by John Rechy
Looking out the window to ascertain that the “man with the knife” was not still in pursuit and having assured that he was not, the noble Count thoughtfully drew the curtains of the coach, taking into consideration that co-conspirators might peer in.
As if to assuage her (pretended) fright, the Whore clutched the Count’s hand and quickly transferred it onto her naked lap. Taking advantage of his kindly pat (intended to reassure her that she was safe — he was not aware where his hand had been moved), the Whore opened her legs so that his hand (according to the rules of gravity rather than to those of morality) fell lower, locating a moisture he could not identify. He sought to find its origin. Was it the distraught woman’s tears? (Remember he was a virgin.)
The opportunistic Whore added her own delving finger to his while with her other hand she held one of her delicious breasts (that is how some, who must have tasted them, saw them) to her own mouth, licked the nipple, and presented the corrupt offering to the Noble Count, who responded touchingly to memories of his happy childhood and of his little lips nurturing on his wet nurse’s plenitude.
A sharp jerk of the coach toppled him to his knees before the wily Whore, who seized that opportunity to entrap his face there, clenching her thighs, rendering him helpless for so long that his mouth grew dry and he had to wet his lips urgently with his tongue, which she maneuvered expertly into her desire-moistened parting.
Pretending to faint, the Whore swayed her head over the Count’s lap, her mouth availing itself of yet another opportunity, which confounded the Count into believing that the distressed woman was so desperately gasping for air that she had swallowed him into her mouth. By forcing his hands to clasp her breasts, she further confused him by again hatefully arousing (she knew no limits) the sweet memory of his nurturing wet nurse.
Not yet comprehending her cunning (the Writer must here inform the Reader that in his youth the Count had prepared for Holy Vows), the mortified Count eased her up, to breathe her back to consciousness. Encouraged by the fact that she had strength enough to grope at him as if for support, he allowed her onto his lap.
At that moment, the coach entered the route the Whore had dictated, having maintained that it would lead her to the safety of her quarters. The cobbled street caused the coach and its occupants to move up and down, up and down. That, and the fact that the Whore continued to clutch him in her hand, which was lubricated with her odious juices, resulted, for the Count, in a biological inevitability, a stiffening, no matter how powerfully resisted.
The shrewd Whore knew this street well; she had walked it often. In seconds the coach would pass an especially prominent hump on the street. At that exact moment, she spread her thighs over the Count’s lap and enlisted the sudden upward thrust of the coach as her noxious ally in forcing the hapless Count into her — as the coach rolled up and down, up and down over the cobblestones.
Do you believe now that I shall withhold nothing? I’ve exposed lies to reveal the truth, which is this: On that night travestied in these pages a madman was in pursuit of me with a knife. He had come close enough to slash my clothes. The Count du Muir ordered his coach to stop and he opened its doors to me. He covered my trembling body with his cape, which I accepted. In his mansion later, he sheltered me as I wept, and our love began.
That innocently?
So you’ve joined fully in rehearsals. Must your tone be harsh, sarcastic? I shall discuss with Madame how to deal with hostility and rudeness.
But I would do that later, I decided as Madame and I sipped our tea that afternoon. Madame had just informed me that today’s brew had arrived this morning “from the islands; we need not fear disappointment.”
We sat on her veranda — the opposite side from the one we usually occupy because, earlier today, workmen had repaired a portion of the marble design affected by a recent temblor I was fortunate enough to have missed. Madame is terrified of such temblors. The slightest quivering, of whatever origin, will cause her to freeze for moments, her hands grasping whatever is firm and nearest her. At such moments, Ermenegildo rushes over to her. I have not yet determined whether he, too, is terrified of the earth’s shifts or whether he wants to lend her his support. Today, Madame had let the workers leave early, in deference to the private nature of our conversation.
