Immersion, by J.S. Apsley
Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross was perhaps the most famous exhibit in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove museum. And for good reason, Jess Stanage thought. Foreboding, dream-like, it was an ominous presence in those marbled halls. Dali’s brushstrokes had imbued reverence with a dreadful awe. The painting hung high in a gloomy antechamber, so that one had to peer up to bask in it, as if to the heavens.
On the painting, the cross hung with its own void as backdrop; and He hung upon it. What was it that so enraptured her, with silent whispering tendrils? Christ? The void?
Both, perhaps.
Like most young girls, Jess had discovered it on a school day-trip. Whilst other kids wanted skeletons and swords, she only had eyes for the Dali; her grandfather had seen to this. When he learned of her trip, he produced his old bayonet, a relic from his service in the Second World War. “This blade has seen more death than those polished swords,” he had harrumphed. He described the Dali in florid tones, making it clear she should seek it out, above all else.
“Jess,” he imparted, “the power of that man’s creation cuts sharper than any blade.” No monstrous primordial skull or medieval spear had the mystery and power inherent in the Dali.
Jess’s grandfather was her world; the person she loved the most. More so than her own parents. No wonder then, aged ten, she circled it shining like a bright little planet around a black hole; whilst her classmates careered and capered, and fretful teachers chased.
As a teenager she would go back, time and time again, sometimes with grandfather and, after he passed and she grew into her lonely womanhood, on her own. She would immerse herself. She imagined she was in the fishing boat at the bottom, being lulled into the dark water. She imagined stepping out of that gently rocking boat, and bathing in the shallow water, with nothing but Christ above her, in His own black void, for company. He was guiding her, he was soothing her.
He was all she needed.
She thought of Christ on His cross at her parent’s church on wet Sunday mornings. She remembered every detail of the varnished wooden carving. The Lord’s hands and feet were nailed to that cross. His side was split, His face a transcendent grimace. He was bound, He was pained.
Not so with the Dali.
Dali’s Christ was bereft the artifices of man which had pinned Him to the cross. There were no nails through His hands; there were no nails through His feet. If there was a spear wound to His side, it was hidden, just as His face was by the angle of His bowed head. It was a blessed head, devoid of any man-made crown of thorns.
He floated, somehow below but upon the cross, but he was not of the cross. That dichotomy, she believed, was part of the genius of Dali’s work.
Dali’s Christ was a different Christ, no longer trapped by the avarice of man, and therefore all the closer to his Father.
On the anniversary of her grandfather’s death, Jess would make her pilgrimage. After studying the Dali for hours, she would sit on the red felt chairs, chewing sandwiches during the organ recital. Tuna and cucumber, or blue cheese with fresh sliced red onion. She had learned over long years that these choices encouraged people to respect her solitude.
The exception was an elderly museum guard, Bill. He had had fished with her grandfather in the River Kelvin when younger men. Bill was a lovely old gent with sunken cheeks and a crooked gait. He walked with his head at an odd angle, always facing up, and his face beamed with an ever-present wry smile. Bill was one of the few people Jess was comfortable with in adult life. Grandfather had said if you wanted to truly see Glasgow, you had to look up. Bill was always looking up. That, and she only had to speak to him once a year.
Her annual immersion continued over long years, interrupted only by illness, when the Dali was loaned out, and laterally, by lockdown. Those interferences aside, she had visited with her Dali, with her Christ, over four long decades.
It was a blissful escape from what had become the drudgery and emptiness of her life.
But then came the day that everything changed. Then came the day that Christ had, terrifyingly, lifted His weary head from the canvas and whispered His heavenly commands.
Jess had reached her early sixties.
She had hidden her adult life, one of the unseen who would clock in, clock out, soon to retire. She was not well-liked. She was too old for children; she had no siblings, and her only living family was her mother’s older sister, Aunt Agnes, who, though much older than her mother, had outlived her through pure spite.
Now she processed claims from people trying to sue the council. Fell down the stairs at the Mitchell Library? Send ‘em a D41. Car hit a pothole? Send ‘em a C12. Occasionally, she’d have to refer a case to a council solicitor, but her role was all pre-court. It was designed to be drawn out and stuffy. It suited her immensely. Over the years, she’d become the team leader. Jess was a personification of the process she now oversaw.
Her co-workers were like ants to her. They all lacked appreciation of God’s work. Not Jess. She had a special connection with God; she was special. Grandfather had understood. Old Bill, she thought, understood too.
It was so obvious. Her specialness was why Christ had chosen to speak with her, and to use such a wonderful painting to be her window upon His glory.
The year Christ first spoke to her had been like most others.
