Harvest Home Part 34

"Harborer of the seed..."

"Receive him..."

"Receive him..."

"O Mother..."

"O Mother..."

"O Mother..."

"O Mother..."

"O Mother-r-r... Ma Mere...Mia Ma-a-adre...Maw-tharr... Mo-der... Ma-ter-r-r-r...Me-e-ee-eter-r-r..."

"Me-e-ee-eter-r-r..."

"De-meter-r-r-r..."

"Demeter..."

Thus continued the chant, a canticle in a gradual declension of words that saw its pa.s.sage from the tongue of every day through tongues that had been spoken for century upon century and that at last became another tongue entirely: "O Mag-thyr... Da-mag-thyr... Da-myyg____________________ar... Ah, ldhu, Mag-thyr Ah, ldhu, Mag-thyr..."

A tongue spoken before any of those preceding, and the women, hand-locked in circle within the grove, had the tongue, for the old woman gave it to them, but though they did not know the meaning of the words they comprehended their import, for this was part of the mystery they shared in; and as they chanted, the flutes fell silent and only the drums and tambourines continued, their repeated monotony bringing the celebrants closer and closer to the magic that lay behind this night of nights.

"Mag-thyr... Da-mag-thyr..."

A steady tempo measuring out the cadence and rhythm. And the tongue became tongueless, became sounds only, iterated again and again as the old woman turned the circle, her fisted hand giving the meter to the drums and tambourines, giving the women the chant, and the words she knew, the syllables, the sounds of the tongue that was no tongue at all: "Ah, ldhu... ldhu... yah... halg... ogrl... na..."

Neither English nor German nor Latin nor Celtic nor Sumerian nor any other language, for it was the tongue men had spoken at the dawn of time, when they first learned to communicate.

And at length, as the old woman circled, giving to them the sounds, some of the women's heads began to sway and their bodies followed where their heads led them and their joined hands parted while, their throats giving utterance to the sounds, they fell to the ground and tore up the gra.s.s and dug at the earth like animals, swine rooting, groveling, rolling upon one another, writhing in hysteria, with heaving breast and flailing limb, and the old woman stood above them, driving them, her fist metronomic against the moon, rising, lowering, giving them the tempo and the words. Nothing could stay them now, nothing still them. Wildly they flung themselves where they might, heedless of injury, unaware of reality, swept into hypnotic oblivion, their stomachs expanding, contracting, drinking air that they should rise and chant again, and again fall in frenzy.

And there were some who fell at the feet of the watching Harvest Lord, who had laid his cup aside and sat unmoving and upright, observing the secret rites as they swooned before him, permitting them to extend their quivering hands to touch him: piteous, tender hands, despairing hands; surely they must touch their last. Beloved Lord, O lively, warm male flesh, O magnificent Lord, we thank thee, the Mother thanks thee- "O Mother... Magthyr... ldhu, ah, ldhu..."

Louder grew the cry, louder the chant, more serpentine their writhings as they yearned toward him, rus.h.i.+ng from him to tear their hair, heads flung back, open-mouthed to shout unintelligible obscenities at the heaven that was to deprive them of their beloved.

Now it would be his death, the end of Justin Hooke. But no; still it was not yet. There was more for the living Justin, one thing more for him to do. They swooped upon him and brought him from where he stood beside the Corn Maiden to a spot near the center of the clearing where the earth had been hoed, and from my hiding place I could see the blank glitter of his eyes, the half-lidded look of pleasure as they strewed themselves about his feet, rubbing their cheeks along his legs, upward to his thighs, their eager hands reaching under his tunic to fondle and caress him. His head dropped back and a deep-throated moan of pleasure issued from his mouth as he became aroused, and through the parted strips of corn leaves appeared the living malehood of the Harvest Lord.

"Ya-ldhu!" they screamed, rus.h.i.+ng to touch it, feel the erect object of their adoration, the great rooster that had occasioned the ribald comments at their kitchen doors. "Ya -ldhu! Ahm-lot! AHM-lot!" Cries of torment, their frenzy now insupportable. The sight and touch of the Priapean object induced a wild pantomime of devotion, an obscene reverence to the maleness of the Harvest Lord.

