The Queen of England — III

A Dream Within A Dream

I didn't leave the room until she went to sleep. How remarkable it was. How blissfully overwhelming it came to be. My mind was on fire and suddenly it felt good to be alive. It felt as though it had when I was a kid going to the movies, enthralled in the matinee as Dracula bit his victim as my hands shoveled popcorn to my mouth. There I was with buttery fingers as Larry Talbot morphed into the Wolfman in the glow of a full moon. It was the first day of summer vacation when I was a boy all over again. A trip to the swimming pool on a blazing hot day. That first cannonball into the cool water. Smashing a double to the left centerfield gap in Little League. The electric feeling that coursed through my veins and heart could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was. What I would not dare say for the obligatory waiting period that tells me I mustn't.

Yet, how naive I felt. How boyish when I examined those feelings, ashamed of them in some way. I felt I was a long way from being a man, much less than being a doctor. I felt as a duplicitous imposter. I was impressionable and I allowed feelings to trump the purpose of my being here. To satisfy the conditions of my residency and to hopefully discover some proof of paranormal activity which would lead to a lucrative career of ghost hunting and relative fame. But how quickly that aspiration was crumbling.

All that ceased suddenty to exist. I learned that Elizabeth requested and received warm milk in a saucer. I also learned she lapped it up like a cat. I learned they were giving her medication to sleep. Significant medication. Abel was pleased I had made contact and I kept him abreast of the latest developments with her, though I felt as though I betrayed her in some way when I disclosed anything at all. I felt our conversations ought to be kept confidential. I didn't divulge the entirety of our words, but I kept accurate journals, and as I wrote in them after leaving the room for the night, I felt fulfilled in some way. It was a sort of satisfaction that I hadn't felt in a very long time, if ever at all.

But none of those childhood reveries eclipsed the feeling of speaking to her, or of holding her hand in mine. It was such a simple thing. And everytime I took her hand it made me think of one of the many crests on my father's Oddfellow objects that was about the house as a kid. And my father ebbed and flowed from my memory like some old piece of driftwood upon the tide.

I spent less and less time at my boarding room with the Widow Marple and more time with Elizabeth. I didn't want to be anywhere else. Abel hinted that he felt I was spending too much time with her and asked if I got her name. I replied I hadn't without telling him that I hadn't even asked for fear that it might disrupt our strange affair, dare I say romance. To me she was Elizabeth and I didn't want her to be anyone else. We had a sort of kinship. A bond that comes from being mentally tormented and repressed.

For weeks we shared our hands. She would give me hers and I would caress and hold it and then I would give her mine. She said it was as though we were in the Tower again, only there we had greater liberty. There was no wall between us. I assumed she meant the Tower of London and I agreed, but it befuddled me. She spoke of our children which confused me more. I didn't know that Queen Elizabeth ever bore a child, but I figured it was simply the manifestation of a delusion. A delusion within a delusion. Or the festering fissure of a broken mind.
 
"We ought to escape from here. Find passage back to England. I buried something in Hamstead. Something we can use."

"What is it?" I whispered through the hole. Enthusiastic as a child.

"It's better left a surprise," she countered. "I'm of the belief that some things ought to remain a mystery, left to the imagination, or else there will be nothing to wonder about."

"Like how you came to be here?"

She sighed. "I came to be here because you would be here. And so, I was yet again, a lady in waiting."

"What is your name?"

"Elizabeth."

"But in this life," I countered.

She exhaled and I could hear her hands slide down the wall. I hoped not in disappointment or anger. I hoped that she wasn't resigning herself from me. She was quiet for a moment or two and I feared that she would shut down altogether. That I would become an intruder to her. That she would not confess to that I sought to know. I was suddenly the inquirer once more. I looked into the hole for any part of her, hoping she hadn't removed herself. But her mouth appeared, to my relief, and I thought she would confess to that which I previously believed she must have entirely dissociated herself with due to some trauma. I was a doctor once more and no longer a boy at the movies.

"The body is merely a vessel. This life is but a dream within a dream. I am Elizabeth," she confessed. "I've never been anyone other, and I will never be anyone again."

"But how did you come to be in this life?"

"I was born to this world of wolves. There is nothing further and nothing else of consequence than me being here."

I knew I mustn't ask any more of her. At least, I feared doing so for the repercussion of her shutting down. There was nothing I feared more than that. Nothing in this life. No amount of failing. Not drowning on mundanity. There seemed to be no dragon or demon scarier than Elizabeth declining to give me her hand or her words and thus not feel the hope that her hand brought me. I was in sad shape so dependent upon her for everything. How she became like such a drug to me. I, the hopeless addict, who could not get enough. Then she turned it around on me in my hesitation.

