by Jeff Kamen
Unnerved, he walked out to the road, shielding his eyes, but there was no one in sight. He stood a while deliberating, and was considering heading off and returning later to retrieve his belongings, when he caught a savoury whiff of smoke. He looked back to the fire, feeling faint. The men were sat on the rocks, using their knives as spits as they heated the ribs. The third rib lay naked on the rock as yet unoccupied, moistly awaiting someone.
Above them, his noose was writhing and blackening in the heat, and he saw that should he truly wish to leave the world that day he must approach death from the beginning.
The ribs were sizzling, dripping as they cooked. Soon they would be browned and ready. With the men still paying him no attention, he returned to the shade, wondering if he should reconsider what had happened between them.
It was hard to fathom, and over the minutes he wondered if in fact they’d truly been trying to help him; whether he had been too quick in judging their actions.
If the road had taught him anything, it was that other people’s customs were to be gauged with a certain reservation, and through this reasoning he saw it was quite possible that they’d arrived not only to save him, but to feed him. He thought he understood their motivation: the idea of his cold lifeless body hanging there with birds picking at it made him shudder.
He crept from tree to tree to observe them. Two men simply eating, enjoying each other’s company. Studying them, he felt a sudden gratitude he almost gave voice to, but still he hesitated. There was something in their manner he found bewildering, almost terrifying, and he was debating whether or not to talk to them when the tall man sat upright and looked his way, gnashing horribly with his clapperboards. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded imperiously.
The squat man glanced up with fat running down his chin, chewing open mouthed.
‘I-I don’t know you. I’m leaving.’
‘Heavens, child, it’s your lunch.’
‘That’s right. You started it,’ the squat man said, gesturing upwards with his knife.
‘Chops,’ said the tall man, fluttering his lashes, ‘just as I was trying to tell you.’
Moth wavered, torn. He watched the tall man tearing into the meat, saying, ‘Dullishush,’ then watched him prod his teeth into place. Then he put a hand on his belly, feeling it pop and growl; feeling lonely, with no clear direction open to him now that his noose had perished. As he took a few nervous steps towards his bag, it occurred to him that there was nothing to stop him sitting through the meal with them, then leaving as soon as he’d eaten. At sundown he could go to the sea and sleep a little, consider his sorrows in the gentle shade of night.
‘Paget,’ said the squat man, nodding. He swallowed what he was eating, then studied the glistening bone.
‘Kol,’ said the tall man, doing the same.
Moth nodded back at them, stalking nearer. He was swallowing back his saliva when he heard a faint clattering on the road, and turned to see a local family swaying along in their cart. The cart was being drawn by a pair of black donkeys, their bowed heads nodding determinedly with each step. Up in the box was a man and a woman, with a clutch of small children perched among the goods in the back, jostling shoulder to shoulder. The woman was cooling herself with a fan, and when she noticed the party in the clearing, she used it to wave at them. He took a quick glance at the strangers and saw the tall man touch his hat to her, while his comrade grinned. When he looked back, the children were waving too.
Realising he could hardly be in danger with such people travelling by, he lifted a hand to them. The woman smiled and the husband sat back easily with the reins hung in his fingers and his knees apart like a frog’s, nodding to them all with neighbourly good humour.
The family rattled by in a flurry of dust, and as the two strangers returned to their meal, he crept to the back of the tree he’d climbed and waited a moment, then leapt out and snatched up his bag. After collecting his knife, he quickly rounded up his remaining possessions and hitched the bag over his shoulder. ‘You, ah ... you had no right,’ he said, ready to run if necessary.
The men ignored him. He watched them uncertainly; then, clutching the knife, he decided to risk their offer of food. He approached the glistening rib, then stabbed it and sat; then held the meat to the flames. The men continued chomping, wiping their mouths. He leant in closer to the fire, and as the fat bled from the joint, he studied them again, feeling slightly guilty now. With an awkward cough he said, ‘I’m Marty. People call me Moth.’
