Our Lady of Babylon

by John Rechy

  She had become as adamant not to proceed with her account as I had been not to explain how I had saved John the Baptist’s virginity, a matter she had greeted — I might have reminded her of that but did not — with at least as much skepticism as I now greeted her preposterous suggestions.

  The rest of that afternoon’s tea, a brief one, occurred in chilly silence — despite a warm sun-sprinkled afternoon and the delight provided by a profusion of new magnolias that had begun to lean over the edges of the veranda. The air was so serene that not even the leaves of weeping willows stirred.

  As I returned to Madame’s the next day — that night in my quarters I rehearsed what she and I had gone over earlier — my trepidation that our frosty silence of yesterday might extend into today’s tea caused me to stroll slowly through the countryside. It was a lilac afternoon, a hint of purple in the sky. A derelict newly arrived from the City was following me; I first became aware of him from the sounds of the rattling cart that contained his meager possessions; that sound is now familiar in the cities, and increasingly in the country. Others like him — they often band into tribes — are used to my astonishing presence as I walk unescorted and unafraid through the countryside — sometimes we nod; but he was seeing me for the first time. I faced him down. He scurried back into invisibility off the road, sliding down one of the scarps created by temblors that often shake this territory.

  Impulsively I walked beyond Madame’s château, toward the château of the new tenant. From a distance, I gazed at his grounds. No one was about. Deep purple oleanders asserted boundaries. As beautiful as those trees are, their blossoms are said to be poisonous, especially the blood-red ones. The bouquet left at my gate — roses? — or dried oleanders?

  When I arrived at Madame’s, my trepidation about yesterday’s chilliness between us evaporated. She announced peremptorily: “We have no time for sulks. We must begin to consider what we shall do afterwards.”

  “Afterwards?” The familiar word terrified and baffled me. I thought only of our goal: Redemption!

  Even Ermenegildo was caught off-guard by Madame’s assertiveness. His twisted feather defied a rising breeze.

  “Yes, afterwards — after we announce to the world the fact of your many lives.” Madame sipped her tea as if she were saying nothing astonishing.

  I was even more terrified. I could repeat only that one word: “Afterwards?”

  “A book first. There’s always a book,” she said.

  Oh, she was referring to my Pensées. Was she?

  “Naturally, that presupposes our success at interviews.”

  She was reintroducing the possibility of not succeeding!

  The growing breeze — the day might turn windy — tossed a palm frond against the marble columns of the veranda. It remained there, scratching desperately, as if it were dying. I stood up and shouted at Madame: “We must succeed this time! If not, I foresee” — where had that word come from? — “a woman . . . women . . . blamed to the point of madness.”

  “Lady —”

  “No,” I protested further words.

  She poured me fresh tea, inviting me to sit back down. I did. Her voice lost all its rigid authority: “Even in this ancient crumbling world, Lady, you will be redeemed.” She looked up at the clouding sky as if demanding that the sun illuminate this suddenly altered moment. “I shall see to it.”

  A sheet of light squeezed through gathering clouds.

  “Now, Lady, shall we rehearse another life?”

  “Yes!” The life Madame would have me deny, a life I will not deny. Medea.

  “Magdalene.” She chose one of her favorites. “We still have a long journey to take with Magdalene.”

  Yes — a journey that contains some of the greatest joy, some of the greatest pain. I remembered with sadness: “Without me, Mary would have been alone, that terrifying night of sacrifice. Yes, the crucifixion occurred at night, Madame. There was a purpose for that. Joseph, Mary’s husband, was already dead — or he had faded as silently as he had lived, always perplexed by what part an angel had played in his life —”

  “The Angel Gabriel,” Madame said. She fingered her priceless necklace of rubies and diamonds, an emerald as pendant, as if it were a simple rosary. “The Angel who told the beautiful blue lady —”

  “— what she believed with all her heart, Madame.”

