usually said. She had on the same protective suit, sans oxygen tank, except hers fit better, of course. “We can drive there,” she said. “We don’t need camels. You ladies should keep up with some of our modern conveniences.”
“A car won’t survive the drive,” one nun said.
“The camels barely do,” another said.
“Once you cross the line,” the third said, “nothing survives, not for long. No human, no plant, no infection. Until she reaches the room.”
“She will not need the suit.”
“No one can accompany her. Only seekers live.”
“The camels might return.”
“If they’re fortunate.”
“If the princess smiles upon their fate.”
While my mother interjected, “No, this won’t do,” “You must be completely mad,” “This is insane,” and, “Can she at least take the pate de campagne with her,” the nuns explained what I must do: how to reach the room, how not to disturb the sleeper, how to look for possible signs that I was cured, how to parcel out the three loaves of bread and three eggs, and, most important, how to make sure that I had enough energy for the perilous return trip.
Hungry. I was hungry. My belly twisted and spasmed, my stomach grumbled and growled, and at least once every hour, a mewl escaped my lips.
Yet dare I touch the last egg? I dared not.
On the cherry-colored night table, the last boiled egg and loaf of bread lay next to the clay water pitcher, the loaf as fresh as the day I walked into the chamber. As for the egg, as long as it rested next to the princess, rot it would not. The sleeping beauty exuded much power, much goodness. Peace and tranquillity seeped from her every pore, health and well-being resided in her domain. I’d never been more hale, or more hungry. I hadn’t needed my suit or tank since I arrived. In the beginning I felt liberated and unshackled. Without the bubble, my breath was light. I was even able to pinch myself. But I definitely needed food.
My gaze returned to the egg, and my stomach whimpered.
Upon first discovering the sleeping princess, the nuns, wanting her curative powers close at hand, attempted to bring her to the convent, but were unable to lift her. Indeed, a cluster of cloistered virgins could not move a single pebble out of the room.
Frankly, I could understand her position.
Since the mountain would not come, the nuns chose to erect a cloister next to the castle, but building was halted mid-brick, plans dropped, once they understood that for three leagues around, nothing outside of the healing chamber survived. Life flourished within, death without — a reverse Disneyland. (Please! You know it’s true.) In a small room in the tower the beauty slept and breathed, while everything else in the palace, everyone else, breathed no more. Carcasses of her family, skeletons of nobles and attendants, of servants and slaves, of pets and parasites littered the crumbling castle. I stepped over many a pile of bones when I ascended the stairs. Terribly unpleasant.
Wild forest turned to desert precisely three leagues from the room. The transformation was immediate and striking: before an invisible line, forest; desert after. No creature, no plant, crossed. I noticed not a single living thing after I passed the boundary, not till I reached the princess lying on her altar of a bed in the middle of the chamber. Inside the room, the princess wore the healing if slightly off-putting color forest green. Outside, what was once a lush garden had atrophied. Man-made lines delineated arid squares. Outsized trunks and gnarled roots, sculptures created by an insane or indifferent artist, were all that remained of the once-great oaks, the beeches, birches, and lindens. Desert dust invaded every nook in the castle, except for the sleeper’s pristine chamber, where no mote dared enter.
And I was so hungry. The perfectly shaped egg called to me. The perfectly shaped egg knew my name. “Don’t I look sumptuous and luscious?” it said. “Come eat me. Devour me as you did my sisters.”
Devour her sisters I had. I was supposed to wait before eating the first egg and its accompanying loaf, then wait some more for the second. The third should be consumed toward the end because of the rigors of the return trip. I didn’t wait. I was hungry. I was weak. Can you blame me? The minute I walked into the room, I was hungry as never before.
One egg left, one loaf, and an awful journey back. How was I going to withstand it? I would die, obscure and nameless, in a strange land far from home. Since it was unlikely that I would survive, should I eat the egg and sate my hunger sooner rather than later? A morsel? A tiny bite?
I needed distraction. A ritual of ennui, that was what this was, a rite of tedium. No magazines, no television, nothing. Through the window, I saw the same view I had seen every day, desiccated land to the thin horizon, overwhelming and barren — and boring, boring, boring. Even the plastic bubble was better than this.
I prayed for a flood, torrents and storms, but would have settled for a drop of rain, a drip of variance.
The sleeper’s slow and steady breathing was the only sound to be heard, never varying, never ending. The whole chamber smelled of her. It was the first thing I noticed when I walked in, the scent of summer flowers, jasmine and lilac, of summer days, never varying, never ending. Before boredom set in, I endeavored to discover where the scent emanated from, what part of her body. My nose reconnoitered all of her: her clothes, her hair, her mouth, her arms, her feet. I even examined under her skirt — still smooth there. The puberty fairy hadn’t yet struck her either. The scent was all of her. She never needed to be bathed, her hair never needed combing or untangling. She was pristine in slumber, perfection in human form. Before I grew so weak, I could not stop myself from touching her skin — its smoothness, its suppleness, seduced me.
I prayed for a blemish. If only to ameliorate the tedium.
And my prayer was answered.
I felt a little flutter on the back of my left wrist, slightly below the sleeve of my shirt. Instinctively, as if I’d been doing it all my life, my right hand smacked my wrist. The sound of the slap echoed and reverberated in the sacred room. I removed my hand to see what was underneath. On the back of my wrist, the remnants of a mosquito and our blood, a minuscule cave painting in brown and red.
Where had it come from? How could it have invaded her space? Nothing had ever disturbed this room. I forced myself to stand. I had to examine the princess’s skin. Could she have been bitten too? Would I be punished if the princess was harmed on my watch — harmed by a mosquito bite? Would that mosquito live for years or centuries instead of days?
I felt dizzy as I stood, queasy. A faint sour smell tortured my nostrils. It was a delicate and wispy odor, and yet stark. Led by my nose, I discovered that the princess was the source, but I couldn’t pinpoint where precisely. I heard a feeble flicker of a sound on the windowpane. A butterfly, yellow spotted with red, fought the glass trying to break into the room. I walked over to let her in — a butterfly in the room, how remarkable! In an instant, a loud thump: a bird, probably a starling, had flown into the glass and fallen, disappearing from view. The frightened butterfly followed suit. I opened the window to see where the bird landed, if it was still alive. I couldn’t differentiate anything on the desert floor so far below.
The breeze was fresh, no longer broiling and stifling. Spring in the desert inferno?
I allowed myself to enjoy the unsullied air tickling my face. This was so new to me. I leaned on the windowsill and remembered all the languorous hours I’d spend staring out the plastic window. I considered opening all four windows in the tower to ventilate the chamber.
Another butterfly, deeper yellow, redder spots, came in through the chamber window. The sky looked different, then not. Was it changing color? I looked to the horizon. Nothing. I stared, and distinctions began to materialize, as when shapes slowly reveal themselves after your eyes adjust to darkness. Clouds were forming in the distance — in the great distance, but moving rather rapidly. Everything was. In the great distance, I could just make out the shape of a human approaching, a female form leaning on a staff. An awkward gait, an aged walk, it was an older woman, probably as old as Mother, older even. She had wild hair, not a hat, not a habit — wild white hair like a halo about her head. The crazy crone moved gingerly, but not slowly at all.
My heart beat faster, thumped harder within my ribs, my mouth as dry as the desert outside.
But then, was it dry outside?
The air felt moist.
What was happening?
