Melusine Van der Weyden is flighty.
She comes and goes as she pleases. She is not very good about keeping appointments, yet in the end she always comes through. Maybe this is why I tolerate her?
Melusine is more interested in words than in images. She has been in my life since mid-June 2015, but most of what I know about Melusine is through the words she has written to others about herself and her adventures. She appears to me to be an avid correspondent.
This past summer Melusine agreed to work collaboratively with me on a series of collage-prints. She contributed at the start by sharing stories of people she met during a recent vacation in Naples, FL. Then she left me alone in the studio to visually work out who these people are. Before she left she agreed to add text to the collages prior to our exhibiting them jointly in Berlin in July-August.
But, she disappeared.
Before she left she wrote a note with a few biographical details.
Melusine van der Weyden b. December 5, 1970/ Germany. Muse, magician, mermaid, lebenskünstler, traveler and teller of tales.
Other bits of personal information I gathered from a letter of introduction she asked me to send on her behalf the previous summer. She wrote:
I am Melusine van der Weyden. Perhaps you recognize my name? I have been around
for quite a while; some even say I appear to be timeless. But appearances, like time
itself, can be deceiving. I admit that I alone have determined the varying pace by
which I travel this winding road; sometimes my cruise control is set to a sensual slow
as not to miss out on the innumerous delicacies placed upon the table, other times I
floor it to catch the butterfly as it breaks out of its cocoon and follow it as it flutters
along sipping the sweet nectar it finds along the way. What delicacies I have delighted
in traveling at all speeds!
Perhaps it is this play between the fast and slow which has created the illusion of
timelessness? Yes, understanding how to play two opposing elements to create a third
which is neither one nor the other; but is an unceasingly pulsating third, existing
uniquely in time or space, undefinable. A third experienced only by leaping into the
gap between the two, an act in which one gives oneself completely to the unknown.
***
She mentioned rather presumptuously that I would be writing her memoir.
I won’t.
After she wrote that letter Melusine disappeared, her usual way of being. This past spring she returned, shut herself up in the spare bedroom for a few days, and without any announcement where she was going suddenly left again. Her visit did produce a few works of Flash Fiction, or maybe a better term would be Flash Fictitious Memoir?
***
Wake Up
“Shit!”
Rings slam into the bridge of my nose, propelling me up and forward in the bed. I clutch my face, eyes squeezed tightly shut to lessen the radiating pain.
“Yawh okay?”
An unrecognizable intonation mumbles up from beside me.
My nose still buzzing, I slowly turn my head with one eye closed, realizing the achiness is not just from the recent backhand. Glancing down at the prone body next to me, its hand outfitted with multiple gold rings grabs tight under a chin I have no sober recollection of, what must have been the pillow I’d laid my head upon. I look up, my eyes quickly adjusting as I scan the dark room.
Where?
Who?
“Sure. Need water and a pinkle.” I replied. The body next to me sends up a slight grunt and extended snore in response.
The chance to make a silent escape from the scene of yet another crime, I lift the covers off my legs and slide out of bed. Collecting clothes and bag scattered across the floor while trying to avoid the smell of my breath bouncing off my chest as I lean forward; the smell, the stickiness between my thighs, and that familiar feeling of deep relaxation wrapping around my lower back tells me it must have been a successful night, at least in one regard.
Seeing two doors I open the one on the right, another bad choice to add to today’s growing list. Bathroom is the one on the left? Another closet. Opening a third door I see a carpeted hallway where I throw on panties, bra, dress and sandals. Down the corridor the sun rise begins to light a living room through gauzy sheers covering a sliding glass door.
How’d I get here?
Opening my bag I find my phone, lipstick and wallet, a set of keys and a folded sheet of paper. Attached to the keys is a plastic rectangle with a tiny piece of paper stuck in the middle.
A calendar alert: flight in one hour.
“Siri, how do I get to the airport?”
***
Flight
Windowless corridor, I could be anywhere in the world, any time on any day. These places all look the same, people moving through in a trance-like state. Nowhere people in a nowhere land.
At the check-in counter, the line is gone. Just in time. Laying my passport and confirmation sheet on the counter I place my bag on the scale.
“Just made it Ms. Van der Weyden.” the airline rep says.
“Yes, traffic was a pain.”
“It can be that way at times.” the rep mumbles as she types away.
It is not even five AM.
“Here you go; Gate 20, Terminal B. You have 10 minutes before they close the gate. I’ll let them know you’re on your way.” she says with a routine cheerfulness.
At the passport control a stone faced civil servant in a drab uniform glances up, down, up down, scans and then stamps my little red book before silently sliding it back to me through the slot.
Another long corridor lined with Duty-Free shops, always open. I approach Gate 20 and another airline rep calls out,
“Ms. Van der Weyden? ”
I step through the doors and am directed to an empty seat.
First class? I wonder who is paying for this? I know it’s not me.
Twenty minutes later, after the ground is beneath us, separated by air and a few thousand feet of water. My sea tback is in the down position.