She had prepared her antisocial-sandwiches, and a flask of coffee. She had recently replaced the blue milk with oat, and her three teaspoons of sugar with Stevia, having finally relented to her GP’s warnings. She fought to pull on the only pair of jeans she had that fit her. Sweating, she heaved as she struggled to lace her white trainers. They squeaked on the floor of the art gallery, but she found them comfy for her swollen feet on the walk up the marble stairs, and cared not if the noise distracted other museum-goers.
Before heading to Christ of Saint John of the Cross, she waited impatiently for another museum goer to finish at Lowry’s VE Day, sitting on a folding-chair she carried on her visits. It was a chair for campers; Jess had never camped. A father was trying to stoke his daughter’s interest in the Lowry by pointing out the little dogs. The daughter was having none of it; she wanted to see the mummy. The father sighed, and moved on.
Jess stood up from her little seat, huffing as she did, and shuffled it forward so that she could plop herself in front of the Lowry. She didn’t like the skinny men and women with their long, willowy legs. Was anyone ever that skinny? Her attention was drawn to a figure at the bottom of the painting, hands in pockets, hat on head, cigarette in mouth. He looked like her grandfather.
She finished with the Lowry and made her way up the grand marble stairs. Her knees moaned and creaked in protest. They were carrying more weight than they used to. As she reached the top, a cheerful voice greeted her.
“Hullo, Jess. Good to see traditions being upheld.”
It was old Bill. He had watched her huff and puff and waddle. She was a far cry from the young girl who used to come so long ago. Mind you, he was hardly a spring chicken. He had managed to recover quite well from his stroke, thank you very much, but he now walked with a stick and a splint in his right shoe, making his gait even more ungainly.
Jess was out of breath. “Hi, Bill. How’s the leg?” she flustered.
“Full of the joys,” he said, hobbling slightly. “Yir grandfather wid be happy to see ye here, efter all these years. Enjoy yir visit wi’ the Dali.” He offered a wink.
Jess nodded, her face red with effort, and moved on. Bill watched her go. The smile drooped from his face like melting max, and he shook his head with a weariness that ached at his insides.
As she ambled towards the Dali, she found herself ablaze with anger. Anger towards herself, towards poor old Bill, towards her parents, towards all of it. It bubbled inside her like a pot of boiling water, spitting over the sides.
As she neared the Dali, she found herself huffing in frustration at other visitors in the special chamber where it hung. Bloody comers-and-goers, she thought. Leave me to my Christ, leave me to my peace with Him.
After a few minutes, the tourists moved on.
She was alone with Christ of Saint John of the Cross, at last.
She closed her eyes and took two deep breaths. She visualised the painting, then, slowly, she opened her eyes to manifest reality.
It was a deeply beautiful painting. Each visit yielded something new, or refreshed a revelation. The light struck her. Christ cast a shadow, inferring a light from the south-east. Yet, below Him, the sun was at the centre left of the horizon in the fishing scene. Another dichotomy: two light sources? Was Dali teasing her with an unseen heavenly light?
She closed her eyes to imagine the light source. As she opened her eyes again, the greatest terror she had ever experienced struck her like a crash of rushing water. Her veins popped; her eyes bulged.
Christ moved. Christ was moving, somehow alive, somehow come to life on the canvas.
His shoulder muscles flickered. His fingers twitched. His head struck out left and right, as if to avoid invisible jagged barbs.
Jess was petrified.
All the air around her escaped, to some other place. The museum and all its exhibits dulled. She was now in the darkness of the sky that Christ Himself floated in, and she floated with Him.
And then He raised His head to her. His eyes appeared lifeless, directionless. His mouth, jarring and open, lolled like the mouth of a corpse. And then He spoke to her, and His voice was a deep whisper which, though she was cascaded by floods of terror, soothed her deepest sorrows.
Jessica, my child.
“Lord.”
Do you see my hands?
“I do, Lord.”
Do you see my feet?
“Yes, yes, Lord.”
Do you see I am no longer a captive of the cross?
“Yes, I do my Lord.”
Yet the false light binds me to it.
“It does, my Lord?”
It does. But I have chosen you, Jessica.
“You have … chosen me, my Lord?”
Of course, child. You have always known. You have always seen. I am no longer a captive of the cross, but I am a captive to the false light.
“What would you have me do, Lord?”
Release me, my child. Release me from the false light. You must prepare.
“Anything, Lord, anything.”
Come to me again, and as I lift my head to see you, so you must lift me out of this false light.
“When should I free you, my Lord?”
Tomorrow, at sunset.
“Yes, Lord.”
At this, Christ’s eyes closed over, and his head dropped. The darkness around Jess lifted, and she was back in the museum. She could hear the mild, echoing hubbub of other visitors from the main hall below.
She stood and left swiftly. Her knees did not trouble her. She had been chosen.
At home, she found herself in front of her sideboard, and she leered into the drawer in which she kept her grandfather’s legacies. His silver lighter; a pack of cards. And, of course, his bayonet.
The next day, her co-workers in the city chambers squirreled together with the gossip of her absence. It was the first unannounced absence anyone could remember.
