all of them settling in a rather pretty way. My ears always have a tendency to redden in the cold, and this was long since I got rid of my hat with the earflaps. I thought, at the time, that red ears in the cold were cute on little boys, but they quickly make a man look rather immature and childish. There are few men, I thought, who can let their ears redden and still retain their machismo, and most of those men are Scandinavians who died long ago. I remember thinking about this and then putting the hood of my jacket on.

I could hear the guitarist playing under the terrace. I thought that his music was very beautiful and touching. I tried hard to notice all the intricacies and all of the notes in each grouping, but I was continually distracted by the morning. Obviously I was not totally alone, but she had said something about me that left me nonplussed. I do not wish to dive into the specifics of what she had said, but it was concerning my fulfillment of the role of the masculine part of our relationship– in more ways than just the obvious, mind you. And I can admit my faults, but it was the manner and tone in which she made the comment that left me feeling strange. I wished to tell her that, but I thought that that would be unmasculine, and that cycle of thinking fed into a routine over the course of five minutes where I would put on a hard face, but inside me was a flood of soft, sticky mucus, so to speak.

It was as the song was ending that they all came out. The square around the fountain had been clear for some minutes, and upon it descended a massive group of people. From each entrance to the square came a parade of people, men women and children, dancing and playing accordions and guitars, all with flowers in their hair and white linen shirts and pants above their moccasins. They carried lamps and wreaths and spreads of food, trays of teapots and china were hauled in by several men each. They sang this fantastic song of harmonies that I can describe harmonically, but the feeling it evoked in me is impossible to translate to words. Such soul-melting awe is rare. I was the only person there, and they did not seem to notice me.

As the last of the parades filed into the square, a small rowboat arrived at the opposite end and a party climbed out. It was a woman, surrounded by four men, one of whom also carried a folded object. They walked her to the front of the fountain, facing me and the guitarist, as I and all the others watched. She wore a face of quiet resolve, a slight smile that never faded. The man with the object unfolded it, revealing a cot-like structure. Then the woman took off her shirt and pants, becoming completely naked except for the moccasins on her feet. She laid down.

The men stepped back towards the fountain, and then the congregations of people started walking again. From each entrance they walked, single-file, towards the woman, and then they formed a revolving circle around her, each person walking around her once, and then returning to where they came from to sing and dance and drink. Each one had a knife. Every person, as they circled and circled this woman, took their knife to her and cut or made an incision or smacked her with the flat side of it. And none of them penetrated or bruised her skin. The knives pressed down and down, pushing her skin down like a hand in soft dough, until the wielder brought it back up. And every single one of the knives would be stuck to her by some kind of gooey substance, invisible to me standing so high up. It seemed as though the people did wish to cut her, but that could not have been their intention, as neither the first nor the fiftieth nor the hundredth could. It was all futile. She was sticky and soft, and she wore it on the outside, and she could not be cut.

I got the sense that I was witnessing something private, so I walked back to the train station. I was consumed by the events of that morning, my stoic reaction to criticism that was ultimately feigned. I thought and I thought, maybe too much.