Northern Satan

I was dreaming about Constantinople.  Not modern Istanbul.  Old Constantinople.  The shining fortress.  That splendid, mysterious, ancient city beside the Sea of Marmora.  How can I explain the fascination that place held for me?  In real life, I had yet to set foot on Turkish soil.  My knowledge of Byzantium was derived from the same source as all of my life's experiences.  Vicariously.  From books.  Lonely hours spent with armchair travelogs, outdated encyclopedias, and old National Geographics.  But now I was asleep.  And although I was widely pitied and despised for a waking existence that appeared to others dull beyond description, my dreams were always vivid and real, and often very pleasant.  I might have smiled in my sleep, for I had dreamed this dream before.
         Beyond the squalor, the filth, the buzzing flies, the unpleasant odors of that half Oriental, half European metropolis, was a strange and alluring beauty.  A radiance.  An exquisite clarity to which my senses were alive.  Sunshine poured down on me like a warm bath.  I smelled the pungent perfume of ripe oranges and could almost taste the fruity sweetness.  And above my head loomed the skyline, a stained glass celestial city of minarets and domes and church spires.  What a weird and wonderful place.  The streets were translucent, like glass, and  glowed with their own inner light.  Even the people had a dreamscape look, soulful and luminous and cartoonish, like characters from a Ruthenian icon.
         Swept along by a human swarm, I moved through labyrinthian bazaars, where careless shoulders rubbed against mine, where a babble of unfamiliar languages hummed in my ears.  The sound was like exotic music.  And underlying the clamor of voices, I heard a monotonous jingling noise, sharp and metallic and almost like wind chimes though far less restive.
        The air hung thick with smoke.  Incense, perhaps.  Or even opium or hashish.  In my waking hours I was somber and law abiding.  Here, I cast a desirous eye upon substances that, although their possession was forbidden and punishable by death, were trafficked freely in the market square.  The trade in laudanum (that anaesthesizing liquid favored by heroines of historical novels and with which I was thus familiar) appeared to drive the economy of the city.  So much gold and so much narcotic changed hands that the atmosphere felt charged with an electric sense of danger.
         I sensed that something was following me.  I turned my head and looked back into the crowd several times.  A shadowy figure, neither male nor female, nor human, appeared to scurry out of my line of vision every time I did so.
         A voice whispered to me in a bored, ironic tone, "It is the northern Satan", but I paid no attention.  Northern Satan?  An oxymoron, I should think.
         In real life, I was short on money.  Always.  Often I spent myself down, on mere necessities, to the last penny in the pocket of my jeans.  Here, I carried a velvet purse heavy with gold coins and I could buy any extravagant thing I wanted.  Shops along the narrow streets offered curious and amazing merchandise:  bolts of silk in poppy shades, caged birds, articulated toys fashioned out of precious metals, strands of iridescent pearls, smooth to the touch, glittering cut stones in colors of blood and sulfur, and those ubiquitous blue beads meant to ward off the Evil Eye.
         I walked past all this archaic opulence with barely a glance.
         I must admit, I was in the thralls of an insatiable craving, and it was a scent, aromatic and reeking (and altogether pleasant) that drew me into that side alley where fruit vendors offered their wares for sale.  What a spectacular display that was!  The wagons with their brilliantly striped awnings and red painted wheels formed a circle,  Flying banners enhanced the festive atmosphere.  The fruit was heaped into pyramids, of candy-striped apples, green velvet melons, and  purple bananas misty with bloom.  Each piece, glistening and sweating sweet liquid, was plump and juicy, inviting my touch.  And yet I knew I must not touch.  The merchants, handsome, treacherous fellows, wore their wicked-looking swords unsheathed, a warning to even the ragged, light-footed beggar boys that the penalty for stealing a common orange was the loss of a hand.  A dozen mangoes cost both hands and an eye.  In Constantinople, justice was swift.
          There, by the fruit stand, I saw him for the first time.  He was striding toward me out of nowhere, with the grace and bounding insouciance of a male stripper.  He smiled briefly.  "The man from my secret fantasy life", I exclaimed, though grudgingly, for he was attractive but not my type.  For one thing, he wore vestments, perhaps those of a Moslem cleric or an Orthodox priest.  (How little I knew of such matters).  When he linked his arm through mine and we moved back onto the avenue, I could see the blinding white fabric from the corner of my eye, and I felt a light caress as his garment brushed against my leg.  "How fortunate I am", I thought, "to be seen in public with this well-favored fellow".  But after he had taken charge of me, I could sense that his attention turned elsewhere.  
