Galilee

  It would be enough. He threw back his head, filled with a fierce exhilaration, and yelled up at the roiling clouds.

  “RACHEL! WAIT FOR ME!”

  Then he fell down on his knees and prayed to his father in heaven to deliver him safely from the storm his mother had made.

  IX

  i

  There was a great commotion in the house a few hours ago; laughter, for once. L’Enfant hasn’t heard a lot of laughter in the last few decades. I got up from my desk and went to see what the cause was, and encountered Marietta—holding the hand of a woman in jeans and a T-shirt—ambling down the hallway toward my study. The laughter I’d heard was still on their faces.

  “Eddie!” she said brightly. “We were just coming to say hello.”

  “This must be Alice,” I said.

  “Yes,” she replied, beaming with pride.

  She had reason. The girl, for all her simple garb, was slim and pretty; small-boned and small-breasted. Unlike Marietta, who enjoys painting herself up with kohl and lip gloss, Alice wore not a scrap of makeup. Her eyelashes were blonde, like her hair, and her face, which was milky white, dusted with pale, pale freckles. The impression such coloring sometimes lends is insipid, but such was not the case with this woman. There was a ferocity in her gray eyes, which made her, I suspected, a perfect foil for Marietta. This was not a woman who was going to take orders from anybody. She might look like buttermilk, but she most likely had an iron soul. When she took my hand to shake it, I had further proof. Her grip was viselike.

  “Eddie’s the writer in the family,” Marietta said proudly.

  “I like the sound of that,” I said, extricating the hand that did the writing before my fingers were crushed.

  “What do you write?” Alice asked.

  “I’m writing a history of the Barbarossa family.”

  “And now you’ll be in it,” Marietta said.

  “I will?”

  “Of course,” Marietta said. Then to me: “She’ll be in the book, won’t she?”

  “I guess so,” I responded. “If you really intend to bring her into the family.”

  “Oh we’re going to marry,” Alice said, laying her head fondly on Marietta’s shoulders. “I ain’t lettin’ this one out of my sight. Not ever.”

  “I’m going to take her upstairs,” Marietta said. “I want to introduce her to Mama.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” I told her. “She’s been traveling a lot, and she’s exhausted.”

  “It don’t matter, honey,” Alice said to Marietta. “I’m goin’ to be here all the time soon enough.”

  “So you two are going to live here at L’Enfant?”

  “Sure are,” Marietta said, her hand going up to her beloved’s face. She stroked Alice’s smooth cheek with the outer edge of her forefinger. Alice was in bliss. She closed her eyes languidly, snuggling her face deeper into the curve of Marietta’s neck. “I told you, Eddie,” Marietta said. “I’m in this for keeps. She’s the one . . . no question.”

  I couldn’t help hearing an echo of Galilee’s conversation with Cesaria on the deck of The Samarkand; how he’d promised that Rachel would be the idol of his heart hereafter; that there would be no other. Was it just a coincidence, or was there some pattern in this? Just as the war begins, and the future of our family is in doubt, two of its members (both notably promiscuous in their time) put their wild ways behind them and declare that they have found their soulmates.

  Anyway, the conversation with Marietta and Alice meandered on for a little while, pleasantly enough, before Marietta announced that she was taking Alice outside to look at the stables. Did I want to come? she asked me. I declined. I was tempted to ask if Marietta thought a visit to the stables was wise, but I kept my opinion to myself. If Alice was indeed going to be a resident here, then she was going to have to know about the history of the house—and the souls who’ve lived and died here—sooner or later. A visit to the stables would be bound to elicit questions: why was the place so magnificent and yet deserted? Why was there a tomb in their midst? But perhaps that was Marietta’s purpose. She might reasonably judge by Alice’s response to the atmosphere of palpable dread which clings about the stables how ready her girlfriend is for the darkest of our secrets. If she seems untroubled by the place, which well she might, then perhaps Marietta would sit her down for a couple of days and tell her everything. If on the other hand Alice seemed fearful, Marietta might decide to dole the information out in easy portions, so as not to drive her away. We’ll see.

