The Gentling Box Read online

  “But—”

  “Look, there isn’t time!” I closed my eyes, drew a deep breath, decided to plunge ahead. “I know what she told you about the hand of the dead.” I stared hard at her. “It’s all lies.”

  The girl nodded. “She said you’d say that.” Her slim fingers moved sluggishly over a row of tiny buttons at her neck.

  “Have it your way. But if Zahara was telling the truth, don’t you think I would’ve claimed it to take all that power?”

  “You’re afraid. Like the others.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe me, will you just go? I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed, in the act of lacing her shoes, hesitated. Then she said, “There was power in that box. I felt it. Zahara, she’s very pretty she is. She’s the only person who’s ever been nice to me.”

  “Well then use your head, and ask yourself why—”

  “I’m like a daughter to her—”

  Anyeta. Wanting my wife, settling for a naive substitute. I suddenly groaned. “That,” I said, feeling a dark sorrow inside me, “is the only true thing she told you.”

  The girl turned those huge, liquid eyes on me, scanning my face. “Why are you being nice, then?” Her voice softened.

  “Because you remind me of someone I loved.”

  “Loved?”

  “Do love. But I let her down—badly.” I paused, thinking, Christ, just say it you coward. “I betrayed her.”

  “With Zahara?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if I can ever set it right again, but—sending you away, is the beginning of trying to find my way to her.” In Hungary, a man who wanted a divorce packed his things—or not—and left. Swear to love . . . .

  She cocked her head, the great mass of curls tumbled to one side, and again I had the feeling she was trying to size me up. “Loyalty’s a good thing,” she said, standing up.

  “You believe me then?” I put one hand on her arm, lightly.

  “I believe you love this woman. What’s her name?”

  “Mimi.” I looked away briefly. “What’s yours?”

  “Catherine.” She drew on a shabby faded shawl, and I saw she was giving in, going. She followed me up the stairs through the kitchen, through the curtained alcove to the front of the caravan.

  I opened the door a crack. Zahara was nowhere in sight. “Catherine,” I said. “I won’t forget you.”

  “Not me, it’s her you’ve got to keep in mind.” She shrugged. “I’ve knocked around. I’ve seen a lot of men fall from grace. But a good man—his woman will nearly always take him back.”

  I took her hand, pressed her small fingers. I tried to shove a stack of gold coins in her palm, but she wouldn’t take it from me, waved me off. “Your fortune’s free today, gypsy,” she said, and her small mouth curved up in a bright smile.

  I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Bless you, then.”

  She nodded, suddenly looking more mature and worldly than her years. “Remember her.”

  “Mimi,” I said.

  “Mimi.”

  Then she was gone, moving lightly down the stairs. I watched ’til she was out of sight, then sat down to wait for Zahara.

  ***

  I heard the knob rattle, and it jolted me out of the visionary plans I’d been hatching. I made myself be calm, lit a cigarette, crossed one leg over the other. I’d left the door unlocked and now Zahara opened it.

  “Where is she?” Her voice had an edge to it.

  “Up in the loft,” I replied evenly, and watched Zahara’s jaw muscles tighten in reflex. Her eyes scanned the length of the caravan, traveled upwards. “A little fantasy of mine,” I said, stubbing out the cigarette and getting up. “A game.”

  Her lids drooped a little, she stared at me, let me go on.

  “You and I are making love,” I whispered, and reached one finger up to stroke the curve of her breast. “We’re very intent, so intent we don’t hear her creeping into the room,” I said against her ear, while I rounded her belly with my hands. “You’re my whore, my dirty girl.” I began drawing her toward the bedroom.

  “What’s the game?” she whispered.

  I chuckled lightly. “She’s my wife, and she catches us. After all . . . she looks a little like Mimi . . . .”

  I felt her start, told myself to keep going, keep her off balance. I kissed her lips.

  “And she’s very angry,” Zahara said.

  “No,” I chortled, thinking ohchristforgiveme, shoving my repulsion aside and pressing on, “No, in my fantasy, it’s a little game I’ve worked out with Mimi, and you pretend to be frightened at being caught, but she wants you, too.” I saw the wheels in her mind turning, told myself to reel the whorebitch in. “The girl says she’ll do it.”

