May 1, 2002

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Epiphany with Hundertwasser

chapter two of Journeys with Justine

by Janine Canan

Justine stood in the university art gallery, looking Hundertwasser's paintings up and down: Red, green, yellow, blue, metallic gold -- ribbony rivers of color -- labyrinthine cities, geologies, cosmologies of color.

Simultaneously, Hundertwasser was looking her up and down: Twenties, firm calves, intelligent neck, dangling earrings, serious long brown hair, stunning short orange velour dress.

Justine looked straight back at him: Petit, black velvet suit, bohemian, interesting, accomplished. Mammoth butterflies of flattery and intrigue fluttered around her.

And suddenly dawn flooded the little gallery with epiphanic light. I could be doing this for the rest of my life, serving as inspiring muse to a Creative Man. Instantaneously her bright mind skimmed over the handsome Greek microbiologist, melancholic Hungarian existentialist, androgynous Canadian poet, famed German novelist who wrote love poems to food.

I must live my own life. This thought jolted her, so her sandaled foot turned and walked her out of the gallery before the affair ever began. She hadn't even had a good look at all of his paintings.

Luna

When Rosy said, "This is Luna," Justine leaned all the way forward in her seat, but it was too dark to see. As they stepped out of the movie house into the off-beat lights of Greenwich Village, she felt a frizzy bundle in a black coat beside her.

So this is the notorious radical lesbian feminist I keep hearing about, she thought as they wove between cars, making their way across the narrow alley into The Peacock. Justine looked at the large paintings of Venetian canals that hung in massive gold frames on all the dimly lit mauve walls, while Rosy ordered cappuccinos. Turning toward Justine and leaning very close, Luna began, "Rosy tells me you're still studying," Her voice was husky and dripping with honey. "And afterward, what will you do?" The small dark eyes in the pale round face pierced her deeply, and Justine replied instantly, "Write." "Write what ?" Luna's voice rose to a screech and burst into laughter.

Lifting the hot cappuccino to her lips, Justine, who had always thought of writing as pouring out her soul, suddenly had doubts. Luna, bending over and drawing something out of her satchel on the floor, emerged with a thin black book in her hand and spread it open on the pink marble table. "You must go to these," she said with a wand-like wave of her ivory hand. Without a thought, Justine began to copy: Kate Millet at the Women's Salon, Laura Perls at the Women's Therapy Center, Harold Searles lecture on schizophrenia, Off-Broadway theater performances.

A week later Justine arrived at the auditorium where the well-known psychoanalyst was interviewing a patient with schizophrenia. After two hours of listening to the analytic probing of a young woman who exhibited shiny purple pants, an expressionless demeanor and tangential replies, the audience flowed dazedly back onto the street. At the corner Luna was descending into the subway. Waving at Justine, she shouted, "Come to my birthday party! Tonight, 88 Bleecker, sixth floor! Come!"

Around nine o'clock Justine arrived at number 88, climbed the wide wooden staircase to the sixth floor and knocked. Since no one answered, she gave a push and the heavy door opened with a groan. Inside, a high ceilinged room, full of exceptionally tall people, droned with strong vibrations. Near the door a book bulged out of the shelf, and Justine pulled it down: Being and Nothingness, Sartre's monument to existential despair, its pages copiously underlined, notes inked across the margins.

Stepping into the warmly illumined room, Justine skirted the walls and studied the innumerable objects arranged in glass cases. Her gaze ran up a brick wall, which extended along one side of the loft, to the paintings of crowds of weeping clowns. In the center of the loft she saw a large multi-layered birthday cake and at the far end of the room, near a king-sized purple waterbed with heart-shaped white satin pillows, surrounded by a circle of Amazons, stood Luna. Her piercing eyes cut across the room to Justine, who was moving toward her, entranced. "Happy Birthday, what a fabulous place," she managed. Chuckling with delight, Luna handed her a huge joint. Justine inhaled once or twice, and the next thing she knew was lying on the waterbed staring upward, rocking on the rhythmic waves that were carrying her out onto a wide ocean.

A week later, Justine telephoned Luna and invited her to the opening of Bergman's new film about three sisters, Cries and Whispers. Busy with therapy appointments, Luna suggested they meet afterward for dinner in one of her favorite Soho restaurants. Justine went to the movie alone, and afterward, still stunned by the bloody climactic scene, she stood on the curb, her long brown hair and cape flapping behind her as a cold wind swept down the skyscrapers and a taxi finally swooped to her side.

Babette's Feast was intimate and aromatic. Over the tasty meal, Luna pressed Justine with her relentless teasing questions, until she had drawn from her the story of her life. After dinner, Justine took Luna's arm, and they strolled down Broadway to The Duchess , where Luna drew Justine inside. Enveloped by the intoxicating aura of a bar full of women, Justine snuggled closer to Luna. "What makes you so sure I want to get involved?" Luna taunted in her velvety voice. Justine ignored the question and stroked her soft round cheek. " "Have you seen the queens?" Luna asked abruptly. "They're out after midnight. Let's go, let's go see the queens." She yanked on Justine's arm, and Justine reluctantly rose from her seat.

