Year of the Snake

Snake Wife

55 Snake Wife From the very start, you were charmed by the uncoiling languor of my shifting poses, by the sibilant lisp of silk sliding down my undulant length of spine as I shed the intricate layers of my kimono one by one—first, the sun-colored overcoat, and then the brocaded gown embroidered with the pattern of falling maple leaves, clear down to the delicate white folds of the innermost lining. Outside, the slender bodies of black dragonflies, with their flashing velvet wings, stitched together the swirling yellow leaves like quick black darning needles, while I kept you hypnotized by my unblinking gaze glittering from beneath the sheer 56 film of brille, the cool sinuous ripple of smoothly oiled skin, and the haunting flicker of my forked tongue. You allowed yourself to see only those things you wished me to be, and because I loved you, I let you go on this way, learning to veil myself in self-deception— soon gaining a reputation as a woman of exquisite refinement because my modesty was such it prevented anyone from more than fleeting glimpses behind the hand-painted silk fans I fluttered in front of my face in the same way that butterfly wings open and shut (open and shut) on the tiniest of hinges. And strangely enough, I even became known as a great beauty. Before the start of winter my belly first began to stir 57 and swell with the fruit of our autumnal lovemaking, and by the time of the rainy season, water spilled from between my legs and I was seized by an awful, white-hot pain. You made me a promise not to look inside the birth room, no matter what unnatural or unearthly sound you heard from behind the shoji screen. But in the end, curiosity was larger than your love for me, and so you cut a notch into the rice paper just large enough to fit one prying eye, and then you cried out in shock—there was a baby, our infant son, coiled in the grasp of a giant white snake, and shining gold pieces of eggshell scattered in splendor all throughout the room. And because you had seen me as my true self, 58 I plucked out one of my own eyes to give to our child to suckle, and then I left you. I have always been too proud in this way. But you were irresponsible, and let the eye fall down a well, forcing me to come back and pluck out the other eye when I heard my child’s hungry cries. Now I thread my way through life on instinct, and by the shifting and subtle flavors of the air caressed by my flickering tongue. And oh, how I wish sometimes that I were a white fox, or a golden koi, or the long elegant crane that winters in snow country by the hot springs where macaques linger and bathe—red faces bright in snow and steam, grooming each other with soft paws. ...