When I look up, Kelley has ... disappeared! There is still somebody sitting up there on the pile of sacks, and the crossed legs are Kelley’s – I can clearly recognise his tramp’s hobnailed boots in the green light – but his body, chest and head have been transformed. Incomprehensibly, mysteriously transformed: it is the Angel, the Green Angel crouching cross-legged up there just like ... just like a seated devil portrayed in ancient Persian images. The Angel is much smaller than I have ever seen it but the features, the threatening, awful and sublime features, are the same. The body becomes radiant and transparent, like an immense emerald, and the slanting eyes gleam like living moonstones; the narrow, delicate lips are turned up at the corners in a beautiful, enigmatic, fixed smile.
The hand in mine is lifeless as a corpse’s; is Jane dead? – Just as dead or alive as I am, I think. I can feel she is waiting, waiting as I am for some fearful command.
What will the command be? I ask myself. No, I do not ask, for within me there is knowledge of what it will be, but the “knowledge” does not surface in my conscious mind. – – – I ... smile.
Words are issuing from the mouth of the Green Angel ... Do I hear them? Do I understand them? ... It must be so, for my heart stands still: the sacrificial knife that I saw at the Rabbi’s house tears at my breast, at my entrails, at my heart, cutting through sinew, skin and brain. In my ear I can hear a loud voice, as of a torturer, counting slowly, cruelly slowly, from one to seventy-two. – – – Have I lain for centuries, rigid with death, only to wake to the dreadful words of the Angel? I do not know. All I know is: I am holding an ice-cold hand in mine and praying, wordlessly, that Jane is indeed dead! – Within me the words of the Green Angel burn like fire:
“As ye have all sworn allegiance I will now reveal to you the mystery of all mysteries. But first ye must take off all that is human, that ye might become as gods. John Dee, faithful servant, thee I command: Thou shalt lead thy wife Jane and my servant, Edward Kelley, to the bridal couch, that he may enjoy her as an earthly husband enjoyeth his earthly wife and that they too may become one in the night: for ye are blood brothers, forged in the fire with thy wife Jane into a triple union which shall continue for ever in the Realm of the Green Empire! Rejoice, John Dee, and be glad!” –
Again and again the terrible knife twists and turns in my body and soul, and bottled up inside me a voice screams a prayer, a desperate prayer to be released from life and consciousness.
I wake with a start, my whole body a prey to shooting pains: I am sitting hunched up in my desk chair, my numb fingers still clutching John Dee’s polished coal. The sacrificial knife has cut me, too! Cut me into seventy-two pieces! – And the inconceivable pain, the waves of pain, like razor sharp bands of light pulsating through boundless space, through boundless time, strike me too, pass through me ... from galaxy to galaxy, for aeons of light years – or so it seems to me.
Heaven only knows whether the pains in my limbs come from the awkward position I found myself sitting in when I woke from the trance, or whether it was the fault of the drugs Lipotin got me to inhale. Whatever the reason, I feel wretched as I stumble up out of my chair. My head is still ringing with the echo of the strange events that – half spectator, half active participant – I experienced in my abstraction, or whatever the name is for that absorption into the strange coal crystal, for that entrance to the past through the darkly gleaming portals of the lapis praecipuus manfestationis.
I need time to find my way back into the present. My muscles are still burning with the sharp pains. There is no doubt in my mind that everything that I experienced in my “dream” – what a ridiculous word! – that everything that I experienced in my magic transportation into the past was actually experienced then by me when I ... was John Dee in flesh and blood and mind and soul.
But I have no time for reflection now, although such thoughts pursue me, even into my restless sleep. For today it is enough to note the main insights these moments have brought:
Who we are remains a mystery to mankind. We are only aware of ourselves, we can only experience ourselves in the particular “package” that faces us in the mirror and which we call our person. How reassuring it is for us to see the parcel labelled: “From: the parents; To: the grave, parcel post from ‘address unknown’ to ‘address unknown’ ”, with varying customs declarations: “registered, value xx” or “samples – of no value” according to our vanity.
In short: what do we parcels know of the contents of the packages? It seems to me that the content can be transformed by the energy source which determines its fluidity. There are quite different beings whose radiance can be glimpsed through our dull clay. ... Princess Shotokalungin, for example? Certainly, she is not what I took her for in my overwrought state; she is, certainly, no ghost! She is just as certainly a woman of flesh and blood, as I am a man of flesh and blood. But Black Isaïs transmits her rays from the other side through the medium of this woman and transforms her into what she was from the very beginning of her being. Each mortal has his god, his demon; and in him, in the words of the Apostle Paul, we live and move and have our being. And within me is John Dee; what difference does it make who John Dee is? Who I am? – There is One who has seen the Baphomet and is to attain the double face or perish.
I suddenly remembered Jane – – that is, Johanna Fromm. The game that fate is playing with us includes names. But this is all according to the law: our names are entered in the Book of Life.
I found Jane – as I will call her from now on, instead of Johanna – awake once more. She was sitting up in bed and smiling strangely to herself and so self-absorbed that she did not even notice I had entered.
