Strange Landscape

by Tony Duvert

  Lulu watched us gorge ourselves with little sidelong glances he helped open all the cans and then sat there swallowing his spit looking glum What a pack of gluttons Jesus don’t you ever get anything to eat at your boarding school We eat a lot better there than you do fatso says Claude and it’s not a boarding school it’s a philanthropic institution Welfare you mean sneers Bernard No it’s private and they’re loaded with dough we’re not just taken in off the streets you know we’re chosen we’re better dressed than you village guys for one thing But don’t you have any parents? asks Lulu

  no I don’t have any parents answers Claude

  him neither?

  me neither I answer nobody does at the chateau

  where were you from before then?

  that’s our business says Claude

  ||

  ||

  ||

  ||

  ||

  ||

  I’m still here but everything has been prepared for my disappearing I’ve figured it out this black room is a cellar they’ve bricked up the door I’m being buried alive that’s what I can

  still make out sounds voices outside low mooing of cows as if somewhere in the country these moments of panic suffocation clawing at the walls my fingers searching for a hole a crack some flaw in the stone through which I might be able to make out a ray of light feel a fresh draft of air but there isn’t any atmosphere growing heavier all the time breathing more and more rapid pains migraines never stopping now I must try yes to become calm yes stretch myself out upon the floor beaten down dirt so cold dry or else pasty there where I pissed earlier

  close my eyes try to forget this hollow darkness imagine instead a light some familiar setting but then I’ll be too afraid to raise my eyelids later eyes opening wide hungrily yet receiving nothing no clarity no light I want to cry out escape see the morning sun again closing my eyes once more space disappears no reference points no outwardness nothing outside this body of mine invisible and blind move fingers along each wall finally to make out yes a door yes here where stones are larger rougher more recessed mortar protruding between I can feel sense no other exit the cellar didn’t have air vents or window slits I won’t be able to escape I know that already and if some day some months from now they come down here again they’ll find my cadaver still scraping at stones beside the door or else half-buried in some hole my hands will have dug without me oxygen going fast now any sudden movement makes me breathless so I no longer stir inhaling cautiously it’s good though that my stomach sounds so hollow that way at least I’ve forgotten completely the wounds gashes sores covering my body to die or not to die all the same I forget already who did what or why

  could I have ever belonged to anyone had a name of my own been useful for anything owned anything to be so at the mercy of no matter who no matter what buried already I can’t won’t any longer remain here I must leave somehow tottering take tentative steps the door evidently is not bricked up like I thought or even bolted see pushing through it suddenly a long musty corridor opening bright light coming from some slit of a vent of a window at the farthest end but I can’t find any stairs pushing open doors along that long corridor haphazardly the first plunging me into profound tangible darkness within which hovers some horrible smell ammoniacal as if someone had set down some garbage cans filled to the brim with intestines gizzards guts rotting human offal there’s a huge metal handle glimmering gray by the door yank it down light switch shadows suddenly disperse forms hanging water pipes or else central heating serving for a gallows bodies swing disappearing one after another in a straight line diminishing perspective the wall facing supports a workbench upon which are laid out various pointed implements tools scrap metal all the equipment of a tinker’s trade plus some old beach toys

  I’ve a feeling of already having known this room so I wait until the air clears settles a bit then enter to investigate more closely naked bodies all men middle-aged or old clothes scattered upon the floor soaked with blood with shit mixed with rusty household utensils the cadaver nearest the door hangs by his hair face tilted back swinging in the slight current of air thick eyebrows that the tautened skin of his forehead stretches out into one unbroken horizontal line both eyes open yet one more so than the other mouth yawning clots of brown mucus besmearing both lips slashed gashed body slack tufts of pepper and salt hair caught up between the fingers prick whacked off flush with the pelvis raw testicles a bright purple where somebody has flayed the balls peeling the skin off the scrotum as you peel a potato the second cadaver hangs from an S-hook forced into its mouth plowing up palate smashing teeth blood soaking flooding the face an old man this one skinny wiry body tied and trussed legs folded back against the ass stomach bulging convexly covered over with a mat of woolly white fleece a toy locomotive dangles from the end of a cord whose other end is attached to several safety pins stuck into the head of the cock the locomotive’s weight causing the dead flesh to curl unfurl the third cadaver stinks horribly belly shoulders legs little more than zebra stripes black and blue of ripped flesh blisters bursting a single arm its wrist broken dangles from a water pipe and somebody has sliced clean the cock along with a part of the abdomen dissecting it in ever larger crescent cuts this sexagenarian’s belly a sea of dirty whitecaps froths of yellow fat forming floccules along the borders of each halfmoon gash eyes eyebrows nose no longer visible merely one unbroken trough of blood and bone splinters swimming within empty sockets

