Galatea(2)

Time passed, I wasn’t sure how much. Then through the door I heard the jingle of coins and the nurses exclaiming. My husband is quite rich now, and has enough to pay for a thousand more doctors who all tell me to lie down. He is rich because of me, if you want to know, but he doesn’t like it when I say that. He says it’s the goddess’ gift first, and then his own since he was the one who made me from the marble. After I was born—and maybe that is not the right word, but if not, then I don’t know what is—woke? Hatched? No, that is worse. I am not an egg.

I will say born. After I was born, he tried to keep me inside as much as he could, but there were servants, and people began to talk about the sculptor’s wife, and how strange she was, and how such beauty comes only from the gods. Some people believed that, and some people didn’t, but suddenly they all wanted statues from him. So he chiseled maiden after maiden, and I said, Do you think any of them will come to life? And he said, Of course not, these people are not worthy of the goddess’ gift. And he told me again how well he had cared for me, dressing me in silks, and draping me in flowers and jewels, and bringing me seashells and colored balls, and praying to the goddess every night. Would it not have been easier to marry a girl from the town? I asked. Those sluts, he said, I would not have them.

The door opened. “Leave and do not disturb us,” my husband said to the maids, which was unnecessary, since they’ve never disturbed us, not in a year’s time. But my husband thinks himself a potentate these days.

There was silence, because he was looking at me, checking my fingers and all the rest. I didn’t open my eyes, because my job was to lie on the couch without moving so that he might murmur, “Ah, my beauty is asleep.” A few times in the past, I had let out a little snore at that moment, just for verisimilitude. But he did not like that at all.

“Asleep?” he said. He stepped into the room. “I am a fool to say so. She is marble and nothing more.” He knelt beside the bed, and lifted his hands. “O goddess! Why cannot I find a maiden such as this for my wife? Why must such perfection be marble and not flesh? If only she might—” Abruptly, he covered his eyes. “No, I cannot say it.”

I thought about making a little snore right then, but that would have been even worse than before.

“I dare not say what I desire. But O great goddess, you know my secret heart. I beg you, release me from this torment.” His head slumped to the pallet, and I opened my eyes, because he couldn’t see me while he wallowed in the covers. His hair was thinning, and I counted the bare spots on his scalp. Three, like always.

I closed my eyes, just in time. His head lifted, and he said, “No, it cannot be. I must resign myself.” But his hand had fallen conveniently against my forearm, and he pressed it a little in his agony.

“What is this?” He stared at my arm. “Can it be? I would swear that she is warm.”

Warmer than regular stone, anyway.

He shook his head, as though to clear it. “No, I am imagining things. Or perhaps the sun has fallen on her and warmed the marble.”

There was no sun in the room, of course, but it wasn’t the time to say this.

“Goddess, do not let me be mad!” He began kneading my hips and belly, hard, testing my stoniness. I prided myself on not flinching.

“Yet I will swear it, I will swear on my life, she is warm. O goddess, if this is a dream, let me still sleep.” And then he pressed his lips onto mine. “Live,” he said. “Oh live, my life, my love, live.”

And that’s when I’m supposed to open my eyes like a dewy fawn, and see him poised over me like the sun, and make a little gasping noise of wonder and gratitude, and then he fucks me.

AFTER, I LAY against his damp shoulder. I said, “My love, I miss you.”

He said nothing, but I could feel his impatience. The sweat was drying on his front, and his back was a swamp. Also, the reed ticking scratched through the sheet, and he’s used to a padded bed at home.

“What are you working on?” I asked. Because it is the one thing I know he will answer.

“A statue,” he said.

“Ah!” I closed my eyes. “I wish I could see it, darling. What is it of?”

“A girl.”

“It will be beautiful,” I said. “Is she for one of the men in town?”

“No,” he said. “I’m tired of those. This one is for myself.”

“How wonderful,” I said. “I hope I may see it when you are finished.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“I will be so good,” I said.

He said nothing.

“How old is the girl?” I asked.

“Ten,” he said.

I had expected him to say “young.” When I had once asked him how old he meant for me to be, he had said, “A virgin.”

“Ten,” I said. “Not twelve, perhaps?”

“No,” he said.

“I do love girls at fifteen,” I said. “The other day the nurse brought her daughter, and she was so beautiful. Her whole face was filled with light.”

“I have no interest in fifteen,” he said. “Or the nurse’s daughter.”

“Of course not.” I stroked his chest with my perfect fingers. I tried to make my voice loose and easy, like a yawn. “How is Paphos, my love?”