Marguerite Duras crowed about nothing. And nothingness. Lyrics like so much silky water threaded in the raptures of an eddy. Whirling, heady, intoxicating, a dizzying effect that spoke sheerest volumes about the secret history of love. Love for M.D. was hard water on a balmy summer’s day, crossing the Mekong in memory of crossing the Mekong once upon a time. The scent of eucalyptus. A ceiling fan wafting a pathetic breeze. Death in the early afternoon. Waiting. There was a lot of waiting in Duras. A lot of halted expectations, dashed hopes, and elliptical orbits. She circles—to move, to not go anywhere. Forward motion and progress are reviled, scorned, dismissed. She is the asthmatic schoolmarm from the tropics with a twist of acidic chagrin in her bald, bare-faced lessons.
