Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

  “It's ugly!” Lisa's words jolted.

  Orin drove on, leaving behind the patch where decay had gnawed outward.

  Off a sandy indention, he parked. A gathering of rocks rose beyond the shrubby trees. They got out of the car, into swirling hot air. Orin found a slender path, and Jesse and Lisa followed. This was not the spot Orin had pointed to earlier; they were now on the opposite side of the park. They had to stoop low to make their way past greedy branches. Orin would hold one up for Lisa to squirm past. Jess had to bend very low. They walked into an enclosed cove. They were like exploring children discovering secret places. The sun stabbed through in golden shafts here, creating a magical enclosure. The piny odor was thick, sweet. Twigs had formed a shelter like a dome, the green at their feet was soft. They stood within the high leafy hollow. Tiny red berries spattered red dots on the branches of a vine.

  “I hope there're no snakes,” Lisa said in a child's voice.

  “Too shady,” Jesse tried to sound knowledgable. “Snakes lay in the sun.”

  “Snakes thrive in the white darkness or in the dark sun,” Orin said. Then he laughed.

  Because of that, “Where'd you learn to talk so crazy, Orin?” Jesse ventured, but lightly, making sure he could retrench during what seemed an allowed moment.

  Orin chose to answer, in that easy way. “Used to read to her, tell her stories—when she was almost blind. But she heard things, ‘saw’ things—in her way.”

  The woman who had willed him the beautiful car—and what else? Jesse waited for Orin to go on, but he didn't.

  Lisa was glad to pull away from the disturbing words. She bent to gather some long stems with soft buds on them. This might be heather, she thought, like on the moors in Wuthering Heights. She looked through an aperture of branches and saw the craggy rocks. “You think Heathcliff and Cathy finally found peace in heaven?”

  “Hell's easier to get into,” Jesse laughed.

  A twig severed a blade of sun and cast a shadow like a brutal scar across Orin's face. A swirl of wind entered the cove and rushed out, leaving silence. The shadow shifted with the scurrying wind. Now it slashed darkly across Orin's deepening eyes. He looked angry, or sad. The shadow moved again, clearing his face of all expression. Then a glance of light from the slanting sun heightened the gold in his hair, and he looked luminous.

  This place, so beautiful, so intimate, gathering them tightly—it evoked that naked night in the motel—and this morning's sexual moment for Jesse. What if he just went over now to Lisa and kissed her, drew her to him and kissed her? he wondered defiantly. She looked beautiful leaning against the branch, the blouse lower on one shoulder than the other, holding those stems with the furry buds. If he did go to her that way and Orin protested, whom would she choose?—if I just went over to her, put my arms around her, and kissed— …

  “Then why don't you do just that, Jesse,” Orin said—and he left the cove in the direction of the naked rocks.

  Jesse's head bolted back. He felt a chill in the heat. Orin had read his thoughts! Fear jabbed. How? And then, with flooding relief, he remembered that only seconds earlier he had said hell was easier to get into, and that's what Orin meant—a joke; why don't you do just that? Of course. Jesse laughed aloud, shedding the chilly fear.

  Lisa walked to Orin, who stood beyond the cove and on the craggy rocks; she held her bouquet of “heather.” Then Jesse was there with them. The wind whipped about them, capturing them together.

  After moments, they made their way back to the car along a different trail.

  Lisa had seen the way Jesse was looking at her, had felt the powerful sexuality; and for moments—until he walked off—she thought it came just as powerfully from Orin.

  They drove out of the park, into Franklin Avenue. Palm trees leaned away from the wind. They drove up the residential end of Hollywood Boulevard, up into Laurel Canyon.

  “Orin, Jesse—look!” said Lisa. “Oh, too late!” Because other cars were driving so close, neither Orin nor Jesse had been able to see what had excited her.

  “I bet she saw one of those movie-star-homes maps for sale,” Jesse said; he'd been tempted to buy one himself. Little boys stand along Sunset with placards advertising the maps. Lisa had never commented on that, actually looked away in disdain.

  “I wouldn't want one,” she said. “Everyone knows you don't see anything but trees … Oh, Orin, please, please let's go back,” she said dramatically. “It looked like an old real-movie-star mansion.’’

