by John Boyne
“Do you always let your whore behave to honest men in this way?” he asked me, massaging his wounded hand with the other. “If she was my woman, I’d whip her till she learned the natural order of things.”
I stood up and reached for his collar, ready to defend Serafina’s honor, but he had had enough by now and moved away, cursing us as he went.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said as I sat back down, and she shrugged.
“Why? You didn’t do anything.”
I lifted my fork again, wondering whether I might return to the question of what had been so special about the day we met when, to my surprise, she leaped up from the table, marched across the room and, clutching the knife the innkeeper had given us to carve our meat, pressed it against the throat of the man who had tried to pay for her. The entire room fell silent, staring across at her in astonishment. A woman attacking a man! Such a thing had never been witnessed by any of us before. But she had the better of him, that was for sure, and there was nothing he could do to escape her clutches. Leaning her head down, she whispered something in his ear before standing back up, releasing the knife and returning to our table. The room remained still, looking from her to the man and back again, and the unfortunate creature who had dared to insult her stood up now in humiliation, an expression of terror on his face as he made his way quickly from the room, to the laughter of the patrons.
Serafina looked down at her knife and examined the blade before turning to the astonished innkeeper.
“I might need a clean one of these,” she said.
* * *
• • •
The following morning, when we rode on, I felt as if we were both making a point of ignoring the events of the night before. It was not that I was unaccustomed to women behaving violently—my own sister had hardly been a peaceful creature—but until now, Serafina had struck me as one in whom gentility reigned over ferocity.
“Were you married?” I asked her after the lengthy silence between us began to grow awkward.
“Is it so obvious?”
“Only a woman who has been badly mistreated by a man could harbor such mercilessness within her soul. It was either a husband or a lover, I know that much.”
“A husband,” she replied.
“Does he yet live?”
“He does. But he will die soon.”
“We will all die soon.”
“Yes, but when my husband’s time comes, it will be at my hand. The last face he sees will be my own. The last words he hears will come from my lips.”
“Will you tell me about him?” I asked, wondering what monster could have inspired such terrible resolve. “Who is he? Where does he live?”
She rode on ahead for a while and I assumed that she did not want to discuss this matter any further, but in time, she slowed down and we were alongside each other once again. When she spoke, her tone was carefully controlled, as if she was determined not to give in to her rage.
“He is called Victorino,” she told me, “may his name be forever cursed. And that spawn of the devil still lives in my home village.”
“With another woman? He betrayed you and cast you out?”
“He betrayed nature itself. To my dismay, our daughter, Beatriz, remains under his roof.”
“You have a daughter?” I said, surprised by this admission. “It is unusual for a mother to be separated from her husband and child, is it not? What happened to bring about such a peculiar estrangement?”
She turned to look at me and I shook my head in apology.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not my place to ask such questions. If you would rather that I hold my tongue, you need only say so.”
She did not reply but pulled her horse to a stop. We had arrived at the Temple of Évora, a monument to the Roman Emperor Augustus, which stood in ruins before us. Serafina stepped inside and I followed, but when I reached out a hand to touch the stone carvings, something made me pull back, as if to touch them would be to desecrate the monument in some way. I sat next to her and was disturbed to see tears rolling down her cheeks, as they had been on our first encounter, but she wiped them away quickly and took a deep breath, as if she did not want to give in to any form of weakness.
“You don’t have to talk about it, of course,” I told her.
“Until now, I never have,” she replied. “Can I trust you?”
I nodded. “I hope so.”
She remained silent, considering this, before turning and looking me directly in the eye. “Tell me,” she said. “Your search for your cousin. You are determined to kill him, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“And do you think that you will feel better afterward? When he is lying cold in his grave, your wife and son will still be lost to you. Do you truly believe that his death will lay to rest whatever demons torment you?”
I looked up to study the architraves of the temple that had not suffered the ill effects of time and the carvings of the gods that were the work of subtle craftsmen. “I have so much blood on my hands already that it shames me,” I told her in a quiet voice. “My actions in the past weigh deeply on my conscience and I fear that I will one day be condemned for them. I have always believed myself to be a decent man, Serafina. Truthfully, I consider myself a man of peace and art. And yet look at the destruction that I have brought about during my years on this flat plane we call Earth. The unforgivable loss of life. And still I am determined to kill my cousin, after which I hope to return to a peaceful existence, if such a thing is even possible. And I will feel better for my act of vengeance. I’m sure of it.”
“We are both driven by anger,” she said.
