Personal Darkness

by Tanith Lee

  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.

  CHAPTER 34

  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."

&n
bsp; "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.

  "Here is an image of Sekmet," Malach" said. The goddess stood on a shelf, dark as coal, her lion head inscribed with whiskers that made her seem playful. "Sekmet, Power of Battle. She killed without mercy and drank the blood. Only another god could hold her back."

  "How did he do it?"

  "He gave her something she thought was blood, but it made her drunk instead."

  "Then what happened?"

  "She became gentle and clever."

  Ruth scrutinized Sekmet.

  There were cartouches of gold, and one set with lapis lazuli. Malach indicated small statues, naming them indolently. Once he said, "And this is wrongly labeled." He did not say what the label should read.

  There was a great goddess or queen by a door. He put his fingers to her lips.

  Ruth frowned jealously.

  In the Roman section they passed the busts of generals, golden cups, and jugs of opaque greenish glass.

  "At Lupercal they looked for werewolves," Malach said. "If they found them, they sent them into the forest. See this head from Germany. It's grinning."

  There was a room of open books under glass.

  "If you look long enough," he said, "the pictures will move."

  Ruth stared at the medieval patterns on the books. They moved. The fisher drew up a fish, a bird flew across a page.

  "Why?"

  "A trick of the eyes. This glove," he said, "belonged to a captain of mercenaries. Look at the embroidered key. The mark of some lord who wanted to own him."

  It was dark when they came back. They traveled by bus, a form of transport Malach seemed to favor when they did not walk.

  As they entered the basement flat, the two dogs barked resonantly.

  Ruth embraced them.

  Malach went into the living room, stood by the window. Ruth switched on the lamps. The dogs trotted to Malach. He touched them absently.

  "Are the bars on the windows," Ruth said, "because of me?"

  "No. To keep out burglars. This is London."

  "The long window," she said.

  "Bullet-proof," he said.

  "Will we go out?" she asked. Often, now, they went to the restaurant for dinner.

  "Wait," he said.

  Ruth waited. Then she said, "What for?"

  "You ask the wrong questions," he said. "You ask about stupid little things. You've been starved of answers."

  "Yes."

  "Ruth," he said. Then, after a pause, again, "Ruth."

  "What is it?"

  "I want," he said. He stopped. He put both hands on the glass. The silver rings on his left hand burned. They were like the rings from Egypt and ancient Italy and France in 1403.

  Ruth felt afraid. It was an old fear, and she knew it.

  "What?" she said.

  Malach grunted. It was a strange sound, coming from him as if he had been punched. Nothing could hurt him or get at him. He was too quick, too old. But now, something did.

  He took his left hand, and covered the left side of his face, slowly.

  "What is it?" said Ruth.

  Malach shouted. Without words.

  He spun around. His body whipped backward. The hand over his face had formed a fist of burning rings.

  Ruth became very small. She seemed to shrink.

  Malach's agony filled up the room.

  The dogs dropped on their bellies, whining.

  "Eyes," Malach said.

  Ruth had a child's face now. A face she had perhaps never had before.

  "What?"

  "Ice," he said. "Ice."

  His right eye was open, staring as if blind. He came across the room, and past her, past the two dogs. He walked into the second bedroom, the spare sparse place where he slept. He kept his left fist pressed over his left eye.

  "What is it?" Ruth said again.

  "Megrim," he said. "Crier en has."

  He slammed the door suddenly so the whole flat shook.

  Inside there was a second crash, as if he had thrown himself against the wall.

  Ruth crept slowly to the door. She listened. She heard him say loudly: "In umbra erat aqua—in umbra erat aqua de petra… quasi sanguis ex Christo—"

  Ruth thought stilly by the door. Was this a migraine? Once at school she had heard of them.

  Migraine. Half-head. A severe headache on one side of the skull. Perhaps due to an injury, a blow, or distortion in the vertebrae of the neck…

  Ice. He had said that, ice.

  The dogs were silent and almost as motionless as the furniture. Only Enki raised his nose and looked at Ruth, and when she moved, he wagged his tail, once, twice.

  She walked into the kitchen and opened the ice-making section of the fridge. She put her hand on to the ice. The ice would not come away.

  Ruth sobbed. Like the movement of the dog's tail. Once, twice.

  She left her hand on the ice.

  Her heart was racing. She was full of lights. She felt Malach's pain, a sharp instrument pressed through his skull, his eye.

  Malach.

  She squeezed her hand down on the ice.

  It hurt terribly, a sort of burn. Like the rings—

  "Don't," said Ruth.

  She started to cry from the pain of the ice on her right hand. It gnaw
ed at, ate at her.

  She felt herself growing weightless and quiet inside the shell of anguish, his, hers. Wait, he had said.

  Ruth waited. She waited fifteen minutes by the kitchen clock which worked.

  By then she had completely turned to ice. The core of her, her groin, her breasts. Her stomach, heart.

  Then she took her hand out of the fridge and walked from the kitchen and back across the living room.

  She opened the door of Malach's sleeping place.

  She seemed very tall, and to be floating in the air. She saw the chamber with its bare plastered walls, the bed, and Malach lying on it. He was rigidly immobile. He said, "Quod natura relinquit imperfectum—"

  Ruth crossed the carpet, floating, and stood above him. Her plaits had somehow come undone, and black hair showered over her.

  She took hold of his left hand and pulled it away from his face.

  There was no mark on him. His face was only hard, clenched, a stone. He did not resist her. He said, "U doet me pijn."

  Ruth put her right hand, frozen, against his left eye, forehead and temple.

  Malach screamed. His whole body erupted into motion.

  Ruth, too, cried out. She clamped her frozen hand against him. She forced her hand to remain on his face, which was like furnace heat.

  The world seemed to crack.

  Then she felt a hurt worse than before. The pain in him had come into her. Into her hand. She kindled. She was on fire.

  Then it went out.

  She felt bruised, perhaps smashed, but she sat on the bed. A band of flame still circled her right wrist. It was Malach's hand. He was looking at her.

  His eyes were so pale they were nearly white;.

  He said, "What did you do?"

  "You said—ice."

  He said, hoarsely, "You can heal as well as harm."

  "No, it was the ice."

  "Once in a hundred years," he said, "it comes like that."

  "Is it better?" she said. "Are you all right?" She started to cry.

  "It's gone. You took it. What did you do with it?" He lifted her hand and turned it over. Her palm and fingers were burned blue, and bleeding. "Your hand," he said, "your pianist's hand." He put both of his own hands over hers.

  It hurt like fire again. Ruth did not mind it. "Don't leave me," she said.

  "At the gates of the abyss," he said, "there you are. Ruth in her black hair." He kept her hand in his left hand, and reached up to her and pulled her slowly down.