The Sacred Beasts

by Bev Jafek

  “There really are endless layers of hidden significance to the goings-on in your wonderful house,” Ruth said.

  “It’s our house, and theirs. I think everyone realized last night that they’ve empowered themselves exclusive of the house. No one said it but their faces showed it.”

  “You continually surprise me. I thought that last night was the peak; but no, now it’s tomorrow night.”

  “We’ll never know what those spirits of passion and play are capable of. I sense another peak coming. I can feel it.”

  What on earth! Ruth thought. Maybe I should try to get her out of there for a while. She is very sensitive. “After Gay Pride Day, we should return to Cadaqués and work,” she said, “then perhaps visit those artworks you described, particularly the caves in the south and Madrid for the ‘Lady of Elche.’ Is there other art in Spain that is relevant to your book? Do portrayals of saints and the Virgin Mary show more evidence of your theory?”

  “There’s a big collection of paintings and sculptures of the Virgin Mary right in Barcelona at the Art Museum of Catalonia. I don’t think they’d interest you, though. They are very static and iconic, like most medieval art, and Mary and the Christ child always have identical expressions on their faces; though that does vary a lot, depending on what part of Spain they’re from. The virgins with child from Palencia have closed eyes and perfect symmetry in a Buddha-like serenity whereas the two from the Pyrenees have the wide-eyed stare of astonishment or horror. The symmetry is broken and Mary holds the child protectively since he is frightened. Now, the virgin and child from Navarre are full of contentment, lively interest and engagement whereas the two from Lerida are bemused and sophisticated. Mary even offers an apple as though she were Eve in jest. Then, the two from Avila are merely wide-eyed and curious whereas the two from Cerdaña are the only ones I would describe as looking fully human and humane.”

  Ruth laughed. “You’re absolutely right! I don’t want to see them, though I treasure your description. It has all the bizarre humor and surprise of the real world. I may never need to see another virgin and child.”

  “There’s much more to say about the portrayal of women in Spanish art, and I might do it in the book, but it illustrates the oppression of women rather than their liberation. There’s not even a full sense of women as a serious subject, which I also might want to say in the book. But, you only see vestiges of matriarchy in the caves and earliest Iberian sculpture. In the other periods—Roman, Visigoth, Moorish, Catholic monarchy or dictatorship—women are virtually powerless. But here we are! It’s a short drive, really, and we can always come here quickly as a getaway.”

  The house was larger and simpler than Ruth expected, opening directly to the Mediterranean. Its sound was resonant and echoing with the deep repetitive rhythm of tides and acted on the mind like a religious ritual, Ruth thought. They sank into opulent chairs and stared out to sea. Windows covered the entire ocean side of the house and the waves and surf surged just beyond it. The water glowed with golden liquid light like the rich threads of a life that throbbed its story into the endless blue of ambient time as both crested and fell, gravely, upon eternity. Ruth was awed by the simple purity of this beauty. They sat beside and within it, she thought, but never owned it. No, they were guardians, not owners: that was the only truth or value they could offer to such a simple, perfect world, so rarely apprehended. No wonder Gaudi wanted to bring a whole cosmos out of it, Ruth thought. The two women shared a bottle of wine and their toast, krasna život, reflected the scene like the waves.

  Ruth looked at the walls and found many paintings, as she expected, and also a statement in ornate Catalan script. It read: “We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are no better than us; to accept you as our king and sovereign lord, provided you observe all of our liberties and laws—but if not, not.” It was dated during the time of Isabella and Ferdinand and signed as the Catalan oath of allegiance.

  Ruth exploded with laughter that ended in a sigh and said, “That’s wonderful! Good for them! For the time and place, it’s good enough for a constitution.”

  “Catalans are very proud. There is much in Catalan history you would appreciate—a tradition of church-burning, for example.”

  “Oh, I do approve of that!”

  They took a brief walk in the surf and then Monserrat showed Ruth many canvases she had painted over the years and stored in the house. Ruth looked at them avidly. “I’ve terribly wanted to see them, ever since I began to love you,” she said. Monserrat smiled, sank deeper into her chair, and watched Ruth’s face, her lips parted in fascination and love.

