The Gentling Box Page 12

  She snaked away from me. “Catch me,” she cried, and ran naked toward the bedroom, the torn shirt flapping like a sail in one hand.

  I stumbled after her. She was lying on the bed, knees drawn up, her hands behind her head. “How’s the view,” she said, rapidly opening and closing her legs a few times.

  “Divine.”

  “Want to see it better?” she teased, patting the sheet to invite me. Her face sparkled with naughty intent while I began to undress and I saw she was going to spring out of the bed.

  My pants were half down, my shirt hung open, I flopped on top of her. She squirmed and churned underneath me, then managed to wriggle away. “Got you,” I triumphed, diving and grabbing one ankle as she tried to vault out of bed.

  “So you think,” she laughed while I wrestled her back down and sat astride. Her feet flailed and thumped behind me. I pulled her arms high over her head, my hands held her wrists wide, I shifted my weight so that she was pinned beneath me, our eyes met.

  “Tie me down,” she said.

  “What?” I heard a croak in my voice.

  “Do it,” she nodded toward the tattered shirt, and God help me, my hands shook, my heart pounded, but I tore the cloth into ragged white strips and wound them over her wrists and around her ankles and strung her in an X across the bed like a man crucified in ancient Rome.

  And then I had her, and Christ save me, even then I knew it was wrong, that it was the beginning of something sour and black and deadly, of dark fantasies we spun together that made me wince and heave by morning when my hands shook and my conscience twitched, but I couldn’t help myself, and that was the beginning.

  -24-

  Zahara drew me in deeper and deeper because some of what she did wore the face of innocence. She took to wearing costumes, and once, I recall, she was decked out in a yellow gown like an English woman from the 18th century. Her waist was cinched, her bosom drawn high. She wore white stockings, simpered behind a black lace fan, powdered her face and neck and pasted a tiny patch—like a beauty spot—near the corner of her mouth; another sparkled just below her right eye. She rented a tall white wig and served me tea.

  Suddenly in the midst of the play-acting and coquetry, a strange, wondering expression came over her face. She stopped, scratched her head briefly, seemed to dismiss whatever she’d been thinking about. She poured tea in a thin blue cup. “Aren’t you curious about all this lacy underwear?” she asked; and the same puzzled look came into her eye, and then, instant, dawning awareness:

  “Shit!” Zahara screamed, yanking the wig off, and flinging it halfway across the room. She bent all the way over and shook her head back and forth rapidly, plunged her hands over and over in her black hair. “Oh, shit, the damn thing’s full of bugs!” she shrieked.

  Deposed vermin crept willy-nilly across the pale yellow satin skirt of her dress. She stood up and began wildly brushing at her lap, her eye fell on the infested wig and she began screaming again. “When I get hold of the bitch who rented me this . . . . ” she raved, and then, since I’d already given into loud hysterical laughter, she began to laugh, too. She pulled off all her clothes, threw them in a heap out the window, and tugged me onto the kitchen table with her. “No sense,” she said, “in spreading them to our bed.” After we made love we scrubbed the caravan down with a solution of hot water and lye soap and took baths before we slept on our sheets.

  But there was a darker side to the play-acting, the costumes. I came in one night and found her dressed in a tightly laced whalebone corset that pushed her breasts high up on her chest and exposed them completely. “Ever had a whore?” she breathed, tweaking the ball of her right nipple.

  “No,” I said.

  “Want to pretend?”

  “All right.” I swallowed; with her looking like that, there was no will in me to refuse. The ivory corset ended at the hip line, and a pair of frilly garters stretched downward accenting the dark curling tendrils between.

  “How much would you pay?” Zahara asked, sitting propped against the pillows while she toyed with the smooth flesh that showed over a pair of black stockings. My eyes were riveted to her fingers sweeping lightly over her skin.

  “Anything.”

  She laughed at the rasp in my voice. “How much?”

  “A lot,” I whispered.

  She stood up and preened, balanced on one high heel, lifted one long stockinged leg up onto the bed. She looked at me over her shoulder, wiggled her fingers. “C’mon then, pay.” Her voice was liquid, sweet with teasing.

