The Language of Bees (20 page)

One of the Earnest Spinsters with bad skin and dyed-black hair greeted me with a proprietary air coupled with an enthusiasm that
made me uneasy. She grasped my hand in both of hers, holding it while she told me her name (Millicent Dunworthy), asserted her long history as a Child of Lights (plural, I noted), and delivered her assurance that I, too, would find myself Enlightened by the Evening and sure to have any Questions from my Heart’s True Heart answered (all capital letters clear in her pronouncement). I withdrew my hand with some difficulty, accepted the brochures she thrust at me, and backed away while she was still talking.

Fortunately, some others came in then and kept her from following me to a seat in the back between a woman with a nose like a tin-opener and a young man with sloping shoulders and damp-looking hands.

The only suggestion that the evening might include a religious element was that the chairs were arranged with an aisle down the middle, to permit a sort of procession. The room itself was made up of three nondescript wallpapered walls and a fourth of new-looking wooden storage cupboards. It was this wall towards which the seating had been arranged, which seemed an odd choice, particularly as the centre doors were held together by a large, utilitarian padlock. Heavy curtains sagged alongside the three windows overlooking the street, although they were drawn back and the windows open in a vain attempt to disperse the room’s heat: If the evening’s entertainment included photographic lantern-slides and a closing of the curtains, I would slip away.

Since the room itself told me nothing, and the congregants seemed to me the usual gathering of cranks and other gullible sorts, I turned to the pamphlets I had been given.

The “lights”—plural—in question, it seemed, were the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. And not necessarily in that order, I saw as I read the poorly printed but coherently written brochures. Like homeopathy, which declares dilute substances a more efficacious cure than powerful doses of the same substance, the influence of the far-distant stars was regarded as equal to that of the sun and the moon.

I sighed. Why were so many religions built upon such nonsensical foundations?

The sharp-nosed woman beside me heard my noise, and bristled. “Do you see something to disapprove of?” she demanded.

I lifted up a solemn and wide-eyed expression. “That was a sound of mourning, that I had gone for so many years without hearing this message.”

The true believer looked suspicious. Fortunately, activity at the front of the room distracted her from further accusations.

A jolly-faced woman, brisk and tidy as a nurse despite the long white robe she wore and the large gold ring on her right hand (nurses tend to avoid rings) marched to the front of the now-full room to address the padlock on the double doors. She had problems, becoming more and more flustered until a man who might have been her brother, also dressed in a robe and wearing a ring, got up to help her. Between the two of them they wrestled the thing off and pushed back the doors.

My first surprise of the evening was the back-drop thus revealed: a painting by Damian Adler.

Not that it was immediately recognisable as such. In fact, it was not even instantly recognisable as a painting, merely an expanse of black broken by tiny white specks. From my seat at the back, I could see little more than velvet darkness and a sense of depth, but having spent the past two days with his work, I had no doubt that it was from the hand of The Addler.

The two acolytes had pulled a somewhat shaky-looking table before the open doors and were now draping it with a black cloth. The woman set up a pair of incense burners and held a match to the contents, which began to weep a thick smoke that made me glad for my seat at the back. The man drew a silver candelabrum from one of the cupboards, put it onto the cloth, and started working candles into it. The candles were black.

I perked up. Was I about to become a participant in a Black Mass?

I had spent enough time in theological studies to have come across various parodies of the Roman Catholic Mass, from Fools’ Feast to orgy-on-the-altar. But surely nothing too extreme would take place here, in a public meeting hall that invited strangers off the street?

No: Neither the people nor their attitudes suggested that they were about to enact an orgy atop the flimsy table. Disappointing, perhaps, but then again, I had no wish to be arrested in a raid. Holmes’ rivals in Scotland Yard would never let either of us live it down.

It took the flustered brother and sister a while to get the reluctant wicks lit, but when the light was growing at the end of each dark taper, they stood back and glanced at the audience. The entire congregation—some of us belatedly—rose to its feet, and those in the know gave a ragged chorus: “Light from darkness.”

Half the lights in the room were turned down, a relief in temperature if nothing else, and with that, a figure in a startlingly white, hooded robe swept down the central aisle, a book carried reverently before her. It was Millicent Dunworthy, the woman with the badly dyed black hair who had welcomed me. She, too, had a gold band on her right hand, although I was certain she had not worn it earlier. And when I looked down at the hand of the woman beside me, I saw that she wore one as well, a large, roughly made band of bright yellow gold.

As Miss Dunworthy took her place at the front, a tremor ran through the audience: Feet shifted, people looked at their neighbours with raised eyebrows, a small murmur could be heard.

She laid the book on the impromptu altar and raised her face; her first words explained the reaction. “The Master couldn’t be here tonight, and asked me to lead the worship. He sends his love, and hopes to return next week.”

The congregation, reluctantly it seemed, settled into the chairs. With no further ado, she opened the book, revealing a brief glimpse of a simple design worked in gilt on the dark cover, and read in a voice of theatrical piety:

The Stars

The man was but a child when he began to hear the message of the stars, to grasp the precision of their meaning, to feel the tenuous link between their paths and those of human beings.

It is no secret that greatness and celestial motions go hand-in-hand. Throughout the ages, the heavens have recognised the births of notables, providing a hanging star for the sages to find the infant Jesus. And celestial bodies at times cooperate, sending a shooting star to convey heavenly approbation of a human endeavour, or even lending an assist to the actions of mere men: William the Conqueror moved to the throne with a comet in the night sky overhead; when Joshua needed more hours in which to complete his conquest, the sun lingered in the sky to lighten his way.

