by John Boyne
“Your doors are locked,” he told me, shaking his head in irritation. “And only this morning, while I have stood here, two women and a man have come by looking for new sandals. Then they complain to me that you are not here to receive them.”
“I’m not making sandals anymore,” I said. “My business is at an end.”
“So, all this time when you said that that was what you were born to do,” he replied, “and that you would prefer to spend your days stitching hides together for the feet of strangers rather than fighting as men do, all of that was a lie?”
I had no answer to this and felt no desire to argue with him.
“Your tears must end,” he said quietly, reaching out a hand in an uncharacteristic display of tenderness and laying it on my shoulder for a moment before thinking better of it and pulling away. “Death comes to us all, my second-born son. But the living must walk the Earth until they are summoned home. You know this.”
“That summons comes too soon for some,” I said.
“You grieve. It is natural. But there are other women. Many other women. You do not have to be alone. Look at Attilian, our great warrior leader. He has already forgotten his previous wives as he prepares to marry your sister. You should follow his example.”
I looked at him in disbelief. We were different men, my father and I, and I did not share his appetite for variety. I had loved only one woman, had lain with only one woman, and would never look on her face again while I drew breath. But I would join her soon, I was determined on it.
“Leave me alone,” I said, brushing past him, and he spun me around, slapping me sharply across the face, and I stumbled, falling to the ground in a daze. I felt an anger burn inside me as I looked up at him and would have leaped to my feet and struck him in return, had he not been my father.
Instead, I simply stood up and turned my back on him, continuing on my way, wondering how he would feel when the news of my death reached him and he recalled that our last interaction had been a moment of violence.
* * *
• • •
On making the decision to end one’s life, concerns about the past, all worries about the future, begin to dissipate and, in their place, a sense of calm descends over the mind and body. If we could remember those moments in the womb, long before the waves broke and we were thrust outward, against our will, into the horrors of the universe, then we would recognize the inexorable connection between the two.
Alone in my hut, I took a bundle of rope and cut four feet with a sharp knife, making an S shape from what I held before drawing the standing line beneath the two ends and looping them around six times to ensure that the noose would be tight. I did not want to struggle when I fell, nor did I want to feel any pain, and I prayed that my neck would break quickly.
As I was making the final adjustments to the knot, however, I looked up and noticed a figure standing in the doorway. It was the blind woman, Tiresia, whom I had known for many years and whom I had long believed had cared for me during my mysterious absence from my home when I was an infant. She was the oldest person for many villages around us and was venerated by all, not least because her dead husband, Aapo, had been a revered ajaw, one of our most beloved, before the other-world had summoned him home, too.
Despite her lack of sight, Tiresia had taught me my hieroglyphs when I was a boy, and I had delighted in drawing the tiny pictures and letters that made written communication between our people possible. I had learned the depictions for hundreds of words and could deploy them with ease, but Tiresia knew thousands more and it had always fascinated me how she could draw with such ease while not being able to witness the results of her efforts.
“Son of Manrav,” she said, stepping inside, and I laid the noose down on the floor beside me, startled by her unexpected appearance. “You are not at your work today? Your order book is empty?”
“My days of stitching sandals are behind me, Wife of Aapo,” I told her. “May his name be remembered forever in glory.”
She gave a small, mocking laugh. “The women will be very disappointed to hear this,” she replied, taking a seat on a wooden bench that ran down the side of my hut. “You must know how much they value your work, those vain creatures. They use your skill to betray their husbands.”
I shrugged. Vanity, I knew, was a growing curse among our people and my work contributed to this.
“Your wife is lost to you in this world,” she continued, “and so you believe that you have no reason to live. I am right?” I stared across at her but uttered not a word. “I came here today for I dreamed that you had prayed to Ixtab to pluck you from this world and fly you to the heavens.”
“And if I did?” I asked, impressed by her gifts of prophecy but determined that I would not allow her to dissuade me from my course of action. Among our people, after all, suicide by hanging was seen as a sign of great honor, not of shame.
“Latra was a good woman,” she said, her tone softening. “She brought me food from the marketplace when I was ill and rubbed soft ointments into my hands and feet. She did not deserve to be taken when the great shaking occurred. But others were taken, too, of course. Many others. And their loved ones have learned to live with their losses.”
I nodded, aware that I was not alone in my grief, but this was of no consolation to me.
“Fix another rope for me, then, son of Manrav,” she said with a sigh, glancing around my workshop, and I turned to her in surprise.
“I don’t understand.”
“My grandson died in the great shaking, too. You did not know this?”
I shook my head.
“So, fix another rope,” she repeated. “I will ascend to the heavens with you. My life has been long. Perhaps it is time to see what glories await me in the next one.”
I shook my head. “That, I cannot do,” I told her. “I will not help you in this matter, Tiresia, Wife of Aapo.”
“And why not?”
