He shrugged. "In your state, you can't count on your senses anymore. I'm not going to make you take this. But if you don't, you're going to suffer from your sickness. And it will be your own fault. Now who's not believing whom?"
The pain in my stomach made me waver. Maybe he's right, I thought. He's not being nice about it, but then, he doesn't see large white things coming down from the ceiling. This is the paranoia talking -- he has medicine, and wants to help me, but I'm too blind to see it.
"All right," I said unhappily. "Give it to me." He made me kneel down. My doubt leapt within me. "Rene?"
"I am giving you a backrub. Now hold still; this is the medicine." He looped the rope twice around each of my wrists, and made a skillful knot. He took one end of the rope and brought it up around my neck. More knots. Rope around my shoulders, my waist, my legs. He worked faster as he went and the rope tightened around me. He took less than two minutes.
"Where in the hell did you learn how to do that?" I said, forgetting that he was giving me medicine.
"With my last wife," he answered proudly. "She was sick a lot too."
"Good Lord," I groaned, but reminded myself that the rope was just a hallucination.
"She left me," he said. "What I like about you is, you don't run away. You listen to me."
I felt virtuous and stupid. "What kind of medicine is this, Rene? I can't move."
"It's supposed to take you out of commission for a while. Don't worry, soon you won't feel anything."
I strained against the rope, ingeniously knotted. I was tied in a position for praying. Every loop of rope was taut except the one from my wrists to my neck. If I moved out of the position, the rope tightened alarmingly around my neck. So I had the option to move, but only at the cost of breathing.
I chose breathing. I didn't struggle anymore. Rene turned to go.
"Where are you going?" I asked anxiously.
"To bed."
The altar. "You're not going to leave me here all night, are you?"
"Well, of course. How do you expect to get any rest if I don't?"
"How do you expect me to get any rest this way?"
"Just relax. It goes better if you do. Good night, Lish," he said, kissing me on the forehead. He disappeared behind the altar screen.
Bellevue's psycho ward, I thought, looks pretty good at this point. I closed my eyes, imagining myself as Rene saw me: lying on his couch, sick, heavily drugged. No sign of rope. Needless to say, this didn't work. The ropes cutting into me gave my efforts the lie. I gave up and fought against the rope. I succeeded only in rubbing the skin off my wrists, and nearly strangling myself when the rope around my neck tightened in response to my movements.
How ironic, I thought in my ensuing rage, that I am trapped in the pose of prayer. The last thing I wanted to do was pray. Being bound in this pious, affected posture made me angry, and knowing that I was hallucinating again made me ashamed. Even worse, I knew my mind's motive in inventing this sado-masochistic scenario: to blame Rene for my misery.
But the blame was on my shoulders. It didn't matter how much I suffered, because I had consented to it when I sinned with Rene. Not only did I consent, but I wasn't repentant. I felt bad about it, but I was so desperate not to be rejected that I knew I wasn't going to stop it. Guilt, visions, agony: my fault. I asked for it, and I deserved what I got.
The pain in my stomach had stopped, and I realized what the evil flowering within me wanted. Nothing but my death would satisfy it, no viewpoints, no exonerating circumstances, no expiation. In fact, it couldn't care less what I had done. It hated that I lived. The only purity that this evil commanded was death. And the evil waited breathlessly inside me for death, now that I had trained myself in the art of denying my own being.
And then I heard a voice of mercy, which I had avoided for so long: When will the suffering be so bad that you turn to God?
The pale root shuddered within me at the sound, and spat. This is blackmail, it said, not letting me speak. God has made me suffer so that I will turn to him in desperation, not out of free will. I do not love God well enough to come to him. I am not worthy of mercy.
I listened to my lips speak these words, and I knew they damned me, but were not false. The creature had acquainted itself well with my subconscious thought. It spoke what I had never dared to admit, using my own truth against me. I deserved no mercy.
Of course, if I deserved mercy, I wouldn't need it. But that didn't matter then.
In the morning, Rene emerged from behind the screen. "I'm going to work now. See you tonight," he said.
"Don't go yet," I pleaded. "I can't move. I'm hungry, and I really have to go to the bathroom."
"You can't get up yourself and take care of that?"
"Rene, please...."
"What, do you want me to pick you up and carry you?" he said, exasperated.
"Rene, I can't move...."
"All right, all right. I'll bring you breakfast. But you're too heavy to carry to the bathroom. Can you do it into, say, a cup?"
I made a face to express my disgust, mask my humiliation. "In a cup?" I repeated.
