The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  The psalm book was opened by Psalm number nine or thanksgiving. For Sister Irene, it was going to be the umpteenth and last time she heard that collection of praises to God.

  “I thank you, Yahweh, with all my heart; I want to tell all your wonders...”

  Irene was impatient for that came to end.

  “Sing to Yahweh, who reigns in Zion, publish his deeds among the peoples!...”

  Now, it was Sister Marie II's turn, who was Irene's teacher of religious teachings:

  “Yahweh has made himself known, has done justice, entangled the wicked in the work of his hand...”

  After sixty-six verses, it was Irene's turn:

  “Why the bad guy is going to laugh at God, saying in his heart: He never punishes?”

  Deep inside, Irene challenged God by shouting: "Dare to punish me for what I'm going to do."

  CHAPTER 16

  Turhaii’s youth

  1

  D

  ozens of white-skinned men covered by the rigor of many months at sea came. They came in gigantic ships that did not need to carry a windward batten, and they were totally different from the empty-frame hull canoes, which in fact was the only boat known in that place.

  So different they were that at first, they were confused with sea monsters and, in fact, most of the inhabitants of the village never completely believed that they were men, just like them.

  They came with deadly and bulky weapons that at least there were never necessary to defend themselves; not even to hunt. They covered their hairy body with strange and hot clothes, and uncomfortable armor, as if they were crabs or spider crabs. They all had long, tangled beards and dirty, matted hair, so that the eyes and nose were the only things that made their heads humane. They were kind to see that the population was peaceful, although many abused this circumstance, demonstrating their brutality and wild manners.

  They spent a lot of time repairing the three ships —Bartholomew II, St. Paul and Sovereign— and supplying water and food. Fortunately, that expedition was exclusively for scientific and geographical purposes. They came looking for islands, coasts, capes, atolls... to make maps and navigation charts. They tried to study the fauna and flora of the discovered lands, which were also symbolically conquered, with the simple fact of putting a flag and giving a name —other, since that place would always have one—, to everything discovered.

  They said that were sent by a King from a very distant place. This monarch, who was none other than His Majesty Bartholomew II of Gurracam, was to be a man with great powers, the Indians thought, since he was capable of building and sending such ships to unknown lands.

  They were long enough so, after several washes and copious meals, they looked like human beings again. So many days remained that Night Skin, who at that time responded to the name of Turhaii, fell in love with a young sailor of English origin, named James Trent Tessler, who immediately felt the same for her.

  The young Turhaii was very happy with that man. She loved his white skin, his typically European musculature and Don John’s smile. In addition, James Trent wore a thick blond mustache, impossible to imagine in that place, and the Indian was very funny to caress and comb it at its tips.

  James was attracted by Turhaii's full, fresh lips, her skin masterfully painted for years by the sun's rays, her thin hair of infinite length and her total lack of malice and modesty. Above all this last, that never thought that could be given in some woman of this world.

  Each of the two lovers was fascinatingly exotic to the other. It was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen... and this was surely the reason that attracted them so quickly and passionately.

  At first, they communicated with a language based on gestures, which James Trent knew had worked well for the other discoverers who came to these lands, or to similar ones, a century before. The Indian immediately identified the meaning of each one of the postures and expressions of her beloved's face. Eventually they ended up talking to each other in a strange language, a mixture of their two languages, totally different.

  2

  James Trent Tessler fled from a boring life with no future in England. He knew perfectly Gurracamese language, since his mother was originally from Mostocorcon, a town next to St. Josafar, so that one day he moved to the country that his beloved mother talked so much about. There, he quickly entered the marine, recommended by a distant family member, and in a very short time he made his first trip. Having just turned twenty-four, he embarked on Bartholomew II to embark on his second voyage. However, in the weeks before the arrival on the Turhaii’s island, he was getting so fed up with the demands of the sea that he looked more like a fisherman with fifty years of occupation behind him than a naval officer with a high probability of promotion. He felt as if he was wasting every second of his life. The trips were endless and the experiences he got from each of them no longer seemed enriching... But everything changed the day he found what would clearly be the woman of his life. A woman he could never have found in his country of origin or adoption.

  Turhaii’s life was very happy until the expedition arrival. Her father, Shippo, taught her the science of a sorceress, because in the future it must be her only occupation. The old Shaman knew she was not going to have offspring again; in addition, Stratopause, God of time, had given her twenty seasons to complete her life on earth, and it was not long before this number was reached. For these two reasons, he worked hard to show his only daughter how to differentiate good from bad plants, how to extract the healing essences and discard the noxious of each vegetable, how to mix them and, above all, what songs, dances, curses and tirades to shout and with what cadence and tone of voice, if she wanted a certain evil to leave a person. But with the arrival of the white men, Turhaii forgot her daily lessons almost completely, which annoyed her father in such a way that he began to punish and scold her frequently, asking Metehoniimbus every day, God controlling human wills, those people would leave as soon as possible, and so the daily life of the village would be restored and the life of his daughter would follow the path written by custom.

