Levy - Beautiful Mutants and Swallowing Geography

Dont miss Deborah Levys other sharp, insightful,
and eloquent books:

Black Vodka: Ten Stories

These ominous, odd, erotic stories burrow deep into your brain.

Financial Times

The Tadpole Fields

When you feel fear, does it have detail or is it just a force? The gold filling in Gregorys front tooth shines into J. K.s eye. I cant hear you.

They are sitting in a bar surrounded by mirrors etched with the Eiffel Tower at Roissy airport, Paris. Brand names like Segafredo, Perrier, Dior, Kronenbourg 1664 , Chanel spin like planets above them. The large blonde Californian waitress slams two cocktails down on the table.

Theyre killers, she says.

It is as if Paris is muffled. I hear it at low volume.

J.K. says nothing because these days Gregorys voice is very quiet, as if frightened to let it out of his big body. She catches odd words like nausea, chestpain, The Baltic States, mother, father, aspirin, and sometimes she catches his eye.

Look at the inscription in this book.

She moves closer to the secret in his body that tames his voice. It is an old volume of short stories printed in 1941 on thin transparent paper.

Leave this book at the Post Office when you have read it, so that men and women in the services may enjoy it too.

The day before, they walked to Pigalle in silence, arm in arm, stopping to watch transvestite whores lean against cars and walls, put on lipstick, smoke cigarettes, call out to men passing by, their steamy drugged gaze settling on this man and that man and then somewhere else.

What kind of cultural virus taught those boys to stick their hips out like that, and pout and press their breasts across the other side of the road? Gregory says.

Do you fancy them?

Theyre gorgeous. I like that one over there with the long black plait... it comes down to his knees, can you see... in the hat with the red feather.

COME AND TALK TO ME ! It is an eerie staccato voice. The voice of cigarette advertisements, fierce sun, a two-bit bar with dead flies on the floor. They turn round to see they are standing outside a pinball arcade, CASINO spelt in coloured lightbulbs above the door. COME AND TALK TO ME ! The yankee growling voice comes from a silver and chrome machine. On its screen a square muscled man jumps up and down in a computerized urban landscape of skyscrapers and highways. Hands in raincoat pocket, jaw jerking to one side, he drawls again, COME AND TALK TO ME !

Gregory nudges J.K.s arm. Well, listen to the man, lets take up his invitation. He puts ten francs in the slot.

HOW YA DOING ? says the man. TYPE SOMETHING INTO THE KEYBOARD AND I WILL RESPOND . The screen whirs as the urban cowboy crosses his arms and leans towards them.

Its in English.

Well, tell him how you are.

Gregory turns to face the man. He puts another ten francs into the machine and spreads out his fingers. Pink and blue bulbs flash above him.

Do your lips burn up when kissed right? Let me kiss em baby. Let me let me let me. I would like to fuck you. I would like to make you happy. How do you like to be touched? On the aeroplane over here, the air hostess demonstrated various ways of surviving an aircrash. She said we must blow on a whistle to draw attention to ourselves. Dont you think that is a little narcissistic? If everyone in the everyday of their lives who wanted to draw attention to themselves blew a whistle where would we be? What do you do to make people love you? I do cheap things to make people like me. I make them feel more important than they are and flatter them and when someone makes me a great cocktail I take a sip and shout DRAGONFLIES ! In England I light my cigarettes with matches made in Yugoslavia. The picture on the box is of Scenic Cornwall and shows a number of signposts on the edge of a cliff. One of them says THE FALKLANDS 8109 and the other says AUSTRALIA 170001 . Itell you this because when I was a boy I collected stamps. It was my way of naming places and conquering the world. A stamp is a small picture. So I had lots of small pictures of the world. Madagascar, China, Mexico, Argentina, Egypt. A kind of virtual reality.

Whats your name, my sweet? Is it Johnny or Sam or Brett? Id like to go down on you and for you to talk to me about football and religion and hamburgers and beauty and death and what it feels like to come. Were you bullied at school? When you were a teenager did you spend hours in your bedroom changing your clothes? Did you save up to buy the boots and shirts other kids had? What kind of Darwinian programmed you? Do you want to change yourself in any way? Like speak in a deeper voice or have a different nose? Do you feel safe in this world? Or do you feel alone and scared? What kind of gadgets do you have in your home? Do they comfort you? Baby do you sometimes feel glum? Baby take care of yourself. Oh baby Id like to stroke you and whisper things to you and make you not have fear.

Honey, I want to tell you about a train I took to Kiev with my bit of squeeze. We made love just as we got near Chernobyl and the loudspeakers in our carriage played a kind of lament to mark the tragedy of the nuclear accident. In some way it seemed to mark all tragedy ever. The cries of our lovemaking as we passed infected cattle, children with shaved heads playing by the railway tracks and the eerie stillness of deformed trees were the only sound, snow falling, he and I sweating in each others arms and honey we were, at that moment, without fear. The high-rise blocks of flats we stayed in were called The Sleeping Region. I was brought up in a block like that in London. As a kid we lived on tins of beans and meatballs and hated to sleep because we were frightened. Darling, do you sleep sweet and easy and deep? Does someone sleep beside you? Breathing into the pillow next to you and you wake up first and feel them there and its just so great that theyre there and you know very soon they will wake too and you will move closer and kind of pull in the beginning of a new day together? In Kiev I opened tins of crab meat and caviar bought with hard currency and we slept easy. We slept easy and there was a famine outside. The circus played every night in Kiev an old man sitting next to me made a joke about eating the cats and horses after the show. Are you happy with your life, my sweet? The man said, You can always tell a tourist, their eyes dont know where theyre going. Here everyone knows where theyre going. Do you know where youre going baby? Is it a good place? Something to write home about? Is home a good place? Or just somewhere to return to?

Are you pleased to open your eyes in the morning? What do you see? Do you like what you see? If you hate it do you feel you have any power to change it for something else? Oh my love, let me call you that My Love let us imagine what that means, you and I liplocked some place in the American South, perhaps where the Klan lynched our brothers? You and I in a motor on the highway making plans for the future. The radio is on and we hear the Soviet Union has come apart and then there are some ads for Pepsi and bagel chips, and back to a war in Yugoslavia, nationalisms and internationalisms, an election in Great Britain, refugees crossing mountains looking for a country to feed them, a jingle for vitamin capsules, and all the time we are hot for each other, through all this world news we just want to be in each others pants, and we pull in for gas and Im saying, No baby dont light a cigarette right now, wait till we pull out and anyhow well check into a motel soon. Hey Brett, Im Imagining America! Its all from movies and magazines, Im fumbling to make you America. Im fumbling to make you and unmake you. Abe Lincoln on your dollar bills IN GOD WE TRUST pastrami and gas and tacos and beer bought with his image, hes the guy that keeps the wheels turning. Im stuffing chocolate into your mouth and baby... youre so hard, so hard honey... youre all fired up and Im talkin dirty, Im talking physical, Im talking politics and dontcha just love it, got my fingers in your armpit and youre sweating bad. I want you too baby I want you too. Yknow that Springsteen song... oh baby Id drive all night again jus to buy you a pair of shoes? Well I would. Id drive to hell and back jus to make you love me.How do you love? Do you keep it quiet and put it all in your fingertips or do you say words? What are your lovewords baby? What if the United States came apart? Would God come apart too and the stone pillars of the Abe Lincoln memorial crumble and statues of George Washington be torn up from squares of green, watered by sprinklers? Torn up by crane and bulldozer?