Personal Darkness (30 page)

As usual her underclothes were astonishing. Dark holly-green satin, the high bodice trimmed with dark green lace, a corset that nipped in her waist, french knickers also trimmed, the gartered stockings with their stalks of butterflies.

So she came to Rachaela, and drew Rachaela's nakedness against the glide of fabrics.

Rachaela rubbed herself on these limpid textures. In the middle of lust, she felt a curious comfort. She buried her face in Althene's neck.

They went to the bed. It was a relief to lie down. Althene made warm circles on Rachaela's breasts with her ringers and her tongue. Her black hair mingled with Rachaela's, and all over Rachaela's body her perfume had anointed, so now they were scented the same.

Althene raised Rachaela's legs onto her shoulders.

She bowed her head to Rachaela's sex, and the wonderful tongue trembled there like a flame.

"Don't stop," Rachaela said.

"Just for a moment. Now do you want me?"

"Yes."

Althene kissed Rachaela's mouth. She drew Rachaela's hand steadily along her own belly. Rachaela reached out to feel the soft mound, the moisture and pliancy, the inverted lily of a sexuality like her own.

Instead a golden wand was put into her hand. Alchemical. Impossible.

Rachaela thrashed away. Before she knew what she was doing, she had jumped off the mattress. But her legs gave way. She fell on the carpet by the bed.

She could say nothing. She half lay on the floor. She was shocked as if she had been scalded.

The trap—

Althene kneeled on the bed, harmfully beautiful and clad in satin and lace. And from the center of her slender female body there rose the dark tower of male potency. Indeed the body was not female, it was possible to see that now. Slim, depilated, lightly muscled like the physique of a girl who swam and rode horses, smooth and almost poreless, blessed by sweet false breasts, by wonderful hair, and a face like a jewel. But still it was a man's body. It had a man's power now, and a man's penis, erect, and demanding.

So that was why—

That was why it did not matter.

It would not be two women in a sterile embrace.

Sasha, nodding and smiling…

"
No
." Rachaela tried to get up.

"Yes." Althene stepped off the bed. The grace was catlike, wolflike. Not female or male now.

"Yet more
lies
," said Rachaela. Her voice was hoarse, as if she had been screaming.

"No lies."

"Yes. You were a
woman
."

"I am a woman. In a way."

"Your mother," said Rachaela, "hated you, until she found out—"

"Until she found out that, although I liked to
be
a woman, I also liked to make love with women."

"Christ," said Rachaela. She managed to get to her feet. She felt sick, sick with loss. "This family," she said. "I wish it would sink into fucking hell."

Then Althene came and lifted her up. Althene, a man, picked her up in his arms—in her arms—and put her back on the bed without fuss.

"You are this family, Rachaela. My beautiful, my lovely one. Lie still."

Rachaela lay still. She looked up into Althene's matchless face. The shock had only made desire worse. Inside the cage of madness, caught after all in the trap, she wanted the duality of this fabulous monster, she wanted Althene.

Althene knew. She eased herself, the root of her power, into Rachaela's body. Rachaela was so ready, there was no difficulty.

For a moment there was the shift of a kaleidoscope. The beautiful body and the face of the woman, the brush of satin, the ribs of the corset, and inside the core of her the strength of maleness, hard and pure, the rod of the tree, the tyranny of life. Then the colored panes tumbled over and the pattern was complete. Not monstrous. Correct.

She was miles out of her body. She felt Althene come with her. They were on a spiral, turning.

When Rachaela opened her eyes, the pictures in the window were growing clear.

"Well," Rachaela said, "you got your way. But the Scarabae always do."

Althene drew aside from her. There was no longer visible evidence. Althene was only a marvelous woman, perhaps a little pale, not really disheveled.

"I'll leave you now. So you can brood on what's been done to you."

"I have some cause," Rachaela said.

"There's always cause," said Althene, "if you must have one."

She put on her blue silk. She was again as she had been.

And what am I?

"The sun's coming up," said Althene. "You'll sleep now."

"Good-bye," said Rachaela.

Althene observed her intently. Then she went out of the room, closing the door quietly, as if upon a sleeper, or the sick.

THE PIANO ARRIVED IN THE WEEKS before Christmas. Ruth came from her bedroom, dressed in jeans and jumper and her black plaits, and found it on the green carpet.

"Is it yours?"

"No." Malach stood by the french window. "Yours."

"Mine?"

"It's your birthday."

"Is it?"

She went to the piano and touched off a spray of notes.

"It's got a clear sound," she said.

"Yes."

"Can I play it?"

"It's yours."

Normally, after breakfast, he gave her books to read. They covered many subjects. In the afternoon, after she had eaten lunch, sometimes he took her walking. The dogs would go too. They went through parks and streets, along heights and wastelands of the river. Now and then they went shopping. At least, he took her into shops, and there let her
buy
what she wanted. She bought tapes of music and occasionally books but these were generally to please him, as though he might be pleased, volumes with pictures of ancient civilizations. Or she bought books about animals.

In the shops, the dogs often caused consternation, or admiration. But Enki and Oskar viewed the world calmly, casually.

Ruth asked Malach questions. They were the questions perhaps of a child. Where did that bus go to? Where did that street go? Why were they going this way? He had answers always. Apparently, sometimes, he lied. Or else his replies were so fundamental that they seemed unlikely.

Ruth accepted all he said.

He was not misleading, merely leading.

Today, there were no books. At breakfast she ate one croissant and left the rest; she seldom ate more than one now. Then she went and washed her hands, and came back and sat down at the piano.

There was also sheet music.

Ruth went through a Mozart sonata, and then a Chopin mazurka, and then through some idyllic Rachmaninov.

