Lucia

by Alex Pheby

  The incision is sewn up, and the body anointed with oils. Once the scent has infused the skin, a layer of resin is added as a sealant.

  THE SHUYET SHADOW OF LUCIA JOYCE

  LOCARNO, NOVEMBER 1917

  A boy goes about the interesting business of torturing a rabbit in any number of ways, but he must always begin by trussing it with string, as one would with any other joint of meat. It may seem that a rabbit is a docile creature, content to sit in its hutch and press its nose against the chicken wire. When his sister comes to clean out its straw it barely exerts itself, so much so that she has to push it to one side while she cleans out the other. Though it likes lettuce leaves and slices of carrot, it only shows a very restrained species of pleasure. But when a boy, Giorgio, introduces pain into the equation, then it certainly becomes a handful! It will stamp and writhe and bite, so Giorgio ties it to a board, first placing it on its back. Three pieces of string are all that are required, or one long loop. No-one notices the loss. Around the neck and each of the hind legs, and then we are ready for the off.

  His sister, Lucia, is brought into the garden, and while she makes the usual faces and puts her hand over her mouth, Giorgio can choose his instruments. Giorgio is a well-educated child and, like all boys, has paid particular attention to lessons at school where the methods of medieval torture were described; he has gone directly to the exhibits in museums where the artefacts of medieval torture were housed; he has taken a lively interest in the excesses of Cardinal Ximenes and the like during the heyday of the Spanish inquisition; he has performed dissections on locusts, mice, and frogs, and compared their innards to the diagram chalked by his tutors on the board; he has played games of scruples and discussed different scenarios which might be prevented by torture, and has considered the most efficient methods to extract information from plotters against, for example, the state; he has considered, alone, whether the public consumption of spectacles of bodily dismemberment might be an effective means of controlling the people. He has, in short, a thorough understanding of the ins and outs, and he chooses Lucia’s box of matches, something she has been warned against having, but which he has nonetheless discovered in its usual hiding place beneath her pillow.

  While it would have been interesting to choose, for instance, the Pear of Anguish, which is inserted into an orifice, often the anus, and widened by degrees until the sphincter tears, he doesn’t have one, certainly not small enough to be used on a rabbit. We have the advantage of Giorgio in that we understand that this object was never used, except in the imagination, but Giorgio still regrets that his efforts to make his own were failures. Similarly, his Judas Cradle, which exceeded his limited skills in carpentry. Still, one works with what one has, and the good thing about these matches is that they are hers, and this adds a psychological element to the business, since if she had not secreted these matches against the parental edict, he would not have them to hand to use in the torture of her favourite pet, and so guilt along with the threat of future torture can be used to stay her tongue against her blabbing about how he came to her in the night.

  She says she will not tell, but who would believe it? The process of interrogation by induction of pain implies, by its very existence, that truths extracted under duress are superior to truths extracted from a person in a resting state. He cannot credit that she is being truthful until she has said it while the hock of the rabbit is on fire.

  A rabbit has a very long foot, and the hock is the back of it, and while it may not be particularly sensitive, definitely less so than the eyes, it certainly doesn’t like having it set fire to! The rabbit writhes against the string and it becomes clear Giorgio hasn’t tied it tight enough on the left, so he props the board up vertically while he ties it tighter.

  —You’re choking her!

  He raises his eyebrow, as if to chide Lucia for saying something that, had she thought it through, she’d see was not really worth the saying. In fact, it might have been entirely counterproductive. Does the torturer worry himself about whether he chokes the victim of torture? Not at all. It may make his job easier, in the long run.

  She is very upset, but she is also angry at him; he can see it in the set of her jaw, which communicates to him absolutely clearly that she intends to run to Papa and tell him everything. Anger will do that – hang it all, the angry girl says, this must be punished regardless of the consequences – so it is up to him to sober her up and show her the error of her ways.

