Call Me Ishtar

by Rhoda Lerman

  Is this the best I can do with the new woman? Is this the first child who shall carry forth my powers? Already, I am sick. I taught her only a few simple unimportant things and she has misused them when it suited her purposes. She betrayed me and my secrets. What will happen when I tell her the big ones?

  What will she do if she knows that all heavenly events repeat themselves in the psyche, passing first through biology and history? Ontology, I should inform her, recapitulates cosmology? That as above, below?

  That magnetic events in the heavens change the minds of men? But that the minds of men can affect the magnetic events?

  What will she do, go on Dick Cavett and giggle?

  What will she do if she knows that magnetism is both a cure and a cause of disease and damage? Will she become a wan scholar and coordinate the plagues to the events in the heavens above Egypt as recorded? Claire, I want you to study the Ten Plagues of the Passover, which was actually when I, Venus, passed over and destroyed Egypt among other unnamed places and please do a neat graph on the relationship of the Angel of Death and the Fire of Heaven to the plagues. Yes, that’s correct. I am also the Angel of Death and the seder is the night of watching and praying that I don’t return in that costume. I should tell her this? I can see her now. “DEAR MACK, STAY CLEAR OF ISHTAR. SHE’S THE ANGEL OF DEATH AND SHE CAN GIVE YOU CANCER AND WIPE OUT YOUR MIND. COME TO ME, INSTEAD. LOVE, CLAIRE.”

  Will she find a way to use magnetism and the electric properties of metals to cure disease? Will she find a way to avoid illness by injecting microwaves before certain planetary movements? What will she do if I tell her that evolution exists slowly only for the animals and then rather capriciously? That consciousness is given? And that knowledge, electricity, levitation, magnetic controls, nuclear fires, are all antique and yet to be recovered. Will she study the Celts if I tell her they spread knowledge of the powers and learning into the Fertile Crescent, not from the Fertile Crescent upward to Europe. That Hebrew read from left to right is Gaelic?

  And that all antique words, Tara, Isis, Vladivostok come from the word Ishtar?

  And that the Star of Bethlehem and of David and of Solomon and of Bar Kochba who left his coins in Georgia, U.S.A. … that Star is me? And that I intended woman to be the sponsor and spinner of new life and that woman is by nature superior? What will she do, spit in my eye? There is so much. And I tell this child, who is powerful and is worthy and has the imagination to know large things and can laugh in the face of the waves, I tell her to pick me some mushrooms and she uses them herself on the one man I want. Aah, her jealousy and her one-ness are like mine. But they are not tempered with responsibility. The Angel of Death, the Whore of Babylon, the Mother of the World, we must be all of these things, Claire, all at once. That woman you have on your coins with the balanced scales? She is not Justice. She is woman balancing her roles. Standing on one foot, blindfolded. Half queen, half whore, half goddess, half kitchen help. “Cunt, my dear fornicating child,” I tell Claire as we drive to Rochester, with Grace and her friend behind us in their aprons under their pastel mink-collared coats and their Dynel wigs.

  “Cunt, my sweet child, is from the Sumerian word cunnus. It means burden. It is not something to be treated lightly. Nor is any of this.”

  I shall tell it first to Mack. He, after all, understands transistors and electronics. If then Mack will explain the simple technical facts about electronics to Claire, she, I know, will be able to grasp the relationships between heaven and earth. That is what a woman can do best.

  As we leave, I see Grace patting Claire’s behind and hear her say, “Good. Solid.” The mothers begin to crochet as soon as we are in the car. Their booted feet rest on the five gallon cans of honey from Grace’s beehives. Grace has brought with her a serrated edge pizza cutter. All is well. I turn on the speed control and curl my feet beneath me. The honey under their feet is truly powerful and growing more so. I prepared it myself in the quiet of the rotting chicken coop behind Mack’s house. Mack stood outside in the dark guarding the door as I lay my hands on rhythmically, transmitting powers. Birds sang in a mimosa bush growing along the split rock foundation of the coop.

