The Sacred Beasts

by Bev Jafek

  There’s a bit more bustle on our small main thoroughfare: lean, plain, muscular people who need a bath and have heavy gear upon their backs. Summer is the passage time for those leaving for and returning from Antarctica expeditions. When I was young, I was among them. I know the rough, dazzled faces and loose limbs of those that have looked long upon the great nothingness and tried to find an order. Where is she now and does she finally apprehend what we have not? Or does she merely accept it? Can she accept? The film reel begins and stops with the words Don’t go there. Thank god for Mariska.

  There are more cars, trucks, and motorcycles muttering and roaring about—nasty-looking things caked with desert dust from travel over thousands of miles—the annual migration of tourists up and down the continent. However bleak and ugly, they can’t miss the end of the world. Right now, a deeply philosophical, intoxicated man or woman with a backpack is contemplating that awful rock of Cape Horn thinking yes, now I’ve seen it all, beautiful and repugnant; a moment majestic, filled with meaning, when the universe at last rounds out the image, yet one can still say, I shall not open the lid of Hell. But she did! She opened it so many times. Thank god I pulled her back when I could. Tears are suddenly falling down my cheeks again. Not now. Oh don’t! Don’t go there. Just a silent wail of agony and it’s done. Again. And it will come again. Be sure of that, my exhausted old heap of a body talking to itself.

  All this wailing and woe seems to have gotten me to the city dump, proof of a just god. Good for you, you bawling child. Good for the dump. Mother’s here to pull some beastly grunge back from the abyss. I park my iron horse and look about me. There’s a terrific stench, but I expected that. What are we sniffing for? Metal, so that probably means petrol. I walk about in the grunge that hadn’t been packed or processed yet. And there, I believe I see the remains of another iron horse in worse shape, thank god. Oh, you horrific beauty! You’re just right.

  “Ma’am, you cahn’t just walk around heah. It’s a hah-zud. Nothin’ fa’ a lahdy.” Here’s a tall, skinny ol’ Aussie with five o’clock shadow spreading everywhere, a seaman’s paunch and cap, and teeth like fossilized nuts. Looks as bad off as I feel. I will approach this notable and make him an-offer-he-cannot-refuse.

  “I’m looking for an old car wreck, basically, and I think I see such a skeleton over there.” I point; he looks; I swiftly place Argentine currency roughly equal to $100 US in his hand. A big brown nutty-wicked smile stretches across his grizzled face. He’s Australian, all right.

  My god, his smile widens still more, his head near-cracked in two, and he looks tenderly at me like he did to his old mum. Needs the cash. Probably drinks more than I of late.

  “Thanks, mum. Looks like ye can hev y’wrick. It’s sure worth nothin’ to no one but yew.”

  “I need a tow to my yard. Where do you think I can get one? Seeing as I’m illegally stealing a hazard from the city dump?”

  “No trouble, mum. Y’ just go to the Sooty Albatross. There’s seamen about, and they hev tow trucks a’plinty. I’ll keep y’wrick till evein’.”

  “Thanks, chum. I know the Sooty. It’s a very famous place to avoid!” We grin wickedly and I’m off. Oh yes, I know that stinking waterfront hole. Nothing younger than I in a skirt would be safe within a mile. But they won’t trouble a woman the age of their old mums and one in denims and boots, not when she’s got an attitude as foul as theirs. The chip on my shoulder starts to crimp. Many’s the time that chip has saved me.

  I arrive at the (ultra) Sooty Albatross emitting its last gasp. It looks even more decadent than the last time I was honored to view the relic. Soon they’ll have to tow the whole mess to the dump, some decaying male bodies along with it. Can I truly enter this monstrosity? I push in the rotting wooden rectangle that passes for a door and enter the inky-dank. It smells like dust, booze, smoke and sweat: I’m in the right corner of Hell. As my eyes become accustomed to the interior, I see seven or eight fossils ripe for the picking by archaeologists. But they’re not looking up yet. Fortunately, I have been taught how to emit a very loud whistle with two fingers pressed over my front teeth and lips, another of my nonfeminine wiles. That reaches some baldheads in seamen’s caps.

