All the Fabulous Beasts

by Priya Sharma

  “What’s that?”

  “A jail. It’s a prisoner that I guard for Zeus.”

  “Who is it?”

  “The Kraken.”

  The Kraken was a titan from the start of time who had dared to challenge Zeus. The Kraken appeared at the bars, having heard his name. All I could see was a giant eye. The rest of him was lost in the watery gloom. I smiled in sympathy and raised a hand. The eye blinked back.

  “I didn’t bring you down here to flirt with him,” Poseidon chided. “I wanted you to see the water. It’s just like your eyes. The darkest shade of blue that the ocean can possibly be.”

  *

  Kissing was a distant memory that I associated with gods, lion men and calamity. Kissing Paul was discovering kissing anew. It reminded me of what I’d put away. Poseidon, a god among the waves but just like any other man in bed. Demanding to worship and to be worshipped in return.

  “Come upstairs with me,” Paul clutched my hand, “please.”

  We started to undress in the hall in his flat, amid the unpacked boxes. Paul’s shirt lost its shape as he dropped it to the floor, unable to withstand the world without him. I traced the crookedness of his collarbones with my fingertips. The smattering of coarse hair on his chest.

  “Where’s your bedroom?” I said between kisses.

  “There.” He indicated a room behind me with a flick of his eyes. I walked backwards, leading him to it. I pulled my blouse over my head and threw it on a chair. Then I saw the picture Paul had hung over his bed. The canvas dominated the room. A fantasy within a Rococo-style frame.

  It was one of mine. A self portrait of sorts. I’d sent it to the gallery as soon as it was finished as I couldn’t bear to look at it. I’d remade the city as arcadia with Bryant Park at its heart. The grass was deep and lush. Trees had conquered concrete and glass. Poseidon and I were post-coital in this idyll. That was clear, not just from our nudity but glow. My head rested on his chest. His arm was around me. He looked down at my head of snakes and yellow eyes like I was the loveliest woman in the world.

  “Don’t you recognise me, Medusa?”

  “Poseidon.”

  “I’ve been searching for you. I wasn’t even sure you were still alive but when I saw the painting I knew I’d found you.”

  “Well, now you have. What do you want?”

  “Forgiveness.”

  “That won’t help my sisters.”

  “Nothing will help your sisters. It would help us though.”

  “I was just a plaything to you.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Neither’s life. You taught me that.”

  “I loved you. I still do. Why else do you think I’m here?”

  I looked out of the window. Distant lights winked at me.

  “It’s too late. I’m tired. A tired, old murdering hag.”

  “And I’m a washed up, has-been deity.”

  “What became of Perseus?” I surprised myself. I couldn’t recall when I’d last thought of him. He’d evaded me.

  “Hera chose Perseus’ bride as a sacrifice. She demanded the Kraken be released to do the deed. The Kraken was more interested in Perseus,” Poseidon gave me a wry smile. “The Kraken liked you. He was glad to oblige.”

  I should’ve known to leave the gods to slug it out with one another I felt no satisfaction at the thought of Perseus fixed by the Kraken’s slow blinking eye or dangling from its mouth.

  I felt nothing.

  “Do you really want to see me? See me as I am now?”

  A mirror stood against the wall, waiting to be hung. I knelt before it. Poseidon joined me so that we were penitents before ourselves. I unwound my headscarf and took off my spectacles.

  “This is me. I’ve nothing left, not even looks.”

  “There’s still love. Life. We still have those.” A pearl dropped from his nostril and rolled to a standstill on the far side of the room. Then another. A third spilled from his mouth. More from his ears. They fell, a percussion of pleading, as they bounced across the wooden floor. “You’re beautiful to me. You always will be.”

  We were reflected in the mirror. A man with a crooked nose and a trimmed brown beard, speckled with silver. A woman with a sinuous coil of dark hair lying over one shoulder. Eyes, blue. The darkest shade of blue that the ocean can be.

  “You see? Beautiful.”

  “Yes,” I answered in wonderment, “yes, I am.”

  The Absent Shade

  “Calm down now,” Umbra said as she wiped away Thomas’ tears. “Let’s play a game. It’s a secret though. You mustn’t tell anyone about it.”

