by Ray Furness
At last she spoke. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’ He nodded, but still she was silent. So it was he who made the first move. ‘You’ve been reading the leather volume?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, and breathed deeply. ‘So I’m just a joke, that you made once, Frank Braun.’
‘A joke?’ he asked. ‘More of an idea if you wish.’
‘So, an idea,’ she said. ‘What difference does a word make? What’s the difference between a joke and an amusing idea? And it’s certainly amusing, I would have thought.’ She burst out laughing. ‘But I’m not waiting for you for that reason. I want to know something else. Tell me, do you think it’s true?’
‘What am I supposed to believe?’ he answered. ‘You mean, whether I believe what Uncle wrote in his book? Yes, I believe it.’
She shook her head impatiently. ‘No, I don’t mean that. It is true, naturally, why should he lie? I want to know if you believe, as my, well, your uncle did, that I am different from other people, that I’m, well, a mandrake, a mandragora, as my name suggests.’
‘How can I answer such a question? Ask a physiologist, he will doubtless tell you that you are human being like everyone else in the world, even if your entrance was rather unusual. He will say that all the subsequent events were accidents, trivia which –’
‘I’m not interested in all that,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s a matter of indifference to me. I only want to know: are you of the opinion that I am an unusual being?’
He was silent, looking for an answer, and did not know what to say. He believed it, and yet, at the same time, did not.
‘Look,’ he started.
‘Go on,’ she urged him. ‘Do you think that I’m some sort of joke which took on shape and form, your idea, which the old Professor threw into his retort, which he boiled and distilled until that creature emerged who is sitting before you now?’
And this time he did not hesitate. ‘If you put it like that, yes, I do believe it.’
She laughed lightly. ‘I thought so. And that was why I was waiting for you this evening, so that you would be cured as quickly as possible of this arrogance. No, cousin, it wasn’t you who put this thought into the world, no more than your dear uncle did.’
He did not understand her. ‘Well, who was it then?’
She put her hand under the cushions: ‘This did!’ she cried. She drew out the mannikin, threw it into the air and caught it again, gently caressing it with her nervous fingers. […] She laid it down on a silken cushion and looked at it with an almost tender gaze. And she spoke to it thus: ‘You are my father and my mother: you are that which created me.’
He looked at her. ‘Perhaps it is true,’ he thought to himself. ‘Thoughts drift through the air, like pollen, swirl about and then settle in a human brain. They often sicken, dry out, and die, only a very few find a good, fertile soil. She may be right, my brain was always a richly fertilized nursery for all sorts of craziness!’ And it seemed to him to be a matter of indifference whether it was he who had thrown this seed into the world, or had been the fruitful earth which had received it.
She slowly rose, still holding the ugly mannikin in her hand.
‘I wanted to say something else to you, to thank you for showing me the leather volume, and for not having burned it.’
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Shall I kiss you? I know how to kiss […] I want to kiss you.’
‘Be careful!’ he said, ‘I’ll kiss you too.’
She did not avert her gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘Sit down, you’re rather too tall for me.’
‘No!’ he cried gaily. ‘Not like that!’ He walked across to the broad divan, stretched himself out on it and laid his head on the cushions, closing his eyes.
‘Now come, Mandra!’ he called.
She came closer and knelt down before him. She paused, looked at him, then threw herself upon him, seized his head and pressed her lips on his.
He did not embrace her, did not move his arms, but clenched his fingers into a fist. He felt her tongue, and the gentle bites of her teeth.
‘More,’ he whispered, ‘more.’
Red mists swirled before his eyes. He heard the hideous laughter of Professor ten Brinken, the large, startled eyes of Mrs Gontram when she asked the lawyer Manasse to explain what a mandrake was, saw them wiping it with a large napkin.
‘More …,’ he murmured.
And she, Mandra Gora, saw her mother, with hair red as fire, with large, snow-white breasts shot through with small, blue veins. And the execution of her father as the Professor had described it in his book … And the hour in which the old man had created her, and the moment when the doctor brought her into the world.
