Our Lady of Babylon, Page 3

  Reasons we must discover? As we proceeded with what? She was so eager to hear the rest of my dreams that I did not pause to ask. “Then he gazes darkly at me and utters the word ‘Mystery.’ When I ask him what mystery he sees, he only adds to the riddle — ‘The most profound mystery —’”

  “Ah!” This time clearly Madame leaned down toward her peacock — as if to emphasize for him the words she repeated: “‘Mystery! — the most profound mystery’! . . . St. John spoke those very words! Imagine!”

  What was exciting her so? “— the mystery of —” I attempted to continue John’s strange utterance, but I could not speak the word, although it resounded in my mind.

  Madame flinched, as if she had managed to hear the unspoken word — had my lips shaped it? — although she now clearly waited for me to utter it.

  I lowered my head. I whispered, “I cannot bring myself to say the word, your Grace.”

  “Lady,” Madame Bernice interjected into my silence, “I readily confess a fondness for amenities, but, considering what you and I shall be involved in —”

  What could she mean?

  “— I suggest that a certain informality of address between us may hasten important matters we must discuss. So please, dear Lady, please, just address me as ‘Madame,’ though I do ask that you pronounce it correctly — ‘mah-dahm.‘ ”

  “How else?” I felt a tiny annoyance at her assumption that I would have done otherwise.

  “And may I simply call you ‘Lady’?”

  “You have, since we met,” I reminded.

  “So I have.” I would discover that at times she has a direct manner, which in a person of less refinement might be called curt. She folded her hands on her lap. I noticed more precious stones than I had been able to identify earlier on her fingers — an amethyst, a sapphire. “Now, Lady,” she said, “say the word you must. The word John called you in Patmos.”

  “Whore!” I spat it out. “‘Mother of whores and of all the abominations of the earth.’”

  Madame inhaled and closed her eyes. “All the abominations of the earth! Imagine! Imagine!” She shook her head at the enormity of John’s accusation.

  “And that one dream recurs, as persistently as my dream of Eden.” I realized this then, and I spoke it aloud in amazement: “In my recollection of them now, my dreams are even more vivid than when I dream them.”

  Madame did not even pause to marvel at that. “When St. John utters the word ‘whore,’ what happens immediately after?” She was clearly in pursuit, but I did not know of what.

  “Then that word echoes and re-echoes into all my dreams, and it resonates finally back into the Cathedral when Irena thrust it at me, and the Pope cursed me with it — and the despised word keeps repeating itself there as if trying to locate another place, another time, far, far away — someone else —”

  I am still not certain — it was a fleeting impression — whether Madame Bernice brushed a pesky strand of her luxuriant black hair away from her forehead, or whether she made the faintest sign of the cross. After moments, she pronounced my own words slowly: “Another place, another time, far, far away . . . Someone else.” She was quiet then, as if repeating the same words to herself now, considering them gravely.

  Then she announced: “It has to be the Whore of Babylon.”

  Although I believed that she did not expect me to understand, at least not now, her astonishing words, but that she had, instead, spoken aloud her extended thoughts — or was she directing them at her peacock, who had become especially alert, or was he trying to sniff a sudden flower-scented breeze? — I thought it best to assert then: “Madame, I am not a mystic.”

  “Proceed, Lady.”

  Had she even heard me? Her surprising words, echoing in my mind, seemed especially incongruous on a day full of sunshine as we sat on a bench in the sprawling grounds of her grand château. “And the very next moment,” I thought best simply to continue, “I dream again that I am Eve.”

  “But now expelled from the Garden.” Madame spoke her words with assurance, as if at last she was receiving an exact answer, long awaited, to a difficult question, long pondered.

  “Yes, expelled, and it is all so clear that I am able to look back at the Garden” — I inhaled because again the dream swept over me — “to look back and see, for the last time, a flower that bloomed only in Eden, a flower so glorious it did not need the decoration of leaves . . .” My voice slowed, to ascertain my new conviction: “It’s a flower I’ve seen nowhere else, except in that dream, except in Eden.”

  Madame’s brown eyes — at times they seem amber, at other times gold — fixed on a distance beyond the horizon, where the mysterious veil of mist that at evening creeps up from the far countryside was beginning to gather. How could I help but remember that in my dreams John, too, stared at something dark beyond his vision? I resumed quickly, “And I dream that I am Helen.”

  “Of Troy.”

  “Of course.”

  “And do you dream you’re Salome?”

  “Yes!” I was no longer amazed by her knowledge.

  “Who else?”

  I lowered my voice. “I dream that I am Mary Magdalene.” “Oh?” Frowning, she shared some perplexity with her peacock, who, however, seemed not at all confused. He is an entirely confident bird.

  “I dream I stand before the crucified figure,” I asserted.

  Bowing her head in reverence, Madame said softly, “Let me hear some more about her, about Magdalene.”

  “In one dream, as children, we —Jesus and Judas and myself — roam happily — naked” — I ignored what might have been a cough or a sneeze from Madame — “near the River Jordan.” I remembered that with joy.

  “Who can doubt that they, too, were playful children, once?” Though she smiled, there was sadness in her voice.

  I did not want to dwell now on the sad events of my dreams of Calvary. “And I dream that I’m Delilah, naked in the arms of Samson, who wears only shiny wristbands —”

  “Lady—”

  “— that glitter as he lifts me to prove his strength —”

  “Lady.”

  “— his long hair flailing on my bared breasts —”

  “Lady!”

  My lucid recollection of that dream had refused Madame’s attempted interruptions, but now her demand for my attention had become insistent. “Madame?”

  “Why must every one be naked?”

  “Because they were!” I bristled. Was it possible that this woman, whose sophistication was as evident as her elaborate jewelry — was it possible that she was . . . a prude? She had folded her arms over her ample bosom. I wanted this matter settled: “Just as I informed you earlier that I am not a mystic, I inform you now, Madame, that I am not a prude.”

  She winced at the word.

  I seized my advantage: “I shall hide nothing!”

  Her folded arms relaxed, only somewhat.

  I had the disconcerting impression that I had convinced the peacock of my point more strongly than I had Madame — he seemed to be looking questioningly at her, an impression enhanced by the fact that — I noticed this only now — one feather on his comb twisted just slightly, like a question mark. “That one feather —” I began.

  Madame shushed me urgently. With affection that made me suspect they had been together long, she coaxed his attention momentarily away by pointing to a beautiful butterfly — “Such a unique pattern on its wings — look!” — that was hovering over a rose near the veranda. When the peacock went to explore the butterfly’s unique pattern, Madame whispered quickly to me: “One must never embarrass a peacock.”

  I thought of Paris, dear Paris. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Madame.”

  “He must never know he has what he might consider an imperfection in his comb. I myself believe it adds to his unique charm — like his name — don’t you?”

  “Of course. And his name is —?”

  “Ermenegildo.”

  “Of course.”

>   Madame’s voice assumed its natural tone when Ermenegildo returned to follow our discussion. “Now, Lady, who else are you . . . in your dreams?” Eyes closed — she has incredibly long dark, full eyelashes — she placed her fingertips on her forehead, to encourage even greater concentration.

  I felt a piercing chill as the next dream pushed away haughty Samson. “I dream that I am Medea —”

  Madame’s eyes shot open, she bit her lip. “Who?”

  “Medea.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Madame Bernice studied her rings, readjusted two, shifted another — the pearl — returned it to the same finger. She looked about to locate her peacock, who was at her side. She rearranged the folds of her beautiful silk skirt, tugged at the slenderest thread loosed from a filigree of its gold brocade. She cleared her throat, twice. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Absolutely.” Oh, I was sure, so sure that it was as if I had slipped into that brutal dream. I closed my eyes, and saw . . . red, only red, liquid red, blackened red.

  Madame cleared her throat a third time. “I suggest that in regard to Medea —”

  My solemn look stopped her words.

