The Obsidian Chamber

43

Constance rose just before dawn, in time to watch the sun burst over the distant sea horizon and climb into a clear blue sky. She slept with the windows open, and it had been a cool night. She shed her nightdress and felt the sun on her body, warm and inviting. Turning, she went into the bathroom. It was spacious and white, with an old-fashioned slipper tub and a shower. She ran the water in the tub and went back into the bedroom, arranging a few of her possessions on the bureau. The infusion had been disappointingly uneventful, and she felt no different this morning than she had before. But Diogenes had warned her it might take a day or two to feel the effects, which he assured her would be quite dramatic, invigorating, and energizing.

When she emerged from the bath, she could smell coffee brewing. She descended the back stairs, which ended in a small hallway leading to the conservatory; a short walk brought her to the kitchen. Diogenes was seated at a table in a breakfast nook, in a bow window looking out over the gardens. His lean frame was wrapped in an elegant silk morning gown, his ginger hair combed back; he looked fresh, trim, self-assured, and attractive. The likeness to his dead brother was undeniable. The bicolored eyes added an almost dashing touch. Again she had that queer feeling of strangeness, as if she’d fallen out of her own life and onto an alien planet.

“What will you have for breakfast?” he asked.

“Do you have kippers?”

“Indeed we do.”

“Well, then, if it isn’t too much trouble, kippers, two soft-boiled eggs, rashers, and toast.”

“A hearty breakfast. I approve. Coffee or espresso?”

“Espresso, thank you.”

He brought her a demitasse and busied himself at the stove while she drank the coffee. Her breakfast was soon placed in front of her, and he served himself the same. They ate in silence. Diogenes was one of those rare people, Constance thought, who was not disturbed or made anxious by long silences. For this she was grateful. A talker would have been intolerable.

At last, Diogenes put down his empty cup. “And now — a tour?”

He rose, took her hand, and led her out onto the back veranda and down the stairs to the white sand. The path, lined on both sides by rich beds of flowers, meandered past a picturesque palapa, outdoor fireplace, and stone patio with an old brick grill and an arrangement of weather-beaten teak furniture. From there the path wandered through a grove of buttonwood to emerge at a long, white beach. Gurumarra’s cottage was just visible through the foliage. The sun glittered off the water, which whispered and lapped on the sand.

Diogenes had fallen silent, but his light step and graceful way of moving, and the glow in his eyes, told her how precious this place was to him. She felt awkward in her long, old-fashioned dress.

At the end of the beach, a cluster of mangroves blocked their way along the shore and the trail cut inland, winding up the low, sandy bluff, over the top, and partway down the other side; and there, suddenly, a most unusual structure appeared, hidden by the curve of the bluff, looking over the beach and out to the Gulf. It was built of weathered, dark marble and looked like a small, circular temple, but in between the columns were tall, mullioned windows, each pane a mysterious, dark-gray color, almost black.

It was so surprising a vision that Constance involuntarily halted.

“Come,” said Diogenes in hushed tones, leading her around the structure. He grasped the bronze knob of a tall door, and it whispered open, disclosing the spare interior. He handed her inside and closed the door behind.

Constance felt overwhelmed. It was utterly simple, with a black marble floor, gray marble columns, and a domed roof. But it was the mullioned windows and the quality of light that made the interior unworldly. The panes were of some sort of smoked, glassy substance, infused or inflected with billions of little shimmerings of light, depending on how one moved one’s point of view. The light that came through them had a strange, attenuated quality that rendered the interior absolutely colorless. And as she looked at Diogenes, and the rapt expression on his face, she saw that he and herself were both rendered in black-and-white tones, all the color sucked out of the air. It was a most uncanny phenomenon. But rather than being disturbing, she found it serene and spiritual, as if all unnecessary adornment, all vulgar embellishment, had been stripped away, leaving only simplicity and truth. The temple was completely empty beyond a black leather divan, which occupied a space somewhat off center.

They must have stood there for several minutes, in silence, before Diogenes spoke. But he didn’t actually speak: he hummed a low melody that Constance recognized as the opening voice of Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. And as he hummed the tonic voice, then switched to the second voice, and the third, the temple began filling with sound building upon sound, layer upon layer, creating a contrapuntal wonder of echoes.

He stopped but the sound continued for seconds, dying away slowly.

He turned to her and she could see a glint of moisture in his dead eye. “This,” he said, “is where I come to forget myself and the world. This is my place of meditation.”

“It’s extraordinary. The effect of the light is almost impossible to believe.”

“Yes. You see, Constance, the great horror of my life is that I can see only in black and white. Color has been denied to me since… the Event.”

She inclined her head. The Event, she knew, referred to the tragic accident of his childhood that left him blind in one eye — among other things.

“I’ve clung to the memory of color. But when I enter here, in this monochromatic light, I can somehow glimpse the color that I so desperately miss. I can see, almost out of the corner of my vision as it were, ephemeral flashes of color.”

“But how?”

He spread his hands. “These panes are all ground and polished from the mineral called obsidian. Volcanic glass. Obsidian has some singular properties when it interacts with light. In the past, I once made a careful and special study of the effects of light and sound on the human body — and this is one of the results.”

Constance looked around again. The morning sun was hitting one side of the temple, the light diffusing in, cool and gray, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. The opposite side of the temple was dark, but not black. Neither pure white nor pure black was present in the room — everything was in infinite gradations of gray.

“So this is your obsidian chamber.”

“Obsidian chamber… you might call it that. Yes, you could very well call it that.”

“What do you call it?”

“My Tholos.”

“Tholos. A circular Greek temple.”

“Precisely. This one is based on the dimensions of the small Tholos of Delphi.”

He fell silent, and Constance was content to simply stand and absorb the remarkable serenity, the beautiful simplicity, of the space. It was silent, and she felt herself falling into the most peculiar reverie, a dream-like state of nothingness, her sense of self dissolving.

“Let us go.”

She took a deep breath, returning to reality, and in a moment found herself outside, blinking in the bright light, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of color that engulfed her.

“Shall we continue the tour?”

Constance looked at him. “I… feel a little disoriented. I’d like to return to the library and rest. Later, if you don’t mind, I’d like to explore on my own.”

“Of course,” Diogenes replied, spreading his hands. “The island is yours, my dear.”