The Book of the Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-six

by Jonathon Keats

  — What do angels know of human nature? They’ve never lived here.

  — In our classes they said . . .

  — When you were neediest, were people kind to you?

  — They thought I might be a demon, and dangerous. Why do you torment them?

  — Since the beginning of time, they’ve shunned us. They’re more heartless than the angels above. They’ve pushed us into the swamps and raised their town walls, just because they don’t like the looks of us.

  Yod-Beit had to confess, if only to herself, that the looks of the demons she’d met didn’t appeal to her either. On the other hand, no angel in heaven, as pretty as they were, had ever cared for her as these coarse devils did.

  Even demons she hadn’t known in heaven would come to visit her, bearing delicacies that couldn’t possibly have come from the swamps, sweets that would sparkle on the palate of a princess. They also brought her luxuries, silks and satins unfit for their bloated bodies, that complimented her fine figure like a courtly suitor. And while she modeled that lacy clothing, nibbling on those dainty morsels, her new companions told their stories.

  They’d strayed for decades following their fall, some of them, shuttered from civilization, without finding others in their condition. They’d been chased by peasants, taunted by children, jumped by vagabonds. Dogs and vultures had fed on their festering flesh while they slept. The stories never ended before Yod-Beit began to sob.

  Crying still bewildered her. In heaven, there’d been no bodily fluids. Emotions never spilled. The only water was in reflecting pools, perfectly calm, eternally still. Her tears embarrassed her. She tried to constrain them as fitfully, to conceal them as falteringly, as a first menstruation. She lowered her face behind tarnished silver hair. But, unlike those humans who’d questioned what her upset hid, her fellow demons responded to what it revealed. Sympathetic to her sympathy, they steeped her tears in chamomile, and serenaded her to sleep.

  The demons coddled Yod-Beit. She was their pet. They called her Beitzel. Only Boaz was worried that she might be spoiled. In her dreams, she sometimes still murmured those empty homilies about humanity that were taught in heaven. To be so naïve in this world of evil was a danger to her, a threat to them all. Boaz gathered his brethren. The time had come to teach Yod-Beit a lesson.

  They invited her on a midnight picnic. The urge to get out of the swamp, if only for an evening, overwhelmed even the embarrassment she felt to be seen in their unsightly company. She dressed in her finest lace—scant trace of white thread against pale flesh—clenching it at the waist as they slopped through the mud to firm ground.

  Boaz led them to an orchard. At one end was a stretch of grass, where the demons urged Beitzel to rest while they gath-yod-ered apples. She settled down in the field, not unpleased to see them leave. Caressed by moonlight, she shut her eyes. She listened to the winds. There was no music in them, but she could hear voices, deep and melodious. Looking up, she found two tall woodsmen.

  They asked her name. Beitzel, she said softly, and smiled.

  — We’ve never met a girl called Beitzel. You’re not from around here.

  — Not really, no.

  — Are you alone?

  — You’re with me now.

  — Would you like to come with us?

  She gazed at them, and imagined heaven. She nodded. They lifted her to her feet and drew her into the orchard.

  Their grasp tightened in the shadows. She could no longer see their faces. They pressed her against a tree. One gripped her neck while the other tore away her lace. A knee drove her legs apart. A hand reached up her crotch, seeking something she never knew existed. She struggled to see what they wanted from her, stripped bare, but they had her upside down, and she couldn’t speak through the pain as they tore at her seamless skin.

  For several moments more, Boaz watched from a treetop. Then, at his call, the demons were upon them. While Hudes wrapped Beitzel in her arms, the others felled the woodsmen. Hudes urged her not to watch what came next, but Yod-Beit was too enthralled to feel horror. As the men began to bleed, she begged to get nearer. She didn’t need more proof that people were evil, but how seductive she found it to see them ravaged on her behalf! The carnage at her feet delighted her more even than the lace that she’d lost. She dipped a finger in the slaughter and touched it to her tongue. The taste swelled through her like a first kiss.

