The Gentling Box Read online

  The door swung wide and a crowd of gypsies pushed through, and I stepped back, their voices buzzed around me:

  “Is she all right?”

  “We heard the screams.”

  “Joseph saw the flames—”

  Behind me, someone gasped. My heart surged in pounding waves, and I turned my head. Lenore’s small berth was smoldering, candlewax dotted the doors, dripped down from the bed. The taper itself—separated from its short copper holder—was smashed on the floor. At the lower edge of Lenore’s abdomen was a nasty irregular burn with grayish edges. Red marks like scalds covered her chest. The skin on her arms was blistered.

  Mimi’s dark eyes—helpless, frantic—met mine. I thought, we knew what we’d seen; what had really happened. A great leaded weight pressed down on me, another part of my mind took over. My voice when it came had the heavy dull sound of shock.

  “She fell asleep with the candle,” I lied, gesturing toward the crushed candle on the floor, my mind awash with the memory of the thing’s vile head. “We warned her before. She’s not to take the candle with her.”

  Inside her sleeping compartment was a short shelf on the sidewall that held dolls, Lenore’s treasures—pretty rocks, a small gilt icon, a fading bouquet of wildflowers. A tawny reddish streak of wax spilled from the shelf onto the wall; I looked again, seeing the congealed smear of blood, entrails, fluids.

  “It fell on her while she was sleeping,” I whispered. I lowered my eyes, felt the color draining from my face: I was pretending a burning candle tumbled from the shelf at the same time the image of the foul locust falling on Lenore rose up in my head. I felt sick, foolish. I was a terrible liar. The stub of another unlit candle was on a tall stand nearby—clearly outside the berth. They would see through this transparency any second, I thought. I started to shove my hand in my pocket.

  Someone breathed in sharply and took hold of it. “But you burned yourself putting out the fire,” a voice exclaimed.

  I looked down, felt my vision blur, but not on account of my singed fingers. The woman fussing over my smarting hand was the woman with the pouting red lips I’d seen in my bed. The room, the people, the voices receded and droned in my ear like the distant hum of insects.

  I felt myself slumping forward, blacking out. Anonymous arms caught me. I fell into them. Someone helped me lay down. Anxious voices, Mimi calling “Cold water, cold water, cold water.” Faces above me now, bodies kneeling close to mine. Movement. One face—the one framed with the long dark curling hair that somehow made the pouting red lips seem fuller still—stood out. Her name, her face, an old memory clicked into place in the second before I lost consciousness.

  “Zahara,” I slurred, “Mimi’s cousin.” The floor felt hard under my skull.

  And then the world was a dark womb I sought for a little while.

  -11-

  My unconscious remembered her. Those were the words making the circuit of my brain when I began to swim toward waking. I was confused briefly, then things began to take their rightful focus. I was lying on my back in my own bed. A great weight pressed one end of the mattress, and I wondered if I’d chocked the wheels of the caravan unevenly. The glass window near my head admitted its usual swirling draft, the lantern hanging from the beam was lit.

  “He’s coming round,” a woman said. The weight on the mattress shifted, disappeared. Zahara stood over me, I saw Joseph over her shoulder.

  “You’ve had a shock,” she said.

  I nodded.

  I heard a clinking sound from the kitchen, and made the M shape with my lips. Mimi.

  “Shhh,” Zahara said and tapped my mouth gently. “Don’t try to talk yet.”

  “It’s Constantin,” Joseph said, and I saw his eyes turn toward the other room. I heard a kind of burbling noise, the sound of things being hauled from cabinets. “He won’t hurt anything.” I pictured the tubby little man playing among the pots and pans like a roistering toddler.

  My mouth hurt, my jaw ached. “L’ore,” I said, surprised I couldn’t manage my daughter’s full name. Joseph and Zahara exchanged glances.

  “You had a kind of convulsion—just one, not long.” His ring gleamed, he lit a cigarette. “You strained—maybe dislocated your jaw. Zahara set it right.”

  “Drink this,” Zahara said. I saw she had a plate of soup. She arranged the pillows behind my head, covered my lap with a napkin. The soup—a watery kind of gulas with bits of vegetables—was lukewarm, but it seemed to be easing the stiffness in my jaw. I thought she must have laced it with painkiller.