  Ruth looked at them all and slowly discerned their patterns. It seemed to her that Monserrat began as a quasi-realist painter of women. One canvas was a rural scene of women working in fields of wheat. It had a slightly cubist unity of line and with that, the women partially merged into nature. She found portraits, some in groups, with large eyes that were vibrantly alive, reflecting the scene around them. In all, the faces melded into their backgrounds—lights on mossy water, trees, forests, city scenes. Other portraits showed mysterious lights and shapes, very colorful, and female faces and figures were limned into them.

  A second group of paintings showed women in dynamic movement—running, swimming, cantering on horseback, dancing together as they played flutes and drums, their arms often outstretched, in both day and nighttime scenes. Joining the two groups, Ruth decided that Monserrat was shattering the passively posed women of male painting and displaying women reaching beyond barriers and boundaries.

  A third group of paintings juxtaposed environments of contemporary life. There were cities full of winged women who were rising into the air, open-mouthed in surprise. Their clothing suggested that they were doctors, pastors, businesswomen with briefcases, and other professionals. One huge painting in this cluster had all of the oppressive admonitions to women and acts forbidden to them in religious texts. Over these words were women, part fish, swimming in spheres, effortless in their resistance.

  Some paintings had ominous contemporary scenes, like women in compartments of geometric structures, their eyes and mouths showing horror. There were scenes of women used as parts of machines and other paintings in which women were devoured by machines. Another cluster of paintings had political implications—African women and children in camps like Darfur, skeletal and cramped into tents surrounded by bleak desert winds. Some paintings displayed women alone in a room of a sparely decorated house, holding large photos of their daughters, like television images of families whose children were killed in political rebellions. One painting was satirical. It showed two Persian women in profile as lovers, mimicking Persian miniatures. Entering their bedroom were the following: an American combat soldier in a helmet, sunglasses and body armor, pointing an assault rifle; a Japanese samurai with his sword brandished overhead; and a cartoon figure of Mickey Mouse, pointing a gloved finger, an expression of rage and horror on his face. Ruth laughed and wanted to comment but only plunged ahead in fascination.

  Several paintings were titled “Barcelona.” Some were scenes with tall buildings that seemed partially to be aquatic animals, alive and communicating with one another while crowds of people hurried past them, oblivious. Other paintings showed the city in a striking coral dawn suggesting a female nude. There were nighttime city scenes in vivid skies of blue, purple and green that also suggested nude women, the moon as a breast. A painting of Barcelona’s harbor displayed mermaids swimming together and sunning themselves on the pavement amidst crowds that merely walked around them, oblivious. A painting of the Gothic Quarter showed partially naked nuns, some floating in the air. One large painting displayed a spherical process in which a fish transforms into a horse, then into a gargoyle, then a fish again, then into a woman, at last a man, open-mouthed in wonder and floating. Ruth read the title, “Antoni Gaudi,” and smiled. She wanted to comment but again could not stop looking at the paintings.

  A fourth group displayed mythic,
archetypal and developmental images. There were female angels with fierce visages, some with fur and animal-like snouts. One painting showed a female Atlas, holding up the world effortlessly on her breasts and stomach. Other paintings displayed tall, ceremonious catwomen, ministers of unknown rituals. A series of paintings showed wild-haired little girls running with beasts in city landscapes; in similar paintings, young girls were painting or writing scenes that came alive and were floating. There were old women with ecstatic faces that formed fountains and also fountains of women in forests, cities, and the ocean. Some canvases had figures that seemed to be female Buddhas, their eyes closed and serene. The scene surrounding them, however, showed the flux of life and the cosmos in colorful, multifarious images. Several large paintings showed primitively lined women in Buddha-like poses and huge open eyes that reflected the forests, seas and cities around them.

