Bodies and Souls (11 page)

I had concentrated him; I had won. He collapsed against me, grimacing, rubbing his head against my neck, the pillow, gasping. I stroked his back. Ha, darling Johnny, I thought, you’re mine now. And I was right.

Didn’t you warn your son about older women, Judy? No, I don’t think you did. You don’t have the imagination. And you obviously have all the sexuality of a straight pin. All the times that your son has come home to you from my bed, and you’ve never once suspected: it makes me laugh, makes me want to laugh out loud in this church right now. God, how I despise you, you and this town, with its placid, rotten people with their smug and plastic smiles. I can’t wait till Friday comes. Then I will crack their foolish complacency, and especially yours, Judy Bennett. I will have to use my entire life as a
hammer, and I’ll cause only a minute hairline crack, but that crack, that fracture, will be crucial in the dam of their lives. Once Johnny and I break free, who knows what else will follow?

It will be marvelous for this town, our little escapade; it will wake them up. I sit here, looking around me, and I want to stand and scream: how passionless you are, every one of you! I burn to think how all the roiling ages of conquering disease, ignorance, and poverty have come down to this: this congregation of tidy people simpering through the service of this mealymouthed minister. Does even one person here actually believe there
was
an Annunciation? An angel appeared in Mary’s room to tell her she was pregnant, and all the space and air in the room was broken into shafts of gold that glittered like the sound of bells. Brilliance flamed from the angel’s hair and body like a fire, and his great beating wings whirred the air. No diamond I possess can flash like that angel’s voice.
He
was magnificent.

Why does the Bible cheat us so of all the details? I want to know if the wings of that angel were made of soft feathers attached to his back with a hornlike shaft in the manner of birds or if his wings were made of mist and light. Or if, as some pictures show, they were made from molded gold. I want to know if Mary ran out into the streets after the angel appeared, calling to the neighbors, touching the walls of houses, the dirt of the road, the rough bark of trees, to assure herself that the earth was real, that she had not gone mad. What did people say to her when she told them an angel had appeared to her? I think I know: the worst people mocked and scoffed, and the kindest feared for her mental stability.
She
probably feared for her mental stability herself: although the vision of that angel was undoubtedly burned into her mind, how could she be sure it had not been a hallucination? If only the angel had left her something tangible to hold in her hand as proof. Well, there was the baby in her womb—but that’s not exactly what I mean.

I do not think anyone in this church is prepared to deal with what the Bible teaches. Do we believe a transparent human being slipped through plaster walls and levitated a few feet off the ground? No, we don’t, not really. We are so scientific these days; spaceships and Martians are the miracles we’re expecting, and the vision of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock beaming on and off the starship
Enterprise
has more validity for us than the appearance of an angel. We doubt God and yearn for UFO’s. Never mind. We doubt, because we are too lazy for the burden of belief.

Religion is by nature passionate, or should be to be real. But here in this prissy
place it’s been subdued. It’s been perverted. It’s become a lie.

Look at the Reverend Peter Taylor, the prig, staring out at me with his collection-plate eyes. All the other women in this church sniff around him like bitches, hoping to leave their scent accidentally on his robe so he’ll come search them out. How surprised they would be to know that he searched
me
out—and then could not even follow through with his pathetic little seduction.

It was a surprise last week when Peter asked me to go with him on his mission of mercy to those little boxes in the woods. What a parody that afternoon was—didn’t he realize he was only doing a bad imitation of every adolescent first date? The trip to the countryside, the sinuous approach, the timid attempt to hold hands; I’ve seen it all a million times. The oblique attack: muttering about our hearts, for heaven’s sake! “It’s what lies in our hearts that really matters.” Meaning if our hearts were pure we could commit adultery and still be good Christians. At first I thought he was being subtle from some gallantry, but then I realized he was only scared. As a minister he could not come right out and say, “Liza, I’d like to fuck you.” He probably doesn’t even let himself
think
such things. No, he had to camouflage his words, but he was surprised to find that I’m a hunter as much as he is, not ever the prey, and while he finds sneaking necessary because of his profession,
I
can spring and pounce.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” I asked, because his flaccid courtship was so transparent. He responded exactly as I had expected—he withdrew his ardor and his hand and scuttled back to the safety of his profession. Ministers are just as macho as the next man; they can’t stand to have a woman make the advance, and they don’t like to have the truth spoken clearly. Peter Taylor would gladly have screwed me in the backseat of his car—as long as I never said aloud, “Do you want to screw me in the backseat of your car?” But I spoke.

