by John Boyne
“Your sorrow is writ large across your face, my friend,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the ground opposite me, wearing only the white loincloth that signified his superior status. “I witness you making your way toward your workshop every day, looking as if God has cursed you.”
“He has,” I told him, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice, for he knew as well as I the suffering that I had endured across the years. “Sometimes I wonder what I ever did to displease him so.”
“You have suffered your share of calamities, it is true,” he agreed, nodding his head. “But then which of us has not? I have lost wives and children. Some whose names and faces I cannot even recall. That is the way of the world. Old women of thirty lose their husbands and find themselves with no one to marry or provide for them since their beauty has faded and they look like beasts from the forest. Should we tear at our hair and skin or should we continue about our daily business? Tell me, my friend.”
I bowed my head but remained silent.
“You must take another wife,” said Quihozo eventually, reaching across and placing his hand upon my forearm, and I looked back at him in dismay.
“Shakini advised the same of me before she left,” I replied. “And I refused. I will not betray the promise I made to her.”
He frowned, for a promise made to a woman was a comical thing.
“But this is not healthy, what you are doing,” he insisted. “A man must spend his juices.” He pointed to my loincloth and, despite the fact that this was all that any of us men wore, I felt suddenly self-conscious of my nakedness. “You must plant your seed in fertile territory. I have a daughter—”
“Please, Vital Quihozo—”
“Hear me out, my friend. I have a daughter, Okapi. She has seen only sixteen summers and has yet to find a husband. She will bear you many children, should you take her as your wife.”
I was familiar with Okapi, an arrogant girl who never tired of complaining. She marched around the village arm in arm with her friend Quesa and, once, I had stumbled upon them in the bathing pool, where they were engaging in unholy acts with each other. At the time I had considered telling her father what I had observed but decided against it, for he would have certainly seen her stoned to death for such wickedness and I had enough deaths on my conscience already.
“I cannot,” I told him, shaking my head. “Your offer is generous and any man would be delighted to be given the chance to marry Okapi, but while my heart still belongs to another, it would be unfair to your daughter.”
“But she grows old,” he replied with a sigh. “And I worry for her.”
“Of course. But I would not make her a good husband. She deserves better than me.”
He seemed disappointed, and Dembe, to his misfortune, chose this moment to return to the tent. When he saw that I was not alone, he looked regretful that he had come in, for he was nervous of the elders, particularly of Vital Quihozo, who had been suspicious of the boy ever since he saw him performing a trick for children that involved him pulling a many-colored snake from each of their ears.
“My apologies,” he said, bowing and backing away.
“Don’t leave,” said Vital Quihozo, beckoning him forward. “Sit down. Tell your guardian that I am right.”
“I am sure you are right in everything you say,” he replied. “So I am in full agreement with you.”
Vital Quihozo narrowed his eyes, uncertain whether the boy was trying to be humorous.
“And you, Dembe,” asked the elder, standing up. “How old are you now?”
“Fourteen summers, Vital Quihozo.”
“And you are healed?”
Dembe shrugged. Unfortunately, when I had initiated the boy into the Ovambo tribe some months earlier, the incision had not gone quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. Perhaps the knife had been unclean, for a disease had spread to the boy’s manhood, turning it an unhealthy shade of green, and I feared that it might fall off altogether, but in time, it seemed to have returned to normal.
“Yes,” said Dembe. “Perfectly healed.”
“Show me.”
“Must I?” he asked.
“Show me,” insisted Quihozo, and, reluctantly, the boy removed his wrap, displaying a perfectly healthy member.
“A good size,” remarked Quihozo, nodding in approval. “Then it is decided. You are young and restored to your powers. You will marry my fourteenth daughter, Okapi, in three days’ time.”
Dembe’s eyes opened wide and, if he had regretted entering the tent a few minutes earlier, then it was nothing compared to how he felt now. I looked away, afraid to catch his eye, for I had not anticipated this turn of events.
“But I do not know her,” he said. “We’ve never even met.”
“That is not important,” said Quihozo, laughing a little at the boy’s foolishness. “Okapi is growing old; she is sixteen years of age and remains unwed. You, too, have yet to know the pleasures of a woman. It is time for her to take a husband and bear children. Three days.” He turned to look at me and raised an eyebrow as if seeking my approval, which was not something he needed.
“Three days,” I agreed, for although I was behaving badly by leaving my foundling as the unhappy groom, I preferred the idea of him marrying Okapi than being forced to do so myself. When the elder left our tent, I turned to the boy and, by the expression on his face, it seemed that there was one magic trick he wished he could do above all others: make himself disappear.
* * *
• • •
Okapi, it seemed, was even less eager than her prospective husband for the marriage to proceed. On the morning of the wedding, while Rafiki and I were painting Dembe’s body in streaks of white and gold, the foundling confided in me that he had had an illicit meeting with her the night before, after messages had been passed from young person to young person and an encounter set for the edge of the forest at sundown.
