by Tanith Lee
My wife says: I shall die of this baby I carry for you.
And I believe her, and see in a glimpse a future where my wife is dead and Rachel is my wife and no one knows that this is not as it should be. Indeed, I announce my sister has perished, and the tomb is inscribed to her, my sister Rachel, and it is my wife, whose name is Rachel too, that lives on at my side … But how can this happen, the laws of men being as they are, and the immutable Law of God?
At this black inspiration, the dream dims. It goes out like a guttering candle.
Once I went back to the cemetery of the Levae-Besset, and searched about for the grave of Rachel, but I could not find it, and there was no man abroad to assist me, for the cured leper no longer sweeps there or tells his tales. No one can say what has become of him. Who can say what will become of any of us, indeed. For are we not the grass which flourishes in its fullness, seeming to itself to occupy and own the earth, but then the grass is cut down, and the wind, passing over that place, cannot find it, nor where it has been. And I have hours now when it suggests itself to me that God, even He, passing in His enormous power and silence, mislays the places of our being, and because of it, does not remember us, for we are small and fleeting, and the wind that blows for ever, how can it know the chaff, the little seeds and grains, we are so slight and so soon over.
But these thoughts are impious, and foolish, and in any case avail nothing. There is nothing to be done.
The owl did not fly any more in at my father’s dawn window. Its coming and going over the roofs, its shadow on the moon, these images were presently recalled as myths, old stories, possibly of events exaggerated, or that had never occurred.
Harah died abruptly one night as she was at her tiring table. She had called for all her jewellery, and was putting it on when with one brief cry she fell forward. The powders and the vial of kohl were spilled and some utensils of alabaster the maid had coveted. Harah’s life had sped out of her before they could bend to see. I was glad she had not suffered. We laid her to rest with fitting ceremony, and left her there alone, as is the way of it.
My little Leah, who was a comfort to me for several years, I gave finally her freedom, some money and land for her security. She lives well enough, although I have heard a rumour she takes lovers, and is frowned on, not being discreet.
The marriage of my son I saw to, as is customary. I found for him what I considered might endure him, and if he was discontented, he has never brought the matter to me.
His wife has borne him three hardy sons in three years, and I hear he has had other offspring by the women of the house. He will rule here in another fashion than mine, but I shall be gone and will not have to witness it.
I have seen her, now at last, too late, in the flesh, my Rachel.
They judge she is the daughter of my son, therefore a granddaughter to me. This may be the truth, and would account for her resemblance to the Rachel of the dream, my half-sister.
She is fifteen years of age, and they have kept her hidden on the women’s side of the house, maybe also not wishing to irritate me with further proof of my son’s incontinence.
I beheld her on the gallery, in a dress of white stuff from the south, her long hair bound in a striped cloth, bearing some vessel diligently in two slim hands with not a trace of gold.
When I asked after her, they humoured me, as now they do, and eventually, by dint of an old man’s cunning, I had them send her to my room of study. It is that same chamber as was my father’s, kept in his memory, where now I delve, and peer, searching after the footprints of God — too vast that any man may see them — among the litter of pages and tablets. Behind me, the empty perch still stands before the window, and once, in the hush of the evening, I heard the sound of wings, like those of an angel, alighting or lifting into space. But once only. I am not unduly fanciful.
The maiden entered, not shy or afraid, nor in that flowery mode of a child that has been led to think it need only exist to please.
She had her own dignity, the girl, that of a woman.
She wore her white dress, and the striped cloth upon her hair, and looked gravely on me, once, before lowering her eyes in a gesture of honouring me, it was no less, no more.
‘Rachel,’ I said, ‘this is how you are called?’
‘Yes, lord.’
She spoke firmly, clearly. She knew the house and its ways, as it knew her. Looking up again, she smiled at me. Her smile was a woman’s smile, my mother’s, one who knew, also, me. She had no pretence, no lies. She was older far than I, yet she observed, with minutest tact, the forms, as do kings who need not.
‘Rachel,’ I said again, as if never in my whole life had I said the name. And found nothing else to say.
For a while then she watched me, and then she made a slight move, as if she would speak, hesitated, and said, like a clue to lead me, ‘They tell me I am named after your wife.’
‘No, after a daughter of my father’s.’
‘I hope it does not annoy you, lord.’
‘I am glad of it. She was dear to me, and you greatly resemble her.’
At that, as if I had asked it of her, she undid the cloth from her hair. Out rushed, like a river of silk, the raven storm with its polish of greenish lights. She stood before me, serene and motionless, to let me see that she was here, even she, and yet — should I not be aware of it — as though within a cage of glass.
‘Have no qualms for your future, Rachel,’ I said. I had already prepared particular documents. She should not be stigmatised for her random birth.
But she did not thank me, or give any sign that such provision was relevant to her. Truly she was a creature formed of other materials. Some wise teacher of the Shorn Besset should be found to converse with her — I stilled this urge in me to lavish tokens upon her. This was not for my Rachel. She would make her own path. Alas, now, with this as with the doltish negligence of my son, I could not stay to be a witness. She was the presage of my death?
