What if the Muladona did exist? Sebas would never use the word ‘Constantinople’ lightly, even drugged, even mad.
I felt stupid just for thinking it. In my fantasies, I’d imagined that the monsters populating my books were real. The Morlocks. Dr Moreau’s obscene creatures. But after my trance of reading broke, I would always find myself back in bed, surrounded by medicines, lozenges and hot water bottles. That was my reality—I was a pathetic, sick boy.
I clenched Sebas’ telegram in my hand. I rolled myself into a ball on the couch and wept bitterly. The one person I’d longed to be was dead to me. All I wanted was for the earth to swallow me whole.
I must have fallen asleep again. When I woke, I felt chilled to the bone. I rubbed my hands and feet. I kept shivering. I felt—it’s hard to put this into words—that it wasn’t just my body that was cold. I was cold, the core of me, my sense of self. It was as if my brother’s telegram had chilled my very soul. I sat up slowly, my teeth chattering. I picked up the candle and decided to go into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.
I stopped in front of the enormous gilded mirror in the hallway. I looked at my image, blurry and wan. It was pocked by the nebulous defects in the silver backing. You know when you see something out of the corner of your eye, and you think it may have been a mouse scuttling across the room? Or maybe it was just your own shadow. But it makes you jump all the same.
That’s what I did. Then I did a double-take, trying to convince myself I hadn’t seen anything. It was just the flickering of the candle. It was my imagination working overtime. I peered into the reflection of the room: there were the shelves for my father’s leather-bound books, the antlers from a long-dead stag mounted on the wall, a bunch of Mexican spurs, their wicked, spiked wheels gently clicking against each other. I peered at myself holding the candle, blurred and warped. It was like looking into a carnival mirror, my real face lost in the faded glass. I moved to one side to see myself in a clearer part of the glass. And I realised it wasn’t my face at all! Something else looked back at me, hideous and deformed. It was a face between animal and man. It had a look of pure malice in its eyes. Its yellowed lips curled above two rows of crooked, jagged teeth.
The thing made a rush at me, butting its head against the glass from the other side. The mirror cracked. The frame shook as if it were going to fly off the wall.
I stood frozen.
Then, as the thing took another run at the glass, I screamed and ran down the hallway to my bedroom. The hall had never seemed so long or dark. With every step, time seemed to slow. I could hear the little crystal clock on the mantelpiece, ping-ping ten—a pause—eleven—a pause—twelve times. Between every one of those chimes, the accusation clanged in my head, ‘Constantinople, Constantinople, CONSTANTINOPLE!’
My disbelief in Sebas’ telegram was swept away. All of what Carlos had said was true! There were monsters and goblins and ghosts. My father had been right in warning us about the danger they posed!
At last I reached my bedroom. I slammed and bolted the door and threw down the candle on my bedside table, spattering wax everywhere. I opened my closet and pulled out all the drawers, desperately searching for my cotton sheets. In my haste, I knocked over piles of books.
A tremendous crash came from the parlour. The thing had broken through the mirror from its world into mine!
There! I found the Egyptian cotton sheets my mother had bought so long ago. They were the ‘good’ sheets she’d scraped and saved for, in spite of Father’s criticisms of her wastefulness. I jerked them out of the cupboard. Mothballs jumped and scattered, like animals fleeing from a forest fire.
I ripped the covers from my bed and began frantically to tuck in the new sheets. I heard an awful clip-clop of hooves coming down the hallway. It was followed by a screeching, dragging sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard. As I was about to jump under the covers, I saw my old stuffed animal, a ragged St Bernard dog named Pablito, that Pastor Olafssen had bought me on one of his trips. I know it sounds childish, but I grabbed the stuffed animal for protection and dove under the sheets. I wrapped myself deep within them, my heart beating as if it was going to explode.
I heard the bolt on my bedroom door slowly pull back on its own accord. It creaked open. The thing entered my room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My teeth chattered so much that I bit off a chunk of flesh from the inside of my cheek. I was so scared I didn’t feel the pain. As I wheezed in and out, my breath transformed itself into a plume of cold, stinging my lungs. I tried to say the Lord’s Prayer; I tried to say any prayer I knew, but the words melted on my lips.
