by John Rechy
“No,” Paul said, awed by the strange woman.
“You’ve never met Richard,” Malissa said. It was a statement.
La Duquesa drew her black veil to peer longingly at Paul.
“We’ve wanted to,” Valerie said. She had a feeling that they were being led to a trap, but she did not know whether her words were pushing them into it or away. “But Daniel kept saying— . . .” She stopped. Words which had no significance suddenly became weighted with shadows. This was the trap, springing:
“That you weren’t ready,” Malissa finished for her.
Valerie touched her brother; a sudden, barely consummated contact.
“But now you are ready,” Malissa’s dark lips said.
3
Joja reached for the black sheet to cover her nakedness from Mark. Blue made no motion.
“Don’t you knock before walking into someone else’s room?” Joja said. Instantly she felt an iron fascination which obviated the tone of her voice.
Clearly unperturbed, “I’m sorry,” Mark said. “The door was open, and sometimes I use this bedroom.”
“You’re Mark,” Joja said. Of course she knew it: Richard’s stunning, depthless eyes, the same perfect teeth, the same—already—sensual mouth: a glimpse of Richard as a boy. Her eyes glided from the boy’s face to his body, to the film of sunbleached hair on his legs. It would feel like velvet, she knew. She turned away quickly.
Blue’s eyes were clamped to the boy’s face. He remembered another dark, young, sensual face. But, no, there was no real similarity; it was only that the obsessive image was constantly being projected by his memory on the screen of his mind.
“Yes, I’m Mark.” The boy looked first at Joja, then at Blue. “And you’re the famous actress,” he said to the woman.
Does he know! (Louder! The curtain falling like the sharp blade of a guillotine. The girl gasping for breath.) No, he couldn’t know. Joja reached for a nightgown among clothes spilled on the floor. Now covered in diaphanous blue, she stood up, showing her body.
“And you’re Blue,” Mark said to the youngman in bed. “I recognize you from—. . .” He paused, very long.
Blue’s eyes deepened darkly. (Like slides shifting rapidly: Black newspapers, black photographs, black type: “Notorious male prostitute— . . .” And his photographed face buried under the black tombstone of headlines.)
“. . . —from my father’s description of you,” Mark finished finally.
“Yeah, man, I’m Blue.” Again the name was a definition of himself. He still lay defiantly naked before the unperturbed boy.
“Do you know much more about us?” Joja tried to assume the tone of someone parrying with a bright child, but she had not been able to withhold an edge of apprehension from her voice: The question was important. Her fascination with Mark grew; he was so poised, so cool.
“My father doesn’t keep anything from me,” Mark said. He sat on the bed, one bare leg propped before him, leaning his head on it over crossed arms. Then he saw the blue rubber on the floor. He seemed to study it as if it held a profound secret. Swiftly he looked at Blue’s tattooed ankle, now exposed, and smiled.
The remembered face lunged again into Blue’s mind.
“My two stepmothers are already here,” Mark told Joja.
Joja felt a stab of bewilderment, resentment: Then: Fear. Richard’s ex-wives. And she, once his mistress. Summoned? Why? “You were a little boy when I was here last,” she heard herself saying to Mark, explaining away a suspicion vaguely forming.
“That was six years ago,” Mark said. “I asked my father about you,” he said.
Though spoken with typical casualness, his words startled her. Had they tried to convey a message from Richard? the thought formed involuntarily.
“I remember how you used to hold me,” Mark said.
“You were a child,” Joja answered. It was suddenly as if she must defend herself.
And then Mark’s words were bullets: “I remember the man who burned you the night before you left.”
(I felt dead!) Joja’s eyes flashed angrily at the boy for evoking the ugly memory.
Suddenly for Blue the room pulsed with vibrations of violence which he must flee: The remembered face was a presence here, now. To stir his physical motion, he got up. He dressed in a pale-blue shirt, buttonless, open, and white pants. He remained barefoot, the tattoo like a signal.
Joja sat before a mirror near the window, searching the scorched scar on her breast. She touched a button on the wall. A halo of amber lights surrounded her image. Her face was livid suddenly, features erased, as if it were fading into a beautiful lifeless specter.
Blue moved wordlessly to the door, his hand on the knob. He waited there.
