Our Lady of Babylon

by John Rechy

  “— children, yes,” I finished for her. “Now you shall hear it all.”

  XXVII

  WE CAME TO CORINTH, Jason and I, and our love and passion — they were one — grew. The beautiful barbarian of Colchis and the handsome Greek prince! Everywhere, even in that City, where a plain face, a plain shape, were exceptions, where glorious bodies displayed themselves in exposed abandon on the shore — even in that City, Jason and I were stared at, marveled at. Just as I had done in my country, I wore no more than a translucent garment, a sheath for my body, my breasts all but bared, only strips of gold looped around, framing them — “brown and smooth as velvet,” Jason proclaimed, his breath warming them. I decorated my arms and legs with bright, jangling things, bracelets, links, charms, which, by contrast, converted the brown of my flesh into a deeper hue of amber and proclaimed the approach of my presence.

  As he matured, Jason’s body grew more muscular. He needed and wore no adornment. A tan leather band slung over his shoulder crossed his chest to his waist and then wound about the brief white tunic he wore over sandals, whose straps coiled about his legs almost to his thighs. Other men of his status soon began to abandon their togas, in spring, trying — and never succeeding — to imitate his splendid display.

  Although at times only our passion seemed to matter to him, at startling moments, even during our lovemaking, I would locate in his eyes the glint of the ambition that had linked him to me; and that would add to our desire. But now the ambition had no goal. We were allowed in Corinth, but we had no connection to the throne, had not been invited to Creon’s palace.

  I had learned from the women of Colchis how to determine certain matters in ways that others considered sorcery. With special roots and herbs I gathered from the Grecian hills and deserts, I discovered what I suspected, and longed for, that inside my womb two children were forming; one would be fair like Jason, the other would be dark like me. Both would be powerful and beautiful, and loved.

  “The sons of Jason and Medea!” Jason lifted me in his strong arms. He kissed me where he had entered me, where our children had begun, kissed me so long there that the moisture of his tongue penetrated the flimsy cloth and joined, warm, with mine. “I will love our sons,” he said, “but not as much as I love you, my savage princess.”

  “Love them just as much,” I said. “They will be you and I multiplied.”

  “Then I shall love them as much — but not like this —” He buried his mouth in the opening of my womb. “You see, I’ve already begun to be a good father!”

  When I was not with Jason — when for long hours he was at the shore to direct the building of his fleet of ships — I remained alone. This was not my country, where I had been a princess. The women envied my dark beauty, and, I knew, feared me. All I had done with Jason to assure our love was whispered about and interpreted as “sorcery.” More and more, with increasing apprehension, I considered the future of our children in this foreign land.

  In the market, I saw Creusa, Creon’s daughter, his only child, a dainty young woman, quite pretty in a delicate way. She had a reputation for shunning those who attempted to court her, a reputation for being somewhat prudish; in this land of sensual display, she wore clothes intended to conceal, though unsuccessfully, her full breasts, especially startling because of her small stature. Today, the drapes of a carriage hauled by four sturdy men awaited her return nearby. Two soldiers guarded it. Surely behind its drawn drapes Creon himself watched.

  Before his gaze, I would make friends with her, strengthen ties to the ruler of the country that must accept our children. I removed one of my gold bracelets to give to her as a gift.

  Before I could present it, she reared back in horror from me. “You’re the barbarian!” she blurted. “You’re the savage woman who killed King Pelias and has bewitched Jason.”

  I tried to control my rage, to protest her accusations, but I had already said: “Yes! I’m the barbarian” — and I had already reached out toward her, turning my hands into tiger’s claws. In a moment I would rip the top of her loose tunic, expose her breasts, shout my laughter at her, “Now you can be a barbarian, and allow yourself to be desired.” I compelled my hands to withdraw, my mouth to utter no word. Anything else would ensure my reputation as a savage. I forced myself to hold out the bracelet to her, letting the sun emphasize its golden beauty. “For you, Creusa.”