  “Yeah, let's,” Jesse took easy sides.

  Orin turned off the road, to the right. He waited for the flow of traffic on Laurel Canyon Drive to break. Then he made a swift U-turn back to the house Lisa had pointed out. “Drive as slow as you can, it disappears right away,” she instructed.

  It crowned a hill. Orin made a quick turn into a fan of dirt. They got out and looked up in awe at the exposed portions of the old mansion.

  Steps worn away from countless pressing footsteps led to the magnificent house—now the near-corpse of a gray mansion. A white—dirty white—balustrade separated it from a sharp decline, carved by greedy torrents of water rushing down from the upper levels of the canyon, seasonally razed by fire. To the side of the house was a rotunda, overgrown with wild flowers. Intermingling through them, indomitable, were weeds. Only a portion of two more storeys, each retreating farther against the green escarpment, was visible now. At irregular intervals, round balusters had fallen out like gouged teeth.

  “What you lookin fer?” a skinny blond boy emerged from a side of the dirt road.

  “That house,” Orin said.

  A thirtyish man, perhaps the boy's father—he had the same dirty blond features—appeared. “You lookin’ for an apartment?”

  “Might just be,” Orin said.

  “Might,” Jesse concurred.

  Lisa knew this was Orin's way of allowing her to see the house; she felt elated—but saddened by the abandoned state it was in. Still, she would get to see it, imagine it as it had been.

  “Half of the place is rented units.” The man pointed up. “We're movin out. Places hard to find in Los Angeles now; we'd let our apartment go at the same rent—nobody knows the difference—for a consideration.”

  “What about the rest of the house?” Orin asked.

  “Belongs to the old ladies,” he man said.

  “Twins,” the boy said.

  “Triplets,” the older man corrected.

  “Can we see it?” Orin asked.

  The man led them up side steps shaded by shaggy trees. At the top, a long semicircular veranda was chopped off by a wall—by what looked like a makeshift barricade: bare bricks piled one on top of the other in odd rows, cement hardly holding them together, paint smeared, white, gray—as if it had been flung against the bricks, paint melting in long fingers.

  “Part of this was a guest house, part of it was servants’ quarters,” the man explained. “The old ladies had to rent cause they run out of money. There's four, maybe five apartments in all; can't tell cause some of ‘em's broke into rooms—could be more.”

  Smoking, a surly girl in Levi cutoffs sat on one of the white marble-vined railings. A shirtless youngman with glasses lolled with her. “You movin’ in?” the girl asked.

  “Maybe,” Jesse went along with Orin.

  This was certainly not the part of the house Lisa wanted to see. She looked beyond the makeshift wall; the rest of the mansion was draped in seclusion.

  Following her look, the man laughed. “The old ladies made that wall themselves so nobody'd go over.”

  “Who wantsa?” the little boy said, becoming nastier. “Them's mean bitches.”

  “Don't worry,” the man said to the three, realizing he might talk them out of the deal he would be proposing. “We never see them, don't even pay rent to them—a man collects it.”

  “You oughtta see ‘em,” said the boy. “Seen ‘em once.” He tried to imitate the careful, erect movements of the sisters. Then he broke
up laughing.

  “Know who owned the house first?” the man tossed. “That king or prince—whatever he was—who married that American woman. Lots of movie stars—old ones from a long time back—lived there or visited a lot.”

  Lisa held her breath. She just knew it. Just driving by the house, she had sensed its magic spirit.

  “The old bitches're twins,” the hideous boy said.

  “Triplets!” The man reached out to smack him. “I've told you: Two is twins, three is triplets—and there's three of ‘em!”

  Even on this surrendered side of the mansion, there lurked the ghost of grandeur. Crumbling entry ways revealed portions of carved figures, eroding. The dark corridors were arced with wooden beams. Fleurs-de-lis were buried under careless coats of thin, chipped paint.

