“As a result of the incest to which she had been subjected as a girl, she felt humiliated in the eyes of the world, but elevated in the realm of fantasy. She had been transported into a mythic realm; for incest is traditionally a prerogative of royalty and divinities. The consequence was complete alienation from the world, a state of psychosis. She became “extramundane” as it were... plunged into cosmic distances, into outer space, where she met with the winged demon. As is the rule with such things, she projected his figure onto me during treatment. I was automatically threatened with death, as was everyone who tried to persuade her to return to normal life. She often responded to men with a revolver shot. She wanted to return to the moon. By telling me her story she betrayed the demon and attached herself to an earthly human being and hence was able to return to life.” C.G. Jung

I've been standing in the marble doorway saying to myself, that sister, no doubt a child of the world, has somehow wandered off the beaten track. I couldn't help but conclude that you'd entered because of the downpour. I was also saying to myself that only an artless soul would brave the bullying tourists abounding in this cobblestone quarter in our city in the middle of summer to stand so precariously and yet so motionlessly on her pointed heels under a narrow-waist billowing crème skirt before the beauty of the David, for under the best of circumstances women our age in our age rarely simply stand aghast.

It occurred to me while I stood in the doorway looking at the throngs waiting for spaces to clear of other throngs so that they could hastily insert themselves before any others that as a true daughter of the world you must this minute be feeling as miserable, alone, abused by the paying barbarians—we locals are admitted free—just as when you were a child and for the first time your mother insisted you sleep in your own bed without the warmth and safety of her soft perfect body attached to you like the tentacles of the octopus goddess. Perhaps, I said to myself balanced firmly and indisputably on the balls of my wide feet to resist the pressure of more, as yet unseen, curious newcomers shoving their weight past me, I can help warm up this girl, who’s tottering on her very high leather mules so dangerously, with nothing to lean on, swinging imperceptibly to and fro in the breeze generated by the movement of all shapes and types of anxious, careless and self-focused bodies around her, anyone of whom could knock her over any minute, consumed as she is by the flame of inner devotion to the sublime form, drunken by the aesthetic feast she’s experiencing through her big, innocent, nearly exotic eyes, which are seeing only what’s important rather than what is real, though I would never presume to replace her mother.

Surveying the noisy crowd of assertive visitors, angst-ridden vacationers, and time-restrained day-trippers, while I was waiting in the doorway next to the indifferent guard, I knew that as an angel of the world you must have come in to such a busy, aggressive, breathless junction because you'd been trapped by the rain, but also that as a fairy of the world you are open to the unexpected so that the moment you encountered the David you froze and forgot what had preceded your moment of revelation, and suddenly this became your adventure on a miserable day in an old city on your day off, and mine too, in exact parallel, for I happened to encounter your exact moment of recognition of magnificence. Such a contented girl who's wandering alone into this den of national prostitution, an expensively dressed and coiffed, radiant-skinned and healthy lover of the arts, I said to myself in the crowded doorway, as I was being jostled hard and fought back in order to hold my ground against the rushing brutal current, would not enter such a site as this unless driven to it by inclement weather and other severe obstruction, for no intelligent traveler except under extreme circumstances and hindrances would willingly set foot, let alone a heel as becoming to the perilously supported leg as hers, past one or more of our well-disguised muggers, thugs, and potential rapists who inevitably loiter at the teeming vestibule looking for opportunity, and into the swarming nest full of vipers that houses our city’s treasures, and then gleefully sway fully absorbed in front of the most watched, photographed, written and read about piece in our collection, unless she is familiar with unconditional loving and has been indulged by connoisseurs into levels of intimacy and ecstasy that are necessary to block out the pushy mob throbbing in every direction, to be immune to the demands of the throng, an imperviousness that I happen to contribute to knowledge of some sort of incest, an exemption that I too recognize having survived its affections. You aren't in London or Paris or New York anymore. Rumored to be adept at transporting you from the daily ordeal of business meetings and corporate climbing, this city in fact reminds you of the labyrinthine incivility of human relations and the difficulty of the simplest human endeavor. Not only in spite of its great achievements, but because of them, this notorious city is a reminder that the world is as indifferent as it is admirable.

I am certain, I said to myself while I considered inching my way through the stinking, occasionally dripping mass, that that girl's voice, were I to hear it, would remind me of my own mother’s sweet voice when she was young, radiant herself and expensively-dressed, wobbling on her own spiky glittery heels that led upward swirling petticoats, and I was little more than a toddler and wholly in love with her, I see by the wry smile on your face I am not far from the mark. You must understand, as I'm sure you do, that you do not belong here, much as I wish you did and no one else who is here now did. That is how it should be. But this has been the picture here for centuries, for centuries travelers have been arriving, and millions have entered the rabble just as we have and experienced the same dismay brought about by the stunning contrast between the solicitude and decency of civilized cities throughout the world and the unwavering contempt of the natives here who do not care if you drop dead at their, or in your case your, feet.