The pit inside Joja whirled. Richard! she thought. But it was his son she was looking at in the mirror. She held her breath. Then she began to rehearse, consciously—with difficulty—the words she must soon ask Mark: What do you want to tell me about me and Richard?
The door closed. Blue left the room. He walked soundlessly along the golden halls, down the swirl of steps. Tall, sensual, he moved stealthily, as if he were stalking someone, or being stalked. It was partly that which surrounded him in an aura of existing within a symbolic glass booth, remote yet visible, almost on display: allowing others to view him, yes, but not to touch him, or to enter his silent world. Though blond, he conveyed a sense of darkness.
He stood under the glass dome. He heard voices from another room, from within the cavern of lofty arches. “And so here we are waiting for Richard.” The voice extricated itself from others. Blue moved toward it. He saw a woman standing before a youngman and a girl, their backs to him.
Now Malissa looked away from the twins and at the stage. The draped props stood like witnesses waiting to testify. Quickly, she moved out of the room, into an anteroom next to it, as beautiful as all the others: this one amber; that color warmed the striped chairs like frozen zebras.
Topaze moved alongside her. He walked with a flourish, a swagger; acutely aware of his stunning, miniature beauty. The rest of the entourage, and Albert, had followed her as if on cue.
Now she sat on one of the striped chairs. On a stool beside her, Topaze leaned thoughtfully on his cane, his chin propped.
“Yes,” Malissa continued, “Richard would make sure we waited for him. But I don’t mind. Great generals often wait for war!” Malissa savored each seasonal encounter with Richard. They were preparatory encounters, she knew: One day they would confront each other. It was inevitable. Each season, she watched Richard, studied him: waited for the exact time when she would assert her power.
“War?” Paul questioned her, he and his sister joining them. Emptied of the others, the propped stage had suddenly threatened him. “Why do you expect war? We’re Richard’s guests.”
“Of course,” Malissa said. Her eyes closed behind the smoked-blue glasses, as if she were receiving a message which her sight might dissipate.
Against a wide window: Staring intently at the complex of the gardens outside, paths like mazes: Incredible shoulders braced, Tor stood, a shadow waiting for its features to be assigned.
In a private revery, la Duquesa sighed: “Even now, without the Duke, the most beautiful thing in my life is the memory of his love.”
Picking at his nails with a knife—a part of him—Rev, eyes shifting constantly as if he expected to be threatened, glanced at the queen as if each word provided a mounting challenge.
“You’re very lucky to have known love, your grace,” Albert said seriously.
Malissa’s eyes opened on him, swallowing him with contempt. One hand spoke its violent language: It rose slowly, fingers spread; then it fell. Lifeless.
“My God! What a beautiful man!” la Duquesa gasped involuntarily. Through the door she had seen Blue. Restraining herself quickly, she sighed: “But I’m in mourning, I will be true to the memory of the Duke.”
Blue stood at the entrance to the anteroom. Beyond it he
saw the empty stage: the central black prop. (He remembered: A black throne!) He felt Malissa’s eyes. The inverted star on his ankle—was it there that she stared? Now she seemed to be magnetizing his eyes, to pull them toward her. Turning his face, he broke their powerful wrest, for now. Paul. Blue’s eyes glided toward the youngman. Was he to be haunted all his life by that other face, imprinted now on this youngman just as it had been on Mark’s earlier? No, Blue told himself, again there was no real similarity. Between this youngman and Mark, yes—but not with— . . . Now again, like a powerful pulling current which had been allowed to ease only momentarily to exert its irresistible power, Malissa’s gaze, even distilled by the blue glasses, commanded him to look at her. He did. Soundlessly on bare feet he walked toward her, accepting her challenge, to face her. The tattoo burned on his ankle. He stood defiantly before the seated woman. He saw: Her red rings, and the black coiled one. (Remembered: An old man. Long ringed fingers. A fingernail outlining a star on his palm.)
Malissa looked down quickly at the ornate tattoo, and then as quickly into his face as if she were staring through crystal ice. “Pisces!” she called his sign suddenly.
Blue nodded.
From behind the blue glasses, her gaze plunged like a nail of fire into his frozen façade . “With Aries rising!”