“As mankind has always been. The world changes constantly, you must recognize that? There are always new inventions, new explorers and new ideas. Consider the exhilaration that man must have felt when he invented the wheel. When the compass allowed us to find our way to and from other lands. When the calendar helped to define our days. Once, the Romans mixed pozzolana with water and created the Colosseum. A man from China designed a mechanical clock. Only last night you and I were given new implements for eating, shown novel ways for washing our hands and faces. Who could have predicted such things, even a generation ago? Someday, we may build towers taller than the eye can see, fly through the sky on wings, even live among the stars. But I know this much; the things that surround us may change, but our emotions will always remain the same. A man who lost his beloved wife a thousand years ago suffered the same grief that I felt when I lost mine, no more and no less. A woman who discovers her child is being mistreated a thousand years hence will experience the same levels of murderous fury that you feel today. Love does not change, anger never varies. Hope, desperation, fear, longing, desire, lust, anxiety, confusion and joy; you and I endure these emotions just as men and women always have or ever will. We are a small people in an ever-changing universe. The world around us might be in a state of constant flux, but the universe within?” I shook my head, both admitting and accepting the weakness of man. “No, Serafina. None of these will ever change. No matter how long this world continues.”
We both remained silent for a long time, considering all that I had said, and I hoped that I had not given her cause to despise me or, worse, to be frightened of me or think me a fool.
“I am not a monster,” I said finally in a plaintive tone. “I realize that you might think me one but—”
“Killing is sometimes necessary,” she said, interrupting me. “We live in violent times, we are a passionate species, and few men I have known are unstained by blood. How can I criticize you when I plan on killing two people myself?”
I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Two?” I said. “So your husband is not your only intended victim?”
“No.”
“And who is the second?”
“His mother.”
“For what reason?”
She reached down and lifted a fistful of sand, letting it pour slowly through her fingers. “Something terrible happened,” she said. “Something in which that malevolent creature was complicit. A little over a year ago, I noticed that my daughter, Beatriz, was beginning to change. In the past, she had always been an outgoing girl, filled with life and song, cheerful in all respects, but the joy that had once defined her character began to disappear. I thought perhaps it was nothing more than a result of her age—she was twelve years old then—and guessed that she was finding her transition from childhood to adulthood to be more difficult than expected.”
“Was she ill?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “Her health remained good. But then one day, her actions turned violent. Where she used to play with her friends, now she assaulted them, starting as many fights as she could. The other mothers, they came to me and said, ‘Serafina, we cannot permit Beatriz to play with our daughters anymore. Look at how she mistreats them!’ I was shocked by her behavior and sat her down to ask what had happened to make her so unhappy, but she would not tell me. I feared that an evil spirit was growing inside her, some spiteful imp that was becoming more troublesome by the day. I consulted a priest, but he only laughed at me and said that it was of no consequence. Beatriz, he told me, was only a girl, nothing more, and she would surely marry one day and fulfill her duties as a wife. Her happiness should not be a matter of importance to me or to anyone else. But I was not satisfied.”
She stopped talking then and I did not push her to tell me more. Instead, she stood up and walked over to the side of the temple, leaning against one of the columns as I watched her, wishing that I could do something to take her pain away.
“I spoke to my husband’s mother, Débora,” she continued, staring into the distance, in the direction of Évora itself, where we intended to pass the next night. “And she, like the priest, told me that I was worrying over nothing. I expected nothing more from her, of course, for we had never been friends. She adored her son, treating him as if he was still a child who could do no wrong. On one occasion, when she overheard me exchanging cross words with Victorino, she spoke harshly to me, calling me the daughter of a sea-snake and insisting that a wife should always treat her husband with respect, no matter what he might have done. When I asked whether he should not behave in the same fashion toward me, she slapped me across the face, kicking me when I fell to the ground, and were I not so surprised by her unexpected burst of violence, I would have fought her in the streets and shamed us both.”
“What kind of man is your husband?” I asked. “Did you love him when you married him?”
She considered this for a moment. “I liked him, certainly,” she admitted. “When first he made known his interest in me, when first we were introduced, I was flattered, but I was naïve and impressionable. He’s a great fighter. A leader in our village. A man who commands the respect of the townspeople. In my vanity I enjoyed the idea of being married to him.”
“How old were you when you wed?”
“Only fourteen,” she said. “And he was twenty-five. I was not his first wife, of course. There had been three others, and they had all died in mysterious circumstances when they failed to give him a child.”
“You were very young to take a husband.”
“Too young. But my father desired the match and, of course, I had no say in the matter. A woman never does. But Victorino was kind to me for a time and I thought myself lucky to be under his protection. However, after a few years, he grew bored with me and his attentions began to wander. What could I do? This is the way of men, I know that, and I have always accepted it, even if I am not certain why I should, and Débora continued to insist that I never complain. And perhaps I wouldn’t have, perhaps I would have made my peace with my circumstances, were it not for the fact that as Victorino grew older, the girls he liked, the ones he seduced, remained the same age. Little more than children. Sometimes even younger than I had been when he first took me to the altar.”
I closed my eyes, dreading what I was sure would come next.
“Your daughter?” I asked, and she nodded her head slowly but, rather than weeping, her face took on a grim determination.