  “Don’t touch me with your sorcerer’s charm. It’s filthy with wild blood,” she screamed. She brushed her arms as if even my proximity might sully them. “If it were up to me, you would be banished!” Then she rushed away.

  Banished . . . no! The children of Jason and Medea would not be sentenced to roam from island to island, royal beggars pleading for shelter.

  I would curb even hints of my rage, for the sake of my children, perhaps now by greeting King Creon. I walked toward the carriage. Its drapes parted. Creon, a handsome man —

  “Lady, even he — a man one knows to be your enemy — even he you’re willing to describe as handsome?” Madame interjected.

  Was she commending my honest impartiality in my commitment to truth? I might have countered that she was not entirely correct. I had described Herod as horrendous as he was. Yes, and I had not spared the gaudy Pope, especially awful when he had exchanged his opulent robes for the garments of a matron with a partridge feather in her hat.

  “And I suppose eventually we’ll see Creon nude?”

  “Yes, and yes. He was very handsome, and we shall see him nude.”

  Creon, a handsome man, leaned out of the carriage. On his bare chest a mat of dark hairs gleamed.

  “Medea.”

  By the way he pronounced may name — his breath halted — I knew he desired me.

  On the eve of a full moon, I walked into the desert, to plan under the clear eyes of Heaven how to secure the welfare of our children. Evoke the ancient spirits of my land for guidance? Use my knowledge of herbs and roots, the manipulating of fears and longings? For our children? No, that was risky. Those who dared not move against me as the princess who was Jason’s wife would move against someone branded a witch — and against the vulnerable children of a witch.

  In the isolated desert, I felt my stomach wrench, as if my children were asserting their own demand not to live as orphans in a foreign land. I lay on the cool earth for seconds. Then, gathering my strength, I stood. Under a gray moon, I raised my hand in a fist and swore:

  “The Gods are my witnesses, my children shall never want, no matter what I have to do!”

  That evening I told Jason: “Creusa is dangerous.”

  “Creusa? Dangerous?” He roared with derision. “That prissy little dove? What can a dove do to a glorious hawk like you?” He turned his hands into talons.

  “She may be pretending to be a dove. Creon loves her, and that gives her power.” I told Jason about my encounter with her in the market, her rejection of my bracelet, about Creon’s clear desire of me.

  His eyes on me, unblinking, Jason considered that. “Creon desires you?”

  “Yes. Powerfully.”

  He remained thoughtful. Then he smiled. “Of course he would desire you. What man wouldn’t, my beautiful wife?” How deeply he trusted my loyalty to him, as I trusted his to me. He discarded the matter with laughter. “Don’t be concerned about any threat they pose. Leave it to me to defuse any hostility. I’ll do it all now. You’ve done so much, for me —”

  “— for us. And now for our children.”

  “Yes!”

  A few days later Jason was exuberant: “We’re invited to the palace. I managed it!”

  “How?” I was proud of him. Always before, it had been I who maneuvered.

  “I have powers, too, my barbarian sorceress.” He laughed, and explained: “It was simple. The workers on the docks talk. I let them know — as if it were a secret, though — about our knowledge of the rulers Creon must deal with. It’s come back to me that he would welcome my — our — counsel.”

&nb
sp; This is how it would be. We would become close to the rulers, while always gaining our own power. “Creusa is conservative, I shall match her at the court, wear garments that will cover me —” That would keep Creon’s desire in check.

  Jason frowned. “My barbarian princess? — abdicating to that prissy prude? You shall appear dressed only in your beauty, and new golden adornments I’ll have made for you by that fellow, that Daedalus, who works at the docks. After you appear, no man in Creon’s Court — including Creon! — will be able to make love to his wife, or his mistress, without evoking you! But only I shall have you.”

  “Only you,” I repeated the promise overheard by the ocean on which we first fled. “If I do appear at Court in defiance, it will arouse Creusa’s anger —”

  “— and Creon’s desire. But that poses no threat to me, to us.”

  I would not go as Jason demanded. Creon, further incited by the wine he was known to cherish in the evening, would act rashly on his desire. Jason would react in outrage. Our cause would be ambushed.

