Back Cities of the Interior
Chapters (20)
  1. by
  2. Preface
  3. Ladders to Fire
  4. Main Characters
  5. Publishing History
  6. Prologue
  7. This Hunger
  8. Bread and the Wafer
  9. Children of the Albatross
  10. Main Characters
  11. Introduction
  12. The Sealed Room
  13. The Café
  14. The Four-Chambered Heart
  15. Beginning
  16. A Spy in the House of Love
  17. Publishing History
  18. Seduction of the Minotaur
  19. About the Author
  20. More Titles from Sky Blue Press

Sabina's head had fallen on her chest in a pose of contrition. "You don't believe that this man is here to arrest me?"

"No, Sabina, that is what you imagine. It is your own guilt which you have endowed this man with. You probably see this guilt mirrored in every policeman, every judge, every parent, every personage with authority. You see it with others' eyes. It's a reflection of what you feel. It's your interpretation: the eyes of the world on your acts."

Sabina raised her head. Such a flood of memories submerged her and hurt her so deeply she was left without breath. She felt such pain. It was like the pain of the "bends" felt by deep sea divers when they come to the surface too quickly.

"In your fabricated world, Sabina, men were either crusaders who would fight your battles for you, or judges continuing your parents' duties, or princes who had not yet come of age, and therefore could not be husbands."

"Free me," said Sabina to the lie detector. "Set me free. I've said that to so many men: 'Are you going to set me free?'" She laughed. "I was all ready to say it to you."

"You have to set yourself free. That will come with love..." said the lie detector.

"Oh, I've loved enough, if that could save one. I've loved plenty. Look at your notebook. I'm sure it is full of addresses."

"You haven't loved yet," he said. "You've only been trying to love; beginning to love. Trust alone is not love, desire alone is not love, illusion is not love, dreaming is not love. All these were paths leading you out of yourself, it is true, and so you thought they led to another, but you never reached the other. You were only on the way. Could you go out now and find the other faces of Alan, which you never struggled to see, or accept? Would you find the other face of Mambo which he so delicately hid from you? Would you struggle to find the other face of Philip?"

"Is it my fault if they only turned one of their faces towards me?"

"You're a danger to other human beings. First of all you dress them in the costume of the myth: poor Philip, he is Siegfried, he must always sing in tune, and be everlastingly handsome. Do you know where he is now? In a hospital with a broken ankle. Due to immobility he has gained a great deal of weight. You turn your face away, Sabina? That was not the myth you made love to, is it? If Mambo stopped drumming to go home and nurse his sick mother, would you go with him and boil injection needles? Would you, if another woman loved Alan, would you relinquish your child's claims upon his protectiveness? Will you go and make of yourself a competent actress and not continue to play Cinderella for amateur theatres only, keeping the artificial snow drop which fell on your nose during the snow storm long after the play is over as if to say: 'For me there is no difference at all between stage snow and the one falling now over Fifth Avenue'? Oh Sabina, how you juggled the facts in your games of desire, so that you might always win. The one intent on winning has not loved yet!"