Mayhem

by Sarah Pinborough

  He released her with such energy that she stumbled backwards, her mouth agape.

  ‘Promise me,’ he repeated. His face was flushed, blotches of sickly purple stark against the pale of his cheeks. ‘Promise me you’ll run.’

  ‘I promise,’ she whispered.

  He turned and strode away from her without another word. He didn’t look back. She waited where she was for a long five minutes before finally continuing her journey to work on shaking legs.

  He left with his suitcases at lunchtime, and this time Elizabeth felt no sadness at all, only an overwhelming sense of relief. It was over. He was gone.

  23

  London. November, 1888

  Dr Bond

  We made a strange pair, the little hairdresser and I, on our nightly rendezvous searching the streets of London, him with his filthy skin, and I with my stiff back which gave me away, no matter what I chose to wear. Kosminski’s sister, although obviously wary of me, not knowing what interest I might have in her brother’s well-being, had gone some way to smartening him up, forcing him into clean clothes and insisting that he at least washed his most intimate parts and his armpits. I too made these a condition of his assisting me in my search – I did not wish to draw any more attention to us than was absolutely necessary. I could only imagine what Inspector Moore would make of my association with one of his suspects, should it be discovered.

  It was four days before we found the priest – I could not remember the route to his rooms, much to my dismay, and instead I had taken the little Polish hairdresser to the various opium dens, hoping that my visit hadn’t scared the priest away from them. I doubted that, though: the priest was not afraid of anything I could do to him. Kosminski did not speak much, perhaps because his English was poor, or maybe because he was clearly uncomfortable in the company of others, and I found that suited me. Curious as I was about how he and the priest could have spoken such similar words, I could not help but feel I was allowing myself to be dragged into a whirlpool of madness. I had been convinced the priest was insane, and everything in Kosminski’s behaviour implied the same about him – so what of me, I wondered? Here I was, wanting answers from them; what did that say about my own sanity?

  On the fourth night, while we were loitering outside the opium dens of Bluegate Fields, my cravings overtook me, and I led Kosminski inside. I told myself I would have just the smallest of pipes – not enough to make me sleep. As soon as the sweet smell of the poppy hit me my mouth started watering – but I was also repulsed, perhaps fear of the lost time I had suffered previously. Since meeting the priest, I had broken my own rule on self-medicating, taking laudanum when the urges became too strong, but it was not the same as the bliss of drifting on one of the cots. Chi-Chi was serving another customer, so we sat on a low bed and waited.

  Kosminski was fascinated by the den – perhaps because those around us were in such a relaxed state. I thought it had been a long time since he had experienced that sort of relaxation.

  ‘And the priest – he does this?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Not like this. He takes something stronger. This makes you dream, but that …’ I remembered the sensation. The clarity. ‘It gives you visions.’

  ‘Visions?’ Kosminksi leaned in, alert. ‘I have visions – my grandmother’s visions.’ He paused. ‘My grandmother’s curse.’

  ‘What kind of visions?’ I asked. He had alluded to these before, but only in passing, and I had never been exactly sure what he meant. For once, he sounded entirely focused.

  ‘Things that are true but that I cannot possibly know: my father’s death, events far away that I do not understand. And then there are … there are the others – the river. The Upir. All so dark. So awful.’ He shivered, and I knew I had to stop him from drifting away from me.

  ‘Perhaps you should try it,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to see more clearly.’ He flinched at the very suggestion, drawing away from me.

  ‘It will make you more confident.’

  I did not know why I suddenly wanted Kosminski to take the drug I was nervous of taking myself – perhaps because on some level I already thought him mad, so I had no worry for his sanity, but I also was curious to see its effect on someone else.

  Chi-Chi scurried over to us and I placed our order with him. He returned with the pipe and the opium and as he carefully prepared it, I smiled at Kosminski, who looked afraid – but that had been his natural expression since we’d met.

  ‘Breathe it in, just like a pipe.’

  He looked at me like an infant does a parent, nervous and yet trusting, and did as he was told. As he took several puffs I, for my part, found my curiosity had quashed my own desire for the drug. Instead, I sat and watched him, waiting for the effects to take hold. Would they be the same as they were for me?

  For ten minutes or so, he simply sat there, looking around, nonplussed. He did not speak, but neither did he gasp or proclaim any strangeness in what he saw. I felt a vague disappointment. The room was warm and my collar itched. It was strange to be here in the den and entirely in control of my senses. Normally, my arrival would be all about the need and my departure would be in the echo of the haze. I had never had time or inclination to notice how rundown the building was, although in that regard it suited its clientele, myself included. It did not judge.

  *

  Suddenly I felt maudlin, exhaustion overwhelming me. This was pointless. It was madness. It was—

  ‘The priest,’ Kosminski said urgently, ‘we must find the priest.’ He reached forward and grabbed my arm, dragging me to my feet, then rocked backwards on his heels, his balance gone. He gasped as I fought to keep him steady.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  No one around us so much as glanced our way as I led him to the door, for they were all lost in their own versions of the dreams. This reality had faded into insignificance for an hour or two.

