“Most men prefer not to think of such things, but they happen all the same. I wasn’t shocked. I’m broad-minded.”
“Tolerant, Robyn,” he said, his voice softening. “Well, some might not agree, but I assure you I do. No, her problems are…” More evasion. “Creative. To do with her art. She, er, works too hard for her own good.”
“Stop struggling, dear,” Robyn sighed. “If you can’t tell me, just say so. I don’t expect you to divulge professional secrets.”
“I’m sorry. It’s very delicate. Anyway, it’s academic, since she won’t see me.”
No more was said on the touchy subject of the dancer. They spent a pleasant morning together and were discussing the best place to go for lunch, when the doorbell rang. Mary came in to announce the visitor.
“Ma’am, there’s a lady to see Dr Stern. Madame Violette Lenoir.”
Robyn saw her uncle’s face turn the colour of ash.
* * *
“I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you,” said Violette.
She felt nervous; ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it. The maid had shown her and Josef into a morning room on the ground floor; a small, light space with a writing bureau, bookshelves, two armchairs, a towering rubber plant. Robyn was absent. Violette had asked to see him alone.
Josef was an ambiguous figure in Violette’s eyes. Slender, stooping a little as if he felt too tall, he seemed a silver-haired sage, full of wisdom.
He was not Janacek, who’d been a manipulative bully: simply a kind academic with a weakness for women. Also, she couldn’t help comparing him favourably with the self-styled magus Lancelyn, whose overconfidence and goatish sexuality had repelled her.
Josef was clearly uncomfortable in her presence. After all, she’d caught him in the most compromising position imaginable with Ilona. Then he’d witnessed their bloody fight – parts of it, at least. He’d regained consciousness in time to see Violette’s wild assault on Ilona.
“I’ve had time to think,” she said. “I’ve decided I should hear whatever you can tell me about Lilith.”
“Madame, I am honoured. Shall we sit down?”
They settled in leather armchairs, a few feet apart with a rug between them. She had refused the maid’s offer to take her coat and hat; irrational, but the garments were a layer of protection between her and an intrusive world.
She said, “There was another man who claimed to know my secrets. His name was Lancelyn. He tried to help, but he went too far and I destroyed him. He’s in an insane asylum. He might be dead by now, for all I know.”
“Is this a warning?” Josef asked gravely. “You cannot expect me to speak freely if I am afraid of what you might do if I offend you.”
“No, I want the truth,” she said. “I appreciate your taking a risk for my sake. Don’t be afraid. I’m here only to talk. That was why I came to your room before. Please understand, it’s extremely difficult for me to ask for help. I’m at your mercy.”
He appeared to relax a little. “All I demand is that no harm comes to my niece.”
“I promise.”
Josef cleared his throat. She felt as if she were in a psychiatrist’s office.
“Lilith is a figure who occurs in most mythologies, under different names, usually as a wind-hag. For instance, in Sumer she was Lil, a storm spirit, while the Semites of Mesopotamia called her Lilith, a night demon who lays hold of sleeping men and women and causes erotic dreams. In Syria she became a succubus and a child-killing witch. But she is best known from Jewish holy books, the Zohar and the Talmud, as the first wife of Adam.”
Unpleasant memories flared in Violette’s mind. She gave herself up to them, letting Josef’s voice soothe her. She said, “Yes, I was in the Garden, a disgustingly fecund garden crawling with life… The man lies over me, he won’t accept me as his equal, he tries to force me but I refuse. I call the secret name of God to free myself, and I flee to the desert. God sends three angels after me, but I won’t go back with them.”
“Their names?” Josef sounded intent, fascinated.
“Senoy, Sansenoy, Semangelof. I’d never heard those names until my transformation. The knowledge came from inside me, not from books.”
“Well, there are various stories of Lilith’s origins that sound archaic and strange to us now. The Zohar says that the Left, the side of Darkness, ‘flamed forth with its full power, and from this fiery flame came forth the female moonlike essence.’ Two great lights arose, the Sun and the Moon, but they quarrelled about their power and God settled the dispute by diminishing the Moon and sending her to rule over the lower orders. The dominion of day belongs to the male and night to the female.”
