Margaret said that she was not hungry.
“Then come …” said Elizabeth. “We will talk.”
The musical box started to play again and Margaret remembered the tune because Fernando had always hated it. He had once said that he preferred to pour boiling oil into his eardrums than listen to that tune; it was called “I Will Always Come Back.”
The third room was a bedroom whose dark strawberry walls were stained with age. The disorder was possibly greater than that in the kitchen and hall and the bed was rumpled and looked as if it was still warm from lovemaking.
Elizabeth stood at the door smiling and looking at the bed, then she bent down and picked up a satin shoe and threw it across the room. Margaret screamed as two mice jumped out of the wrinkled sheets and scuttled down the counterpane with the smooth legless rapidity that terrifies women.
“There has been so much love in here that even the mice come back” said Elizabeth. “It is like the ticking of a clock; you have to listen to hear and then when you listen you can’t stop hearing.”
“Yes,” said Margaret. “Yes, that’s right.”
She kept wiping her hands on her skirt, they were damp. The two dogs were sitting near the end of the bed, they were listening.
“I always wear cotton wool in my ears,” Elizabeth went on. “Otherwise the sounds outside distract me. I am only human, not like them….” She looked at the dogs.
“I cut his toenails myself. And I know every inch of his body and the difference between the smell of his hair and the smell of his skin.”
“Who?” whispered Margaret. “Not Fernando?”
“Yes, Fernando,” answered Elizabeth. “Who else but Fernando.”
(1941)
THE SEVENTH HORSE
A strange-looking creature was hopping about in the midst of a bramble bush. She was caught by her long hair, which was so closely entwined in the brambles that she could move neither backwards nor forwards. She was cursing and hopping till the blood flowed down her body.
“I do not like the look of it,” said one of the two ladies who intended to visit the rose garden.
“It might be a young woman … and yet …”
“This is my garden,” replied the other, who was as thin and dry as a stick. “And I strongly object to trespassers. I expect it is my poor silly little husband who has let her in. He is such a child you know.”
“I’ve been here for years,” shrieked the creature angrily. “But you are too stupid to have seen me.”
“Impertinent as well,” remarked the first lady, who was called Miss Myrtle. “I think you had better call the gardener, Mildred. I don’t think it is quite safe to go so near. The creature seems to have no modesty.”
Hevalino tugged angrily at her hair as if she would like to get at Mildred and her companion. The two ladies turned to go, not before they had exchanged a long look of hate with Hevalino.
The spring evening was lengthening before the gardener came to set Hevalino free.
“John,” said Hevalino, lying down on the grass, “can you count up to seven? Do you know that I can hate for seventy-seven million years without stopping for rest. Tell those miserable people that they are doomed.” She trailed off towards the stable where she lived, muttering as she went: “Seventy-seven, seventy-seven.”
There were certain parts of the garden where all the flowers, trees, and plants grew tangled together. Even on the hottest days these places were in blue shadow. There were deserted figures overgrown with moss, still fountains, and old toys, decapitated and destitute. Nobody went there except Hevalino; she would kneel and eat the short grass and watch a fascinating bird who never moved away from his shadow. He let his shadow glide around him as the day went by and over him when there was a moon. He always sat with his hairy mouth wide open, and moths and little insects would fly in and out.
Hevalino went to see the bird dining the night after she was caught in the brambles. A retinue of six horses accompanied her. They walked seven times around the fat bird in silence.
“Who’s there?” said the bird eventually, in a whistling voice.
“It is I, Hevalino, with my six horses.”
“You are keeping me awake with your stumping and snorting,” came the plaintive reply. “If I cannot sleep I can see neither the past nor the future. I shall waste away if you won’t go away and let me sleep.”
“They are going to come and kill you,” said Hevalino. “You had better keep awake. I heard somebody say you would be roasted in hot fat, stuffed with parsley and onions, and then eaten.”
The corpulent bird cast an apprehensive eye on Hevalino, who was watching him closely.
