Kate had draped her linen napkin over her head, and suddenly she leaped up, pushing her chair back and doing a madly antic dance out onto the lawn and back.
“Moon madness! I’m a victim of moon madness!” she cried, popping behind the trunk of the beech tree, then out again. “Boo! I’m the Ghost of Soakes’s Lonesome.” Beth got her to quiet down, and she came back and sat again, still playing with her napkin.
“I saw him,” I said after a moment’s consideration.
“Who?”
“The ghost.”
“Aw, Daddy, come on.”
“It’s true, sweetheart.”
“Ned.”
“Well, I did. Believe it or not.”
“You saw the Ghost of Soakes’s Lonesome?”
I nodded, sliding my plate away and leaning back in my chair. The time seemed so right for it, the ill-shapen moon, the quietude—a good night for a ghost story. I recited the details of my encounter with the gray figure on the embankment, building it up in pitch and fervor, making it all mysterioso—the strangely twirling figure, the flapping garments, the red, grinning mouth. I made no mention of the bones in the hollow tree, thinking that that part was too real and grisly for even a ghost-story session. Kate was enthralled; her father, who spoke only Truth, had actually seen a ghost.
After I finished my strange recital, she and Beth cleared the things from the table, leaving the hurricane lamp, and I moved into one of the larger, more comfortable terrace chairs. I could hear their voices inside, talking as they rinsed the plates and put them in the dishwasher. The refrigerator door opened and closed several times; then Beth asked Kate to copy out the chicken-and-crab recipe and take it over to the Widow’s. Maggie called through the sun-porch window beyond the hedge and she and Beth exchanged a few words. Presently I heard the Invisible Voice relating more Dickensian adventures. The dishwasher went on, and the garbage disposal, distinct but muted. When Beth came out with the coffee things on a tray, I went in and brought out the little cask from the table and two glasses from the cupboard. The cask was a beautifully made thing, carefully coopered, and bound with iron hoops at either end; a small wooden peg served as a stopper. I broached it tentatively, then drew it out. Tipping the opening to a glass, I poured out some of the liquid, moving the glass so the sides became coated. It was extremely viscid, with a soft yellow color. I sniffed; it had a pleasant aroma, rather like oranges or some other citrus fruit. The taste was sweetish, but with the tang of a cordial. I filled the other glass half full, handed it to Beth, then finished filling my own. She tried some with the tip of her tongue and pronounced it good, and we alternated sips of it with the coffee.
“What’s Robert reading these days?” she asked.
“I think it’s A Tale of Two Cities. I keep hearing ‘Carton,’ and ‘guillotine.’”
We finished our coffee, then continued sipping the Widow’s mead and enjoying the evening. The yellow bird in the locust tree at the front of the house made muted chirruping sounds, and I thought with what constancy it clung to its nest. Inside the kitchen, the dishwasher clicked, signaling the end of its various phases of mechanical ablutions. From all directions came night sounds, those serene and tranquil noises that have a lulling and most satisfactory effect on the senses. As we sat drinking and talking quietly, a breeze sprang up, carrying the gray barbecue smoke off across the lawn, rustling the leaves of the beech tree. The leaves had continued to fall in profusion, and even as I watched, here and there a current of air dislodged them from the branches and wafted them away.
“Have to rake tomorrow.”
“Mm. Worthy can do it, can’t he?”
I didn’t say anything. Beth pointed up at the sky. “Look—a shooting star.” I caught the faint silver parabola as it swished a small arc through the sky. It seemed vaguely unreal, impossible for something to travel so far, so quickly.
“Make a wish,” Beth said.
“I did.” I watched her light a cigarette. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“If I tell, it won’t come true.” She blew out a stream of smoke. “It couldn’t anyway. It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is.”
“I wished Mother were here.”
“Your mother?”
“I wished she could have seen us. Seen Kate. Seen our house. All of it.” She was sitting only a short distance away; I put out my hand for hers, and she took it and bridged the gap. I felt the reassuring pressure of her fingers on the back of my hand.
“What did you wish?” she said.
