Unquenchable Fire

by Rachel Pollack

  ‘How can you promise something like that?’

  ‘We won’t step on it. We’ll drive right past it.’

  ‘What’s the difference? If that didn’t happen something else would. Something always happens.’

  ‘That’s not true. Nothing’ll ever happen again.’

  ‘What about the touchstone? Do you think I can stand something like that again?’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘You thought it didn’t happen to me. Just to you. Shit, I was standing right next to you. Things like that are not supposed to happen. Seeing the touchstone’s just a formality. Like standing on the map. God. A formality.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the hive. We can move. We can sell the house and get an apartment.’

  ‘What about our honeymoon? Do you think everyone who goes to Bermuda sees a precursor? It’s not the hive, Jennie. It’s you.’

  ‘How do you know that? How do you know that? Maybe it’s you?’

  ‘It’s not me.’

  ‘How do you know? Maybe you’ve got a Ferocious One lodged inside you somewhere. Maybe you should go to the SDA.’

  ‘Come on, Jennie.’

  ‘These things never happened to me until I met you.’

  ‘So maybe I bring it out in you. Maybe sex does. That’s what the body path people say, right? But there’s still a difference. You enjoy it. You love it. You want them to happen. And I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand it.’

  ‘I don’t want it if it’ll take my husband away.’

  ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure about that? Suppose you could make some kind of a deal. You and I stay together in exchange for no more visions, no more events, no more special revelations. Would you want that?’

  ‘Yes. That’s all I ever wanted.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’d really settle for a nice normal symbolic life in the suburbs?’

  ‘I moved here with you, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’re lying, Jennie. To yourself as much as me.’

  ‘I’m not. I just want you.’

  ‘Then why do you keep talking about the Time of Fanatics as a great period? I don’t even like hearing about it.’

  ‘I’ll stop. I’ll never mention it again.’

  ‘It’s not the talk that counts.’

  ‘Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I could go and get a scan. Or check in at the hospital for tests.’

  Mike laughed. ‘How can there be something wrong with you? These things that happen to you, they’re supposed to happen. Didn’t you tell me that?’

  ‘What do you mean? When did I say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lots of times. You’re always saying you want a real event, not just a symbol.’

  ‘Well, I’m wrong. That’s all.’

  ‘No, you’re not wrong. You’re right. That’s something I had to realise the last two weeks. You’re probably the only person around here who’s really right. The Tellers, and the Pictures, and the Enactments, they’re supposed to break things down, open channels, all that stuff. But they only do it when you’re around. And I can’t live with that. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘Well, what good is it then, if it takes my husband away?’

  ‘Maybe you can find someone else. Someone who won’t run away from it.’

  ‘I don’t want someone else. I want you.’

  ‘Maybe an artist—’

  ‘You bastard!’ she shouted.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘You’re just doing all these things because you hate my mother.’

  ‘I’m doing this because I’ve got to survive.’

  ‘Why can’t you survive with me? I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, Jennie.’ Suddenly he was holding her, they were crying, and Jennie thought, it’s okay, he’s not going to leave. But then Mike pulled away. Still crying he said, ‘I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Please stay with me. Please. Just tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not? Just one night.’

  ‘I can’t.’ He headed for the door.

  ‘I’ll change,’ she said. ‘It won’t happen again. I promise it won’t. I promise.’ She wrapped her arms around him.

  It took several seconds to break her grip. When he did, she fell backwards onto the edge of the couch. By the time she’d got up again, Mike had run out of the door. She ran after him, and when he started to back his car out of the driveway Jennie almost ran behind it. Something, not safety, held her back. She beat the rolled up windows. ‘Mike’ she shouted through the glass. ‘I love you.’ He turned the car into the road and gunned the engine. For a moment Jennie stood there, staring after him, until she noticed Gloria and Al Rich peeking out from between their living room curtains. She ran in the house and slammed the door.