  “Mimi is with Lenore,” she said. “They’re in my caravan, resting. Ithal is with them. He’ll come for me or Joseph at once if there’s any difficulty. Ithal’s quite the young man, now—but then twenty years is a long time.”

  I found myself looking at her. Zahara was ten years older than Mimi—somewhere around forty-six, I guessed. She was buxom, tall, wide shouldered, and she looked very much the same as the last time we’d seen her. My own brown hair was speckled with a lot of gray, hers was still glossy black. But it was more than that—no roundness had crept into her jawline, there was no hint of wrinkles near her mouth or around her eyes. She saw me looking at her, and she averted her gaze.

  “No one would guess you have a grown son, Zahara,” I said, sipping soup carefully from the spoon. “How’s Frederic?”

  “I’m a widow,” she said, smoothing her skirts. She was wearing a gypsy bracelet made of small gold coins; they shivered lightly with the motion of her hand. “He’s been dead two years.”

  Joseph looked uncomfortable, I didn’t pursue it.

  I glanced out the window. I could see gypsies moving about, their caravans were lighted. “We seem to have awakened the whole camp.”

  “No.” Joseph shook his head. “You remember the old saying, ‘When the wolf sleeps the flock is safe?’” His hooded eyes looked deeper in the soft shadows in the room. Puzzled, I nodded. He went on. “That is how we lived for many years.” He brought his thin arm up, gesturing toward the window. “We moved quietly—at night—when Anyeta was sleeping.”

  “But—” I started to protest, but his white eyebrows lifted in amusement.

  “Old habits die hard.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke. I thought of how there was no one around when we arrived, or when we’d sneaked into the old woman’s wagon. I started to say Constantin had been lively enough—but Joseph anticipated me again.

  “The mad don’t live by other men’s rules,” he said. And I heard the gurgling noise from the kitchen. I looked up, Constantin stood at the edge of the two short steps that separated our sleeping area.

  A saucepan dangled from one hand, a white enamel basin was upturned on his head. He’d found a length of some kind of purple material—maybe Mimi had bought it to make curtains—and it was draped Caesar-style over his shoulder. He grinned, slinked toward the bed, and I heard the drag of the metal chain between his ankles. His hands weren’t chained, but he wore broad cuffs on his wrists, and they reminded me of old Roman bracelets. He stood blinking under the glare of the light, raised the saucepan suddenly, and pulled a piece of paper from it. He held it out toward me, at the limit of his thick arm.

  “Ah, a message,” Joseph said, and whispered to me under his breath, “Humor him, will you?”

  “What is it, Constantin?” I asked, and he marched to my side, saluted, then held up the dirty paper like an offering. “Good work soldier. Thank you.” He handed me the paper. I barely glanced at it, expecting him to retreat, but he leaned over me, pointing excitedly at a series of crude drawings scattered on the page.

  “Gee, ghere, and ghere and ghere,” he nodded, tapping three of the pictures, and I took it to mean he was saying See, there. One was a ball between two peaks. Sunset, maybe. One was a square set on wheels. A caravan? Inside a stick man’s head was so close to the ceiling, he appeared to be hanging from the beam.

  The rest was a compendium of scratchmarks, badly drawn people, trees. I remembered the days when Len
ore drew a big circle with two loops and called it a rabbit; seeing a second piece of paper with the same drawing you’d say brightly “Another rabbit,” and she’d tell you gravely, “No, that’s Mommy.”

  “Very good, Constantin,” I said, handing back the picture. He brushed my arm away.

  “Nu—uh.” His round face was agitated.

  “All right, Constantin, Imre will keep it,” Joseph said. Constantin beamed happily, and let the older man take him back to the kitchen. The drawing lay on the bed. Zahara picked it up, and without glancing at it laid it on top of a dresser. She came and sat by my side.

