The bride and groom exchanged rings, and Armando swept Jennifer into his arms, pulled back her veil, and kissed her wildly. The judge laughed. Then, to the tune of a pert and insistent Renaissance march, Jennifer and Armando filed out through the hall following behind the judge who carried a large book on an embroidered cloth elevated by both hands. Lorenzo thought the judge must have expected the silly pomposity. The guests came behind the wedding party and were drawn outside by gay madrigals and thumping drums. He barely noticed Claudia walking by his side because the wedding made him feel like he was lost in an old movie filmed in a foreign language with poorly translated subtitles. I wonder if this says anything about what they will become? Whose dream are we in?
The reception was set up all across the front lawn of the castle. Claudia touched Lorenzo’s arm and led him to a small table under an old olive tree at the edge of the action.
“Lorenzo, you may think you know everything about me, the most intimate details of my life, but you don’t,” Claudia remarked, removing her wide-brimmed hat while looking intently into his eyes. She startled him because, freed of the hat, her intense brown eyes cut into his mind. She was hawkish with black, perfectly cut hair that rippled and waved. She’d stopped smoking a year ago and longed for a cigarette. As the time lengthened past the last cigarette, her emotions were raw like the sharp edges of clamshells. By removing tobacco as the first step of self-reflection, she’d been forced to examine her biting sarcasm, witty cynicism, and overbearing intellectual superiority. One by one she was stripping away the aspects of herself she disliked the most, but now, sitting with Lorenzo, a powerful and brilliant man who certainly knew too much about her, she felt vulnerable, too bare. The need to defend herself took over. Why did I ever think I wanted to talk with him? Columns of waiters bringing out a Tuscan feast on large platters momentarily distracted them.
Lorenzo embraced her with kind amber eyes. “Claudia. Armando went on and on about you, but I wasn’t listening to it. I don’t remember what he said about you because I was busy observing him. If I know you at all, it is within a darkly obscured reflection in Armando’s broken mirror. Yet, here you are with me on this beautiful, whimsical day in your lovely peach dress. So much time has gone by; surely, you are a completely different person?”
His well-formed mouth was remarkably sensitive and beckoned her, made her feel like touching his moist lower lip. She detected a range of ages in his personality—an eager young boy, an emotionally driven young man, a wise resigned elder. He must have explored himself deeply during his own analysis. “It’s true; I am a completely different person. Actually, when Armando changed last year and expressed genuine concern for the people he’d hurt, including me, I was briefly attracted to him again. But he’d hurt me way too much; I couldn’t risk it. Now he’s doing exactly what he should—marrying a woman young enough to have his children. It would be a tragedy if this lineage ended.” She paused . . . “Forgive me if I’m being intrusive. I heard you lost your wife last year after a long marriage. Do you feel terribly alone?”
Lorenzo perked up. He’d discovered, as most grieving people do, that talking about death makes people uncomfortable; it’s taboo. The enforced silence while he was mourning made him feel bitter because he couldn’t express his feelings. To talk about his loss seemed natural and normal to him, yet most people silenced him as quickly as possible. Lately, he had been feeling depressed and resented people for not reaching out to him; he felt isolated. So he searched for the right words to engage the topic. “I do feel terribly alone. I miss our simple routines—the sound of her footsteps in the house, traveling together, tinkering noises in the kitchen. We had a long marriage and raised two children, who are doing well. As an analyst, I assumed I knew what she felt and thought about. Then after she died, I found her journals in a little trunk, and I read all nine of them during the long, lonely evenings last winter. The truth is, after a thirty-five-year marriage, I didn’t know her at all! I spent all my time on my clients.” He stopped. While he spoke, a pale rose color brightened his pallid gray leathery skin. Claudia listened acutely noticing that when he spoke, there was a lost, hollow echo in his voice.
“Lorenzo, I think you are enduring very deep grief. Maybe you do not realize how deep it actually is?”
“Very well put, Claudia, and you’re right. I’m grieving the marriage I never had although we were together so many years. She died of throat cancer when only sixty-five, a woman who seldom spoke about herself when she lived.” His voice was strangled. “She talked about trivialities all the time, I tried to listen but I couldn’t hear her. I was tone deaf to my own wife. It is so good to be able to say this to someone, since the analyst doesn’t usually get to express himself. How did you come by such wisdom at your age; I believe I’m twenty-five years older than you?”
She nodded to acknowledge their relative ages and then said something that would catch any Jungian analyst’s attention. “I’m psychic, Lorenzo. Your grief is displaced, not moving out of your body, as if you are in the shadow of death. You have two energy fields instead of one—an inner field riddled with dark and troubled emotions, an outer shell far away and almost detaching. Do you mind me saying this?” He indicated by his eyes that he didn’t, so she continued. “I wonder why she left the journals, since with cancer she had time to dispose of them. What if she wanted you to see them? If so, it would be a gift from her to finally allow you to know her. I think if you look at it that way, your feelings might resolve.”
He was charmed by her face, her exotic classic Roman beauty was like a jaguar ready to pounce from within the elegant flesh-colored dress. He shivered when she noticed he was studying her. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that! Finally, he replied. “And I’m supposed to be the one who is so insightful! Of course she must have wanted me to read them! She did want me to know her. No wonder I feel so alone . . . I miss her.” He sipped some wine though he rarely drank, not wanting her to notice he was on the verge of crying, but of course she knew.
“Once I forgave Armando, a psychological transformation began that is still unfolding. I couldn’t get anywhere with myself until we became friends again because I was so angry. You and I both know why he acted that way, but that didn’t mean he had the right to take his pain out on me. We don’t need to talk about that, but I do want to talk about what came next. After I truly forgave him two years ago, I quit cigarettes after smoking like a fiend for twenty years. I smoked and drank to blunt my pain, so once I quit, I had to face my suppressed emotions. This has been humiliating, an ugly experience, but I’ve been truthful with myself. Still, I am appalled by how alone I am, aloof and living in my head. As long as I could reach for a cigarette and think about ideas, I could avoid the truth about myself. Here I am, forty-two without a partner or a husband, but that’s not why I’m lonely. I love living alone. I’m lonely because I see who I am; it’s horrible to face one’s truth.”
“Fascinating. This insight is what I hope my clients will attain, and some do. We can’t find happiness without facing ourselves first. You are on the verge of being a fulfilled woman.”
Sarah was nearby talking in Italian to a few of the neighbors and glanced at her watch thinking Claudia and Lorenzo had been talking a long time. What are they talking about?
Claudia noticed Sarah, a very close friend, and was tempted to signal her over to their table, but she wanted to keep the conversation going. “I will tell you the truth. I wanted to be the bride we saw today. But his intensity and pain made me manic-depressive during my twenties. My parents hoped he’d marry me because he’s rich. Actually, I’m amazed I escaped him with the pressure to stay together coming from many corners. But I did. In my thirties, I became strong and successful and spent my time making other women beautiful, enjoying lovers, cultivating new interests. But, I was hollow inside. Beauty distracted me while my addictions helped me live a complex lie. To answer you truthfully, I haven’t thought about being happy or fulfilled in at least ten years
.”
Registering the sadness present with his own gaping emptiness challenging him, Lorenzo felt useless, unwanted, and unsure of himself. How could I have thought everything was fine for thirty-five years? How could I have been with her all those years and not seen she was isolated and sad? My heart was reserved for my clients. Absorbing their pain left me with no feelings for the person who should have mattered the most. But, still, are women ever happy? They are so complex and needy. “Claudia, you are finding yourself and many things will surprise you. I’d like to get to know you, really know you. If you want to know me, I’d love to be with you while you find yourself.”
Claudia felt suspended in a dream, in another time. The depth of passion in his voice was meeting a newborn essence within her that instinctually reached for him. But, just as she was preparing to answer, Armando and Jennifer came to their table. She stood up with Lorenzo and lifted her wine glass to toast the newly married couple.
