The shock of this section offers its own contrast with the story so far, but its descriptive texture echoes the language of the story’s opening section. The brutality of the murders described in such visceral language confronts the reader. We are struck by a scene so opposed to the glossy postcards referenced in the collection’s title. The following section, in which Nadia describes her apartment and her life on Tahiti is all the more disquieting because we now know what future awaits her.
we live in an apartment building drenched by excessive rains squeezed into a tiny studio balcony above a street choked with fumes from gassy engines in droning cars too narrow for a chair where I stand and wait as he leaves me for his workday my vast horizon ends inside the studio’s mouldy walls my boundless futures drown in the harbour’s oily waters my everyday gloom chokes on Mathieu’s lifeless words on his subdued manner on his defeated smiles he isn’t a black pearl trader he doesn’t have a steady job I feel shamefully useless weighing down our dwindling expenses I lose hope appetite sleep he loses the last of his money in poker a friend lends us an apartment some money expecting a job any day he smiles at me although you could work to start paying off our debts cover the rent some bills I like his smile
A careful reading reveals that the apartments described in the two preceding sections are not the same, and we know we’re missing a crucial piece from the story even as we are aware of Nadia’s ultimate fate. Spitz has arranged each section carefully, unfurling the narrative in pieces while directing our affective reaction through the contrasting textures of her work. While we already see the overall picture, we must follow along closely to understand the details that make sense of it. The next section returns to the murderer’s perspective, and his excitement sits unsettlingly as we begin to suspect his identity.
my heart gone mad gallops to burst from my chest I create a face a body to suit her sad voice that grips my body in a painful need and behind my eyelids silently the waves of my desire undulate in sprays of possession of satisfaction of pleasure capsising the surroundings in storms of overriding urgency freezing my thoughts stiffening my movements swelling my sex I wander in my reality now caught like an unmoving fog at the edge of imagination tied mind stumbling over a monstrous pipe dream never to come true as though my pathetic sexuality should only ever take place in conjugal space and this powerlessness to call forth a self other than the outrageously dull man I’m used to generates in my depths a bitter disgust for which the sole cure is total communion with her unmade
As the murderer conjures an image of Nadia to suit his increasing desperation, Nadia’s own despair over her situation takes on greater urgency for the reader. Though the story is written, the entirety of the tableau already pieced together, we are helplessly caught in the narrative Spitz reveals. A final cycle of perspectives seals everyone’s fate, beginning with a short glimpse from the objective third-person perspective.
Nadia Vermont and Mathieu Joubert are identified after long and involved autopsies they have lived in Pape’ete for four years
