CHAPTER XLII: HORROR

   Horror is a ruffian who penetrates your body like a virus, an invader that clogs your blood, exacerbates your nerves and corrodes your bones and also eats away your mind and your soul and leaves you close to destroy your heart and paralyze you. In Mistress Oakes’ cosmology it was a positive gift and it was difficult to see it that way. But years have made me see that she was right. It is an indispensable teacher who gives you a maturity needed to evolve. And if it is true that after it I was going to get some Wisdom, I can only say that after the Horror of that day with two faces, I assumed the only Wisdom I have considered essential: to finally find myself and start a family.

  That Monday, November 19 was going to show me many different faces. For some time I expected it to be my first day of love with Luke. But the week began twisted. When I wanted to ask my two loves how the previous night had been, I found my mate feverish.

─ "What’s the matter with you, Luke?" - I asked.

─ "Nothing serious, Nike. I am a little upset and with a bit of excess temperature, perhaps. As a result, I think, of a full and bumpy night. I am resting so nothing stands to the first night of love with you..."

─ "The second one- I broke in─, at least for me. The first one in the flesh, the second one in words."

─ "I think you're right. I also think that it will be our second night of love, and I'm glad you see it thus. But so nothing can prevent it, I'm going to ask you something that I would never ask you: go to the street alone today: look, once out of work, you can go to the Basilica. And if I see that I am better, I would meet you there."

─ "Luke, recover. I can go perfectly alone, really."

─ "It is our day, Nike, and I also want to be your mate - but seeing me still restless, he added─. Ok, in any case, go to the Basilica. I promise nothing, but if I am better today precisely I will not leave you alone."

   We were ruminating it but got nowhere, so in the end we would stop the conversation there. I went to work thinking of spending the afternoon alone and all night with him. Lucy also spoke at that little discussion, but she had not clear with whom of the two to agree. Finally, leaving the child with his father, she left to her daily work.

   That morning on the Thuban it all was a constant coming and going through halls and offices, a persistent murmur about Norman Wrathfall’s health. It seemed that he had gone worse that night and now it was a question of days or hours. I had never had a deep affection for him but in the last days before he got sick, we had almost understood or at least respected each other. So little work was done that morning. Thinking about the night with Luke I was nervous and restless constantly. And so I went down to the bar before time.

   Richard and I talked somewhat lost and I was a bit incoherent. I wanted to focus on the previous night and although I wanted to go to the next night, I was constantly distracted looking at a sign fixed to the bottom of the bar: "Waiters are needed."

─ "You are a bit absent-minded this morning, Nike. What is the matter?"

─ "I am absent-minded because of that sign, Richard. Do you need waiters?"

─ "Arnold and Mia have married, as you know, and curiously on their honeymoon they have found a better paid job. They have left, but I thought you already knew it."

─ "I should know about it. You've surely told me, but I have lately had my head in the clouds."

─ "Well, as I can see that now you care, I will tell you that now it is just Jeff and I, and both of us is not enough. Why are you interested suddenly in all this?"

─ "How many waiters do you need?"

─ "At least two."

─ "Could it be three?"

─ "Much better, of course. But Nike, what are thinking about?"

─ "Nothing, Richard. Look, rather than thinking I get informed. Tell me the truth. Do you see me working here?"

─ "Nike, I finally see what you are thinking. I think that now you can overcome any challenge that you might find. Less difficult than the life you have chosen. And for me it would be a pleasure to have you by my side and teach you what is necessary."

─ "Say no more, Richard. I would have to speak with many people first. It was just an idea and now I am not able to concentrate on anything. Like so many things that have happened to me lately, it is first necessary to think a lot about it."

   We left the conversation there and I tried to concentrate on the scarce work that was done that day, all awaiting an urgent call to tell us about Norman’s health.

    Once work was done, I went to St Paul's square. Luke was not there and I was even glad to be alone and to imagine my mate recovering for the night. The afternoon in the Basilica was unexpectedly good. I was not more than one hour there. These days the weather gave us a truce, and we almost didn't see any fog. Perhaps some smog. But even this disappeared before an offense with the force of lightning fell unexpectedly over me. I was going to leave, but I looked at my pockets - Lucy had also brought a cap. I would have to get one soon, I thought─, counting the profits of that afternoon - something like 7 dains─ when a well-known, but unexpected voice startled me.

─ "You are very lonesome today. Where did you leave your boyfriend?"

   I lifted my eyes. It was William Rage. The unexpected question on that sharp face of a crow hit me. I should have answered any other thing but surprise did not let me think. The unconscious Nike was speaking and he didn't want to lie.

