The officials looked at their papers, spoke to the driver and interpreter, and let them in. The pilgrims stayed outside on the ground. Flora wondered how long they’d have to wait, and how important it was to pay over money before you were granted an interview; or maybe the goddess did a kind of group blessing from a distance. If she wasn’t even allowed to bleed, she might not be any more eager than James to get close to the diseased masses. Even when inside the courtyard you could hear a couple of them from over the wall, coughing their lungs out. The smell of decay that hung around the place might have been coming from the same source.
They were escorted across a vast, open space, through an archway, into another courtyard, across that, and to a third. The long-robed official then led them up on to the porch of one of the side buildings, around the verandah and into an assembly hall. It felt dark and cool after the walk in the open. About seventy people waited inside, some sitting on the floor and others – mainly Western tourists – either on the built-in wood bench that ran around three of the walls, or on fold-up seats they’d brought with them. There were also low stools you could borrow or rent from the temple.
The official swept forward towards a door at the far end of the hall. Two more robed figures stood on guard by it. Flora’s glance flickered lightly over the other people as she passed. There weren’t many children there, except for very small babies that had had to be taken along so the mother could feed them. Most of the believers or curiosity-seekers were grown up and a good proportion of them quite old. A lot of them were also talking, the deaf ones talking loudly. Perhaps the fact that one figure was on its own, not turned to anyone else, was what made Flora notice: there, sitting almost in the middle of the dark wooden floor, was Irma, resting her spine against her back-pack. Joe wasn’t with her. And she looked defeated, bedraggled, lost. Maybe she’d come not because this was a tourist attraction, but because she needed advice. She still looked to Flora like the complete guru-chaser – one of those girls who went wandering around looking for somebody to tell them the meaning of life. Yet she also looked desperate in another way, which Flora thought might not have anything to do with religion or philosophy or breaking up with a boyfriend, and might simply be financial. She was so struck by the girl’s attitude that she almost forgot about the goddess.
They were rushed onward. The sentries opened the double doors for them and they went through like an awaited procession, entering and leaving three more hallways, all empty and each quieter than the last, until they reached a room like a schoolroom full of benches, and were asked to sit down. Their officials stepped forward to speak with two middle-aged priestesses who had come out of the chamber beyond – perhaps the place where the goddess was actually sitting. The idea suddenly gave Flora the creeps. It was like visiting a tomb.
She whispered to James, ‘Did you see Irma out there?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m glad she’s split up with him, but she looks terrible. I think she must be broke.’
‘Probably.’
‘I’d like to give her something.’
‘No.’
‘Not much, just –’
It would mean so little to them, Flora thought, and so much to the girl. It would be even better to be able to tell her she’d done the right thing in leaving that boy and could choose a different man now if she wanted to, and this time find one who’d really love her.
James said, ‘You’ve got to let people lead their own lives.’
Of course, it was assuming a lot. Irma might not have broken up with Joe at all. They might be meeting again in the evening after seeing the sights separately. Even so, it was certainly true that she had run out of money. There had to be some way of helping her out, but Flora couldn’t think of one. Could she just hand over some cash and say, ‘Did you drop this?’ Maybe she could say, ‘We were in the restaurant that night and you must have left this behind, it was lying in the corner of the seat and we’ve been looking for you ever since.’
‘She’ll fall on her feet‚’ James told her.
‘For heaven’s sake. It looks like she’s fallen on her head. Can’t we do something?’
‘I don’t think so. And I don’t think we should. But if you still feel the same after we get through with this, we’ll see. You’ll have to figure out how to work it. And don’t invite her back in the car.’
Flora stared upward, dunking. She saw for the first time that the ceiling beams were carved at regular intervals with formal designs and they were painted in colours so bright that they looked like enamelwork. She’d been right; that kind of thing was much more interesting than the jade pavilion. She thought: I’ll just put some bills into an envelope and use the story about finding it in the restaurant. It was a shame when people ignored their good intentions because it was too difficult or too embarrassing to carry them out. She usually kept a few envelopes in her pocketbook.
The interpreter came back to their bench. ‘Who is the seeker of truth?’ he asked.
Flora looked blank. James said, ‘What?’
‘Is it you both two or three ask the goddess, or how many?’
‘Just one‚’ James said. ‘My wife.’
The man withdrew again. He spoke to the priestesses. One of them clapped her hands, the other went into the next room. The robed official spoke.
‘Arise, if you please,’ the interpreter told them. Michael moved from his bench to stand behind James. The three of them stepped forward until the official put up his hand against them.
The priestess came out again, leading a procession of eight women like herself. They walked two by two. In the middle of the line, after the first four and in front of the next four they’d kept a free space, in which trotted a midget-like, pink-clad figure: the goddess herself.
She was like a ceremonial doll only taken out on special occasions. Her robes reached to the floor. On her head she wore an elaborate triple-tiered crown of pearls and rubies and some sparkling greyish glass studs that were probably old diamonds. Long, wide earrings dangled from her ears and continued the framing lines of the ornamentation above, so that the still eyes seemed to float among the shimmering lights of crown, earrings, side panels and many-stranded necklaces.
