Le Revè by Stefanie Gold
Le Revè
It’s February, the last month of Summer in 1998. I push past the pack of ink-stained backpacks and pair after pair of black and chequered Vans, standard issue at Sunshine Beach High. I open the metal gate that leads out to the bus stop, head drawn down, inside a curtain of black curls, eyes stuck on each step of my black Docs. Cicada wings ring in my ears and the sickly waft of sticky pollen fills my young lungs. Schools out for the day. I walk along the cement path, avoiding patches of aged gum. I pass by the bus. I know the driver, Terry, probably waved, but I don’t look up. I reach back into my own ink-stained backpack and grab out my silver Discman. I press the earbuds through the black curl curtain into my ears. I press play. The corner of my mouth lifts up slightly into a smile, and I begin tapping a black polished fingernail on the front of my leg to Johnny…Rzeznik.
*
His marine eyes, rock hair, the hole in his chin-his poster swallows up the sun in my room, pasty lips-that fucking jacket-the one from Iris-that tatt, the Picasso one-Le Revè, the dream-my dream.
*
I walk on, down the hill, head still drawn inside the black curtain, sheltered from the vivid greens of the tree ferns that parallel the wooden path of Noosa hill. I don’t take in the ocean view, but the salty, humid breeze stings my chapped lips and the exhaled breath from the forest floats up and smothers my face. I walk on. Johnny drowns out ‘fake street’. Hastings Street. I walk past it onto the bridge. I stop as I come to my street and I look up. I pull the buds from my ears and Johnny’s husky voice fades away. A row of white rendered townhouses stretches across the whole corner block like a perfect smile. Palm trees line the front garden and the river laps silently at the end of the road. I sigh as I cross the road. Underneath the white rendered walls: fat besser brick stacks. The palm trees are laden with cockroaches. Then ‘he’ squeezes out of a townhouse door onto the driveway.
*
Rows of white veneered teeth.
Man, of her dreams.
‘Don’t fuck it up,’ she’d say. ‘Call him dad.’
Suit and shined shoes.
Underneath.
Fat. Besser brick stacks.
*
James is waiting at our bus stop. Lorikeets screech and flap in their vibrant reds and greens above the flowering gums in my street. A sweet rotting smell wafts across the road from the river mangroves. I walk across the road inside my black curtain in my sheer school blouse. Black bra lace pressed against it. James sees me and his mouth lifts into a smile, showing his overcrowded teeth. I smile back. The bus pulls in and air brakes. I push through its concertina doors and head down the back, not looking up at anyone. James follows. We slump down together onto the ripped leather back seat.
‘We’ve got some new drama teacher today you know,’ James says as he grabs out his art book. He flicks over a page, then presses the book to his chest, concealing the image. ‘Ready Stef?’
I nod my head eagerly.
‘I am god, I am god, I am god,’ he chants, then turns the book towards me.
I stare at lazy charcoaled curves and voluptuous lines of breasts and thighs, tapering off into swirls of hair of…woman.
‘You’re fucking god James.’
James grins at me, before pushing out the small bus window flap next to him and lights a cigarette. He inhales and breathes out.
‘I know…but ‘woman’, that is godly,’ he says, as he sucks back on his cigarette.
‘Rzeznik though? Fuck I wish you’d charcoal him.’
James shakes his head, ‘Nah, he’s too godly, fuck.’
*
I am Marie-Therese. Le Revè. The dream-Pablo’s dream. He is tearing paper pieces. Rolling them between his finger and his thumb-he places one onto his tongue. Absorbing its inner fibres, Pablo Picasso paper eater.
*
The bus pulls into the curb at Sunshine Beach High. I grab my bag and push out through the concertina doors. The air is still thick and sickly from the pollen, and carries the tang of teenage sweat. James follows behind me. We walk down the cement path to the performing arts building. We wait at the back of the already formed line. We push through a purple doorway into the large drama classroom and slump down onto one of the stage steps.
A gangly figure sits on an office chair directly in front, with his back to us, he is scribbling something on a white board. His hair is bright red and matches his docs, and he has a paisley shirt.