“I wished for a straight nose.”
“I love your nose.”
Next door, the arm was lifted from the record, and the Invisible Voice fell silent. I waited for the sound of the window being closed, but it must have remained open, for I did not hear it. The sky was ablaze with stars, and as I gazed up at them they seemed unnaturally bright, as though on this night they had somehow come closer to the earth. I picked out the constellations I recognized, the Big and Little Dippers, and the North Star, and, low over the cornfield, Mars glowing red and war-like. I wondered where Orion might be, with Betelgeuse and Rigel; then I thought of the prophetic child, the freckles across the bridge of her nose, the red pointing finger.
I lifted the cask again and poured from it into the glasses, first Beth’s, then mine. I was experiencing a marvelous feeling of relaxation and contentment, and I was fully conscious of the night, of our being together, of this corner of our small domain. I did not speak, but continued enjoying what I sensed was some fleeting moment of comprehension. I felt supersentient—and supersensual. I felt I had never loved Beth more than I did at this moment, had never felt so close, so near to her, not merely touching her hand, but completely and utterly joined to her. How extraordinary she was, my wife. How extraordinary her being. I had a supremely clear sense of who I was, who she was, who we were together. We continued sitting in silence, and I was noticing how the bark of the beech tree seemed to stand out with remarkable clarity when I heard the sound of music. I thought immediately that Robert had put another record on, and was about to make some remark about his selection of what sounded to me like a flute solo, when I realized the sound was coming in the other direction, from the cornfield below the meadow. It rose on the breeze above the sounds of the crickets and peepers, a light roulade of notes, silvery and melodious, faint at first, then taking on a definite form and melody. There was magic in the sound, a kind of mysterious, siren strain gratifying to the ear, alluring and enticing with the plaintive quality of the shepherds’ pipes we had heard in the hills of Greece.
I glanced at Beth; she sat with her eyes closed, enjoying but not questioning it. There was something absolutely and completely pagan about the proliferation of notes, not wild, but primitive. It was sinuous and serpentine, winding itself through the air and breeze, seductively mixing with the sough of the leaves and the grass, the rustle of corn leaves. It was strange. It was magical. It was, I suddenly realized, an experience—the kind of experience, perhaps, that the Widow had hinted at.
Sounds were added. I could detect a second flute, coming from another part of the field. There was the faint tympanic flutter of a tambourine with its fluted disks, and a delicate bell-like chime that made me think of the finger bells of Balinese dancers. A delightful, musical tinkle, whose charm rose in support of the winding flute. We were hearing the pipes of Pan, and at any moment across our lawn would troop horned and goat-legged creatures in the moonlight, satyrs at a wine festival. I tried to comprehend what was happening. This was no impromptu village concert, but a testament of some kind. Then I thought of the honey drink, the cask of mead. It was drugged. Sitting on my terrace, my wife beside me, I felt as if I were being transported, and if this was so, I was utterly willing for it to happen. If it was an experience, I willingly gave myself up to it, tried to open myself to it, as the old lady had suggested; tried to become part of it.
Then, as mysteriously, as magicall
y as it had begun, it ended. The tremolo of the flutes intoned a last strain, then died; there was a brief tintinnabular clink of the tambourine, and a final sound, one I did not recognize, as if some sort of instrument of bones were being used, a tiny subsequence of clicking noises; then all became still again. I breathed deeply, and very softly, not to upset the delicate equilibrium that had balanced within me. I stole a look at Beth. At some time during the playing, our hands had parted, and hers had gone to her breast where it lay, pale and immobile, the fingers curled at the base of her throat. I waited for some movement, some kind of recognition, but she remained immobile, eyes closed, the trace of a smile on her lips, child-like. Was she asleep? Had she heard? Or had I imagined it? I looked up at her as she rose.