  “Do what?” she purred.

  “Whatever you want,” I said, easing her so she sat down on the bed. I knelt between her legs, rounded one breast, then pushed her skirt up and buried my face in her thighs. I felt her hands in my hair, my mind began to jitter and skid. How slow should I go? How long could I keep her distracted before she called for Catherine? I had no illusions about forcing the gentling cap onto her head; I’d hidden a long knife alongside the device. It was on the floor just under the dragging blanket. I could feel the rounded tip of the bone handle grazing my knee. Immobilize her, I told myself, one slash across the eyes or throat, anywhere, wherever my hand found flesh, and then while she was down, the cap. But it had to be quick—

  “Quick,” she murmured and I felt my heart skitter madly in my chest. Dear mother of Christ, she’d picked the thought randomly from my brain as easy as you’d pluck a bad grape from the cluster.

  “Want it quick, do you?” I asked, running my tongue over her thigh, trying to divert her, to stop the swift tide of fear that was rising in me. The deep pores of her skin swam into focus. I saw the dry, sagging flesh whitened with countless lines and wrinkles, forced myself to shut my eyes. I nipped and sucked, her skin rolled inside my mouth like a loose wad of sacking, and I felt myself gag. Zahara. Lies more believable than truth. “Suppose it was slow, lingering?” I breathed. “Nearly endless . . .”

  “Endless,” she said, and I heard a catch in her voice.

  Her hands suddenly clenched in my hair, and then before I could stop myself my eyes lifted and met hers.

  Panic rushed through me. I saw the hard light of awareness begin to glimmer in those dark ancient eyes. There was a pause that was both infinitesimal and eternal, and I screamed inwardly Now, now’s the time to do it, Christ, do it! so that at the same time my hand seized the knife under the bed, her eyes flamed with full understanding. “No!” she gasped, flinging one arm high and shuddering backwards trying to heave herself out of the way

  but the knife was already a glittering arc risen high and

  and Anyeta screamed as I screamed

  and drove it with all my might into the center of her chest.

  Blood geysered from the wound. Her jaw spasmed and dropped, her eyes went glassy. Her fingers fluttered weakly, opening and closing around the protruding handle, then she collapsed back against the bed, arms and legs splayed, knees bent over the edge.

  I stood up, panting, breathing in that sharp coppery scent and watched the blood running in a thick ropy stream from her breasts to her belly. It seemed endless, that red pulsating wet flow.

  There was a gurgling sound in her throat. Her eyes bulged wide in their sockets. She strained, trying to lift her head, and I saw the cords standing out on her throat. Her head dropped back heavily against the bed. The blood coming out of her chest bubbled, then slowed to a trickle.

  She was dead, I thought, but I knew better than to put my ear close to listen for any faint stirrings inside her. Joseph had said he doubted the old sorceress could possess anyone who hadn’t claimed the hand of the dead, and her attempt to trick the young whore made me think that was the case, but I told myself not to take chances.

  My hands were slimed with bl
ood and I wiped them carefully against my trousers. I went to the mirror and peered at myself, using my shirtcuff to dab at the red flecks and smudges. Afterwards I’d burn my clothes, the bedsheets—anything that showed a single drop of her blood.

  I took a deep breath and told myself the worst was really over. The old bitch was dead, all that remained of the job was to send her to the hell she deserved. And all I had to do was take the cap from under the bed.

  -33-

  Don’t think about the gentling, just do it I told myself as I peered down at her body sprawled across the blood-spattered bed. She was the Zahara Joseph described to me that long ago day. Her hair was filmed with gray—even her brows and lashes were dull with aging. Her mouth, hanging open, revealed the dark gaps in her teeth. Her thick body slumped awkwardly in death. Yet I felt no repulsion now, only sadness that her dreams had grown as grotesque as her body and betrayed her into death.

  My eye fell on the bloody knife sticking up from between her heavy breasts, and my hand came up to pull it out—then I thought it was better to leave it. I hunkered down and took out the gentling cap, placing it on the edge of the bed.

  I knelt over her, smoothing the wiry hair away from her brow with my fingers. Then I picked up the hideous cap. My stomach did a slow roll, my mouth went dry.

