Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home

I glanced at Beth; she sat with her eyes closed, enjoying but not questioning it. There was something absolutely and completely pagan about the proliferation of notes, not wild, but primitive. It was sinuous and serpentine, winding itself through the air and breeze, seductively mixing with the sough of the leaves and the grass, the rustle of corn leaves. It was strange. It was magical. It was, I suddenly realized, an experience-the kind of experience, perhaps, that the Widow had hinted at.

Sounds were added. I could detect a second flute, coming from another part of the field. There was the faint tympanic flutter of a tambourine with its fluted disks, and a delicate bell-like chime that made me think of the finger bells of Balinese dancers. A delightful, musical tinkle, whose charm rose in support of the winding flute. We were hearing the pipes of Pan, and at any moment across our lawn would troop horned and goat-legged creatures in the moonlight, satyrs at a wine festival. I tried to comprehend what was happening. This was no impromptu village concert, but a testament of some kind. Then I thought of the honey drink, the cask of mead. It was drugged. Sitting on my terrace, my wife beside me, I felt as if I were being transported, and if this was so, I was utterly willing for it to happen. If it was an experience, I willingly gave myself up to it, tried to open myself to it, as the old lady had suggested; tried to become part of it.

Then, as mysteriously, as magically as it had begun, it ended. The tremolo of the flutes intoned a last strain, then died; there was a brief tintinnabular clink of the tambourine, and a final sound, one I did not recognize, as if some sort of instrument of bones were being used, a tiny subsequence of clicking noises; then all became still again. I breathed deeply, and very softly, not to upset the delicate equilibrium that had balanced within me. I stole a look at Beth. At some time during the playing, our hands had parted, and hers had gone to her breast where it lay, pale and immobile, the fingers curled at the base of her throat. I waited for some movement, some kind of recognition, but she remained immobile, eyes closed, the trace of a smile on her lips, child-like. Was she asleep? Had she heard? Or had I imagined it? I looked up at her as she rose.

“Did-”

Leaning, she laid her fingertips across my lips. I glimpsed her eyes bright in the moonlight before the sweep of her hair fell across them; I knew the answer. I had not imagined it. I stood, moving close and putting my arms around her. She was still holding her glass, and she lifted it and drained off the contents. I watched the slender column of pale throat as the liquid went down, and I could taste the liquor on her lips as I kissed them. Never had she felt more desirable, never had I wanted her more. Yet, and I realized this fully, it was not merely desire, the loin lust we often joked about, but a profound, deep-seated craving to continue the experience on another, on a physical level.

“Let’s go to bed,” I whispered hoarsely. She made a little acquiescent sound in my ear, then stepped away from me, pressing me back in the chair.

“No?” I asked.

“Yes. In a little while. Come to me. I want to see to Kate, and then-”

“Mn?”

“I want to-be ready.” I saw the line of dark lashes as she dropped them. Getting ready was one of the little bits of modesty about her. She went away softly, as though not to break the spell. I picked up my glass again, and drank. I knew now why the cask had been brought, and why the Widow had cautioned not too early for bed. I knew tonight was meant to have a special significance, to evoke a particular awareness in Beth and myself, both separately and jointly.

And it was not over; I was certain there was to be more to the ‘experience.’

The night seemed to expand around me, to encompass and envelop me. The deeper colors of the chrysanthemums grew richer, more vibrant in the moonlight, like the colors in old tapestries. The coppery sheen of the beech leaves became brighter, hammered from precious metals. The sky pulsed and throbbed, evoking a low, touchable canopy, bejeweled, lighted by a globe I could at will reach up and extinguish. I was feeling a rush of intensity I did not understand, but did not care to; to have it was enough. I was aware; I was at one with my surroundings, with sky and earth and light and sound, with trees, flowers, corn, with all of nature.

Then it began, the rest of it.

I saw a figure. I did not move even a fraction as it appeared. I was right; the music had not been the end of it. It was a male figure, and I supposed it had come out of the cornfield, for it waited just at the edge, in a dark strip of soil between the meadow and the beginning of the corn. It stood enormously erect, wearing some kind of garments, though I could not perceive what they might be. I say the figure was enormous, for so it seemed, larger than any human I had ever seen. It took first one step, then another, and came into the full light of the moon.

It might have been a spirit of vegetation-I remember that the idiot trademark of the Jolly Green Giant immediately crossed my mind. Yet there was nothing humorous about it. It was deadly serious, earnest, real. In all its vividness and aliveness, it stood there, the embodiment of vigor and of growing; not demoniacal, but a benign spirit. Now I saw that the arms and legs were sheathed in tied-on bunches of straw, while the torso and lower quarters were girdled in corn leaves. A tight-fitting helmet-shaped cap of leaves covered the head, and the face itself was hidden behind a large straw mask. The expression formed by the angled eye slits, and that of the mouth, was again one of benevolence, the slightly vacant yet obtrusively concentrated expression of ancient Greek sculpture, a look at once bland yet enigmatic: the unknowable. The figure took the classic stance of contrapposto , the forward leg engaged, shoulders and hips in opposition. Thus it stood, nothing more-for the moment.

It was the figure from the corn quilt, of course. The Harvest Lord; but not a representation or facsimile. He brought his arms up very slowly, a gesture I found both equivocal and absolute: a wide, encompassing movement, as though within the curve of his arms lay revelation. With arms outstretched, he bowed, acknowledging me-a somewhat theatrical bow, I thought. I told myself it must be Justin Hooke, yet I was not sure. I looked for a glimpse of golden hair at the back of the neck, but could see none. He straightened again, and lowered one arm. With the other hand he made dumb gestures, pantomiming a flow of words from behind the mask. Then he turned slightly and another gesture indicated the raising of a curtain or drapery, behind which lay the cornfield, which he now indicated in a single wide sweeping arc. Then the arm came down, and he turned to his right.

My attention was drawn to where he looked, and I now saw another figure some distance away along the edge of the field. I had not seen this one appear, either; it was simply there. A female figure, hidden from top to toe under some sort of luminous veil. She remained immobile under the silvery shroud, facing me, then turned toward the male figure. I waited, wondering if they would approach each other simultaneously or if one would go to the other. Then I saw it was the woman who waited, the man who went, advancing to her slowly, ceremoniously, and simply. When he had got to within three or four feet of her, he lay down, couching himself in the short grass, one knee up, resting on one locked arm. For a moment neither moved; then the woman’s pale draperies parted and an arm appeared. In a slow gesture it revealed itself, the hand supple, graceful, the ringers relaxed, slightly bent, the forefinger extended. She leaned her shoulders slightly forward, and now the man raised his free arm and, with his pointing finger, awaited her touch. The space between the two fingers grew smaller, and as they closed I saw a quick flash, a single white sputter of light that leaped between them. It was the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s awakening of Adam, the divine spark given from Jehovah. But that was a fresco, this was real. The kinetic gift of the vital life force. The man got to his feet, bowed to the woman, to me, then returned to where he had originally appeared. I turned my eyes back to the figure under the veil. Her hand and arm had been withdrawn beneath the draperies again, the disguise assumed again.