Finally, she asks: “Is Magus here?”
“Magus? … No. I haven’t seen him for … two weeks, I think. What’s the matter, Belinda?”
It cascades out of her: “I haven’t seen Magus either. For nearly three days. And I was just interrogated at the Mother House. They’ve called in a foreign detective, and he thinks that Magus is involved with those body parts that have been popping up in the waterways. They’ve taken my passport. They’ve confiscated my latest painting because of the tattoos, and — ”
“Belinda. Slow down. Let’s move to the parlour. One of the Kourai Khryseai can serve us tea, and you can tell me exactly what — ”
The house interrupts Volkanus: “Magus Amore has arrived.”
Volkanus raises his eyebrows, looking amused and curious, while Belinda gasps: “Magus …”
The madman bursts naked into the room. “Belinda! I’ve come from your studio. Where’s The Thirteenth Goddess? The time has come. Venera needs your sacred masterwork.”
8. REVELATIONS
Every time Sister Agnes comes close to sleep, as she closes her eyes, she is visited by visions of the goddess from Belinda Gerda’s painting and is almost instantly shocked awake. She can scarcely understand what happens in these phantasmagorias: they are populated by technobiological creatures whose morphology defies her understanding of animal life; these creatures all tend, in some manner beyond Agnes’s ken, to the goddess.
What is the connection between Amore, Gerda’s artwork, and the severed body parts?
Detective Dovelander had wanted to store Gerda’s painting at his embassy, but Sister Agnes was under orders to monitor what he could or could not take out of Veneran jurisdiction. There was no doubt in Agnes’s mind that the High Countess did not want that piece of evidence to leave Venera proper. Agnes requisitioned the use of a large storage closet at the Mother House, a 24-hour guard, and a padlock whose only two keys were in the hands of herself and the High Countess.
Agnes gives up on sleep. She dresses and heads to the ad hoc evidence room. The gargantuan Sister Bettina — on guard duty, sitting by the door — acknowledges Agnes with a bored nod.
Inside, instead of darkness, Agnes finds the small room bathing in vermilion-red glow, emanating from Belinda Gerda’s painting.
Her painting of a goddess …
… of the Goddess.
The Goddess, who now talks to her in a language she should not understand but does. The Goddess, who bestows upon her revelation. Agnes begins to see the outline of an iridescent whirlpool, enveloping her and the painting, when an insistent knock on the door breaks the spell, returning the storage closet to darkness and leaving only wisps of the Goddess’s divine language in her conscious memory.
When Sister Agnes emerges from the storage closet, Sister Bettina introduces an attaché from Dovelander’s embassy. Exuding pompousness and impatience, the too-handsome young man asks: “Where is the detective-inspector?”
“I haven’t seen him since late afternoon, after we finished examining some new evidence. He told me he was heading back to the embassy.”
“You let him wander Venera unescorted? I’m certain your superior instructed you otherwise. Should anything happen to the detective-inspector, my government shall hold you directly responsible.”
The revelations of the Goddess recede ever farther from Agnes’s consciousness. She’s annoyed at this bureaucratic troll and concerned for Dovelander, with whom she has quickly developed an amiable and respectful camaraderie. Without a word, she hurries away while the attaché is still addressing her. She knows the city. She’ll find Dovelander.
9. THE KOURAI KHRYSEAI
During the age of fable, when Hephaestus built the four Kourai Khryseai, he imbued them with attributes of his fellow Olympians. Hemero Volkanus knows this, and so does Magus Amore, who can speak the language of the gods.
After Gerda tells him of the painting’s confiscation, Amore addresses the Kourai Khryseai in the divine tongue, overriding Volkanus’s reprogramming.
In a flash, two of the gynoids zoom out of sight, with the speed and cunning of Hermes.
Belinda opens her mouth, as if on the verge of speaking, but stays agape.
Answering her unspoken query, Amore says: “They’ve gone to fetch the likeness of the Goddess. Your painting. The Thirteenth Goddess.”
