Stories

Ruth Hanna Sachs

THE LOST JOURNAL

My sister just left me. She with the flaxen hair and amethyst eyes. She wrapped her silken cloak about her thin white shoulders and drew herself up to her best queen’s daughter’s pose.

“Psyche,” her tongue had lashed my name as only she could hiss it, “because of you, I have quite wasted my day. Zeus knows my alms have been neglected on your account.”

“Will, will you come again?” I had asked her, timid in the presence of such noble blood. “He granted special leave...”

“Come again? As long as you will nurse such stupid folly?” I can still hear the rustle of lavender as she swept down the marble corridor, heels clicking out staccato’d anger.

She had paused, her hand on the crystal door knob. “And one more thing. That you would call this love. Night machinations, that’s all you’re living. Psyche,” again the hiss, “wake up. By Venus, grow up!”

And she was gone.

By Venus? By Venus? I stooped to pick up a petal fallen from her hand. Soft, pink, it smelled still of her, of the sister who could gently laugh and pull piercing thorns from my feet.

I had sent the servants to the ocean this sunny morning. We had packed their lunches in wicker white, strawberries and cream, whipped froth dipped fresh from Cupid’s special store. “Here,” I can remember laughing, “he won’t miss these bottled nectars. But careful! We mortals cannot hold our own when it comes to angel food.”

I had stood on the veranda, waving, giggling, dancing a ragged step as my servants descended roughhewn flagstones to the emerald sea. Had the dancing been to see them merry, or because my heart had been so light? Two by two, patterns weaving gold upon my hillside, they had wended ancient ways to Neptune’s threshold.

And left me with a heart of song.

For Cupid, he who hovered in and out of conscious thought, had consented to a visit from my sister. “But Psyche,” I love it when he tries to appear stern, though I cannot see his face, “she must come here after daybreak and leave before I come. You must bear the consequences if she chooses to disobey me. You, Psyche, not she. Now quit that!”

And he had rolled over on his side so I could not witness his mirth. I had touched him ever so lightly right there where godskin felt most human.

“I said stop,” he roared with glee, pulling me close to him. “If I ever learn who told you where it tickles…”

“You underestimate a mortal’s power,” my words tickling him even more, digging deep where I knew him to be most sensitive. “You think I need another to tell me who you are?”

As slowly as a flower blooms, he had lifted himself – no, lifting cannot describe the motion. He needed only breathe, and his presence surrounded me, enveloped me in bands so free I wished to be his slave. I had before known human lust. It paled before his love as candle in the sunlight. No weak pretense here, no wishful prowess on conquered bedposts. Cupid’s love swept over me like ocean surf, salty on my tongue, breaking white fringed waves on smooth and sandy beaches.

I lingered long in bed once he had gone, closing my eyes in hopes that fingers’ trace could turn to flesh and blood. But this morning, as all the others, immersed in blinding rays, his fleeting form had escaped my ken.

Still I had known him one more night – one more night that turned my day to jasmine fields and crocus vineyards. One more night that held a mirror to my face and showed me beauty in his eyes no other man had seen. Could he truly be loving me? A ‘Me’ as unknown to other mortals as he to me?

This morning I had showered long and well, rain forest dew washing me in secret places, heart of yucca stolen from Olympic heights making clean my mahogany hair.

How could I tell my servants as they skipped away that he stood there beside me, glad to hear their revel? I mused on this while stirring sweets and baking manna for my sister. How could anyone know I knew his nearness in dazzling daylight as surely as I loved him in the night?

Then she had come. Hugs and kisses, news from home – her home, not mine – children running at her feet, husband grousing over cold earthapple soup. She spoke in tones of black and gray and shadows crept through corners used to splendid bright. Darker, darker still, till I could bear no more.

“Stop,” I pleaded, touching her satin-gloved hand. “Can’t you speak five minutes of happy things, of joy you know? This sorrow is a lie. Please give me truth about your days.”

I could have spoken thunderclouds and desert red and arctic ice rolled into one, and never seen such fury in a face.

“You,” she who would have been my sister spat upon me, “you who live a lie, how dare you talk to me of truth? A god? A devil! And you make out as though you cannot tell the difference.”

“Quiet,” I did not recognize my own voice as I spoke the word. Shadows fled beneath the carpet, darkness melted into puddles on the floor.

“Quiet,” I said again. “You said yourself that you had met him once – before you wed, it was. How dare you now profane his being with such spiteful doubt?”

She had laughed a laugh that shook the foundations of my house, our house, the house that Cupid built for me. “Ha! I have seen your so-called lover. That is more than you have done. Perhaps I am the one he should have married. At least he could have born to see my face.”

“We are not married,” was all that I could say before her hate. Her hate! And she my sister. Had I ever loved her?

Now she was gone. But our house, my house, still raged with rhythms beyond control. I picked up the nearest thing, a wrought crystal vase brimming with hyacinths and iris. Blinded by her words, I hurled it, I heaved it with both my hands, against the great window that opened to the sea. Hurled it, heaved it, watched it break into a million tiny shards. Then threw myself upon the floor and wept till I was empty.

