Faces Under Water Read online

  He dreamed he lay on the sea, over downed Venus, with the drowned faces staring up from below. But a fearful moon stared down. He could not escape its appalling beauty or the two glistening, unblinking eyes that gazed through it at him, like razors.

  When he woke he was comfortable. Nothing mattered.

  Someone had put a drink to his lips, which was bitter but appropriate in some essential way. The taste perhaps of healing herbs remembered. Or else a toxic draught to see him off. He went. He was in the sky now. and Venus-Virgo lay below, a woman in a blue dress with blue hair, eyes closed.

  * * *

  “HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN HERE?” he said to the girl, who might have been the servant he had seen before, or the slut from the slum, abruptly washed and in a proper gown.

  “It was yesterday you came. You fainted in Madama’s sala.”

  “I know,” he said. (He had thought that was a dream, too.) “Anyone would, wouldn’t they.” She made a prancing motion. She would say nothing. Or would she?

  “She’s very pretty, your mistress.”

  “Some think so,” said the girl.

  “What do you think?”

  She blinked a glance at him. He was intensely aware of all the movement of her face, the constant flicks of the eyelids, wet slide of the eyeballs, quirks of her mouth, even the slight distension of her nostrils as she took air in and out.

  Furian said, “I suppose you’re used to her.”

  The girl snapped, “She’s modest. She stays covered mostly.”

  “And only goes out at Carnival, a few weeks in autumn or spring. When she can be masked.”

  The girl said, “You must drink all the water in the jug there. No food until tonight.”

  He thought, I’ll be gone by then.

  But after she left, he turned on his side, and slept like the dead.

  IN THE EVENING HE WOKE, and knew where he was, and recalled what had been said. When he sat up, the room was quite steady. It was probably not the ministrations of this diabolic house, rather Shaachen’s medicine bringing on a crisis, now successfully past.

  He looked about. A cup of wine stood on the chest by the bed, and an apple with a knife, (they trusted him?) Across the dim room, which was an ample one, an enamel bath had been filled by water that steamed.

  They had taken his garments, and he had slept adequately without his shirt, but there in the corner, absurd on a pedestal, was a suit of clothes the like of which he had not seen for six years.

  Furian ate the apple without using the knife, but he might keep the knife. It was a poor thing, but could be useful. The wine was thin with fresh water. She must have a well here, and a good one.

  He went and sat in the bath and laved himself with the warm water. Nearby was an attendant razor—trust indeed.

  The girl came in on a knock as he stood shaving cautiously at the unlit mirror, naked. Of course, she would have seen him in the bed. She began lighting lamps.

  “Are you mine with the rest?”

  “No, Signore!” She flushed to her hairline above and between the cat’s ears.

  “Only she’s the whore, then.”

  “She isn’t!” cried the girl. “How dare you say so! She’s been charitable to you.”

  “I wonder why.”

  The girl hung her head.

  “When you’re ready, you’re to go to the room to the left of the corridor.”

  “Am I.”

  The girl bridled. She said, “There are strong men in this house. Be careful.”

  “You mean I can’t leave here until I’m told I may. You mean I can’t have any of you until I pay.”

  The girl picked up a shoe from beside the suit on the pedestal. She flung it at him, but a little short. For a slave, she made free. But then, she thought nothing of him.

  He said, “All right. I’ll be obedient. Don’t be cruel to me. You were so charming when I was sick.”

  “I was not,” she rasped. “She was.”

  “Tell me why,” he said.

  “Why do you think?”

  Confounded, Furian stared at her. Though she was masked and he not, he could see the blush again on her forehead. It was deep.

  He said, “You think she likes me.”

  The girl lowered her head. She made an angry gesture. “Yes.”

  “I’m flattered. But bemused. Why should she?”

  “Who knows why one likes another one?” said the girl. Then, “She’s been fair to me, all my life. You don’t know her, I won’t talk to you any more.”

  And she ran from the room, slamming the door.

  Furian put down the razor. He walked to the small window, which he had already examined. Through the half open shutters, he looked out at the canal, but did not see it.

