The Gentling Box Page 21

  I had a mental vision of the gypsies ringing Anyeta’s fire-scarred body, ripping it apart . . . were the Hungarians so very different from the Roms after all? A feeling of unease swept over me; Old Joseph seemed to key into my thoughts.

  “People said when the Russian Czar sent his soldiers to help the Emperor, he saved Hungary for Franz Joseph—but he turned it into Siberia. It didn’t feel like home to me anymore. It was hateful . . . dreary. That was why I left.”

  I nodded.

  “I know that the Emperor—now that he’s over his worst fears—has become a sort of kindly ruler; that the Empress is beloved. I know that living in the North, in the Nyirseg, you were largely untouched by those things.” From across the table, he paused, looking at me carefully, and I felt the penetration of his brilliant gaze. “That even if you had experienced the fear and privations I faced, you would go there—because despite its problems, Hungary is a place that you love.”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes, briefly seeing the sun dappled plains, the grazing herds.

  “Tell, me then,” Joseph said, “do you think when Anyeta is out, Mimi also goes to a place she loves?”

  I shook my head. Joseph puffed quietly on the pipe.

  “Well, where does she go?” he asked, and I found myself imagining some dismal Siberia of the soul, thinking a man doesn’t leave a place he loves—much less a person—

  “What kind of vigil does she keep? Does she sleep? watch? wait?”

  “Oh, Christ,” I murmured, knowing he was right, and I felt the wellspring of my anger ebb.

  ***

  At nightfall, I sat soberly at the table in my caravan holding the small glittering gems before me, slowly turning the deep purple amethyst earrings to and fro, watching the facets refract the candlelight. Thinking of the violet hues, the light in her eyes. Remembering other holidays, other years:

  Mimi, making an enormous batch of poppy seed tarts filled with honey. Lenore (aged four) and I crowded round her, pretending to help, both of us egging the other on as we stole fingerfuls of raw dough from Mimi’s big blue mixing bowl. Mimi laughing at the same time she swatted my hand lightly with the back of the sticky wooden spoon.

  “Go on, get away, the two of you,” she giggled. “There won’t be enough for a single tart.”

  “Do we care, Lenore? I mean does it matter if it’s raw or baked as long as we enjoy it?”

  “Nope,” she shook her head, grinned. “Look Mama, there’s a bat at the window.” Mimi falling for the ruse—or pretending to—while I made a squeaking noise to simulate the bat. Lenore whooped, then plunged her whole chubby hand deep inside the dough and clapped it to her mouth, chewing fast.

  Mimi laughing, the words “Lenore, you’re going to make yourself sick,” coming from her lips at the very instant Lenore’s face went nausea green and she clutched her tummy and bolted for the washstand. She was so tiny, she had to stand on tip toe to aim at the basin.

  She coughed, spit out what was left of the huge wad of dough, then let out the most un-girlish belch I’d ever heard, a deep baying that sounded like a bullfrog suddenly released from the depths of a swamp.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhh,” she made a carking sound, burped again, patting her round belly. “Tshailo sim—I am replete.”

  It was what the old Roms said, their stomachs bulging like water barrels, having gorged for hours nearly to bursting.

  The spoon fell from Mimi’s hand, both of us bayed laughter and hung on each other’s shoulders. Lenore stooped down in a child’s careful way, slowly picked up the fallen spoon, then wedged herself between us in the middle of our hug.

  “What’s so funny,” she asked, tugging Mimi’s skirts. “What’s so funny, Mama?” In her other fist, she clutched the sweet dough smeared spoon, waving it around baton-style as we stepped apart. It appeared to catch her attention. She paused, staring at the spoon, and then we saw her wee pink tongue come out for a final lick. Mimi and I laughed until we cried.

  That memory faded, but my mind played over a whole series of images. The sight of Mimi, her narrow waist looking smaller still, as she reached high to place a bright red vase filled with holly on a shelf. Candles, flames glowing yellow soft, their copper bases rising out of pungent evergreen boughs. The white and gold clothed table filled with food; Hungarian delicacies like toltott paprika, meat stuffed peppers served in tomato sauce; or racponty, a devilled carp with vegetables and topped with sour cream. Mimi, smiling, heaping our plates.