I awoke to west sun slanting through my window, west wind feathering my skin with soft hues of red and gold. Where hyacinth and iris had lain drenched in sparkling water, daphnes bloomed, building a hedge around me that quite saved me from a warlike wrath.

He had been here! My dress, fringes torn across the hem and ripped from sudden storm, had disappeared, consumed in flames of passion. I was covered with reminders of his love, buried in the fragrance of his being.

I lay there still, not moving, fearful of disturbing the peace that followed setting sun. I lay there very still, fearful of facing him when brightest darkness settled in and heralded his coming.

“Psyche,” a waterfall called me from the bedroom, a waterfall with splashing rainbows and quiet pools. “Psyche,” and he sighed.

I rose and donned the linen gown that I knew pleased him well. Stopping before a mirror in the hallway, I despaired of loving him this night. Drab brown hair hung limply straight and to my shoulders. Black circles ringed my eyes, confessing to the tears I would not show. And this gown, this linen dress that he had given me when first we met, it made me look so fat, so ugly, so...

“Psyche.”

I could not bear for him to see me so. For him to see the blemishes this gown would not conceal. For him to know my mortal agony.

“Psyche,” he ventured out into the hallway, something new for him, a step he had never taken in my presence. “Psyche, if you stay away, I shall…” I waited for him to finish his thought, knowing full well he never would, he never could.

“Tell me,” I grabbed his hand, keeping him one precious moment longer on my turf, “why did you change my name to Psyche? Was it not enough for you that I was your native flower?”

He stroked my hair, my auburn hair spinning walnut gold and cherry black, a mane so full it swept the floor, entangling both our feet. “A simple flower, you? Something to be picked and then discarded? No, Psyche. Let that be Apollo’s work.”

He kissed my hand, he kissed the cuts and scrapes where the vase had left its marks. Where his lips touched human flesh, I became divine. I knew he gave me more than names could ever say.

“Now come,” I could not resist his hand on mine. “You must tell me about your day. Your sister, she was here?”

“No, yes,” I stammered. “Why did you let her come? Why did you let her bring that world into our house?”

“Into our home?” We stood silent, silent, still.

“Into our home,” my voice broke. “She said such awful things. She said, oh Cupid, she said you could not bear to see my face.”

“And you believed her?” Again a question, again an arrow thrust into my heart. “You did not stop your ears and run away? Psyche.”

If he had banished me to live among the temple virgins, I could not have known more pain than when he spoke my name like that. And then –

“Psyche,” gossamer upon my lips, a veil of mist beckoning me to come where he had never before bid me follow.

Willingly I went, orange blossoms carpeting our way. I could not tell him how refreshing the air here seemed. I could not whisper my delight at silver bird’s calls or the mystery of creeks that sprang up around our path.

“Where is this place?” My voice quivered, steady on his arm. “How can we have come so far when we have barely moved?”

“You do not recognize your handiwork?” Cupid pulled me, laughing now, into the stream. “This is the garden you are tilling for me. Every blossom here you planted. Every bird song first warbled on your blushing lips. And you thought I did not notice!”

“This does not look like my garden,” I protested, splashing him with waters welling up from deep inside a holy ground.

Before I could utter another word, he drew me, drew me firmly into the current. Water rushing over me, cleansing me as sure as fire purges dross. Water from the source of days, water ancient as the scrolls, water of the tides and seas but fresher than a summer breeze. Playful, willful water, two parts frolic, one part elegy.

“Psyche,” that voice that bathed me full in sweet celestial music.

I stirred and sensed the lambskin of his bed. “Cupid,” reaching towards his face.

“It’s nearly daybreak,” he mourned, “and I must go. You know the labors of my day.”

“Cupid, no,” I cried, dressing quickly so I could follow him. “Stay here for once, and let me see your face. It’s all I ask…”

He thundered my earth name, spending lightning’d shafts upon the walls, setting candles ablaze in copper sconces. His back to me, I could almost see his face, that beautiful form that fed me in the night. And I was cold.

Then suddenly, “Psyche,” sending snow drifts in through open windows, snow that settled in our nest and set my heart on fire. He leaned against the door post, his shoulders sagging as once more he said, “Psyche.”

With that one word, he pulsed within me, swirled around me, blanketed me, caressed me, whispered my name over and over in my ear, never leaving the door post where I could see him weeping. Then he was gone, one last wisp of snow, and he was gone.

“Cupid,” I screamed, as though he would run to me against the altared flow, as though my soul in him could change Vesuvian ashes.

“Cupid,” again, but softer, snuggling into lambskin comfort to be cradled in his scent.

Perhaps my sister had been right, she of flaxen hair and amethyst eyes. Perhaps he could not bear to look at me, a mortal plain and simple.

No! In this bed, I told myself, I shall not believe her lies. As long as I am in his garden, I shall not yearn to see his face. I will not, I cannot, lose his touch. No matter how high the price, I shall not sell his love for fleeting memory. I will wait, and wait some more.

But what if my sister had been right?

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