Gilda Trillim

by Steven L. Peck

  Gilda looked away, “I’m afraid those days are over for me.”

  The man began talking to the camp director in a long and animated conversation.

  At last he turned to Gilda, “We will talk again. I am sorry to find you in these circumstances. I will see what we can do.”

  The prisoners were then marched back to their cells. Shortly after, two guards came and escorted Gilda to one of the nice wooden buildings where the officers usually lived. She was put into one of these. It had a raised bed, a table, and a thick woven reed rug. Gilda sat on the bed and wept, scared that one of the Russians would walk through the door and do terrible things to her. It never occurred to her that her captivity was over. Nor that her strangest encounter with the rats was soon to unfold. I will let her tell it.

  Endings churned like raging ghosts through the air, mixing and folding me, stirring time and memory into a froth of panic and despair. Sitting on the bed felt like a betrayal. Decadent. A richness of extravagance that would demand payment. One I could not afford and would rather die than pay. I knew with certainty that through the door a monster would emerge and claim his due for this moment in luxury. I sobbed uncontrollably. Death awaited—no, I sought that. Death would have been easy. It was my powerlessness I feared. Death? I craved it, looked desperately to find it, but was too cowardly to move from my anguish on the bed.

  The silent air boiled with panic. I was confused, as if I had entered another universe, like this one, but other and foreign. It looked the same, but its strangeness could be discerned because the very feel of existence had been reforged in ways there were no words to describe. My head spun and I sobbed, and even though I sobbed, one part of my brain, a cold and analytical corner, considered my sobbing and wondered at it from afar—as if examining my emotions from a coolly rational space. I held to that. A stoic glance emerging from the one corner of my brain that kept me from madness.

  The door opened and in throat-closing terror I watched as a figure entered. It was a guard, but he did not meet my eyes. He was carrying a tray, which he placed on the table next to my bed and left. It was a white bowl of noodles with a large spoon laid beside. More food than I could possibly eat. Steam was rising from the dish and I could see pieces of duck, still covered in thick juicy skin, peeking through the surface of the ramen. I felt ashamed, but I could not stay away. I held the bowl to my nose and breathed in the thick moisture rising up to meet me. A part of me wanted to resist the meal, thinking I was being bought and paid for. Such grandeur and luxury would surely strike my initials on a contract of ruin. But the smell, the fragrant steam wafting off the bowl, and the combination of spices proved too much. I thought what happens will happen whether I eat this or not. I ate a piece of duck and some of the noodles. Hurriedly, like I did not want to get caught. I then pushed the bowl away.

  The panic returned, I found myself half panting and half sobbing. I threw up into a basin placed at the foot of my bed. For some reason this calmed me. I sat on the bed, and tried eating the noodles again. I managed to hold down just a little.

  I stopped sobbing and closed my eyes for a little while, but I did not lie down. When I opened them for a moment it seemed like the floor was moving, wriggling and writhing, undulating up and down as if it had become a small ocean. When things begin to resolve I saw that it was my beloved comrades. My rats. My friends. My peers. I instantly felt safe. Protected. Worshiped.

  I moved to the floor to allow them to come to me. They pushed forward, gathering around me like kittens to their mother. They pressed against one another. Against me. Humbly I petted and caressed their dark bodies feeling their ribs, their heads, the scaly surface of their naked tails, their soft ears and whiskers tickling my skin, they were chirping loudly. Did they know something? I wondered. Did they know I was marked for death or worse? Did they in the multilayered fathoms of their souls and bodies sense that terrible things were coming and changes afoot that would end things forever. Is this why they were scurrying about me?

  Suddenly, the door flew open. It was the guard who had brought me the soup. He was holding a bus tray, even so, it did not occur to me that he was there to clean up. I screamed. He rushed forward. In retrospect I can see he was trying to protect me from the beasts that he saw ‘attacking’ me. He yelled and stomped kicking and screaming into the mass of rodents. The sickening sound of bones crunching, and rats flying off of his boots sent volts of energy searing from every nerve in my body. I ran at him hitting him violently with my fists, he tried to back away, but I jumped on his back and wrapped my legs around his waist and pummeled him with my fists. He fled the room. I jumped free of him and ran back in.

