CHAPTER XLVII: THE RABBLE

   I loved both of them. It is hard to make you understand that it was not lust, but true love. My heart has forked - Lucy had not told yet any story, and I shuddered when I knew who she was speaking to. My beloved disciple narrated at times in my presence, and finally she would sum me up her tale, which ultimately rather than a tale, was a gospel, because she told her life, brief, with new chapters for Luke and me – like tunnels in an ancient cave with cave paintings in homage to more than one hunting god. The Earth was opened for me, curved and adopted the shape of a cradle to give me a shelter and rock me and I spent my life in this fertile crib. I loved both of them and forever will I love them.

   The road of my mother could have been a fruitful trail, and not a sterile pathway, because one day she will realize that she had lived the life she preferred without anybody imposing her, although she has been unhappy for carrying the cross that she never could get a permanent shelter for me that could take me away from cold, which nevertheless comes with me. I must accompany her more so she knows that her old age can be an orchard, and freedom an oasis, that her blood is fruitful and still produces.

   For a time, the land that my mother and I trod was a wasteland quagmire. And yet only she could give me a planet for a house. And it was a palatial house. But we needed creative water and in Umbra Terrae Boulevard she knew the flood one day. She was still known as Mistress Oakes. Sometimes we have called her by her name, but I keep that name for my mother. Our cracked field needed some furrows and her blood was rain so that our unproductive mud became creative clay and my mother grew up with her as an olive, yielding the result of a young silhouette, a sculpture of newborn Venus.

   It was in those days when suddenly approached me a gentleman and I didn't feel any fear because he showed me a photo of my mother, younger, and another blonde woman which he named as my deceased aunt Kirsten, of whom I had heard. And that gentleman resembled my mother too. He introduced himself as my uncle Gerald, who from that day I know. Always affectionate with me, repented of his part in losing her sister. He didn't want to lose me too now that he had found me. I am a part of his blood, and it is important to not lose the veins where we come from. My mother and him talk to me often fondly of my aunt Kirsten, since then forever in my memories. And these two brothers who do not speak to each other share the tears for the beloved horsewoman whose memory might one day reconcile them. I knew also the last days of my grandmother Linda; repentant that a religious intransigence had led her to lose a daughter and a granddaughter. She also spoke about Gerald Rivers I, my grandfather. It is important to know where we come from to know who we are. And I have never known if I did well not to say anything to my mother about the balm that could have taken her out of the street. Perhaps, I thought, she would not have stood to be taken away from the mate that was for her more than a mother.

─ "But I am losing the thread. I don't know if I will be able to tell it."

    The rain that blissful falls one day can be more fertile than blood. Only a few days I met my mother’s mother; from my father’s mother I have never known anything. But without blood bonds she was waterfall light and she has always deserved the name of grandmother. When one day I already knew that my mother owned a bunch of emptiness and begging was my cradle and fate, Mistress Oakes talked to me to know if my life was sad or I found a meaning to my fate. Always rebel but knowing how to accept what the future had in store for me, I replied that on any road I could be happy. And she added that life was testing me in a road because one day I would meet someone who needed me because he wouldn’t like his past. Now I know that someone may be plural. I should change my place to know my husbands Luke and Nike. My grandmother could then see my future. She also foresaw that one day our constellation would be eight shy stars.

    And it crystallized when we were rained the first snowy drops to fly over our small Milky Way. That which might have been an offense from the ex-convict Frankie Lauders to the chivalry of his then fellow mate Bruce Scully, a wandering star whom Mistress Oakes acknowledged as the son who she might have had with Joe, who immediately joined our celestial navigation to be four, and we were protected by his magnanimous wings, towards the future. And my heart bled for the first time when I met him. But I never said anything because I soon realized that his heart cried with love for my mother; and thus his shabby machinery, always suffering but always calm, had to survive one day the terrors of a prophecy and a heart attack.

