Thirteen Crucifixions: Conclusion

“I got an e-mail from Persimmon Carlyle yesterday”, Sheila said suddenly.

            “She doesn’t want to do a documentary about us!” Michael groaned.

            “She did say that she’d like to come for a visit.”

            “Persimmon…Carlyle?” Adam said.

            “You know her?” Glen said.

            “No.  It’s just the name.  It sounds stage-y.”

            “She is a piece of work”, Michael said.

            “I think you’ll see that she’s changed some”, Sheila said.

            “She can’t have gotten worse.”

            “Better, I’d say.”

            “When is she coming?” Lazarus said.

            “Do you know her?” asked Michael.

            “We were both in the house the last week before I came here.

            “What did you think of her?”

            “She was nice.  Sociable.  Considerate.”

            “Persimmon Carlyle?”

            “I did say that she’s changed”, Sheila said.

            “Is there a story here?” Adam said.

            “We didn’t get off to the greatest start with each other”, said Glen.

            “What—didn’t she used to be on the news?”

            “She was an anchor woman and investigative reporter for CBC”, Michael said, “And she made our lives hell for a while.”

            “Our lives?”

            “Glen’s and mine.”

            “So, bite me.”

            “It was when I lived in Pamela’s house back almost ten years ago.  Persimmon was trying to expose us as a dangerous cult.”

            “Like this place”, said Adam.

            “That was the Shaughnessy mansion with the AIDS victims?” asked Lazarus.

            “I was interviewing a resident”, Michael said, “For a series I was writing on AIDS for the Globe and Mail.”

            “Stephen.” Glen said.

            “You were friends, weren’t you?”

            “Very good friends.  He died, I believe, shortly after.

            “Then Persimmon Carlyle tried to undermine everything.”

            “Her efforts did help to destroy us”, Glen said, “As a community.  I haven’t really seen her since.  I didn’t even speak to her when she was doing the documentary.”

            “She says that it precipitated an enormous change in her life”, said Sheila.  “She has also emphatically stated, Michael, that she would like to meet with you sometime.”

            “I can’t see how I can stop her, if she’s going to visit here.”

            “I’m going to talk to Chris about it”, Sheila said.

            “How did you get all friendly with her?” said Michael.

            “Bill.”

            “Your ex?”

            As Sheila nodded, Michael began to sing, “Just a Gigolo—“

            “Michael!” she snapped with maternal emphasis.

            “Sorry Mummy.”  Adam alone seemed to see any humour in it. Then Michael said, “So now they’re fucking each other.”

            “I would imagine they were for a while, though I care not to—“

            “—Yes”, Lazarus said, “Spare us the visuals, please.”

            “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” said Matthew.

            “My son hasn’t kissed me since he was a small boy.”

            “Are you complaining or are you bragging?” Michael said, and then, as though catching the humour of the situation, everyone burst out laughing at once.

            “So”, Michael said, addressing his mother, “Tell me about Bill and Persimmon.”

            “You know he’s recovered from his mental illness.”

            “When you mentioned him and Persimmon being together I would have assumed that he’d had a relapse.”  More laughter.

            “But seriously”, Sheila said, “No, I mean seriously, it was being married to me that had made him ill.”

            “What!”

            “Well, not being married to me, specifically, but living in the house.”

            “The house?”

            “Michael”, Sheila said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I am awfully relieved to be free of that house now.”

            “Well, it did require a lot of upkeep.”

            “It wasn’t the upkeep.  There are things that I haven’t told you about the house.”

            “That it’s haunted?  I already knew that.”

            “Who told you?’

            “Nobody.  But I used to at times feel something, like a cold, damp and icky sort of presence.”

            “I learned some things about that house during the summer.  About its history.”

            “So tell me…everything.”

            “It started with the apple tree.”

            “The one in the back yard?” Glen asked.  Those were some of its apples you brought over here with you?  Delicious.

            “I thought they were galas”, said Adam, giggling.”

            “Golden apples”, said Lazarus.  “Not merely yellow but golden.  I was almost afraid to eat one.”

            “And so you should be afraid”, Sheila said.

            “What, they’re poisoned?” said Lazarus.

            “They are the apples.”

            “The apples?” Michael echoed.

            “The original apples.”

            “Like, the earliest breed?” said Matthew.

            “Or whatever.  The tree was part of an orchard that was ploughed under in order to build houses.  Where we lived was once a farm. But the original seeds for these apples, of which our tree is the sole survivor, came from the Azores.”

            “How did they get here from the Azores?” said Matthew.

            “By way of a Portuguese immigrant.  In the 1880’s.”

            “So these apples came from the Azores”, said Lazarus.

            “They were descended from the tree that bore the legendary golden apples in the Hesperides.  The Western Isles of Greek myth.  The last remnants of Atlantis, some believe.  Legend has it that Atlantis was destroyed in a day and a night by a great cataclysm some ten thousand years ago and that such scattered islands in the Atlantic as the Azores were once its highest mountain peaks.”

