League of Lilith, The: A thriller with soul

by Sugrue, Rosalie

  It is the chairs that initially surprise. Kat had expected long pews, not rows of chairs, hundreds of them, and the building is lighter than she had presumed. From the outside the windows appear dark and prison-like but the stained glass is bright and lets in a fair bit of light. It seems arrogant to wander up the centre aisle so she turns left and passes the entrance to the tower. A family group is considering whether or not to go up. “Though begun in 1864, building was not completed until 1904. The tower was consecrated in 1881 and reaches 63 metres above Cathedral Square,” reads the father. “A hundred and thirty-three steps,” an eager child adds. No thanks, thinks Kat, and begins a circuit around the side aisles. The floor is patterned with mosaic tiles, she walks as quietly as she can, reading plaques on the walls. The James Edward Fitzgerald (and wife) window — she hadn’t realised how prevalent nameless women are. At least this window has a panel depicting a woman. The woman is washing the feet of Jesus. It is a story Kat recognises, she is going to use her long fair hair to dry his feet. Did the woman have a name? Was it Mary Magdalene? Kat isn’t sure and wonders what Sarai thinks of this story. Did Eastern women have fair hair?

  Kat seems to have the vast building almost to herself. She continues her circuit and feels somewhat exposed crossing between the high pulpit and carved eagle lectern. Are you supposed to genuflect, or cross yourself? Returning down the far aisle Kat is entranced by the round window over the main entrance. The sun is low, and brilliant flecks sparkle through the multiple circles within the structure. Each circle holds a tiny picture, a person or an angel perhaps, but the centre circle appears to be a sheep and a rugby flag. Surely they didn’t have a Crusaders team a hundred years ago? Well, perhaps they did, she reflects, exiting toward the John Robert Godley statue. Rugby has been around for a long time and this city is supposed to be built on old English values.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Jen’s week is satisfyingly full with gym Monday and Thursday afternoons, lectures on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, plus course reading, and lunch on Wednesdays. She looks forward to doing lunch now she has something to talk about. The lunch girls are more interested in university people than university subjects. “Don’t you feel out of place with all those young kids?” “Can you understand their jargon?”

  There is no escaping the childless aspect of lunching with mothers. Discussing uni life is their way of showing friendship but children are their focus. Comparing play centre, childcare, and kindergarten is always on the menu. Today Olive is boasting about her daughter’s kindergarten. Last week instead of modelling with play-dough the kids had potters’ clay and their work was glazed and fired. She reaches into her holdall and brings out a clay figure. “Look, isn’t it divine. It’s me!” She gazes at it lovingly. A cone of clay is topped with a lopsided ball. There are scratch marks on the ball, presumably representing hair. The bottom of the cone is finished with a patterned coil. “Mia said, ‘This is you, Mummy, in your best long dress’. The arms fell off, but look, the tits stayed on.” She turns it around to reveal two small balls attached to the upper part of the cone.

  Good God, thinks Jen, it’s an Ashera! There really is something primal and universal about a mother goddess. The work of art is passed around for all to admire.

  “Love the eye holes,” says Elspeth.

  “Check out the smile,” says Liz. “You look happily intoxicated.”

  “Where would you get that sort of clay?” asks Jen.

  “Art supplies,” says Olive. “The kindy got a good deal at the Arts Centre. You’re not thinking of taking up another hobby are you?”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  10 — The wife of Manoah

  Thursday, 26 March

  The muted colours and patterns of Sarai’s kaftan remind Jen of dancing tussocks, dust swirls and clouds. Sarai is introducing the Book of Judges. “Judges is a most interesting book, a cyclic work — Israel sins, chaos reigns, Israel repents, God raises up a leader, Israel sins etcetera. The behaviour of the characters gets worse each cycle.” Sarai’s enthusiasm for the topic is not reflected in the faces of her students. “While the narrative frame is oriented toward the male, women’s stories appear at the book’s most important junctures, beginning with the wife of the first judge. Achsah is another trophy bride and she is no dolly prize. She is an insightful, quick-witted woman whose actions prevent family bloodshed.” Sarai pauses and runs her eyes over her students. “This book contains the most ghastly collection of stories in the Hebrew Bible. It ends with incidents so hideous the tribes are in chaos and anarchy reigns.” The recumbent Steve raises his head and meets Sarai’s judgemental gaze. “Today I have no appetite for such tales. Read the first 12 chapters before next Tuesday’s lecture, noting the bold presentation of women. Note also that although some are given speech, they are not granted feelings.” She pauses for the class to record her instructions. “Chapter 13 has a touch of the comical that relates to European folk tales. Let’s give ourselves a break. Who knows the story of the wife of Manoah?”

