Pilgrim (23 page)

I have no shoes
, Betta wanted to tell him.
I have no shoes.

She looked at him the way a beaten dog will look at the next human being who appears. Then she turned and crossed the room to the armoire from which Leonardo had brought the dress she wore. Inside, there were shoes and boots and hats, cloaks, hoods
and other costumes.
Garb for the victims of his pen
, she thought.

She pulled on a pair of boots that must have been some boy’s. They reached her calves and felt like gloves. She then pulled down a heavy cloak with a hood—a monk’s hood, perhaps—and drew it around her shoulders.

I’m going to leave you now,
she said in her mind.
I’m going to leave you now, and trust I will never see you again.

She moved all the way to the door, turned there and took one final look at where she had been and the man with whom she had been so violently coupled. The Master and all his chairs and tables were on the ceiling now—wavering there like seaweed in a tidal pool.

The door was open. Somehow, she had opened it herself. Then it closed and he was gone from her. As she was gone from him.

In the Piazza, Betta paused beside the dead dog, fearful of looking too closely, afraid the woman’s hand might still be visible—
the sleeve of dark blue cotton—one button, made of wood.
But it was not, though it would remain forever in her mind.

Crossing herself, she stood and turned eastward, walking beyond the huddled backs and all the fires until there was no more sight of her—and not a sound.

With some dismay, Jung saw that he had come to the last page but one of Pilgrim’s journal.

Why not look?

Because I don’t want to. Yet.

It must be very late. Or early. Wouldn’t it be best to go to bed with the last page read?

I will go to bed when I choose. And I will read when and what I choose.

What are you afraid of?

Nothing.

Sounds like pretty well everything, to me
.

W
HERE DID YOU COME FROM
? W
HY WON’T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE
?

I am such stuff as psychotic dreams are made on…

Hah!

As for why I won’t leave you alone, consider the possibility that one of us, at least, has an ethical sense of responsibility.

I see. Furtwängler sent you to spy on me.

Goodness. What an extraordinary sense of humour.

You sound just like him.

Paranoid schizophrenia, I believe we call it. If an enemy agent, entering your mind, is carrying a gun, he can blow your brains out from the inside. Is that it? Why don’t you turn the page, Carl Gustav? Are you so immature that you are afraid of turning a page?

Immature?

It’s only a word. A word meaning
childishly defenceless
in the face of perfectly ordinary situations. Opening a window. Turning a page…

I
AM NOT AFRAID OF TURNING PAGES
!

Turn it, then.

I
WILL TURN IT IN MY OWN TIME
!

Very well. Have it your way. Here we sit…

Jung stood up.

…
while the mental stability of our patient Pilgrim hangs in the balance between an unturned page and its predecessor.

It was now four-thirty. Jung looked at the windows. Any minute, the world would turn and let in the sun.

The sun will arrive at precisely six forty-three. You have two hours and thirteen minutes.

Jung came very close to filling his tumbler with brandy—thought better of it and poured only one-third.

Two hours and twelve minutes.

Jung returned to the desk and confronted the journal.

In the Piazza, Betta paused beside the dead dog…

Who in God’s name was she? And why was Pilgrim writing out her story? Why was he maligning da Vinci—why was he doing this? Calling him a rapist, for heaven’s sake.

May I remind you? We wrote the following—or something very like it—in 1907: “the patient strikes us at first as being completely normal…”—I am quoting—”…he may hold office, be in a lucrative position—or even serve as resident physician at a famous psychiatric hospital. We suspect nothing. We converse normally with him, and at some point let fall the word
Leonardo.
Suddenly the ordinary face before us changes; a piercing look full of abysmal mistrust and inhuman fanaticism meets us from his eye. He has become a hunted, dangerous animal, surrounded by invisible enemies—some of them with guns. The other ego has risen to the surface…” Unquote, more or less. Interesting concept
—the other ego.

Jung bent forward over the page, his eyes closed.

I remind you that Pilgrim’s most recent task was a treatise on the subject of Leonardo da Vinci. We ourselves admired it, though we found it was sometimes offensively outspoken. In defence of Leonardo’s homosexuality, for instance…Nonetheless, it was a spirited, well-reasoned rebuttal in defence—not so much of homosexuality as of Leonardo’s right to be who and what he was. You will recall that in April of 1476, Leonardo was requested to appear before the Signory in Florence and questioned about his all too apparent taste for beautiful young men?

Yes.

You will also recall that many of these young men were first sighted by Leonardo during his weekly visits to the baths—where he went each Saturday specifically in order to see them when they were naked? Mister Pilgrim made a rather strenuous argument defending this decadent habit, to which you strenuously objected. Is that not so?

Of course it’s so. I objected because it’s a despicable thing for an old man to do.

But he wasn’t an old man, Carl Gustav. He was still under twenty-five.

Be that as it may—and I don’t care if he was
ten
—it’s still a despicable thing to do—sneaking off to the baths to look at naked men. A person is entitled to some privacy.

In the baths?

You know what I mean! I mean privacy from the prying eyes of a pervert.

So now Leonardo is a pervert.

Y
ES
!

Dear me. Such a reaction. Calm down.

I’m perfectly calm.

You’re nothing of the kind. And by the way, may one point out the presence of an erection. Is it possible the subject of the baths excites you?

How would I know? I’ve never gone near them.

Carl Gustav…

All right! I’ve been twice.

Just so. And for what reason?

Jung said nothing. Thought nothing.

We know why you went. We know precisely why you went. You wanted to see if, by comparison to other men, you were deficient. Isn’t that so. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Every man wants to know the answer to that question. It’s the most normal thing in the world.