  Two days later Jennie received a notice from the Dutchess County Court. Her husband, Michael Laurence Gold, had filed for an annulment. The date given was four days earlier, two days before he’d come to see her. Three months later the court granted the annulment, affirming that a true spiritual conjunction had never taken place. Jennie was ordered to resume her maiden name. The court ordered her to break all contact with Mr Gold. Intermediaries would arrange a property settlement. Any property owned jointly, such as the house, would go to one of them, with the other receiving compensation for half the assessed value. (In the event Mike waived all claim on the house and its infant mortgage.) New deeds or official documents would be issued, backdated and showing only the single name. The court allowed two months for these arrangements, with both sides required to cooperate. After that, Jennifer Grace Mazdan must obliterate, in her possessions, in her habits, in her conversation, in her thoughts and memories, all structures, signs, and tokens that she had ever known, or met, or heard of Michael Laurence Gold.

  Fragments from THE TALE OF DUSTFATHER AND MOTHERSNAKE, first told by Ingrid Burning Snake at the mass wedding of the Earth and the Sky in New York City.

  This tale, recited at all weddings, is never printed in its entirety. At the same time, it remains the best known of all the prime Pictures. For who, as a child, has not hidden in the huge painted boxes that mark a wedding ceremony, ready to scream and wave noisemakers whenever the Teller mentions the name of the Hooded Man? And who, as an adult, has not joined in the stomping and whistling to drive away the Malignant Ones when the bride raises the black bladed knife to mime the circumcision of her terrified husband?

  My body lies over the ocean

  My body lies under the sea

  My body lies cut in the courtyard

  Please bring back my body to me

  Bring back, bring back,

  Please bring back my body to me

  Children’s song, sung at a wedding.

  Dustfather and Mothersnake cleared the city of our enemies. Our parents made the city safe for their children. They climbed to the top of the world, they lay on the twin tower-tops. Dustfather swung his legs over to the side, he banged his thighs with his hands. Across from him Mothersnake flicked her tongue in her mouth. Our ancestors made so much noise that all the fake people, all the straw men and the women made of leaves, all the clock people with their faces drawn by the Hooded Man, all the fakes left their hiding places and ran to throw pieces of concrete at Dustfather and Mothersnake. The Hooded Man saw this, he saw the trap, he flew to warn his children. He was too late. He was too far away. He had followed the false trail, the trail of skin he thought would lead him to Mothersnake hiding in the mud south of the city.

  When all the fakes had gathered below the towers, when they stood in their striped pants and checked dresses, throwing concrete stones at Dustfather and Mothersnake, then our parents stood up and clapped their hands. A hot wind lifted the fakes, it blew them backwards, it tumbled them through the streets until they broke apart against the iron wall.

  When Dustfather and Mothersnake had hatched all their children, when they had brought our dripping bodi
es into the world and licked us clean, then they kissed each other and decided to return to the black circle. But when they tore down the wall they found that a layer of ice had frozen over the hole. Dirt had settled on the ice, and trees, and grass and flowers, and in the centre a round carousel with blind horses, their mouths forever open, hungry and silent. Angry, Dustfather wanted to pull out the trees and crush the rocks. But Mothersnake held his arms, she slid her body against him until his rage settled and he could see his children riding the horses, or kicking a ball across the grass, or sitting on plastic chairs and looking around for waiters to serve them ice cream and mineral water. We can never go home, Mothersnake told him, we must find a house and live here with our children.

  They returned to the city. Modestly they stood in line by the housing bureau. But as soon as they spoke, as soon as the thunder of their voices splintered the desks and caved in the file cabinets, then their children recognized them. They gave them a domed house on top of the hill at the northern end of the island. There the Bright Beings could visit them and tell them news of the Living World.