  I recalled Mimi and three-year-old Lenore setting up a small paper crèche in the middle of the wooden kitchen table. But Lenore did not want a “centapiece,” she told us. Because she was not allowed to play at the table, and she wanted to play with the “mange,” and therefore, didn’t we think it would look much better on the floor under the tree? But no, Mimi told her, that wouldn’t be nice. Good children did not play with Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, and sent her off to bed. Later that night Mimi and I followed our own custom and sat under the lantern at the table drinking sweet wine. Mimi kept fiddling with the star on the roof of the stable and rearranging the tiny painted figures and saying, “Something looks wrong,” while I told her she was too much the perfectionist. And both of us giggled the next morning when we found Lenore asleep in her berth—with most of the cows, the Three Wise Men, and all of the camels spread around her, a white sheep scrumpled in one fat hand.

  All those years of comfort, of companionship, of merriment. And alone now, I sat at the same table, keeping a custom. A bottle and two unfilled glasses rested on the bare boards. I twirled the tiny gold posts of the earrings, watching them reflect the lantern light. Where was she? Surely if she kept a vigil this cold, forlorn Christmas, it was in no place she loved. Joseph’s voice echoed in my head. Does she sleep? watch? wait? Thinking of her pain, her sorrow, I held my wife’s gift in my hand. It was so little measured against all she’d given Lenore, all she’d given me.

  I would not sleep, I told myself; but I would watch, and I would wait. For her.

  -40-

  “Must you?” Mimi asked, biting her lip.

  I nodded sadly, began unwinding the long smooth strips of sheeting, not wanting to look at her frail body strung out over the bed. She knew what happened with Zahara, and that made it worse for both of us.

  “Even when you know it’s me? You do know it’s me?” Her arms were already fastened, she raised her head awkwardly, straining and twisting her shoulders to look at me.

  “Yes . . . ” I began, but my voice trailed off. I did know it was my wife whose mind had control of the body. But there was no help for tying her down. I puffed air between my lips, thinking of that feral, growling voice. Run with the wolves. Bite deep. Anyeta, we now knew was more likely to emerge when Mimi slept; there was no way to guard her all night, every night. “We agreed,” I said, “it’s the only way.”

  “It’s been two days this time,” Mimi said.

  I wrapped the strip of cloth over her small ankle, making a series of tight knots, looped it to the bedpost, tying it firmly. Mimi was wearing a pair of red woolen socks; she said her feet got cold and cramped when she slept because of the unnatural position. I lashed her other leg, then began walking around the bed, jerking on each of the four strips with a hard yank to make certain they were secure.

  “I can tell when she’s coming,” she said sullenly.

  I said nothing. In my mind I heard last night’s conversation: Mimi begging, Don’t, don’t tie me down, she won’t come tonight, please. Both of us crying as I fastened her. I lay down on the white featherbed in the corner of the darkened bedroom, listening to the sound of her sobs—harrowing, desperate. She cried a long time, while I tossed uneasily on the makeshift bed. The last thing she said was, When she’s coming out, I feel giddy for hours before, a kind of dizziness—the feeling of being unwell before you get the flu—then headaches. I know when she’s coming out, she finished, and when I didn’t answer, she said, Imre, please, sleep with me, untie me and sleep on the bed
with me, I’m afraid to sleep alone. I didn’t do it, though; she was not alone, I knew—not really. Still, I thought, Anyeta had not come.

  “Please,” Mimi said again, when I arranged the pillow under her head, and tucked the quilts around her. I leaned over the bed, kissed her goodnight. “I love you,” I said, stroking her cheek softly with the backs of my fingers.

  She turned her face away. “We can’t live like this forever,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  I blew out the candle. Mimi lay quietly. I began undressing in the dark, hurrying a little because of the chilly air, the wintry drafts that swept over the windowsill, eddied up through the floorboards. Sighing a little at the thought of another bad sleep on the lumpy pallet, I turned toward it and heard my own sharp intake of breath: the featherbed lay in a spill of brilliant moonlight, looked whiter still in contrast to the deep black shadows. When the moon is high. Lope over the fields and run. I felt my eyelid twitch. From the bed came the sound of rhythmic breathing. She’s asleep, I told myself, then moved stealthily toward the window and peered up into the slate-colored nightsky. The moon was out last night, I reminded myself, and nothing happened.