  The point is they departed to go walk about, and I went back to my study to begin the chapter which will follow this, dealing with the arrangements for the funeral of Cadmus Geary, but the words refused to flow. Something was distracting me from the business at hand. I set down the pen, sat back in my chair and tried to work out what the problem was. I didn’t have to puzzle over it for very long. I was fretting about Marietta and Alice. I looked at the clock. It was by now almost an hour since they’d left the house to visit the stables. Should they not be back by now? Perhaps they were, and I hadn’t heard them. I decided to go and find out; plainly I wasn’t going to get a stroke of work done until I laid my unease to rest.

  ii

  It was by now the middle of the evening, and I found Dwight in the kitchen, sitting watching the little black-and-white television. Had he seen Marietta lately? I asked him. He told me no; then—obviously seeing my anxiety—asked if there was a problem. I explained that she had a guest and that the two of them had gone to visit the stables. He’s a smart man; he didn’t need any further information. He rose, picked up his jacket and said:

  “You want me to go and see that everything’s okay?”

  “They may have come back already,” I said. He went to check. Two minutes later he was back, having picked up a flashlight, reporting that there was no sign of Marietta about the house. She and Alice were presumably still outside.

  We set off; and we needed the flashlight. The night was dismal; the air cold and clammy.

  “This is probably a complete waste of time,” I said to Dwight as we made our way toward the dense screen of magnolia trees and azalea bushes which conceals the stables from the house. I very much hoped this was the case, but nothing about the journey so far had given me any reason for optimism. The unease which had got me up from my desk in the first place had escalated. My breathing was quick and jittery; I was ready for the worst, though I couldn’t imagine what the worst could be.

  “Are you armed?” I asked Dwight.

  “I always carry a gun,” he replied. “What about you?”

  I brought out the Griswold and Gunnison revolver. He trained the flashlight upon it.

  “Lordie,” he said. “That’s an antique. Is it safe to use?”

  “Luman told me it was fine.”

  “I hope to God he knows what he’s talking about.”

  I could see the expression on Dwight’s face from the light splashing up from our pale hands, and it was plain he was just as unnerved by the atmosphere as I was. I felt more than a little guilty. I’d instigated this adventure, after all.

  “Why don’t you give me the flashlight?” I said. “I’ll lead on.”

  He made no objection to this. I took the flashlight off him, trained it on the bushes ahead, and we began our trek afresh.

  We didn’t have much farther to go. Ten yards on and we cleared the shrubbery: the stables were fifty yards from us, their pale stone visible even in the murk. As I’ve pointed out before, the place is remarkable; an elegant building of some two thousand square feet, which might be mistaken for a classical temple, with its modest pillows and portico (which is decorated, though we couldn’t see it in the gloom, with a frieze of riders and wild horses). In its glory days it was an airy, sunlit place, filled with the happy din of animals. Now, as we came into its shadow, it seemed like one immense tomb.

  We halted in front of it. I splashed the flashlight beam over the enormous doors, whi
ch were open. The light barely penetrated beyond the threshold.

  “Marietta?” I said. (I wanted to shout, but I was a little afraid of what forces I might disturb if I did so.)

  There was no answer at first; I called again, thinking if she didn’t answer on the third summons we could reasonably assume she wasn’t there, and retreat. But I got my answer. There was the sound of somebody moving inside the temple, followed by a bleary who is it? Reassured by the sound of Marietta’s voice, I stepped over the threshold.

  Even after all these years, the stables still smelled of their tremendous occupants: the ripe scent of horse sweat and horseflesh and horse dung. There had been such life here; such energies contained in stamping vessels of muscle and mane.

  I could see Marietta now. She was coming toward me, buttoning up her vest as she approached. There was no doubting what she and Alice had been up to here. Her face was flushed; her mouth seemed swelled with kissing.

  “Where’s Alice?” I asked her.

  “Asleep,” she said. “She’s exhausted, poor baby. What are you doing here?”

  I was a little embarrassed now; I’m certain Marietta knew I had indulged my voyeuristic instincts where she was concerned, and probably suspected I was here doing the same thing. I didn’t protest my innocence; I simply said: “You’re both okay?”

  “Fine,” Marietta said, plainly puzzled. “Who’s out there with you?”