“And?” I asked, trying not to sound as duplicitous as I felt. “Is she as beautiful, witty and intelligent as they say she is?”
“I hated everything about her,” he replied. “And she hated everything about me.”
“How can that be?”
“Firstly, she’s ancient.”
“She’s only two years older than you,” I sighed. “She’s little more than a girl.”
“And she’s ugly. She has more hair on her chin and cheeks than I do.”
“It is true that she takes after her father in some respects more than her mother.”
“Her nose reminds me of a mandrill’s.”
“I believe she fell from a tree some years ago,” I said, for it was true that her nose was not her finest feature. “She landed on her head. The accident caused some…disfigurement.”
“That’s probably why she’s stupid, too. Her conversation is dull and her mind uninspiring. Also, she has these horrible enormous…” He searched for the word but couldn’t even bring himself to say it, instead making cupping signals before his chest.
“Most boys would consider that a good thing,” I said, but he shuddered in distaste.
“They’re vile,” he said. “She ordered me to show myself to her and then laughed when I did. She said she’d never seen anything as ugly as what hangs between my legs.”
I was uncertain how to respond to this. There was a part of me that envied Dembe for the adventure that lay before him, hoping that he would grow to care for his new wife in time. The companionship of marriage, after all, was something that I deeply missed.
“She says that if I ever try to touch her, then she will stab me in my sleep,” he continued. “And I told her that I would rather rub myself against a tree until my member fell off than put it anywhere near her. I don’t want to marry her and I don’t see why I should.”
“Because Vital Quihozo has decreed it,” I said. “And if you
wish to remain a part of the Ovambo people, then you must abide by his wishes.”
He looked as if he was about to burst into tears, knowing as well as I did that his only alternative to the match was to leave the tribe entirely. But where else could he go? Even if he chose to wander away in search of a new life, the disappearance of Shakini and Beka had put an end to any such ideas. The outside world, after all, was full of predators.
Rafiki watched these proceedings with a wide smile on his face, for he enjoyed seeing the boy he thought of as his brother being painted in such lavish colors. He asked whether he might be painted as well, but I shook my head.
“On your wedding day,” I told him. “Then your mother and I will paint you for your bride.”
He frowned and it hurt me to recognize that he showed no interest in her return—she was virtually a stranger to him, after all—but I said no more of it for now.
On the way to the ceremony, which was to take place outside Vital Quihozo’s tent, we passed by my workshop and, trying to put Dembe’s mind at ease, I invited him inside to see a particularly ornate mast on which I had been working for several weeks. He studied it for a few moments and, his eyes lighting up, seemed to come to life.
“Watch,” he said, placing both hands at the top of the mast and then rolling them down the front of the wood. As he did so, all my etchings disappeared, and I was left with nothing but the piece of wood that it had been before I started work. I gasped in horror.
“What have you done?” I cried out. “This needs to be ready in a few days’ time.”
He laughed and shook his head, then repeated the gesture with his hands and my work reappeared. I closed my eyes in bewilderment. I had never understood the secret to his tricks and, in truth, they frightened me a little, for I knew that there were some who believed he should be drowned in the river for acting like a god.
“Come,” I said, leading him back outside toward the center of the village, where a dais had been set up for the wedding. The entire tribe had gathered to watch, each person adorned in the ceremonial clothing of our people. When Dembe took his place at the front, Okapi appeared with a furious expression on her face, and only when Vital Quihozo roared at her did she pretend to smile. Standing next to the girl, he tried to take her hand, but she brushed him away as another of the elders stepped forward to raise the rain-stick over their heads and sing the incantations. When it was over and hands had been placed on both of their heads, the two young people bowed to each other and were married. I had never seen such misery on the faces of anyone before and, had it not been such a terrible thing to witness, it might almost have been funny.
Stepping off the dais, Dembe marched straight over to a friend of his, a boy with whom he spent more time than I thought healthy, while Okapi ran over to Quesa, who threw her arms around her, the pair collapsing on each other’s shoulders in tears. It was the most extraordinary thing to witness and I tried not to laugh, turning to my wife to ask whether she had ever seen something so bizarre before, but of course Shakini was not there and whatever good humor had resided in my soul disappeared now as I was left to confront my loneliness.
SPAIN
A.D. 1492
ON A BRIGHT, SUNNY MORNING in early August, a few weeks after my young ward’s calamitous wedding day, I stood by the harbor in Huelva, overseeing the installation of the sails on the three ships that were soon to set off for the Indies in the hope of finding a new and faster route to the Orient. As the ships were old and had been refitted for a journey that many considered a fool’s errand, the designs had proved more complex than I’d originally imagined, but I enjoyed my work and was being well compensated for it. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had agreed to fund the explorer’s travels and, true to their word, had been extremely generous, although perhaps this was not an act of pure selflessness or philanthropy on their part. After all, they knew that if he was to succeed, and the new trade routes fell under the control of Spain, the benefits to the kingdoms of both Castile and Aragon would be immeasurable.
