I am doing my best to live in the moment and not worry about the future and accept life for what it is and celebrate it for all its unpredictable beautiousness and wonder. I think I am doing well and I look forward to continuing in the future. I miss your golden hair but it's alright, because sometimes it's good to not have the things you think you need because it reminds you that you are strong and brave and human and solid, and you can persevere and your home is everywhere and it's all joy and goodness and wonder. I feel dispersed around this world, tiny girl particles all over the globe - I like to think of things I've left behind - a strand of hair on an Egyptian street, an eyelash on the coast of Tunisia, a silver pendant in the woods of White Clay - because it shows that I meldandblend with this world- the wind takes me and spreads me and thus I am everywhere and nowhere is more Me than anywhere else, and no matter where I go a piece of me is already there it's all girl
all girl and glowing and it's all home
and you
and everything
it meldsandblends and holds me to it and welcomes me because really, I never left
I was always there
I was always it
Do you know, I heard the Spirits of the Bedouin tribes are taking back the city. They're sweeping over the desert plains in vengeful gusts of ghostly wind, razing the dirty dilapidated buildings and burying the beeping cars beneath mounds of rounded sand. They finally had enough, couldn't keep quiet while disrespectful generations of modernist bastard children buried their beautiful lands in gleaming travesties of concrete steal construction crap - their angry Spirits are rising up in protest and demanding a stop to the desecration.Won't be long now til all of Cairo's covered! and nothing's left but rolling fields of desert gold.
The Ghosts are whipping the mountains of trash into the air and out into space, pulling corrugated-tin ceilings off tiny shacks and fancy mansions alike, sparing none of the garbageous usurpers in the process. This land was theirs so many years ago and their Spirits have come back full throttle! they'll reclaim the valley with shrieks of victory and bellows of barbarous jahiliyya rage.
Cairo Tower topples into the Nile and washes away with rapidious rains, the Spirits dredge that ancient River and throw its too-long-polluted slop upon huge skyscrapers, that melt and dissolve in burning bubbles of acid goo. Concrete structures are smashed to dust, foundations ripped up and covered over - mountains rebuilt where city squares formally existed! The Desert calls back what was hers, the trees wither in the scorching flame of the Bedouin breath and what little grass there was in this nature-forsaken city is ripped and torn with gusts of slicing sandy wind. It shrieks and tears! and loses itself in winds of history and the storms of present righted.
Then all is gone, nothing more - religion forsaken, city forgotten - nothing but desert, and the Spirits roaming its sterile surface like an ancient, haunting wind.
I am a mobile being, and I guard that mobility jealously. No other object has the right to the mobility that I enjoy; millennia of work, untold turns of evolution, are what got me here. Do not try to cut in line! I walk and I see trees swaying. I am wary. Branches, you may sway. You may sway because it is not you. It is wind. Wind has right to blow. Wind was blowing far before girl was walking. Wind, blow. Blow, wind, blow. Blow trees if you like. But trees, get no ideas. Get no delusions, delusions of grandeur, resonating deep in your sturdy roots. Frighteningly sturdy. What could those roots do, if put to doing? Where could that tree go? Where could that tree not go? Sturdy roots. Girthy roots. Thick, snaking, slithering roots, sliding and feeling and shimmering over ground like octopus in air, like spider, like snakes snakes snakes hissing on ground, all spreading out from thick trunk tree. Grabbing girl. Catching girl. Frightening mobility. Scurry past faster, girl! But no. Slow the feet that move. Your feet that move. Moving feet of the mobile being. Trees are no threat. Trees are in ground, rooted, firm. I am the mobile being. Not you. Leaves, leaves can move. Move by wind. Not by leaves. I am the one with volition. I am the one to move. The others, they know their place. Trees stay in ground. Buildings stay on foundation. Roads stay straight, flat, asphalt. World stay slightly curved, predictable, smooth. Outside, sometimes the world cannot be trusted. Sometimes things forget their place. Inside: inside all is still. Nothing moves. Not even wind, no sound if she does not wish for sound. Silence. Stillness. Only I move if I want to move. Only I sound if I want to sound. Desk; stay still. I am writing. I am moving fingers. Desk stays still. Chair: stay still. I am shifting. I am sitting. Chair stays still. Bed: stay still. I am rolling, I am turning, but I am sleeping. Stay still so I may sleep. But bed does not listen. Late in the night, when eyes start to drooping, when brain starts to swirling and shadows are dancing, the immobiles of the world start to dreaming. Start to wishing. Start to whispering. Start to moving. They wait, they wait til guard is down. They wait til sleepiness, til exhaustion sets in, the frenzied mental processes of the mobile being that is exhausted, mind as mobile as mobile self. Spinning spinning, the brain starts spinning, the brain starts seeing things that are not there: shadows dancing, people lurking, objects moving. Objects mobilizing. They know, they know that at this hour, at this witching hour, they can trick. They can move, just a bit at first. Was that desk moving?! No, no! Only the frenzied mind of the mobile being. So they move again. But no! Only the mind, only the senses, the exhausted faculties of the mobile being. Time for bed, she says, and lies down. But the bed, the bed is jealous. The bed has been waiting. The bed creaks. It sways, like a hammock, like a wooden heavy cumbersome hammock but no, it has been waiting, it has been thinking about this moment, waiting since last time. Not cumbersome, graceful, smooth, swinging like a hammock. Only the mind, the girl thinks. Only the exhausted senses. The bed takes advantage. The bed continues. It spins, it spins like the girl playing in falling leaves. It tosses the girl like the leaves, she floats and falls fast and faster and spins and spins! Head: oh head! The mind is hurting. Too much moving, too much moving for the mobile mind. Stillness, where is stillness? Stillness is gone. The other immobiles take note. Time, their time. The witching hour. Desk, desk starts to moving. Clock starts to wavering, like clock in water, in deep clear water, far under water, swaying blue light in dark witching water. Desk, desk has been waiting, desk is like bed. Desk is swaying, desk is spinning, desk is surely not in place where desk was left! But yes, of course desk is desk, of course desk is where desk was! Open your eyes, girl! Look around, put exhausted faculties to work. Desk is where desk was. Clock is still, stock-still. Fierce and sharp relief of blue light clock against black grey night of under-bed. And bed: bed is still. Bed is still so you may sleep. Bed is not a mobile being! Eyes close. Sleep comes. Mind spins. World spins. Bed spins! But still she does not blame the bed! I am the mobile being, she says. Not you, she says. None of you, she says. I am the mobile being. Only the mobile being moves.