   The story was repeated with the arrival of the fifth motif by Verôme, the first one that chose it. Miguel McDawn drowned in his outdated laws and wanted to recreate his life drunk of liberty, looking for my mother in the outskirts, because he had fallen in love with her. But when this happened, I had to suffer that the happiness of my mother wasn't full, because he immediately fell in love with me! I didn't know what to do, but the remedy was not in my hand. Poor heart that still didn’t know that the needles of his compass awaited him who would be his twin.

   And Pollux would reach him a cold and tearful night in which he was having a shower with the rain and his place under Wrathfall Bridge was still with an unlit bonfire. From the blackest night of his existence, John Richmonds took out the gift of life. And Miguel and John met each other and knew that opposite them was the blazing star that would create them Gemini in eternal combustion.

 We also met Anne-Marie Beaulière, a brave woman who epitomizes loyalty, able to follow John’s light through the muddy passages of the underworld. I have to thank her for the affection that she has always shown for my mother, but for her I have been both light and darkness, because I'll always be a rival in her disoriented heart.

   The Seductress’ Outskirt was increasingly blackened with dangers, even for beggars, and reluctantly we decided to move to a nude hill, an appendage perhaps of Umbra Terrae, and in the place in which I was born Fate would reach me by opening its udder so that its milk was turned into a fertile cream and I began with Luke to be two that were going to be five.

   I was informed of how a bald man had wanted to attack us and finally had fought with us against the bald men. And in the mist I saw a nearly naked man who wept terrified wanting to expel his ghosts. You are so beautiful and I could have broken your head, they were almost his first words to me. But that’s the way a devil gets rid of useless clothes and sterile creeds and covers himself of new theologies, more profane but more creative. He had stripped in an instant of filth and you could see the nudity of his soul and he still had some sprouts of the tree he was. It was only a matter of making him feel that down his trunk was still running the sap, he would cry branches and dew drops, he had strong roots which only needed a fertile soil to sink. And if barren had been until then my land, his wood rooted with me and we wandered one day through underground caverns to sprout the first two trees in a nearby forest.

   We didn’t love each other yet when we entered our tent, but if ever the words love at first sight had made any sense, it was that foggy night in November, because both of us felt when we saw each other that we would like to grow old together and we both felt that we would like to be the first to reach that western sea and if we still have six lives, swim at the same pace on those stellar oceans. And his seed was a fertilizer for my fields, which were not dry. And thus came his first seed and I was fraught with expectations until Regulus shone with his powerful light. Oh, little King, you bright light in the spring with no rites of your parents, who are three! Be welcome to Earth and stay in his furrows, you royal star, for if you miss the cosmos, yours has to be our Universe! And you will always love Paul and my husband Luke if, like me, you get used to not fear their maws playing with lions.

   But love came undressed one night not too warm, a harbinger of spring. Luke was enraptured by the abysses of the Seductress and Wrathfall bridge stripped us its fate to swim in the river that kills pain and if ours were our bodies, that night ours were our souls, our hearts laughed with the joy of love welcoming us and beating in unison we toured time as the streets, in the hope that loving each other forever was the currency that rained us.

   "I love you. You love me. We were two and we are one now: we belong to each other." These words were until recently the laws of the Earth, without witnesses or wedding coins, aged rituals or priests. What do they know of love or marriage? For ten months we had been as married as due to the documents that legalize us now. But it was necessary to subdue to the western laws, for which the beauty of gods becomes a matchmaker, and Luke and I got married so that Paul, who shines with his own light without any paper giving him that right, was the son of the law, for son of love he already was.

   And when I met my husband Luke, I met also his brother James, and with him the force that has the respect of a singular man, who knew how to accept his brother’s deprived road because he understood that in this road, his brother would find himself and thanks to James I knew the light that Luke has always had. But every lighthouse can be dimmed, but if it is bright enough, no darkness of six months can darken the steady brightness of a star that will bequeath his fire to his two children. When he knew me, James learned to love me, and that fire is mutual. And on the background Denebola, Luke’s star, illuminating hesitantly but with a firm shine, necessary in the ecliptic.

