I stand looking down, nodding, praying they will not touch me, ashamed that they do not see me. I never gossip. I never utter an unkind word. I do not tell their secrets, yet I know them. They pour their hearts out to me, confessing, seeking resolution. I never give advice. I never answer. I nod. I give them space. I allow them to speak to whatever gods they need to get in touch with. And the irony is never lost on me. It is my penance.
At that moment, lightning flashed in the windows, followed by a roll of thunder, and the lights went out. Except for the dying embers of the fire, the living room was plunged into utter darkness. The rain kept pelting against the windows, and other than a sigh from Angel, a crackle from the fire, a deep silence followed that first burst of anger from the sky.
The diary was bathed in too little light, the scrawl indecipherable. I sat listening to my heart pound, jumped when the next crash filled the heavens, started when the lightning threw the living room into daylight once again. Still Angel sat warm and trusting beside me. Still I sat, unable to move or think.
When the door opened, Angel lifted her head and so did I as Will entered, covered by a huge black umbrella and carrying a flashlight. He unfolded the umbrella, shook it out and stood it against the wall, closing the front door quickly. Then he turned on the flashlight, pointed it down at his knees, and started toward the living room. Before either of us could utter a word, Angel jumped from the chair, raced to the window and buried herself behind the curtains, growling and crying, uttering the most heart wrenching sounds I had ever heard from any animal.
Chapter 12
"Will, what's the matter with her?"
"Where are you, honey? I can't see."
"Here, in the chair by the fire." At last I roused myself, and in the semidarkness, I reached out for Will's cold wet fingers. "Angel, it's Will. It's just Will. Come here, girl." The growling and whimpering continued, bringing tears to my eyes.
"Maybe she's afraid of storms."
"But she sat right here, right beside me, she didn't move when the thunder and lightning came both times. Angel, Angel," I coaxed, my voice soft.
Suddenly the room was full of light again as thunder shook overhead and lightning illuminated the spot where Angel stood, her trembling visible behind the curtain. Her whimpering was terrible to hear, a sad, frightened, lonely sound.
I made my way slowly in the once-again-darkened room and got down on my hands and knees beside her. Quietly and smoothly I pulled the curtain back. She made no protest as I wrapped my arms around her shaking body and gently put her on my lap. We sat there for a long time, that little dog and I, our hearts pounding together, not moving, even though the thunder and lightning intruded one more time. I whispered in her ear, not because I thought she could understand, but because I wanted her to hear in my voice the comfort and love and reassurance I wanted to give her. Slowly the trembling stopped and her whimpers ceased, and she relaxed in my arms.
Will crawled up to us, put his arms around both of us, and we stayed that way through the next round of storm lashings, until the thunder and lightning seemed to be moving away from the lake and the top of our house. The rain still poured relentlessly on the roof and down the windows. Just then, the lights snapped back on.
I placed Angel gently on the floor and Will helped me to my feet. He pulled the curtains back and patted the dog, still standing rooted to the spot, talking quietly to her. "Did I scare you when I came in the door in the dark with that big umbrella, girl?"
Angel looked up at him and her tail began to wag. "Don't be scared any more, little one, it's okay. Mommy and Daddy are here."
Despite the decidedly unfunny last few hours, I began to laugh. "Mommy and Daddy? Why, darling, I think you are completely smitten!"
"Hey, look who's talking." Will pulled me to him and we stood there in the window, holding each other, as Angel tapped her tail on the hardwood floor. "Does anybody want dinner, or are you still too full from lunch?" Angel's tail tapped louder and she gave one of her trademark soft barks in answer.
"Looks like someone will join you, but I don't think it'll be me," I said. "I'll be there in a minute. Maybe I'll have a bowl of soup or something."
