Our Lady of Babylon

by John Rechy

  It was not its beauty that lured me to it. It was what I knew about it. That it had sprung into being out of a mother’s great love for her children. I longed for a strong man to whom I would give children we would love with a devotion that great, as we would love each other. To whoever listened, I prayed for that at the Grotto of the Golden Fleece under the darkened sky. On nights of the full moon the Fleece became even more radiant. I imagined that spirits of unyielding loyalty and love that had produced the guarded treasure had come to celebrate its origin. Other times I imagined a dark angel of night, her wings extended toward me in approval.

  Before my father now, Jason accepted his challenge: “I’ll prove my prowess in any way you desire.” He had aimed his words at me.

  I mimed the words: You shall, beloved . . . Remember, I was only fifteen.

  “Lady, why does your essence so often choose that age to stir within unjustly blamed women?” Madame’s voice contained more than a tinge of sadness, and her eyes sought mine.

  “Because that is the age I was.” I met her full stare.

  “The age when life makes its greatest promises — isn’t it? — or withdraws them. Expectations rise and fall.”

  “Exactly, Madame.”

  “I understand.”

  I resumed:

  This was the test proposed by my father as Jason demanded the fleece of his heritage: The young man must yoke to a plow two ferocious bulls. He must then seed the fields with their teeth. I knew that if the young adventurer accomplished that — if the man I continued to stare at while he stared at me survived — a squad of armed men would be ordered by my father to kill him.

  That night, mist thickened in Colchis. I waited in my room in that palace of stones, concentrating on the young defiant man I had seen, willing him to come to me; and I sewed a toga for him, for the tests he would undertake tomorrow.

  He did come. He stood framed by moonlight. He took my hand. “Will you be the first woman I have ever made love with?”

  I could not speak. I nodded: Yes. Then I found words. “I, too, am a virgin, and I’ve been waiting for you.” From the unguarded talk of the proudly passionate women of Colchis, I had heard about the refinements of lovemaking among “barbarians.” I stepped out of my amber tunic. I allowed my bracelets to slide from my arms. I left the anklets on my legs.

  Jason gasped, desire rejecting his toga. Under a slash of moonlight that penetrated the crags in my room, Jason and I made love — tender, yes, then mounting in desire, then tender again, then in lust, and then in love and passion and lust and desire and love, over and over. For moments only, we would lie as close as two bodies can next to each, and doze, and then wake to make love again.

  He said, “You’re not only the first woman I’ve ever made love to, Medea, but you shall be the only one. That would be so if I die tomorrow during Aetes’s challenges, but it will be so if I live forever.”

  Forever. I spoke the word only silently, to the spirits I had detected when I wandered at night to stare at the Golden Fleece under a full moon.

  “You won’t die tomorrow,” I told him.

  “The feats the King demands are hard, and I have to perform them, to reclaim my rightful kingdom and to” — he held both my hands in his and brought them to his lips — “and to have you always.”

  “The animals you’ll have to tame are vulnerable.”

  “Vulnerable to what, Medea?”

  “To the color red,” I told him the secret only I and my father knew. Tomorrow, I told Jason, he must wear the bright red tunic I then presented to him. “When the bulls charge, remove the tunic and toss it between them. They’ll charge at it from opposite directions. Their horns will tangle and they’ll fight each other to death.”

  “My beloved Medea!” Jason embraced me and kissed my breasts in wide circles until he reached my nipples, which he dabbed with his tongue. Smiling up at me, he said, “But if I remove the tunic, I’ll be naked before everyone.”

  “No one will see you because they’ll be astonished by the warring bulls,” I told him.

  I smiled at his disappointment. “You can wear a loincloth underneath the toga.”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary. I mean, why? — since no one will be looking,” he insisted.

  We made love again, even more passionately, devouring each other’s body, becoming each other.

  “After the bulls are vanquished —” He was thoughtful again.