         My mouth was dry.  "Stop" I begged.  "I must drink or I cannot go on".  We had left behind the fruit merchants, those purveyors of bizarre oddities from my dream world, and  with an agonizing longing I contemplated the fruit, almost tasting the melting honey sweetness of crisp wet flesh on my tongue.  "Stop", I cried, for my thirst was great.
         My companion and I did not stop.  He seemed, in fact, in a great hurry and he was pulling me along at a very swift pace.  I looked back.  Soon I was breathless and exhausted.
         We arrived at a river that churned swiftly under a ruined bridge.  On the opposite bank, a glorious, gold-domed temple loomed against the heavens.  I wanted to explore the cool depths of that windowless edifice.  I said so.
         "Impossible", stated my companion, in his cool, remote way.  "Only the holy are allowed to enter the dwelling place of God".
    "What superstitious nonsense", I murmured to myself, hardly surprised at all.  He was, after all, an ecclesiastic, a pulpiteer, a sermonizer, a reverend.  His fingers against my elbow sent a sharp thrill shooting through my arm.  I could see myself, as if in a mirror,  I wore an ankle length gown, blue and vaguely Victorian.  I was tall, but he was taller.  My spun-gold hair blew against his sleeve.  As we stood there on the precipice of that black and angry river, I felt an unfamiliar apprehension, and moved closer to him for protection.
    Still, he remained indifferent.
    In his hands he held a strange book, a thick, worn, volume filled with ancient stories, which he opened and from which he read in a voice resonant with conviction. "There is a road to the long mountain called Domen, where is found the entrance to the abode of the  Evil One."  
       Oh, I would have railed against such foolishness, and mocked him, but my fascination with his words, with him, silenced me.
         "There in the valley between Kiberg and Vardø  lies the kingdom of the antichrist", he continued.  "There, at the bottom of a dark lake, fire spews out of an iron pipe.   The fat of a sinner held in the water is cooked in the twinkling of an eye".
         What a disturbing tale!  Somewhere beyond his left shoulder, a strong draft shattered the Mediterranean heat.  I could feel myself wince, as though a nerve had been touched.
         He continued.  "Beware, men and women  lie in that water, screeching like cats.  Beware, girls who have lived less than eleven summers may come to burn there in compensation for their services to the devil".
        "Nonsense!" I repeated, anger rising in me like the moan and rumble of the approaching gale.
       "I am not speaking of legend and myth", he read.  "Norway is a detestable nation where many are renowned for their sorcery and witchcraft.  From the north. the polar people unleash their natural powers and send misery upon all of Europe.  Shuddering and rheumatic infections follow in the wake of the work of the Laplander witches.  And behind their mighty disturbance, full of wrath and hate, is the northern Satan".    
    The sky had darkened to a deep turquoise, the color that diffuses the heavens before a summer storm.  The golden dome was a rich jewel against its odd cerulean vividness.   My holy man closed his book and turned toward me, tentatively, like a question.  There!  Finally!  I had his attention.  His was not a lover's attention by any means but  was better than nothing. The hood of his exotic, richly embroidered garment fell back.  I stood inches away from his liquid black eyes, from the scintillant olive of his complexion, deepening to copper where the skin stretched over his cheekbones.  I took a deep breath of astonishment.  Had I ever stood this close to him before?
    I thought he might touch me.  Hoped he might.  I had never before felt such a longing.  I willed his hands to rise up to my shoulders, his fingers, powerful, slender and gentle, to knead the chords of my neck, easing the painful tension in my head.  That same jingling sound, icy and atonal, grew ever more insistent.  My nerves were a-quiver with that rare, electric sensation.
    Then everything all happened at once.  In a  swift, menacing gesture, he held up to my face an object I couldn't make out at first, blinded as I was by its foil-like brilliance.  The pendant dangled on a chain in front of my eyes, swinging to and fro, making with each  arc a clang, a glassy, vivid bell sound.  When my vision focused, I saw  the key.  A remarkable relic, ancient and well-made, according to the craftsmanship of earlier times, and of pure silver.  An artifact massive and ornate and not of my world  but rather of Constantinople.
    What would happen next?
    As I stood there, frozen in anticipation of his touch, a bolt of lightning descended and lit up the sky like a Polaroid flash.  Thunder ripped the air.  The golden  dome cracked, its symmetry marred by a scar, ugly and jagged, from which smoke poured out like blood from a wound.  The temple was on fire, immersed in a shimmering, dancing orange luminescence.  The sight was  terrifying and glorious.  When I tried to run toward the flames, a powerful hand, and I did not think it was human, held me back.  A voice boomed down at me, "Marit, stay away.  That is not your house!"