The Kingdom of Shivas Irons

by Michael Murphy

  Fifteen minutes later I sat in a pub near my hotel, drinking a glass of beer. It was impossible to erase the image of Nadia. Every part of her body, it seemed, had wanted to luxuriate in the sensations of love. It was as if she’d reached into corners of herself no one had touched before. Her thighs, her calves, her feet and toes all ached with delicious pleasure. No wonder Hannigan did those sit-ups! Before her defection from the USSR, she’d been the ice-skating champion of Novosibirsk. No one, he’d said, could match her combination of discipline, soul, and athleticism. A Nadia Kirova could emerge only in Russia. The night before, driving back from MacDuff’s estate, I’d found it hard to believe his description of her, but now it made more sense. Forget the necromanteion. Forget her meetings with the spirits. A woman who joined so much athletic skill and erotic abandon was indeed a treasure. Conceivably, only Russia could produce such a combination of talents.

  But what was her claim about love? That the body was “an erotic harp” in which there existed meridians of pleasure unknown to most of us? She had learned that from Sufi schools in Moscow and Samarkand. According to Hannigan, she also believed that our bodies were made for sex with angels. There were spirits, she said, who feasted on the aura of love in the flesh, enjoying human sex telepathically without suffering the dreary parts of personal relationship. The night before I’d been amazed at Hannigan’s lyricism, but now I understood. Perhaps he’d made music this night with her secret strings of pleasure.

  Philosophers talk about “unpacking” great ideas which, because they contain hidden complexities, yield understandings long after their conception. Nadia’s image was like that. Despite my efforts to suppress it, her reflection continued to unfold in the mirror of my mind. Her flesh yearned to be touched. What ecstasies her thighs and calves suggested. What stomach muscles she possessed to maintain those graceful, leisurely postures! With their slow stretches and undulations, her legs had moved in apparent defiance of gravity. Had she learned levitation, too, in her mystery schools? If it could happen in golf, it could happen in the act of love.

  But why couple with Hannigan at the gate of the dead? Was her necromanteion designed for sex as well as conversation with spirits? Maybe she was summoning angels now for a dance, an orgy, a slow pandemonium of love. I ordered another glass of beer. It was disturbing to think they might be doing it still. Suddenly I was jealous of Hannigan. Had he sensed I would come to the apartment early? It was conceivable that he’d done this to torture me. It took a moment for my anger to pass.

  But my thoughts kept returning to Nadia—born in Tomsk, student of ballet, ice-skating champion, member of a Sufi school headquartered in Samarkand, and student of Djuna Davitashvilli, the darkly beautiful healer reputed to have eased the sufferings of Brezhnev. That was coincidence! I’d met Djuna in Moscow, working on Soviet-American exchanges, and four years before, my wife, Dulce, and I had taken Norman Mailer to meet her. Memories of that evening were vivid still—the line of supplicants in the street; the mingling of Russians, Georgians, and Americans; the East German ambassador relieved from gout; the dozens of icons on her walls, nearly all of them payments for her physical and spiritual ministrations.

  In a corner, several men and women had gathered to watch a pornographic tape—provided, they said, by the Georgian, or Uzbek, or Sicilian mafia. But the film looked Danish to me, especially a rousing episode with a buxom blonde and large Samoyed. Later that night, I’d argued with Mailer about the tiles in Djuna’s bathroom. The figures they depicted were Hittites, he said, but I was sure they were Assyrians. Our discussion ended with a thumb-wrestling match observed by Djuna and some of her friends who encouraged us with Bulgarian brandy. It was amazing that Nadia knew Djuna. Had she studied with the well-connected healer? In the Kremlin the year before, Djuna had demonstrated her powers to a group of Soviet officials (one of our friends had attended), and was rumored to have held more than one séance for members of Brezhnev’s family. Had Nadia learned about spirit-sex from Djuna Davitashvilli? We had several interesting things to discuss.

  But it was nine o’clock. Quickly paying my bill, I headed back to the outskirts of Edinburgh.