A smell of sulphur mixed with manure and dank, dark earth, like my grandparents’ graves in the rain, invaded the room. I tried to close my eyes, but couldn’t. The creature’s image was projected onto my sheets by the flickering candle, an evil shadow-puppet show. I could make out its horse-like head and pointy ears, the long snout and the huge links of glowing chains behind it.
God help me, the thing started snuffling around the edges of my bed. It went along the borders where I’d tucked in the sheets, its breath putrid and rank. It put its muzzle right against the sheet and pressed into my leg. The prickly hairs of its beard pierced me through the sheets like hypodermic needles and I stifled a cry.
Moving its snout close to my head it said, ‘Vergii-lll Er-aas-muuus Ström-beeerg’ in a voice that wasn’t a single voice, but a rasping, polyphonic hiss. Metal grating on stone. Moans and screams. A composite of all the voices of hell.
I needed all my strength not to faint.
‘I’m going to gobble you up,’ it rasped. ‘Pull ba-ack your covers, and I promise to do it qui-ickly.’
Its voice was so awful, but at the same time so authoritative, that I felt tempted to obey. Then I felt Sebas’ telegram, still balled up in the palm of my hand. The thought of my brave, strong brother gave me a glimmer of hope.
‘N-no,’ I whimpered. ‘Y-you can’t p-pass this b-burial shroud. I-it would violate the etiquette of the d-dead.’
The creature brayed, a horrible mix of human laughter and the screams of pigs at the slaughterhouse. ‘Burial shroud!’ it repeated. ‘What do you thi-ink you are, little King Tu-ut? You’re a nothing. You’re a snot-nosed baby. You’re sick. You’re weak. You’re a fa-ailure.’
There was a pause, and then it said, ‘That’s why your mommy left you. You made her ashamed. It’s all your fault.’
In spite of my fear, I cried out angrily, ‘That’s not true. My mother loved me. She loved me!’
The awful thing brayed again and I plugged my ears with my fingers to shut it out. ‘She lo-oved you? Oh, you pitiful boy. If you only knew the truth.’
‘You’re a liar!’ I shouted. ‘He told me you’d lie, just like he told me you couldn’t get me under the sheets.’
‘Who told you?’ the thing hissed. ‘No one knows I’m here.’
I burst out, ‘My big brother, Sebas. He knows all about you, and he’s coming to save me. He’ll kill you.’ As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I immediately regretted them. Now it’d be on its guard.
I saw the beast’s shadow rear back on its hind legs, then crash down; it made the floorboards shake, nearly knocking me out of bed. I dug my fingernails into the mattress.
‘Don’t you ever mention that name!’ it bellowed. ‘That hooligan isn’t going to help you now. I order you to pull back the covers this instant! This is your last chance.’
I cowered under the covers, waiting for it to devour me. But the creature didn’t advance. What Sebas had said was true: the Muladona couldn’t get me if I stayed under the sheets!
I cleared my throat. My voice came out squeaky and shrill, ‘I’m not going to pull back the covers! You can’t get me. So . . .’ I gulped, ‘So, just go away. Get away from here and never come back again.’
The thing bellowed again, finishing with its horrible laugh. ‘You’re right. I can’t get you . . . not tonight. But your big, strong broth
er didn’t tell you all of it, did he? I’m obli-iged to tell you this, because these are the Devil’s own ru-ules. Now, listen clo-osely, because I’m only going to say this once.
‘For seven nights, I will vi-isit you. Each night, I’ll tell you a be-ed-time story. Wrapped within the sto-ories are clues to the ide-entity of the person who takes the form of this mi-ighty creature you see before you. A-any time you like, you can throw back the sheets and tell me who you think I am. If you’re sma-art enough, Poof! I disappear, and you never have to see me again.’
Slowly finding my voice I said, ‘A-and if I’m w-wrong?’
It put its head close to mine, and the putrid breath it blew through the sheets filled my mouth like worms. As I gagged, it whispered, ‘If you’re wrong, then I drag you down with me to he-ell.’