─ "Today he is feverish, Mr. Rage." - I replied. Before that petty face I was shrinking.

─ "I see that you know my name. And I don't like that. It would be so much better that you called me only Sir."

─ "Yes, Sir - I replied with a thin voice. He was still there and I wondered why─, what do you want from me?"

─ "You are an interesting one, kid. One day you despise my currency and today you are addressing me politely. Do you need any money?"

   It was a curious question in my present circumstances but I was unable to think, and I answered yes.

─ "Would you be willing to sell yourself?"

─ "Sell myself?" – I managed to ask. That question was as if the world unexpectedly was falling over me. Mr. Rage was meanwhile getting what he wanted: humiliating a man for free.

─ "60 dains. This is what you should do."

  He was talking about ten minutes, making me an indecent proposal, and insisting that if I accepted, it could be for me a sudden source of money, with more than one session. I listened to him thinking about Paul. Oh, little king, how to accept you without contributing to your well-being or stain Lucy and Luke using what I had and they could not give him. We should be all three at the same level. He wanted me mainly to accept being humiliated, with blows or insults and things that my modesty does not dare to name. Later I knew Mr. Rage had tempted men beggars with the same manure, but then I did not know it and once again I had to navigate blind and guide myself by my own intuition, and this just told me that my money, my fellow mates never asked me for, no longer was of any use to me, only to be separated from them and to not be just like them. With my mind made a blood rain, I began to imagine their seven faces. O my fellow mates, maybe you had to go through what I'm going through at the moment and their seven venerable faces were a light. Our life was hard, maybe harder than I had imagined and all of them could have been reached by Horror at the time they were happier. Maybe some had done so. In no way I could be capable of expressing how I loved them then. But if anyone had gone through this dirty sewer, I should also live it. So I accepted. I accepted. Perhaps the hardest moments in life would have a different outcome if one is given time to think. But I didn't have nor did I have the guidance of my fellow mates who would have told me what they would have done in my place. When I answered affirmatively, he told me that it was a short walk, Castle Road and little more. He could not know that I knew very well where he lived. I said nothing and I stood up. Crazy, I had millions and was on the verge of prostituting myself for not having any money. I walked down Castle Road as a zombie going to its holocaust. I looked at the square and I was scared of myself. There was the woman who had given me my first coin.


 

   Luke had a distressing morning. He felt better but in him was growing, without knowing why, a clear sense of danger. He was unable to calm down. Never before and never later did he have such a restless omen. He was reassured seeing his wife, with enough food and not too tired coming back safely. He calmed half an hour while he was talking with her and fever was lost. Then he was alone and the feeling returned. Danger, danger, danger. And then he almost shouted: Nike! He was unaware why, but today he should not leave his mate alone. Lucy was taking care of Paul and he decided to go out of there running. His mate needed him. He ran mad down Temple Road. He was running out of breath and stopped a second. But when he reached the square he could not find him. There was however a woman who approached him. He remembered her well: it was Nike’s first alms giver. She was determined to speak to him.

─ "Young man, you don't know me, but I think I know you. I have lived for years in Damascus Road, and it seems to me that we have been neighbours. Are you not Paul Prancitt’s son?"

─ "Yes – he said with proud─ I am his son Luke. Excuse me, but I have to hurry. I have to find my mate."

─ "Indeed that’s why I am talking to you. Your mate is walking down Castle Road, accompanying William Rage. We don't say anything, but all those who have been his neighbors know what for. They will soon reach Knightsbridge Street. If you really love him, run."

─ "Thank you," – he said to her before starting to run. Now there was no time to lose.


 

    It is difficult to know if in the long run I would have done it. I was walking down Castle Road with a single idea. Oh, Luke, finally you will not be the first man in my life. The tyrant who walked beside me humiliated me constantly considering me an easy prey. I pondered once and again the same question now that, despite his insults, I had time to think. More than once I was on the verge of giving up, but I never threw in the towel. Again I would be wrong, it was absurd. But in all my crazy things the thought that they could have been here before me guided me and, right or wrong, I didn't leave. Castle Road lights began to be lit, but to my altered mind they seemed ghosts which were blurring to the rhythm of my crazed beats that resounded with such strength that became the last sound of the condemned person. But I also heard some steps behind me. Someone seemed to be running madly. On the verge of turning Knightsbridge Street I saw him. It was Luke. He came to rescue me. Then, with an unknown strength, I spoke again.