She looked beautiful against the pillows; my heart leapt up at the sight, and miraculous was the combination of present affection and age-old union, like the strains of two melodies intertwining. It was almost a shock to recognise how similar this Johanna Fromm is to the Jane I have just left in the Prague of Emperor Rudolf.
I sat with her on the edge of the bed and kissed her. Confirmed bachelor that I am, there is no other thought in my mind than that I am her husband, bound in destiny to my wife Johanna.
And Jane took my presence as a matter of course; she lay there, relaxed in the security of a familiar relationship.
But not the relationship I wanted. Her gentle hand pushed away my more intimate advances. Her expression remained friendly but at the same time had a strange seriousness which separated her feelings from mine. I bombarded her with questions, then more carefully, more cautiously sought the key to her soul, to the torture chambers of her passions. In vain.
“Jane,” I cried, “I too am dazed by the miracle of this ... this reunion” – a shiver ran down my spine – “but now you must wake up to the living present. Take me as it was predetermined you should find me! Let us live! Forget! – And ... remember.”
“I remember.” A gentle smile plays about her lips.
“Then forget!”
“That too, my love. I ... am ... . forgetting –”
Fear tightens my throat, as if a dying soul were gradually slipping away from me:
“Johanna! – Jane!! How strange are the ways of destiny that bring us together again!” She slowly shakes her head: “Not the ways of destiny – the way of sacrifice, my dearest.”
My scalp prickles at the thought. Did Jane’s soul accompany my spirit on its journey into the past? I stammer:
“That is the deception of the Green Angel!”
“Oh no, my love, that is the wisdom of the High Rabbi.” And she smiles so deeply into my eyes that tears, streams of tears dim my sight.
I do not know how long I rested on the gentle rise and fall of her breast until the tears dried up and my taut nerves relaxed, drinking from her deep repose, like a child at its mother’s breast ...
Finally I understood the words she whispered as her hand kept stroking my head:
“It is not easy to tear oneself up, my darling! Roots bleed; it hurts. But it is only
the mortal part. On the other side everything is different. At least, my love, that is what I believe. I loved you too much ... once – when is immaterial, love knows nothing of time. Love is also destiny, is that not so? – And yes, I did betray you ... I did betray you then. O God! ...” Her body shook with short, painful spasms, but she ignored them and bravely continued:
“...it must have been my destiny. For it was not my will, not that. As we might say today, it was like the switch on the points: such a small thing, so inconspicuous, and yet it can shift the power of an express train onto another line and send it hurtling off into the distance, to send it home. See, my love, my betrayal of you – of John Dee – was such a switch: and your destiny went rushing along a path to the right, mine to the left. How should the two lines, once they had separated, reunite? Your way was leading you to the – ‘Other’ woman, mine to ...”
“My way was leading me to the ‘Other’ woman!?” I raged; I laughed, I was indignant; I was the victor! – “Johanna, how can you think that of me! My jealous little Jane! You think the Princess could be of any danger to you?!”
Jane started up from the pillows and stared at me blankly.
“Princess? What Princess do you mean? – Oh, yes. the Russian woman. I had forgotten that she ... that she is still living.” – Then her face took on a thoughtful, almost rapt expression and she said aloud to herself:
“My God! I hadn’t thought of her!” – and she grasped both my arms with such horrified violence that I was fixed motionless in the vice of her fear. I could not understand what she was talking about and what she was afraid of. I looked at her questioningly.
“Why this great fear, Johanna, my foolish, little darling?”
“We still have that to face!” she whispered to herself. “Oh, now I know what must happen.”
“You know nothing of the sort!” I chaffed her and felt my laugh echo in the silence. She said:
“My love, your road to the Queen is not clear yet. I ... will clear it for you.”
I felt a vague fear – of what, I could not say – pass through me like a long flare of lightning. I wanted to speak, but could not. Silent, I looked at Jane. She was smiling sadly down at me. All at once I had a dark sense of what she meant and felt paralysis creep over me.
I have left Jane alone, at her request.
Now I am back at my desk, trying to write down an account of what has passed:
Was it jealousy? A feminine pre-emptive strike against a sensed – or just imagined – danger? One possible explanation is that Jane’s express determination to relinquish her claim on me in favour of a phantom, a romantic illusion is a determination with a secret reservation. Where is the “Other” woman, this “Queen”, then? Who will bring the vision of the Baphomet to me, down from the world of dreams into this year of grace? It may all represent a mission, a spiritual goal, symbolise a deeper awareness of life which I am at present not yet able fully to comprehend but, however that may be and however I may look up to it, what has it to do with the immediate physical beauty of the woman I love? For I am in love with Jane, in love with her, that is certain, that is the positive gain from the strange twist of fate that deposited John Roger’s legacy on my desk, like flotsam from a shipwreck.
Either Jane will make me forget the road to the “Queen” or, with her goodness, her special spiritual abilities she will clear the way to the other side. Where does that leave Princess Shotokalungin? Whenever I indulge in irony, enjoy a sense of male superiority, Johanna’s earnest face always appears to prick the bubble of my arrogance: her intense gaze seems fixed on a goal that I cannot even sense. I feel that this woman has a definite plan, that she knows something that I do not know – as if she were the mother and I not much more than ... her child.