  Jason had turned sober: “I would rather not go than have you be other than you are.”

  “We can’t risk turning this kingdom hostile to our children,” I warned.

  “Nothing will.”

  “Then you must go alone.”

  “Whatever,” Jason dismissed the matter. “But now!” He pulled off everything I wore, and then he decorated my body with new adornments — he surprised me with them often, glittering gems and bracelets, long necklaces that he wound about my hips, strung beads that dipped between my legs.

  I stood before him and spread my arms, like the hawk to which he had compared me.

  Soon after, Jason announced: “I believe Creon is about to offer me a high post in his kingdom. I told you I would achieve this, my beloved queen, my beautiful barbarian.”

  And why should Creon not be impressed? We were, after all, prince and princess, though exiled. I loved Jason’s arrogance, just as he loved mine.

  “And,” he read from a new invitation, “I’m being instructed to bring you to the palace, my barbarian queen.”

  Not yet. After Jason found full favor with the Court, I would go with him. By then Creon’s respect for him as a powerful ally would keep desire in check. I would gain Creusa’s trust, gradually teaching her to free her spirit. “What is the post, my prince?” I asked.

  “Oh, something or other. You know about those things. Some territory to rule over.” He smiled.

  A territory for our children to rule over. Yes!

  Throughout this time, I knew, Jason’s ambition had been merely waiting, preparing for the exact opportunity. With my encouragement, it would be seized fully — at the exact time, he would reveal his tactic to me. Step by step we would then plot the triumph of our children. The strength of our mutual determination would assure victory.

  “What will Creon want in return?” Everything must be considered.

  “Our allegiance, which we’ll give him — and gain his!” He added: “The point is to extend whatever Creon will offer me into a position of greater power —”

  “— so powerful that our children will never have to fear.”

  “Exactly.”

  I loved the look of certainty on his face, a certainty to which I added my own. He appeared even more determined than when he had confronted my father in Colchis and demanded the Golden Fleece.

  “Tell me exactly how we shall do that,” I teased his secrecy. I didn’t want to know, not yet. I delighted in the boyish pleasure it gave him to keep his plan to himself, for now, to surprise me with his own “powers,” his own cunning. I bit his ear, softly, then harder. “Tell me.”

  “Shhh.” He bent before me. His mouth searched my breasts for the pendant that rested there. He held it in his mouth: “Look! A golden jewel between two greater jewels, my queen,” he said. “As your body fills with new life, you grow even more astonishing, my beloved.”

  I knew the trickery of the women in Colchis. Almost to the very day when they bore their children, they moved their bodies in expert dances that kept their lines solid, their sensual beauty intact.

  That night, we drank — no longer did we have only to sip — the magical wine of Colchis. Ambition, determination, power — constantly stirred — poured into our mutual coming that night.

  “Perhaps our children shall rule Corinth.” Jason stood by the window, staring out at the City. A slash of blue dawn illuminated the lower part of his stripped body, his face remained in shadow.

  “To accomplish that, you must rule first.” I pressed my naked body behind his, wrapping my arms over his shoulders.

  He faced me, his confident smile even wider. “Yes! That will be the goal.”

  “Which I will encourage with all my force when you ask for it, my beloved.” I touched my stomach, where our children were forming. Something even more powerful bound us now, our love for each other and our allegiance to our children, our determination for their triumph.

  He was gone often until evening, gaining the loyalty of those men who worked with him on his ships, considering everything, I knew proudly, that would aid our goal. My love for him, and for the children we would soon have, made almost bearable my longing for him during the hours we were apart.

  One evening, a Greek evening, the blaze of the sun a fiery streak at the edge of the sky, I sat on the floor, humming the songs of my country. A shadow touched me. I looked up to see a tall figure wearing a cape with a hood — to disguise his identity as he had made his way through the City, I knew, because I now recognized him from the powerful frame of his body. Creon.

  I rose, intending at first to greet him into our home. I stopped, so abruptly that my metallic decorations clanged as if in warning.