  the fourth victim a bit separate from the others another old man but this one emitting a sweetish perfume like that given off by huge flowers fetid with too sugary a smell leather thongs attach both left hand and left foot to the pipes body hanging horizontally its sex cut up into tiny sections and the thick head of the cock veering at a right angle away from the long thin shaft like the snapback cover of an ale tankard tiny testicles yanked out of the scrotum stretched abnormally skewered through like two stringy pieces of meat various incisions bespattering the entire face head dangles slackly against the right shoulder and eating away the left a massive red sore that deltoid sinew laying bare the sharp pointed collarbone right flank also pierced between haunches and ribs thick cluster of entrails dangling like ripe purple grapes escaping from the gash the fifth man is hanging upside down an iron hook shoved up his asshole perforating groin re-emerging through the pelvis forming a thick negroid cock all shiny and black and knees rigid folded back feet chained hands swinging free sweeping the ground skin bursting everywhere mass of pinkish white vermin minuscule maggots proliferating within wounds somebody must have smashed his head in with a hammer for the cranium is all crushed the jawbone deviating to the left the face itself no more than a series of ridges craters bone shards swimming in reddish pap but somebody has also decked out that faceless face with a false cardboard nose outrageous eyeglasses and a bushy mustache the sixth man also hangs upside down arms crossed over his chest and lashed together at the back of the neck skin of the skull forehead eyebrows completely charred for directly beneath the head a saucepan still sits upon the earthen floor stolen from some dollhouse kitchen containing still the remnants of gasoline or methyl alcohol that someone must have set a match to mouth laughing in an insane sneer that makes both cheekbones bulge and puckers up the chin eyes open rolling upward still bleeding blood coagulating down the entire length of the body flowing from the crotch downward that crotch which has been sliced in two with a hacksaw still resting there between the thighs jagged blade sticky yellowed with shit the seventh man youngest so far no older than forty attached grotesquely to two crotchets stuck into either side of the skull entering through the ear cavities his head resembling some terrestrial globe upon its metal axis skin slashed and torn in irregular strips like on some peeling billboard somebody has taken water colors blue green orange tracing obscene designs childish scrawls everywhere the penis itself reduced to a long thin cartilage makeshift penholder with a large eighteenth-century writing plume stuck almost all the way up the urethra and numerous other sch
oolboy pens spiking bristling the entire groin they had gouged out his eyes replacing them with two cherries whose leaves already withered upon those dead cheeks perspective diminishing farther and farther to the back of the room three or four more naked carcasses are piled high upon the ground all beaten castrated throats slit all besmeared with paint and the one that lies on its belly a bit before the others has a wine bottle protruding from between his fat buttocks the bottom broken distending the anus where chips of glass glimmer greenly

  spoiled soiled clothes my feet caught up within them were once the attire of gentlemen I turn back toward the door noticing for no special reason the cover of a book lying on the workbench a blond boy with an anonymous face swinging aloft in the rigging of a schooner background of frothing waves darkening lowering skies and the dead men here no longer disgust me they were all rich probably and too sure of themselves probably brought here all together tortured all together the wounds and mutilations I myself still bear upon my body are just like theirs I too ought to be dead hanging here among this refuse I’ve forgotten the torturers the tortures though all that comes back to me now is a memory of paralysis of vertigo where the only image still pulsating would be one where I seek a stairway at the farthest end of a tiny room that serves for a closet the door at the top of the stairs is not locked opens out onto a tiled corridor grand entrance hall of some great house I cross a garden run to seed take a turning onto a deserted street I am in a village could easily believe myself set down purposely in the middle of some early morning in springtime perhaps I’ve just been born but I can still crawl walk despite myself toward a square to which I’m drawn by the sharp shrill cries of children recess time an enclosed courtyard before the tiny combination town-hall-and-schoolhouse press against the wire grating contemplate passionately desperately all those young boys louts brutish still intact and none of them what you’d call beauties they don’t pay any attention to me but when I stagger off keeping close to walls or pressing my back up against shop windows some old people stop suddenly and I can feel their contempt pouring down my clothes filthy ripped I’ve no idea what my face looks like this sudden walking reawakens all those sleeping animals in my belly my legs the sharpest pain of all located down there at the pubis as soon as I came to several days ago I must have examined my cock but can’t remember any longer what I saw down there if anything kneel then before a bakery window reflection of my face assumes form upon the glass forehead furrowed eyebrows cracked chapped one eyelid can’t even open anymore nose broken cheeks slashed long cuts from some razor and bandages those shocking me more now than the cuts themselves left ear mangled front teeth missing oh the brioches are so huge and the croissants so golden so puffy cherry tarts too cooked pink flesh shimmering pink in the uppermost part of my flanks I’m so hungry I’d love to live drink eat these things but the baker’s wife lurks peers out at me from behind the door I’m afraid of her slowly to get up and move away no objective to reach just countryside I’ll die there without anyone seeing I had never seen a cadaver before funeral passing wooden coffin all shiny set down upon a horse-drawn cart with openwork sides decked out in some black fabric dusty moth-eaten must contain inside it some person resembling those who straggle behind it old men old women all in black moth-eaten and dusty too but who are at least able still to stand not like me who can barely crawl on all fours I’m afraid of them their hate for me so strong proves I must be young and so that means someone has spared me from the death of all those others the older ones not one of those was strung up by the balls that’s perhaps what finally awaits me or even maybe what I’ve already undergone the road out of the village winds up a hill no more stone walls to shore myself against I try creeping some brat of a kid on a bicycle stares at me pedaling past I would like to reach out touch his curved shoulder his supple legs his head in sharp sudden profile as one eye looks me over without a glimmer of emotion bicycle veering off to the left and disappearing it’s almost twelve o’clock mothers preparing the noonday meal there are houses kitchen tables already set the kids are leaving the schoolhouse in a band that splits dwindles as each new street corner is passed each new house door is opened sun and sky both harsh white it’s too warm a skinny kid scurries past comes up to my head as I crawl on all fours I make a sign to him begging him with my mouth silently but he won’t come any closer questioning me with a slight upward tilt of his chin I don’t dare speak I can make out in the pleats of his knee pants the outline of a minuscule prick some piss stains the fucking brat has a hooked nose and gimlet eyes hardly any eyebrows at all watching me more closely now then scampering off but not before raising one arm before his face as if to ward off some stinging blow I force myself to my feet each time I find a stone wall I rest against it the heat from my labors and the monotony of these reiterated pains within make me sleepy at last I reach the summit of the hill and recognize the large house a fine mansion it is to my right high walls surrounding yellow with sunlight terraces balconies a roof composed of slate a vast garden overgrown tall grasses and shady nooks out of which rise the arches of some forgotten ruin but I don’t understand why the sea should suddenly appear before me this expanse of glossy gray without any odor and which the wind plays over

