Beauty & Sadness

by André Alexis

  Nor was Mrs. Herbert the only one to notice the change in him. The people of Redfern, most of whom had known Marin since his earliest childhood, were aghast and frightened by his appearance. The same people who had affectionately called him “Stick” now discreetly crossed themselves as he passed. The more cruel called Marin “Death,” but they too avoided him, crossing the street to escape his company. Whenever he walked into town to buy water, soda crackers, and chicken soup — his regular diet — Marin was shunned.

  He was as preoccupied in town as he was distracted in the tower, however, so Marin did not notice his ostracism.

  ____

  For months, much of Marin Herbert’s life passed in anticipation of night. Though he was perpetually tired, he could not sleep during the day. An anxiety kept him awake, a fear he might miss the coming of the spirit he loved. He swept the many rooms of the tower or reread the poetry he had written, but for the most part he sat at his desk looking out the window in his room, a window that faced the Baillargeons’ cornfield, which, in summer, was a green blur that moved in the wind like a rectangular sea. It reminded him of night. Every-thing reminded him of night, save night itself, which brought dawn to mind. He would sit at his desk, waiting, and then it was as if the moon had entered and company was there. Marin’s vision improved miraculously, to the point where he could see his surroundings clearly, though he was in darkness. He could catch the moths that entered his room to eat the linen of his bedding. More importantly, he could see his companion. She was a foot or two taller than he was, her body covered by a white robe that was loose enough to ripple over her body when the wind blew through the room. She did not smile. She did not seem capable of smiling, nor did she blink. Her stare was intimidating, a quality of attention some might have taken for predatory but for her voice, which was gentle. If he closed his eyes, she was perfectly seductive. No, it was more than that. She was arousing. Whether she spoke of poetry or listened to his words, he found himself overwhelmed by physical desire. And so, Marin kept his eyes open, finding it less shameful to fear than to desire her.

  Curiously, this was very like the motive that moved Marin’s Death as well. She was even more surprised than he to feel desire. As one who had accompanied countless souls from this world to the next, she had never felt anything like longing. And this was not just longing but something else for which there was no name. Not “love” (that was not her province), not “affection” (she felt affection for all those she’d accompanied), but, rather, a kind of flattered astonishment that Marin could, through his art, speak her name so clearly. She could not actually close her eyes — Death does not sleep — but, if she was not careful, she could lose herself in pleasure. That is, she could be seduced. And so, preferring vigilance to the mystery of seduction, Marin’s Death kept her attention on him, moving away when he leaned in her direction. (Once — only once — she carelessly allowed his fingers to brush against the sleeve of her robe, and Marin began to cough as if his lungs had filled with fluid.)

  One was wasting away, the other was not of this world. No basis for love, you might have thought. And yet, Marin’s Death began to feel precisely that: love, though it was not her province. She began to find it painful to be away from him, though, of course, the longer she stayed with him, the more time she spent looking on him, the sooner his demise would come, and, for the first time in eons, she was not indifferent to a body, not indifferent to breath, and did not long for the last line of the final poem. If it had been his Death’s will, Marin would speak her name, over and again, endlessly.

  One morning, distracted by her thoughts, Marin’s Death left before he was unconscious. The first rays of sunlight were already on the neck of earth, and so it was time for her daily eclipse. She went down the steps of the tower, and when she came to the last of the tower’s steps, a further set of stairs appeared, leading down into darkness. Following behind her, dazed, having no object but to remain with her until they had absolutely to part, was Marin himself. He scarcely noticed the change from this world to the next. He entered the underworld as might a man asleep, noticing nothing at first but the increasing darkness, which he took for night. And then, after he’d noticed the dark, he felt the cold. And then, cold, he realized he had lost sight of his Death some time before. And with that, he woke completely and felt the beginning of terror.