All dressed up, just like a little lady, Flora thought; what a dreadful thing to do to that child. And yet the face that gazed out of all its glittering trappings was not exactly that of a child: enormous, dark eyes; serenely smiling mouth; the lovely bone-structure and the refinement of the features were like those of a miniature woman, not a child. Above all, the look of utter calmness and wisdom were strange to see. The girl could have been somewhere between seven and eight years old, although she was about the size of an American child of five.
The procession stopped. The official beckoned to Flora. She came up to where he pointed. The child, who hadn’t looked at anything particular in the room, turned to her with pleased recognition, like a mother greeting a daughter.
Flora bowed and smiled back, slightly flustered but tingling with gratification. This is weird, she thought. This is ridiculous. But as the procession wheeled around, heading back into the room it had come from and gathering her along with it, she knew she would follow wherever they went and for however long they wanted her to keep going. She was actually close to tears.
The room was not a room, only another corridor. They had to walk down several turnings until they emerged at a courtyard of fruit trees. They entered the audience chamber from the far side.
The goddess seated herself on a wooden throne raised on steps. Like the rafters in this room too, the throne was carved and painted. She sat on a cushion of some ordinary material like burlap, which made her robes appear even more luxurious by contrast. Her tiny feet in their embroidered magenta slippers rested on one of the steps.
A robed woman, who had been waiting for them in the room, came and stood behind and a little to the side of the throne like a governess or a chaperone. Flora wondered if in fact the woman was to be the one to
hand out the answers.
The little girl smiled prettily and said, ‘Please sit.’ She indicated the hassock in front of the steps to the throne. Flora knelt. She was uncomfortable. Her skirt felt too tight and her heart was thumping heavily. She raised her glance to the child and met, from out of all the silks and jewels, a look of happy repose.
‘Speak freely‚’ the child told her in a musical voice. ‘And say what is in your heart.’
Flora swallowed. She could hear the loud sound it made in her throat. All at once tears were in her eyes. She saw the figure before her in a blur, as if it might have been a holy statue and not a human being.
She began, ‘I don’t know what to do. Year after year. My life is useless. I have everything, nothing to want. Kind husband, wonderful children. I feel ashamed to be ungrateful, but it never was what … it never seemed like mine. It’s as if I’d never had my own self. But there’s one thing: a man. He’s the only one who isn’t corrupted, the only one I can rely on. I think about him all the time. I can’t stop. I can’t stand the idea that we’ll never be together. He’s only a servant. And I don’t know what to do. I love him so much.’ She ended on a sob and was silent.
She waited. Nothing happened. She sniffed, wiped the back of her hand across her cheek and looked up for her answer.
‘Love?’ the goddess asked.
Flora nodded. ‘Yes‚’ she mumbled. ‘Yes, yes.’
‘True love’, the sweet voice told her, ‘is poor.’
Poor? Flora was bewildered. Pure, she thought. Of course.
‘It is from the sky.’
The chaperone leaned forward towards the jewelled head. ‘Godly,’ she hissed.
‘Godly,’ the child repeated, smiling into Flora’s anxious face. The densely embellished right sleeve raised itself as the girl lifted her arm. The small hand made a lyrical gesture up towards the heavens and back in an arc to the ground: a movement that described beauty and love falling upon human lovers below, uniting as it touched them – bringing together, inevitably, her life and Michael’s without greed or insistence.
‘Yes, yes‚’ she stammered again. She felt stunned. She knew that she had had her answer, whatever it was. It would take her some time to figure out exactly what it meant.
The child hadn’t finished. ‘You must rise above‚’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You must ascend.’
‘Transcend‚’ the chaperone corrected.
‘Ascend‚’ the child repeated.
Flora nodded. She sighed and said, ‘Thank you.’ She started to get up. The chaperone came forward and, without touching, showed her the direction in which she should go. For a moment the woman blocked any further sight of the child. She indicated that Flora should move away, not try to catch another glimpse of the goddess, not to say thank you again; the interview was over.
She walked clumsily from the chamber and staggered a few times as she followed two priestesses back to the waiting-room. She bowed farewell to everyone. She let James take her by the arm. As they were ushered out, she leaned against him.
As soon as they passed outside the main gates, he began to hurry her along.
‘Why are we going so fast?’ she complained.
‘Because you look terrible. I want to get you back into the car. You look like you’re ready to faint again.’
‘You’re going too fast. I can’t keep up.’
‘Try, Flora‚’ he said. ‘We can carry you if we have to.’
‘No.’
‘Christ knows why I let you talk me into this. What did she do – say she saw the ace of spades in your palm, or something? Jesus.’ He and Michael bundled her into the car and they started on the drive to town.
She fell back in the seat. She still couldn’t think clearly. I must ascend, she thought. It might be painful, but it would be necessary. Did she mean that I have to rise above earthly love? Maybe what the goddess had meant was that in the end everyone died and went to heaven, so it wasn’t worth getting upset over unimportant things.