  “You must forget the man from the sea. He does not belong to our town. You must focus on what will be the reason for your life. It would be a huge offense to our almighty Gods if you did not keep in mind the reason they gave you life..." Shippo was trying to reason with his daughter.

  “And, what is that reason?”

  Shippo repeated to his daughter what he had said at least a hundred times during her life:

  “Being his representative in this village when I leave it forever. Have you already forgotten?”

  “No, father, I do not forget, but you taught me that Narrcisolwove, God of love and friendship, teaches us that man and woman should be together, like body and spirit, the sea and the earth, the sky and the clouds, the tree and the ground, the eagle and the wind... and in this way, and only then, balance the forces of the world," Turhaii said with a tug, emphasizing his last words.

  "Of course, daughter," Shippo said, who was proud to see that his only descendant remembered word by word and example, for example, everything he had told her on that subject, “and I assure you that a day will come when a man will choose you to be his partner...”

  “But I've already chosen.”

  “You know very well that Nordencocomo, the supreme God of all men, ordered us men to choose our partners and not the other way around, because if we did so, disorder and unreason would populate our community until we reach our own disappearance... Is this what you want?”

  “James has also chosen me.”

  -That is not true. When he stepped on land, he did not notice you, but all the women. All those men did the same. Their eyes seemed to grow larger and brighter as if they had flames of fire inside. Some, in addition, drooled.” He paused thoughtfully. “They are worthy of pity. In their world there should not be a woman. For them, you are like something new. Something not seen.”

  “That did not happen with James. The others would do it. Jame
s chose me.”

  “You were the one who choose, and do not want me to see what has not really happened. Besides, the Gods warned me...”

  “All that does not matter. The truth is that we love each other. It should not matter who chooses whom.”

  "But you really think what you say," Shippo said scandalized. “Do you realize the danger you are subjecting to all the people?... To your tribe, to your family...”

  “I do nothing wrong.”

  “You disobey your Supreme God. The one who gave you life.”

  “If He gave it to me, when I do wrong, let him take it from me.”

  Shippo looked hard at his daughter. I was terribly stubborn.

  “Our Gods are good. They are not vengeful or executors, but it is not convenient to provoke them. Where have you left everything that I have taught you?”

  Turhaii fell silent and Shippo attacked in another way:

  "Besides, these men will return to the place from which they left, they will go into the sea one day in their giant canoes and you will stay here alone again.”

  “James will not leave. He will always be with me.”

  “That will not happen... but even if it happened, think about what Nordencocomo taught us. Think of the warning he gave us.”

  “Maybe Nordencocomo would be wrong...”

  “How dare you doubt our Supreme God!” Shippo shouted, seeing that Turhaii went from obfuscation to total delusion.

  Almost without thinking, he began to lash his daughter, for the first time in his life. He had to make her see reason. It was hard, but without getting to excess. When he thought he had beaten her enough, he ordered her to prostrate herself to apologize to the God she had offended. Turhaii obeyed in part scared. Her father had never acted like this with her.

  In the afternoon, Shippo begged the Gods not to take into account the inappropriate words of his daughter, said without knowing what was said, waiting for them not to retaliate with the tribe. He also prayed that his daughter would understand and forgive the small punishment he had given her.

  3

  Metehoniimbus, the controlling God of human wills, must have listened to Shippo and, consequently, the Gurracamese expedition followed its discovering task as soon as the ships were again in perfect conditions of navigability. The two lovers said goodbye, between tears and hysteria of Turhaii, and rage and badly contained James Trent’s tears, knowing they would never see each other again.

  The trip was monotonous and each day that passed the sailor noticed more and more that woman’s absence of whom he affectionately called Night Skin, due to the beautiful darkness of her skin. Because of this, Jamen Trent stopped working as required and, in his self-absorption, lost the sextant that had accompanied him from the first day he stepped on a ship. The captain had no qualms about scolding him like a child in front of the crew, and most of them lost respect immediately, so his orders, the most times, were no longer executed. The captain punished the most insubordinate sailors with the whip, and James, given his uselessness, degraded him into a simple sailor.

  Turhaii felt so sorry that even got sick due to the English sailor’s absence and Shippo, although at first was glad that those foreigners left, then he invoked Noctiwwhilucentus, God who causes accidents and inexplicable facts, that they would return; he knew perfectly well that nothing could witchcraft against what was undermining his daughter's life. Despite all, the shaman did what was in his hand to heal her. Thus, he burned heather next to the silky amaryllis flowers and the wild waterlilies, and hummed and danced day and night next to Turhaii, who stood still and stretched, with her whole body painted with crushed red earth from Lake Frijandor and surrounded by flowers of poppy. However, everything was useless. He just managed to keep her alive.

