The Gentling Box Page 28

  My heart missed a beat. Lenore hearing that low evil laugh, the sound of Anyeta creeping out the door. Feeding on God knew what. Had my daughter leaned to kiss her mother awake in the morning, then drawn back gagging on a cloud of blood and offal?

  I put the thought aside, turned Lenore’s face up to mine. “You’ve been a good nurse to your mother, honey, but now it’s over.”

  “What do you mean?” Lenore’s dark brows squinched down.

  “I mean,” I said, drawing them smooth with the tip of my index finger, “we’re leaving. Going back to Hungary.”

  “Really?” Her face brightened, and I remembered a dead winter day when she’d cried to me she hated this country! hated all of it! and the only good thing was the uncles, and they were—gone. And she’d prayed to God and the Virgin to make it spring so we could all leave, but God wouldn’t do it. My little girl stood at the window, weeping—as if she were shocked to see the wet black tree limbs, the endless gray-white snow swirling, a row of icicles hanging from the roof like jagged silver teeth. “They won’t let us leave,” she’d cried hotly, pointing skyward. And I didn’t know if she meant God and the Virgin, or the grinning row of frozen teeth that penned us in the mouth of the wagon.

  “We’re really leaving?” Lenore said again.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, putting my arm around her narrow shoulders and toying with a lock of stray hair. “I’ll hitch the rest of the team, go south. Find a market town—it’s coming on for spring. One of these godforsaken places will be having a fair. Trade these nags for good horses—”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “We’ll all go,” I said, catching Mimi’s eye, sending her an imploring look that said, Help me; if you can help at all, help us get out of here. She shut her lids. I saw her nod a faint yes.

  ***

  I walked Lenore to Constantin and Joseph’s wagon where she slept. She pattered ahead, I heard the flap of the canvas, and she darted in. While she got ready for bed, I stayed outside, smoking, waiting for her to call me to tuck her in. I heard her pouring water into a basin, the drippy sound of the washcloth as she scrubbed her face.

  She liked her privacy, she’d told me the day she settled in the small space for good, and I’d smiled at the time. Now I wondered if it had to do with the still childish part of her mind that said if I don’t hear my mother stealing barefoot toward the door, the minute snap of the latch, the creak of hinges—if I don’t hear it, if I can’t hear it—it doesn’t happen.

  “Ready.”

  Lenore poked her face through the flaps, reminding me of a puppet at a fair, and I felt my face break out in a wide smile. We were going to find a fair, we were going to leave. Lenore would beg for coins, spend it on candy and useless truck, watch it all—the battling Punch and Judy puppets, the trained dogs and monkeys, the jugglers—with wide eager eyes.

  The lamp on the night table was glowing. She sat crosslegged outside the covers. Her hands and teeth were busily working over the knots in the end of a soft cotton sock that jingled with money. Her face was fierce with determination, her hair a dark shimmering fall in the dim light, and it struck me all at once that she was caught in some shadowy space between childhood and womanhood.

  The knots gave way, she thrust one hand deep into the worn sock and pulled out a fistful of coins. “Not bad,” she said poking one finger through the money and making it chink.

  “I’ll give you more,” I said, jingling some coins in my own pocket.

  It was the child-Lenore that grinned up at me. “All of it.” She put her hand out, and I filled it. We both laughed at the bright spill of gold.

  “We’re really, truly going?”

  “Yes,” I said, making her scoop up the money and get under the covers. She held the end of the droopy sock in one fist.

  “Solemn promise, word of honor?” she said, beginning an old ritual she used when she wanted something very badly from me or her mother.

  “Sacred promise, oath of honor,” I said, rubbing my nose back and forth against hers to finish out the game. She heaved a little sigh of relief and let her lids fall closed. I smiled at the heavy fringe of sooty lashes against the round babyish cheek. Her fingers were still twined around the sock-bank. She opened one eye, checked its position, then lay back.

  “Good night, honey,” I said, blowing out the lamp. She gave the sock an idle flip, and I heard that pleasant tinkling shift of the coins.

  “I love fairs,” Lenore said sleepily.

  “I know you do—”

  “Going to dream about the colors, bright spangles on the ladies’ dresses, and the booths and the food—” she broke off yawning, “and how much I love it all—”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “—and know what, Poppie? I love you, too.”