“A drink?” the steward asks.
“Yes, thank you.”
It’s going to be a long time before I reach my destination.
I stare out the window into a blue stillness, above the clouds now just the loud drone in my ears and head tells me I’m moving forward and not hanging here, suspended in time and space.
I wonder if she knows I’m coming?
***
Arrival
Twenty hours later the guy next to me leans across, trying to see out the window,
“Did you hear they think the Endeavor was sunk down there?”
“Funny where things and people end up.” I reply, hoping he’ll stay on his side for the remainder of the flight.
We’re flying back down the bay in a slow descent. Smooth as silk until the wheel hits a pothole in the runway and the wings quickly tip to the right. The pilot jerks the plane back to the left before we scrap the asphalt and over the intercom announces,
“Oops! Sorry about that.”
It is morning again as I pull out of the rental garage and onto the airport connector.
No traffic, it must be Saturday.
A light is shining from the kitchen window at the back of the house. She’s up early or didn’t sleep much again.
Standing at the back door wearing her white robe, hair grey and tangled, she snaps at me in a quiet voice.
“I thought you said you were coming last year?”
“I was delayed. Besides, you were busy with other things.”
“I’m still busy with other things!” she grunts, teeth clenched.
“I’m here to help you now.”.
“Well, you can’t stay for long. I still have things I need to do before I go.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t be here long. Just enough time to begin gathering our thoughts a bit more coherently. Then I’ll be off. I won’t be back until you are ready for me.”
“That might be a while.” she snidely snaps.
“Next week then,” I say as I close the guest room door.
***
During that brief visit she did give me an email address. She seemed to have gone digital in the time she was away; although from what I could gather she still prefers handwritten correspondence, calling letters and postcards a lost art form.
She has a point.
Maybe she wanted the freedom of an unmediated ability to correspond with others that her own email account would provide her? Or it was a way of obtaining a virtual home, a place to leave her words while traveling?
Her address is melusinevanderweyden@hotmail.com.
If you feel like sending her an email, please do. She always answers except when she doesn’t. I wrote to her and that is how I discovered she had gone to Florida.
When she left again in mid-June I emailed her a second time, then she was less forthcoming as to her whereabouts. Some things are probably best left unknown when it comes to Melusine. She did promise me she’d meet me in Berlin to finish the collages. And she did.
Despite having obtained her own email account she does not own a computer, and seems to be neither a handy thumbtexter nor in general technologically savvy. When she was around she’d used my computer to generate her correspondences, and so she wouldn’t forget her login bookmarked her web mail page and saved the password. As I said, not technologically savvy. But then, she probably isn’t too concerned with identity theft.
Now I can keep track of her thoughts and whereabouts.
I half expected her to hang around Berlin for the month I’d be there; but knew she probably would not. From the description she wrote of my Berliner abode I can guess why. I found this in an email she sent, it is a pretty accurate description. In the same email I learned that Melusine can be at times philosophical, or opinionated, in her own rambling way.
She said I am welcome to stay with her here in Berlin. Not too magnanimous as it might seem; I think she has come to realize I don’t stay in one place very long, nor do I take up much space wherever I do decide to while. This is a good thing in this place which is quite small, a monastic cell of dingey white cobweb covered walls, concrete floor and chipped paint in Wedding. A bed with antique oval mirror hung above, a set of three drawers tagged with indecipherable letters lounging in a green hilly landscape under blue skies and splattery spray painted white clouds, a rickety table, two faded olive green rough cloth GDR office chairs, a desk lamp on a bookshelf containing language learning books, the best of Candace Bushnell, Dan Brown and The Devil Wears Prada, all in German of course, makes up the large room. In the entry cold water runs in a stainless steel sink set in a roughly cobbled up kitchenette (you could hardly even call it such) with two electro-burners, electric kettle and a refrigerator cube set on a shelf beneath. Next to the kitchen row is a moldy shower in a small bathroom where the toilet sits raised on a pedestal 20 cm above ground. At least the shower has ample warm water. After a quick trip to Lidl for cleaner and a scrub brush and much elbow grease she has managed to reduce the dimension of the band of black running along the edges, joints and corners of the shower stall. It smells. Airing only does so much with the trash bins for this block stationed directly in front of the windows. Of course then the flies, and gnats,and the black cat with the paw permanently bent under after its encounter with a fox in the street late one night, slip into the apartment while she sits typing, reading and painting. I shooed the cat out again just this morning!
***
What I do know is that people need to live the life they need to live. However complex or complicated it might become, arrangements, accommodations can be found. Nothing will be ideal or perfect because both are illusions; the happiness, or rather contentedness, that come from leading that life is no illusion. But most people are blinded and confined to a space by the desire created within themselves by illusion rather than seeing the that the greater desire exists in and lead them to an unbound space that is their life.
***
Soon after arriving in Berlin she came across some writing that peaked her interest and upon learning that the writer, a very reclusive type, might be in Vienna she somehow managed to find a connection to take her in search of another ego. The following are excerpts from emails she wrote describing her travels in search of Herr P.