Tears rolled down my face. ‘I’ll wait it out,’ I said, ‘just you see. I’ll wait through the seven stories.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were yo-ou. You se-ee, each one ca-arries with it the torments of he-ell. They slowly rot inside of you like a corpse in a sha-allow grave, bursting through the soil. It’ll be a mi-iracle if you make it to the end of the seventh tale with your reason intact. Then you must fi-inally guess, for I no longer have to respect the sépulcre. Why don’t you just be a goo-od li-ittle boy? Pull back the sheets, so I can put you out of your misery.’
‘No!’ I bleated desperately. The longer I could draw this out, I reasoned, the more time Sebas had to rescue me. ‘I want the story. Tell me the story!’
‘You have to say, pre-etty ple-ease,’ the creature brayed.
‘All right, then pretty please! Pretty please, tell me the story!’
‘Ve-ery well,’ the beast replied, ‘you a-asked for it.’
It emitted an awful braying laugh; it went on and on, like a firehouse siren. Gradually, the Muladona’s voice transformed itself from rasping hisses into a single, gasping voice. The voice gurgled into an asthmatic wheeze, as if its lungs were filling with liquid.
It was in this voice—of a young Indian boy who struggled for breath between each word—that the creature told the following story. I repeat it exactly as related to me, for it is burned into my memory forever. . . .
THE FIRST TALE
The Strongest Boy
I’ve been sickly since birth, and the burden has fallen on my mother.
While the other boys run and play, I stay inside my hut. I lie on the dirt floor and look up at the ceiling or through the small gaps in the mud walls. My world is composed of bits and pieces of that larger world mother tells me about. Through the gaps of it, I see fragments of the sun and sky. I glimpse an ankle from a villager running by, the blur of a stone kicked by children’s legs, agile and strong.
More than these fragments of images, my world is composed of sounds. Women pounding out roots, whispering to each other. The crackling of early-morning fires. Grunts of men stringing bows, sinew and wood tightening, slaps on arms and legs to warm themselves, getting ready for the hunt. And the cry of the itsá marking its territory as it wheels and turns, high in the heavens, and, far away, the haunting sound of the ndo³kahs calling with their big cat calls to each other in the hills.
I do not go outside into the light, because the dust sickens me even more than the smoke from the fire inside. I cast no shadow. Sometimes, I wonder if I could ever cast one.
I have a constant companion just the same, not one of light or darkness but one of sound. It is the sound of my own breath, gurgling and spitting. I have always had it. I am so used to it that if they found some magic way to remove the fluid that constantly fills my lungs, I wouldn’t know what to do. It would feel like a death in the family. Lately, I’ve thought it must have been a burden for my mother to lie with me, night after night, listening to my laboured breathing, my wheezing the only sound save the lice lowering themselves from the roof, creeping down the walls, searching out skin to pierce and suck.
If my mother was annoyed by this she never said so. In fact, she said she liked the noise. She called me her beautiful Tooh, which means ‘river’ in her language, because she comes from the Navajo people, while my father’s people are Ndee. (She was taken away from her people when she was very young, but she still speaks their words alone with me.)
Mother said that as she fell asleep, listening to me breathe, she imagined a wide, beautiful river, the light glinting off it like precious rocks, and rainbow trout—hundreds of them—jumping in the sun. She said I was her whole world, that I made her heart happy and light, that she couldn’t imagine life without me.
The things she said were beautiful, but it must have been hard for her. Her husband, Kuruk, was the leader of our village. He was a big man, a strong man, like his namesake the bear. He could out-run, out-swim, out-wrestle anyone.
One evening he smoked the pipe and, inspired, chased his animal spirit, the great bear, down the mountain. He ran through the woods in the moonless night, running after the spirit that flew deep into the caves underground, unseen by the rest of us.
He returned at dawn, and I could see from my position on the floor that his feet were bloody and pulverised, with thorns sticking into them. Later that day I heard whispering in the village. They said there was not a scratch on the rest of his body—on his face or arms or chest—because he was a true man, and the spirit had led him safely down the mountain, between branches and over stones.