They were working at his back, binding his hands behind with braided thongs, rendering them useless. Then the Corn Maiden was brought to him and I realized what must follow. Together, in front of the others, they were to make the corn!

The veiled figure stood before him, leaf strips from neck to thigh, white legs gleaming, and arms, as she brought them up in a wors.h.i.+pful gesture, violently trembling.

Hands reached to draw away the veil, and as it fluttered, then slid away entirely, I stared, only half hearing the twig crack behind the tree as the waiting presence took a step forward. I paid scant attention to my danger as in that single terrible moment I realized the mistake I had made, and to what extent I had underrated the Widow Fortune's powers of persuasion. If Tamar Penrose had been a candidate, and Sally and Margie, they had all lost. The Widow had wanted new blood for the Corn Maiden; she had got it.

It was Beth.

Like one entranced, she stood as if she had stepped from a sleeping dream into a waking one. Hands reached to support her as she faced Justin; the Harvest Lord and the Corn Maiden: the man and the woman: my friend and my wife. She had eyes for nothing but him. In a blinding flash, I thought back to the night of the "experience": Beth in the chair, her hand raised. She had not been pulling down the shade; she had seen him, was acknowledging him. Already the Widow had begun her corruption.

Her body swayed as if drawn to him by a magnet. She tried to lift her arms, they dropped to her sides; she went slack, crumpled under the power of the keg liquor. Hands bore her down, where her fingers dug at the tilled earth. Dirtied, they became claws and began rending the thin fabric of the leaves that covered her, exposing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly; then, looking up at the figure towering over her, she moaned and her hand reached upward. She wanted him. She wanted to take him, to take him inside her, to couple with him.

I cried out, and began tearing at the covering of vines across the tree hollow, hearing the step at my side, twigs cracking, then being confronted in my struggle by the red-lipped face of Tamar Penrose, her red-nailed fingers ripping at the screen of leaves to expose me, calling loudly, "He has seen!" heads turning while I sought to free myself, enraged that the vines which had sequestered me now became my fetters and held me fast, while with angry cries they came at me, a wave of vengeful harpies. I cursed them, trying to free my hands and feet, feeling the sharpness of their nails as they tore at the vines, and "Denier!" they shouted, astonished and furious, "he has denied us," while I yanked and pulled, saw Tamar's glittering eyes, in my mind saw Missy's deader ones, heard her say "You will be sorrier!" the blank yet knowing look; "Kill him!" they cried. Justin and Beth turned with uncomprehending stares, not knowing what had happened. "Kill him!" the women cried again.

"No!" someone commanded-the Widow's voice, but not the Widow at all: some bedeviled creature, unearthly in her fury, her cap fallen off, hair wildly hanging about her shoulders, her black dress s.m.u.tted. The Widow in the madness of her own dream, into which I rashly had intruded.

"No! He shall not be killed yet. He has come to see. He has come to witness. Let him see. Let him witness. Let him see the Harvest Lord at work. Let him see the furrow plowed! Let him see the making of the corn." While many hands imprisoned me in the hollow of the tree, she turned back and at her signal the drugged Justin was brought again to stand spread-legged over the supine body of Beth, his arms pinned behind, while they spread her legs apart and he stepped between them and knelt, and eagerly they guided him into the darkness between her legs.

I went mad. Waves of nausea and horror swept me. A stoppage in my ears as if all sound were suddenly cut off, a switch thrown, a plug pulled, leaving only dull interior explosions, painful sparks behind my straining eyeb.a.l.l.s, the blood surging through the taut veins in my neck, my teeth clamping onto my lower lip to stop the soundless words I screamed, trying to turn away, to shut my eyes, feeling the sting of Tamar's nails as they bit into my arm until I was made to watch again.

"See! See him plow the furrow. Watch!"