  “I need a tow job for a wreck, gentlemen, just inside the city. I’ll pay $100 US cash. Who’s up for it?” I yell into the smoke and din.

  I now see a reddish glow in the back around a standing record player more than half a century old that emits the worst of the din. One tall, paunchy-inky corpse separates itself from the others and comes up to me. He’s swaying obscenely and I fear his drink, then he says, “I’m the man to tow and please any wreck that needs.” The slightly obscene movement results in a crash of laughter from smoky throats as smooth and lovely as plucked chicken gullets. Oh goddess of blasphemy, they think I want to buy sex from them!

  “The wreck is at the dump,” I shout. “It’s nothing but a wreck and nothing but a tow, if you’ve got a tow truck.” I sound furious and I am. Now I see his face: he looks and sounds like a skinny, degenerate Scotsman with decades of alcoholism to rot his innards and outers. Hopefully, his truck is in better shape.

  “I’m your man,” he cough-drivels.

  “Thank you, gentlemen!” I shout and walk out the door. I think I hear another laughter-wailing of the damned behind me. I am surely blessed to have this notable rescue me. The sun overhead looks bright and shiny as one o’clock.

  “Follow, first, to the dump,” I say, laconic as possible, given his addled brain and unmitigated lust. This fossil would fuck the drain in his own bathroom sink. When I reach the dump, I merely point to the skeleton, which suddenly looks cleaner and has been moved closer to the street. “Thanks, mate!” I call to the Aussie, who has already bought more alcohol with the proceeds.

  “Anythin’ f’ yew, mum,” he says.

  “That’s the relic,” I say to the Scottish relic who will haul it. “I’m within city limits. Just follow me and tow.” He makes some kind of gaseous drunken talk but I just go to my truck.

  Soon, we are making an unearthly racket throughout the city and all the way up to my door, the skeleton banging the street as it advances. I’ll be even more famous to the neighbors now. When we have the dead relic far enough up on my acreage, I pay the living relic and send him packing. So much for his career as a gigolo. I look toward the house of Mariska and Nadia. I’ll bet they’ve seen every moment of this nonsense.

  But now that I’m alone, nothing can diminish my satisfaction. There’s a good part of the motor and most of the front chassis. All I need is a blow-torch, some heavy wire and wire cutters, and I think I can solder a certain monstrous figure out of it, one with a smaller, monkey-like beast on its back, even some reins of wire in its hands to join them. A distorted homunculus leading a creature larger, truer and more substantial than itself: mediocrity. Yes!

  The whole experience has been so outrageous that I lay my head back and laugh long and hard. Ah, look at that sky! It’s clear and blue, Death’s soft December summer day. Have I ever done anything as outrageous as this? Not bloody likely! I continue laughing. Now for some more whisky, a blowtorch and the artist will commence. For now, I’m an artist: I invent quandaries, not solve them. The latter is for the scientist in me, and she’s nowhere to be found.

  A young Arab owns the liquor store. When I buy wine and whisky, his full, dark lips always smile, gloating, and he gives me what looks like a black, sidelong evil eye. No doubt he envisions me drinking my whisky in Hell while he continues his mild, eternal conversation with Allah in Paradise—until the beautiful young virgins arrive, of course. I’ve always wondered what happens to those beautiful young virgins. They won’t stay virgin long, not in that man’s paradise. What then? Do they vanish? Imagine the turmoil in Paradise: an angry crowd of dark men in swaddling turbans suddenly calling the lovely girls whores and pushing them off the silver clouds! But of course, that is no religion or paradise for a woman, nor is any man’s.

  When I arrive at home,
my arms are full of bottles and boxes of hardware, which I gratefully drop on a living room armchair and then collapse on the other, my head rolling back in exhaustion. When it comes forward, I am greeted by two very concerned and determined, kindly blue pairs of eyes—Mariska and Nadia—who have been sitting all the while on the sofa opposite me. I am not quite ready for their overzealous concern for my mental health.

  “How nice you were to invite yourselves in. Invite yourselves to my whisky and casserole, too.”