  I chuckled and stepped toward her, put my hands around her waist, then pulled her against me to feel the tautness of her buttocks, to caress her. My fingers slid between her legs.

  She turned and hissed. “What do you take me for, huh? Pay or get out.”

  “Pay?” It was a game, I thought. I wasn’t sure what she wanted of me.

  “Are you daft? It’s pay as you go. Empty your pockets.”

  I put my hands in my trouser pockets, accidentally turning them inside out so that the coins spilled from my clumsy hands and rattled in a hail on the floor.

  She glared at me. “Pick it up.”

  I got on my knees and began gathering up the money. A coin cartwheeled out of my grasp. “All of it,” she sneered, and I snagged the rolling goldpiece.

  I held it up to her, and for a second I thought she’d slap it out of my hand, dash it on the floor, laugh, clasp me to her. Instead, she reached between her breasts and pulled out a small pink striped cotton sack with a ribbon drawstring. She put the money inside the bag, and stuffed it down into the corset.

  “All right.” A hard smile came into her dark eyes. “You bought the whore, you get the whore. But this,” she patted the waist of the heavy girdle, “stays on.”

  ***

  “It’s foolish, that’s why!” I shouted. It was two weeks later. She had not relented one inch from what I called the whore game. “The money is yours—take it from me—everything I have is yours! But don’t make me do this.”

  “I already told you,” she said, sitting, legs wide apart on a chair. “Straight lay is what you get.” She was wrapped in a tattered red negligee, staring into a small mirror while she rouged her lips, her nipples, with the abandon of a practiced courtesan. “You want a blow job, you pay for it in advance. You want to eat my pussy,” she grinned, knowing her crudeness both shocked and thrilled me, “then pay.” Peering into the glass, she stuck the tip of her finger in the rouge pot, then dabbed the corner of her rosy mouth.

  “But why do you make me stop? Why can’t I—why can’t I pay for—all of it at once?”

  “That’s the way I do business,” she said, not looking away from the mirror and hitching the robe back onto her shoulders.

  “It’s cheap,” I began helplessly, sick at the thought that I’d already done it again and again. Paid her. Then gotten out of bed, gone to my wallet, and paid her a second or third time to feel her mouth on me, to put my mouth on her.

  “You’re tired of this, aren’t you?”

  I nodded wearily.

  “Maybe if we rented a room it would seem more real to you.”

  I looked at her, not comprehending.

  “Yes,” she said, “that’s what we’ll do.” She saw me shaking my head. “Are you saying no, you don’t want to rent a room?”

  When I nodded she gave me a sly, knowing look and said, “Well, then, we’ll just pretend.”

  Two nights later, she had her way and it was real.

  ***

  I blew on my hands, paced in a drafty hall stamping and stirring my feet to keep warm. Then I knocked on the door, waiting patiently until I heard her voice telling me to come in.

  The whitewashed room was lit with a single candle. The ceiling was low, streaked with soot from the brick fireplace. Wooden shutters lined the windows, here and there slats were missing. There was a rude, stinking chamberpot in the corner partly covered with a graying towel. There was a chipped pitcher and a mismatched g
reen basin on a small rickety stand. The bed was small, the covers pulled up sloppily. She was lying on the bed, barefoot, naked from the waist down. The rounded tops of her breasts showed over the neckline of a snowy chemise. Her dark hair curled softly over her shoulders.

  “Oh, Zahara,” I said, wanting to tell her none of this was necessary, asking her to end it.

  “Shut up,” she said. “Put the money on the dresser.” She pointed with a metal nailfile she held in her hands. I walked across the room slowly, sighing, my feet creaking over the wavy boards, and put three gold pieces in a porcelain tray painted with red flowers.

  “Come here,” she said, and I approached the bed, dreading what I knew came next. I stood before her.

  “Take it out of your pants,” she said.

  I unbuttoned my trousers, held myself aloft while she held the light close, seeming to inspect the flesh for signs of disease.

  “All right.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, hearing her fumble among the vials and bottles that cluttered the top of the nightstand. I heard the sound of a cork being drawn. I felt the wet sensation of being doused with something that smelled like alcohol and stung like fire. I don’t know what it was, she said all the whores used it to prevent disease. It dripped and splashed over me, leaving a huge splotchy stain. I felt it trickle through the cloth of my trousers onto my thighs.

