The Gentling Box Page 24

  I nodded.

  “Constantin gave it to you because he thought it would bring you comfort, Imre—the same way it does for him.” Joseph sighed. “I talk to him about our memories, things we shared in the past—a hunting trip, a bottle of brandy, firelight, the old tales and songs. That’s what he thought he was giving you.”

  I felt a dart of anxiety. What, then? I asked inwardly.

  “I do not want the sorceress to profane my body again.” He paused, and I shivered, remembered the thrill in her voice commanding him to rise, saw his ash-gray corpse rigid against the bed, suddenly jerked upright. “Ask of me what you will,” he’d whined, and I saw the nodding white head of a puppet.

  “To be raised up is more terrible than you know. All the desolation in the world sweeps like a nightwind howling through the vast emptiness that is your being. And there is only the will of the one who commands.”

  There was a quick rush of air down the chimney, the flames made a hissing sound and rose higher. I stared at the shifting fire-shapes and for a second, I thought I heard a wailing like the distant cries of lost souls. What do you want, Joseph?

  “I’m going to ask you once again to put all your faith in me; to believe that what I ask is for my sake. The power of the hand is great, but where there is no mind, no soul—there is nothing for the sorceress to glean. In destroying me, you put me beyond her reach. And I want you to do it, knowing that you give me peace, that you have done the last thing I shall ever ask anyone on earth to do. Be my son—”

  “Don’t ask it! I cannot gentle you—” The words slipped out, and I heard Constantin toss and fidget in his sleep.

  “Don’t let her profane me. Please. I stayed that night in the caravan because I knew Anyeta was restless, glutted with animal flesh. She wanted more. And I knew that Mimi loved you, that if you followed her there was the chance you might call her back and save her from that hideous sin. Mimi couldn’t have lived with that guilt, Imre.”

  In my mind, I saw my wife broken, weeping; her voice a well of sorrow: “I see what Anyeta does in my dreams, knowing the worst, that it’s not a dream—”

  “The battle lines are being drawn, and I do not say that in the end Anyeta will be defeated, but we cannot let her take us—one by one—like so many cards drawn from the deck and thrown away—”

  One by one—the phrase was like the deadmarch of wooden feet. Mimi was a shell—easily crushed. Joseph was gone. She was going to kill us all. The room went hazy, my mind was spinning.

  “The sorceress wants Lenore, and you are the only one standing in her way now, Imre”

  I was numb with dread. “You can’t! You can’t abandon us. Please.” My voice broke. “For Lenore—”

  “I tell you,” Joseph shouted, “she will raise me up and have it all from me—every last thing. If you cannot destroy the body for my sake—then do it for your own. The more she learns of what lies in the future, the harder your task will be.”

  “What task?”

  I thought he smiled—a little sadly—and I flushed guiltily. Christ, this is what Anyeta plots and fumes over.

  “The dead have secrets, Imre. They see into the minds and hearts of humans. They see what has been and what will be—”

  I felt a wavering, a rippling sensation that coursed through both my body and my mind, and I saw the Empress Elizabeth, years from now it seemed to me. She was still thin, but the light in her blue eyes was mostly gone. She was dressed in mourning, wearing no ornament but a heavy necklace of black wooden beads; a small medallion held a rosette that had been woven from pale human hair. My boy. Rudolph. Her fingers stroked the silken hair, the touch brought her the bitter mix of comfort and grief. As suddenly as it came, the odd vision left, seeming nearly to fade from my memory—

  “But let the future be a dark veil for you. Some things are better not known. And that is as God wills it.”

  Against my skin the ring seemed to burn like thin fire.

  “Mimi needed help. I gave it. Now I’m asking you to be strong, to give me the peace I seek.”

  I closed my eyes. Please, I begged inwardly, bearing down hard on the flat gold seal, Not gentling. I slid my jaw forward, grinding my teeth.

  “There are other ways,” Joseph said evenly. “Tomorrow, Constantine will make the casket. You will go to the town to make arrangements with a priest. And you must be quick. Before he reads the service there are certain things I want you to do . . . .”

