Sunspot Jungle

by Bill Campbell

  “It’s a zit.” He wobbled, suddenly off balance. The girl covered her face at his reaction.

  “You let me out of jail so that I could take her sickness upon myself right before you string me up for a crime I didn’t commit?”

  “Do you know how long a wait we have to find a good dermatologist?” the prison guard asked. “Besides, my deductible is huge.”

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Why?”

  “If you want me to touch a little white girl, I’d think you’d be expected to wash up first.”

  “Good point.”

  J.C. pushed past the guard and strode down the hallway toward the living room and beyond the kitchen to the last door on the left. The light buzzed to life above him. He ran the cold water and splashed some on his face. He looked into the mirror. His face was wet as if from a day’s labor sweating in a field; his arms exhausted and heavy. Turning to his left, he spied a small window. The thought leapt to his mind by the time he was halfway through it. With a bit of contortion, he twisted his bulky frame through the opening. He scrabbled along the roof and hopped onto their landing before running off into the night.

  A disembodied head faded into view alongside him as he ran.

  “Where are you going?” The Tom asked.

  “Home,” J.C. said. “If I can heal people, I’m going to open up a free clinic.”

  “What about the girl?” The Mammy appeared beside them.

  “They got good health insurance.”

  “I think he’s gone insane,” The Tom said to The Mammy.

  “No, he may be … The One,” The Buck materialized beside them.

  “The One?” The Tom turned to him. “Surely not.”

  “Who’s The One?” The Mammy asked.

  “If he’s really arrived, maybe now, he’ll have his own story to tell. The One who actually saves the day himself. He’s the hero.”

  Rabbits

  Csilla Kleinheincz

  The air was boiling above the highway, whipping up the smell of dust from the car seats as if the road led into the past instead of to Lake Balaton.

  “You don’t look so well,” said Vera, glancing to her right. She leaned on the wheel almost as if she was afraid that without holding on, the car would leave her behind. “Why don’t you roll down the window a bit?”

  Amanda was wondering whether what she felt was nausea. It was difficult to tell. The smell of the dust made her woozy. She wanted to ask the little girl in the backseat if she was sick, too, but then rejected the idea. The girl couldn’t speak. Or maybe she could, but no one had yet the guts to ask her anything.

  “I spread the tarot for our vacation,” said Vera. “It was all swords. What do you think it means?”

  “If you can’t read it, why do you lay it out?” Amanda decided not to risk being sick; the air whistled in the window and tore the words from her mouth bite by bite.

  “Because when I spread it and clean it and light a candle, it calms me. Plus, it is super mysterious. If someone were to see me, he would think I’m a witch.”

  Amanda frowned. Vera knew as little about tarot as about everything else; she dipped in it because it interested her but only tried it on briefly like a new dress.

  The wind felt good, it invigorated Amanda, the nausea was blown out of her. She felt empty. Now she saw Vera and the curly locks stuck to her forehead more clearly.

  “And if no one sees you?”

  “Then I imagine that someone does.” Vera laughed, but Amanda was in no mood to join her. Hi, my witch. This is me you are talking to. I look right through you like an X-ray.

  She would not have minded if it had been so. Vera would become transparent like glass, Amanda would see the car door behind her and could reach into her like into an aquarium, and then she would pull out what was wrong with her. Presto. A routine operation, madam, you may go back to your girlfriend.

  “Swords is an air element,” she said. “Which cards were they?”

  “Does it matter? I did the spread, seemed like a good idea. I am sure it had some meaning. It is enough to know that, isn’t it …?”

  Amanda looked at her to elicit some explanation, but her friend didn’t notice it.

  “It is enough to know it means something,” said Vera loudly over the wind, and she leaned even more on the wheel.

  They set off an hour earlier, and yet they hadn’t left the highway yet. Vera must have been the slowest driver on the whole stretch of road, and if she could, she would have driven in the service lane. She feared for the car, which was as new as her driver’s license.

