He fed them in a restaurant; they drank wine, and more wine.
They were nowhere; he knew his way home, they did not. They were a long way from home.
Marvo did not enjoy violence; he had only hurt one person, with a cake of lemon soap. He had hurt another but she was a sacrifice. She was meant to be hurt.
He was drunk though, so he left the girls to wander, saying, "Where are you? Come back…" He followed them until they were found by a group of men; then he quickly repented and sobered. He sent a deep and hurtful mist to the men; then he led the stumbling and crying girls home.
Marvo returned to Andra, but it was an uncomfortable homecoming. He loved her, he loved her, and it made him quiet, morose. Andra began to tell him everything, each detail of her life. She tried to make herself interesting. The world was a dangerous place for Marvo. He was so innocent of its ways; his misty eyes only saw the good. He had come to rely on Andra for judgement, even on the simplest grounds. She stopped him from going into a pub, once, when he thought the music sounded good. "Not in there, Marvo. They don't like strangers." Marvo shrugged. It seemed unlikely, but he allowed Andra to take him away.
Without her, he needed more of his mist. The mist was thick around him.
She, too, could learn lessons. She heard two male teenagers on a bus once, discussing their girlfriends.
"And she gets on the phone and tells me about her bird, how it sings and what it looks like. I mean, why would I want to hear that? I'm not interested in that."
Andra knew Marvo was different. He loved detail, he loved to hear everything. She told him why she picked blue stockings instead of black, how long she left the shampoo in. The more she talked, trusting him with the details of her life, the more he loved her. Since hearing the teenage boy, she had sought for a man who could listen.
Andra told Marvo story after story, she gave him all her knowledge. Marvo was happy. He liked to hold her hand and kiss her. They went away for a romantic weekend, to a country pub. There they saw a man staring into the fire. He raised his hand to ask for silence whenever anyone came close. Marvo found his story.
The Xylomancer
I do not always have the chance to use my art, because wood is so precious and heat a luxury rarely found. I stare sometimes into small fires made of bark, stripped from trees once a year, in the first quarter of the moon in June and July. I find the bark pictures mundane and quiet; they do not speak of the future or interpret the present. They merely burn and fall, talking of that moment only, that heat.
Tonight I have a full fire to view. Some uninformed woodcutter cut the tree on the full moon and watched as the tree split. Now, I sit and stare into the fire. When I began I saw that my life is small and the fire is great. That warmth is necessary and that humanity will die, become crueller as they get colder and that will be the end. I chose to keep people warm, and I began burning houses and furniture to keep them cosy.
#
Marvo gave him perpetually warm hands.
Marvo's grandmother taught him a lot about the magic and majesty of trees. She told him many tree stories:
X
"A rowan tree cross tied with red worsted will protect a person from witchcraft," she said. "X marks the spot. X is powerful because it is anonymous. If you want to conceal yourself, use X as your name.
"And you must keep safe from a baptised person whose eyes have been smeared with the green juice of the inner bark of the elder tree. This creature will be able to see witches and magicians in any part of the world."
Marvo was later able to help Andra with this knowledge. A woman recognised Andra as a witch, spent hours screaming on the doorstep, and asking her church to rid the town of the witch. Marvo invited her home to his place, where Andra waited, and the two of them rinsed the elder juice from her eyelids and eyes.
"Who do you see?" he asked.
"Oh, a lovely couple," she said. "Married, are you?" and she left them alone.
Marvo and Andra went to bed, warm from the fire and big glasses of port. They didn't sleep; they talked and touched. Andra was happy with Marvo in her arms, Marvo talking, about little things, the man by the fire.
At around 3am they both sensed sharp movement on the floor below.
"Fire!" came the shout. "Fire!"
They dressed carefully and packed their few things. Neither could imagine leaving anything behind, because they both collected so carefully.
The xylomancer stood amongst the guests, muttering, "Warm now? Warm now, are you?"