  “Let’s just move on,” she said.

  I was glad to.

  “Tell me more details about each dream.”

  I trusted her so entirely — although I didn’t know exactly about what it was I trusted her — that I did not feel tested — about what? I knew instinctively that she needed more information for . . . whatever her reason. So I supplied the details, easily, just as I remembered them from my most recent dreams.

  She listened raptly, occasionally bending to touch Ermenegildo while repeating aloud — to herself? to him? — what I had just narrated: “There was already one shadow, a distorted one, in the perfect garden.” . . . “John the Divine seemed to be listening to another voice when he claimed to be in the presence of ‘the most profound mystery’ and when he uttered his cursing accusation.” . . . “Cassandra would of course know Paris’s secret — of course, of course — whatever it was.” . . . “Herod’s vile words commanded that the dance begin.”

  After I had given her the details that fleshed my dreams, I thought it necessary to inform her, “But what I dream, Madame, is different from —”

  “— from what others have insisted happened,” Madame spoke the exact words I had been about to form. She spoke them . . . triumphantly!

  “Yes. And that is true of all the other women I dream of, and there are many more. Jezebel, Hagar —”

  “— and Marina? The Indian princess?”

  I dredged my dreams. “No.”

  “Hmmm. That’s odd.” Madame seemed deeply perplexed that such an Indian princess had not appeared in my dreams. But then, of course, my dreams were continuing; perhaps she was ahead of me even in that. “Some of the women appear in brief dreams, others only in a fragment — all as if they’re trying to connect to —” I shook my head in bafflement. To what?

  Madame Bernice permitted the afternoon’s silence to settle over us, a silence enhanced by the many quiet sounds it contained, the rustle of a leaf, its fall to the ground, the flutter of a butterfly. Into that waiting silence, she pronounced her questions, which sounded more like declarations: “All the women you dream of, Lady, all are fallen?”

  “Yes.”

  “All implicated as whores?”

  “Yes.”

  “And harshly blamed for enormous catastrophes?”

  “Yes! All! Blamed!” I spat out the word I knew then I had always detested. “Blamed!” I tested its power to arouse my rage. I felt a shiver that did not come from the glorious day. I was aware of a subtle change in me, a stirring that was exulting and weeping at the same time. I looked at Madame, who sat beside me on the elaborate garden bench, her formidable shoulders squared, her proud chin thrust forth, so that, in a flashing moment, I considered whether she, too, had felt the lash of unjust blame.

  “Except Magdalene —” I realized and interjected. “She’s fallen, but not blamed, and she’s most prominent in my dreams.”

  Madame frowned at the matter she had clearly been pondering since I had first mentioned Magdalene. “We must add that to the questions we shall have to deal with.” She held my hands. Her voice was that of a firm but caring teacher. “There’s a great mystery we must solve, Lady — ‘the most profound mystery.’ Its answer lies in Eden. And in Babylon — and Patmos. And it may lie elsewhere, even farther beyond.”

  The glorious afternoon that had earlier mocked my sorrow faded, lingered for me now only as a faint glow in the sky. I knew that dusk would have no silver haze.

  Madame’s next words were clearly intended to be gentle and precise; she held them on her lips for seconds before she uttered them. I had the sudden impression that I had been waiting for them for a long, long time, centuries — and that she had been waiting just as long to state them — as she said:

  “Yours are not, dreams, Lady. They are memories.”

  III

  I THOUGHT I HEARD the odd cawing of a bird lost in a sudden gathering dusk. It was a sound that was as forlorn as it was terrified. In the next second, I thought perhaps I had heard only my sigh and the beginning of a gasp. There began to seep into me a sadness beyond my sorrow at the death of my beloved Count, a sadness I knew I had felt before that, from a long time back, but whose object I had not even wondered about.