And perhaps the girl had also meant exactly what she’d said about love – that it was from heaven, freely given and necessary, but that rich people never had to feel necessity; if a friendship broke down, or a marriage, or a blood relationship, they somehow always managed to buy another one. Life could be made very agreeable that way. But love was what the goddess had said it was – not pure: poor.
‘Well?’ James asked.
‘Better,’ she said.
‘Thank God for that. What did the creature do to you?’
‘She told me I had to rise above.’
‘Rise above what?’
‘Oh, everything, I guess.’
‘And that’s what knocked you out – the Eastern version of moral uplift?’
‘I just suddenly felt sort of … I don’t know.’
He bent towards her, kissed her near her ear and whispered, ‘Pregnant.’
‘No.’
‘Sure? You’ve been close to fainting twice.’
‘Yes‚’ she said. ‘Yes, I’m sure. No. What did you think of it all, Michael?’
‘Very interesting indeed‚’ Michael answered. ‘It’s another way of life.’
‘What did you think of her? The goddess.’
‘Cute-looking little kid, but skinny as a rail underneath all those party clothes. You wonder if they feed them enough.’
‘Those hundreds of people on litters believe she can cure them.’
‘Yeah, well, they’re sick. Sick people believe in anything.’
‘Maybe they’re right. Sometimes if you have faith, it makes things true.’
James groaned slightly with impatience.
Michael said, ‘It’s deception. Self-deception always makes people feel good. But it wouldn’t fix a broken leg, if that’s what was wrong with you. It might help you get better quicker, once a doctor’s done the real work – see what I mean?’
‘Yes, I see‚’ she said. He didn’t understand. But there was no reason why he should. James said that she was tired and upset. ‘We’ll be back soon‚’ he assured her. ‘And let’s have an early lunch. I’m hungry as hell from getting up so early.’
‘Is it still morning? You didn’t think much of her, either, did you?’
‘I thought she looked great, really fabulous – the dress, like a walking cyclamen plant, and the whole effect very pretty but a bit bizarre: like a gnome out of a fairy-tale. What I don’t like is how she’s knocked the wind out of you. They aren’t supposed to do that. They’re supposed to give comfort and strength. That’s the nature of the job.’
‘She did. She gave me something to think about, anyway. All the rest was me trying to get out what I wanted to say.’
He held her hand. He didn’t ask what her request had been. He probably thought he knew; he’d think she’d have wanted to know something like, ‘Why can’t I be happy?’ Everybody wanted happiness.
The car speeded up along the stretches by the coastline. They opened the windows and got a whiff of the sea before returning to the air-conditioning. Flora breathed deeply. All beaches were the same: salt and iodine, like the summers of her childhood. New Caledonia would be like this, too.
They reached town before noon. James ordered the car to wait down a side street. The three of them got out and walked to one of the nice restaurants they had tried several times before. Flora was all right now, except that she felt bemused. She could walk without any trouble but she couldn’t stop thinking about the temple and the goddess. She especially couldn’t stop remembering the expression of joyful serenity on the child’s face. It seemed to her that if she kept up the attempt to recapture the way it looked, she wouldn’t have to let go of it.
The whole business had gone very quickly, as matters usually did when well-organized, and paid for, in advance. And now they were having a good meal in a comfortable restaurant; and only at that moment did Flora recall that she’d meant to go up to Irma on her way out and hand her some money in an envelope.
&nb
sp; ‘Eat,’ James said.
She shook her head.
‘Just a little,’ he insisted.
She picked up the china spoon and looked at it. She put it into the soup bowl. James watched patiently. When the children had been small, he was always the one who could make them eat when they didn’t want to, and later, make them brush their teeth: he let you know, without saying anything, that he was prepared to wait for ever, unchanging and with arms folded, until you did the right thing. Authority. And he never bothered with modern ideas about explaining things rationally. If the children asked, ‘Why do I have to?’ he’d answer, ‘Because I say so.’
She began slowly, then ate hungrily. Before the coffee, she went off to the ladies’ room for a long time and while she was there made sure that her face and hair looked perfect. She even thought of brushing her teeth with the travelling toothbrush she carried in her purse, but she’d be back at the hotel soon – she could do it there. James smiled approvingly as she emerged.
They sauntered out into the hot, dusty street again.
‘Museum?’ he suggested, ‘or siesta?’
‘A little nap might be nice. Is that all right with you, Michael?’
‘Sure, fine‚’ Michael said.
James stopped on the corner. ‘Where was that museum, anyhow?’ he asked. ‘Down around that street there somewhere, isn’t it?’
Michael looked up. He began to point things out in the distance. Flora kept walking around the bend as the street curved to the right. She drew back against the buildings to avoid three boys who were standing together and talking in whispers. But as soon as she was clear, two others came out of the doorway. She started to move away, but they came straight towards her. And suddenly the first three, their friends, were behind her, snatching at her arms. It was the same as the day before, but this time she screamed loudly for Michael before the hands started to grip over her eyes and mouth. She also kicked and thrashed while they dragged her along the sidewalk. Right at the beginning, except for her own outburst, all the violent pulling and shoving took place to the accompaniment of low mutters and hisses. Only when James and Michael came charging around the corner did the real noise begin.
Mrs Caliban and other stories Page 14