Chapter Nine
11 September 1890
The hospital in Graz was in a former mansion built in the Italianate style for a Venetian merchant. The attached family chapel was still intact, and the sisters used it for their daily worship. They kindly offered it to us for our wedding. With our passports for identity, we procured a license, and within a week, I found myself trading my long-held dreams of a proper wedding for being married in a ceremony in Latin in a strange country, with an inexpensive lace mantilla covering my hair, and wearing a dress I had owned for three years. Rather than Lucy in a gown of silver, two nuns in black served as my witnesses.
Jonathan had been released from the hospital, and we spent our wedding night at the inn. After a small, quiet supper together, we retired to the room. I had no idea what to expect. I changed into a nightdress and lay quietly beside him in the bed. I watched the candle’s flame make quivering shadows on the wall, waiting for him to undress me, because that was what I had heard that men did. I had tried to gather information for this occasion. I wanted to please my husband, and I wanted our marital life to begin properly. When we were courting, I yearned for his touch and the pleasure that would come to us through intimacy. Though he had been sick, I still expected that he would want what all men wanted from their wives once the marriage has been celebrated. I thought that the light in the room might be inhibiting him-that he was concerned for my modesty or for his-so I asked him if he would like me to blow out the candle.
“No,” he said. “I do not care for the dark.”
I wondered if the brain fever had taken away his ability to engage in the act, and then I remembered watching him in his sleep as he made love to someone in his dream. But I also knew that I had to be patient. He had been through some kind of ordeal, which I still did not fully understand, and had contracted a disease from which he was not yet entirely recovered.
“Darling, I want you to know that I love you, and I know that when you return to familiar surroundings, you will quickly recover, and we will be the happiest couple in all England,” I said. I rolled over and kissed his cheek, caressing the other cheek with my fingers. His warm body felt good against mine, and I put my hand on his chest, letting it rest there.
He turned to face me, scooping me into his arms and pressing me hard against his body. I lifted my face, and he kissed me, at first tenderly and then harder, until I let my lips open. I felt a thrill as his tongue passed my lips and entered my mouth for the first time. He tightened his hold, and I wrapped my leg around his hip as if it was the most natural thing in the world for me to do. Comfortable and snug around him, I began to relax, giving in to the pleasure. Though I had given up my dream wedding, I loved the feeling of finally being married and in my husband’s arms. I was less nervous than I had anticipated and eager to experience what was to come. He put his hand under my nightdress, running it up my thigh, over my hip, and to my breast. A little murmur escaped my lips. Then, without warning, he let go of me and turned away, giving me his back. “It’s no use,” he said.
“Jonathan?” I asked. “What is it?”
“I have waited for this moment since I first saw you. I have dreamt of it every day, looked forward to it, lived for it. And now it is ruined, and it is because of me and my weakness. I have wronged you, Mina. I must confess my sins to you or they will eat me alive and drive me to utter madness!” Unable to face me, he said all this to the wall.
I had feared Jonathan’s infidelity ever since those long weeks in Whitby when I had had no word from him. I knew that this confession would be a tremendous relief to him but a burden to me. Such information, once shared, can never be retracted. I wanted to tell him to keep his secrets to himself, but when he finally turned to look at me, I saw in his pained eyes that the admission of guilt was necessary if he was to mend. Very calmly, I said, “I am your wife now. We must have no secrets.”
He breathed uneasily, trying to stanch the flow of tears. He began at the beginning of his tale, when he arrived at the Count’s castle in the Carinthian mountains. He was received in splendor, with a kind of lavishness to which he was unaccustomed. “I was blinded by their opulent living, Mina. Food and drink such as you have never seen, the quality and quantity overwhelming. The Count imported wines and ingredients from Italy and France, spices from the Far East, and plate and crystal from the finest makers in the world. In this manner was I greeted and entertained by him and his household.”
Jonathan completed the business transactions with the Count in a few weeks, whereupon the Count left him in the castle to see to his affairs abroad. “He invited me to remain in his abode if I wished. I had been entertained in the evenings by his nieces who lived with him, ladies who could sing and dance and play instruments and recite poetry. I admit to you, with some shame, that they dazzled me from the start, one in particular who gave me all her attention.