"How else is it going to work?"
"Okay, okay, fine. Bring the damn cup." He went away and came back with a paper cup. He held it in front of me.
"Take it," he prompted. His face froze when I shook my head. "Oh, Jesus. You mean I'm going to have to...."
"Rene, believe me, I would do this by myself if I could. Who do you think is going to be more humiliated by this, anyway?"
He went about his task without a word. I couldn't meet his eyes, but I looked at him when he didn't know it. Fear crossed his face as often as disgust. He thinks I'm paralyzed. He thinks the medicine....
But I am the one imagining things. It is the medicine, and I am paralyzed.
Rene was worried. He didn't complain anymore. He went out, came back with breakfast, and spoon-fed me. "Listen, honey," he said. "I have to go to work now. God, I wish I didn't work all the way uptown -- I won't be able to come back during the day. I'll come home as soon as possible, and bring somebody to look at you."
I wonder what they'll see? I thought. S&M, or paralysis?
Rene put a cup full of water next to the rail, and left. I looked down at my wrists. The rope looked real. Is he really going to bring somebody back here to see this? I felt a surge of panic. Mental image of them standing over me and laughing. I am not paralyzed! I thought angrily. Paralysis doesn't hurt. You're not supposed to feel anything. My body was aching from the pose it had held for almost twelve hours now. Rage bolted through me. I twisted in the ropes with all my force, tore at them with my teeth. I screamed for help. Nobody came. Today was Monday; people would come for the Eucharist Wednesday night.
But this is Rene's apartment, I remembered. There's no Eucharist on Wednesday. I can't get away from here. I have to face him and whoever he's going to bring tonight. My head was pounding again. There was a cold, buzzing sensation in my hands, as if they were falling off.
Involuntarily, some part of me spoke: God help me. I don't care if this whole thing was my fault. I can't take this anymore. Get me out of here.
The thing within me awoke, drowning me out: I don't want God's help. Leave me alone. I know that I messed up, and now I have to take the consequences. The part of me that's crying out is cowardly; it only wants God for its deliverance. It doesn't love God for God.
But over and over I prayed: God, you are my last hope. Help me.
For hours, nothing happened. The feeling in each limb dwindled to nothing, like lights being turned out one by one. I felt weightless, disembodied. My head hurt, but that was way below something much more urgent: thirst. The full cup of water at the side of the rail was driving me mad. I couldn't even see it. I remembered Rene putting it there when he left.
Afternoon darkened into evening, and still no Rene. The only thing I felt was thirst. Where's God now? came the thought. Maybe he listened to the loud voice of evil, the one that told him to leave me alone.
And minutes later, Rene burst through the door. Nobody followed him. He rushed over, agitated. "Lish," he said. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."
"What?" I said, confused, the words coming out in a hoarse whisper. "Please can I have some water?"
He put the cup to my lips. I drank. He shook his head, muttering, "I still can't see it."
I finished the water. "What?"
"Ropes. Oh, Lord...." He stared at me.
"Stop it," I said uncomfortably.
"This is too much," he whispered. "Lisha, I have to tell you something. . . . I don't think we should go out anymore." He took a knife out of his pocket.
"Rene, no!" I screamed. "Don't!" Inside me, the creature dropped out of slumber, sensing my fear. Enjoying it.
"Listen," Rene said. "This is going to be hard for both of us, but it's clear that we come from very different standpoints." His look darkened. "I can't stand this anymore: you get so much sympathy, the poor sick victim, and I'm just the bad guy." The knife came closer. I tried to edge away, but the rope held me motionless.
"I know I'm not the victim," I told him, making my voice calm. "You're not the bad guy. Just don't--"
"Damn it, Felicia! I'm hurting just as bad as you are! You still don't understand -- nobody does! Everyone just stands around judging." And then he looked thoughtful. "I'm one to talk, though; I don't understand you either. You, or your guilt, or your hallucinations." My eyes followed the approaching blade.
The creature within me stirred, hoping for the knife, twisting in delight at my terror. It took over my power to speak, and all my resistance went limp. "Then do it," I heard myself whisper. "I want you to...."
Rene didn't hear it. "I don't want to be with you anymore.... God, it hurts!" he wailed. The knife was at my neck. I shuddered. The creature was pressing me towards the blade, fanning out its wings in joy. Soon it would be rid of me.
"Kill me," the thing whispered through my lips. "I neither deserve nor wish to live." Trapped underneath, my own voice, muted: Don't listen. My subconscious and I had traded places; I was its prisoner now.