It was the usual religious nonsense that had flowered since the War’s end, equal parts delusion, untidy thinking, and egomania. My own tradition of Judaism believes that there is nothing God loves more than a quick-witted argument; the words Millicent Dunworthy read were an excellent illustration of the need to teach Rabbinic debate in public schools. Her audience drank it in, educated and prosperous though they were, although it was clear many of them had heard the text before. One or two of those near me were even shaping the words under their breath as the woman read.

It went on, and on, personal revelation linked with Biblical references, world mythology, and historical events, all of which was designed (if one can use that term) to place “the man” (clearly, an autobiographical third person) firmly in the pantheon of holy men throughout the ages, and to link his ideas with those found in the world’s great religions. The inclusion of Nordic deities brought a degree of innovation—most synthesisers drew on the Egyptian or Indian pantheon—but apart from Loki and Baldur where one might expect Thoth or Shiva, I heard nothing that would justify the violence done to rationality. The room was warm, the incense cloying, and it had been a long day; I kept from dozing off entirely by alternating the composition of a rude letter to Holmes with a running list of fallacies, errors, and lies.

The reading came to an end at last. The book was allowed to close, and the woman looked expectantly over our heads at the back of the
room. Footsteps came down the aisle, the robed man and woman carrying, respectively, a carafe of clear liquid that looked as if it belonged on a bedside table, and a pair of ordinary drinking glasses. They placed the utensils in front of Millicent Dunworthy and stood to the side; for an instant, she looked like a woman in a night-gown getting herself a drink of water, and I choked back a laugh. The woman beside me shot me a look of glowering mistrust, and I hastily rearranged my face to solemnity.

“For those who thirst for the light, drink deep,” Miss Dunworthy’s voice declared. I was startled, for the words resembled those of another religious leader I had worked with some years before. However, I soon decided that this was not mysticism, but melodrama. The congregation rose and made their way to the front, where each took a worshipful swallow. Five more of them, four women and a man, wore matching gold bands on their right hands.

When all but I and one other had received their communion, the woman drank some herself, dashed the remaining drops on the floor, and declared, “Go your way in the love of The Master of Lights.”

She tucked the book in her arm and swept down the aisle again. Her robe, I noticed, had a small crimson shape, an elongated triangle topped with a circle, embroidered over the heart—the design I had glimpsed on the cover of the book:

A keyhole? Or a spotlight, illustrating the church’s name?

To my pleasure, the service was followed by tea and biscuits served by their equivalent of the Mothers’ Union—stewed tea served in an attitude of sanctity was an ideal setting for the picking of brains. However, the congregants did not seem inclined to linger, either because of The Master’s unexpected absence or simply the stuffiness of the room, so I should have to move quickly.

I turned to my neighbour, on the theory that the toughest nuts to crack (so to speak) hold the sweetest meat.

“What a most satisfying reading that was! And tell me, was that just water you were drinking?”

“You could have had some yourself,” she said.

“Oh! I didn’t know, I thought it was only for the initiated. What a pity. I shall make certain to go forward next week.”

She relented a fraction. “You plan on coming back, then?”

“Of course! If nothing else I’d like to hear The Master—isn’t that what you call him? I thought he was always here.”

“He usually is, but there are times when his body is emptied of Self, and he cannot attend in his corporeal person. He was, no doubt, here in spirit.”

“Oh!” I squeaked, as if a ghost stood at my shoulder. “Good, I so look forward to meeting him. Yolanda Adler told me about him. Do you know Yolanda?”

“Certainly, she’s one of the—one of our regulars.” I wondered what she had been about to say. One of the initiated? The Leading Lights, as it were?

“Oh, and would anyone mind if I went to look at the painting up front? It’s by her husband, isn’t it?”

She had begun to gather her things to leave. Now she paused to look at me more closely. “It is. Most people don’t even notice it’s a painting.”

“Really? I’d have thought it was unmistakable.” I stepped towards her, forcing her to give way and let me into the centre aisle. I thought she might follow, but I heard her say good night to some of the others, and she left.

The painting was nearly all black. Its texture came from hundreds of circles, ranging from tiny dots to those the size of a thumb-nail. All showed the same pattern of light: droplets on a window, reflecting a cloudless night sky. In each and every one, a long streak of light indicated the moon, distorted by the droplets’ curve; around the streak a sprinkling of smaller spots were stars.

It was subtle, complex, and breathtaking.

I don’t know how long I stood there, oblivious to the emptying room and the tidying away of the altar and candelabrum, but eventually
Millicent Dunworthy, sans ring and robe now, came to shut the painting away behind its doors. I stepped back reluctantly, eyeing the feeble padlock and thinking that this was one Adler I should not mind having on my sitting room wall. …

But I was investigating, not planning an art theft. “Oh!” I exclaimed. (Such a useful sound, that, for indicating an empty head.) “It’s like raindrops on a window!”

“Yes, it’s lovely, isn’t it?” She paused, and we both gazed at it. “Did you enjoy the service?”

I suppressed a degree of the empty-headed enthusiast, for this woman was more perceptive than the sharp-nosed woman I had stood beside. “Oh, it was ever so fascinating, all that about the light and the dark. It makes such sense, don’t you think?”

Miss Dunworthy did think. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. Do come again, and bring your friends.”

“Oh, I will, most definitely. In fact, it’s because of a friend I’m here—Yolanda Adler, Damian’s wife,” I clarified, gesturing at the painting.

“You know the Adlers?”

“Her more than him, but yes. They’ve been coming here for a while, haven’t they?”