  With an anxiety that surprised me, I knocked at the outside entrance to Nadia’s apartment. Did either of them suspect I’d been there already? When no one answered, I knocked again. Perhaps they had started the séance. Carefully opening the door, I stepped inside. Were they still making love? “Hannigan,” I whispered. “Are you there?”

  The apartment was completely silent. “Hannigan,” I said in a loud voice. “It’s Murphy. Should I come in?”

  As if in response, Nadia’s chanting arose from the necromanteion. It had the same aching insistence as the sound she’d made before, but with a slightly higher and more constant pitch. I tiptoed down the corridor. The sound reminded me of the call to prayer I’d heard in Muslim countries. Had she learned it in her Sufi school in the deserts of Samarkand? Summoning courage, I opened the chamber door. By the light of the corridor, I could see two figures, sitting cross-legged side by side, looking up into the glass. Slipping into the room, I sat some ten feet from them.

  The chanting stopped. “Mackel?” Nadia whispered. “Is it you?”

  “It’s me,” I said with surprise and embarrassment. “Don’t stop what you’re doing.”

  There was silence. Only the mirror was visible now, hovering in the silver light projected from the ceiling.

  A moment passed. Then something moved. “Are you sitting?” she asked with a throaty Russian inflection. “You see saahmthing in our window?”

  “No.”

  “Softly, Mackel,” she said. “Look softly. It’s a child’s face. Someone you love. Someone you love very much. Look into its beautiful eyes with laahve.”

  My gaze relaxed, and the mirror started to undulate. Whether from the effects of beer or her hypnotic voice, I suddenly felt drowsy. Widening my eyes to stay alert, I stared into the glass. But my arms and feet grew heavy. My eyes began to close … and an image of her legs appeared, their naked calves and thighs stretching deliciously toward the ceiling, as if to spread the pleasure she felt through her entire body. Was it a memory or distorted reflection? As I straightened my back to stay alert, her legs dissolved into a stream lined with trees through which the sky was barely visible. A grey sky, like the dim silver light in the mirror, which I could see though my eyes were closed …

  “Ma … ackel?” she called with a teasing inflection, stretching my name like she’d stretched her legs. “Maackel? Are you asleep? Keep your eyes open now.” Her words jolted me. Had I snored? Perhaps she was tracking me telepathically. But the tall rectangle appeared to be empty. There was nothing there but dim grey light.

  She started to chant, with a rhythmic, insistent pulse filled with joy and yearning. It seemed a call to God more than a summons of departed spirits. But again I had to fight off sleep, and couldn’t hold a steady focus. My body slumped. My eyelids closed.…

  And memories of infancy drifted past; my mother rocking me back and forth, my father singing by a fire and, from his strong arms, the view of a cloudless sky. Somewhere between my mind and the mirror, the image of a schoolyard appeared, with its swings and merry-go-round, its poplar trees, and me skipping to a teacher’s embrace.

  Then, as in a waking dream, I floated on a summer’s day in the sea near a sandy beach—rocking gently, looking up, sensing I could fly. These images had continuity. They had a secret to tell. Straightening my back to drive away sleep, I stared into the glass. It was strangely familiar now, and I remembered the panic I’d felt as a child realizing that I wasn’t my reflection. Who was I then? Who was I now? My boundaries had disappeared in the mirror.

  “It’s amazing how our thoughts, our bodies float in this emptiness.” The voice of Shivas Irons seemed to come from the silver light. “From the day we’re born, we have premonitions of the life to come.…”

  Startled, I sat straight up. Nadia had stopped her chanting. Had she or Hannigan heard i
t? As with the images a moment before, it was hard to tell where the words had come from. “Premonitions of the life to come”—his voice was still vivid, though situated safely now inside my ordinary field of consciousness. Closing my eyes, I could hear him reminding me that “the life to come” had a double meaning. It signified more than the afterlife. “It can happen here,” he’d said. “In this ever-aspiring Earth. From the day we’re born, we have premonitions of it. As soon as we’re out o’ our mother’s womb, through our childhood until we die, we have feelings of the life to come. Did ye ever think ye were levitatin’? Did ye ever ask ‘who am I?’ and think yer mind might vanish.…”

  “Mackel!” Nadia whispered. “Mackel, wake up!”