   Fate, playfully, had not finished dealing all the cards of the game he played with me, but jester it rectified and disguised of basilisk to bite me also. We were just informed and a constant murmur informed us of the unlikely fact of a man bitten by a snake. He was settled in Bruce’s tent and he decided to stay a few days. All my fellow mates entered and returned with a new dawn in their eyes. I felt curious. And more when I saw Luke returning with tainted by tenderness crystals. In his limpid waters I trembled when I noticed that he reflected that our guest had fallen in love with him and he who had been a bald man returned him a long hair of respect and friendship. It was I that dared to give a name to this reality and Luke confirmed it claiming that he had just found his lost twin. When they saw each other again, he had noticed how the beauty of life had attacked him with mirrors of assumed love and, however, he had decided to get away from that flame so my bonfire with Luke could continue giving fire.

   It was vital for me to meet him and the second day of August I dared to leave my tent on the pretext of arranging Bruce’s hair. I saw a man warm and clear as the first timid rays of dawn. And soon I changed from suspected enemy into a fragrant rose, and we started to be notes in the same harmony, planets approaching which orbited the same star. And in the bonfire of that summer day the scarce wind bent its arrows to hit my target and fate disguised as a gale to move my heart and enlarge it, so there was room in my blood, painting of the rock cavern covering me, for something bigger than two hunting gods. Fired and shot, love, twice in the same year, reached me again accurate with the safety of its spears.

   But in my universe was also dancing a little star that was to be born. Nike felt the calling of the Earth and he didn't know that he was already teaching to swim him who would also be his son. And Regulus and his father harmonized in the same symphony and began to rain a lake for Leo. And next night Polaris would be given to him, but on the icy shores of its north the star which points it seemed to ask for clemency to the southern stars to rise and set with us in the same drawing. I saw he was reluctant to stand in the way of Denebola and Algieba, but he didn't know he was now a line of the ecliptic, and the skies were moving to accommodate Zosma among their stars.

   And he learned his way around assuming as his own the trees, the river, our burning soil, the reeds and rushes, the landfill, the menhir, the lake, the will-o'-the-wisps, the entire fertility and misery around us. He walked and debated with himself who he was, or who he should be, whether he could become one of our furrows, root of the ash trees, trunk of the alders... and he withdrew to reflect and he decided to stay and he who was born in a golden cradle imagined himself, without affectation, in rags and living among us, the eighth star in our warm constellation. But that very breeze of courage became a glacial hurricane when he thought that he could not live with Luke and me without staining us and that terror turned into a Shadow for him. And on August 6 he tried to convince us, with bitter eye bags, that he would go but would come and visit us. But he was there long enough to see the arrival to the world of his son, a little star that shone in his hour of greatest darkness. And such was his brightness that he was illuminated in the gloom of his exile, a lighthouse not to lose his mind. And without him, I timidly dared to scream a lullaby to Nike: Welcome to the world, you little king.

  In the end they were only 60 days. Luke and I never lost faith. The heart of a resurrected man does no longer lose its heartbeats if, like us, he has learned to be oriented. I hid my secret to Luke because I knew it would be temporary, that one day we would strip our souls and would watch what we were hiding. August would become an ice floe for Nike, a trust-filled waiting for us. In September we were happy the day that some documents joined us, for a husband and a wife we already were. Nike wasn’t there: the wedding with him would have to wait and we could only get married with the laws of the Earth. Anguished and believing himself a traitor he could not stand the winds with which he thought we were in danger, and he came to our outskirt to help us, or if his time had come, to die with us. We could not welcome him then as he deserved, but neither my husband nor I had any doubts that already his time of exile was nearly ended. And it would be when October rose as a star from the east.

   The month dawned with yellowish beams and it seemed the omen that something new would happen and three actors recited the poem "October 4". While Nike had his last brioche in gold for breakfast, Luke went out to the street as each morning and I stayed in our country taking care of my son, the offspring of the tree and the earth. My husband was late to return but I only felt the feeling of a new outbreak of happiness. When at last he returned, he came to talk to me before addressing everyone. He told me how he had met his twin again and they had eaten together, or rather, they had decided not to eat. He would soon come to visit us and they would go to the street together and that day I should not have to leave. My still hidden heart now struggled to be opened and reveal itself but was still awaiting something; I didn't know what, perhaps some unexpected miracle.

