Totentanz by Al Sarrantonio Page B

tension below
his belt break and a spreading wetness. And something like peace
came over him, something like the blissful calm after a long and
mightily fought storm, as the dark man turned away and he
followed.
     

NINE
    Frances' day dawned. For years and years, the
veil had been over her eyes. Had she lived in other places? Yes,
she knew she had. Did she remember them? Barely. There had been a
house once, she knew that, but whenever she thought of the house,
the pain came that made her want to forget. There had been a house,
a large yellow one, with a big lawn in the front and a bigger lawn
in the back, and a barn with a silo and a lawn on each side. That
had been in another place, not here. In the summer, all summer
long, the lawns had stayed green. Why? She didn't know, but then
did it matter? Of course not. Nothing mattered but the three
Hims—him I mourn, him who saves me, him whom I push away.
    Where am I? She looked up and saw the Pole. But now the Pole
was different. It was not the Northern Star, not the spinning
heavens, not the red and white of His death and resurrection, the
moving yet constant symbol of His salvation. I am the resurrection, and the life, he that believed in me,
though he were dead, vet shall live, and whosoever liveth and
believed, in me shall never die. It was
something else now. It was . . . almost clear. She did not think
she liked what was happening. Someone was drawing the veil back
from her eyes. Now, dimly, it came to her what this meant. The veil
had been there because she had prayed to Him for it, and now it was
being lifted, but by whom?
    She thought of the house again, and her eyes
hurt.
    Why wouldn't that pain leave her? She
sometimes saw children who lived in other houses, saw their
perfectly formed bodies, bursting with His life, as they ran past
her. She cried for them because they had no notion of the fullness
of Him, of the life He gave to them and to all things, did not know
of His Book, although they sometimes threw verses of it at her. "He
is the resurrection and the life!" they sometimes sang at her,
mimicking her own pure words, which made her weep all the more for
their ignorance of the precious gift He gave them. Life! They
skipped as they sang or stood with their hands on their knees—some
of the girls with their hands on their bare knees. Filled with
life. They wore skirts, or shorts, or pants, all of the same color,
faded blue, with sneakers and tee shirts. Through the tee shirts
Frances could almost see their forming breasts, nurturing vessels
for future life—all made possible by Him. Him who saves me.
    What was that? She doubled over in pain,
straightening slowly. The sidewalk under her seemed covered with
colors, wet to the touch. When she reached down, the colors were
gone, in their place a . . . house. It was like looking into a
clear pool on a day when the bright of the sky made the water
reflect like a mirror. There was the yellow house, with the green
lawn all around it. Painfully she looked away from the vision,
straining her neck up toward the sky. It was not bright and blue;
it was dark and gray and heading for twilight, the kind of
half-light that promised cold thunder to come. Her eye passed down
and rested on the Pole for a moment, and suddenly it became to her
only a white-and-red-striped barber pole bolted to the dull stucco
wall outside a barber shop. Where was she? Where had she been? The
veil was pulled partly away, the sustaining, comforting veil, and
her mind was cleared. She was suddenly afraid. What was she doing
here? Shouldn't she be in—
    "Please, no!" she cried, clutching at her
middle and doubling over. Her dropping gaze had passed over her
hand, and the sight of the aging, wrinkled thing where her own
beautiful young hand should be terrified her more than anything.
Could she be this old? Could this much time have passed?
    The house. Him I mourn.
    Her eyes lowered, more of their own volition
than by an act of will, and the crystal pool