  “— Aetes will immediately release a squad of armed men. When that happens, you must throw these before them” — I gathered precious gems I had hoarded for a time when I would flee my cruel father and his growing lust — “and the warriors, who are poor, will fight each other for them.”

  Again we made love.

  “But to get the Fleece —” He pondered tomorrow’s events.

  “By then it will be dark. You’ll follow me to the grove. The lions who guard the Fleece know me. I’ll take the Fleece.”

  “You’ll do all that, for me?”

  “Yes. All that — and more.” I reached for a decanter of a wine fermented only in Colchis. “And this will give you even more strength!” I promised him.

  “But just this drop?” He laughed at the insignificant portion I had placed in his goblet, an equal amount in mine.

  “It’s potent beyond your expectations,” I told him. “Just one drop can give you strength” — I turned away from him, not wanting him to detect that with him I could become shy — “and it can augment desire.”

  “I can use more strength.” He laughed. “But I’ll never need anything but you to arouse my desire.”

  The wine was made from berries that grew only in the driest part of the desert, clinging to the stems of velvet cactus blossoms. To the rich nectar were added spices and one bitter root, ground to a powder with the sweet petals of a malva rosa bloom. Fiercely scarlet, that root emerged in three stems and only for moments under mossy rocks. The wine from this brew stirred blood into fierce courage — and fierce desire. It must be imbibed in small sips, increased only over a measured time to create a tolerance for more. Taken in a large dose without such gradual initiation, it burned like fire, and it killed.

  I had never drunk it, but I would now, with Jason. “You must sip it, only sip it,” I warned him. “Like this.” The single drop of liquid filled my veins with a warmth that was almost heat, just as I knew it flowed through Jason, who tilted his head and closed his eyes for seconds. When we made love yet again, this time after he had spilled into me, he remained aroused, and we came together again and again without separating, our bodies tightly locked.

  We slept. We woke. He knelt before me — and it was only then that I truly realized how young he was, five years older than I, yes, but, at that moment, a boy; and I was a girl in love when he said, “Yes, I’ll return to claim my kingdom” — he kissed my hand — “with my beautiful beloved wife, my Medea!”

  His wife. My heart inhaled.

  He rose, still holding my hand. “We’ll marry now! I can’t wait! God hears our vows everywhere.”

  “Yes!”

  “Choose the angel to sanctify our union.”

  “The Angel of the Dark of the Moon, because she’ll shelter you from the brilliance of the Fleece,” I said. I realized fully only now the wish I had been forming on my night journeys to the grove: At last, the fleece that years ago had made it possible for a mother to save her children would vindicate her again. With Jason, I would find redemption for her violated love by her husband — and I would produce children who would be protected forever by a love that honored hers.

  “The Angel Hecate, yes,” Jason understood and encouraged.

  So we stood outside, Jason and I, naked to the night. My bridal veil was the mist turned silver by the moon. Aloud, we vowed our promises of devotion and love to each other.

  “Forever.”

  “Forever.”

  Holding hands, we stood under stars and moon and night until dawn brushed the sky with blue
light.

  As he was ready to leave, Jason turned back and said exultantly, “In my country, you’ll be cherished.” He ran back to kiss me. “Our love will be so great that our children will be immortal!”

  When he was gone — when my husband had left — I echoed our prayer of only one word:

  Forever.

  Madame Bernice had been so attentive that she had not even reached for her tea as I had recounted my marriage to Jason. “I think I may have begun to feel —” she started. Then she crossed her arms stolidly before her bosom. “Still, there will be no way you can avoid the carnage we all know occurred —”

  “And I shall not,” I promised her. I saw her trying unsuccessfully not to wince.

  As I breathed the subtle scents of late afternoon in Madame’s garden, I let my eyes wander to the splendor of some jacaranda trees. Yes, those trees I had first seen in Eden were newly gracing her garden and the countryside. Pink, lavender, a breath of both colors, their buds decorated the sparsely leafed branches; some delicate petals had fallen to the ground, like lavender snow. I avoided the sight of the new orchid lilies. Their perfume, as the afternoon progressed, had become heavy, opulent, not like the delicate scent of the glorious blossoms that wafted through the azure air of Eden.