  The place was in chaos and the entire camp seemed filled with commotion. A siren was sounding and the sound of truck engines were revving throughout the compound, but I cared nothing of it and I ran back to my friends. A few dead, some wounded dragging broken legs, or staggering toward the holes and openings through which they’d crept inside. And then I saw her. She was broken. Twisted. I picked her up. Her neck hanging loosely, separated from her vertebral column. Fatty Lumpkin. My beloved friend. Fatty. Oh Fatty. Not you. Not you little Lumpkin. I fell to my knees in agony and despair holding her little body, wailing. I held her warm body to my chest and spilled tears over her wetting her fur in patches of sorrow. Willing her to live. Please. O, please. If there are gods or goddesses. If there is a Heavenly Father or Mother. If you shepherds who can command the creation of universes can help me please bring her back to me. Please. Please. Please. Oh. Little Lumpkin. My little Lumpkin, don’t leave me now. I pressed my lips against her mouth and breathed softly to fill her tiny lungs with small breaths. I pushed in the air so gently, so carefully, until I saw her sides rise with my breath. But when I released my kiss to let the air back out, with each exhale, blood seeped bubbling from her nose. I knew she was dead.

  I must pause in my narrative and tell a story before I go on because what follows draws too heavily on it not to be included.

  My father had a favorite horse. It was a beautiful chestnut quarter horse with three white feet and a cream spot on its chest shaped like a butterfly—a generous and well-disposed mare. He called it Greta after the movie star. My brothers and sisters knew he loved us more, but just barely. He had likely spent more time with her than all of us kids put together. She pastured in the forty-acre field fenced out just behind our backyard, which she alone commanded like a retired thoroughbred. We didn’t need as many horses as we drifted into more modern farming and by the time I was fifteen we owned only her. We didn’t really need her either, but we knew she would stay until she died. She was part of us. My dad’s only mistress.

  One morning, early, about six, we were just sitting down to French toast when my mother stopped to look out the window as she washed up the egg bowl she had dipped the bread in. She froze, “Heber” she hoarsed out. Then she yelled fiercely, “Heber!” By that time we were all at the window or scouting out of the backdoor. My dad glanced out the window for a hurried second and then ran for the kitchen closet where he kept his loaded 30.06 Winchester rifle. Through the window I could see three dogs chasing Greta: the Hansen’s vicious German Shepherd, the Blinkman’s mammoth Airedale that they used to hunt cougars, and a medium mutt that looked like a Dalmatian, border collie mix I’d never seen before. They had obviously been at it a while, because the poor mare looked like the fight was almost wrung out of her. The dogs were nipping at her legs, and although she was mustering a few last kicks, it looked bad. I glanced out the window and saw my dad lining up his shot against one of the rail posts of the back porch. He was as good a shot as anyone I knew and had won the state fair shoot off a time or two. Now he was shooting for love and it never occurred to me those dogs had a chance of surviving the next few minutes. The first shot took the shepherd right behind the front leg and it instantly curled up from a dead run to a furry tumbleweed. After scaring up a gnarled ball of dust in its tumblings, it lay still. My dad worked the bolt and chambered
another round and sighted back up. The Airedale had stayed on the horse but not for much longer. I saw its head explode in a spray of red at the same time as my ears were muted from the report. The mutt had stayed back to examine at what had happened to the shepherd and was facing dead away from us. The next bullet ran up its butt and came out its chest.