Will and Angel headed for the kitchen, while I closed the diary, placed it on the end table, and picked up the flashlight from the floor. Will was filling Angel's dish when I walked in, ready to place the flashlight on the counter. The moment I entered, she looked straight at me as if she had never seen me before, and bolted from the kitchen. Once again, we could hear the whimpering and growling. Shocked, both Will and I stared at the object in my hand as if it were a gun. And indeed, we came to the conclusion at exactly the same time that that's exactly what it was to Angel—a lethal weapon.
Suddenly the words I had just read in Nathaniel Ryeburn's diary leapt back into my head: I deserve no more smiles, no more friendship, no pity, no love, no feather or silk or fur, no soft skin touching my hand in affection or even respect. The stain of my deeds, the flush of my anger as I turn its full force onto the animals. Feather, silk, or fur. The flush of anger turned into violence on the animals. Had he beaten this poor dog with a flashlight or other similar weapon? I could scarcely believe what I was thinking, yet I had obviously not known Nathaniel Ryeburn at all.
Without a word, Will buried the flashlight at the back of a drawer and pulled out some of our candles. "Guess this is what we'll use if the lights go out again."
It took us longer this time to calm Angel and to coax her back into the kitchen for food. Once she had nosed around long enough to convince her that the weapon was no longer in sight, she began to relax. Soon she had eaten and was sitting at Will's feet as he ate his dinner. I sat across from him, nursing another cup of coffee, wondering if I would be able to sleep with all this caffeine and the lines of the diary humming in my head.
As it turned out, I went to bed with Will and Angel, but lay there, face up, long after my husband's breathing was low and rhythmic, long after Angel had curled into a silent ball. I couldn't help myself. Obsessed, I crept out of the bed into the living room, turned on a lamp, folded my legs into my dressing gown, and read.
Each long, painful day is a duplicate of the one before it. One by one, the people of the village come to see me as I work by the canal. They are not attracted by the swing bridge, for they are used to its smooth operation and take it completely for granted. The routine never changes.
Whenever a boat approaches the narrow waters, I spring into action. I change the green light to red, watching as the gates float into place, stopping cars from entering the bridge. Then I set the huge machinery in motion, pulling on the wheel with all my enormous weight to make the bridge swing sideways. After the boat sails gracefully through, I reverse the process, close the bridge, and signal green to any automobiles waiting on the road. Sometimes strangers to the village stand at the canal to watch, but that is not why the residents come to visit me.
Nor are they attracted to my physical appearance. I am almost seven feet tall, burdened with an awkward, blubbery fat that spreads evenly over my body. I always wear the bridgeman's cap, pulled tightly over my curly, still-brown hair. Even by modern, lenient standards, I am very ugly. My flat, bulbous nose covers my face, which is scarred from terrible acne that plagued me in my teens. Nearly hidden by bushy eyebrows, my black eyes are too wide for my flat face and bulge out unnaturally. My mouth is pulpy and unpleasant. Huddled in my striped bridgeman's jacket, I barely peer out at the world, pulling at the visor of my cap with my watery fingers. No one but my animals has ever seen me smile broadly. Occasionally, a twisted grin will curl up at the side of my mouth, giving my face, I think, a less gruesome look. No, it is not my appearance that attracts the villagers.
Yet every day, continuously, someone comes down to the canal to talk to me. Even in the winter, when the cold is biting, someone can be seen standing with me, furiously talking. When only the lake freighters can break through the icy river, I have more time to listen. That is the worst time
for me. The wind and cold freeze my nose, my mouth, my soul. Still the voices drone on, shouted above the noise of nature, chirping at me, slicing little pieces of me. Yes, I do know that I am known as wise, as a great advisor, one who can be trusted. People boast that the bridgeman can solve anyone's problems.
If only I could appreciate this reputation as humour, as irony, as the joke that the almighty intended. But all of this praise is heaped on me for one reason only: I never speak. I do not engage in idle talk, although I know everything there is to know about everyone and every occurrence in town. That's because they tell me. Sitting on the edge of the canal, as I go about my business, they pour their hearts out to me. As any psychiatrist knows, people usually solve their own problems by talking about them.
