The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six

by Jonathon Keats

  And already, by his estimation, he commanded more respect than old Ephraim: Moneylenders greeted him in the street, matchmakers offered him sturdy peasant girls with guaranteed dowries, and he even hired a chimney sweep, though his flue was still sootless. He also quietly engaged the services of an out-of-town tailor to fashion him a suit with hidden pockets, fit for a magician.

  Into these he fed the victuals set out for him in the cemetery, vanishing comestibles with the alacrity he’d once dispatched mounds of granite, and extinguishing the death-watch candles with a rhetorical flourish. It was an elaborate performance, but the dead were said to be an unforgiving audience: He’d heard enough ghost stories not to want to imagine what would happen if the deceased believed he was bungling their atonement.

  And he wasn’t, not really. Chet was, by his own judgment, a moral alchemist, nourishing innocent orphans on sins committed before they were born, offering them not only daily sustenance but also the weight of history. If children inherit the flaws of their parents, the dead could become an orphan’s surrogate family. Chet had it all figured out. His future was practically assured, the good life guaranteed, when, one night, he spied in the graveyard a set of open eyes.

  Now it’s a well-known fact that if a corpse meets your gaze you must not blink first, lest you be obliged to take the cadaver’s place. (This is why the law requires sealed coffins and deep graves.) Cursing Ofer’s negligence, Chet stepped forward to drop the dead lids. He reached out his hand into the receding night, but the vision passed like a specter: Nobody was there.

  He might have dismissed the episode had the apparition been an aberration, but its sequel the next evening, and again the night after, led him to take precautionary measures. He set a trap. He dug a trench and covered it with twigs so fine that not even a hallucination could escape.

  That evening, Naomie crept out of the orphanage just before midnight. She tiptoed down a side road, scurried into the woods. She scampered through trees under a moonless sky, as light and sure as a familiar. This was the place that had borne her, she’d been told for as long as she could remember, and she knew her way as certainly as other children recognized their mothers.

  In a few minutes, she was at the cemetery gate, which she vaulted in a leap. Chet crouched. Hidden in the thicket of underbrush and tombstones, she edged forward through the generations. She stepped into her customary spot—and felt the ground take leave of her bare feet.

  For a moment, Naomie stood atop a gap. Then she dropped, a six-foot plummet into a makeshift grave.

  Chet rushed up to the pit, holding a candle and Ofer’s spade. He peered over the lip as he threw in the first shovelful of dirt.

  — What are you doing down there?

  — What are you doing up there?

  — I’m the town sin-eater. Everyone knows that, Naomie.

  — You haven’t been eating many sins lately.

  Another load of dirt landed on her chest. Then one hit her in the face, hard, all rock and clod. The soil stuck where her nose began to bleed. She called his name, sharp like a sob.

  — Chet, have you already forgotten that you were once an orphan like us?

  — I remember the gruel all too well. You may be too proud to accept my charity, but I’ll be damned if I lose a penny to your meddling.

  — I’ve never told a soul your secret. I never will, Chet. I only wanted to understand the sins in my dreams.

  — Why should I trust you? Why should I care? I’ll give the food to vermin, and let the orphanage starve.

  Naomie had climbed to her feet. She hoisted herself out of the pit, and came near to Chet. She hadn’t seen him, except from afar, since he was a scrawny twelve-year-old boy whose fear of the widow Yidel marked him like the measles. He’d since become bulkier, to be sure, but the greater change had come about in his mouth, which glistened with greed. She shut her eyes and kissed him there, in the way she knew from her dreams. She let him fondle her, until he’d taken his pleasure.

  He left her in naked pain. Yet only as her physical discomfort subsided did she begin to wonder whether the lingering mortification was the feeling of sin or of redemption.

