THE GOD'S WIFE

by LYNN VOEDISCH

  She shook her head, looking around at the neon signs and the Egyptian-themed friezes on the wall. She tried to find one little detail that would bring back a memory of the last few moments. Nothing worked. She wondered just when her mind had been working well. Probably never; she was prone to chronic daydreaming that made her childhood years a struggle. Still, she hadn’t had episodes like this in her life.

  “I spaced out,” she said, keeping her voice audible over the industrial rock noise. “The same thing happened in class today. I just went blank. Buckley said I was dancing with my hips, and the whole class was in an uproar. Hips in ballet?” She pressed her hands to the side of her face in mock horror — doing her impression of the Edvard Munch painting “The Scream.”

  Jonas’ lips began to curl upward, and the worry drained from his eyes. He let out an easy laugh.

  “So, I guess I spaced out again, and I really don’t remember what I’ve been thinking about.” She stopped a minute, trying to force her brain to describe her predicament to him. ”There’s spacing, but this is worse. It’s just a black void.”

  “You were in a void just now?” Alarm crept back into his eyes.

  “Maybe it’s just ADHD,” she said, deciding to pass it off with a wave of her hand. “I’m just a dreamy kid who never grew up.” She didn’t want this to turn into another one of Jonas’ amateur diagnoses. She was concerned that he might bring up something distressing, such as brain tumors. He was odd that way. It came from working at the medical magazine. Everyone focused on a deadly disease over there.

  “Don’t fool yourself. ADHD in adults is real.” He grabbed both of her hands. “Look, if you get this black-void stuff tomorrow or anytime soon, let me know. It might be something they can diagnose.”

  She forced a smile and smoothed her hair back behind her ears. Everything would be fine.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s make this an early night. I have a feeling I’m just sleep deprived.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her, then inhaled as if sniffing a rare rose. Jonas Smith. A romantic man. Forget the attention gaps, this was something to concentrate on. She gave him her warmest of smiles.

  #

  The blackness of Jonas’ ceiling held no answers, even though she’d been staring at it for hours now. Jonas lay snoring off and on by her side, but his nocturnal noise was not the reason she couldn’t close her eyes.

  The past few days replayed in her mind. It was clear she’d been having lapses of attention for a couple weeks now. Little jolts in which her mind popped out of focus and, then, in a mysterious instant, cleared. Seconds were gone. Erased. Irretrievable. Not that they were precious events. No, not at all. The end of her mother’s last long Sunday phone call from Iowa was a blur. There was that time she rode in Lucy’s car and didn’t remember how they came out of the traffic tunnel. Hubbard’s Cave — all thirteen seconds of it — slipped into the morass.

  She crawled out of bed and booted up Jonas’ computer, then ran a search on ADHD. She discovered, in several long scholars’ articles, that the type of affliction Jonas jabbered about was a variant of daydreaming. The affected person would have so many thoughts going on in her mind that she would drift off inside her mind to find something much more interesting than what was happening in the outside world. This was dubbed ADHD/inattentive or ADHD without hyperactivity. Confusion troubled her. Why put the “H” in there if there’s no hyperactivity at all?

  The important part stood out. In ADHD something passed through the brain cells. In her cases of inattention, she delved into nothingness. Darkness. Worst of all, she felt she simply had lost a small segment of life — her life. Time she’d never get back.

  Then the dreams awaited, and there were nights when she woke up with no more rest than when she lay down. I feel like I’ve gone somewhere. My brain’s taken a hike, and I can’t remember where it’s gone.

  After the computer session, when she had checked out narcolepsy and found no good answers there, she tried flopping down on the mattress again and going through the motions relaxing into sleep. When she succumbed to her exhaustion, a familiar fantasy played inside her mind. She was standing in a garden with strange aromas and plants that never took root in the Midwest. Someone whispered to her about a wild stroke of luck someone bestowed on her. The stars overhead looked alien, set in twisted, pivoted arrangements of the constellations that she knew. The Big Dipper turned on its side. Orion was close to the horizon. She wandered in a daze, then two men with shaved heads came to take her by either hand. She woke up panting.