Thus they began to attribute to me the powers of counselling. Yet my only contributions to the conversations are grunts, groans and nods. It is not that I am stupid or disinterested in the people, as many suppose that I am. It is just that I am afraid.
Although no one ever guesses, behind the hat and the eyebrows, my eyes bulge in fear whenever anyone approaches me. I nervously dart to and fro, finding things to do, as the villagers talk. My heart pounds and I sweat heavily, even on winter days. I am terrified of these people, too frightened even to ask them to leave. They take my silence to be acceptance, my nods to be understanding, my lack of confession or complaint on my part to be an ability to handle problems much more adeptly than they.
Over the years my stature in the town has grown until everyone loves and admires the bridgeman. At first, once I became aware of these feelings, I was embarrassed by them. Gradually, my guilt, that terrible gnawing, self-loathing, has increased incrementally with the love and admiration these good people show me. Over the years I have received gifts, letters, even money, proffered with humility, appreciation, even tears.
I am the sole person who knows that they love the man they only think I am. If anyone ever guessed my terrible secret, saw into my dark and perverted heart, I know that they would loathe me even more than I despise myself.
How little I had known about you, Nat, I whispered to the sound of the wind and waves swirling around my house, to the soul that had been this tortured man. Had I noticed your ugliness? Had it meant anything to me that you were big and moved with a kind of grace that was reserved for large, muscular, yet overweight men who had the power and strength to lift and pull and shift things, but whose gait was rambling and awkward, whose body at rest seemed out of place? I saw your face as wide and innocent, Nathaniel, as eager to please, cheerful, dedicated. I saw none of the anger, the violence, the raw wounds that you write about here.
I took a deep, long, slow breath, struggling for reality, wounded by a sense of betrayal, a fear that nothing in Burchill would ever again be what it appeared to be. Yet I of all people knew that masks were worn each day, as Will and I donned ours every morning and walked amid these people as Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, ordinary folk. Who was I to feel betrayed by Nathaniel Ryeburn? His masks—countrified caretaker, beloved bridgeman, devoted son, friend of the people—must have hidden a secret at least as terrible as the one Will and I held. Yet somehow, Nat had allowed his other persona to drag him into an abyss of self-loathing, anger, even violence. Who really was Nathaniel Ryeburn? What was his terrible burden? And what, if anything, did it have to do with his death?
The second reason for the villagers' interest in me is that I am Burchill's Mystery Man. Their fascination with me and with my past probably would have died long ago had I been a talkative or social man. As it is, rumours circulate the town every week and almost always involve me. Strangely enough, it is the people themselves who relate these rumours to me, telling me as if to protect me. Yet I see the hunger on their faces, waiting breathlessly to see if they will be the one person in town to whom I will speak of these things. All of the villagers do know several things about me, because I was born in Burchill.
My parents were quiet, austere people to whom their only son was born late in life. Even as a child, I never took part in ordinary activities. I spent most of my time with my father, helping to work the bridge, or at home with my animals. Children did not like me. I was too quiet, too frightened, too odd. I never knew the language of children. I could never understand their play, their jokes, their antics. I found nothing to say to them. They looked at my ugly face, laughed at me, poked me, even beat me now and then. And though I towered over them from the time I entered school, I could not bring myself to touch their flesh even in self-defence.
When I was seventeen, I disappeared from the village. I was gone ten years. During that time, as far as anyone knew, my parents never heard from me. When I returned, I began to care for my elderly parents and took over the job of bridgeman. It is the ten-year absence that fascinates Burchill. Every week someone offers a new, creative explanation. Anyone bold enough to ask me face-to-face has never received an answer.
What if I were to tell them where I had been? The laughter twists inside me, a sick, live thing. It bubbles to the surface, becoming spittle on my chin. I am nauseous, remembering what happened to that tall, fat, ugly boy in the city. For ten years I allowed myself to abuse and be abused, to reach the depths of degradation, to become addicted to evil and cruelty.
I remember the first time that the depth of my depravity became clear to me, and the shock of my inner self drove me away from the innocence of Burchill.