  Later that night, back in her bed, she secretly pressed the same finger between her legs. She easily found what those men had been searching for, though she’d have sworn that nothing had been there before.

  Yod-Beit never missed another ambush. The world was overrun with people. There was much justice to be done.

  The demons found their work made easier by Beitzel. Previously they’d needed to hide until folks accidentally strayed, whereas Yod-Beit simply had to appear angelic, and men would be tempted to their fate by their own sinister plans.

  Almost every night, she’d stroll through some woods or nap in a field, where folks would find her and, scarcely looking over their shoulder, try to have their way with her. Some wanted the wealth they reckoned she had, on account of her rich dress, but Yod-Beit was more interested in the men who sought her celestial flesh. Each had his own strut and his own smell. The demons never let them get far enough with her before the slaughter, though, for her to learn, quite, what a man could do to a girl.

  Beitzel encouraged folks toward where the demons were least able to protect her. She eagerly risked injury. She bruised easily. Yet her body ached only where it wasn’t touched.

  Impressed by their cousin’s daring, inspired by her dedication to the resistance, Boaz and his brethren were emboldened to escalate their rebellion against the human race. Pinchas proposed that they take a town.

  — People would notice that. They’d have to respect us.

  — Which village would we raid, though?

  — Why not the small one across the forest? Aren’t you sick of living in a swamp? Humans have wooden houses and flower gardens.

  — They also have stone walls and iron gates to protect their villages at night.

  That was a problem for the demons. Up in heaven, there’d been nowhere to climb: So strong in humans, the required muscles were undeveloped in angels, and down below the poor devils could scarcely overcome gravity to mount an apple tree. Too self-conscious to discuss this, they fell into silence. Only little Beitzel knew what to do.

  — Let me go to their village in daylight. Then I can help you through the gates at night.

  — You’ll never be trusted, Beitzel.

  — I’ll need some time.

  — Alone with them? You don’t know the ways of men. You don’t know how they can hurt you.

  There was no dissuading Yod-Beit, though, and her previous accomplishments were unassailable. So they taught her all the human skills that they knew, how to cook and clean and knit and sew. They taught her customs, too, such as the way a girl curtsies when she’s greeted, covers her mouth when she laughs, bows her head when she prays. She found all of these traditions funny, especially the last one: Did folks believe that heaven lay at their feet? She practiced holding her hand in front of her mouth as she giggled, and then, curtsying in a hempen frock that Hudes found for her, set out to become a normal girl.

  Mendel the blacksmith spent most days sitting alone at a cold forge, wishing that he had a more worthy trade. His neighbor Lev the butcher worked from dawn to dusk, carving fresh meat. Folks regularly had to eat, but, once they’d bought an iron skillet, skillfully made, they wouldn’t need another for decades. Occasionally people reminded Mendel that he’d wrought the town gates—as fine a tribute to his craft as any man could want—forgetting that the job had been done by his father, years before he was born: As short and slight as his father had been, Mendel felt only further shrunken by the dead man’s enduring reputation.

  One afternoon, while blowing dust from his bellows, Mendel observed a strange girl standing in the corner
of his shop. He couldn’t say whether she’d been there for a minute or all day, but she curtsied when he turned, and asked if perchance he’d a job for her.

  — My furnace has been dark for weeks. There isn’t even work for me.

  — I could cook your meals and wash your clothes. I’m very capable.

  — In this town nobody can afford a housekeeper, miss, least of all a blacksmith. You need to go to the city, where folks are all rich, and do nothing but feast.

  — I can’t. I’m afraid.

  — Why?

  — Demons. They had me as their slave. I barely escaped. You have to save me, Mister Smith.

  Mendel scrutinized the girl with greater care than before. He knew that strangers weren’t to be trusted, and he’d often been tricked by the fraudulent offers and counterfeit currencies of foreigners, yet, when she met his eyes, his whole shop glowed. He watched a tear drop, then another. Lest the light be extinguished, he vowed to protect her.

  — I’ll fetch Lev. He’s very shrewd. He’ll know what to do.

