A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin Read Free Book Online Page A

afternoon and the rain sent cooler winds over the
bed, but she felt no desire to cover or nestle him, or to give him warmth.
    She had only been away five days but because of
all the emotions and experiences which had take place, all the inner expansions
and explorations, Sabina felt that she had been away for many years. Alan’s
image had receded far into the past, and a great fear of complete loss of him
assailed her. Five days containing so many changes within her body and feelings
lengthened the period of absence, added immeasurable mileage to her separation
from Alan.
    Certain roads one took emotionally also
appeared on the map of the heart as traveling away from the center, and
ultimately leading to exile.
    Driven by this mood, she appeared at his home.
    “Sabina! I’m so happy. I didn’t expect you for
another week. What happened? Nothing went wrong?”
    He was there. Five days had not altered his
voice, the all-enveloping expression of his eyes. The apartment had not
changed. The same book was still open by his bed, the same magazines had not
yet been thrown away. He had not finished some fruit she had bought the last
time she had been there. Her hands caressed the overfull ash trays, her fingers
designed rivers of meditation on the coats of dust on the table. Here living
was gradual, organic, without vertiginous descents or ascents.
    As she stood there the rest of her life
appeared like a fantasy. She sought Alan’s hand and searched for the familiar
freckle on his wrist. She felt a great need to take a bath before he touched
her, to wash herself rigorously of other places, other hands, other odors.
    Alan had obtained for her, as a surprise, some
records of drumming and singing from the Ile Joyeuse .
They listened to the drumming which began at first remotely as if playing in a
distant village smothered in jungle vines. At first like small children’s steps
running through dry rushes, and then heavier steps on hollow wood, and then
sharp powerful fingers on the drum skins, and suddenly a mass of crackling stumpings , animal skins slapped, and knuckled, stirred and
pecked so swiftly there was no time for echoes. Sabina saw the ebony and
cinnamon bodies through which the structure of the bones never showed,
glistening with the sea’s wild baths, leaping and dancing as quick as the
necklaces of drum beats, in emerald greens, indigo blue, tangerines in all the
colors of fruits and flowers, flaming eucalyptus of flesh.
    There were places where only the beat of the
blood guided the body, where there was no separation from the speed of wind,
the tumult of waves, and the sun’s orgies. The voices rich with sap sang
joyously… cascabel … guyabana … chinchinegrites …
    “I wish we could go there together,” said
Sabina.
    Alan looked at her reproachfully as if it hurt
him to be obliged to remind her: “I can’t leave my work. Later this year
perhaps…”
    Sabina’s eyes grew fixed. Alan interpreted it
as disappointment and added: “Please be patient, Sabina.”
    But Sabina’s gaze was not transfixed by
disappointment. It was the fixation of the visionary. She was watching a mirage
take form, birds were being born with new names: “ cuchuchito ,”
“Pita real.” They perched on trees called “liquid- ambar ,”
and over her head stretched a roof made of palm leaves tied with reeds. Later
was always too late; later did not exist. There was only great distance to
overcome to reach the inaccessible. The drums had come bearing the smell of
cinnamon skins in a dance of heartbeats. They would soon bring an invitation
which she would not refuse.
    When Alan looked at her face again, her
eyelashes had dropped in a simulacrum of obedience. He felt the imminence of
departure had been averted by a sudden docility. He did not observe that her
quiescence was already in itself a form of absence. She was already inhabiting
the Ile Joyeuse .
    Perhaps because of this, when she heard
drumming, as she walked along McDougall