Tremble

by Tobsha Learner

  For the sake of discretion, Dr. McPhee installed Alistair in an office that, unless one had prior knowledge of its hidden doorway, was impossible to locate—which was entirely McPhee’s intention as he feared the intrusion of any other staff.

  The room was freezing, heated only by the steam off a nearby water heater. Alistair bent over the desk, his icy hands clad in fingerless mittens, a threadbare scarf wound around his thin neck, painstakingly copying the shape of a bronze figure entitled Priapus pouring. The crowned god was standing with one hand on his hip, robed except for his naked erect phallus over which he appeared to be pouring holy oil. An expression of amused detachment adorned the deity’s face, as if the tumescent organ might possibly belong to someone else.

  The archaeologist’s drawing was as good as his Latin, and he had accurately sketched in the details of the figure in Indian ink: the folds of the robe, the long wavy beard that suggested a Persian influence, the high crown perched on the figure’s head. He was just about to begin sketching the erect member itself when McPhee burst through the door in his customary bombastic fashion.

  “Lad, I think not!” he exclaimed, his voice tight with outrage, one long yellow fingernail pointing critically at the offending appendage. “We at the BM have our standards. Standards we are obliged by Queen and State to uphold. I suggest either a reduction in size or, better still for the sake of modesty, a blank.”

  Alistair looked at him, perplexed.

  “A blank? You mean a cloud around the groin area?” he asked innocently, privately appalled by his employer’s request, but at the same time considering the possibility that McPhee might have drawn such a cloud around his own genitals a good five decades earlier.

  “A cloud? Tosh and poppycock! I said a blank and I mean a blank!”

  The octogenarian looked as if he might explode with rage, but Alistair was not to be deterred.

  “But Dr. McPhee, that would not be historically accurate.”

  “Mr. Sizzlehorn, when you are as decrepit as I am, ye’ll understand that history is a fluid concept, merely elastic reportage that is shaped and documented by the historian. We are not only archaeologists, we are also custodians—custodians of the Christian soul, which is an impressionable and fragile thing. We cannot allow images of celestial beings with huge…” At this point the man began to splutter, saliva flying as he tried to wrap his tongue around a word that had perhaps never before graced his mouth.

  “Reproductive organs?” Alistair articulated helpfully, which only irked the professor further.

  “Precisely. Mothers and children might see such a thing and be greatly distressed or, worse, corrupted. The British Empire cannot have that, never mind the British Museum, not to mention the British Queen.”

  “Quite; but this is a private commission and Lady Whistle has specifically requested that the depictions be accurate.”

  “That might be the case, laddie, but I also know that Lady Whistle intends to donate the catalogues to the museum after her death, and if we are to display them at any time in the future they will require censorship.”

  “But should I not consult with Lady Whistle first?”

  McPhee paused, stared at the offending member with unbridled disgust, then sighed heavily.

  “In that case, I suggest a compromise. Ye are to draw only the outline of these…areas without filling them in in any manner whatsoever. This will greatly lessen the impact of such obscene realism.”

  “Do I have a choice, Dr. McPhee?”

  “No, ye do not, Mr. Sizzlehorn. Och, and by the way, this came for you, by way of Lady Whistle’s valet.”

  McPhee handed Alistair an envelope of the finest parchment and smelling faintly of vanilla. It was sealed with a crest depicting bagpipes crossed with what looked like a Corsican coat of arms, making Alistair wonder again as to the origins of his patroness. He opened the envelope cautiously: a five-guinea coin fell out. The invitation was written in an elegant hand that could only be female:

  You are expected at Lady Whistle’s townhouse at seven this evening, both to sup and commence work on a more private matter. Tardiness of any kind will not be tolerated.

  The address was scrawled on the back of the envelope. Alistair lifted it to his nose and breathed in the scent deeply. Behind him he heard McPhee sniff in disapproval.