"And who are you in this life? Assuming that you are not born of wolves."

I thought to spin some wild lie. To pretend be born of mud or of the dirt. To say that I had crawled out of the water just to find her. It is amazing how many possibilities and thoughts present themselves in an instant, only to be shot down by reason and rational thought and fear and love. I made a swift decision not to lie. Not to stain our perfect union.

"Charles Swan. In this life, of course."

"And how did you come to be here, Charles Swan?" she asked before I could ask her again once more for her name. She was curious but more so than curious she was deliberate like someone bent upon proving a point or convicting a man at trial.

It was the moment I feared suddenly thrust upon me. The moment in which I would have to lie to her. If I didn't lie to her, she might think less of me. For tricking her into divulging all that she has over the past month. Lord, I prayed an expedited prayer. Forgive me. But the Lord didn't permit me to lie. Instead, when my mouth began to speak, it spoke against my better judgment. It spoke the truth.

"Well, I'm a student. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania last month. I am a doctor, Elizabeth. I am here to complete my residency and I am here to speak to you. To get you to tell us who you are and to see if I can better understand you so to help you. How did you come to be here?"

She withdrew her arm from the hole. A devastating move. And although I was proud that I didn't lie, I immediately suffered because of it. It would have been easy to lie. To pretend I was someone other than myself as I had, in fact, been doing all along. But if the consequence for that truth was that I lost her, then I must forgive it to providence and endure. I feared I lost her for a brief moment.

"Elizabeth," I plead. "Elizabeth!"

"Do you believe that, Dr. Swan?" she questioned to my relief. "That you are here for that reason? Or rather, like me, it is by fate and that we were predestined to meet again?"

"I thought so. Until we spoke. And now I am to believe more significantly in the latter."

"And you're prepared to forsake your existence as Dr. Charles Swan for that of your former self, Sir Walter Raleigh?"

"I am so inclined on the basis that I adore you enough to forsake anything for you. I would deny I have eyes, or a brain, or a body if it was necessary to be closer to you. All without once seeing your face. Yet, I wonder how one life in a hundred, or a thousand, must so predominate the rest? Why can't this life be equal to that one or greater and enjoyed for its own significance. Or all those in between or before — assuming that we have lived others across such a span of time."

She was quiet for a moment. Contemplative, perhaps. "That you have. Perhaps, even, many others. But we were only together in one, and I was only given one. After 300 years, I am simply here to find you. My spirit was lost in time. Blowing in the wind, you could say. But now, so clearly, I am found in that I have found you."

"Two," I corrected her. "This life makes two."

"Two for you. But one for me."

"One in a half then we can agree," I joked.

"My soul searched for yours, Walter. You must allow me to call you Walter. Will you, darling?"

"I've no objection to it."

"We must get out of here! Realize our unrealized life. Continue the great romance cut short by your beheading."

"But how were you born into this life?" I pressed. What strange words we traded.

She was silent for a moment. 

"Please," I implored.

"You are not believing that which I say. Do you believe I am mistaken, or crazed?" Her voice was sultry. She clearly enunciated her words and through the hole I watched her lips perfectly form each word to deliver them to my ear which waited impatiently. The assembly was quite remarkable. Actually watching someone speak. Watching their lips move over their teeth. Their tongue orchestrate language. I realized I'd never given the act such careful consideration.

"No! I do believe what you say. But how were you formed into the body you presently occupy?"

She was again silent. Perhaps, intentionally stalling.

"Please, darling," I begged once more 

"Marie Laveau. That is the name they gave me. My — parents. My father teaches French at the University of Virginia and my mother teaches ballet. They fled France before the Nazis invaded and whisked me away. Fated, as it was. So to find you, of course. Born to this life as a Jew. I left them in Virginia and walked away. I walked all the way here for a reason not known to me until I heard you say my name. Perhaps, I knew you'd come. But no one can be so sure of anything until it cannot be denied."

I wrote down the name immediately. Spelling the last as I thought it would be spelled. I had no idea if I was accurate, or maybe I had misheard and it was wrong altogether but it mattered very little to me. It was something to give to Abel. It was progress and would further justify my presence. I didn't ask for more. I was afraid of breaking her, so to speak. It was as though she were very fragile and I held her in the palm of my hand like a broken bird. I waited there holding her hand until she fell asleep.

The next day I didn't come in until later in the afternoon. I went to the Widow Marples and read a book about Sir Walter Raleigh until dawn on the front porch swing and slept through the afternoon. A stray cat came to me as I rocked on the porch and brushed against my leg. It was black and white and vocal, often purring and seemingly imploring me for milk until I finally relented and offered it a saucer. The cat reminded me of Elizabeth for a reason I do not know. Maybe because of how I heard she drank her milk, or maybe it was the way it softly implored me. I could imagine myself so very helpless without her and it concerned me that I felt so strongly for her. And she for me.

