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MEMORY, CONTEMPLATION, RETROSPECTION, AND DEATH JAMES CUMMINS Tiresias You learn how to be a man from your father. Your mother teaches you how to be a woman. You have to be afraid of becoming an old man before you’ll take on the wiles of the mother— her movements, gestures, the way her face suddenly, at odd moments, becomes your face. Turns out that old adage about saving face was really about saving the face of the father. His was the look you wanted on your face whenever you’d realize you were a woman. Those moments shocked you—and your mother, who’d assumed you’d turn out to be a man. But it’s not that you haven’t ended up a man. Mornings you shave, staring into a man’s face. You have the proper attitude toward your mother. You just don’t want to be a man like your father, and the best way to do that is to be a woman. The first time you saw this happen in your face, it scared you—your hand flew up to your face. Not only did you have the cunning of a man, but now you also had the guile of a woman. You look into the mirror at your new face, the one begun the night you surprised your father, humping a blanket that turned into your mother. How could the bastard do that to your mother? And why had you never seen this in her face? What was it you saw the next day in your father? A look that told you he was the better man? And what do you think he saw in your face? Did he know then that you were a woman? You repressed that morning in the way a woman might repress an impractical love for a man. When he’s around, you can see it in her face— her Don’t-trust-him-but-still-love-him face. Your father never thought of you as a man. It was natural you’d try to seduce your father. First you showed your father your “mother” face; but then you showed him your other face, the sly face a man wears when he’s a woman. ...

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