  I awoke with a start. She had stationed herself behind me and was massaging my shoulders slowly. Embarrassed, I sat erect. “You were growling,” she said softly. “Like a lion, a big poosycat.”

  “You mean I was snoring!”

  “No, growling.” She rubbed my back with slow, firm strokes. “Like a lion!”

  “Hannigan,” I called. “Are you there?”

  “He left,” she whispered, rubbing my neck with one hand and the small of my back with the other. “He thinks you frightened the spirits.”

  “He left?” I asked with alarm.

  “To the kitchen,” she whispered in my ear. “To have a drink of vaahdka. Now we are alone. All alone. Just you and I.”

  “Thanks.” I shook my shoulders to suggest that she stop. “I’m wide awake now.”

  “Now, Mackel, look.” Holding my head with both hands, she aimed it toward the glass. In its silvery light, a dim silhouette had appeared. As if in a separate frame or spatial indentation, a male figure was forming. “Don’t look away,” she whispered. “It came and went when you were sleeping, and now it’s coming back.”

  I watched it coalesce, then hover in the mirror. The figure of a man, shrouded in mist or smoke, from which there came a light like sunshine on a rippling pond. Nadia let go of my head and placed her hands on my shoulders. “It’s trying to reach you, Mackel,” she whispered. “What’s it saying to you?”

  Perhaps it was the power of her suggestion or some vagary of reflected light, but the mist-shrouded figure moved from an apparent indentation of space to a position closer to me. For a few seconds, it hovered between me and the glass, then returned to the recess from which it had come, dissolved, and disappeared completely.

  “Can you see it now?” she whispered.

  My heart was beating rapidly, and sweat had formed on my forehead. “No,” I said. “Can you?”

  “It’s gone,” she said softly. “Do you know what it was?” Her large almond-shaped eyes shone with a light stronger than the illumination reflected by the mirror. I said that the figure was unrecognizable.

  “It was strange,” she whispered. “The living are different from the dead. This was neither. This was both. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She squeezed my arm firmly. “But Mackel, it said something to you. Did you hear it?”

  “No.”

  “Or feel it?”

  Wiping sweat from my forehead, I looked at the glass again. It seemed to be filled with smoke. “No, I didn’t feel anything. Just amazement.”

  “Maybe something will reach you later.” Her voice was barely audible. “It was trying so hard to reach out. Trying very hard. I think it likes you.”

  We sat in silence, then she tugged at my arm. “But let’s see Bach,” she said. “Before he’s drunk!”

  He was sitting at a table in her kitchen, with a loaf of brown bread, a bottle of vodka, and a dish of big pickles in front of him. “Christ, you snore!” he said as we entered. “It’s a wonder you didn’t crack the glass.”

  “Baah … ch,” said Nadia reprovingly. “You are not nice to your friend.”

  The apparition had left me in mild shock. “Nadia?” I asked, sitting at the table across from Hannigan. “Do you mind if I have some vodka?”

  “Give him a glass, Baahch,” she said. “Be a nice man.” Then she turned to face us. Her bright almond-shaped eyes were either blue or violet. Thick blonde hair fell to her neck, framing her high, well-defined cheekbones. And she had a magnificent figure, which was accentuated by a white blouse that revealed part of her cleavage and close-fitting tan suede pants. She was part Russian, part Tatar, I guessed—and as beautiful as Hannigan had promised. I poured myself a glass of vodka. Its warmth, and her stunning looks, began to lift me past the shock of our visitation.

  “It came back,” she said, sitting down beside Hannigan. “It was strange. Very strange. It was reaching to Mackel.” Poised at the edge of her chair with an erect but relaxed posture, she poured herself a vodka, tossed back her blonde hair, and looked at us both with smiling curiosity. “Murphy and Hannigan,” she said with a lilt. “So Irish!”

  “I’m Scots,” said Hannigan. “Not Irish.” His glasses reflected the overhead light, giving him a slightly menacing look. I wondered if he had any hint that I’d seen them making love.

  “But you’re a little Irish,” she said. “Baahch, you’re a little bit Irish.”