But oh, she says: If only the mind of the mobile being could be still!
Why go, Small One?he asked her gently, as she lugged her large suitcase at last to the door, and it stopped her, finally, his words from the blue, though she had spun so fast and frantic all the days and weeks before, planned and prayed and forgotten the now-here world for the not-yet world to come
Why go?
and her heart tightened and her grip on her five dollar goodwill beige bag fell loose and limp and damp, as she turned to grey-green ocean eyes and exhaled, once, soft and choked
“why go?” she asked, “why go?
isn’t this what it is? isn’t this what God
[you
I
It
They
All]
wants?
the only path to redemption, the only want to expunge my sins, to forget, to remember, to be the good girl my mother raised me to be
MOVE
Move on
the world values motion, money,
my movements make me live, LYVE,
a-live don’t you see?
Why leave?
I was never meant to stay
her hand opening and closing on the tan handle grip like the waves of the sea, tight loose, tight loose, go stay, stay go, while there he stood, anchor in the swirling waves, all static but his face, his question:
Why go?
must go, she said,
no home, no rest. must go, all fades, all dies
can’t make a new home
it all gets blown away
must go before it washes out with the tide
You seek salvation, he said to her.What is it, though? What does it mean?
salvation, she said, rolling word on dry tongue, salvation, feel it, taste it…
come sweep me up, oh my angel!
oh my beautiful shimmering death!
please just guide me
lord that I lost so long ago
friend of my childhood
why have you forsaken me?
now!
in my hour of need!
can’t you help me just a little?
I who loved you so long and so well!
Why leave? she asked. Do you want me here? ME? What can I do for you? Have I not failed you, Lord God in Heaven, have I not failed you all, Mother and Father, is not this the only way – misery for the happiness of others, another, motion for the sake of moving
Motion is progress.
Motion is happiness…
No, he said, No, Girl, stop.
(Reigning her whirling thoughts like wild horses, clearing the air of her frantic words)
You are the tide, he said to her. You are the sand, the water - - the rush, the flow. you are moving, always, in out, out in, whether you stay, whether you go.
Motion without direction is nothing.
Motion without joy is less
Stay, Little Girl, he said to her. Do not wander the world alone.
Desert dust Dirty girl The grime gets into her soul til she sneezes rusted road signs Coughs up abandoned snack pack wrappers Old T-shirts left in piles on the roadside Diapers and dishtowels Tissues. It oozes out of her eyes in globs white-yellow dirty sun mucus muck It clings she scratches her skin and it pills like sticky gummy glue piles up under her fingernails in grey-black globs So she scrapes, and scrapes Scratches go deep desert gorge, blood red sun Raspberry streaks in the mud Strawberry clumps of abandoned girl particles flicked onto the dirty floor She-dust left on the gritty highway like so much trash Scratch and scratch Go girl, go deep and deep - find something red and shining, pulsing alive, among all that
The girl has had a little too much to drink, but this is nothing new. She has been far drunker in her life. So we cannot blame the alcohol. This is unfortunate, because if we could blame the alcohol it would make everything that is to come so much easier to explain. But no, it is not alcohol that starts this story. It is not anything that we can put our bewildered fingers on. Instead, this story starts innocently; this story starts suddenly; this story starts with one short, seemingly innocuous question:
“Has that tree always been in your backyard?”
Camille poses this query to her red-headed friend Nora as they stand in the back doorway of Nora’s house, taking a break from the party inside and sheltering their cigarettes from the early spring drizzle.
“Which one?”
“The one with the lights in it.”
When this provokes no spark of recognition Camille proceeds to point with the smoldering tip of her Marlboro. “The big one right on the edge of the woods. With the branches all lit up against the sky and the drops of water clinging all over it.” She exhales and stares intently through the evening gloom. “It’s beautiful.”
Nora, distracted by thoughts of the party behind them, takes another drag and throws her cigarette butt on the concrete step below them. She is cold and in need of another gin and tonic. “I dunno Cami.” She grids the butt with the rubber sole of her star-spattered flat, til it is nothing but a dark slushy stain on the rain-washed grey. Camille doesn’t break her gaze, and Nora, seeing that the tree has some inexplicable importance to her friend, hesitates a moment before slinking back inside.
“It’s pretty big,” she says blandly. “I would guess it’s been there since the house was built. It’s at least been there since we moved in last year.”
Having done her part she turns, shivering slightly, and climbs back into the throbbing kitchen, where she is quickly swallowed by the crowd inside.
But Camille stays behind.
And keeps looking at the tree.
She pulls a moleskine notebook out of the back pocket of her jeans and begins writing frantically. We see her trembling with something like excitement; or maybe she is just cold. Then there are arms around her.
“You must be frozen, babe,” a voice exclaims, and a mouth places a kiss on top of her tousled gold head. The young man laughs when he sees the notebook in her hand. “Look at you, too busy penning your next great novel to worry about earthly things like pneumonia. You haven’t even heard back from that first publisher and you’re already working on your anthology.”
They girl stays silent, too distracted by her scribbles to sense her partner’s gentle teasing. But she stops just long enough to call his name: “Joel?”
“Yes, Sunshine?” he asks indulgently.
She lifts her pen and points into the murky night. “Look at that tree,” she says.
Joel straightens up, confused. “Well now, Girl, there are quite a few trees in that yard.”
