“Kotikokura, is not Salome God, like Ca-ta-pha?”
He screwed up his nose. “Salome…female.”
“But she is wiser than Ca-ta-pha. She has discovered the great law of life, which Ali Hasan and Ca-ta-pha found after much labor,—that all things are relative, that nothing is permanent.”
Kotikokura puckered his lips, contemptuously. “Salome…woman.”
“Is not woman man’s equal?”
He shook his head.
“Is not God, perhaps, both man and woman…?”
“Ca-ta-pha is God.”
“Is not Ca-ta-pha, perhaps, both man and woman…?”
He shook his head violently.
“Kotikokura, you are the eternal ancestor in me,—aboriginal, masculine! You speak for me. Because of you, Ca-ta-pha cannot accept Salome as an equal, or woman as a god.”
He grinned.
Salome and I were sitting, our legs underneath us, upon a leopard’s skin. At a distance, Kotikokura made drawings in the sand,—heads that resembled his own, and curious libidinous symbols.
Salome filled two small ivory pipes, and offered me one. We watched in silence the smoke raise thin hands, trying to capture the moon.
“Kotikokura has developed artistic tendencies. Is it a sign of advancement, or of degeneration?”
Salome smiled. “He is passing through the various stages of human existence. Some day, he will become like Cartaphilus.”
“Salome is always slightly ironic when she speaks of Cartaphilus.”
“Irony is a shield.”
“Is Salome afraid of her own emotions? Does Cartaphilus touch her heart at all?”
“Could it be otherwise? Who, save Cartaphilus, can understand Salome?”
“Then why does she refuse to remain with him always?”
She drew vaguely at her pipe. “Are you not afraid of ‘always,’ Cartaphilus? Do you not tremble at the very thought of it?”
“Always would be as a day with you.”
I took her hands in mine, and caressed them gently. “You are as romantic as you were in the days of Pilate, Cartaphilus…you remember, when you were my royal guard.”
“And you…are as cruel as you were then.”
“I was not cruel, Cartaphilus. I resented your air of invincible masculinity, which made you strut about like a young turkey. You were handsome and clever. But what right had you to assume that Princess Salome would accept your caresses?”…
“One evening, you smiled, and spoke of the love of bees and of flowers…of a conquest, subtle and strong… Was it so wrong to hope?”
“Had you only hoped, perhaps…”
“And in Persia?”
She laughed. “That was merely a little lesson in magic.”
She stretched out her arms underneath her head. I took the pipe out of her mouth, filled it again and replaced it between her lips
“Is it right to always torture me…always, Salome?” I asked. My words seemed to rise on the edge of the smoke, high, high.
“Am… I…torturing you…you?” Her words came down from where mine had stopped, and entered the bowl of my pipe.
“Yes…”
She chuckled.
“I love you, Salome.”
“I know…”
“Do you…love me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Say yes, Salome…for once!”
“For once, yes…yes.”
“Salome, my well-beloved!” I exclaimed, and lifting her head a little, kissed her mouth.
“Salome…your lips are more delicious than crushed honey, daintier than the perfume of violets. Salome, my love…”
Her robes disappeared suddenly, and I could not tell which gleamed the more,—the moon or her body. I embraced her rapturously, murmuring: “Salome…my love…my love… Salome.”
Our bodies mingled, merged, interpenetrated, until we were like one great marble column, inextricable.
“Do you love me, Salome?”
“Yes, Cartaphilus, I love you.”
“But you are not Salome.”
“Who am I?”
“You are… Mary Magdalene!”
She laughed a little.
“I have found you at last, Mary! And your eyes are not yours.”
“Whose are they?”
“They are John’s…the friend of my youth! You are Mary and John. Cartaphilus has found at last love’s perfection!”
“But you are not Cartaphilus!”
“Who am I?”
She whispered: “You are he…”
“Who?”
“He who returns from the uttermost rim of time, who was one with me before the soul split asunder into male and female—my lover before Adam and Eve were shaped by the Potter.”
Her voice died in the distance, and the smoke wreathed itself like a serpent around her naked limbs.
Salome greeted me. “You have slept profoundly, Cartaphilus.”
“And you?”
“I could not sleep. I watched the moon all night, meditating on the meaning of time and space.”
I stared at her.
She smiled. “Cartaphilus is still a little asleep.”
“Perhaps. How shall one distinguish between sleep and waking?”
“It is very difficult, for frequently they merge into one another.”
What had happened? Had I only dreamed? Had I really possessed Salome? Was it merely the effect of my poppied pipe? Was that exquisite pleasure a woman…a demon…or a cloud of smoke? I scrutinized Salome’s face. Did she really resemble Mary and John? Did I remember them sufficiently to be certain?
“Yes, Cartaphilus, all things are relative…dream and waking…memory and forgetfulness…and even our stay in the desert. We must go on. Kotikokura, is everything ready?”
Kotikokura nodded and grinned.
“Kotikokura, have I dreamt or was it reality? Did I at last find my perfect love? Was Salome mine for a night?”
He grinned.
I shook him. “You must tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I slept.”
“You lie, Kotikokura.”
He shook his head.
“Cartaphilus must know!”
He grinned.
I raised my fist. “Tell me!”
“I slept.”
I dug into my brain, picked each infinitesimal detail, constructed pattern after pattern. Could this be a dream? Could that? Was this reality? Or this? Had I mistaken the reflection of the moon for the glamour of her body? Was it merely the smoke, assuming the shape of Mary Magdalene… Was it the stars I saw or the eyes of John…?
I passed from doubt to certainty, from certainty to doubt, from elation to profound depression,—and always at the end, I rejected everything, as if I had been pouring sand from one hand to the other, spilling a little each time until nothing remained.
“Woman, even Salome, always prefers mystery to truth and simplicity.”
“And man—even Cartaphilus—always makes the mistake of dividing the human race into distinct elements, calling certain characteristics masculine, and others feminine. Yet, he has lived long enough to know that there is no clear division between the sexes. A woman may have everything save the loins of man and may still be a woman. A female’s hysterical scream may issue piercingly from a masculine throat. Every creature possesses the stigmata of both sexes… Every man is a fraction of a woman. Every woman is a fraction of a man. Each retains some aspect—some reminiscence, mental or anatomical—of a time when both sexes were one… Is not the son of Hermes and Aphrodite a god?”
“All this is true, Salome. Nevertheless—”
“It is Kotikokura who speaks in you, Cartaphilus!”
“Alas! I can blame no one for your perversity!”
“I am surprised,” she laughed, “that you have not invoked Lilith, the demon woman who was before Eve!”
“Lilith! Lilith!”
She continued to laugh.
“You are as wise and as cruel and as beautiful as Lilith! You are Lilith!”
“And you… Lucifer, perchance.”
“And Kotikokura… Adam, the seed.”