Once a woman realizes she can exist separately from the reality of the world, she is free. She can entrap herself in a dimension formed solely by her perspective — cut out any external gazes. Yet she will still have to live in the same world that she has rejected. And even if other realities don’t concern her, even if she is fully satisfied within her self-manufactured life, the world will continue to treat her the way the world sees her, which will stand as a constant obstacle. Even when a woman figures out how to live with herself, she cannot live within this world.
“You memorized it.” She said “It’s revolutionary” and fixed the scratching straps of her dress so they would fall over her shoulders. “I took a class in high school about feminist theory. That’s when I read your book. It changed the way I see everything.”
An old man with a face red from all the drinking and a pipe sticking out of the pocket of his suit stormed right into the conversation and grabbed the young woman by the waist. “Su,” he burped — with elongation of the u — “come with me. My friends want to meet you.” The girl looked at me apologetically.
I watched her being thrown around a group of old men like some basketball.
Dad liked scarves with different textures. He had a preference for which ones to put on depending on the weather, the time, the sentiment. On my birthday, he would always wear one with purple fur and silver spikes. At mom’s funeral, he wore a gigantic wool one that almost covered his entire face; it looked like a python strangling his neck.
My mom and dad had an outdoor cinema. I wanted to become an actress so I left Athens and went to New York. My life was as life is, neither good nor bad, sometimes uneventful and dull, then suddenly promising and exciting. At one night rehearsal in drama school, I became the seventh student my acting teacher had raped,
and with that act my dreams abandoned me. I had no interest in becoming a pair of tits on a screen. Or a pair of beautiful eyes. Or a singular talent. Not because I didn’t want to be objectified, but because I saw no reason to turn myself into a source of external entertainment.
I never stopped loving films, though, so I delved into the theory, into the history of women in film, and so I became a writer, a theorist and scholar, well-respected, never well-rested, but satisfied with doing something I could do. If I was ever able to have another dream, my new one would be to protect women from the world — but especially the world of art.
The only woman who could see what I was there to do was Marta Palóa. I found her as soon as she entered the gallery.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Hello.” “Hi. My name is Irene.” “Marta.” “Nice to meet you.” “I have something to tell you but there is no time to explain. You just have to believe me.”