From behind her his hand caressed her cheek. They came to a little wrought-iron gate between two ancient buildings. Beyond was a muddy alley, and beyond that a widening expanse of gra.s.s.
The lawn went on for a while, then stopped abruptly at a tall hill. That must be Calvary. Behind it would be the Basilica of the Rosary. In the opposite direction to the basilica the land dropped to the river in a jumble of rocks and ferns and gnarled trees.
Jonathan made for the hill, laboring to push the chair through the thick gra.s.s.
He was so silent and purposeful. That wasn"t like him. Then she understood what he must be planning.
The antic.i.p.ation thrilled her to shivering dampness. She was going to be made love to, and it was going to be done by her delicious Jonathan, in the woods.
A hundred yards from the most Catholic place on earth.
Was that funny, sad, or both? Oh, h.e.l.l, it wasn"t sad at all! She reached her hand back. Instantly he squeezed it. Then he returned to his pushing.
"You"re working up a sweat," she said.
"Doesn"t matter."
They came to the line of trees and went a short distance in. This was a different world. Alien. Here the low hum of insects mixed with the petty chanted rage of birds. The light was rich green. Woods were beautiful places, but Patricia certainly saw why in ancient times the pagans had peopled them with nymphs and spirits, and humming, vindictive G.o.ds.
They stopped.
Silence.
The bugs started again, then the birds. But as far as humanity was concerned the two of them were gloriously alone.
He will lift me from the chair. I will let him have his way with me.
But he hesitated. Was he afraid? Confused? "I dreamed that I took you to the grotto and put you in the water, and you could walk."
"I dreamed I could too. I dream it a lot."
He bowed his head and kissed her hands. "I"ll take you out of the chair now."
"We"ll be missed if we don"t get to the basilica by eight." How dare you say that, girl. Keep your mouth shut; you don"t want to ruin this beautiful moment.
"It doesn"t matter. Because I want to ask you to marry me. Please, as soon as we get back to New York."
He swept her from the chair and set her on the forest floor.
"You really, really do? You want to marry me?"
He lay full on her. She felt the rigid curve of his flesh, and laid her hands on his b.u.t.tocks, which rippled beneath his jeans. "I"d like a child," he whispered. "If you want one."
She was full of laughter and tears of grat.i.tude. "Oh, certainly! Surely I do! I want lots of them!"
"I"ve always wanted a child. I want him to be named Martin, after my dad."
Just like a man. It never even occurred to him that he might have a daughter. She didn"t care, though-not now, not about such details. She hugged him to her. "I"ll marry you, Jonathan. Oh, yes, yes, I will!"
"I want it so badly, darling. Soon. How soon can it be?"
"Next week, if we can get a dispensation on the banns. We can ask Father."
From sheer delight in each other they laughed softly, in the twilight of the woods. When he began to lift her skirt, she stopped him. "Wait. I have to say something."
"No more delays. I won"t stand for it." He kept at it.
"I have to say yes! Yes, yes, yes!" In moments she was naked, her clothes beneath her body. He lay beside her running his hands over her. "You have gooseb.u.mps."
"It"s cold."
"Am I cold?"
His hands were like fire where they touched her. He seemed wire-tense. "The ground is cold. You"re warm." She arched her back. "Touch me more," she whispered, feeling her cheeks go livid. She presented her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to him; the gra.s.s beneath her whispered when she opened her legs. "Touch me all you want."
He laid a hand on her midriff, so roughly that she gasped. "I wish I hadn"t dreamed you could walk."
Oh, G.o.d, don"t let him start worrying about that the second he asks me to marry him.
"Forget it, it"s no big deal. I dreamed the same thing." The water had bellowed and foamed up out of the ground, a fantastic living organism, as far from normal water as a demon is from some placid human soul. I I will kill or I will heal, will kill or I will heal, the water had said. the water had said. It It is all the same to me. is all the same to me.
"In my dream they called the river-"
"Alpheus. The river of death."
His hand froze on her thigh, clutching. They looked into one another"s eyes. She moved slightly. He was hurting her just a little. "After I could walk, they rang the bells."
"I remember the bells." He fell silent. When he spoke again his voice was almost sullen. "What in the name of G.o.d is happening? We had exactly the same dream."
