In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje [22]
– We’re going to my friend’s farmhouse.
– Ambrose?
– No, her name is Alice. I’ll tell you about her later.
– You’ve got all the time in the damn world now.
– Later.
They entered a small farmhouse which had a woodstove in the kitchen. Bird feathers had been prised under the edges of wallpaper, here and there. In the front room there was a bed in an alcove, windows on three sides of it. A mat on the floor. There was hardly any furniture. It looked to him like the quarters of a monk. The friend was not to arrive for a couple of days, Clara said.
Later that night they lay on the bed by the three windows, barely dressed. He liked to sleep separate, in his own world, but with her he kept waking, reaching to hold her flesh against him. During the night Clara turned slowly like something on the floor of the ocean. She would put more and more clothes on in the darkness. She was always cold at night, in this room of the sea.
– You awake?
– What time is it? she said.
– Still night.
– Ahh.
– I love you. Were you ever in love? Apart from Ambrose.
– Yeah.
He was put off by her casual admission.
– I fell in love with a guy named Stump Jones when I was sixteen.
– Stump!
– There was a problem with the name.
– I’ll say.
– Goodnight, Patrick, I’m sleepy.
– Hey!
He got up and strolled around the farmhouse happier and more at ease than he had ever been. She was already back in deep sleep, snoring, wearing one of his shirts to keep warm. A smile on her face. Clara the smirker. He wanted to get hold of Stump Jones and beat the hell out of him. Sixteen! Where had he been at sixteen? She had been Small’s lover, Stump’s lover, and who else? He found himself at this hour in the spell of her body, within the complex architecture of her past.
He had been looking through the window for over ten minutes when he suddenly focused on a shadow on the glass and saw it was a tree frog. He lit the oil lamp and held it up to the creature. A pseudacris triseriata. Hello friend, he breathed towards the pale-green speckled body hanging against the pane.
– Clara …
– What is it?
– Ambrose.
Love was like childhood for him. It opened him up, he was silly and relaxed.
– What!
She was wide awake, watching him as if he were crazy.
– Come here, I want you to see this.
She looked at the window and then back at him, refusing to speak.
– He wants you with all your clothes off.
– It’s three in the morning, Patrick, you’re supposed to be asleep. You’re supposed to be searching for my beloved. (Beloved! He grinned.) Do you want to make love, is that it?
– It’s a tree frog!
– A tree frog in the moonlight is not rare.
– Yes it is, they only come out during the day. He wants to consider your thorax, your abdomen.
– Is this some kind of Bolshevik gesture?
She unbuttoned the shirt, stood between him and the glass.
– Tomorrow night he’ll probably bring his pals to see you. Some places call them bell frogs. When they get excited they make a sound like a bell. Sometimes they bark like dogs.
She leaned forward and put her mouth to the green belly against the glass and kissed it.
– Hello Ambrose, she whispered, how are you doing?
Patrick put his arms around her and held her breasts.
– Marry me, willya …
He started barking.
– One of these days, soon, I’ll go.
– To join Ambrose.
– Yes … I know he’s alive.
– I have a fear I won’t see you again.
– You talk on, Patrick, but you have no remorse.
– A strange word. It suggests a turning around on yourself.
– Don’t speak. Here …
He met Ambrose in a dream. At the door he said, “There is this grey figure attached to my body, Patrick, I want you to cut it off me.” They were old friends. All Patrick had was a penknife. He unfolded the blade and made Ambrose move into the hall, underneath the one light near the iron elevators. It was easier to see what it was now. A grey peacock had been sewn onto his friend. Patrick began to cut it away.
Ambrose was quiet. There appeared to be no pain at all. Patrick got down to the ankles and with a final saw from the knife the surplus figure curled off. It lay