Unquiet Dreams (24 page)

Cut it did—the blade felt like a singing shriek, parting my eye, my bone and brain with its cold steel, seeking, seeking, what?
My heart, my mind, my soul?
As if in answer the point of the cuttle tweaked a pain so deep, I knew it must at last be that wretched shadow of mine, my paltry soul. I saw him at once with my angelic vision as a tiny, wizened figure who scowled at my abrupt entry on the point of the knife and cursed me. His ire was unfeigned, for we had always been at odds, and by my deeds, no less, I had charmed him to hell and left him quite bereft of any salvation. "Murderer!" he cried in the depths of my being, the words resonating inside my empty skull. "Wretch, what hast thou done?" he cried again, cowering before the glowering angelic companion at my side. The black angel spoke and pointed to my soul, and I knew again that the incomprehensible words he uttered condemned me likewise. There was nothing I could do to shun the snares of death and then final damnation, my soul itself rebuked me, cheerless and devout. My soul uttered a cry of black hopeless despairing and grew even smaller between my eyes and the voice of the dark angel roared in my ears and my skull a reproving blow of sound that echoed through out my limbs.
False cocklorel! Foolish, prating beast!
It seemed to say, look upon your sins and tremble. The terrible eyes of the lord are upon you as well, and he is harsh and unforgiving.

I gasped and sought to withdraw from the darkened chambers of my terrifying skull, but remained held captive by the sharp edge of the blade and the murderous grip of the dark angel. Had death already come from the lethal concoction of the doctor's brew, had Lucifer come to claim me as I writhed in desperate lunacy, and the very blood of my heart dried from simple fear? I would weep with frustration but my stubborn spirit rose up in its pride, swinging away again with feeble weapons, seeking a port any port for its blade—any but me, but us. The black spectre leaned over me in cruel anticipation and my soul cowered, defeated, behind me as I struck out blindly, desperately, like a cornered animal with no mercy, no compassion from its mindless predator.

All at once a ray of brilliant sunlight strikes across the dark chamber of my mind. We three turn as one to see the floor of my skull break forth and another player join the stage. He is as radiant as the angel is black, a wild hue of colors blistering from his face his heart his mouth, I cannot tell which. But he comes to save me, I know and I spread my wings to join him in flight through the midnight black of my skull, and my soul and my angel gnash their teeth in anguished desolation:
the prisoner escapes!
He is my saviour, my brilliant resurrector, my hope, my glory, with the face of my mother and those long flowing curls of flax, and arms open and welcome, with a rainbow of lights to show me the way, to show me myself, radiantly reflected in the armor of his chest. We wrap our arms around one another and sail into the bright sun opening up in my skull, tearing away the inky forgetful night of that angel, so grim, so angered, so disappointed. And we traveled to heaven—or was it only a sunny pasture—and there he made me lie down beside flowing waters, and there he gave me the simple pleasure of the brutish beasts, before I dissolved, complacent, into the very elements, still me, still in his arms, and I know that here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, and all is dross that is not He. I will be Paris, I swear to the crook of his neck, and for love of thee, instead of Troy shall all London be sacked, and I will combat with every weak Menelaus who thinks he has thee in his heart, and I shall wear thy colours on my plumed crest. I will wound fond Achilles in the heel, and then return to thee for a kiss. Oh, thou art fairer than the evening's air, clad only in the beauty of a thousand stars and my arms. Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter, when he appeared to hapless Semele: more lovely then the Monarch of the sky, in wanton Arethusa's azure arms, and none but thou shalt be my Paramour, forever and ever, world without end.

I awoke to find only the earthly corpse of my golden lad who, upon being given a not too gentle nudge, untangled his form from mine long enough to draw me another goblet of wine. I heartily devoured it in one gasp and again felt its comforting fire run through my bodily members. My fair partner again plied his lips to the trade as I swirled more wine into my glass, but I feared even his coaxing would do nothing for my sleep-shattered knight. I patted his head gently and bad him rise for one final sodden kiss, then staggered off to raise Jack from the dead. This proved more of an ordeal, for it took some time to sort one set of coarse limbs from another and I was far too impatient. I wanted to be walking under the night sky, filling my lungs with its crisp bouquet and trying to understand the vision I had been deemed worthy of partaking. A few smacks and some moans later, the good doctor emerged, grinning and groaning in equal parts, gathering his misshapen garments from the far corners of the plot and apologetically dressing with speed. He poked the trull nearest with the toe of his slipper, indicating that her rest was over and that she and her companions might go, but as we staggered to the gate, I looked back to see them all prone once more, enjoying a rare moment of peace and in my head I bad farewell to my fair-haired boy.