‘Kiss me,’ he gasped, ‘kiss me.’
He drank in her kisses, drank the hot blood of his lips which her teeth had torn. And he knowingly, wilfully, intoxicated himself, as though he were drinking foaming wine, or the drugs of the Orient …
Then: ‘Stop!’ he cried suddenly. ‘Stop! you don’t know what you’re doing …’
Then she pushed her curls ever closer across his brow and her kisses grew wilder and more violent.
The thoughts, the clear thoughts of day lay shattered, and now dreams were born, and a red sea of blood rose and burst. Wild Maenads waved the thyrsus rod, and the holy ecstasy of Dionysus foamed and churned.
‘Kiss me!’ he screamed.
But she let go, and her arms dropped to her sides. He opened his eyes and stared at her.
‘Kiss me,’ he repeated softly. Her eyes were dulled, and she was panting. She slowly shook her head.
Then he jumped up. ‘So, I shall kiss you,’ he cried. He lifted her in his arms and threw the struggling girl on to the divan. He knelt where she had been kneeling.
‘Close your eyes,’ he whispered, and he bent over her.
His kisses were good, tender and cosseting as the play of harps in a summer night. Wild, too, rough and harsh as a tempest over Northern seas. Glowing as the fiery breath of Etna’s mouth, tearing and devouring as the maelstrom’s vortex.
‘It’s going under …,’ she felt, ‘everything is going under …’
Then the fires roared forth and the hot flames shot upwards into the skies. The torches blazed, the altars ignited, and with bloody jaws the wolf burst through the sanctuary.
She held him tight and pressed herself hard against his breast.
‘I’m burning,’ she shrieked, ‘I’m burning …’
Then he tore the clothes from her body.
….
* * * *
The sun was already high when she awoke. She saw that she was naked but did not cover herself. She turned her head and saw him sitting upright next to her, as naked as she was.
‘Are you leaving today?’ she asked.
‘Do you want me to go?’ he retorted.
‘Stay!’ she whispered, ‘stay!’
* * * *
Early, when the young sun arose, he left the room in his dressing gown. He went into the garden and walked along the path past the trellis-work, entering the rose garden, where he cut Boule de Neige, Empress Victoria Augusta, Madame Carl Drusky and Merveille de Lyon. He turned left where the larches were standing and the noble firs.
Mandra was sitting on the edge of the pond. She was wearing her black silk gown and was throwing breadcrumbs to the goldfish. As he approached she plaited a wreath of pale roses and quickly, skilfully, crowned her curls with it. She cast aside her gown and sat there in her lacy shift, her bare feet paddling in the cool water.
They scarcely spoke. But she was trembling when his fingers lightly touched her neck and his breath caressed her cheeks. She slowly removed her shift and placed it upon the bronze water nymph at her side. On the marble edges of the pool six naiads were sitting, pouring water from the urn and the amphora, squirting it in a thin jet from their breasts. All sorts of creatures were crawling around them, lobsters and crayfish, tortoises, fish, water snakes and reptiles. And in the middle Triton was
blowing his horn, and around him the denizens of the deep were snorting water from bloated lips in to the air.
‘Come, my friend!’ she said.
They climbed into the water. It was very cool, and he shivered, his lips became blue, and goose pimples crept up his arms. He had to swim briskly, to kick and beat the water in order to warm his blood and adapt himself to the unfamiliar temperature. But she noticed nothing, she was in her element and laughing at him, swimming around like a little frog.
‘Turn on the taps!’ she called.
He turned them on and then, from four places close to the edge of the pool, near the picture of Galathea, light waves began to foam. They swelled for a while, broke, and grew higher and higher. They rose strong and powerful, rising and falling, higher than the rays of Triton’s creatures. Four gleaming, sparkling silver cascades.
There she stood, in the middle of the four, surrounded by the shimmering rain. Like a lovely boy, slim and tender, and his gaze kissed her slowly. There was no blemish in the elegant proportions of these limbs, no defect in this sweet apparition. Her skin was of an even colour, white Paros marble with a light hint of yellow. Only the inside of her upper thighs were pink and showed a strange mark or line.