  Madame Bernice poked her temple with one finger. That is a signal I’ve come to recognize, that she is retaining a certain point firmly in her mind, a central clue in our quest. I trust her so entirely that I seldom question such epiphanies. I discovered only now that instinctively I had begun to tally them. Her storing of what Gabriel told Mary, I added to other matters she has similarly emphasized: the exact sequence of the events in Eden; the assertive choice by my essence of Magdalene, a fallen woman but not blamed; the overwhelming mystery announced in Patmos.

  I continued my narration: “When Mary saw Judas, so despondent —”

  “— because he had betrayed Jesus, yes!” Madame said harshly.

  “Madame, you are fixing blame.”

  “Where it belongs!” Her voice turned ominous: “I must now state forcefully what I’ve attempted to assert during your earlier accounts of the first interludes among you and Jesus and Judas: I’ve felt a growing apprehension that you’re moving in a certain sympathetic direction concerning that man. I must remind you that everyone knows that Judas betrayed Jesus.” She raised her chin staunchly in anticipation of whatever I might counter.

  “We’re exploring just such entrenched lies, Madame, not creating our own restrictions on the truth. Do remember that Adam loved me so much that he chose me in defiance of God’s damnation, and he, too, was unfairly blamed.”

  “Yes. He, too.” Madame closed her eyes for moments and bowed her head in honor of my Adam’s great love for me. Then she eyed me warily. “But I don’t see how that —”

  “Perhaps we may discover that Judas, too, was an unjustly blamed man —”

  “— or not!” Madame’s intransigent tone resurged.

  “Or not.”

  That contingency might have placated her. I wasn’t sure. But I did not want to continue. Restless gray clouds roamed the sky. Still, it was not yet dark enough to light my lantern, but the cooling wind coaxed me to cover myself with my cowl as I parted from Madame and Ermenegildo, who walked me to the edge of the grounds.

  Nothing waited for me at my gates.

  Now, in my quarters, sad memories evoked earlier persist. Oh, Judas . . . sad, beloved Judas, and, oh, sweet, beloved, sad Jesus . . . bound together in that terrible way.

  Leave me, memories, leave my mind, rush out, grant me peace here in the solitude of my quarters, at least a respite from this litany of memories!

  Hush!

  I remember —

  Hush!

  Remember!

  No!

  I rush to my window, for breath, for air!

  There’s a nest on my balcony, and in it are feathers matted with blood mixed with the jagged white fragments of broken shells. Then I did see it, what I thought I first saw last night, or was it the night before? — a bird slaughtering her children, turning a nest into a grave. Why did she return to leave this terrible mangled “present” on my balcony?

  Or was it she!

  With each terrifying signal, are my pursuers coming closer? Onto the grounds of my château!

  I see shadows shifting outside!

  A light flashes across the grounds. With a candelabra, Madame Bernice is standing by her window facing mine. She lights a second candle. Another. Three!

  Our signal of urgency!

  I gather my own candles, to signal her back that I’m aware her message is forthcoming.

  Madame’s candles spark, at the same time that she catches the moon’s reflection on her windows. She’s employing our most urgent code of communication, flashes from candles, reflections of the moon caught on windowpanes.

  The first letter of her message:<
br />
  B —!

  The next letter: E —!

  BE —

  A pause. Be what?

  U —! The signal is doubled: W—!

  A cloud obscures the moon, rendering the next letter vague. Madame reasserts it only with candles, a slower code. I look up into the sky, pleading for the moon. There are three patches within sweeping clouds. In moments, reflections will be possible again. The moon will provide swifter transmission of the urgent message.

  BE . . . W —

  The moon pierces the smear of clouds. Madame grasps the interlude to add reflections on her window to the flashes of her candles.

  H —? BE . . . WH —?

  Whore!

  Has someone hostile intercepted our code? Gauzy light casts the last letter into ambiguity. An “A,” not an “H.”

  BE . . .WA —

  A cloud threatens the moon, which races away for moments.

  Madame is emboldened to confirm the message up to now:

  B — E — W — A — R . . . !

  BEWARE!

  A flash, another reflection on the glass panes, a brief covering of the third candle, a shifting of the first, confirm that word and begin another:

  D —!

