The Gentling Box Read online

  ***

  Mimi was standing on the wooden stoop outside the caravan when I returned on foot the next morning. I was perhaps a quarter of a mile away, standing on a hillock looking down toward the slight hollow. She was stock still, her arms folded at her waist, her head lowered, eyes downcast. I could see the dark green enameled door behind her, the thick carved fruits and leaves mounted like a swag above the entry.

  For the space of a minute, it seemed to me I heard the last desultory gasp of the wind, the sound of a storm on the ebb. I saw drifts of sand like dunes half-burying the yellow wheels of the caravan, the door was dull, grimed, the carvings obscured by wind and dust. And when I looked at her it seemed to me she was like some half-eroded statue perched on the flat edge of the desert, her features blurred. The sandy bones of her arms melting against the pitted slab of her brown figure. And everywhere lay the dust. Everything had turned to dust.

  Her head came up. She cried out, I saw her arms lift. The hideous image died away, replaced by the sparkling greens of caravan and grass. Mimi ran toward me and then her face was burrowing against my chest, she was crying in my arms.

  “When you didn’t come back, when you weren’t here for the feast I thought—I thought you’d gone. Because here, in Hungary . . .” She wept, unable to finish, but I knew.

  In Hungary, there was no ritual, no custom for a fi nal leave-taking. A man who wanted a divorce packed his things—or not—and left. Years later a woman might appeal, and in most cases the marriage was considered legally dissolved by the kris, the law court of the Roms. But there would be that endless waiting, the mixture of futility and hope. Was he lost? Gone?

  “No,” I whispered, “Never.” She pressed against me. I kissed the crown of her head. My arm around her waist, I walked her toward the steps and we sat.

  “I was caught in a dust storm, lost the horses I was trailing, lost mine. I walked the whole twenty miles—all night.”

  “Last night? But Wednesday the 13th was three days ago.”

  “That can’t be right,” I said at the same time wondering if I’d lost track of time; certainly I hadn’t been confused, wandering through the dusty circuit of the plains . . . Bibi. Her name jumped in my head. A she-demon who drove men—women—mad. Her feast, held to celebrate—to appease—I thought, and felt my stomach tighten.

  “I was sure you weren’t coming back.” Mimi stood up, hugged her arms against her waist. “Oh Imre.” Her brown violet eyes dimmed again with tears.

  “The storm—” I began.

  “There wasn’t any storm,” she said. “Every day I went to the village; I even rode to Debrecen. I spoke to the smiths, to the breeders, to the cattlemen riding in off the plains. The drive left yesterday—no one, not one csiko spoke of a storm—”

  “Dust—”

  “Look at your clothes! Did you wash them, wash your leather pack?” She pointed at the kit I’d laid on the stoop alongside us. I glanced down expecting to see that poisonous rime of gray brown adhering to my pack, my coat, my skin. There was grime, I saw my hands were streaky, my gear dirty with a week in the rough, but there was nothing like that cakey powder of clinging dust.

  “Detlene,” she whispered. “The storm you saw was the detlene, the dark wind that is the souls of the still born, the aborted, searching for an entry into the world, crying for mother love—”

  She’s pregnant, I thought, and my eyes widened with alarm. I took hold of her narrow shoulders, felt my fingers squeezing her flesh. “What are you saying? Mimi, what are you saying?”

  “I’m trying to tell you,” she said. “When you didn’t come back, I thought.” She stopped. “I didn’t want to be a woman on my own with a baby—”

  “You didn’t.” No, I told myself, she wouldn’t, couldn’t. “You didn’t take anything? Do anything?” Maddening images of poisonous tonics, long sharp blades revolved in my brain.

  She shook her head. “I prayed to Bibi, ‘Send him back to me, let him return—’”

  “But a prayer, a wish,” I began.

  “In my country,” Mimi said, “we believe She gives—but only with the left hand . . . Bibi demands sacrifice—”

  “The smaller animals. Hens, dogs, lambs . . . and sometimes—”

  “The child,” Mimi said, pressing her hand lightly to her flat belly. “The pains started, the blood came. Wednesday, while you were out in the storm.”