But as she stood before me there, a wonderful idea moved inside me, curious, and light as air. For I had given her the one pure gift to use as she would, and could. By fathering, in a season not of love, a son I despised, I had crafted the instigation of Rachel. His seed, without me she should not have lived, here in this second world where once before she had lost her chance, or had it ruined.
And considering too that other life, the incestuous pairing that, maybe, she had not wanted, the sin, the shame, the black forecast of the angel yet to come upon us, sensed in my dream — Now I could thank God that here she stood before me, flawless and free, unsullied by anything, undespoiled by me.
Thus with these thoughts, I gave her my pledge, and bade her leave me. I am old and frail, the child she was acceded to the decay I am.
Quietly as she came in, quietly she went away.
She has already taught me many things, and that not the least of them, let me remember it when my final minute is on me, the quietness of departure that does not struggle, does not hang back, does not slam forth into infinity with any shout.
There is but one road, journey where we will and how we may. If life is the revery of God, what will our awakening be? But for this day and night we are here. The world hangs like a mirror, reflecting not what we are but that which to ourselves we seem to be. Only when the mirror is broken, only then …
If I dream again tonight, her hair against the candlebranch, the white moon faces that tilt together, the angry words, the shadow of the Shadow — let me not mind them, or my wasted life. I have formed Rachel, as if I had made her from the substance of the starry twilight. She presages not my finish, but rather those lands that my soul has travelled, those high mountains I have scaled, and never knew I did. Through her I see what is in me, and only death can liberate this plaintive, perfect thing. Forgive me then, O Lord, that I await him without dismay. Forgive me that I have seen, after all, where the stars burn through the fabric of Immensity.
DOWN BELOW
The dange
r here would be that the introduction could turn out longer than the story, and say only the same things. I rest my case.
‘Here we are,’ said the man. And so opened the door for life to come through and strike me, without warning, in the face.
It had been rather like that when I first went to school. I recall looking forward to the event, I even recall dancing along an autumn street, hung with orange and gold, singing with delight at the prospect. I don’t know why. Nor do I remember exactly how and when my perspective was altered. Probably it was the instantaneous bullying which did it. Perfectly nice ordinary children who, sensing a difference in me I had not yet fathomed for myself, set on me in a pack. The cruelties were mostly verbal. Fortunately my terror could be elicited by threat alone, and seldom did anyone need to resort to violence. Thus I imagine I was spared a great deal. But my career as a child wasn’t a success. I have been much better at being childish since my twenty-fifth birthday.
This frightful adventure, however, was not like any others I had so far experienced. I was by now eleven or twelve; on the border: no man’s land.
My parents had connections with the world of entertainment. This had necessitated various moves, all of which I, unburdened by the insecurity and chaos, enjoyed enormously. Now we were to move again, in pursuit of a job in the West End. A flat had been recommended, and today we had come up by train, and got into an unaccustomed taxi (money was a problem).
The flat, I now know, lay or lies — odd thought — somewhere in Camden. It was a basement accommodation. I had seen several basement accommodations, had even been child-minded in one, and did not object at all. As we journeyed, I was full of optimism and curiosity. The maelstrom of inner London, the winds and twists beyond, heightened my anticipation. Then came that romantic thing, a square. At its centre was a green garden, where there were even swings. All about the tall houses mounted on Georgian façades, steps going up, and down. It was the sort of architecture I knew and liked. The agent led the way for us out of the taxi and across the quiet leafy road, and down a flight of the cream steps.
The agent unlocked the door of the basement flat.
‘Here we are.’
And here we were.
The change was immediate and absolute. What on earth was it? It was like walking from a warm solid surface into an icy swamp. We sank up to our foreheads, and then the swamp covered us. No. It only covered me.
The agent was talking quite cheerfully, pointing out features of note.
To this day I can’t recollect any of them. I can’t think how the flat was shaped, which doors opened where and on to what, how many rooms there were, where the kitchen was or the bathroom, if there were cupboards or fixtures. All I see now is a sort of yellowish dark brownness. All I feel is I must get out. But I was a well-mannered child. It’s taken me most of my life so far to free myself and learn how and when to be rude. I didn’t run away. I followed everyone else through the yellow-brown fog. Wait, I do remember one thing, two — a window, with bars across it, and nearby a picture; but of what I don’t know.
My mother said something to my father about getting the bars removed. She thought the idea rather depressing.
I suppose we left. I think we were not there very long.
I stood in the square, dazed. Someone said, how had I liked the flat, and I said, ‘It’s very nice.’
A gap then. We were in a restaurant, eating lunch. Usually I was appallingly nervous in such a situation, but now my horror of the basement had removed all superfluous emotion.
I began to broach the subject of my fear. Hopelessly, I had no proof, no concrete grounds. I see now, catching glimpses in retrospect of my parents’ faces, that they hadn’t taken to the flat, either. But their reasons were acceptable. Damp, darkness, bars. And there was no choice. The job was needed. The flat was affordable. They would have to put up with it as I know, God help them, they put up with far too much in those days. They were old friends with poverty and disillusion.
For me, it was like the end of the world. Yes, I make no excuse for those words. That was what it was like. To live, and then to un live.
