Part 34

Kate went forward to the front, near the altar steps. High at the back of the chancel, above where the altar had been, burned a small but intense bluey-white light, and just below and in front of the light stood a huge dark figure, a strange looming block, apparently carved in wood. It was a naked man, carved archaic and rather flat, holding his right arm over his head, and on the right arm balanced a carved wooden eagle with outspread wings whose upper surface gleamed with gold, near the light, whose under surface was black shadow. Round the heavy left leg of the man-image was carved a serpent, also glimmering gold, and its golden head rested in the hand of the figure, near the thigh. The face of the figure was dark.

This great dark statue loomed stiff like a pillar, rather frightening in the white-lit blue chancel.

At the foot of the statue was a stone altar with a small fire of ocote-wood burning. And on a low throne by the altar sat Ramón.

People were beginning to file into the church. Kate heard the strange sound of the naked feet of the men on the black, polished floor, the white figures stole forward towards the altar steps, the dark faces gazing round in wonder, men crossing themselves involuntarily. Throngs of men slowly flooded in, and women came half running, to crouch on the floor and cover their faces. Kate crouched down too.

A file of the men of Quetzalcoatl came and stood along the foot of the altar steps, like a fence with a gap in the middle, facing the people. Beyond the gap was the flickering altar, and Ramón.

Ramón rose to his feet. The men of Quetzalcoatl turned to face him, and shot up their naked right arms, in the gesture of the statue, Ramón lifted his arm, so his blanket fell in towards his shoulder, revealing the naked side and the blue sash.

“All men salute Quetzalcoatl!” said a clear voice in command.

The scarlet men of Huitzilopochtli were threading among the men of the congregation, pulling the kneeling ones to their feet, causing all to thrust up their right arm, palm flat to heaven, face uplifted, body erect and tense. It was the statue receiving the eagle.

So that around the low dark shrubs of the crouching women stood a forest of erect, upthrusting men, powerful and tense with inexplicable passion. It was a forest of dark wrists and hands up-pressing, with the striped wall vibrating above, and higher, the maze of green going to the little, iron-barred windows that stood open, letting in the light and air of the roof.

“I am the living Quetzalcoatl,” came the solemn, impassive voice of Ramón.

“I am the Son of the Morning Star, and child of the deeps. No man knows my Father, and I know Him not. My Father is deep within the deeps, whence He sent me forth. He sends the eagle of silence down on wide wings To lean over my head and my neck and my breast And fill them strong with strength of wings. He sends the serpent of power up my feet and my loins So that strength wells up in me like water in hot springs. But midmost shines as the Morning Star midmost shines Between night and day, my Soul-star in one, Which is my Father whom I know not. I tell you, the day should not turn into glory, And the night should not turn deep, Save for the morning and evening stars, upon which they turn. Night turns upon me, and Day, who am the star between. Between your breast and belly is a star. If it be not there You are empty gourd-shells filled with dust and wind. When you walk, the star walks with you, between your breast and your belly. When you sleep, it softly shines. When you speak true and true, it is bright on your lips and your teeth. When you lift your hands in courage and bravery, its glow is clear in your palms. When you turn to your wives as brave men turn to their women The Morning Star and the Evening Star shine together. For man is the Morning Star. And woman is the Star of Evening. I tell you, you are not men alone. The star of the beyond is within you. But have you seen a dead man, how his star has gone out of him? So the star will go out of you, even as a woman will leave a man if his warmth never warms her. Should you say: _I have no star; I am no star._ So it will leave you, and you will hang like a gourd on the vine of life With nothing but rind: Waiting for the rats of the dark to come and gnaw your inside. Do you hear the rats of the darkness gnawing at your inside? Till you are as empty as rat-gnawed pomegranates hanging hollow on the Tree of Life? If the star shone, they dare not, they could not. If you were men with the Morning Star. If the star shone within you. No rat of the dark dared gnaw you. But I am Quetzalcoatl, of the Morning Star. I am the living Quetzalcoatl. And you are men who should be men of the Morning Star. See you be not rat-gnawed gourds. I am Quetzalcoatl of the eagle and the snake. The earth and air. Of the Morning Star. I am Lord of the Two Ways--”

The drum began to beat, the men of Quetzalcoatl suddenly took off their serapes, and Ramón did the same. They were now men naked to the waist. The eight men from the altar-steps filed up to the altar where the fire burned, and one by one kindled tall green candles, which burned with a clear light. They ranged themselves on either side the chancel, holding the lights high, so that the wooden face of the image glowed as if alive, and the eyes of silver and jet flashed most curiously.

