Interlude
I'm losing him. Christ Jesus, is nothing to be left to me? My brothers are dead or gone from me, my wife's a stranger. I can see his eyes changing, now. He doesn't see me any longer, only the shell, the armor, reflecting his fear; he who always saw me for what I was.
Sometimes I can still get through to him. If I come to him at night, if I can kiss him before he pushes me away with courteous words, if I can touch him skin to skin and make him forget.
If I can forget. Inside the shell nothing is left but the hard kernel of my heart, but it aches no less for that. If I can forget that I have no friend but him, that if I let him go from me I will have nothing-- for love like water slips away the tighter it's held; but God, God, it's too much.
"I need you," I said last night. In his bed, in the warm moonlight, so like the old time that I could have wept; but he would not look at me.
"Truly I don't think you do."
"Christ, Sagramore--"
He ran his hands over my skin as if with a stranger, as if my nails in his flesh neither pained nor moved him, and kissed me without ever meeting my eyes.
I think I have already lost him.
Sometimes I can still get through to him. If I come to him at night, if I can kiss him before he pushes me away with courteous words, if I can touch him skin to skin and make him forget.
If I can forget. Inside the shell nothing is left but the hard kernel of my heart, but it aches no less for that. If I can forget that I have no friend but him, that if I let him go from me I will have nothing-- for love like water slips away the tighter it's held; but God, God, it's too much.
"I need you," I said last night. In his bed, in the warm moonlight, so like the old time that I could have wept; but he would not look at me.
"Truly I don't think you do."
"Christ, Sagramore--"
He ran his hands over my skin as if with a stranger, as if my nails in his flesh neither pained nor moved him, and kissed me without ever meeting my eyes.
I think I have already lost him.