  Joseph had sewn two wide leather strips at right angles, making I supposed alterations to fit a human head. There was something very ugly about that raw-looking thick brown leather. From far away I heard myself grunt. I saw he’d used a dark heavy wood to shape the bands—walnut or beech perhaps, and smoothed it a little, but it still felt rough and grainy when I ran the pad of one finger along the outer curve. Hideous thing, really—I shoved aside the image of Zahara screaming in terror that night in front of the cave while Vaclav tried to force the cap on her head.

  It’s the only way.

  I held the crude device between my hands and lifted my arms to place it on her head, but I was practically straddling her and the position was very awkward. Her head was nearly in the center of the wide bed.

  I paused. It would be better if I turned the body around. I slid backward off the mattress, then bent to shift her, swinging her legs around. I put the pillow under her head and now, lying lengthwise, she looked more natural, like a woman who’d fallen asleep. Much better, I decided. I watched her a while, then told myself to get on with what had to be done.

  My breathing went shallow, my hands felt thick, awkward. I tugged the cap into place. The wood bands arched across her forehead. The criss-crossed leather pressed so tight it seemed to change the shape of her skull into something sickly and inhuman. An evil contraption, a filthy thing. Leather, wood, steel. Like a torture device dreamed up during the middle ages. I looked at her, lying so still, eyes wide, and swallowed uneasily.

  “Give her some dignity,” I muttered out loud, and the sound of my voice startled me. I crossed her legs demurely at the ankles, arranged her hands so one clasped the other at her waist, pushed her mouth up and into place. Her skin was very pale, a grayish blue, but at least when I posed her she had the look of someone who’d been cared for, attended to. I stood back, hugging my elbows, watching a while, thinking of myself as the sole mourner at a funeral. Then I was suddenly conscious that the floor felt cold and hard under my feet. I shook my head, told myself leave off daydreaming. It was best to get on with it.

  I’d taken the long metal spikes out of the bands earlier, now they needed to be refitted. I tweezed them from the mattress, one at a time, rolling them lightly in one moist palm. They had a weighty feel, the slightly greasy touch that steel has at times.

  My pulse throbbed at my temples, I lined up the holes on the bands, slipped the thin needles into place. Riding lightly, without breaking the skin, they still dented the flesh of her brow. And when they went in—I closed my eyes, gulped, shook the thought off. Christ it was hideous, though.

  My hands came up to turn the screws, my fingers trembled, my palms were sweaty. I lowered them, wiping them against my trousers, lifted them again, then leaned over her.

  My face was so close to hers, my own breath came back at me, warm and light, and for a second I stopped and jerked away thinking, she’s alive, good Christ, she’s alive.

  I took a long step back, stared at her. You could almost make yourself believe her chest was rising and falling, however slowly. It was barely detectable but I watched the tip of the bone white handle slide up and down by fractions. My eyes went blurry. I blinked, cleared my vision. Anything, I told myself will seem to move if you stare hard and long enough, because your own eyes—

  Her eyes. The thought clamored in my head. Her eyes were open. It was making the job harder to do. It’s as if she’s glaring at you, reproaching you. It would only be the work of a second to close them and then I could do what needed to be done, stop this crazy fooling around.

  My knuckles grazed the ashy cheeks, I brought my thumbs up to push the lids down and found myself gazing into the black irises.

  There was mystery in the those dark, subterranean depths—a moonlit lake that descended forever.

  All at once my breath came hard, I was suddenly crushed by the memory of kissing her wide red lips in springtime. I smelled the warm living flesh of her breasts, musk mingling with the scent of newly washed clothes and perfumed hair. She was twenty-one, an older woman to a callow youth of seventeen; she had plaited a scattering of tiny golden coins the size of teardrops here and there in her hair. I heard the gold pieces chiming softly when she shook her head, heard the high sweet chirping of nightbirds, saw the moon—white and round and full—over her shoulder where she leaned against the rough black bark of an old knotty elm. I felt her tongue meeting mine, her hands were warm and soft on my back.