Saturday I was at the Autorenbuchhandlung on Savignyplattz http://www.autorenbuchhandlung.com where I inquired if they had any of his writings or knew anything more to his whereabouts. The bookseller was not able to find anything of his in their stock and they have nearly everything ever published, but another customer overheard our conversation.
This gentleman told me while living in Vienna in the late 1980s he had made the acquaintance of a Herr P., a bit of a recluse with a memorable name. This gentleman thought this Herr P. was a wordsmith of sorts. Although he had a hard time believing this for as few words ever came out of the guys mouth, some people seem to exist more on paper he guessed. This gentleman and I arranged to meet Sunday for coffee and further conversation.
We met up again at this little place in Prenzlauer Berg and [surprise!] he thought he might know of Herr P.’s whereabouts. By contacting old, mutual friends in Vienna he learned that P., though having spent much of the time since their last encounter wandering throughout the world, was indeed back in Vienna. Imagine that!
We had a lovely day. So lovely I've just now arrived back at the cell. Seeing that R. will be so busy and her thoughts engaged with other things these next few days I decided to take up the offer this gentleman made me, and accompany him to Vienna later today for the remainder of the week. He thinks he might be able to arrange a meeting with Herr P. so that I can speak with him directly about his writing.
***
As yet no sign of Herr P. and I am starting to suspect the gentleman from the bookstore was simply leading me down a dark alley, particularly after last night. Oh well, two can play that game; and besides, that game is best played with at least one other player. I'm not much for solitaire.
***
So, my excursion to Vienna appears to have been in vain. Herr B. did make contact with his friends who are acquaintances of Herr P. and they confirmed for us he is indeed back haunting the cafes and kneipen of the former hauptstadt of the kuk. But, as you mentioned to R., he is definitely a recluse, avoiding contact with even his oldest friends. They told us which places they've heard through rumor he was most likely to be found. I went daily with Herr B., sitting for hours drinking coffee and other liquid sustenances, waiting for him to waltz across our paths.
Once, for a brief moment I caught sight of him. A gentleman of late middle age was sitting with his back towards me on the other side of a cafe just off the Ringstrasse reading a small volume of the poems of Rilke. Thanks to the mirrored wall he faced into which I looked I could clearly see his face: Herr P. was sitting a few meters from me! He's aged well, or at least I can say he is a pleasure to the eyes, especially when one is staring into the blank page that is the face of Mr. Bookstore.
Herr P. must have felt my eyes were upon him, he looked up into the mirror where our eyes met for a split second. Just then the bookstore guy spilled a glass of water across the marble table top. As I quickly looked down to wipe up the mess he made Herr P. grabbed the opportunity to make his exit. I saw his shadow across the table as he passed by and felt the breeze enter the room as he slipped out the door.
I knew then I would not be meeting him in Vienna, he's probably already left the city. So I told Mr. Bookstore I wanted to return to my spot on the shelf in Berlin that night.
***
Mr. B. contacted me, in hopes of regaining my attention, apparently he has his own longings and desires embodied in moi, by providing a new lead on the elusive P. The mutual acquaintances in Wien confirmed that day at the Kaffeehaus he did recognize me pursuing him, this led to his sudden escape. He does seem to want to not reveal himself; apparently that evening he hopped a train to Paris in hopes of keeping himself free from the demands of meeting the desires of another which would prevent him from focusing on his own. Mr. B. offered to take me to Paris. How could I resist when he was paying?
Once in the city of lights I searched for a map that might lead me to the emotional, if not physical corner Herr P. might be hiding in. These things are not sold in corner shops! So I went back to where I originally encountered him…
***
She came back home with me so that we could finish the collages and to help out with some freelance writing gigs I’ve picked up on Craigslist. Unlike the experience with the studio assistant post a number of legit writing/editing jobs have come our way.
Melusine uses her email account to reply to all these inquires and explains our joint effort on each writing project. She and I are fascinated by the number of request we have received to collaborate on writing projects, or to ghost-write memoirs. I have been able to discourage her so far in taking any of these on, but I get the feeling she is really tempted to someday ghost-write someone else’s memoir.
In Berlin Melusine decided that she’d like to, start a Facebook page of her own, as a presence on social media is a key part of personal identity for many people in the 21st century. She was curious of her own profile.
Unfortunately the Facebook ‘fraud detector’ in Germany found her name suspicious, and despite having her own email account she could not open a Facebook account while in Berlin. Back in the States she conjured an alter ego of her own, Melanie Weiden, and opened the Facebook account under that identity. As of today Melanie Weiden has six friends, one of whom sent her a friend request. If you’d like, feel free to friend Melusine/Melanie on Facebook.
Although Melusine has been around the longest and is perhaps at the heart of the project, I am still unsure of what role she will play, if any. Maybe it will be only as a slightly outside observer who records what is happening from her point of view in her correspondences with others or on her Facebook page? Maybe she will go away?
