Hunting Midnight sc-2

by Richard Zimler

  “I sincerely hope,” Mama said, “that you are not planning on walking around the city with those tattered old sheets draped over you. Honestly, John, the things you make the Olive Tree Sisters do for you. It’s criminal!”

  “Mama, please wait until you’ve had a chance to see us.”

  “Us? Which us? I shall not wear that foul sheet for all the — ”

  “May, dearest,” Papa interrupted, “I’m fairly certain that John means Midnight.”

  I told him that he was indeed correct, whereupon he let the two of us leave the table.

  One of the tricks I had taught Fanny was to brace her hind paws on my shoulders and forepaws on my head, so that her head rose far above my own. In this way, she resembled a goddess on the prow of a sailing ship, except for her wagging tail thumping on my back. She could stand this way for five minutes or more without the least discomfort.

  I had also discovered Midnight was strong enough to walk with me on his shoulders.

  In our garden, combining these two tricks produced a most spectacular effect; by covering ourselves in the sheets, we appeared to be a sphinx more than seven feet in height, with the feet of a man and the head of a Border collie. I had practiced with Fanny so that if we ever lost our balance she would be able to spring to her side and land safely.

  We called the others out to see us. Mama gaped from the doorway while Papa shook his head and laughed.

  “You are insane, John Zarco Stewart!” Mama declared. “You are going to fall. And you will break your neck!”

  “Let them have their merriment,” said Papa, drawing her close. “He will be young only once. And we must not let today’s misery ruin our evening.”

  “This is madness,” she moaned. “Utter madness, I tell you.”

  “Indeed it is,” Papa agreed, but his eyes were radiant with glee.

  *

  Midnight and I could see only directly ahead through our eyeholes, so Papa steered us around the stray filth on the street. Praise shouted by neighbors lifted our spirits, and children ran after us screeching with glee. After a hundred or so paces, Midnight grew tired and let me down. Senhora Beatriz kissed me and whispered that Daniel would have been overjoyed to see such a clever performance. Unfallen tears turned her hazel eyes to liquid, and I saw in her unsteady movements how she had weakened over the last year, shrinking under the weight of her grief. Likely we were both thinking how much better my trick would have been with Daniel walking on his hands down the street to herald our arrival.

  Mama insisted on holding my hand now so that I would create no more “wayward miracles,” as she referred to my mischief. And so, as a family, we headed toward the Rua de Cedofeita, where the street musicians had assembled for the festivities. We soon discovered that Lourenço Reis was standing there on a wooden platform, preaching to a crowd.

  “There he is,” Papa said to Benjamin.

  Mama gripped my hand tighter. “Come, let us keep going.”

  “Why hasn’t he been arrested?” I asked.

  “We shall do better than that,” Papa told me. “Just give us a few days, son.”

  We hurried away. But before we had gone another fifty paces, he appeared before us. Blocking our path just a few feet ahead of Benjamin, he declared, “‘I come not to send peace, but a sword!’”

  Benjamin, God bless him, replied, “You, sir, are no Jesus of Nazareth, and you may sheath your sword up your arse, where it belongs.”

  “Devilish Marrano!” he spat in fury.

  Papa grabbed Benjamin’s arm and glared at Reis. “Sir, I know who you are and what you have done this day, and I tell you now to let us continue on our way with no further trouble or you shall forever regret it.”

  “We shall chase you foreigners from Portugal!” the hateful preacher bellowed. “You shall not have this city — not while I draw breath.”

  Given Mama’s anxious nature, I’d not have expected her to speak, but in her tense, quavering voice, she said, “You may scream all you want, sir, but we are longtime residents of this city, all of us. And you shall not win this battle. Not while I draw breath.”

  Reis pointed his staff at her. “Sinful Jewess. Your very presence is offensive. You must die so that Christ may live!”

  She gasped at his effrontery. Father steadied her and shouted, “You cowardly bastard! I have half a mind to strike you here and now.”