For example, you could sit in any restaurant across the street for hours without a waiter noticing you. You’d have to shout and beg, cajole and jostle your way to his attention. He would just as soon starve you as feed you. When I see a girl standing calmly in a hellhole like this, I reminded myself in the draft of the doorway, I assume she is lost, thoroughly lost. As a result, my first impulse is to escort her out as quickly as possible, forcibly if necessary, more or less toss her over my back and carry her back out under the parapet and further into the cleansing rain as if I were a bouncer hired by the owner of this establishment to remove the types who've been known to squeeze women's breasts when they bring lunch and take liberties with the entertainment because they enjoy the show too much. Of course the wrong types are the civilized types, who by virtue of being refined and decent have no idea what they've done in walking through the doorway on a cold wet dark day like this day and given themselves to the beauty at hand so utterly. They are in need of social interpreters. In your case the more I have stared at you from the doorway, seriously taking in your cut, concluding, as I have said, that you are obviously a woman of the wider world, the more I have debated against removing you, a complete stranger to me, to a sumptuous private dining club two streets away where you could find decent refuge, if not delight in the lavish luxuries of discretion and privacy.

It is such an attractive private club, especially given the commotion, incompetence and general pestilence in this cesspool of a city that it might not be raining in front of it. I decided as I pushed my body through the lowlifes and sightseers that I could not leave you behind and, if you would allow me to help you, when of course you’re done with your journey of admiring and memorizing the David, you would be served instead of ignored, and not because I'd be seated across from you, you would no longer be subject to the gawking mocking complexions and rude heaves and shoves of your fellow oglers, most of whom wouldn't know a good sculpture or meal if either shot them in the heart at close range, the vast majority of whom hasn't eaten well their whole lives so that by now they're stupefied by decent art and food. These types eat to fill their bellies, never tasting a thing, and look briefly or obsessively so as to claim later that they have seen without experiencing the harmony that so blatantly overwhelmed your sensibilities. They have no palates, which is perhaps why they are so unpalatable. And do you know why they suffer such a barbaric nexus with art and food, why unlike the two of us they are incapable of savoring a smell, nuance, or texture that might announce a historic moment? Most do not have and have never had families, not in the sense that you and I know them as settings of warmth, reassurance, fellow feeling, love, commitment and consumption without borders. These types consume only to feel stuffed, and feeling stuffed is their only way of knowing they've eaten without being cheated. They are not equipped to recognize quality, loyalty, refinement, or silent commitment. They cannot be consumed. They are forever starved. They wouldn’t view you as anything beyond an ordinary girl from the University. If they noticed your breasts, for instance, they might look twice, or more closely, but only for an instant, because they most probably would prefer them perkier, filled with silicone or saltwater bags, stretching the skin uncomfortably like caricatures of fertility. My mother had big soft breasts like yours that peeked through her open long white terry robe in the evenings she stayed home, even when I was an adolescent and we lived as a couple. No wonder I recognized my DNA in you, if only fancifully. My mother was my best friend. She lived long and beautifully, because she could make everything in her periphery and of course vicinity stunningly and quietly beautiful. Quietude was her trademark. She was pliable where most people are not. She was never under stress. I never saw her lose her poise. She was always photographable, like a landscape. Longevity to these lowlifes you see milling all about us is corpulence. Unless they're living to ninety they feel cheated of life and they'll celebrate the hundredth birthday of a child molester with a feast, thinking his must be a rich rewarding existence because it's lasted so long. They assume that longevity, like a bloated stomach, is its own reward, that if you live to be a hundred you know something the rest of us don't, rather than that longevity only happens because of a stunning unconsciousness, an inattention to unfolding history that obliterates centuries of human progress. Anyone who is alert to the disaster human life wrings is torn to shreds by the knowledge. You're lucky if you make it to our age, and eating in a town like this, even at a private club, doesn’t help. That is why you and I will begin with a clear greaseless broth, one that won't mar your white lacey blouse and big skirt, which I greatly admire and frankly prefer to the machine-made mules, overwrought for my taste.