  “Dwight,” came the reply from the darkness behind me.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Marietta called back to him.

  “Nothin’ much,” Dwight said.

  “I’m sorry we disturbed you,” I said.

  “No problem,” Marietta replied. “It’s time we were going back to the house anyhow . . .”

  As she spoke, my gaze moved past her into the darkness. Despite the ease of the exchanges going on, there was still something troubling me; drawing my eye into the murk.

  “What is it, Eddie?” Marietta said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe just memories.”

  “Go on in if you want to,” she said, stepping aside. “Alice is quite decent—” I stepped past her “—you’ll be disappointed to hear.” I threw back an irritated glance, then ventured into the stables, leaving Marietta and Dwight behind me. My sense that there was a presence here was growing apace. I let the beam of the flashlight rove back and forth: over the marble floor, with its gullies and drains; across the stalls, with their intricately inlaid doors; up to the shallow vaults of the ceiling. Nothing moved. I couldn’t even find Alice. I advanced cautiously, resisting the urge to glance back at Marietta and Dwight for the comfort of it.

  The place where we’d laid the body of Nicodemus, along with all the belongings he’d wanted buried with him (his jade phalli: the white gold mask and codpiece he’d worn in his ecstasies; the mandolin he’d played like an angel)—was in the center of the stables, perhaps twenty yards from where I now stood. The marble floor had been lifted there, and not replaced after the burial. Mushrooms had grown from that dirt, in supernatural profusion. I could see their pale heads in the gloom; hundreds of them. More phalli, of course. His last joke.

  A motion off to my right; I halted, and looked round. It was Marietta’s lady love, rising from the spot where she’d been sleeping.

  “What’s going on?’ she said. “Why’s it so cold, honey?”

  I hadn’t noticed until now, but she was right: my breath was visible before me.

  “It’s not Marietta, it’s Maddox,” I told her.

  “What are you doin’ here?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I just came to—”

  I didn’t finish the sentence. What halted me was a sound from the darkness beyond my father’s grave. A clattering on the marble floor.

  “Oh my Lord . . .” Alice said.

  Emerging from the shadow, its hooves making a din this place had not heard for almost a century and a half, was a horse. Nor was it any horse. It was Dumuzzi. Even at this distance, even in this gloom, I knew him. There had never been an animal so splendid, nor so certain of his splendor. The way he pranced as he came, striking sparks off the marble, which flashes lit his gleaming anatomy, and made his eyes blaze. Whatever wounds had been visited upon the animal by Cesaria—and though I wasn’t conscious to witness her slaughter, I’m certain she reserved her greatest cruelties for Dumuzzi, the ringleader—all of them had been healed. He was perfection again.

  Somehow, he had been revivified, lifted up out of the pit into which his body had been dispatched, and returned to glorious life.

  I had no doubt who had performed this handiwork. Just as it had been the hand of Cesaria Yaos which had slaughtered Dumuzzi so it had been the hand of her husband, my father, who had resurrected him again. Nothing was more certain.

  Never in my life was I seized with such a boundless supply of contrary feelings as at that moment. Dumuzzi’s living presence before me—indisputable, irresistible—was proof of a greater presence in this melancholy place. Nicodemus was here: at least some portion of him, piercing the veil between this world and the kingdom to come. What was I to feel about that? Fear? Yes, in some measure; the primal fear that the living inevitably feel when the spirits of the dead return. Awe? Absolutely; I’d never had more certain proof of my father’s divinity than I did at that moment. Gratitude? Yes, that too. For all the trembling in my belly, and in my legs, I was thankful that my instincts had brought me here: that I was able to witness this omen of Nicodemus’s return.

  I glanced back toward Alice, intending to tell her to retreat, but Marietta had come to join her, and wrapped her arms around her. Alice was looking at Dumuzzi, but Marietta was looking at me. There were tears in her eyes.

  Dumuzzi, meanwhile, had pranced to the edge of my father’s grave, and now, suddenly, advanced upon it, hooves high, and proceeded to stamp on the earth which covered Nicodemus’s corpse. The mushrooms were pounded to pulp, pieces flying off in all directions.