  “Let it go, James,” said Benjamin. “Please, let us return home. Midnight, come here and help me.”

  “Make no mistake, we shall burn you all!” the necromancer cried. “We shall burn them for Christ, shall we not? And we shall send their smoke to Him on this holy night.”

  With my heart beating so loud that I could hear little except my own fear, I screamed, “You are the foreigner here! And you are the one who will die!”

  Pointing a damning finger at me, he exclaimed, “You are the devil. You shall not tempt me. You shall not win a victory in this City of God. I shall see you burned at the cross!”

  This was too much for Papa to bear. He raised his cane above his head and was about to charge at him. More powerful by half than Lourenço Reis, I believe he would have beaten him senseless had he not been restrained by Benjamin and Midnight.

  “I shall kill you!” Papa was shouting.

  “No, James,” Benjamin said firmly. “Not now. I shall deal with him at the right moment. And when I get him, I shall send him straight back to hell. I promise you that.”

  But Papa would not be dissuaded. “I shall murder you, you coward!” he swore.

  The necromancer smiled, then raised his staff over his head and shouted, “Let us burn them now! Let us send their smoke to God.”

  *

  With Midnight’s help, Benjamin steered Papa back to our street. Something shattering had happened and no one could find the words to put the encounter into perspective. Mama had gone completely pale and stopped speaking altogether. We considered it best to return home.

  There, with all the worry over Mama, Papa and Benjamin did not seem to notice Midnight slipping out of our house with his quiver and a basket, but I did. He held up a finger to his lips as he crept outside.

  Mother leaned on Father as he walked her up to their room, where he put her to bed. Benjamin started a fire in our hearth, and he told me that when he was close to my age, he had witnessed an Act of Faith in Lisbon in which more than fifty shackled Marranos had been marched around a square and jeered at by the crowds. Three of them had been burned at the stake. “I never plan to smell burning Jewish flesh again,” he said, almost to himself.

  That night, I heard Papa and Benjamin whispering about having Lourenço Reis expelled from Porto by the civil authorities. It was fairly clear that this was not their first such conversation. This was when I first began to believe that Midnight might not have been acting on his own in slipping out of our home and that he and Papa might have been involved in a conspiracy that Benjamin had started weaving days — or even weeks — earlier.

  *

  Midnight told me of his clandestine activities the next day when, at dawn, I heard him creeping up to the Lookout Tower. Yawning in his doorway, my eyes still heavy with slumber, I asked him where he had been. He took me back to bed. Sitting by my side, he said, “Mantis spoke to me a few weeks ago in a dream. He told me that a beast would drink up all the water in Porto and create a terrible drought. Many of us would die. When I saw the preacher, I understood. So I took my quiver and arrows and hid them in a basket.”

  The Bushman told me that he had watched Lourenço Reis ranting to ever larger crowds until, at the stroke of twelve, the evil man climbed down from his stage and strode off toward New Square.

  Midnight tracked him through the lantern-lit night. At each of three successive festive sites around the city, Reis succeeded in raising furious cries against the Marranos. A short time past three in the morning, he ceased his rabble-rousing and strode off alone toward the river. After rapping on the door of a large stone mansion, he was h
astily admitted. From Midnight’s description, I was able to identify this building as the Dominican monastery.

  “Presumably, he is still there now,” Midnight told me.

  “So what will you do?”

  “I have a favor to ask you, John. You must tell Benjamin that I shall not come to work today. Tell him that Mantis has asked me to do an errand for him.”

  “Will you follow the necromancer?”

  Midnight nodded.

  I asked, “Will you kill him?”

  He lifted my blanket up over my mouth to keep me quiet, then patted my chest. “Return to sleep, my little gemsbok. You need not worry. I shall be safe.”

  I sat up. “But you might need my help.”

  “No, Mantis told me that you are to stay here. We Bushmen coat ourselves with a scent that Hyena cannot abide. We are perfectly safe. But a gemsbok” — here he growled and bared his teeth — “a gemsbok would be eaten.” Then he gave me his wide, infectious smile.

