“ ‘Why don’t you explain things to me? Why don’t you ever explain anything? Why do you keep me so painfully ignorant? You’re the one who doesn’t understand!’
“I watched him from afar, as though I were watching an epic drama unfold between two lovers confiding in each other. I wanted to hear everything, I wanted to know everything. The beautiful man who held me, lifted his eyes toward the sky and then closed them as if he were trying not to cry.
“ ‘Knowing everything could drive you crazy. Don’t you realize that?’ he said.
“ ‘I know,’ I mumbled. ‘ But I want to know. I demand to know.’
“ ‘ A part of my soul went inside you that night in Orleans. Otherwise, you would have died. It’s like... like a part of me lives inside you and will prevent you from dying. You can’t die: not from illness nor from violence. Nothing can hurt you. No one can kill you. No one except my Father... or one of my brothers. I could have taken my soul back a few seconds after I had saved your life, but I didn’t want to. I couldn’t bear that thought of you being so vulnerable again. I don’t want to risk losing you. You see? Now that you know, you’re terrified. I was right. I shouldn’t have told you.’
“ ‘You’re wrong,’ I murmured as I watched weightless specks of dust float in the sunlight. ‘You should have told me. If I had heard it coming from you, in your own sweet words as you held me in your arms, I would have understood. I would have loved you even more, if that were possible. But not this way, not from Cannat’s treacherous mouth. Hearing it from him makes me afraid. Nothing you say frightens me...You are the one who is afraid. You’re afraid of being who you truly are and who you really are is what makes me love you. And you don’t understand that...You’ll never understand...What type of monster am I now? Tell me, Shallem. Does what you did to me have a name? Why type of diabolic being am I if I can’t die?’
“ ‘You’re blaming me?’ he asked sadly. ‘Did you want to die? Did you want me to let you die even thou I knew I could save you? I wanted you to live. Does that make me the diabolic being you speak of?’
“ ‘No. Of course not. It’s not you, Shallem. It’s me. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what to make of myself. And not only because of all this but... because of everything that has happened to me...’
“ ‘Do you understand, Juliette? Now we are one. My feelings are your feelings; your fears, my fears; my desires, your desires. We are one being. Do you understand? We are much more than just a carnal union between humans.’
“The sun was making my head spin. Fantasy was becoming reality. Or was it reality?
“ ‘It’s true, isn’t it? You don’t know when I’ll die. I need to know that I will die, Shallem... I can’t live without that certainty, pondering what Cannat said, thinking...
“ ‘Be quiet, Juliette!’ Shallem exclaimed. ‘Don’t torment yourself. When the moment arrives, I’ll take back my soul and you’ll be free to die. You have to die. Just like you must sleep so your body can rest, you must die for your soul to rest. It’s essential that you die for your soul to rest. However much it will hurt me, when the moment arrives, I will let you die. I would let you die even if you begged me not to.’
“ ‘When will I die?’ I asked.
“ ‘You must not know this.’
“ ‘Why!’ I yelled as I backed away from him. ‘You think knowing could drive me crazy? Have I lost my mind yet? Let’s set a date!’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘Why not!’ I continued yelling. ‘You can’t set a date? Don’t you control my life and my death? Forty years! You will let me die in forty years! I’ll still have a decent body and maybe I’ll be able to live a few years longer on my own.’
“ ‘No!’ he screamed and looked at me as if he didn’t recognize me.
“ ‘Then set the date! Promise me I won’t live long enough for my body to fall apart. Promise me it won’t be what Cannat described!’
“Trembling, Shallem grabbed onto furniture as he walked around the room. He looked devastated. I wished none of it were true, that I wasn’t waiting for him to tell me the date of my death.
“ ‘Eighty years from today,’ Shallem whispered with his back to me.
“ ‘Eighty years!’ I screamed. ‘I’ll be over a hundred years-old! No one can live that long! I’ll be a walking corpse, I’ll disgust you well before then.’