  The iconic body part of a rabbit, as well as its twitching nose and flashing scut, is its ears, and she loves to stroke these. Indeed, it may be that the stroking of this rabbit’s ears is her favourite thing. So – and here he shows that ingenuity that a well-educated boy will show in situations like this – he takes three matches, one of which he places in the left earhole, one in the right earhole, and the third he lights and moves in a figure of eight in front of his sister’s eyes.

  As younger girl children go, she is bright. She sees what is in the offing and now she is on her knees like a penitent before a bishop. Her hands are held together as if he is someone who will listen to prayers. She pleads to him, ‘no’, and while he nods sagely, as if he feels his business here is done, his hands do not agree, nor do his lips, which he licks. With one hand he cups the lit match and follows the other as it takes the flame to the left ear and applies it to the phosphorus. This flares in a way that modern users of matches will not quite credit, since the technology was not as sophisticated as it is today, and there was a great deal of redundancy in the materials of the matchhead to ensure successful combustion.

  It goes up like a fucking firework.

  Tying string is a tricky business, and you must give Giorgio credit, since the rabbit almost breaks its neck trying to escape the pain in its ear, but it does not get free. Lucia shrieks to see it, which he cannot allow, since the garden is too short to ensure someone will not hear. He lurches towards her and puts his hand over her mouth. It is suddenly very like that moment of which she must not speak, they both feel it, which is ideal since it reinforces the mutual obligation to remain silent.

  The match burns down along the pinna, making a black trail as if inking a route on a map. He hisses at her:

  —You say anything, and I’ll light the other one, understand? And worse.

  Now when she agrees it is utterly convincing: there is not the slightest edge in her tone that suggests she will run to anyone, and he feels entirely secure in her silence on this matter. He goes to the board and loosens the strings and when the rabbit hops in confused circles this way and that he picks it up and strokes its back. Lucia comes to him. And why shouldn’t he hand the creature over? – she will keep her side of the bargain, so equilibrium is restored and he can afford to be generous.

  If there are those of you reading this who know Giorgio, you might say that this never happened. But how do you know? How does one ever know what it is that occurs outside the range of one’s experience? You may not know that it did happen, but that is not the same as knowing that it did not happen. Perhaps if there were documentary evidence; but who keeps such records? Is it even possible to keep evidence of things that might happen that someone wishes to keep secret? If one has secrets, and then burns the evidence of those secrets on a pyre, one invites speculation, and speculation is infinite in a way that the truth is not. Speculation is limited only by the sick imaginations of those who speculate, where truth is not. Why shouldn’t Giorgio have tortured Lucia’s rabbit to prevent her from speaking? All things that are possible are, in the absence of facts that have been destroyed that might have proved them incorrect, equally correct.

  The moral of the story is: do not destroy documentary evidence of the truth, since it will come back and bite you in the arse.

  A chinchilla may be tortured in ways a rabbit may not, since they are smaller, more timid, and have longer tails. They are also more affectionate than rabbits are likely to be, once they have been habituated to handling, so the range of secrets th
at the torture of chinchillas can silence is different to the range of secrets the torture of rabbits can silence, and the torturer must know his trade. Giorgio should pay close attention not just to distant historical instances of torture, such as the Brazen Bull, but also to modern day usage, and carry out his own fieldwork, following the rules of scientific empiricism.

  It is very easy to come by flex, and electrification is all but ubiquitous, so, Giorgio, why not carry out a series of experiments to test the effects of the application of electrical current to small mammals on the willingness of sisters to remain silent about matters of incestuous sexual activity within the home? A transformer will be required, since the voltage of a mains electricity supply is likely to kill a chinchilla, and while its death will like as not appear natural (providing no combustion occurs) it will affect the results of the experiment. Additionally, chinchillas are not cheap, nor will their repeated deaths go unnoticed, and no parent will repeatedly buy pets that are likely to die spontaneously, since it will have a negative emotional impact on the children, did you see her crying? she was inconsolable.