Words, thoughts, questions crowded through her mind. "But Jonathan, I can"t walk! So nothing"s happening except that we"re getting, very, very close to one another."
"You haven"t tried to walk." He pinched her hard just above her knee. It hurt; she jerked away.
"You have sensation!"
He stood up, held his hands down to her. She grasped his strong fingers and pulled herself to her feet. For an instant her legs were stiff and she thought she was going to totter. His face reflected awe and utter amazement. "As crazy as it sounds, we dreamed this together. And you really can walk. You can!" can!"
"Don"t let go!" She lifted her left foot, put it down in front of her. He backed up, released her hands.
"Don"t do that!" But he backed away farther and farther, until at last just their fingertips were touching.
Then she was grasping air.
And walking. She had the delicate, unsteady gait of a new foal, but she was walking. She could feel everything from her toes to her thighs, just as she always had before the incident.
Jonathan rushed up to her and embraced her and covered her face with kisses. "Patricia, my darling, G.o.d bless whatever happened last night, G.o.d bless it!" He held her at arm"s length. "You are so incredibly beautiful. Oh, you are so, so wonderful!" He hugged her; he was laughing and crying at the same time. His hands ran up and down her back and he kept kissing her. Finally he went down on his knees and embraced her around the waist. She stroked his head, then knelt down with him. Their bodies made a little warm tent in the forest cool. He drew off his T-shirt and unbuckled his belt. "Shall I?"
In answer she unzipped him and drew his pants down around his knees. She laid her hands on him. He closed his eyes, sank back on his haunches. Around them the forest sighed with morning wind. Sunlight filtered through the trees. From far away came the sound of a mult.i.tude singing. It was the Lourdes hymn; people were gathering at the basilica."
He was warm and solid to hold, and his skin had that velvet-soft feeling she remembered. He raised his own hands to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, cupped them gently, then rubbed his palms against them. The sensation was so strong and so fine that it made her feel pride in her own ability to experience plea-sure. She smiled, and he leaned forward and kissed the smile.
They lay down together in the gra.s.s. She spread her legs for him and he tried to enter her. He was not very practiced either. In the end she had to guide him. But she was too tight. That scared her; were they going to fail?
He lay full down on her. "If you would kiss it like last time," he whispered, "we could make it work, I think."
Yes, it had to be made damp. People were so delicately constructed.
She didn"t mind. Far from it, the thought of what she was about to do fascinated her. She recognized in herself a desire to surrender to him that was very, very great. If he had been a coa.r.s.er or a more cunning man he might have found a way to make her his slave.
She knelt between his legs and lifted his p.e.n.i.s; the end was gleaming as if it had been waxed. This she took in her mouth. It pulsed once, then plunged deep. It hurt. For a full minute and more she kept it there.
The sensation of being filled by it was not terrible; indeed, she had discovered pleasure in this the first time she had done it.
Like a white-hot knife it tore into you. It filled you with searing, molten lava and it ripped you until you thought you would die of the pain. you thought you would die of the pain.
He withdrew himself. He was shaking. In Jonathan pas-sion and fury looked startlingly alike. "That"s enough! Let me calm down." He took sharp, frantic breaths. He glared at her. Then he sighed and closed his eyes. After a short pause he asked to try again.
In answer she rolled over beside him and spread her legs. This time he slipped in much more easily. He groaned once, then they were linked.
A thousand lonely Our Lady nights: how will it feel? They say the first time hurts, but you mustn"t let him know that. They say it"s literally like an explosion in you. A million, zillion times better than diddling with the corner of a pillow.
A million, zillion times better. She could have believed that the entire universe had reordered itself around these two people making love.
There were waves of pleasure connected with even his slightest movements. They swarmed one after another, faster and faster, rushing up from the center of her belly until they suffused her whole body and seemed to enter her very soul. She could hardly bear it. She clamped her hands to her temple, she shouted, she kissed his face, his neck, his shoulders, she licked his skin almost frantically, and she looked into his hungry, avid, raging eyes. She felt at the same time both laughter and sadness, the whole game and tragedy of life all knotted up together and then bursting into a huge, impossible ecstasy that was also hideous, a sharp joy that made her cry out.