The men were still looking away. Surprised at their reaction, he turned to address the tall man directly. He watched him toss his bone aside, then pick at his clapperboards with a fingernail. It looked like he was hooking worms. ‘I, ah ...’ he began, and the man stopped what he was doing to smile. And as the smile opened, Moth blinked, close enough by now to see a hideous array of canines and molars imbedded in the wood, whether human or animal he could not tell.
‘Yes, child?’ the tall man said. ‘Do my teeth distress you?’
‘Well, no, I …’ he answered, then thinking better of it, added politely, ‘well, I ... I did wonder what had happened.’
‘I have a name, child,’ the man said in a colder tone, squinting an eye.
He shifted on the rock, trying desperately to remember it. He watched the squat man lick his bone like a dog, then tried again: ‘Ah … Kol? What happened to them?’
The tall man flickered the eye disapprovingly. ‘Paget,’ he stated, ‘is my name. Why do you call me that?’
‘I thought ... I thought that’s what you said.’
‘But, child, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to him.’
‘Kol,’ nodded the squat man, who then tossed his bone over at the other man’s, so that they clacked together.
‘My teeth,’ the tall man continued wearily, ‘are unfortunately no longer my own affair. Alas, I no longer govern them. Somewhere else, possibly far across the suffering sea, a wretched creature now eats voraciously with the very mouth that used to feed it. Dtch-dt-dt. Yush.’ He nodded emphatically, straightening his clapperboards with a dark fingernail. ‘Yes, child,’ he sighed, ‘all I have left of a bracing encounter of yesteryear is the fruit of uncertain laboursh which continue to devour me.’
With that, he reached under his shirt and produced his pipe with a flourish, making Moth cringe away from him until he saw that all he was doing was inspecting the bowl. He watched him scour it out with a nail, then begin packing it with shredded leaves taken from a hanging pouch. Still watchful, he left the men to talk among themselves as he finished cooking and at last began to eat.
He ate ravenously, listening in mute wonder to what they were saying. He tried to follow them at first, but they were talking in such a strange and roundabout way that it left him floundering, and tiring of all their convolutions he fell to his thoughts again. What should he do? What were his choices now? The south … yes, it meant his father was still alive. Or he could go north again … but to such a frozen destiny. Or go in neither direction, remain where he was — in limbo, a circular and agonising world of nothing ...
Chewing, he eyed the blackened noose. Perhaps there was no need to die, he thought, no need at all. Not in the summer. Not in the sun. It seemed unlikely now that he would hang himself that night, no matter what spectral figures rose to haunt him, no matter what point of resolution he reached in his dreams. The strangers seemed to have propped in him some other kind of hope, and in place of death he sensed other possibilities ahead. As the feeling grew in strength, he noticed a taste in his mouth that belonged not to the meat but to a curious aroma. He noticed Paget had the pipestem between his lips and was blowing a grey cloud his way, with smoke rings sailing one through the other like a train of purest silk. ‘That,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘Name, child.’
The man who was Paget leered at him behind a veil of smoke, blowing through his clapperboards. When he’d fully exhaled, he handed the pipe across t
o the man who was Kol.
Moth watched him inhaling for a moment, then turned back to the first man, disorientated, almost forgetting his question. Then he brightened. ‘Paget?’ he said.
‘Yes, child,’ said Paget, looking up. ‘What is it?’
‘I, ah ...’ he began, and then the moment he looked into the man’s wide cerulean eyes, he felt himself drifting. He could not speak further, nor for the moment did he wish to. He blinked, he looked around himself anew. They were sitting in a mosaic of dappled light, soft discs of it dilating on the ground where the sun’s fierce rays were broken by hanging leaves and branches. As he drew in the scented smoke, the grey and green shapes of the foliage seemed restful and calming again, the memory of a family waving and of mules plodding by on the road so gentle to consider, so harmless ...
The dust passing through was like the smoke rising from the fire, and the smoke from the pipe was sweet and rich and like the tiny crystals he’d seen the fortune-tellers toss into heated copper bowls ... and he thought he knew as he drifted what it was to be that smoke himself. His mind returned to the lightning as he flew that night, and he had a strong sense that he was travelling through the sky again; and as he travelled, he knew with certainty that his father was still flying to the south. Like the tall man facing him, he began to smile.