  There are no positive responses though Philippa makes a show of looking as if she knows but it has escaped her for the moment. Sarai extracts a satchel from her shoulder bag and rifles through a sheath of papers. “Ah, I have it. This is a dialogue based on Judges 13. Now for three volunteers — I need a good woman … Ms Chapman, you would make an excellent woman.” Darlene blushes and comes forward. “An angel is required. Mr Jones, you are the appropriate gender. That leaves only a husband to cast … Mr Paul, would you be so kind?” Grins are exchanged. Steve pouts then minces to the front and bows. “Despite this incident being centred on the woman,” Sarai informs the class, “she remains nameless and is identified merely as the wife of Manoah. It is of interest that the name Manoah means rest. And now, our thespians will relate what most Bibles title ‘The Birth of Samson’.”

  As the pressed volunteers read their impromptu parts it becomes obvious Manoah is presented as a bumbling peasant. His practical wife gathers wood and has no qualms engaging in conversation with an angel.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Tussocks dance, dust swirls and the small car shudders to intermittent wind gusts. Jen wonders why she agreed to this mad outing. Thirty minutes earlier she and Kat had been casually considering cloud formations, small-talk before parting after the lecture. Kat had drawn Jen’s attention to ‘cloud waves’ in the air above the alps, the famed Canterbury Arch.

  “We never heard about it at school,” Kat had said. “We learnt about the moisture-laden-wind-from-the-Tasman-Sea banging into the alps, dumping on Westland and rushing-down-the-other-side-as-a-hot-dry-wind. Eastern clouds didn’t get a mention. What a weird sight, those clouds look like they’re anchored to the mountains by an invisible chain. And see how clear the mountain tops are!”

  “That type of cloud has a name, a standing something.”

  “Altocumulus standing lenticularis,” Sarai had supplied, coming up behind them. “Fliers call them lennies. Pilots avoid them because of the turbulent wind that surrounds them, but gliders love them because they can provide smooth, strong wave lifts for soaring to high altitudes.”

  Is there nothing the woman doesn’t know, Jen had wondered. Kat had inquired if Sarai was a flier, and she said she had done a bit. Jen had a sudden vision of a Sarai as a pioneer aviator looping the loop in a small plane. Kat’s smile was more to do with an image of a witch and broom. She had overheard Steve’s name for Sarai, and despite considering Steve basically irritating, had been amused. The Baddest Witch in the World, she had chortled to herself at the time. The book had been a favourite of one of her primary school teachers, who fancied himself as a Spike Milligan impersonator.

  The mix of awe and annoyance Jen experienced at the time of her Jean Batten vision is being re-experienced, now heavily weighted to annoyance. When Sarai suggested they join her on an impromptu outing, Jen’s instinct had been to refuse. It was preposterous to take off to the wilds on a sudden whim, but Sarai had persisted, asking if they had ever
been to Lake Coleridge. Neither of them had. It’s only about an hour’s drive, Sarai had encouraged. Kat was keen. Come on, Jen, she’d urged, you told me Wilkin has a dinner meeting tonight.

  If Sarai doesn’t slow down we will be flying into the Rakaia River any minute, Jen thinks. She is sharing the back seat with Sarai’s shoulder bag. It takes up nearly as much room as she does. Why does she lug so much stuff round with her, wonders Jen grumpily. She is feeling queasy. The noise is getting to her. An engine in the boot is ridiculous! She has given up trying to hear what is being said. Why had she let Kat talk her into coming? I’m losing my assertiveness, Jen reasons despondently. Is it age, or am I becoming a housewife cabbage?

  Windwhistle, announces a sign at the first crossroad in miles. Kat says something to Sarai and Sarai brings the car to a stop near a small school protected by tree lines. She turns to Jen. “Hope you’re all right back there. Sorry it can be a bit noisy. Kat wants to know if this place fulfils its name.”

