“Oh, Lady,” she soothed me, “of course the Holy Mother was wrong to say that to you, that you couldn’t understand because once you had been a — I’m sure she meant no harm. She was simply confused by the rush of events she must have seen coming. I’m sure that she —”
My heart was filled with joy that Madame Bernice had hurried to my defense, without abandoning her staunch support of the Holy Mother she so revered. I was happy to tell her what I said next: “I only thought that I would never be able to forgive her, Madame; I was wrong. I did, on the torturous road to Calvary.” And, here, too, in Madame’s garden — I did not yet tell Madame this — where my words, recounting the sense of separation I had felt with Mary, resonated with a significance I could still not grasp.
When Jesus, Judas, and I were alone again that starless night in the desert, Judas grabbed Jesus by the shoulders, forcing him around, kissing him on the mouth — no longer the kiss of children. Judas withdrew in horror from the cold lips that renounced him.
“Nothing must interfere with my Father’s mission,” Jesus said. “Especially not” — his eyes shimmered with tears — “our love.”
Judas winced. “Your revelations are nothing but hallucinations aroused by the mushrooms!” he shouted. “I’ve had visions, too; so has Magdalene. Tell him, Magdalene! We’ve seen the same visions.” Turning to me for the affirmation he received, he pled with Jesus: “When we touched, you and I and Magdalene, when we kissed, remember? — remember! — was that wrong? Would even more — what we all long for — be wrong?”
I waited, eagerly, to hear Jesus answer. And he did. He shook his head, no.
“Whether as much as has happened was wrong or not, whether more would be wrong or not, my son must remain pure in body and soul now, pure to undertake the holy journey he’s been chosen for.” Within the azure glow of the sudden dawn, Mary was there speaking those words.
Judas said softly to Jesus, “If she convinces you of your divine conception, she may purify herself of whatever she considers her own sins, but she’ll destroy your true spirit — and your life. And mine,” he added.
“Your mission will not be interrupted,” Mary said to Jesus.
Jesus wiped the gathering tears from his eyes. “It will not be interrupted,” he said.
In Madame’s garden, I could not continue, not now, not to where my memories must move. Madame understood.
I lit my lamp. I draped my cowl over my head. I nodded to Madame Bernice, and I made my way back to my château.
In my quarters now, I am still drenched in the sorrow of my earlier recollections, the long approach to Calvary. I shall resume the true story of the Crucifixion later. I cannot approach that monumental event without having to pause. Its pain never lessens.
From my window, I see the destitute wanderers from the City, whose numbers — there are more fires glinting within the night — increase nightly. There are so many now, Madame informed me earlier, that they have begun to construct dwellings out of wood and debris within the countryside. From this distance, I join their painful desolation.
Those recurring sounds at my door!
Someone listening, watching, reporting to . . . those determined to silence what I will reveal at interviews.
I touch my gun. I’ll defend myself. Interviews will take place!
Sounds fade. I glance through unread pages of the “Third Installment,” more words of accusation and slander I must eventually roam through. Beyond my will, my hand leafs to the end. I gasp! I read . . . ugly words. No more! Not now!
I must sleep, just sleep, must welcome darkness . . .
Tomorrow — or the next day, or soon — I shall tell Madame that the “Third Installment” in these defamations ends with this:
In the following and Final Installment of this True Account, the Writer will fulfill his promise to reveal the most heinous of the Whore’s despicable acts — the slaughter of her children.
XVIII
MADAME’S SLY LOOK AT ME the next afternoon alerted me to what I quickly discovered: We were having a new brew of tea. I smiled and nodded in approval.
“It is especially fine, don’t you think, Lady?” She wanted to hear the obvious.
“Splendid, splendid.”