  If you are afraid of electricity then take one of James Joyce’s cigars, light it with your sister Lucia’s matches, take a surreptitious puff so that you can brag about your smoking habit to your friends, cough until you retch, far more than is manly, even for a boy, since you are such a nancy, and then, in anger, apply the lit end of the cigar to the openings of the chinchilla’s vagina and anus. You will need to pull back the fur with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand as you apply the lit cigar with the right, then test to see whether your sister can be induced to remain silent on the matter of your Uncle Stanislav’s affairs not only with her, but with all the slags in the area, he’s known for it, it’s a disgrace, why don’t you talk to him?

  Index the results and collate a table by which the progression of methods of violence against the body and soul of a mammal can be made to induce silence on specific topics, and in this way do the world a favour. Make something known. If, Giorgio, history decides that you have committed a crime, rest assured that the actions of all men through time will be seen to be crimes in the end. A world is coming in which all actions are seen for what they are – crimes against the state of the world as it was in the beginning, Nu, from which comes right, Ma’at.

  He who transgresses its ordinances will be punished.

  It is not enough to claim ignorance of the forty-two laws of Ma’at, since ignorance is no defence even when the lore that describes the laws is lost to you. Do you think that is of any interest to God? He sees and knows all things, and if you find his word contradictory that is because it exceeds your ability to parse, since you are, as you know, inadequate to the tasks put in front of you. This is why you act so viciously in the world, through shame, and the vicious shall be punished according to their sins.

  Please prepare to receive as you have given, and I don’t want to hear any more moaning about it, now back to sleep, it’s late.

  Perhaps I am exaggerating or misremembering, knowing what I now know. I certainly felt excitement along with these misgivings; this, after all, was the culmination of long years of work and preparation, and made right the many disappointments we had both experienced up to that moment. Moreover, the decorations that survived were very beautiful; the artisans responsible must have been amongst the most proficient of their time. At the very least I must have bitten back whatever qualms I was experiencing, since I remember the sense of exhilaration that followed my colleague announcing the presence of a passageway into a second room.

  ‘Come, smite my mother for me!’ ‘Let those who smite your mother be protected!’

  Then comes the overseer of mysteries, wearing the jackal mask of Anubis, to supervise the wrapping of the corpse. Strips of the deceased’s clothes are bound around the head, the limbs, and the torso, while the reader-priest recites the prayers.

  THE IB OF LUCIA JOYCE

  LES ATELIERS DU VIEUX COLOMBIER, PARIS, SUMMER 1927 (CONT.)

  And later there is a bear, thin-tufted and long-snouted with eyes like raisins, eyes like pinheads, black and shiny, tacked in twice, holding together the seams of white thread. On his muzzle there is a ball, striped, divided in four, red and white, and beside that a ballerina, white-legged, tutu-ed, arms angled and mirrored, all mirrored, framed in white leaves and red petals. They both turn, these objects, one clockwise, the other anti-clockwise.

  At first it seems that they turn at the same rate, the arms making a plié, the ball making a day in a few seconds. Thin, high, plucked notes from within the boxes beneath make a discordancy at the same meter. As they turn and the tunes play it is clear that the ballerina turns more slowly, the bear seeming eager and energetic, its world keen to pass the day, for the past to be present. The ballerina is sluggish in comparison, enervated by her key sticking on its gear teeth, sticking on the notes, until it sticks entirely. The bear’s song takes over, clear now, a solemn anthem in red and white and gold fur. The ballerina, immobile, is made to watch its triumphant progress round.

  She has dots for eyes, red diamond lips, a daub of brown – one single brush stroke, enough to stand in for the thousands of strands of hair, pulled back and efficiently tied, of her ideal. She shows no sign of envy, or of recognition of the joyous victory the bear revels in, spins in, and the whole scene is faintly ridiculous. They are overlooked by the guards, bayonets to their shoulders, protecting what, precisely? Against whom, precisely? Something that a bear could not handle? Which would be what?