  My dad handed the gun to my younger brother and sprinted to the horse who was now shaking and staggering on her trembling legs. Her mouth was massed with dripping white froth. I don’t know how long the dogs had been worrying the poor beast but it must have been a while because I’d seen that horse run full out at a gallop for miles. My dad got to it and grabbed her mane trying to steady it when it tottered violently over onto its side nearly pulling my dad over with it, but he let go of the beast and jumped clear. A horse on its side was as bad as it could be. We were all running up to it by that time. My dad started trying to lift her himself, and waved us over to help. I had grabbed her halter off the peg on the porch and had her in it in what seemed like seconds. I tried to twist her head up hoping she would follow it to her feet, but she just lay there breathing like a bellows. She was soaking wet and hot as summer sand, steaming in the morning air like she was being cooked. Despite my Dad and Mom and brothers all pushing on her back and trying to lift and me trying to get her head going toward the sky, she was not budging.

  My mother took my dad by the arm, and said, “There is only one thing that will help now.” And out of her night coat pocket she pulled her bottle of precious consecrated olive oil. She must have grabbed it on her way out for this purpose because usually it sat in the cupboard among the medicines we kept at hand. My dad took the bottle and removed the cork and poured the entire contents onto the horse’s forehead. Its breathing was still rapid and labored, its sides heaving like it was about to foal. He anointed it using the priesthood, then knelt down sealed the anointing and offered a blessing. He blessed it that its muscles would be knit together, and its heart be able to bear the burden of getting the proper amount of air to the parts of her body that needed it. Then he closed in Jesus’ name. My mother whispered, “You’ve been blessed, get up.” My father then stood up, straightened his coat, then looking at the horse knelt back down and shouted into its ear, “I command you to walk! Arise!” Suddenly that horse started beating its legs, and swinging its head to get some assistance from inertial motion. We all backed away. In her flailings she finally struck the earth with her hooves and climbed to standing in an explosion of movement. My dad was bawling—first time in my life I ever seen him shed a tear.

  He spent the day brushing his mare’s coat and making sure she was all right. That afternoon, when it was clear the harried equine was going to be OK, my dad came into the kitchen and pulled a cookie jar off the top shelf of the cupboard. My parents had been saving for an anniversary trip to San Francisco for about a year and it was kept in the antique ceramic. He pulled out about fifty bucks, which was an enormous amount back then, and handed it to me and told me to bike it down to the Bishop’s and give it to him. I looked at my mom to see if she were going to countermand his order, but she just said, “Do as he says.” There was a power that came from the heavens, but there was always a cost that had to be paid. Every farmer, rancher, and dairyman knew that.

  I looked at Fatty. Her hair tinged with blood and this story flashed in my mind. There was no oil, but remembering a scene from the New Testament I spit in my hand and rubbed it into the forehead of my little friend. My companion who had saved me so many times before by feeding me the fluids fashioned from the juices of her own soft body. I laid my hands on her head, and blessed her, “Dear little Lumpkin, blessed and beloved sister, I bless you by the power of God to rise up and walk. Feel the joints of your neck knit with the bones of your back. Come back Fatty. Return from the dead. Be healed. I command you! Be made whole.” Then I turned my face upward and plead, “Anything. I will do anything. Kill me if you want. But heal her. Dear God we have long been at odds. I’ve not believed in you for awhile, but please do what you can for my beloved friend.” I paused and then screamed into the sky, “Do you even know what love is? Does it even matter to you?”

  But the gesture was empty. Dry. I knew in my heart it would not work. Blessings are not for the far-gone. The injured beyond hope. No one ever tried to attach the decapitated head of a car accident victim. There were limits to how far faith could stretch even for those like my parents who believed in them as fully as the rising sun. Nevertheless, I stroked her fur for nearly ten minutes. Waiting. Watching. Looking for the twitch of her tail. The flick of an ear. The vibration of a whisker. But there was nothing. The camp seemed silent and the pandemonium of a few minutes ago had been replaced with a weighty quiet that seemed more threatening than the ruckus preceding it.

  The rats were still there, but frozen. I looked down at the poor rat cradled in my hands, unbelieving she was gone. Animated no more. I leaned back on the floor and arranged her in a little ball nestled on my chest as if she were sleeping. I stretched out my arms like one crucified, for so I felt. Abandoned and forsaken.