‘Good fashion,’ I whisper to James.
He smiles back at me.
The figure swivels his chair around in one swift movement. He smiles, revealing a mouthful of overcrowded stained teeth. His eyes are light blue and almond shaped. I look up at the white board…it reads ‘There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth’- Friedrich Nietzsche.
The man stands up and steps forward. ‘I’m Erik…Tatas,’ he says while scanning the room. ‘You will all call me Spud.’ ‘This is drama class so I will teach you all the usual suspects; Shakespeare, Medusa, Commedia dell’arte, Stanislavsky etc.’ His eyes glare passionately at us. ‘But importantly this year, I will teach you about you, about ‘self’.’
He paced slowly back and forth as he said this. I looked him over, wondering if he knew how he sounded. Then my eyes fixed on an outline filled with vibrant reds and greens halfway up his porcelain arm. ‘Le Revè,’ I mouthed to myself.
*
Six fingered hands.
The breast, a bathing sun setting, in an oil green sea.
Phallic face with lips half done.
Lazy curves, stroked in blacks and reds and tilted swirls of yellow…hair.
*
I couldn’t shift my gaze, until James nudged me. Spud was staring at me.
‘Oh, sorry, did you ask something?’ I looked down.
‘Just your name and something about you.’
‘Oh, I’m Stefanie and I am into music and art and a bit of philosophy.’
‘Okay…Great,’ he wrote something in a book he was holding with a lanky hand and moved onto the next student.
The bell rang shortly after and I heard my name called as I stepped a black Doc forward into the doorway.
‘Hey, before you go, I wanted to give you this to borrow,’ Spud hands me a book with a red cover. I glance up at him with furrowed brows, then grab the book and brush my hand over the large white title Sophie’s World.
‘See you in class,’ Spud says, while throwing his satchel bag over his shoulder.
‘Ok,’ I say back.
*
I caught the bus home this time. I smirked underneath my black curl curtain as I crossed the road towards the white rendered townhouses. James had not believed me and I couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it. Le Revè in ink…Rzenik. Spud ink. I looked down and noticed I was still holding the book with the red cover. I held it to my chest as I reached the entrance to ‘his’ townhouse door. I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out a set of keys. I pushed a key into the door, closing my eyes as I turned the lock. I prayed ‘he’ was sleeping. I crept up the first flight of stairs. Six pack stacks lined the kitchen floor. An open can sat on the table like a lit candle with a wax soaked wick. All traces of light, drowned. I turned from the stairs towards the lounge room. I could feel him watching me from behind the sheer balcony sliding doors, with their black screen mesh pushing through.
*
Fat besser brick six pack stacks.
White veneered teeth.
Beer bellied…bastard.
*
I sit on my hibiscus bed cover, an oddment in a room of idolatry. Rzenik’s face swallows the sun…blue tacked to the window pane next to my bed. Mum had come home. A plate of the usual, cold chicken and salad lay empty on my bedroom floor. I turned up the volume of my discman as the downstairs rum rebellion began. Mum’s tears as loud as hail hitting tin and ‘him,’ defending the colony, the six-pack stack, afloat in the flood. I smile into the open pages of the book with the red cover. The sweet musky smell of paper mixed with ink immerses me as I enter Sophie’s World. I read and read and read until my eyes are red.
*
James is waiting at our bus stop. I walk across the road inside my black curtain, in my sheer school blouse, black bra lace pressed against it. The bus pulls in. We get in and slump down together onto the ripped leather back seat. I grab out the book with the red cover from my backpack. I press the book to my chest, concealing the bold white title.
‘Ready James?’ ‘Last night, I read Sophie’s World. I was in the Garden of Eden.’ ‘I am god, I am god, I am god,’ I chant into James’s grinning face.
James grabbed the book from my hands.
He stares at the red cover, at the outline of the illustrated moon.
‘You are fucking god Stef,’ he says.
James grins at me and hands me back the book, before pushing out the small bus window flap next to him and lights a cigarette. He inhales and breathes out.