  A fifth group of paintings showed women interacting, in some cases becoming one another, or exchanging eyes, lips, hands, breasts and arms. Ruth found the sweetness and tranquility of their faces striking. There were paintings of women in groups, offering objects to one another—books, food, breasts, wondrous vases with unknown contents, and colorful spheres. Other paintings also showed women in groups, gesturing and pointing. Radiating from their hands and mouths were mandalas, babies, angels, ferocious beasts, and futuristic cities on spheres. Ruth could see background elements of Monserrat’s house and smiled.

  The last group seemed to develop out of the fifth and displayed consistent use of the sphere, always magical and vividly colored. Women were making love in spherical shapes, giving birth, riding animals, even flying. Some canvases showed women painting and writing with colorful spherical images flowing from their hands and heads. Large, primitively lined spherical women occupied single paintings and were covered with flowers and bright-eyed fish. Women became mandalas and other spherical forms having cosmic symbols. Women formed spheres together, dreamt in spheres, played musical instruments that emitted mandalas. Spherical women held mandalas and spheres having wildly colorful lights and images of stars and eyes. Women in groups formed spheres and handed spheres to one another. The last painting was a single black line in a circle on a stark white canvas. It seemed cumulative to Ruth and represented everything that preceded it.

  When Ruth looked up, she realized that several hours had passed. Monserrat had merely sat in front of her, watching the expressions pass over her face, a look of tenderness on her own face. Ruth felt that she had passed through many lives and seen the work of many painters. “What beautiful worlds you’ve made,” she said, “and there is not enough beauty in this one. We need you!” No wonder, Ruth thought, you are such a sensitive and intelligent woman; you are honed by the empathy and compassion of your visionary imagination.

  “At this moment,” Monserrat said, “it seems as though I’ve done it all for you.”

  “No, you are a guardian, too, in a different way. What were you like as a young woman?”

  “Very much like Sylvie, including all the hostility, manipulation, and sexual . . . brinkmanship.”

  Ruth laughed. “It must be true because you’ve described her perfectly.”

  “What were you like as a young woman?”

  “A lot like Alex. Did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s fortunate that we’re the same age this time around,” Ruth said. Then Monserrat led her to the bedroom overlooking the Mediterranean, and they made love without words. It was perhaps the most intense experience of their lives. It went on for hours, entirely gentle and tender, and they often thought they were merging, like the women in Monserrat’s paintings. When words returned to them, Monserrat thought, of course, I must paint you. You will paint me, I know, Ruth thought.

  ALEX AND SYLVIE had, as usual, worked hard all day and, when Alex came down to the painting room in the early evening, she saw a dramatic painting of what looked like a Neolithic woman in a hut operating a primitive forge. Where on earth did Ruth take Sylvie? She wondered, somewhere in the Stone Age with wild bulls and lynxes one inch from your face, but still plenty of prostitutes and gypsies? Sylvie may be a genius, but let me never be taken there, she thought.

  They were very hungry and immediately went to dinner at the sidewalk café that was now their favorite. Alex decided to bring up a matter that had troubled her during the night. “Are you very, very sure you’ve cleared everything up with Ruth?” she asked, “or rather, have you completely given her up?”

  Sylvie instantly looked troubled. “I can give her up . . . but I still sense that she is grieving. Somehow, I keep holding onto her because I can’t bear her grief. Her grief is a very subtle thing, not at all obvious to you, I’m sure, but it is to me. I imagine making love to her to relieve it, which makes no real sense . . .” She looked even more disturbed. I’m sure Monserrat is doing a great job of that! Alex thought. “Maybe there’s something I should tell you . . .” Sylvie continued. “I made her promise that she would meet me in a hotel somewhere a year from now, and we’d be lovers for a weekend. She said she could easily promise something that would never happen.”

  No wonder she laughed so hard! Alex thought and tried not to laugh. “It may be something you can’t help her with,” Alex said, attempting to look serious. “The subject of her book is depressing, to say the least. She seemed happy enough to me, but you were the one talking with her.”

  “I want to let her go. I want you! You must know how much I want you!”