            “Do you believe in Atlantis?” said Michael.

            “Maybe.  Maybe not. When I was painting the apple tree last spring—most of you, I think, have seen it, the one with—“

            “The symbolism?” said Lazarus.

            “Yes.  Well, on Madge’s suggestion, I invited a psychic, her brother-in-law, actually-to come have a look at the tree.  He hadn’t seen the painting yet, but he described it in accurate detail , and then said that it was from Atlantis, and that I should leave the house because a great destruction was going to come from the tree.   I showed him the painting.  It was exactly as he had seen it.”

            “Why did you bring the apples?” said Adam.  He looked at her, his eyes sparkling like cut beryls

            “I don’t know why.”

            “Has everyone here eaten any?  Yes, all of us.  One each?  Yes, me too.  Do you remember how many apples you brought with you?”

            “Twelve.”

            “Well, here they are on the coffee table.  How many remain?  Six?  So then no one else has had any?  No?  Then, I am going to suggest that we finish them, now.”

            “I thought of making a cobbler with them.”

            “Let’s eat”, Adam said, taking an apple and then passing the basket.

            “Why are we doing this?” said Lazarus.

            “It’s called destroying the evidence.”

            “Evidence of what?”

            “Never mind, young man, just do as you’re told.”

            Sheila said to Adam, “You look like someone I’ve seen in a dream.”

            “Is that what you tell all the boys?” Matthew said.

            “Privileged boys”, Sheila answered .

            “Do I look like someone in the painting you just told us about?”

            “A little, not a lot, but—“

            “I am as human as the rest of you.”

            “But where do you come from?”

            “Matthew said, “You are a mystery here, Adam. Tell us about you.  Tell us all about you.”

            “I was born in Russia, in Leningrad, in 1979.  My mother was a dancer with the Kirov.  I never knew my father. Apparently neither did she.”

            “Virgin birth?” said Michael.

            Well, my mother was not a virgin.  But let’s just say that, she didn’t know how I was conceived.”

            “I had a girlfriend like that”, said Lazarus.  One morning she just woke up and she was pregnant.”

            “But you already knew that it was your kid”, Glen said.

            “Yeah, the stupid bitch.”

            “Have you had any word from your ex?” Matthew said.

            “I sent her a couple of e-mails last month.  Nothing.

            “I’m sorry”, Matthew said, “But some women can be absolutely evil that way.”

            “You’ve never heard of dead-beat dads?” Sheila said acidly.

            “I sure had one of those, myself”, Michael said.

            “Is he still alive?” said Adam.

            “No.  He died from AIDS.  Pretty ironic, when you think about it.”

            “So, Adam”, Sheila said. “Neither you or your mother know who your father is.  But surely you came from someone?”

            “She thought that she might have been date-raped.  Women in Russia are not respected the way they are here. Men get away with anything.”

            “Where is she now?” Sheila asked.

            “She died in Budapest, when the Kirov was on tour.  I was just five. I had a great aunt in Hungary who took me in her care—my mother had no living family left in Russia.  She somehow got me out of Hungary and we ended up in London, where I lived till I was twenty, then I immigrated to Canada.”

            “How did she die?” Sheila asked.

            “Nobody knows.  Actually, she disappeared.  They found her clothes under a tree somewhere, but no remains. It was a though she’d just been taken out of her clothes.

            “Like the Portuguese widow”, said Sheila.

            “Come again?’ said Matthew.

            “Before Michael’s father and I bought the house it had been vacant for some years, but before that it was owned by a Portuguese widow.  I was a kid then—I grew up in that neighbourhood, but we used to refer to her as the Hag.  We had a superstitious dread of her, the poor woman.  She did nothing to deserve it either, but we were a neighbourhood of WASPS with a sudden incursion of Italian and Portuguese immigrants. Only this woman’s family had been pioneers here.  She didn’t mix with the Portuguese newcomers—but she was from the Azores, so they seemed to regard her as something different.  So when I was fourteen, this woman, this Mrs. De Souza, died.  Or disappeared.  Coincidentally within hours of my father’s death in Korea—he was fighting in the war over there.  They found Mrs. De Souza’s clothes under the apple tree.  It was as though she’d lifted right out of them.  Like your mother, Adam.”

            “Are you telling us the truth?” said Michael.

            “No.”

            “Then who are you, really?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

            “Somebody told me that that’s who I was.”

            “Who told you, Adam?” Michael said.

            “I don’t know.  My memory goes back only a few months—when I met you, Matthew, but beyond that—“

            “—You have amnesia?” Sheila said.

            “I have something.”

            “You’re absolutely sure”, Matthew said, “That you remember nothing beyond six months ago.”

