by John Rechy
We were lying naked in bed enjoying a gentle sea breeze and an occasional sprinkle of water from a high-cresting wave. We had just made love. Our love and passion were constant. Every few minutes, my beloved would lean over me idly and embrace, with his lips, softly, each of my nipples. It was during such a pleasurable moment that he whispered to me that a young man was peeking at us from our balcony. I was alarmed, but my beloved said there was no reason. He had seen the young man — he worked at the inn — a handsome young man of perhaps seventeen.
“He’s overwhelmed by the spectacle of your body.”
“By our bodies,” I quickly amended.
“So we must teach him,” the Count proposed, “let him know we’re aware of him, that desire isn’t shameful, to be hidden.” Then he held my arms behind my back, and his tongue moved slowly down my body — and, stopping, he looked toward the balcony and spoke softly to the boy: “You can come in, don’t be ashamed” — and then he raised himself and entered me once, again . . .
The young man moved into the room, his hands between his thighs as he delighted in this unexpected spectacle, a favor he reciprocated by undressing himself and displaying his own beauty. He gasped and came, just as my beloved Count and I did also. Then he thanked us, shyly.
“He’ll make a beautiful young woman very happy tonight,” my beloved said.
“Or a handsome young man just as happy,” I amended, and we made love again . . . That was all. A moment of gentle sensuality, shared, the way we shared everything. Even the enduring pain of past sorrows.
I read on:
Now having extorted the agreement by the Holiest of Popes to perform over the nuptials of the Count to the accursed Whore in the Grand Cathedral, she and her Pimp devised further their sinister plot. Once the nuptial ring was on her finger, there would occur an enormous disturbance in the Cathedral, created by shots fired at random by one of their minions. The ensuing moments of pandemonium would allow the wily Whore to shoot her husband of only a few seconds.
It was Alix who fired! — coaxed by the wicked Irena! My weary heart protests each time I encounter that repeated accusation, which strikes as if for the first time.
The fiendish deed would then be blamed on those who truly loved the Noble Count (those who have information about the Whore’s past that even a whore would want to keep secret — from everyone).
I kept nothing secret from my beloved. Nothing. Nothing.
Thus they intended to dispose of all legitimate claimants to the wealth of the great dynasty usurped by their tactics. Everything would have occurred as they connived had it not been for the fact that the Count’s ever-astute Sister grasped (with her always agile mind, the Reader truthfully compliments) what was occurring, and shouted out (ringingly, over the sounds of prepared confusion) her rightful accusation of the murderous Whore: “The Whore murdered my Brother!” — thus assuring that the vile creature would be seen with the murderous gun. Even so, the Whore — having prepared for every eventuality — managed to escape (where God, and perhaps others before Him, will finally locate her).
The Reader will not be surprised to learn that, although confronted by such monumental evil, the saintly Holy Prelate blessed the horrendous woman as she ran away, trailed by her sullied marriage veil.
A blessing? — “Damn the wily whore!”? Run away? Never! I left the Cathedral, to live for both of us, as my beloved Count du Muir made me promise.
If at the time of my flight from the Grand Cathedral I had already had the good fortune to have met Madame Bernice, I would have been reminded of what Cassandra said to me long ago in Troy: “The unexpected is always to be expected.” That is what allowed the Count to prepare for the trap in the Cathedral. Cassandra often added, “There is always a Trojan horse,” referring to the folly of trust. I’ll give her credit when I enter that into my Pensées.
I race through the few pages left in this “Third Installment,” through more distortions of the love and passion that bound me and the Count. I read again its last words, words my eyes stumbled on an earlier time:
In the following and Final Installment of this True Account, the Writer will fulfill his promise to reveal the most heinous of the Whore’s despicable acts — the slaughter of her children.
I thrust those contaminated pages away. But I remain standing over the table where the “Final Installment” rests. I reach for it, I hold it, I open it. I turn the pages of this further vilification of my life with the Count, attempts to turn love into greed, passion into reckless lust, sorrow into abomination.