  “I know,” I breathed, feeling something inside my chest suddenly brimming with joy. I left quietly, not wanting to break the spell of her gentle sleep, not knowing the truth of our sad, human wishes. There’s some of Lenore in all of us. We want small things, tiny joys. The feeling that tomorrow is going to bring us bright colors, shiny tinsel—the delicious smell of cooking, a moment’s adventure in a sideshow. We want hope. We want love. And Christ, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for in this cockeyed world—and yet it is. Somehow, it is.

  ***

  I guess it was the lack of sex. For months Mimi slept in Lenore’s berth. I slept alone in our sagging double. I’d blown out the candle, gotten into bed, and somewhere amid the happy run of my plans for tomorrow, I’d noticed a spark of excitement that quickly made itself known as a raging hard-on. Fantasies. The sheet, loosely draped along my naked inner thigh, was the soft down of Mimi’s hair. The tip of one finger rubbing my flesh was the hardened red nipple of one heavy breast she nuzzled against me. I licked my palm, squeezing the whole wet length around my cock, and in my imagination, Mimi’s mouth sucked and caressed—

  —From beyond the kitchen came the sound of the wooden pocket doors sliding back. Mimi climbed down from the bunk bed, then ambled toward the kitchen.

  In the dark, I stroked myself lightly now, keeping one ear out for footsteps coming closer. I slowed my hand and shifted the mental terrain a little.

  Going to make you go wild and beg for it, baby, the fantasy Mimi crooned huskily. More saliva, and in my mind’s eye she plucked a wet soppy washcloth from thin air and rubbed its warm soap-slick surface against my thighs and belly. Then I watched as the cloth moved in endless circles spiraling up her legs, her crotch, her chest. Teasingly, she slid against me. Delicious, and oh sweet saints, now I was aware of the feel of her lathered breasts—the hard buttons of her nipples poking through the foam. She was skimming over me, she was slipping downward, she—

  A noise from the kitchen that sounded like the blue-specked metal plate being edged from the table, then falling and overturning with a wet clump onto the floorboards—

  Oh for the love of Jesus, not now, I whined inwardly, I was nearly there, didn’t want to stop, no, couldn’t stop—

  —Thump of knees, a small keening noise, the sound of the plate scraping—

  I was aware of just how hot I was, my feet were tingling, the back of my throat was dry. On my tongue I tasted sexual excitement—as thick and hearty as wine. A musky smell rising from my flesh—

  The enamelware plate was scraping against the floor, as if, I thought, she were nosing it this way and that. Trying to turn it back over, to get at the food underneath the rim. I had a brief mental flash of the stew meat lying in a puddle of cold grease.

  My hand moved faster, and I felt myself on the verge. The fantasy Mimi pressed her wet lips tighter, drew me deeper into her mouth.

  At the same moment, I heard the plate scoot tinnily across the kitchen floor.

  I ground my teeth, shutting out reality. Focused on the imaginary feel of her tongue—like a soft damp pad cushioning me. The sound of it churning, lapping. I came in a long shuddering throb, my breath whistling through my lips.

&
nbsp; A thick sound from the kitchen broke through. Jaws champing, a wet gobbling.

  I shivered and went as cold as if I’d been suddenly doused with ice water.

  I was in the bedroom pretending my wife was crouched between my legs licking my cock. She was in the kitchen, hunkered down on all fours, dog-like, eating her food off the floor.

  ***

  “I heard you, you know.”

  I’d dozed off, and now I woke to dull candlegleam with a suffocating weight on my chest that held me fast.

  “What?” I swam through layers of sleep.

  Anyeta, naked, grinning, was astride me. “Lonely boy, wants to play, and has to play alone.” She made a tsk-tsk sound, shaking her head back and forth.

  I felt my face go bright red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No?” She giggled. “You can’t fool an old hand like me,” she said, then she tipped her head back, belly laughing at her own pun. “Nosiree,” she lifted one thigh slowly, then slipped off me. She walked, flat hips swaying, a few short steps away from the bed. “Besides, I smell it on you,” she said, letting one thin hand make a sensuous downward slide over the taut thigh muscle toward her crotch. “Just like,” she said, rubbing herself lightly, “you smell it on me.”

