Page 51 (1/2)

4

A stairway into the earth

It was h how I knew I couldn’t say Steps worn concave in thedeeper and deeper down into the rock

Now and then a rough-cut portal to the sea, an opening too sh, and a shelf upon which birds have nested, or where the wild grass grew out of the cracks

And then the chill, the inexplicable chill that you find sometimes in old monasteries, rained churches, haunted rooms

I stopped and rubbed the backs of h the steps

"They don’t cause it," he said gently He aiting for me on the steps just below

The seht and shadow, gave the illusion of e that wasn’t there

"It was here long before I brought them," he said "Many have come to worship on this island Maybe it was there before they caain with his characteristic patience His eyes were coain as he started down

I was ashamed not to follow The steps went on and on

We caer portals and the noise of the sea I could feel the cool spray on leam of the damp on the stones But ent on down farther and farther, the echo of our shoes swelling against the rounded ceiling, the rudely finished walls This was deeper than any dungeon, this was the pit you dig in childhood when you brag to your mother and father that you will make a tunnel to the very center of the earth

Finally I saw a burst of light as we rounded another bend And at last, two la before a pair of doors

Deep vessels of oil fed the wicks of the lamps And the doors themselves were bolted by an enormous beam of oak It would have taken several men to lift it, possibly levers, ropes

Marius lifted this beam and laid it aside easily, and then he stood back and looked at the doors I heard the sound of another bea moved on the inside Then the doors opened slowly, and I feltcome to a halt

It wasn’t only that he’d done it without touching them I had seen that little trick before It was that the roohted laround were lilies, waxen and white, and sparkling with droplets of moisture, roses in rich hues of red and pink ready to fall from their vines It was a chapel, this chamber with the soft flicker of votive candles and the perfume of a thousand bouquets

The walls were painted in fresco like the walls of ancient Italian churches, with gold leaf han But these were not the pictures of Christian saints

Egyptian palm trees, the yellow desert, the three pyrayptianthe river, the ed birds of the air above

And the gold worked into it all Into the sun that shone froleamed in the distance, into the scales of the fishes and the feathers of the birds, and the ornaures who stood frozen looking forward, in their long narrow green boats

I closed my eyes for a reat shrine

Banks of lilies on a low stone altar which held an i of the sah deep shafts in the rock above, stirring the flareen bladelike leaves of the lilies as they stood in their vessels of water giving off their heady perfume

I could almost hear hymns in this place I could hear chants and ancient invocations And I was no longer afraid The beauty was too soothing, too grand

But I stared at the gold doors of the tabernacle on the altar The tabernacle was taller than I was It was broader by three ti at it And I felt the power th, and I heard the inside lock of the tabernacle doors slide back

I would have moved just a little closer to hiold doors opened coures -- a ht moved over their slender, finely sculpted white faces, their decorously arranged white limbs; it flashed in their dark eyes

They were as severe as all the Egyptian statues I had ever seen, spare of detail, beautiful in contour, nificent in their simplicity, only the open and childlike expression on the faces relieving the feeling of hardness and cold But unlike all the others, they were dressed in real fabric and real hair

I had seen saints in Italian churches dressed in this

But this had been done with great care

Their ere of long thick black locks, cut straight across the forehead and croith circlets of gold Round their naked ars

The clothes were the finest white linen, theonly a skirt of sorts, and the wo, narrow, beautifully pleated dress Both wore old necklaces, some inlaid with precious stones

Almost the same size they were, and they sat in the very sahs And this sameness astonished me somehow, as much as their stark loveliness, and the jewel like quality of their eyes

Not in any sculpture anywhere had I ever seen such a lifelike attitude, but actually there was nothing lifelike about them at all Maybe it was a trick of the accoutres, the reflected light in their glea eyes

Were they Osiris and Isis? Was it tiny writing I saw on their necklaces, on the circlets of their hair?

Marius said nothing He wasat them as I was, his expression unreadable, perhaps sad

"May I go near to them," I whispered

"Of course," he said

Iever more tentative with each step I stopped only a few feet before theeous in depth and variegation Too real

With infinite care each black eyelash had been fixed, each black hair of their gently curved brows

With infinite care their limmer of teeth And the faces and the arhtest flaw disturbed the luster And in the ures who stare directly forward, they appeared to be looking at me

I was confused If they were not Osiris and Isis, ere they meant to be? Of what old truth were they the symbols, and why the imperative in that old phrase Those Who Must Be Kept?

I fell into conte them, my head a little to the side

The eyes were really broith the black deep in their centers, the whites h covered with the clearest lacquer, and the lips were the softest shade of ashen rose

"Is it per back to Marius, but lacking confidence I stopped

"You ious to do it I stared at theainst their thighs, at the fingernails, which looked reernails -- as if soht that I could touch the back of the ious, but what I really wanted to do was to touch the woers hesitantly to her cheek And I just let raze the whiteness there And then I looked into her eyes

It couldn’t be stone I was feeling It couldn’tWhy, it felt exactly likeAnd the wo --

I jumped backwards before I could stopthe vases of lilies, and slaainst the wall beside the door

I was tres could hardly hold me

"They’re alive!" I said "They aren’t statues! They’re vampires just like us!"

"Yes," Marius said "That word, however, they wouldn’t know"

He was just ahead ofat the

Slowly, he turned and caht hand

The blood had rushed tobut I couldn’t I kept staring at the at the white hand that held ht," he said al them"

For a moment I couldn’t understand him Then I did understand "You mean youYou don’t knohether They just sit there andOooh God!"

And his words of hundreds of years ago, embedded in Armand’s tale, came back to me: Those Who Must Be Kept are at peace, or in silence More than that weall over I couldn’t stop the tres

"They’re breathing, thinking, living, as we are," I sta?"

"Cal ain stupidly I kept saying it No other words sufficed "But who are they?" I asked finally My voice was rising hysterically "Are they Osiris and Isis? Is that who they are?"

"I don’t know"

"I want to get away froet out of here"

"Why?" he asked calmly

"Because theythey are alive inside their bodies and theythey can’t speak or move!"

"How do you know they can’t?" he said His voice was low, soothing as before

"But they don’t That’s the whole point They don’t -- "

"Come," he said "I want you to look at them a little more And then I’ll take you back up and I’ll tell you everything, as I’ve already said I would"

"I don’t want to look at theeton to ht, it see howon the same impossible luster, hohen his face was in repose, it was as s like thereat yawn of eternity, I would beco

"Please, Marius" I said I was beyond shaet out of the room

"Wait for me then," he said patiently "Stay here"

And he let o He turned and looked down at the flowers I had crushed, the spilled water

And before s were corrected, the flowers put back in the vase, the water gone fro at the two before hi them in some personal way that did not require an address or a title He was explaining to theone into Egypt And he had brought back gifts for the He would take them out to look at the sea very soon

I started to cal all that had come clear to me at the moment of shock He cared for them He had always cared for the at it, and they just s and the flowers he brought

But he didn’t know And all I had to do was look squarely at theain to feel horror, that they were alive and locked inside themselves!

"I can’t bear this," Ime, the reason that he kept them He could not bury them deep in the earth somewhere because they were conscious He would not burn theive their consent Oh, God, it was getting worse and worse

But he kept theods in teht the incense for them, a small cake that he had taken out of a silk handkerchief This he told the it to burn in a san to tear I actually began to cry

When I looked up, he was standing with his back to thely