  — Please, not yet. Keep me as your secret. When people ask, say that I was sent by a cousin. You never know who might be a demon.

  Beitzel picked up a broom, and began to sweep. She swept the dirt to the back of the room, and then she swept it to the front. She repeated this feat for Mendel a dozen times, always with the utmost neatness, brushing the dirt back and forth without ever whisking a speck of it out the open door.

  That didn’t bother the blacksmith, who was enraptured just to watch her delight in her own industriousness. Mendel reckoned that she’d been raised in a noble family, where she’d only seen maids sweep, a notion supported by her other peculiar behaviors. When Beitzel cleaned his clothes, for example, she was prone to forget the soap or water, and, mending them, she’d stitch several garments together in a way that might fit a griffin or a chimera, but not a regular four-limbed blacksmith. Oddest of all was her cooking. Filling a pot with whatever she could find, she’d heat it over a fire, and look flummoxed when the process didn’t render edible her offering of bones or rocks or—God forbid—pig iron.

  Failure battered her harder than the harshest husband. Spoiled meals roiled her to tears. And seeing Mendel amend her mending made her rend her own clothing. When Beitzel grew upset, he turned his back on the trouble she’d caused, and held her until her frustration was forgotten. Sometimes he’d catch her looking up at him as if she expected something else, and her breath on his neck would stoke a furnace he’d never before felt. For a moment, he’d watch her pale skin redden. Then, fearful that he might scorch her, he’d dash to open the door.

  After a week of this, unsure of how to share his worries with the girl, Mendel at last called on Lev the butcher to ask if he’d ever heard of people producing heat without fire. Married three times with twelve children, Lev was said to know human nature practically as well as animal slaughter. He was wise to all affairs, privy to every rumor. Without waiting for Mendel to speak, Lev asked him where he’d got his girl.

  — She’s a cousin, from the big city. She needed a place to stay.

  — You have no uncles, Mendel. You have no aunts.

  — I guess that means she’s an orphan?

  — Tell me the truth.

  — A week ago, I found her in the corner of my shop, Lev.

  She asked for work.

  — She must have come from somewhere. A girl doesn’t just appear.

  — She mentioned demons.

  — This could be serious. I’d better see her for myself.

  Lev thrust his cleaver into the chopping block between them and unhitched his apron. A full head taller than Mendel, and a shoulder broader, he walked at twice the blacksmith’s gait. His questions were as rapid as his step. He found out everything that had happened in the previous week—all about her cooking and cleaning and mending and sweeping—by the time they arrived at Mendel’s shop. Opening his door, Mendel called out Beitzel’s name. No one answered him.

  The place appeared deserted. Lev pressed ahead. He looked under the anvil and inside the furnace. He pressed down on the bellows. In the dust that rose, he heard a small sneeze. Lev raised his head. He saw a bony little girl folded up in the rafters.

  Beitzel’s eyes were dilated with fear. She clung to the beams with fingers and toes to steady her quivering body. Before the butcher could reach up and grab the creature, Mendel began talking to her. He reminded her that Lev was his closest friend, explained that he’d simply wanted to meet her. She retorted that the man looked more likely to slay her.

  — That’s just the blood on his hands. I’ve told you that he’s a butcher.

  — I watched him coming. He was in a hurry to get at me.

  — What could he have against someone he’s never met?

  — Folks have everything against strangers.

  — I don’t, Beitzel.

  — You’re different. You believe what I tell you. I trust you.

  — Then how could I let someone hurt you?

  Yod-Beit glanced down at Lev, big enough to overcome the blacksmith’s best intentions and still have strength to eviscer-yod-ate her. She sighed, and, lowering one limb at a time, settled into Mendel’s arms.

  Lev made no move. Whatever Beitzel was, he was too stunned to judge. None of his wives, even his first, would have shown the faith in him that this girl had in his friend. Feet on the floor, Beitzel came closer. She curtsied, and, gathering her hempen frock as if it were a silken gown, asked if he’d forgive her impertinence and stay for supper.