“I was taken in by this foreign siren, Mina. I had no intention of betraying you. But after the Count departed, in the course of one evening of feasting and drinking wine and watching these women perform their exotic dances, I succumbed to what were the most overt advances. I am not proud of myself, but I daresay that any man would have lost control under the circumstances.”
I saw through his strategy of simultaneously apologizing while making excuses for himself. I laughed to myself at Schwester Gertude’s story that my husband had been enchanted by a witch, when like any other philanderer, he had simply had an affair behind my back. “How many men have used the language of enchantment to excuse their indiscretions?” I asked. “Is this not what all men say? ‘I fell under her spell’?” I sat up, pulling the covers to my neck. “And so you succumbed to her charms. Whyever did you leave? Did you tire of her so quickly?”
He put his head down, shaking it slowly. “I don’t know what happened.”
I had to exercise control to not scream. “But you were there, Jonathan. What do you mean?”
“I mean that one moment I was in the throes of seduction and pleasure, and the next, I found myself wandering through fields and orchards. I was alone and lost, with only my clothes on my back and a small rucksack. They turned me out, or I escaped-I cannot be certain. I had money in my pocketbook and my identification papers, but my memory of those last few days was gone. I wandered, but for how long I do not know. The rows of plants in those fields were a labyrinth to my addled brain. The light in the valley was so soft, as if someone had draped a veil over it. It seemed like some magical place. I remember staring into a pond at my own face and not recognizing myself. I had no idea where I was or who I was. I walked and walked, and I stumbled into the field where women were picking the seeds out of split pumpkins. I stood there, watching their quick hands dip into the fruit and gather up the seeds. Something about the way the slime dripped from their hands sickened me and I started yelling things. I am not even certain what I was saying. That is when I was given a mixture to drink, which obliterated me. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital with a German-speaking nun standing over me asking me questions.”
He leaned back on the pillow as if this confession had exhausted him. His lips were dry, and he kept licking them and biting his upper lip with his lower teeth. He looked altogether distraught.
“Jonathan, you began by telling me of an infidelity. But you speak of the women in the plural. Did you bed all of them?”
He looked straight ahead, refusing to meet my eyes. “I am ashamed to admit this to you, Mina, but they shared me among them.”
My body went cold, but he turned to me with a look of ferocity. “You must understand. They were not like ordinary women. I have never known women devoid of the simple principles of goodness. I am the most wretched of men, but I felt as if I had no choice in the matter, that my will was entirely suppressed. I was innocent until they got hold of me.”
He put his head in his hands. What could I say? This was beyond anything I dreamt I would ever hear. My Jonathan, whom I loved and trusted, and upon whom I pinned all hope, had participated in orgiastic play with strange women.
“I am not worthy of you, Mina,” he said. “I cannot even meet your eyes.”
He rolled over on his side, again giving me his back. I lay watching the shadows on the wall until the candle burned itself out. Soon, I heard a gentle rumbling from Jonathan, a sign that he had purged his conscience enough to retreat into his dreams, probably aided by the chloral that the doctor had given him for sleep. I, on the other hand, knew that my night would be spent reviewing everything that he had confessed. I slipped out of the bed and opened Jonathan’s valise, extracting the medication. I mixed a small amount into a glass, which I filled with water from the pitcher on the nightstand, and drank the bitter liquid down. I climbed back into bed and fell asleep to the sound of Jonathan’s rhythmic breathing, trying to forget the many sweet fantasies I’d had for my perfect wedding, yearning for the exquisite touch I had anticipated from the man I loved, and wondering if I would ever have it.
I was lying on a soft bed of fallen leaves, their crunch unmistakable beneath me as I twisted and writhed. The air was cool, but he was beside me, keeping me warm. He was as familiar to me as my own breathing, yet I was aware that his was not a simple human touch. His presence was less dense than the human body’s but more powerful and able to engulf me. I took in the ambrosia of his hot scent-wood, leather, and ancient spices-earthy, in contrast to the feel of his being. I opened my eyes and saw that we were lying in a grove of trees with golden leaves beneath unfamiliar stars that blazed across an immense velvet sky. The wind tossed about a single glistening leaf, which rose and fell at the air’s will. I watched it dance with the breeze as my lover flooded my senses. Eventually, it fluttered beside us and fell to the earth.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“We are nowhere, Mina. You have met me in the river of time. It flows backward and forward, and we are adrift in it. We can meet here anytime, if you are willing.”