  Every night for many months she slipped into the cemetery and gave herself to the sin-eater, returning to the orphanage in the morning to make breakfast from the food he provided her. And Chet, he took home the cash. In short order, he was rich. He added so many rooms to his house that the fireplace had to be supplemented with three more. He bought his neighbors’ land and tore down their hovels, to make room for a garden that would make the rabbi’s Eden resemble a peasant’s vegetable patch. He purchased animals fit for Noah’s ark, clothing to match Joseph’s coat, and a carriage to rival the Tabernacle.

  A few of the town elders considered his pretensions unseemly, but everyone judged him an improvement over Ephraim: He negotiated his fees without so much fuss over family history, and dressed well at festivals. And what of penance? Given his success in business, who could question his skill at balancing the books in heaven?

  He also, natural showman, mastered the extravagant gesture. He waived his sin-eating fees for the rabbi’s relations, hosted banquets for visiting dignitaries, and, when the town hall needed repair, donated a new cupola. Granite to garnet, the orphan became a leading citizen—and the region’s most eligible bachelor.

  The matchmakers no longer bothered with sturdy peasant girls. They offered him burghers’ daughters whose trousseaus came with chambermaids, and exotic beauties from islands too distant to have names. But nobody he met was right. The burghers’ daughters came with attractive dowries, to be sure, and the exotic beauties promised to keep any man enchanted for a thousand and one nights or more. What did he want, then, the matchmakers asked. A princess? They located one for him, with blood so pure that, it was said, a single cut would drain the life from her. But he wouldn’t be enticed, nor could he say why.

  Chet asked Naomie to marry him. A full moon witnessed his proposal, and illuminated her response. Her eyes closed. She frowned. She said no.

  He stood. He asked her if she knew what he owned, how much he had. She did. He said she couldn’t possibly, unless she saw it all. He set her in the back of his carriage, and drove her to his estate. First they circled around his garden—which, unlike Eden, had flagstone roads laid for such excursions—naming for her the sleeping animals and flowers in the languages of their native lands. Then he brought her into his house, the foyer ceiling taller than the forest canopy, the halls more numerous than woodland trails, each leading to a bedroom, all of them empty except one, where he slept alone on silken sheets under blankets woven from gold thread. He led her there.

  — Now you’ll marry me.

  — Anything else, Chet, but not that.

  — You have nothing, Naomie.

  — All I have, I’ve given you already.

  — Then what have you got to lose? I don’t expect a dowry.

  I’ve turned away dozens of those.

  — I don’t love you, Chet. I can’t give you that. You can’t buy it.

  — Marry me anyway. You’re the only one who knows me. The only one who’s seen what I’ve done.

  She let him hold her hands. She let him take her to bed. She let him caress her however he desired. She spent the whole night with him and when they awoke it was well past daylight. He kissed her with that mouth that glistened with greed, and reiterated his vows. She shook her head and dashed back to the orphanage.

  The others had, of course, noticed her empty cot, and, their suppositions confirmed, called her trollop and necromancer and succubus. Since she’d no bread with which to appease them this time, they didn’t stop tormenting her even after Yidel sent them begging: In the sewer behind the orphanage, the boys molested her while the girls tore out her hair.

  She was too ill to leave the orphanage that night. Chet waited for her in the graveyard. He waited ’til dawn, nibbling on sins as the hours passed and his hunger spread. When nothing was left, he slept.
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br />   Lately Chet’s dreams had been as soft and warm as his bed, but, on this particular night, they raged through his head, angry and mean like a thrashing. At last Chet opened his eyes. He found Ofer standing over him, shouting his name.

  — There’s been a murder, Chet. The town bell has been ringing for hours.

  — What concern is it of mine?

  — The rabbi wants everybody to gather. Since you weren’t at your estate, he sent me to fetch you here.

  Hundreds of people were in the square, and still more were coming down every road. Chet looked for Naomie where the orphans stood. He couldn’t find her. He tried to get closer, but the rabbi’s disciples brought the meeting to order.

  Sender appeared on the balcony of the town hall with the mayor, whom he’d single-handedly elected many years before, and whose only role was to stand beside the rabbi at municipal functions, lending them legitimacy in the capital city. Sender stepped forward and said that Reuven the moneylender had been murdered two nights before, and that his body was gone, save for a shroud of blood in his bed. The rabbi demanded a confession.

