Babylon

by Richard Calder

  The compartment, if not luxurious, was quite comfortably appointed. It resembled (or at least, so I would suppose, for I had only previously travelled on the London Underground) the first- class compartment of a train out of Paddington or St Pancras. I sat next to the window. The drapes—pulled back and secured with golden cords—were flush against my cheek. Made of thick, red velvet, they might have been originally designed for a house of assignation. The door to the compartment was closed, the windows that gave onto the connecting corridor screened by a similar set of drapes.

  I leant forward a little and allowed my left temple to rest against the dirt-streaked windowpane that separated me from the world outside.

  For the past few hours, the city had begun to change. It still manifested the ruined porticos, truncated columns, armless statues, and rampant vegetation that characterize, both in myth and fact, the symbol-strewn landscapes of all dead cities. But the debris of the millennia had lately been reconstituted into something less ancient. The skeletal outlines of Gothic cathedrals, Baroque palaces, and neo-Palladian villas began to jump out at me from the jumble of architectural forms, like isolated phrases of meaning in a half-understood foreign tongue; and if the stelae, winged bulls, djinn, war gods, and other tokens of ancient Mesopotamia were still much in evidence, then examples of iconography celebrating the Black Madonna and my own patroness, the Magdalene, complemented them.

  ‘Are you enjoying the scenery?’ said Lord Azrael.

  I studied his reflection in the window. I would not have called him a handsome man, though he was, as they say, ‘regularly proportioned’, and what is more, he exuded the kind of gracious but uncompromising authority that seemed to promise... But no; I would not allow my thoughts to travel down that road, I decided. There was still so much I did not understand; so much I had to be wary of. I averted my gaze from his reflection and renewed my scrutiny of the city.

  Flora was sparse. The palm trees that had erupted from the shattered paving that carpeted the city’s perimeter (trees that had doubtless been transplanted from Earth) were here reduced to odd, random brushstrokes of green, yellow, and brown that enlivened a canvas otherwise notable only for its stagnation and inertia. Trailing plants, creepers, and convolvulus, were more abundant. They entwined columns and porticos, smothered ghostly façades, or else snaked across rubble-littered piazzas. But all in all, Babylon’s vegetable life—at least, as it was represented here—offered little to excite my interest.

  The fauna, however, was wonderful. An hour or so ago I had pressed my nose to the window as a flock of flying cats had filled the sky: little, golden-fleeced sphinxes that, disturbed by the approach of the train, had taken wing from the dilapidated roof of an abandoned railway station, and then as rapidly disappeared. Ever since, I had hoped to see another such sight, if not of pretty, human-headed cats, then of some other example of the absurdly exotic wildlife that was rumoured to haunt Babylon’s desolate precincts.

  ‘Are you—’ said Lord Azrael, about to repeat himself. He was determined to intrude into my thoughts.

  ‘What,’ I cut in, ‘do you want with us?’ Apart from the clickety-clack of wheels over rails, the train was silent; so silent, I could hear his lordship’s every breath. Cliticia and Mr Malachi had taken a separate compartment. The only other passengers were the handful of lightly armed men who patrolled the corridor. I turned my head and gazed at him, defiantly. But he disdained to meet my gaze. I let my attention drift, idly inspecting the carpetbag that I had earlier stowed in the luggage rack above our heads. It was strange to reflect, but it seemed to me that a photograph of the scene would, to the untrained eye, have revealed nothing more untoward than an uncle taking a favourite niece on a trip into the country. I continued to bide my time, determined to show that I, too, could affect indifference.

  ‘What do we want with you ?’ he said at last. ‘Do you really not know? Or do you merely feign not to know?’ He laughed, gently. ‘Oh, Miss Fell, I think you know a great deal. In fact, I think you are a young lady full of surprises.’ I said nothing, surrendering myself to the train’s soporific rhythm, and aware, too aware, of how indecently close his body was to mine. ‘You mentioned the Blue Island, for instance.’ He put his feet up on the seat opposite. ‘The Blue Island,’ he mused, as if to himself, savouring the taste of the words as he might an after-dinner cigar. My eyelids began to droop. But as I let my body succumb to weariness, my mind seemed to grow keener, teased out of doubt and made increasingly hungry for his lordship’s quiet, considered words.