  His mother was sleeping in the house above the fields. I whispered to her son, who smiled down at me. “Honey. I brought you a dab.” I touched my sticky finger to his forehead, his eyes, his earlobes. “Hindu brides anoint their grooms with honey. And then the bridegroom says to his bride, “Honey, this is honey.”

  “Hindus should go far with that kind of smarts.”

  I continued, ignoring his levity. “And then the bridegroom says, ‘The speech of thy tongue is honey. In my mouth lives the honey of the bee; in my teeth lives peace.’ I say to you, Mack, may your teeth have peace.”

  “My teeth?”

  “Yes.” I poked a finger into his mouth, exploring his palate. He licked the honey off and bit my finger, nibbling softer. “In Egypt the word to kiss is the same word as the word to eat.”

  He kissed my forehead politely. It was all he could do.

  “I’m sorry you won’t come tomorrow night, Mack. I need your strength.”

  “Listen, Ishtar,” he said very softly. “What have I got for you?” He ran his hands over his body demarcating his limits. I did not know if it were an offer or an apology. I went inside the chicken coop to finish my work.

  Much later, when the honey was pure, I stood with him again.

  “I got a tough date tomorrow night. That’s why I can’t go. See this cross?” He pulled a cheap cross from under his jacket. His gesture had been an apology.

  “It’s ugly.”

  “I’ve got this whole fan club in Utica … stewardesses. She gave me one … I gave her one. So she’ll be safe when she flies and I’ll be safe when I drive. Wild chick. Hey, Ishtar, you probably know … is there anything to having your period that makes chicks come harder?”

  “Ugly. What you must go through to become a man. And it is so troublesome waiting for you. Go now.”

  “Jealous. Wow? Well, may your teeth have peace. Don’t think I’m … are you really jealous?”

  I walked away into the fields then. Yes, bitter and jealous. I tore the black nylon of my underslip into strips and tied the strips to the beehives. The birds slept in the mimosa. The night was lonely. I found the familiar luminescence of the mandrakes by the rhubarbs. I covered my head with a coat, knelt and spread my legs over the family, anointing the cluster with menses and urine. Mack’s car was gone when I drove up the farm road past his house. At dawn, with flour to sprinkle on the ground from which I had torn them, I would choose my mandrakes.

  “Mandrakes,” I advise Claire, who is sitting with her magnificent profile next to me, “are female and male. They shriek when they are plucked. One must use an animal to root them out. Often, the animal dies. You are to twist the tiny apples from the female mandrakes and the genital roots from the male plants, liquefy them in a Sunbeam, preferably, and keep the male juices and female juices in separate protected containers. See?” I point to the bottles in my pockets. The bottles glow in the dark, warm through their heavy wrappings of cloth and tin.

  We whisper. The tapping of the crochet hook stops. We are overheard. We speak of music. “Almost there, Mothers,” I assure them. They begin to work their beads as I pull into the neon strip of motels and used car lots. “Get ready please.”

  We hear them stretch and shift heavily over the springs and clear their throats. Beyond the unmarked railroad tracks, surrounded by dirty banks of old snow, stands the Wonder Hostess Bakery, square and solid in the night, crowned with red letters. Floodlights cast the letters on the snow, exaggerating their shapes.

  “My headache’s gone,” Claire whispers to me.

  “Evil eye. Would you like a mother-in-law with an evil eye?”

  “I’m ready to make sacrifices.”

  “I’m not.” I bring the car to a stop under its delivery ramp.

  “There are only these few perfect moments for the mixing and
the baking, Claire. Venus will cross its heliacal arc and appear on the horizon of Lake Ontario at dawn, moving eastward as we have driven westward to Rochester.”

  “I’ll try to remember.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “And you’ll shorten that coat.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I smile at her while the mothers lift themselves from the car. “I will make him a man for you. But I will have the first fruits. I’ll show you what it means to sacrifice. Furthermore my behind is much lovelier and my breasts are even. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the words,” I continue as I cut the wires to the front door and allow the mothers to pass in, “matter terribly.”