Deago was with me, as he often was in those days, for he sought any opportunity to escape the attentions of his wife, Olallo, and I feared that he was irritating the workmen more than entertaining them with his sleight-of-hand tricks. His dear friend, Timo, was lurking nearby, too. This did not surprise me, for wherever one was found, the other was never far away, just as whenever I spotted Olallo around the town, I could be certain that her friend Querida would be walking next to her. Sometimes I thought the two pairings would have preferred to have married each other, had such an idea not been an abomination.
“And how is married life?” I asked him as the sailors extended the sails on the first of the three ships, making sure that the square rig fitted perfectly against the masts. The breeze was light, which helped in the task.
“Horrible,” he replied. “I had the misfortune to witness something last night that made me want to pluck the eyes from my head.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
“My wife in a state of undress. Once seen, it is emblazoned upon the memory like a regretted tattoo. She removed every stitch of clothing before climbing into bed and her naked body gave me nightmares. Also, I vomited. Twice. Once so unexpectedly that the contents of my stomach discharged themselves onto the bedsheets.”
I stared at him in bewilderment. It was true that Olallo had the personality of an ill-tempered mule, but her proportions were fair and her countenance pleasing. I found it difficult to understand how the boy’s feelings toward her could be so lacking in sensuousness.
“But the…” I struggled to find the right words as I didn’t want to embarrass either of us. “The marriage act itself,” I said. “Everything…works in the way that it should?”
He rolled his eyes, a new affectation of his that implied I was being foolish beyond words. “If you’re asking whether we’ve been rutting like farmyard animals since being forced into this unhappy union, then no, we haven’t. I can’t think of anything more repulsive, to be honest. I tried, I will admit. Once. Out of politeness more than anything else. But trying to enter her sacred bordello was like trying to force a sleeping worm through a keyhole.”
“Good God!” I said.
“I know for a fact that there’s nothing wrong with me, for I spend most of the time in a state of tumescence. It’s only when she appears that the great letdown happens. The fact is, she looks like a cabbage down there. How could anyone find such a thing attractive?”
“Most men do.”
“Then they must be suffering from a disorder of the brain.”
“And has she complained about your lack of ardor?”
“On the contrary, she told me that she’d cut my member off with a pair of scissors if I ever tried to come near her again.”
His indifference confused me, for I had always delighted in the marriage act with each of my wives and, since the mysterious disappearance of Santina, I found that I missed it tremendously. Occasionally, I availed myself of the services of the girls in the taverns, but never found it a satisfying experience. Without love, the act seemed much less enticing.
“And what about children?” I asked.
“What about them?”
“How can you hope to father a child if you do not engage in relations with your wife?”
He stared at me and frowned, as if I was speaking in a foreign tongue.
“You do understand that it is a prerequisite for the creation of babies, don’t you?” I asked.
“In what way?” he replied. I sighed and explained the nature of conception to him in as simple terms as I could master and the more I told him, the more disgusted he looked.
“Is that how we are created?” he asked finally, shaking his head. “I often wondered and heard rumors that it involved something as ghastly as what you have described but had always assumed that there must be more to it. How dis
gusting!” He shivered, a great chill running through his bones. “Honestly, if that’s what it takes, then I’d prefer never to be a father,” he added. “The whole idea repulses me.”
Happily, this conversation could not be continued any further, as the captain of the three ships was marching along the dock toward us, appearing both excited and apprehensive as he looked across at his small fleet.
“Well, Master Sailmaker,” he roared, placing a hand upon each of my shoulders in delight and grinning from ear to ear. “It seems that you have excelled yourself. Those sails are fine things indeed and will guide us speedily toward our destination.”
“Thank you, my friend,” I said, nodding graciously, pleased that he was satisfied with my work. “Deago,” I said, turning to the boy. “You have not met Señor Cristóbal Colón yet, have you? The captain of these three vessels.”
Deago bowed at the waist in the manner of a popinjay, one hand pressed against his back, the other offering a flourish, and then, to my irritation, he reached forward and pulled an egg from behind the captain’s ear. Peeling the shell away, he revealed it to be hard-boiled and devoured it in three quick bites before smiling contentedly at both of us. I turned to Colón, wondering what he would make of such childishness, but to my relief he burst out laughing and reached around to the back of his head, checking that there were no further eggs to be located there.
“A fine trick,” he said. “Although one that could see you burned for witchcraft, lad. The Inquisition does not look kindly on such games.”
