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holding the hose and soaking the house when she looked down
and saw what first appeared to be the portrait of Bruce walking. The large,
life size painting was moving away from the house and two feet showed below the
frame, two feet in shoes just below the naked feet of the painting.
    The first thing he had asked of her was to stop
painting animals and women and to paint a portrait of him. He had shown her the
long hairs which grew on his ear lobes and said: “You know that I am Pan, and I
want you to paint me as Pan.” He had posed nude, in the red-gold afternoon sun
of Mexico, always showing the same half-smile, the pleasure loving, non-human
smile of Pan. He loved the painting, admired it every day. It was the god of the
household. When they traveled, it was he who had packed it lovingly. He would
say: “If any injury came to this painting, it would damage me, something fatal
would happen to Pan.”
    And so today this was Bruce rescuing Bruce, or
Bruce rescuing Pan in himself. At first the painting turned its luminous face
to her, but as he proceeded down the hill she saw him behind the painting in
dungarees and a thick white sweater. She saw a group of firefighters below; she
saw the expression on their faces as the painting walked towards them, as they
saw first of all a naked Pan with faunish ears, a walking painting with feet,
and then the apparition of the same figure dressed in everyday costume
upholding its twin, duplicate half-smile, duplicate hands; and they looked startled
and puzzled, as if it were superfluous to rescue a mere reproduction of an
original.
    So Bruce saved Pan, and Renate saved the house
but the fire seemed to have finally consumed their relationship.
    But after a few days he returned to her.
    “After being with you, Renate, other women seem
like baby foods after being on heroit;
    He had spent the time searching for a remedy
for their relationship.
    “It is my secrecy which makes you unhappy, my
evasions, my silences. And so I have found a solution. Whenever you get
desperate with my mysteries, my ambiguities, here is a set of Chinese puzzle
boxes. You have always said that I was myself a Chinese puzzle box. When you
are in the mood and I baffle your love of confidences, your love of openness,
your love of sharing experiences, then open one of the boxes. And in it you
will find a story, a story about me and my life. Do you like this idea? Do you
think it will help us to live together?”
    Renate laughed and accepted. She took the
armful of boxes and laid them away on the top shelf of a closet.
    The time came again, when she felt she did not
possess a love; that a love which was mute, elusive, and vague was not really a
love. So she brought down the Chinese boxes, scattered them on the table,
picked one at random as a man plays roulette, and began with patience to slide
the polished slats. The beige wood painted with abstract designs of dark brown
created a new design each time which did not guide her through the baffling
labyrinth of panels and slats. But finally after long shuffling, sliding,
turning, she found the compartment and pulled out a tightly folded sheet.
    She read: “When I first met Ken I was
seventeen. He was only a year older but because his father had been a
missionary in China and he had been born there, he possessed a maturity I did
not have. He very soon dominated my life. He had no connection with the daily
world, only with dreams and fantasies. I stopped swimming, surf-boarding,
mountain climbing, gave up my other friends to be taken wholly into his magic
world. What imprisoned me, restricted me had no power over him. He was not even
aware of jobs, careers, studies, parents, duties, ties or responsibilities of
any kind. He confessed that he was helped by opium. But I refused to take it
with him. He admitted that since his return from China, unknown to his father,
he had been taking too much of it. Every now and then he would pass out. I
would come to his room and find him