  The mothers hang up their coats on walnut racks, remove their shoes from needlepoint shoebags and line their boots up nicely on the draining plastic. I point to Claire’s hiking shoes. She bends to remove them. We tie our aprons in double knots and ride the elevators down to the bakery. At the swinging doors of the baking room a green blackboard holds the next day’s baking orders in yellow chalk. Profile, Molnar Rye, hams, franks. I draw concentric eyes and flowing spirals around the frame, erasing the day’s orders. We enter. There are only two bakers working this night shift.

  The bakers shout at the mothers and Claire. I stand beyond the doors. The women brandish whip creme cans as if they are guns inside the deep muslin pockets of their aprons. Claire, within, is tying their sleeves behind them while they laugh at her.

  I listen.

  “You want some free Cupcakes?”

  “Look, we don’t wanna be rough with you ladies …”

  “We’re on schedule.”

  “For Godsake, ladies, what do you want?”

  “Hey, maybe they ain’t ladies. That one has a mustache.”

  I enter as Grace’s friend with the dark lipline pirouettes before a baker and kicks him at the knees. “Next time, son of a gun, higher.”

  “Wow, that one …” one says as he sees me emerging from the double doors. “That one definitely ain’t got no balls.”

  “You got any respect?” Grace’s friend kicked him again, higher.

  With a red lever, speechlessly, I halt the conveyor belts. The room is quiet. I wave the bakers out. Claire leads them away. She returns with a load of honey and passes it as planned to the mothers. The mothers climb the running boards near the mixing vats.

  As Claire and I bring in the tins of honey, the mothers take turns pouring and stirring the viscous amber into the vats. The cake mix thickens and is difficult to stir. Their faces flush with their effort. While they are busy, I stand near the creme injectors and nibble on a pinch of yellow powder from an umbre can printed in Spanish. I no longer remember the translation. The can is much used and stained. I open my bodice and press a nipple between thumb and forefinger, pumping a thin stream of clear milk into the creme injector. When my left breast is emptied, I demonstrate without words to Claire, who watches with an astonished mien, I press my right breast. Now, into the injector I pour the female mandragora juice.

  “Cupcakes?” she inquires. She is quick-witted, knowing the left is the female side.

  “And Twinkies,” I advise, pouring the male juice into the second injector. I raise my hands over the machinery and move my lips in prayer. I am not quite ready to divulge the magic cadences to her. I sense Grace and her friend watching me. I button my bodice hurriedly, licking the remainder of my milk with my forefinger.

  “Hey, Ishtar, what’s the powder?” Grace approaches me. “You got a new kid? My daughter-in-law got a new kid. You don’t have a new kid.” She thinks as she walks to me and then buttons on my bodice a button I missed.

  “Claire,” I call as I walk away with Grace where no one can hear us, “tell me when the creme shines.” Grace walks around me and looks at me from many angles. I stand proudly.

  “Would you like this powder for your daughter-in-law?” I ask, offering her my stained umbre can. “It is afterbirth. It will help her love her new child longer. That is the difficulty with modern mothers now. They never eat the afterbirth and they despise their children.”

  “It’s natural to love your kids.” She continues to walk around me and I turn.

  “It is as natural to eat them.” She stops. I continue. “Afterbirth begins the instinctual love which animals have for their offspring and humans do not.”

  Grace pockets the can with her teabag.

  “Dilute it, otherwise she’ll get mother’s milk.”

  “You help Mack. Keep him away from Nino?”

  I smile although my lips tremble. She pats my marble smooth cheek with her sandpaper hand. “I’ll help you, Ishtar, if you help my Mack.”

  “Yes,” I answer, and I believe she knows my intent.

  “Cooks of the Week, we stick together, huh?” She nudges me sharply below the ribs and I elbow her back nearer her shoulder since she is short.

  “Good food,” I say, quite together now, “makes good children.”

  “Look at that! Look at that!” Claire screams. The creme she points to is resplendent as the living mandrakes had been in the night field. The women circle around the creme.

  “Cupcakes, first,” Grace calls.

  The machinery, flashing blue with my furca, begins it motion. An aura of ultraviolet frames the oven and I examine the blood tapering into my fingers through the light. The mothers’ faces gleam as they stand before the glass windows and watch the cakes pop and rise and pass out to the cooling and wrapping systems. The molds turn on their sides, wax paper enfolds the cakes, cardboard bases support them and at last the cakes are pressed with my own labels. It is dawn by the time the final Twinkies are produced and packaged and then we are finished. We are wet with perspiration and fatigue but the baking is completed and well.