  Something strange began to occur. One by one the rats approached the stump of my arm and licked its rounded end vigorously—like a mother murid cleaning her pup. In the action I found the eidolon of my missing hand materializing, as if each stroke of their tongues were bringing into being a finger, or a knuckle, or the back of my hand. Or the spirit thereof. Then each would run along my arm to Fatty’s body, still resting on my chest, and nip off a small piece, not an act of feeding, but of ritual it seemed to me, for they took naught but a single morsel. Then they ran down my arm to my good hand.

  When the first celebrant descended my left extended arm to my hand, I curled my fingers around its soft body and blessed it. I found myself whispering queer augurs of the future. Strange prophecies poured out of me. I knew I was leaving never to return. And each of these souls I knew. Each was an individual unique and yet connected to each other and with the landscape in which they lived. Connected to the camp, to its refuse, to the forest that surrounded it, to the cassava fields, to the roads, and vehicles and I drew on those connections and proclaimed to each what its life would be like. How its descendants would fare, and gave what warnings I felt impressed to give. One by one the rats queued like patrons at a theater waiting to buy a ticket, until they reached my stump and followed their compatriots through this odd ritual. When it was over, Lumpkin was gone and on my chest was a stain of wet blood on my black clothes.

  Last of all came One-eye. He licked my arm where my hand had been severed, but came and stood on my chest. He stood upon his back legs and squeaked and as he did the other rats took their positions on the floor and wall as they had in my small cell and they began to sing. I sobbed as they sang knowing I was going, knowing they had saved me. Unexpectedly, some change occurred in the lighting of the room. It became blue and holy and a strange light snow began to fall. Only it wasn’t snow. It was tiny white moths drifting like dust motes in a sunbeam coming through a window after a thunderstorm on a summer day. How they sparkled and danced!

  Still on my back looking straight upward I saw a figure descending from the sky as if from an immense height but oddly still within the room giving the impression that I was seeing into a new dimension, something like mirrors facing each other with reflections scattering light back and forth into a forever of ever smaller and more distant mirrors. The woman, for woman it was, descended until she stood above me. She was dressed in a robe de style of a lovely blue silk, with several long strings of white pearls. A red sequin cloche hat just covered her short styled and straightened hair. Her shoes were gorgeous blue heels that shimmered like emeralds. Her black skin glowed like a shimmering pool on a moonless night and her eyes were bright and alive beyond life. Most amazing of all was her smell. It was of newborn babies, fresh autumn hay, rich moist soil, and lavender in the sunshine. It was of honey dripping from the comb, baked bread, and red sweet wine. It was of newness and pine. Just opened
books and incense and beeswax. And oddly the fresh scent of manure and spring planting, and the milk of a mother’s breast. It seemed so complex and full I wanted to melt into her.

  “You are a shepherdess,” I spoke in a hushed tone.

  She laughed and helped me sit up. Her hands were warm and she sat on the ground next to me, her arms enveloped me. I laid my head on her shoulder and she stroked my hair. The rats continued singing, but each of their dark eyes was on her.

  Finally she said, guiding my head up so she could look in my eyes, “I have many names: Goddess, Heavenly Mother, and, yes, Shepherdess will do.”

  “Have you come to save Fatty Lumpkin?” I was breathless with hope as I asked.

  “No. She is gone.” She had tears in her eyes.

  “The shepherds can form a universe with such wonder and they cannot heal a rat?” I whispered in frustration and despair.

  She looked at me seriously, but radiating such love it was difficult to hold onto my anger.

  “You would have me end your suffering, dear Gilda. Not hers. I cannot stop suffering, it’s always there. Things go as they go. That’s the way of it. Things go as they go, weaving in and out in a dance with other things. Even I am subject to the movement, the bargaining, the exchanges with the things that appear and disappear in the world. Suffering is the price of being.”

  “You are not in control?” “Control?” She laughed sweetly, sadly, “No. Like you I make deals with the things and events that surround and envelope me. I have my whims, but so do they, and we must strike an arrangement if I’m to make what moves I wish to make.”

  “Please. Make your whim to bring Fatty back to me …”