  “A coincidence,” I said.

  “Was it? A storm that no one else saw?”

  “It was coincidence and nothing more.” I shook my head at the same time I heard that sound, the sighing moan that was a whisper.

  The dark wind. I saw the sun blotted out, felt the brown dust blowing around, through me; covering me like a soft shroud. Mournful, lonely. Detlene—the souls of the stillborn. Again I saw the frightening dusty vision; Mimi immobilized, the fused shapes of her face and body half buried by sand and time. We shared a child, had we shared a mystery?

  “I thought you left me,” she said again. “In my country a man who wants to divorce tells his wife. There are customs, ceremonies. There is a witnessing of their end—no shame comes to either. But here . . .” She swallowed uneasily, shook her head.

  “Mimi. I love you—”

  She turned her dark eyes up to mine, took my face between her small hands. “Swear to leave when we no longer love, swear to love as long as we live.” I felt her lips touch mine. “Swear it,” she breathed.

  Yes. I held her close, clutching her small frame to my chest. Then I lifted her up and carried her to our bed inside the caravan. She was my wife, I felt her pain, her fear, her sorrowing loss for the child that would never be. I loved her, and I would own that love, that oath in the ritual of our bodies. Gently I lay my wife inside the downy swells of the white coverlet.

  “Mimi,” I whispered, seeing her, my daughter’s mother, whole and perfect. I didn’t care if I was playing out the unraveling of one of Zahara’s plots, her schemes. I kissed her deeply, lifted her light body onto the bed. And then I was no longer aware that the youthful dark haired woman that Zahara had found, that I held in my arms was not my wife. “My heart’s own.”

  Swear to love as long as we live, she’d murmured.

  And I felt my passion rising like the dark wind to overtake me.

  -31-

  When I woke I was lying on my side, naked under the heavy quilts. The caravan was dark. The room was cool, but I was aware of a delicious warmth barely a hand’s breadth away. I opened my eyes, smiled, was about to reach toward Mimi. I stopped before I made any movement, heard soft whispering. Not Mimi, some young woman. A whore. Then I was aware of the more maddening whisper of a hand slowly moving over skin and lightly brushing the covers. Giggling.

  Zahara was in bed, the young woman was between us, facing her. Quiet—except for the sound of hands moving, the young woman’s breathing, a light kiss. Still, I sensed whatever was between them was over, had happened while I slept.

  Then Zahara’s voice, low and soft, broke in. “If you did claim that relic I was telling you about, you could live forever.”

  “Emm, that’s nice,” the woman replied absently. “Feels nice.” She shifted slightly. “Do the other,” she whispered, and I heard Zahara’s hand stroking gently, the knuckles grazing the sheet.

  “There’s such power in it . . . .”

  “Power?” Her voice was weak.

  “Powers yes, to do anything, be anything, have anything . . . .”

  “Rich?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Lovers?” The voice was a sigh. “I’d like to have lots of lovers. Real ones, not the kind who pay. I want a man to love me.”

  “And you shall.”

  The young woman sat up suddenly, put her arms around Zahara’s shoulders and hugged her. “You’re the only person I know who’s ever been nice to me.”

  “Would you like to see it?” Zahara asked, smoothing the girl’s brow, then letting one hand linger in the soft tangle of dark curl
s. “Hmm?”

  I guessed she was nodding, Zahara’s voice overlapped the motion. “All right, then. Come with me.”

  Hand in hand they moved softly across the room, then began mounting the stairs to the loft. There was the sound of a match being struck and I knew Zahara was lighting an old horn lantern that hung on a nail. She briefly rummaged among the boxes and barrels. I heard the sound of a lid opening, the copper box being withdrawn, lightly scraping the inside of a wooden barrel. My head began to pound.