But she rebukes him. “No, no,” she says. “Not trees; tree. That tree.”
For the second time this night, her audience is less than receptive.
“Uh, yeah,” Joel replies gamely. “Pretty sweet tree. Look do you think you’ll be ready to come back to my place soon, the party’s kind of winding down and I have to get up early tomorrow if I want to catch my flight on time – ”
But he stops here, and with good reason. Camille is not listening. She has stumbled off the stoop and is making her way through mud and uncut grass in polka dot galoshes, past the flooded fire pit filled with last summer’s dented beer cans, past the broken chairs and bent bicycle tires that litter the rented back yard.
“Camille?” Joel calls after her. “You’re gonna get soaked!”
The drizzle sets pearls in her hair and on her eyelashes. It strikes the bare tree branches with a soft sweet patter and makes the shriveled grasses sing beneath the girl’s feet. Camille’s step is sure, in spite of the mud and the oversized boots; her eyes are reverent.
She walks up to the tree and places one thin, trembling hand on its bark.
“Hello,” she whispers.
♣
It is morning. Nora stumbles down the cracked stairs with bleary eyes, tripping over an abandoned umbrella splayed on the floor below.
Groan, says Nora.
“Good morning darlin!” A voice filters in like dusty sunlight from the small wood-paneled kitchen in the back of the house. It is her roommate, Kris. “Happy Spring Break!” he cries merrily. He has a filthy towel in one large hand and is swiping ineffectually at the equally filthy countertop.
Groan, says Nora.
“So the house is pretty much trashed. But you have to admit, it was a sweet party. Here,” he says, and thrusts a bulging trash bag into her limp hands. “Take this outside.”
Groan, says Nora.
But she limps obediently to the door, onto the same concrete steps where we first saw her and Camille the night before.
It is when she is rustling around in the back, among the tall green trash barrels and water-logged heaps of firewood, that she first notices the shape in the far corner of the yard, nestled by the edge of the woods. Her eyes narrow in confusion before snapping wide in surprise. She backs slowly towards the flimsy door.
“Kris!” Her hoarse whisper carries into the kitchen. “Kris!”
Kris puts down the sponge he is holding and cups his hands around his mouth. “Whaaaaat?” he rasps mockingly. “Whaaaat is it, my little drama queen?”
When he sees the expression on her face the sarcastic smile quickly slides off his own. By this point Nora has made it back into the kitchen, and points out the doorway with tentative fingers. “There’s someone behind our house,” she says.
Kris jumps to the door to take a look for himself, Nora peeking over his broad shoulder. “Oh God,” she says suddenly, tugging on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Kris, what if somebody died last night and we were all too trashed to notice? What if somebody just dumped them out there?”
“I certainly hope not,” he replies in mock terror. “My God, just think of the paper work!” He attempts a dismissive laugh and adds, “It’s probably just one of the local drunks. Probably nothing to worry about…” He squeezes past Nora’s small frame and begins striding across the large yard with sure steps.
Nora does not seem to share his opinion. She scampers to catch up with him, grabbing a stout branch on the way. It trails along on the muddy ground behind her as the two make their way through the unkempt grass.
They stop about ten feet from the tree.
“Do you know who it is?” Nora murmurs, fingering her weapon. They crane their necks, but all they can see is light hair and the outline of sharp shoulder blades hidden beneath a thick grey canvas coat. The figure is tucked into a tight little ball, knees up, head buried under its arms, back to the rough grey bark. They stare for a few seconds, and Nora’s foot is just about to take the first step back the way they came when –
“Grooooooooan,” says the figure.
And it stirs.
Both Kris and Nora jump about a foot in the air and are ready to bolt back to the kitchen when Nora suddenly exclaims:
“Jesus Christ – Cami??”
Nora’s startled exclamation is correct: it’s none other than Camille who lifts her head and gazes at her friend with mascara-smeared eyes.
“Oh,” she says placidly. “Good morning.”
Nora realizes she is still holding the branch high in head-smashing mode. She glances at it, starts, and drops it to the ground with an apologetic smile.
“Damn girl!” Kris booms. “What the hell are you doing out here? You must be soaked! Have you been here all night?”
Camille gives her head a rough scratching and wipes under her eyes. Her hand and her face are both blacker for the effort. “Oh no, not all night.” Her laugh is careless, but a soft groan escapes as she unrolls herself like a sore pretzel. She continues. “Joel and I went home of course. But he left this morning, you know, and I was feeling…restless. So I thought I would go for a walk. And before I knew it I was back at your house! And…isn’t this the most beautiful tree you’ve ever seen?”
At this abrupt change in subject the shocked expressions on her friends’ faces give way to confusion. Nonetheless Kris retreats a step or two, strokes his chin thoughtfully, and proceeds to look said tree up and down.
Nora, on the other hand, has her eyebrows knit together in a harsh line and seems to be contemplating her pretty friend’s sanity. She gives the tree a cursory glance before walking to Camille and kneeling beside her. In a low voice says,
“Camille, you can tell me. Did you and Joel get in a fight? I can’t blame you if you did, with him jetting off to Boston without even telling you he was looking at grad school…We all thought he was going to stick around after graduation, sweetie. He didn’t tell anybody. You could have slept inside though. You didn’t have to stay out here all by yours – ”
In the midst of this gentle and loving speech Camille bolts up from the ground. With her head held at the haughtiest of angles she says, “Nora, you know I love you, but you have no idea what you’re talking about. Sometimes I just like to be outside” – her voice is rising steadily here – “sometimes I like to take advantage of warm weather – ”
“Warm?” Kris breaks in. “It was fifty degrees and raining!”
She continues as if has not heard him. “Sometimes I want to be able to do what I want without everyone commenting on it! Everyone in this town is always into everybody else’s business. No one knows how to be quiet anymore.”
