I used to go there often during the summer because I had bad spells of malaria, when sometimes I couldn’t bear to lie on the iron bedstead in my room with the flies buzzing around my face, or out on the hammock on the porch with the screams and laughter of the other kids as they played torturing my ears. My aching head made it impossible for me to read, and I would drag myself down the road, scuffling my bare sun-burned toes in the dust, wearing the tattered straw hat that was supposed to protect me from the heat of the sun, shivering and sweating by turns. Sometimes it would seem hours before I got to the iron gate near which the brick wall was the lowest. Often I would have to lie panting on the tall prickly grass for a minute until I gathered up my strength to scale the wall and drop down on the other side.
But once inside the grounds it seemed cooler. One funny thing about my chills was that I didn’t seem to shiver nearly as much when I could keep cool as I did at home, where even the walls and floors, if you touched them, were hot. The grounds were filled with live oaks that had grown up unchecked everywhere and afforded an almost continuous green shade. The ground was covered with ferns which were soft and cool to lie on, and when I flung myself down on my back and looked up, the roof of leaves was so thick that sometimes I couldn’t see the sky at all. The sun that managed to filter through had lost its bright colorless glare and came in soft yellow shafts that didn’t burn you when they touched you.
One afternoon, a scorcher early in September, which is usually our hottest month (and by then you’re fagged out by the heat anyhow), I set out for the plantation. The heat lay coiled and shimmering on the road. When you looked at anything through it, it was like looking through a defective pane of glass. The dirt road was so hot that it burned even through my calloused feet and as I walked clouds of dust rose in front of me and mixed with the shimmering of the heat. I thought I’d never make the plantation. Sweat was running into my eyes, but it was cold sweat, and I was shivering so that my teeth chattered as I walked. When I finally managed to fling myself down on my soft green bed of ferns inside the grounds, I was seized with one of the worst chills I’d ever had, in spite of the fact that my mother had given me an extra dose of quinine that morning and some 666 malaria medicine to boot. I shut my eyes tight and clutched the ferns with my hands and teeth to wait until the chill had passed, when I heard a soft little voice call:
“Boy.”
I thought at first I was delirious, because sometimes I got delirious when my bad attacks came on; only then I remembered that when I was delirious I didn’t know it—all the strange things I saw and heard seemed perfectly natural. So when the voice said, “Boy,” again, as soft and clear as the mockingbird at sunrise, I opened my eyes.
Kneeling near me on the ferns was a girl. She must have been about a year younger than I. I was almost sixteen, so I guess she was fourteen or fifteen. She was dressed in a blue and white checked gingham dress; her face was very pale, but the kind of paleness that’s supposed to be, not the sickly pale kind that was like mine, showing even under a tan. Her eyes were big and very blue. Her hair was dark brown, and she wore it parted in the middle in two heavy braids that were swinging in front of her shoulders as she peered into my face.
“You don’t feel well, do you?” she asked. There was no trace of concern or worry in her voice. Just scientific interest.
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered, almost afraid that if I talked she would vanish, because I had never seen anyone here before, and I thought that maybe I was dying because I felt so awful, and I thought maybe that gave me power to see the ghost. But the girl in blue and white checked gingham seemed as I watched her to be good flesh and blood.
“You’d better come with me,” she said. “She’ll make you all right.”
“Who’s ‘she’?”
“Oh—just Her,” she said.
My chill had begun to recede by now, so when she got up off her knees I scrambled up, too. When she stood up her dress showed a white ruffled petticoat underneath it, and bits of green moss had left patterns on her knees, and I didn’t think that would happen to the knees of a ghost, so I followed her as she led the way towards the house. She did not go up the sagging, half-rotted steps, which led up to the verandah about whose white pillars wisteria vines climbed in wild profusion, but went around to the side of the house where there were slanting doors to a cellar. The sun and rain had long since blistered and washed off the paint, but the doors looked clean and were free of the bits of bark from the eucalyptus tree that leaned nearby and that had dropped its bits of dirty brown peel on either side; so I knew that these cellar stairs must be frequently used.
The girl opened the cellar doors. “You go down first,” she said. I went down the cellar steps, which were stone and cool against my bare feet. As she followed me, she closed the cellar doors after her, and as I reached the bottom of the stairs we were in pitch darkness. I began to be very frightened until her soft voice came out of the black.
“Boy, where are you?”
“Right here.”
“You’d better take my hand. You might stumble.”
We reached out and found each other’s hands in the darkness. Her fingers were long and cool and they closed firmly around mine. She moved with authority through the pitch blackness of the cellar as though she knew her way with the familiarity born of custom.
“Poor Sat’s all in the dark,” she said, “but he likes it that way. He likes to sleep for weeks at a time. Sometimes he snores awfully. Sat, darling!” she called gently. A soft bubbly blowing sound came in answer, and she laughed happily. “Oh, Sat, you are sweet!” she said, and the bubbly blowy sound came again. Then the girl pulled at my hand and we came out into a huge and dusty kitchen. Iron skillets, pots, and pans were still hanging on either side of the huge stove, and there was a rolling pin and a bowl of flour on the marble-topped table in the middle of the room. The girl took a lit candle off the shelf.
