by John Boyne
“It’s her fault, isn’t it?” she said, spitting out the words like pomegranate seeds. “She’s making you do this! This has been her plan all along.”
“I assume you’re talking about Khepri?” I asked, weary of her jealousy.
“Who else would I mean? She has you just where she wants you, Brother. She won’t be happy until she’s taken you away from everyone and everything that you’ve ever known.”
“The canal is closed, Abra,” I cried, throwing my hands in the air in frustration. “Tell me, how do I make my living painting hulls when there are no hulls to paint? Explain that to me and I will reconsider!”
She shook her head violently, for, of course, there was no solution to this conundrum. Sitting down at her table, she put her head in her hands and began to weep. From the next room, I could hear her husband singing songs to himself. The tallest man in Ismaïlia, one whose height almost defied possibility, he was as skilled a singer as I was a fighter.
“You can’t leave me alone with him,” she said, lowering her voice now. “Please, Brother, I cannot bear to be around him, and at night, when he touches me…” She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. I had no interest in knowing the details of their connubial activities, nor did I want to picture how a man so uncommonly tall achieved congress with a woman so exceptionally short.
“Sister,” I said, turning away and putting my hands to my ears. “Please. No more, I beg of you.”
“I could always come with you,” she suggested, and I turned back to her with a frown.
“Come with me where?”
“To Alexandria.”
“And what about your husband?”
“Oh, who cares? He can stay here. It’s not as if I have any feelings for him, other than disdain. He was supposed to die long ago, remember? I would never have married him if I’d known that he was still going to be alive all these years later.”
“And your children? You would abandon them, too?”
“They’re monsters, every one,” she said, dismissing them with a wave of her hand. “All they do is drag me down every moment of the day. The problem is, they’re always there. I never have a moment to myself. No, let the children remain with Xart, he seems fond of them anyway. The oldest can look after the next in line, then she can look after the next, and so on.”
“The younger ones have barely started walking!”
She considered this. “I suppose they’ll just have to look after themselves,” she said with a shrug. “It will toughen them up. They’ll probably end up thanking me for it one day.”
I shook my head. The depths of her cruelty astonished me at times. “No,” I said. “Absolutely not. It cannot happen.”
“But why not?” she asked, kneeling on the floor and taking my hands in hers. “Haven’t we always taken care of each other in the past? You protected me once before, Brother, if you recall? Twice, in fact.”
I closed my eyes and pulled away.
“I need you to save me again,” she continued, her voice growing quieter now. “Once more and I will never ask anything of you for the rest of our days. Just take me to Alexandria. When I’m there, I’ll leave you in peace, I promise. I’m still an attractive woman, or so people tell me. Perhaps I could find a new husband and—”
“No,” I insisted, raising a hand in the air.
“But why not?”
“Because it is not my place to separate a husband from his wife. Let alone leave a group of children without a mother.”
“Well, what if Xart was to meet an accident?” she asked, growing animated now. “Would you take me with you then? And if I brought one or two of the children with us, would that soothe your conscience? Which ones are your favorites? Pick a couple and they can come. Any except the baby. He never stops mewling.”
“Stop it!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “Whatever schemes are running through your mind, you can forget them, as I won’t be involved. Khepri, Eshaq and I will be leaving in a week’s time, just the three of us, and you will stay here, so make your peace with it. I won’t discuss it any further.”
Again, her expression changed, this time from entreatment to disgust. “Eshaq!” she said, rolling her eyes and looking at me as if I was a fool. “You don’t even know that the boy is yours! I’ve heard stories, Brother. I know that you like to act as if Khepri is a saint among women, but she has a past. And a scandalous one at that.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, growing angry now. “Where have you heard such things?”
“Oh, gossip spreads as easily as disease, you know that. From what I’ve heard, your angelic wife was once quite popular with the men of Wadi Rum. All those lonely travelers, looking for a willing body to help them discharge their passions. She offered a good service to them, too, didn’t she? I don’t blame you for bringing her back to Ismaïlia with you. She must know tricks that honest women don’t.”
My hands clenched into fists. It took all my willpower not to strike her down.
“Perhaps she’s continued her ways here?” she mused. “Have you never considered that? Does she like variety, Brother? After all, Eshaq doesn’t really look like you and—”
“For you, of all the women in this town, to call my wife a whore,” I said, marching quickly toward the door before I lost control of my emotions. “When the dogs in the street know how many boys you’ve seduced.”
“Someone needs to introduce them to the delights of the flesh,” she said without an ounce of repentance in her tone. “Their enthusiasm is always stimulating. And unlike Khepri, I don’t charge them for their pleasures. What I give, I give for free.”
I couldn’t find words to express my disgust but, as angry as I was with Abra, I also felt a certain anxiety. She had never been one to accept defeat gracefully. Until my wife, son and I had the palaces of Alexandria in our sights, I knew that I would not feel safe.