  They tilt their heads as though hearing soundless language and remain silent, deeply considering the psychological climate, their eyes and faces full of unexpressed questions. How much alike they look, full-cheek’d Hungarians grown together, with edges so worn and simplified they’ve become a European monolith of love. Their fair coloring is almost identical, yet Mariska always has the more penetrating eyes and intellect, Nadia the Buddha-like smile and lips, often round in pleasure or awe. They came to live in Ushuaia after several decades in San Francisco, their pasts as floridly exotic as that of anyone at the end of the world. They were librarians by day, but by night and weekend, followers of Wicca, dancing nude with other female devotees in the nighttime forests of Big Sur and Mt. Tamalpais. They are welcome here, for we surely must have witches at the end of the world.

  Now their faith seems to be no more than a delicate savoring of ceremony: candle-lighting, home-brewed liquor they call mead having deliciously unknown ingredients, evenings of incantatory poetry reading. Though I do not share it, their faith is one I cannot refute: the world is full of mysteries, after all. And profoundly, they are survivors—as old as I yet idealistic, rich in apprehension, full of many subtle perceptions and secrets—unlike tough old Pat or, worse, the States, a whole nation tougher than beef jerky. They left the States when we did for much the same reason. Mariska was the native and expatriate. I’ve known her since childhood, too many years to count.

  They slowly gaze at one another, poised to break their pregnant silence. I decide to crack the nut for them: “You’ve come about that revolting heap of metal on my lawn.”

  “We did wonder why you wanted it.” Nadia carefully begins what will no doubt be a subtle, probing examination.

  “What is it to you?” asks Mariska, ever the one to uncover the root of the matter.

  “A pile of grunge, obviously. I’m going to create a metal sculpture with it, hence the blowtorch and wires, hence the whisky to top off a new life. I will call it ‘Mediocrity’ or something more interesting and creative. But that’s the gist.”

  “You’re taking up a new career,” said Nadia, now letting the significance settle.

  “That’s it, basically. I don’t know how many of these creatures I will give birth to, but the others, if there are any, will not cause such a din in the street. This is Homeric grunge, epic scale.”

  “It was quite noisy,” said Nadia.

  “No, it was an infernal din,” I said.

  “I see now,” said Mariska, smiling slowly. “And mediocrity: that is the enemy?”

  “Absolutely! In zoology, it is known as the law of the preservation of the identity of the species. It means that evolution does not favor extremes in physical form or behavior, except in the event of catastrophes, which introduce powerful chance factors. The Greeks knew it well as the Golden Mean. It sounds like a sensible warning against intemperance, but it is something darker and more dangerous. You see, it also applies to traits we value: intelligence, empathy, foresight. It means that most of us will always value mediocrity over creativity, class over democracy, repetition over innovation, immediacy over the visionary potential of the future. It will always be more likely that we persecute our geniuses rather than celebrate them, and those who are recognized must be misunderstood and tolerate inordinate pain. Yet whatever progress we make, paradoxically, is due to them. Katia was one of these. I loved her even though I knew she might kill herself.

  “But it is worse and goes further than one woman’s death. We will never quite be able to learn from our mistakes. We will pollute the planet rather than saving it because we cannot bother to see beyond our trivial greed and addictions. The polar ice and that of the highest mountains is melting, and many of the animals I have studied all my life will have nowhere to go. A third of the Arctic ice is gone. Elsewhere the weather runs amok: floods rage through Europe and drought in Africa. Hurricanes have become uncontrollable in the American Gulf States. In Japan, baby whales are found suffocating in pieces of floating ice. In time, Ushuaia will be under water. Again, the Greeks knew it well: Plato’s Philosopher King still does not wish to rule. The George W. Bushes will always be re-elected, and I must watch the world I love be destroyed by a species I belong to yet do not fully recognize as myself. I am alien, as she was, as you are.”

  Something of their quiet poise causes a powerful emotion to race through me. “Katia lost her battle with it. I will,” my eyes were again filling with tears,” not lose mine.” I was now silent, shocked at my words. It was not what I intended to say at all. But the quiet, poised waiting of these two whitish-blonde jaguars brought the unexpected. I instantly recognized it as truth. How uncanny: are these two really witches, creators of charms that make one blurt out unknown truths? Stranger things have happened at the end of the world. I looked at them with suspicion, hostility and doubt, which merely caused their smiles to deepen.