He nodded somberly again.
There was a sudden vicious snapping sound. Bravo’s whip had sliced into the room, seeking no object except stunned attention.
“My sign—call it, Malissa!” Bravo challenged. Karen stood next to her.
Malissa’s head spun toward Bravo. “Scorpio!” she tossed quickly. The smile on her face allowed no error. “Double scorpion!” she flung like a curse, one flashing, rubied hand thrust outward in a sudden motion as if the words were physical weapons. “Both sun and moon in Scorpio! Not the upper aspect of the eagle—but the lower path of the scorpion— . . .”
“The path of death,” whispered Blue.
“And decay!” lashed Malissa. “Signs of decay and death!”
“Is she right?” Karen asked without looking at Bravo.
“She’s guessed the signs right,” Bravo said. She grasped the whip before her with both hands. “And your sign?” she attempted to flail at Malissa, seeking any wedge with which to pierce her cunning, sure triumph.
Malissa’s face hardened like plaster. “I was born under the evil aspects of all the signs,” she said. Then her laughter was a stake slaughtering the vibrant silence. “You have an admirer,” she said suddenly to Blue. “La Duquesa— . . .” She motioned tauntingly, introducing the staring queen as if she were an object for ready scrutiny.
“Contessa— . . .” Blue realized she was a man.
“Duquesa” la Duquesa corrected him, huskily. “I was married to a Spanish duke.”
“Your grace,” said Blue.
“The Duke is dead,” la Duquesa went on. “I’ll be in mourning forever.” She drew the black veil which filtered her view of such beautiful men, whom she must not even see. The masculine beauty surrounding her constantly—it was like a conspiracy to assault her memory of perfect love. But she would not succumb. Deliberately she remembered: A windy gray day. The grave. The wreath of flowers dyed black. The weight of her black veils. Her tears piercing the soil to bathe the beloved slaughtered corpse.
“How unexpected to see you here, Malissa,” Bravo said.
“Nonsense. You saw me at the airport,” Malissa said.
“I preferred to believe you were going somewhere else.”
A smile invaded Malissa’s face: always something foreign. Her hands answered silently. They made two arcs before her.
“You look well,” said Bravo, “for a woman of fifty . . . sixty? . . . seventy? Is it ninety?”
Malissa laughed. “As old as evil, which is always young,” she refused the insult.
In a pale lavender dress, Karen appeared even more frail. Yet her beauty shone more translucent; frailty was its source.
Malissa acknowledged Richard’s third wife with a nod. “Will all the wives be here? Richard is always startling!” Quickly: “What is your name?” she asked Blue. She spoke to youngmen always as if she were interviewing them for a position in her life.
“Blue.” His parted lips seemed to kiss his name.
“And you carry the mark.” She did not have to point to the tattoo.
Blue turned away from her coldly. Then he saw, through the door, a youngman standing in the main hall, on the vortex of black and white patterns on the floor. He was dressed in black. Now Blue saw the white collar.
Malissa followed the point of Blue’s attention. “Oh, the priest,” she said softly.
The young powerfully slender priest did not yet move toward them.
Malissa rose from her chair. She thrust her hand out abruptly, as if grasping at something unseen. Like a page, Topaze snapped rigidly beside her.
Now the priest entered the room. His hair was dark brown, the color of his eyes; his face was beautiful—it had the almost passionate, almost sexual look of martyrs. He scanned the people in the anteroom. “And Richard?” he asked.
“Making us wait!” said Malissa. “And you’re Father— . . .?”
“Jeremy,” the priest said. “My name is Jeremy.” He looked at the woman’s ringed hands: like drops of frozen blood. (And remembered: Blood coloring his world red.)
“Father Jeremy,” sighed la Duquesa, again uncovering her face, allowing just a glimpse of the priest. “The name fits. . . . A beautiful—pure—priest: as pure as the memory of love.”
(The priest heard: Laughter! Saw: Yellow-gray corridors. Bodies.) He turned from the queen.
“You really believe in God, man?” Rev asked the priest lazily.
“How dare you!”