Ermenegildo was peering at our tea setting, as if to anticipate his treat of today’s starry cakes on the silver plate. His endearing comb feather was teased by a breeze as he moved away, to rest in expectation of sweet delights to come.
I told Madame immediately about the note left on my gate.
It was as if my startling news had not surprised her. Because she expected the unexpected? Was she trying to restrain her reactions, not to alarm me unduly? Oh, she had been considering the matter. “You must not be unnerved, Lady. Expect more, even harsher.”
This was the appropriate moment I had been waiting for: I brought out from within the folds of my cowl what I had carried with me today: the “First Installment” of the accusatory “Account” Madame had indicated having only heard about. She must know exactly what we’re pitted against. To my astonishment, she was not at all surprised to see the pages. She glanced at the title, and then she laid the “Installment” on the table, as if she had expected it! I still have difficulty accepting Madame’s uncanny intuitions. Or is it possible that she’s already read these pages? Her next words dispelled — did they? — that notion: “I shall read it tonight,” she said, and continued as if there had been no such intervening interlude:
“If only we had an ally in the City, to discover exactly what’s planned —”
“We have an ally!” It occurred to me only then. “The Contessa, the Count’s mother.” Just the memory of the gentlewoman soothed me.
“Ah, yes, the lady in mourning at the Cathedral, who blessed you after the murder in the Grand Cathedral.”
I told Madame about my first meeting with the Contessa: “Soon after my affair with the Count du Muir commenced, she drove her coach to my apartment in the City.”
Ordinarily I would not have granted the odd audience. A coachman had come to my quarters to solicit a meeting, in her carriage; he told me the Contessa felt it necessary not to be recognized. “I am not used to being received in darkened coaches!” I reacted. With noted courtesy he assured me that there was no insult in this proposal. I accepted what I anticipated would be a confrontation about her son, my beloved.
I entered the darkened coach.
“My dear, I am here to tell you,” the Contessa said quickly, “that the whole City knows of your affair with . . .” It was at this moment that from the splendid comb crowning her head she removed her shawl — she called it a mantilla, in the Spanish style — and revealed herself to be a handsome woman of angular features. Forming a perfect peak above her forehead, her long dark hair was pulled back to display her aristocratic cheekbones. “. . . that the whole City knows of your affair with my beloved son, and of your impending marriage,” she finished.
I bristled: “Your Ladyship, I believe you mean they know of our love.”
She touched me with her gloved hand, an assuring gesture. “Every effort is being made to thwart your marriage, lies are being spread about you. A very high prelate may be involved in the conspiracy against you.” She sustained those dangerous words on a long sad sigh. She went on to tell me that, through a source close to her — one who might be in touch with me subsequently — she had learned that a “high prelate” had a predilection for viewing the reflected bottoms of children. “Of course, I’m pained to confess that I speak about the Pope.” She made a sign of the cross with the black rosary she always carried about her neck. She kissed the silver crucifix.
I could tell she had become instantly fond of me. “That information might become useful in warding off danger to you during your approaching wedding to my son. Danger from the Pope and” — her pain was visible even in the muted light within her coach — “from the woman I hesitate to call my daughter, Irena
. She may already have poisoned Alix against you, as she has against me.”
I did not feel it appropriate to tell her that Alix was already poisoned against me. I had spurned his rude advances at some social function or other when my beloved was briefly occupied with a visiting ambassador. “But my brother and I are identical, except for our coloring,” Alix had protested drunkenly in the salon. “And except for your souls,” I had dispatched him.
In her carriage, the Contessa continued: “I have a weak heart, my dear, and so I cannot stay longer. I have come to warn you because once I was —” She faltered.
“— in love with a man whom you were thwarted from marrying.” I announced what her grieved expression told me.
She nodded, adjusting her mantilla. “He was forced into exile for a year, but our love would not die. He returned, although” — she stifled a gasp — “although the ultimate closeness of that last time was thwarted.” She reached into the folds of her skirt and kissed a dried rose, crushed within the pages of her missal. “He gave me this, the man I shall always love.” She said what I had already inferred.