There were very few pastries on the plate when I arrived. I became immediately aware of that because silver-embossed flowers glinted on the almost barren dish. Ermenegildo glanced at the meager remains, a few crumbs — and then aimed a reproving stare at Madame. She explained that she had not had time for lunch — “not a bite, and I had a very light and early breakfast.” She then turned quickly serious: “Since those opposed to our intentions are plotting to move soon, to block interviews, or to rush them before we’re entirely ready — oh, they are clever —”
I did not ask what new indications led her to that deduction. I assumed she meant the “Third Installment” of the “Account,” which, again, she had read only to the point where I had left off last night — before I had begun my leafing and fallen into a churning sea of terrifying sleep.
“— we must take some time to ask: What are the matters we must resolve?” She began counting them on her fingers, which even in the light of a dull afternoon blazed as if they carried their own illumination. “First, the connection between Eve and the girl in Patmos, since it was in Patmos with St. John that your redeeming essence first stirred and rushed to join Eve in Eden —”
“— when he claimed he saw the word ‘Mystery’ written on my forehead and cursed me as a whore and the mother ‘of all abominations of the earth.’” As often as I might pronounce those words, I never failed to reel at the immensity of the curse.
Madame Bernice continued her itemization. “That’s one; and two is: Why did your essence so forcefully choose the life of Magdalene? — a ‘whore’ but not a woman blamed; some would call her a woman redeemed.”
The subject of Mary was coming up; Madame always bows her head when she introduces matters pertaining to the Holy Mother. There was a further signal, one that indicated that she was going to admonish me. She crossed her arms, firmly, over her bosom. Today a startling emerald lodged there, the pendant of a stunning necklace she had not worn before. The tiara, I did remember. “We must define the Holy Mother’s full, moving, and very touching role in the Crucifixion.” She paused for doubled emphasis. “In that respect, Lady, I do think that the beautiful blue lady” — she caressed her favorite of my descriptions of Mary — “may be emerging somewhat harshly.”
“She is not emerging harshly! She is emerging truthfully. I’ve made it clear to you that I came to love the beautiful blue lady. You remember, Madame, that it was only I —” And Judas, but I did not want now to remember him joining us for a short, so very short, time. “— who accompanied her to Calvary.” I recalled with what bitterness I had searched vainly for the disciples.
Madame said quietly, “I would have accompanied her, too, on that agonized journey.”
Ermenegildo indicated his intention would have been the same; he thrust his head up proudly.
I had chosen not yet to tell Madame this until it was all clearer: During rehearsals in my chamber, I have often dredged my recollections about the very questions I know she often ponders concerning Mary: What did she truly believe? And why? At those times of deep consideration, submerged memories surface on my mind, like flotsam, memories almost drowned within the overwhelming ocean of despair that swept through Calvary that fatal afternoon. Then, I remember a powerful accusation uttered on Golgotha. But at whom? By whom? At me, Magdalene? By me? No. An accusation hurled by Jesus? Or Judas? No, the words of startling accusation I try to recall in those moments belong to Mary, spoken by her. Sometimes it all seems about to become clear, but only for the sliver of a second, as if a lantern has been lit in a dark room, then snuffed. All that remains is the image of the Holy Mother staring up at the sky beyond her son on the cross —
“And,” Madame continued her tally, “we must explore where, I suspect, many answ
ers lie hidden.” I knew what she meant, of course, but I knew she liked to announce, herself, monumental matters: “Where else but in Heaven?” She shrugged.
Into my Pensées that shall go, with accreditation: Where else but in Heaven?
Madame inhaled so mightily her bosom seemed to blossom. “After we connect all that, everything else will fall into place as evidence.” She leaned back in satisfaction at the prospect of soon bringing order out of chaos. Then she seemed to slump at the monumental undertaking. “But that’s not for now, it’s late, we should resolve lesser pending matters. So now —” She waited.
Waited.
And waited.
Oh, I knew where she was attempting to go without committing herself — to Herod’s Palace and the pending subject of St. John the Baptist’s salvaged virginity. “Yes, Madame, and now?” I felt no compromise in offering her a gentle prod.
Her lips tightened.