. . . found dead . . .
I back up and read again in terror the shocking words my eyes fall upon.
The Writer, ever diligent in his goal of exposing villainy, here brings the Reader into recent events, as the chain of evil linked by the Whore extends. In a bizarre turn that would be out of place other than in this True Account of the horrendous life of the vile Whore — she who befouled all she touched — the Count’s Twin Brother, the Fair Brother of the two, was found dead in his Mother’s bedroom, killed by a single gunshot —
Alix is dead!
— clearly fired by (the Writer will wait to allow the Reader to prepare for the approaching enormity) none other than his Mother, the dissolute Contessa.
That gentle loving lady, who so tenderly sought me out and befriended me in her coach? That gentle lady whose words of blessing gave me courage when I fled from the Cathedral? She fired the deadly blast? Oh, not she! Whatever is claimed in this vicious rendering, I shall know that the Contessa did not kill her son, malicious though he was.
Lest the Reader of this odyssey of debauch attribute perverted intentions to the Fair Twin of the late Noble Count, the Writer hastens to advise that the Son was in his Mother’s bedroom only to hear more from her own lips about a sweet incident he had just learned of concerning the abundant tulips in their garden.
The tulips!
The Writer here records accurately the recent events that have added two more deaths to the murder in the Grand Cathedral —
Two? Alix, and —?
According to the most truthful Account to the Authorities, duly filed with appropriate Officials by the Fair Twin’s benevolent Sister, this is what occurred “on the night of terrifying deaths”:
Irena is alive, of course.
It began when the devoted Daughter and Sister went to receive a blessing from the Holy Pontiff (who gave it with added grace to the good and highly enlightened woman) before she set out that evening on one of her frequent rounds of charity among the worthy poor (not all the poor are worthy — and some not even Christians). Having finished her saintly ministrations early, the upright Daughter impulsively decided to extend her benefaction to an old Nun who had years ago been retained by her Father as a helper to the Contessa and whom the virtuous Pontiff had earlier recalled with fondness.
The renegade nun! Oh, not that sweet soul.
“Seeking a sweet, mellow remembrance,” the magnanimous Daughter of the Contessa reports in her Account to the Authorities, “I questioned the gentle Nun about my mother’s youth, hoping to glean a portrait of her early years, as loyal children are wont to do. Perhaps for reasons attributable to the confusions inherent in her advanced age, the sweet Nun declined to share such memories, whereupon I tried gently to persuade her —”
Shaking her, demanding, threatening!
“— until, somewhat shyly, she confessed some details of intimate moments she had cherished for years concerning my devoted mother. To my horror, the poor Sister of God was soon after seized by a heart attack.”
Frightened to death by Irena’s threats after she extorted from the loyal nun the truth of the Gypsy. Or did she manage to extort it? Did the brave nun die with the Contessa’s secret? — leaving Irena still with her suspicions, only her suspicions.
Accepting (as all souls who Trust the Mightiest of Mighty must) the Wisdom that had chosen to send the Nun to whatever place He would choose to assign to her, the Daughter repor
ted the sad death to religious authorities, to notify further to necessary Officials. The Daughter (known for her charity as well as for her formidable intellect) returned to find her brother, the Fair Twin, the Brother of the Count, sitting in the garden of their mansion (where he often sat, pondering the state of goodness).
Joining him in those serene moments, his Sister informed him of the dear Nun’s tender memories of their Mother, especially of one that had occurred in the very garden where they now sat. So moved was the Fair Twin that he gathered some of the profuse tulips that surrounded them, and he studied them lovingly in his hands. The moment shared by the departed Nun was so precious to the Fair Twin that the considerate Daughter thought best to withhold from her Brother the fact of the lovable Nun’s departure to her just reward.