“Did—”
Leaning, she laid her fingertips across my lips. I glimpsed her eyes bright in the moonlight before the sweep of her hair fell across them; I knew the answer. I had not imagined it. I stood, moving close and putting my arms around her. She was still holding her glass, and she lifted it and drained off the contents. I watched the slender column of pale throat as the liquid went down, and I could taste the liquor on her lips as I kissed them. Never had she felt more desirable, never had I wanted her more. Yet, and I realized this fully, it was not merely desire, the loin lust we often joked about, but a profound, deep-seated craving to continue the experience on another, on a physical level.
“Let’s go to bed,” I whispered hoarsely. She made a little acquiescent sound in my ear, then stepped away from me, pressing me back in the chair.
“No?” I asked.
“Yes. In a little while. Come to me. I want to see to Kate, and then—”
“Mn?”
“I want to—be ready.” I saw the line of dark lashes as she dropped them. Getting ready was one of the little bits of modesty about her. She went away softly, as though not to break the spell. I picked up my glass again, and drank. I knew now why the cask had been brought, and why the Widow had cautioned not too early for bed. I knew tonight was meant to have a special significance, to evoke a particular awareness in Beth and myself, both separately and jointly.
And it was not over; I was certain there was to be more to the ‘experience.’
The night seemed to expand around me, to encompass and envelop me. The deeper colors of the chrysanthemums grew richer, more vibrant in the moonlight, like the colors in old tapestries. The coppery sheen of the beech leaves became brighter, hammered from precious metals. The sky pulsed and throbbed, evoking a low, touchable canopy, bejeweled, lighted by a globe I could at will reach up and extinguish. I was feeling a rush of intensity I did not understand, but did not care to; to have it was enough. I was aware; I was at one with my surroundings, with sky and earth and light and sound, with trees, flowers, corn, with all of nature.
Then it began, the rest of it.
I saw a figure. I did not move even a fraction as it appeared. I was right; the music had not been the end of it. It was a male figure, and I supposed it had come out of the cornfield, for it waited just at the edge, in a dark strip of soil between the meadow and the beginning of the corn. It stood enormously erect, wearing some kind of garments, though I could not perceive what they might be. I say the figure was enormous, for so it seemed, larger than any human I had ever seen. It took first one step, then another, and came into the full light of the moon.
It might have been a spirit of vegetation—I remember that the idiot trademark of the Jolly Green Giant immediately crossed my mind. Yet there was nothing humorous about it. It was deadly serious, earnest, real. In all its vividness and aliveness, it stood there, the embodiment of vigor and of growing; not demoniacal, but a benign spirit. Now I saw that the arms and legs were sheathed in tied-on bunches of straw, while the torso and lower quarters were girdled in corn leaves. A tight-fitting helmet-shaped cap of leaves covered the head, and the face itself was hidden behind a large straw mask. The expression formed by the angled eye slits, and that of the mouth, was again one of benevolence, the slightly vacant yet obtrusively concentrated expression of ancient Greek sculpture, a look at once bland yet enigmatic: the unknowable. The figure took the classic stance of contrapposto, the forward leg engaged, shoulders and hips in opposition. Thus it stood, nothing more—for the moment.
It was the figure from the corn quilt, of course. The Harvest Lord; but not a representation or facsimile. He brought his arms up very slowly, a gesture I found both equivocal and absolute: a wide, encompassing movement, as though within the curve of his arms lay revelation. With arms outstretched, he bowed, acknowledging me—a somewhat theatrical bow, I thought. I told myself it must be Justin Hooke, yet I was not sure. I looked for a glimpse of golden hair at the back of the neck, but could see none. He straightened again, and lowered one arm. With the other hand he made dumb gestures, pantomiming a flow of words from behind the mask. Then he turned slightly and another gesture indicated the raising of a curtain or drapery, behind which lay the cornfield, which he now indicated in a single wide sweeping arc. Then the arm came down, and he turned to his right.
