The Occult Persuasion and the Anarchist's Solution

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “I was the high-school principal of an all-girls’ academy just north of Sydney. We took the troubled offspring of rich parents and stopped them from getting into more trouble than they otherwise would have. I did that for forty years. I’ve written two feminist plays, one of which, Call Me Bitch, had one of the longest runs in the history of Sydney theatre, although it was a very small operation. But still. I’m the author of three non-fiction works about capitalism, greed, and climate change, all of which have sold to a small but passionate audience.”

  “You ever married? Have kids? Toast marshmallows over a fire and do normal things?”

  Martha brought out the sarcasm in me, but she ignored my tone.

  “I have three children, two sons and one daughter. A doctor, a lawyer, and a baker.”

  “Will we be seeing Robert?” Sean piped up enthusiastically from the front. “Oh crikey, Lyndon—I mean Liam—you have to taste his cinnamon buns. They are to die for, mate.”

  I had assumed the baker was the daughter, and chastised myself.

  “My husband was a poet,” Martha said. “He was considered a national treasure.”

  “Of course, he was,” I retorted, worn out. “Serves me right for asking. Look at you, Martha. I bet Google is all over you and your many successes.”

  “It certainly is,” she replied. “I’m Australia’s leading anarchist feminist.”

  “Great,” I said and sighed. “I am honoured.” My sarcasm filled the car like smell of a wet dog.

  “I’m just trying to jolt some life into you, Lyndon,” Martha said, and she patted my hand.

  Suddenly, I wanted to cry. I blinked my eyes shut and held fast until my tears went back into my nose and ran down my throat.

  “We will be seeing Robert,” Martha told Sean. “He’s coming to the meeting. He’s bringing an assortment of baked goods.”

  Cookies and anarchism. Burn down the establishment and annihilate the authorities with cupcakes in hand. Great. Ah, who cared? I was so tired. I didn’t want to go the meeting anymore. My flash of energy had burnt out. I was fine when it was just Jason and Queenie and me and sometimes Sean. But this, the prospect of returning to the real world, drained me. I didn’t want to do anything except lie down on my bed with Queenie and find refuge in sleep, or take a walk on the beach and watch the sunset, or go home and eat curry with Jason, or read a book about tattooing. I honestly didn’t give a fig’s ass about anything else.

  23. MARGAUX

  I DIDN’T REPLY TO the Mr. Ex-Punk Rocker’s email. Instead, I went to find Tim. I made his coffee the way he liked it, and I knocked on his bedroom door and let myself in.

  He was asleep, but I woke him up.

  “Lyndon emailed me a couple of days ago,” I said, and he shuffled himself into a sitting position, the covers pulled up to his third chin. I was constantly disconcerted by Tim’s massiveness, the mountainous expanse of his pale body.

  Janet was in the bed too although I hadn’t noticed him until he crawled to the surface. “Where’s my green tea?” he asked, blinking, last night’s mascara running raccoon rings around his eyes. Janet refused to pollute his body with coffee. I went back to the kitchen and returned with a mug of green tea.

  “Reveal all, darling,” Janet said, cuddling up to Tim and sipping with relish. I told them everything. I started with the email from Lyndon, only it wasn’t Lyndon. I told them about the black cut-out Virgin Mary, lunch with Anita and her gaggle, and about Graham and Nancy.

  Janet was delighted by my story. He skipped out of bed. “Darling,” he said, “let me read your tarot. It will help us get to the root of this. I always carry my cards with me, so please, indulge me. Let me help you in the best way I know how.”

  Tim smiled at me. “Even if you don’t believe in it, Janet will amaze you.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Corresponding with a punk rocker?”

  “Ex. I get the feeling he’s our age.”

  “He would be by now. God knows the children of today wouldn’t know a bona fide punk rocker if they got their dicks sucked by one. Margaux, do you want me to find Lyndon for you?”

  I gaped at him. “Can you? But how? The police can’t find him.”