  Hannigan rocked back on his chair, looking into his vodka glass. Nadia winked at me to suggest she’d made peace with the thorny side of his nature. “So it came back,” he said with a flat, hard inflection. “What the hell was it?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged and her eyes grew wide. “It came close and was very far away. It was in two or three spaces at once. It was dead and it was alive. I never saw such a thing—here, in Moscow, or Samarkand.”

  “What did you see?” He looked at me. “Was it dead or alive?”

  “I’ve never been in a necromanteion, or seen a ghost. I’ve never seen anything like it. Nadia, what do you mean, it was neither dead nor alive?”

  She gave me a searching look. “You’ve never been in a séance?” she asked. “You’ve never seen a spirit-body?”

  “Never.”

  “But Baahch,” she said with disappointment. “You told me he had. You said he was a psychical researcher.”

  “I said he studies these things,” Hannigan said with irritation. “He’s only read about them.”

  I didn’t know how to take his remark. Was he defending me or putting me down? “But Mackel,” she said, “Baahch says you saw the ghost of your teacher’s teacher. Didn’t you write about it?”

  “Well, that was a long time ago,” I said with hesitation. “Maybe I saw a ghost. I’m not sure.”

  “But you wrote about it,” she said. “Did you make the story up?”

  “No,” I said, embarrassed. “I didn’t make it up. But I don’t know what I saw. Actually, I saw two apparitions. Or three. I described only one—or two—in Golf in the Kingdom.”

  “One or two? Two or three? It is complicated!” She leaned closer to me, her shapely breasts pressing against the table. “But what were they like? Did they say something to you?”

  Suddenly I felt suspicious. Something about her reminded me of a woman in Moscow who’d professed to be an admirer. She had wanted to know about my interest in the paranormal, and I later discovered that she worked for the KGB. But that was in 1980. This was 1987. Glasnost had arrived. Nadia had defected. My suspicion was absurd. “Well?” she insisted. “What were the two apparitions like?”

  “One looked like a man.” I fumbled for words. “The other was, well, how to say it? Like a hole in space. A hole with fire in it. But it lasted for just a few seconds. I didn’t mention it in my book because … well, I suppose it just faded from memory.”

  With her chin resting on her clasped hands, she looked into my eyes. It occurred to me that she was using my face as she did the mirror in her necromanteion. “Did you think these things were real?” she asked.

  “Yes. Definitely. Though I’ve wondered about them since. I saw an old man—later I presumed it was my teacher’s teacher—walking along a ravine. But Buck says he’d died by then. And later that night I thought I saw him again.” I l
ooked to Hannigan. “But what was Irons doing? He implied that MacDuff was alive. He suggested we might meet him. What was that about?”

  “But Mackel,” Nadia said insistently, “did Mr. Irons see his teacher that night?”

  “No. He said I was imagining it.”

  “And the first time? Did he see his teacher then?”

  “No. Or if he did, he didn’t tell me. I didn’t remember seeing MacDuff—that was his teacher’s name—until later. Somehow I’d repressed the experience. But I tell you, it was real. I went back there two days ago, and remembered the whole thing clearly. But that brings up another problem! There’s no place to stand where I thought I saw him. I didn’t realize that until the day before yesterday. And now Buck says he was dead. It must’ve been an apparition.”

  As Nadia studied my face, she seemed to acquire a deeper focus. Had my face become a crystal ball? “And the other thing?” she whispered. “The thing you saw near Mr. Irons? That seemed real, too?”

  “It seemed real to me. But not everyone saw it. Or if they did they thought it was something else.” I briefly described my conversations with the man in the yellowed suit and the couple who owned a farm near Burningbush.

  “So, Mackel? That thing you saw near Mr. Irons, that hole in space. You didn’t think about it when you wrote your book?”

  “No. It never came up. I didn’t remember it until a lady who read my book described an experience that reminded me of it. She said that when she was playing golf one day, the world became transparent. The light of the setting sun, she said, ‘was replaced by another light.’ Her description brought back the whole thing, I don’t know, maybe six or seven years ago. Playing with Irons on the last hole at Burningbush, everything seemed like that. The clubhouse, the fairways, the green. Everything seemed transparent. And then, that hole in space. I remember it clearly now.”