  Rebecca had no idea how she got back to sleep again that night. The dozing and panicked awakenings seem endless. Over and over, she asked her divine guides what was happening to her. She even appealed to the Virgin Mary — and she wasn’t even Roman Catholic. For one second, she thought she saw a woman in her mind’s eye, but she looked nothing like Mary. She was regal, dressed in linen, eyes rimmed with thick eyeliner and sporting wings of many colors. She smiled down upon Rebecca.

  Tossing from her side to her back, the fitful sleeper stared at the ceiling, hoping to force the uncertain dawn to come.

  #

  Neferet shuddered in the cool morning breeze, clad only in a student’s linen dress, with no cloak about her shoulders. Yesterday’s heat had dissipated overnight, and now, at dawn, she sat on a litter held by the priests, robed in colorful regalia, who assembled before the great doors of the temple at Karnak. This morning, she was to be installed as God’s Wife of Amun. The rich pageantry, so unlike the humble days of cleaning and praying at the temple, made her ready to swoon. All about her, many of the priests’ retinue held staffs with streamers in red, gold and lotus blue. They hummed a soft chant with a trance-like quality. As the rising sun focused its rays on the massive portal of the temple, she began to tremble, not from the cold but from the majesty of the moment. As a young apprentice and princess, she had been inside this inner, sacred place before. However, this time, the priests of Amun would lead her into the sanctum, the Holy of Holies. This was the small interior chamber where the stone embodiment of Amun reigned. The space opened only for the high priest and the God’s Wife. She was the elected one.

  Nebhotep, the highest priest in the land, stood at the gates, a leopard skin draped around his slumped shoulders and hanging down one side of his glittering, pleated robe. He had shaved his head, as had all of the priests. They had bathed daily in the temple’s sacred pool to purify themselves and remove all hair as it was considered impure. Neferet herself had bathed in the darkness with her childhood nurse Anhay. But the woman spared her hair. They did not shave the God’s Wife’s head for reasons that were unclear to her. Instead, she wore a heavy and elegant braided wig that only a royal could afford. Layers of complicated plaits were wound with gold thread. They moved like a curtain of silk when she turned her head. If only the weight of the wig didn’t make her head throb so.

  Nebhotep moved forward and presented a jewel-encrusted bowl to her. It contained the amber-green didi, a sacred drink that would open her eyes to the realms of the divine. She drank the bitter liquid and handed the bowl back to the priest with a nod. The initiation could start.

  Frightened but maintaining regal composure, she watched the sun’s rising rays reach to the lock of the temple door. A lesser priest took up a walking stick and pounded three times upon the entryway. As if by magic, the mighty wood panels swung back, revealing the colored antechamber with its paintings and statues of battles won by the past pharaohs who had petitioned for Amun’s aid. Neferet peeked side to side and saw several files of celebrants lining either edge of the vast hall, all waving palm fronds and singing a soft hymn to Amun. The litter bearers propelled her forward until she reached the end of the cavernous space. Her nose tingled at the intrusion of frankincense and other burning sweet oils.

  The temple was transformed. All about her were lamplights that flickered and danced in alabaster holders, looking like starlight. The choir voices, full-throated and tuned to
intricate chords, sang out from the deep gloom. Neferet felt her bones vibrate in resonance. To be a part of this was the holiest experience she’d ever had.

  As the music reached a crescendo, dancers popped in front of the procession. She started in surprise, but the priests nodded assent. The entertainers lifted their arms in reverence to Neferet and her mighty office.

  A small, lithe boy of about ten years old spun about as if he were on fire, twirling in the air, propelling himself ever higher. Three maidens stood in back of him. When he had danced out every bit of energy his young body contained, the girls took their turn, arching and stretching in acrobatic forms.

  When the performers finished their silken movement, the sun glittered through the temple’s windows. The lamplights began to gutter out as sunbeams overpowered their weak illumination. The frenzy of colors on the painted walls and ceiling woke up, and the vast temple was awash in reds, greens, blues, yellows and purples. The pillars, decorated like the revered blue lotus, shone an enchanted form of turquoise blue — an effect of the didi she had imbibed earlier.