  I heard the woman gasp. She was running her hands over the glass lid. Zahara showed her how to spring the catch. I suddenly smelled that sweet fragrance—lilies, gardenia, tuberoses, jasmine—

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Zahara asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Yours if you want it. A cut that’s nothing, you can heal yourself in the blink of an eye, and then . . . .”

  “Riches. Lovers,” the girl whispered, her voice taking on a lilt, and I imagined her eyes looking far off, shining with the light of a hundred shimmering visions. “And I’ll live forever.”

  “Yes,” Zahara said. “Oh yes, indeed.”

  “Give me the knife then.”

  “No.” I heard Zahara taking the box, and the girl gave off a faint mewling cry. “He’s down there,” Zahara said. “He mustn’t see.”

  I knew she meant me and felt my heart speed up.

  “Tomorrow,” Zahara said, and I heard her replacing the copper box that held the hand in its hiding place. Joseph’s words rushed pounding through me. She’ll try to lure someone young, beautiful. She found a girl who’s vulnerable, who looks like Mimi, and has a body Anyeta could be comfortable with for years. From Anyeta’s point of view the girl was better than Mimi—she was only seventeen and was already a whore.

  I heard them on the stairs, closed my eyes, breathed deep to mimic the slow paced rhythms of sleep.

  “Tomorrow we’ll get rid of him. Leave it to me.”

  The covers slid back, the mattress creaked, they settled in each other’s arms.

  “Then we’ll share our secret.”

  “Tomorrow,” the girl whispered.

  And I echoed the thought; tomorrow I would send the girl away on some pretext—say anything, do anything, give her money if I had to—and kill the old woman.

  ***

  I lay awake in the dark a long time, until I was certain they’d fallen asleep. Then, moving as quietly as I could, I made my way into the kitchen. I unraveled the wad of my cape, took out the gentling cap, and left the cape in a crumpled heap on the chair. I held the device loosely in one hand, felt my way back to the sleeping area.

  The blankets trailed over the side of the bed like a skirt, and I got on my knees and stashed the gentling device just under the place my head rested on the pillow. Easy to grab, I thought.

  I was getting to my feet, knees creaking and popping when the girl gave a shudder in her sleep and muttered something. I half jumped, ran a shaky hand through my hair. She sat up all at once. Her eyes were wide, staring, the whites of her eyes faintly luminous in the pre-dawn light.

  “What. What are you doing?” she slurred dreamily.

  “Using the chamberpot,” I said, quickly dragging the china basin from under the bed.

  She nodded and lay back down.

  On the off chance that Zahara heard us, I forced a few drops of warm urine into the pail, replaced it under the bed as far from the gentling cap as I could, then slid under the covers and lay on my back.

  “Is it tomorrow?” she whispered sleepily, and I heard her yawn.

  “Not yet,” I said, thinking it soon would be, while my pulse set up a steady restless thrum, and the image of the wooden bands, the sharpened spikes, circled and knifed through me.

  -32-

  “Going into town to work a trade this morning?” Zahara asked.

  It was already full daylight. I’d overslept and now her question put me on the alert. Nervously, I climbed the steps into the kitchen area and sat at the table. The young woman was still sleeping soundly, but their conversation roiled in my head: Leave it to me. I’ll get rid of him. Zahara knew my habits—she was simply taking the most direct line to assure herself I’d be gone most of the day dealing horses while she worked her mischief. Now she acted very casual, poured coffee into a tin mug, set it down in front of me and turned back toward the stove.

  “No, it’s not a market day, there’s no fairs about,” I said, trying to sound equally natural, and grinned at her. “I’d rather stay here and toy with you.” I reached playfully for her hips, then stood up and caressed her waist from behind. If Zahara fell into a deep post-coital sleep, I thought, gibbering to myself, I could get the girl alone, send her away.

  I nuzzled her neck. Her hair felt brittle, and I caught the faint sour smell of old dirt rising from her scalp. My stomach tightened, and as I drew back I saw the line of her shoulders suddenly droop into a thick dowager’s hump. My fingers twitched deep inside a fleshy roll of her midriff. I was afraid of retching. Oh Jesus, don’t let me see this, I gabbled inwardly, and squinted. Her image quivered, settled into the familiar shape of my fantasy.