In the excitement generated by the borrowed — and not complete enough — memory of his Mother as a young woman, the Fair Twin could not restrain himself from going to her bedroom to extend his joy of discovery and beg for more exquisite details. The Contessa had retired early, resigned to her usual troubled sleep. Seeing Mother and Son facing each other (and longing for a Master Painter who might record this serene scene), the loving Daughter left them to their moments of filial devotion and moved on to rest in her bedroom (to recover from all her good deeds and prepare for more). Because in his urgency to extend these poignant moments the Fair Twin had left open the door of their Mother ’s bedroom, the most generous and bright Daughter could not help but hear her Brother’s discussion with their Mother about the Nun’s dulcet memory.
Irena, spying, lurking, always conniving!
In her most careful Report to the Authorities, and all consistent with her astonishing retentiveness (another aspect of her amazing intelligence), the devoted Sister and Daughter declares what she saw: “In a glimpse — since of course I did not linger at the door — I saw my Brother extending to my Mother a loving bouquet of the tulips he had gathered earlier —”
It was not a bouquet!
Although the upright Sister sought again to honor the privacy of this loving encounter between Mother and Son by moving away, she could not help but overhear words that baffled her but that, in her astonishingly astute fashion, she was able to retain, verbatim, and set down in her Report to the Authorities. No Writer could convey with more exactitude and eloquence than this fine Sister the dour events that even now flowed out of the Whore’s past villainies, and so the Writer will here allow the Sister’s ringing voice in her Report to the Authorities to relate what followed:
“My Brother held the bouquet of tulips toward our devoted Mother and said, so tenderly, ‘Tell me everything about what happened in the tulip garden.’
“‘Go to hell,’ my beloved Mother retorted, illogically.”
I place these pages down, carefully, slowly, to control my rage, and to cleanse my hands for a moment before I can touch their poison again. I see it all clearly, buried in this maze of lies: Goaded by new — and still measured — information given to her cunningly — how else? — by the Pope, for nefarious reasons of his own — why else? — Irena sought out the trustworthy nun. Whether she was able to coerce the loyal nun into revealing the truth about the tulip garden before frightening her to death — or even strangling her — or whether she finally decided to divulge what she had long wanted to believe, Irena goaded Alix to question the Contessa about the interlude in the tulip garden, hinting that he, like his brother, was the son of a gypsy! Alix then confronted the proud Contessa, and —
I read on:
The Sister’s unflaggingly accurate Report to the Authorities continues:
“My brother — with loving consideration — despite my Mother’s odd reaction — had gone on to suggest that cherished moments that might have occurred among the luxuriant tulips would become even more treasured only as memories if the gardener were allowed to ‘weed out the bulbs.’ Since the disturbed often act in ways beyond the scope of understanding by the undisturbed, it is necessary, in order to give a Truthful Account of these events, as I am bound to do in my Report to the Authorities, however much it pains me, to state that my beloved Mother, the Contessa, had long ceased to be a stable woman. She raised her voice obnoxiously, accusing my Brother, the Fair Twin, of . . . I’m sorry that I did not hear the exact accusation because, at that moment, there was a clap of thunder, ushering in a storm and drowning out the altercation.”
The unassailable Report to the Authorities made by the most reliable Sister continues:
“Hearing a sound that could be made only by a body toppling to the floor, I had to abandon my respect for privacy, and I rushed into the room.
“I saw my sainted Brother lying on the floor. Thinking he had fainted in the face of my obdurate Mother’s illogical resistance to the tulips’ being pruned, I knelt to minister to him. I saw blood on his chest, which had been pierced by a gunshot, its sound muffled by the clap of thunder. My dearly adored Brother, like his Twin Brother before him, was dead. I turned to the Contessa — my cherished Mother — and saw her attempting to hide a gun.
“‘Who put this in my hands? I don’t know where this came from, I don’t know where this came from!’ she kept repeating, while trying to discard the evidence of what had occurred: My beloved Mother had shot my esteemed and noble Brother, the Fair Twin. And why? Impossible as it seems to those of sound mind, she did so simply because he had presented her with a bouquet of the flowers that he thought should be trimmed away into memory, flowers that were — I grasp for some kind of logic — apparently her favorites.”