  The priests moved the litter forward, and Neferet felt tingles in her stomach, as her moment of glory arrived. She hoped she could behave as a royal spouse and not as a befuddled teenage girl.

  Progress to the Holy of Holies involved moving on through smaller chapels, tiny houses, each darker than the next, columns getting closer together and the space more intimate. When the holy march paced only halfway through, her nerves stood on edge. She sat facing the next set of doors leading to a dense chamber occupied by priests. As she had been tutored, she called out several words of power, and the doors swung to. Inside, torches lit the intimate space. It reminded her of an ancient swamp with its papyrus-shaped columns and pictures of woodland scenes painted on the walls. The sun could not penetrate here, but the hymns and music echoed.

  “From the primeval nothingness, proceded Amun,” was the chant. Fewer people waved them on this time, but she sat still, with her back erect on the unforgiving wood sedan chair, balancing the wig with expert grace. In her confusion, she hung on to what the priests had taught her over her weeks of training.

  Door after door gave way to the procession until they faced a hut-sized entrance with a red door allowing passage for only one or two people at a time. She and Nebhotep had permission to touch it. She descended from the litter, aided by the priests, and stood, legs quivering under her linen gown, before the portal. She pounded once upon the wood, and the priests all bent forward prostrate on the floor. The way opened. She drew herself up, steadied her breath and faced the blue icon of the god Amun. He sat, life-sized, on a granite pedestal. His eyes, of the most uncanny stones, followed her every movement, even the shift of her eyes.

  As instructed, she placed an armful of flowers at the god’s feet. Priests, bent over and mumbling apologies to the great Amun, handed her food to lay at the icon’s pedestal. Then, at the door, they covered Neferet with a great, gold-flecked robe and crowned her wig with a diadem. They sang a song of matrimony, and Nebhotep joined her hand to that of the great statue. It was as cold as the night waters. The priest read a long statement, detailing the lands and properties the temple afforded to her, now that she was the bride of Amun. Her mind swam. All through these declarations, the heady incense threatened to knock her out. The sacred drug didi had her head swimming, because now the room was full of blue — the same color as the faience beads on her full collar necklace. She relaxed and couldn’t take her eyes off the Amun effigy.

  Like fleet-footed beings of the night, the priests left. Closing the door behind them, they abandoned her with this husband of rock. In the moment his jewel eyes fastened onto hers, she knew her life was no longer her own.

  She began the ritual dance.

  #

  Jump, two, three, pas de bourée, lunge, leap. Jump, two, three, preparation, pirouette. Forward, five, six, seven, side lay-out. Jump.

  Rebecca kept track of the intricate movement, promising herself she wouldn’t forget a step. Her breathing kept time to the music. One, two, three, leap, breathe, five, six, seven, lunge, breathe. With the music blaring away – the triumphal chorus from Verdi’s opera — the rhythm soothed in a natural way, flowing and sensuous, exactly as she imagined Egyptian dance would be.

  Hips turn right, swivel left, full circle, fall to knees.

  With an abrupt clap of the hands, the jazz teacher, Conrad Waldron, called all the dancers to a halt and turned off the music.

  “That’s great, fantastic. I urge every one of you to read up on ‘Aïda’ because you’ll all be dancing the parts of the courtiers, the priests and the crowd. This is a colorful scene of immense pageantry. It’s most important that you understand your part in the event.” His eyes flickered over the class, and he lowered his voice a notch. “Except, of course, for Rebecca.” He sent her a beneficent smile, and she felt the curious eyes of the entire class boring through her slight, sweating body. Not used to attention, she wished she were a speck of dirt on the floor.

  “That’s because Rebecca is our princess.”

  More looks, only this time filled with wonder, others with varying shades of envious hostility. Lenore Stillman, never her friend, shot the most vicious glare of all, eyes squinting, big, pouting lips sticking out like balloons.

