I was a little embarrassed now; I'm certain Marietta knew I had indulged my voyeuristic instincts where she was concerned, and probably suspected I was here doing the same thing. I didn't protest my innocence; I simply said: "You're both okay?"
"Fine," Marietta said, plainly puzzled. "Who's out there with you?"
"Dwight," came the reply from the darkness behind me.
"Hey, what's up?" Marietta called back to him.
"Nothin' much," Dwight said.
"I'm sorry we disturbed you," I said.
"No problem," Marietta replied. "It's time we were going back to the house anyhow…" _,
As she spoke, my gaze moved past her into the darkness. Despite the ease of the exchanges going on, there was still something troubling me; drawing my eye into the murk.
"What is it, Eddie?" Marietta said.
I shook my head. "I don't know. Maybe just memories."
"Go on in if you want to," she said, stepping aside. "Alice is quite decent-" I stepped past her "-you'll be disappointed to hear." I threw back an irritated glance, then ventured into the stables, leaving Marietta and Dwight behind me. My sense that there was a presence here was growing apace. I let the beam of the flashlight rove back and forth: over the marble floor, with its gullies and drains; across the stalls, with their intricately inlaid doors; up to the shallow vaults of the ceiling. Nothing moved. I couldn't even find Alice. I advanced cautiously, resisting the urge to glance back at Marietta and Dwight for the comfort of it.
The place where we'd laid the body of Nicodemus, along with all the belongings he'd wanted buried with him (his jade phalli; the white gold mask and codpiece he'd worn in his ecstasies; the mandolin he'd played like an angel)-was in the center of the stables, perhaps twenty yards from where I now stood. The marble floor had been lifted there, and not replaced after the burial. Mushrooms had grown from that dirt, in supernatural profusion. I could see their pale heads in the gloom; hundreds of them. More phalli, of course. His last joke.
A motion off to my right; I halted, and looked round. It was Marietta's lady love, rising from the spot where she'd been sleeping.
"What's going on?" she said. "Why's it so cold, honey?"
I hadn't noticed until now, but she was right: my breath was visible before me.
"It's not Marietta, it's Maddox," I told her.
"What are you doin' here?"
"It's okay," I said. "I just came to-"
I didn't finish the sentence. What halted me was a sound from the darkness beyond my father's grave. A clattering on the marble floor.
"Oh my Lord…" Alice said.
Emerging from the shadow, its hooves making a din this place had not heard for almost a century and a half, was a horse. Nor was it any horse. It was Dumuzzi. Even at this distance, even in this gloom, I knew him. There had never been an animal so splendid, nor so certain of his splendor. The way he pranced as he came, striking sparks off the marble, which flashes lit his gleaming anatomy, and made his eyes blaze. Whatever wounds had been visited upon the animal by Cesaria-and though I wasn't conscious to witness her slaughter, I'm certain she reserved her greatest cruelties for Dumuzzi, the ringleader-all of them had been healed. He was perfection again.
Somehow, he had been revivified, lifted up out of the pit into which his body had been dispatched, and returned to glorious life.
I had no doubt who had performed this handiwork.
Just as it had been the hand of Cesaria Yaos which had slaughtered Dumuzzi so it had been the hand of her husband, my father, who had resurrected him again. Nothing was more certain.
Never in my life was I seized with such a boundless supply of contrary feelings as at that moment. Dumuzzi's living presence before me-indisputable, irresistible-was proof of a greater presence in this melancholy place. Nico-demus was here: at least some portion of him, piercing the veil between this world and the kingdom to come. What was I to feel about that? Fear? Yes, in some measure; the primal fear that the living inevitably feel when the spirits of the dead return. Awe? Absolutely; I'd never had more certain proof of my father's divinity than I did at that moment. Gratitude? Yes, that too. For all the trembling in my belly, and in my legs, I was thankful that my instincts had brought me here: that I was able to witness this omen of Nicodemus's return.
I glanced back toward Alice, intending to tell her to retreat, but Marietta had come to join her, and wrapped her arms around her. Alice was looking at Dumuzzi, but Marietta was looking at me. There were tears in her eyes.
Dumuzzi, meanwhile, had pranced to the edge of my father's grave, and now, suddenly, advanced upon it, hooves high, and proceeded to stamp on the earth which covered Nicodemus's corpse. The mushrooms were pounded to pulp, pieces flying off in all directions.
After perhaps half a minute, he grew calmer, at last simply standing in the mess of earth and pulped mushrooms, his head a little turned so that he could watch us.
"Dumuzzi?" I said.
At the sound of his name he snorted.
"You know this animal?" Marietta said.
"He was father's favorite."
"Where the hell did he come from?"
"Back from the dead."
"He's so beautiful," Alice murmured, her voice filled with wonder. It seemed she hadn't heard the exchange between Marietta and myself, she was so engrossed in the sight before us. Marietta took hold of her arm.
"Alice," she said firmly. "We have to go. Now."
She started to pull Alice back toward the door. But as she did so, Dumuzzi rose up again, higher than he had before, and loosing a sound that struck the eardrums so hard we all gasped, charged in our direction. The sight of his sudden approach-mane flying, hooves high-glued me to the spot. This was the last sight I'd seen before I'd fallen beneath him and his comrades all those years ago: the memory made my limbs stupid. If it hadn't been for Dwight catching hold of me and dragging me out of the way history might well have repeated itself. I don't believe Dumuzzi meant any harm this time-as he most assuredly had on the first occasion-he was simply making for the door by the most direct route. But nor do I doubt that he would have knocked me down and broken my bones if I'd remained in his path.
I didn't see him leave the building; I was too busy being hauled out of his path. By the time I'd picked myself up again, he was gone. I heard the sound of his hooves as he pounded away; then silence, broken only by the breathing of four exhilarated people.
"I think we should get back to the house," Marietta said. "That's about as much excitement as I can take for one night."
How things have changed! Didn't I write once that the prospect of being around if Nicodemus were to show himself was so terrifying I'd rather be dead? Now, with the evidence for his presence indisputable, I'm perversely excited. This family has been riven for too long; it's time we were together again. There are wounds to be healed, peace to be made, questions to be answered.
I want to know, for instance, what Chiyojo said to my father just before she died. Something passed between them, I know. The last sight I saw before I lost consciousness was Nicodemus-horribly wounded himself, of course-leaning dose to my wife, listening to her final words. What did she tell him? That she loved him? That she would wait for him? I've wondered about that so many times over the years. Now, perhaps, I might be able to get an answer from the only man who knows the truth.
And the other question I want to ask? Well, it's perhaps less easily answered. I want Nicodemus to tell me what he had in mind when he created me. Was I an accident? A casual by-product of his lust? Or did he knowingly create a half-breed-a union of divine father and mortal mother-because there was some function that such an unhappy creature was uniquely equipped to serve?