“How do you know?” breathed the bird. “Just tell me that.”
“You are much too fat to fly,” continued Hevalino relentlessly. “If you tried to fly you’d be like a fat toad doing his death dance.”
“How do you know this?” screamed the bird. “They can’t know where I am. I’ve been here for seventy-seven years.”
“They don’t know yet … not yet.” Hevalino had her face close to his open beak; her lips were drawn back and the bird could see her long wolves’ teeth.
His fat little body quivered like a jelly.
“What do you want of me?”
Hevalino gave a sort of crooked smile. “Ah, that’s better.” She and the six horses made a circle around the bird and watched him with their prominent and relentless eyes.
“I want to know exactly what is going on in the house,” said she. “And be quick about it.” The bird cast a frightened look around him, but the horses had sat down. There was no escape. He became wet with sweat and the feathers clung, draggled, to his fat stomach.
“I cannot say,” he said at last in a strangled voice. “Something terrible will befall us if I say what I can see.”
“Roasted in hot fat and eaten,” said Hevalino.
“You are mad to want to know things that do not concern you … !”
“I am waiting,” said Hevalino. The bird gave a long convulsive shudder and turned his eyes, which had become bulging and sightless, to the east.
“They are at dinner,” he said eventually, and a great black moth flew out of his mouth.
“The table is laid for three people. Mildred and her husband have begun to eat their soup. She is watching him suspiciously. ‘I found something unpleasant in the garden today,’ she says, laying down her spoon; I doubt if she will eat any more now.
“‘What was that?’ asks he. ‘Why do you look so angry?’
“Miss Myrtle has now come into the room. She looks from one to the other. She seems to guess what they are discussing, for she says, ‘Yes, really, Philip, I think you ought to be more careful whom you let into the garden.’
“‘What are you talking about?’ he says angrily. ‘How do you expect me to stop anything if I don’t know what I am stopping?’
“‘It was an unpleasant-looking creature half naked and caught in a bramble bush. I had to turn my eyes away.’
“‘You let this creature free, of course?’
“‘Indeed I did not. I consider it just as well that she was trapped as she was. By the cruel look on her face I should judge she would have done us serious harm.’
“‘What! You left this poor creature trapped in the brambles? Mildred, there are times when you revolt me. I am sick of you pottering around the village and annoying the poor with your religious preamble, and now when you see a poor thing in your own garden you do nothing but shudder with false modesty.’
“Mildred gives a shocked cry and covers her face with a slightly soiled handkerchief. ‘Philip, why do you say such cruel things to me, your wife?’
“Philip, with an expression of resigned annoyance, asks, ‘Try and describe this creature. Is it an animal or a woman?’
“‘I can say no more,’ sobs the wife. ‘After what you have said to me I feel faint.’
“‘You should be more careful,’ whispers Miss Myrtle. ‘In her del
icate condition!’
“‘What do you mean “delicate condition”?’ asks Philip irritably. ‘I do wish people would say what they mean.’
“‘Why surely you must know,’ Miss Myrtle simpers. ‘You are going to become a daddy in a short time….’ Philip goes white with rage. ‘I won’t stand these fatuous lies. It is quite impossible that Mildred is pregnant. She has not graced my bed for five whole years, and unless the Holy Ghost is in the house I don’t see how it came about. For Mildred is unpleasantly virtuous, and I cannot imagine her abandoning herself to anybody.’
“‘Mildred, is this true?’ says Miss Myrtle, trembling with delicious expectation. Mildred shrieks and sobs: ‘He is a liar. I am going to have a darling little baby in three months.’
“Philip flings down his spoon and serviette and gets to his feet. ‘For the seventh time in seven days I shall finish my dinner upstairs,’ says he, and stops for an instant as if his words have awakened some memory. He puts it away from him and shakes his head. ‘All I ask is that you don’t come whining after me,’ he says to his wife and quits the room. She shrieks: ‘Philip, my darling little husband; come back and eat your soup, I promise I won’t be naughty anymore.’
