THE INFERNAL VIRGIN

I. Babylon

By the waters of Babylon/ he sat down and wept/ as he remembered his crimes/ They stained the waters red/and all the poplars/ whispered with dark thoughts/ They spoke against him/ to the jury of the night/ The moon was ghostly/ swimming in her blood/ Unhappy is the one/ who feeds upon her face/ and in his drunken rage/ dashes her head against the rocks.

II. Prison Cell

GUARD:
Let us hear the confession of an old man in hell.

HUSBAND:
My wife! Won’t you lift that bridal veil? I am lost. I am drunk. I am glutted with dark blood. Have mercy, please. I need to see your face. Only your pure tears can wash away my crimes.

WIFE:
I have cried too much. My eyes are swollen red. Twenty years I’ve aged, in the space of these few months. I cannot cure you, haggard man in prison blues. I’m just a husk of dried-up flesh. I cannot unspill the blood of that virgin.

HUSBAND:
I was born to be your slave. I did not mean to let her take me the other way. Down to her hell, a tight red pit, she drew me. She was a demon, no pure wraith. Not like you, my ghost, sitting there in your white gown.

WIFE:
We were wedded long ago. I am almost a widow now.

HUSBAND:
Then mourn me. My tears are worthless, and I am afraid! She waits for me below. I feel her clutch, red nails on my white soul. Her mouth is red. It stretches tight across her teeth. She hisses at me. A little snake! That’s the way she sounded when I slipped it in—

WIFE:
They say she was a child.

HUSBAND:
She was the devil’s spawn. Her delicate, mysterious ways enchanted me. I forgot everything—my life, my laws—in order to follow her. I had to follow her. Please understand, I had no choice. It didn’t matter where. The river lapped. I heard nothing but my blood, her walk.

WIFE:
She didn’t want it. They say she fought.

HUSBAND:
It was nothing to do with want. She was a demon, and I a man possessed. Her hisses, her scratches—they were all part of her devilry. I held her down. She flashed her tongue and laughed at me. It happened by the river. The rocks were hard. I was too.

WIFE:
You were always so tender with me.

HUSBAND:
We were wedded long ago. You were my bride and I your groom. You threw off your veil—

WIFE:
It landed on the carpet of the hotel room.

HUSBAND:
I was a virgin too. I could not help being tender. Did you really wish it otherwise?

WIFE:
It doesn’t matter now.

HUSBAND:
Take off your veil. I want to see your eyes.

WIFE:
They are red like her mouth, like the pit of hell she drew you into. I am done with tears. I cannot wash away her blood or your sins.

HUSBAND:
You cried with me that night, when I came home from the river. You sat up in bed. I was stretched across your lap like the pietà.

WIFE:
You looked like Christ. I stroked your beard and washed your wounds. And yet, the smell of her—it was so strong. I couldn’t rid you of it. I envied her.

HUSBAND:
She smelt like a devil, like a hell-sent whore.

WIFE:
I wanted her stench. I wanted to be wanted so badly I bled. I wanted to drive you to madness. I wanted you to snap my throat like a reed. I didn’t want a crying man in my lap, or to be your lady of mercy. How did it come to this?

HUSBAND:
Help me, you are good. Please, help me. Can’t you see she wants my soul?

WIFE:
I saw her photo in the paper. She wore black braids, red ribbons. She had a name—

HUSBAND:
Don’t say it. Just the sound of it is torture. Sibilance and a dark pool of blood.

WIFE:
Isabel.

HUSBAND:
I am wincing. I see her head spilling into the river, and those black eyes glistening. She still seemed to watch me. How could she not be a demon?

WIFE:
She was everything. I want her blood. I want her skin.

HUSBAND:
Lift your veil, I beg you! The psychopomp is coming. He’ll take my soul down to her.

WIFE:
My eyes are red and I am weary.

GUARD:
Your time is up. The chair is ready.

HUSBAND:
I’m to be fried to death. White widow, weep for me!

III. Red River

The white widow steps into the red river and bathes herself in virgins’ blood.

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