─ "I am sorry I have wasted your time, Mr. Rage - and I stressed his name─, but in the end I won't do it. And do not ever talk to me about this."

   He seemed really angry and annoyed. But Luke was there to save me. Then I started to cry. He soothed me with his tenderness and what with some hugs and some furtive kisses, led me to the nearby square of St John’s Gospel. When finally we sat down with love and a tender voice he spoke to me.

─ "I know what you were about to do, My Mate, my love, but now it’s over."

─ "Luke, I don't deserve you, I said yes and maybe I would have done it."

─ "Why, Nike? And believe me I do not blame you for anything."

─ "Paul – I stammered─ lately we have not brought him anything..."

─ "I have always thought, Nike, that every parent should be willing to do something like this for his child. Nike, calm down, I also said yes to that cocky son of a bitch..."

    I didn't know why but I expected it. I loved him so much that instead of reproaching him, I kissed him and asked him to tell me.

─ "Do you remember Friday, October 12? I came to the street alone, because you had to work that afternoon and meet one such Mr. Dewes. I met Mr. Rage and he asked me the same as he has asked you, with the added incentive for him that I'm his neighbor and perhaps he feels attracted by the idea of humiliating me. I thought about Paul and also told him I would do it. I walked down Castle Road dejected and hopeless. But when I was near Knightsbridge Street I remembered my brother lives there. What madness. I don't ask him anything, but it occurred to me to think that if one day the situation of Paul was desperate, I would come to him. In that mood I took some strength from I don't know where and I did not do it either."

─ "Luke - I finally dared to tell him─, your brother lent me a key of his house with an intention: to prevent our need to be desperate."

─ "Now I understand why my brother likes you so much. Okay, Nike. I will make a truce with you, and with him, and perhaps we may visit him more often. And if necessary, I will lower my head; I will swallow my pride and let him help me. But now I am worried about you. It has been a bad dream, My Mate, but it is disappearing now."

─ "I have been tempted to do it, Luke. I will not forget it so easily."

─ "Nike, do you realize what you have been willing to do for him? Now that I know, I am more proud of you. What else do you need to prove yourself to know that you are his father?"

   But before I accepted him as my child or not I had to ask a question. An idea then came to my mind that had taken me all morning and I had forgotten.

─ "Luke, I cannot accept a son without asking you this question first: would you be willing to work?"

─ "To that I answer categorically I would, Nike. What are you thinking?"

─ "Would you work on the Thuban?"

─ "I would work as a garbage collector, as a sweeper, anything whatever. But Nike, I don't know anything about steel."

─ "It is not necessary. This morning I've seen waiters are needed. We would have to talk to Richard and Samuel, but I think that both will agree. And I will work on the top floor until my contract runs out in June and then I would be on the Thuban ground floor, working with you. Thus, if it is well explained to Samuel, they can consult me anything whenever they want, because they could see me every day. And we would have to talk to her, but surely there is also a place for Lucy."

─ "We will discuss it with her, but she may want to find a job in a hair salon. Nike, I worked as a waiter when I was young. Talk to anyone you have to talk to, but if they agree, I can start work tomorrow. A key of the showers, and little more, because for clean new clothes I can ask my brother. So, as you can see, Nike, the three of us would work. And once the condition that you asked is fulfilled, do you have anything to say?"

─ "I give up, Luke. Everything that has happened to me today has accelerated my thoughts. I love him as a son, he loves me as a father, and we are all going to work for his well-being. Luke, this is no longer a Three. It is a family. But I must give up and say yes. Oh, little King, I accept you."

   And then both of us burst in tears. We hugged and cried for 10 minutes. My family began. When we managed to calm a little, he told me how he had spent the morning with a sense of danger for me, his running down Temple Road and his chance encounter with that lady with white hair and loud blue dress who had given me my first coin, who had referred to him where I was going and with whom. I was not scared. Few things scared me now. But naming her, she seemed to materialize, walking reflective on the square in direction to Damascus Road. Our eyes met and she seemed to breath, relieved. So important was that lady in the most transcendental facts of my life that I suddenly stood up: I had to speak to her. But being next to her, I didn't know what to say. I faltered, but in the end I found a question to ask her.

─ "What is your name, Madam?"

─ "I am Mistress Miley, Rebecca Miley. I've always been a neighbor of your friend and I was of his father, Rev. Paul Prancitt, even when he left his ministry. I now live with a son of mine in Chamberlain Street, but my old house is still here in Damascus Road. I am pleased to see it although it no longer belongs to me, and I make frequent visits to those that were my neighbors. Do you want to know something more, young man"?