The fire was doused and the guests given hot milk, brandy, cheese. A mood of frivolity struck them, that near-death liveliness. The xylomancer disappeared. Marvo sent him to where an old, empty house lay, ready to burn.
"There are ghosts who are cold," said Marvo. The man could burn homes with no living people in them.
Marvo used the knowledge of belief again, that all he had to do was speak with confidence and the man would believe.
Andra's hands were always cold, even with the hotel burning behind them. Marvo tried to warm them, holding them between his, blowing on them, putting them beneath his jumper. Nothing warmed their iciness.
"People trust cold hands," she said.
Waiting Time
I went to the room of a sick little boy once. His mother took my hands, she said, "Thank God. A true healer." She thought the coolness of my hands meant spirituality. I saw what was to be done, but the moon was very new. I would come back when it was full, to ensure the strength of the remedy. His mother begged me to stay, to perform a miracle on her little boy. But how strong was I? How certain in my wisdom, how right? I spent two weeks in other ways, not thinking of a small boy barely drinking, barely breathing.
I went back to the house, but too late. The boy was in hospital and I was not allowed to treat him there.
I waited outside, in the full moon. I stared up at it, and, when I heard tell he died, I howled into its brightness.
#
Marvo stopped off at a chemist on the way home and bought her some peach hand lotion, to keep her hands soft. "It's the sort my grandmother used," he said. Andra covered her hands with it, twisted and turned her fingers so the lotion would sink into her skin. They were still greasy when the phone rang, so Marvo answered. If she had answered, they would not have accepted such a small job.
Marvo was summoned to perform for an audience of two.
"My wife is so depressed," said the man. "I thought you could cheer her up, show her some magic."
"We're not really performing any more," Marvo said.
"You have to. Please. Look, I'm a TV producer. Executive. I can get you on TV! Talk show? Cooking show? Anything!"
It had been a while since Marvo had performed and he missed it. He no longer believed that Doctor Reid would only take him that way. He no longer thought it was the way to cheat death.
He and Andra did a marvellous show for the TV producer and his wife, full of joy and possible futures. The wife wept throughout it.
At her feet a bright little boy played. Not yet two, he knew his colours and how to undo shoes.
"He's a lovely child," Marvo said. She wept.
"She's been like this since he was born," her husband said.
Marvo brought his mist, and his magic, but neither helped her.
The boy had been born to her on the wane of the moon; she now expected to have a girl.
"Such strange dreams I have," she said. "I dream of the moon, of crawling, of hiding from something in a cramped spot. These dreams are frightening because I feel they are telling me something, a message about my children, and I don't know what it is."
"You can only really find the answer yourself," said Marvo. "Your experiences and desires will affect the interpretation. I have dreamed of cramped places, hiding, and I find it a comfort. When I wake, I am disappointed I am not a child again. Crawling in your dream could also mean a desire to return to childhood. You are about to have a second child, who will take all your time and whose very l
ife depends on you. You may dream of being looked after, having no responsibilities and being able to play all day. Then you dream of the moon which could mean you're reaching for it, you want your family to be whole and good. This conflict is nothing drastic. It merely means you are honest in your reactions to the way your life is going."
"That's it," she said. "The responsibility. So much can go wrong."
"Nothing will go wrong. You and your husband love each other and you love your son. All the things you do, all the decisions you make, are based on that."
Marvo sent the gentlest mist to her. Blurred her sense of guilt at not being perfect.
Two months later, the woman thanked Marvo. He had not received a story from her, but she fed him a beautiful meal and allowed him to pick up and smell her little boy and to touch her pregnant stomach.
The TV producer said, "Anything I can do for you. Anything at all."
"There will be something," Marvo said. "Something quite soon."
"I won't forget. Anything."
Marvo went home with Andra and stayed a week. He was only home for a moment and Andra wanted to love him, touch his feet. Make him love her. It brought tears to his eyes, tears of rage, frustration, at his inability to give.