Elizabeth had mentioned having children and being placed in the Tower of London. She had also made the comment about being a "lady-in-waiting." In my reading, I discovered that Sir Walter Raleigh had married an Elizabeth. Elizabeth Throckmorton, who was a lady-in-waiting in the court of Queen Elizabeth. They had married without her majesty's permission, which infuriated the jealous queen, and as a consequence they were imprisoned briefly in The Tower of London. And so I knew she wasn't the Queen of England at all. Rather, she was a lady in the Queen's Court, which certainly changed the grandeur of her delusion.

I gave Abel her name. I wrote it on a piece of paper and handed it to him. It was the only thing on the paper and he unfolded and read it. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his sullen face. Then he looked at the name again and said it sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. He said he would do some looking into it and I nodded and asked him for the key to her room. I was carrying a bag and he looked at the bag and looked at me and shook his head in approval, albeit with some obvious skepticism.

"Good job," he said before I left his office. "But be careful. Remember, she has killed a man."

"No. She killed a beast."

He nodded again and I left him with her given name in his hands. I wondered what would come of it. Her parents must be searching for her, I thought. She couldn't have been more than 18. I wondered if she graduated high school. I was drowning I my thoughts of her.

I stood at her door for a moment before unlocking it. The key was suddenly not just a key. Not just a cold piece of metal. It was something far more valuable. It was a ticket. And the door was not a door, rather it was a portal. I wondered what she would look like when I opened it. How she would receive me. What she would think of me. And if the clothes I bought for her would fit. In fairness, I had only her hand and mouth to base my judgment upon. I imagined her as quite petite. Frail, even. I stood there like an idiot. As orderlies walked behind me. A nurse or two, curious probably as to why I stood there looking so intently at her closed door. A custodian pushed a bucket along as he mopped the hall, the wheels whined in protestation to their labor.

I fixed my hair, hoping I looked presentable enough. I foolishly regretted not bringing flowers. Then I bit my lip and slid the key into the latch and turned it. I exhaled as it clicked knowing it could not be undone. It was the most resolute clck I've ever heard. When it unlatched, I knocked before I opened the door.

There are such things as grand moments in life that are unparalleled by any other. The first time you walk into a school building as a kid, lunch box in hand. The first time you see the ocean. Likely, though none of us remember, the first time we see our mother's face. These are the illustrations in the book of life that time renders and memory keeps forever on crisp gilded pages between the cover of birth and death. This was one such page for me. She was the most glorious page of all.

The moment I saw her, whatever doubt I had fled my soul and I stood there vulnerable as I was incapable of articulating a single word. I was retarded and asphyxiated and rapt and bent and enthralled to the point of faintness or hallucination. Partly unable to breathe. Partly unable to speak. Partly unable to comprehend. She was haloed by the dying sunlight from a large window which she partially darkened. The same window that was in my room neglected by me in favor of the hole that gave me her.

She was rather slender, petite in fact, which made her killing of her leviathan attacker all the more an impressive feat, and her eyes which I had seen separate, were much larger and oval-shaped then I had assumed. Like that of a deer. Her presence could be fairly characterized as doe-like even in how she stood. She had perfect lips, the bottom of which was pouty in its natural expression. She was the loveliest woman I had ever witnessed in person or even compared to those starlets I'd seen on the silver screen.

"Walter!" she exclaimed. "Oh, you must forgive my appearance. This institution doesn't have the budget for a proper salon, I'm told. And my wardrobe is drab in despair. And makeup, dear me," she said with her little hands over her face, "I haven't worn makeup since I knew you when. I haven't the appetite for such."

"Nor do you need it. And you would look lovely in a potato sack. I only regret that I don't have flowers to present. Or chocolate. I'm not accustomed to, well, this institution doesn't have a confectionary or a suitable flower and gift shop."

She giggled. It was easy to talk to her. The naturalness of her nature was without compare.

It was early evening, early fall, on a Friday. The sun to the west of the asylum set beyond what seemed to be an endless field of tall golden grass that was orange in color. It was the perfect evening. A slight breeze arose when it felt too warm and dissipated when it cooled. I had given Elizabeth some clothes when I unlocked her door. Three outfits to choose from with as many pairs of shoes. I stood outside as she dressed. And when she tapped on the door, I opened it, and there she stood in a beautiful yellow sun dress and black sneakers. Her russet-colored hair in a makeshift braid flowing to the side of her perfect face.

