The Devil in Love

 

Paula Ruggeri

                        What shall man’s choice be, a God who dies for him or a devil who lives for his sake? What man’s choice is, a father who shows him the way or a woman who goes through it with him, sharing whatever befall him?

                                                                                   Paradise Reborn

He will reign upon earth, after he has defeated all his enemies.           

King Arthur’s Knights

            The old King understood the treason. He saw the battlefield, covered with dead bodies, and his men swiftly flying away from him.

            “To me!”, he shouted, raging.

            Then he vanished.

            When he awoke sir Modred was at his side, looking concerned.

            “Traitor,” he said, almost fainting. He saw the blood, all over his own body.

            “I have not betrayed you.” That voice was not Modred’s. “You had to die now and I had to be with you- you know I never elude duty.”

            Arthur looked at him intently. Under the mask of Modred he saw Merlin’s face.

            “Traitor,” he muttered, for the second time.

            “You do not understand,” Merlin moved his head achingly, melancholily. “It was written. Now pay attention. You shall die. But before dying, you shall be paid a visit. “

            “Traitor,” Arthur said for the third time. He felt life breathing away from his lips with every word. “Nevertheless, I bid you do one last errand. You shall take my sword and throw it into the lake. Someone shall seize it... “

            His voice ceased.

            “It shall not be necessary,” Merlin said bitterly. He closed the King’s eyes.

            And he went away, for he himself had to die.

                                               Here lieth Arthur, who was King and shall be again

            “Stand up, Arthur.”

            The sleepy old king opened his eyes and saw a blurred, feminine shape in front of him. A golden-bladed sword, which he recognized as his own, hung from her hands. 

            The shadow leaned over him and the black, wet hair brushed him about.

            “I am the Lady of the Lake,” she whispered. “And I come to bring you your sword and guide you to a place where you shall need it and I shall need you. Come, Arthur, stand up.”

            “Guinevere,” Arthur whispered.

            “Dead. She died in love with another man, as she had lived.”   

            “Camelot.”

            “Dead, dead for a myriad years. Dead like other cities and kingdoms that your imagination could never have dreamed. Do come with me, you shall be king again.”

            “Who are you?”

            “I am,” she repeated slowly, “the Lady of the Lake. But I have another name. And you have another name than the one you know.”

            The old king got painfully up. He noticed the dry blood on his neck and chest. He felt helpless and tremulous.

            She led him to the shore of a river he had never seen there. A wooden boat and two oars had been waiting for them. He sighed. Before embarking, he glanced back and saw thick smoke columns plunging up the sky.

            “Is Camelot burning?” he asked.

            “Troy is burning!” she laughed.

            “Troy?” he repeated, for he did not know the word.

            “Babylon,” the Lady of the Lake said in a sigh. “You do not understand a word of all this, you shall never understand, but I do not need you to understand. We need the strength of your arm and your courage.”

            The old man looked at her, puzzled.

            “You shall be young again,” she said, staring at him with her big eyes. “young and strong. You shall be beautiful, beautiful for me.”

            She grasped the oars and they sailed down the still stream. They sailed all day long. She rowed and he did his best to help her. But the weariness and wounds overcame him.

            “He sleeps,” she whispered, lovingly. “You will soon forget everything about sleep.”

            And she looked at him bitterly and fearfully.

            She rowed all night long and she was still rowing when he woke up in the morning.

            “Whither are we going?”

            “Southward. Look at the sky, where the sun cannot reach. What do you see?”

            He looked and then he closed his eyes, amazed. Whither she was pointing out the Night unfolded, though it was day.

            “It is thither we are going, to enter in the Night. Do not be afraid. I need all of your courage. Do you see that star there?”

            There was a star which was brighter than all the others.

            “It is she who guides us. Her name is Sirius. She is a star from the South, and we shall follow her.”

            “Whither?” Arthur asked her.

            But she would not answer any more.

           

            They sailed for days and days with the Night on the horizon ahead. At nights they sailed in the uttermost darkness, except for the light of the one star she called Sirius. 

            Until one morning they began to see villages and hear laughing and singing. Men and women came to the rivershore to see them pass, looking at them curiously. Arthur felt he was growing stronger and amazingly strong. His hair grew brown as it had been. His hands were strong again and he rowed fiercely. Wherever he was going, he wanted to arrive soon. From time to time he saw the woman looking at him with strange eyes, mixing love and fear. But then she smiled and that feeling disappeared. 