─ "No, I just wanted to thank you. At the end you have saved me and believe me: I will not do it again."

─ "I do not find you an unstable young man. But you know what? I would not tempt fortune again if I were you. And you, can I ask what your name is?"

─ "Nicholas. - And I gave no further explanation. But an emphatic─: Thank you,"

   And finally she left, and again I was looking at her affable silhouette until I lost her sight. Rebecca Miley, I will always take you in my heart. How many things I would like to ask you. It is many passengers that we stumble upon in life and there are some anonymous ones who are on your side and leave their wake and the boat we are sailing, when we cross them, is unable to notice it.


 

─Finally you can talk. You know what I did and you can judge me.

─ What you did? -said Protch─, at the end you didn't do anything.

─I can’t forget that afternoon. For me the weight of temptation is just as if I had done, because I accepted. I cannot forget that I accepted.

─Nike ─said Maudie affectionately─, we would have loved you just the same if you had done so. I agree with what Luke told you. If I would find myself with a son in your circumstances, I would do exactly the same thing. Every parent should at least have the temptation. And if you still have doubts about us, right now we would hug you.

–But I - I kept refuting─ had no children at the time. And I also had millions.

–But you wanted to be just as Lucy and Luke - said Protch─, who did not have them. It may seem crazy and in general it is. But it is your life and you've been consistent with your circumstances. My wife and I have talked a lot about this when the other day you hinted something and we decided to love you believing that you had fallen. So much more if you haven’t.

─Fallen, yes. I was as a fallen angel. But they had told me that this is only the Prince of Wisdom. And I don't know if I was wise, but in that fall, began, if it was, my wisdom. Thank you, dear Maudie and Protch.


 

   The way back was made by two moved silhouettes. Luke heard me mumble almost as a sleepwalker "you are my son, o little king, now you are my son". Regulus bright among bright stars, for me always the brightest, so much more bright as when you are smiling, your eyes are a source of sweetness, a crystal mirror of the love from your parents. And I was going to be one of them, to guide you through life and help you wherever you walked. Suddenly Luke interrupted my delusions and on Alder Street he spoke to me.

─ "Fatherhood, Nike, biological or not, should be earned, and you, on more than one occasion, has deserved it. You are not a parent for birth or for blood. You have to always fight for him, cradle him, laugh, cry and often you have to give more than what you can. I am very proud of you. For your love, our family begins and we are four now."

   And, cradled by his emotional caresses, shortly after we arrived home. I had to tell my wife all that had happened to me that day. And be sure that she agreed that we were a family, of 4 so far. She was alone at the entrance of her tent tickling Paul and looked at me. I sat down beside her, with the love of our lives on my right. Soon the three of us would become the same flesh.

─ "My heart─ I started with no fear─, I have to tell you many facts of this strange day in which I have lived so many different things..."

   I told her with some fears, but not ashamed, that hour of horror with William Rage, in which I could fall. She couldn’t know yet that from this horror I had got an unknown impulse that had taken me to jump with them through the clear skies willing to grasp the scents in the air, rocking myself in the warm and glowing breeze to be finally a family. But even when she didn’t know, she stopped me to tell me.

─ "Calm down, Nike. Almost everyone I know who lives in the street has been through what you’ve been though. Not beggar women, I don't know why, because as I've been all my life here I can tell you that that hawk also likes women. He has a wife and son, to the best of my knowledge and I have seen him many times with furtive eyes hand in hand with a woman, toffee-nosed and haughty. It seems that he likes them thus. Whether his wife knows or not or how he can cheat her and she doesn’t find out, I don't know. But I see you restless. I see that your eyes are determined to weep each of our tears."

─ "I will never forget this November 19 or that hour of horror. But there is something else. I'll remember this day also for another reason. You have to know it."

   And with bright eyes I spoke to her also of my acceptance of Regulus and that I had decided to start a family with them.

─ "I've always been inconstant, a proud, vain man without a heart. I have little to offer, because I don't even know if this moron may return or know if I could give Paul my resurrected blood and accompany him along his way, guiding him down your Wisdom and your Beauty. But even with my doubts, I am willing to start a family with you, and already be four."

─ "What happiness, my heart. Somehow, when I fell in love with you in August, I already figured that one day we would be one of the ash trees near the river with at least four healthy, pure, vigorous branches. Welcome to our family, my heart. Such joy in this hour with no bonfires. And forget Horror. Tonight you have to merge with Beauty."