  “I’d be putting that coin away safely, if I were you, laddie. She’ll be making you work hard for your money—believe me, I know,” the professor said, an odd smile playing across his lips, leaving Alistair with the uncomfortable impression that there might be more to McPhee’s relationship with Lady Whistle than he had originally perceived.

  Number 36 The Strand was a Georgian townhouse of elegant classical proportions, opposite gardens and close to the Temple. The mock Grecian porticoes and arches above the windows delighted the aesthete in Alistair. The archaeologist, dressed in his best attire, paused before walking up the gravel path to pull down his tails and adjust his only tall hat. This was the life he aspired to, this was why he had fought so hard to escape the dreary rectory he had grown up in where his father’s frugality had been constantly drummed into him. This was what his soul had yearned for: the effortless grace money brought, and with it the luxury of time to devote oneself to philosophical matters, to the pursuit of sensuality and the indulgence in all things wantonly human.

  Already he saw himself escorting a beautiful sophisticate like Lady Whistle, riding with her in Hyde Park, sitting with her at the Opera, accompanying her to the theater. His daydream was rudely interrupted by the bruised face of a street pauper, no more than eight years of age.

  “Spare a ha’penny, mister, for an orphan of the gutter.”

  Caught unawares and feeling guilty for the extravagance of his reverie, Alistair threw the boy a penny—something he would never normally do.

  “Thank ye kindly and God bless,” the child called out, running off down the street before Alistair changed his mind.

  In two strides the youth arrived at the imposing door. Through a window he thought he detected the flurry of a movement before he pulled the cord of the doorbell.

  Alistair leaned back in the cushioned armchair, repressing the desire to belch. Before him sat a supper tray still laden with plates.

  To his immense disappointment he had been welcomed not by Lady Whistle but by a maid who had ushered him into a study off the spacious reception area, which was dominated by a sweeping marble staircase.

  “Madam is occupied with an unexpected visitor,” the maid had explained. “But she wished for you to sup and said you would understand the work she has left for you here.”

  The study contained a bookcase filled with what appeared to be leatherbound travel diaries—secured behind a locked glass door, to Alistair’s frustration—maps of antiquity on the walls, and a walnut desk upon which lay the section of the scroll he had viewed earlier with four stanzas in Latin beneath it.

  Almost immediately the maid returned with a supper tray. After she had left Alistair uncovered the dinner: a steaming feast of succulent roast pork, apple sauce, roast potatoes, stewed swede, and a side of marinated quinces, followed by a rice pudding drenched in a butterscotch sauce. The meal was accompanied by a mellow claret of some vintage. Alistair could not remember supping so well in his life.

  As he ate he fancied he heard the low murmuring of a male voice in the room next door, followed by the staccato of a woman laughing. Torn between satiating his appetite and satisfying his voracious curiosity, he hastily finished the dessert and tiptoed to the wall to press his ear against the fabric of the wallpaper.

  “It is a ridiculous and preposterously carnal idea, Elendora, an alchemy of the absurd. It simply won’t work,” the male voice announced in an amused tone. It was a voice rich with wit and irony and Alistair recognized it immediately. He had met its owner on one unforgettable occasion, when he made a state visit to the museum to indulge a well-known (and diverse) interest in the antiquities of the Mediterranean.


  “But, Dizzy, think of the fun I shall have along the way!” Lady Whistle laughed in such an intimate way that Alistair was convinced Disraeli must count her among his many conquests.

  “I have heard nothing,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared. “My ears remain unsullied, and, if anyone should ask, I shall declare my absolute ignorance!”

  “’Tis a pity we should become so rigid and fidelity should take on such ridiculous importance as we get older. You used to be such a delightful distraction in your younger days.”

  “That, my dear, is the penalty of hindsight and wisdom.”

  “And ambition perhaps,” Lady Whistle replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  At this the voices faded, as if the speakers had moved to another part of the room. Abashed at his eavesdropping, and with his heart thudding at being in such close proximity to a man he greatly admired, Alistair returned to the desk, wondering how on earth Mr. Disraeli might be connected to Lady Whistle and her commission.