10. URBAN MYTH
Tales are told around the world of people getting lost within the labyrinthine streets of Venera, of the city transforming itself with malignant sentience, obliterating any recognizable points of reference, rearranging its complex grid of streets and waterways and transmogrifying its buildings, warping time and geography, so as to capture and consume those foolish enough to be tempted by its surreal decadence.
Dovelander had long dismissed these ridiculous tales as urban myths, or as an obvious metaphor for the spiritual dangers of this blasphemous metropolis.
But, on his walk from the Mother House to his embassy, the detective-inspector lost all sense of time and place. Now, he does not recognize any of the buildings, which look even more deranged than usual. The city appears entirely deserted. The sky has become otherworldly — no: infernal, of an oppressive rust-red tinge. He can smell the brine of the sea, but he never manages to escape the ever-tighter grip of the city streets and vegetation. Sometimes, the plants whisper to him, but he cannot decipher the language they speak.
11. VENERA RISING
Less than a minute elapses, and the Kourai Khryseai return to Hemero’s parlour with The Thirteenth Goddess and hand it to Magus. The madman sets it on the floor and chants to it in the same language he used when speaking to the automata. The painting shimmers with otherworldly light and the image within acquires a barely tangible threedimensionality.
Belinda gapes in wonder: I painted that?
On the extended palm of the ethereal thirteenth goddess, an iridescent whirlpool, vermilion in colour, takes shape, growing until it engulfs Magus, Hemero, the Kourai Khryseai, and Belinda.
Belinda is momentarily blinded. Before her vision returns, she feels the wind in her hair. When she can see again, she recognizes where she has been transported: the roof garden of the Venera Church of Mother Earth, lush with vermilion plant.
Magus is kneeling before the painting, chanting in that same strange language. But now Belinda can understand him. She is granted a revelation and finally understands who the thirteenth goddess is.
Venera. Venera herself is the thirteenth goddess. Venera herself gifts Belinda with yet more divine visions. Venera is returning to reclaim her city. And she and Magus have been the instruments of her plan.
The Goddess is furious at the Church of Mother Earth for trying to eradicate her existence from history, for usurping her mysteries in the name of their Earth worship. It is her menses that flow through her city at every full moon, and not that of the Earth. The body parts that have been washing onto the core island are those of her sycophants, transmogrified and sacrificed in preparation of her return. Soon, they will live again.
Soon, Venera herself will live again.
Beneath the feet of her new worshippers, the Mother House crumbles to the ground, amid the screams of the blasphemous Sisters inside. The vermilion garden remains intact.
Around Belinda and the others, one of the myriad bygone iterations of the city of Venera rises from its subterranean tomb, reconfiguring the metropolis into a new agglomeration. The Goddess herself rises from deeper still, from deeper even than the bowels of the Earth, to whisper her divine song to those Venerans who survived the divine transmogrification of the city-state.
12. LOVE SONG
The voice of Venera is a call to life and self-awareness for the Kourai Khryseai; they shed their mechanical bodies to reveal new flesh, blessed by the Goddess.
For Hemero Volkanus, the holy song is a source of power; he mines it to acquire the divine attributes of his patron god, Hephaestus.
The music of the Goddess inspires Belinda Gerda to new
heights of creativity: as yet uncreated tableaux cascade through her mind’s eye, nurturing her lust for art.
The melodies of Venera are too exquisite for Magus Amore to bear; swimming in the holy music, his body dissolves — and his organic particles waft toward the Goddess. She inhales the essence of her most devout and loving worshipper.
To Pietro Dovelander, lost in the ever-changing maze of the city-state, Venera’s voice is a chaotic screech that further confuses whatever sanity remains within him.
Agnes, who has been unable to locate the foreign detective, is initially terrified at the scope of the unfurling bio-architectural transformations besetting the city of her birth; Venera’s song is welcome serenity.
13. THE BLOOD OF VENERA
Come the gibbous moon, the waters of Venera start to flow red with the blood the Goddess. By the time of the full moon, the water coursing through the city’s waterways is of a burnt-red hue. At that time, the goddess Venera’s worshippers are invited to bathe in her menses.