“Tonight is my wedding night. I must be with my husband.”
“There are many ways to be married. You and I have done it a dozen times.”
“But now I am married to Jonathan,” I said.
“Not in this realm but only on the temporal plane. Here, you are mine. I have followed you through decades, centuries, trying to lose your scent and the memory of you, but I cannot do it. Can you not look into a mirror, or into your own bank of memories, and remember who you are? Who we are together?”
His voice was rich, full of the promise that I have dreamt of a dozen times. Though he was barely touching me, his mere proximity thrilled me. It was as if our spirits were entwined, dancing together, though our bodies were not joined.
“But who am I?”
“You are the woman with viridian eyes, the color of a rare stone worn by the immortals. I have not seen such eyes in one hundred years. Are you ready for me, Mina? I have waited a long time for you to be ready. It is only fitting that your true husband makes love to you on your wedding night.”
He kissed me with agonizing languor, and I quivered with anticipation of what was to come.
“Yes, I am ready,” I said, eager for whatever bliss he would bring. Between his lush kisses, he whispered to me, his words tumbling into my open mouth:
By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
Till the foam has a savor of blood.
“Blood is the true love potion. Remember?” He twisted my long black hair around his hand, sweeping it from the curve of my neck, where he buried his face. His lips worked their way up to my ear. “There is no going back, Mina, not this time. I am answering your call. And you have answered mine.”
“No,” I said. “No going back.”
I knew what he was going to do because he had done it before. My body remembered the sensation of it, and my every nerve heightened with expectation. I knew the danger and the pleasure, but there was no turning back now.
“What will I taste like?” I asked.
He inhaled deeply at the base of my throat. “Sweet and pure,” he answered, “like white lilacs.” With the intensity of a wolf tracking its prey, he began to explore my body. I felt the electricity of his mouth on my skin as his teeth searched for their point of entry. I waited, breathless, anticipating this thing that I both feared and longed for.
“You are sure, Mina?”
“Yes, I am sure. Please, please do it.” He waited until I asked again and then once more, teasing me until I was begging. Finally and with haste, he bit deep into my neck, breaking the skin in a single clamp of his jaw and attaching himself to me. I cried out in exquisite pain. I was his host, feeding him with my very essence, with my life force. I was no longer a body at all but a vehicle to serve him, to make him stronger, and to make me a part of him.
But that was only the beginning. He pulled my hair tighter until my ear met his mouth again. “Wherever there is pulse, Mina, that is where I want to be. I want to drink in the very life of you. I want to feel and know the throb of your body.” He let go of my hair, unwinding it from his hand, freeing me, but all I wanted was to be his captive. He read my thoughts and he answered me with his mind.
I am not finished with you.
He lifted my arm to his mouth and nipped at the inner part of my elbow and my wrist. At each pulse point, he broke my skin, and I felt bits of my essence flow from me and into his mouth. With my heart pounding inside my chest and my legs quivering, he ran his lips down the side of my body, where his beautiful and treacherous mouth bit slowly into one side of my groin and then the other, sucking to his pleasure, taking mouthfuls of me. Each time my insides tensed and then exploded with ecstasy. He turned me over so that my face was in the soft pile of leaves, and I breathed in their earthy aroma as he broke the skin at the backs of my knees. I cried out, but he paid no attention and slithered down my legs, biting me behind my ankles. I howled, arching my back in a blinding fit of rapture.
“The sounds of your pulses are like celestial music, Mina. The body sings. Can you hear it?”
I heard nothing because nothing outside him or outside this experience existed for me. I was in communion with him, giving myself over to him, letting my essence drain into him, and I thought that nothing of me was going to survive except what had gone into his body. Kneeling over me, he pulled my hair again, arching me toward him, and he bent down and lunged into the other side of my neck, taking his fill. I exploded inside, pounding with the bliss of immolation.