  She was right, there was a ripeness coming off her in waves, a humid scent I’d thought was my own. I swallowed. My eyes flicked uneasily over her, and I saw how wet she was, the pearly flesh sheened over—

  “I was playing with myself in that absurd little bed. Not bad of course, but why should either of us play alone? Hmm? Someone else’s touch is always so much more exciting.” Her voice dropped on the last word. “Isn’t it?” she asked, nearing the bed.

  I shut my eyes, half-enthralled, half-afraid. Her fingers made snail tracks against my lips and nose. I sat up and thrust her hands away. She chuckled again, eyes full of a wicked glee. She seemed to draw back, but now her hands found my crotch and she pressed her mouth against mine.

  “You want it, you want her. I can give you that, you can see her—not the way she sees herself,” Anyeta said, and for a second I saw the overlay of Mimi’s features, her face half submerged beneath short bristling fur.

  I groaned, but now I was staring at my wife, at her comely neat figure. The tiny waist, the dark thick nippled breasts, the flaring hips and shapely legs.

  Anyeta spun around and now I felt her (Mimi’s!) buttocks pressing against me, the soft flesh parting for me. She pushed backward.

  “I like it this way,” she said. “Go ahead,” she urged.

  My teeth and lips were buried against the nape of her neck. My hands floated up and lighted on the soft rounds of her breasts, my heart was hammering in my chest and God knows there was a part of me that wanted her. But the her—

  “I’m not like her,” Anyeta moaned, biting her lips and grinding against me. “I like it in the ass—”

  —No, the her I wanted was Mimi, my wife. And my wife was not a foul talking whore, never had been. I thought of those times when Anyeta had tried to seduce me, when I’d asked for money, when Mimi had lost our first born, Elena. It was twenty years later and she was still playing games. “No!” I shouted. Roughly, I pushed Anyeta away.

  She landed on the floor, then looked up at me with hate-filled eyes.

  “If not me,” she snapped, “then perhaps the gentleman would care to choose another.” It was every whorehouse Madam’s line. Though there wasn’t a whore in the world who would say it in that venomous tone.

  She began crawling away, and when she reached the stairs, she turned and looked over her shoulder at me, and I saw Mimi, her eyes a muddy daze. She began to slink off, bumping clumsily up the steps—and then it was Anyeta laughing, and I guessed she was imitating my wife to torment me.

  “Any time you want it doggy style, daaarling,” Anyeta smirked, getting to her feet.

  Seconds later I heard the sound of the pocket doors slamming shut.

  -51-

  It was the worst nightmare of my life. I was in a city whorehouse in Old Buda. The girls began to strut past me. I sat in the gaudy lounge, a black walking stick planted between my feet, a drink near my hand on a side table. A fat blonde with a baby face pouted her red lips, then turned to show off the plump contours of her white behind.

  “Her?” The madam’s black silk fan descended on my shoulder with a smart rap, and I shook my head. She made a shooing gesture with the fan, and the fat blonde sashayed off through a tatty velvet drape.

  The madam leaned over, I saw the end of a long drooping silver curl and caught the smell of brandy when she whispered, “The next one is very special.”

  She clapped her hands, and the sliding door opened for the fourth or fifth time. A pretty Oriental girl minced through, her face done in white. She was wearing a heavy blue kimono. “Oriental,” the Madam said, unnecessarily. “And quite clean. I found her myself.”

  I shook my head.

  “If not her, perhaps the gentlemen would care to choose another,” she said, and I heard the irritation in her voice.

  She clapped her hands smartly, the fan swinging wildly from a black cord on her wrist. The door opened and now an entire line of women—all shapes, sizes and colors—began to parade before me, their high heels making lazy clacking sounds against the tiled floor.

  “Perhaps—”

  “There are no others. Choose,” she said.

  I looked up at the Madam, an old woman wearing a white wig, and for a second, I thought, It’s Anyeta, this is a trick.

  “Walk girls, walk quickly,” she screeched.

  They began to trot past.

  I had the impression of jiggling flesh, lacy pastel undergarments, hurrying feet. They were moving out of reach, beyond recall. One by one the whores were disappearing through the red velvet drape.

  “Her? Her?” The silk fan swatted my shoulder again and again.

