The Wilful Eye

by Isobelle Carmody

  Diffan had the build of a little man; he looked like he would bounce if you dropped him. Soldier thought Diffan’s red curls were a part of the sun, a little flicker that had landed on the head of Diffan. Laughing was Diffan’s game and business. He did a daft thing just to get a laugh. Pressed his nose with a finger when he farted. Made up songs about everyone and sang them out loud, loud as can be.

  Oh soldier boy

  got a weary limp

  he’s strong as a horse

  he’s our soldier boy.

  Diffan laughed like a god. He made up games as well. He plotted and figured, whistling or tugging at something, and when he’d got so taken up with it, he’d begin to twitch at the eyebrow and chew and click his fingers urgently and it wouldn’t be long till something flew out of him, jerking him into motion. It might be a game like kick the turnip, run the rim of the room or dried corn jacks. Diffan stopped the gloom. Meegey stopped the fights. Soldier didn’t stop anything.

  ‘You’re no Tarking, Soldier, the Tarkings walked right. You’re just a stumpy mutt.’ That’s what Calloot said and Meegey told him to shut his lip.

  The shameful truth was this: Soldier was the only one who hadn’t yet been taken out to fight. So they gathered up their resentment and hurled it back at him.

  Gollub flung open the door. A small choking noise came out of the depths of his vast body. He slapped his hand against the wall and panted, saw Soldier and spat.

  ‘Why I ended up with you, I don’t know. Useless. That foot. How will you fight? I paid ten golds for you and you make me nothing.’

  ‘He’s brave, you’ll see. Build him up, Gollub, give him time. He’ll be useful.’ Meegey’s voice was low and steady and sure. His thick dark hair stood up like a cock’s comb, and he circled round, almost prowling. Gollub eyed him suspiciously. Soldier could see it was useful to him that Meegey had this authority, yet it rankled too, for he couldn’t understand how Meegey got it.

  ‘Phhht,’ said Gollub, scowling, and he cuffed Soldier with the back of his hand. Soldier was ready for that. He had his feet wide apart. He didn’t fall. Gollub was bigger than most men, and the skin on his face sagged. His long black coat swayed over his gleaming boots as he stood gazing round at them all . . . It was the same each time. A performance.

  Who would he choose for the fight? He took his time. He liked to do this. The fear crept over them all, except Soldier, who only stared back at him with a puzzled look. Everyone else turned away. Jacka started to blow out his mouth and to pace, and Hinto sat down, pulled his knees to his chest, buried his head and rocked. Garson hurried over to the fire and started banging pans. Gollub still took his time. He walked over to where Finney lay pale and quiet on his bed, his eyes struck open in a sort of blank terror. Finney was taken last time and his arm was broken. Garson had tied a wooden spoon to it with a kitchen rag. Finney was crying anyway. He wasn’t looking at Gollub but when Gollub got close, he started to sob, his body jerking on the bed. Gollub snorted and cried out, ‘Weakling!’

  Meegey walked over to where Finney lay. ‘He’s only a boy. Leave him be.’ He sighed and stood over Finney, his old bony back spread against Gollub, sheltering Finney, like a cobra risen up to strike. Gollub recoiled and spat on the floor.

  He laughed and then cut his laugh short to stare hard, as if he knew it hurt to be stared at like that. All of them trying to pretend they weren’t afraid, but Soldier could see how the more they tried to hide their fear the more the fear betrayed them.

  ‘Look at y’all, a bunch of weaklings, the lot of ya,’ Gollub roared and puffed out his chest. He strode suddenly over to Hinto and yanked him up.

  ‘Come on, ya little pest.’

  Hinto’s eyes fell open, his mouth trembled, he strained away from Gollub, expecting a punch in the side of his head. Toya threw him the boots. There was one pair and you had to fit into them when you went to the fight. No one fitted them perfectly, they were too big. Gollub dragged him out and slammed the door. After the key had turned and the steps fallen away, the room was quiet and still. Everyone was ashamed of their own relief, that Hinto was taken and not them. It wasn’t a real relief, infected with shame as it was. It was a dirty choking sigh that sat in your gut and rotted. Finney turned on his side and sobbed.