“A man shall take the wine of his spirit and the blood of his heart, the oil of his belly and the seed of his loins, and offer them first to the Morning Star,” said Ramón, in a loud voice, turning to the people.

Four men came to him. One put a blue crown with the bird on his brow, one put a red belt round his breast, another put a yellow belt round his middle, and the last fastened a white belt round his loins. Then the first one they pressed a small glass bowl to Ramón’s brow, and in the bowl was white liquid like bright water. The next touched a bowl to the breast, and the red shook in the bowl. At the navel the man touched a bowl with yellow fluid, and at the loins a bowl with something dark. They held them all to the light.

Then one by one they poured them into a silver mixing-bowl that Ramón held between his hands.

“For save the Unknown God pours His Spirit over my head and fire into my heart, and sends his power like a fountain of oil into my belly, and His lightning like a hot spring into my loins, I am not. I am nothing. I am a dead gourd.

“And save I take the wine of my spirit and the red of my heart, the strength of my belly and the power of my loins, and mingle them all together, and kindle them to the Morning Star, I betray my body, I betray my soul, I betray my spirit and my God who is Unknown.

“Fourfold is man. But the star is one star. And one man is but one star.”

He took the silver mixing-bowl and slowly circled it between his hands, in the act of mixing.

Then he turned his back to the people, and lifted the bowl high up, between his hands, as if offering it to the image.

Then suddenly he threw the contents of the bowl into the altar fire.

There was a soft puff of explosion, a blue flame leaped high into the air, followed by a yellow flame, and then a rose-red smoke. In three successive instants the faces of the men inside the chancel were lit bluish, then gold, then dusky red. And in the same moment Ramón had turned to the people and shot up his hand.

“Salute Quetzalcoatl!” cried a voice, and men began to thrust up their arms, when another voice came moaning strangely:

“No! Ah no! Ah no!”--the voice rose in a hysterical cry.

It came from among the crouching women, who glanced round in fear, to see a woman in black, kneeling on the floor, her black scarf falling back from her lifted face, thrusting up her white hands to the Madonna, in the old gesture.

“No! No! It is not permitted!” shrieked the voice. “Lord! Lord! Lord Jesus! Holy Virgin! Prevent him! Prevent him!”

The voice sank again to a moan, the white hands clutched the breast, and the woman in black began to work her way forward on her knees, through the throng of women who pressed aside to make her way, towards the altar steps. She came with her head lowered, working her way on her knees, and moaning low prayers of supplication.

Kate felt her blood run cold. Crouching near the altar steps, she looked round. And she knew, by the shape of the head bent in the black scarf, it was Carlota, creeping along on her knees to the altar steps.

The whole church was frozen in horror. “Saviour! Saviour! Jesus! Oh Holy Virgin!” Carlota was moaning to herself as she crawled along.

It seemed hours before she reached the altar steps. Ramón still stood below the great Quetzalcoatl image with arm upflung.

Carlota crouched black at the altar steps and flung up the white hands and her white face in the frenzy of the old way.

“Lord! Lord!” she cried, in a strange ecstatic voice that froze Kate’s bowels with horror: “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

Carlota strangled in her ecstasy. And all the while, Ramón, the living Quetzalcoatl, stood before the flickering altar with naked arm upraised, looking with dark, inalterable eyes down upon the woman.

Throes and convulsions tortured the body of Carlota. She gazed sightlessly upwards. Then came her voice, in the mysterious rhapsody of prayer:

“Lord! Lord! Forgive!

“God of love, forgive! He knows not what he does.

“Lord! Lord Jesus! Make an end. Make an end, Lord of the world, Christ of the cross, make an end. Have mercy on him, Father. Have pity on him!

“Oh, take his life from him now, now, that his soul may not die.”

Her voice had gathered strength till it rang out metallic and terrible.

“Almighty God, take his life from him, and save his soul.”

And in the silence after that cry her hands seemed to flicker in the air like flames of death.

“The Omnipotent,” came the voice of Ramón, speaking quietly, as if to her, “is with me, and I serve Omnipotence!”

She remained with her white clasped hands upraised, her white arms and her white face showing mystical, like onyx, from her thin black dress. She was absolutely rigid. And Ramón, with his arm too upraised, looked down on her abstractedly, his black brows a little contracted.

A strong convulsion seized her body. She became tense again, making inarticulate noises. Then another convulsion seized her. Once more she recovered herself, and thrust up her clenched hands in frenzy. A third convulsion seized her as if from below, and she fell with a strangling moan in a heap on the altar steps.

Kate had risen suddenly and ran to her, to lift her up. She found her stiff, with a little froth on her discoloured lips, and fixed, glazed eyes.