* * *
• • •
A week later, on my last day in Ismaïlia, I made my way down to my workshop to collect the last of my brushes and paints but also to say farewell to the friends I had made in the boatyard over the years. Many of them had worked alongside my father and, as I had grown up in their company, they were like surrogate uncles to me.
A friend who worked as a carpenter on the shore, Sef, arrived to complete the purchase of some tools that I was leaving behind, and we sat outdoors, drinking jugs of his home-brewed heket, and reminiscing as we looked over the banks of the canal, wondering whether it might ever host ships again. As we talked, I observed a man walking along the path and slowing down a little when he noticed us, although not drawing to a halt. He was strongly muscled, with a shaved head and a familiar expression, and he wore a pair of intimidating daggers on either hip, a star-shaped emerald rooted into the hilt of one. When he caught my eye, he smiled in a peculiar way, betraying no hint of warmth.
“Who was that?” asked Sef when he’d passed. I shook my head, trying to place the stranger. I knew him from somewhere but could not, at that moment, recall exactly where our paths had crossed. In Alexandria, I wondered? Was he a servant of the Caliph?
“I’m not sure,” I said, unsettled by his strange countenance. “Did you recognize him?”
“No, but it looked as if he knew you,” he replied, and then we let the matter go, watching as the sun began to descend. When the time came to say farewell I embraced my old friend, wishing him great luck in life, before stepping back into the workshop for one final look around. A box in the corner caught my eye and I took it in my hands, kneeling down to examine its contents. Illuminated designs for hulls that no one had wanted as yet, images that were too elaborate or colorful for current tastes but that might be of use in my future endeavors. One in particular attracted me. A design based on the constellations of the stars. When I was a boy, I had often thought of such things and was surprise
d now to find that this fascination had found its way into images that I had no memory of drawing.
I packed them into a dark brown leather satchel with my initials carved into the pelt, hoping that, once we were living in Alexandria, I might persuade the Caliph to allow me to experiment even more. I would talk to Khepri about it once we left, I decided. I would show her my designs and seek her advice. Surely she would feel proud at how far we had both come from the disreputable inn where we had first met in Wadi Rum.
Wadi Rum.
As the name of that terrible place came into my mind, a burst of recognition tore through my body with a powerful shock. The papers I was holding fell from my hand, scattering around my feet, and I leaped up, growing dizzy, so much so that I was forced to reach a hand out to steady myself against the wall.
The man. The big, burly, daggered man who had smiled at me outside. I remembered now where I had seen him before. Our paths had crossed only once, a few years earlier, when I had traveled north to the Caliph’s palace, staying in this man’s inn to break the tedium of my journey, and he had denied me breakfast because I’d woken late. And then, upon my return, I had stolen his daughter from that poisonous house, bringing her to what I hoped would prove a better life. Had he been looking for her ever since?
Leave me again, he had told her once, and I will hunt you down and strip the skin from your bones.
And, sure enough, she had left him.
I raced through the streets. As I passed Abra’s home, I saw her standing outside, emptying a bucket of dirty water into the street, and she watched me as I ran past her. It was the only moment when I slowed my pace, and I saw her face break into a smile as enigmatic as my wife’s father’s.
“Still planning on leaving, Brother?” she shouted, but my heart was pounding so fast in my chest that I could not even conceive of replying. I ran on, putting her from my mind, my lungs starting to burn with the effort, and finally, when my home came into sight, I narrowed my eyes, praying that I would see my wife and son standing outside, carrying our belongings to be loaded onto the buggy for our journey.
But no; to my dismay, the street was empty.
I stopped outside our door, my hands on my hips, bent over and breathing heavily, frightened to go inside for fear of what I might find there. A voice sounded from behind me, whispering my name, and I turned to see Tesera, the blind woman whom I had known since I was a child.
“You must go inside, son of Mavira,” she said, standing next to me and placing her hand upon my shoulder.
“I can’t,” I said.
“You must see what he did.”
“What did he do? Tell me. Don’t make me look.”
“Your wife is lost to you,” she whispered. “Your son, too. Gone to the world from which no man may return.” She reached into a pouch and removed two small glass vials filled with a transparent liquid, offering one to me. “You can drink this if you want,” she said. “And you will join them before the sun rises in the morning. But if you do, then I will drink the other. My life has been long. Perhaps it is time to begin the next one.”
I stared at her. The door lay open before me and I knew that the moment I stepped inside, the life I had once known would come to an end and I would be faced with a new reality, one that would be filled once again with pain and grief. This would be the last moment of hope that I would feel for many years.
“You must not give in,” she said, burying my head in her shoulder. “There are many lives ahead of you yet, son of Mavira, and I see them all. One day, I promise it, you will live among the stars.”
* * *
• • •
I chose to use the two daggers that the innkeeper had left behind. The first lay next to the corpse of my wife, from which the skin had been stripped, as promised, before being piled in a pyramid of horror next to her mutilated body, while the other was pressed into the abdomen of my son, Eshaq.