  After that Thomas wanted to play every night, so Umbra would get up from her roll up mattress on the floor beside his bed and move the lamps around to cast shadows on the wall behind them. Then she’d lie beside him and wrap her thin arms around him.

  “You start,” she’d say, “make me a shadow.”

  His hands were a muddle.

  “What’s that?” Umbra asked.

  “A cat.”

  Her hands moulded his. The shadow formed a sinuous feline shape, Thomas’ little finger sticking out to form its tail.

  “My turn.”

  She placed one of her hands over the other and a dog appeared on the wall. He could see every detail of it, even though it was in silhouette; its shaggy fur, its lolling tongue, the wag of its tail. It cocked up its ears and chased the cat, leaping from wall to ceiling. Thomas squealed and clapped.

  “What next?” she asked.

  His hands wiggled.

  “Is it a fish?”

  He nodded, well pleased that she’d guessed.

  “Let me see,” Umbra mused as she gathered together the strands of scattered shadows in her fist and fashioned them into a seal that fell into a graceful arc as it dived, the boy’s minnow in its mouth.

  “Now, little man, copy me.”

  She taught him how to make shadow puppets. A rabbit with index and middle fingers for ears, a swan whose neck was formed from the curve of the wrist and feathers from fanned out fingers. Bears, ducks, turtles, even an elephant with tusks.

  “This is my favourite,” she said as she made a pair of birds on a bough. “Watch.”

  Her projections were as different to his as a child’s plasticine figure is from an artist’s carving. The bough was in flower and the birds cocked their heads as if listening to each other’s song. Then the impossible: the birds divided and divided, becoming a flock that took flight. Fluttering wings covered the wall in an explosion of feathers.

  “Now, that’s enough.” she kissed his forehead when the shadows had taken up their former shape. “Sleep now.”

  When he was older he thought about trying to tell someone about her but he knew that he wouldn’t be believed, even though every part of it was true.

  *

  “Pleasure or business, Mr Leung?” The desk clerk smiles at Thomas.

  “Business.”

  He used to work for a multinational that sent him to quell corporate uprisings, navigate difficult negotiations and strip out smaller companies. His wife, Viola, doesn’t know that he has a new job, one that he’s even better at than the last one. His wife calls him a cold fish which, he supposes, is why he’s so good at this work.

  “You’re a new guest to us. Is this your first time in Hong Kong?”

  “No.” His English accent is the product of the finest International School that Hong Kong has to offer, which makes it difficult to place. “I grew up here.”

  It’s the city where he lost his childhood, if that’s what growing up is.

  “Welcome home.” The clerk hands him the key card.

  Thomas has been here for two weeks already, staying in a third rate place under an alias while he gathers information. He’s glad to be checking into somewhere more comfortable. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel occupies the top seventeen of the one hundred and eighteen floors of the International Commerce Centre, the ICC, on Kowloon. His room has a view. It’s specta
cular.

  Hong Kong is a city where peaks rise from the sea, layers of them that fade to soft greys in the distance. Thomas remembers Umbra telling him she’d never seen anything like it, a place where so many mountains had drowned. Tower blocks flourish amid the lush greenery. It’s vertiginous as it lacks the space to sprawl.

  From his window he looks out on Victoria Harbour. The water’s busy with freighters coming in from the South China Sea, their cargo parcelled off onto smaller boats that are pulled along by sturdy tugs whose paths criss-cross cruise ships and ferries.

  Enough. Time to work.

  Thomas lays out his gear on the bed and assembles what he needs. He catches the Star Ferry over to Central, the part of Hong Kong island that’s the bloodless, beating heart of the economy. Its towers are clad in gold, silver and copper facades that look burnished in the sun. The city reflects itself. He has dressed like all the other men who are piling out of work onto the elevated footbridges. The man Thomas is looking for, Mr Tsang, is crossing a bridge below him. He’s nondescript for someone so powerful man, revelling in his anonymity.

  He should be more careful, Thomas thinks.

  He follows Mr Tsang to the escalators. There’s eight hundred metres of them in segments, all covered, crossing the narrow streets on their ascension to Victoria Peak. They’re a radical solution to the weariness of commuters who have to scale the steep hill.