  “Because they haven’t been looking,” he said. He got out of bed and added, “I can find him. But only if you want me to.”

  “Yes, I want you to! Of course I want you to!”

  “Wait,” Janet cautioned. “Maybe you don’t want to. Maybe you only think you want to. And if Tim does find him, then what? Do you want a divorce?”

  “Of course not! I want him to stop this nonsense and let us get on with our lives.”

  “I don’t think he wants that or he wouldn’t have left,” Janet said, shuffling the cards and sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Timmy can you make me some toast with Vegemite? I can’t do this while I’m starving like a rabid dingo. You never feed me, darling.”

  “I’ll make you toast,” I offered. “I want to get a latte too. If we’re going to read my cards, let’s get settled and organized.”

  “God forbid we should be disorganized,” Tim shouted after me, laughing. But more than toast and coffee, I needed a moment to think about this. What if Janet saw something terrible in my cards and told me something I didn’t want to know? I was a hundred percent certain that nothing good lay ahead, at least not in the short term. I was about to tell Janet that I didn’t want to do it, but then I thought, What the heck? My husband had already left me, and the Virgin Mary hated me, so how much worse could things get?

  “Now, this isn’t like fortune-telling,” Janet warned me, and he took a big bite of his toast. “Ooh, goody, the ratio of marge to Vegemite to bread is perfect. You can make my toast any time, darling. If all else fails, you can become a short-order cook. So remember that. It’s not like I’m reading your fortune here. This is just an indicator of what may or may not be going on, and what may or may not be relevant.”

  “If it’s so vague, then what’s the point?” I asked.

  “It’s helpful,” Janet said. “You’ll see. First, we need to choose a significator card that represents you. Pick one, whichever you feel like. Don’t worry. There is no right or wrong.”

  I picked one. The High Priestess.

  “If you look inward, all the answers you’re looking for will be revealed,” Janet said.

  I immediately shook my head. “You’re wrong. I don’t have any answers,” I replied sharply. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Janet said, swatting at me. “We haven’t even started. Now pick seven cards and put them down as I tell you.”

  I did what he said. Death. The Devil. The Tower. The Four of Pentacles. The Ace of Swords. The Two of Swords. The Three of Swords.

  “Death,” I said, horrified, and a cold shudder ran through my body. I hugged my arms to my chest. I immediately thought of Helen’s baby. “This is metaphorical, right? No one’s going to really die, are they?”

  “Of course not. And despite your instinctive reaction, this card is actually a good one. It means you need to find your way out of a dead-end road. Something has brought you to a halt, something is sucking the life out of you and you can’t move forward.”

  “Yes, his name is Lyndon. No news there.”

  “This card doesn’t mean the end of a relationship. It means rebirth. But it won’t be easy. It does mean change.”

  “Oh, fabulous. Let’s move on. Excellent, the Devil.”

  “This, like Death, can actually be a good card. Yes, it is the card of rage, violence, force, and fatality, but it can also be seen as a sign that you need to face the constraints that hold you back. The Devil appears when you need to liberate yourself from your thoughts, your actions, and from people and patterns that are creating negativity in your life. You can free yourself from the oppression of other people’s thoughts or actions.”

 
I thought about my anger. The anger I thought I no longer had, or that I thought I had handled with ladylike grace. I liked the power the card seemed to represent. I liked that it sanctioned rage. I had been powerless for so long and had nobody to blame for that except myself. But now, I wanted others to feel the force of my power. I wanted others to feel the wrath of my righteous fury at having lost my youth and wasted my life on a man who hadn’t deserved me. Nancy shimmered into the room in my peripheral vision, and I looked right at her and her white-light anger burned through her cut-out. I knew she understood what I was feeling. I had asked her what she had wanted from me, but the truth was, I had summoned her. She was the manifestation of my anger. She wanted people to suffer too, to feel hurt and pain. I wanted to hurt people, to crush them, to crush Lyndon and make him pay. I wanted him to be sorry for what he had done, for letting me down, for not understanding me all these years, for not appreciating me and my efforts. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand and closed my eyes, willing myself back into the moment.