‘Tatas though…Spud…whatever,’ he says as he pushes his lighter behind his ear. Do you think he is like Alberto Knox or Hilde’s father?’
I turn my head abruptly towards him and stare. Alberto Knox is the philosopher who guides Sophie on her journey discovering philosophy and Hilde’s father…well he is the omnipotent writer in Sophie’s World. Hilde’s father is writing the story for his daughter…Hilde. He decides what happens to Sophie and to Alberto as he is the writer and creator of them.
‘I guess he’s kind of like Alberto, if I am Sophie, I mean he said he wanted us to learn about ‘self’…right?’
James stubs his cigarette into the back of the ripped leather seat, then flicks it onto the floor.
‘Yeah, so that doesn’t sound omnipotent to you, like a forced metamorphosis?’
‘Maybe he’s too godly, fuck.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, he is godly.
*
I am Marie-Therese. I am Le Revè. The dream-Pablo’s dream. I am a girl machine. Each stroke of his brush like a coin fingered in. His eyes, big-eyed, stare at his refracted reflection off the paint like a colour-filled spring. I am Marie-Therese. Once, a blank canvas. Now a phallic face with lips half done. Pablo is god.
*
The bus pulls into the curb at Sunshine Beach High. We make our way to drama class.
*
Spud’s gangly figure with bright red hair sits on the office chair directly in front, with his back to us, he is scribbling something on the white board. Le Revè’s tilted swirls of yellow hair hang down from under the cuff of his sleeve. He turns to face me, he’s chewing something.
‘Is that gum?’ I ask shyly.
He grins ‘No…its paper actually…I’m a paper eater,’ he says, musingly. ‘Did you read some of the book?’
‘All of it,’ I replied, as I tied up the black curl curtain into a knot on my head.
‘So now you know about the power of ‘self’,’ he said as he swivelled his chair away from the board that read ‘No-one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you, yourself, alone.’ - Fredrich Nietzsche.
As he stands up to conduct our drama class, my mind drifts into Sophie’s World. ‘We are closest to god in our own soul.’
The ringing bell pulled me out from my reverie. I lifted up my ink stained backpack and waited at the back of the pack. Spud saw me and stepped a red Doc towards me.
‘Here’s your book back Spud,’ I reach my arm out to hand it to him, but he did not take it.
‘Keep it Stefanie, I have a few copies.’
I smile, and turn towards the door. I step a black Doc out onto the path that leads to the school bus shelter. I walk until I reach the metal gate that leads out to the bus stop and open it. The black curl curtain now neatly tied up. Cicada wings ring in my ears and the sickly waft of sticky pollen fills my young lungs. Schools out for the day. I walk along the cement path, avoiding patches of aged gum. I pass by the bus, Terry the driver waves and I wave back. I reach back into my own ink stained backpack and grab out my silver Discman. I press the earbuds into my naked ears. I press play. The corner of my mouth lifts up slightly into a smile, and I begin tapping a black polished finger nail on the front of my leg to Johnny…Rzeznik.
I walk on, down the hill, I take in the vivid greens of the tree ferns that parallel the wooden path of Noosa hill. I squint at the sun as I take in the sparkling ocean view, and the salty, humid breeze stings my chapped lips and rushes across my cheeks. The exhaled breath from the forest floats up and freshens my face with its woody notes and waft of pine. I walk on. Johnny drowns out ‘fake street’. Hastings Street. I walk past it onto the bridge. I stop as I come to my street and I look up. The row of white rendered townhouses stretches across the whole corner block like a perfect smile. Palm trees line the front garden and the river laps silently at the end of the street. I reach into my backpack and turn up the volume on my discman. Then I pull out the book with the red cover and clutch it firmly to my chest. As I cross the road, I picture Le Revè. Her breast, a bathing sun. Phallic face with lips half done and I am god.
***
Find more from Stefanie on Twitter, and check out her editing work over at Paper Road Magazine, a publication supporting emerging writers just like we do!