  There they could look out upon the river and watch the golden ships, with their cargoes of stories, sail to the empty lands. In those places, those empty lands, the Earth would crack open if someone stamped on it, and the trees broke if anyone leaned on them, and the rocks crumbled as soon as someone sat down on them. For the Hooded Man had sucked out all the stories, he sucked them out with a long yellow tube and spat them into the sky. They hung there, in thick clouds, afraid to rain. But after a while the clouds drifted away, and so they finally arrived over the city. Then Dustfather built aeroplanes with loud engines, he showed the people how to fly under the clouds and wake them up; and Mothersnake formed a choir to soothe the clouds and relieve their fears. The clouds broke open. The stories poured down into huge green buckets set along the rooftops. Afterwards, the navy loaded the buckets onto ships. When they came to the empty lands they restored the stories to the Earth, and in that way people could live there again.

  Now, all this time Dustfather believed that the Hooded Man had died in a blizzard. The Hooded Man had grown the blizzard himself, he hoped he would freeze our parents when they removed their skins to teach each other how to make love. When he failed his fury released an avalanche that buried the Hooded Man in snow.

  But Mothersnake worried because the robot searchers had never found the Hooded Man’s body. Sometimes she would wake up at night, certain she could see grey claws about to slice her throat. ‘He’s alive!’ she would shout, and Dustfather would stroke her and kiss her and tell her that the noise and smoke from their children had polluted her dreams.

  Though Mothersnake allowed him to calm her, she could hear the laughter hiding in his voice. She never said anything. Later, after Dustfather’s death, she wondered why she had never challenged him. She understood then that the Hooded Man had already begun to infect them, from those very first days in their house on the hill. His insects must have flown into their ears while they slept, leaving eggs full of poison ready to hatch when our parents would no longer suspect anything.

  The Hooded Man stayed hidden but his servants continued his work. One day, Mothersnake lay asleep in the backyard of their house. Her eyes stayed open so she would not miss any piece of her dreams. Dustfather looked at her and he thought, soon she’ll be raving again, ‘He’s alive, he’s alive.’ He disguised himself as a dog to go for a walk in the streets below their house. He’d done this many times, but now a trio of cats walked alongside him. Why do you allow her to strut about and flash her breasts and wiggle her bottom as if she, and she alone, made the world? She didn’t build the wall, she didn’t trap the Hooded Man in the subway tunnel, what did she ever do but squat in the wet sand and wait for you to fill her with life? Now she flings her hair and snaps her teeth and talks about her children, her creation.

  Dustfather began to sweat. He changed into a crow and flew away. The cats became doves and chased him, they cooed, you made the world, don’t you remember? You shook your lightning and broke the seas, don’t you remember? You made it with a wave of your hand, you made it with a word, with a breath, remember, remember.

  In her house our ancient mother woke up. Mothersnake reared back and turned her head side to side. Where had Dustfather gone? Why couldn’t she hear his paws loping through the city? She slithered along the stone floor. Her tongue opened the door. She saw mountains. Instead of the spirally pathway down to the street she saw silvery mountains. Somewhere very far away a bird cried. Mothersnake closed the door and began to weep. She would wait all night for Dustfather to return. Longer than the coil of centuries in the city below she would wait for him. She would sit on their bed of silk and she would wait, Mothersnake would wait for Dustfather through the long night. But she knew he would never return.

  The women found Dustfather on the docks. Dustfather wore a long grey coat, torn at the sleeves; he swayed back and forth as he watched the empty boats tremble in the wind. The women were walking together, they wore the black leather dresses given to them by the Hooded Man. Their white masks were tied behind them to hang down their backs to the heels of their silver boots. As they walked they swung their arms, and their fingers touched, and they called to each other in high whistles that punctured the shriek of the storm.

  These were the women who belonged to the Hooded Man.

  He had come to each of them at three times in her life, on her fifth birthday, on her tenth birthday, and on her fifteenth birthday. To each one he appeared differently each time, as a father playing animals on the floor, or a man selling ice cream from the back of a truck, or an old man waiting for a bus, or a boy friend driving her in a gold and green car over the top of a steep hill. Each time he told her the same thing, that she would meet a man whose song could crack the sun and strip the dead skin off her body.