Jess had no care for any of that. She had been up early, dressed and ready by 7am, peering through her windows at the dark and bitter rain of a Glaswegian winter morning. She prayed, she brooded. She ignored the pings on her phone.
Late afternoon, she finally left. Sunset would be around 4.30pm. On the subway, she sat with a worn navy rucksack on her lap. She chose the middle of the smaller seats at the end of a car, which might take three or four. She stretched out, discouraging on-boarders.
The subway car shuttled through the tunnels below Glasgow, and she glanced at the other passengers, a hint of a sneer curling on her lips. She had been chosen.
At Kelvinhall station, she waddled out onto Dumbarton Road via the Wynd which led from the station mouth. She was pleased to see the sky succumb to the dark. Noise spilled from The Three Judges as someone left to smoke. The pub looked warm, social. None of this mattered to her. By the time she reached the museum, what light yet pierced the battleship-grey of the clouds above the Glaswegian sky had diminished. The light was retreating, somewhere off to the right.
Inside the museum, she found she was not out of breath. Her knees were limber, her legs willowy. Her entrance through the revolving door was graceful.
She was almost at the Dali. It was near closing time on a dreich Tuesday, and she had the chamber to herself.
“Lord,” she said, her eyes glazed, spittle on her chin. She knelt down, zipping open her rucksack. Metal glinted in the angled spotlights. She produced her grandfather’s bayonet, gripping her chubby fingers around it, one at a time.
Could she dare look at her Christ? Yes. I am chosen. She stood before the painting, clutching the bayonet, and raised her hand to strike.
And, just as she knew He would, Christ mirrored her, lifting his own weary head, heavy with the sins of all mankind, and He spoke to her. He spoke again, as He had before.
Jessica, my child.
It is time to free me from the false light.
“Anything for you, My Lord.”
Cut me loose, so that I may come down from the canvas and embrace you.
She lifted the bayonet like an Olympic torch-carrier.
Jessica.
The voice of her Lord had changed somehow, grown frail.
Jessica, stop.
“Lord? I don’t understand.”
“Jessica, stop!” the voice cried, husky and fearful.
She turned. Her reverie had confused her. This frail voice was not the voice of her Lord. It was old Bill. He limped into view, his face a shroud of fear. He clutched at his stick, as his legs wobbled in horror.
“Whit are you daein’, Jessica? Put that doon!” he pleaded.
Jess’s flabby arm, raised to strike, wavered.
“I have to free my Lord from the false light,” she said, her voice a whisper, her face turning back to the painting in rapture.
“Put that old knife doon, Jessica, don’t be so bloody stupid!” Bill begged, hobbling towards her on his stick, anger erupting in his weakened throat.
Jess lowered her arm. She gazed, imploringly, at the Dali.
The face of Christ was a horrible, incandescence of pain. Wailing, jarring, ripping itself from left to right, trying to be free of the canvas below, free of the artifice of man.
She raised the bayonet to strike, and lunged.
Bill’s walking stick struck her wrist, making her drop the bayonet. He stumbled as he kicked it away. It skittered along the marble floor.
“No! What have you done?!” she screamed.
Old Bill was agog, but he was also canny. He had acted as swiftly as his broken old body would let him. He watched in shock as she bounded past him towards the bayonet. In her rush, she kicked it further away, and raged as it clattered down the first of the marble stairs. Bill trundled after her, grabbing at the stone banister overlooking the lower floor.
Jess took two steps down. As she grabbed up the bayonet, her squeaking trainers stuck on the marble. She tripped and fell, bundling over her own girth like an amorphous blob.
She rolled down the stairs, just out of Bill’s sight.
A muffled scream.
Bill ambled round as quickly as he could. In moments, he saw her at the bottom. She was prostrate, immobile. He clacked his way down the stairs with his stick, being careful not to fall himself.
Clack, click. Clack, click. Clack, click.
His cautious steps reverberated through the almost empty museum.
Two tourists were next to her now, a young Japanese couple. They tried to roll her over, but she was too heavy. Another guard appeared, and with her added strength, they managed to turn her. The bayonet was buried beneath her breasts, buried to the hilt.
A gush of warm blood pooled on the cold white marble below.
Bill, staggering down the final steps, dropped his stick as he took to his knees and cradled her head. She had moments, fleeting moments. She spoke her last, looking through him, beyond him.
“It is finished.”
Old Bill looked behind him, his face ashen, at the trail of crimson dripping down the marble stairs. It was a deep, beetroot red. And now it ebbed from the body below him, spreading out like paint on a cold white canvas.
Jess was in the little fishing boat. The black waters glooped around her, filling the boat, soaking her legs and buttocks. She looked up, searching for her Christ. There was nothing but blackness above, and nothing but blackness below.
The void welcomed her, hungrily.
END