“Congratulations, years of happiness, and many children,” Lorenzo said in a strong, clear voice while Claudia collected herself. Jennifer chatted with Claudia about her wedding gown while the older woman was wondering what life would be like for her. Marriage would probably heal him in some ways, but what would it be like living with Armando? Does she know what she’s getting herself into?
The bride and groom coming to their table just after he’d asked Claudia for a relationship intrigued Lorenzo, a classic synchronicity. As soon as the couple floated off to the next table, they sat back down. He wondered if Claudia would respond or let it go. To his surprise, she picked up the thread at once.
“I would love to get to know you; however we might want to wait awhile. You need more time with your wife’s journals. She will be free to leave this world once you understand them. You don’t want her hanging around in your house, you know.”
Lorenzo started laughing while slurping down wine to calm himself. He choked a bit and started a coughing fit mixed with laughter. “What an absolutely hysterical thing to say to an analyst! Do you realize how funny you are? It’s even funnier that the bride and groom came over here just when I said I want to know you! What a madcap and lovely day this is. Whatever happens, you are my delightful companion today!”
Claudia laughed along with him, and they spent the rest of their time together at the wedding. During the beautiful May afternoon, olive trees and wildflowers absorbed their loneliness.
2
Jennifer and Armando
Jennifer was thirty-two when she met Armando in May 2013. The minute she laid eyes on him, she entertained fantasies of marrying him and having his children while living in a castle. Even though strongly attracted to him, she was cool and commanding, which drew him right into her grasping hands. However, while enjoying the whirlwind summer romance, she sensed there was something peculiar about Armando, a strange shadow. But she was irresistibly drawn to him as an intense, esoteric artist. Perhaps the shadow was merely his muse?
Whatever was going on with him, she wanted to have him, so she silenced him whenever he tried to reveal his past. She’d say things like, “Armando, what I feel is so precious I don’t want to think about the past. Let’s be in the moment. When you come home from your studio, I see many worlds in your eyes. You take me places I’ve never known.”
Armando allowed her to prevail for the time being. One day they kissed and embraced passionately in his studio, and then later listened to Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 15 while he mixed his paints. During the final movement, he stopped mixing and lost himself in her animated eyes. After the final grand stroke on the taut strings she said, “Only music expresses really intense feelings, not words.” He had laughed and replied, “But what about my paintings?”
The next day he’d shown her his version of the Annunciation, an exquisite gilded version of the Archangel Gabriel in ecstasy gazing at the Virgin Mary in midnight-blue robes. The frail Virgin standing tentatively in front of a stone tower in San Gimignano was delightfully young and innocent. A burning red sky raining down fire from the heavens was the backdrop for a modern city panorama of monotonous glass skyscrapers. The most powerful image, a fat twisted green serpent mysteriously curled up in a lower room of the tower, glared at the Virgin with sly yellow eyes as if her innocence had drawn him there from another dimension. Jennifer studied the painting while Armando sat drinking wine at a small round table. When she turned to look at him he said, “Tell me what you see in this painting . . . Words, words, I need words.”
She sat down on the other chair. “At first, the fire and light in the upper world, a modern city, contrasted with medieval San Gimignano and overwhelmed me. In the middle world, time stops with Gabriel’s sweet face enjoying the Virgin’s wonder. Yet the serpent coiled in the lower realm of the tower makes me think of the tree of life emerging from serpentine forces. Once I grasped all three levels, then other aspects emerged: Gabriel has arrived from a very high dimension to gaze at the woman selected to birth the Messiah. As he arrives, the serpent in the depths of the tower coils while cosmic fire engulfs ugly new buildings—a modern Pentecost. I am in awe of you, Armando, I truly am.”
“Ah, yes, well, but you do not know me yet. How are we going to know each other well enough to be married, if that’s even what we want? This painting may be magnificent, but you won’t marry my paintings. I want to tell you everything about my past; you must listen to me.”