  A —!

  N —!

  Clouds stifle the moon. Madame must again use only candles. I wait. D — A — N — Daniel!

  BEWARE OF DANIEL!

  The sinister man in the château beyond hers? His name is Daniel? A woman? Daniela? A spy of Alix and Irena? The Pope’s? Approaching my château? Do I have time to retrieve my gun? I must wait for the full message.

  The moon, our ally, parts the clouds to allow Madame to flicker more rushed letters.

  G —!

  Daniel G. At the opera before the Count’s death . . .? At Mass in the Grand Cathedral . . . ?

  E —!

  Daniel Ge —

  Clouds seize the moon. A sudden drizzle! Madame must withdraw farther back into her room, weakening reflections. She manages two more letters.

  E —? N —?

  Madame’s gone!

  No, she’s rushed back to get larger candles. She stands in the wind and the rain to signal at least one more decisive letter before even the new candles are stifled.

  O —

  She adds a quick slice downward.

  Not an “O,” a “Q”! Question? A certain question is going to be asked, must be rehearsed immediately, so urgent we cannot wait for tea tomorrow?

  BEWARE OF DANIEL’S QUESTION?

  BEWARE DAN — GE —

  DANGER!

  E —! N —? The candles are dimming. I —N —

  Danger in —?

  E — N — Q — Those letters are clear now — the rain shifted direction for crucial seconds.

  U —! I —! R —! E —!

  ENQUIRE! Enquire about —?

  Fierce rain lashes at me. I hear the rustle of wings. The desperate mother has returned to pluck the bloody nest away from the rain.

  Madame! Madame!

  The storm hurls me away from my window. I huddle in the darkest corner of my room. Before her last candle is hopelessly extinguished by sheets of rain, Madame has made a convoluted swirl, adding one more letter.

  R —!

  BEWARE DANGER ENQUIRER!

  XIV

  THE DAY IS GLORIOUS! Golden light streaming into my quarters sweeps away the events of last night. No . . . not entirely — I’m just waking, huddled in the corner where I fell into protective sleep. I remember . . . Madame’s urgent message!

  Was it urgent? If it had been and the urgency had persisted, she would have rushed over, an act that would have called attention to her — and we’re trying to avoid that — but one that might be resorted to if necessary.

  I walk to the window, the drapes left open from last night. I notice that rain abandoned clusters of leaves torn from trees and that the wind bunched them against the corner of the balcony. That’s what I imagined was the bloodied nest, the mangled birds. Did I imagine it? — an image retained from the bloodied blanket left at my gates. Last night’s storm created . . . impressions. The day is too benign to permit them to extend.

  Look across the way!

  Madame is calmly attending to her flowers. She might have been only practicing our code last night, under exceptional circumstances, having sensed the impending storm. She’s determined to think of everything. I will of course question her during today’s tea.

  When I arrived at her château, I detected nothing unusual about her that would suggest the seriousness of last night. We sipped our tea, an exceptional brew that Ermenegildo seemed especially fond of sniffing, Madame holding out her cup periodically for him to do so. On the usual silver platter — it’s a different one each day, today’s engraved with a single, yet intricate, wreath — a delightful mixture of “breathy sugars,” Madame’s description of the tiny dainties, awaited our delectation. I accepted one. It was much too sweet; so I let it melt slowly in my mouth. “About last night, Madame —”

  “Quite a storm, wasn’t it?” Madame said. She looked about, to locate her opera glasses. They were on her lap. Apparently she had just used them. “The weather in the countryside never stops surprising us, does it? Did you hear the thunder?”

  “Madame!”

  “Lady?”

  “Your messages.”

  “I’m embarrassed about all the fuss I made, Lady. I thought I heard unnatural scurrying on my grounds. I surmised, you know, that, perhaps, there were prowlers who might move onto your grounds.”

  “But your message warned me of danger from” — I paused before I could speak the forbidding title, not wanting to acknowledge the possibility of such a vastly empowered Inquisitor recruited against me, us — “from the Enquirer.”