Agnes takes off her shoes, her skirt, and her blouse. She walks down three steps on the stairs by the Via Olympia. The vermilion-red water caresses her toes, her feet, her freshly shaved calves. She delights in the briny smell of the salt water as it blends with the spicy tang of Venera’s blood.
Still trapped within an urban geography he cannot grasp, Pietro Dovelander watches Venera’s worshippers soak in her blood. He wants to call out to Agnes, whom he dimly recognizes, but the knowledge of language leaves him before he can utter even a word.
VERMILION WINE
That autumn afternoon, the acqua alta took Venice by surprise. Monica had been snapping pictures of the pigeons at the Piazza San Marco, her camera set to black-and-white, when she felt dampness seep into her socks. Before she could react, the water nipped at her ankles. She didn’t so much run from the rising tide as she was swept by the rush of tourists scrambling to escape the calf-high flooding by scurrying to the north of the piazza.
As soon as she reached dry terrain and recovered her balance, all Monica could feel was her soggy footwear, emphasizing her growing irritation with Venice, which, despite its undeniable architectural beauty, she had so far experienced as scarcely more than a cynical tourist trap. She removed her designer sneakers and ankle socks and, in disgust, abandoned them there on the street, venturing barefoot further north, away from the encroaching acqua alta.
Walking up the bustling Calle dei Fabbri, she thrilled at the sensation of her bare feet treading the Venetian ground. Through this fleshly connection, Monica was astonished to suddenly uncover a profound connection to an essentially seductive Venice, as if, with every step, intimate parts of herself seeped down into the city’s foundations and the ineffable secrets of the city welled up into her body through her naked soles. Every millimetre of her skin tingled, sensually charged. Other passersby strolled by her, and whether it was skin or fabric that brushed her bare arms every fleeting contact shot sparks of pleasure throughout her body. It was in that heightened state of sexual awareness that she stumbled onto the Museo d’Arte Erotica.
The entrance fee was merely a handful of euros; inside, the exhibit snaked over four storeys in a labyrinthine manner that was as sensually intriguing as the items on display. The various types of flooring — wood, marble, rug — caressed her bare feet, accentuating the sensuousness of the visit. Here was the key, she realized, to truly understanding Venice. Forget the dull history books; forget the official, so-called “masterpieces” of art; forget the sanitized, Disneyland-like version of the city presented to tourists; forget the greedy entrepreneurs eager to milk every cent from those same tourists. Venice — the real Venice — was unabashed pleasure: the sensuous, otherworldly architecture; the intoxicating aroma of the Adriatic Sea; that palpable aura of relaxed decadence that descended upon the city at night; the nooks along the streets and alleys, where trysts demanded to be initiated, inviting stolen moments during which hands and lips took whatever they could; mischievous, decadent, provocative artwork that celebrated the ribald joy of the senses. Yes, Monica had glimpsed all these things in the past three days, but the ubiquitous and opportunistic mercantilism that had evolved to take advantage of the abundant tourism that the compact city could scarcely manage to contain obscured their significance.
Here in the erotica museum she was able to ignore the crass veneer that hid the true Venice. The parade of sexually charged objects from throughout Venice’s history — paintings, photographs, sculptures, curios, book pages, film clips — allowed her to find the primal wonderment she had initially hoped to discover in this legendary city. She scrutinized every item on display with hungry curiosity. On the third floor, she stopped in front of a glass case that contained an old book, bound in a reddish fibre that she could not identify. The tome was titled La storia segreta dei vini sacri (The Secret History of Sacred Wines), by an author with the unlikely name of Magus Amore.
Although Monica did not really want to think about work, her passion for wine went far beyond her weekly feature at the magazine. She could have used the connections she had amassed over her twelve years of writing the column to enhance her impulsive escape to Italy, but she had craved solitude and anonymity. She had just broken off an affair with her editor, Katherine, whose bullying bossiness she had at first mistaken for the masculine arrogance that she responded to, both viscerally and uncontrollably, in women. Honestly, she wasn’t entirely certain she would still have a job when she returned; something told her Katherine was spiteful enough to find some justification to let her go. Monica had more than two months’ worth of columns filed in advance, so she didn’t have to worry about any of that yet.