‘That was how Dr. Petersen died,’ he thought to himself. He bent down, knelt, and kissed the rosy softness.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
He said: ‘I think you’re a Melusine! Look at the mermaids round us, they’ve got no legs, only a long, scaly fish’s tail. They have no soul, these nixies, but it is said that they can still love a human being sometimes. A poor fisherman, or a knight errant. They can love him so much that they leave the cool waters and step onto the land. Then they go to an old witch, or a wizard, and he brews up an evil mixture which they must drink. And he takes a sharp knife and begins to cut, right in the middle of the fish tail. It is agonising, agonising, but Melusine swallows her suffering for the sake of her great love. Doesn’t lament, doesn’t weep, till almost unconscious with pain. But when she wakes up, her fish tail has gone and she can walk on two lovely legs, just like a human being. But you can still see the marks that the old wizard made.’
‘But she still remains a nymph?’ she asked. ‘Even with her human legs? And can the wizard give her a soul?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘He can’t do that. But there’s something else that people said about nixies.’
‘What?’ she asked.
And he continued: ‘Melusine only has her magic powers as long as she’s untouched. But when she drowns in love’s kisses, when she loses her maidenhood in the knight’s embrace, then she loses her powers. She can’t find treasure any more, and can’t bring the gold from the depths of the Rhine, but that black sorrow which haunts her also avoids her threshold … She is like a human being from now on.’
‘I wish it were so!’ she whispered. She tore the white wreath from her hair and swam to the sea gods and tritons, the mermaids and naiads. She threw the blossoming roses into their lap
‘Take them, sisters, take them!’ she laughed. ‘I’m a human being!’
* * * *
A massive four poster bed stood in Mandra’s bedroom, on low, ornate supports. At the foot end there were two columns holding bowls with golden flames. The sides of the bed were decorated with carvings: Hercules spinning for Omphalos, Perseus kissing Andromeda, Vulcan catching Mars and Venus in his net. There were also carvings of branches and tendrils, doves, and winged boys […]
He saw Mandra standing on a chair at the head of the bed with a heavy pair of pincers in her hand.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘Just wait, I’ll soon be finished.’ She knocked and carefully pulled the golden cupid who hovered over her head with bow and arrow. She pulled out one nail, then another, and twisted and turned the little god until he was free. She seized him, jumped down, and placed him on the cupboard. She took out the mandrake root, climbed back with him on to the chair and fastened him with wire to the head of the bed. She descended and looked critically at her work.
‘How do you like him?’ she asked.
‘What’s he supposed to be doing there?’
‘He belongs there!’ she answered, ‘I didn’t like that golden cupid, that’s too common. I want to have Galeotto, my mannikin.’
‘What did you call it?’
‘Galeotto!’ she replied. ‘Was it not he who brought us together? Now let him hang there, and keep watch through the nights.’
[…]
They lay naked under the scarlet Pyrrhus: their bodies, which had been fused during hot midday hours, fell apart.
Their caresses lay broken and trampled, their embraces, their tender words. Like the flowers and the gentle grasses across which the storm of their passion had passed. Dead lay the fiery brand, consumed by its own tearing teeth, and from the ashes there grew a cruel, steely hatred.
They looked at each other, and saw that they were deadly enemies.
The long, red line on her thighs repulsed him, and the saliva ran in his mouth as though he had drunk the bitter poison of her lips. And the small wounds which her teeth and her nails had inflicted burned, throbbed, swelled.
‘She will poison me,’ he thought, ‘just as she killed Dr Petersen.’
Her green eyes laughed at him, mocking, spiteful, insolent. He closed his eyes, drew his lips together and clenched his fingers tightly. But she stood up, turned and kicked him with her foot, casually, scornfully.
He jumped to his feet and stood before her, and their glances crossed. Not a word was uttered, but she curled her lip and raised her arm; she spat at him, and struck him in the face.
And he threw himself upon her, shook her, seized her hair and whirled her round. He hurled her to the ground, beat her, kicked her, seized her by the throat.