I watched. She was not his lover, nor he hers, but both were instruments of the women, his arms bound, hers held outstretched on the earth as he probed her, and my cries broke from my lips again, mingling with the ecstatic chant that moment by moment mounted in tempo and pitch, "ldhu, ldhu," thrusting their shoulders as he thrust, grunting as she grunted, "ldhu," and "ldhu," some moving behind him, their fingers tracing the curve of his back as it arched and bent again, rose and sank, their pa.s.sion spurring his pa.s.sion, she beneath him crying out in l.u.s.t and pain. In the madness and the moonlight, his face contorted in spasm as he pushed his way farther. And then, in the moment of complete knowledge, they worked each other, met shudderingly, and capitulated. The corn was made.

I screamed out, but all eyes were on the locked pair. As they lay on the ground, he covering her, the handle of a hoe was thrust through his bent arms and across his back, and he was torn from her. They brought him to his knees with his spine arched like a bow. A tremendous roaring sounded in his throat. Some of them had lifted her away, and she lay panting as she was covered over with the mantle and the veil was drawn over her head. His bull-like roars continued; he knelt, dripping onto the ground. I shouted again, trying still to pull away from the hands holding me.

What followed took only seconds. There was a quick flash of movement as Tamar sprang forward. A woman whose fingers were tangled in Justin's hair forced his head back and moved aside when with a wild look Tamar thrust herself at him. A silver crescent gleamed in her hand; she raised the sharpened sickle and, holding the tip with the other hand, in one swift movement she slashed it across the exposed throat. His roar became a wild bellow, then turned to a gurgle; a torrent of red appeared, a brightly flowing curtain melting down the neck and onto the chest. They bent him back farther and came with cup and bowl to catch the precious liquid, stumbling as they bore it to all quarters of the clearing, spilling his blood among the upturned clods.

It was an ugly death. They struggled to hold him through the series of convulsive heaves that wracked his body, the giant muscles bulging, arms flailing, a slow agony as the red life drained from him and was poured into the ground. Then the great shoulders heaved, slanted sidewise, and he buckled like a gored bull and toppled over, the blood still gus.h.i.+ng from the crescent wound.

They had dragged me from the hollow and pushed me forward the better to see this horror, the death of the Harvest Lord. I watched as I had watched the eye in dreams, unable to do anything else. It was not happening, it could not be happening; yet I knew it was. I shut my eyes, trying not to look; yet I looked. The ma.s.sive chest rose in a thickly glutted cough, there was a final eruption of blood through the mouth, the lids flickered, the eyes rolled upward, then the great heart ceased pumping and he lay still.

They changed his position, straightening him out on the earth, laying him on his side, resting his head along one bent arm. Then, the final horror: Tamar flung herself down on the ground beside him, pulling herself to him, entwining her arms about him in b.l.o.o.d.y embrace, her red lips kissing his redder ones.

The hands relaxed their hold on me as the women watched the hideous sight. I pulled free. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the clearing had become dark. Beyond the clearing were the trees, beyond the trees lay safety. I began running. But what tree was there to shelter this fugitive, to harbor the defiler of the temple, the heretic? Like nemeses, they appeared from all sides of the clearing, blocking my every way. I wheeled, my foot caught on a bared root, and I went down, feeling the taste of earth upon my tongue. It was not bitter. As I waited for them to attack, it seemed the ground was strangely warm, and I strangely comforted. In those few brief moments, I pressed my cheek against the tilled soil, the very bosom of Mother Earth, feeling it a.s.suage the burning flesh, felt the firm yet yielding body of it under my flattened palms. It was as though, beneath my beating heart, I could sense the heart of the land itself, the heart that lay within, the heart of Mother Earth. Through all my being I could feel Her ma.s.siveness, Her power, and Her strength. She did not spurn me; She seemed to draw me to her, to embrace me. Though She, who had given me life, would give no more, She would receive me back to her, and as I had never prayed to G.o.d for my soul's repose, now I prayed to Her, not for succor or protection, but for absolution.

She was clement. She would forgive.

Then, as I lay there on the steaming earth, out of the shambles of the night the women fell upon me.

30.