  It was with this thought foremost in his mind that he began the painstaking task of translating the Latin text.

  Each stanza ran under a different section of the mural. As Alistair stared at the seminaked figures twisting in a variety of embraces, it became clear to him that the orgy itself was in fact a sequence: four phases of activity clearly linked to the verse accompanying it. He read over the first stanza again.

  Gather together boy, girl, or priest (scholar?)

  Create a celebration (or feast)

  Revelries to toast the God himself

  Lord of the Harvest, make the dance (orgy?) complete

  And immortal joy, eternal youth, shall be thy wealth.

  Her scent betrayed her first. Realizing that she stood behind him, a shiver ran down the back of Alistair’s neck then turned into pinpricks along his spine. It was the combination of her perfume and the warmth of her body and, under it, something else that teased at his virginal senses. The hidden matrix of woman, the odor of sex still lingering. But more disturbing was the realization that he had not heard her entry into the room nor her footsteps upon the polished floor. It was as if she had appeared behind him magically and it was this uncomfortable sensation that kept him frozen to his seat, eyes forward.

  She spoke and the warmth of her breath tickled his ears.

  “Well, my young man,”—he thrilled at her use of my—“what mysteries have you unveiled for me?”

  She moved around the desk to face him. She wore a lilac satin ball gown pleated into a thousand shimmering folds at the waist, the bodice as tight as a second skin, its dangerously low décolletage edged in black lace. The sleeves were ornate and unusual: their long cuffs of matching black lace finished well past her hands and were reminiscent of the medieval era. Her neckline was naked except for a choker of ornate jet. The spiky pieces so resembled shards of broken glass that Alistair found himself wondering how the stones did not cut into her flesh. A shiny band of black against the dazzling whiteness of her skin, which was as smooth as a girl’s, the choker seemed to separate her head from the rest of her body, her face floating above it.

  Her ebony hair was swept up to reveal a deliciously long neck and rather large unadorned ears. These appeared to be her only flaw and, like the deliberate fault woven into a Persian carpet, merely displayed her other perfections to greater advantage. Her cheeks were flushed and Alistair was convinced he could see the outline of a love rose—the imprint of teeth just visible—fading from her neck. Again he wondered about her relationship with the Jewish statesman.

  He pushed his scribbled notes toward her.

  “It is a ballad, a narrative explaining the actions within the mural.”

  “Now tell me something I do not already know.” She smiled and leaned toward him, perfectly aware that by doing so she revealed more of her breasts. Alistair, cursing his impetuous hormones, crossed his legs and examined the document in a vain attempt to control the dancing hieroglyphics his own words had suddenly transformed into.

  “Well, madam,” he played for time, “the text appears to be an instruction manual divided into four stanzas. As you will observe, the…the…” He struggled for an appropriate word that would not be deemed disrespectful, “…revelry is in fact a narration itself. We see the same thirteen participants throughout the mural, each time engaged in an entirely different set of actions. As far as I can tell, there are four separate dances or choreographs to the…”

  “Orgy, Mr. Sizzlehorn. We are adults; I think we may speak plainly.”

  “Quite; orgy. So the four stanzas are a means of explanation for the different stages.”

  “And you have translated the first, I see?”

  “I have begun, although there is some confusion as to the exact translation for each of the participants. For example, the first line may be translated both as scholar or preacher, although the word purity in relation to this particular individual is entirely unambiguous. In contrast, the use of girl or young woman here suggests an individual who is not chaste because it could be translated both as wife or female slave.”

  “You mean to say there is a prescriptive aspect to the description of the individuals involved?”

  “Indeed. The first stanza is a general summary of the…orgy and its intention; the next three appear to give specific instructions, including the astrological timing of the event, which seems to be of paramount importance. This is linked to the placement of Jupiter, the planet, and to the geometric symbolism of the positioning of the figures, which is extraordinary because the mural itself is an illusion.”

