Eva Colombo, Reet’s ring
You were sleeping hugging the branch of a tree which prevented you from falling
at the bottom of a canyon. Five metres above you, Mulholland drive. I don’t know
how but I was there, with you. I whispered to you the words that you have
written when you were still in Canada “The past is a dream, its memory still
lingers”. You woke up and you asked me what was your name. Reet, I replied,
which means pearl. You felt that your true name was like a pearl vanished into a
cup of wine, everybody called you by the name of that wine and nobody was able
to catch a sight of the pearl which glittered at the bottom of the cup. You
asked me if I was carrying a mirror, since you were longing for looking at your
face. I didn’t carry a mirror, but I carried a tarot deck inspired by the art of
Alfred Mucha. You were very fond of art, you wished to become an artist
yourself. I took out the card which portrayed the Temperance with the features
of Mucha’s Samaritan, that poster which is preserved at the Los Angeles County
Museum of Modern Art. Look how she is exactly like you, I told you. You bear the
same hair naturally blond and wavy like the rays of the rising sun, the same
eyes green like the sea which cradles the sleeping sun. I told you what the Book
of Thoth says about this card: “Dissolve the pearl into the cup of wine, drink
it, and make apparent the virtue of that pearl”. You burst into tears and it was
as if your tears were pearls which were dissolving in a cup of wine. When you
bent to bring your lips to this cup the wine of your false name dissolved and
the pearl of your true name glittered from the beauty of your soul. I’m so sad,
you told me, for to me it will be November forever. No Reet, I replied. At your
ring finger you wear a ring endowed with a blood - red garnet and the red garnet
is like a grain of Persephone’s pomegranate. Soon Spring will come and the
bloody sun of Los Angeles, the very “bloody red sun of fantastic L. A.” sung by
your beloved Jim Morrison, will give you back the blood you have shed and you
will leap on the edge of Mulholland drive. You will smile the smile of someone
who is happy to resume the path and your ring will glitter in the sun. |