Well, I would wait as if I were not aware of her discomfort, a discomfort created, I reminded myself, by her intransigence. I touched Ermenegildo’s comb; he had sidled up to me. His wayward feather has become even more beautiful than the others in his glorious comb — to compensate for its unconventional direction? But then, who’s to say that it is not all the other feathers that are pointing wrong? That thought will surely find its way into my Pensées.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, tell me how you saved John the Baptist’s virginity and preserved your own, while nevertheless thrusting your body against his arousal to the point that he came.” Madame threw her hands up in a gesture that sprinkled the air with brilliant pinpoints of light reflected from her gems.
Now that the impasse of several teas had been broken by her, I felt somewhat remorseful — rather than triumphant, as I had anticipated — that my entrenchment had remained longer. Fair was fair. I said, “I shall — and will you, Madame, kindly explain to me how, from that evil ‘Account,’ you inferred that the wicked Irena would like to uncover that the Gypsy was the father of the du Muir twins, something so —” I was about to say “utterly illogical,” but that had been the original accusation that had brought about her silence; so, instead, I finished: “— something so carefully interjected that it requires someone of your formidable acumen to discern?”
Madame said: “I shall — and with even more evidence now —” She indicated the early pages of the “Third Installment” of the “Account.”
I allowed her to gloat. After all, it was she who had withdrawn her intransigence. “Very well, Madame.”
I returned to Herod’s palace on that day of love and sex and blood and death. But it had been so long since I had recounted those moments to Madame, that I reoriented her — “Not that I need any reminder, but do go on,” she said — right up to the moment where I had left off: “You will remember, Madame, that —”
I was now clothed only in the last veil, the sixth, gossamer just slightly darker than my skin, the veil Herodias counted on to introduce one more.
Herod’s hand had readied his groin. In all her brazen nudity, Herodias was preparing to spring. At her order — when I removed the veil she thought would be the seventh — flanking guards would flash their torches before the Baptist’s eyes, forcing him to blink. Once he glimpsed the spectacle of my body, his eyes would remain open on the only sight capable of arousing his virginal passion. Herodias would then push against his body chained to a column, and his saintly virginity would spill into her and be destroyed. Then she would have him slaughtered, to remain the only one ever to possess him.
My body would not prepare him for her, nor for death.
Whirling, swirling, turning, bending, reaching up, down, I coiled and uncoiled my body in a frenzy, moving steadily toward the Baptist. Before him I stopped. “Open your eyes now!” I ordered.
He did.
Bedazzled, he saw my body as if drawn upon the tissue of cloth, every arch and curve, my nipples darkened dots, the tiny puff between my legs lightly shaded, a tiny portion of the veil penetrating the glistening parting. Instantly, simply by inhaling, I allowed the last veil to fall. I stood naked before the Baptist’s gaze and his fully grown desire.
Herodias realized then she had been duped, there was no seventh veil she had awaited. “No!” she screamed.
But I had already flung my body against the Baptist’s full erection and he came.
“Well, we’re right back where we started from!” I could not believe Madame had interrupted me again at the exact point as before. “In hot water, with egg on our faces —”
I was not going to allow another impasse. I continued:
Herodias did not know that I had been careful — despite my longing otherwise — to press my body in such a way that the Baptist’s arousal would slide up my stomach, but not enter me.
“Ah! Of course, Lady, I see, I see!” Madame cried. “How brilliant! No one other than you would have conceived of something that . . . grand.”
I withdrew from the Baptist, feeling his abundant moisture on my stomach. I would have left it there forever, a purifying warmth. But I must convince Herodias that his virginity was lost forever within me, lost forever to her. Secretly I rubbed away the saintly moisture from my body.
Moaning, Herod had collapsed against his throne, into a pool of his foul sweat, hardly dotted by his insignificant spurt. I faced my mother’s wrath as she approached me.
“You’ve stolen his virginity!” she screamed.
“Yes,” I uttered the necessary lie. “The way you sought to.”