  No sooner did Marin feel panic, however, than his surroundings were illuminated. He was in a large room, a thousand feet square and a hundred feet tall, and he was not alone. On the far side of the room an old man sat in an armchair . . . or was it a stool? Actually, Marin could not tell what the man sat in because, when he tried to pay attention to whatever it was, it would change: from a bar stool to a Louis XIV loveseat to a rocking chair, and so on. Nor was the chair the only thing that changed. Whenever Marin looked closely at any detail, that detail mutated. The wall nearest him was, at first look, covered in blue wallpaper, then it was wooden, then plain brick, then brick with wainscotting, then . . .

  The only stable thing, aside from Marin himself, was the old man, who, having noticed Marin, approached cautiously. From the moment he rose from the thing that accommodated his arse to the moment he stood warily a foot or so from Marin, he was an (oddly familiar) old man.

  — You’re not dead, said the old man, as if he were aggrieved by Marin’s breathing.

  — No, said Marin.

  — Well, that’s just not right, said the old man.

  Marin apologized.

  — No apology needed, son. It’s just I’ve been trying to get back to my tower and I can’t. So, why should you be allowed in here?

  — Where am I?

  — You’re in my antechamber. Not very pretty, is it? Ah, but where are my manners? I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Samuel Tench. And you are?

  — Marin Herbert.

  — You’re familiar to me. Are you from Redfern?

  — Yes. And you’re the man who built the tower.

  — That I am, lad. That I am, and I’m pleased to meet one of my fellow townsmen. But are you certain you didn’t take a wrong step somewhere? My, my, the things that go on. How’s my country, lad, and how are my countrymen? It’s been some time since I was above ground myself. Not since Death herself decided to move into my home. I’ve been evicted. You’d expect better from an afterlife, wouldn’t you, but there’s no relief from suffering, son. I’m more unhappy dead than I was alive.

  — Are we in Hell? asked Marin.

  Samuel Tench nodded thoughtfully but, after reflection, said

  — Not yet, son, but it’s our common destination.

  — Isn’t there a Heaven?

  — No, that’s just a rumour. Damnation’s all there is. That’s why I’m staying right here.

  — Is there a way out?

  — Oh, certainly. There’s always a way out.

  Pointing to a far corner of the room, Mr. Tench indicated a door Marin had not seen: a door, a portal, a hatch, a curtained exit.

  — And this will take me home?

  — Home? Yes, lad, it will take you home.

  There was something in Tench’s tone that should have sounded a warning. The man, or at least the spirit of what had once been a man, looked down at Marin as if Marin were a mouse and he an owl. He raised an eyebrow, smiled, and again pointed to the door.

  — There you go, son. Home.

  But no sooner had Marin stepped through the door than he understood that he was not home. The door closed behind him and would not open. It was immediately colder than he could have imagined, though his skin was warm. There was darkness, but it was palpable and could be parted so that a bluish light came through. And there were voices, a million of them, each one of which Marin could clearly hear, if only he paid attention to it:

  — Exhausted after a furious round

  of fevered dreams . . .

  —
Children come and go, wickedly laughing

  as they pass . . .

  Does everyone speak verse in Hell? Marin wondered. But he was not in Hell and he heard only what he wished to hear: poetry, his own poetry, though he did not yet recognize it as such. He wandered deeper and deeper into one of the trillion valleys of death, enchanted by the sound of his own words. He was more than enchanted. He was enthralled and would willingly have wandered in the valley listening to his own poetry forever. That this did not happen was because Death came for him. Moving through the darkness like a wind through curtains, Marin’s Death found him. She put a hand over his eyes and, holding him by the shoulder, led him back to the world, to morning and to life.

  The morning light inaugurated what was to be, for Marin, the interminable end of his life. Waking in his narrow bed in the tower, Marin almost immediately noticed two things awry. First, he could not move his left arm. The point at which Death had touched him, his left shoulder, had deadened. It felt as if his clavicle were driftwood. Second, he could see. His vision was, without his glasses, pure and clean. He could see the cracks and bumps in the tower’s walls, could see a silverfish moving on the window ledge. His vision, in other words, had not simply improved. Its improvement had erased the world he had known. Looking out his window at the Baillargeons’ field, he could no longer see the rough green lake, but saw instead each of the stalks of corn, their soft ochre tufts.