   Luke, Beauty, had not said any words because he already knew and wanted me to have that moment of intimacy with our wife. But now he said to me:

─ But before Beauty, you have to get out of Horror, my love, and I still see you in it. As I have recently been through the same as you, I recommend that first you talk to Mistress Oakes. She is already here and she is going to Menhir Bridge. I think that she is waiting for you."

   I took a deep breath and I stood up. Luke was right and I sensed that she would be able to cast out the last devils and reassure me. Soon I reached the bridge. And after greeting her, I told her I needed her and I had to tell her something.

- "I knew, Nike, perhaps because my granddaughter's husband also has to be my grandson. Say what you feel to your grandmother."

   I was a quarter of an hour shyly telling her everything that had happened to me that day, horror and beauty, while she looked at me tenderly.

─ "You know what, Nike? I've also been tempted. I would say that almost all of us have been. And when I was young I used to have a graceful figure and was, thought it may be wrong for me to say so, a very attractive woman."

─ "That I am sure of - and I added with conviction─, and you still are."

─ "Thanks, Nike. So I was also tempted. But I did it? Fellow mate, you have that power, the power to read me and I am reassured it is you, because I know that whatever you read, you will interpret me justly and love me. That’s why I tell you, Nike, that the time has come. Use your power this time."

   She was so convincing that I was persuaded. I had no fear to see, but to read the most private parts of my loved ones. But I really looked at her and I saw and I knew the answer.

─ "And now go in peace, with Luke to the cave, and start to be."

   Due to the fact that I had dared to look at her, she was also reading me and knew what was going through my head. Dear Mistress Oakes. No wonder we have all been flying, as an aimless swarm, to end up in your honey.

  I sat awhile, now reassured, with Lucy and Luke and the former handed my son to my arms. His heartbeat splattered me and his heat melted my tears. "Oh, my son. All that may be good in my blood will be for you. For your little heart I have to empty myself." I knew at last that in that twilight of flame the miracle was coming.

   Luke cast surreptitious glances at the door of his tent, or rather our big house now, waiting for the hour in which I decided to penetrate in it with him. Lucy would deal, we had already talked about it, with reminding our fellow mates the next drift, while she was in charge of sleeping alone and taking care of Paul.

─ "My love - I said to Luke─, I know what you are waiting for. But I suddenly have a whim, I don't know if you can consider it a mad whim. Once, little time ago, we were one in a place with words. I wish that there we are also flesh."

─ " A crazy whim or not, my love, it is true that there we were words and we learned to conjugate what we are now. I agree with you that we should go to the cave; it is time that the Word is made flesh."

    And walking through the alder grove I was thinking that five months of desire had to sprout in a few hours. We walked hardly talking with our lips, hand in hand, sweaty and scared, but excited as a child who observes from afar a new gift. There was The Cave of Beggar Sally, where a month later two returned in order to become one and, human or divine, to become eternal.


 

   I was never told the second night of love of Luke and Nike, but I assume that both surrendered. There was no pain, dirt, dark or cold from which they did not take out a teaching whereby they were learning, slowly, the language of the sweat and the wound. The scarce wind was blowing from the north and dropped leaves and splinters that became grains in the skin, declining darkness and intimacy of the touch becoming words in the pores, earth in its shores, varnished of sandstone and clay. So strong the desire and so few hands in their watch. They could not live all in a single night. They now had a lifetime to know themselves better and devote to each other, to continue modeling the butterfly that they had already built. And the pagans were now ready to start to be sacred.


 

   But that night of the flesh had something else. I was so happy that a thought haunted my mind even in the most intense minutes of our beauty. And at a certain point I had to ask Luke:

─ "My love, stop for a moment: would you really like to have a second child?"

─ "Light of my life, I assure you again I really would, because it will be yours, and as it is going to be for the rest of our lives, it will also be mine. And there will be no jealousy or any reproach. If you want to make me the happiest man on Earth, please say yes."

─ "After living what I have lived today, my thoughts stop at last, and having stopped I definitely find the peace I know that I'll always have with Lucy and you. But I had to ask you about it and answer with what right here I once heard from you: "You have a promise from me which if I don't fulfill will deserve your scorn". Let it be. Tomorrow we will talk with our wife. But she is fertile and if my seed is fecund, we will very soon be five."


 

   Happiness didn't stop and went from Luke to Nike as a new flower in their seeding. It heralded a fruitful harvest of five ears, because three agreed already to be abundant wheat to reach five. Darkness was around them and, in the midst of the heat of their bodies, they felt cold. But several stars sneaked in through any crack in order to, with them and their skin, wrap them and caress them like a shaken flame.