  And then he went on to describe a destruction so horrible, for the first time I wondered if gentling might not be easier.

  -45-

  I was on my way into town to see a blonde-haired middle aged priest Joseph had described to me. I knew he was going to refuse Joseph burial in the churchyard, but I went to ask him anyway. I glanced down at the old man’s ring, his voice whirred impatiently inside me.

  “This priest is very devout—he’d say no, even if you offered him enough gold to bury twenty men, and tell you if the bishop got wind of it, they’d only have to dig the body up again, but go ahead and ask him. There are eavesdroppers in his rectory—”

  I walked along in the pale sunlight and sharp wind, pulling my coat tighter against my chest. “What difference does it make then?” I whispered.

  “The priest will confirm we’re Catholic, that I wanted to be buried in consecrated ground. That even if we are gypsies, the townspeople have nothing to fear.”

  There’s been no trouble, why should they suddenly be afraid?

  “There’s talk in the town—in the bars, the taverns, the shops—that the wolves are running. Farmers speak of finding gutted sheep, maimed cattle. Winter is hard upon the land, and when their prey grows scarce, the wolves seek weakness among men. Already there are rumors that the child attacked in the alleyway that night was set on by a wolf that the neighbors frightened away.”

  “But it was us—we ran, Mimi and I—” He cut me off.

  “So much the worse. Watch their faces, Imre, they believe a gypsy can turn himself at will into a wolf or a fox. There is danger here—not just from the old sorceress, but in the very heart of this country itself.”

  The road turned to cobbles under my feet, I moved through the narrow lanes, heading toward the church. For the first time, I felt the eyes of the townspeople looking through me, and I wondered if Joseph was right, if they were afraid. I tried to seem casual, but I watched closely to see if they forked the evil eye or blessed themselves quickly when I passed. If they were calling on those old superstitions, I didn’t see it—but their faces were edgy, lined with a tension I hadn’t noticed before.

  I saw the steeple of the stone church looming ahead and I passed under an old archway into the cobbled square.

  “The priest is inside hearing confessions,” Joseph whispered. “Look sad, light a candle, the old women who pray there notice everything.”

  I hesitated briefly, then climbed a set of bulky stone stairs and opened the heavy iron-shod church door, reminding myself this was the easy part. I laid aside the fear of what was yet to come.

  ***

  There was a small glass votive lamp flickering on a stand mounted outside the confessional box. It burned with an eerie blue light. Joseph was right, the priest was still inside, and now and then I caught the sound of muted voices begging forgiveness.

  Keeping one eye out for the priest, I knelt at the nearest side altar, my mind spinning on what the old man wanted me to do, his words racketing through my head.

  “Oil of vitriol,” Joseph had said. “But they won’t sell it to you. You’ll have to break in to steal it—”

  “Why?” I’d asked, a low dread winding through me.

  “Because . . .”

  Now trying to stop the flow of memory, I glanced up at the altar. There was a painted statue of Christ, his sensitive fingers cupped to show the Sacred Heart—a brilliant red the color of fresh blood, the gilded rays around the heart like daggers. I was suddenly overcome by the heat, the thick smell of melting wax from th
e ranks and ranks of burning candles. My head tipped forward giddily, and I let it rest on the edge of the cool marble rail. It’s not the heavy suffocating air making you queasy, I told myself, or a gruesome statue. It was hearing his voice in my head—

  “They won’t sell it to you because oil of vitriol is concentrated sulfuric acid.”

  It was knowing what Joseph wanted me to do—

  My fingers were clasped, but now they jerked and twisted together in a painful spasm. The exposed heart in the statue seemed like a live thing, beating and pulsating. And for a brief instant I had a hideous vision of molten flesh, of a ruined body that was a shifting tide of bubbling blood and white bone and rippling skin. Oh Christ, I thought, Joseph was right, the acid would destroy him.

  I heard the soft swish of velvet and I turned to see the priest brushing the purple drape of the confessional box aside. He blew out the candle, and I moved toward him.

  ***

  We sat in the priest’s tiny overheated office in the rectory. “You understand,” he said. “The church forbids it. And if my bishop were to somehow hear of it . . . .”