Oh, it’s a shame that he was such a coward, because I would have liked to make love to that man. He is vain, and has kept his body trim and muscular. His profession would have brought guilt and naïveté to heighten the excitement—guilt is such a strong aphrodisiac. The skin of his body would have slid sucking against mine. Once at a picnic I saw a woman slice a ripe watermelon in half, and her son, intrigued by the exposed pink fruit, immediately stabbed his forefinger into the fruit’s juicy depths. Juice and seeds spurted out. His mother scolded him, but the boy looked so pleased, and withdrew his finger in the manner of one who has achieved an unexpected triumph. Just so would Peter
Taylor have entered me, with fears of all kinds—jealous wives, outraged parishioners—making his blood pound all the harder. All his knowledge and beliefs would have caused him to taste my body like a good man biting into sinner’s fruit; and it would have been the most savory feast of his life. But instead he drew his hand away from mine.

Now he stands in the pulpit looking as pious as a saint, but he seldom looks my way. He is afraid, I know, that if his eyes meet mine, a recognition of lust will ignite for all the world to see. The coward. He does not really interest me. I don’t want to fan his skittish flames.

No, I don’t want a tepid, timid, ministerial lust. Even if I were able to involve Peter Taylor in a flirtation, it would be a bore: he is so well known and loved that people would forgive him instantly, or not believe their eyes and ears. I am not sorry that I didn’t screw Peter Taylor, though it would have been amusing; I’ve never been to bed with a minister. But I am quite content with Johnny, for our lust swells daily, like a music beating in our blood, He makes me weak, dazed, damp, ecstatic. He gives me fever. He makes me flame.

And he is my antidote to this town. People here are so boring, so settled, so safe—zombies. Just look at the women in this church, how they dress. Count how many have plaid fabric stretched across their bottoms. Fat or lean, the women in this town wear plaids. Is it because the harsh bars and blocks in the fabric mirror the workings of their minds and hearts? Certainly there is no pattern more perfectly designed to deny desire. People here want to be seen as sexless, as emotion-free as furniture. Perhaps that is one reason why they’ve always hated me. I flow in silk. I reek of sex. The patterns of my life are soft and coiling. My hair is long and thick; I brush it constantly, and I know just how to put it up in a twist so that at a crucial moment before making love I can release it and let it fall about my naked shoulders. I have walls of mirrors, and I know just which angle of my body is the most alluring—and just which positions to avoid. I am thirty-five now, but I can look innocent, with the aid of practice and knowledge. And I am beautiful and wealthy; I have learned to wear my jewelry like skin and my skin like a jewel.

This may be why they hate me. When Mitchell was still alive, when he brought me to this town, I sensed the coolness of the women. But I thought: Well, what can one expect from women who wear plaids and hide their breasts? Mitchell had warned me that New Englanders keep aloof, so I was prepared for it, and while he was alive there was enough socializing. The people of this town courted him as they would court any wealthy
man, but I did not figure out soon enough just how jealously they guarded him for themselves. They hovered around me in those early days, trying with their self-serving smiles to pry secrets from me. They were hoping to discover some great unforgivable error in my past which would let them bar me with a righteous flourish from their lives—and which would win Mitchell away from me and back to them. Because I am beautiful and love luxury, they labeled me as bad. They only had to look at me to decide that.

Back in the Midwest, they judge people just as harshly, but there they say so. Finally, there, some indignant soul puts her hands on her hips and says, “Liza, I think you ought to know we just don’t approve of the way you dress. To be honest, there’s something cheap about you and we think you ought to do something about it.” In their most cruel criticisms is a kind of frank friendliness, and after all, that flat frontier land has had too many outcasts tame it for anyone to be called a stranger there. But here in New England, people judge you once, then turn their backs. Or if they must face you, it is with averted eyes. That’s how they faced me when Mitchell was alive. They held me off with remote courtesy, but because Mitchell was my husband, they had to let me into their midst.

