Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (36 page)

‘Since all things are connected – for how could they not be? – these cards, or rather their images, provide a meeting between the knowledge possessed, in confusion, by the soul, and the power of Chance to choose from among that knowledge. From that meeting, a divination can be made, which is not wholly blind, for we do direct its gaze, even if only seen as through a glass darkly. From amongst all that which we do know – but which by its abundance confuses us – our attention can be pointed towards that which we need to know.’

In its challenge to her prior conceptions, the conversation put Carla in mind of more than a few winter evenings she had spent sitting by the kitchen hearthstone with Mattias and a jar of wine; and before him, of other mystic moments with Amparo. But before she could respond, another pang came.

She leaned on the table and groaned, trying not to lose the thread of her deliberations. Alice put a hand on top of hers and watched keenly but without concern. Her unconcern was welcome. Both of Carla’s previous labours had been carnivals of anxiety, most of it neither hers nor of her making. Carla opened her eyes and found the drawn cards lying inches from her face.

The row of three chosen by Chance and Alice’s soul.

The first was the Hanged Man, reversed.

The second, a figure dressed all in red, also reversed.

The third portrayed a beggarman, shoeless, in patched rags. His golden curls were threaded with feathers and flowers, and on his right shoulder he carried a staff, as if not sure why he did so, or what he ought to do with it. He was young, and his mazed black eyes swam with pity, as if haunted by all he had seen on the long road. He stood alone with his back to the dark blue edge of yonder – an ocean, a river, an abyss – as if he could go no further. He seemed altogether lost.

The first two cards were woodblock prints. The beggar was an exquisite painting; as too was the fourth card, the one Alice had chosen at the start and set above the rest. Carla had avoided this last, being unable to deny its name; but now she looked on it full.

Death, his bones bedight with a robe of crocus-yellow finery, rode bareback on a black horse rampant. A long white ribbon was knotted round his leering skull, just above the sockets, and fluttered gaily behind him like a lady’s favour. Above his head he wielded an enormous black scythe, its shaft embossed with gold.

Never had the Reaper looked more gaudy, more joyous and deranged.

His charger, with its bared teeth and crimson tongue and demon’s eye, was nearly as horrible. It galloped towards the left-hand edge of the card. Trampled beneath its hooves – in a field of daisies – lay the corpses of a king, a bishop, and two cardinals, who flanked a dead pope, perhaps Peter himself, for a wound as if made by a nail scarred his right hand.

Certainly, thought Carla, as her pang ended, the artist had made his point.

‘If these deep doings exhaust you, we can stop. My reading’s done.’

‘Not only do these doings keep fatigue at bay, they have enthralled me. But let me ask, if the future cannot be known, what is it that the cards tell us?’

‘What will happen is not important – for what will happen is Life Her-own-self, and she dances to no tune but her own. What matters is how we take part in that happening, the way that we make of it one future rather than some other. If we listen to who we have been, and who we are now, our soul can show us what we can be, and thus make us better ready for what we will be – or not – in the future.’

Carla looked again at the beggarman.

‘Where did you learn all this?’

‘This woman didn’t so much learn it, as learn that she knew it. No doubt the wise men are drawing up their rules, and no doubt they’d say she doesn’t know what she’s up to, but no one’s obliged to listen to her. Whether anyone listens or not is their affair, not hers.’

‘I’m listening.’ Carla indicated the draw. ‘What are these cards called?’

Alice pointed to each in turn.

‘The Traitor. The Juggler. The Lunatic.’

‘Why did you choose Death?’

‘The card purposely chosen represents the quester and her question. It overlooks the whole tale and sees what lies beyond. Don’t let it upset you. My question didn’t concern you or your babe.’

‘The tale these tell seems a grim one. What do they say?’

‘Each card always speaks anew, for its purpose is to raise the unseen images hiding in the quester’s soul, and lurking in the realm of the question, so that the reader might catch their meaning. Like a dog flushing birds to the wing. And aye, up to a point, these are grim doings.’

She indicated the three cards from left to right.

‘This old woman sees these pictures whole, forward and back, arse over tit. She knows them as you know your fiddle. But a simple view, a beginning, is to see in these three images, past, present and future. How did we? How do we? How will we do?’