“And the female is dark,” Violette murmured. “She belongs to the night. She has been diminished and from that comes her anger…”
“And gives birth to the evil that is Lilith.”
Perhaps Josef used the word without thinking, but her tormented mind latched onto it. “Evil.”
“But the Zohar teaches that knowledge of her is essential to self-development,” Josef said hurriedly. “It speaks of two intertwined shoots, red like the rose, male and female. The male is Samael the Devil, the female contained in him is Lilith. The female is always contained within the male, as God contains the Shekinah –”
“The pair above and the pair below.” She already knew the words. The images they conjured were not memories but dream-shadows, indefinable and threatening. “Samael of the dark side and his female, Lilith; the Serpent, the Woman of Harlotry.”
“Do you really need me to tell you anything?” said Josef.
“Yes. I don’t always know until you tell me, but everything you say, I recognise. I feel the weight of these men’s writings, holding me down. Go on.”
Josef’s words, too, weighed on her like chains. “Cast out of heaven, she becomes the bride of the Devil. In psychological terms, you could say that men experience her as the witch who seduces then kills…” He struggled for a moment. Remembering Ilona, thought Violette. “Or as a succubus, or the mother who kills her own young. And to women she is the dark side of the self that desires to be joined to the Devil.”
The essence of evil, she thought, shuddering. No redeeming features. “She was the first Eve,” said Violette. “The demoness who was usurped by the second Eve. And the second Eve was good until the first, Lilith the Serpent, corrupted her.”
“Yes, the Serpent is often identified with her. Medieval woodcuts show the Serpent with Lilith’s face, whispering in Eve’s ear. Then the Zohar says that after the Fall, God brought Lilith from the depths of the sea and set her to punish the children of men.”
“Like Kristian,” she breathed. “An instrument to wreak God’s vengeance on mortals. That’s what he believed vampires were, and perhaps he was right. Lilith, Mother of Vampires and the lash of God.” Rage seized her and she sat forward. “Who is this punishing God, who so hates his own children? Is this what you believe?”
Josef flinched, colour leaving his face. Did he think she would attack him? She was close, but mastered the urge and sank back.
He breathed out raggedly. “The God I trust is a gentler being, but my opinion is irrelevant. It’s what you believe that matters.”
“You call it belief, I experience it as reality. Lilith is inside me. She hates men for their so-called ‘wisdom’ and their rejection of her. She hates women for their child-like dependency on men. She hates life, but loves the pure sterility of the desert.”
Josef put in, “She chooses to create art rather than nurture a husband and children?”
Anger again – how dare he judge her? – but she controlled herself.
“She sees into people’s souls, sees their foolishness and wants to tear it out… My conscious self wants Lilith to reveal herself fully to me, but I daren’t let her. All I hear of her tells me she’s evil. She is the destructive storm, the hag of death. I can’t tell where I end and Lilith begins any more, I can’t live with this dark fire inside
me. There’s no escape unless I end my own life – or others end it for me. Perhaps that’s what I’m trying to do: drive someone to kill me. Karl, Ilona, John, Rachel, even Charlotte – but the harder I try the more I frighten them, and their fear makes Lilith insane with rage.” Her voice fell. “She is going to do something terrible if she doesn’t stop.”
Josef went quiet in thought. He was very much the psychoanalyst: the sort who asked questions, nodded, but never gave any answers. Her despair deepened.
“In a sense,” he said, “you could see Lilith as God’s equal, in that her rejection of the angels creates an impasse between the upper and lower powers. She is the counterbalance to God’s goodness and maleness. In Jungian terms you could describe her as God’s anima, his dark, avenging female side.”
“Oh, good,” said Violette. “Now we know something about the men who wrote about her, but nothing of Lilith herself.”
Another pause. “Tell me, did you have any foreshadowing of this before you became… a vampire?”
“Yes. All my life. My father taught me that women are intrinsically wicked. He said I destroyed him. My birth tore my mother open, so she would never sleep with him again, and that drove him to other women. One of those women was Ilona. She didn’t kill him, but the physical mutilation drove him out of his mind. I believe you understand.”