She never asked where we were going. I don't know if she assumed we would leave. I hadn't in mind what I intended to do other than to play a game with her. I brought baseball bats, three balls and a pair of gloves in a large bag. I also brought a picnic lunch and a large cannister of tea. She smiled so lovely. So subtly. Everything she did was done so with such grace that I couldn't help but to incessantly admire even the most basic of doings. The way she brushed her hair from her eyes. The way she bit her lip and blinked. The soft and deep inhalations. The rising and fall of the pale plain of her chest and her small breasts. Or how her green eyes caught the sunset like two perfect emeralds. Her eloquent words and the poetic way her mouth composed them. The very subtle imperfection of her teeth and the uniqueness of her character. I had never seen anyone comparable to her.

"This is baseball," I told her. "Are you familiar?"

"I've heard of it, in this life. Let's play!"

She displayed an ability to catch quite well. And to throw. She threw hard and several times she caught me off guard and I barely caught the ball before it hit my face, which made her laugh. And when she agreed to bat, I tossed her some soft tosses which she crushed like Mickey Mantle to the treeline at least 150 feet from where she stood. We retrieved the balls over and over, swiping the grass with our bats, but we lost two. And with the one that was left she said she preferred to keep it as a memento so we returned to our game of catch. And when the sunlight was dangerously close to snuffing out altogether, we picniced beneath a large willow tree which seemed like the most perfect place on earth.

It could have gone quite wonderfully. To say I hadn't thought that we would make love there beneath that willow would be a lie. And to say that I hadn't thought or rather wished that she shared in that desire would also be a lie. As imprudent and reckless as it was, as unethical even, that I in the capacity of her doctor would forsake my medical training and 10 years of college education to make love to her even just once, so it was. And so I would. 

She leaned back on her arms, tilted her head back to look up into the vines of that willow as though it were Heaven itself and I looked over to her and smiled.

"Why did you come here?" I asked.

"To wait for you," she replied still looking up.

"How did you know I would come?"

She sighed. "A dream within a dream."

I couldn't wait any longer. A doctor who sleeps with his patient is subject to have his license revoked by the medical board and forbidden to ever again practice. It is considered to be a grave impropriety if not a crime. But never has the medical board considered properly that moment and what transpires between two human people who are at the core something far more elemental and human than a pateint and a doctor. It is a black-and-white standard that seems egregious when thoroughly examined. The fact that medical doctors are permitted to and even heralded for lobotomizing patients, to intercourse the brain the way in which they do through the orbital socket, or punish in the name of treatment through electric-shock therapy, while making love is so grave a mispractice to warrant revocation is an indictment of the medical field itself. Or so I justified our first kiss there beneath that willow.

The first kiss is only an invitation to more. It seems to me that God gave his approval through butterflies and cool grass and a soft breeze and the opportunity He afforded us. She accepted the kiss and returned more forcefully her own the way she had vigoroisly thrown baseballs at my head. And I caught her lips and tongue in mine that wallowed together in this cave of our mouth. She tasted sweet, as I had expected she would. Her tongue and teeth stained with the strawberries we ate and the tea we drank. I bit her lip voraciously as she bit mine. Adverbs I try to avoid in my contemplation of the events, but I find them utterly unavoidable. She lay back into the lush grass and slid the straps of her dress off her shoulders leaving me to pull it the rest of the way off of her. I've heard advice that it is wise to be a patient lover, but I found no patience to be had.

I kissed her body and parted her legs with my face and devoured her. And all the while, when I looked up to her face I caught her gazing up into the long vines of that willow in such a way that it was as though she were looking at all the Heavens and God himself. When she pulled me up to her and kissed from my face that which was hers, she pulled me inside of her so I too could see that which she saw. That which she felt. And I squeezed into her so that we were no longer half of one soul as we had been for so long before, but one intact being that had for too long been without the other. There was such warmth inside of her, such peace and enlightenment. And I buried her naked back into that cool grass as I lifted her thighs and joined her until I could no longer hold myself from her. And she convulsed several times, soaked as she was, and relaxed as I relaxed finally deep into her. And as I held her, there beneath that willow, the clarity of what had been done came upon me. But I was purified of worry or doubt and the solemness and melancholy I had lived my life with was evaporated and I had not a morsel of concern for my medical license or any indictment of my character because I was so fully immersed in my love for this beautiful woman that nothing else mattered for this is to that which I am fated, long before I ever thought to become a doctor.

I wondered if someone might see the impression upon the grass where we made love. Perhaps mistake it for a doe bedding down. Or if anyone would ever picnic here. If someone might find the baseballs we lost in the treeline and realize the significance of them. Or if they would never give it any thought at all. I wondered what two lovers mean to a world. I wondered if I was dreaming.