  ‘You followed him,’ Kosminski said as we stepped back out into the bitter night. His eyes darted this way and that in the gloom, but they were looking at something beyond my capability to see. His hands no longer twitched, but he kept one gripping my arm even though he was stable once again.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Through the fog,’ he continued, pulling me forward, almost dragging me through the dangerous alleyways. ‘He was ahead of you – he knew you were there. He was leading you.’

  I said nothing as I followed him. This was like no vision I had ever had with the drug. Was he truly seeing my experience – my past? Was this because he held my arm? How could that be? His English was improved and his accent had faded – was this because he had somehow accessed my memories? Was he partly inside my own mind? The thought was enough to drive me to the brink of madness myself. Promising myself laudanum when we reached wherever Kosminski was leading me, I went with him.

  He said very little more, just muttered now and again as we grew closer to the river. The priest’s rooms had been near the wharves, of that I was certain, but nothing looked familiar. It was a wild goose chase – it had to be. There was no possibility that Kosminski could be ‘seeing’ my journey from the past; this was just the drug’s dream, and as the fool who had made him try it, I felt I had no choice but to see him through it, even though my hands and feet were now freezing.

  But then there it was, right in front of me: the building with the door hanging loose on its hinges. The squalid tenement looked ready to give up and crumple in on itself, should the wind rise.

  ‘He went up first,’ Kosminski said. ‘You waited a few minutes and then followed.’

  Just as I had before, I now stood on the street and looked up to where a grainy light shone through the filthy glass. When a few minutes had passed, Kosminski pulled me forward, and I did not resist – how could I? This was beyond my comprehension. The solid foundation of my beliefs was shaking. This was no colour, no fish darting around a man’s head; this was no flight of fancy.

  When Kosminski fin
ally released my arm as we reached the priest’s door, it was my hand that was shaking, not his. I knocked gently, with none of my previous arrogance. Beside me, the hairdresser slumped against the wall.

  ‘What happened?’ he said. One hand rose to his mouth and he picked at his lips. ‘I don’t understand.’

  He had returned to his normal nervous state, worry settling back into his tired eyes.

  I didn’t have time to answer. The door opened, and there he was.

  24

  Poland. June, 1886

  James Harrington’s Diary

  15th June, 1886

  This is the first day I have been well enough to write in what feels like years, although my guide reassures me that it has been only just over two weeks. Two weeks lost to delirium, when time passed in a vague haze of images and dreams I cannot quite remember. It is very strange to have part of your life lost to you. If it were not for my body being so weak and emaciated – having been kept alive through being force-fed vegetable broth and water, and in my more lucid moments, some strong-tasting potato-based stews – I would not have believed it.

  I am somewhat regretting my bold adventure into the Polish countryside. I am not Edward, I have realised, admittedly a little late. I do not think that my nature and adventures go hand in hand as his must do. I doubt very much that Edward would have fallen so ill as I have. All I want now is to recover enough to return home as soon as possible.

  I am not sure what sickness it is that I have contracted, but I am concerned that it has left me with symptoms of consumption. Although my entire body feels wretched, my lungs are the worst. My breathing is laboured and I have had two coughing fits since waking, both lasting some time and both strong enough to make me think I was choking. Not only does my upper body ache awfully from the strain, I noticed after the second that there was blood on my hand. I asked my guide to fetch the mirror from my small trunk, and after the shock of seeing myself so much thinner, looking as if I had aged ten years in these two weeks, I studied my complexion. Spots of blotchy purple sat high on my pale cheeks. The water in my eyes was tinged pink. My heart sank, and has stayed there, for I know that consumption carries these signs too. However, I am glad to be finally free of the fever that had claimed me.

  I long for London. Happy as I am that I am recovering, and as grateful for the kindness the villagers have shown me, when they are all clearly living a very basic existence, I just want to be well enough to go home. I have done with adventures.

  16th June, 1886

  I slept well, despite the heat and the buzz of flies and biting insects which found their way through the gaps in the shuttered windows. I had always imagined Poland cold, which of course it is when in the grip of winter, but I had not expected this damp summer heat. It started in May, just when I had decided I had seen enough of the grim cities and wanted to explore the countryside. I had announced my decision with hearty vigour, as if I wanted more adventure than the cities with their universal problems could show me, but in honesty I felt I was done with the grey harshness of life that surrounded me. I wanted to see something more beautiful, and if that could not be found in humanity, then I would hope to find it in nature, and those who chose to work with it. The young men whose acquaintances I had met on the train into Poland heartily approved, and although they did not join me (I fear they were far more political in their stances than I, and I must confess that their intense conversations often both confused and bored me) they helped me find a guide who would take me to see some of the villages. This was to have been my last sojourn before making the trek back to England.

  The heatwave had hit, and I was glad to be leaving the stinking city. Now I wish I had stayed. I am feeling quite unsettled.