  *

  Midnight left the house fifteen minutes later. Anxious, I dressed quickly and went to the garden to play with Fanny. After a little while, my father questioned me about Midnight’s whereabouts. I lied, saying that he had gone off in search of rain.

  Over breakfast, while handing me my second plate of eggs, Papa cleared his throat and said, “John, your mother and I intend to send you to school in England. We believe you will be happier there.”

  “In England?”

  “Yes, to a boarding school. It is a grand place that will greatly benefit your education.” He struggled to smile. “The lads stroll around the grounds giving Latin names to birds and reading Shakespeare. It will be just the place for you.”

  “No,” I replied.

  Mother handed me another cup of tea. “Many a lad would envy your chance to study at such a place.”

  “Good, then let them go instead of me.”

  Papa glared. “I’ll thank you not to use that tone of voice with your mother.”

  “I shan’t, if she will stop telling me how lucky I am to leave behind everything I know.”

  Papa had only struck me once in my life, but I could almost feel my backside burning again. “Even you ought to be able to see that this is not your choice. This is a decision we have reached. You shall travel to my sister in England, with a letter from me, and she will enroll you in a proper school. I already have some excellent suggestions from the English consul here in Porto, and he knows all the best schools.”

  Though I knew Papa would explode, I was adamant that I would never leave Portugal. “We shall see,” I said, and reached across the table for the salt shaker, to signal that the conversation was at an end.

  Mother grabbed my wrist and said, “You are not safe here. You know I would not send you away otherwise. That I should be separated from you — ” Unable to finish her sentence, she withdrew her hand and looked down to hide her tears.

  “Will Fanny be allowed to come with me?” I asked.

  “No,” Father replied. “But she will be fine. We shall treat her like a queen, and you can see her on holidays.”

  “Then I can come back?”

  Father’s resolve yielded now to sorrow, which was precisely as I’d hoped. I wanted to punish him for even conceiving of such a plot against me.

  “Dear God, lad, do you think we are monsters?”

  “And Midnight — I shall have to leave him too?” I asked, purposely ignoring his question.

  “Yes,” Papa replied.

  “How much time do I have before this sentence begins?” I asked.

  “Three weeks, I’d say,” he replied. “Six weeks at the most.”

  Mama, sobbing, fled to her pianoforte. Father looked at me glumly and said, “John, you might try sometimes to make the unpleasant matters of life a trifle easier.” Then he went to her.

  I listened to their subdued voices from the table, unrepentant, furious at my father’s criticism.

  “I cannot,” Mama whispered to Papa.

  “You must. At least for a time.”

  “For a year, no longer. Any longer, James, and I shall die.”

  *

  Midnight failed to come home over the next two days, and I was greatly concerned for his safety. When I asked Papa if he’d seen him, all he would say was “Worry not, laddie. Midnight can take care of himself. I’m sure he’s well.”

  Benjamin came to see us the following evening. From the top of the stairs I heard him explain that he had not been granted an audience with the Bishop but had spoken at great length to one of his staff. He had been told in no uncertain terms that nothing would — or indeed could — be done to silence the necromancer, since his activities were outside the jurisdiction of the diocese of Porto, which was a flimsy excuse at best. He suspected that the Bishop had decided to look the other way.

  Benjamin believed that rousing the residents of Porto against the Marranos was of great use to the Church right now, for its power was waning. The ecclesiastical hierarchy wanted a strong hand to play at Napoleon’s table should he become ruler of Portugal.

  “Then we are on our own,” Father said quietly.

  *

  Midnight returned the next day at dawn. He came to my room and knelt down next to my bed. His shirt sleeve was torn and he was dripping with sweat.

  “Did you track the necromancer? Did you kill him?”

  He smiled. “If I am taken away, my little gemsbok, do not be too upset. The important thing is that you are safe now.”