  “Poor man,” she said, and I agreed, although I got the impression she was saying it for the sake of form and found him repellent. I was a little uncomfortable with her, now that Joseph was out of the room. She wasn’t wearing a head covering or an ankle-length, flounced apron, but she was dressed more like the Transylvanian women of the region than the rag-tag gypsies. She had on a long white dress—shirred with bright red, yellow and green embroidery at the bodice and wrists—and it brought to mind the woman I’d seen at the sight of the crash, enshrouded in mist inside the caravan, scantily clad in Mimi’s robe. Your unconscious remembered her, I told myself, and it was pure coincidence she was here wearing a white gown. She wore white often—always did—and like Joseph said, old habits die hard.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing her fingers; the bracelets chinked softly, and I thought she might be aware of my gaze, but she didn’t look up.

  I’d had a crush on Zahara when I was a young man and she was engaged to Frederic. Nothing really came of it—except, I remembered, one long kiss under a tree that was definitely more fervid on my part than hers. It was at night, and I recalled I tried to convince her no one could see and to let me feel her up. Her breasts had felt mammoth to my inexperienced fumbling hands. She ran away laughing, her dark hair a shadow against her long wool cape, and that was the end of it. I mooned a lot, fantasized more, eventually forgot her, married Mimi.

  I saw a smile tugging the corners of her lips. “Amazing the things your mind can dredge up, isn’t it? I was just thinking about the time you kissed me.”

  “I was too,” I admitted, and felt myself blush.

  “What were you, fifteen?”

  “Seventeen,” I corrected, and then got annoyed at myself. What damn difference did it make?

  “You were so young,” she mused. The mattress creaked when she got up. She moved across the room, leaned one elbow on the dresser.

  “We both were,” I said.

  “I remember thinking you were so—ardent. But I dismissed it. I told myself you were a boy.” She turned, rested her head briefly on her arms, crossed her ankles, and I caught myself looking at the pose. Her dark cascading hair hid her profile but her thin waist was sharply defined. Her rump was softly rounded. I could see the shadowy shapes of her long legs through the dress. Cut it out, a voice spoke up in my head. There’s no harm in looking, an equally strong voice countered. Besides—the way she looks—she must have ten overheated swains chasing her. Everybody in lust—from her son’s friends to Old Joseph.

  “So. You’re a widow,” I said, wondering if some absurd part of my brain was taking the conversation on a sexual tack. Was I going to ask her what she did for jollies?

  “Anyeta killed my husband,” she said.

  “You sound like Joseph.”

  “Joseph sees a lot.” She returned to the bed.

  I thought surely he’d come in at the mention of his name, but he remained in the kitchen. I heard him talking in a low voice to Constantin: “Put the pans away now.”

  “Did you know Anyeta was a sorceress, that she owned a charm called the mulengi maulo, the hand of the dead?” Zahara sat close to me, her voice was low.

  “Yes.” I heard rattling noises in the cupboards.

  “Did he tell you?” Her eyes flicked toward the kitchen.

  “No—we.” I stopped. It might be better to pretend we’d never gone to the caravan. I started to say Mimi told me about it, but she smiled knowingly, her wide red lips parting.

  “You went inside the old woman’s vurdan, didn’t you?” she asked. “Something happened?”

  I nodded. She leaned over to whisper against my ear, and I was conscious of the warm place where her heavy breast tipped my arm. “You mustn’t trust Joseph. He was jealous of the old woman’s powers. Constantin knows things, and look what happened,” she said. “Old Joseph did it.” She made a sawing motion against her mouth, then suddenly grabbed my wrist. “Everyone thinks he claimed the hand of the dead. He—” she stopped.

  Joseph stood on the bottom stair. I caught a knowing look in her onyx eyes, and she finished the sentence smoothly, covering the gap. “He’s a coppersmith, and everyone says Ithal not only looks like his father, he inherited Frederic’s skill.” She leaned back, crossed her shapely legs very casually.

  “Let the man get his sleep,” Joseph said. “He’s not used to watching through the night.”

  Zahara stood up, gathering the empty soup plate. “I’ll take good care of Mimi and Lenore. Rest well.”

  Joseph watched her leave, waited for the outer door of the caravan to shut.

  “They’ll burn the old woman’s vurdan at sunset tomorrow. It will make an end of the misery she inflicted.” He twisted the bright gold ring on his finger.

  “Will it?” I asked, thinking of Zahara’s words. Visions, confusion, Mimi had said, seeing a man inside her mother’s wagon. I thought of him waiting for us on the road, trying to divert us from coming at all, of Constantin’s dog-like obedience.