  Of course nobody liked the moneylender, and almost all stood to have debts forgiven, or, rather, forgotten, now that he was gone, but no one was about to lay claim to the crime. Which presented a serious problem: With motivation nearly universal and the corporeal evidence gone missing, there was no means of investigation. Justice had to be done. Someone had to hang. The capital city insisted on it, and promised to handle it if the community couldn’t. That meant large dogs and small cells from which folks didn’t always emerge as whole as they’d entered: A town could be decimated by the time the crime was solved.

  For three days, nobody came forward with a confession. In such situations there was but one course of action: Sender ordered Yidel’s orphans to draw straws. Society has a use for everyone.

  To ensure that Naomie’s lot would be shortest, the children enlisted a boy named Falk, who was shrewdest at dice and cards and other games of chance, to hold the bundle while they drew. When Naomie’s turn came, he spat in her eye so she wouldn’t see him press down on the straw she was drawing, snapping it in two. If only Falk had been as good at addition as he was at division, his ruse would have worked. But he’d started with one lot too few, which left in his hands, when his own turn came, just the severed end of Naomie’s straw. Anybody could see it was the shortest segment, that he’d botched the job. Everyone began talking at once, yet within a few moments, they’d reached a consensus: Naomie had used her witchcraft. Falk grabbed her straw, and, to universal approval, broke it to bits. Then they marched her to Sender, who imprisoned her in the town hall, and had his beadle post an announcement of her impending death.

  When Chet went to the graveyard that night, he saw a copy of the notice. He read it twice. HANGING AT NOON, it said. ALL INVITED.

  There were sins to be dispatched that evening, coins to be collected. He left the cemetery, though, candles still burning. He went to the rabbi’s study.

  As usual, Sender was with his disciples, reading through the night. When the pupils saw Chet coming, they surrounded the sin-eater, not to block his way, but to praise him, venerable citizen, and to admire his furs. Sender clapped his hands and waved for them to be gone. The disciples dispersed. The rabbi invited Chet inside, and poured him a cup of tea. The sin-eater took a sip. He set down his cup.

  — Why are you punishing Naomie, Rabbi? She’s innocent.

  — She drew the shortest straw. You were in the orphanage once. You know how it works.

  — But . . .

  — Don’t think of it as punishment, Chet. This has nothing to do with her personally.

  — She’s going to die.

  — We have no other option.

  For a moment, Chet thought about that. It wasn’t right. The cheat stared at the rabbi.

  — There’s me.

  — You haven’t done anything wrong.

  — I’m guilty.

  The rabbi refused to believe him, so Chet went to the woods, where the remains of his former master still lay, and brought back some bones. He dropped them, one at a time, on Sender’s floor. Did he give a showman’s bow? The rabbi couldn’t be sure.

  — But those bones are old.

  — Reuven wasn’t a young man.

  — What happened to the rest of him?

  — Carrion.

  — You wouldn’t kill someone without a reason.

  — I didn’t like that he had as much money as me.

  The rabbi wasn’t convinced, but he had to admit that, at least from the standpoint of the capital city, Chet made a more compelling suspect than Naomie. Sender called for his beadle, who led the sin-eater to prison.

  Naomie was stirred by the turning of the beadle’s key. She opened her eyes. She squinted, perplexed. She stared at Chet. She murmured his name. She asked if he was her executioner. The beadle informed her that she was free. He said that she had to leave.

  Only, she’d nowhere to go. The other orphans would already have parceled out her bedding, taken her place in the poorhouse. The streets were under curfew. She crept to the cemetery, where she figured Chet would go once he’d paid whatever bribes were behind her release. She curled up and slept. She dreamed of marrying him, of making children to fill each of his bedrooms.

  The sun was nearly overhead when she woke again. All the candles had burned out. Vultures were consuming the sins. And Chet was still gone.