  A new game? He thought of the delicacy of her soothing hand, the way she had drawn him in on her blue beach.

  He thought of her face.

  Furian cursed her.

  But she had been cursed already.

  Presently he put on the fine-spun shirt and linen, the elegant breeches and satin coat, the stockings and the buckled shoes. His hair, rinsed of the canal, he left as it was, for there was nothing to tie it with. And no mask.

  He drank the last of the watered wine. He wanted something stronger, for now, presumably, he must go and stand there in a room with her again.

  If she would have the decency to mask herself he did not know.

  His own hands in the embroidered cuffs, (the nails so clean), reminded him of his father’s house. His youth. But nothing, not even memory, could come between him and her. Nothing at all.

  IT WAS A SMALL, GRACIOUS ROOM, the walls brocaded in watered primrose, the ceiling high, and painted with cloud-blown gods.

  They—or he—was to dine. At one end of the short table, the silver knives, a fork with a pearl set in the handle three goblets, two with stars, one of dull violet glass that held the candlelight in a single damson drop.

  At the other end of the table, the ink, the quill, some sheets of paper.

  There was a decanter too, and he filled his first glass, turning it almost black. Then drained it, and filled it again.

  When she came in, he must thank her. For although it almost certainly was a game, it might not be the game he had thought. Perhaps she had loved del Nero, after all. Perhaps del Nero had been as petrified—strange, apt, horrible word—as Furian. The Song, an apology not a lament. Why then a murder?

  The door, with its brocade panels, was opened.

  Eurydiche came in through it.

  She had on white this evening, the bodice sprinkled by little brilliants. Her breasts nestled above like doves. Her hair was powdered with silver, piled up, one long tress curling down and down.

  She wore the plain white mask.

  He bowed to her. He said, “You’ve been a saint to me, Madama. I didn’t deserve it, naturally. But the saints, I understand, are always impartial.”

  She stood, looking at him. Through the eyeholes, her scalding eyes. He held them. Waited.

  She went to the table, seated herself, and wrote. She pushed the paper to his place opposite. Her wrist was so slender, ringed by topazes, to match the room?

  He too must go to the table. He picked up the paper.

  It read:

  Will you permit me to remove my mask? Can you bear it?

  For a moment he felt the dizzy weakness threaten him. He said, “I’m at your mercy, lady.”

  She wrote.

  The paper came over the slight width of the table. (Seated, they would not be much more than four feet apart.)

  He read the paper.

  That is not what I wish.

  He said, “Then I must leave.”

  She wrote. You are not a captive. You were not stayed before. You returned here.

  “I was driven here, I think. Why?”

  She raised her head.

  He had a sudden ghastly desire to see it again, the carven slender moon of her face. He filled the glass. He said, “T
ake the thing off. You’re discourteous to me, you didn’t give me a mask.”

  She sat quite still. Then her hands went up, weightless. She undid hidden clasps, and let down the mask’s inert poreless camouflage from the inert poreless mask beneath.

  For her face was a mask.

  She bowed her head again, and wrote. It took a little space. Then she pushed the paper with her fingertips and he took it up.

  You saw at once. Not everyone has done so. I will never grow old, at least, I will not seem to. Do not be afraid of my eyes. The phosphorescent look of them is from the distillation I must use to bathe them in. I never blink, they are never refreshed except from a little bottle I have. I cannot eat, only absorb liquid, that from a special vial. Of course, I would not let you see this. Please sit down, and be at ease. This thing you behold does not make me wicked. Imagine if you will, I am here behind this face, smiling, wishing to speak, and to listen.

  An uneven pulse throbbed through him. He looked at her. It was like looking at the sculpture of the most beautiful, or the face of the most beautiful who had died. She was made of stone. She was perfect. Her eyes did not blink, her lips did not part. The breath that was sucked in and out came by the effort of the lungs and throat. No doubt she would pour the liquid food into her throat, and the muscles there, able to work as those of the face did not, would carry the prescribed sustenance into her. She could never be spoiled, it was true. No ugly frown or grimace or stupid amusement would ever mar her. The scars and wrinkles that perpetual expression made upon a face with age, could never come.