She drew the mantilla over her face, ending our close interlude. I stepped out of the coach. I touched my lips to her hand, in gratitude for her allegiance.
She reached out urgently to me, apparently having decided only then to tell me more. In a rushed whisper she spoke these strange words: “Irena is dangerous because she believes she knows about the tulips —”
“The tulips?”
“Yes!”
“Tulips?” Madame Bernice queried now in her garden.
“Yes, Madame,” I assured her, “that is what the Contessa said to me, that evening in her coach, and then —”
Before I could question her further, her coach disappeared along the street and into the mist of night.
It was the information from the gracious Contessa about the Pope — information confirmed by a gracious nun, a friend of the Count’s — that allowed me to “coax” the Pope to perform my nuptials. How better to keep the duplicitous prelate in sight than to force him to preside over our wedding in the Cathedral? Too, his presence near us would render him vulnerable to whatever Irena and Alix might attempt at the altar. He would be forced to caution any rash act. I had no way of knowing that the seating plan, which I had myself devised, had been intercepted by a disloyal page and that Alix and Irena were assigned a place in the first pew, making a closer range possible, which would allow the Pope to squirm away at the murderous time.
“An ally, indeed,” Madame greeted the Contessa. “Tell me, Lady, if you know, was her lover —?”
“Murdered, too, like mine,” I said. Oh, I had read it in the gracious lady’s voice that night.
Madame Bernice lowered her head in reverence to the Contessa’s loss, and mine. “There’s a curious riddle there —”
“— about. . . tulips.” The mystery deepened on being spoken.
Carriage wheels ground harshly on the road. I stood. Madame reached for her opera glasses. “A black coach!” she cried. Aware of the intrusive noise, Ermenegildo raised his head in the direction of the road. Then he aimed his beak assertively toward my château.
The coach was dashing there. I said urgently, “I must go back immediately, to catch whoever placed those mangled flowers and that warning on my gate!” I was sure that carriage would yield the answer.
“No!” Madame tried to restrain me. “It’s dangerous for you to go alone!” I could tell by the rustling of her taffeta skirt that she was rushing after me, to accompany me, but as agile as she is, she had to slow her pace. I heard her harsh breathing. “Lady! Lady!” she called.
I ran across the lawn, past the avenues of Madame’s garden, onto the road, along it, faster, faster, past trees that seemed themselves to be moving while I, in my urgency, stood still, carried along, faster, faster, by sheer determination. I knew that I was running because I could see my cowl trailing behind me. I carried it in my hands — not having had the time to cloak myself with it although evening was encroaching with a chilly sigh.
I reached my gate.
A carriage waited there, facing me, like a hearse. Its black horses were motionless. Against the faint light, the coachman was a dark blotch. I walked toward the carriage. There was an eternal moment during which I was sure someone was about to emerge from the darkened coach.
The crack of a whip!
The horses spun about, and the carriage sped back along the road it had traveled. I was able to see only smears against the back window. A passenger. Two?
After the sound of the wheels had faded, I waved toward Madame’s château. I knew she would be straining to keep me in sight with her glasses. She would know that the carriage had fled, since it would have to pass her château. Seeing me waving at her, she would know that I was out of danger. I waited until she had signaled back.
I faced my gate. Had I been too late, had something been left there? Another mysterious message? No, nothing. I breathed again. I opened the gate. Something interfered. A basket. I approached it.
On a red blanket within the basket, a cat fed two tiny creatures she had just given birth to, one white, the other dark. She looked up at me. I leaned closer:
Her two children were dead. What I had thought was a red blanket was their blood.
I rushed into my quarters.
How much time has passed? Within the foggy night, I detect the forlorn mewling of the abandoned cat, mourning the death of her children —
Forgive me if I choose now to lie down, I’m tired, forgive me if I close my eyes, I’m tired, I’m drifting, I’m tired, I’m drifting. . . not into sleep . . . into my memories . . . drifting to Corinth, with Jason —
No, no, not now. No!