  I looked up at her, held my breath: If it was Anyeta, her piercing black eyes held me fast, and without even looking at the line, I raised my arm and shouted. “That one, I’ll take that one in the pink chiffon. Her—third from the end! I want her!”

  “Very good, sir. As you wish. A fine choice, the young lady is a virgin.” The madam put her hands on her thick hips and smiled at me. Then she clapped her hands, and the scene shifted.

  I was in the dark, pounding on top of the girl, my hands ripping at the flimsy pink chiffon, tearing at it. Oh my Christ, a virgin trained up into whoredom I thought, driving myself into a frenzy. I sucked her breast and she gave a groan.

  “Please oh please,” she whispered in a tiny helpless voice.

  I was transported, wondering whether she was wanting it or asking me to go easy. I thrust deeper. The girl, a little chubby, bucked and squirmed beneath me, driving me madder still.

  It went on and on. “Now like this,” I’d shout, trying her this way and that, using her over and over. My mind was spinning. I pictured her short square body big with my child, her childish breasts milk-swollen, blue-veined.

  It went on and on—’til a thin watery daylight came through the slats of the shutters, and I was still heaving on top of her.

  “Please, oh please,” she said again, and now I could see the tiny buds of her breasts beneath me, the heavy fringe of black eyelashes resting closed against the babyish cheeks, see the dark shimmering fall of her hair.

  My heart jackknifed painfully in the cage of my chest.

  “Please, Poppie. Please,” Lenore begged.

  And I sat bolt up right, a scream of terror locked in my throat. Never mind that it was a dream: guilt as noxious as the foulest cesspool lay in a black sludge in my brain. I heaved one quivering leg over the side of the bed, and snagged the chamberpot out. I leaned over it and squeezed my guts, gagging until my throat was a brutal rasp.

  My heart slowed, I rocked, moaning softly to myself.

  And oh Christ, I was sick at the thought I couldn’t vomit it up.

  -52-

 
“Sleep well, daaarling?”

  I fumbled to cover myself with the bedclothes, then glanced up to see Anyeta leaning jauntily against the doorjamb, her obsidian eyes alight with malicious glee. Lenore stood at her side.

  “Are you ill, Papa? Mother’s ever so much better this morning,” Lenore prattled, giving Anyeta a quick hug. “I think it’s because we’re going to the fair. I think she just needed something to look forward to—”

  “We’re not going to the fair. I’m going to trade what’s left of the horses and come back for you.”

  Lenore uttered a little cry, but I wouldn’t look at her. How long, I thought, as a sickly quiver rippled in my belly, before I found myself helplessly sleepwalking to her bed?

  “Get dressed, Lenore,” I said through gritted teeth, and she ran back toward the kitchen, Mimi’s old white dressing gown flapping. When I heard the caravan door close I got out of bed, trailing the swirl of sheets and blankets, and moved toward Anyeta. She stood, unflinching, her face hard in the early morning light.

  “You sent the dream,” I said, feeling my anger rise.

  “And wasn’t it a dandy,” she laughed, tipping her head back.

  I seized her arm, tightening my fingers into the flesh. “I’d sooner cut my own throat than touch the child.”

  She never moved, but lifted her eyes and stared into mine. “I see. Is that why you were looking through the robe? Is that why you swallowed? Was it the shape of her thighs or the thought of her tits?” She lifted one hand slowly to the underswell of her breast.

  “I’ll kill you, you fucking whore.”

  “A virgin trained up into whoredom—wasn’t that it?” she mocked, and I stepped away, suddenly drained. I couldn’t leave Lenore—leave her with Anyeta. She was too young to cope with Mimi. A terrible weight squeezed my chest. My fingers knotted the sheets. Only a few weeks ago, at the breakfast table Lenore had told me she heard the Empress Elizabeth loved all the same things her father Duke Maximillian had. Adored animals and traveling, learning languages and writing poetry. “I heard,” Lenore said, “that her father liked to dress like a minstrel and visit fairs. When she was a little girl, he played the guitar and sang, while Sisi shook the tambourine, danced and caught the coins the crowds threw. Don’t you think that’s like the gypsies?” I was only half-awake, nodding over the steam in my coffee, answered uh-huh—more to keep her quiet than anything else. But charged with the early morning energy of a child, she prattled on. “Sisi is like her parents; and you’ve played the fiddle and mother has a tambourine.”