  Noctiwwhilucentus listened to Turhaii's father and made the Gurracamese expedition’s captain, Joseph Snake Feldman, after spending three years and two months since leaving Gurracam, decided to return to Europe. Nevertheless, before he set course for the land of Night Skin, the island of an irregular pentagon shape to which the cartographer who traveled in The Sovereign had named the New Hospitality. There, he knew that they were well treated, and with that peace of mind, they could rest, refuel and repair the ships so that nothing would fail given the long trip back that awaited them.

  Shippo was the first of the island's inhabitants to spot a foggy morning on the three ships on the horizon. He recognized, again, that his witchcraft was totally good and true, and Gods understood that. He told himself that he would teach this magic to his daughter, in no way it should be lost with his death. But when he saw how the young man, and at that moment, happy James jumped the first of his boat to the water, he had the absolute certainty that this was the first day of the end of the village and the tribe that had inhabited it for countless generations . His beloved daughter would be healed quickly but she would continue to think only of being next to that man from another world, and any effort to inculcate the last teachings that every shaman should dominate would be useless.

  4

  The three ships were caulked, spending in closing the joints all the pitch and the tow that was transported in the cellars. All the barrels on board were repaired and reinforced, and then filled with the sixteen arrobas of fresh water they could contain, irremediably destined to rot little by little during the trip. Finally, among the many provisions that were collected on the island, twelve giant tortoises were hunted alive to provide fresh meat throughout the trip.

  "The St. Paul has the mainsail and the mizzen top-sail in a very bad state," the sailing master Harold Hepburn Ericsson told the captain just as the afternoon began on the ninth day of his stay on the island. “You almost have to put them together completely. The Bartholomew II jibs also need to be repaired.”

  “How long will it take?” The captain asked, who until then had been happy with the smooth progress of the preparations.

  “In normal conditions, not less than fifteen days... But we have a problem.”

  “What happen.”

  “All my tools have disappeared.”

  Captain Joseph Snake Feldman grimaced in disgust. The sailing master continued to inform him calmly:

  “I looked at the three ships. There is no sign of the candles thread, the five jaws, the thimbles, the punches, the four pins... Only my old repelling remains," Harold Hepburn said, showing the utensil he had always used so as not to damage his hands passing the needle through the canvas of the sail, and for this reason, he himself kept in his cabin.

  "Some sailor will have stolen and sold them in the Azores," the captain reflected. “During those two days that we anchored there, before crossing the Atlantic, there was a certain disorder among my men. It could happened.”

  "I do not think so," the master sailor denied. “In the middle of the ocean, I used the jaws on more than one occasion.”

  The captain suddenly came up with another solution to this mystery and communicated it to the sailing master with a stern expression:

  “It will not be that, perhaps, you yourself forgot all that material in the port of Arpia, there in Gurracam, or perhaps exchange it for some special service with some indigenous of those who so easily and indecently are offered by these islands.”

  “That is false!” He protested. “You insult me, Captain!”

  “Anyway, I do not remember to have seen all those tools that you say.”

  Harold Hepburn was offended and with the greatest security in the world, he said:

  "Notice, captain, if this insult prospers and is proclaimed as an official certainty, I will refuse to repair the ship, even if the rest of the trip I am imprisoned until justice is served in the corresponding trial in Gurracam... Although, after closer inspection, without my work you will never see Europe again.”

  “How you dare!”

  "I dare because my reason helps me and because you, captain, have no choice but to use my services.”

  The two men crossed their eyes knowing that they were never
friends and never would be.

  "Very well," Captain Feldman conceded, seeing the safety of his subordinate, and that he would never return to his homeland without his help, "do what you can and let's place ourselves in the hands of the Almighty.”

  “In the Almighty's and mine, do not forget it.”

  The sailing master turned around without saying any more words, but something crossed his mind and he immediately returned to the captain.

  “Listen. Let’s make things clear right now; It's not good for time to consume in this matter," Harold Hepburn said and spat into the sand on the beach. “When I finish my work I do not want any strange idea to come to mind about what to do with me. Well, maybe you already have in your mind the number of lashes you intend to give me... or maybe, towards the end of the trip, you decide to organize an unfortunate accident of which I am the victim," he said, pointing to his interlocutor with his right fist closed. “Well, be careful because in Gurracam, whether dead or alive, justice will be done. There are many friends that I treasure among your crew and you, captain, do not have any.”

  "Excuse me, but now you are the one who offends me," Joseph Snake said, trying to hide his anger. “I do not know who you take me for. I have nothing to reproach you for.” He scratched his nose nervously. “We will record in the logbook that the tool is at the bottom of the sea, lost in an unfortunate oversight... and we will settle this matter once and for all. Do you think that is correct?”

  “Yes. That is the most reasonable thing.”

  “Well, stop worrying about your stupid life and do not waste my time anymore.”

  “Perfect. Do not worry, it will take longer, the result will be worse but we can do with the materials and supplies that these savages have here. Everything will be done.”