Irma Voth by Miriam Toews Read Free Book Online Page B

idea so I went to the back door and I opened it and stepped outside and took my dick out and started banging the night. Like, I was just banging away at the night. But the night was dark, obviously, so there was no stopping it. I mean I couldn’t see where the night ended, because of the horizons or whatever, so it was like the night was the whole world and I was fucking it.
    You weren’t fucking the world, said Sebastian. You were jerking off in the dark like every other night.
    No, man, said Elias. It seemed like that but it was different in my dream.
    I’m talking about dreams of guilt and dreams of redemption, said Wilson.
    We don’t know it but we direct our own dreams, said Sebastian. A restructuring or an un-structuring of ideas and experiences that allow for our own salvation.
    Give that to me, said Wilson. You’re an asshole.
    Our dreams are little stories or puzzles that we must solve to be free, Sebastian said. He was reading out loud from Wilson’s notebook. My dream is me offering me a solution to the conundrum of my life. My dream is me offering me something that I need and my responsibility to myself is to try to understand what it means. Our dreams are a thin curtain between survival and extinction.
    Sebastian, said Wilson. Can I have that, please?
    I like it! said Sebastian. No, seriously, that’s heavy shit that clarifies a thing or two for me.
    Sebastian, said Wilson. Please?
    Sebastian handed over Wilson’s notebook and apologized for reading from it. Wilson waved it all off and smiled at me as if to say, would you help me blow up the universe?
    Well, said Elias, my dream is me telling me to fuck the world. That’s my art. What can I say.
    Wilson stared out the window and Elias and Sebastian went back to listening to their music. I looked at Marijke. She was still sleeping. Then she opened one eye halfway and looked at me as though she was incorporating me into her dream and closed it again. I drove slowly, trying to relate everything to a dream, hoping to see my Tarahumara family again before the dream ended.

THREE
    IT WAS LATE WHEN WE GOT BACK to the filmmakers’ house. Wilson invited me in for coffee and I said no, I couldn’t. Then I changed my mind and said yeah, okay. He told me he wanted to show me something. Marijke had gone to her room and closed the door—we could hear her laughing or crying—and Diego was busy talking on the radio. Wilson asked me if I would come into his bedroom. I stood stilland quietly panicked and then he said that it was okay, he didn’t mean it in that kind of way, he just wanted a little privacy from the others. So I followed him into his room and he closed the door and I went and stood by the window and he sat on his bed.
    I’d like to read you something if you don’t mind, Irma, he said. He opened his notebook and read a story, half in Spanish, half in English, about an angry circus clown who was going through a divorce.
    All the people in my stories are awful, he said. I agreed with him.
    Why don’t you write about people who aren’t such assholes? I asked him.
    Because, he said, that would be too painful.
    I looked around the room. I remembered playing with my cousins. I remembered trying to climb out the window of this room and breaking the window frame. I got up and went over to the window and it was still cracked and crooked.
    I used to play here all the time, I said.
    Really? said Wilson.
    Yeah, my cousins lived here.
    One family? said Wilson. There are so many bedrooms in this house.
    Lots of kids, I said. A soccer team.
    Or a film crew, said Wilson.
    They didn’t make movies, I said.
    I know, said Wilson, I was just kidding. They probably didn’t play soccer either.
    Of course they played soccer, I said. That’s mostly what we did all the time.
    Oh, said Wilson. Are you any good?
    Not really, I said.
    Do you want to kick a ball around sometime? said Wilson.
    Well … I don’t know, I said. I’m a married woman now.
    So? said Wilson.
    I