With her vision of Quinn came the continuing visual story of the emaciated man, who was climbing now to the road as the horses bore down on his life. The noise came then, rappings synchronized with the thudding of the horses’ hooves, growing louder, louder, louder.
“Enough!” yelled Maud, jolting her witnesses in their silent seats.
And so began the séance.
Talking with spirits can be tedious, and so Maud quickly devised a code: one rap is yes, two is no, spell out the rest with numerical equivalents of the alphabet. The noise quickly understood this, and while Maud was establishing her rules, witnesses left their seats and sought out hidden rappers or rapping devices. They moved furniture in their search, kept vigil in rooms adjacent to, above, and below the drawing room, and they found nothing at all.
“Can you see this spirit?” Obadiah asked Maud.
“Not a shred of anything,” said Maud. “But it is sending me pictures.” And she told them of the emaciated man.
“There he is in the road,” she said, “and the horses are coming at a fierce gallop. The man is facing the horses and won’t budge. Now the driver of the oncoming carriage is veering the horses to avoid running the man down and the carriage wheel strikes a rock on the rough ground. The right carriage door, it’s flying open, and oh, a woman, a woman is thrown to the ground. Now we’re on the road again, and a second carriage and pair are coming at a furious pace, directly behind the first. The second driver reins in his steeds and comes to a stop just where the emaciated man is standing with his eyes closed. The man is standing there between the frothing mouths of the second team of horses. There, now, there comes the driver jumping down from the second carriage. He grabs the emaciated man by his shirt collar and drags him from between the horses. He punches him once in the center of his face, and the man falls backward and rolls down the incline. Now I can see the first carriage, halted in the distance. The punched man is rolling toward where the woman was thrown from the carriage and he bangs his head on a stone. Oh. Oh, oh, oh, the poor woman is impaled through the chest on a protrusion of rock. Oh dear, oh dear. She is dead.”
Here is what Maud and the spirit said to each other:
“Are you the dead woman?”
No.
“Are you one of the men in the vision?”
Yes.
“Are you the emaciated man?”
Silence.
“Was the dead woman your wife?”
Silence.
“Do you want to talk about this or don’t you?”
Yes.
“Then tell me something. Are you the driver who punches the man in the road?”
No.
“Then you must be the emaciated man.”
Silence.
“Goodbye, then, whoever you are.”
Yes.
“You are the emaciated man?”
Yes.
“You’re not proud of that.”
No.
“You were trying to kill yourself.”
No.
“Then what was it?”
L-o-v-e.
“Love. Pish-pish-pish, as my aunt would say. Love indeed.” L-o-v-e.
“You were chasing the woman because you loved her?”
Yes.
“And you tried to kill yourself because of her?”
L-o-v-e.
“Because of love.”
Yes.
“Instead of killing yourself, you killed her.”
Silence.
“Didn’t you?”
L-o-v-e.
“Yes, I understand the motive. But you can’t escape the facts. You killed the woman you loved.”
THUNDER.
Long rapping on walls, floors.
THUNDER.
“It upsets you to hear the truth. I can see that. Did you kill yourself after this?”
Silence.
“So. You didn’t. You couldn’t. Am I right?”
THUNDER.
“Do you tell this story to many people?”
No.
“Why me?”
L-o-v-e.
“Ah. So you love me the way you loved the dead woman.”
Yes.
“Then I’d better watch out.”
No.
“Suicidal people don’t care who dies with them. My mother was that way. She left me alone when I was an infant and when she tried twice to kill herself, I almost died both times.”
THUNDER.
“Maybe you stood in front of the carriage because you wanted it to go off the road and kill someone.”
THUNDER.
“I don’t believe you. I think you’re lying.”
THUNDER.
THUNDER.
THUNDER.
And down came the chandelier, only inches from Maud’s head.
“I knew it,” said Maud, and she left the room.
Here is what Quinn eventually decided he was thinking as he watched Maud conversing with the spirit of the emaciated man:
Her frown belongs to the devil.
Her frown is paradise lost.
Her left eye sees through brick and mortar.
Her mouth is cruel with love.
Her mouth is soft with invitation.
Her lips exude the moistness of temptation.
Her glance will break crystal.
Her nose is imperious.
Her eyebrows are mistrusting.
Her hair is devilishly angelic.
Her eyes are golden beauty.
Her eyes are as hard as Satan’s heel.
Her teeth are the fangs of a devil bat.
Her cheeks are the pillows of a kiss.
Her cheeks are the soft curves of abandon.
Her hair is full of snakes.
Her hair is a bed of warmth.
Her hair is a tiara of desire.
Her throat is the avenue to passion.
Her face is a white tulip.
Her face is a perfect cloud.
Her face is virginal.
Her smile is an oriflamme of lust.
Her smile is paradise regained.
Quinn, studying Maud’s face as she conversed with the spirit of the emaciated man, wondered whether all her talk, all her responses were an effort to create a reality superior to the one she was living.
If so, Quinn feared Maud was a candidate for madness.
You cannot talk to spirits.
Dead is dead.
Maud’s face is a dream that cannot be imagined.
Maud insisted on dining alone with Quinn in the gazebo of the upper gardens so they could speak without fear of being overheard. Together they left behind the witnesses to the séance, who were babbling with great verve. Maud refused to talk about the spirit with anyone, including Quinn. Instead, she talked to him of the decline of Magdalena into solitude, depression, and prayer of a peculiar order: asking God for the return of her lost lust, that electrovital force that made people pay to see her dance. She prayed that when it returned she would no longer lust for men seriatim, for she was weary of sex and longed to give her body a vacation from friction.
“How do you know these deeply personal things about her?” Quinn asked Maud.
“She confides in me,” said Maud. “She wants me to understand men.”
“And do you understand them?”
“I don’t understand what she has against friction.”
“Neither do I,” said Quinn, who did not understand why anyone would be interested in it to begin with. All it did was cause things to wear out, or break, or burst into flame. Even so, he perceived that Maud was learning things from Magdalena that he was not learning from anybody. Women handed their wisdom on to each other, but boys were supposed to discover the secrets of life from watching dogs fuck. Quinn listened to Maud with as much patience as he could tolerate, and then refused to hear another word about Magdalena.
“No more of that,” he said. “I want to kiss you.”
“It’s not the right time,” said Maud.