It's too lovely a day"-raising the window-"to keep it outside the house. Feel that glorious spring breeze."

"Mother-your dress!"

"Like it?"

"It's beautiful."

"I thought perhaps-"

"No, it's just perfect."

"I'm glad." She went from the bacchante room to the kitchen, leaving behind the scent of the lilacs she had arranged on the sideboard.

"What about dessert?"

"In the refrigerator, darling."

The refrigerator door opened. "Chocolate mousse. How many?"

"Six. Two for Maggie and Robert, two for you and Jim, one for me, one for the Widow. Open the window over the sink, Kate, would you?"

The window slid in its frame and, as though in response, beyond the hedge Robert's sun-porch window was raised.

"Morning, Robert."

"It's Maggie, Beth. Marvelous day for a picnic. How's it coming?"

"In a jiffy."

"I think you're crazy, always doing the whole thing yourself."

"I want to. Got the martinis?"

"Iced and ready. Here's Robert-"

"Morning, Beth. Spring at last, hey?"

"Oh, yes. I thought it would never come."

It was true. After the long winter, the balmy caressing air already had a hint of summer in it. And where it slipped under the window of the bacchante room it mixed with and circulated the perfume of the lilacs. From window to window, they discussed the yellow bird in the locust tree.

"I told you," Robert said. "It comes back every year."

The Invisible Voice began: "'Though certainly I don't know why you should,' said Dora-'And I am sure no one' - 'Jip, you naughty boy, come -' I don't know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip. I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. I told her that I idolized and wors.h.i.+ped her. Jip barked madly all the time.

"When Dora hung her head and" cried, and trembled..."

"We're having chocolate mousse," Kate called over to Robert's window; Robert replied briefly over the sound of the Invisible Voice.

"Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was off my mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged..."

Presently, down the drive came the clop of a horse's hoofs, and the creak of wooden wheels sounded under the bacchante room window. Beth's light step carried her to the sink. "Good morning."

"Springish, ain't it? Where's Kate, now? Kate, come out and see what I have for you."

Scrambling noises in the kitchen, the back door opening, feet clattering down the steps.

"Mother-come see what the Widow's brought!"

Beth hurried out to join the others. "Oh, just look at them," she crooned.

"For me?" Kate asked.

"Aye. If your mother says," came the reply amid myriad cheepings. "If you're goin' to have eggs, you got to raise hens. These here now are real Easter chicks."

A car honked out on the street, a door slammed.

"Here's Jim Minerva."

"Congratulations, Harvest Lord."

"Morning, everybody. Morning, Kate."

"You're lookin' spruce for Spring Festival. How'll it feel to be crowned? Here, take these creatures out to the hen house and put 'em in the brooder."

Kate's and Jim's voices trailed away as they went off to the studio. Beth said, "What are you giving Jimmy today?"

"I sewed him a new s.h.i.+rt."

"I picked out cuff links."

"Just the thing."

"That you, Widow?" came a voice from the house beyond the hedge.

"Mornin", Robert. Fine day for Maypoling."

"The Eternal Return."

"Chapter Twenty-four. My Aunt Astonishes Me. I wrote to Agnes as soon as Dora and I were engaged. I wrote her a long letter, in which I tried to make her comprehend how blest I was, and what a darling Dora was. I entreated Agnes..."

"d.i.c.kens," said Robert.

"Ayuh, d.i.c.kens."

Presently Kate and Jimmy came back up the drive, laughing and talking in low, significant tones. "You're lucky you've got that skylight," Jim said. "But if you expect those hens to lay at night, we're going to have to put in electric lights."

"Listen to Jim, Kate," the Widow said. "He's one o' the best hen-raisers in the village. Eggs galore, eh, Jim?"

"Eggs galore, Widow." His voice, though bright and cheery, seemed to have taken on an air of depth and solidity.

"Mother, Jimmy says it's all right with him if I drive his car."

"If it's all right with you, Mrs. Constantine."

"Kate, darling, you're bound to have your driver's license, aren't you? Determined girl."

"It's the Greek in her," the Widow observed.