We walked and we talked—I talked rather, trying in vain to capture the gist of my vision and the strange secrets it had imparted. We took frequent strength from the jug of sack Jack thoughtfully retained, and rambled vaguely southward. The old sot brabbled on about his pedantic desires, and I came close to throttling him for his refusal to comprehend my new world's image, but we drifted on complacently until we came here to this night-rule under our dame Nell's benevolent and thoughtful nose. True, green tentacles rose from her brow too, and the voice from her throat seemed like a cart-wheel's groan. But the marvelous draught of the doctor still streamed through my flesh and left me dazed and sated.

The solid bench beneath my collops and the next skin of Spanish sting failed to dispel completely the dreamy vision encircling my brow. When it returned again to my memory after an hour of sodden vagueness, I gasped in sudden recognition, and the perils hemming me in at every side were at once as nothing. A peculiar benevolence o'ertook my limbs, and I smiled at the death that surrounded me. And even that sheep-biter Poley, back from the Hague with truffles and spice and the sting of saltwater, could not deflate my wonderful sense of peace and well-being. I could hardly hear the churlish comfits that fell from Frizer's gob and felt no peril at all when his knife sprang forth toward my eye to send me back, forgetful but ever so grateful, into the arms of my beloved.

 

 

I fell apart one day in front of the Rothkos in the Tate Modern. I recognized in a shrill cry despair and a wordlessly howling grief, but I did not recognize it as my voice at all. There had been no sensation of the sound rising or the power that drove it. I had been quietly sitting on the bench as was not an uncommon habit for the afternoons lately. It was the way to while away my free time since losing my job.

My lover, Keith, had disparaged me for it. "Why aren't you looking for work? How are we going to keep this flat if you don't have a salary?" I would dutifully check the job listings each morning, circle likely prospects, and then lose the paper somewhere between our flat and the South Bank.

Sometimes I would go watch the Surrealists' films, taking up valuable cushion space while others stood, sighed and eventually moved on. But most often I would go to the Rothkos, soaking in the dark canvases and the sombre lighting which nearly always hushed those who came through the doorway, enforcing the contemplative spirit of the works.

Today had seemed no different than the several days that had gone before it. Perhaps it was the rat, lying by the quayside in the low tide -- bloated, abandoned, a carcass. As carefully displayed upon the shingle as a Beuys vitrine, it was framed by a Curly Wurly wrapper and a Starbuck's cup, lying on a short plank. The wood had been greyed by the river's patient sanding and staining. It contrasted with the rat's piebald colors. In its way, it had been beautiful.

I wondered what had killed it -- or even if a rat might take its own life when all hope seemed to be past. They were intelligent creatures after all. Is suicide a measure of intelligence, I pondered later as I drank in the heavy red of the paintings. The red on the canvas before me seemed as dark as menstrual blood, that monthly reminder of having failed once again. The black rectangular shape within the blood marked a pollution like drunken diarrhea.

I was not aware of being particularly bothered by these thoughts. It was just another day in the Tate, until I head that shrill cry. It filled me with panic, but I didn't know how to stop it. People were staring at me, but I couldn't move. I just sat there, gripping the seat of the bench with my straining fingers. After a time, as a crowd gathered, security came and the very nice woman pried my fingers from the wood and the quiet gentleman shifted the crowd aside.

A small girl cried, tears streaming down her pinkened cheeks. It made me sad that she might associate art with pain, so I smiled at her as they led me by. Sometimes a small act of kindness can do so much.

 

 

The mice have not gone. It was not our winter stores that drew them in, as we first thought. They do not even seem interested in food. I put bread outside the door. I thought it would draw them away, outside, but they do not leave. “The mice have not gone,” I tell Lalli, but he ignores me and hunches lower over his gruel. He knows. It is he they are after.