  “What do you want to break away from?” Janet was talking. “Where are you holding back? Do you hesitate to express yourself? What does the Devil mean to you?”

  I shrugged and forced my thoughts away from Lyndon and my desire for revenge. “Nothing.”

  I felt Nancy smile. We had a secret—our anger was our secret. “What’s next?” I asked. “The Tower. That’s surely good?”

  “Well.” Janet hesitated. “It is our destiny to constantly evolve. Some growth comes as upheaval. The Tower card calls for acceptance of whatever comes our way and some of the lessons in life can be distressful. This is the card of adversity, but let’s face it, it’s accurate. You are in distress; you’re miserable. The Tower card signifies the breakdown of old structures and old ways of being. That’s true for you, wouldn’t you say?”

  I nodded.

  “Maybe the relationships in your past have stunted your personal growth,” Janet continued. “Maybe Lyndon was like a security blanket, but one that stopped you from moving forward with your life.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve always done what I wanted to,” I argued. I couldn’t let him know that what he said was true because it would make me feel like I had failed. “And this trip was my idea. I tore down our old tower. I sold our house. I made a lot of changes.”

  “But did you change your heart? Did you open your heart to the unknown? Maybe you did those things, but perhaps you are still resistant to real change?”

  “Moving on,” I said. I wasn’t enjoying this in the least, and I pointed to the next card. “What is that, anyway?”

  “The Four of Pentacles. This card is about blocked energy. You think you are protecting yourself but what you are doing is counterproductive and nothing new can enter your life. You are still too attached to the materialistic, to the specifics that you think are important. You’re trying to control things, to get them to be what they were. You’re afraid of change, but ask yourself, what’s the worst thing could happen if you loosened your grip, even just a bit? You feel like things are out of your control, and you’re responding by trying to control them even harder. You can ask yourself what would happen if you let go, just a little?”

  “He’s already left me,” I said, and I sounded bitter. “And it looks like he won’t be coming back. The card is wrong. It’s already out of my control.”

  “Too much or too little restraint can create blockages. There is a balance between taking control and letting go.”

  I noticed that Tim had gone back to sleep and was snoring slightly. I was getting tired and depressed, and Janet saw this. “Margaux,” he said gently, “this will help. It will open up your mind even if you think it won’t. It will help you see. Just bear with me. Next is the Ace of Swords. This is a card of great force, in love and hatred.”

  “Hatred, anger, death, the devil. Very helpful. Okay, carry on.”

  “This card will help you to communicate. It helps you stay open. Part of the message of the Ace of Swords is that you’re not supposed to know something that you may be aching to know. You might need more information or there still might be a lesson for you to experience or a realization that needs to take place. But you will get there. Clarity will come.”

  “Sure it will,” I said. “Maybe with the next card. Although from the look of it, I’m not hopeful.”

  “Two of Swords. You are stuck at an impasse. But the saving grace of this card is that the block causing the impasse begins and ends with you, so this card can bring up a lot of issues around avoidance and denial. We face choices every day, and some are easier for us than others. When the Two of Swords appears, it can indicate that you are letting a decision keep you where you are because you are refusing to do anything about it.”

  “I am not doing anything about it because I don’t know where it is,” I said tartly.

  “Which is why I’m going to look for it and I’m going to find it,” Tim said. He had woken up, and we hadn’t noticed. He started getting dressed. “When you are done here, email me a few pictures of him to show people. But carry on. And Janet’s right, this is helpful for you. See the reading through. You’ve only got one card left.”

  I clenched my jaw. “More swords I see. And right through my heart. That one’s not hard even for me to understand. Three swords have been driven through my heart. Faith, loyalty, and love have been stabbed to death.”