  “Here's where we live,” the man said. A youngish woman was cooking on a small electric stove. Along the halls, other desultory forms roamed into the “apartments.” They were like gypsies who had invaded a mansion. “We rent these two rooms.” Gold filigree—tattered, greased-over—ribboned tall, tall windows. Once they had contained designs formed by myriad panes of colored glass. Now many pieces were broken or missing, some replaced by plastic blocks turning darkish yellow in the sun. Other panes more recently shattered were covered with cardboard among the remaining delicately tinted glass. None of those living within the crumbled elegance of this portion of the house seemed aware of its buried beauty.

  “You wanna have it?” said the woman. “Places are hard to find in Lesangeleez. We're going back. Lesangeleez's had it for us. You pay us three months’ rent, it's yours.”

  “No,” Orin said shortly. He walked out along the darkened corridors and into the round veranda blocked ahead by the carefully glued bricks. Following, Jesse and Lisa saw him jump the barricade easily, limber as an acrobat.

  “Hey, don't, bastard!” the boy shouted.

  As Jesse helped Lisa over it and then jumped the wall himself, they heard protests behind them. Then the boy's father said, “Aw, let ‘em.”

  Orin stood on the terrace of the main part of the old mansion. Trees shabby with age and lack of attention crowded about the walls, trees so thick the wind didn't threaten them. No matter what the time of day, they would shelter the house from sunlight, and so there was the atmosphere of stopped twilight. Within it, a murmuring silence collided with the anarchic sounds of cars on the drive below. Extending from white striated paths guarded at intervals by stone lions were circular enclosures, where careful gardens had once been pampered. Now weeds conquered an occasional flower—a brave rose beginning to die before it bloomed fully.

  Orin walked along the terrace. A series of three double doors led into the house. One was open. Orin, Lisa, and Jesse James looked into the enormous room. It seemed to have been preserved in mothy dust. The ghosts of drapes, gray through years of neglect, hung mournfully in uneven folds. The once luxuriant furniture was punctured in places, chunks of graying cotton clotting. Crooked chandeliers—protruding wires indicating they no longer worked, pieces of glass missing—did not gleam. A fireplace over which there had been a peacock shaped by blue, green, purple tiles was full of ashes. Twigs that had once been the stems of flowers crumbled at the base of chipped vases. The veil of dust, and the static twilight, turned everything in the room gauzy gray.

  Orin walked into this house built by a king or a prince. Lisa and Jesse entered more cautiously.

  There was a grand piano. Over it was draped a frayed Spanish mantilla. Many photographs rested on it—the only objects not covered with dust. Their glass panes were shiny, freshly polished. There was a photograph of a man and a woman on separate horses.

  “Tyrone Power!” Lisa gasped at the photograph of the dashing movie star. Then she gave it the slightest shove when she remembered what he did to Linda Darnell in Blood and Sand. But then she couldn't help run her finger over his thick beautiful eyebrows. She sighed at each photograph. “Garbo! Dietrich!”

  Orin stared at the largest of the many photographs. In it, three pretty young girls, identical, smiled at the camera. They wore white lace dresses to their ankles, wide-brimmed lace hats like halos; white fringed sashes gathered the dresses loosely about their waists. Arms about each other, the three were framed against the veranda of the house—gleaming white and surrounded by thriving blossoms, vines, trees. In script that might have been made by the same hand, were inked three names, one under each figure, each name preceded by the flowing word Love! “Love!—to Daddy—Rowena.” “Love!—to Daddy—Emma. “Love!—to Daddy—Nora.”

  Jesse and Lisa peered at the picture. Carefully Orin relocated it more centrally on the mantled piano.

  A staircase curved up to a balcony which led into deeper shadows, blackness. They heard footsteps, soft, as if the shoes that created them were covered with dust. All three looked up. Halfway down the steps stood an old woman in a white impeccably clean lace dress. A white lace hat framed her silver gray hair. A fringed sash embraced her middle loosely. She looked at the three invaders. Expressionless because it was heavily powdered in layers of whiteness, the face was like a thickened mask.

  “Who are you?” It was not the woman on the staircase who had asked that; it was another, higher up, on the darkened balcony. She moved into a lighter shadow. She too was dressed in white lace dress and hat, fringed sash. Her face, too, was chalked.