“ ‘Eighty years!’ Shallem screamed forcefully, his face taut with pain. ‘Let’s stop talking about that. There’s something I need to tell you about our baby. When he’s born, I’m going to give him much more than I was able to give you. I’m going to give unimaginable abilities. I’m going to endow him with unbelievable abilities. Beneath his human appearance, he’ll hide his immortality. No one, not even Eonar will be able to kill him. His body will be a part of my body, his soul will be my soul, and when he’s grown enough, he will stop aging. He will never die; he will always be young and strong. I’m going to do this as soon as he’s born. My soul will enter his body before any other human soul has a chance to enter it.’
“I was carried away by what he said. My mind struggled to make sense of a whirlwind of biblical and mythological concepts: Men of renown, Achilles, The River Styx...
“ ‘We have to keep Eonar from killing him as soon as he is born. I have to give him my soul during that precious second,’ he added calmly.
“ ‘Have you... have you done this before?’ I asked.
“ ‘Yes, but a very long time ago. And Cannat has done it, he still does it... You’ve met...’ For a few seconds he seemed to ponder whether to finish his sentence. ‘You’ve met his son,’ he finished.
“I thought of Leonardo. I should have known. He wanted to tell me... he wanted to share his secret. How could I have guessed?
“ ‘Juliette,’ Shallem said softly. ‘You don’t think it’s a good idea?’
“ ‘I don’t know,’ I moaned. ‘Yes. I suppose so. I’m not sure, Shallem. I’m not sure. I’m just a human. I can’t absorb everything...’
“Shallem took my face in his warm hands and watched as tear drops sailed down my cheeks.
“ ‘Forgive me, my love,’ he whispered as he brushed his lips across my eyelids, my cheeks, as he covered my face with kisses. ‘I assumed you would understand! I’ve taken too many things for granted because I didn’t want to talk about our differences. I didn’t want them to get between us, I didn’t want them to frighten you.’
“Shallem held my head so we could look into each other’s eyes.”
“The sun, that supposed shield from evil, flooded the small and beautifully decorated parlor. Everything was so clean, so untainted. There was no huge puddle of blood on the spotless floor. Nor any small stains on my cozy, clean Spanish rug. Nor was there the tiniest splatter of blood on the impeccable chimney. All of Cannat’s blood had disappeared, as if it had never been there. Had it been there? Could Cannat bleed? No, surely he couldn’t.
“Shallem’s full lips were wet with my tears. He was looking at me imploringly, begging my forgiveness, begging for my love. It was a look an exhausted vassal gives his mistress, or the look an exhausted owner gives his slave. A slave from who he had taken the most essential right, the right to die. Now, I needed Shallem not only to continue living, or to keep me safe from unknown dangers, I also needed him to be able to die. We were now united by something other than a freely given and loving bond. Now, I was chained to him.
“Nevertheless, when I looked into his eyes, I saw they didn’t harbor anything but the extraordinary love he felt for me, nor did they hide intentions more evil than that of knowing he is loved in return, than that of resting his lips on mine.
“Shallem didn’t know how a human’s body suffered, and much less what it is like to grow old. He’ll never die. He was divine miracle, unchanging and unalterable. How could he understand what was tormenting me? Cannat’s remarks had made me picture an undying, decrepit body crawling on the ground and falling to pieces like a leper. How could Shallem understand ho
w I felt about my immortal prison?”
–V–
“Cannat disappeared for many days. In fact, he had done this on previous occasions. He would return and tell us unbelievable stories about unexplored regions in the New World. Exotic places where he said he reigned like a god.
“This time it took longer than usual for him to return but I didn’t think this had anything to do with the fight he had with Shallem. First of all, they were always connected spiritually and second of all, no mortal or mortal reason could get between him and his love for Shallem.
“Through their spiritual connection, Shallem would tell Cannat how my pregnancy was progressing, how he continued to kill at night and whether he felt the presence beings that you and I would call supernatural.
“I was happy Cannat was gone. I hated him. Foolishly, I blamed him for all the bad things that had happened to me. But I knew that was unfair. The only thing he had done, what he had always done, albeit egotistically and often with cruelty, was open my eyes to a reality that had already been there before he appeared, a reality which Shallem had tried, so innocently, to protect me from.