‘Well, I was ...’ he tried again, his throat husky, problematic, then so quickly forgotten as he pictured the surprise on his father’s face when he showed him how much he’d changed. His father was laughing and joking with him, and he chuckled quietly at the thought, and then not so quietly, and by the time he noticed the bowl smouldering towards him, the man called Kol was chuckling too. He wanted to ask what it was that the squat man was laughing at, but the words in his mind were like cotton, formless, aimless ...
The pipe bowl felt warm in his palm. Good and comforting. Smiling, his thoughts became other thoughts as his mouth went to open over the stem. Then, on tasting the strange-smelling smoke again, he paused, sniffing uncertainly at the bowl. Once more he asked Paget what it was.
‘I believe, child,’ said the tall man, licking at his teeth, ‘it’s called a chibouk, but as far as I’m concerned, you may call it anything you like. We’re not the types to complain.’
Kol grinned expansively as if from miles away.
He continued to sniff around the bowl. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not the pipe. I meant … what’s this?’ He pointed to the leaves blackening beneath a tiny heap of ashes. ‘What’s burning inside?’
‘What’s burning inside,’ echoed Paget, his eyes bright and wide through the sweetness and the sharpness, through the cool enticing spirals that seemed to have no end. He spoke slowly: ‘Yes, child, what a question. What’s burning inside? Consider. Half the world is filled with those who know they don’t know the answer … while the rest don’t even know they don’t know. Be not fearful in this, my boy, you’re in good company.’
Moth smiled again, feeling the meat sit warmly in his stomach. He took the scent of what tasted like rare and expensive herbs into his nostrils, and then he slid the stem between his lips and sucked awkwardly.
‘Try it for yourself, child. That’s it. It’s all a matter of investigation. Know thine enemy … trust thy friend. When did the bull ever defile the lamb? Never. That’s the way, my sprightly boy. Deeper, child. Take it in deeper.’
He did so, taking the smoke fully into his body and letting it penetrate. In his mind there hung the taste of bittersweet oils and cracked pods and ochre spices. And other things ... things he could not define. Paget watched and made encouragements and then eventually raised a straggly eyebrow at him. ‘Did you enjoy my story, child?’
He looked at Paget dimly. All he could recall was two men running in a frightening blur. ‘Not really,’ he murmured.
Paget rewarded him with a solicitous smile. ‘Of course not, child,’ he said. ‘Who would? Who in their right mind could bear the thought of it?’
He nodded, agreeing with all his heart.
‘Such a wicked world,’ Paget continued mournfully, clicking his nails. ‘Think of it — so much pain, so much to go wrong without a moment’s notice.’
He continued nodding, wondering how a stranger could understand so well the things he himself could not grasp.
‘But you see, child, the truth of the matter is also painful. He who would cuddle the knife of reason must be prepared for its cuts.’
He held the smoke deep inside him, exhaling reluctantly.
‘And we must ask what cuts us,’ Paget added softly, eyes glinting. ‘Yes, we must ask so very much. Is it the sordid aggregation of useless things? Is it all the hiding and the hopelessness? Is it the days spent crushed by the weight of our pretences? Think child. Try to think.’
He was inhaling again, Paget’s words floating through him as though across an inner valley. He dwelt on the words hungrily, trying to make sense of them, then murmured from the corner of his mouth, ‘I am. I’m … thinking.’
‘Indeed so. Now tell me, hominis to hominis, what brings a poor lost creature such as you to be alone on the highway?’
At this, he lowered his eyes, fearful that they might fill, brim over. It almost physically hurt to have someone listen to him, someone who cared. Someone who did more than sympathise; who seemed almost to know him.
‘Hmmm? Speak, child.’
He shook his head.
‘Pray speak aloud your worries and let your heart sing more easily in its truth.’
His face began to crumple. ‘I ... I’m looking for my f-father,’ he sobbed. ‘He ... he’s gone.’
As soon as he heard this, Paget swung his head about as if searching the clearing. ‘Gone?’ he cried, ‘gone, did you say?’
He tried to reply, but could only nod again.