I understand then, in the way the young sometimes do, and later forget, that certain facts can’t be argued with, and I think I did argue comparatively little.
I believed that truly this must happen to us. We would pack up our shabby happy sticks of furniture and travel to the pleasant square and go down, one by one, into hell. And hell would swallow us.
So I accepted there was no way out. And so, too, because I dreaded it, because it was unthinkable to me, I did not accept it at all. To say I prayed would be a refinement. I have one clear memory of clinging to a chair, when alone, crying and entreating. No, God, don’t let it happen.
Please, God, please, don’t let it. Don’t let us go there. Please God please God. Please.
A week or so before the move was due to take place, my father returned home unexpectedly early. There had been a row. The job had fallen through. Things would go on as before, and we would not be moving.
With what shameless euphoria I received the news. One centimetre nearer to the bread-line that was already only a centimetre away. And I rejoiced. For we had escaped a fate worse than penury. We had escaped the basement flat.
To this hour I don’t know what it was that scared me. I am sometimes receptive to atmospheres, if they are very strong. Never have I encountered one since to rival the atmosphere of that underground place in Camden Town. The obvious twist to offer now is that, years later, I learned of a murder or suicide which occurred in those rooms. Or better yet, that someone has foretold I shall die under strange circumstances in a lower floor room in the area … But none of that is so. Probably it was nothing, the weirdness only mine, that of primal adolescence. Or maybe a leaky gas-main, for in those historic days gas could even kill you if properly applied.
The moral of the story lies in another direction.
I visualise Moses, having parted the Red Sea, confronted by a limitless body of water that refuses to divide.
The young are particularly receptive to data. It’s not hard to assimilate a programme so sharply and dramatically inscribed. I had asked for a miracle. I’d got it. Lesson one.
And so, for a long while, I’ve found it hard to shake off that conditioning, and come to terms with the failure of subsequent attempts to move mountains. At the bedside of my dying mother, for example, and when the one man I have so far really loved fell out of love with me, it was automatic to call out, however silently, No, God, don’t let it happen. Please, God. Please. And getting no reply, to learn the gods are sleeping, or deaf or dead, or gone away, or never there. Lesson two. As they say, life’s the roughest school of all.
WHITE AS SIN, NOW
The initial notion behind this last novella was to form something like a pack of cards, brightly coloured sections that could almost be pulled out at random, and re-shuffled in any order. Pretty soon, though, the story-line asserted itself and drilled the pack into an ordered regiment.
Many of my obsessions have crowded into it, including queens and dwarfs, wolves and virgins and priests, deep snows, flowery meadows, ruins. The omnipresent forest appears again, also, in person, and in two distinct guises.
A last excursion then, into the wood.
The Dwarf (the Red Queen)
The dwarf Heracty balances on the rim of a frozen fountain, drawing pictures with his nails in the ice. His handsome face is set into the frame of a great leonine head applicable to a muscular man six feet tall. Heracty’s form is that of an elf. But he has, too, an elf’s eyes, long, aslant, and crystal-green.
Engaged on the scales of a mermaid, Heracty pauses, listening. His hearing is so acute, his ears sometimes hear noises that do not exist. He must decide now whether this sound physically belongs to the world, is a phantom, or a memory. Presently Heracty becomes sure that two narrow feet in shoes are descending a flight of cold stones.
He turns a little, looking sideways from his sla
nting eyes.
Held high in an archway over the stair are towers resembling a crown of thorns, on a half-disc of twilight. From that point, the Upper Palace drops like a cliff into a riverbed.
And from those heights she has again come down.
It is always at this hour, just as the sun goes away. In the ghostly ’tweentime, when all pale things pulse and stare … the white beasts of the fountain, the roses of snow across the gardens.
When she comes out suddenly from the arch at the bottom of the stair, she also is glimmering as if luminous.
She only looks straight ahead, beyond the fountain and the winter lawn, to a second arch, a second falling staircase. She does not see Heracty, has never seen him there, as she passes by like a sleepwalker.
The wide eyes of the Queen are so astute, Heracty knows, she sometimes glimpses things that do not exist.
As before, he slides from the fountain’s rim, and silently follows her.
They then descend twenty flights of steps one after another, and the nineteen terraces between.
The Dwarf’s First Interview with His Grandmother
On a bitter morning in spring, mother and son went to visit the grandmother in her marble house.
The woman was hardly more than thirty-five years of age, but with old, terrible, unhuman, alligator eyes.
To begin with she did not upbraid Heracty’s mother, but only questioned her on domestic matters. The boy sat motionless and dumb on the rugs. He was very much aware of himself and of his mother’s tense and trembling awareness of him. But his grandmother, by a slight flexing of her colossal will, had shut him out, so that he was not in the chamber at all. Until finally:
‘It’s a curse that struck you,’ announced the grandmother to her daughter. ‘I don’t begin to guess who you wronged, to incur it. If I had my way, such things would be smothered as soon as their nature was evident.’ Every syllable referred, of course, to Heracty.
The mother whispered, as she had done on many occasions, ‘His father was normal. Straight, well-made — ’