  They clamber out of the car and are hit by a rush of warm air. “Listen,” says Kat, “the telephone wires are singing.”

  “And the trees are sighing,” adds Sarai.

  “You can’t call that whistling,” says Jen grumpily.

  “True,” says Sarai, “but I don’t doubt the wind whistles when it gets stronger. Look how the field is littered with small pine branches. They didn’t come down today.”

  “I see this as the sort of place one could meet an angel,” says Kat. “What do you think, Jen?”

  Jen is about to make a cutting remark about the likelihood of meeting angels anywhere, when a text from her past surfaces: some have entertained angels unawares. She takes a deep breath and feels … something … spiritual? This wind-whining wilderness is a spiritual place! What she rationally knows is a mild nor’ wester could be angels’ wings ruffling her hair. She doesn’t trust herself to speak so nods and becomes aware that Sarai is watching her closely.

  “Any wild place can invoke spirituality but when wind is added the power is increased,” says Sarai in her lecture voice.

  Jen thinks of the still small voice Elijah heard after the storm, and Job’s out-of-the-whirlwind experience.

  “Not all spiritual power is good,” continues Sarai. “Desert dwellers speak of demons and night hags shrieking across the landscape.”

  “I don’t think demons can dwell in beautiful places,” says Jen with a decisive mood swing to the philosophical. “Beauty overcomes evil as surely as goodness does.”

  “With beauty in mind, let’s press on.” Sarai checks her watch. “We could be at the Lake Coleridge Lodge café by one. Kat, you take a turn in the back.”

  Cheered by wine and Canterbury high country sandwiches the three women breathe in the splendour of Lake Coleridge, from the deep blue of its waters to the soaring mountains that feed its depths, and feel refreshed.

  “I thought you would be enchanted.” Kat and Jen nod warmly — and months later will wonder at her choice of verb. “It is one of those places where cares evaporate, a place where the soul is uplifted. Spirits are known to abide in water. Lilith is one such spirit.”

  “Lilith?” query Jen and Kat simultaneously.

  “Lilith existed before the dawn of history. She is a bearer of wisdom.”

  “Is a bearer,” picks up Kat. “Present tense?”

  “There’s not much you miss, Kat! Yes, I used is deliberately. Think back to the first lecture. Do you remember I mentioned there were two trees in the centre of the Garden of Eden?” Her students nod. “Modern tellings of the story tend to merge them into one forbidden tree. However, Adam and Eve ate only from the Tree of Knowledge. Lilith on the other hand also ate from the Tree of Life. Thus, not only was Lilith freed from innocence and ignorance, she was given immortality. Lilith was created from the earth and was given life before Adam. She tasted the fruits before it was made known that they should not be touched. She understood she had choice and responsibility. After eating she saw the sleeping Adam and woke him. They lived happily until Adam displayed an urge to dominate. So Lilith flew away, leaving the man alone.”

  “But it didn’t really happen. It’s just a myth,” says Kat, wrinkling her pretty nose.

  “Cultural stories are never just a myth,” reproves Sarai. “Have you heard of Jung’s Collective Unconscious?” Kat looks blank.

  “Isn’t it the theory that the gathered wisdom of humankind is carried in the genes and retained in the subconscious brain?” offers Jen.

  “On the right track,” says Sarai. “Last century the distinguished psychologist Carl Jung suggested a collective subconscious lies deep within the brain. This knowledge is the reservoir of the experiences of our species.”

  “So my brain knows all the things learnt throughout the ages. Yeah right! If that was so none of us would have to go to school because we would know it all. I know enough to know that I hardly know anything.”

  “But you don’t know what you know,” contributes Jen, “that is why it is called unconscious collective.”

  “Freud proposed the existence of the unconscious mind, though Plato and other ancients had alluded to it. Jung’s great contribution to analytical psychology was to divide the unconscious into two levels — the more superficial personal, and the deeper collective unconscious. Jung wasn’t suggesting factual knowledge is lodged in the subconscious. He was saying there is a pattern of human thought that involves archetypes that enable people to react to situations with accumulated wisdom. Jung was the son of a minister, a religious man, with a passionate interest in gods and supernatural powers. He believed religion plays a major role in human life by enabling people to express their subconscious need for religious experience. The collective unconscious is where he believes the archetypes of civilisation reside. He saw them as beings represented in mythology by a lake, or body of water.”