  Soldier went over to Finney. He sat next to him. He didn’t speak. He waited for Finney to stop crying. After a while he said, ‘You get sick of walking in a circle in here.’

  Finney drew his arms up over his face. He said to hush up.

  ‘When you go out there, you see the world. What’s it like?’ said Soldier.

  Finney heaved a big sigh. His eyes brightened. ‘Well, there are people, people laughing, free as anything, and windows that open out of houses and shops with things to eat all lined up so you can choose. Anything you want. Cherries even. And cakes and long sticks of bread, which you can smell cooking. And the people aren’t dirty like us, they’re dressed in fine clothes, all different colours, not dirty colours either, colours that shine out like the sky and the flowers. They wear hats too.’

  Here he paused and seemed taken with a little sadness. Soldier had to urge him to go on. ‘Ah, hats. I’ve never worn a hat. What else did you see?’

  ‘I saw people free to do whatever they pleased.’ He shifted, sat up straight and folded his arms as if this was an important reflection and needed some appreciation. Then he leant in and whispered, ‘I saw a little baby girl. She was carried on the hip of her mother. She sat there just staring out at everything, fresh as a flower. I looked at the mother in case she was mine, but she wasn’t, so I looked up at the sky. You can’t see that in here, not like it is out there – it’s everyone’s. It’s big enough for anyone to take what they want.’ He opened his arms suddenly and stood up and then checking his own enthusiasm he quickly sank down again and huddled in. ‘And I saw a white dog with black ears, and there was a boy with him who was singing to himself and he hardly even noticed me, ’cause he had a hoop and he was running with it too. Just running along any- where. I wasn’t allowed to stop. You don’t see much after that. After that you go out further where it is muddier and the houses are small with only a door and one window and the people are old and sit in chairs or pick the fields, but the fields are green and still there is the sky. There’s the round building with small windows. You can smell it coming, the second time. It stinks, and there is an evil sound, of the others. They’re crying out.’

  His mouth was unsteady and Soldier could see Finney’s mind was shaking inside his head. Finney drew his knees under his chin, held himself tight and pecked Soldier with his finger. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, Soldier. You’re the lucky one. You just get to live. He won’t ever pick you ’cause you ain’t afraid and the only reason you ain’t afraid is ’cause you never have to go.’

  ‘But I want to see.’

  ‘It ain’t worth it, just for the seeing.’ Finny sighed and lay down again, curling his back to Soldier. He didn’t do exercises anymore.

  Soldier didn’t believe it wasn’t worth it. There was nothing he wanted more than to leave the tower. He was trying to build his strength. Meegey said it was the only way. He went to his window. To look out, he had to grab the bar across it and hoist himself up. This was his exercise. He pulled up and down. He didn’t enjoy the pulling up and down at all, it hurt his arms a lot and it was a great effort to keep going, but when he had done it, he felt as if somehow he was better for it, as if he had just inched himself forward, to wherever forward was, because although he didn’t have a firm idea of where it was, he knew there was forwardness and that it was within him, waiting to be unfurled, like the page of a story that had not yet been turned. His whole being breathed in anticipation, his arms grew stronger in preparation, his mind fixed on it and aimed for it and sharpened its whole thought like an arrow pointing in that direction. It seemed to him that it was there, out that window, a place and a time spreading out full and bright and clear, right there beneath him.


  He wedged his whole body up on the sill, balancing on one hip and holding on, so that he could perch on the ledge. Down below there was an oily snake of water winding round. Meegey said it was a filthy sewer and you might as well die if you went in it ’cause you’d be gnawed up with diseases like the pox and the phoidus that kill you slowly and painfully. It was better to die in a fight, so you could feel like a man. Soldier knew he wouldn’t die before he’d seen the sky outside and the mother with her child in her arms and the white dog and the cherries too. There were things he could remember from before, but none of them lasted long enough for him to wholly understand them. They had no surroundings, no length in time. His life before floated in his mind, like the memory you have of a dream, the way it haunts you with its feeling, though the details are unclear and submerged, arising suddenly, with a strange clarity and then sinking down again. Like his mother’s shawl, berry coloured and tattered. Or the goat on the roof bleating. The stars disappearing into the black. His father stomping his boots to get the mud off before he walked in. A cup of milk. A thorny plant by the gate. He would ask Meegey what a cherry was, but he knew about dogs. He remembered the dog curled up under a cart and panting.