  Aware of my attention to her extravagant garden, Madame Bernice commented: “Have you noticed, Lady” — she indicated one of several graceful inclines on her lawn — “that birds of paradise are now in bloom, too?” She smiled at the irony, birds of paradise.

  I smiled back. But sadness draped the world and Madame’s garden as I proceeded:

  It happened exactly as planned. Jason conquered the bulls, whose horns locked, and he confounded the warriors, who fought each other for the gems. By then it was night. I led him to the Grotto of the Golden Fleece, where the lions roared at him — and he pulled back — until they saw me. I took the Fleece and gave it to my beloved.

  We fled on the Argo. And we made love —

  “— yes, on the Golden Fleece, at night, with the storming sea washing over your bodies. I remember your very detailed account of that, quite well,” Madame said.

  I was not sure whether or not she was commending my powers of description.

  Jason and I sailed to other islands.

  Our passion grew, equaling our love, and our love equaled our passion. At times we would sip from the wine of Colchis, a sip or two more each time, but our desire needed no embellishment. Everywhere, people celebrated our contrasting beauty, our bravery. Kings opened their palaces to us, as we extended this time of adventure and love and celebration before Jason would return to claim his kingdom.

  In Thessaly, where its journey had begun, Jason and I, silently, at night, placed the Golden Fleece in a Sacred Temple. A mother’s love for her children was finally redeemed.

  “I’m ready to claim my kingdom,” Jason told his uncle, Pelias, who received him before his palace, his two powerful daughters beside him. “And Medea is my queen.” I stood boldly next to my husband, feeling the menacing, envious eyes of the daughters. “Where are my father and mother, to share my victory and my happiness?”

  “Dead.” Pelias had grown feeble with age. He leaned on his daughters. “He killed himself while you were away. Your mother died soon after.”

  I placed my hand on Jason’s arm, to share his disbelief.

  In the palace at night, Pelias roamed like a restless ghost, uttering words to himself: “. . . foul death . . . blood . . . my kingdom now . . . and, soon, my daughters’.” Pelias’s daughters disguised their father’s nocturnal ranting: “He’s old, he’s confused in time.”

  “He murdered my father and mother,” Jason told me what I knew. “I have to avenge them. Help me!” he pled.

  “I know how,” I told him. “The daughters are fiercely loyal to their father. You can tell by the way they carry his weak body about. I’m sure he’s promised them your kingdom, but he’s too weak now even to attempt to resist you. The daughters would do anything to restore him to his youth. They hate you and me. I’ve seen the soldiers, and they’re still loyal to Pelias. We’re in danger. We’ll have to act immediately.”

  “Anything.” Jason was too grieved to plot.

  “I’ll be gone for a whole night,” I told him.

  “With someone else?” Jason’s grief had led him to speak those impossible words.

  “Never anyone else. We swore. Forever,” I told him.

  “Forever,” he echoed. “I’ll never question you, just as you never question me.”

  As I left, he said forlornly, “This will be the first night that we don’t make love.”

  “No,” I said, removing my clothes, removing his. We sipped from the powerful wine of Colchis. For moments that turned into an eternity of bliss we made love. That night, I clasped him even more tightly in me, pulling him into the utmost depth of me, as he searched for it with the full extent of his passion.

  Then I ventured out into the night. I had placated lions and wild animals in my own country. I could do that here. The stars, the dark heat of the night, had awaited my return like friends. The moon kissed my breasts, making them glow silver, almost as luminous as they became when my husband painted them with his saliva.

  A fawn stood before me, its eyes lit red by the moon. I coaxed it to me, humming. Nearby, his mother lingered. The fawn licked my hands as I sang softly to him. Then I released him to his mother. Both waited while I hummed and sang the same song. I marked the place where I had found them. I resumed my search for what I knew I would find within the depths of darkness: the carcass of an old animal, not long dead. I pulled the heavy carcass into some bushes, where I hid it and marked the place.