“It was marvelous to be alone with Shallem again, night and day. Unfortunately, my advanced pregnancy kept me from doing what I had always enjoyed, like horseback riding or hiking in the hills. Many times, Shallem would carry me in his arms or take me in a boat to our precious enclaves where we used to watch the sun go down. While there, I discovered beautiful wild flowers. I discovered the amazing customs of insects and little animals that humans barely even noticed.
“ ‘Do you see the cathedral’s cupola way over there? Isn’t it magnificent?’ A little ant seemed to say as it explored the palm of my hand. The grandeur of this tiny living creature is much greater than that of any work of man. Thousands of men could rebuild the cathedral if I were to knock it down. However, what man could give this animal back its life? No life is more humble or inferior to another because, although many are able to snatch life away, none can give it back.
“Once again, Shallem was all mine, exclusively and only mine. Once again, he was my sweet, rebellious, melancholic angel.
“On days we stayed at home, a professor would instruct me in different types of disciplines, including trivium and cuadrivium, and Italian. Other professors taught me to play the harpsichord and how to draw. However, my mind was always preoccupied as the professors gave their lessons. Shallem and I never spoke a word about what happened that night with Cannat and there were still thousands of questions I wanted to ask him and the only reason I refrained from doing so was because I didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes.
“And to my existing worries, I added even more that were just as torturous. I started to get scared. My fear was still vague but it promised to become authentic terror. A fear Shallem had warned me about and fought to hide in his omniscient soul. The date was etched into my mind: August 7, 1600. The day of my death. It wasn’t only death in itself that frightened me, it was also the long, the very long and eventually painful and decaying life that awaited me. I didn’t want to die. Not while Shallem was by my side and I could stand on my own two feet albeit, with his help.
“Every night I asked him about Cannat. I asked where he was, and above all, when he was planning to return. And every night I prayed to God, who must have condemned my audacity, that Cannat would never return. That he wouldn’t surprise us the very next day or that we would find him in our house after coming back from a walk, destroying my peace and happiness.
“One night, as we were lying, in bed I asked Shallem about Cannat for the umpteenth time. He rested his hand calmly on my waist and covered my cheeks with warm kisses. ‘Cannat will never hurt you, don’t be afraid, Juliette,’ he whispered. ‘He will never hurt you. He may try to frighten you, he can’t control himself although he tries to. But he will take care of you and would fight for you if it were necessary.’
“ ‘Yes,’ I responded. ‘He would fight for me because it would greatly entertain him; it would be an exciting novelty.’
“ ‘An exciting novelty.’ Shallem laughed.
–VI–
“Finally and inevitably, Cannat returned one night wearing strange clothes. His happiness was baffling, I knew he was ready to take Shallem away from me, to take him hunting again. And that’s what happened. For the next week, Shallem was practically imprisoned in Cannat’s powerful web of joie de vivre.
“I was due to give birth in a month. After dinner, I lay down to get a break from carrying my unbearable weight and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was happy to see Shallem asleep next to me. It was difficult for me to move due to my growing body but I managed to turn a little to get a better look at him. He was extremely pale, almost colorless. But that didn’t matter, I was certain he wasn’t sick. I couldn’t repress my desire to kiss him so I leaned over and as I rested my hand on his face, something worrisome startled me. He was cold. Shallem, who was the warmest creature that ever existed, was as frozen as a block of ice.
“That was the first thing I noticed, the first thing that shocked me, but it wasn’t the only thing. The texture of his skin was indescribable, it felt like I was touching a wax candle. A piece of soft, cold and dead wax.
“My first fleeting thought was that he had left his body, as he did at times. But I rejected that idea immediately, he had never left his body in such a horrible state. Frightened, I began shaking him, calling his name, “Shallem, Shallem, wake up, Shallem, come back, please.” But he just lay there like a heavy, rigid corpse. I knew there was no way possible he could be dead, however, I was completely terrified that I had somehow lost him.