  Though he regretted the loss of his near-blindness, worse was to come. That evening, as he readied himself for his Death, her presence, he was interrupted by the ghost of Samuel Tench.

  — How are you, lad? Tench asked

  surprising Marin by his presence, his tone, and his appearance — naked, save for a stick-figure drawing of Satan that was pinned to his chest. No wonder Redfern’s youths had been traumatized by the sight of him. Not traumatized, unimpressed, Marin turned away from Tench’s ghost and wrote. Through the night he wrote poetry and avoided conversation with Tench, a premonition of exile making him wary of talk with the ghost. Tench spoke to him, however.

  — My mistake, he said, for directing you to the place you shouldn’t have gone. I feel bad about it. But it’s worked out for one of us, and that’s something. I’m back in my own dear place. No more interfering from anyone else, either. No one transgresses with impunity, taking you from the underworld when she shouldn’t have. Well, that’s the will of you know who. Your friend won’t be around for a while.

  — When will she be back? asked Marin.

  — That I can’t say. No one knows that, except herself and maybe you, in your heart of hearts. She’ll be back when it’s time. But whatever do you see in that sack of ashes, anyway? Life’s the thing for lads like you. You should be out and about in the daytime.

  In the months that followed, Marin wrote a thousand poems. He wrote sonnets, villanelles, ghazals, sestinas . . . all with Death in mind and each more beautiful than the last. It was as if the dark of night passed through him and into words. Even his parents were now moved by Marin’s poems. His father was discreetly proud. His mother, though, wept as she read the pages she collected from the floor of his room. Though she was distressed by Marin’s unhappiness, she could hardly believe that her son, the boy whose nose she’d wiped, could write of longing so deep the reading of it brought inexpressible joy. How had her poor, frail son managed to see her soul so distinctly?

  In fact, although Marin wrote what he thought of as varied hymns to his Death, wrote every word with her in mind, his work was taken by all who read it as if it had been dedicated to life. Naturally, every reader saw in Marin’s work his or her own shade of light, but light is what they saw and Marin was rewarded for it. His first five collections of poetry, each a haphazard gathering of fifty poems, won all the prizes possible. Each sold as if it had been a novel written by some bumbler with a hackneyed story. That is, they sold unspeakably well. And what an odd situation this created for Marin’s peers. What were they to make of such bewildering financial and aesthetic success? Those who sought reputations instinctively loathed Marin and begrudged him the attention. Those who were not so much poets as they were politicians in verse claimed him for their own: Marin as exemplary sufferer. Those who worshipped poetry and language had no choice but to cherish the being through whom poetry and language made themselves known. But whatever the case, whatever the inclination, each and every poet possessed of even a grain of sensibility read him and was moved.

  Now, you might think that money, fame, and reputation would compensate for exile and loss: exile from Death’s presence and the loss of his only love. They might, had Marin had any of those things in mind while he wrote. However, he did not. And though, for his mother’s sake, he occasionally tried to find some happiness in his accomplishment, he most often failed. Worse: as time passed, he grew less and less interested in happiness, failure, success, or defeat. Once the fifth volume of his verse was published, Marin refused to submit another word. In fact, he threatened to burn every page he had blackened, every page he would ever blacken, if even so much as a comma of his were published. This left his mother in difficult straits. She had submitted his work. She had taken care to save his money for him. She had become his agent. At his refusal to publish, she had to choose between the pride she felt as Marin’s mother, the conviction her son should be compensated for his genius, and a fear of losing a sensibility to which she was herself devoted. After great consideration, she informed Marin’s publisher that there would be no further collections. All the while, however, she surreptitiously published a poem here and there in small magazines, using pseudonyms she culled from a Middlesex County phonebook: George Hesketh, Robert van Hie, Nicholas Jaco, and so on. In this way, she fed a trickle of her son’s work to the wanting world.