And then she was aware of a b.u.mblebee worrying a smalt blue flower near their heads.
He drew himself out of her.
"Stay in me."
"Oh, my darling." In his voice was love and joy . . . and something like relief. He laid his open mouth on hers. She thought perhaps they had become song. Were they still just two ordinary people? Could they possibly be?
The b.u.mblebee finished its work with the flower and b.u.mbled on. From the basilica came the deep murmur of thousands of voices saying the rosary.
Suddenly Jonathan reared back. His face was almost bursting with happiness. "This is the greatest moment of my life!"
"Of mine too. By far, far, far."
He fell to kissing her again. It was after nine before they even thought of dressing. Jonathan insisted he could make love again if she wanted him to.
"We have to get back. We really will be missed."
He laughed silently. "You can walk! Can you imagine the irony of it-you go to Lourdes and you get cured. It"s almost a kind of cosmic joke. I mean, you you don"t want to go, don"t want to go, I I don"t want you to go. Not even good old don"t want you to go. Not even good old Mike Mike really wants you to. Then you go and cure yourself with some kind of a crazy dream." really wants you to. Then you go and cure yourself with some kind of a crazy dream."
"Is that what happened last night?"
He looked at her. Slowly he shook his head. "We dreamed the same dream. I put you in the water and you came up cured."
"It scared me. I thought I"d drown."
He grabbed her tight against him. "The very last thing in the world I would ever, ever do is hurt you."
"The water was so loud. It was like a cataract or something, just literally gushing out of the ground."
"She told me it was the river of death."
"She?"
"My mother. While you were in the water."
"It wasn"t wasn"t a dream, was it?" a dream, was it?"
"Don"t ask me what it was, darling, because I don"t know the answer. I just know that whatever it was, it broke the psychological barrier that was forcing you to seek dependence."
"I was really paralyzed, Jonathan! Don"t say it was psychological."
He hugged her. "Let"s walk over to the basilica. I think you"re going to cause quite a sensation among certain people. For one thing, you are going to make Mike a very happy man."
They dressed and brushed one another"s clothes free of loam and bits of fern, and walked out into the calm, warm sun. How good it felt to move again under her own power! It also hurt; this was more exercise than her legs had gotten in three months.
They laid their arms along the small of one another"s backs and walked across the green sweep of gra.s.s that led up to the basilica. As they came closer, mounting the low hill, the voice of the mult.i.tude in the forecourt of the church washed over them.
Sing of Mary pure and lowly, Virgin Mother undefiled. Sing of G.o.d"s own Son of Mary pure and lowly, Virgin Mother undefiled. Sing of G.o.d"s own Son most holy Who became her little child. most holy Who became her little child.
Then Jonathan lifted her onto the low wall that separated the court from the greensward beyond. There gathered a mult.i.tude of sick and well, crutches, wheelchairs, stretchers, people old and new, priests gathered in little black clumps, nuns in and out of habit, all the huge crowd of the world come to supplicate at the dirty, trickling water of life.
She sat down on the wall and wept for them even while her body sang its reborn power. Her lover hugged her to him, and she heard his ragged breath.
Neither Mecca nor the raped Ganges could equal Lourdes in sheer numbers of pilgrims.
Patricia felt the roiling, frantic living thing thing beneath the ground, the serpent River Alpheus crying out through the stones. beneath the ground, the serpent River Alpheus crying out through the stones.
"There"s my mother. She sees us. Oh, boy, this is going to be something!"
Mary Banion broke away from the crowd. Turning, her face was struck by the sun and she shielded her eyes. Then, splendid in a navy blue dress, holding down her white straw hat, she came quickly to their side.
Despite the sweltering August heat, she wore an autumn dress with long sleeves.
Most of the other pilgrims wore long sleeves too, Patricia noticed. Mike alone was dressed for the weather, in a short-sleeved sports shirt. "Come down off that wall, Pat. Oh, I wish they would stop that caterwauling!"
As if she had commanded them all, the crowd fell silent.
Patricia"s legs ached a good deal from the walk. Mary and Jonathan had to help her down. She stood leaning against the low wall.
"Mother," Jonathan said, "she"s cured."
Mary hugged her. "I knew you would be, Pat! I had my heart set on it!"