   And at last I saw him climb the hill and went towards him with my sincere soul and we embraced trembling and "when thou seest us, thou shalt know us" was the inevitable sentence, rather than dialogue. I saw him set up his tent, to stay, and I should no longer fear a new separation. And seeing how the two men of my life left, I was feeling that I should stay alone to see it: Nike was in love with me, but he still did not know. And at night I saw both of them return in love. Fate was fulfilled and was born for us three again in a cradle of litter. The milestones of the new beggar had overwhelmed Luke, the tree, and had fertilized him. He felt proud to have rooted in two earths and the old bald man’s hair sprouted leaves in spring again. We lived some moved days planning the delirium of the Three and only a tree as him with such solid roots could conceive another sap to feed my wood so we could flourish in five.

   Days were flying and two new travelers came to our nest. We met Richard, a blanket that had helped Nike’s heart not to freeze. And his friend Samuel, who, now unmasked, dares to love us, and has given Luke a job and I suspect that also peace one day.

   Unsheathed our souls, our hearts without thorns, Nike’s spirit materialized in our bed before becoming flesh. And we were for fifteen days planning entelechies, while the eighth beggar was the apprentice of misery, sinking his roots in our clay. He always loved him as a child; his parents, the three of them, loved one another; Regulus felt that everything was right and correctly called him papa. Nike began to despair, but he was frozen with a new arrow: he discovered then that the rays of his heart had also found me, and we were now three arrows missing their bull’s eye, but the three of us were a single target.

   The word mate has never been as solid as in that hour of greatness when the former bald man rescued him. In the Cave of Beggar Sally our love began to resound, expressed with Luke’s voice and my breath in the same throat. The Beggar of the Golden Cradle finally returned with his blood with no secrets, his smile in love, aware of our project, hesitant but with nothing to hide, he openly spoke of love now, for Luke and I, saying he had to reflect in order to see if he could assume profane that we would be three sacred couples and a single altarpiece. Oh, that twilight of November 1 of his acceptance, bonfires from east to west, fires of a bloody sunset, assumed hearts, unison fate of three points, my heart was laughing when bleeding, and happiness made love with beauty, passion was awaiting its fruits to germinate in five.

   And November 18 finally arrived. I had been one year alone with Luke. And his hair grew again because he slept with me, with Algieba, the lion's forehead or mane. One year of fruits and a child in common. On November 19 Luke and Nike joined in flesh, for in words they had already joined. On November 20 I could correctly call him my husband Nike and he planted his seed so that one day we could be five because Earth we are and on Earth we have to germinate. A few days that Nike was absent and we awaited his return, because we already were The Sacred Family. And our fellow mates surround us, and five they have to be and that’s why Bruce couldn't go. And Miguel has returned and spring has been stormy. I know what Luke fears: all his true love going down a black sink and perishing, but I trust Nike and I know that he will get from dirt cleaning. And they will reconcile, as my mother and her brother will do one day, I am sure. And we will always harmonize in the three and the five and will be a chord of peace in the eight, our magic number, in which fellow mates we will be always in the same notes. I have loved both of them and forever will I love them.


 

-That’s how Lucy finished her gospel. It is late for me today but I wanted to get here. I said that I am a lucky man. Two storytellers, and although she did not create her story for me, I like seeing myself in the words she has also poured for me.

  I suspected that the following day would be the last day with them, or not... but at least I would end telling them my story.

   On the morning of the 25th, while we were chatting in the living room, and while Protch was absent a few minutes, Maudie told me about something of which he did not dare to speak to me. But seeing he returned limping, I remembered his arthritis and it was imperative for me to say something.

−Protch, look at me. This house is yours. I am never gonna take it away from you. And I cannot stand seeing you limp. Of course you can do in your house the alterations you want. You can change old offices into a room on the ground floor and thus you will avoid going up and down the stairs so much. Really Deanforest belongs to you. Do you have still any doubts?