There is much I have to catch up on. I will have to compress it, for my life has started to move at such a pace that the hours spent at my desk seem wasted time.
The day before yesterday, my writing was interrupted by a kiss from Jane, the kiss of the dearest woman, who had crept up, unheard, behind me.
She chatted like any sensible wife, returning after a long absence to take charge of the household and asking the sensible questions. I teased her a little about it and she laughed, relaxed and secure. I kept having to restrain myself from reaching out to her and her maternal embrace. Suddenly, without apparent reason, her clear, open face took on again that same strange earnestness I had noticed before; she said calmly:
“My love, you must visit the Princess; it is necessary.”
“What, Jane?” I cried in astonishment. “You want to send me to that woman?”
“Of whom I am so jealous, aren’t I, dearest?” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes retained their pensive earnestness.
I did not understand. I refused to make such a visit. Whatever for? And for whose sake?
Jane – I only call her Jane now, and every time I say the name I take a deep breath and seem to draw strength from the cool well of the past – Jane refused to give in. She dreamed up all sorts of reasons, absurd reasons: I owed the Princess a visit; but she – Jane – was also keen for me to keep up relations with the Princess, indeed, keener than she could express in words. Finally she accused me of cowardice. That did it. A coward!? Never! If there is some old account of John Dee’s or of John Roger’s, to be settled then it shall be settled, right down to the last ha’penny. I jumped up and told Jane of my determination and she fell down at my feet, wringing her hands and – crying.
On my way to Princess Shotokalungin’s I thought about the strange way Jane kept changing. When, under the influence of things from the past, she feels herself to be Jane Fromont, John Dee’s wife, her whole being becomes subservient, deferential, a little tearful. When, however, it is Frau Johanna Fromm who speaks she exudes decisiveness, an inexplicable strength, a maternal firmness and kindness which masters me.
Occupied with such thoughts, I had reached the villa where Princess Shotokalungin lived on the edge of the hills outside town before I realised it. As I pressed the electric bell at the gate I felt a slight sense of apprehension, although a quick glance at the front garden and the house should have assured me that I would scarcely meet with anything out of the ordinary here. The villa was of a common type, built some thirty years ago, since when it would have been in the hands of several speculative landlords. The Princess, so I had heard, had only rented it because it was always available: an ordinary house set in an ordinary little suburban garden on the edge of the city.
The automatic lock clicked open. I entered the garden. There was already someone waiting to receive me under the frosted glass roof of the little porch. It must have been the refracted light, falling from above through the milky glass that gave the servant’s hands and face such a ghastly blue colour – I said to myself to calm my shock at the sight of the man in the dark Circassian costume. His face had an unmistakably Mongolian cast; the eyes were scarcely to be seen beneath the lowered lids. To my question as to whether the Princess was available he said nothing, just gave a jerky nod, inclined his upper body, crossing his arms over his chest in the Oriental manner – all as if he were a puppet with someone above him pulling the strings.
Then the livid, corpse-like gatekeeper disappeared behind me, and I entered the dimly-lit hall where I was received by two further figures, who silently appeared, took my coat and hat and, like well-oiled, functional automata, sent me on my way like a parcel. “A parcel” – I felt as if I were the incarnation of the image I had recently used in my log book as a symbol of man’s life on earth.
Meanwhile one of the two Kurdish demons had flung open the double door and, with a peculiar movement of the hand, invited me to proceed.
“Is that really a human being?” – it seemed a mad question to ask oneself, but as I walked past the bloodless, clay-complexioned figure I caught a whiff of the grave – a zombie?! I rejected the crazy notion immediately; of course it’s quite natural that the Princess, coming from the East herself, should h
ave old Mongolian retainers, perfectly trained ... ‘automata’. I must be careful not to put a romantic gloss on everything, not to let my imagination see dangers where there are none.
Whilst these thoughts occupied me I was ushered with deep bows through several rooms of such ordinariness that I can remember nothing about them. Then, suddenly, I found myself alone in a room furnished in the oriental style; walls and floor were covered with costly oriental rugs, low cushions were strewn everywhere and at every step the foot sank into rich furs: the whole effect was more like the tent of a nomad prince than a German suburban villa, but that was not what gave the room its particular atmosphere.
Was it the tarnished weapons that bristled from every fold of the wall-hangings? You could see straight away that they were not mere decorations brought in by some interior designer: they were visibly flecked with blood and still gave off a faint bitter odour of their cruel use, weapons still quivering with the sound of dark betrayal, merciless butchery and senseless slaughter.
Or was it the contrasting functionality of a huge bookcase which took up one whole wall and was full of old volumes bound in leather or vellum? On the top shelf stood a few bronze heads, black with the patina of age: half barbaric gods, from whose obsidian black faces eyes of onyx and moonstone stared down at you with a demonic glitter.
The Angel of the West Window Page 28