  “So what has this to do with this Lilith person you mentioned?” inquires Kat.

  “Ah,” says Sarai, turning her eyes to the lake. “One never knows where Lilith may surface.”

  They follow her dreamy gaze to an expanding circle of ripples and feel the tug of an unknown dimension. Later Jen tries to analyse what she had felt and can only fall into inadequate clichés — surprised by joy, a heart-warming experience, at one with nature. Kat, who has always known the bewitching power of nature, feels reconnected to its eternal and unutterable wisdom.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Friday, 27 March

  Reflecting on the trip to Lake Coleridge, Jen realises she hasn’t done anything that impulsive for years. She feels rejuvenated and is surprised. She hadn’t expected to enjoy the outing but her batteries have been recharged. Energy is surging but what is there to do with it? Lilith. The name floats into her mind. I’m sure I’ve heard of Lilith somewhere in the past. Her computer comes to life with a burst of music and a quotation: Where love rules there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking — C.G. Jung.

  With a few key taps and mouse clicks the screen fills with words and Jen reads: Jewish myth assigns the name Lilith to the first wife of Adam. She was created at the same time as Adam, out of the ground, as in Genesis 1:27 … male and female He created them … Lilith asserted her equality by insisting that she should have equal turns at being on top during sex, an assertion which Adam rejects. Lilith rejects Adam and escapes from Eden. She is replaced by the more subservient Eve, who has less claim to equality, having been formed from a rib taken from Adam’s side.

  “Interesting,” murmurs Jen to her computer, “no wonder Sarai has a soft spot for Lilith.” She dips into another site and learns that Lilith is perceived as an exceedingly beautiful woman, often depicted with long dark hair and wings, holding balance scales or a staff. Jen continues to scroll and begins to feel less comfortable with the information divulged by her PC. Enough of Lilith, she decides. Lilith interests Sarai, not me. I have concerns of my own to explore.

  She types CONCEPTION PROBLEMS. Google r
esponds immediately with a long selection of sites. Jen opens one at random. Highlighted at the top of the page are the words. Contrary to popular myth, fertility problems are attributable equally to men and women. Roughly a third of fertility problems are due to women, a third to men, and a third to a combination of men and women or unexplained causes.

  Well obviously, thinks Jen, but maybe Wilkin is one of the ‘popular myth’ brigade. She must remember to slot the ‘equally’ concept into general conversation. They have annual health checks and no problem has ever presented. There is no reason for either of them to go down the medical intervention track at this stage.

  She samples another site: Some ‘trying’ couples are infertile because of physical problems. But most couples are simply ‘underfertile’ — physically able to conceive but have to nudge the stork just a bit. Here’s what experts recommend for them.

  Handy hints, good! If I am seen to be doing something practical Wilkin may become more accepting and relaxed.

  If dryness is a problem don’t lubricate with commercial products as these products can impair sperm. A woman’s natural lubricants should be all you need. If you need a lubricant during intercourse, try using egg white. Egg white is pure protein — as are sperm — it makes a better ‘carrier’ than most commercial lubricants. Dryness isn’t a problem. But … if I claim it a problem Wilkin might see it as a minor issue that can be fixed. Well worth a try. Useful, non-invasive things for both of us to commit to would be preferable. Could I get Wilkin thinking along those lines? She skims headings: Wear boxer shorts — he does. Don’t soak in a hot tub, guys — he doesn’t — surely everyone knows about the ill effects of heat on sperm! Go missionary — we do. Not that she is aware of this ‘closer contact’ theory, but missionaries did have large families! Keep an ovulation calendar — I do. Girls, take cough syrup — I’ve never heard that one. Take cough syrup containing guaifenesin four times a day around the time of ovulation. Guaifenesin thins the cervical mucus, making it easier for sperm to swim through to meet the egg. Interesting and easy! Guys, take vitamin C — Studies by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston show that men who increased their vitamin C intake to 1000 milligrams daily (the Recommended Dietary Allowance is 60 milligrams) showed increased sperm count, motility and longevity. Non threatening, non messy, non invasive — ideal for Wilkin!