  Rebecca continued to catch her breath, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. The fabric of her leotard was spongy from the sweat of her body, leaving her clammy and oddly cold in this hot room. She straightened and smiled at the group, her thigh muscles starting to quiver from over-use.

  Waldron continued, unaware of the uneasy reception Rebecca faced. He had no idea Randy hadn’t released the cast list yet.

  “She will be our Aïda and will be performing different dances. In this number, she will actually enter the stage in chains.” He stopped to chuckle at the imagined vision. “But it’s essential, Rebecca, for you to understand the style Emmylou Sailor has choreographed for us. Most dancers will be meeting with her to make sure we get her method down.” Then Conrad winked, turned his head and snapped his fingers.

  “Back to work. From the knee crouch, you will wait three beats and then spring up on six, arms wide in second position …”

  As he rattled off the varying positions, Rebecca tried to mimic his demonstrations but kept falling behind. Conrad had gone gray at his temples, but few of the younger dancers could match his signature verve. He barreled through a complex set of steps and gave it all polish, even on the first go. Rebecca knew he learned this complex dance yesterday when the famous Ms. Sailor glided into town. What a memory he demonstrated.

  “Ready?”

  The class groaned as one, complaining that the rundown moved by too fast. They begged Conrad for another demonstration.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. But understand that we intend you pick this up right away. Ms. Sailor isn’t going to give you second and third chances.”

  He dropped down into kneeling position and ran through the steps again. “Try to feel elation as you dance. You are the Egyptian citizens celebrating a great military victory. This is a dance of exultation. Imagine your linen robes, your best jewelry. You haven’t partied like this in years.”

  An assistant turned the music back on, and the class sprang back to life, but this time, smiles replaced the frowns of concentration. All except for Lenore, who still turned to shoot angry looks at Rebecca.

  Jump, swivel right, swivel left, step, five, six, pirouette. Rebecca’s muscles performed on their own. She knew that if she thought too hard, the entire dance would break down into myriad isolated movements: twists of the neck, turns of the torso, feet moving forward and back, arms straightening and then folding. Think too much and the smooth, powerful dance would become nothing but a set of meaningless gyrations.

  However, concentration remained difficult. Rebecca’s muscles screamed with each jump, each lunge, each pelvic thrust. And she knew her solo numbers would be much more intricate if the vaunted Ms. Sailor had any
thing to do with it.

  Waldron ended class, and the dancers piled into the dressing room, some ripping off their leotards before the doors were shut. Rebecca found a seat but was distracted by the force of a fierce stare.

  “So how did you pull that off ?”

  The voice was unforgettable. A Midwestern twang with the added touch of a stuffed-up nose. Lenore.

  Rebecca turned from her seat on the dressing room bench and glimpsed her nemesis. Only five-feet tall and sprouting spiky blonde hair with violet streaks, Lenore stood with her hands folded, little brown porcine eyes fixed on Rebecca’s face.

  “I found out yesterday,” Rebecca said, slipping off her leotard and reaching for a towel. Standing there in her bra and tights, she fought off feelings of vulnerability. She was open to attack in the dressing room, and Lenore knew it. Damn that little brat. Yet Rebecca, without hesitation, toweled off and reached for her t-shirt. The woman had never liked her, but this attack charged the air with negativity.

  “But I bet you had to put out some major favors for Randy to choose you.” Lenore stood with her eyebrows pinched into a unibrow. She simply refused to let go. Jealousy shot out of every pore. No one had the guts to tell her she never would have the talent to be chosen for a featured role, anyway.

  “Randy just picked me. I’m as surprised as anyone else.”

  “Yeah, sure. After that stunt you pulled in ballet class when you were wiggling your hips…” Lenore illustrated by grinding like a burlesque cutie. Titters of laughter filled the close quarters. Tights flew in the air landing in lockers. The smell of soggy perspiration assailed Rebecca’s nose. A major-league baseball locker room would smell as bad. “I’m sure you had some idea of what was coming. Just trying to rub it in. Make us all feel bad.”

  “That’s not true,” Rebecca slipped off her tights and hid her nakedness with a towel. “I’d never try to show off.”