Kate looked up in consternation at Ramón. He had dropped his arm, and stood with his hands against his thighs, like a statue. But he remained with his wide, absorbed dark eyes watching without any change. He met Kate’s glance of dismay, and his eyes quickly glanced, like lightning, for Cipriano. Then he looked back at Carlota, across a changeless distance. Not a muscle of his face moved. And Kate could see that his heart had died in its connection with Carlota, his heart was quite, quite dead in him; out of the deathly vacancy he watched his wife. Only his brows frowned a little, from his smooth, male forehead. His old connections were broken. She could hear him say: _There is no star between me and Carlota._--And how terribly true it was!

Cipriano came quickly, switched off his brilliant serape, wrapped it round the poor, stiff figure, and picking up the burden lightly, walked with it through the lane of women to the door, and out into the brilliant sun; Kate following. And as she followed, she heard the slow, deep voice of Ramón:

“I am the Living Quetzalcoatl. Naked I come from out of the deep From the place which I call my Father, Naked have I travelled the long way round From heaven, past the sleeping sons of God.

Out of the depths of the sky, I came like an eagle. Out of the bowels of the earth like a snake.

All things that lift in the lift of living between earth and sky, know me.

But I am the inward star invisible. And the star is the lamp in the hand of the Unknown Mover. Beyond me is a Lord who is terrible, and wonderful, and dark to me forever. Yet I have lain in his loins, ere he begot me in Mother space.

Now I am alone on earth, and this is mine. The roots are mine, down the dark, moist path of the snake. And the branches are mine, in the paths of the sky and the bird, But the spark of me that is me is more than mine own. And the feet of men, and the hands of the women know me. And knees and thighs and loins, and the bowels of strength and seed are lit with me. The snake of my left-hand out of the darkness is kissing your feet with his mouth of caressive fire, And putting his strength in your heels and ankles, his flame in your knees and your legs and your loins, his circle of rest in your belly. For I am Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake, And I am not with you till my serpent has coiled his circle of rest in your belly.

And I, Quetzalcoatl, the eagle of the air, am brushing your faces with vision. I am fanning your breasts with my breath. And building my nest of peace in your bones. I am Quetzalcoatl, of the Two Ways.”

Kate lingered to hear the end of this hymn. Cipriano also had lingered in the porch, with the strange figure in the brilliant serape in his arms. His eyes met Kate’s. In his black glance was a sort of homage, to the mystery of the Two Ways; a sort of secret. And Kate was uneasy.

They crossed quickly under the trees to the hotel, which was very near, and Carlota was laid in bed. A soldier had gone already to find a doctor; they sent also for a priest.

Kate sat by the bed. Carlota lay on the bed, making small, horrible moaning noises. The drums outside on the church-roof started to roll, in a savage, complicated rhythm. Kate went to the window and looked out. People were streaming dazzled from the church.

And then, from the church-roof, came the powerful singing of men’s voices, fanning like a dark eagle in the bright air; a deep relentless chanting, with an undertone of passionate assurance. She went to the window to look. She could see the men on the church-roof, the people swarming down below. And the roll of that relentless chanting, with its undertone of exultance in power and life, rolled through the air like an invisible dark presence.

Cipriano came in again, glancing at Carlota and at Kate.

“They are singing the song of Welcome to Quetzalcoatl,” said he.

“Is that it?” said Kate. “What are the words?”

“I will find you a song-sheet,” he said.

He stood beside her, putting the spell of his presence over her. And she still struggled a little, as if she were drowning. When she wasn’t drowning, she wanted to drown. But when it actually came, she fought for her old footing.

There was a crying noise from Carlota. Kate hurried to the bed.

“Where am I?” said the white-faced, awful, deathly-looking woman.

“You are resting in bed,” said Kate. “Don’t trouble.”

“Where was I?” came Carlota’s voice.

“Perhaps the sun gave you a touch of sunstroke,” said Kate.

Carlota closed her eyes.

Then suddenly outside the noise of drums rolled again, a powerful sound. And outside in the sunshine life seemed to be rolling in powerful waves.

Carlota started, and opened her eyes.

“What is that noise?”

“It is a fiesta,” said Kate.

“Ramón, he’s murdered me, and lost his own soul,” said Carlota. “He has murdered me, and lost his own soul. He is a murderer, and one of the damned. The man I married! The man I married! A murderer among the damned!”

It was evident she no longer heard the sounds outside.

Cipriano could not bear the sound of her voice. He came quickly to the side of the bed.

“Doña Carlota!” he said, looking down at her dulled hazel eyes, that were fixed and unseeing: “Do not die with wrong words on your lips. If you are murdered, you have murdered yourself. You were never married to Ramón. You were married to your own way.”