One day, walking through the field, I stumbled upon the cadaver of what once had been a pure white cat, but which had, in the abuse its body suffered after death, turned slightly grey. There was no forethought in what I did next. I took the body home with me, to my shed, and sharpened my hunting knife. I sliced tenderly through its stomach, opening the flattened, insect-ridden innards to the light, stared at the tiny organs pinched and red inside, stacked so logically and compactly. I quickly found the heart and placed it in my shaking hands, staring at the small dot of bloody tissue that had made this creature live, that had made this animal love that caused a cat to lick and kiss and knead and need.
I knew intellectually of course that it is the brain that does so much of this, that causes these electric impulses called love, yet I could not help but think of the heart as the lifeblood of the brain, and therefore as the source of all feeling.
There was a tremendous rush as I held that little heart in my hand. I sliced and cut and drew out all the parts and pieces that had once been a living, breathing, laughing, jumping, warm creature. What a connection I felt to that deadness! What a thrill went through me as I felt the animal's parts and knew that each one of them was under my control. Apart, in pieces, in layers, cold, reeking with decay, it could not hurt me, yet it was one with me, belonged to me, had no choice but to do my bidding. I was its skin, its movement, its shape, its god, its creator, its destroyer.
And Mother Mary help me, that feeling was a drug to me. I realized it was more powerful than love, more powerful than hatred, more powerful than goodness. It was evil. It was seductive. It became me and I became it.
So for ten years the hunter sought the hunted. Not because they were important to me, but because the act itself was important to me, IS me. Killing, cutting, playing, taking everything apart and putting it back together if I feel like it. Total, complete, control. Transcending them and me and our earthly bodies and joining a dance of destruction.
I hold that little heart in my hand and squeeze.
I was instantly up on my feet, swallowing, breathing, my heart hammering, my vision swimming. I was reading a horror, watching a blood movie, witnessing a terrible accident. This could not be my Nathaniel, the quiet unassuming man who followed me each day, brought me coffee, smiled at me, suffusing his unattractive features in the light of that affection. He could not be a hunter, seeking the kill. He could not hurt a precious animal, not a living, breathing thing. He was kind, gentle, brought birds back to life, nursed puppies to health, tended to creatures even the vet would not touch.
I imagin
ed his big hand in mine, tentatively shaking it the first time we met, and every holiday good-bye after that. I heard his voice, not the voice of this writer, but the voice of Nat, "Mrs. Emily, you should see that pony's eyes ever' mornin', jes waitin' for his breakfast, whinnying softly in my ear, jes so pritty. I love those animals, ya know? Do ya think I'm soft in the head?"
"No, Nat, no, it's beautiful how you love them, how gentle you are with them. Everyone admires you for your kindness."
Head down, shuffling away, his shoulders slightly hunched, I believed naively that my words comforted him, made him feel better about himself. I had contributed to his self-esteem. How arrogant of me, how insensitive, how stupid and blind. Who are you, writer? Who were you, Nathaniel? What happened to you? Where did you go? What 'city' do you speak of in which you lost your soul? Were you laughing at us, at me, at everyone who thought you were someone else entirely?
Over the years I have attended church faithfully, sometimes with my mother and father. I dress in my ill-fitting, dark blue suit with blue socks, a white shirt and a blue tie. It is my only other outfit aside from the bridgeman's jacket. At home, I have a red-checkered hunting shirt, which I wear over my jeans. I have small interest in the way of material things and very little feels comfortable on my skin.
On Sundays I squeeze my hugeness into the back pew, fingering my old black Bible. It is a book that my father gave me as a child. Throughout the service, I run my fingers through my curly hair, missing the bridge cap. Whenever anyone looks at me, I stare straight ahead, and those sitting beside me, I am sure, can feel the heat of my nervous sweat. I am always first out the door, never stopping to talk on the front steps as most of the congregation does. My family and I never accept invitations to Sunday dinner, though many people ask.
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