He died when I was very young, in the hunt for the wapiti. There were many stories about how it happened, but it seems that, as they closed in with their bows, the beast cornered in a thicket, its massive horns glinting, my father moved in for the kill. A younger warrior, wanting the glory for himself, shot his arrow too quickly and pierced my father’s side.
When they brought my father back from the hunt, he was still alive. They laid him next to me on the floor. The shaman who lived alone, way up the mountain, came and said prayers and burned some leaves that made me convulse with coughs. It did not help my father either. For the whole night, all you could hear were the gurgling sounds from both of us, my lungs filling with phlegm, while his filled with blood. By the light of the fire I could see fear in his eyes, a blank, staring look, but I enjoyed the sound he made: it was as if the gurgling brook in my lungs had found a playmate, a twin. I imagined them going outside to kick the stick high into the sky under the hot sun. They would beat the other children with their skill.
When the morning came, chill and quiet, my friend’s playmate had gone. My father’s body was cold and I wept because my sound and I were alone again.
My father’s father was an even stronger man. His name was Nantan Lupan, because his spirit guide was the wolf. He was the first one to go down the mountain and see the strange, hairy men with their shiny, hard skin, who had settled in the pastures below. He was wise and kept his distance because he knew no good would come of us meeting them. Although he chose peace with these new men, he led my people into war against the Navajo, who hate us so much they call us ‘apache’. Villagers would spit as they mentioned our enemies and praised my grandfather.
My father told me that I owed my life to Grandfather, who saved all of us, but he died before I was born. I think the one who really saved my life was my mother, because she was the first one to search for the mullein plant and make it into tea.
I have talked about sights and sounds in my world, but more important to me is smell—the smell of the wild flowers, the smell of the land, wet or dry, rich and thick. One smell is more important than any other, that of the dried mullein, with its long stalk and its small, precious flowers. Without the mullein, I would have died soon after birth.
My mother would take the dry stalk, pound it with her pestle and make tea that soothed my cough. She would mix the leaves with oils and other herbs she collected on the mountain. With this, she would make a salve and spread it over my chest, massaging my painful, contracted muscles. She started by rubbing the soles of my feet, cracking each toe, tenderly and sweetly. Then she’
d rub my useless, twisted legs, heat them with the palms of her hands rubbed together until they would relax, and she would bend my knees slowly to my chest. She would do the same with my arms and fingers, relaxing me, cracking the joints that wouldn’t give. Then she would roll me on my side, massage my back and chest, giving slight taps, then more intense ones, slapping my back, forcing the phlegm to my upper chest, forcing me to breathe in the smoke from the burning mullein leaves. It would feel like drowning, but she would sway over me, rubbing my back in a circular motion, and sing to me a lullaby. This is how I came to associate drowning with tenderness.
Just as I thought I would die in the sea of my own fluids, my body heaved—its greatest activity of the day—shuddering and gasping, until I finally vomited up the contents of my lungs onto the ground. As I sucked in air my lungs would fill with the fresh, sweet, soothing smell, and my mother would wipe the sweat from my face with her long, black hair. She held me until I stopped trembling, until we—moving as one, breathing as one—in our unity became a single person.
I would fall asleep in her arms and dream the most beautiful dream in the entire world. . . . I was a sailor on an enormous raft the size of my village, with a huge mullein stalk as my mast. And I was huge, too, and muscular. I was the strongest boy in the world, rowing with my hands, cupping them like great pots and hopping from island to island in search of adventure. Because I was so strong and moved through the waters with such ease, a great water snake became jealous and attacked my raft. It tore it to pieces with its tail. Then it knocked me into the sea and coiled its massive body about me.
But I would not die so easily, because I was the mighty Tooh, son of Kuruk, grandson of Nantan Lupan, and I fought the great sea serpent with my bare hands, squeezing the life out of every coil. Finally, the snake loosened its grip. It eyes pleaded with me to let it go. With no more air in my lungs, I was faced with a terrible decision: to kill the creature and risk sinking down with it into the depths, or let it survive so that I would fly up to the surface and continue on my journey in glory. But I was a warrior, and it would have been cowardice to leave my prey like that.
Muladona Page 6
