by Alex Pheby
Other stories are unsuitable for Lucia because they put ideas in her head, or reify behaviours that until then were inchoate and unrecognised. They risk rewarding her for doing things she ought not to do by allowing her to see those things represented in a form sanctioned by the sanctified ritual of the bedtime reading.
At the beginning of all things, for example, Geb, the goddess of the sky, and Nut, the god of the earth, brought forth between them four children. The names of these children ought not to be mentioned to Lucia at bedtime since they bring to mind the notion that there is not one God, but many gods, and moreover that they have names, which are forbidden. The names are: Osiris, Isis, Set and Nepthys, and while they are predominately human in form they also bear the heads of animals sometimes.
As we have seen, Lucia prefers tales of animals, but the reader must be careful in the tales that he tells her, since the whole business of animals is a little fraught, for reasons that will become obvious.
Osiris and Isis, and Set and Nepthys were brother/sister pairs, which is another aspect that makes the story of their existence, even the very mention of them as facts, difficult and unsuitable for Lucia. They married and had relations together that are neither sanctionable under the law, nor allowable in the eyes of God. Nor are they practical in the Joyce household, unless the Joyces wish to take her often to the doctor, especially after puberty has set in, for the removal of foetuses, and the treatment of diseases, and the raising of feebleminded offspring.
Moreover, it is utterly distasteful and a terrible sin, nonetheless.
And what necessity is there in her for her to behave in this way, anyway? Like some long dead heathen god, or some disinterred pharaoh prior to their interment and death, securing the kingly line by marriage only to his and her own relatives. There is no natural explanation, surely, and no godly explanation, surely, and consequently without either a natural or a theological justification, stories of the incestuous relationships between the Egyptian gods are not suitable stories to tell her before bedtime. Won’t she, the minute you are out of the door and your backs are turned, creep surreptitiously through the house to her brother’s bedroom and, in a manner that the very mention of these things, even in a story, sanctions, slip beneath his covers and commit heinous crimes such as would have brought the censure of the Old Testament God, priests, and stone-wielding crowds? Drag her into the street and hurl rocks at her until she is dead. Take her to the doctor for the removal of foetuses.
And all the while thinking of it in the same way Lucia approaches any other pleasurable thing – the eating of cake, or sweets, or chocolate, or the opening of presents. The experience of the wind in the hair is pleasant. So also the stretching of the limbs in the park on a sunny day when she has been lying in the grass after a lunch which included cake and sweets and strawberries. So also waking from a dream with her hand between her thighs and a sense of bodily wellbeing all around. After all, there is no difference to her in this, who is not aware of the prohibitions against such behaviour since, in the effort not to bring it into existence, or not to reify it if it be there in a nascent form, no-one has mentioned any of it. And the books on the ancient Greeks and the ancient Egyptians have been hidden. And bedtime stories suitable for children are carefully selected.
Yet ignorance is no defence, certainly not in Irish law, and not in the eyes of God, and that is why we have priests and parents who will put children on the right track. They will pull her hand out from her drawers and will smack the backs of her calves in order that she does not breach God’s commandments. Though, if one thinks about it, that is not one of them, and it takes a good while to find it in the Bible if one ever wishes to locate the prohibition. Even then, it’s worded so poorly one cannot quite make it out. If it is so bloody important perhaps it would be better to spell it out explicitly, except, of course, that God would then run the risk of reifying that thing which he didn’t want reified. Although, if it was so bloody important why not make it so that it was impossible?
Perhaps that is the function of genetics. Mendelian genetics, however, is also not terribly easy to follow, and there is a certain ambiguity in the rights and wrongs here, too. There doesn’t seem to be any explicit warning against incest as a means of generating children, so if there is no explicit natural law, and no explicit theological law, is it so terrible after all? And if Giorgio were to take himself to his sister’s room in the middle of the night? When she is in a world of dreams with her hand between her thighs and a sense of bodily wellbeing all around? And slip beneath the covers and lie there with her, breathing into her ear and listening, no funny business, just enjoying the warmth? And slip into dreams beside her? And if, by chance, one of those dreams, prompted by the night’s bedtime story should take one to far Arabia where veiled women parade? And, like in an illustration from the one thousand and one nights, their stomachs and belly buttons are on display?
The rising up of an unknowable sense of pressure building is not a thousand miles away from a sense of bodily wellbeing, but it is somehow also tension-inducing. It is almost as if one is on the verge of tears, or of passing a motion. And if there is no genetic law that is unambiguous and one has to look very deeply into the Bible and then can only find veiled references, and if one is in a dream, and if one slips one’s hand over to her breast, up under her nightshirt, is it such a crime that it should prompt such pleasure?
Her skin as soft as milk, his excitation as pale as snow.
As they made to lower my colleague, I took advantage of my time alone and went over to another wall.
