sewn paper
Fiction/Stories
May 2001
192 pages
ISBN 0-88984-220-5
$19.95

A Kind of Fiction

P.K. Page

Mme. Bourgé Dreams of Brèsil

Is it the hot wet air that lies like a sheet on Paris, or the confiture de Brèsil in its little pot, placed by l'Inspecteur on her bedside table? Whatever the reason, Mme. Bourgé sleeps a tropical sleep, casting aside a tumble of ecru lace, her torso glistening white as magnolia soap.

Marmoset faces form and shift in the reflecting crystals of chandeliers; glittering jewelled macaws peer from sconces.

Mme. Bourgé walks in the black-green jungle, calling, calling. Who is loosed and lost among unfamiliar trees, odours of tree-moss, scents of Shameless Mary? Is it Mme. Bourgé herself, now pocked with shadows, trailing leaves and the conjugations of Portuguese verbs?

Marmosets swing in the branches, chatter and wheeze, their faces the size of her thumb's top joint. In their eyes she sees the points of their tiny dreams. Brilliant and noisy as silk umbrellas opening, vast birds rise from her feet.

Za Za is secretive, busy with macumba. She models discarded lovers -- waxen homunculi jabbed full of pins -- forgetful now of their shapes, their given names. In a day, in a week, their beautiful strength will fail them. Mme. Bourgé scolds, `Oh heartless, heartless Za Za, leaving the pin box empty, the candle guttering wax.'

Late afternoon sun fills the sala with zebras, casts palm-frond stripes on sofas and chairs. Tree orchids split the baroque legs of tables, erupt in delicate durable blooms.

Photo by Barbara Pedrick

Green light stains the white octagonal tiles of the co-pa, stains Augusto's hornet jacket, his lifted hands. Augusto, coffee maker to the Pretender, wears the royal coat-of-arms on his golden sleeve. Water, metallic, furious as quicksilver, falls through the green air like a school of trout; is caught in a flannel funnel, a vertical windsock, as if in a landing net. `Like molten lead plummeting down shot-towers, it is the length of the fall that counts' ... Augusto is offering some simple lesson, but Mme. Bourgé is falling too. `When or where?' she cries, and `where or when?' But Augusto, nimble, bearing a polished tray with pie-crust edging, pours her a cafézinho black as tar.

Still half asleep in the stifling morning, Mme. Bourgé stretches a lazy arm. Into the pale trumpet of the house phone she calls Augusto. `A windsock for the equatorial winds,' she sighs, `and little suits for the marmosets -- of satin.'

How can she grasp an air that has no hand-holds, cling to this curve of space? Mme. Bourgé waits, ear pressed to the receiver, for the reassurance of Augusto's voice. (1987)

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