“‘Too late,’ comes the voice of Philip from the staircase, ‘too late now.’
“He goes slowly up to the top of the house with his eyes looking a long way ahead of him. His face is strained as if in the effort of listening to faraway voices chattering between nightmares and dead reality. He reaches the attic at the top of the house, where he seats himself on an old trunk. I believe the trunk is filled with ancient laces, frilly knickers, and dresses. But they are old and torn; there is a black moth making his dinner on them as Philip sits staring at the window. He considers a stuffed hedgepig on the mantel piece, who looks worn out with suffering. Philip seems to be smothered with the atmosphere of this attic; he flings open the window and gives a long …”
Here the bird paused, and a long sickening neigh rent the night. The six horses leapt to their feet and replied in their piercing voices. Hevalino stood stock-still, with her lips drawn back and her nostrils quivering. “Philip, the friend of the horses …” The six horses thundered off towards the stable, as if obeying an age-old summons. Hevalino, with a shuddering sigh, followed, her hair streaming behind her.
Philip was at the stable door as they arrived. His face was luminous and as white as snow. He counted seven horses as they galloped by. He caught the seventh by the mane, and leapt onto her back. The mare galloped as if her heart would burst. And all the time Philip was in a great ecstasy of love; he felt he had grown onto the back of this beautiful black mare, and that they were one creature.
At the crack of dawn all the horses were back in their places. And the little wrinkled groom was rubbing off the caked sweat and mud of the night. His creased face smiled wisely as he rubbed his charges with infinite care. He appeared not to notice the master, who stood alone in an empty stall. But he knew he was there.
“How many horses have I?” said Philip at last.
“Six, sir,” said the little groom, without ceasing to smile.
That night the corpse of Mildred was found near the stable. One would believe that she had been trampled to death … and yet “They are all as gentle as lambs,” said the little groom. If Mildred had been pregnant there was no sign of it as she was stuffed into a respectable black coffin. However nobody could explain the presence of a small misshapen foal that had found its way into the seventh empty stall.
(1941)
THE NEUTRAL MAN
Although I’ve always promised myself to keep the secret regarding this episode, I’ve finished up, inevitably, by writing it down. However, since the reputations of certain well-known foreigners are involved, I’m obliged to use false names, though these constitute no real disguise: every reader who is familiar with the customs of the British in tropical countries will have no trouble recognizing every one involved.
I received an invitation asking me to come to a masked ball. Taken aback, I plastered my face thickly with electric green, phosphorescent ointment. On this foundation I scattered tiny imitation diamonds, so that I was dusted with stars like the night sky, nothing more.
Then, rather nervously, I got myself into a public vehicle which took me to the outskirts of the town, to General Epigastro Square. A splendid equestrian monument of this illustrious soldier dominated the square. The artist who had been able to resolve the peculiar problem posed by this monument had embraced a courageously archaic simplicity, limiting himself to a wonderful portrait in the form of a head of the General’s horse: the Generalissimo Don Epigastro himself remains sufficiently engraved in the imagination of his devoted public.
Mr. MacFrolick’s mansion occupied the entire west side of General Epigastro Square. An Indian servant took me to a large reception room in the baroque style. I found myself amongst a hundred or so guests. The rather charged atmosphere made me realize, in the end, that I was the only person who’d taken the invitation seriously: I was the only guest in disguise.
“It was no doubt your cunning intention,” said the master of the house, Mr. MacFrolick, to me, “to impersonate a certain princess of Tibet, mistress of the king, who was dominated by the somber rituals of the Bön, rituals fortunately now lost in the furthest recesses of time. I would hesitate to relate, in the presence of ladies, the appalling exploits of the Green Princess. Enough to say that she died in mysterious circumstances, circumstances around which various legends still circulate in the Far East. Some claim that the corpse was carried off by bees, and that they have preserved it to this day in the transparent honey of the Flowers of Venus. Others say that the painted coffin did not contain the princess at all, but the corpse of a crane with the face of a woman; yet others maintain that the princess comes back in the shape of a sow.”