  Mariska’s face was now settled and pleased. She had taken a sounding and come back satisfied. “Let’s eat and drink to this distinguished project, however noisy and colossal. I’ll get the plates and the casserole.” And the evening—the third without Bear and first with a wrecked marvel on the lawn and a feast celebrated by witches—had begun.

  After some hours of eating and drinking, I was again alone, staring out the window at my moonlit monster. The door was now closed, the air brisk, the wind higher and more turbulent. The mountains wore a soft turquoise cape beneath the moonlight. I had drunk far too much again, but my eyes were open to the world and not turned inward upon myself.

  Then a truly astonishing thing occurred. An ouraka, a fierce, brown Patagonian bird, alighted upon the wreck. I could clearly see its large crest and long tail. A sighting of this bird is very rare; it is almost never to be found so close to human habitation. It drew its wings together and seemed to regard the skeleton as a resting-place.

  An ouraka is one of the ugliest creatures on earth or in the air, its war-like crest and tail (which remind me of medieval armor and swords) matched only by its pugnacious temperament. It seems to hate humanity and has been known to attack humans, who are orders of magnitude bigger, heavier and more dangerous.

  Its presence gave me the keenest pleasure. What a comrade for the moonlight! So you bless me, vengeful creature. I reciprocate. I wish I could see your face. It is immensely difficult to look an animal full in the face. The dangers of territorial and fixed aggressive behaviors preclude it. But in those rare moments when I have been privileged to do so, I have felt a joy like the most expansive, ecstatic love. To see the face of an animal, to know it sees you and gives you its full regard, seems akin to a state of grace, as though a butterfly had chosen your open palm, of all places, upon which to alight.

  Along the eastern seaboard of Patagonia, I have occasionally been face-to-face with one of our indigenous elephant seals. Preternaturally silver-black and shining with the colors of water and sky, they have quick, round eyes; heavily curved brow ridges; powerful noses and fabulous whiskers. They remind me of overweight German bankers or American stockbrokers. Like giants of finance, they are strangely inflexible outside their watery medium: On land, their bodies can only form a curving line not quite a dollar sign. But then they roar in one of the loudest, most magnificent cries in nature, and you are confronted with three tons of a being standing twenty feet tall, whiskered mouth to the sky. I have always thought of them as creatures of violent, unending joy beyond our comprehension. And, if I were ever to imagine a myth of primordial creation from chaos,
its first being might be one of these immense, roaring, shining madonnas with their gleaming, coal-black babies, to which they are very tender.

  When I was a girl camping out in southern Patagonia, I was once awakened from sleep in early morning light by what I thought to be the face of God. God had huge clear liquid eyes with hooded lids and long lashes and could apparently see both in front and to the side. And, God had a long, slender face of the softest gray fur; gracefully rising nostrils; high, delicate, all-knowing ears and a smile having the nobility and sweetness of a Buddha. Surrounding such an impossibly tender face was a body of thick, chaotic cinnamon fur and four slenderly elegant, long legs.

  As I began unconsciously to rise in awe from my sleeping bag, God uttered a sound that was something between a horse neighing and a child sneezing and then ran off in an antic prance, its chocolate tail bounding behind it. By then, I was sufficiently awake to realize I had been looking at the face of a guanaco, a llama-like Patagonian member of the camel family, and I was lucky it was merely curious and had not spat at me, since it can release the entire contents of its stomach to derail a predator. The wonder of the vision followed me for days like light breaking through clouds, and I still think of it often.

  With that memory, I was very close to sleep. My hypnogogic thought was of my mother and my early life with her in a strange, faintly flickering lantern of images. I saw her towering above me on an ocean liner to Patagonia, her skirt ballooning in the wind, when I was a very young child. We were survivors of the Holocaust in Germany. Jews, we were of those pale, skeletal things covered with dirt who came shivering into the light when it shone, at last, in the bottom of Hell at Buchenwald as we left it, barely able to walk. We had only been in the concentration camp for a month, but that was enough for my father to be beaten to death by a guard and my mother and me to be starving. I remember nothing of it but a milk-white sky and a fence of barbed wire. I was so young as to find the fence alluring and mysterious and believed a monster dwelt outside it that was causing our suffering. How amazing to be so unformed as not to know that the monster was inside.