In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje [32]
– Oh god it is you.
– Hello, Clara.
She stood there, her coat open, her hands in her pockets. She was taking in what he looked like. His face was wet and he realized his damaged eye was crying, he was unable to control it. If you can’t see you can’t control anything, he thought. Patrick had imagined her so often when she had not been wearing these clothes. He lifted his left arm up to wipe his face with the quilt but when his arm got to the level of his shoulder it began to shake. She came forward and wiped his cheek with her open hand, then put the wet hand of salt to her mouth.
– I can’t see out of this eye.
Her hand came up to his face again, her fingers feeling his skin, the flesh on his cheek.
– Can you feel that?
– Yes.
Her fingers moved into his scalp. He didn’t know where to put his hands. He couldn’t get them out of the way.
– What’s wrong.
– My hands.
– Put them around me, we have touched before.
– I don’t want you to think …
He grinned and his face ached. They stood then like that in the room. His hands on either side of the rough material of her coat, her fingers gently parting his hair to feel his scalp.
– There’s blood here. What the hell were you two doing?
She moved out of his hold and shrugged off her coat.
– I know a doctor in town, but I’ll clean you up first.
Patrick stood at the window looking out. She came up behind him.
– I’ve imagined us meeting all over the world, Patrick, but I never thought we’d meet here. By this river you told me about.
She put her head against him and they were still, as if asleep. Her finger traced a delicate line down along his shoulder, parallel to a cut.
– It would be terrible if we met under perfect conditions. Don’t you think?
With a bowl of hot water beside her, she worked the dried blood out of his hair. He was tired and fought to stay awake. She squeezed the cloth dry and started washing his cuts, the one on his chest, his shoulder, and then finally his hands, getting him to gradually move his stiff fingers.
– Do you have your shaving stuff? Yes, you must.
She touched the menthol pencil to three cuts in front of his ear, then suggested that she shave him. She rinsed the razor and sat in front of him, straddling the chair.
– How are you, Patrick?
He gave his nervous laugh that she loved.
– I’m on the verge as usual.
– Don’t lose that.
He looked directly into her eyes, aiming himself at her. The first time he had looked at her continually. There wasn’t any pain in his face, she noticed, just thirst.
– Talk to me, Clara.
– All these small scars …
She wiped the razor on the quilt. He looked older. More brittle. This was the way to know somebody’s face, she thought. She should have shaved him before. She should have understood his breakable quality sooner. He was a creature of habit, he belonged with the last century. She wanted to paint his face, to follow the lines of his cheek and eyebrow with colours. Make another spirit painting of him. He was less neutral now, his skin like the texture of a cave that would transform anything painted on it. She lathered his face, wanting to sculpt him. With her finger she wrote DICKENS 5 on his forehead. “I don’t want you lost, Patrick. I can’t have you but I don’t want you to get lost.”
She stepped bowlegged off the chair and stretched her body to break the cramp, moving backwards until she was leaning against the wallpaper. Then she walked to the window. She saw him gazing straight ahead towards the wallpaper, as if she had left her body there. Flowers, vines, now and then an English pheasant in the foliage, now and then a rip caused by a drunk logger in other times trying to get out of the room, unable to find the door. He sat looking at that landscape in front of him.
– Do you know this area had a Small sighting? It made the Toronto papers and I knew it was no coincidence. He had to be living in the town I came from because you were with him. He grilled you the way I did. Isn’t that right?
– He