We are right now with
our backs to the sunset of a cold winter Wednesday, facing a brittle East
River. I’m interviewing Dora Flis for the second time in a month and, today, I
didn’t forget to bring the recorder.
M: Dora, tell me, people talks a lot about your infidelity.
How does Dora Flis tackle her sexual instability?
D: Why, you rush me into the entreé with a greeting vomit.
Let’s clear this out. I’m not unstable, dear. My vulnerabilities come from
other branches, not the sexual ones. First, determine well the woods you want
to unravel; then I might help you. Your cleverness will have to be as thick and
leafy as abundant and sublimated my emergency exits.
M: Dora, I’m a simple woman, unable to imagine big or small
details, no matter how universaly human they are, about your mosaic, convoluted
life. I hardly believe you are mortal, like me, I bet your dentition (or set f
teeth) is (are) not susceptible to cavities. You are an arrogant who can do
without morning coffee, who is not a slave to his physiological needs neither
to her tyrant passions.
D: Thank you, but not all is true. To fall over to passion
is something of an adiction I adopted a while ago, and I renew my votes to them
annually. I wear the habit of the converted fanatic. Thus yes, I am defenseless
(exposed?). Unfortunatelly, I travelled towards a unwealthy man.
M: You are talking about the writer.
D: You can banish yourself to another country, it’s your
legitimate right to carry your protest as far as you want, but you cannot
accept as a temple for retreat any –just any- body in ruins. No, no, neit,
nine. The scape must be realized in its entirety, in its whole & just
dimension. This is about matching up the register of the shapes or scores, to
highlight the borders of the invisible silhouette –that mobile space that each
of us occupies—with its precise margins. This is the case of a stubborn man –or
better yet, a goat—a stubborn goat, climbing a pile of problems. The mountain
he thinks he can conquer is not a magic moutain: it’s a mirage. The escape,
some say, any kind of escape, brings a loaf of bread (to the escaper)
underneath the arm. But one’s got to drag the root, bear with it in order to
re-plant oneself & grow anywhere. He is a true clinical case: he has a
hologram complex. And that Russian bitch, Lila, bipolar and manic depressive,
is another case of one who makes a Jackson Pollock mess out of her self
portrait.
M: It’s easy for you to assert such statements after your divorce
with Sal Buckman. I remember when you used to speak about him with kindness. He
wounded you for so many years with his psychological abuse; I wish my repertoire
of foul words would help you adjust the bill with him given that I’m a polyglot.
But what good would it do to play the owl biting worms; this interview is not
for me. Maybe some other day. People say you he is currently in a new
relationship.
D: ¿With Ana María?
Look, between my “I’m in love” and his “I was in love” there’s a cardiac
chronometric record of an abbyss, and a cheap shorthand typist. An irreconciliable chronotopy, an unresolved
welding, a deconstructive gig, a frontal crash against the floor on the already
smashed better half.
M: It’s raining, Dora. Can you see?
D: Listen to me, then. Have the stars open their faucets, let
the dome of each drop burst into dew of nothing. “Rain as a horde, hasty rain…”
everything is distorted at the key of this poem, everything turns into itself.
Have you seen the nucleus of a drop of water?
M:…
D: No? The nucleus of a drop of water is another drop of
water.
M: A Mise en abime
of H2O, placed into abyss, or hydraulic Chinese boxes.
D: A drop occupies a very limited space, and it’s the sum of
thin liquid skins, at least seven layers.
M:…
D: Doubt, my friend, it’s all right to hesitate to believe.
It’s a sign of intelligence. Rehearse theories, look, begin with this sample, a
fresh tear.
M: Oh, but don’t cry, Dora, please, it’s unnecessary…
D: What? Do you think I’m serious? I put up acts wherever I
go. Does the sun follow your path? Test with your shadow his pursuit. He is a
forgetful passenger, always coming back to you. He did it today, and I’m
thirty.
M: You were also thirty when the episode at The Giraffe
restaurant happened, twenty years ago. You’re always thirty…
D: And I’m not inclined for less than that.
M: here, a tissue. Dry out those tricks off your face. Dora
Flis, there have been some accusations against you in some of those hot news
magazines. Do you read hot news magazines?
D: Yes honey, I’m subscribed to all but I never read the
section of complaints from the exiled. It’s
a basic policy I follow: Never read complaints from the exiled.
M: A paradox, huh? You who is a major case of an exiled from
the human vessel.
D: I only allow myself one exception. I never miss reading
the section on The Roaming Poet.
M: You mean that
poet.
D: Yes. Those who go on exile and practice buoyancy, those
that don’t demand emotional passports nor trade agreements; the stowaways. That, that sailor.