  He raised his glass.

  “I never saw anyone so beautiful.” He drank. “A million women would envy you, Madama.”

  She wrote—it was her last page.

  Envy me that a man faints at the sight of me? Envy me that I can never laugh or cry, or close my eyes, even when sleeping? Call me Eurydiche. I like to hear my name. Few others ever say it.

  Furian said, “Surely Cloudio del Nero said your name? He’s under the canal. The princess he couldn’t make smile—why did you kill him? Was he unwilling?” She stood up.

  Her face and eyes burned with lunar nothingness.

  But her whole body was on fire with mute, trammeled emotion.

  It startled him.

  She made a beckoning gesture.

  He saw it was the papers she wanted back, to go on writing.

  Furian picked them up. He held them and said, “But, my dear, I don’t know how much of this I can stand.”

  She came about the table, with the pen in her hand like a dagger.

  Emotionless—in ferment. He felt the passion in her like the held-back vortex of some colossal tidal storm. She seized his hand and wrote across the palm in the uneven ink: I cry. I live.

  They were almost the words of the magpie.

  She let him go, and stood, flaming, empty, brimmed. Yet even her breasts did not move quickly with her breath. She could not breathe as she needed to. She turned away from him and caught the table and let go. Then, after a moment, she walked silently across the room. She went into a corner where a marble goddess stood upright in the shadow.

  She stood beside the goddess, and let him see, how alike they were. (How different?)

  Furian said, “I don’t want to distress you. Show me I misjudged you. There’s darkness all round you. Will you talk about that? This isn’t the time for courtly conversations.”

  She came back over the room. Her step was brisk.

  She seized a page out of his hands, took it to the ink well, dipped her pen and wrote.

  She left the page lying.

  “Wait—”

  But she was gone out of the doors.

  Furian bent to the paper.

  Eat what you wish. Leave my house when you wish. I will die of shame for trusting you.

  He turned when the door opened again. But it was the dinner coming in, silver trays and salvers, and the jewels of wines.

  He watched them place the dishes, fill his plate, pour out the first mellifluous alcohol.

  When it was all done, he sent them away.

  He sat in the chair as the food went cold, reading over her words. He read the words on his hand, too, which, from closing it, had copied themselves in reflection. I cry. I live.

  THERE WAS A WATER CLOCK in the room, over in another corner. The soft dripping he mistook for the canal, while a gilded galleon rode up a stem, and at what must be midnight, its top mast struck a tiny bell.

  Furian had been drinking the purple wine from the purple glass. He had not taken very much, because the wine was good. All the lamps were guttering.

  The door opened. The girl came in. Even her cat mask seemed swollen and moody. She put a parchment before him on the table, turned and went out with slapping skirts.

  Furian picked up the new paper.

  ‘Signore Furian, you are aware I know the name by which you are called. Also I was informed you are no common adventurer, but the son of a respectable and powerful man. How am I cognizant of these things? There is one person to tell me. Let us leave that for the moment.

  ‘I have few dealings with the City or the world. You will guess why. But Cloudio del Nero was my lover. I met him in a strange, unwanted way, but he took a great interest in me, and even offered me a secret marriage. I was fond of him, but no more, and did not agree. If he has died, I do not know the means, or even if it is so. Perhaps you will believe me. And that I am sorry.

  ‘This I do comprehend, though not the reason:

  You are in mortal danger. You must trust me this much, while you remain in my house I may protect you. I was too proud before. I ask you now to remain a day or so, until perhaps your friends, or your estranged father, may be brought to assist you. I vow that you need not once see me while you are in the house, only my servants, who will go about your errands as is necessary, in order to invite aid.

  ‘Forgive my former unwise words. Accept my help, and forget me.

  —Eurydiche’.

  At the bottom of the paper she had written an after thought, very small. It is hard for me to act well in the human world. I was born as you see me, a freak. I have no measure, but expect nothing.