— drifting to Greece, with Jason . . . no, no . . . away . . . drifting —
— onto the shore of the River Jordan.
VIII
THE SUN FLOATED MESMERIZED over the horizon, illumining the desert in yellow fog. Along the bank of the River and on hills nearby, a throng gathered to be baptized by John the Baptist.
He was much younger than I had anticipated, a young man of imposing presence. Surely he knew it was not only his commanding words but his almost naked body — he wore only a brief hair shirt softened by age — that was luring the crowds to the River.
I, Magdalene, fifteen years old, had wandered amid urgent crowds making their way to the baptisms. I heard awed murmurs about miracles attributed to the blessings of the holy man at the River. The sadness in my life urged me to follow the crowd. Already, I conceived only of a future of despondency on the streets. I remembered no father, no mother. I tried to steal before I sold my body, but often I did not succeed.
“Separate yourselves from the generation of vipers, repent through baptism, receive the blessings of the Lord, whom I shall serve and soon identify,” the Baptist shouted.
The blue-veiled silhouette of a woman, so beautiful that sighs and gasps pursued her, appeared on the rim of the palm-thatched hill. She seemed encased in crystal, separated invisibly from everyone else. Firmly, she held the hand of a young man with her. That was Mary with her son, Jesus.
He was sixteen, a year older than I. He was so glorious that it seemed the sun provided a special light to display the perfect highlights of his sculpted face, the lines of his slender muscular body. He possessed a reckless beauty he seemed unaware of as he walked with the woman toward the River, at times still in the awkward gait of a boy. A strand of his hair, which touched his wide shoulders, insisted on falling over one eye. He would abandon it there for moments, then reject it with a toss of his head. His tunic, in collusion with the moisture of his body on this hot day, displayed the outline of his loincloth, white, in contrast with his sun-bronzed flesh that gleamed through in smears.
As he and the woman descended, I saw another young man, determinedly alone, the same age as the young man with the glorious woman. Handsome, with a moody sensuality astonishing for his age — yes, that was Juda
s — he was ignoring the frenzied crowd by creating, on the side of a hill, an elaborate sculpture out of sand and some water he carried in a pouch. He looked up at the same time that Jesus saw him. Judas tilted his head at Jesus, who answered back. Each had detected in the other, in that brief exchange a signal of . . . I would discover that later.
Jesus pulled away from his mother’s tight grip, to join Judas in his sculpting — and to flee from the dramatic ceremony at the edge of the River. Mary’s hand restrained him. They marched forward toward the Baptist.
Blessing the water into which he submerged those who came kneeling to him in supplication, John the Baptist would then command them to rise. They gathered at the shoreline to watch others and chant, howl, tremble, moan.
“Lady, I suggest that at interviews you pause to remind that John the Baptist is not the same man with you at Patmos, St. John the Divine,” Madame interjected when I told her at tea the next day what I had rehearsed in my chambers last night, the sweet memories that began the journey to sorrow.
When I had arrived, I had been eager for her reaction to the accusations in the “First Installment” of the notorious “Account” I had left with her. She had mentioned nothing. I trust her entirely. She will react at the exact time.
“Since this is the same John the Baptist whom you were about to devote yourself to saving from Herodias when you were narrating your life as Salome,” Madame had continued, “someone will certainly ask how you were both Magdalene and Salome, at the same time. I, of course, know exactly.”
I was glad to note that Madame was increasingly composed when she questioned me in preparation for interviews, certain that I would provide unassailable answers. After all, it was she who first gave me the confidence to assert my memories. I was her apt pupil. That did not mean — I hasten to add — that I was becoming a mystic. I said: “I shall make it clear that my essence as blamed woman permits simultaneous lives.”