  I nodded absently, brushing at a tear and thinking Joseph knew, he knew what the priest would say. The dead have secrets.

  “And the villagers,” he sighed. “You know Romanians, they’re so superstitious.” The priest spread a pair of hairy, freckled hands, gave me a look that said we know better, you and I, but what can I do—

  I’d tuned him out then, my mind repeating the word acid, acid—like a dirty refrain, my mouth dry with terror.

  I glanced up and saw his blond head bobbing. “Yes, I’ll be there the day after tomorrow,” he was saying. “I don’t imagine there’ll be many mourners, but can you arrange to have the casket brought to the potter’s field?”

  “A potter’s field,” I repeated. I looked down at the gold ring, and twisted it as I’d seen Joseph do a thousand times. My hands were moist with an oily sweat and it turned easily. Are you sure you want him? I asked inwardly.

  “He’s the pastor. His word will carry weight.”

  I saw the priest’s mouth moving, my own face felt tight and stretched and I guessed I was giving him a fool’s grin.

  Let the future be a dark veil.

  We moved across the room. Like a sleepwalker I put a numb hand out to say goodbye. But his blue eyes suddenly darted toward the doorway. Something creaked in the hall.

  The priest put his finger to his lips, motioning me to be silent, and cat-quick he yanked the door wide. A fat housekeeper with bulging eyes was in the act of straightening up. Her ear had been laid against the keyhole I guessed, and she’d mis-timed the end of our conversation.

  “Well?” the priest said, glaring at her. “Haven’t I told you if I caught you spying out here again you were out of a job?”

  She stared back, and her hands, holding a feather duster went to her wide hips. “You ain’t going to read service over one of tem,” she challenged, pointing to me.

  “They’re God’s children too,” the priest said evenly.

  “Eh. More like devil’s spawn. Didn’t my own Lidia say to me dere wass a gyp woman peering down at her son when she walked the child in hiss carriage? Wheedling around, the gyp was. Marking de boy. Lidia said if she turn her back one instant de untdelmn gyp would snatch the baby!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—” the priest began.

  The housekeeper ignored him. “Look to your missus, gypsy! If even one small thing happens to my grandboy you will answer to my man! And we will have your head on a plate same as John the Baptist.” Her face, under its crown of pale carroty braids, went a dark dangerous red.

  The priest hustled me out the door past the raving housekeeper. I heard a hawking sound from deep in the well of her throat, felt a thin splattering on my coatsleeve.

  Joseph was right I thought, the townspeople were afraid. I couldn’t ever remember being spit on. I glanced down and saw the sticky globule, feeling a low disgust.

  “Forget it, get out, get the acid,” Joseph urged, and I left the rectory.

  ***

  The church bell tolled eight, and from the sheltering recess of a store front, I watched the apothecary across the way locking his shop. He pocketed the key, hefted a lumpy sack higher in his arms, and moved off down the street. He stopped, briefly, speaking with a tall-hatted watchman. Their voices in the dark seemed loud and grating.

  I had a quick mental flash of the acid hissing and smoking, and I shoved my fear—of handling the dense clear liquid, of getting caught—aside. I clenched my fist, leaned against the door, deeper in the shadows, waiting for them to pass so I could get on with what Joseph wanted me to do.

  I heard the watchman tap his stick and bid the apothecary a good night. He walked past me, whistling softly.

  I moved out from the shadows, crossing the narrow wet street, and my anxiety rose with each quickening step.

  ***

  The apothecary hadn’t left any lights burning in his small shop. I took a deep breath, then leaned my forehead against the cool glass. “Don’t make me do this,” I whispered, but there was no answer from Joseph now, only silence that seemed as sharp as an admonition.

  The front window was a tall three-sided bay lined with shelves. I could dimly make out the shapes of glass jars and canisters filled with murky liquids that would show green or red or blue by daylight. None of it was acid, I was sure—that would be kept in the back. Still, it was going to make a hell of a noise and a huge mess when I broke in.

