August Blue by Deborah Levy

Author:Deborah Levy [Levy, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Later that evening, while I was making a pot of ginger tea, it seemed to me there was too much heat coming from the tiny ring of gas on the hob. It felt as if my face was bent over a roaring log fire.

I couldn’t work it out. I lowered the blue flame under the pot of ginger and then I realized the heat was coming from myself. My face was burning up. When I looked in the mirror my cheeks were red and so was my chest. I had a headache. My heart was racing. I took two paracetamol and carried the tea to bed. After a while I opened the doors to the little wrought-iron balcony. It was midnight. I placed my laptop on the circular table and sat down on the chair.

The moon was bright. The air was cool. I was hot. My laptop was making a sound. It was a Skype call from Marie. Why was she calling me at midnight on Skype? I took the call. She was wearing a sleeveless black dress, and when she turned to pick something up from the floor, I saw it was unzipped at the back.

How are you, Elsa?

I told her I thought I had it.

She asked me about my symptoms. I explained how I had a fever and headache. No, she said, it’s just the side effects from the vaccine.

It was odd that she was calling me at this time. It was even odder that she had started to pour oil into the icon lamp on her wall.

Are you religious, Marie?

Not at all.

I had recently watched Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, in which Joan is asked by the judge if God has made her promises. That’s what I asked Marie.

Has God made you promises?

She thought about this on my screen as the moon moved behind a cloud.

Yes, God has made me promises.

Do you talk to God?

Her cheeks were flushed and I knew she’d just had sex.

I definitely have a conversation going with God. It’s like a ventriloquist, my voice split into two voices. I think the main promise God has made is Death will not come for me.

This was confusing because earlier she had spoken about ending her life before she was too old to make her own decisions.

Yes, well, it’s two contradictory thoughts, she said, the possibility of ending my life and wanting more life. So what? And here are two more contradictions: I don’t believe in God, but I talk to something like God. I ask this presence to feel for me when I have cut down my own feelings.

I told her that Arthur, who was a committed atheist, had often quoted a letter from William Blake. I think he said it was from the diaries, he didn’t know.

Dear Father, dear Mother, the Church is cold,

But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm.

Arthur is a dick, she replied.

There was someone in the apartment with her. I could hear the sound of a radio in the room, a commentary about a horse race.

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