The knife tickled dangerously at my skin. I wondered how much and how long a slit throat would hurt, when I realized that the rope was slackening, knife flashing through knots. Rope fell on the floor in pieces. I fell clumsily, my deadened limbs uncomplaining. The creature croaked in bitter disappointment and sank away from my awareness. I lay on the floor of the chancel, exhausted, speechless.
I was too stiff to move, and Rene knelt by me, rocking me in his arms. Both of us were too tired to speak.
Finally I asked: "How did all this happen?"
"What?"
"I mean, when you came in and said all that, what did you see me do?"
"You were lying there paralyzed. I, I -- said we had to break up, and you reached out to me, lost your balance and fell."
"Oh. At least I'm not really paralyzed," I said without enthusiasm.
"Thank God."
I thought, God heard me.
Rene took me home, in a cab. We'd both had enough of the subway to last a lifetime. We said goodbye for what I thought was the last time. I went upstairs, climbed into bed, and slept for twenty hours without waking.
I awoke feeling empty, the emptiness after illness, austere but clean. I hadn't felt clean since the white presence had gone into me on the altar. I thought that was the end of it. Even so, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck: bruises all over my arms, sores weeping pus from my wrists. Still, I was at peace. I didn't care anymore whether my experience had been real or hallucinatory. All I knew was that it hurt. That was enough evidence for me. I was alone in my own apartment, and I could bleed without wondering whether anyone else would see it. Or say that I wasn't bleeding.
I got up, made myself soup. Washed my face. Stared out the window. The phone rang.
Rene, crying. "I don't want to give up. We should be able to defeat this thing through love."
My peace left me. I didn't want love anymore, its possibilities, its dangers of annihilation. I wanted to be left alone, insane by myself, spared the unintentional wounds of his questions. Questions I couldn't answer, because the answers were too obvious to me, and the obvious too illogical to him. "Rene," I said. "I don't think this can work. I just can't explain... things to you." But he sounded so broken that I promised to think about getting back together with him.
My whole being screamed against it. I wanted to recover, not try again. I knew that he would never understand my insanity. I would have to see things his way again as soon as we were together.
But I saw what I saw, felt what I felt, whether the reality matched anyone else's or not.
"And that is why I told you," I said to Father Held, "that even I am more interested in lies rather than truth. I would rather be with someone who doesn't think I'm insane, even if... it... isn't the truth...." The pain had started. My hand went to my stomach.
Father Held looked at me. The muscles around my mouth tightened; cold spread from my intestines down through my legs. "There isn't much time," I told him.
"It will gain power again," said the priest. The sunset shone dimly on his face. "You have done what it forbade you: told the truth. It will get worse before you are set free."
"You believe me?" I shouted, horrified.
"You expected me not to. But I will not fulfill your expectations. I didn't fulfill Rene's, either."
I stared at him. "He came here?"
"Yes. On the evening he was going to bring someone back to examine you. That's why he was late. He couldn't find what he thought he needed: a doctor who made house calls. So he told me about your so-called hallucinations, and the story as he saw it. I could not hide my dismay. He asked me what was wrong.
"I told him that a few months ago, I had awoken from nightmares in which I had seen wrong sacrifice done on the altar. The next morning, I went behind the screen before morning mass.
"Blood was smeared over the altar. I suspected vandalism, and asked the sexton if anyone had come in during the night. He said only two parishioners; one of them had forgotten his keys."
I gaped at Father Held. He nodded. "Of course, that meant nothing before Rene came in. I cleansed the altar and concealed myself in the sanctuary that night. But no one came.
"I had continual nightmares from then on: gaunt, blemished animals led to sacrifice, a white vulture tearing at human viscera. The nightmares always came before I found the altar defiled.
"I kept watch overnight as often as I could. One day I was so tired that I fell asleep at the parish house, and dreamed that I went to the sanctuary, hiding myself near the altar. As night deepened, two entered by the north aisle door, and the taller of them pulled the other into the chancel, and behind the screen.
" 'Stop,' I shouted in my dream. The tall one did not hear me. The other heard, but pretended not to. Both ascended to the altar. High above, a white, shriveled thing unfurled its wings. It reminded me of old woodcuts depicting fallen angels, only this one was a dirty white, masquerading as a creature of the light.
"And it fell upon the smaller of the two, consuming her, while her companion had turned his head.
"I awoke screaming, rushed to the sanctuary. The altar was empty except for this. I showed it to Rene the day he came." Reaching into his desk, he pulled out a bristly white object, barbed like a fish skeleton, but not as delicate. Lethal, glassy splinters melted into a crooked feather. . . .
I lurched forward, clutching my abdomen. Father Held caught me before I fell. "Don't touch me!" the thing roared through my lips. It spread its wings in rage, lacerating me from inside, holding my tongue silent.
"I know you are real," said the priest. "Show your face."
"My face? She and I are one!" it screamed. I screamed. "Her face is my face, and my face is hers. Ask no further." It let go of my tongue, and prodded me. "It isn't lying," I said. "I used to deny it: I am not this thing. But I am. The seed couldn't have been sown in infertile soil."
"Are you afraid to show yourself?" the priest addressed the parasite. "The soil is indeed fertile, but more than one crop is growing. If you would claim the soil, you must show yourself. She denies you no longer. It is your privilege to show yourself. Would you pass this pleasure by?"
"The pleasure is in the stealing, not the loud claiming in the marketplace," it answered. "And stealing is better accomplished by night, when no one sees me. She is my daylight, she is my face. Why do you tell me to show myself? When you look at her, you look at me." The pain crumbled to nothing. I stood up.
"I'd better go," I said hastily. "It's getting late. Thanks for listening."
"No. Please sit down, Felicia," he said. "This isn't finished."
"For me it is. I've told you everything. I want to go home and sleep now. I'm exhausted."
"I'm sorry. You're not yet free of it. The pain is gone, but it will return when you get back home."
"Do you think I don't know that?" I said angrily. "What makes you think I want to be free? The parasite and I speak from one source. We are one flesh."
He held my gaze. I looked away.
"Don't," I barked. My voice was older, sharper, not my own. "Now you know the whole story. You weren't supposed to believe me! I don't want to be free. I want to die. Don't you know how close I am?"
"Not close enough," he said.
I rushed toward the window. He caught my arm. The claw tore at my insides so that I crumpled away from the priest's hold. But something gripped my shoulders, and my feet left the floor. I saw Father Held below me, holding out his arms. A noise of beating wings, the floor sinking away.... I caught a glimpse of bristled white wings behind me, the color and texture of dirty fingernails. Two soiled, ashen hands held me near the ceiling; we flew toward the window, gaining speed. Father Held's lips moved. The strong arms trembled, lifted me to the ceiling, and flung me to the ground.
When I came to, I had a muddled recollection of twisting through the air, and, as the heel of my hand struck the ground, the crunching of my wristbone. I could not remember why I had fallen so far and so violently. I lifted my eyes, and wished I had not.
Spines like ticks clung to an emaciated body, its limbs drawn pitifully around itself, as if it had emerged from a womb of thorns. Glinting with bristles, wings waved arrhythmically, fanning out stench. Slime rained from its blasted feathers. Gray blood drained out of its grimy white flesh, though it had no wound.
The eyes of thirst itself glared at me. It spoke: "You are empty of me now, Felicia." I shuddered in disgust. Spoken by that tongue, my name was profanity. Its lips twisted. "All my suffering will not have been in vain, if I can drive you to despair. And I will, for there is no love, only the exchange of pain between two. 'Love' is only a contract for consuming and being consumed."
"You who were once an angel," whispered Father Held, "begone in the name of Jesus Christ, who condemns nobody."
"You have shut the door," said the twisted angel. "But there are windows." Its jaw protruded. "And I never stand before a closed window." It hurled itself at the windowpane, shattering it. Fetid air rushed out, and glass rained upon the ground below. The stench dissipated.
"It never ends," said Father Held. "There is always fighting. Thankfully, the burden of victory is not upon us. It is in God's nature to overwhelm evil."
"There is nothing I can do to resist the enemy," I said. The angel of corrosion had spoken truly: I was empty, weak.
"No. But there is neither any resistance you can offer against the Lord. Nothing can separate you from his love."
"Pray that it fills me," I said, and he laid his hands on me, summoning the Spirit of God.
I put on my coat. He opened the door. "God's love will not fail you," he said.
"Pray that it fills me," I repeated; the priest embraced me, and I went downstairs and out of the church.
A mild breeze swept across the parish house courtyard, rustling the buds in the trees. Inchoate spring sweetened the air. One tree flowered, defying late winter. I crossed the courtyard to breathe the scent of the flowers.
But the dirty white blossoms bore the scent of decay.
Spines upon the branch. Bristles. And the strange dew that fell in clumps from the tree.
I stood transfixed.