Kokoschka’s Doll by Afonso Cruz

Author:Afonso Cruz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maclehose Press
Published: 2023-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Adele rose late the following day. She lit a cigarette and smoked it on the veranda as she gazed out into the infinite concentrated in an orange tree. Her slender fingers, trembling lightly, gripped the cigarette. She had a milky coffee in the inner courtyard of the riad as she wrote down what she considered to be the most important facts in a note-pad. She decided she still had many questions and went to Nicolas Marina’s house. He wasn’t there. The door was opened by a tall woman who had a pleasant face, despite her threatening stature. Her name was Daniela and she invited Adele in. The two women sat down on an ample sofa and Daniela went to get a tray with a teapot and two cups.

“I met my husband in Casablanca. I’d just written a play for a Neapolitan theatre company and, being temporarily unemployed, I decided to travel. The first time I saw my husband was in a carpet shop. I helped him haggle. He had no skill for it, still doesn’t. He doesn’t understand people, despite his ability to describe them in literature. Not knowing how to haggle is a mark of this lack of understanding. Anyway, his lack of know-how warmed me to him. It was a maternal instinct, you know how we women are: we burned our bras, but we never liberated ourselves from being mothers. We still feel an urge to protect men. And God knows they need it.

“In other words, I saved him from paying four times more than he should have for a poor-quality kilim. Then we got married.”

“You left the carpet shop and got married?”

“Almost. We dated for seven months, but it’s not much of a story. The same thing that happens to all besotted couples happened to us. And of course, that inevitably led to this.”

Daniela made a sweeping gesture that took in the whole house.

“I don’t regret it. Any other path would have led to something similar. It’s my fate to end up like this, drinking tea and talking about the factory, lacking any and all inspiration to write. I feel worn out. But I won’t bore you with my complaints. You probably didn’t know, but we own a screw factory. Don’t imagine that I mind about having exchanged literature for this. To tell the truth, screws are terrifyingly profound. Thinking about them can lead you to write philosophy. Heraclitus the Obscure said that the screw is the synthesis of the straight line and the circle. Do you understand? When a screw moves, the circle and the straight line become one and the same.”

“I see. Tell me about the books your husband wrote for Kenoma & Pleroma Ltd.”

“The Reincarnations of Pythagoras is a fascinating book (I assure you, I’m not just saying that because he’s my husband) about all the lives that philosopher claimed to have lived, from Aethalides, through Euphorbus (who was wounded by Menelaus in Troy) and Hermotimus, and finally to Pyrrhus (who preceded Pythagoras). We

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