  She leaned back against me, raised her hand to touch my cheek. “If you stay home, where will you get the money to pay for me?”

  “I’ve paid you plenty,” I said, sliding my hands over her belly. “C’mon,” I urged with a little squeeze, “give me a toss on credit—”

  “No.” Zahara shook her head.

  She’d said it lightly enough because she was really only trying to get me to leave, but a kind of low grade panic began swelling inside me. I needed to talk to the girl alone, and what the hell was I going to do?

  Zahara turned, sucked in her cheeks and gave a little pout. “Mamma says no,” she said again, simpering. She pinched my cheek, and all at once I felt frustration roaming through me like a restless tiger. “Business—” she began to say—and I cut her off.

  “Fuck business!” I gripped her elbows hard, squeezing, then suddenly pushed her aside roughly. She tottered toward the steps, put one scrabbling hand out against the wall to catch herself from falling. Her head swiveled up. She looked at me furiously and her eyes flashed hard and bright.

  “I don’t need you! I’ll fuck the girl,” I shouted and felt my own anger rising still higher with my voice. “It’s all the same to me. She’s younger anyway,” I sneered. I gave her my back and stamped toward the bedroom.

  Zahara grunted heavily, and then she was on me in a flash. She jerked my shirt backward. I felt her nails clawing at my skin through the cloth.

  I spun around and seized her flailing arms. I used my height and weight to force her backward and half-dragged her toward the door.

  “You son of a bitch, let go of me!” She screamed at the same time I hooked one leg around her ankle and pushed. She tripped forward, thumping knees and hands, then striking her chin against the floorboards and crying out.

  A line of blood flowed hot and glistening from the corner of her mouth, her eyes had a dazed look. I didn’t wait. I got my hands under her shoulders and hips, scooped her up, kicked the door open and didn’t put her down until we were on the steps outside.

  I raced back up the stairs, saw her struggling to her feet and slammed the door, sliding the bolt home at the same instant she hurled herself against the stout wood and began pounding.

  “Open this door,” she screamed.

  “See how you like it!” I shouted, knowing she would think it was my way of paying her back for what she’d done that night with the farmer. “I’m going to savor every single second with that girl! I’m going to lap her up like cream from a saucer.”

  I heard her moving off the steps, trampling through the tall dry grass. I stood stock still, listening. She was walking to the right, I thought, heading off, no, she was turning—going to the window! Oh Christ, she was trying to get in through the kitchen window I realized with a sudden bolt of awareness that electrified me. My heart hammered madly in my chest. I
galloped into the other room.

  Her face floated, round and moonlike up at me. Her bleeding tongue crept between her lips. She was grunting with effort. Her thick arms were high over her head, hands grappling to raise the heavy wooden shutter. I threw the casement upward, the glass rattled and shook in the frame. I leaned out, wrenched and twisted the shutter from her grasp, ripping two of her nails and bruising her fingers. She yelped with the pain and skittered backwards.

  “Choke on it, Zahara,” I screamed, banging down the shutter, then threading the metal hook and eye and locking it from inside. I ranged through the caravan to fasten the rest.

  “You bastard! You’re a bastard!”

  Her voice sounded farther away. Cautiously, I unlatched one shutter—half afraid her hand would come clawing through the opening—and saw her walking in the direction of a small spring we’d camped near. She was going to wash the blood off her face, I guessed. I would have to be quick, the spring wasn’t far at all.

  ***

  The girl was sitting up in bed, the covers drawn to her shoulders. She was wide eyed with terror.

  Christ, I thought, I forgot the window by the bed. All Zahara had to do was knock on the glass and tell the girl to let her in.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, advancing across the room and breathing a long whistling sigh of relief—the shutter was closed, locked after all.

  “Here, get your clothes on,” I said. “You have to get away from here.”