  Well, Vera certainly isn’t her old self either, thought Amanda sadly and cranked up the window. Her ears hurt from the whistling wind.

  They passed harvested wheat fields, the stubble shining golden on the face of the sleeping earth. Amanda’s nausea returned; she felt as if their journey to Lake Balaton had been a succession of swigs from stale water.

  “You shouldn’t have eaten both of those fried eggs.”

  She shouldn’t have, but fried eggs were a symbol just like Vera’s tarot spread. Each morning they fried something for breakfast, and Amanda did the same this morning to pretend they were still together. She doggedly ate the eggs and bacon while Vera waited for her, then took her bag, and they were off.

  As an experiment, she put her hand on Vera’s knee, but her girlfriend apologetically took her wrist and pushed it away. For a while the silence was cold.

  They stopped at a gas station at the beginning of the Balaton road. Vera stepped out to fill up the car and make a call. Amanda turned back to the child.

  The little girl didn’t say a word during the journey. She sat with a chocolate donut in her hand and smears on her face.

  Clean your face, Amanda thought hard, wondering if she could make the girl speak. Maybe the child was silent for the same reason. Maybe she just thought hard about the things she wanted to say.

  The girl did not wipe the chocolate off her face. She just stared with eyes as blue as cornflowers, as those of Amanda. Her curly hair—so very like Vera’s—was matted with chocolate. She dropped the doughnut into her lap onto the white skirt.

  “We are on the road, yes, almost there … Of course …” Shrill laughter. Amanda looked out the open door at Vera. “Yes, I would love it … Hmm? You say you can magic yourself here?” Laughter again. “Yes, Tintin. Kisses.”

  Tintin. What kind of nickname was that for a grown man? And who was called Jusztin nowadays? Amanda was sure it was a stage-name required by the circus, but Vera was adamant that it was real.

  “Did you ever see his ID? Did it say Jusztin?

  “Yours says Amanda, so why not?”

  Vera got back in the car, smiling nonchalantly, and started the engine.

  “Hey,” said Amanda later, when they were at Siófok. “Do you remember Panna?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Our daughter?”

  Vera looked up in the rearview mirror, then turned on the turn signal. Their street was still far away, but she was cautious.

  “Oh, that. It was a nice game. I mean, pretending she existed.”

  Amanda looked back. The girl shrugged as if to say she didn’t care, then faded away. The chocolate doughnut remained a little while longer above the seat, then it also disappeared.

  Only the headache remained, and the feeling of dejection.

  Tintin was a traveling circus magician. Vera said he was too young to get offers from bigger companies.

  And not handsome enough, added Amanda, first in thought and later in words. She thought that Jusztin—no Tintin for her, thank you—had carrot hair and small, unpleasantly gleaming eyes. Vera liked him, though. This only showed that Amanda didn’t know her friend as well as she believed: if these Jusztin types were acceptable—and what’s more: delightful, enchanting, sexy—then perhaps in Vera’s eyes she was not who she really was.

  Two weeks ago, in the town of Fót, Jusztin literally enchanted Vera: he turned her
into a rabbit, then caught her with a lasso. He winked, smiled at her, and in the next minute it was Vera who shuffled her feet at the end of the rope. Jusztin wanted her to bow, then released her.

  Vera thought this romantic. Amanda said it was love magic, a low one at that, but the only one she could ask about it was her enchanted friend.

  As they strolled on the beach and inspected ice cream vendors, Amanda watched Vera walk, watched for the signs that her steps faltered when Amanda peeled the panties of her bikini off with her gaze. Once, her girlfriend had said Amanda could ignite an ant with her gaze. Now Vera hardly even noticed. You see? Amanda looked at the little girl who followed them mute and grimy. The child glanced back, shook her Vera-hair, and raised her hand. Her fingers were closed as if she had been following a string.

  Her face remained calm though, as they walked the Balaton promenade, she faded and started to lose herself. When her feet melted away and her pink legs walked on blunt ends, Amanda turned away.