            “Those people look so strangely glad!” Arthur cried.

            She replied laughing loudly. “That is because we are in Heaven!” Then she spoke on, very slowly, almost whispering. “They are all dead. Now they are going through a kind of dream by which I managed to spellbind the ultimate gate to Eternity. But you must play your part for the dream to enter also in it.”

            “I do not understand a word,” he sighed. “Dream, Eternity? I must play my part? I am a King, not God.”

            “Kings are men just like the rest. And men are sons of God. The time is coming for them to try to be a little like their Father.”

            He looked deeply into her, but was blind before her and admitted so.

            “Who are you?”

            “I am me. I cannot say more than that. I am a soul for whom a whole God has been a prison, and who has paid a high price for freedom. Loneliness. Endless pain. I have charmed it all with a dream. But to prevent them from vanishing and turning into dust and ashes, into stone and mire, I need you. “

            “Me?”

            “I have done what I had to do. I have fought and bled. I have suffered, Arthur. I have been hurt, abused, misused. I have endured measureless pains, I, who cannot endure any pain, who cannot know any reason but love. I, who only understand joy, have known grief.

            “Answer me one more question. Was I dead?”

            “Yes,” she replied in a still voice.

            “And you gave me back life and youth?”

            She looked deeply into him. Her eyes wept, her mouth smiled.

“Yes.”

            “You are God!” he cried.                  

            She smiled sadly.

            “No, I am not your God. Your God and I fought for a long time and He is finally dead. I overcame and found myself alone, on the world’s summit, on my own, seeing you men and women loving each other, killing each other and dying in hideous agonies, and I without anyone to fight, anyone to love. Then I decided to do what He would have done, to build this Paradise, whose idea He had loved so much; but I would do it with the knowledge of men an old woman like me can have and He never had.  To build a place where men could hate and fight without destroying each other, strike wounds which always can be healed by pouring on them drops of this water. A place to love and laugh but also rage and fight, for this is the only way men can be happy. Do you understand now?”

            “I think I do,” Arthur muttered.

            “Take your sword and follow me.”

            “Whom shall I fight?”

            “A tree!” she laughed.

            She led him down the rivershore until they came to a valley in the middle of which there was a grove. She pointed at one of the hindmost trees.

            “Now open wide your ears, Arthur, for my work lies entirely on yours. If you fail, you shall become dust and die, and I shall live alone for ever and for ever.

            “This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall hew it down and then live for ever.

            “It shall moan and bleed. Hew it down.

            “You shall see it turning into the shape of an old woman and a little girl.

            “Kill them.

            “It shall swear he is Christ. Nail him on the cross.

            “Hew this tree and we shall love each other for ever.

            “If you feel your arm is failing, remember I am with you. Even when you cannot see me, I shall be supporting you.

            “And when you are done, I shall be yours and you shall know my true name.”

            Thus having said, she disappeared down a path.

            Before getting out of sight, she gazed at him with infinite love.

            At every blow, the tree moaned and bled. But he kept thinking on her and hewing. He killed an old woman and then a little girl. He cried for them and kept hewing. In the crown of the tree there appeared a blond young man smiling. He stroke the tree, turning it into a Rood.

            “Father, you have killed me again,” Christ said.

            He kept striking.

            Night fell and Sirius rose above the horizon, fairer than ever. He stroke the last blow and the trunk fell down. Arthur fell along with it. Lying on earth, he looked at Sirius. A star from the South, she had said. From a land he had never known. He fell asleep.

            When he awoke, the sun was over his head.

            He walked along the river. He felt hungry and picked an apple from a tree he came across. It was so tasty.

            After long and weary days of walking he came to the source of the river. Then he saw her, standing naked, joyous, smiling. He felt young and strong. And then he recalled.

            He remembered he had always loved Eve. They had had children and grown old together, and he had seen her die, and then he had died himself. He forgot about Arthur. He took her in his arms. He was naked too.

            And everything around, nature and men and women, animals and the sky and water, were splendidly, goldenly naked.

                                                           Translated from the Spanish by Diego Ruggeri