  “You can undress,” she said primly, and I heard her lay back.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later I was in the hallway, nearly tripping over a bald-headed farmer who was leaning against the wall. I stumbled down the passage toward the stairs, too dazed and humiliated to think about my addiction to her, about the way she thrilled and repulsed me, until behind me I suddenly heard Zahara calling, “Come in.”

  I turned in disbelief to see the broad retreating back of the farmer crossing the threshold. It’s a joke, it can’t be, I told myself, pattering back down toward her door. I caught a sudden surreal whiff of bad cooking from the kitchen in the tavern below, heard the clatter of pots, the sound of tinny music.

  “Open up,” I shouted, rattling the knob, startled to find it locked. “Stop it!” I screamed.

  From inside came the sound of her low voice: “Put the money on the dresser.”

  The farmer’s voice was the heavily accented twang of the country. “They said you was big,” he yawped approvingly, “I like a big woman.”

  Sick, I ran from the tavern.

  -25-

  I sat on the bench, one eye vacuously scanning the small black book in my lap, the other sharply alert for Zahara. I had begun following her out of a jealousy so keen it made me queasy. My thoughts ran in a compulsive circle, like gnawing rats they rounded the wheel of my head, my belly. Who was she with? What was she doing?

  She was haunting the graveyards, I discovered over the month we journeyed eastward toward Sibiu, an old Gothic town just above the Carpathians. And just before noon, I’d seen Zahara pass through the high stone towers flanking the entrance gates to the cemetery, and this time I’d followed her inside, settling on a fancy wrought iron bench to watch from a safe distance.

  Now I had a fleeting glimpse of Zahara’s head, dark curls flying up in the wind. I craned my neck. The cemetery, like the town, was built on several connecting levels amid sprawling hills. She disappeared behind the high rectangle of a white mausoleum, then I saw her ambling slowly, her black cloak fluttering at her heels, moving down a steep gravel path.

  Nearby an old woman laid a small bouquet of blood-colored mums beside a narrow, sunken plot. A pair of smudgy gravediggers walked past me, lugging their tools. Far off, I watched them discreetly skirt the edges of a ceremony that was presided over by a tall priest, and I smiled at that: I was dressed as one myself. I’d hit on the idea that I could track her wanderings through the cemeteries more easily if I wore a habit, and I’d broken into a secluded country rectory one night and stolen the local monsignor’s black cassock, his cape and the book of daily prayers—the breviary.

  Occasionally, Zahara wandered out of my sightline, but I sat in the anemic winter sun, feeling the unaccustomed sensation of the dark cassock skirt billowing around my legs waiting, watching. She was winding through the tree-lined walks, searching for recent graves, the telltale signs of newly laid stones, mounds of earth that had a naked look. I saw her linger near several of these. I had heard of graveyard prostitutes, and I fumed angrily at the thought she was like a streetwalker working the byways and lanes in the cities of the dead.

  I knew the whores pretended to be stunned by grief. They waited for a likely mark, then acted out a quiet charade: they sobbed over the new tombstones, sometimes lost control and pretended to faint. The man, like as not, would come to their assistance. A clever woman could tell him anything: my mother died of a wasting disease, three days ago my fiancé killed himself, my husband, a promising young musician, was run over by a speeding carriage.

  From feeling sorry for the distraught woman, it was only a short step to buying her a hot drink, a late supper. In places like Paris, London, the whores pretended the gentlemen aroused their passions: “Oh, God forgive me, it’s wrong with Allan barely cold in the grave, but I cannot help myself.” Soon the men were bringing presents, paying for clothing, furniture, apartments. On the road, I guessed, Zahara might turn the trick by pleading sudden poverty and getting their money, or stealing it. I felt my mouth turn down in a tight line. Either way, the man would be too embarrassed to go to the constables, and she would be gone—if not that day, then the next.

  My stomach contracted in a tight knot. Zahara’s movements gave the impression of purpose, and I wondered if she knew the place by sight or reputation. Had she done this before? Been here before? Only yesterday I’d seen strings of gaudy gypsy caravans on the old city road, heard the jingling bells of their horses.