  ‘The Blue Island is located at the North Pole,’ he continued. ‘In the Hindu Puranas it is called Svita-Dvip, and it is home to Meru, the Midnight Mountain. But the world knows it more familiarly as the Hyperborean land of Thule. Half a billion years ago, Thule was home to my ancestors, a race of people originating from the planet Sumi-Er, in the solar system of Aldebaran. But there was another planet in Aldebaran: Sumi-An, home of the lesser races. The people of Sumi-An followed us across space. And they made their home in Antarctica.’

  The city was being eaten up, its mad architecture dispatched to the accompanying roar of the engine and the clatter of the rails. The vast precincts of Eridu and Uruk were long since behind us. The all-female realms of Zemargad and Sheba—presided over by the goddess of love and death—far ahead. If half a billion years separated Lord Azrael from his ancestral seat, I could almost believe an equally inconceivable distance separated me from my own home.

  ‘North and South poles,’ he resumed, ‘were thus colonized by antithetical civilizations. Ours was patriarchal. We worshipped the sun. But theirs was a goddess-oriented civilization. Their allegiance was to the moon.’ He paused and took breath. ‘From the North comes true humanity. The North is the wellspring of pure, Aryan blood.’ After taking in another lungful of air he exhaled so forcefully that I almost thought I could hear his elegant, Dundreary whiskers rustle—a barely perceptible sound akin to that of thistledown in the wind. ‘Alas, a tilt in the Earth’s axis brought an end to that Golden Age. It necessitated another migration. Some Aryans came to North Eurasia, and, later, a second wave settled in the now lost continent of Atlantis. And it was in Atlantis that the Aryans committed’—his voice dropped an octave—‘miscegenation.’ He fell quiet, the air between us tangy with ozone, as if after a thunderstorm. ‘Yes,’ he began again, after several tense seconds. ‘Those Aryans mixed their blood with the races of proto-Negroes that had left the South Pole to colonize the world. These miscegenators were not my ancestors, you understand. My forefathers were those who had left Thule for North Eurasia. And they chose to cleave to the pure, solar ideals that they had brought with them from Sumi-Er.

  ‘The half-breeds, that is, those descended from the unholy union of Sumi-Er and Sumi-An, are those who gave birth to history and the first cities. You call them Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians. But in truth, they were the scions of a dark, malignant race that hid their designs behind the cloak of “civilization”. For thousands of years, they have poisoned this planet. Poisoned it using their proxies of Christianity, Capitalism, and Socialism. Poisoned it with Democracy, which is the rule of the common herd—the rule of the hyperfeminine Dark Mother! But we true humans, we Aryans, we pure unsullied remnants of those who once ruled this Earth, long ago retreated to our ancient homeland in the North. There, from our underground city of Agartha, we sally forth to make war against the inferior races and their Shulamite cult. It is only when we have purified the planet that the supermen of old—those whom we call the Hidden Masters—will make themselves known and the link that has been lost between Man and Cosmos will be forged anew. Then there will come an end to this Kali-Yuga, this Iron Age, this Ragnarok. Then the new Krita or Satya-Yuga will dawn. The Taurean age!’

  He had become quite excited. And, to my consternation, so had I, though I believe I managed not to show it. I allowed him time to take control of himself, and apportioned a similarly discreet interval to myself, wherein I might moderate my heaving bosom
and restore a maidenly pallor to my cheeks.

  ‘And how,’ I said, ‘is this purification to come about?’

  ‘By restoration of the cosmic balance,’ he said. ‘By realizing here, on Earth, the ancient life we once enjoyed in Heaven. By recreating the harmony that existed between Sumi-Er and Sumi- An when our respective root races lived amongst the stars.’

  I felt my stomach knot. ‘By making us your slaves, you mean?’ I said, in a barely audible whisper.

  ‘You are very beautiful, Miss Fell,’ he said. I could feel him staring at me and, for a moment, I thought I would not be able to stand it. I bit my lip and fought back the tears. ‘Very beautiful indeed, and really, quite, quite intelligent. But you must understand that epochs in which women have reached autonomy always coincide with epochs of manifest decadence. Enslave you? It cannot be expected of women to return to what they really are and thus establish the necessary inner and outer conditions for the re-emergence of a superior race. No, not when men themselves retain only a semblance of true virility. In this Kali-Yuga, the chthonic nature of the feminine penetrates the virile principle and lowers it to a level that is exclusively phallic—that is, to the level of the beast. Woman dominates man if he himself becomes enslaved to his senses!’