Malach sat in one of the chairs.

She stopped, and said to him, "Do I play well?"

"Do you think you do?"

"Yes, quite well. Adamus taught me."

"You play like a young concert pianist. But sometimes you bluff."

"Yes, he said that. I try not to."

"No, you don't try."

Ruth thought. She said, "I will try."

She played a transposition of a Beethoven concerto; the music sheets were unusual.

When she had finished, she said, "Music is wonderful."

"Music and I have grown apart," he said.

"Why?" she said. "How?"

"There's been too much."

Ruth sat at the piano. "Are you very old?"

"Stop speaking like a small child."

She turned and looked at him. He was quite idle, the two dogs lying at his feet.

"I meant," she said, "the Scarabae live a long time. Will I?"

"You're thirteen."

"I feel much older."

"Do you. With your hair in plaits and this quaint way of talking." He did not look at her. "How old do you feel?"

"Twenty-five. Perhaps more."

"That's very young. The same as thirteen, maybe."

Ruth laughed. She frequently did this now. She kicked her bare heels mildly on the legs of the piano stool.

"What shall I play?"

"Whatever you want."

He went out into the garden and the dogs followed him.

The lilac trees were stripped and the laurels had darkened and drawn close. A bird was drinking rain from a mossy birdbath. The dogs watched it languidly.

Ruth played a strain of unearthly Debussy.

Malach, the dogs, the bird, took no notice.

The shops had put on their Christmas masks. Tinsel and silver trees with scarlet balls. Santas in grottos bribing howling toddlers, charming white bears and mice in Santa hats costing only five pounds with purchases of twenty pounds or more.

They had tea in a store. Ruth drank the tea but did not want a cake. She seldom ate more than a salad for her lunch. Food had lessened its grip on her.

She bought chemist items and hid them in a bag, and then a black velour top with a bronze-buttoned epaulette on one shoulder. The top cost thirty pounds and as Malach paid for it, they were offered a fat white mouse.

Ruth looked at the mouse. "I had a bear once."

"Lovely for the kiddies," said the saleslady.

"Which kiddies are they?" said Malach. "Do you want it?"

Ruth took the mouse and stared at it in a sort of incredulity.

Malach bought the mouse, which Ruth then carried out of the store.

On the pavement outside, harassed shoppers ran about in the rain. A child in a pushchair glared at them.

"Emma never let me have a pushchair," said Ruth abruptly. "It's bad for the spine."

The child saw the mouse and pointed and began to cry with a terrible impassioned affront.

The mother looked helplessly down.

"Oh, dear. Stop it, Harry."

Ruth leaned over and put the mouse into the child's arms. It clasped the toy fiercely, possessively, and the crying ceased.

"Oh, no—" said the woman, blushing. "No, really."

Ruth said, "I'm too old for it."

"No, but—he mustn't—I mean—"

"It's good," said Malach, "to learn that if you cry out you may be answered."

"Pardon?" said the woman.

"Please keep the toy," said Malach.

They walked on.

"That was clever, Ruth."

"Was it? Why was it?"

"Some things belong to some people by right. A gift. A caress. Or even death."

"Yes," she said.

"But you must learn which. You mustn't bluff."

"Malach," she said.

"What is it?"

"I wish I'd kept the mouse."

"No you don't."

"I do."

Enki pushed his head up under her hand.

"Enki is your mouse."

Ruth laughed.

In the park, as they crossed it, the sun came out in daggers.

"Look at the sun," said Malach. "One day it will go out."

"Not yet?"

"You know not yet."

"You don't mind the sun," said Ruth.

"How do you know?"

"They used to hide from it, at the house."

"They were more vulnerable, Ruth, than you or I."

"What do you mean?"

"We draw our personal darkness around us to keep us safe from the sun."

They were in the middle of the park, under the hill. The bare trees rose bravely against a future of gales and snow. Now a light glinted on their wetness, optimistic, clean. Far off, the city showed in riven lines, the streets and peaks, the high roofs that the day turned suddenly to gold and brass.

Malach turned. He climbed a tree, with the ease of a cat. The dogs stared, and Enki barked, but only once.

Malach swung from the high branches, and dropped back in a shower of rain.

His face was young. Ruth gazed at him. She said, "Are you going to leave me?"

"I'm going to take you away."

"Where?"

"Another country."

"Where?"

"Sing and wait."

"What?"

"An Assyrian poem. I must do with my life what I can. I must do as I must. I must love and be and kill. Sing and wait."

"What does it mean?"

"What do your questions mean," he said, "child in plaits?"

"It means I don't understand."

"Don't you."

Ruth considered. "Will I have to be punished again?"

"You must be taught."

"Will you be there?"

"Yes."

"Why?" she said.

He looked down at her. The sun was behind him, and turned the mane of his hair into a fire, darkened his face, so his eyes were the color of ashes.

"You and I," he said. "The same."

She was flattered. She smiled.

"Are we?"

They walked up the hill, and the dogs raced ahead of them. A couple coming from the opposite direction halted in fright. Oskar and Enki darted to either side and were away into the nude green chestnuts.

She asked him: "Will we have Christmas?" He did not reply, for once. Ruth said. "Emma always had it. Mommy… Rachaela didn't."

"You're a Christian, then," he said, "that you want to celebrate Christmas."

Ruth shook her head. "I don't believe in Jesus."

"He lived," said Malach.

"The Scarabae don't have Christmas," she decided.

That was the day they went to the museum.

They walked between the sand-polished stones, the gods with beast heads, and the pharoahs with the faces of wise girls. In the back rooms, into which they were secre-lively let, ancient things crouched in cases or lay about on tables, shining in the bright light.