  I stumble forward always forward and it’s definitely a riverbank now a strand of blackish brackish sand waves low and slow and suddenly yes a salty sea smell

  here behind a dinghy then to hide myself here to spread myself out here to die dreaming here about food fruits of the earth and drooling yearning I gradually grow numb number

  ||

  ||

  ||

  ||

  ||

  ||

  at least a dozen of them came out onto the beach to hunt for crabs and to swim they surrounded the dinghy Who are you huh mister huh I don’t know How’s that? I said I don’t know But shit mister everybody knows who he is No not always But you certainly can remember your name? No Were you sleeping here in our boat? No I just arrived I’m waiting here to die You’re going to die you say? that means you’re sick then? Yes no well take a look for yourself You mean here mister and there where you’ve been cut up everywhere? was it some car maybe that ran you down? No or anyway I can’t remember That’s real weird mister do you want us to help maybe we could find out where you live?

  they gave me their memories one by one all they knew could speak I listened learned repeated

  this story now wait a minute it’s when I was a pirate and he begins recounting and the others immediately set up a howl Hey we already know all about that if you start dreaming up wild stories that won’t help him and besides it’s cheating

  no matter I can imagine it for myself I was a pirate yes that would be something certainly but it’s up to all of you to decide how old I am that’s the worst part of all so call out some numbers they call out Twenty Sixty One-hundred No no hundred One No Seventeen Eleven Forty none of them could agree on a number and then one of them piped up Easy enough to find out how old he is take a look at his cock

  I answer no that once you’re twenty that doesn’t change anymore I’m past twenty I’m certain of that so don’t bother

  we don’t really know anything about that you’re not very big so take it out for us huh

  no enough of this shit the hell with my age then

  what’s wrong huh you afraid mister to show it to us is it shit-covered or something mister?

  hey you guys the hell with him I’m going in for a swim and then they all of a sudden all rushed in after him I sat there all alone again ruminated over what they’d told me I could create a long life eighty years of childhood various lives I watched them swimming splashing laughing felt a yearning myself for the waves the white sun or was it for the boys themselves I was impatient for them to come out again clothes molded wetly to their bodies but when they did so it was somewhere else to spite me and night falling fell now what a little kid runs through blue twilight an annoyed look on his cute little puss Look mister I went in swimming with m
y watch and now it doesn’t work anymore listen can you hear any ticking?

  no it must not have been watertight

  do you have a watch?

  yes but I lied yes a watertight out but not here how easy all the same to pronounce such words no effort at all really

  then you’d know huh how to fix mine?

  no I wouldn’t but stay here beside me anyway

  gee I can’t I’ll maybe come back after supper though and bring my flashlight it can shine such a long way you’ll see

  yes do that but come back quick I didn’t have the courage to ask him to also bring back something for me to eat I’d drink sea water the taste remains for a long time inside your belly like something nourishing sometimes he sits cross-legged aims his flashlight at the night admiring the yellow ray reaching out to touch the waves his blond locks have been shorn to form a silky crewcut You have beautiful hair I murmured he turns toward me surprised and all of a sudden the beam falls back down upon the sand

  it’s just hair he says with a slight shrug raising the flashlight once more and showing me how far it can reach light skimming white froth of waves lost in blackness I stared down at his tiny legs smooth burnished hump where the knees folded over spindly calves You have beautiful knees I say

  they’re just knees he answers without turning his head but the light suddenly bobs up and down beam dancing from one crest to another and one tiny forearm swings in exactly the same rhythm as that light my eyes moving up to the nape of his neck those delicate ears They’re very beautiful your ears

  they’re just ears answers the child everybody has them mine well they’re rather too big don’t you think that’s what my parents say anyway so one time they stuck them back up against my head for weeks and weeks

  if only I knew your name

  my father’s last name?