ALCHEMIES OF THE HEART. David Dorian

the exterior membrane of a tree in search for insects hiding inside the trunk. There are government environmental agencies that monitor noise levels. This incident became magnified, forgetting that my birthday neurosis goes into high gear around the day of my entry into this world. I gulped my wine hoping the alcohol would sedate my disgruntled.

      “I’ve been thinking of turning our attic into a yoga studio,” my wife dropped.

      I was in no mood to discuss house renovation: workers traipsing on my floors with their industrial boots dragging planks of wood and sheetrock.

      “You think it’s a good idea?” she asked.

      “I don’t know,” I groaned.

      “I’d like to start teaching again. Maybe you’ll take some classes.”

      “Why don’t you rent studio space in some gym.”

      “I can do that, but I’d prefer having my own studio, and the attic is perfect.”

      “What about privacy? Students will be coming in and out. I don’t want to turn my home into a school. It’s a residence, not a dojo.”

      “The classes will be in the evening, and you’re never here in the evening.”

      “And on weekends? Housewives flock to yoga classes on weekends.”

      “I won’t do weekends.”

      “What’s for dessert?”

      “Black forest cake.”

      She walked to the kitchen and returned with a tray with a coffeepot and the cake.

      “What kind of renovation?” I asked.

      “I scheduled appointments with flooring contractors. I’ve not signed any contract. I wanted to talk to you first. I think some white pine flooring will gave the attic a pristine look.”

      “Pristine? You want to build a shrine?”

      “No, just a place that’s welcoming, a place for relaxation. We have to remove some boxes and store them in the garage,” she said. “I found photos.”

      Maren handed me a cardboard box full of snapshots illustrating many stages of Captain Jim Martin’s life: a smiling infant, an impish child, a clownish adolescent, a virile young man. An album contained grainy sepia snapshots of my stepfather in uniform with his army buddies. Many photographs highlighted an exuberant liberator of many Italian towns, surrounded by local Italian girls. In a photograph shot in an aristocratic living room belonging to some Junker, my father was sitting on a Baroque chair, throne-like, brandishing captured enemy flags, banners, and weapons he had looted from the retreating Germans.

      “Your father had lots of fun in Europe,” Maren commented.

      “That’s why men go to war,” I said.

      “There’s no war for you, my love,” she launched.

      I didn’t rise to the provocation.

      Every dawn I enter the operating room, I engage the enemy. It’s a carnage with many casualties. The clash lasts for hours. Sometimes, I am soundly beaten; other times, I prevail. Hostilities never end. There is a truce. We call it health. In those periods of nonaggression, life begins again, but not for long. The virus or the bacteria or some weak cellular tissue ruptures, or some accident rips organs, and the patients are rushed to the operating room, and I am summoned to plan the next assault.

      I set the photo album aside and continued prospecting my black forest cake.

      That night, my wife made love to me. Her body, I had thought, held no mysteries. I had caressed, tasted its fragrant sweetness a thousand times. Her geography, which I thought I knew intimately, now seemed alien. Her surfaces were alluringly unfamiliar. Her skin, which I had caressed countless times, was unidentifiable. Did my wife sense the proximity of another woman, a potential rival? Did that subliminal awareness cause glands to secrete more estrogen to oversexualize Maren, now threatened by Mantuo Luo? Estrogen, the female hormone is a Greek word—oistros, meaning literally “verve” and “inspiration” and the suffix “gen,” which is “producer of.” Estrogen is the maker of sexual desire, according to the ancient Greeks. Did this same intuited feeling of insecurity caused by the possible intrusion of another female into her mate’s life stimulate my wife’s hypothalamus to produce more oxytocin, that intimacy hormone? Or was my sensorial system being heightened by Mantuo Luo? Did my Chinese masseuse vivify my skin, refining my tactile connection, invigorating my nerve endings?

      The Jealous Gods

      Alvard Norst was my friend. With a face right out of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung, Alvard looked like a hero from a Nordic saga. He hovered over my life like an albatross over a lost sailboat.

      At the age of thirteen, this young Norwegian boy adorned the walls of his room with posters of Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. Alvard was an aficionado of black pornography. On the wall across his bed, he had framed a signed photograph of Jeannie Pepper, who had appeared in Chocolate Delights, Anal Innocence, Black Taboo, In and Out of Africa. Every morning he’d masturbate to Jeannie’s breast. His movie collection favored black exploitation films like I’m Gonna Get You Sucka, Across 110th Street, Black Heat, Coonskin, and Foxy Brown. Restless in his native village of Tromso, two hundred miles inside the Arctic Circle, this son of a fisherman bought a one-way ticket to New York. He boarded the USS Constitution, a drakkar of steel, for a maritime trek to the New World. Instead of seven hours by plane, Alvard, a true Viking, opted for a sea voyage, seven days in the North Atlantic crossing, fighting gales and squalls.

      Black girls and jazz had lured him to the New World. This silver-blond-haired youth with iceberg-blue eyes waited on tables at Birdland Jazz Club. He befriended musicians and became a protégé of New York’s jazz elite. They had never seen a whiter man than Alvard Norst.

      Imitating the lifestyle of the musicians he revered, he began playing the saxophone, using cannabis then cocaine, and became an addict. An overdose sent him to the emergency room at Good Samaritan Hospital, in Suffern, New York. As soon as he was released, he abused the drug again a second time and was committed again. While in detox, wrestling with dragons, he fell in love with his rehabilitation therapist. She was a black girl with an archetypal face who could have modeled for the best sculptor from Benin. She had a name right out of Greek mythology, Ariadne. Didn’t Ariadne guide Theseus out of the labyrinth? And with her assistance, didn’t he slaughter the Minotaur? Alvard, like his Nordic forebears, was superstitious particularly at the tender age of nineteen. He interpreted his encounter with Ariadne as an omen. He would slay the opiate monster that held him captive and sail in into the moonlit fjord with his paramour.

      They rented an efficiency studio in Astoria. He supported himself by playing the saxophone in jazz clubs. Their idyllic romance blossomed. He was happy with his Ariadne. But the gods are envious of mortals, and they are known to sow discord and consternation among the living who experience joy.

      A routine medical checkup revealed a lesion in the occipital lobe. Few months later, Ariadne died. To fight death, he registered for medical school. He was an exceptional student. Many reputed hospitals invited to join their staff. He chose Good Samaritan, where years ago he’d been treated for his substance abuse. That’s where we met.

      While writing this blurb about my friend, the phone rang. It was him. Dining at a Moroccan restaurant near the UN, he had met a Moroccan woman. She was a journalist, a dissident. The flavor of the week, I thought.