Kris looks bewildered. Nora looks incensed. “Well I’m glad you’ve had fun communing with our backyard,” she says, her great show of concern replaced just as quickly with anger. “But I think it’s about time you go home and change your damn pants. They’re soaked through and everyone’s gonna think you pissed yourself if you don’t do something about it.”
“Fine,” Camille responds. “I didn’t come here to see you anyway.”
Camille stomps out of the yard in her enormous spotted boots. Nora was telling the truth; there is a huge dark spot on her butt. Camille does not turn around until she reaches the road, where she suddenly looks back – at what we are not sure – only to see that Kris and Nora are still staring at her, eyebrows raised. Camille stands for a moment in the road before striding on, hands thrust deep into her pockets, head down.
Kris sighs and Nora lets out an angry tsk.
“As much trouble as she is,” Kris says, “that is a pretty unfortunate situation with the boy.”
Nora starts walking back to the house, slender legs lifted high in a vain attempt to avoid the wet grass. “Why am I even friends with her?” she mutters, as Kris follows her back to their wreck of a kitchen.
“Because we love her,” he replies, throwing a big arm around her slight shoulders. “You most of all, Nor.”
♣
“I just got in a few hours ago.” Joel’s voice sounds crackling and distant over the beat blue cell phone cushioned against Camille’s soft cheek.
“Ah,” Camille says.
“I forgot how much I love Boston. It’s beautiful here! The buildings, the people – ”
“I thought people in Boston were supposed to be terrible,” Camille interrupts. “Isn’t that why they call them Massholes?”
Maybe it is just the poor connection, but Joel’s laugh seems a little forced. “That’s just what the jealous people call them, Sunshine.” he says. “People in Boston are just right. They’re real here, no nonsense. Man, I miss that. But anyway, I’m on my way to BU right now, and then I figured I’d throw in Harvard just because it’s every little New Englander’s dream to go to Harvard, even if I’d never get in – ”
“You’ll get in anywhere you apply,” Camille answers dully. “You’re a fucking genius.”
There is a pause. “You know I’ve worked hard for this, Cami,” Joel says. “I’ve bashed my head for four years and it’s finally going to pay off. Your hard work will pay off too, baby. You submitted that story, right? You just wait til that publisher gets back you to. Your story was amazing, and you’re bound to get the grant money they’re offering. And as soon as you do, you can leave that one-horse town of yours and get out into the world, where you belong.” His voice sounds more cheerful. “Maybe you can even come up to Boston with me.” Camille says nothing. “I’d like it if you came up to Boston with me,” he says.
The silence drags on. “I wish you were here, Camille.”
“Maybe I like my one-horse town,” Camille says quietly.
The silence that follows is suffocating. We can imagine Joel bracing himself on the other end of the line, trying to decide what to say to this beloved and volatile girl so many miles away. But before he has a chance to say anything at all Camille lets go the loudest and most impossible sneeze in the world.
“Geez!” Joel cries. “That was impressive.” We get the impression that the sneeze it a welcome change of subject. “Are you coming down with something, baby?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’ve got to go, Joel, I’m walking to Nora’s house and I just got here. I hope your meetings go well. I’ll call you sometime this week.”
“I love you,” says Joel.
“I’ll call you,” says Camille.
She flips the phone shut. Then she takes the blanket she has been carrying and lays it down at the foot of the tree, on the side facing away from Nora’s house. She lowers herself, cross-legged, onto the ground and pulls out her moleskine and a thin black pen. She runs her hand over the tree’s rough bark and begins to write.
Her next great novel, according to Joel.
♣
It is mid-afternoon, a different day. Although there is a chill breeze the sky is clear and the air bright. We see Camille, sitting, again, beneath her tree; watery sunshine filters through the branches and illuminates her golden hair with a weak but hopeful light. She is reading out of a small paperback, but the words are in some other language and we cannot make out the title. On the more civilized end of the yard we see the back door to the house swing open; it is Nora, with a pile of goods in her arms and large rain boots on her tiny feet. Camille, engrossed in her novel and in frequent glances at the branches above, does not notice her friend, but as Nora comes closer we see that Camille has a pile of books as well, along a peanut butter sandwich on multi-grain bread and a second blanket. Nora finally reaches Camille, swatting at grasses and sticks along the way, and stands above her.
“Ahem,” she says.
“Nora!” Camille seems startled but her smile is broad. “What are you doing back here?”
Nora hesitates, before adopting a somewhat shy smile herself. “I thought…I would come sit with you,” she responds. “I haven’t seen you in a while and –” She pauses, and Camille smiles again. “Do you mind?” she asks.
“Not at all.” Camille hands Nora her extra blanket and Nora sets up camp.
“I can see why you’ve been back here so much lately,” Nora says, spreading her patterned dress daintily around her curled legs. “We’ve been in this house since last summer and I feel like I never go into the yard. But it’s really nice out here, isn’t it?” Nora looks around her; her eyes take in the woods before them, the tall yellow grass, the blue sky. “You can’t even hear the road from here,” she marvels.
“It’s like your own little world,” Camille says.
Nora nods in approval at this, and the two girls fall silent for a moment. It is a nice silence, though.
“What are you reading?” Nora asks finally, motioning to the book clutched in her friend’s hand.
Camille’s eyes soften, and in a voice filled with dreams she murmurs, « Ô ma fiancée à travers les branches en fleurs, salut! »
“Excuse me?” Nora asks, and with a laugh Camille says, “It’s French, you goose. ‘Oh my beloved, beneath the flowering branches, hello!”
Nora looks shocked. “You speak French?” she says. “Since when have you spoken French?”
“My whole family is French on my mom’s side,” Camille answers matter-of-factly; “and my dad spoke it, too. I’ve never been there but I grew up speaking French with my mother.”
Nora is scanning her friend’s face with a puzzled look in her eyes. “I never knew that,” she says.