  My father must have heard him come up the stairs, because he appeared now in my doorway, clearly surprised. “Midnight! We were worried.” Noticing the quill on the end of my bed, he said, “Have you been hunting?”

  The African stood up and faced him. “I am sorry to have caused you concern, Mr. Stewart. Yes, I’ve been hunting. We must talk.”

  Mother then appeared. “What has happened?”

  “One moment, Mrs. Stewart,” the African replied. He went to my window and peered out, then closed the shutters. “I may have been followed here,” he explained.

  I saw that his hair was matted with wee twigs and that there were soil stains on the back of his breeches. “Who would want to follow you?” I asked.

  “The men who were with Lourenço Reis.”

  XVIII

  Midnight remembered musket and cannon fire exploding around him the first time he was captured by Europeans. But most of all he remembered the horses. “Swiftness and power given life,” he told me. “Even Mantis watched them with awe.”

  Dark heavy balls of metal launched from cannons exploded in storms of fire. Blood spilled from his wounded tribesmen; all save three young children were left to rot in the African sun. Midnight never knew what happened to his two surviving kin.

  The howls of hyenas gorging themselves could be heard from his new home, a farm owned by a round-faced Dutchman, whose servant he became for a few short months. But although he could carry water, feed the chickens and cattle, and kill snakes with only a stick, Midnight had an enormous appetite and ate more than he could earn.

  Rather than slit his throat, as the Dutchman ordered, a Zulu servant, under cover of darkness, walked Midnight an hour into the countryside, offering him to the will of the desert. The land and sky proved generous that night; he found his way by moonlight to a family of Bushmen following the rains to the Shaggy Hills, thirty miles east. They offered him water from a hollowed ostrich shell and some dried meat. They became his new kin.

  Fourteen years later by Papa’s estimation, Boer soldiers returned, different ones to a different place but mounted on horses just the same. By now they knew that even Bushmen adults could be “domesticated” with a regime of punishment and reward. So when Midnight was wounded by a bullet in the arm, he was allowed to be seen by a physician. His life was spared and he was sold by a soldier to Reynolds, the Yorkshireman from whom my father would later steal him.

  When asked his name, he replied that it was Midnight, for this was the name Mantis
had instructed him to assume when among Europeans. “It will help you to remain at your own center,” the insect-god had told him.

  It was an itinerant Welsh minister named Dee, with burning coals for eyes, who informed Midnight that his parents had been killed not by men but by God. Furthermore, he said, the Lord was no longer willing to permit heathens in the civilized Africa that Europe was forging out of the primitive, pestilent, and dark chaos that it had once been. Having had the misfortune to be born a Bushman, Midnight, too, would be barred from heaven unless — here the minister withdrew a New Testament from his small leather satchel — he received Christ into his heart.

  Dee visited all the English farms on the Cape. Clad in a hat lined with purple velvet and a mantle of rabbit pelts, he told all the servants that their dancing and — in the case of the Bushmen — their nomadic way of life were affronts to God. The sole cure for both illness and ignorance was Baptism.

  Unlike the other African servants on the farm, Midnight refused the minister’s cure. Whipped until his skin was shredded, he was carried to the servants’ quarters. There, Jackal appeared to him in a dream, peeing on Mantis. But the insect remained unperturbed. In fact, he was laughing.

  The next day, Mrs. Reynolds took her carriage to town for some cordage that her husband needed. The next candidate for Baptism was a Xhosa lad called John, who was generally regarded as lazy and expendable. He was not as fortunate as Midnight. Though he had agreed to the ceremony, he was to be made an example.

  With all the slaves in attendance, John was tied to the porch rail and whipped until the skin on his back had peeled off and he would never cry again. With his bright eyes still wide open, but with his life gone, Minister Dee untied him and pronounced him saved.

  This was why Midnight allowed water to be sprinkled on his head. But the Time of the Hyena was on him, and he was unable to laugh like Mantis. In fact, he did not talk for many months.