It may be. Yes. All right. But I didn’t hide in the shadows, staring. I didn’t lurk…

No. You merely glanced. I was there. I remember. But what makes you think Leonardo hid in the shadows—that he
lurked,
as you put it so coyly? What you will not accept, Carl Gustav, is the fact that some men
want
to be seen. Especially young men. It’s a way of making a statement.
I am here, now, and this is what I have to offer—not in a homosexual sense, but in the sense of potency and progeny. Bring on your daughters and I will give them sons.

I think that’s disgusting.

So be it. But if you were a homosexual…

Don’t even begin to say that.

If you were a homosexual, you would find it enlightening. Encouraging. As Leonardo did. But—he paid for it.
As you have never had to pay for your own little excursions into lust. He was arrested—taken before the Signory of Florence, humiliated by them and fined. Reviled. All because of who and what he was. Two months after his first encounter with the authorities, they imprisoned him. Not because they caught him in the act—and not because someone had complained of his actions. They did it simply because they knew he was homosexual and they wanted to shame him. What Mister Pilgrim said regarding this matter was that Leonardo’s imprisonment was unjust. That it embittered him for life—which it did—and that he never, never forgot it—and never forgave the society which allowed such things to happen. But Mister Pilgrim’s researches—however they were achieved—unearthed this other episode with the girl which you have just read. And while, for whatever reason, he could not bring himself to include it in his treatise, he did place it in his journals. May I therefore suggest, in all humility, that perhaps Mister Pilgrim’s overall encounter with the Master—with his suffering and genius on the one hand, and his violence and lack of humanity on the other—may have somewhat overwhelmed him, leaving him both distraught and speechless?

But hardly suicidal.

Regard the last paragraph.

Jung opened his eyes and, speaking aloud, ran his finger under the words: “Crossing herself, she stood and turned eastward, walking beyond the huddled backs and all the fires until there was no more sight of her—and not a sound.”

Until there was no more sight of her—and not a sound.

So?

Does this not suggest something to you? The possibility that Pilgrim knows something about this woman—something he wishes he did not know and wishes to suppress—that has cast him into the depths?

If she existed at all, for heaven’s sake—which I doubt. She’s been dead over four hundred years. How can the story of a woman dead over four hundred years cause a man who’s alive in 1912 to be cast into the depths? It’s absolutely unreasonable.

Is it?

Absolutely.

Turn the page.

Jung sighed and sat back.

Two hours and five minutes, Carl Gustav.

He leaned forward and thumbed the lower right-hand corner of the paper. Then he closed his eyes, opened them, drank—and turned the page and read.

This, from Leonardo’s notebooks. The act of procreation and the members employed therein are so repulsive that if it were not for the beauty of the faces and the adornment of the actors and the pent-up impulse, nature would lose the human species
.

Underneath this was written what appeared to be the annotation of an afterthought—starred with a modest asterisk, suggesting that the afterthought was Pilgrim’s.

* If he had only written these words before that Monday morning, they might have proved my
salvation. As it was, come Wednesday, I was in need of ashes—not for my brow alone, but for the whole of my being—and for my mind.

In the margin, Pilgrim had written:
Date was: Friday, 10th February, 1497, two days after Ash Wednesday. Three days following the Bonfire of Vanities, to which I should have consigned myself.

12

Clearly, something was wrong with Her Ladyship. The door to her bedroom was locked more often than not. Getting the breakfast tray delivered had become a nightmare. Madam would order it the night before, and when the bellboy brought it up in the morning—prompt to the second—she would call out:
no—not now
, and Phoebe Peebles would have to try to keep it warm on the radiator.

This, of course, was never greatly successful. If the eggs were boiled, they would harden. Scrambled, they would congeal.
En cocotte
, the milk and butter would separate and the yolks would crack. The toast dried out and curled at the edges—the tea or coffee or chocolate turned lukewarm and flavourless. The jams and jellies developed a film on top and the grapefruit shrivelled and dried. It was awful.

Every morning, Phoebe would knock as gently as she dared—
a person must be heard, after all
—approaching the door at first in fifteen-minute intervals and
then by the half-hour—until at last she gave up and telephoned the kitchen. Up the boy would come and take the tray away, while Phoebe shrugged and said:
there’s nothing I can do.

This routine began every day at eight o’clock, and the tray removed at ten-thirty. At eleven, Phoebe—who by then was starved—would hear the lock being turned and Her Ladyship’s voice:
where are you?

As if a person might not be there.

In the bedroom, the curtains must first be drawn and the radiator activated. Her Ladyship preferred to sleep in frigid air and always then complained that she was cold, as if to say it was Phoebe’s fault.

Is there breakfast?
This came next, as Madam struggled with the bedclothes, wrenching herself into a sitting position, pushing and striking the pillows much the way she might have pushed and struck at people on a sinking ship.

Phoebe then must inform Her Ladyship that breakfast had
gone back down to the kitchen, seeing as it was ruined.

Then order more.

Yes, Madam.

Four days running this had happened. Four days running, the second breakfast had been ordered, delivered and ignored. Four days running, only the coffee, tea or chocolate had been touched—and even then, barely finished.

A great many cigarettes were smoked and Phoebe noted a number of empty wine bottles. Three of the four days, Her Ladyship did not wish to dress or to be
disturbed. Having
tubbed
, as she put it, she would have Phoebe rub her back and shoulders with mildly scented oil (it smelled of roses) and request a clean nightgown and her mauve-and-lilac wrapper. She would then sit for as long as half an hour or more, staring out the windows at the mountains.

Phoebe Peebles was sufficiently concerned to feel she must consult Mister Forster on the matter. Consequently, she sought him out one afternoon while Her Ladyship was cloistered with her bottles and cigarettes.