They all turned startled to Malissa, who had shouted the words. The mask of her face was white with rage. “How dare you question the existence of God!” There was no mockery in her voice, only a profound seriousness. The words issued furiously from the stark black mouth: “Without God there would be no force to vanquish! Without God you would deny the power of Satan!”
Topaze smiled victoriously at Malissa’s attack on Rev. Her body still rigid with fury, Malissa turned from him.
The City of God, the City of Satan, the priest remembered St Augustine’s designation of warring countries.
“Do you know Richard, Father?” Valerie asked the priest. The priest’s affirmative answer might vanquish her growing fear, reassure her. Paul’s firm hand on her shoulder already attempted to still the apprehension in her tone.
“Very slightly. He came to my church not long ago. I’m secretary to the archbishop,” he explained. “The archbishop invited him to dinner. Richard asked me to visit him on his island—a vacation. The archbishop insisted.”
“Richard is intrigued by beauty,” said Malissa, softly now, the cool mask of her features intact again. Then: “And are you here to listen to confessions?” she asked the priest. Again she was using the tone she had used to interrogate Blue.
“Of course not,” said Jeremy.
Blue stood near the priest. Again the imprint of that distant face. Did it spring from his suddenly febrile mind? No. This time distinctly: Cam’s features, uncannily, on the young priest’s.
“But would you?” Blue astonished himself with the abrupt question. “Would you hear confessions?”
Avoiding the intense, cold-blue—deep, deep dark-blue—eyes, the priest looked down. He saw: the inverted star tattooed on the youngman’s ankle. Quickly Blue covered it with the heel of one foot.
“Father, bless us quickly!” said Albert compulsively.
Malissa’s look executed him.
Embarrassed, the priest raised his hand in a vague gesture. The pudgy man before him bowed his head.
Impulsively Blue’s hand reached for the priest’s, and he kissed it lightly. (Remembered uncontrollably: The woman, kissing the tattoo! White feathers on her nude blue body. “My king!’’ Then the oth
ers followed! “Prince Susej!” The dazed, smeared, drugged eyes!) Withdrawing, regretting the gesture, “When I was a kid,’’ Blue explained with a trace of anger, “I was taught to kiss all priests’ hands. It was, uh, like an echo from another righteous time, man.”
“I was taught that too,” the priest eased Blue’s resentment of his impulsive action.
Malissa seized their words. She eyed them as if through a powerful lens.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the room. A bird—black—was gliding across the arched ceiling, long wings flailing.
“I’ll kill it!” Rev said. He poised his long knife to pinion the bird to the wall.
“Put that knife away!” Malissa yelled. “I’ll tell you when to use it!”
Tor opened the glass door, allowing the bird to Escape, and stared at it until it had disappeared into the blue and green island.
“It looked like a bat,” said Topaze, who had removed his cavalier’s hat as if to lead the bird away—or trap it. “It had an ugly little face!”
To explain her untypical defense of life, Malissa said in a tone of mockery: “All life is sacred, isn’t it, Father?”
“We have to think that,” the priest said, “although there are times— . . .”
“When isn’t it sacred, Father?” Malissa’s eyes closed, to grasp the priest’s words more totally. This time the rubied hands did not speak. They rested dormant.
“Always,” the priest relented. (Remembering: “Don’t let me die!” The cold hand. Blood like a molten red jewel. “Let me go!”) “All life is sacred. Always.”
“Even the life of a murderer!” said Albert, like a child, aghast, glancing at Malissa. (He saw: A youngman’s body shattered on the street like a bloodied fallen star.)
Malissa did not look at him.
The priest said, “Yes.”
Blue removed his heel from the tattooed ankle, exposing it.
To block one violent memory with another less threatening, “I remember— . . . I drove the archbishop once into the desert,” the priest recalled. “On the highway, ahead, I saw a dozen, perhaps more, terrible black creatures crossing from one side to the other. Tarantulas as big as my hand.” He opened his hand, staring down at the open fingers; he closed them quickly, into a fist. “A deadly species in that part of the world. Their hairy legs floated over the asphalt. I sped the car to slaughter as many as possible. Then as the tires squashed the dark lives, I thought I heard their cries of protest. Only then did I feel remorse. Those terrible creatures would harm no one in their isolated world of the desert. . . . They seemed so lonely in their evil.”