“I’m going to make cookies,” she said as she saw me looking at the flour and the rolling pin. She slipped her hand out of mine. “Come along.” She began to walk more rapidly. We left the kitchen, crossed the hall, and went through the dining room, its old mahogany table thick with dust, although sheets covered the pictures on the walls. Then we went into the ballroom. The mirrors lining the walls were spotted and discolored; against one wall was a single delicate gold chair, its seat cushioned with pale rose and silver woven silk; it seemed extraordinarily well preserved. From the ceiling swung the huge chandelier by which Alexandra Londermaine had hung herself, its prisms catching and breaking up into a hundred colors the flickering of the candle and the few shafts of light that managed to slide in through the boarded-up windows. As we crossed the ballroom, the girl began to dance by herself, gracefully, lightly, so that her full blue and white checked gingham skirts flew out around her. She looked at herself with pleasure in the old mirrors as she danced, the candle flaring and guttering in her right hand.
“You’ve stopped shaking. Now what will I tell Her?” she said as we started to climb the broad mahogany staircase. It was very dark, so she took my hand again, and before we had reached the top of the stairs, I was seized by another chill. She felt my trembling fingers with satisfaction. “Oh, you’ve started again. That’s good.” She slid open one of the huge double doors at the head of the stairs.
As I looked into what once must have been Colonel Londermaine’s study I thought my eyes would pop from my head. Seated at the huge table in the center of the room was the most extraordinary woman I had ever seen. I felt that she must be very beautiful, although she would never have fulfilled any of the standards of beauty set by our town. Even though she was seated I knew that she must be immensely tall. Piled up on the table in front of her were several huge volumes, and her finger was marking the place in the open one in front of her, but she was not reading. She was leaning back in the carved chair, her head resting against a piece of blue and gold embroidered silk that was flung across the chair back, one hand gently
stroking a fawn that lay sleeping in her lap. Her eyes were closed and somehow I couldn’t imagine what color they would be. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had been shining amber or the deep purple of her velvet robe. She had a great quantity of hair the color of mahogany in firelight, which was cut quite short and seemed to be blown wildly about her head like flame. Under her closed eyes were deep shadows, and lines of pain about her mouth. Otherwise there were no marks of age on her face but I would not have been surprised to learn that she was a hundred—or twenty-five. Her mouth was large and mobile and she was singing something in a deep rich voice. Two cats, one black, one white, were coiled up, each on a book, and as we opened the doors a leopard stood up quietly beside her, but did not snarl or move. It simply stood there and waited, watching us.
The girl nudged me and held her finger to her lips to warn me to be quiet, but I would not have spoken—could not, anyhow, my teeth were chattering so from my chill that I had completely forgotten, so fascinated was I by this woman sitting back with her head against the embroidered silk, soft deep sounds coming out of her throat. At last these sounds resolved themselves into words, and we listened to her as she sang. The cats slept indifferently, but the leopard listened, too:
I sit high in my ivory tower,
The heavy curtains drawn.
I’ve many a strange and lustrous flower,
A leopard and a fawn
Together sleeping by my chair,
And strange birds softly winging,
And ever pleasant to my ear
Twelve maidens’ voices singing.
Here is my magic maps’ array,
My mystic circle’s flame.
With symbols’ art He lets me play,
The unknown my domain.
And as I sit here in my dream
I see myself awake,
Hearing a torn and bloody scream,
Feeling my castle shake…
Her song wasn’t finished but she opened her eyes and looked at us. Now that his mistress knew we were here, the leopard seemed ready to spring and devour me in one gulp, but she put one hand on his sapphire-studded collar to restrain him.
“Well, Alexandra,” she said. “Who have we here?”
The girl, who still held my hand in her long cool fingers, answered, “It’s a boy.”
“So I see. Where did you find him?” The voice sent shivers up and down my spine.
“In the fern bed. He was shaking. See? He’s shaking now. Is he having a fit?” Alexandra’s voice was filled with pleased interest.
“Come here, boy,” the woman said.
As I didn’t move, Alexandra gave me a push, and I advanced slowly. As I came near, the woman pulled one of the leopard’s ears gently, saying, “Lie down, Thammuz.” The beast obeyed, flinging itself at her feet. She held her hand out to me as I approached the table. If Alexandra’s fingers felt firm and cool, hers had the strength of the ocean and the coolness of jade. She looked at me for a long time and I saw that her eyes were deep blue, much bluer than Alexandra’s, and so dark as to be almost black. When she spoke again her voice was warm and tender: “You’re burning up with fever. One of the malaria bugs?” I nodded. “Well, we’ll fix that for you.”
When she stood and put the sleeping fawn down by the leopard, she was not as tall as I had expected her to be; nevertheless she gave an impression of great height. Several of the bookshelves in one corner were emptied of books and filled with various shaped bottles and retorts. Nearby was a large skeleton. There was an acid-stained wash basin too; that whole section of the room looked like part of a chemist’s or physicist’s laboratory. She selected from among the bottles a small amber-colored one, and poured a drop of the liquid it contained into a glass of water. As the drop hit the water, there was a loud hiss, and clouds of dense smoke arose. When it had drifted away she handed the glass to me and said, “Drink.”