  When Lev saw Hirsh the cartwright and Zvi the chandler the following morning, he tried to tell them about the meal, but he could scarcely describe why it had been so fine. Beitzel had served a stew of—as best he could tell—Mendel’s old trousers boiled in a broth of dirt. Lev had been unable to swallow a single spoonful until he saw what satisfaction Mendel gave the girl by finishing an entire bowl. The butcher had then taken another taste, less wary than the first, and found it, somehow, almost palatable. He’d taken sip after sip as Beitzel asked him about each of his dozen children.

  Lev had never heard such curious questions. She hadn’t asked names or ages, but had wanted to know how high they could climb and what they thought of heaven, and asked if he could love a boy or girl who didn’t sing well. She’d been so pleased to hear that he was fond of all his children, regardless of vocal talent, that she offered him a second serving of stew, which he’d been unable to refuse. Lev had to confess to Zvi and Hirsh that he was as mystified by her queries as by her cooking. He wasn’t sure what those demon abductors had done to her poor head before she’d fled their foul swampland, but declared that it no longer mattered. Kindly Mendel had taken her in, and now she was one of them.

  Hirsh visited the following day, pretending to meet Mendel on business. While they discussed hypothetical iron fittings for an imaginary wooden carriage, conjuring intricate plans with elaborate gestures in the air, Beitzel swept dust in circles around them on the floor. Zvi arrived, startled to find Hirsh already there, but the imaginary carriage needed fanciful candles to light the way through the figment of night, so he stepped into the circle swept by Beitzel’s broom and entered into their conjecture. The phantom coach grew large enough to convey villages, swift enough to cross continents, driven by the momentum of their scheming, carrying their conversation farther and farther away from the subject all of them wished to discuss.

  At last Beitzel set down her broom and said that she couldn’t understand why they needed a carriage in the first place. Your coach may be big and fast. But why would people ever want to leave here?

  None of them had an answer, of course, since, among the three, they’d never ventured more than a mile outside the town gates. So they began to tell her what they believed lay beyond. Zvi envisioned lands that saw neither darkness nor gloom, villages of wax across which grew wick as profuse as flax, blooming blue flame under the setting sun. Not to be outshone, Hirsh described whole countries built of castle bri
ck, turrets turning like gears, slowly rotating stone-wheeled chambers so that folks could all be neighbors one day of the year.

  Beitzel did not laugh at them. She simply smiled and said that such places could not compare to the town where they already were.

  — How can that be? This is just a poor little village, a place that nobody notices.

  — You don’t notice it because this village is your home.

  — What do you mean?

  — I mean that this wouldn’t be home to you if you found it exotic. Any place I’ve ever gone, I haven’t belonged.

  — But if what you say about our village is true, then you must be at home here, too.

  Yod-Beit couldn’t dispute them, and that was a problem, as only days remained before the new moon, the night that the town would be rampaged by demons. She looked at Zvi and Hirsh and saw them already flayed. And her Mendel? Even when she shut her eyes, she could hear his bones being crushed on his anvil.

  She must have fainted then. Opening her eyes, she found many people gathered around her. She saw Zvi and Hirsh, still in their skin, and Lev, very much alive, with wife and twelve children. There were others as well, come from shop and hovel to meet Mendel’s new girl. They brought her sweetmeats. They praised her housekeeping. They called her an angel and begged her to stay with them always.

  Each promise she made, as afternoon drew into evening, gripped her more firmly. At last Mendel, barely audible, asked for a marriage vow. Beitzel opened her mouth, but could hear no sound.

  It was morning and Beitzel was in bed. She could not figure out how she’d gotten there, nor for how long Mendel had been stroking her hair. Turning to him, she asked if they were married. He sighed, and shook his head.

  — You collapsed. I sent everybody home.

  — Good. I can’t ever be your bride.

  — Because I’m a failure?

  — No, Mendel. Because I’m a fallen angel.

  — Why does that matter, Beitzel? I honestly don’t mind your cooking and mending.