  Wooden blocks in yellow and blue and red – an archway, triangular roofs, a viaduct of them make a fort under which these soldiers shelter. Now it is obvious that they defend against the bear, against the ballerina, against the girl outside, palms against the glass, lips bitten, against the snow. They defend against the whole world that exists outside as it presses in. Against encroachment into the world of which these soldiers are defenders – jars of marbles, towers of wood, little dresses, peg women lined up in boxes, lying side by side waiting to be washed, small tins in which there is nothing, waiting to be filled with pins and odd lengths of thread and offcuts.

  Someone enters the shop – the girl sees her back, broad shoulders under thick worsted, fibres catching silk at the neck, the wrists and the calves. There is a moment when an invisible cloud of warmth finds the girl’s skin. It is such a difference from the cold that it has a presence, a front. It is an almost violent assault, and when it goes it is worse than before, the edge of numbness replaced by the sting of ice, ice in the heart, ice in the bones, in the fragments. She goes to follow, but she has been standing so long that her feet will not obey – they are frozen in place, become ice, become snow, insufficiently alive to allow for movement. She strikes a match, but it does not catch. She lets it drop to the ground where it does not sizzle and hiss but lies sullenly, half hidden beneath a cliff of snow.

  The woman who went into the shop comes out, and with her the warmth again. The girl is wary of it, leaning back. How frequently would this door have to open to save her life? If there was such a rush of patrons to this small shop that the door never closed, would that be enough? Or would the draft eventually make the shop as cold as her fingers are? Her neck. What then? Would they all die – the bear, the ballerina, the soldiers, the shopkeeper, the peg doll women?

  Corpses in ice, drowned in frigid air.

  There aren’t enough customers for this to be an issue.

  Once the woman is gone, the door remains closed. The little match girl stands in solidarity with the others, all the toys that have insufficient interest for the world to draw its attention. They are equally lifeless things with no life invested in them through sympathy, except that which they have for themselves. Perhaps that which they have for each other. Can we bring each other to life? Can dead things recognise life into each other? Doesn’t a fire burn from the smallest spark? Doesn’t it burn the coldest, dampest kindling if only it can be made to catch? Surely.

  Sh
e presses her face to the glass, her cheek scalded by the cold. It feels like warmth to her. She concentrates on the soldiers as if her spark-less matches can make them live by force of her will, in the absence of flame, despite the bitter cold in her ankles and knees and the backs of her teeth. On cue, the soldiers move – they dance like the ballerina, they spin like the bear, they perform a loop on a track like a small train of wood does when it is pushed. With her eyelashes, she taps on the glass.

  The soldiers drill, unaware of her tapping, unaware they were never alive until she made them live. It is as if they had been interrupted without their knowledge at the final moment of their training, and now continue without recognising the break. If they could only see and feel her. They do not.

  The bear though, they see him, constituting – as he does – a more obvious threat to the security of their fort, to the shop, to the others, and the ballerina. Her threat is equally grave, though obscure: a dancer’s freedom, her discipline, her feet, the toes on which her weight is balanced, are so different to their solid planting on the ground, and might undermine it. As if in response, bear and ballerina move, dancing together, though at a chaste and respectable distance.

  He entered first and stood obstructing the entrance to the second chamber so that I had to push past him, but there in front of us was a stone sarcophagus, richly decorated. On the sides were protective spells and inscriptions, and across the top surface of the lid was the most exquisite depiction of the deceased, her arms crossed. So detailed was the image of the face that in the flickering lamplight it seemed as if she might be alive. Her eyes were open and she stared at me, and the shadows played across her lips and I felt as if she might speak, or might already be speaking, but so softly that I could not hear her.

  My colleague rushed forward, clumsily, and it was then that I saw that paint had been daubed, red, across her breasts and between her thighs, like the childishly obscene graffiti a schoolboy might carve into a library table during detention… and the lid was not properly closed.