  “Tikno,” she whispered against my mouth. “Little boy.” She touched my face; I wanted to tell her I was no boy, that I loved her. The words stayed locked in my throat, burned inside my head. I reached one hand up; I thought I would stroke her hair, touch one shimmering coin. Instead my hand fell clumsily on her breast, and from far off I heard a groan issue from deep inside me.

  “Te na khutshos perdal tscho ushalin,” she teased. “Don’t try to jump your own shadow. It’s not love, little boy; it’s only lust.”

  Then she was running, laughing lightly, the gold in her hair ringing sweetly, the hair itself a glossy tangle against the moving blur of her cape, and my heart was beating hard and fast and I knew that for me, she would be that Zahara forever.

  One kiss, I thought, just one before I—I—to say goodbye. Here and there her pale face was flecked with blood, but her lips were tinged with it, making them redder still. Surely even Joseph wouldn’t begrudge a kiss given to an old love. I peered into her eyes, the light seemed to flicker and dance there briefly, as if she were waiting for my kiss. I closed my lids, leaned toward her. Delicately, I put my hand behind the nape of her neck, inclining her face up to mine, thinking, just one, quick and light, one single kiss. My lips lightly poised to touch hers, I drew her closer. Something like a sigh wheezed out of her throat; air passing from the lungs through the vocal chords, I told myself, at the same time it seemed to me the sound of the voice was the low and distant song of ship bells on the sea. Haunting. Romantic.

  “Ah,” I breathed, verging on the kiss, my warm hands pressing her head forward to make her mouth meet mine, then suddenly and completely registering the feel of that chill flesh—

  I was consumed, shuddering with horror: The muscles of her neck were beginning to stiffen. Under my fingers, her jaw was rigid, stony. I winced away, shaking. Her head fell woodenly against the pillow, a long moan escaped the mottled lips, the voice an anguished whine, but Christ, how long had I been just standing there in the shuttered gloom of the caravan, staring?

  Hours and hours. I raked my hand through my hair, thinking it couldn’t be. But it was. I popped a shutter; the winter sun was low in the sky, the light illuminating the bed, feeble.

  Gentling. It’s the onl
y way. Joseph’s brooding face wavered before me.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets, seeing the corpse of a blowsy, overweight woman, and exhaled sharply. I understood that behind the obsidian eyes Anyeta seethed, churning with impatience to be released, that she was playing with me, tormenting me. That even now she might be capering with greedy delight: But I couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter if she—if both of them—had bewitched me all these months. I couldn’t do it to Zahara. I couldn’t savage the memory of the shining girl that danced in my heart. No. I could not bring myself to gentle any living thing, any human.

  I shook my head, took two long steps, wrenched the hideous cap from her head and flung it away. It tapped and clattered maddeningly against the floor, came to a stop, and the atmosphere in the room was suddenly filled with a silence that seemed blessed.

  ***

  After a long time, my hand went up and out, smoothing Zahara’s hair gently. “Poor thing,” I whispered, stroking, and then her head suddenly turned under my fingers. Her cheek buried itself against the pillow, I heard the feeble creaking sound of her jaw dropping wide, and I hissed, jumping back. One eye glared up at me, the light giving it a wicked glint that matched the smirking grin—

  Anyeta.

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted, my voice echoing harshly in the stillness of the room.

  I shivered, began to pace, jabbering to myself. “No. She didn’t move, no, you were patting her head, you did it yourself!” My eye snagged on her leering face, a mocking death’s-head. Anyeta.

  I turned away, sinking heavily to the floor, then I lowered my head and wept.

  -34-

  I pounded my clenched my fist hard against my knee. There had to be another way, I told myself. And there was still a job to be done, even if I couldn’t—couldn’t dishonor Zahara. I grimaced, catching sight of the vile cap. Joseph didn’t know everything. I just had to think of some other way. Something cataclysmic. Final. My brain teemed. My teeth were chattering, I felt feverish—my thoughts broke off, I felt myself break out in a wide grin—the idea took hold and bloomed in my head: Fire. Yes, fire would consume her so there was nothing left. All right then, I nodded, I’d wait till full dark and then take her body from the caravan. Burn it. Just as I’d planned: Blood splotched sheets, bedding and all, I’d yag it, and that would make an end of Anyeta.