  “Do you like ghosts?” she asked Vera. The little girl was sitting on the grass in front of them. She was playing with sticks, fencing with them as if they were swords. Amanda didn’t like that; the rattle gave her a headache.

  “Sure.”

  Vera held her cell phone in her hand and smiled dreamily at it as she was punching its buttons.

  “Not ghosts of dead people. But ghosts of people we create by the force of our mind.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Vera.”

  “Tintin says ghosts live in his sleeves, in his opera hat, in his tailcoat. He stuffed them into his wand like the scarves, gave them as fodder to his rabbits. When I was a bunny, I think I saw them.” She paused. “Then it turned out they were only feathers, he makes bouquets from them and conjures them out of his buttonhole. Tintin says because the ghosts live with him, they do not exist. He told me to imagine them existing and not existing at the same time.”

  “Balderdash.”

  “He is good at it, yes,” said Vera.

  Sometimes it would have been better if she had quarreled. Or struck back. Or at least gave a sign that she knew that Amanda didn’t like Jusztin. Acknowledged, and then filed it. Then they could have gone on, closed the file. Instead, this was an endless interrogation with Amanda as the inquisitor.

  “He doesn’t really love you,” said Amanda crossly.

  “What’s your problem? I came with you, didn’t I?”

  “But when you go back … he won’t love you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Vera’s face was smooth and calm, not bothered by anything. It was possible that her heart remained a rabbit’s even after the trick and was interested only in grass and fucking, maybe that was why she loved the carrot-haired Jusztin and his carrot so much.

  Amanda watched the little girl knock the sticks together with her pink tongue stuck out in concentration. The child annoyed her. She would have shouted at her, but you don’t shout at imaginary children, especially when there are others around.

  The little girl appeared after one of their lovemakings when they stretched lazily and naked on the rug. Their hands drew slow circles on each other’s belly and breasts, and they were whispering so softly that only they and the rug could hear them. Then abruptly the girl was there on the sofa, picking her nose. She wasn’t bothered by their nudity, her face was devoid of emotion, of either smile or frown.

  Amanda’s aunt, who was almost admitted to a ghost researching course of a professedly Tibetan sect that was in truth run by Hungarian pensioners, once said that spontaneous spiritbirths were common and added that they were nothing to fuss about. They existed only in the mind, and if one wanted to get rid of them, one only had to purge them from within. Garlic was good, said the aunt seriously. Our ancestors knew that although they were mistaken when they believed that garlic had to be hung in the room. You had to eat it to shoo ghosts away. They didn’t care for stinky breath. Amanda laughed at that.

  The little girl unnerved her. The child’s shin was short as if it had melted away. Her eyes sparkled red.

  “I’m going inside.”

  “Hmm,” mumbled Vera and put the cell phone to her ear.

  “I’m staying outside,” said Amanda in the same voice.

  “Aham,” said Vera, then her face lit up. “Oh, Tintin!”

  Amanda wished to strangle her but didn’t because of Jusztin. She felt him watching them from the distance through his magic wand like through a telescope, his breath ruffled the grass at their feet. She would behave nicely in front of him.

  In fact, very nicely.

  She leaned forward and kissed Vera’s nape. Her girlfriend shot a glance at her.

  “And what was the performance like?”

  When she bit Vera’s nape, she got a light slap in the face. Amanda growled back.

  “What …? Yes, a doggie.”

  Amanda turned up her nose. You won’t mislead Jusztin, he saw what I did. He is here with us. More and more real every minute.

  She hesitated a little in front of the bungalow, then went inside to open the bottle of whisky she had brought herself.

  She smelled their perfumes in every room. Vera was Kenzo Air, Amanda was Summer. The two glasshouse scents made the world feel stuffy. Two hothouse flowers without stamens, Amanda thought.

  In the bedroom under the bedcover, the perfume mixed with the smell of soap. Amanda wanted to snuggle closer but didn’t dare. She felt someone lying between them: a long, heavy body pressing down the quilt but still invisible. Vera was dreaming of Jusztin.