My attention was drawn to where he looked, and I now saw another figure some distance away along the edge of the field. I had not seen this one appear, either; it was simply there. A female figure, hidden from top to toe under some sort of luminous veil. She remained immobile under the silvery shroud, facing me, then turned toward the male figure. I waited, wondering if they would approach each other simultaneously or if one would go to the other. Then I saw it was the woman who waited, the man who went, advancing to her slowly, ceremoniously, and simply. When he had got to within three or four feet of her, he lay down, couching himself in the short grass, one knee up, resting on one locked arm. For a moment neither moved; then the woman’s pale draperies parted and an arm appeared. In a slow gesture it revealed itself, the hand supple, graceful, the fingers relaxed, slightly bent, the forefinger extended. She leaned her shoulders slightly forward, and now the man raised his free arm and, with his pointing finger, awaited her touch. The space between the two fingers grew smaller, and as they closed I saw a quick flash, a single white sputter of light that leaped between them. It was the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s awakening of Adam, the divine spark given from Jehovah. But that was a fresco, this was real. The kinetic gift of the vital life force. The man got to his feet, bowed to the woman, to me, then returned to where he had originally appeared. I turned my eyes back to the figure under the veil. Her hand and arm had been withdrawn beneath the draperies again, the disguise assumed again.
Who was she? Who was she meant to be?
I had thought at first it must be the Corn Maiden. But observing her, I realized she had come in a form different from what I expected, something other than what I had seen in the quilt. I sensed it was not she but someone else, someone whose identity I was supposed to guess. The sphinx. In her very being lay the conundrum. Tell me who I am, she seemed to say. She remained motionless for a period, as if giving me time to make my guess; then she lifted her hands outward from her sides, and they met slowly over her head, raising the veil as the covered fingers touched above. I was both shocked and excited as I realized that under the veil she was completely naked, and I could see the gleam of her thighs, pale and marmoreal in the moonlight, with the dark, mysterious cleft between.
I thought she must remove the veil. I thought she must invite me, make some gesture, some signal that I was to come to her, to take the place of the other figure, but when the hem of the drapery had lifted almost to the waist, it immediately dropped again. I rose and took a step forward, revealing myself. I looked to the place where the man had been standing, but he had disappeared. Then the woman figure inclined her head beneath the veil, posed for an instant, turned, and stepped from the grass onto the strip of dark earth, into the shadows of the cornstalks, then into the corn itself.
She was gone.
I ran partway down the lawn, then stopped. I was not meant to follow. Something had been revealed to me, not only
the woman’s charms, but also some deeper, metaphysical equation I could not solve. Watching the field, I heard the dry bone sound I had heard earlier, followed by a short flute passage, brief but effective, like the final coda in the Strauss Till Eulenspiegel. A beguiling strain, yet somehow mocking, as though the whole thing had been a game, some little divertissement for an autumn evening.
All was silence. I turned and went back up the lawn to the terrace. I found the peg for the cask, fitted it in, picked up the glasses, and carried them and the keg into the house. I rinsed out the glasses and set them in the rack. I let the cold water run on my hand; the flow had an incredible feeling to it. I turned off the tap and put the cask on the topmost shelf of one of the cupboards. I locked the kitchen door, switched off the lights, went through the hall, checked that the front door was locked, and went upstairs. I stopped and listened at Kate’s door, then opened it softly. She was asleep. I closed it again, and crossed the hall to our bedroom. The door was ajar. I went in to find Beth in the rocking chair by the window. Her hand was raised in what appeared to be a gesture, and at first I thought she was motioning to someone; then I saw she was only reaching for the tassel of the shade. She drew it down, and her hand dropped into her lap. She spoke softly, calling me darling, and rose to extinguish the only light, the small one on the bureau. She disrobed and got onto the bed, which she had turned down. She was waiting for me.
The moonlight streamed through the front windows, enough to undress by. I was careful with my clothes, folding them and placing them on the chair, my shoes beneath, and when I turned again Beth drew a little breath as I went to her, and I thought of a bride on her wedding night, waiting to submit to the demands of her spouse. But when I took her it was no virgin I took, but a woman, versed and capable, as accomplished a lover as any man could hope for. We were together as we had never been before, not even in the days of the Rue du Bac in Paris, a meeting of two people that was not only physical but spiritual as well, and if ever we knew one another, it was on that night when we had drunk from the Widow Fortune’s little wooden cask and the flutes had played.