Luna normally slept only two hours. She loved the night, which she usually spent in the Village. As they walked, Luna greeted with mocking affection her countless acquaintances, the extravagantly appareled queens, and even random strangers. After a few hours Justine was exhausted and begged to go home. "You can do it, come on, let's go in this bookstore," Luna insisted as if it were an important rite of passage. Pulling Justine inside, she picked up a little book and slipped it into her pocket. Once they were back on the street, she handed it to Justine with the words, "Here, you need this." "But you didn't pay for it," Justine stammered, blushing uncomfortably.

The sky was turning light. Looking more deeply into Luna's eyes, she saw how different one was from the other. "Glass," Luna interjected, reading her thought. "Poked out by a toy when I was two. It still hurts. Wanna come with me to the ophthalmologist tomorrow, before the big Women's March? You'll be the first to see me without my eye. Come, ple-ease." Though Justine felt afraid to look into that empty abyss, she agreed.

"Time for breakfast"&emdash;Luna was impatiently yanking her hand&emdash;"Everyone's already at the diner." On the way Justine opened the tiny jewel-like volume, A Seed by Dane Rudhyar, which Luna had stolen for her, and skimmed it as she walked: We need a planetary approach…. the individual …so well established in his own identity that he can afford to co-operate with other people all over the world …. a new type of human being… body, mind, soul, feelings, everything… identified with the wholeness… only the seed men and women…really count….

*

The next day Justine left her Auden class early and walked across town to Luna's. It was a bright windy afternoon. The loft was undulating to the love sounds of Donna Summer, as she entered. Luna smilingly placed her hand on Justine's abdomen. "A real woman," she sighed with ironic awe. "And so separate." "And what are you?" Justine questioned in reply. "Me, I'm in despair," she said cheerfully and sighed an even deeper sigh. Overhead Justine heard the padded steps of Bunny pacing, Luna's former lover whose tragic clowns adorned the walls of the loft. Long ago Luna had pursued the gifted painter who, once caught, turned out to be schizophrenic. Dropping the study of philosophy, she took up psychoanalysis and tried to cure Bunny, but painfully learned that Bunny was incurable.

"Come on." Luna was tugging at Justine's silk sleeve. "Let's go out." On the street she flagged a hopped-up car transporting two muscley youths. "Afraid of me?" she jeered from the curb and turned away, laughing uproariously. Now Justine tugged at Luna, "Come on, let's go."

Soon the two were comfortably seated in another of Luna's savory, candle-lit cafes, with Luna pointing at various couples, exclaiming, "Look at him! Look at her! They're miserable together!" Justine turned her head and saw that it was true. They went on to the Pink Flamingos, and afterward took a long stroll through the Village. As she swaggered chuckling down the street, Luna seemed to know everyone.

By three in the morning Justine and Luna were finally alone, in the depths of a subway station eerily lit with greenish fluorescence. At the far end of the platform a solitary man could be seen. To Justine's horror, Luna lunged toward him, demanding to know, "Which one of us do you prefer? Her or me?" "Look at her, she's beautiful, a real woman. But I'm regular, you can talk to me. I bet you prefer me." Stunned, he jerked back his head and nodded in agreement.

Justine spent months in that magnified world of Luna's, where people didn't sleep, genders were exchangeable, and privacy did not exist. But more and more, she found herself dreaming of the sun racing down to caress her whole being with its healing beams, enveloping her in yellow blooms and sunny perfumes. Gazing off somewhere, she was lost to the sticky acacias of California, calling her. "I see you doing that schizy stuff," Luna buzzed around her like a mosquito. "You don't have to go home, you know," she attempted, but her tone sounded pale and hollow. All of a sudden, as if waking from a spell, Justine erupted with a ferocity that shook them both, "Yes, I do! "

One sunny afternoon, standing on the sidewalk of Broadway, Justine kissed Luna good-bye and climbed into the airport taxi. As it pulled away, she heard Luna crying out, "Remember, you are not alone," and then her crazy bubbling laughter.

That fall, seated on the wood floor amidst a dozen unpacked boxes in her new Berkeley flat, Justine reached for a postcard from Luna. Bright light streamed through the skylight onto the card, which was post-marked "Rhode Island". She turned it over and read Luna's small black script: "I'm levitating with lesbian Sufis. Come! -- Love, Luna."

Months later, from farther north in Maine, came some Rajneesh Love pamphlets inscribed with, "Come! Come! -- Love, Luna." And late one night, just as Justine was climbing into bed, the phone rang, and it was Luna. She had sold her loft, given away all of her possessions, purchased a van and was on her way to New Mexico. "Abandon your studies, Justine," she yelled across thousands of miles. "You're trapped. Don't you see?"