  “Traditionally, the card stands for removal, absence, and delay but I believe this card stands for release. You’ll be released from your pain and heartbreak. Whether you’re holding onto something from the past or if your pain is fresh, trust that it will be lifted. And in this case, I sense that the pain is from the past and the present. But healing is on its way. I’m delighted that this card has come up in this particular position because it is indicative of outcome and you’ll be able let go of pain that you have held onto for too long. You’re grieving now but you’ll move on. You will be released.”

  I was unconvinced. “The card has a massive heart pierced by three enormous swords. I really don’t see how you are reading healing into that.”

  “I know my stuff,” Janet insisted. “Trust me. This is one of the more emotional cards in the suit, as indicated by the heart. Swords also indicate our thoughts, and thoughts have a lot of influence on how we feel. We can’t always separate our thoughts from our hearts.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “I don’t even know what I’m feeling now except for anger. I look at the Devil card and feel so much anger. I have caused so much damage. Lyndon must have hated me all those years and never told me. How else could he have left me without so much as a backward glance? He hates me. And that makes me doubt myself and hate myself. I am anger-filled and unlovable. I’m as dangerous and sharp as all of these swords we’re looking at, and I did so much damage.”

  “Realization of feelings is the first step towards healing. I bet you didn’t even realize how angry you were at Lyndon for doing this. You certainly never expressed it to us. You were so calm, so in control, but it was suppressed pain.”

  “I should have suppressed more when it came to Adam. I really hurt him. But selfishly, I just couldn’t deal with his issues anymore. He’s a man, for God’s sake. I’ll always be his mother, but he needs to take responsibility for his life.”

  “He does. And maybe that is also what is in these cards—you’re tired of carrying him and his burdens. You’re aching to be free from the responsibility of his feelings all the time.”

  As he said this, a ton of steel melted off my shoulders. I sat up straighter. I felt lighter and free and my whole spine felt aligned. “I do want to be free of that. I love my son. I love him dearly, but I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m here to love him, and support him, but not enable his constant need for drama and attention.

  “And what about my angry ghost, or whatever we should call her?” I asked. “That’s w
hy we’re doing this.” I saw Nancy hovering in the room, her uniform starched and pristine, her gaze vengeful and dark, despite the whiteness that glowed from her. She was so white that she was the darkness, and I tried to look away.

  “Pick a card,” Janet said. “With the intention of symbolizing her.”

  I closed my eyes and drew a card. “The Moon. Surely that’s good? It symbolizes the light? The ghost is full of white light too, only so much so that it is like darkness.”

  “The card indicates hidden enemies and danger. There is darkness, terror, deception, error.”

  “So, I can’t trust her when she says she is sorry?” I asked.

  “Perhaps you can. But the card can also mean that things come to light in the darkness that can easily be ignored during the day. And it’s time to face them in order to find a path to healing. Your ghost may be deceiving herself about something. She’s in denial about something. Something is unresolved.”

  “You’re certainly making her very angry,” I told Janet as I watched Nancy pulse and glow. Blood flowed from her black eyes, and her mouth opened in a wide scream. “She doesn’t look like she’s on any kind of path to healing, as we speak.”

  “You can see her? I wonder why I can’t feel anything. Where is she?”

  “She’s moving around. Right now, she’s at the window.” I pointed and Tim and Janet both looked.

  “I don’t feel anything either,” Tim said. “But she obviously has a very strong connection to you.”

  “It’s because of my anger. I was so angry when Lyndon’s message came through that my rage opened up a portal for her to emerge. Oh my God, listen to me. My whole life to this point has been about drapes, marble countertops, paint swatches, and dinner parties. Where am I getting all this mystical stuff? Portals and tarot cards. This isn’t me.”

  “I think it is,” Tim said. “And in my opinion, Lyndon did you a huge favour. You would have run around the world in the same unthinking materialistic fashion that you conducted your life. Now you’re actually starting to really live.”