   He ended up excusing himself, but he decided to make alterations on the ground floor. And now calmer, I hurried to return to my story with intention of concluding it that day.


 

   May and June passed without much to tell you on that cold spring. Lucy stopped working at the end of May and Luke and I went to the street together again until the second half of July, when we decided that either of us would always be with her caring for her at the end of her pregnancy. My mate had changed a bit and he spoke to me affectionately but he was transparent and feared that one day we could separate. He hardly said each night a couple of words to Miguel, due mostly to Lucy and John’s efforts, who couldn’t stand to see them thus. I did not speak in this estrangement because I didn't understand anything and thought best to shut up, but it hurt me to see them distant. Once a month the three of us went to Gerald’s home and I started to know of his former years, away from his sister, and making mistakes. And although he already knew it, I also told him my story and we became friends.

   And so I get to July 2, also a day of shock. For Luke and me the day had been good, and summer, disguised as spring, had begun so warm and bright that I got drowsy, and so as not to think that in a few days I would start working at the bar, I decided to sleep a while in our country house, ideal for napping, taking care of Paul.

   It was so unusual that, despite being so simple, I got scared. The little king startled me suddenly crying in my presence. Trying to calm him down, I played with him doing gestures and caresses. And then I seemed to see something disturbing. If I moved my hand on his left eye, he had no response. He did not seem to see it. Uneasy, I took him in my arms and I stood up. Lucy and Luke could not help but notice I was afraid.

− "What’s the matter, Nike?" – They asked me instantly, restless.

  I told them briefly and completely nervous what was happening and suggested we should take the Chevrolet and go urgently to a hospital.

  And in half a minute we were in Millers' Lane. It took me a few seconds, nervous, to open the car, and already all of us inside – I could not believe it - the Chevrolet wouldn’t start. I made two or three attempts, but they were useless. It hadn’t been used for a long time and when we really needed it, it didn't work. We got out of the car, desperate.

− "If we have to walk, we must get underway now." – I said.

   Almost close to The Last Road’s façade there was a green Ford Taunus miraculously with the door not closed completely. Luke opened it and discovered that in addition it had still the car keys.

− "I don't know if I should call this a prodigious rectification, Nike. But it is here asking us to borrow it.

   Borrow it? Steal a car? It is true that we needed it desperately, and we would give it back immediately. I took momentum and asked:

− "Luke, can you drive?"

− "Even tanks, Nike. I learned in the army."

− "Then look at me and say nothing. You are the original couple. So Lucy and you will go with Paul to the Philip Rage Hospital and I'll be here waiting for the owner to explain it later. We cannot risk a report. Then I'll go to the hospital walking and will see you there."

  It was not time to argue and reluctantly they entered the Ford and drove away. Half an hour I was there waiting and it is impossible to express to you in what state of mind. As for the car... probably it belonged to a neighbor and we knew by sight everyone at Millers' Lane. It took half an hour to appear a young man, although he is my age. He looked absent-minded, more robust but shorter than I, and you could see in him some strength, now I know that mental strength. It is clear that he was looking for something and couldn't understand that he could not find it.

− "Are you looking for a green Ford Taunus?" - I dared to ask.

   He looked at me inquisitive for a few seconds.

− "I am." – He replied.

− "We have stolen it - I was getting more and more nervous-. My son had to be urgently taken to hospital, I mean, the son of my fellow mates Lucy and Luke – Now I did not know how to change my mistake - and it was open and with the keys and… - I hesitated- but we will give it back to you immediately. You must be thinking that we are such a rabble, isn't it?"

− "Yes – he looked at me carefully-, such a rabble, who steal my car and take the trouble to explain it and assure me that it will soon be returned. I am usually absent-minded but really I can't explain what I was thinking to leave it open. What is your name?"

− "Nike - and seeing that he did not know the name, I added-. I will explain it later. And your name?"