My hand was trembling so that I could scarcely hold the glass. Seeing this, she took it from me and held it to my lips.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Drink it,” she said, pressing the rim of the glass against my teeth. On the first swallow I started to choke and would have pushed the stuff away, but she forced the rest of the burning liquid down my throat. My whole body felt on fire. I felt flame flickering in every vein, and the room and everything in it swirled around. When I had regained equilibrium to a certain extent, I managed to gasp out again, “What is it?”
She smiled and answered:
Nine peacocks’ hearts, four bats’ tongues,
A pinch of stardust and a hummingbird’s lungs.
Then I asked a question I would never have dared ask if it hadn’t been that I was still half-drunk from the potion I had swallowed. “Are you a witch?”
She smiled again, and answered, “I make it my profession.”
Since she hadn’t struck me down with a flash of lightning, I went on. “Do you ride a broomstick?”
This time she laughed. “I can when I like.”
“Is it—is it very hard?”
“Rather like a bucking bronco at first, but I’ve always been a good horsewoman, and now I can manage very nicely. I’ve finally progressed to sidesaddle, though I still feel safer when I ride astride—I always rode my horse astride. Still, the best witches ride sidesaddle, so…Now run along home. Alexandra has lessons to study and I must work. Can you hold your tongue or must I make you forget?”
“I can hold my tongue.”
She looked at me and her eyes burned into me like the potion she had given me to drink. “Yes, I think you can,” she said. “Come back tomorrow if you like. Thammuz will show you out.”
The leopard rose and led the way to the door. As I hesitated, unwilling to tear myself away, it came back and pulled gently but firmly on my trouser leg.
“Goodbye, boy,” the witch woman said. “And you won’t have any more chills and fever.”
“Goodbye,” I answered. I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t say goodbye to Alexandra. I followed the leopard out.
She let me come every day. I think she must have been lonely. After all, I was the only thing there with a life apart from hers. And in the long run, the only reason I have had a life of my own is because of her. I am as much a creation of the witch woman’s as Thammuz the leopard was, or the two cats, Ashtaroth and Orus. (It wasn’t until many years after the last day I saw the witch woman that I learned that those were the names of the fallen angels.)
She did cure my malaria, too. My parents and the townspeople thought that I had outgrown it. I grew angry when they talked about it so lightly and wanted to tell them that it was because of the witch woman, but I knew that if ever I breathed a word about her I would be eternally damned. Mama thought we should write a testimonial letter to the 666 Malarial Preparation people, and maybe they’d send us a couple of dollars.
Alexandra and I became very good friends. She was a strange, aloof creature. She liked me to watch her while she danced alone in the ballroom or played on an imaginary harp—though sometimes I fancied I could hear the music. One day she took me into the drawing room and uncovered a portrait that was hung between two of the long-boarded-up windows. Then she stepped back and held her candle high so as to throw the best light on the pictures. It might have been a picture of Alexandra herself, or Alexandra as she might be in five years.
“That’s my mother,” she said. “Alexandra Londermaine.”
As far as I knew from the tales that went about the town, Alexandra Londermaine had given birth to only one child, and that stillborn, before she had hung herself on the chandelier in the ballroom—and anyhow, any child of hers would have been this Alexandra’s mother or grandmother. But I didn’t say anything, because when Alexandra got angry, she became ferocious like one of the cats and would leap on me, scratching and biting. I looked at the portrait silently.
“You see, she has on a ring like mine,” Alexandra said, holding out her left hand, on the fourth finger of which was the mo
st beautiful sapphire and diamond ring I had ever seen, or rather, that I could ever imagine, for it was a ring apart from any owned by even the most wealthy of the townsfolk. Then I knew that Alexandra had brought me in here and unveiled the portrait simply that she might show me the ring to better advantage, for she had never worn a ring before.
“Where did you get it?”
“Oh, She got it for me last night.”
“Alexandra,” I asked suddenly, “how long have you been here?”
“Oh, a while.”
“But how long?”
“Oh, I don’t remember.”
“But you must remember.”
“I don’t. I just came—like poor Sat.”
“Who’s poor Sat?” I asked, thinking for the first time of whatever it was that had made the gentle bubbly noises at Alexandra the day she found me in the fern bed.
“Why, we’ve never shown you Sat, have we!” she exclaimed. “I’m sure it’s all right, but we’d better ask Her first.”
So we went to the witch woman’s room and knocked. Thammuz pulled the door open with his strong teeth and the witch woman looked up from some sort of experiment she was making with test tubes and retorts. The fawn, as usual, lay sleeping near her feet. “Well?” she said.
“Is it all right if I take him to see Poor Little Saturday?” Alexandra asked her.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered. “But no teasing.” She turned her back to us and bent again over her test tubes as Thammuz nosed us out of the room.
The Moment of Tenderness Page 20