NOSTALGIA

1 5 2 Y N O S T A L G I A J A M E S A R T H U R The museum was closed, so no one saw the statue of Adam tumble to the floor, and break. No one saw the plywood pedestal collapsing, when it couldn’t hold the marble man one second more. Cameras weren’t allowed at the scene of the accident so no public images exist of the curators sifting through every fragment, hoping to rebuild Adam from the wreck, but you can imagine the disconnected hand still gripping the apple. You can imagine the head broken o√ at the neck. There’s no going back to the garden, she said – no more reading poetry in the reservoir park. No more origami. There won’t be any more lunches at the Green Room or long weekends in New York. No traveling by ocean liner. No silk stockings, no poke bonnets, or broadfall pants for the men. No collecting beach glass or writing out letters by fountain pen. As the man and woman walked deeper into exile from the garden outside of time, their memories of where they’d come from grew hazy, and recombined, 1 5 3 R becoming pieces of a magic jigsaw that never would stay together or make any picture twice – now a mystic wilderness where a hyena was licking the injured flank of a gira√e; now a couple courting in the foreground of an ancient cenotaph. The lovers had invented nakedness and put on their garments made of shame. The children weren’t children any longer, and everything had changed – except for the angel whose particular job it was to stand at the garden gate forever, making sure the man and woman did not reenter, if somehow they came back. And because angels don’t mind laboring without reward, the angel didn’t feel bored or disenchanted; he didn’t spend eternity on the thought that he was getting punished because of something that somebody else had done. Whether he represented stubbornness or human consciousness or just himself, or the sun, he kept watching all directions, all at once. And never for a moment did he put down his burning sword. ...