− "I'm Nigel Matts. Perhaps you know Shirley, my wife. She goes often up there to pick up Achilles, to whom you call Theseus, and Telemachus, because I imagine that you are one of our neighbours of the Torn Hand – I confirmed I was-. You also know my brother-in-law Brandon, who told me that recently one of you had a heart attack. I know by David Fieldman that his name is Bruce, who is recovered. When my wife and I bought a house here, we saw that the waste ground opposite was uninhabited, up to one year and a half ago, when some neighbors came with whom we have never had any problems and that also care for our cats. I work at the University. I am a semiologist - he said shaking my hand-. And I met my wife there. She teaches ancient languages, dead languages, but now she teaches French."

− "Forgive me, Mr. Matts. I don't know what a semiologist is. But if you are not going to report us, you’d better explain it to me one other day. I should walk to the Philip Rage, and I must know what happens to my son, I mean to Lucy and Luke’s son."

− "If you wait five minutes... my wife has another car: a Chrysler Cordoba. It should be parked on Alder Street. I will go up, fetch the keys and take you there."

   I hardly had to wait for two minutes.

− "Come with me. Shirley was not at home and I have not taken long to find them. Let's walk to Alder Street."

   As we walked he asked me:

− "Then it is your son, but it is Lucy and Luke’s son..."

− "Nigel, can I trust you?"

− "I like you, Nike, whatever your name is. Talk calmly."

− "If you enter the hospital, you will see that Lucy is pregnant. She will give me a son, also Luke's son. It is difficult to explain. We are three parents and two children, but in another moment I will explain it better."

  The Chrysler was indeed in Alder Street, and already inside, to take my mind off fateful thoughts, I remembered to ask him.

− "Then... that of semiologist..."

− "I teach semiology at the University. It is, in essence, the science of signs, of symbols. A year ago I met Shirley Jones, the beautiful teacher of French and other languages, alive or dead, and I fell in love with her. Just yesterday she told that she was pregnant and according to our calculations our son will be born in late March or early April. With her I have learned something of ancient cultures, their traditions and customs, mythology or legends and things apparently unrelated, like stars."

− "Stars -I sighed. We had this dialogue on Damascus Road, almost in Castle Road-. One day they gave me two. Sure you know them: Polaris and Zosma."

− "Alpha Ursae Minoris and Delta Leonis. North and South. An extraordinary gift."- he smiled.

   Little more we talked till we reached the Philip Rage, but it was evident that we had liked each other. He did tell me he would stay in the hospital waiting for us to know something.

   Already in the Philip Rage I met Luke waiting for me at the door. I introduced Nigel Matts to him and explained some of the circumstances in which I had known him. And I urged him to tell me what he knew.

− "Calm down, Nike. Coming here, Lucy noted that Paul regained vision, he again lost it on Damascus Road and then he recovered again. We have explained this to a doctor and they are examining him, but it seems amaurosis fugax, transient monocular blindness. Now they have to study the causes and the possible treatment, but it may not be anything serious."

− "You are Luke, aren’t you? – Nigel asked -. It seems to me that sometimes we have met on The Last Road. Look, if you need to come again, make an appointment to see the doctor in the afternoon. I will take you here and back."

   We thanked him and went to find Lucy. Paul was being examined and later we knew that he had not even cried. Nigel liked us all three and while we were waiting in a waiting room, I told him something of the night of Aug. 3 of last year in which we shared stars. And a sentence from Luke’s tale: From that night the beggars have always been eight, but for sixty days, seven remained in the heat and one in the cold. The semiologist was quick to relate and he told me:

− "So at the beginning of August last year you were already eight. And you were in the Torn Hand for eleven days. You had to share the stars just then. Nike, if you multiply both numbers, eleven and eight, you will have 88. And that's just the number of official constellations that the sky has. It had to be so."

   It had to be so. It could not be otherwise, Luke would say. Just then came out a doctor who confirmed us it was amaurosis, although he should be examined carefully. But it wasn’t necessary to stay there. But he reassured us. Nigel regained his Ford and Luke drove the Chrysler back. I embraced Paul intensely. If everything was ok, when he grew up he would be able to see the star Regulus and always keep the light in his eyes.