  After perhaps half a minute, he grew calmer, at last simply standing in the mess of earth and pulped mushrooms, his head a little turned so that he could watch us.

  “Dumuzzi?” I said.

  At the sound of his name he snorted.

  “You know this animal?” Marietta said.

  “He was father’s favorite.”

  “Where the hell did he come from?”

  “Back from the dead.”

  “He’s so beautiful,” Alice murmured, her voice filled with wonder. It seemed she hadn’t heard the exchange between Marietta and myself, she was so engrossed in the sight before us. Marietta took hold of her arm.

  “Alice,” she said firmly. “We have to go. Now.”

  She started to pull Alice back toward the door. But as she did so, Dumuzzi rose up again, higher than he had before, and loosing a sound that struck the eardrums so hard we all gasped, charged in our direction. The sight of his sudden approach—mane flying, hooves high—glued me to the spot. This was the last sight I’d seen before I’d fallen beneath him and his comrades all those years ago: the memory made my limbs stupid. If it hadn’t been for Dwight catching hold of me and dragging me out of the way history might well have repeated itself. I don’t believe Dumuzzi meant any harm this time—as he most assuredly had on the first occasion—he was simply making for the door by the most direct route. But nor do I doubt that he would have knocked me down and broken my bones if I’d remained in his path.

  I didn’t see him leave the building; I was too busy being hauled out of his path. By the time I’d picked myself up again, he was gone. I heard the sound of his hooves as he pounded away; then silence, broken only by the breathing of four exhilarated people.

  “I think we should get back to the house,” Marietta said. “That’s about as much excitement as I can take for one night.”

  How things have changed! Didn’t I write once that the prospect of being around if Nicodemus were to show himself was so terrifying I’d rather be dead? Now, with the evidence
for his presence indisputable, I’m perversely excited. This family has been riven for too long; it’s time we were together again. There are wounds to be healed, peace to be made, questions to be answered.

  I want to know, for instance, what Chiyojo said to my father just before she died. Something passed between them, I know. The last sight I saw before I lost consciousness was Nicodemus—horribly wounded himself, of course—leaning close to my wife, listening to her final words. What did she tell him? That she loved him? That she would wait for him? I’ve wondered about that so many times over the years. Now, perhaps, I might be able to get an answer from the only man who knows the truth.

  And the other question I want to ask? Well, it’s perhaps less easily answered. I want Nicodemus to tell me what he had in mind when he created me. Was I an accident? A casual byproduct of his lust? Or did he knowingly create a half-breed—a union of divine father and mortal mother—because there was some function that such an unhappy creature was uniquely equipped to serve?

  If I could have an answer to that question would I not be the happiest man alive? That’s what makes the prospect of Nicodemus’s return more inspiring than fearful. The chance to stand before the man who caused my soul to be made and ask that most ancient of questions: Father, father, what was I born for?

  X

  Loretta had begun an informal list of guests for Cadmus’ s funeral a year before, jotting down names in the back of her diary when they occurred to her. There was a certain morbidity to this, she realized, but she’d always been a practical creature. The list would be useful, sooner or later, and there was no harm in being prepared for the event when it came, even if he lived to be a hundred and five.

  Of course the events of the night he’d died had shocked her. But she’d always known in her heart that the truth about the Barbarossas, if she ever discovered it, would astonish her; and so it had. Not that she imagined she’d learned everything that there was to know that night. All she’d witnessed was a tiny piece of a puzzle which she suspected she would never entirely understand. Perhaps it was better that way. The same New England pragmatism which allowed her to start a funeral list before the death of her spouse, and to plan for her own empowerment, also made her brittle in matters that defied easy categorization. The life of the spirit was one matter, and the life of the flesh another entirely. When the two became muddied—when the invisible aspired to solidity, and the drama of the soul was played out before her eyes—she was deeply discomfited. It did not reassure her one jot that there were such forces as she’d witnessed at the mansion operating in the world. She took no metaphysical comfort from the fact. But a fact it was, and that very same pragmatism kept her from lying to herself. She’d seen what she’d seen, and in the fullness of time she’d have to deal with it. In the meanwhile, she’d make her list.