“I discovered them together,” she said. “One afternoon when I returned home early. Débora was in the kitchen and when she saw me come in the door, she grew pale and told me that we should go outside and sit together. I didn’t want to. I had come from the marketplace and was carrying fresh fruit and vegetables. I was hungry. I was tired. I wanted to prepare food. But Débora was so insistent that I grew suspicious. And then I heard cries of pain emerging from the next room and I brushed past her. When I went inside…when I went inside—”
I stood up and walked toward her, taking her hand in mine, but she pulled away. This was not a woman who needed a man to comfort her. Her consolation came from her own resilience.
“Your husband’s mother knew, then,” I said. “And yet she did nothing?”
“She believes that her precious Victorino should be allowed to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whoever he wants. I, on the other hand, lost my reason, screaming the place down, breaking dishes and pots. I took a poker from the fireplace and dashed it down over my husband’s head, thinking that I had killed him and caring little if I had, but no, the damage was not severe and he recovered quickly, ordering me to leave town that very day or face the authorities, who would surely condemn me to death for trying to murder him. In that moment, despite how much I longed for my daughter, I had no choice and had to go. The day that you and I first met was the thirteenth birthday of Beatriz. I haven’t seen her in more than a year now and dread to think of what she has been put through since my banishment. She must hate me, believing that I abandoned her to such a terrible fate. And so I go back there now,” she continued, “with the intention of killing both my husband and his mother for what they have done. I intend to kill him first and force her to watch. And then I will take my daughter in my arms and leave that place forever.”
A long silence ensued. Nearby, the horses whinnied, restless for more exercise, and a cold wind blew toward us from the west.
“It would seem,” I said eventually, “that we are both guided by the spirit of vengeance.”
“It is as you said,” she replied. “We are all alike, men and women. As we were at the birth of time, and as we will be at its death.”
NORTH KOREA
A.D. 1301
ALTHOUGH THE CITY from which Sun-Hi had been exiled stood on the banks of the Taedong river, her husband, Vi-Shik, presided over it from a grand Romanesque villa situated at the top of a nearby hill, from which he enjoyed excellent views of the surrounding towns and villages. Dismounting our horses at the city boundary, Sun-Hi told me how Vi-Shik was the third member of his family, after his father and grandfather, to control a Korean province, having been among the leaders of the invading Mongol armies when they took control of the country during the last century. Once the people were conquered and Vi-Shik had set himself up as their new ruler, a group of twenty young girls, barely out of childhood, had been brought before him, stripped naked and studied as potential brood-mares while he made his choice of wife. She, of course, had been the unfortunate victor in that contest but, in some ways, fortune had been on her side, for at least she had enjoyed the benefits of a public marriage while many of her friends were taken without their consent and kept as part of his harem, subordinate to his pleasures whenever the mood seized him. Vi-Shik himself was a tall, unusually thin man, she said, with prominent teeth and a hump on his back so pronounced that, in private, he was often referred to as the Great Camel of Kisong.
Sun-Hi’s husband was a darughachi, the term ascribed to those who administered a province, and his power meant that he was both feared and honored in equal parts. He made grand gestures of munificence when it suited h
im to do so, throwing coins to the beggars in the streets when the sun shone on his temper, but when his mood turned irritable, he would round up a handful and hang them from the gallows for their indolence. Justice, such as it was, was dispensed from a court that stood in the center of the market square and, if the evidence in a particular case proved uncertain, he harked back to the old Greek system of trial by ordeal, deciding on a person’s guilt by forcing him—or her—to fight one of his champions to the death.
There were some crimes, however, for which he had particular punishments. A thief would lose his hands. A liar would forfeit his tongue. An unfaithful wife would be imprisoned for a month in a hut where any boy or man could take his pleasure with her unrebuked. An unfaithful husband, on the other hand, suffered no consequences for his duplicities, the rules governing the behavior of men and women being very different.
On the morning of our arrival, Sun-Hi and I took great pains to avoid the attention of others. Although I, of course, was a stranger in these parts, she had grown up there and was wary of being recognized, and so covered her head with a shawl, keeping her gaze firmly on the ground in order to escape the notice of anyone who passed us by. It concerned me that we were rushing to this place, having not yet agreed upon a plan for the rescue of her daughter, Bong-Cha, and I was keen to do so, but Sun-Hi insisted upon seeing the girl with her own eyes first in order to reassure herself that she was alive and healthy. Content to give in to such a natural desire, I followed as we made our way by side streets toward the school building where the wealthier children of the ruling class studied every day.
Taking our place at a table across the street, we ate kimchi and bibimbap from a street stall, watching as mothers, grandmothers and servants arrived to leave their children before continuing on to the marketplace to purchase meat, fish and fresh vegetables. I tried to engage my companion in conversation, but she was lost in thought. When she let out a small cry and put a hand to her mouth, I turned around, assuming that the child walking down the street must be her daughter, but she shook her head, her eyes filled with pity.