The Baptist bowed his head in gratitude at my sacrifice.
Herodias glanced at him, then away, discarding him. Draping her cloak over her naked body, she returned to her throne.
Now I would barter with Herod. “In return for what only I can accomplish for you, I ask that you release the Baptist.” Without me, Herod would have only this one memory to hoard. The assurance of more would persuade him.
“Let the Baptist go,” Herod ordered.
“Salome will follow him!” Herodias plotted new vengeance.
“Will you, Salome?” Herod demanded.
At that moment I glanced at the holy man. Love engulfed me so powerfully I could not lie, could form only one word, the one that would assert our unbreakable allegiance, which I wanted him to hear: “Yes!” Herod’s superstitious fear would not allow a prophet’s murder. Whatever other fate he would assign him, I would overcome, my love would overcome.
“Give the order to behead him!” Herodias demanded.
“But to kill a holy man, a pure —” Herod clutched his amulets.
“He’s no longer pure!” Herodias shouted. “Salome assured that!”
The terrible crucial detail that I had not considered!
“Behead him!” Herod ordered.
The head of John fell at my feet.
I knelt and kissed his lips.
I wrapped myself in the many veils of color I had shed. I would replace them with black for the rest of my brief life, a bride in mourning, blamed, and branded forever a whore . . . blamed.
Madame joined my silent sorrow, that day at tea.
Deceived by today’s brief, intense heat that had pretended to be summer’s, the buds that had sprouted on the vine next to where we drank our tea shriveled and died. The day unexpectedly threatened to turn harsh. A gray cloud lurking in the distance waited to seize the opportunity to ride on a rising wind, a heated wind. The sun became a fiery light draping Madame’s garden. It was in that light that I noticed — and I gasped; how had I missed them on my arrival? — that an extravagant gathering of orchid lilies had blossomed along the veranda and they resembled — like a reminder, a warning? — the flowers of the stunning, leafless blossoms that grew only in Eden, but they resembled them only in their shape. The ones that brushed Madame’s veranda were almost white, no, grayish — not the color that disappeared from Eden. In the center of the lush petals of these new flowers, there sprouted several stems on the tips of which were small dots of scarlet, l
ike drops of blood on a bridal veil. Yes, they resembled also the flowers I thought I had imagined — had I? — that the new tenant had held out toward me, on an earlier afternoon when I had wandered close to his château. I welcomed Madame’s spirited words that broke the powerful impression:
“Now, Lady, I want to explain to you about the Gypsy and the tulips and what Irena would like to discover —”
“Yes!” I was eager.
After she had reached for the earlier installment of the despicable “Account,” she instantly located the relevant passage, poking her finger forcefully at it. “Right here, these pages of lies and buried truths say that when her husband discovered her with the Gypsy, the Contessa covered her most intimate part with flowers she clutched from the lawn.”
I was attentive but still skeptical.
“Does it seem logical to you that a woman as brave, as defiant — and hot-blooded — as the Contessa — and remember she was young when she was involved with the handsome gypsy — would become suddenly modest? No! Now note that moments later, she’s described as walking defiantly back to the mansion — ‘brazen in her resurrected insolence — after the few moments of modesty on the ground.’” Madame read the exact words.
She certainly had a point, but where would it lead?
“Remember, Lady, among the flowers in the garden, especially plentiful were —” She waited for me to join in her exploration, although she had apparently already concluded it.
“Tulips,” I remembered — and I remembered the puzzling moment in the Contessa’s carriage that urgent night of warning when the she had said Irena was dangerous because she “thinks she knows about the tulips.” I had been as baffled then as I was now.
“The latest installment of the ‘Account’ pointedly refers to the incident in the garden as ‘what was about to occur among the tulips but did not occur.’ We know, of course, what that was.”
Again Madame had no difficulty locating the exact words in the pages she now reached for. I was sure she had rehearsed this withheld presentation in order to display her investigative acumen.