  Ezter started to scream. He was flapping his arms on the spot. He screamed rhythmically, like a crow calling, a deadened eerie cry that he directed at Soldier perched on his window. Soldier turned away. Meegey said Ezter’s mind had gone, pounded down by the fights or blunted by the fear. He had once got fixed on a bird he saw that was white and high and ever since he couldn’t talk about anything else, so no one talked to him and he ran sometimes with his arms stretched like wings. The way Soldier figured it, Ezter’s spirit had risen up and taken him over, whereas all of the others kept their spirits locked up safe inside their bodies. Ezter’s was stronger than him and now it wanted out and it knew more than a boy could know.

  Meegey wrapped Ezter in his arms and held him close and tight till the screaming slowed to a wail and then a moan and then nothing but heaving in his chest, which made Meegey’s arms move in and out. Soldier looked back then and noticed how Ezter seemed thinner, bony and small like a bird, and now, with his head bent and his arms folded in and all wrapped up so that you could only see the heaving, it was as if Ezter was disappearing.

  Soldier turned back to the window. Either you starve your spirit and it dies or you let it speak and then your grief eats you up instead.

  He fed his spirit in a way no one knew.

  Not even Meegey.

  There was no sun coming in his little window because there was a castle there that stole the sun and cast a chilly shadow. But sometimes you could see into the window of the castle when the curtain wasn’t drawn, like one eye opening onto another one.

  And what Soldier had seen in there was more beautiful than Finney’s hats and cherries and Ezter’s bird.

  There was a girl. And she was in a room and the light in the room was warm and golden. The girl was leaning there and rising up on her toes and she smiled so gently it was not even like a real smile, but an about to smile, smile. As if everything was about to shine and only she knew it and was keeping it secret. Her eyes were looking down and then she lifted her arm and her whole face tilted up to the sky and Soldier could see her eyes, and when he saw them, he could hardly breathe in the normal way. Sometimes he thought she could see him too. He liked to believe the smile was for him, or otherwise it was just the shape her thoughts made when she was thinking. Soldier couldn’t imagine a thought that sweet. No one thought of nice things in the tower. Except Ezter with that white bird. But his eyes were not happy when he thought, they were straining out of his head.

  The girl though, she was not straining. She was gliding in her dress, which was pale green like the jade that Jacka wore round his neck, which he said his father had given him. Her dress fitted her closely so you could see the shape of her in it and out of the green came the long thin white arms moving in arcs through the air. She was so close to Soldier’s window, he could see the freckles scattered over her nose. He could see her lips open, the underneath of her arm as she reached up, her dark hair swaying on her shoulder and her neck curving. Sometimes he had breathed in such a loud rush of joy to see her, that he thought she might hear the breath. But she never once looked directly over. She won’t look because she knows I’m here, thought Soldier. Girls like her aren’t meant to look in here. It was enough for him that she knew he was there. He was quiet and still and watchful, and all the time he was waiting for something worth shining for.

  Spring came. Sun poured in the windows. They crowded into the oblong of light it made on the floor and turned their thin white faces to feed on the warmth. Wafts of freshly turned dirt sailed in the air. Birds sang with more cheer. Blankets were thrown off, hopes rose and hearts roused. Diffan whooped and jumped at the wall, others paced and shook with the natural stirrings held so unnaturally within. Soldier watched as Diffan was swept up the mood and spun it into a song and sang it out to everyone, and how when the song was finished, they sank gently back into a brooding melancholy, as if the song had lifted them out of it for a time. Their longings floated out the sunny window and dissolved in the warm air.

  Diffan came close, tugged his arm and winked. ‘You got no choice but to make the most of it, haven’t you Soldier?’ He had some beads of dried corn and he was throwing them and trying to catch them in his mouth. Then he yelled at Garson who was beaming and rubbing his long thin fingers because today there were leeks in the sack of vegetables and soon there might be peas.