  Furian did see her, but as a child in a white dress, her face an ivory doll’s face. She could not cry, save in her heart and mind.

  He screwed up the paper and tossed it down. He went to the door, opened it. The corridor was in darkness, but for one other door at its opposite end, which stood an inch or two ajar. A mild light hung there, straight and still as a wand of magic.

  Furian moved towards the door. He stopped and rapped on it quietly.

  He heard the stir of a dress, pushed wide the door, and stepped in.

  Eurydiche stood all across the room, which was her bedchamber. The bed had ebony posts, a painted lid, long drifted curtains. Candles burned on a table, where she had been writing. He shut the door.

  Her back was to him, and as he took another step, she held up her hand, and the topazes on her wrist blinked as her gemstone eyes could not. No closer.

  Her hair was undone, but the powder in it yet, so it glittered eerily as a moonlit wave.

  “We’ll say I did misjudge you, then,” he said. “Why do you want to help me?” He stood looking at her back. She did nothing, and then she shook her head. Even she might say Yes, and No. “Your maid,” he said, “thinks you fancy me.” As he spoke the words a shower of brilliant lust went through him, but he felt again the draining weakness the illness had brought. Two disparate pangs.

  He did not want her. So might have her. Yet also he wanted her as he had seldom desired a woman. For she was all the beauty and the misery of the world in one.

  Horror and pleasure, punishment and redemption.

  And she? She could not say a word.

  He walked over the room softly, but she detected him, and whirled about. Her face—

  Furian came up against her, so her body met with his. He put his hands—the fine hands of his youth—on either side
of the slender ivory disk. Her skin was firm and silken, cool as the autumn morning.

  He leaned to her slowly, looking at her, into her death-blue eyes. His shadow put them out. His mouth was on hers.

  Eurydiche did not push him away. She did not struggle.

  He kissed her very lightly. She tasted of distant wine and cold fruits.

  Furian drew back. “You can show me yes or no. Is it Yes?”

  She put back her head on the slim pillar of her throat.

  Her eyes blazed on his. Her head went up and down. Yes.

  Furian took hold of her. He ran his arm behind her neck and put his mouth on hers again. It was possible to enter her mouth by a gentle pressure. She was lucid and sweet to the taste, her teeth unflawed and her tongue smooth and pliant, but moving only at the insistence of his own.

  In the seconds when this utter laxness excited him to an unbearable pitch that might be the preface to aversion, her arms roped round his back. She gripped him, the coat, his hair, and her body gave way. Her weight was slight but he took all of it. She was heavy as a sleeping cat might be, a swathe of velvet. He picked her up off the floor and laid her on the bed. She would not let go of him. She pulled him back like a mermaid, intent on drowning, smothering him, drawing him down to the depths of the sea.

  Beyond the room was the earth.

  They spun in this microcosm, like a planet.

  He brought her from her wrappings, thrust off his clothes. The garments lay tangled on the floor, like scraps of paper.

  Finding her body, his desire now caused him pain.

  As she clung to him, her hands straying, clasping, he saw above the landscape of her flesh the visiting moon of her face. The face absorbed him. He returned to it, from her cupped breasts with their petal tips, from her flat soft belly, the pearls of her hip-bones, the tender feet with nails like shells, from the core of her with its rough fine pale amber hair, that did not match the greying flaxen of her head. He returned to her face, her beautiful resistless mouth, kissing her, kissing her, eating her tongue, devouring her narrow cheekbones and the silver lashes of her windowed eyes.

  Of course, no change in her, nothing. Yet he heard the breath rasp now in her throat. Her limbs quivered. A stream of arousal lit her groin and the buds of her breasts pushed into his palms, on one of which the words had blurred, (I live). But the face was remote. The face listened high above their world of shivering and searching and straining on, above her hands which teased his sex, practiced and cunning, her fingers that fluttered on his spine like wings, and sought inside him, so he must lay her out, open her wide, crucify her on the bursting burning pin of his body.