It was given up to a series of scenes, relatively intact. If the reader is familiar with the decorations at Hatshepsut’s temple they will appreciate that aspects of the deceased’s life are sometimes chronicled in detail – the voyage to Punt, for example. There is a chronological progress from left to right and then down the wall in the same way the text progresses in a book. Hatshepsut appears in each image amongst the people of her life, the gods of her religion, enjoying the spoils of her expedition, and making the necessary offerings on her return home.
So it was on this wall, except that the recurring figure in each scene was scored out. Likewise, in the parts of the wall where the deceased’s name would be expected to appear in the symbols, these symbols had been chipped away.
Now, this is not a trivial matter in this religion: if the name of the dead is forgotten it entirely precludes them from taking their place in the afterlife.
As I considered this fact the boots of my colleague emerged from the entrance shaft and, feeling guilty for reasons I couldn’t account for, I pulled the torch back from the wall.
Going to the tomb
The interior cavity is emptied with the exception of the heart, which is sewn to the skin. Unlike the brain, the deceased requires this organ – it is the seat of the personality, repository of all deeds, and will later be central in the weighing of the heart ceremony.
THE IB OF LUCIA JOYCE
LES ATELIERS DU VIEUX COLOMBIER, PARIS, SUMMER 1927
She’s barefoot in the snow, hands on the glass, breath from her fingertips fogging it, and when she takes one back there’s her palm and fingers, their outlines etched into space before the wind blows them away. She leans in, and a warm, humid exhalation obscures everything. She has to wipe it away to see through. She holds her breath, lifts her feet in turn, ice between her toes, grit on her soles.
In the shop display there are living things. Not like her: things warm and animate, hopeful and red, perfect in their forms, so tiny and bright. They are soldiers in regiments, and where there is snow outside there is cotton wool beneath their boots, talc on their gloves, needle prick bayonets, split pin chinstraps in brass, stern, full lips mouthing kisses, made up eyes, blue, with eyelashes like kitten whiskers. There are fifteen soldiers in a line, and two lines in ranks, and her breath hot across them, wiping the window.
The traffic in the road throws up slush. Some of it reaches her all the way over he
re. It hits her bare legs, her neck, chills her back, seeping through the dress. She feels everything, but she only cares about the soldiers. While she lives this life she can think about whatever she likes. She chooses this display above all other things. She licks her lips so they glisten like the lips of the soldiers. She straightens her back so that she’s straight like them. She sets her feet together and the snow melts into a puddle around her. She raises her eyes, and there’s a woman reaching into the display.
This woman takes one soldier by the head, lifting him by the helmet, and then two more, one from the end of each line so as not to disturb the distribution. Then they are gone.
The girl’s head is untouched, the slush at her feet unmoved, and the soldier is wrapped in tissue paper and boxed for a Christmas gift.
As if he could sense my guilt, my colleague was very keen to see what was on the wall behind me. If I am being fair, I think I would have been equally curious, and he raised the lamp to the wall the moment he reached the ground.
If I had worried that he would find something troubling there, I needn’t have; he gleefully identified aspects of the wall painting he recognised from other tombs and from the books of illustrations we had both pored over in the library back home and on the journey over. He indicated the rites and practices of the religion, and while he acknowledged the mutilations, it did not seem to occur to him what had already occurred to me: that if the desecrations were not committed by tomb raiders after the sealing of the entrance (since it was intact) then they must have taken place contemporaneously with the burial of the corpse.
I have seen my mother in all her outlines
The corpse is washed and packed with the divine salt, natron, derived from the Nile Delta. This absorbs any remaining liquids and fats, and is removed once the body is dry. Then dried leaves are pushed into the slit in the corpse’s side, filling it, and preserving its shape.
THE BA OF LUCIA JOYCE
EUROPE, 1907–1924
Italian children are visited on the fifth of January by the ghost of a woman who grieves for her lost son. She is maddened by her loss, and if you see her she will hit you with her broom handle, something she habitually carries since she is busy with her housework. Additionally, she uses it to fly in the manner of a witch. If you have been good she will leave sweets in your shoes; if you have been bad she will leave garlic, and you will spend the year followed by an odour emanating from your feet. You will get a name for yourself among the circle of people you previously counted as your friends, and they will know that you are odd.
If, in the middle of the night before the feast of the Epiphany, you should hear steps in your room and smell the odour of wine, you should keep your eyes dead shut and block your ears for safety. The Christmas Witch is traditionally offered wine to drink, and she reeks of it, having been at all the houses in the street, and when she gets to you she is half cut and breathing heavily. If you hear her scrabbling about, she is looking for your shoes so she can fill them. What sweets do you like, sweetie? Rubbish! Everyone likes sweets. Don’t open your eyes unless you want a whack.