Josef groaned, tried to turn it into a cough. She sensed his shuddering horror at the fate he had narrowly avoided. And she thought, men are so vulnerable, really. Can’t I feel a touch of pity?
“He said I was from the Devil,” she went on. “He blamed everything on me. Ridiculous, I know. But now I am like Ilona, so who’s to say he was wrong? Perhaps he foresaw my fate. All my life, the angels were waiting: three shadows, waiting for Lilith to possess me. I tried to obey them! I tried to renounce the darkness and walk in the light, but Lilith wouldn’t let me. Charlotte insists there is no God… so why do I have these memories? Other people’s visions, maybe… Therefore I’m mad, but what does my madness mean? I still reason and think and suffer. This may not be real to anyone else, but it’s real to me.”
“I suggest that Lilith represents the woman who refuses to obey,” said Josef. “She chooses flight to the wilderness, rather than the safety of obedience to God.”
“Outcast.”
“There are forms of conduct that must be cast out in order for society to function,” Josef said gravely. “If all women behaved as Lilith does, there would be chaos. You want me to tell you that Lilith is redeemable, that she is not completely of the darkness, but I can’t. Perhaps her feelings are understandable, but that does not excuse them. You must make peace with this or you’ll never recover.”
“Recover?” His answer incensed her. “You are male: wise, pure and spiritual, created in God’s image. Lilith is female: bestial, unclean and destructive. Whatever modern ideas you profess to hold, that’s what you feel in your heart, isn’t it?”
“Not at all.” She saw he was struggling now. Josef had said nothing she wanted to hear. He’d only confirmed her fears. He forged on, “I can only theorise, but I believe that Lilith is a ‘complex,’ a psychic fragment that’s splintered off and behaves as a separate and complete personality. You have absorbed the primordial image of Lilith from Raqia, and projected upon it the side of your personality that you find unacceptable. You can’t live with this, so you divorce her from your other persona, the ballerina, and name her Lilith. But you are battling your own shadow. If you are to become whole, to achieve individuation, you must accept this. Call Lilith into yourself and face her. It’s the only way to vanquish her.”
“Oh, to vanquish this blood thirst would be a fine trick!” she hissed.
Josef shifted uneasily, looking dismayed and anxious.
“So, you maintain that it’s all in my mind? How do you explain the fact that the three angels who pursued me were real, physical entities? Ask Charlotte, ask Karl. Explain how Lancelyn knew what I was without being told. You can’t, can you?” She stood up, ready to leave.
“No, I can’t.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’m afraid I haven’t handled this well. Please, Madame, don’t go. We’ve barely scratched the surface. We might need hours, days of talking to unravel this.”
“No,” she said, reverting to the imperious ballerina. “I don’t have days. I’ve heard enough. Thank you for seeing me, Dr Stern. I’m grateful to you for trying, but you’ve only confirmed what I already suspected. I am damned.”
* * *
Robyn curled up with a book, trying to forget that Violette was in her house. Insatiably curious, she longed to eavesdrop, but her conscience would not let her. Fearing for Josef’s safety was irrational – how could a petite ballerina possibly harm him? – yet she couldn’t help linking Violette with his illness and disturbed state of mind.
Half an hour passed. Then a strange sensation made her look up. Violette Lenoir was standing by her armchair as if she’d materialised from nowhere.
Robyn started violently, dropping her book. She laughed, trying to make a joke of it. “No wonder you’re renowned for your light step, Madame.”
She made to stand, but to her surprise, Violette knelt beside her and put a hand on her arm. “Don’t get up. You weren’t so formal when we met in the garden.”
Robyn, at ease with men, had no idea how to behave towards this woman. Her presence was uncanny. She wore a black cloche hat, glossed with feathers and jet beads. Under its deep crown her face was a lily, accentuated by dark lashes and brows. Her irises were startling, deepest violet-blue.
“Where’s my uncle?”
“Downstairs. The ballet is leaving soon. I came to say goodbye.”