  Thomas has done his research. He knows where Mr Tsang is going. Thomas gets off at Hollywood Road and overtakes him. Instinctively, Thomas moves out of the sunshine and crosses over to shade where he feels less conspicuous. He walks with intent, ignoring the antique shop windows, crowded with curios and trinkets.

  His destination is the Man Mo Temple. They are the gods of Literature and War, respectively. He finds temples less forbidding than churches, even though his family are Christian. People wander in and out, carrying shopping bags as though calling on an old friend. Discarded incense wrappers litter the ground around the trestle tables outside where they’re being sold. Old fruit is dumped in bins, having once been left as offerings.

  Thomas likes the gloomy red and gold interior. Giant incense spirals that take weeks to burn hang down from the ceiling. Sandalwood smoke stings his eyes. It’s busy, filled with people who’ve come to pay their respects to their dead and disrespectful tourists taking photos. He lights incense for Umbra, not knowing if she’s alive or dead. He owes her a lifetime of remorse. She owes him, too.

  Mr Tsang enters. Thomas waits for him to finish, watching his mouth moving in a prayer. Then he follows him out onto the street, letting him walk along for a while. Mr Tsang’s shadow stretches out along the pavement in front of him, his soul going ahead. Thomas closes the gap between them on silent shoes.

  “Mr Tsang.”

  Mr Tsang turns, confused that Thomas is so close but he doesn’t understand why. His eye will have seen what’s odd and his subconscious will have registered it but his mind has yet to understand. Thomas doesn’t give him time to think about it.

  “Mr Tsang.” Thomas seizes his hand like he’s a friend that he’s not seen in years. “Please accept my condolences. Your father was greatly respected.”

  Thomas presses his hand over their combined fists in a gesture of sympathy. “I met him in Beijing…”

  The pressure of Thomas’ hand triggers the mechanism on top of the gaudy ring he’s wearing and the poison tipped spike is released from the band and punctures Mr Tsang’s palm. It’s a scratch but it’ll suffice.

  Mr Tsang flinches and pulls away, putting it to his mouth. All the better for Thomas’ purpose.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas says smoothly, glancing at his watch. “I must go, I’m late.”

  He turns and leaves before Mr Tsang has a chance to stop him. He’ll be dead within the hour. Mr Tsang’s assassination is a warning. Thomas doesn’t know why. It’s none of his business. The concoction he’s used is so potent that he’s taken the antidote, just in case he accidentally stabs himself. It’ll be easily identified at toxicology but not so easily traced back to a source. This is his favourite kind of kill. He’ll be well away before Mr Tsang’s death throes start.

  Thomas slips the ring off and puts it in a plastic case in his pocket.

  He’s well acquainted with all kinds of murder and how to hide them. Pseudo-suicides, sex games gone awry, allergic reactions. Mock muggings that leave him standing over a body in the gutter. Thomas dislikes the last one as it reminds him of what Umbra said.

  *

  “This is Umbra,” Thomas’ mother said. “She’s here to help us.”

  Help. His mother, Mai Yuen, needed a lot of help. She would’ve had a flotilla of staff if she could. The staff themselves were cheap. The real luxury was having the space in which to keep them. By law imported servants had to live with their sponsors and so there was only enough space in the apartment for them and Umbra. Thomas’ parents were affluent, not uber-wealthy, living in a city where extended families often lived in just one room.

  Mai Yuen always complained about Umbra. She would’ve preferred what she had herself as a child, an amah, some Chinese spinster consigned to a life of drudgery. Instead she made do with a series of foreign domestic ‘helpers’.

  Mai Yuen had left Umbra at the door to Thomas’ room. He looked up to see a woman, like all the others. Or nearly. Big dark eyes and bang straight hair. A velour tracksuit and flip flops. The scar on her left cheek marked her out as different. It was jagged and ugly.

  “I don’t want you,” he shouted at her. “I want my daddy!”

  The truth was that he didn’t know what he wanted. At four, all he knew was that he was angry.

  “He’s not here,” Umbra said, “and I don’t know when he’ll be back, he has to work, so stop this.”