I sat with the bodies until the sun set. Perhaps I thought about burying them; perhaps I didn’t. This is a time that I cannot recall. I had already lost one wife and child and barely survived the trauma. At least with them, it had been an act of nature, one for which no mortal man had been responsible. But this, what had taken place in my home, was a premeditated massacre. All I could see was my sister Abra standing outside her own house with that inscrutable smile on her face.
Of course, I decided, Abra was responsible for these slaughters.
She had tracked down Khepri’s father and revealed our whereabouts. This was how far she would go to keep hold of me. What had happened to her, I wondered? What had made her so possessive that she would cause the death of my wife and son in order to satisfy her own desires when she surely knew our own relationship would come to an end at that same moment?
Regaining my senses, I placed the daggers in my pockets, their blades still wet with blood, and made my way through the town. Some of my neighbors stared at me in surprise, wondering why I was still there, but I ignored their questions and continued along the road, never more determined than I was at that moment. I was in no hurry and felt a strange sense of contentment, knowing what I had to do next and how easy and satisfying it would be.
When I reached Abra’s house, I walked inside calmly and discovered her sitting in a chair, repairing one of her husband’s tunics. I stepped toward her without a word, placing my right hand around her throat and lifting her against the wall. It had only taken a moment and I was gratified to see the expression of surprise and terror in her eyes.
“Because I wouldn’t bring you with me?” I whispered. “For that, you would see them die?”
She gagged, trying to speak, her eyes bulging in their sockets, but I squeezed her tighter about the throat.
“Now you will experience what she experienced,” I said, loosening my grip. “If you have anything to say, now is the time to say it. Because your life is about to end.”
I took one of the daggers from the pocket of my tunic and pressed its sharp tip against her right eye. I thought it would be a just punishment to slowly, very slowly, press upon the hilt until it passed through her skull and emerged on the other side.
“It wasn’t me,” she said, choking. “I swear it wasn’t me. I didn’t write to him.”
“Of course it was you,” I said, spitting my words against her face. “Gossip spreads as easily as disease, that’s what you told me, remember? You knew about her. You found him. He came. And he killed her. He killed Eshaq, too. Was that part of your plan? To have the blood of an innocent child on your hands, along with that of my wife?”
“It wasn’t me!” she insisted as my grip tightened against her throat.
“You were the only one who knew!” I roared, my emotions coming through at last. “Who else could have told him, if not you?”
“I confided in someone,” she cried, tears rolling down her face. “If I am guilty of anything, Brother, it is of betraying your wife’s secret. But nothing more!”
I took a step back, loosening my grip now, and there was something in her expression that gave me pause.
“Who?” I asked in confusion. “Who did you tell? Who would hate me enough to find Khepri’s father and bring him here to commit such monstrous acts?”
She coughed repeatedly, horrible choking sounds that suggested just how close I had brought her to death. And at that same moment, as she tried to draw breath, another voice echoed in my mind.
The voice of my mother.
Be careful of him, my son. You think he loves you as you love him, but I fear there is another side to him…If he can ever find a way to hurt you, he will.
“Hager,” I whispered, looking at my sister with disbelief in my eyes.
“He was here,” she said. “He blames you, Brother, for the boy he lost. He hates you. He’s always hated you, since we were children, only you were too blind to see it.”
“He never imagined that she would be killed,” she continued, reading my mind. “Or that Eshaq would die, too. He thought only that her father would take her away, back to Wadi Rum. Back to his whorehouse. He wanted you to lose your love, as he had lost his. He didn’t know what the man was capable of. If you’d seen him, if you’d seen how upset he was—”
“You saw him?” I asked.
“He came here,” she said. “Not long before you. He was distraught.”
“Where is he now?”
“Gone,” she said, shaking her head. “He knew what you would do when you discovered their bodies. You’ll never find him, Brother. He took a horse and fled. He didn’t say where. The world is his to travel.”
I nodded, then took a step forward again, our bodies separated only by the rising and falling of our stomachs. I looked my sister in the eye, certain that she had told me all she knew and that she had spoken the truth. She might not have been the one responsible for the death of my loved ones, but she had given my cousin enough information for him to take that duty for himself.
Khepri’s father had taken good care of his knives. The first slid easily through Abra’s clothes before entering her heart, while the second made quick work of her skull. I saw her eyes open wide in surprise for a moment, then horror, then agony, before turning black and lifeless.
So I had three deaths on my conscience now. But now, at last, my life had a purpose. No matter how long it took to find him, I would track my cousin down and make him suffer for what he had done.
IRELAND
AD. 800
I HOPED ONLY FOR PEACE when I arrived at the monastery. At first, I felt a degree of caution about approaching the tower, uncertain whether or not I, a man of no particular religious scruple, would be turned away from a place of holy men. But after several hours of sitting in a field with my back pressed against a willow tree, doing all I could to present an innocent facade so that any of the monks observing me from their embrasures would feel reassured that I presented no threat to their way of life, a door opened at the base of the stronghold and an elderly man clothed in brown robes stepped outside. He looked at me for a long time before glancing left and right warily to see whether I was alone and then summoned me forward with an expression that suggested uncomplicated acceptance.