  “Good evening, ma'am,” Orin said.

  “Who are you?” said the woman on the stairs.

  Lisa and Jesse James began to back away.

  The woman on the balcony called down, “Did you know that Emma died? There's only Rowena and I now. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Orin said gravely, “and we came to pay our deep respects to Miss Emma, and regrets to you both for your great loss.”

  “Oh… .” The woman on the stairs sighed.

  Then the voice of the woman on the balcony came wearily, “Thank you for your concern and courtesy. Yes, she— … But she's with Daddy now, and— …”

  “She is,” Orin said.

  Abruptly, the woman on the balcony took a step forward; she rasped, “Leave us alone. We're not selling this house, not ever—leave us alone.”

  Orin moved back, joining Lisa and Jesse on the dusty veranda. Ancient leaves scattered as they walked across it. They jumped back over the glued barricade. The dirty-blond boy stood there.

  “I tole you—them bitches is mean,” he said.

  “No,” Orin said.

  They walked down the stairs. In the car Lisa didn't know what she felt. She was thrilled, yes, by the haunting presences of the great stars; but the house had given her the feeling that she had attended a belated funeral.

  In the car Orin looked at Jesse and Lisa. “What happens to people—why?”

  They drove back to Hollywood, and they ate at a Sizzler Steak House. Each paid for his own. Jesse had gambled and lost; he should have had the hamburger plate instead of the expensive steak.

  They drove aimlessly about the city—along blighted streets, nighthunters beginning to prowl, men and women; along dark, sleazy streets with arcades and porno book stores; downtown—where tramps wandered among the towering, new glass buildings. Occasionally Orin would look at his pocket watch. He turned on the radio. The news. Checking Chin's expression, Jesse reached out for the dial; Orin did not disapprove. Jesse found the Western and country station: crushed dreams restored, hearts mended by the power of new loves. Again, Orin checked his watch—and they drove back. The prostitutes on Western Avenue were thick in the hot, black night.

  Orin had left the television on in the motel room. The radiating blue light told Jesse what station it was on.

  “God's heart breaks, the angels weep,” Sister Woman was saying. Her hands opened slowly, releasing nothing. “I had a

  vision— …”

  Brother Man said, “You saw the messenger?”

  Lisa looked away from Pearl, propped on the bed, and at the woman on the screen. Lisa reall
y looked at her for the first time, allowed herself to.

  Jesse, too, watched the now-familiar woman. He and Lisa flanked Orin before the screen.

  Sister Woman said, “An important messenger has arrived. To burn in the blazing caverns of hell? Or to bathe in the glorious blood of Christ?” She withdrew some of the rage, only some. “Pray for the right choice! Which shall it be?” She cleared an invisible space with the phantasmal gestures. “Which!”

  Lisa saw Orin's lips move, slowly, forming soft words, words familiar to her now—she could read them on his lips:

  I … am … here.

  Threatening Sister Woman? Had she done something to the dead old woman? What was she to— …? Lisa blocked her questions.

  The grasping hands of the studio congregation reached toward the conspiring forces Sister Woman invoked.

  Mrs. Stephen Stephens III: “The Family Unit”

  Through a narrow partition in the swinging door that led from the white kitchen through the ecru breakfast room and into the pale gold dining room, Hilde saw Mrs. Stephens touch her temples, the edge of her auburn hair. More nervous than usual, not from the stitches, certainly not—they had come out weeks ago; that wasn't the cause. It was Tessa, her first Sunday dinner since she had “returned.”

  By moving slightly, Hilde located the dark-haired older daughter. She sat to Mrs. Stephens's right. Mrs. Stephens had instructed Hilde to tell all the help to let the youngwoman know how fine she looked, and Hilde had done just that, although nobody could fail to see that Tessa looked like a semiresurrected corpse.

  From her limited vantage, Hilde could not see Mark, but he would be sitting next to Tessa and wearing his glasses. Was he? Yes! Hilde saw, when she edged closer to the partition, and farther to the other side. There he was, restless as usual, battling the light salad, and, yes, wearing those thick black-framed glasses which he used only now and then, with no pattern except one: always during Sunday dinner.