  Umbra was impassive, just like his father. That stopped his screeching.

  *

  His mother would’ve tried to placate him with He’ll be back soon, I’m sure, before she got bored and drifted away. A tear ran down his face. Umbra seized him and her hug was fierce, unlike his mother’s limp, insipid embraces. Umbra made him utterly hers in that moment and ever after.

  *

  Umbra had been with them for three months when Thomas’ father, Chun Hin, came home. It was his birthday.

  The apartment was all clean lines, almost masculine. Mai Yuen’s art books were arranged in piles, topped with antique lacquered boxes. A set of oil paintings from the gallery where she worked. Celadon pottery. There was hardly anything of Thomas’ father there.

  “Who’s this?” his father asked.

  “Umbra.” Thomas was keen to show her off.

  “Hello, Umbra.”

  Umbra put down the cake plates and forks.

  Mai Yuen held the cake slice poised over the cake she’d bought. She was glossy, her hair smooth, lacquered nails and her lips painted. She looked like a polished stone.

  “You can go to your room now, Umbra.” Mai Yuen dismissed her.

  “Where’s Daddy’s cake?” Thomas asked.

  His mother had ordered a patisserie creation covered in whipped cream icing and decorated in gold sugared almonds. It was far too large for the small family.

  “Look, this one has Daddy’s name on it.”

  “No. Where’s mine?”

  He wanted the cake that Umbra had helped him to make. It was a misshapen heap of chocolate and sponge.

  “Don’t be silly.” She widened her eyes at him.

  He leant over and shoved her cake off the table. The stemmed cake platter shattered on the floor, the cake smashed up.

  “Can’t you control him?” That was Chun Hin.

  Thomas shouted for Umbra. She hovered in the doorway.

  Mai Yuen was wiping the cream that had splattered over her shoes and up her legs. His father was out of his seat, seizing Thomas’ arm.

  “I just wanted a nice night with my family. Is that too much to ask?” He was talking to Mai Yuen. “And you,” his grip on Thom
as tightened, “go to your room.”

  “I want Umbra.”

  “No.” Chun Hin pointed at Umbra. “You, to your room too. Stay in there.”

  “She sleeps with him. It’s the only way he’ll settle.” His mother’s face looked blotchy.

  Chun Hin rounded on her. “No wonder he acts like a baby if you treat him like this.”

  He threw Thomas on his bed and slammed the door. The boy shrieked and shrieked. When his mother came in she didn’t look polished anymore.

  “Stop it,” she hissed. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  It only made him shriek more so his father came in an, took off his belt and hit him. It made a cracking sound as it made contact with his back. Thomas glared at him in shocked silence and then started to shriek once more. Chun Hin raised his arm again.

  “Please, no more.” Mai Yuen got down on her knees, her head bowed. “Not tonight.”

  He stared at her. Then he walked out, slowly, the belt still in his hand trailing on the floor behind him. She got up and followed him in silence. When he passed the door to Umbra’s room which was in sight of Thomas’ room, he opened the door.

  “Go to him. Keep him quiet.”

  Umbra lay down on the floor beside Thomas.

  “I want him to go.”

  “He’ll leave soon enough. He’s just another thing to be endured. I’ve seen much worse.”

  “I hate him.”

  “Calm down now,” Umbra said as she wiped away his tears. “Let’s play a game. It’s a secret though. You mustn’t tell anyone about it.”

  *

  Work’s done. Time to play.

  Thomas chooses a bar called Ciacada, overlooked by the escalators, its doors open wide to the street. He likes its lighting, diffuse and safe enough for him to feel comfortable.

  There’s a girl in the corner. She’s not a dead ringer but she’s close enough. He catches her eye. She says her name is Lunette, her glance flicking from his eyes to mouth and back again. He buys them Belgium beers and they talk. He makes her laugh. He knows how to pass as human. He does it every day.

  They find a love hotel. Lunette picks a room from a laminated brochure while he pays. The Underwater Fantasy room is more tasteful than Thomas expects, despite the mermaid costume in the wardrobe. As he hands over a roll of bills to Lunette he remembers what Umbra said. Better to be one man’s whore than many’s.