            “I walked into your shop with the Faberge eggs, and –“

            “The eggs, who gave you the eggs?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Did you find them, did you steal them—look, I haven’t told you this, but I had experts in to look at those eggs.  They declared them to be authentic, but they could not trace them.”

            “It’s a mystery”, Adam said.

            “Have you been to a doctor, Adam?” Sheila said.

            “No.”

            “Well, then you must see one.”

            “I suppose that I must.”

            “Please, as soon as possible.”

            “Does Chris know anything about this?” Michael said.

            “He knows only what I have told him, which is what I have told you.”

            “Yes.  I see.”

            “And, till now, I believed it myself.”

            “We must get you some help”, Sheila said.  “Today.”

            “Wait.  I remember something”, Adam said, apparently on the point of tears.  “That young guy Chris brought back.  Peter.  I talked with him the morning he left us.  This car pulled in to take him away somewhere. Well, I know the driver.  Then I looked at Peter and told him, ‘We’ve both drunk from the fountain of forgetfulness.’  Then, just as he was getting in the car, he said to me, ‘And one day we’ll both remember.’

            He was crying now.  “This is very frustrating.  I know there’s more.  Way more.”

            “Have you tried writing things down?” Michael said.

            “Maybe I should”, he said, his fists clenched as the tears streamed freely down his face.  “The fountain.  The gargoyle fountain.  On top of a column, water was spouting from its mouth.  I drank the water of forgetfulness.  On an island, not far from here.  On a plateau in the middle, surrounded by thick forest, impregnable, unless you’re “expected”, and then the trees open and there’s a path you can climb to the top, to a clearing where—where I saw that fountain, and the big house.  Big, big house like a palace or something, and this old couple lives there, only they’re extremely beautiful and wise and they have contact with the Millionth Council, they are among the Watchers who guard this planet, and they, they’re warning us of a huge ecological disaster coming inside of ten years, unless we change our way of living, all of us, and I was brought there—how, I do not know, but I woke up on the beach, and—and the trees opened.  I climbed the path, I was received into the house by the old woman.  She was very kind.  And tall.  They were both tall, not quite seven feet. And they said I was there to be healed, after which they would send me forth with a new name, a new—identity and—I would be a servant of the Millionth Council and a catalyst for good and for the healing of souls, of broken hearts, for the healing of this planet, and—I am but an instrument of the light you see around me, I am not its source, and if I could but speak clearly and openly of the love that struggles within me to reveal itself to all of you here—I’m sorry.  I got carried away.”

            “What did you do inside this big house”, Michael asked.

            “I just hung-out.  Rested.  Ate good food.   Walked around on the grounds.  Read.  They have a huge library that spans several rooms. I only wish I could remember what it was that I read—“

            “How long were you there?”

            “I don’t know.  I only know that what I’ve told you is more than what they’d permit me.  I might suffer because of this—”

            “No.”  The voice belonged to a mature woman.  Not Sheila’s but much stronger and more resonant.  They all turned to see a tall old woman with white hair wearing tweeds, standing near the door.

            “Mother!” cried Adam.

            “And so I am Mother.  To all of you here.  I come in peace and grace and full of good will.  The young man called Adam shall suffer nothing, for it is time that all be revealed.  To all of you here, you shall continue to be a refuge and a place of growth, shelter and healing.  We shall send to you our protegees, and they shall help strengthen and establish in you the presence divine that shall make of this place one of the places of refuge for when the catastrophe falls upon the earth.  I urge you all to continue on the path of enlightenment that is the way of unconditional love, and so shall the Christ Child be born anew in your hearts and in your lives and so you shall be made ever more conscious of the new way that opens among you.  I have spoken and I speak in the Name of the Great Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep, who hear his voice.”

            Had she been dreaming?  When Sheila opened her eyes, she was seated alone in the common room.  But that woman, that presence.  Did this happen?  She must be sure to ask Michael.  She had seen this woman before, she was sure she had seen her.  She had seen her enrobed in a white flaming light as she walked out of the apple tree and into the house, her presence immolating it to a charred rectangle.  She was the fire that had come out of the tree towards the house.   She wanted to but feared telling any of this to Chris.  The boy, Adam, came in and sat next to the dozing cat, Tobias, whose plush white fur he began to stroke.  He looked up at her.

            “When you dozed off like that we thought we should leave you be for a while. I only came back to see how you’re doing.”

            “I’m fine.  Is she gone?”

            “She just vanished.”

            “Then she was—“

            “You weren’t dreaming.  It was not a hallucination.  But the others, they’ve all seemed to have forgotten.  She told me they’d remember soon enough.”

            “And us, you and I, I mean?”

            “She said that you and I will be teaching them to forget, so that soon they can remember, as though visiting their home for the very first time, and knowing suddenly that they are here.  You have a beautiful cat here. I’m so glad that he came here with you.”