“You are old,” I said. “Your time is nearly done. The gods will call you home soon enough. You don’t need to go this way. It will be painful.”
“For a few moments, perhaps,” she replied. “But after that, there will be peace. And that is what we all seek, isn’t it? Peace?”
I lifted the rope again, drawing it back and forth between my hands. “I ask only for silence,” I told her, the words catching in my throat as I fought back tears. “Nothing more. My head is filled with Latra from wake to slumber. I think only of the times that we spent together and the memories that we will never now create. I have been robbed by the gods.”
“And why would they do such a thing, son of Manrav?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do. Ask yourself why.”
I looked away. “I don’t,” I insisted.
“A life for a life,” she said.
I felt a chill run through me. What did she know of the crimes that lay on my conscience, even if it was a justifiable response? No one, other than my sister, had ever been privy to it. Not even my wife.
She reached across now and took my hand in hers. Her skin was cold, her flesh a thin layer around bony fingers. “You must not give in,” she said, her voice strong and determined. “There are many lives ahead of you yet, son of Manrav. I see them all. One day, you will live among the stars.”
“The only place that I will live is in the other-world,” I replied, standing now and raising her to her feet, walking her to the door, desperate to be rid of her. “You were good to come, but now you must leave me to my choices. As I must leave you to yours.”
She sighed and placed the flat of her hand against my cheek. I felt an urge to close my eyes and sleep there, but a moment later she was gone, continuing along the road, her head bowed. I turned and glanced around the workshop, looking up toward the roof, which was strong enough to hold the weight of a falling body. I sa
w a spot, reached for a nail and hook and ascended a chair to hammer them into the woodwork.
When I was certain that it was secure, I set a stool upon the floor and stepped upon it, placing my head within the noose. Closing my eyes, I breathed in slowly and whispered my wife’s name.
HUNGARY
A.D. 453
I REACHED UP toward the hook to take down the dress, placing it carefully over the wooden mannequin in the center of my workshop. It was difficult not to take some pride in what was surely my finest creation to date. I had used a blend of four exquisite materials—silk, satin, damask and lampas—and stitched the fabric together using golden threads interwoven with silver to lend a sparkling effect. The hem played host to a series of gemstones, each of which was particularly suited to reflecting candlelight, and the dye that I’d employed—a dramatic shade of blood red, contrasted with the virgin white of the sleeves—was ambitious and stunning to behold. I stood back and took in the effect I had created, feeling that most human of traits, vanity. Without question, I was the finest dressmaker that the Huns had ever known.
Finally, I was snapped out of my narcissism by the sound of the door opening and I turned to see my sister Abrila stepping inside. Protocol dictated that I bow low in recognition of her new and exalted status, but she rolled her eyes when I did so, placing a hand beneath my chin to raise me back up to my proper height.
“Don’t ever do that again, Brother,” she said. “It’s embarrassing for me.”
“And if one of your husband-to-be’s soldiers witnessed me not paying the homage to which a future queen is entitled,” I told her, “he would score a cross down my belly and drag my intestines onto the ground. Which would be embarrassing for me.”
“Still,” she said, smiling a little at the image, for she had a certain bloodthirst to her nature, “I can’t bear how everyone’s attitudes have changed toward me since that pig demanded my hand. It’s not as though I even asked for this marriage.”
This was not a conversation I wanted to have. My sister had hinted to me before how I might help her escape this detested match and, anxious about what she might have in mind, I had worked hard to avoid discussing it ever since.
“But I must say, you’ve surpassed yourself,” she said, reaching out to stroke the material of the dress that she would wear later that evening. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so beautiful in my life. If I actually loved my betrothed, I’d be delighted.”
“You’re unhappy, I can see that,” I said, sitting down on the floor opposite her. “Not at all how a bride should feel on her wedding day. But perhaps it won’t be so bad. After all, Attila is the greatest warrior the world has known since Alexander. As his wife, your name will enter into legend, too.”
“You think such things matter to me?” she asked, standing up again and moving around the workshop, picking up a length of sturdy sisal rope that I used to lock the doors at night and pulling it firmly between her hands, as if she were trying to choke someone. Then, discarding it on the floor next to a pair of sharp silver scissors, she lifted different dresses from their hooks and held them against her body before returning them to their places. Some had been commissioned by the wives of Attila’s generals and were due to be collected later in the afternoon. Others were for the speculative buyers who drifted in and out whenever my workshop was open. Since the announcement of the marriage, I had been incredibly busy, for the women were as competitive in their fashions as the men were in their fighting, and I was looking forward to more restful days ahead when Attila and Abrila were finally joined as one.
“There are many who would find that a great privilege,” I suggested.
“I prefer to live in this world,” she countered. “Not the next.”
I glanced toward the door. She had closed it upon entering and we were alone, so I dared to speak freely.
“If you’re really that unhappy, Abrila,” I said, aware how naïve my words would sound to her, “then perhaps you could tell Attila that you’ve changed your mind?”