  ‘Hey, Garson, come dance with me.’

  They circled round. Soldier smiled.

  Calloot sang out.

  ‘Look at Soldier boy. He thinks he’s strong enough to fight, he thinks he comes from the Tarkings, but he can’t even walk. He can’t even walk. Show us how you walk Soldier boy.’

  Calloot came from the hills. He was toughened by the heat there, he was wiry as the plants and hard as the ground, and used to fighting. A scar ran down the side of his neck, a knife wound he tickled menacingly with his long fingers. He had a loud mouth once Gollub was gone. But he was scared of dying just like the others. Fear made him jumpy and mean. No one got close to Calloot. Once he grabbed Jacka by the neck and nearly choked him; only Meegey stopped it.

  But still the others mimicked Soldier too. Toya and Salson – he could hear them behind him, each of them dragging their foot on the floor, snickering.

  Diffan started to sing.

  Soldier can dance.

  If you give him a chance

  He’s got plenty to give

  Let him try at the jig.

  He held his hands out to Soldier. He winked. Garson, shrugging foolishly, followed him and opened his hands too. Calloot began to snigger and clapped his hands.

  ‘Dance, Soldier boy, dance.’

  Some of the others joined in. The same ones – Salson and Toya. Spring had made them restless and hungry and ready for something. The clapping built. They chanted, ‘Dance, dance, dance. Soldier boy, dance.’ They laughed, they leapt and stomped, they felt alive. Glances shot out, eyes gleamed wildly, cares were tossed aside, while their hearts hunted. They joined their wanting together and they watched it grow.

  Soldier came down from his window, eyeing Calloot, who faced them all, his arms moving faster and further, his gaze flicking between Soldier and the boys. As Soldier approached, Calloot chanted louder and more urgently. Everyone now was watching.

  But then, above the shouting, came a slow steady wail. It was Diffan. He wasn’t singing a jig, he sang a slow sad song, a steady lilting tune, lifting high above the ugly clanging of their voices. And as he sang, he began the dance, with a dip of his head as he slid his foot out and then slid the other to join it. And like this the circle of Diffan, Garson and Soldier slowly slid around and it was a slow sliding step Soldier could make with just as much grace as they. And as the others saw this, the clapping faltered, faded and then it stopped and the cries died down and they saw th
ere would be no sacrifice. Soldier could not be ridiculed. The jeering drooped and there was just the song left, ringing out high and slow as they dipped and slid in a circle. And Diffan smiled at Soldier now as he had merrily whipped the triumph from Calloot’s eyes. Meegey was smiling too and like a sigh, sank to his place, while Finney rushed up to join in and over the room there was a dimming down. It was like a glorious hush, a shimmery sun-laden breath beneath Diffan’s song. And for the first time in his life, it was spring and Soldier was celebrating with the others. I’m dancing, he thought. I’m not watching from the outside, I’m the one in the middle. And Calloot hasn’t had his victory over me after all.

  Afterwards he went to Diffan who was lying on his back, quiet, but when he saw Soldier looming above him he sat up and grinned. ‘Hey Soldier, you look better now. It’s made you bigger, or is it I’m just a short lad lying down?’

  ‘Thanks for the dance, Diffan. For a short lad you dance okay.’

  ‘I’m the one who should be thanking you. For joining us.’

  ‘I’m a magnificent dancer, in my dreams.’ Soldier sat down.

  ‘We showed that brute too,’ Diffan shook his hand.

  ‘What a pleasure it was.’ They both laughed and Calloot glared darkly back at them.

  Soldier was at his window but he couldn’t see into the room. The curtain was drawn. Still, he imagined. What would happen if I went into her room? He imagined himself in there, standing in the gold light, and she would be looking directly at him and her loveliness would swallow him completely and then it would fill him and lift his heart and he would have to ask her to dance and she would say she did very much want to dance and then he would take her in his arms and his gammy foot would be light and strong and good and together they would spin through the gold of the room. And if she asked him of his life he would tell her stories about fishermen and whales. He tried to remember the things he knew of life, the real things, the glass of milk, the thorns by the gate, the extinguished stars. Her skin, it was pale like milk.