As for myself I haven't always been in disrepair. For most of my life I bathed twice daily, each day wore a fresh pressed dress or shirt and suit, and midday changed my day clothes and underwear, slipped into loungewear for a period of afternoon rest, and later got dressed for dinner, and a lady would come to the house to blow-dry my hair, after she did my mother’s, and wax my underarms and bikini line. In those days I brushed my teeth before and after every meal, watched over every detail in my appearance, and changed bras according to outfit, which I've given up altogether. I wouldn't have been found dead carrying a raffia rhinestone-studded purse, let alone the rumpled sad affair seated between us today. I can say in all honesty that I used to dress so well I didn't have to think about my appearance, unlike now when I am fastidious but it does no good. I do try to look my best every time I leave home. That is what I noticed about you while I was standing in the doorway avoiding the storm, that you were a girl who dressed well without having to think about it. I thought, while I was waiting for a spell of dry open sky when I might dash out without wet damage, that you dressed well without having to think because for decades you've been dressed each morning by your mother or caretaker such as a nanny. She might be thousands of miles away but the two of you have had such intimacy that thousands of miles away you will always wear what you know your mama would choose for you to wear, were she here. Not out of habit, but out of respect for her judgment. And you'll still be doing that long after she dies if she has not died already as mine has.
I think that's the mark of a superior bond, which most people—idealists and fools alike--think they can duplicate in marriage. Not only that, I also think it is the only mark of one. Show me a man who is left to fend for himself when it comes to his clothes, who is either not dressed specifically by his wife or not subject, while he is dressing, to her absolute judgment and I'll show you a marriage either on the rocks or one that should never have happened in the first place. Show me a girl who is free to dress herself by whim or to the specifications of fashion and social convention and I’ll show a disaster about to erupt, whether an anorexic or a bulimic or a binger, or a pill-popper or a drug-addict and an eventual suicide. There are suicides of many types, you know. Perhaps one of the reasons I chose to accost you rather than, for instance, the pimply .., is my conclusion that your wife dressed you this morning even from thousands of miles away, though you didn't speak to her. You didn't need to, nor did you know you didn't need to. Because I knew your wife dressed you this morning the same way she does every morning I knew as well that she chooses your food. You have the sort of intimacy in your marriage in which, even with the merest business acquaintances at a painful six course orgy at a notoriously overpriced world famous dinner club, you don't feel childish gazing at the menu but asking your beloved whether or not you can digest such and such a dish the way you used to, assuming you can remember which dish it is you like to eat. In fact, your wife is in a position to tell you that you used to enjoy both Kiev chicken and chicken cordon bleu but that now the chicken cordon bleu doesn't sit well and you've come to despise the chicken Kiev for being rich. It's chicken divan you crave on a night such as this, your wife can tell you positively, though sadly it isn't on the menu. Show me a man whose wife isn't utterly familiar with his cuisine and I'll show him a woman who's in love with someone else. As I'm sure you're aware, the sole reason the women we love don't love us in return is because they love someone else instead. In my small way therefore, I'm substituting for your wife by combing the grubby menu of this shithouse in search of something I'm certain you'll be able to keep down without killing you outright.

Has that beloved mother of yours ever lifted a hand against you? What with the blue shadow of winter twilight and blowing snow on the other side of the window where mine slapped me repeatedly, I wanted to paint a picture in response that cured the world of all devotion, a painting so single-minded even an idiot husband or an imbecilic wife could relate to it, a sliver of the unconscious that emerges in nightmares or daydreams or as a consequence of abusing alcohol. Instead, I forgave her. She was so vulnerable, just like you are sitting there quiet, without needing to fidget or interrupt, listening devotedly. My mother could sit utterly, exquisitely, still during her morning meditation for anywhere from 11 to 22 minutes like a veritable statue though she could slap a stranger over the minutest provocation, yet she never was slapped back. She taught me not to trust strangers. She said I could like them, enjoy them, be nice to them, love them even, but not trust them. And I do not trust these modern teeming hordes enough to get physical with them. Times have changed. Respect is not what it was. Especially when it comes to our gender. But at times and on exception I talk to strangers, such as yourself, which my mother would never do, out of self-respect, but only since I lost her. You see she taught me how to touch and be touched, how to kiss and be kissed, and on her soft velvety flesh I practiced all my pleasures and learned myself and, I am sure you understand, I miss her terribly. Would you like some more Chianti with your steamed clams? These extra lemon wedges are for you. I will not be finishing my mushroom and seaweed braised mussels, especially since we’re having a proper appetizer coming up, so feel free to dip in. I hope you like garlic. You look like you do. But ever since I lost her, I am seeking her, everywhere really, and more and more in the most unfamiliar places. I see you licked off your consommé, which reassures me, you’ve recognized the purity of the organic and day-fresh ingredients, few as they are and should be. Purity is what I am seeking wherever I am seeking her. I would now proceed with an appetizer of raw tuna sprinkled in olive oil and a sprig of parsley, not the ground tuna tartare of which there are a dime a dozen in our town but the actual handmade long-marinated perfectly cut day’s catch, the biggest catch.

By the time my mother passed away in my arms, looking deep in my eyes as if to say I will always love you but I know it means nothing now, I was philosophical about death. I had nursed her with as much minute attention to detail as she lavished on me throughout my happy early life. Do you know happiness? You seem to. How would you define it? Exemplify it? For me it involves lying in soft cool fresh Egyptian sheets next to my mother, climbing on her, grabbing for her, being free to feel her and avail of her all through the night, going to sleep next to her, my head on her pillow, waking up next to her my head on her pillow, knowing that she belongs to me and that she loves me too much if not too well, though from my lifelong point of view too much was well enough.