“With difficulty, I stood and opened the curtains. His arms were crossed over his chest and his legs were together and inert, like a dead person in a casket. He wasn’t breathing. He was nothing more than a stiff and empty corpse. By the light of the sun, I could clearly see that his hands and face were slightly bruised. I was certain his body was lifeless.
“Grief stricken, I screamed with all my might, begging for him to come back, asking him where he was, shaking his body, and squeezing his hands and face. Cannat came quickly after hearing my screams.
“ ‘What happened?’ he asked me startled.
“ ‘Shallem’s dead!’ I couldn’t think of a better to express what was happening, although I knew it was impossible and absurd to say he was dead.
“Cannat looked at him for a second. Then, with a worried expression, his eyes rounded by alarm, and his teeth clenched, he threw himself at Shallem and began calling his name, shaking him as vainly as I had. He seemed as, or even more, confused and terrified than me. “Extremely upset, overwhelmed and tormented by his own impotence, he continued violently shaking Shallem’s body as he screamed his name. Suddenly, he let him go and turned to me with a distorted expression on his face. He was furious and his eyes filled with tears.
“ ‘You!’ he roared as he pointed his finger at me. ‘You! Damn you! It’s your fault! You made him do it!’
“Enraged, he approached me with his hands extended as though to strangle me. Filled with horror and anguish and without understanding anything that was happening or what he was saying, I took a few steps back. I knew Shallem wasn’t dead, but I inferred that something equally terrifying had brought on Cannat’s monstrous rage.
“In a second he had me pressed against the wall, clamping my head between his hands and brutally crushing my prominent abdomen. I shrieked in pain, the weight of his body mine was unbearable.
“ ‘Stop! I beg you!’ I implored.
“ ‘Damn you!’ he repeated, his imposing voice ripping at my eardrums.
“In spite of Shallem’s assurances, I was certain that Cannat’s muscular hands, now coiled around my neck like serpents, would squeeze until my neck broke like an insect’s carapace. I felt his hands slowly squeeze my neck until I felt the first signs of asphyxia. He stopped squeezing and closed his eyes. I could tell he was struggling with the effort it took to keep him from killing
me. Suddenly, he let go.
“My unbalanced weight made me fall and as my stomach hit the floor, I let out a broken shriek. I lay there, crying and moaning in pain.
“Unconcerned and without paying me any attention, Cannat walked back to Shallem’s body. He stood there, rigid, watching the body solemnly as if he didn’t recognize it.
“ ‘Trusting fool.’ I heard him snarl as I lay on the floor doubled over my stomach.
“Suddenly, I heard a faint explosion and lifted my head to see what was happening. I held onto to my bulging stomach and began screaming frantically. Shallem’s body had burst into roaring flames. Cannat turned his face and looked at me with infinite hatred.
“ ‘Your bed is his funeral pyre,’ he said to hurt me. ‘Very appropriate, don’t you think?’
“I was seized by an increasingly hostile cough as I struggled to stand. The bedroom had turned into a fuliginous crematorium; it was difficult to breathe.
“I wanted to die as well; I wanted to go where he had gone. I got as close to the flames as possible. The heat was unbearable; I could barely make see his burning body. He had disappeared, devoured by the red flames. Suddenly, as if the current of air that fed the fire had been interrupted, the enormous pyre vanished. Except for the smoke and fetid smell, there was nothing on the bed.
“There were no ashes, the sheets were unscathed and even cold to the touch. The bed was intact, there wasn’t a single burn or smudge. Moaning, I held onto a bed post while Cannat opened the windows.
“ ‘You destroyed his body,’ I sobbed. ‘How can he come back now?’
“ ‘His body?’ Cannat said as he approached me in a rage, looking at me with raw hatred. ‘You don’t understand anything, do you? You’ve never understood anything. You’ve never seen a snake shed its skin? That what I destroyed. A useless, abandoned piece of skin. You thought that was Shallem’s body? A sad, bland human body like your own? No, my dear, no.’
The Devil's Concubine Page 21