“Listen to this,” Camille says, and runs a long finger down the book’s page. “This play is called ‘L’Annonce Faite a Marie.’ It’s about a medieval woman named Violaine. She contracts leprosy caring for the poor and has to leave the man she loves. It’s beautiful though, here; this is her lover, Jacques, speaking:
Oh my beloved, beneath the flowering branches, hello! How beautiful you are, and how beautiful is this world when you are in it!
[“Now this is Violaine,” Camille explains] “It is you, Jacques, who are everything that is best in this world.”
“Then it is true that you’ve agreed to be mine?”
“Yes, it is true. Hello my most beloved! Hello, I am yours!”
“Dear Violaine, you will never have to leave here again! Say that you will ever be the same, and the angel that was sent to me!”
“I promise you Jacques: Everything that was ever mine shall ever be yours.”
“How is that for romance?” Camille sighs and lays the book down carefully. She turns to Nora, her big eyes wet and dark.
“So is that what you’re doing?” Nora asks. Her voice sounds playful, but her eyes mirror the same seriousness we see in Camille’s. “You’re waiting for your Jacques?”
Camille begins to laugh, but the silvery sound is interrupted by a ringing noise. Her old blue cell phone is dancing among the tree roots. She snatches it from the ground and stares with narrowed eyes at the front screen. Even if we could make out the name in the midday glare, it is only in front of us for a second before Camille flings it aside with one short, harsh gesture.
Nora gazes fearfully at Camille. Camille gazes blankly at the ground. Nora reaches tentatively for her friend, but before she can reach her Camille snaps her head up.
“Nora,” she says, lifting a hand and patting the tree trunk behind them. “I’m no fool. This sturdy guy here is the closest thing to Jacques I’m ever going to find.”
And she leaps up from the ground. “Bonjour, ma fiancée!” she cries suddenly, throwing her arms around the thick trunk. “Dear Tree Lover, say that you will ever be the same, and the angel that was sent to me!” She plants a dramatic kiss on its mossy side.
Nora laughs, clapping her hands at the exaggerated recitation, and turns to the stack of textbooks sitting on the ground beside her. She is pulling out the largest, flipping it open. Her smile is wide with relief, and she does not see Camille as she continues to run her hands down the tree’s rippling bark.
“We will never have to leave here again, “she whispers, deep into its knotted face. “Everything that was ever mine, shall ever be yours.”
“What’d you say?” asks Nora.
“Nothing.”
♣
That night, while watching TV, Nora’s phone rings.
“Hey Joel,” she says. “How’s the trip going?” There are muffled noises on the other end, which we cannot make out. “I don’t know if she’s mad, she hasn’t really said anything. I would assume she is though. You can’t pretend you didn’t take off without any warning.” Pause. “Alright fine, I’m sorry.” Pause. “Yeah, I’ll tell her to call you.” Then: “Hey wait a minute, before you go: did you ever know that Camille speaks French?” There is another pause, and Nora frowns. “Yeah, me neither.”
♣
The scene opens on Nora. She is sitting in a bedroom, hunched over a pen and ink drawing. She mutters to herself, chews the end of the already much-abused writing utensil. Suddenly the door flies open, revealing a red-cheeked Camille on the threshold. In her surprise Nora slashes a huge black line through her careful drawing. “Oh god damn - !” she begins, but stops as she notices her friend’s face.
“Cami?” she asks. “What’s the matter?”
Camille stares at Nora. She tugs distractedly at a patterned scarf around her throat. “Nora,” she says, but before she can get any further her eyes fill with tears and she sinks onto the bed.
“I didn’t get it,” she says. Nora’s head tilts to the side. She does not understand.
“The grant money,” Camille says, louder. “The money for the story. The money that would have let me start the at a grad program for writing. I didn’t get it! I was so sure I would get it and I didn’t!”
We hear a sharp intake of breath. Nora understands now.
“Oh Cami,” she says, moving to her friend. “Oh Cami, I’m so sorry...”
“Do you know what this means?” Camille continues, in a low, husky voice. She keeps her eyes down and her fingers are splayed on the bed quilt. “It means that’s it. It means I’ll never get out of here. It means I really am stuck here, while all the rest of you go off to the city and live your lives and go to your grad schools” – she spits these last two word out with such vehemence that Nora is startled – “and I’m going to be stuck here, here, in this fucking town, for the rest of my life!”
Nora drops on the bed next to Camille and takes one cold hand in her own. “Cami,” she says, “you need to learn not to take things so hard! You’re too sensitive, you always take things too hard. Why would you think this was your only chance? Send out your stories to someone else! Get them published. If you work enough and get your writing recognized I’m sure you can find enough money for graduate classes –”
“No.” Camille interrupts with a flat, heavy tone. “This means I’m no good. Just like I always knew I was no good. It’s done with, Nora, It was a stupid dream. I’m going to be here forever.”
“Cami!” Nora says. “Don’t think like that. You can get out of this town any time you want to –”
“Any time I want to?” Camille says in a low voice. Then: “Well…who says I really want to anyway?” Suddenly, she pulls her hand out of Nora’s grasp. On her face we see something that was not there before; it is a burning, mad expression.
“I have roots, Nora,” Camille says darkly. “I was born here, I grew here. This is my town. You wouldn’t understand, you’re not from here. Even people from here don’t understand. My mother didn’t understand, she left. People never understand…but I know who does.”
Camille stares out the window behind Nora’s head, her eyes resting on a certain spot at the edge of the naked forest. Her bewildered friend tries to follow her glance, but a second later Camille is talking again, softly, as if to herself:
“Who needs grad school?” she asks. “Who needs the rest of the world? I have roots, and people need to remember their roots.”
Camille pulls herself up from the bed and stumbles to the door. “I have roots,” she says again, loudly. “And I’m going out to plant myself! I’m staying, Nora, but I’m not staying alone. I know who understands. I’m going to find the only one with roots deeper than mine. And no one will ever take us from this place!”
With this enigmatic pronouncement Camille turns and runs down the stairs. She leaves Nora open-mouthed in her wake.