  She sighed. “I have to admit that’s where my suspicions led me. The clouds and the moon — and, oh, the storm — were stirring up shadows. I admit I acted rashly, and sent my signals. If there was anyone about, it was probably only one of the wanderers from the City, lost in the storm.” She ate the “breathy sugar” she had kept on her napkin to tantalize herself. “A bit too sweet, aren’t they?”

  I was glad that she was trying to assuage any lingering fear she may have aroused in me, and I was pleased that she had acted “rashly” since it indicated how alert she is to our situation. What continued to disturb me, to the point that I did not bring it up, was that she did consider quite possible the threat of the roaming Inquisitor, evoked an earlier time, investigating us. She wouldn’t otherwise have inferred his presence so immediately. Was the dreaded Inquisitor perhaps now firmly in the camp of Irena and Alix and the Pope? Did Madame have reason to suspect new developments? She had previously indicated being privy to information gleaned from one or another of her servants.

  Madame cleared her throat. “Now, Lady, on to unfinished business, the further unveiling of the truth in the lives you’ve lived.”

  Oh, she was eager to prod me to return to the account of my dance of six veils and St. John’s salvaged virginity. I smiled triumphantly, too soon, because when she resumed, she said, “Perhaps more about the Trojan War?”

  “Madame,” I reminded, “I believe I finished rehearsing the pertinent parts. Perhaps you’d like to proceed with —” It was my turn to invite her to resume her impossible interpretation of Irena’s conjectures concerning the unfinished copulation between the Gypsy and the Contessa as set down in that monstrous “Account.” Yes, I was bartering.

  Her arms, firmed across her bosom, indicated that she expected me to go first. Well, I would discuss another life. I would tell of —

  Oh, memory, sweep me away from Patmos — sweep me back to Eden, only to the very beginning, when, lying beside my beloved, I redefined paradise as closeness to each other. That memory eludes me now. Memory has its own determination.

  “My brief interlude as Delilah,” I chose.

  “Oh, very well.”

  She was assuming that eventually I wo
uld go first in our checkmated narrations. I would pretend not to notice. I said, “Samson was a vain little thing.”

  Madame roared with laughter in a tone that some might call boisterous. “Samson was even smaller than Paris?” Apparently she found great delight in that.

  I did not answer right away, allowing her pleasure to linger before I would correct: “I meant the pejorative ‘little’ only metaphorically, Madame. He was not little, not small!”

  That did not restrain her. “More like a bull?” she screamed out with delight.

  “Madame?”

  “Please proceed, Lady.” She sipped her tea with emphatic correctness when Ermenegildo shook his head, his twisted feather upset.

  Samson was proud of his bulging muscles, his strength. He went about killing lions and foxes, breaking the jawbones of jackasses to use for weapons, always aggressive. He was proud, too, of his long flowing locks, constantly tossing them about as if recklessly but actually quite carefully, to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders, accentuate his every move. He bragged about his sexual prowess. He had many women, two of whom he married, others of whom he used only once, denounced as whores, and discarded —

  “— a womanizer.” Madame provided an apt designation.

  “— and bragged endlessly, endlessly,” I told her.

  He performed with me as he did with all his other women: Arms decked with shiny wristbands, he held me from the waist — I wore only a scarlet bandanna above my forehead — and he lowered my silky body just onto the tip of his rigid member, then raised me, lowered me again, barely entering me, until, after a dozen repetitions, he would penetrate me fully, and proceed entering and exiting.

  With each movement, his hair would flail triumphantly, like a whip. Often he would count aloud its tossings, matching them with his insertions and the contractions of his muscles:

  “One! Two! Three!”

  At other times, he would sit me on his lap. My legs would be about his hips, my breasts would brush his inhaling and exhaling mouth. But he concentrated on this: He would squat while he was in me — and, of course, his locks would toss with each powerful contraction of his thighs, and he would count each movement loudly, proudly:

  “. . . Four! Five! Six! Seven!”