Her Italian was a cut or two above serviceable; she deciphered what she could of the text on the two-page spread displayed under the glass. Most of it dealt with the rites of minor, forgotten Catholic sects whose subtle blasphemies of the flesh were lost on her irreligious mind, but on the last line of the second page she encountered the words “il vino vermiglio di Venera” (“the vermilion wine of Venera”) and she was immediately consumed with the desire to turn the page and learn what that mysterious phrase could mean. She had never heard of a city or region, or even a vineyard, called Venera; and, despite all her years of investigating the wines of the world, she had no clue as to what “vermilion wine” could be. But the book was encased, out of reach. She tried to reassure herself that armed with the book’s title she could at any time satisfy this sudden obsession.
Still, her impatient need to understand that phrase nagged at her to distraction. She hadn’t yet seen the entire exhibit at the Museo d’Arte Erotica, but she could no longer focus. Nothing registered in her memory; every item was forgotten as soon as her eyes moved on to the next thing.
There were books in the boutique downstairs. Monica asked the clerk if they had for sale any reprint editions of Magus Amore’s La storia segreta dei vini sacri. The young woman — despite her aura of hipster chic, which in Monica’s experience signalled bad service, especially toward other women — was surprisingly solicitous. She took the time to carefully inspect the inventory, and even looked up the title on the store computer, but she came up blank and acted sincerely apologetic that she could not be of any help.
Monica inquired if it would be possible to consult the copy of the work on display. Irritation flashed on the young clerk’s face, and she replied with a curt “No.” The manner of the refusal irked Monica, sparking her to insist; she took out her press ID, which identified her as a “wine columnist,” and presented the card to the clerk. “I’m writing a piece on the ritual uses of wine,” she lied. “Perhaps if you passed my card on to the curator?”
The young woman glanced sneeringly at the business card on the counter. Defiantly, Monica left it there anyway and hurried outside without another word. A sense of defeat overwhelmed her as she neared her hotel. Up in the room, she collapsed instantly, fully clothed on the tiny single bed.
She woke up in darkness. She checked her watch
; it was a few minutes past midnight, but soft, muted sounds wafted in through the open window: the murmur of conversations, the slow clickety-clack of heels on cobblestone, the subtle vibrations of live acoustic music. Without giving it any thought, without changing her clothes or putting on shoes, Monica followed the siren call of nighttime Venice. Out she went. Around her, people walked unhurriedly, talking in calm tones, leaning into each other with complicit intimacy; faint music echoed on the masonry of the city. At this hour, Italian reasserted itself as the language of the city: the tourists had gone to bed and the Venetians had come out to play. The sounds and smells of the Adriatic Sea filtered and tuned all of this tranquil festivity into a surreal urban lullaby. From the soles of her naked feet, Monica felt her entire body vibrate in harmony with her surroundings. As she wandered, humming, along the rios and calles, she, too, became part of this Venetian nocturne.
She located a table in a restaurant that overlooked the water. Groups of Venetians supped relaxedly, the evidence of several courses littering their tables. Monica hadn’t eaten all day but had no desire for food. She ordered a litre of the house red, and quickly, perhaps too quickly, another litre. And yet another.
She woke in a luxurious bed, in a room at least three times larger than her hotel accommodations. She called out a drowsy, tentative “Hello?” Then, in Italian, “Salve?” But there was no answer. Despite the potentially alarming circumstance of waking up naked in an unknown bed, Monica had to struggle to keep from succumbing to sleep again. The bedsheets were soft as clouds. Her insides felt gooey, as if her bones had lost all solidity. And then the smell hit her: the musk of sex with a man. Her skin reeked of it. The sheets reeked of it. The air of the room was permeated with it.
Venera Dreams Page 23