Old women will often have bristles on their chins, and callouses on their hands. The first are due to a general inattention to appearance that affects the elderly and the grieving – they simply stop attending to the duty to remain hairless – and the second is due to the hard work that old women must do to earn their keep around the house. They are no longer much to look at and cannot fulfil that function amongst the menfolk of inspiring a desire to keep them without insisting that they also do work. So who cares how hard their hands are now? The two things are linked, clearly. If the old women paid attention to the hairs on their chins they might find that they had less work to do, or work of a kind unlikely to induce the appearance of callouses on the skin of the hands.
The feel of callouses on the soft skin of one’s stomach from hands reaching beneath the sheet to draw one across the bed is not pleasant, but it is not supposed to be. Hard skin is rough, but think of it from the other side: calloused skin allows hardly any sensation to carry to the brain, the nerves being under a thickness rather than at the surface. This is why the hands grip so tightly, this is why they pinch, since they must compensate for an absence of sensation with a firmer grip.
One should not chide the Christmas Witch for a hairy chin since she has lost her son and, mad with grief, she searches until she finds baby Jesus. He further burdens her with the motherhood of all the children of Italy, and can anyone expect a woman so burdened to take the usual care of her appearance that her sex demands? And who cares anyway, since she slips unseen between the bedrooms of all the Italian children, and they remain beneath the sheets, eyes tight shut and ears plugged? She draws them across the bed to her wine-ridden corpse on the eve of Epiphany, and so determines whether they have been a good girl or a bad girl prior to the delivery into their shoes of liquorice, or coal, or candyfloss, or onions. If eyes are closed and ears shut, what difference does it make?
When she leaves she does some light housework on the way out, namely some sweeping. This is both a practical help to the mothers of Italy, since it is one less job to do, and also fulfils the function of removing the troubles of the year. This is up to and including any lingering sense of her on the body. And the grating of the skin of her fingers on the skin of the stomach. And the hot press of her lips on the back of the neck, the tickle of her whiskers, the stench of wine and cigar smoke she leaves. And the bruises from the whacking of her broom handle, but my eyes are closed, you promised, you promised.
Little bats don’t tell.
In other countries, Father Christmas comes earlier. If Italian children are aware of him, from an uncle or another relative, they can expect a visit from him on Christmas Eve to much the same effect. Again, he comes in the night and one mustn’t look at him. He has been drinking, whisky this time, or brandy, and he will determine whether you have been good or bad by his methods. He comes with his reindeers though, which are very sweet to look at, and the animal smell that adheres to them adheres to him, too. This is to be expected, because he maintains such close contact with his animals all night long, and he has bristles on his chin. Haven’t you seen a picture of him? He has lots of bristles on his chin.
He leaves presents which are in all ways better than sweets. They have a higher financial value, and are also more durable, and are still around many days and weeks and months after they are given. Consequently, Lucia should be more grateful for these gifts than she should be for gifts of sweets. The range of methods for showing gratitude is wider, and may properly be expressed on the opening of the gifts, providing there are no witnesses. Church services are useful for this, since some members of a family are more religiously observant than others, and a sermon takes a good while to deliver. Similarly, the walking of dogs must be done even on Christ’s birthday, and while it is being done, here is an extra present, don’t tell your brother he’ll be jealous, now come over here and count my waistcoat buttons.
Green apples.
On the 13th of December, what do you want for Christmas? That seems like a lot, what a greedy child you are, she will throw ashes in your eyes, come over here, accompanied by Castaldo.
Lord you are wet.
To say nothing of Krampus.
In Switzerland, Saint Nicholas is accompanied by black Schmutzli who will thrash you with a swatch of sticks. Christmases in that territory are particularly fraught, in that the resistant or talkative child can expect blood to be drawn on the buttocks, or welts at least. These welts will cause wincing, and have you ever seen a man beaten with birches? This is a common sight in the forces, and it is done as much to warn those made to watch it as it is to punish the offender. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for a fellow who is striped and bleeding in the way that he soon becomes. If you can’t imagine it, do you remember that time you fell in the woods, tripping over an exposed root, and ended up arse over tit in the brambles? It is like that, but much, much, worse and black Sc
hmutzli will do it again and again to naughty children. Perhaps to death. Think how sad that would be. And who would take care of the rabbits? Who would feed the chinchillas?
Still, we need not think of that since there are no bad girls here. That fate is reserved for girls other than us, girls we have seen but do not know, girls who walk poorly shod in the snow, lonely little girls who stare in at the windows of the houses where we live and the toy shops from which our presents are bought, and they hallucinate through coldness and hunger, and it is roast dinner tomorrow.
My colleague’s excitement was obvious, but even as I was congratulating him on our good fortune, a nagging thought repeated itself in my head: what would cause the family of a corpse to go to such trouble, having followed the appropriate funerary rituals, to render those rituals useless in this way? Similarly, what could cause the priesthood to acquiesce to such a desecration as they sealed the tomb, knowing that it would consign the deceased to an eternity of nothingness?
I have come to seek/embrace you, I am Horus. I have added your mouth. I am your son, who loves you!