♣
“So…have you noticed that Camille seems to be doing her best to become a tree?”
Nora looks up from the ancient living room couch to see Kris leaning against the kitchen door jam. She sighs and puts down her knitting.
“Of course I’ve noticed,” she replies. “I was actually amazed it’s taken you so long.”
“What is this about?” Kris asks. “She’s been in that yard every day for a week now. I actually think she’s been sleeping there the past few nights. I had been willing to write this off as another one of her weird spells, but even her weird spells have never been this…well, weird. They’re generally more “charmingly eccentric.” Are she and Joel officially fighting now? I know he decided to spend an extra weekend up North, but would that really be enough to make the girl snap? It’s a mystery to me, but I figured that since you are a lady – and you ladies do love to talk – you might be able to give me the scoop.”
Nora picks up her knitting. She puts it down again. “She didn’t get the grant,” she says finally.
“The grant?”
“The grant.”
There is a short silence. Then:
“Oooooo. The Grant!” Kris remembers now. “The grant for grad school. The grant she put all her faith in even though we told her not to put all her eggs in one basket. The grant that was her ticket out of this, and I quote, ‘shitty-ass town.”
“Yeah.” says Nora. “That grant.”
Kris glances over his shoulder at the back door, then turns back to Nora. “So she’s finally gone off the deep end?”
“Pretty much.” Nora picks her needle work up again.
“This is ridiculous!” Kris says in disbelief. “She just needs a little reality check. One rejection isn’t the end of the world. This’ll be a good lesson for her. She just needs some straightening out.”
Nora does not look so optimistic. “You can try to ‘straighten her out’ if you want,” she says. “But I’ve known Cami three years, and I’ve never seen her like this before.”
Kris chuckles confidently. “Don’t you worry,” he says. “If there’s anyone knows how to straighten a girl out, it’s me. I’ll take care of it.”
♣
Camille is writing again when Kris comes to stand beside her. She waits to finish scrawling her sentence before looking up at him. He’s staring off into the distance, and it’s a good ten seconds before he looks down and exclaims, with seeming surprise:
“Oh hey, Cami! Didn’t even see you there. I was just taking a walk in the old backyard and thought I’d come lean on this old tree here.”
Camille looks at him suspiciously. She does not answer.
“Now then,” he continues. “An appreciation of nature, especially in this rapidly industrializing world of ours, is very important. And my dear, you are setting a shining example! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl so committed to the local fauna; though why you’ve chosen only the fauna in my backyard is a bit of a mystery, and why you’ve chosen this tree in particular is really just beyond me.”
He begins slowly circling the aforementioned plant, surveying it with a scrutinizing eye; measuring dramatically with his palms, sizing it up with one eye closed and his fingers contorted into all kinds of shapes.
“Hmm, yes,” he says, face scrunched like a true arboreal connoisseur. “Yes, yes, I suppose I could understand the appeal; though I have to admit, I’ve far seen nicer trees in my life! A little on the scrawny side, wouldn’t you agree? And my, my, not even symmetrical! Look at those branches going all willy-nilly on this one side! Most self-respecting trees wouldn’t be caught dead looking so sloppy! It looks like a stiff breeze would topple him right over.”
His mocking face stares down remorselessly at her livid one. “I have to ask, Camille,” he says, a paragon of sobriety; “what’s a good-looking girl like yourself doing with an ugly old tree like this?”
Camille is mid-jump when Kris grabs the moleskine out of her hand and rips out the page she has been writing.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” she cries in horrified outrage, but he’s already started reading the messy lines, and begins reciting them in his booming voice:
I have searched all my life for perfection, and here, in this broken-down town filled with broken-down people, I have found it – I have found YOU: My Tree with the Lights in it. Millions of little lights, drops of rain that alight on your branches like tiny birds, spherical beads of glass, burning with delicate streetlight flame til you glitter and sparkle like a wild thing – a tall silent spirit of fire.
“Kris this isn’t a joke, give that back right now!”
Camille dances around her mountain of a friend as he waves the scrap in the air, just out of her reach.
“Oh come on now, this is some good stuff!” He is clearly enjoying the game and swats at the frantic girl in an attempt to keep reading. “I mean real good, talk about Romeo and Juliet; are inter-species relationships even legal in this country?”
Tree, you are distracted, like a model caught up in your own loveliness, like a worshipper in the cathedral of yourself. I can’t blame you, really; it must be distracting to be so perfect. And why should you look at me, when I am so messy and bent, so stubby and weak?What use do you have for a teary-eyed girl in polka dotted rain boots, holding flat palms to your bark as the rain drops pearls in her hair? You are too busy with your own dreams to worry yourself with my own. But really, Tree, I think we could be very happy together, if you would just look down and notice me standing here….
Camille takes one last grab at the paper; she loses her balance and falls, face first, into the mud below him. She does not move, and only then does Kris stop reading.
“Cami?”
He leans down over her, hand poised tentatively over her silent body.
“Jesus, Cami…I’m sorry…”
Camille sits up suddenly and slaps him full across the face. She takes advantage of his shock to pull the ripped notebook page out of his hand and stuff it between two of the tree’s roots. Then she says, in a voice full of venom, with tears running down her filthy face: “You don’t understand. None of you will ever understand. I never want to speak to you again. Leave me alone.”
And she turns away from him.
Kris’s face is frozen with shock. He rises slowly, and walks back to the house. When he reaches the door he walks inside, then softly climbs the stairs to Nora’s room. She looks up from her paperback as he enters the door.
“Nora,” Kris says quietly. “Nora, I think she needs more than a reality check.”
Nora slowly marks her place and lays down the book.
“I know,” she says.
♣
Nora stands at the kitchen window. It is night. A full moon illuminates the ground and makes it almost as bright as day. In the milky light, she sees Camille with both hands pressed against the tree’s bark. As she watches, her friend pushes her forehead against the trunk. She slides down its length and sits huddled at the bottom. When Nora leaves the window and crawls into bed half an hour later, her friend still has not moved.