Mr. MacFrolick stopped abruptly and looked at me hard and with a severe expression. “I shan’t say more, madam,” he said, “since we are Catholics.”
Confused, I abandoned all explanation and hung my head: my feet were bathed in the rain of cold sweat that fell from my forehead. Mr. MacFrolick looked at me with a lifeless expression. He had little bluish eyes and a thick, heavy, snub nose. It was difficult not to notice that this very distinguished man, devout and of impeccable morality, was the human picture of a big white pig. An enormous moustache hung over his fleshy, rather receding chin. Yes, MacFrolick resembled a pig, but a beautiful pig, a devout and distinguished pig. As these dangerous thoughts passed beneath my green face, a young man of Celtic appearance took me by the hand and said, “Come, dear lady, don’t torment yourself. We all inevitably show a resemblance to other species of animals. I’m sure you are aware of your own equine appearance. So … don’t torment yourself, everything on our planet is pretty mixed up. Do you know Mr. D?”
“No,” I said, very confused. “I don’t know him.”
“D is here this evening,” the young man continued. “He is a Magus, and I am his pupil. Look, there he is, near that big blonde dressed in purple satin. Do you see him?”
I saw a man of such neutral appearance that he struck me like a salmon with the head of a sphinx in the middle of a railway station. The extraordinary neutrality of this individual gave me such a disagreeable impression that I staggered to a chair.
“Would you like to meet D?” the young man asked. “He is a very remarkable man.”
I was just going to reply when a woman dressed in pale blue taffeta, who wore a very hard expression, took me by the shoulder and pushed me straight into the gaming room.
“We need a fourth for bridge,” she told me. “You play bridge, of course.” I didn’t at all know how, but kept quiet out of panic. I would have liked to leave, but was too timid, so much so that I began to explain that I could only play with felt cards, because of an allergy in the little finger of my left hand. Outside, the orchestra was playing a waltz which I loathed so much I didn’t have the courage to say that I was hungry. A
high ecclesiastical dignitary, who sat on my right, drew a pork chop from inside his rich, crimson cummerbund.
“Take it, my daughter,” he said to me. “Charity pours forth mercy equally on cats, the poor, and women with green faces.”
The chop, which had undoubtedly spent a very long time near the ecclesiastic’s stomach, didn’t appeal to me, but I took it, intending to bury it in the garden.
When I took the chop outside, I found myself in the darkness, weakly lit by the planet Venus. I was walking near the stagnant basin of a fountain full of stupefied bees, when I found myself face to face with the magician, the neutral man.
“So you’re going for a walk,” he said in a very contemptuous tone. “It’s always the same with the expatriate English, bored to death.”
Full of shame, I admitted that I too was English, and the man gave a little sarcastic laugh.
“It’s hardly your fault that you’re English,” he said. “The congenital stupidity of the inhabitants of the British Isles is so embedded in their blood that they themselves aren’t conscious of it anymore. The spiritual maladies of the English have become flesh, or rather pork brawn.”
Vaguely irritated, I replied that it rained a great deal in England, but that the country had bred the greatest poets in the world. Then, to change the subject: “I’ve just made the acquaintance of one of your pupils. He told me that you are a magician.”
“Actually,” said the neutral man, “I’m an instructor in spiritual matters, an initiate if you like. But that poor boy will never get anywhere. You must know, my dear lady, that the esoteric path is hard, bristling with catastrophes. Many are called, few are chosen. I would advise you to confine yourself to your charming female nonsense and forget everything of a superior order.”
While he was speaking to me, I was trying to hide the pork chop, for it was oozing horrible blobs of grease between my fingers. I finally managed to put it into my pocket. Relieved, I realized this man would never take me seriously if he knew that I was walking about with a pork chop. And though I feared the neutral man like the plague, I still wished to make a good impression.
The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington Page 9