  I knew then that Madame Bernice was right. I had lived all those lives. I had not been dreaming. Memories of all those various existences fused for me out of the chaos of what I had thought were fragments of disturbed dreams. I remembered! My Adam rubbed his eyes when he saw me standing on a bed of orchids, as if he were asserting that I did not exist only within his vision. Still, now in another garden, Madame Bernice’s garden, I forcefully attempted to pull back from this enormity. “But in the present. . .?”

  Madame looked down again into her hands — they are large, sturdy hands for such a genteel woman. Again, she changed rings from one finger to another, the pearl in place of a ruby, the amethyst where a diamond had been. Her face beamed with a gracious smile. “Why, Lady, obviously in the present you’re the great Lady in hiding in the country because of dangers surrounding the murder of the Count du Muir. You’re the beautiful Lady whose company I share” — she stood, one hand extended graciously — “and whom I now invite to tea.”

  I took her hand, easily. Ermenegildo led us along the impeccable lawn toward her château.

  As we walked, I exulted in the luxuriance of her garden. “Oh, Madame, the beauty of your garden.”

  “And it is all mine,” Madame proclaimed her territory with a stout swirl of her hand. Ermenegildo seemed to bristle. The askew feather on his comb shook. “It is all ours,” she revised. “But — since we are egalitarians —” She touched Ermenegildo’s comb, avoiding the odd feather — as if for agreement, which I suspected he had given, because she continued: “— since we are egalitarians, we shall share it with whoever loves beauty.” She said all that with disarming genuineness.

  “Well then, it has been waiting for me!” I felt almost dizzy, as if I were spinning, whirling — No, it was — I’m striving for exactitude to convey this powerful, strange sensation — it was as if a memory were trying to locate me. A memory of what? I wondered, as I felt surrounded by this bliss of colors and sweet scents in Madame’s garden. Careful designs of cultivated flowers wound through carpets of wild blooms so that the garden assumed a spectacular order all its own. Hyacinths! Hibiscus! Violets! Roses of every tint and color! Azaleas, freesias, daffodils, poppies, lilies, chrysanthemums, peonies! Orchids, tinted purple, others white and edged with gold! Acacias, hydrangeas! And willows, birches, elms, oak trees, eucalyptuses! A pepper tree! All melded into a profusion of leaves and shades of green, blue, silver.

  And overlooking it all — but from a distance, at the periphery of the garden, where it slopes into the road that connects her château to mine —
loomed palm trees.

  On Madame’s grand veranda, which we had reached, the balusters were draped by various vines that formed a tapestry of leaves and blossoms, mostly rivulets of bougainvillea.

  We sat at a sculpted table on which an impeccable tea setting awaited us. In a splendid vase one single blue rose exhibited itself. Madame must have signaled for the tea to be arranged while we had been conversing on the bench. She has the invisible manners that come only from breeding, manners exhibited even as she showed Ermenegildo, as if for his approval, the tiny cups into which she was about to serve our tea. A grand selection of tea cakes were the reason, Madame explained, why she was taking her tea later than usual: One of her cooks had intended to delight her with those cakes, which require added preparation. Shaped like puffy stars, they evaporated the moment they touched one’s lips.

  “A breath of Heaven, aren’t they?” Madame complimented them after we were seated and she had poured our tea — and had taken one of the pastries — all with impeccable grace. “I could become addicted to them; so I must have only one more.” She popped it into her mouth. “You, Lady, have no problem with your weight, whereas I —”

  “— have none either,” I pleased her by saying and thus unintentionally encouraged her to take yet another of the heavenly puffs.

  We sipped silently, allowing the new setting to adjust to our conversation, and we to it.

  It was then that I noticed, on the table, a pair of exquisite opera glasses, adorned with miniature pearls. They seemed ready to be used, not forgotten from another time. It would have been rude to notice them further, and I would have looked away, had not Madame reached for them — they must have been already focused — and fixed her gaze on —

  “The mansion next to mine,” Madame said, “has been only recently taken by a new tenant — perhaps just for the season.” The marked casualness in her voice extended. “I believe I first observed him soon after, or just about the same time, perhaps just before I saw your carriage, Lady, dashing by to your own mansion.”