  Claire brings in the bakers and the mothers push the two men against the wall. They are cold, for having been on the platform these long hours, and I am sorry for them. Nevertheless, I stomp on their hats, which are the hats of priests and not deserved, and I serrate their tongues with the pizza cutter so we will be unknown for a while. “We are the ovens,” I tell them as they sink to the floor, their aprons to their mouths. “We kindle and we bake. You are unclean to trifle with the Cupcakes of the Hostess.” They blink at me. They do not understand. “I leave you honey to lay upon your tongues that they may heal. I am satisfied,” I tell them and I tell the mothers and I tell Claire. “Ishtar is satisfied.”

  Outside on the loading platform, my hair blows across my face. The sky above Lake Ontario is pink. Over the flat roof of Shakey’s Pizza, Venus rises faintly as the morning star. “Wonder Bread,” I call out. “Miracle Mix,” I call out. “Hostess,” I call out. “You will be mine again.” And I toss the letters on the roof, crashing them into their foot-lights and burying them in the snow.

  In the Country Squire with their tired heads tucked into their mink collars, the mothers sleep already. I recite the recipes again and again to Claire, committing them to her memory. They will be hers.

  13

  ISHTAR LAY IN HER KING-SIZE BED, LILIES OF SEMEN-CRUSTED Kleenex scattered on the olive turf floor beneath her as she languidly twisted the globe of her Spitz Junior Planetarium, weaving summer heavens into winter heavens, night by night on the darkened plaster of the ceiling. She plunged Ursa Major over a green fly flattened the last summer.

  “Ennui,” she pronounced, and the Great Bear dipped before her. “I myself, even I, the Lady of the Southern Sycamore. I who fashion all things. I who bring to life. I who am sharp of tooth. I who am unsparing of fang. I who am both cunning and lingual. I need a dentist.”

  The seven sisters appeared in the East over a pair of two-dimensional mosquitoes and the hairline profile crack of George Washington. Ishtar sighed heavily. There was much to do. The layer of ice was shrinking from the canal. Easter was approaching. The children in three cites had annihilated dance halls and schools. Club
owners from distant cities called day and night booking ahead for summer jobs. The crowds came, hoping for the mother and her magic, in passion over the music, but Ishtar had not appeared. She had agreed with herself to leave at Easter, which was of course somewhat traditional. She was not ready to leave. Grace fretted over the shortage of Cup-cakes, the factories were not organized and the boys, with their silver and inlaid instruments and clothes of suedes and leathers and cars of terrible beauty, wanted still more money. And Mack was sullen, passing in large curves around her and shifting his blackened eyes from her questioning smiles.

  Ishtar trailed Cassiopeia closer to the windowsill. And her teeth were rotting. Which meant it was time to go.

  Pumpernickel seeds were caught between her teeth, dull and threatening, like shark fins in clean waters. The gums of her mouth were swollen and painful. She would have to see a dentist if she were to remain after Easter. And she hated dentists and loved Mack and wanted to remain. Clouds of glory have never satisfied the hunger of great women.

  Lazily exploring among the stiff lilies Robert had left so joyously in his wake, after having been seduced with cocoa and cookies, Ishtar found a damp one and daubed her heel for good measure.

  She could stay, she considered, as the southern November sky passed from view, and the demands would be enormous. Her name and their name on a thousand lips, a thousand times a thousand lips, and then, she sighed, it would be, according to the old plan, the time to die and return, nailing in her godship. With rotting teeth. Shit.

  Ishtar turned on her tensor light and danced in among the stars freely, without orbit, as she had so long ago, zigzagging wildly across the heavens, until that terrible day when Paradise ended, when the apple orchard was closed and ugly Mars stood between her and her children with his flaming sword of war turning forever. And her children began to fight then, with Mars above them, sending his terrible metallic heat and hatred into their veins. She couldn’t tolerate her children fighting.