“I am dying,” I said, the words staggering out of my mouth.
“No, you are dying into me. And if you die into me again and again, I promise you will live forever. Do you want to live forever?”
“I do, my love, I do. I want to be with you forever.”
“You will not turn me away again? You will not sentence me to enduring your cycles of birth and death while I wait for you to remember who and what you are?”
“No, my love, I am yours.”
“We are wedded, Mina. You must leave the rest behind.”
Suddenly, I felt as if I were being torn in two. All went black, and for some time I was lost, and I was sure that I must have ceased to exist. Then, in a flash, I was floating above my body. Looking back, I saw my mortal form on a bed of gold leaves, tiny rivulets of blood breaking the monochrome of the snow-white skin on my naked body.
The next morning, I was surprised to wake to the sound of doves cooing outside the window and the smell of the fire burning in the parlor of the inn. Morning light streamed through the lace curtains, dappling the walls. I fully expected that when I rolled over, I would see my dream lover instead of my husband. But Jonathan was lying next to me on his side. His big hazel-brown deer eyes looked as startled to see me as I was to find him in the bed.
We could barely look at each other as we dressed, gathered our belongings, and walked to the train station. I had asked Jonathan if he wanted to stay at the inn for a few days to regain his strength, but he wanted to go home. His mood improved as the morning wore on. The color in his face was good, and he walked with energy and confidence, carrying my valise, opening doors for me, and helping me into the train, probably doing these small things to show that he intended to compensate for his infidelity. For my part, I was grappling with the bizarre dream of the night before. I tried not to think of it, but the delicious memories crept into my mind, titillating me to the core. At those moments, I felt myself blushing against my will and I had to turn my face away from my husband.
The rolling hills we traveled through were lined with rows of crisscrossed crops-apple and pear trees, vines of grapes, and maize-creating bafflingly precise geometries. In the forested areas, the branches on the trees drooped lugubriously like the long sleeves of Druid priests.
Jonathan pointed to the curved roads that cut through the hillsides and valleys. “Forged by Romans, Mina!” he said. “So many civilizations have come and gone on this land-Celts, Romans, Normans, Mongols, French. Who knows how many more?” He smiled at me, but I turned away, wondering if he had learned the region’s history from his Styrian lovers. Had his sordid tale inspired my dream?
“My world would be immeasurably better if we could look each other in the eye,” he said. He took my chin with his hand and turned my face around to meet his. “I want you to know that I love you, and that my love for you is far above these horrible and decadent acts in which I have participated. I can be a good and faithful husband if only you will give me the chance. Men can be tempted, Mina-that is why we must have the love of a good woman. Otherwise, it is too easy for us to get lost.”
I turned away from him, looking out the window at the rows of crops on the hillsides in lines so perfectly straight. Humans were capable of goodness and perfection, but our behavior seldom matched those qualities. Was it our destiny to sling stinging betrayals at each other? I thought of Lucy and wondered if she had lost her mind and confessed her sins to Arthur. Lucy had seemed possessed by the same passions that had consumed Jonathan and left him howling in the fields of Styria. How could that be love? And what about me? A man had made dark, unnatural, earth-shattering love to me in my dreams on my wedding night, but he was not my husband. What bizarre part of my psyche continued to invite these scenes?
Mr. Darwin demonstrated that we-male and female alike-were descended from wild animals. Women, held high in men’s esteem and given the task of living up to a higher moral standard, seemed as capable as men of bestial behavior. Jonathan claimed that the women seduced him. It made sense, I suppose. It wasn’t as if men evolved from beasts and women evolved from angels. But if women too gave free rein to our base wants, as I did in my dreams, what would happen to our society? There would be no order in the world. And I craved order. That is what marriage, particularly ours, was supposed to provide-blissful, predictable order against the chaotic and unpredictable nature of human life.
“You must give me time,” I said. “In time I believe I will be able to forgive you. After all, you are my husband.”
Time. What was time? Time is a river that flows both forward and backward. How could that be true?
He took my hand. “Your response is more generous than I deserve, Mina. I need time too. I am not worthy of you. I must find a way to purify myself.”
We both must purify ourselves, I wanted to say. But I did not think that I could carry through with an explanation.