  It was just a little past the full, one thin slice edging it toward the ragged gibbous phase. Now the light was white, hard, shiny; toward dawn it would soften to yellow, drifting down through the veils of mist.

  I got into bed and turned the hem of the sheet over the stiff, heavy covers—then stopped abruptly: From across the room came the sound of a low snicker. I listened carefully, but there was only the drumming beat of my pulse. I lay back, the cotton a rustling noise against my ear, but under it, low and ominous, I perceived the distinct sound of chuckling.

  Eyes wide open now, I lay rigid in the dark straining to hear, concentrating. The wind rushed past, rocking us lightly; from under the eaves came the thin screak of wooden joists; a mouse scurried through the loft, tiny nails clicking fast against the boards.

  There was nothing else, not a sound from the bed where Mimi lay. I stayed awake all night, would take an oath I never moved, never slept.

  At dawn I went to unloose her; Mimi always wanted the chamberpot right away, even before I finished untying her—but she was still sleeping. I yawned, my eyes stung, I had that faraway clotty feeling that comes from lack of sleep. I stooped down to reach beneath the bed for the flowered china pot and came awake all at once with eye-popping speed.

  On the floorboard was the bloody imprint of a human foot. Someone had stood there, first flexing, then springing onto the bed: The round red circles from the toes were more sharply outlined than the heel.

  Red wool socks, I thought, and I knew I would have to keep my hands from trembling when I untied her, look without her knowing I was looking for tell-tale signs. I felt my mind tilt. It couldn’t be, I told myself, tugging at the handle of the pot with a shaking hand, it was impossible. Over my head came the sound of Mimi’s voice wishing me good morning.

  ***

  “Does she know you saw?” Joseph asked me later that morning. We walked through the woods near my caravan. The old man had been stopping by every few days, sometimes bringing Lenore for a visit.

  I couldn’t see the green caravan but found my gaze drifting uneasily in that direction. “I just made small talk; I hardly glanced at her feet.”

  I’d already told him the dried blood on the socks was easily overlooked against the vivid red wool, the dark flecks and slubs in the lumpy knitting. I tried not to imagine what they would have looked like if they’d been white—but it was too easy to see the pale stocking shapes clotted with streaks of gore. Her skin under the wool must have been drenched with it. I felt a queasy roll in my guts, then spat to clear my mouth.

  The blood was caked on the soles of her feet—like she’d been standing in a puddle of it. The thick wool was matted down, and I’d pretended not to notice the stockings were hard—stiff with crusting blood—when my hands brushed them.

  I recoiled now, thinking of the blood, of the sharp coppery smell that assailed my nostrils when I bent low to pick at the knots, and frowned with disgust. “How the hell is she getting out?” I said, at the same time I wondered uneasily if she’d done it before, whether it was the first time I’d noticed.

  “Tonight I’ll stay with her,” Joseph said, sitting down on the edge of a rocky outcropping, and leaning heavily on a black walking stick. He rubbed one hand over the other briefly, and I saw he wasn’t wearing the heavy gold signet ring. His finger was slightly narrowed, the skin faintly shining where it rubbed under the ring all those years. I was about to comment, ask him if he’d lost it, but he broke in on my thoughts. “Tell her you’re going back to town, to be with Lenore. Then, if Anyeta spells me into sleep, it won’t matter.”

  “Yes,” I said, catching his drift at once. I would lie in wait, watching the caravan.

  I looked up at the blazing ball of the sun, and for a brief instant the sky went black; I saw the duller light of the moon. I squeezed my hand in a tight fist. If Anyeta left to run with the wolves, I’d know about it. And I would follow.

