chapter 5 Gods of Central London
GODS OF CENTRAL LONDON
It is very late. The museum is closed. Mathers and Moina are working together in the great Egyptian Hall among the pillaged statues of the Egyptian gods.
Mathers is seated on the floor in front of an exhibit of funeral stones, copying hieroglyphics into his notebook.
Moina is seated upon an artist’s stool in front of an easel.
She is painting a portrait of the goddess Isis.
She is agitated. She throws her brush in her paint rag.
“Use it!” she snaps.
Mathers looks up from his work. “No. Not yet. I’m not ready.”
“Do you want to be an assistant curator the rest of your life?”
“I haven’t finished the first part of the operation. The angel . . . I haven’t wed the angel.”
Moina picks up her rag and wipes her hands. “That’s nonsense. Use it. Use it tonight.” She removes a vellum-bound book from her painting things and throws it at his feet.
“Go on. You translated it. Now use it. Use it, or I’m leaving you.”
Mathers throws his pencil down. “What do you want?”
Moina gestures to the statues that surround them. “I want us to seize their secrets, their knowledge, their power! I want us to live as gods.”
Mathers picks up the book and carefully opens it to the back pages. He looks up at Moina, who has now put on her most sweetly appealing face.
“You always said I was your angel.”
Mathers carefully tears a magic square from the book. He folds it and puts it in his shirt pocket. Immediately, they hear the thunder of huge museum doors slamming in the bowels of the museum, followed by the echoes of approaching footsteps.
“Mathers? Mathers? Oh, there you are. Might I have a word with you?”
They turn to see Dr. Wynn Westcott, impeccably dressed in a black suit and bow tie. His thick silver hair gives him an air of distinction. He clutches a portfolio of papers.
Mathers is completely surprised but appears flattered to see him. “My dear Doctor Westcott. Of course. Good evening. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I hope I’m not disturbing your work.” Westcott knows very well that he is.
“Not at all, sir. Allow me to introduce Mrs. Mathers. Moina, I have the honor of introducing you to Doctor Wynn Westcott, the—”
“The greatest occult mind in England,” Moina finishes the introduction. “A consummate honor, Doctor Westcott. I’ve read so much of your work.”
“I believe, Mrs. Mathers, your husband may deserve that title more than I. In fact, that’s why I’m here. Mathers, I’d like you to look at something, if you’d be so kind.”
He pulls one sheet from the portfolio and hands it to Mathers who holds it up near the lamplight. Moina leans in to look. Mathers seems genuinely interested. “Where did this come from?”
“Reverend Woodford found it in the library of a late Brother.” Westcott turns to Moina and smiles. “We old Freemasons often have the most curious libraries.”
Mathers identifies the script as a polygraphic cipher and begins to speculate out loud, but Moina slips the paper from her husband’s hand.
“Doctor Westcott, I was wondering if you could leave the entire manuscript with us for a few days?”
Westcott pauses thoughtfully, and then seems happy to part with the papers. He hands over the entire portfolio.
“Certainly. Of course. Have a good look then. Tell us what you think. Right then. I’ll let you two get on with your work. I should get to bed. I’ve got an autopsy in the morning. Another Ripper victim, I’m afraid. Not that she’ll mind if I’m a little late. Goodnight Mathers, Madam.”
Mathers and Moina silently watch Westcott exit. When he is out of earshot, Mathers confronts Moina.
“Why on earth . . .”
“It’s the magic! Don’t you see? All you had to do was tear out that little square and the greatest occultist in England, perhaps the world, just strolls in and hands you . . .”
“Hands me what? It’s probably just scraps of a ritual from one of a hundred old German magical fraternities.”
“It’s a sign darling . . . a sign from the gods!
” She picks up the portfolio and caries it to the colossal black basalt statue of the hawkheaded god Horus.
She lays it open at its feet. She walks slowly back to Mathers, pacing her steps like an ancient priestess approaching the altar of sacrifice. She kisses her husband.
“You once told me I was the other half of your soul.” She lifts the folded magic square from his shirt pocket. “Let us allow the gods to decide our worthiness to join them.”
She hands Mathers the square. He unfolds it and stares at it for a moment.
He then approaches the statue of Horus and roughly stuffs the square into the cavity of its outstretched fist. As he withdraws his finger, he discovers it covered in blood.
He has cut himself on something sharp in the rough interior of the god’s basalt hand.
As he sticks his bleeding finger in his mouth, the darkened hall begins to glow with a warm pulsating light. The statue of Horus and all the other stone statues in the Great Hall come alive in living color; they begin to breathe and move.
“Yes! Yes! You see? You see?” Moina is insanely ecstatic.
Mathers is not so enthusiastic. He stutters in the face of Horus, “My lord . . . Am I worthy? I wish to be worthy!”
The god slowly turns its massive hawk’s head to acknowledge the presence of all the other gods of Egypt. He then turns to face Mathers and raises his arm and violently plunges his hand deep into Mathers’s chest.
Mathers screams in horror, yet somehow remains standing as the god squeezes, then rips the beating heart from Mathers’s body.
The living statue of the ibis-headed god Thoth approaches from behind, carrying a set of balances.
Horus allows the writhing body of Mathers to limply drop to the floor.
He places the still-beating heart on one of the scale pans.
The vulture-headed goddess, Maat, comes forward and places a feather on the other pan.
The scales balance perfectly. The room explodes with a blinding light.
Silhouetted against the light, the profile of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead, appears in full regalia. He is seated upon the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. It is Mathers.
The bare-breasted goddess Isis approaches the throne from behind. She holds the royal crown of Osiris in her hands. It is Moina. She solemnly places the crown on the head of her godhusband-king.
“Let’s end the scene here, Milo . . .” Bendick said casually as he tamped a fresh pinch of tobacco into his pipe. “. . . with the closeup on king Osiris/Mathers’s face.”
I, on the other hand, was anything but calm.
In fact, was physically stunned. I actually had to catch my breath.
Never in my wildest imagination would I have predicted such a scene.
As I’d listened to Bendick’s words, every detail seemed as if it had been projected directly, and with full force, upon my soul.
“Are you all right, my boy?” He seemed genuinely concerned.
“Yes, sir. Yes, of course. I think you ripped my heart from my chest. This is indeed becoming quite a fairy tale. I must confess, I like it. I like it very much. I think I see what you’re doing here. Please. Please, let’s continue.”
“Right then!” Bendick seemed genuinely delighted by my enthusiasm. “Let’s start this next scene with the sharp sound of a chisel being pounded upon metal and a closeup on the face of the stone angel that adorns the tomb of Oscar Wilde. New words appear on the screen:”
Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris