Mars

by Asja Bakić

  “I don’t know anything about anthropology, about criminal behavior,” I had said. “I don’t know anything about cults.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the voice on the phone had said.

  All I knew about the cult were urban myths and secondhand stories. The paper hadn’t told me anything significant. They’d explained that Aleks would drive me to a designated point, but since he didn’t know how to recognize the signs—the green pebbles—I would need to take on the role of investigator alone.

  “Maybe I should’ve said no,” I said as I climbed up the hill.

  It was night by the time I reached the other side. The young woman was there, but she didn’t tell me her name, simply took me by the hand. I followed her as if we’d known each other for years.

  At the settlement’s entrance, she turned and said abruptly, “You’ll sleep at my place.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  The streets were cramped, and the buildings appeared unstable, as if they’d been built by children. Almost all of them were lopsided. The facades weren’t painted, just concrete as far as the eye could see. The structures were separated from one another by wire fencing, but all of the fences were full of holes and easy to get through.

  “Like the Wild West,” I said.

  “Just about.”

  It was very pleasant in her apartment. I was surprised. Everything was comfortably arranged—the bed, the bookcases, the clean bathroom.

  “You didn’t expect this,” the woman said, smiling.

  “I didn’t,” I responded sincerely. “I really didn’t.”

  She showed me to a closet where I could situate myself.

  “I only have one bed, unfortunately, and the armchair isn’t big enough to sleep in.”

  “It’s all right, this is fine,” I said, and lay down, exhausted, at the back of the closet.

  I left the door ajar to let in some light. The closet was spacious enough for two people to lie down side by side. The woman had left me a set of blankets, a soft pillow, and a duvet.

  “It gets cold at night,” she warned. “You should bundle up.”

  The next morning we had tea. My palms were hot, and I wondered why. I took out my notebook and explained my task to my host: I was writing an article and needed her to answer a few of my questions.

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” she said. “I like it here, and I wouldn’t want Carlyle to banish or punish me.”

  “Then tell me about the good things.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll tell you, but it’s still too soon. I think we should first walk around the village a little, so you can see how everything looks during the day.”

  While I was getting up from the floor, I accidentally rested my hand on the wall and saw that the place I’d touched had turned green. I did it again a few times and documented the experience in my notes. Once my palms had cooled, the wall was slower to react.

  “Strange concrete,” I said.

  The young woman smiled. She stuck the apartment key in her pocket and we set out on our walk. The sun blazed down on us and I squinted.

  “You have bright eyes,” she said. “Carlyle loves people with bright eyes, especially green ones.”

  “I can see the color green is very important to him.”

  “True. Very important.”

  “Why?”

  The young woman went silent. She quickened her pace.

  “How did you end up here?” I asked.

  “I was going through a tough time. I’d heard from a friend about a place that was hard to find because it was constantly moving, but whoever managed to find it would never be unhappy again. It took me three years, but it was worth it.”

  “The settlement hasn’t moved in at least two years,” I observed.

  “Carlyle loves this spot, I don’t know why.”

  “Have you ever considered leaving? What about your family, don’t you miss them?”

  “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. It’s lovely, and my family is here. I don’t need another.”

  “Everyone says that Carlyle is the leader of a cult.”

  The young woman laughed mysteriously.

  “This place has nothing to do with a cult. Carlyle has no religious agenda, he doesn’t tolerate idol worship or people who don’t think for themselves.”

  “Everyone in the outside world thinks you’re a cult.”

  “They have no clue.”

  She didn’t sound insulted. She spoke calmly, as if simply stating the truth.

  “Where does Carlyle live?” I asked.

  “There,” she replied, pointing at a building that looked just like all the others. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you to meet him.”

  “When do you think I’ll be ready?”

  “Are your palms warm?”

  “They’re hot,” I said.

  “They need to be burning,” she replied, and continued walking.

  The sun was still blaring down, and since the young woman wasn’t in the mood to talk, I began to think about seawater, which had popped into my mind unexpectedly. I wasn’t thirsty, nor had I seen any body of water, but all the same, I couldn’t get the image of the sea out of my head. I wondered at myself. I’d always been an exceptionally rational person. The piece I’d written, the one which had caused Aleks and his colleagues to contact me, was a measured consideration of Carlyle. The one thing we could be certain of, I’d claimed, was that the settlement produced a strange rock made up of unknown chemical compounds. All the rest was mere conjecture. The city, the entire country, was buzzing about Carlyle and his cult. There was talk of unusual sexual practices and rituals, of virgin sacrifice, of a golden castle where Carlyle lived. People said all sorts of things, but no one knew the truth. Not one person who’d joined the cult had returned to civilization and spoken out about their experience. It seemed that even those in power, the state officials, knew nothing about the cult’s activities. The young woman I was staying with knew how to go to the city for supplies, covertly, in a rusty old car. I guess she’d been spotted. But journalists, being journalists, didn’t want to compromise her. She was the sole connection to a completely unknown world, though I’m sure the others would secretly come out as well, to see how people on the other side were living.

  As we walked, I observed my surroundings. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Cafés, bakeries. A town like any other.

  “They threw you in here like a pebble down an empty well,” the young woman said out of the blue.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I hope you know that Carlyle won’t let you go back.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said.

  “You’re brave, but that won’t help you with Carlyle.”

  “Tell me a little about him.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” I said.

  We stopped in front of a building, and only then did I realize that the young woman had been leading me in a circle the entire time. We’d walked around her block.

  “Why did we go in a circle?” I asked, annoyed.

  “I wanted to see if you trust me,” she said. “You’re all right. Now we can talk seriously.”

  We climbed back up to her apartment. Halfway up the stairs I took out my notes; I was dying to hear what she had to say.

  “Carlyle has a brilliant sense of humor,” she began. “The young men and women he’s close with sprout a second pair of ears, like little pig ears. Carlyle calls this process double sensuality. His lovers hear when he calls for them with this second pair of ears, and if he rescinds someone’s right to be his lover, the pig ears recede back into their heads and disappear. It’s not at all uncommon,” she continued, “for Carlyle to grant his favor anew and embrace once again a person he previously rejected.”

  I wrote down what the young woman told me word for word, even though I thought she was speaking nonsense. Pig ears? I attributed her descrip
tions to a wild imagination and drugs.

  “You don’t believe me?” she asked, like she could read my mind.

  “It’s hard to understand what you’re saying exactly. This ears-within-ears business sounds pretty weird.”

  “I know,” she said. “But it’s the truth.” She looked me right in the eye.

  “Where are yours?” I asked.

  “I haven’t gotten them yet. Carlyle and I are still getting to know each other. This honor takes time.”

  “Honor? I wouldn’t call pig ears an honor,” I said sharply.

  The young woman remained placid, as if she hadn’t heard me.

  “When I get them, you’ll see that I’m telling the truth.”

  I closed my notebook and looked around. A few hours had passed during her short explanation.

  “How is it possible for time to pass so quickly?” I asked.

  “Anything’s possible here,” she said. “We’ll continue talking tomorrow.”

  That night I had trouble falling asleep. Nothing made any sense. I was uncomfortable and excited at the same time.

  The world is a strange place, I thought. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before.

  I tossed and turned nervously in the closet. My back began to hurt, but I managed to fall asleep for a short time.

  A man’s voice woke me. The closet door was ajar, and I saw the young woman talking to a man with his back to me. I tried to adjust myself so I could hear them better, and in the process knocked down a jacket hanging in the closet. The man turned and opened the door. He stared at me in the dimly lit closet as if he could only make out my eyes.

  “Get up,” he said.

  I obeyed.

  “What’s your name?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “What happened to her hands?” he asked the young woman, not taking his eyes off my fingers.

  “She writes,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  I looked at my hands. They were trembling slightly, but there was nothing unusual about them.

  “Bring her with you tonight,” the man said, and left.

  “What’s wrong with my hands?” I asked.

  “There’s ink on your fingers.”

  “What’s so strange about that?”

  “No one uses fountain pens anymore.”

  “You know,” I said, “I didn’t sleep very well.”

  “You can sleep more if you like, but not too long—we’ll need to get ready for dinner soon.”

  “Is there going to be an orgy?” I asked.

  The young woman laughed.

  “You have a wild imagination. You only think about sex. How do you do it?”

  “Well, if there’s no orgy, what’ll it be like?”

  “A typical dinner,” she said. “There’ll be about twenty of us, no more, since Carlyle doesn’t like crowds. Still,” she added, “there are certain conventions you’ll need to follow.”

  “What conventions?” I asked sleepily.

  The young woman noticed my yawning and said, “We’ll discuss it when you get up.”

  I lay back down in the closet and closed my eyes. I could hear her preparing something in the kitchen. I couldn’t fall back asleep. The image of Carlyle wouldn’t leave my mind. He was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. I needed somehow to reconcile the fact that I liked him. While I was thinking about him, my hands began to twitch. I squeezed them together involuntarily, feeling my palms warm.

  You’re a rational being, I told myself. You’ll soon find some explanation for your physical responses, these burning fists.

  I didn’t wait for the young woman to wake me, but got up on my own, washed, and headed into the kitchen. No one was there. I heard the rustling of paper in the bedroom. I didn’t knock, just entered. I saw the young woman opening two boxes on the bed. She removed the crinkled paper to see what was underneath.

  “Our dresses for tonight.”

  “You heard me come in?” I asked.

  “I did.”

  “You don’t need an extra set of ears then.”

  “Enough about the ears,” she said. “It’s time to socialize.”

  My name was written on one of the boxes. I looked to see what he’d chosen for me. I took the dress in my hands: it was light, semitransparent.

  “I’m not wearing this.”

  The young woman frowned at me.

  “You’re looking for trouble.”

  I draped the dress around my neck like a shawl. This seemed like a good compromise. The young woman put on the dress and we made our way to Carlyle’s. I gazed at the nape of my friend’s neck: she’d tied her hair back in a bun and smelled of lilac.

  “Why didn’t you choose your outfit for yourself?” I asked.

  “Carlyle knows what I like.”

  “No one knows what you like better than you.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “How is it possible that Carlyle’s never seen ink before?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “He knows everything about you, and you know nothing about him. Isn’t that a little odd?”

  “Not at all. Carlyle prefers to talk about others rather than himself. In the beginning I’d ask him personal questions, but he kept throwing the ball back to me. Eventually I gave up.”

  I kept peppering her with questions. “Will there be other writers at the party?”

  “I wouldn’t call them writers. All the artists who come here soon abandon their art and devote themselves entirely to Carlyle. To them, only he matters.”

  “Nothing matters more than writing.”

  “No one would agree with you here,” she said.

  I didn’t know what was awaiting me at this dinner, but I’d brought my notebook and pen with me. I wanted to persuade Carlyle to speak with me, even though it was clear he wouldn’t allow it. If the young woman was so tight-lipped, I expected him to be even worse.

  “That dress looks lovely on you,” I said to relieve the tension.

  “Yours is prettier. It’s a shame no one can see,” she said.

  We climbed the stairs to the third floor and walked down the dimly lit hallway. The young woman knocked on a heavy metal door. We heard “It’s open!” and entered.

  The apartment resembled an outlaw’s cave, cluttered with various objects. The walls, unsurprisingly, were green and luminous. No other lighting was needed: it was as if the light was built into the rock. At the back of the room stood a large table. No one was seated yet—the host and other guests had been waiting for the two of us.

  “Finally!” said one of the assembled. He was obviously hungry.

  Carlyle looked us up and down. I wouldn’t say he was angry. He frowned slightly, I assumed because of my makeshift shawl. Everyone began to take their seats at the long, luxurious table, and I realized that my place was set directly across from Carlyle’s. We were supposed to spend the whole dinner looking at each other.

  “What decadence,” I said to the young woman.

  “I like it,” she replied, sitting down.

  “I see,” began Carlyle, “that our new guest is wearing her new dress thrown around her neck. Isn’t that wonderful!”

  “Irony! We do have something in common after all,” I replied loudly.

  The guests looked at me curiously, like I’d just landed from Mars.

  “Irony,” said Carlyle, “is mankind’s best invention.”

  The young woman kicked me under the table.

  “If our guest would be so kind to explain, before we begin our meal, exactly why she is here,” Carlyle continued.

  “I came to see how you all live, and to write an article about it.”

  The young woman grimaced; she looked thoroughly afraid. She glanced at me imploringly, as if begging me to stop. But I couldn’t.

  “You came to observe us like we’re some uncivilized tribe?” Carlyle asked.

  “No, I came to see your green stones. They’re the only thing I’m intere
sted in.”

  “There will be ample opportunity to discuss them, but first, let’s eat and drink.”

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered to the young woman. “I’ll say I lied to you and you didn’t know my intentions.”

  “I don’t know if that will be enough,” she said.

  The food and drink were delicious. The whole night, I watched the people gathered around the table. All of them were young and attractive. I grew suspicious.

  “What’s the average age of the guests?” I asked the young woman.

  “Twenty-five, thirty? I don’t really know.”

  I avoided looking at Carlyle. I simply waited for him to confront me. After dessert, Carlyle summoned the group to join him in the other room for warm brandy, cordials, and every other kind of spirits imaginable.

  “At least I know now that the green has no religious connotations.”

  The young woman laughed acidly.

  “Mint tea,” I said at the bar.

  I was avoiding alcohol because I wanted to keep my wits about me. Before I managed to take my first sip of tea, Carlyle came up from behind. He placed his hands on my shoulders. A tingling sensation passed through my entire body.

  “I hope you enjoyed dinner,” the host said.

  “I did, it was excellent.”

  “Tea?” he asked when he noticed what I was drinking.

  “I don’t like alcohol,” I lied.

  “What a shame, I like a woman who drinks.”

  I turned to face Carlyle. I didn’t particularly fear him, so I didn’t understand why the others were so meek in his presence.

  “These people love you. I’m interested in knowing why.”

  “Because I’m good,” he said, smiling.

  “I’m good too, but they don’t love me. I don’t know anyone who’d abandon their friends and family to start a completely new life in my shadow.”

  Carlyle took my hands in his. With his index finger, he traced the ink stains on my fingers and palms.

  “You should’ve worn the dress,” he said.

  “I don’t like the material. It’s too revealing.”

  We stared at each other in silence. Carlyle kept tracing his finger across my palm, walking it along my head line.

  “Are you reading my fortune?”

  “What does that mean, reading a fortune?” he asked, taken aback.