‘But my dear boy,’ Paget said, aghast, ‘this is dreadful. Dreadful. Great heavens above, the bond between father and son is like that between mother and child. It is sacred, irreparable. We must remedy this ill immediately.’
‘But … but how?’
Paget put a finger to his lips, cutting glances around them.
At this, Moth turned uncertainly to find Kol walking off towards the cart. Looking back to Paget, he whispered, ‘You think … you think maybe you could help …?’
Paget met his suspicions with a careful nod of the head. ‘Everything is where it should be, child. And so must you be. Now, let me understand you correctly. Do you wish to see your father again?’
‘Yes, of course I do, but I want —’
‘Hush, child, this is important. Now be clear. Would you indeed like our help in finding him?’
‘Yes,’ he pleaded, ‘I … I would,’ then quietened as Paget swished his finger.
‘It’s possible, child. Just possible.’
There was a silence. Then in a lower tone, quiet but intense, Paget continued, ‘First, I need to know the last place he was known to be resident.’
Moth swallowed dryly. ‘Oh, I … I’m not sure. It must have been ... well, he ... he was at Karoly’s. Ah, the village is back ...’
‘And his name. I need a name.’
‘His ... his name is Klaus,’ he said, and as he looked up, Paget seemed to frown a moment, then turned his head very slowly through the smoke as if tracing the outlines of a distant landscape. ‘Klaus,’ he murmured, and his long equine nostrils seemed almost to twitch, ‘well, well.’
‘Wait, I ...’ Cupping the pipe awkwardly, he rummaged in his bag and took out the map, which he passed across for Paget to study. ‘I, ah, I wrote the village name on it.’
Paget squinted as he looked the map over, then he held it to the light and wafted it liberally before studying it from various angles. Then he sniffed at it cautiously. ‘And where, pray, did you find this thing?’
Moth felt something shrivelling in his mind. His limbs seemed to take on a weight he could not bear. With downcast eyes, he murmured, ‘A box. Hidden.’
‘Hidden,’ said Paget, nodding, �
�very good. But yet,’ he added, handing it back, ‘I feel the work of the enemy upon it. I fear it was planted. Yes, child, I fear that very much.’
‘But I ... I found it ...’
Paget took the pipe from his hand with a little tug. ‘Now, listen, young cachou. If you are to advance your progress, learn the deeds of our trade and so forth, I need your agreement. An assurance if you like.’
‘An assurance? I ... I don’t understand.’
‘Very well, I see I take you along from the beginning. What we offer to you we do most gladly, but before we do thus, I think it only fair that you in turn commit to the Fraternity some …’ — he coughed delicately — ‘how shall we say? Some idea of your intentionsh.’
‘My intentions?’
Paget pushed back his clapperboards with the pipestem, then drew upon it with his withered lips. He sucked noisily for a minute, then on exhaling two fine grey plumes through his nose, he said, ‘Your intentions, child. Your word that you will work with us as a very equal, accepting your share of duties as we plough the most sensitive and arduous of furrows. In short, child, you expect me to deal in trust and I must ask you to do the same, for what I tell you hereafter is not for any common man to hear, it is for the elect alone. Is this acceptable to you?’
‘I … yes. Of course you can trust me.’
Paget blew a grey ring of smoke over the fire, following it with a smaller ring which passed quivering through the first. ‘Good,’ he said, taking a breath and posing. ‘For what you will learn with us is delivered to you on the strict understanding that you will not divulge its purpose to any man or woman or other entity whatsoever, be they sentient or otherwise, be they malicious or threatening towards yourself or any member of this company or ill-disposed towards us in any way. Be they jovial in manner or offering advice or favours fiscal, nutritious or pleasing to the eye or parts nefarious, be they kith or kin of any description, be they marshals of the foul and hypocritical law governing these territories, be they agents of the realms that the Fraternity itself is currently forced to inhabit, and in this we may include visitants, hallucinations, shrieking wanderers of the mind. Be they children or infants or soothsayers or persons in league with witches, be they ever so frightening.’ He leant forward with his teeth glistening. ‘Do you agree to these terms, child?’