  I returned to Jason. I told him I must venture out again into the night. This time he must follow me, unseen. Before that, we must let it be known to Pelias’s daughters through their servants that I had begun to go out alone, in hiding, into the night. “They’re convinced we’re plotting against them, and they’ll suspect anything secret. So they’ll follow me. We must make them believe, through careful rumors planted in the palace, that I’m a sorceress.”

  “You, my beloved Medea, a sorceress?” My husband added: “Yes, I believe you are, to arouse me even when I’m avenging my father’s death.”

  While he followed me into the night, a distance apart, I felt the hostile eyes of Pelias’s daughters as, hidden, they pursued me, just as I had known they-would. Near the place where I had left the decayed carcass on an earlier night, I made a clearing with a hack I had brought with me. In full view of the daughters, I raised my hands to the darkness, the moon spilling my shadow across the cleared ground. “Hecate!” I wailed out the name of the angel who had witnessed my marriage to Jason. “Angel of Darkness! Give me the power to restore the dead to youthful life.”

  When the fire lit the night and smoke screened me from view, I dragged forth the carcass I had hidden. I hacked at it. I flung pieces of it into the fire, which devoured the dead flesh.

  Then I began to hum the song with which I had earlier enticed the roaming fawn. It appeared; and shaded by the veil of smoke, it came to me. As the flames diminished and smoke cleared, I held the fawn up, triumphantly as if I had lifted it from the fire, the carcass restored into its youth. Then I released it to its mother, who had waited in the dark.

  I looked up at the sky, as if in gratitude. “I know now how to restore the dead to their youth,” I said for the daughters to hear.

  The brush rustled with the sound of feet hurrying away along the soft earth.

  Exultant, understanding, Jason carried me back in his arms through darkness.

  Pelias’s daughters waited for us at the palace. They held their weakened father between them. “We saw your sorcery. Now restore our father’s youth, or —” There was no need to speak the threat of death.

  I affected reticence. Jason pretended to protest their demand. They motioned to guards armed with spears pointed up toward us from the foot of the steps. I simulated a
ngered surrender to the threats. “But it must all be exactly as you saw.” I spoke for only the daughters to hear. “He must die first, like the animal you witnessed.” I raised the bloodied hack.

  “Give it to us!” Both daughters grabbed for it.

  “Use it,” I told them, “and then he’ll return, young like the fawn you saw in the desert.”

  The daughters hacked at their father until he lay before them in blackened blood.

  “Now build a fire.”

  They did, their faces streaming with perspiration.

  “Fling his flesh into it!”

  Flames consumed him. Blood dried into ashes.

  More soldiers and others in Thessaly had gathered, watching the daughters in horror.

  “Bring him back to life!” one of the daughters demanded.

  “Make him young!” the other said.

  “I cannot restore life to the man you’ve murdered, your own father,” I said for all to hear.

  Soldiers surrounded the daughters, binding them.

  I stood with Jason over the charred bones of Pelias.

  “Your revenge is done,” I told him.

  That night, Jason and I made love as we listened to the wails of the grieving daughters.

  We fled Thessaly, together, laughing, more in love than ever.

  And we went to Corinth —

  On the veranda of Madame Bernice’s château, I felt her eyes upon me. A lone star had appeared at the edge of the sky.

  “The plotting daughters killed their evil father,” Madame pronounced her verdict.

  “Yes. Justice for evil.”

  “I see that.” Madame spoke very softly.

  Now that night was approaching, the orchid lilies with tips of red like drops of blood exuded their heavy perfume even more strongly, a sickening sweetness that made me reel, to the point that only moments later did I realize that Madame Bernice had asked a question, which, turning away from the noxious lilies, I answered: “Yes, that was only the beginning of the horrors to come.”