  I had a vision of slipping on the floor and getting badly cut, or worse, hurrying on the way out and falling on and shattering the bottle of acid. People died from acid burns. I felt the muscles tic in my jaw. I remembered hearing about a man who was hanged for murder; the vitriol thrower, they called him—

  “Break the glass,” Joseph said, cutting in on my thoughts.

  I stood sideways to the narrow panel nearest the door and wadded my coat protectively around my right elbow. I got my shoulder into the swing, bunching the muscles of my forearm, and battered my elbow against the glass, shattering the window, sending apothecary jars to the floor with a wet crash.

  In the deserted street the sound was very loud. I hesitated, waiting for lights or the watchman’s shout, but there was nothing.

  Broken glass crunched under my feet. I reached through the window, toppling another shelf lined with heavy bottles.

  “Be quick,” Joseph urged; I ducked through the window and entered the shop.

  ***

  There was a door behind the long wooden counter; I opened it, feeling carefully along the jamb on the right. Most people are right handed, if they hang a lantern or tinderbox inside a doorway, it’s almost always on that side. My fingers brushed a round bulbous shape that was glass, I heard the soft screak of a metal handle. The apothecary used a lantern. I shut the door and lit a match, then took the lamp from the hook.

  I was in a kind of windowless closet with yellow plaster walls. The air was heavy with the fumes of drugs and chemicals. There was a workbench littered with small vials, stacks of paper labels, instruments for rolling and cutting pills. Next to it sat a deep gray stone sink under a set of crude shelves crammed with hundreds of pottery crocks, sacks filled with herbs, jars and bottles. Nothing labeled, everything helter-skelter, it would take me a day to paw through the apothecary’s stock.

  Where is it?

  There was a pause, as if the old man were scanning the shelves with a wary eye.

  “Top right, the brown glass bottle.”

  I reached up, took it down. The dark bottle had a long thin neck and wire clamps over the stopper to prevent accidental spills, I guessed. When it was topped up it might have held a liter, but it was only about a quarter full. I held it up to look more closely, tipping the bottle gently, then bringing it upright. The liquid sloshed softly against the side, then shifted back and forth like the motion of a small evil tide. My stomach suddenly rolled, and I felt drops of sweat breaking out under
my arms.

  “There isn’t much—” I started to say.

  “—Enough . . .”

  “It wouldn’t take long. I could look around, he might have quicklime—”

  “There’s enough—for the purpose.”

  I grasped his meaning at once, and closed my eyes, feeling sicker at the thought, at the same time I chided myself inwardly. Christ, what did you imagine it would be like, did you think you could just toss him in a vat of the stuff? Would that be easier? I groaned. It was ridiculous, but it was true. The mind is such an endless rationalizer, capable of absurd distinctions: It would be a lot less horrible to drop him into a barrel—as if the liquid were nothing more malignant than water; a lot less terrible to stand by the pit of his grave shoveling quicklime that you could pretend to yourself wasn’t all that different from earth. But in this one slim bottle, there was—

  Enough

  —Just enough to gelatinize the tissue of his face, to eat through the muscle, the bone, sink hissing, deep into the brain.

  “Oh dear God,” I whispered, my fingers trembling around the neck of the bottle. I can’t do this. I wanted to hurl it into the stone sink and rush from the place. I clutched the bottle, raised my arm . . . but his voice rooted me to the spot.

  “This is my wish. And you have to be strong for Constantin’s sake, Imre.”

  A sound that was part laugh, part sob caught in my throat. “Constantin. He’ll fight me to the death before he’ll let me do this, old man.”

  “He will understand if it comes from me. You know the old Romany saying, half gypsy: The soul remains with the body?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling as though he’d wrung the word from me. I lowered the bottle calmly, as if in a dream, blew out the lantern, found myself ambling like a sleepwalker slowly through the door.

  “When I’m truly gone, I want you to give the ring to Constantin. It will bring him comfort—for a while.”

  But when you’re gone, when we—I do this, I grimaced, he won’t hear anything, will he? I asked, barely aware of the sound of my heels tapping over the shop floor, crunching shards of glass underfoot.