  ***

  I stood at the window of the caravan, just beyond the line of the shutter, peering through the glass. Beyond the bedchamber, I could see the dull red glow of the fire in the stove. The old man had tied Mimi to the bed, then warmed himself with a glass of brandy. He blew out the candle and sat fully dressed, cross-legged on the feather bed in the corner.

  Mimi was asleep. Joseph was silent, watching. Twice I saw his head drift toward his chest, then snap forward with a jerk. There was a stillness, a cold heaviness to the air, and I felt myself getting drowsy. I blew on my hands to warm them, and with a glance toward the sky thought of moving off toward the woods to watch from a distance with the spyglass Joseph had given me. I was about to tap lightly on the glass to signal the old man when I saw him go suddenly rigid.

  His arms and legs slowly stiffened straight out, his shoulders canted backwards. His breathing went shallow. His eyes were wide, staring. I leaned closer, watching, and at the same time I realized he was sound asleep I saw his frail body rising from the floor.

  It was slow. He was lifted like a wooden puppet controlled by a child’s hand; his legs draggled against the floor, the bootheels knocking on the wood, his head hanging forward over his chest.

  On the dresser a candle flame sprang to life, and I saw Anyeta sneering through Mimi’s features. “Want to play, old man?” she whispered.

  A shiver coursed along his body, but there was nothing else—not even a flicker in his unmoving eyes.

  The bonds that held her began unwinding themselves with slow sinuous movements. Like four small white columns they turned and fluttered rising straight into the air.

  Anyeta sat up, rubbing her wrists absently. I saw her grin. She gave a sharp nod and Joseph’s body floated backward until it touched the wall. His arms were high over his head, his legs wide apart. His eyes were fixed, unblinking; a small runner of tears dribbled down one thin cheek. Like a specimen pinned to a dissecting board, he was sprawled against the wall.

  Anyeta began to laugh as if she’d thought of a capital joke, then she turned, narrowing her eyes, concentrating: The white strips of sheeting slithered through the air with a quick hiss. They began wrapping themselves around the old man’s cruciform wrists and ankles and throat. I suppose it was a mockery—the bonds were as much a useless decoration as her own. He was nothing more than a broken doll, a toy for her, and I closed my eyes, sick at the thought.

  “Are you watching, old man?” she said, “Dreaming you’re wide awake and alert? And what do you hear? The beating of your own heart? The wind in the trees? Nothing else?”

  The front of the bed jerked high and fell crashing back against the floor. Instantly it rose again and smashed downward, over and over, until the noise and vibration was like echoing thunder in the room.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked, and began to snicker. Joseph’s face was blank, the eyes hollow, dulling with the glaze o
f unblinked tears.

  “You watched all night and you saw nothing!” Her jaw gaped in mock surprise, her voice was filled with disbelief, shock.

  “You have to watch more closely,” Anyeta said, snapping her fingers and his dark eyes began dragging back and forth in the sockets, moving to and fro like the ticking of a pendulum.

  She got up from the bed, yawned behind her hand, then crooked one finger idly. A hairbrush danced off the dresser and flew to her waiting hand.

  The old man’s round black irises shifted right and left and right and left, the endless circuit of animated clockwork.

  Outside the window, my heart picked up the rhythm and I clenched my fist in a hard knot and told myself to wait. The moon was on the rise. And when she finished amusing herself, she would run.

  -41-

  The door to the caravan swung open. I froze, pressing myself against the side wall, heard her clattering down the short flight of steps.

  From the crest of a low ridge came the sound of howling. I turned to look, with the odd sinking feeling she was doing the same. The moon had climbed a little ways above the horizon, it was low and brilliant, canceling the stars in the east.

  On the ridge I saw their shadowy forms. The light glinted off the silver streaked fur when the wolves paced, snuffling over the ground, or sat on their haunches and tilted their sleek heads against the sky. Here and there I picked out a pair of glowing luminous eyes, the white of saliva-slicked teeth.

  The pack howled and she answered. Then she began to move with preternatural speed. I heard the sound of brush snapping under her tread, of her feet striking the ground, of air rushing past her racing form. And then she stood on the ridge, upright, among the cringing wolves. They crowded close to her, oiling softly, like dark water breaking against rocks that rise out of the sea.