“Then I will have to tell you about my past, but I won’t because it will come back to haunt me. I don’t know who you were before, but I do know what I was, and you would not like it. We could lose this magic.” What if he knew what I did to another woman?
Armando had no idea how he’d feel if he knew all about her. She seemed to be a woman without a past because she was so absolutely present when they were together. Maybe she’s right, maybe . . . “Well then, my darling,” he said getting up. “Perhaps you can explain to me why you won’t have sex with me even though we are otherwise very intimate, even talking about marriage? Are you afraid to have sex with me because of something you sense about me? If that’s the reason, you’re probably right. Maybe you feel like I am that serpent?” he said in Italian twisting a lock of her hair around his index finger, which annoyed her.
“Not at all,” was the honest if incomplete response from a sophisticated woman who’d had many lovers and watched the magic turn into boredom when too much was revealed. She’d found a man who was not boring, so she made calculated moves brilliantly designed to capture him before it was too late for her to have children. She held considerable control over him by keeping him at arm’s length: he stayed in a nearby hotel when visiting her in Paris, and here in Italy she would not sleep with him in his parent’s house before marriage. “I simply am not ready to have sex with you; I really don’t know why. Perhaps romance matters more to me right now than sex. Getting to know our families and our day-by-day sharing are what matter to me,” she went on. “My lovers were merely lovers, I never considered marrying any of them, but you may be my husband. With you, and I don’t know why, I sense we should do things the old-fashioned way—have a real engagement. I don’t want to have sex until I’m sure we’ll marry. Can you handle that?”
Armando studied her with a painter’s eye, imagining her as a previous lover who’d come back to him through time. Her beauty was very Persian—brown eyes with golden flecks that sometimes turned them amber. Innocence suffused her face like Gabriel’s adoring face, but he knew she wasn’t innocent; Gabriel probably wasn’t either.
She pressed the issue, which he didn’t like. “Can you wait?”
“I think so, but feel like we’re going in reverse. Sex for me is intense, dark, conflicted, and violent. You don’t want to hear about it, but I’m worried my past might bite back at me if we marry. Shouldn’t we have sex, lots of it, to get to know each other? Make sure we both enjoy the experience? I mean, come on. This is the modern world, not medieval Tuscany.”
“I can say the same thing
about myself, but I won’t talk about it. What’s happening between us is different from before, possibly the very thing that makes me think I want to marry you. Like Gabriel in your painting, we can be in a sacred dimension, so why not? I’ve come to despise meaningless, amoral sex; I want a real courtship, an idea I never had until I met you. I can love you very deeply if you will grant me space. Once we are sure we’ll marry—and we don’t know that yet—then yes, we must come together to make sure that we are sexually compatible, the only good idea that came out of the sexual revolution.”
“Hmmm . . .” Armando muttered while glancing at the serpent in the lower chamber. He knew she was playing him, which was making him angry yet stirring him. She knew she was risking the big test, the times when she’d pushed away men in the past. His mouth twisted slightly. He released the lock of hair while roughly pulling her close to kiss her deeply, grinding his pelvis into her wide hips. He was irritatingly needy; he couldn’t handle being denied. Dark energy expanded in his chest.
She detected his hardness, strength, and passion, welcome because it matched her formidable masculinity. Overwhelming need coursing through her body stopped her breath. Why not just surrender, why not? Then I’ll know whether I like having sex with him. Yet, there was a groaning, stretching energy in the room that distorted the air, something grasping for her. Kissing her roughly on the side of her neck, he moved down lower with a sucking force, her nipples ached. He arched his shoulders back to press his erection more fully into her pelvis. But, when she sought his eyes, she detected a green demon flashing in and out, with his face becoming flaccid and dissipated while he clutched her shoulders. “Armando, stop it right now in the name of God! Stop it! What is wrong with you?”
Revelations of the Aquarian Age Page 2
