by David Ball via Wikipedia
Virid is the spring that snakes through our garden dappled with sun-shade (snake-skin) surrounded by choked-up laurels and strange purple flowers that waver in the water like reflected nightmares
“Let me show you La Fontaine,” I take his hand and lead him up the garden path, deeper, ducking our heads for the wisteria There is an inscription on a garden stone, four letters only L A U R I was four years old when I carved it with a shard of broken green grass (I mean ‘glass’) so many smashed bottles litter our garden
There is a cellar below our house, a catacomb of barrels for bodies or full-bodied Bordeaux Even as a child I remember hunting in those barrels slipping a hand in to grab at the necks More than once I toppled into the barrel and was not seen for days until somebody, Mon oncle, perhaps, came down to search in the particular barrel where I slept upside-down and clad in cobwebs
“Are you a child or a bat?” he would ask drunkenly, dusting me off, always the same joke always the same caresses and the sloppy kiss planted on my forehead
He holds the vintage by its neck, a chokehold has not yet dusted it off His pants are too loose, halfway down his bony buttocks his sweater is moth-eaten He looks poorer, much poorer than he is But then, so do I: in four days I have not bothered to change out of my nightdress, it is slipping off my shoulder, I am naked beneath it is stained with wine I cannot change, forgive me
Blame the heat, the Vauclusian heat: it makes me crave the night like a midsummer dreamer and retire at dawn to the sound of larks for a few hours of tossing, turning At midday I awake, sun-dazzled, sun-bleached and unwashed I let my lovers in at the garden gate overgrown with grapevines
Sometimes they pluck the sour green grapes crush them between their teeth; I cannot stomach grapes, I have vomited too many times because of them Yet I enjoy crushing them with my bare feet My feet which can bear the heat of any sun-stricken pavement which have walked over broken green glass and never bled
Skinks shimmer across our path Vert et Or such is our heraldry such is our heritage Green: for the virid spring, for the vineyards, and for our veins, which show their vine-like tracery under skin thinner and whiter than a skink’s belly Gold: for the hair, of course all women in my family have golden hair, all women in my family are named L A U R—
“We are Vauclusians,” my uncle has told me, “Our heritage is the closed valley, the golden hillsides, the green vineyards below Mont Ventoux; the gold-walled châteaux grown over with vine leaves; the fiefs the papacy Our men are knights, given to debauchery our women spurn poets and marry sadists The gold of their hair is incomparable their names are aureate They die of green plague and choked-up laurels; you will not live to see forty, my dear…”
“Voilà!” I lift my stained skirt and step barefoot into the foaming green waters that spew from the grotesque mouth of a stone Gorgon He washes off the bottle in the Gorgon’s clear vomit and uncorks it with his teeth, then helps me climb the ledge above the fountain We take turns swigging “What year is this from?” he asks me “1327,” I tell him He is stupid; he believes me
I tell him that his pants are stupid I draw up the sleeve of his sweater and dig my nails into his skin, leaving behind little crescents He gnashes his teeth and snatches away my garment, throwing it into the spring where it floats like a white water lily He has me on the ledge: it is hard and every thrust is a strike from the sun another glory bestowed on my laureate body Afterward, I vomit into the spring; green spittle and golden hair
Laura Elizabeth Woollett is a student and writer from Melbourne, Australia. She is inspired by mythology and eras other than her own, and has a penchant for French literature.