♣
Joel is laughing wildly. He cannot seem to stop laughing. He runs his hands through his dark hair and stares incredulously at the couple crowded in his bedroom doorway. His two friends, on the other hand, look like they will never laugh again.
“Ok, so tell me,” Joel says, sobering up and beginning to unpack the travel bags strewn on his bed. “Is this some kind of practical joke? I figured Camille was just mad and wouldn’t admit it, and that was why she hasn’t answered my calls or email since I’ve been gone. But I would never have guessed it was because she’s left me for a tree!” He snorts as his friends shift uncomfortably; Nora pulling at the frayed hem of her hot pink hoodie, Kris tapping a finger anxiously against his forehead. Joel continues. “We’ve done practical jokes before and you’ve come up with way better ones than this. I guess you must have been really bored without me!”
The scene is silent but for the zipping and unzipping of suitcase compartments, the soft thud of wrinkled clothes being thrown into the collapsible laundry basket in the corner of the room. It is Nora who finally, with a sigh, speaks.
“Listen,” she says. “Listen, Joel, we’re serious. Cami’s been coming to our yard every day since you left. Then she started sleeping there. She’s slept there for the past three night now.”
“I tried talking with her, man,” Kris chimes in. He stops, at a loss for words. “I mean, you know she’s always been…eccentric. That’s what we like about her. But I feel like something must have finally snapped. We think it might have something to do with her not getting the grant…or more likely with your – ” Kris sees the look on Joel’s face and ends his sentence abruptly. “Maybe if you just talk to her,” he finishes.
Joel stops unpacking. He turns to his friends, a sneaker still clutched in one hand. His forehead is creased, his eyebrows drawn close.
“Are…you guys are actually serious?”
“Come and see for yourself,” Kris says ominously.
♣
“Ah, so I see you’re back,” Camille calls nonchalantly. “I guess it must be Tuesday, then?” She is leaning against the tree, wearing a thin red sun dress in spite of the chill in the air. She watches Joel as he approaches from the street. Nora and Kris stay behind, pretending not to watch.
“Hey, Sunshine,” Joel says. “I hear you’ve taken up camping in my absence?”
Camille does not smile. When Joel leans in to kiss her, she moves away.
“Joel, I need to talk to you,” she says. For a moment, it seems that her voice almost cracks; but she clears her throat, once, loud, and when she continues her tone is hard and even. “Something happened while you were away, Joel.” Her eyes wander to the crown of the tree, and she reaches one long hand up to caress a newly grown bud. There are goosebumps on her thin white arms.
Joel’s face softens, and his eyes look sad. “Camille,” he says softly. “I’m sorry baby. I know I should have told you about grad school, but I was afraid – I didn’t want to upset you, I mean.”
The girl slowly lowers her arm and gazes at the man with a slow, sad smile. “Can’t you see it doesn’t matter now?” she asks. Before he has a chance to speak she continues. “You have a right to your life,” she says. “I have a right to mine. It’s better that we go our own ways, now. Why delay the inevitable?” Her hand strays up to his baffled face. “I’m happy now, Joel,” she whispers. “Really, I am. I’m happy right here, and I don’t ever want to leave.”
She turns her back to him and sits cross-legged on the hard ground. Her forehead tilts forward til it is touching the tree’s bark, and she lifts her hands and lays them flat on the trees trunk. She is peaceful, meditating; a backward Buddha.
Joel stands dumb-founded. In the street, Nora and Kris try to inconspicuously crane their necks to better hear what’s going on.
“What – Sunshine, what do you mean?” He asks her thin back, her gold hair. “Boston isn’t that far away, and maybe I won’t even go, who knows? And I meant it when I said you could come with…Cami please, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but don’t be like this…”
“Please leave, Joel,” she says, her voice muffled. “You can’t make me happy. This is the only place where I can be happy.”
“Cami, come on – “
“Leave, Joel.”
“Cami, I’m not going anywhere – ”
“Leave!” Camille screams suddenly, and Joel flies back as if he has been struck. “Leave!” She stumbles up from the ground and shoves him, hard, in the chest. “You’re so eager to go, then go, go on! Get out! Go back to the people you love, the city you love!” Tears are streaming down her cheeks, the wind whips strands of gold across her face, and her eyes are red and raw and wild. “I was born here Joel,” she yells at him, “and I’ll probably die here too, in this shitty town, because this is who I am, and this is where I belong, and I’m not going anywhere. But you, you’ve got no attachments, you’ve got no roots, so get the fuck out, Joel! Get out! Me and my god damn tree will stay right here!”
Joel stands with blank face, at a loss. We cannot help but feel a little sorry for him, as Camille once again spins back to the tree, this time to throw herself against it and lean, head hidden in her arms.
“You understand.” The muffled words come floating through her white skin, but they are not intended for us, nor any of the other characters standing in a ring around her. “You understand, and I’ll never leave you, I won’t, and you’ll never leave me, and you’ll learn to love me more than anything…:”
Joel’s face undergoes a metamorphosis. First it is angry. Then it is bewildered. Then it is panicked. “You – you can’t be serious,” he says finally, haltingly. “You can’t seriously be – in love with – a fucking tree? What, are you punishing me? Is this some kind of sick revenge?!” His eyes are wild, his voice is hysterical. “This isn’t funny, you know that I love you, why the hell are you doing this? Why?!” She does not answer, just keeps whispering nonsense words, loving words, into the heart of the tall grey trunk. “Camille!” Joel yells. “Look at me!”
He grabs her shoulders and yanks her to him, hard enough to make her stumble. In the background Kris springs forward.
“Whoa now!” Kris calls. “C’mon Joel, calm down!”
Kris comes up and pulls Camille out of Joel’s grasp. Joel is panting, arms hanging limp by his sides.
Camille stares at him with hateful eyes, and he continues to stare back at her even as he is led away.