“Changed my mind?” she repeated, laughing bitterly. “You say that as if I had some choice in this matter to begin with. He selected me before he went on his last campaign, writing to our father to tell him to have me ready for tonight. You know that. I had no say in any of it. Let us not pretend otherwise.”
“Women rarely have a say in the man they marry,” I pointed out. “That is not the way of the world.”
“Latiro did,” she replied, and when she saw the stricken expression on my face, she reached out and took my hand in hers, holding it tightly. “I’m sorry, Brother,” she said. “That was unkind of me.”
Although the initial pain of my wife’s loss had begun to lessen, I often thought of the evening that I had tied a noose around my neck, intending to end my own life, only to pull back at the last moment, either too afraid to go through with it or too hopeful that there might yet be something worth living for. Since then, I had learned to live with my sorrow although, some days, the scar tissue felt rawer than others. “I know you don’t love Attila as I loved Latiro, but—”
“Love him?” she asked. “How could I love him? He’s old, he’s fat, his teeth are yellow, his breath smells like dung and his head’s too big for his body. Also, they say that his man-parts are malformed and riddled with disease.”
I laughed. I had heard these rumors myself, but then it was well known that our glorious leader ravaged every woman he could find, regardless of rank, and that when he was on a campaign, as he usually was, he thought nothing of spending his lust with other soldiers or even animals. I did not envy what lay in store for my sister in her marriage bed later that night.
“I should have accepted Hakin’s offer,” she said with a sigh. A year or two earlier, Hakin, the boy we called our cousin, had dared to ask our father for her hand in marriage, but he had refused. Abrila, however, had been touched by the proposal. She liked Hakin, as most girls did, for he was handsome despite his infirmity and had a way about him that charmed all. Had our father been in the grave, as Latiro’s was when I asked her to be my wife, she might well have accepted him and been spared this unfortunate fate.
“Well, it’s too late for that now,” I said. “Anyway, your husband will likely be waging war hundreds of miles from here in a few days’ time. What else does he ever do? He only reappears here for a week or so every year. You won’t have to suffer his attentions for too long.”
“Even one night is more than I can stand,” she said, standing up and lifting a jar of red dye from a shelf, removing the cork plug from the top and sniffing the contents.
“I thought it would have a much stronger scent,” she remarked, returning it to its place with a curious expression on her face.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It doesn’t smell of much at all. But be careful with it, though. It remains toxic in that form.”
“So, if a person were to mistakenly ingest any of it…?”
“They would surely die.”
We didn’t speak for a long time but continued to look at each other.
“You’re not thinking of—” I asked, standing up and placing my hands upon her shoulders. “Abrila,” I said. “You know that when Latiro was killed I, too, came close to ending my life. But I thought better of it. You mustn’t allow your mind to follow the same path.”
“Oh, my poor, sweet, innocent brother,” she said with a smile. “It’s not my life that I’m thinking of ending.”
* * *
• • •
The wedding party lasted for many hours and Attila did not so much as glance in Abrila’s direction throughout the entire event. This was not his first marriage and he drank so copiously that I wondered whether he would even be able to perform his matrimonial duties when he and my sister finally retired to the bridal chamber. Throughout the evening, instead of paying court to his new wife,
he talked exclusively to his friends, the soldiers who had returned with him from the most recent campaigns in Italy. Occasionally, drunken fights broke out between these men, leaving some severely beaten and being dragged senseless from the hall, much to the amusement of the host and his guests.
I observed my father sitting a few seats along from the general, chewing his way through an entire cooked chicken, the juices flowing down his chin and onto his tunic. Every so often he would laugh at some exchange with his neighbor before banging his fists down on the table enthusiastically. At one point, he caught my eye—I was seated toward the back of the hall—and looked away quickly. It shamed him that a son of his had made the bride’s dress.
“I thought it was very beautiful,” said my mother, who had helped dress Abrila earlier. “Not so much a dress as a work of art.”
“Thank you, Mother,” I replied. “I’ve learned most of my techniques from you.”
“Some,” she said, placing a hand atop mine, and I frowned to see how translucent her skin was becoming as the years passed, the pale blue veins visible beneath. “But I was never much more than a gifted amateur. You, my son, are an artist.”
When Abrila entered the room wearing that same gown, a hush fell among the party and even Attila deigned to look her way, stroking his beard before whispering something into the ear of the man seated next to him, something so apparently hilarious and undoubtedly vulgar that the man spat a mouthful of wine across the table. I looked away in disgust. I had never belonged among these rough men; they were a breed apart to me. They lived for fighting, for drawing blood, for killing, while all I cared about was beauty. My Hun brethren delighted in carrying the heads of their enemies back with them from their campaigns, the skulls rotting in open cases, while my greatest pleasure came from the sensation of a fine brocade between my fingers.