But when Mitchell died, so did every bit of their pretense to friendship. The whole town came to his funeral, expressing frigid sympathy to me, and then turning away, stood in groups as far away from me as possible, staring at me with accusatory eyes.

“Your husband died of a heart attack, and you caused that heart attack.” Everyone was longing to say that, but no one did.

What do they think I did? Do they think I fucked him to death? Perhaps they think I’m a witch, these old New Englanders; perhaps they think I put a curse on him. For they do think I’m responsible.

They are right to suspect that I have powers, but they are all directed toward exciting the human heart, not toward stopping it. And though not one person in this town would believe it, I loved Mitchell and wanted him to live forever. I’ve been married to a richer man, and I could have married richer men the day I married Mitchell. I did not marry him for his money, although that is what everyone here thinks.

It’s called projection. The whole town wooed Mitchell because he was wealthy, and so it never occurred to them that anyone could love Mitchell for any other reason.

It was in Bermuda that we met. I was there with friends—well, with what passed for friends in that time of my life—and I wanted nothing more than to get a good tan and
lots of sleep. In the past twenty-five months I had gone through a divorce, an abortion, and a screwed-up love affair, and the only thing that kept me from committing suicide was the absence of energy for such an event. I spent that early October day lying on the beach, then went to my room in the late afternoon, drugged by the sun into one of those wonderful helpless sleeps. I showered, oiled my skin, and slid naked between cool sheets. When I awoke it was nine o’clock at night, and someone was knocking at my door.

“Go away,” I said, furious at having been awakened.

“Darling, it’s
me
!” It was Bea Dolton, an acquaintance of mine who functioned in our group as a sort of anorexic, Waspish Dolly Levi. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

“I don’t want to meet anyone,” I said. “I’m tired. Go away.”

There was a murmuring, then silence, and I drifted back into my stupor. But before I was completely asleep, I heard another noise at my door. Clever Bea, she had managed to weasel the room key from the desk clerk. In she swept, all svelte and fragrant, pulling poor old frowning Mitchell with her.

“Wake up, Liza, don’t be rude,” she said. “This is Mitchell Howard. He’s been wanting to meet you. We’ve been waiting for hours for you to come down for a drink. And he’s leaving tomorrow. Liza, sit up.”

Bea had owed me a favor for a long time and I could tell by the tone of her voice that this was it. This was something—some
one
—important. So I sat up, trying to struggle up away from the tug of sleep, holding the sheet against my breasts. And I stared at Mitchell Howard.

I liked him that second. I thought he looked like Napoleon—short, stocky, powerful, bold. He had blue eyes, and they were judging me. Any other night I would have reached for my dressing gown in such a way that a slide of hip or a bit of breast would be accidentally, invitingly revealed. I’m not a whore, but neither am I a prude, and I find there’s usually nothing as pleasurable as sex. But that night I was just so tired, from the sun and from my whole life, and so I only sat there, and didn’t even smile.

“Hello, Mitchell,” I said.

“Hello, Liza,” said Mitchell.

“I’ll leave you two,” Bea said, and disappeared as gracefully as she had come, closing the door behind her gently but firmly so that the lock clicked.

I lay back down, pulled the sheet up over my shoulder, and went instantly back to
sleep.

Later I was to wonder at what I had done: who goes back to sleep when a strange man has just come into her room? But the need for sleep had sucked my eyelids tight against my eyes. I had no energy and no desire to stay awake. And Mitchell’s presence in my room meant nothing to me one way or the other.

When I awoke, it was seven-thirty the next morning. I stretched, feeling wonderfully hungry, and rolled over and stretched again, and saw a strange man in a gray suit asleep on the double bed next to mine. For just a moment I was perplexed, and then I remembered Bea’s late-evening introduction, and then I laughed. Mitchell opened his eyes, yawned, looked at me, and smiled.