  She was kneeling by a tall ornate marker, dark dress and cape pooled around her knees, and she lifted her eyes each time she heard footsteps sliding on the path. Once, a young woman approached, and for one numbing second I thought it was Mimi, but Zahara’s face was calm, serene; and I dismissed it, telling myself I’d only imagined the likeness because I’d seen the caravans.

  A few minutes later, an old man tipped a crippled-looking hat in her direction. Zahara smiled weakly at him, then lowered her gaze.

  Not that one, not him, no, she wants somebody rich. I felt a hot anxious sweat break out along my spine and under my arms. In my mind’s eye, she snagged one of the local aristocrats, a courtly man with white hair, a narrow silver mustache. He carried a rolled umbrella and wore gray gloves. At his midriff, the gold chain of a watch gleamed. He took Zahara’s arm in his, helped the grief-struck widow to her feet. Her face was pale behind the black veil, her lip trembling. I could see myself leaping up from the bench and chasing them down for the confrontation: “Whore! Whore!” I screamed, and conjured up a tortuous fantasy of shouting, scuffling, punches, torn clothes, bloody cheeks. My head spun giddily, and then my thoughts turned to the loathsome possibility I would only slink away—a beaten man that learns the difference between suspicion and discovery. I was suddenly afraid I would see her with a man and say nothing, do nothing. My breathing went shallow, my heart began to race when I thought of accusing her, confronting her.

  What if she denied me her favors? Worse, I thought, and the force of the idea struck me like a blow, what if she left me? I saw her white and naked and rolling under me, making me groan with passion and I felt my stomach cramping in hot waves, heard a wailing voice inside. No, no, Christ, I can’t risk it, can’t risk losing her. I gritted my teeth, a wave of longing went through me.

  The wind gusted sharply, riffling the pages of the breviary, casting a chill on my sweaty skin. I shivered, told myself I only had to wait and then I would know for certain—who she was with, what she was doing—and if confronting her meant I lost her, well then, so be it. There would be no love lost between us, she wasn’t my wife. My hand tightened on the book, my n
ails leaving scars on the worn leather spine. She wasn’t Mimi. She was only a whore with a soul as black and false as the bogus veil on her head.

  ***

  It was twilight. As the afternoon grew darker I’d told myself I was glad of the cassock, the heavy cape—I would be still less conspicuous in the lengthening shadows. But gradually the cemetery began to empty, and I was aware of the wind moving through the trees, scattering fallen leaves so they skirled and clicked dryly against the gravel paths.

  I was on the verge of giving over my watch and going home for the night, when I saw her creep toward a small gray ruin of a chapel, her face anxiously turning to and fro. She was moving stealthily, with the consciousness that comes from knowing you mustn’t be seen, mustn’t get caught. I saw her try the door, then step back and tilt her head up. What did she want there? The tiles were gone from the roof, and the dark upthrust joists gave off the bare skeletal look of a rib cage. She dropped her gaze, then gathered her skirts and began to run quickly, flitting between the trees, the monuments, always stopping to glance about before moving on again.

  And suddenly I was aware there was danger for both of us. Even playing a priest, what reason could I give for being in a graveyard after dark in a country where it was believed no sane man would come there—unless he had traffic with the devil.

  The church bell tolled the hour—a hollow clanging that echoed over the square. I heard the squeal of iron, and in the thickening shadows, I could see the sexton swinging the heavy gates closed, hear the rasp of metal on metal when he lowered the bar and fastened the lock. Then his bootheels tapped over the stones as he hurried away toward the dim glow of lamplight, toward the safety that lay in the heart of the living city.

  I turned my head, hearing the creak of tendons in my neck, saw Zahara moving, a black wraith among the trees. I suddenly recalled the night we crashed, the night we’d seen Joseph on the road, the sight of the white-gowned woman fleeing through the woods. I felt fear ticking in my chest. She hesitated, and I picked out the shadow of her dark cape against the white marble of a tall mausoleum. I heard her rattling the lattice-work of the bars. And then there was a tiny flash of yellowish light—like the first flare of a match in complete darkness it was quick, startling, nearly blinding in brilliance—and I found myself straining to see more clearly, but the black shape of her cloak, her veil was only a moving blur.