He spoke fiercely, avengingly.

“Ah!” said the dying woman. “Ah! I never married Ramón. No! I never married him! How could I? He was not what I would have him be. How could I marry him? Ah! I thought I married him. Ah! I am so glad I didn’t--so glad.”

“You are glad! You are glad!” said Cipriano in anger, angry with the very ghost of the woman, talking to the ghost. “You are glad because you never poured the wine of your body into the mixing-bowl! Yet in your day you have drunk the wine of his body and been soothed with his oil. You are glad you kept yours back? You are glad you kept back the wine of your body and the secret oil of your soul? That you gave only the water of your charity? I tell you the water of charity, the hissing water of the spirit is bitter at last in the mouth and in the breast and in the belly, it puts out the fire. You would have put out the fire, Doña Carlota.--But you cannot. You shall not. You have been charitable and compassionless to the man you called your own. So you have put out your own fire.”

“Who is talking?” said the ghost of Carlota.

“I, Cipriano Viedma, am talking.”

“The oil and the wine! The oil and the wine and the bread! They are the sacrament! They are the body and the blessing of God! Where is the priest? I want the sacrament. Where is the priest? I want to confess, and take the sacrament, and have the peace of God,” said the ghost of Carlota.

“The priest is coming.--But you can take no sacrament, unless you give it. The oil and the wine and the bread! They are not for the priest to give. They are to be poured into the mixing-bowl, which Ramón calls the cup of the star. If you pour neither oil nor wine into the mixing-bowl, from the mixing-bowl you cannot drink. So you have no sacrament.”

“The sacrament! The bread!” said the ghost of Carlota.

“There is no bread. There is no body without blood and oil, as Shylock found out.”

“A murderer, lost among the damned!” murmured Carlota. “The father of my children! The husband of my body! Ah no! It is better for me to call to the Holy Virgin, and die.”

“Call then, and die!” said Cipriano.

“My children!” murmured Carlota.

“It is well you must leave them. With your beggar’s bowl of charity you have stolen their oil and their wine as well. It is good for you to steal from them no more, you stale virgin, you spinster, you born widow, you weeping mother, you impeccable wife, you just woman. You stole the very sunshine out of the sky and the sap out of the earth. Because back again, what did you pour? Only the water of dead dilution into the mixing-bowl of life, you thief. Oh die!--die!--die! Die and be a thousand times dead! Do nothing but utterly die!”

Doña Carlota had relapsed into unconsciousness; even her ghost refused to hear. Cipriano flung his sinisterly-flaming serape over his shoulders and his face, over his nose, till only his black, glittering eyes were visible as he blew out of the room.

Kate sat by the window, and laughed a little. The primeval woman inside her laughed to herself, for she had known all the time about the two thieves on the Cross with Jesus; the bullying, marauding thief of the male in his own rights, and the much more subtle, cold, sly, charitable thief of the woman in _her_ own rights, forever chanting her beggar’s whine about the love of God and the God of pity.

But Kate, too, was a modern woman and a woman in her own rights. So she sat on with Carlota. And when the doctor came, she accepted the obsequiousness of the man as part of her rights. And when the priest came, she accepted the obsequiousness from him, just the same, as part of her woman’s rights. These two ministers of love, what were they for, but to be obsequious to her? As for herself, she could hardly be called a thief, and a sneak-thief of the world’s virility, when these men came forcing their obsequiousness upon her, whining to her to take it and relieve them of the responsibility of their own manhood. No, if women are thieves, it is only because men want to be thieved from. If women thieve the world’s virility, it is only because men want to have it thieved, since for men to be responsible for their own manhood seems to be the last thing men want.

So Kate sat on in the room of the dying Carlota, smiling a little cynically. Outside she heard the roll of the tom-toms and the deep chanting of the men of Quetzalcoatl. Beyond, under the trees, in the smoothed, cleared space before the church, she saw the half-naked men dancing in a circle, to the drum; the round dance. Then later, dancing a religious dance of the return of Quetzalcoatl. It was the old, barefooted, absorbed dancing of the Indians, the dance of downward-sinking absorption. It was the dance of these people too, just the same: the dance of the Aztecs and Zapotecs and the Huicholes, just the same in essence, indigenous to America; the curious, silent, absorbed dance of the softly-beating feet and ankles, the body coming down softly, but with deep weight, upon powerful knees and ankles, to the tread of the earth, as when a male bird treads the hen. And women softly stepping in unison.

And Kate, listening to the drums, and the full-throated singing, and watching the rich, soft bodies in the dance, thought to herself a little sceptically: Yes! For these it is easier. But all the white men, of the dominant race, what are they doing at this moment?