  Amanda watched Vera, and in turn Jusztin’s ghost watched her. He was only a heavy void in the air: invisible, but she could feel his gaze upon her. He conjured himself here, thought Amanda, to keep an eye on me. He is a cheater. I don’t ogle them when they are sleeping together.

  Defiant, she slid closer, pushed away the ghost, and slipped her hand under Vera’s cover. Her girlfriend’s skin was warm and soft. She moved her hand up to Vera’s breasts and massaged them gently. Vera sighed.

  Hearing a soft hiss, Amanda smiled. Take that, Jusztin.

  She slid her hand lower, inside Vera’s pajamas. The faint stubble prickled her, but the opening was invitingly wet.

  “I thought we have discussed this,” muttered Vera sleepily.

  Amanda’s fingers groped farther down.

  “We can stay friends without this.” Vera took Amanda’s wrist and squeezed it.

  “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  “I told you I have Tintin now.”

  “And did you tell him you have Amanda?”

  Vera pulled her hand out of her pajamas.

  “Be a good girl.”

  Amanda looked around. She didn’t see either the child or the void in the place of Jusztin’s ghost.

  “He is not here to see!”

  “Just don’t do it, okay?”

  Amanda pulled her hand back and pushed it into her own pajamas. She closed her eyes and pretended it was Vera. If her girlfriend heard her gasping, she didn’t show it.

  She couldn’t reach release. Sometime during her caressing herself, Jusztin laid back between them, his presence cold and sobering.

  Amanda felt she would never have an orgasm. With a sigh she pulled her hand out of her pajamas.

  She turned her back on them and tried to sleep. She had a headache, maybe from the whisky, maybe from something else. She was nauseous, but when the white-dressed, red-eyed child appeared under the window and squatted down, the nausea had passed.

  The little girl didn’t walk after them anymore. Her legs and arms had melted to drumsticks, and she hopped forward. Whenever she saw something interesting, she stopped and sniffled it. Her hair was falling badly, and under the curly locks she was downy like a newborn baby or a chick. Amanda felt sorry for her but didn’t know what to do. When she tried to caress the child, her hand passed through her, and she couldn’t bear the reproachful gaze the girl cast at her.

  “What’s the matter? You l
ook upset,” said Vera.

  “Do you know that Panna dies this way? If you leave?”

  “Aren’t you too old for an imaginary daughter?” asked Vera.

  They walked on the Balaton beach among the other people enjoying their holidays. Amanda would have stopped at the corncob seller, but her girlfriend hurried on. She walked with quick, jerking steps as if something drew her.

  “Our imaginary daughter,” emphasized Amanda.

  “Whatever.”

  They walked a step away from each other. They never held hands, not even before, because of the strange stares they got, but now Amanda longed for it more than ever. Just to show the world. She had enough of love confined between walls.

  Pink-skinned people buzzed around them, wearing ice cream-colored clothes, holding fashion-colored ice creams. Not far away on the lawn, vividly painted wagons stood. The crowd pressed close around them. Poles speared the sky.

  “Hey!” Amanda stopped. “Aren’t they …?”

  “What?”

  Vera stopped and turned around. Her face was red. She smiled, but her smile never reached her eyes. “The circus came this way, is it okay if I say hello?”

  Amanda opened her mouth, closed it, then shouted at Vera.

  “Do you believe that, if you pretend we don’t have a problem, you won’t be a stupid bitch?”

  People stopped for a moment around them, then started walking again. None of their business. Vera paled, turned around, and ran towards the half-erected circus tent.

  Amanda bit her lip and looked around. The child disappeared.

  In the end she followed Vera. She knew her; she would calm down, forgive, and smile—almost like letting her close—even though she was the most distant in those moments.

  The frame of the circus tent was already erect, the dirty, blue-yellow tarp was half-pulled over it like a coat. Fat women in heavy makeup shepherded the children away, worried they would be hit if something fell, like a tilting pole. The tarp was rolled back from the cages; scraggy bears, ostriches, and monkeys watched the humans with bored eyes.