  This afternoon, two old men from the village visited me, in the company of my guide. Until then, the only human contact I had had was with an old woman who brought me soup and a hunk of bread. While I ate it, she brought a bucket in the corner of the room and put a chipped ceramic jug of water on the wooden drawers next to the window. I tried to engage her in conversation, but she barely looked up and in the end I could only nod and smile my appreciation as she took my empty dish away. She did not return the expression. In fact, she did not even look me in the eye.

  I fell asleep after that, awaking only when the three men came into my room. Through the window I could see the sun was sinking into a lazy late afternoon. The heat was fading, and a light breeze worked its way through the room, making me feel better than I had. I smiled and pushed myself up on my pillows and looked at my guide, Josep – a man in his thirties who did not say much, but at the same time had an air of affability about him that had made him an easy travelling companion for the past few weeks.

  ‘Please tell these gentlemen how grateful I am for their village’s hospitality. I will of course reimburse them for everything they have done for me.’

  Josep nodded, but did not speak to them, instead tugging at his cap with his hands as he spoke in English to me.

  ‘They want to know how you got sick.’

  I looked at the two men with him. It was hard to place their ages. Their skin was weather-beaten and leathered from working the fields, and their beards were grey. They watched me intently.

  ‘Are others ill? Like me?’ I felt a growing dread. In the short time that I had recovered my senses I had not considered that my illness might be contagious, or that I might have brought a plague on those who had been kind enough to take care of me.

  ‘No,’ Josep said, ‘but—’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘Some animals have sickened. Cows aren’t milking.’

  ‘Perhaps it is this awful heat,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps. But they want to know when you started feeling unwell. And if you remember exactly what you were doing beforehand.’

  ‘You know this already, Josep. We had been travelling for several hours and were both hot and tired. We stopped for a rest.’ My eyes moved from him to those beside him as he repeated my words in this unfamiliar language of which I am ashamed to say I have learned only a phrase or two. I regretted that now. There is nothing worse than relying entirely on others for your communication. So much can be lost in the space between the words and the meaning that comes with the delivery.

  ‘You fell asleep under the tree, and after I had finished my lunch – bread and dried meat – I went for a walk. I was very hot and sweaty, and walked until I found the river. You had told me we were not far from one. I crouched by it and soaked my face and hair. Though it was freezing cold – far colder than I expected – I would have stripped and swum in it, but the bank dropped away steeply and I couldn’t see the bottom. Judging from the temperature, I thought it must be deep and I did not want to get tangled in any weeds at the bottom.’ As I spoke I thought of Edward. Had Edward been with me, he would have leapt into the water without even considering its depth. In his company I probably would have too. I thought once again that perhaps it had been folly to amend my travel plans and move away from the well-tried routes of the Grand Tours of the past.

  ‘I sat there for a while,’ I continued,’ and then before I turned back, I leaned over the side and drank some of the water. It was later that afternoon that I started to feel odd.’ A thought struck me at that point. ‘Do they feed the animals from that river? Perhaps that is the cause of their illness and mine? Some kind of parasite in the river?’

  Josep, his hand gesturing as he spoke, once again relayed my words to the two sombre men beside him. They turned away and spoke rapidly and quietly between themselves. I could see Josep getting confused trying to catch their words.

  ‘But actually,’ I said, leaning forward slightly, a memory of that afternoon suddenly hitting me, ‘I am not sure it was the river water – I think I might have been running a slight fever before that, but not realised. Perhaps it was an insect bite that has made me ill.’

  ‘Why?’ Josep looked almost relieved, and I wondered if the animals were sicker than they were telling me. ‘What makes you say
that?’

  ‘It was something that happened when I was drinking the water,’ I said. ‘I had forgotten all about it until now – I suppose with the fever and everything, I have barely known who I am myself.’

  ‘What happened?’ His tone was sharp.

  I felt slightly defensive as I explained, ‘I must have had a fever because I had a momentary hallucination – ridiculous, when I think about it – but as I knelt on the bank and leaned forward to drink, I was sure that I saw something rushing up towards me, from the bottom of the river. A dark shape.’ I laughed slightly, but the warmth had gone out of the room with the memory. ‘It gave me quite a fright. I can see it still: something on the other side of the ripples, moving incredibly fast, and with such intent I almost thought I drank it in. I leapt right back from the edge, I can tell you.’

  Josep swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in his throat, before translating my words.

  ‘Of course,’ I continued, ‘it was probably a reflection of a cloud or some such, but it must have been some precursor of the fever that gripped me later in the afternoon.’

  Josep almost tore his cap in two as he relayed my last sentences, and for the first time I saw emotion on the two men’s faces: dread; fear; anger. I had no idea what I had said, but as I looked dumbly around me, they got to their feet and stormed out. At the door, one spat out a word so vehemently, I knew it had to be a swearword of some kind. The old woman peered through for a moment, and then the door closed.

  ‘What?’ I asked Josep. ‘What is it? I don’t understand.’

  He said nothing but stared at the floor, his cap now a twisted wreck in his hands. I had to repeat his name three times before he looked up.

  ‘It is just a stupid superstition,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just get better. I will talk to them.’

  ‘What kind of superstition?’

  ‘Just sleep.’ He got to his feet. ‘I shall be in the other room.’