  “In what way, Mr. Sizzlehorn?”

  “Well, at first glance one believes oneself to be viewing a chaos of wild abandonment, of spontaneous desires, but in fact it is anything but. Rather it is a highly coordinated and extremely controlled sequence of poses.”

  “Therein lies Eros.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t follow…”

  “You are young, Mr. Sizzlehorn, and the young are romantic. They believe in the natural impulses, in the unfettered spontaneity of love. But believe me, when one has a wealth of experience a certain jadedness sets in, and one finds oneself searching for sophistication, for a civilization of desire. Refinement and restriction become erotic.”

  “But what of the heart?” Alistair couldn’t refrain from blurting out, strangely worried for the soul of the woman standing before him. She smiled in a bemused fashion; a less generous person might have called it condescending.

  “Mr. Sizzlehorn, I am rich, very rich, and the very rich are very different. We leave matters of the heart to the lower classes, because we can afford to.”

  A chill swept over the archaeologist as, for a fleeting moment, he caught a glimpse of how she might observe him through such a prism. The view was not pretty.

  “But back to the task at hand. Please translate for me the final two lines of the first stanza, which I believe might contain the overall conclusion.” She waited, her face impassive.

  “Lord of the Harvest, make the dance (orgy?) complete / And immortal joy, eternal youth, shall be thy wealth,” he read aloud as undramatically as he could.

  “Then it is fatum. You must transcribe the last three stanzas as accurately as possible so the real dance can begin.”

  “The real dance, Lady Whistle?”

  “The reenactment, Mr. Sizzlehorn. The reenactment.”

  As January exhaled its frosty breath, giving way to the slightly more hopeful month of February, Alistair finished the sketching of ten objects: three small bronzes, three plates with erotic scenes painted upon them, one hand mirror, two lamps (the wick emerging from the tip of the phallus), and one Hellenistic herm with the obligatory erection. Each drawing took several days and at the end of each week he visited Lady Whistle’s townhouse to hand his work over to Toby. The valet would then gleefully fill in the blank areas McPhee had insisted upon. The first time he saw Toby sketching in an enormous phallus with dismaying expertise, the archaeologist had protested, shocked
that Lady Whistle should be so flippant regarding the explicit commands of his employer.

  “Dr. McPhee was most adamant,” he exclaimed. “He assured me that if the depictions were literal they would never be exhibited at the museum. He was concerned about their impact upon the Christian soul, Lady Whistle.”

  The aristocrat merely laughed.

  “Does the Christian soul lack the facility for Eros, sir? I think not. And as Eros lives within the body, as does the soul, I would argue that both are God-given and thereby equally deserve celebration.”

  “Perhaps. But do you not want the catalogue to be displayed?”

  “Naturally. And one day it shall be, in all its full glory, to be looked upon by eyes far less prejudiced and more enlightened than our own. Besides, to allow such omissions is to undermine the intention of the objects themselves.”

  “But what shall I say to Dr. McPhee?” Alistair’s heart sank; in his mind’s eye he could already see his diminutive employer imploding with rage.

  “Say nothing. I shall tell him I am keeping each completed drawing to be bound in a set, and when he wishes to look upon it I shall have a plethora of excuses to take us into eternity.”

  “But that would be a lie, my lady.”

  “Not a lie but a strategy. You would do well to learn the craft, Alistair,” she retorted, her black eyes shining. The archaeologist couldn’t help but grow heady at her use of his Christian name.

  He had also finished the translation of a second stanza and was working on the third. The second verse sat beneath a scenario in which thirteen participants were arranged in a star formation, fornicating in ways Alistair had never imagined possible. Several times he had to turn the scroll upside down to work out which organ was entering which orifice—always keeping in mind McPhee’s instruction to maintain a scientific perspective at all times.