Alice picked up the Hanged Man and held the card the right way up. A man in green pantaloons dangled by his left ankle from a rough-hewn gallows supported by two posts. His arms were tied behind his back; gold coins tumbled from his pockets. His face was strangely unconcerned with this fate. It seemed as if he were almost about to smile.

When Alice spoke, her voice was bitter.

‘The pelican feeds her chicks with her own blood. The worm eats his own tail. The Traitor’s head sways over troubled waters and his mind sinks down, yet he knows it not, for he has despised all prudent counsel and lost his wits. He has not loved his life and never will, even to the loss thereof. He that he has betrayed is but his own self, and though he renounce the false path, though he expiate his sins, though he cut the bonds that bind him with the knife of sacrifice, he will drown. For he sees not his secret enemies, and he will never spend their coin.’

Alice replaced the card, reversed. She took up the Juggler, who was dressed in red. He stood at the table of a street gambler, on which were arrayed the tools of his trade: dice, a knife, a pea and three shells, money, a cup of wine. He held a thin stick, or perhaps a whistle for attracting custom. Alice plucked notions from some inner vision.

‘A falcon winged by an arrow. A she-wolf, snared, chews on her own leg. A cry of hounds. A bull untamed. Falsehood. Sleight of hand. Ambition. Festering wounds. Subtlety rejoices in evil and wields in its name the warrants of a spiteful god. Yet among even the conspirators fear abounds, for the cup is poisoned and the poisoners will drink it to its lees.’

Alice waved the card as she put it back in its place.

‘This Juggler is the enemy the Traitor does not see. No one yet sees him.’

‘Then a card may embody a particular individual, a real person.’

‘Of course, usually several. The cards capture the quester’s quest, a drama that might well boast many actors. The particulars of this one needn’t concern you, though you’re right: the play so far runs on intrigue, avarice and lies. Yet all’s not lost, for beyond all calamity, and beyond all fear, stands the madman.’

Alice took the Lunatic and regarded him with something like tenderness.

‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggar is come to town. His belly is as empty as his plate and he has no pockets. They punished him not for the errors he made, but for those that he did not: for over his brothers and sisters the Lunatic never sought power, nor did he seek dominion over Our Mother. The sea is made over to the crocodile, and the petals and the thorns to the rose. His journey has been from darkness to light and to darkness he must return home. He has walked every path worth walking, he has known every thing worth knowing, and now, at the last, he knows he knows nothing at all. The Abyss gapes at his heels, and he does not see it, and he will fall. It is deep beyond human reckoning but not without a floor; its bowels are strewn with the stones of ruined empires; of obelisks that once stood seven times seven tall. Yet, if the Lunatic started at nothing, and at nothing he now stands, we must ask: is his journey over? Or is it about to begin again?’

Alice proffered the card.

‘Do you know? Does this old woman? Does he?’

Carla stared at the lost, bewildered outcast, whose pity extended to all but his wretched self. Feelings she could not name overwhelmed her. She sobbed.

‘Amparo.’

‘Yes, love.’

‘And my child.’

‘Yes, love. And you and I, too.’

Carla let her heart speak and Alice took her hands in hers. Just as Carla feared that her sadness was too infinite and formless ever to end, a new contraction began, and she was almost grateful for its unfeeling progress. It was remorseless, dwarfing in power and duration all its predecessors. At last, this pang passed, too, and Carla blew her cheeks and looked at Alice and Alice winked, and Carla gave in to a grim smile. She wondered why she did not need to sit down, or lie on her back; her thigh bones throbbed; yet she kept her feet.

‘Don’t some call the Lunatic “the Fool”?’

‘Does he look like a Fool? You’re right, that is how most call him, these days. But how could some jester with bells who cuts capers for kings – a slave whose daily bread is dirt – know what the Lunatic knows? The madman has no master. A fool crawls at his master’s feet, and his pay is grubbing for table scraps with the dogs. How could such as he show us how to walk untainted through chaos and corruption and pain?’

Alice scoffed – that curl of purpled lips, which Carla had come to look forward to. She sighed and shrugged, forsaking anger for resignation and regret.