  His gaze sharpened and he stared at me, and again I had the feeling he was probing my mind. “Tell me, Imre, how did Zahara look to you?”

  I started to bluster at his insinuation, but he held one bony hand up.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I mean, what did you see?” I gave him a questioning look, and he continued. “She looked the same, didn’t she? Even after twenty years?”

  “What’s that—”

  He cut me off again. “Ask your wife what she sees.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ask Lenore, ask anyone.” He knotted his fingers, toyed with the thick ring. “Don’t be a fool, Imre. Don’t make yourself a laughingstock. The rest of us see a flabby overblown woman who waddles when she walks. Three of her teeth are missing.” He parted his lips, rubbed one finger over his gums. “Her hair is stringy, dull, gray. She looks like any other fat sloppy woman nearing fifty who never took care of herself.”

  I recalled the sagging mattress, dismissed it. Another trick. They wanted us gone, we would go. They were playing games—for all I knew they were all confederates and wanted only to prevent Mimi from claiming the power. Whatever power lay in that filthy copper box was sick, insidious and they could have it. This was just another ruse. What could I say to my wife, anyway? Zahara is still beautiful. She looks even better than you. It had taken me months to convince Mimi the first time I wasn’t marrying her to spite Zahara—or so I thought. I shook my head.

  “Ask her,” Joseph said, and he left, taking Constantin with him.

  I got out of bed, moving softly on my bruised feet. Constantin’s picture was on the bureau. I brushed it aside, looked at myself in the mirror. My nose was red from the cold, I had hollows under my eyes. I sucked in my gut a little, stood straighter. An old Romany adage whirred through my mind. Stanki nashti tshi arakenpe manushen shai: Mountains do not meet, but people do. Zahara. I felt a small thrill vibrating in my belly, but I damped it at once. “You look like hell, chump,” I whispered. “Get it through your head. You have Mimi, Zahara wasn’t flirting with you.”

  I looked away, my eye snagged on the scribbles. I reversed the picture, held it upside down. I was looking at a profile drawing of a woman with a heavy double chin, her mouth was open, grinning. Teeth blacked out. Her hair was a pale viper’s nest swirling around her head. I squinted. Underneath, stick letters cross-hatched one another. I angled
the page, they came clear.

  WitCH

  Witch. He’d written witch. I folded the drawing and put it in the top drawer. I lay back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I wasn’t tired, I wished it was morning.

  -12-

  “I have to claim it,” Mimi said. Her eyes were hard, the tears glittering at the margins of her lids had an icy look. I put my hands in my pockets, staring around Zahara’s small overheated wagon.

  It was just after dawn. Lenore was asleep on a narrow cot. Mimi had made a kind of tent of the sheets and blankets to keep them from touching the sensitive skin.

  Mimi put her hand on my arm. “She’ll die if I don’t claim it, Imre.”

  I felt myself start at the word. Lenore was only twelve, she couldn’t be—could not be dying. I shook my head. Looking out the window, I saw caravan lights flickering out. I recalled Joseph’s words and thought of the strange inversion of day and night the gypsies lived by. I was drowsy myself, Mimi looked haggard. No, Lenore was just sleepy. “No,” I said.

  “Listen to me!” Mimi jerked my arm hard and pulled me toward the cot. “Look! Look at what’s happening to her.” She began drawing away the covers.

  Lenore’s skin was crisscrossed with raised blackish welts. The dark trail covered her face, tracing the network of veins and arteries. The mushy festering wound between her legs—what Mimi called the point of entry—had a wet greenish cast, and below it the evil welts spiraled down over her thighs, her legs. The skin had burst here and there and oozed a pale white pus-like fluid. Nausea rolled through me. I shut my eyes.

  “She’s dying,” Mimi said again. “Joseph did this.” From far away I heard myself making moaning noises, heard myself saying over and over, “Not Lenore, oh God, please, not Lenore.”

  “Stay with her, Imre. Don’t leave her.”

  I nodded dully.

  “Talk to her, hold her hand.” Mimi put Lenore’s limp fingers in mine, and I felt the hot raised flesh beat like a throbbing pulse against my skin.