♣
“My daughter is in love…with a tree?”
Their fear has driven them to this final, desperate plan. They have called Camille’s mother. The woman’s confused voice rings over the speakerphone and into the small wood paneled kitchen.
“Yes, Mrs. Lareau,” Nora replies tearfully. “She says she’s in love with one of the trees in my backyard.”
Understandably, this comment is followed by a rather awkward pause.
“We’ve tried everything.” Kris’s worried voice comes through the line. “But she just won’t come inside. She only eats when we bring her food, she only stays warm because we bring her blankets, she stays out in the wind and the rain – ”
(“At least it’s been warm,” Nora offers to the side.)
“ – All she does is sit at the foot of the tree all day, whispering to it and writing things on sheets of paper that she stuffs between the roots.”
Another pause.
“Where is Joel?” the woman’s voice finally asks. “Is Joel there?”
Kris and Nora turn toward the back of the kitchen, where Joel, ashen-faced, stands staring out the window.
“Joel,” the voice asks again. “Joel, are you there?”
“I’m here, Adele,” he answers hollowly.
“Joel…Joel please, is this a joke?”
“No.”
“Is my daughter high? Is she on some kind of drug?”
“No.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“…Two weeks now.”
Another long pause. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” she says.
♣
Camille, persuaded to come into the house after much pleading and many tears, stands awkwardly in the kitchen with her mother. The older woman’s face is both confused and anxious, and she stands silently as her daughter begins with these words:
“I am having an unrequited love affair with a tree,” she confesses soberly.
“An unrequited…with a…” Her mother speaks as in a trance; Camille’s mud-splattered appearance and resistance to speaking with her seems to have taken a toll. In spite of her dyed blond hair and fashionable spring coat, the mother looks old beyond her years.
Camille continues. “Well you see Maman, as of now it is unrequited. But I can’t help but feel that if I stick to my guns, as they say, eventually the tree will come around. He just has to know I mean it, you see – and then – well – maybe he’ll even learn to love me back.” She pauses, and her eyes glaze over, and a secret smile – a wistful, yearning smile – shimmers for a moment on her lips.
“He’s just so perfect, you see,” she whispers, staring fixedly out the back window.
“Sweetie?” Her mother says. “Maybe you just need a break from the quotidian. It doesn’t do to get too comfortable. Would you want to come stay with Rich and I for a while? I know you’ve never been too keen to see the new place, but it’s really very nice, and three hours by plane isn’t all that bad…We’ve been there almost three years now, it’s really about time you saw it. The weather is much nicer than it is here, too…Camille?”
When her daughter does not respond to this kind overture, Adele reaches for her cautiously. It does not have the effect she was intending. Camille jumps as if startled out of a deep sleep. She steps back and clears her throat.
“I should be getting back,” she announces briskly. “Thanks for coming to see me Maman. Have a safe flight home.”
Without bothering to kiss her mother goodbye the girl turns and marches out the door. When her feet hit the ground she begins running, and does not stop until she has reached the edge of the woods. Through the kitchen window we can see her, rubbing loving hands up and down the tree’s bark.
♣
Camille is woken from her light sleep by a pair of arms around her shoulders. It’s Joel. She struggles for a moment, but he just holds her tighter.
“Camille,” he whispers. “Just listen to me.”
She sits still and allows him to rub his hands up and down her back.
“Camille,” he says, face buried in her greasy hair. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose you to some – some – something like this. I don’t know what’s wrong, and maybe it’s all my fault, but whatever it is I’m going to figure it out. We’ve made it through too much for me to lose you now.” Joel lifts his head and stares at the naked branches looming over their heads. “You listen to me,” he calls up to it. “You can’t have her. She’s mine. You hear that?” He turns back to the girl, looks her straight in the eye. “And do you hear that? You know we should be together. You know we had plans to be together forever. We still have plans. Nothing’s going to take you from me. You hear?”
Just as suddenly as he appeared, he is gone; and Camille is left, clinging to the trunk of her tree, filled with an awful sort of premonition.
♣
“Hey…I brought you a sandwich,” says Nora.
Camille looks up from her notebook, face framed in dark, matted hair.
Her pen has run out. She has started writing in mud.
“Oh Nora, thank you,” she says quietly. She takes the sandwich as Nora gingerly squats on the damp earth beside her. Nora’s face wrinkles in thought as Camille, oblivious to her, eats the sandwich in huge, choking bites. Into every crack and crevice between the tree’s slithering roots are little pieces of dirty paper, some folded neatly, some crumpled, some stuffed tight into impossibly small nooks. The ground around the tree seems torn, and Nora wonders if her friend has been burying the mysterious notes as well. She takes a deep breath.
“Camille, listen to me,” she begins quietly. “You need to come inside now. I understand that you have…feelings…for this…being…but don’t you see that it can’t reciprocate? Don’t you see that you need to let it go?”
Camille does not move. She chews slowly, and silently strokes the root below her left hand.
“Just come inside,” Nora murmurs. “Your mother is still here. She wants to see you. She came all the way from California to see you. Joel is here. Do you know how much Joel loves you? Do you know that you can love each other equally? Come take a shower, get something more to eat.” Nora’s hand wanders to Camille’s tangled hair. She lifts her friend’s chin, looks into her big dark eyes. “Please, Cami,” she begs quietly. “Just come talk to us for a while. The tree will still be here when you come back. It’s been here for years, it’s not going anywhere.”
She smiles at her friend, a smile golden in its genuineness, a smile full of love and care and worry, and Camille actually smiles back. Though hesitant she allows herself to be lifted, and she stumbles beside Nora as they make their way to the house. Her mother is waiting in the doorway, arms open. Camille stands stiffly as her mother puts her arms around her.
“There, there, baby,” her mother whispers into her hair. “There, there, you’ll be alright now.”
Behind her soiled back, Nora quietly locks the door.
Behind the house, Joel makes his way to the edge of the woods – chainsaw in hand.