  On her twentieth birthday, each woman woke at dawn and began walking through the streets near her home. Further and further she walked, hour after hour, not knowing why, just filled with an urgency to go somewhere, see someone, hear somebody, hear something said in a casual laugh and a squint at the clouds. They did not know it, but they were hunting for the Hooded Man, they needed to hear him tell about the singer who could break through the twenty layers of crust that covered their bodies. But the Hooded Man will not be hunted, not by women who already belong to him. Many times they passed him, just as they had passed him every day of their lives. He buzzed round them like a fly and they flicked their fingers to get rid of him. He stared at them from a bench, he sat there disguised as a bent woman in a flowered dress full of stains and wrinkles. Their eyes slid over him. How could they trap him? What bait could they offer when he had already eaten them?

  The hungry women left their homes, they left their parents and their husbands and their friends, they left as the Sun fled the sky, they found empty boxes along the street and they climbed inside them. The night of her twentieth birthday each of the women heard a voice in her sleep. ‘Get up,’ it told her. ‘Get up. Run. Faster. Run.’ They ran until the Hooded Man had ripped their clothes with his fingernails, until the strips fluttered away behind them.

  The women pushed Dustfather into the warehouse. They sealed the tall metal door with their spittle, they rubbed their bodies against the lock. Dustfather tripped and one of the women kicked him. They kicked him, he fell against the cartons full of rotted milk. The women laughed, they stamped their feet against the stone floor. ‘Sing for us,’ one of them said, and they all laughed as they kicked him again. ‘Sing,’ they shouted. ‘Crack open the Sun. Sing for us.’

  Dustfather opened his mouth. Nothing came out. The women laughed, their voices bounced off the steel beams. ‘Sing!’ they ordered. Dustfather opened his mouth. Nothing came out. ‘Sing!’ the women screamed. Dustfather opened his mouth, he shook his tongue. A thin warble sounded, the breath of a song.

  The women stood still, their arms flattened against their sides. Our ancestor began to sing, and the
building shivered. The women looked around them and instead of the piled high boxes they saw thin orange lines stretching over buildings and hills. ‘Stop it,’ they shouted. They closed their eyes. They hit their eyes with the backs of their hands. Against the lids the lines extended further and further. The women began to fly along them, over mountains, over burning cities, over deserts of lost children. ‘Stop it,’ they begged.

  Dustfather sang louder. Up and down the women’s bodies the skin dried, it cracked open. The part that lived inside them spilled onto the floor. They slid on the slippery stone and fell into each other’s memories. Unable to stand they crawled past the boxes, they rolled over the broken glass until their fingernails could dig into Dustfather’s face. They clawed at him, they tore out his tongue, but he kept singing. They ripped him in half, they pulled loose the organs that over the centuries had hardened into black diamonds. Still the pieces kept on singing.

  But the song grew softer. The women discovered that they could stand. With the pieces in their hands they ran from the warehouse. Each one clutched a piece of our blessed ancestor’s body, and wherever they could they buried him, in parks, in the basements of buildings, under roads and riverbeds.

  Only one of the women tried to keep the piece she had stolen. She had taken the organ that had filled Mothersnake with seeds, with the voices that had woken up the eggs. She tried to hide it in her own body, but the Hooded Man sent his police to arrest her. They locked her in a cell and they shouted at her until she threw the piece onto the floor. Before the police could grab it it fled down a hole into the sewer and from there to the sea.

  Mothersnake bellowed her rage at the sky. Buildings fell, rivers swallowed boats of refugees trying to escape her. ‘What have you done to my brother?’ she shouted.

  The committee pressed their grey-suited bodies into the dirt. ‘It wasn’t us,’ they told her. ‘We’re investigating.’