  ‘Then what is the answer?’

  He touched me, lightly, so lightly, I hardly felt it, stroking my hair as if it might have been the mane of a wild, skittish animal he had long since tamed and chosen to keep as a pet. I kept my eyes closed and breathed deep, surrendering myself to the slow, considered deliberations of his caresses.

  ‘The answer? The Black Order is an order of spiritual virility. And it is alone in facing the consequences of living in a world in which everything is permitted. Religion, politics, friendship, love. What are they? What do such things mean? If the skies are really empty, if there are no gods but ourselves, then there are no imperatives. There is only the Will. The Will! The Will is not a god; it is not even a physical force. It does, however, exist, and we find, in its exercise, the only meaning life can ever have. The answer, Miss Fell? The answer is the Will’s triumph: the dominance of the solar aristocracy over the earthly masses.

  ‘Some have accused us of cruelty. But for us, there is only art. Religion, politics, friendship—love, itself: all are art forms by which societies become instruments for the expression of the will of élites. If the Black Order is cruel, then its cruelty is merely the highest expression of artistic consciousness.’

  I felt the train shudder as it applied its brakes. Briefly, I opened my eyes and saw that we were pulling into a siding; and then I closed them again, content, for the moment, to be outside time and space, and simply feel the touch of his hand as, falling into silence, like the train itself, he continued to stroke my hair.

  The siding was overgrown with some kind of indigenous bindweed. The stuff had twined itself about the network of rusted, disused rails that forked away from the siding into the parallel streets. The train stood motionless, taking on water. Its own rails gleamed, boasting of regular use, and as ever, its buffers pointed southwards.

  We sat on the edge of an old wooden railway platform. We hadn’t reached our destination. We had merely been treated to a rest stop.

  ‘If you wish to do a little sight-seeing,’ said Mr Malachi, who had walked over from the water-tower to inform us that we would be delayed for at least another hour, ‘then by all means, take a tour of St Messalina’s.’ He gestured towards the ruined cathedral that dominated the skyline. ‘But don’t wander off. Sometimes things from outside Babylon’s walls manage to penetrate deep into the city.’ He smiled his trademark cruel smile. ‘And they eat little girls.’

  ‘Get on with you,’ said Cliticia, batting her eyelids at him so furiously that I almost felt like taking hold of her and giving her a good shaking.

  It wasn’t necessary. Mr Malachi had immediately turned about and walked away to attend to the pressing business of replenishing the locomotive’s boiler.

  Cliticia gave a mock-salute. ‘Yes, sir!’ she said, though not so loud that he might hear her. ‘All present and correct, sir! Anything you bleedin’ well say, sir!’

  ‘What is it with this “sir” business,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, ol’ Malachi don’t mean no ’arm,’ she said. °E just likes ’is little games.’ She gave me a rather sharp poke with her elbow. ‘Just like I do.’ And then she giggled.

  I looked up at the cathedral. ‘I suppose we might as well make the best of things,’ I said.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Cliticia, getting to her feet and rearranging her creased skirts. Her melancholy had lifted; she was more like her old self. And that undoubtedly had had something to do with the tête-à-tête she had enjoyed with Mr Malachi during our journey south. I held up my hand; she took hold of it and helped me up, her mood translating itself into a degree of bodily vigour unusual in so small a girl.

  We walked along the platform to where a set of wooden steps led down to the tracks. Holding up the hems and petticoats of our ludicrously extravagant French dresses, we descended, tiptoed over the rails, and then re-ascended by way of the steps that communicated with the opposite platform.

  The cathedral was only a stone’s-throw distant.

  ‘It’s spooky,’ said Cliticia.

  ‘It’s huge,’ I said. ‘A bit like St Paul’s.’

  ‘Only bigger,’ she added. She pushed out her underlip and blew a curl of hair out of her eyes. ‘But it’s seen better days, that’s for sure.’ The dome had all but collapsed; only a charred skeleton of spars and rafters offered evidence that it had existed at all. ‘So this is, or was, St Messalina’s,’ she continued. She studied the architecture more intently. ‘Poor Messalina, I wonder what happened to you?’

  ‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘I didn’t bring my Baedeker.’

  We crossed a modest, rubbish-strewn piazza, ascended the cathedral steps, passed between the columns of a tumbledown portico, and then entered the cathedral itself through a cavernous hole in its façade that looked as if it might have been perpetrated by cannon fire.

  The shadows immediately wrapped themselves about us. But the moonlight pouring through the all but non-existent dome provided sufficient illumination to reveal the cathedral’s secrets.

  Like the piazza outside, the nave was strewn with rubbish and fragments of masonry, so that it had the appearance of a temple that might have stood at the foot of Pompeii during its last days. I turned. Above us, what remained of the rose window refracted the opalescent shafts of light that rained down out of the black sky, as if the moon—eager to confirm my first impressions—were imitating Vesuvius. The Romans called the rose the flower of Venus. It was the badge of the sacred prostitute, as symbolic of passionate love as the poppy was symbolic of death. I genuflected.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Cliticia.

  ‘This is a Goddess temple!’ I said, a little shocked that she should question my attempt at piety. ‘I’m making obeisance to the venereal rose!’

  ‘Then it’s 'er that you should bend the knee to,’ she said, jerking her thumb towards a wall cavity. I walked over to it. The surrounding masonry was blackened, and by the same fire, I suppose, as had consumed so much of the rest of the cathedral; but the idol that stood within was blackened by design rather than accident. It was a Black Madonna, no more than two feet high: an image of my patron saint, Mary Magdalene.

  Again, I genuflected, and this time bowed my head, too, in a heartfelt act of submission.

  ‘Christ loved her more than all the disciples,’ I said, quoting from The Gospel of Thomas, ‘and used to kiss her often on her mouth.’

  ‘He cast seven demons out of ’er,’ said Cliticia, who had walked to my side. ‘Or so they say. Poor cow.’

  I tsked. ‘Seven demons for each of the seven gatekeepers of the underworld,’ I said. I gazed down at Cliticia, who seemed as captivated by the wooden icon as me. ‘Really, my darling, you might show some respect.’

  ‘Respe
ct? She was a dancer. Like Ishtar, ’er mother, she shed a veil at each gate. I can respect that.’

  ‘To distract the attentions of Death,’ I said.

  ‘Or to seduce ’im,’ she said.

  I gazed once more at the Madonna. ‘Do you know the dance?’ I said, nervously. ‘The underworld dance? The dance of the seven veils?’

  ‘Wot? The dance of death?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. It was called ‘the dance of death’ in honour of the Magdalene’s companion, Salome. Salome had danced for the head of Jesus’ chief rival, John the Baptist, and thus laid the way for the Magdalene. On John’s death, his disciples renounced their asceticism and became the disciples of the man the Magdalene was to anoint, seduce, and proclaim the Christ—the founder of a Church whose priests would all be raving nympholepts.

  ‘Gabrielle taught me a few steps,’ said Cliticia. She rocked her pelvis. Her hips rose and fell. ‘I’m wearing the wrong clothes, of course.’ She paused, as if taking stock of what she knew, then recommenced. ‘You ’ave to imagine you ’ave a baby sitting, like, on your right ’ip.’ Her posture changed. ‘Then, like, you move ’im to your left ’ip.’ She paused again and scratched her head. ‘Well, think of this, then: a figure eight on the floor. You stand at its centre, right foot in one loop, left foot in the other. Now, what you do is this.’ Her hips swayed, following the line of the imaginary figure eight. ‘You ’ave to think that there’s, like, a snake coiled up inside your belly button.’ The pelvic circles became more liquid, more frankly aggressive, one hip and then the other snapping to attention as if at the bidding of a drumbeat. Soon, her pelvis became a riot of jerks, wiggles, and thrusts, as she renounced all elements of dance that were socially permissible and embraced everything that was prohibited. The sweat stood out on her forehead. And then she stopped, doubled over, and started panting for breath. ‘Gawd, a girl’d do well to take off her stays if she’s going to dance like a bleedin’ ghawazee.’ She gasped and wheezed. ‘It ain’t called the dance of death for nothing, that’s for sure.’