AFTER THE LITTLE WHITE OWL ceremony there was a euphoric calm for a day or two and I felt the energy of her subside. I took long walks into the forests, photographed dreamy sunsets, concerned myself only with beautiful things while lounging on my secret kai or dock on the lake. Then the radio signals started up again, furious in their intensity. Half the day she prickled all over me like electricity, and then at night the signals only grew stronger. It was like a pounding psychic headache. She, or it, was not happy. She, or it, was displeased. She did not want to be released. She wanted to stay. At night, I crawled into my bed beneath a plump, luxurious feather blanket and she somehow became three-dimensional, even real. She was sitting there at the Sundhöllin public baths in Reykjavik. She was seated at a table near the entrance and she was waiting for someone as she sat. My body came alive (I had never been so aroused), my lips and ears were red and hot with blood. I could feel her energy all over me again, just as it had been the first night we were together, that thick, deep-cut passion. “Tell me,” she whispered to me with those lips of hers. “Tell me now that you are devoted to me.” “No,” I said. “I won’t.” She was more persuasive then and I gave in to the tide of it. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me. Tell me.” “ALL RIGHT!” I cried. “Yes, yes, yes. I’m yours! Take me.” Like that, her energy flooded into me and found its home within me again. There was no shaking her then, and this is how it would have to be. Devoted to her forever. Pühendunud. You know, I was kind of sad about it, to tell you the truth. I didn’t want to feel her love. But I did. I just did. At night, to take my mind off things, I watched 8 1/2 again. I watched the boys run off to the beach in their capes and beckon Saraghina. “Saraghina — La Rumba!” The dark-haired woman emerges and begins to dance. The boys watch, thunderstruck. Then the monks discover the youths, chase them down, and drag the boy Guido before his mother and before god. How shameful! Utterly shameful! His mother wipes at her eyes. He must seek repentance! Kiss the feet of the Virgin Mary! “Don’t you understand,” the priest tells the boy in confession. “Saraghina is the devil.” “Catholic conscience,” says the director’s confidant in the next scene. Coscienza cattolico. I decided to make peace with her spirit. Her love. Let it be.
north! 