  Far from bringing Marin peace or anonymity, his refusal to publish brought ever larger waves of people to Redfern. They came first on foot then by bicycle then by bus — men and women in search of the poet, tramping through Redfern, crowding into the rooms of Tench tower, disrupting the business of the town so much that it was forced to change. In short order, Redfern acquired a new hotel, an old-style antiques shop called Poet’s Pickings, a tavern named From Bard to Verse, and a tearoom known as Herbert’s Hideaway. The very people who had been frightened of him, crossing the street to avoid his bad spirit, now swore he had always been robust and manly, a scamp with an eye for the women, full-lipped, rouge-cheeked, altogether typical of Redfern. Nor did they want for audiences. The men and women who brought or bought handfuls of Marin’s books hung on even the most ridiculous rumours: that Marin had sold his soul to the devil, for instance, shedding a drop of his blood on the Baillargeons’ cornfield in exchange for his devilish talent with words.

  Marin himself was chased from the tower by the sheer number of visitors. He hid in his parents’ basement, abandoning the tower to strangers and to the ghost of Samuel Tench. The tower was overrun by company, and night being the rumoured time to catch Marin while he was writing, the place was packed after midnight. Far from being frightened by a ghost with a stick-figure drawing pinned to his chest, the fanatics who wanted any news or hint of Marin’s life began to pester Tench for stories about Marin and his work. So persistent were they that after six months of pestering, and seeing he could no longer frighten anyone, Mr. Tench’s ghost decided to take his chances in Gehenna and, one night, vanished from the face of Earth forever. Had Marin been aware of it, this would have been another loss. Though he did not trust Tench’s ghost, he had, in the months of nights they had shared, grown accustomed to the ghost’s company and, more, was dependent on the late Mr. Tench for proof that there was another world, another world in which the one he loved waited for him.

  Now, with Marin living in his parents’ basement and with his frustrated followers roaming the streets of Redfern, resentment began to creep into relations between the townspeople and Marin’s admirers. Marin’s admirers — frenzied, calm, t
houghtful, irrational, easily excited, word drunk, poetry mad, considerate, wanting nothing but a glimpse, a lock of hair, a piece of clothing, a moment, an hour, a lifetime — began to feel as if they had been misled. Here was the poet’s land and town. Everyone swore Marin Herbert was about, but few could say for certain where he was because very few saw so much as a hair of the man. Some left the town, bitterly disappointed that the man who had seen into their souls refused to speak with them. Others, more unbalanced, began to do damage: knocking post boxes from their stems, bending street signs, breaking windows at the school for the blind.

  The townspeople were not entirely unsympathetic. Many of them also felt that Marin’s unwillingness to show himself was, at best, thoughtless and, at worst, insolent. Still, there’s only so much petty destruction and general misbehaviour a community can take from its visitors. A barrier grew between the townspeople and Redfern’s tourists. And amongst Redfern’s youth, this barrier was a spur. In the name of “peace keeping,” gangs of them rode around in trucks and cars. They rode around from early evening to late night, looking for outsiders who might be up to no good. They carried baseball bats and machetes for show, to intimidate, but as they were teenagers and drank beer while they drove about, they were at least as dangerous as the lovers of poetry sometimes were.

  ____

  Two years passed: snow, rain, sun, corn harvested, cows milked, calves pulled from the breech, butterflies eaten by birds, mice eaten by owls, death, life, more death, and more life.

  The years were not good to Marin. From the moment he abandoned the tower, he felt like a man with a strange affliction. He went out at night, when most of the tourists had gone back to their hotels or bed-and-breakfast inns. He avoided the vicinity of the tower and so avoided most of those who were looking for him. The rest didn’t recognize him, because he went out dressed in a suit, tie, white shirt, and cufflinks: nothing like the image of him most of his admirers held, and nothing like the Marin Herbert the people of Redfern were used to.