  Then she heard the village bell tolling death, chiming in sets of thirteen. She tried to imagine how they were hanging her if she wasn’t there. She tried to guess who they were executing in her place. Then she knew.

  She plunged into the forest. She started to run. A root caught her foot. Her ankle snapped. Still she sprinted. She hit cobblestone. She broke through mobs of oglers into the hangman’s procession. She saw Chet, bound in chains. She called out to the crowd. She said he couldn’t possibly have killed Reuven, because on the night of the murder she’d been with him, in his bed. The mob ignored her, boastful little orphan girl. They wanted Chet dead: The cheat had never done anything except take their money and build himself a mansion. Had he ever actually atoned for the sins he purported to eat? Had he given alms? Ephraim had been holy. What was Chet? He was just greedy. The moneylender was forgotten, yesterday’s murder, last week’s villain. Chet was all they talked about, and he deserved nothing less than death.

  Naomie turned from the crowd. Still shouting to be heard, she told Chet that she’d been wrong. She demanded to know how she could live without him, where she was supposed to go.

  Was it gallows humor that made him mouth the word graveyard? A moment later, he was dead.

  Not a soul attended Chet’s funeral, except to pile waste atop his coffin, rancid animal offal and excrement, determined to bury him in his own sin. To complete the grotesque ritual, they surrounded his casket with every candle they could find in his house, lest his sins be carried away inadvertently by wild beasts.

  The flame was furious. Terrified, Naomie hid inside a nearby crypt. The townsfolk went away. The sun set. At last she emerged, Naomie the orphan sin-eater. She approached her supper. As she got closer, the fire grew higher. It stretched past the treetops, each candle flame as broad as a trunk at the base, yet, up above, all of them branched together, woven into one light. She took another step. The fire collected. She plunged forward. The flame lifted, as if on a wind, and went out.

  For many hours, Naomie was blind. Only with dawn did she see what had happened: The fire had consumed, completely, the food on Chet’s coffin. There was no sin. Not a trace of who he’d been.

  Naomie felt, deep in her stomach, a hunger unlike any she’d had before. And she knew that, no matter how much she ate, it would always be there. In that pit, she would always have Chet.

  TET THE IDLER

  Bell towers are the lighthouses by which we navigate the hours.

  There once was a town with a clock that, like a bright beacon on the coastline,
became a surrogate for the sun. Nobody ever rested in that town, for the bells rang all the time, a grand carillon that had been chiming, day and night, since before the eldest villagers were born. The townsfolk didn’t question what caused the bells ceaselessly to repeat their song—whether it was a mechanical glitch or a metaphysical slip—any more than they wondered what it might be like to shut their eyes and sleep. Dreamy philosophy meant nothing to them. What mattered was that, on account of their peerless bell tower, their town prospered above all neighbors.

  Folks worked constantly. Some farmed, while others plied the trades. But none toiled harder, under a greater burden, than Sol the timekeeper.

  Sol was responsible for keeping the town clock wound. The carillon was powered by two lead weights, which ran down the center of the tower on loops of rope, and, if Sol wasn’t hoisting one, he was tugging up the other. It was a job for two men, for which reason he’d heeded his father’s deathbed advice: He’d taken a wife and raised a son.

  The wife hadn’t lasted many months past childbirth, but the son survived, as stout a boy as a papa could want. Sol called him Tet, and set him to work as soon as he could walk, fixing meals and cleaning up. Yet there wasn’t much for a child, still too light to haul a weight, to do in a bell tower. While farmers and tradesmen always had suitable tasks for even their smallest sons and daughters, Tet had hours each day of leisure.

  Some of these he spent watching folks work. He kept himself hidden, lest they solicit his help, for he knew that effort caused calluses and blisters, and wanted neither. He also saw that tireless exertion produced fine goods and delicate foods in such abundance that merchants from foreign lands were over-whelmed: If local builders weren’t making new mills and kilns and looms, they were framing warehouses to store the surplus of luxuries ready for market.