“Oh.” Robyn’s mouth went dry. She remembered how Violette had embraced her, the strength of her fingers, her mouth, gentle at first, then demanding. Such thrilling terror… Now she felt as jumpy as a thirteen-year-old girl. “Would you like some tea, Madame?”
“No, thank you. And please, call me Violette. Don’t say anything until you’ve listened to me.” Her demeanour, Robyn saw, had changed from their first meeting. She seemed softer, even anxious. “There are certain things of which I can’t speak. Dangers. Your uncle knows. He’s been afraid for your safety.”
“What are you talking about?”
A brief hesitation. “Oh, ballet company politics. Jealousies. Conflicts.”
“What on earth has that to do with me?”
“I asked you to listen, Robyn. Please. This is hard for me. Almost impossible, actually.” Violette’s hand, gloved in black leather, grew heavier on her arm. “I frightened you in the garden. I didn’t mean to; it’s something I can’t always control. But the strangest thing is that I’ve been completely unable to stop thinking about you since.”
Robyn, taken aback, managed to suppress any sound she might have made.
“I couldn’t bear it if any harm were to come to you.”
“Why should it?” Robyn exclaimed. “Do you have a jealous admirer who might shoot me?”
Violette exhaled, at a loss. “I wish I could explain, but I can’t. I simply wanted to apologise for frightening you. I didn’t realise how badly I’d behaved until afterwards. I suppose this comes too late. I hardly know you, yet I feel I can tell you…”
“Anything.”
“Then don’t be too hard on me. You need not even reply. I have never in my life made a confession like this; never thought I’d need to. I love Charlotte but she’s too much like me; our passions are like ice-thorns to tear each other apart. But when I met you… I saw someone with all the warmth and strength I lack, who could perhaps heal me. I despised love, until I met you! No, I’m not asking anything of you, Robyn. I simply wanted to tell you. You make me feel human. I’ve never felt human before.”
“Oh, my God,” Robyn said softly.
Violette looked steadily at her. Her presence uncoiled all Robyn’s certainty about the world. Her allure would have captured anyone. Robyn realised that if she chose, Violette
could seduce her into anything – but she held back, respecting Robyn’s choice.
To be wanted by this goddess was too dazzling to bear.
“Are you horrified?” said Violette. “I don’t blame you. Please don’t be polite. Don’t say, ‘I’m terribly flattered but I prefer men,’ or any of that. All I want is for you to remember this: you are the first person I ever felt I could love, and probably the last.”
She began to stand up, but Robyn caught her hand and said, “Don’t go.”
An incredible wave of excitement was rolling through her. She saw a way to leave everything behind, to shed her tawdry life like a snakeskin: Harold, the endless string of victim-lovers, the bitter scars, the hollow tedium of waiting for Sebastian to call. All of it. Replace it with an affection that was new and tender and clean.
“Violette,” she said, her voice shaking, “what if I say I’m not horrified? Quite the opposite. If I say I want to come with you when you leave…”
Violette went paler, if that were possible. She looked dumbstruck. Robyn saw that this was the last reaction she’d expected. She’d spoken in the certainty of rejection. Finding acceptance, she was utterly bewildered.
Tears brimmed in her eyes. The tears, Robyn saw, were tinged faintly red.
“Oh, Robyn, no. It’s impossible.”
“Are you worried about people talking? No one need know. Don’t you need a ‘personal assistant’ or whatever?”
“It’s not that. God, I’d love to… but I’d destroy you.”
“I’m not so easy to live with, either. Ask my housekeeper.”
She spoke lightly, but Violette didn’t smile. Her eyes glared with sudden annihilating menace: arctic ice steeped in blood. “No, I mean it. I would destroy you.”
Violette dropped her gaze. Robyn’s heart began to beat again. She felt angry, bereft and cheated. “So after all that, you’re turning me down? Good grief, what do you want?”
“I’m sorry,” Violette whispered. “I had no idea you would… No, it’s impossible.”
“If you leave here now, we’ll never see each other again, will we?”
The Dark Blood of Poppies Page 21