At first we did not notice how many there were. There are always some. No matter how good a housekeeper you are (and I am very good, Mama saw to that), the mice will come. One day you pick up your bag of flour and out pours the milky stream from the hole they have chewed. Sometimes there's a tail, glimpsed quickly—so quickly you are not even sure you saw it—disappearing behind the stove. Mostly there are the droppings, little black pellets to be swept into the bucket and tossed out the window into the flower bed. But never so many as now.

The first time, I had just come back in from getting a bucket of water for the morning meal. The rain barrel had frozen over, so I trudged down to the lake's edge where the spring flows. The cold handle had clung to my fingers as if trying to share its misery as I heaved it down into the icy crust. The cold water had splashed up from the bucket, the drops also objecting to the frigid air. My lips and fingertips had become numb as my arm stretched down, while the wind fondled my cheek with unpleasant familiarity. The bitter cold off the lake's frozen surface—always cutting,, always fierce—you could not get used to it. You merely withstood it for as long as the chores held you there.

My body had curled into a fist-like retreat by the time I returned to the door. The wind fought me for the latchknob, roaring with laughter. His wind, no doubt. I jerked the door open at last and, with some considerable trouble, slammed it behind me, sloshing cupfuls of water to floor. Then I gasped. A hundred, maybe more, two hundred—they covered the table, a seething sea of little mice, all rushing over one another in their excitement at having been discovered, trying to escape the blows they knew would come. Yet I was so astonished I could do nothing but stare slack-jawed, while the bucket swung in my hands, its own tide running up the wooden sides, as if the lake too would take over our house. Mice are no strangers to me, to any of us, but so many—Fear clamped onto my guts like the jaws of a wolf. It was wrong. It was magic: his magic.

But that wasn't the worst of it. That was just the first time. The worst was in bed. Maybe two nights later, the last full moon—it's waning now, almost to nothing, to darkness—when it was at its highest and I had already been asleep for some time, I awoke to the sound… What sound? Rustling? Crawling? They make no real noise. I guess it was Lalli's groans. At first even he did not wake. Their teeth, so tiny, so sharp, and yet—he must have thought he was dreaming. Horrid, horrid dreams of the pricks of their mouths on his flesh as he lay there, thrashing and moaning. Then he was waking and screaming and we beat them away, shaking the feather bed, throwing the pillows on the floor, across the room, their small bodies tumbling. Those who lived skittered across the planks, dashing under the door and into the corners. Lalli shrieked and that frightened me more than the mice. I finally calmed him with vinegar and water, a handful of dried herbs. I washed his wounds and the mixture stung, but that pain was familiar, expected. Lalli grew quiet, muttering angrily, but no longer shrieking.

The bites covered his right shoulder and back. How long were they gnawing? How long were they in our bed? And why did they not bite me? I should have been grateful, but instead I was horror-struck. Did that one still intend to get his boon? It sickened me.

In the bluish light of the almost dawn I rose today, determined to keep this enemy at bay. While the porridge bubbles over the fire and Lalli cares for horses and the cows, I turn my thoughts over Mama's recipes, counting them one by one on the threads of my belt, as if the real secrets might be buried within the knots. The magic of the old ways: when I was a child, Mama would visit the other women when she had no recipe or chant or song for a situation. Sooner or later we found someone who knew the right incantation, or the right mixture of herbs, though occasionally we had to walk many miles and stay in strange beds, or even just sleep in the hay. She usually dragged me behind her, pushing me into a corner to shuck peas or grind grain peel potatoes while she memorized the song or the list of ingredients, only then trusting it to a new knot on her belt. Only when I began to bleed did she allow me to learn the charms and the potions. By then I stood at her shoulder and repeated, time and again the patient words, the careful concoctions. Long lists of herb, complicated procedures—tinctures, salves, and poultices—I had to learn them all. I had to repeat each one three times perfectly for Mama before she would let me add a new knot to my own red belt. When we gathered in the kitchens with the others, the crones would cackle with delight as my Mama had me rehearse the recipes, proud she could pick at knot at random and I would launch into my recital without the least hesitation. All those old women, sun-wrinkled, wind-kissed, gone. The few women left in this blasted landscape, those not driven away by the screeching winds or the endless snow—sometimes still evident even in the brightness of Midsommar—too many follow the new ways, his magic.