Irena shot Alix and planted the gun in the Contessa’s hand, just as she planted Alix’s in mine in the Grand Cathedral. What cruel cunning!
Confronted, benignly, by her caring Daughter, the outrageous Contessa insisted (with an enormous continuing lack of logic that the Reader will easily detect) that at one point the Fair Twin “insanely threatened to choke me with the tulips. After that, I know only that I saw him fall.”
The Writer of this sad True Account pauses to ponder the enormous capacity of sinners to lie, the extremes to which they resort to cover up their foul allegations.
My sorrow wrestles with rage as I read on:
The Writer will again allow into his True Account the exact words of the honorable Sister as she reported these wanton acts in her Report to the Authorities:
“In a burst of obvious regret, the Contessa, my treasured Mother, begged me to go with her to the Grand Cathedral.”
Ha!
“I had almost to carry her, she was so weak with the burden of her sins.”
Irena pushed her along as the dear Contessa fought her!
“(My cherished Mother wanted to go to the Grand Cathedral finally to make peace with her turbulent life, and to do so before no less than the Holiest of Living Men, the Pope.)”
The only reason the Contessa I knew would want to go there would be to confront the Pope for all his appalling intrigues and manipulations, knowing he was the catalyst for these new developments.
While wishing that the very page on which these words are written might be able to mourn these terrible events, the Writer notes somberly that the truthfulness of the brilliant Sister’s Account to the Authorities (is there even one Reader who would question it?) is confirmed (confirmation is not needed, the Reader rightfully asserts) by none other than the Pillar of Truth, the Pope Himself, who witnessed these dour events.
In the Grand Cathedral, he was praying late in his chambers when he heard an altercation in his Most Holy Turf and rushed there to see the honorable Sister trying to wrest a gun from her notorious Mother. Despite her devoted Daughter’s attempts to keep her from this act of self-destruction for her evils, the Contessa shot herself with the same gun she had used on her own son, the Fair Twin, whom she now joined in death, if not in their destinations beyond death.
The Contessa is dead!
No, no, please no! Please!
Yet, even as my sorrow protests, I know it’s true. Irena murdered the Con
tessa before the Pope so that nothing will be questioned! All, all plotted by the two.
I clasp the pages in my hand. There’s more, but I cannot abide it. I rush out of my quarters. I’m oblivious to the night — no, it is almost dawn and I have not slept. Lurking presences scamper into the verdure of the countryside. I reach Madame’s château. I knock, I knock! She comes to the door with Ermenegildo, and holds out a candle to identify me. I shout out:
“Madame! They murdered Alix and the Contessa!”
Madame quickly calmed me — as lovingly, as caringly, as a devoted nurse — yes, she ministered to me, so lovingly and so caringly that, before I knew it, the terrible night had passed, dawn broke, morning came, and we had resumed our more civilized roles: having tea on the lawn of her château.
XXIV
I FELT SO RESTED as I sat with Madame Bernice, who was about to pour our tea, that I wondered whether, in the onrush of events revealed in the “Account” that pursues me with its fury, I had had only the impression that my reactions happened in uninterrupted sequence. It was possible I had considered running at night to Madame’s, but slept wearily instead while I imagined her gentle ministrations to calm my justifiable anxieties, and then, this early afternoon, had strolled over to her château, where we now sat on her veranda discussing the latest entries in the avenging “Account.” Yes, that was how it happened.
“They’re in collusion — for now — those two, the Pope and Irena.” Madame shook her head at the wickedness of it all. “The events themselves have the ring of truth — there’s no other reason for these deaths to be recorded,” she agreed with me. “Only the motives have been altered — grossly. After consulting with the Pope, Irena killed her brother and the dear Contessa — may she rest in peace in Heaven with her beloved gypsy.”