  Sylvie looked very fierce and very beautiful, Alex thought. She dissolved into smiles of pure, foolish rapture. “I know that! Ah, my love,” Alex said. She leaned over the table and gave Sylvie a long passionate kiss. They did not notice the surprised commotion they caused on the street. “I know what to do,” Alex finally said. “I’ll find her—tonight or tomorrow—and talk to her. I’ll find out exactly what it is. I have so much in common with her; it’s as though we’re related. Among other things, we both left the States in total disgust, and that is a very powerful bond. I’ll tell you what her grief is about and how you can help her. Then, you’ll be free.”

  “Yes, do it!” said Sylvie. “It’s all strangely beyond me. I feel helpless, and that is not an emotion I’m accustomed to.” They both smiled.

  “I have a few practical questions,” Alex said. “Are you still on a student VISA in France?”

  “Oh, no! I’m a citizen of both France and Argentina through my parents.”

  “Fantastic! That’s just great! That makes it so much more likely that we’ll end up in Paris permanently. I wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to the violently perishing US of A forever.”

  “But how will you become a French citizen?”

  “In the U.S., all you need is an employer that really wants you. They need good teachers everywhere in the world, and I’m seriously multilingual, which should help a lot. May I ask another practical question?”

  “Of course. I want to know where we’re headed, too.”

  “This is hardly the time to ask, but since you’ve been with men up till now, are you sure you don’t have AIDS?”

  “Yes, this is a little late to ask that, but I’m glad you did if it worries you. I’ve never slept with a man I didn’t completely control, and I’ve never found a man irresistible. So, I’ve always had very safe sex, and no, I don’t have AIDS. I want to become a great painter with an international reputation, and dying young is hardly the way to do it.” She stared at Alex in silence, and then asked, “Do you believe me?”

  Alex paused. “Now that I consider it, it makes perfect sense. You are one tough, gorgeous woman to try controlling.”

  “You’ve never even tried, my love. We’ve been perfectly in sync.”

  “Amen to that!”

  They smiled and Sylvie touched Alex’s cheek. “Let’s go and listen to the stories about mothers again tonight,” Alex said. “Last night utterly amazed me. I loved it! After tonight, though, there won’t be any groups meeting for
two days. There’s something private going on tomorrow night; I don’t know what. Then, the next day is Gay Pride Day, and everyone will be all over the city. We’ve worked awfully hard, and this is the perfect time for a short break. I know a place in the countryside that you’d love. It’s a Basque shepherd’s hut beside a small lake, all very remote. I’ve gone there to get away from the city several times, and I know the couple who rent it. We can swim naked in the lake, and part of the hut’s roof is open to the air. We’ll take pillows and blankets up there, and I can make love to you while you look at the stars.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Sylvie said. “When you started talking about a break, I was going to nix it, but who could resist that! No wonder I’m crazy about you!” Why is she so utterly the One? Sylvie thought. Because there are no limits. She is my adventure.

  Alex smiled and stared at Sylvie with love. Crazy, crazy love, she thought.

  RUTH AND MONSERRAT were swimming naked in the moonlight in a small, isolated cove that was beside Monserrat’s house. Floating together, they saw the moon and the stars. Then, they swam in sync together and watched the waves they created. “I feel like one of the women in your paintings who merged with the cosmos; nothing is visible but the starry night. We’re swimming in the firmament together,” Ruth said. “This is the way to live!”

  “To love, too. Merging happens all the time.”

  “I suppose it does. I’ve more often experienced it alone, camping out in Patagonia.” But that day making love with Sylvie in the rain in Doñana, Ruth thought, that was merging with the world. Actually, it almost always happened with Sylvie . . . I hope everything is resolved with her . . . Ruth looked at Monserrat, who was floating and glowing in the moonlight, and she suddenly felt overwhelming desire. She drew her body into shallower water, parted her legs and made love to her orally while holding her above the water. She had no sense of time passing and could not have said how long they made love. She heard Monserrat crying out. Later, when she became aware of herself again, she was on the wet sand, and Monserrat was leaning over her, giving her one orgasm after another. They both forgot the world again and lost consciousness.