  He flung the cape from his shoulders. Already aroused, the handsome King stood naked before me. A smile twisted on his face. He advanced toward me.

  “You haven’t come to me, and so I’ve come to you, Medea.”

  He reached out. With one powerful hand, he grabbed the top of my garment and ripped it away in a single movement.

  I reached behind me, locating the stem of a lit torch. I grasped it and held it firmly before me. “I’ll burn you, Creon,” I warned. “I’ll scorch your flesh!”

  He smiled. “You’d really use it?”

  “Yes!”

  He took another quick step, to the right. I followed his movement with the torch, holding it closer to him, backing it away, holding it still closer, the reflections of my bracelets needling his eyes.

  His voice was a growl of lust. “Will you teach me to be a barbarian?”

  My hand — not I — my hand lowered the torch. The words he had spoken belonged only to Jason. I felt a wailing desolation, not yet defined. My strength returned with this memory: One night, some men of Corinth had lurked near our windows when Jason and I made love. Surely they had heard him utter those words and had bruited them to the King.

  My hand grew strong again. I slashed the torch several times before Creon’s face. He turned away, dodging, advancing — laughing hoarsely.

  “Burn me with your savage fire, Medea!” he taunted.

  “I swear I will!” I jabbed the torch toward him, like a spear aimed between his legs.

  “Oh, but you already burn me there.” He circled me, weaving about me. I matched his movements, swirling the torch before him in wide circles, smaller ones, then a slash, another, closer. The flame of the torch was diminishing. I pointed the torch at him, inches before his face so he would feel the heat. He turned away. In that movement, the flame was swept away. He wrenched my hands behind me, wresting me to my knees. I tore at his legs, bit at his arms. I fell back on the floor. He threw himself on me, grasping my breasts.

  Never would I allow him to enter me where the children of Jason and Medea stirred at this very moment. Never would I allow his filthy seed to touch them. Never would I allow him to invade the place that only Jason’s love and passion might touch . . . I twisted away from under hi
m with all my strength, twisted myself over him, slipping down quickly along his body with my mouth. My lips encircled his arousal. His violent movements relented, just as I had counted on. He thrust his head back with a moan. My teeth clenched down. He screamed, and came, but not in me, not in any part of me! His desire spilled on the floor.

  I pulled back, a slight tint of his blood on my lips. “You wanted a barbarian!” I stood up.

  He touched his groin, where my teeth had scratched the skin. “Ah!” He greeted in surprise the hint of violence that had incited him to come.

  I spat the blood-tinted spittle. I had not only meant to make him spill outside of me. I had meant also to threaten real blood.

  “Your cunning worked, Medea. Only for now. I’ll have you as I want you, when I want you.”

  I shook my head, swearing, no.

  “Oh, then, let’s see. Perhaps I’ll exile you into the desert, where eventually not even your full breasts will be able to nourish your children.”

  How did he know I was pregnant with two children? I would not let him see my sudden fear. I arranged the bracelets and necklaces on my body. I said, “No, you shall not, Creon, not as long as I and Jason —”

  “Jason?” he laughed. “He knows I’m here, Medea.”

  I felt each word like the stab of a knife. I retained my smile, I did not swerve in my defiant stance before this man. I remembered Jason’s eyes when I gave him the Golden Fleece; remembered his eyes when I made it possible for him to conquer the wild bulls in my country, to conquer the armed warriors; remembered his eyes when I avenged his father’s death with that of Pelias. I remembered his eyes each time we made love. What I had seen in them throughout — but recognized only now in my accumulated memories — was his unquestioning expectation, and acceptance — always — of his own triumph, triumph as his right. Now, before Creon, I heard myself wailing, silently, the howl of a wolf.

  Creon continued colder words. “You’ll need someone to protect you, Medea. So why not the King of Corinth? I shall keep you” — his feet pushed away some of the trinkets that had fallen from my bracelets during the furious encounter — “I shall keep you supplied with the precious gems that cannot rival your body.”