She defended herself bravely, her nails flayed his face, her teeth bit into his arm, his breast. And in blood and saliva their lips sought each other, and found, and took in an agony of lust. He then seized her and hurled her yards from him, so that she sank to the ground, unconscious. He staggered for a few paces, then fell and stared into the blue sky with neither wish nor will, and listened to the pounding in his temples. Until his eyelids dropped.
When he awoke she was kneeling at his feet, drying his blood with her hair. She had torn her shift into long strips and was skilfully bandaging him.
‘Let us go, beloved.’ she said. ‘The dusk is falling.’
* * * *
The midday sun was blazing down, and they were sitting on the edge of the pool, paddling their feet in the water.
‘Go to my room,’ she said, ‘and on my bedside table you will find a hook, on the left hand side.’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘you shouldn’t go fishing. What have the goldfish done to you?’
‘Do it!’ she commanded.
He rose and walked towards the villa. He entered her room, found the hook and looked at it critically. Then he smiled, satisfied. ‘Well, she won’t catch a great deal with that!’ he thought. But then he stopped, and deep furrows wrinkled his brow. ‘Not a great deal? She’d catch goldfish if she threw a meat-hook in!’
His gaze fell on the bed, with the mannikin fixed on top. He threw the hook into the corner and in a moment of decision seized the chair and placed it by the bed. He climbed up and, with a quick jerk, he wrenched the mandrake free. He gathered some paper together, put it in the grate, lit it and placed the mandrake on it.
He sat down and gazed at the flames. But they only consumed the paper and scarcely scorched the mannikin. It seemed to be laughing at him, as if its ugly face were becoming a mask – the grinning countenance of uncle Jakob! And now he could hear, all around him, this greasy laughter …
He leapt to his feet, took his knife from the table, and opened its sharp blade, pulling the mandrake from the fire. The wood of the root was hard, and immensely tough – he could only cut small chips off it. But he persevered, and hacked, and hacked, one
piece after another. The sweat stood out on his brow, and his fingers were aching with the unaccustomed effort. He rested, got some more paper, some bundles of un-read newspapers. He threw the wood chippings on to it and poured eau de Cologne and attar of roses on top.
Ah, now it was burning merrily. The flame gave him strength again, and he hacked the chips from the wood, feeding the fire as he went. The mannikin grew smaller, without his arms and legs, but still continued to resist, driving deep splinters into Frank Braun’s fingers. But he laughed, and grimly anointed the hateful head with his blood, and pared new segments from the body.
Then he heard her voice, hoarse, almost broken.
‘What are you doing?’ she cried.
He jumped to his feet and flung the last fragment into the hungry flames. He turned, and his green eyes gleamed madly. ‘I’ve killed it!’ he yelled.
‘It’s me, it’s me!’ she groaned, pressing her hands to her heart. ‘It hurts,’ she whispered, ‘it hurts …’
He strode passed her, slamming the door. But an hour later he was lying in her arms again, sucking her poisonous kisses once more.
* * * *
It was true, he was her teacher. They walked hand in hand through the park of love, on secluded paths, away from the crowded avenues. But where the paths ended, in the wild undergrowth, where he stopped and turned away from steep precipices, there she strode laughingly forward, nonchalant, without fear or shame, lightly, as though it were a dance. In the park of love there was no red, poisoned fruit that she did not pluck and which her smiling lips did not taste.
She knew from him how sweet it was to be drunk when the tongue sipped the little drops of blood which sprang from beloved flesh. But her lust seemed insatiable, and her burning thirst could not be slaked.
In this night he was exhausted by her kisses, and slowly freed himself from her limbs. He closed his eyes and lay like a dead man, rigid and immovable. But he was not sleeping, his senses wide awake despite his tiredness.
He lay like this for many hours. The full moon shone brightly through the open window, on to the white bed. And he heard her move at his side, gently moaning and whispering wild words, as she always did in such moonlit nights. He heard her get up, go singing to the window, then slowly return. He felt her bend over him, staring for a long time.