‘The Lunatic will be robbed of all he has, of all that is most precious, not to him, but us. And what is most precious is Nothing. He’ll be cast out from even his own rags, he’ll be forgotten and damned, and in place of his truth we’ll have bells. Lots of bells. But bells is popular and the long road to Nothing is not. It’s no more than they’ve done to Jesus and plenty more. In the end, they’ll take it all. But your pardon, the question was fair.’

‘What was your question, that you had Death speak it for you?’

‘It was a question fit only for an old woman to ask.’

‘Thank you for telling me something of its answer.’

Alice gathered up the four cards and turned them face-down and slotted them back into the deck amongst the others. And they were gone. The void left by their going was so strong that Carla was shocked to find how real their presence had been.

Alice handed her the deck. Carla hesitated.

‘I don’t know enough about them.’

‘If you don’t want to ask, this woman won’t mind.’

‘Alice, I don’t even know what to ask. I don’t know how to.’

‘Let your card do the asking.’

‘But which card?’

‘You’ll know it when you see it. It’s there, waiting, in the twenty-two. The right card for this here and this now. At another moment, another card, or the same card in some other aspect. Don’t worry, don’t think, don’t dwell, don’t compare. I’ll tell you their names so you don’t have to wonder. Just look. And when you choose, choose quickly.’

Carla accepted the deck and shuffled them face down. The sizes of the cards varied, and by the patterns on their backs they had come from at least four different decks; whether by necessity or design she didn’t ask.

‘You can mix them proper for the reading.’

Carla realised the shuffle wasn’t required. She turned up the first card.

Alice said: ‘Love.’

Carla blinked. She hadn’t expected so powerful a subject to leap out. The image showed a blindfolded Cupid above a wedding couple. But it belonged to some other time and place, not this. She put it face down on the table and turned again.

‘The Wheel of Fortune.’

Carla discarded it and turned up a grim, battlemented tower.

‘The Fire.’

‘The Juggler.’

‘The Emperor.’

‘The Moon.’

‘The Star.’

‘The Devil.’

‘The Traitor.’

‘Strength.’

A woman closing the mouth of a lion. Carla paused. She discarded.

‘The Sun.’

‘The Chariot.’

Carla turned again and knew she had found her quester. A woman in a blood-red gown stood on top of a green circle, which floated on a mass of blue clouds. Inside the circle were mountains and on the mountains fortified towns. She held a sceptre and a golden globe, and behind her head was a scalloped silver halo. The woman’s balance seemed precarious, as if the earth, which Carla took the circle to be, were turning beneath her feet; but she hadn’t fallen off. Not yet.

‘This is the card. I chose a red dress to wear when I met Mattias. The circle is a kind of womb. And she certainly has a good view.’ She showed Alice. ‘Who is she?’

‘She is
Anima Mundi
. The Soul of the World. A bold choice.’

Carla heard note of warning; but the day had forced such choices.

‘Hold your question in your mind and mix the cards as I did. When they get heavy, stop and let me gather them.’

Carla pooled the cards on the table and swirled them about. She closed her eyes to compose her question. Her mind swam with so many, but one theme dominated. Her baby. Orlandu. Mattias. Her family. Would they ever be reunited? Would Mattias ever hold their child in his arms? She let a vision of them all together form. Other figures, mere shapes, joined the family. Mattias had tears on his face, she hoped of happiness. She felt the cards drag on the wood and stopped mixing. Alice gathered the deck.

‘Cut with your left hand. We’ll see what
Anima Mundi
sees.’

Carla’s hand hovered over the deck as she felt a flutter of dread. Alice sat with her hands in her lap, her body slumped, her eyes on the Soul of World. She paid Carla no heed. Carla cut the cards. Alice took the remainder and drew the first card.

‘The Judgement, reversed.’

Carla watched Alice take in the elaborate image, its many figures. She seemed to have emptied her mind, as if waiting for words to arise from the void. At last Alice spoke.

‘Weighed in the balance and found wanting.’

She turned the card right way up and Carla, her dread rising, saw it clearly. Two angels, with green wings and crimson tunics, hung from the clouds and blew on silver trumpets. Below them, seven naked men and women clambered from the vaults of a red tomb. Some threw up their arms in joy; others covered their nakedness in guilt or doubt. Carla bit her tongue, not daring to break the mood. The card told her at least one thing she already knew: she should never have come to Paris. Yet if she hadn’t, she would not be here with Alice, and here was the only place she wanted to be.