• • • •
A woman came to Andra for help with her flesh; there was too much of it. The woman was wealthy, both in money and in history. Marvo insisted on Andra allowing him to take the payment. I will pay you back, he said, and he did, by giving her blindness for a day to allow her to feel helpless. One day only because by the second day she would begin to lose the helplessness.
Andra loved Marvo; she allowed him to take the payment.
"Tell me the oldest story of your family. The oldest you have," Marvo said to the woman.
The woman's body, mid-treatment, was completely covered with a reeking black mixture. Her pubic hair was thick with it, her nipples erect with it.
She was horrified at a man in the room, but Marvo looked directly into her eyes. He did not see her body. His disinterest made her want him to look. She lifted her arms and stretched. She felt thin in her mud; she felt svelte. Marvo wanted her story, no other part of her.
The woman smiled.
"Don't smile," said Andra. The woman's small white teeth displayed under her top lip. She spoke without moving her lips.
The Stone God
I have an ancestor who travelled far from his family home. He discarded the comfort of good position. He found himself on ships, sailing for a year or a month, meeting with the men on the ship, the occasional woman. From some accounts, he enjoyed a varied sex life.
He found a lot of animals and animal stories to bring home.
He had been a seeker, this relative, but only in his own language. Before he left the country, he studied jungle and animal lore; knew which animal to hunt and which to avoid, the secrets animals held. He did not listen to the native guides. They knew nothing of his knowledge, what he had learnt. He had his lion amulets for strength and he would be safe.
He regaled the others with tales of his adventures, and it little mattered what was truth and what lies. He published a diary:
"Foolish and many were their fears of animals.18 Yet they could not understand our views on bees, that a swarm must never be sold, only bartered, and then only on Good Friday. They didn't even know about Good Friday so I had to have an impromptu Bible studies class, something I had no intention of doing.
"As far as the yellowhammer bird was concerned, they thought I was mad saying they sometimes hatched out snakes. All you have to do is look at their scrawly-marked eggs to know why. As a child I would race around with the rest of them smashing eggs in case they held snakes. They say it is inoculated with a drop of Devil's blood. An unlucky bird to have around."
My ancestor arrived at this place with a group of hunters seeking the elephant's graveyard. He had no interest in ivory himself; all he wanted was experience. He wanted to live, feel it for himself.
In their search, they came across the centre of the universe where he was witness to the beginning of a terrible war, a war which ended the reign of a great chief, ended the lives of many tribes in this piece of jungle. I don't know where exactly.
This tribe had been at peace for three hundred years; they had ruled their land without argument in that time. They lived at the base of a great Stone God. Surrounding them, like a giant campsite, were the other tribes in a perfect circle of over a thousand miles around the great Stone God.
Many travellers since have spoken of the magic the natives see in visitors from afar; matches, the radio, the mirror. These things seem incredible to them; they have had no warning, no previous inventions to prepare them for the sight. To us, a solar car is impressive and desirable, but not astounding. To someone who does not even know about cars, this would be magic.
A meeting was held by all the leaders of the tribes. They came to give offerings to the ruling tribe, and sacrifices to the Stone God.
My ancestor described the statue in his diary:
"Angry-visaged, the size of a mountain, the god rumbles constantly. The natives believe it is speaking, muttering instructions, and an important duty is to listen for words to become clear. At no time is the mouth of this statue unguarded."
While my ancestor was there, tragedy struck the ten tribes.
The leaders had gathered because the mutterings were growing louder. The Stone God was speaking loudly, if not clearly, and the leaders gathered at his mouth, the better to hear his voice.
The rumbling became deafening. The explorers were watching from afar, and still they could not hear each other speak. The eardrums of the people on the statue must have been bursting.
For a full day the leaders waited. They knew something great would happen, some instruction given to change their direction.
Then, as dawn broke on the second day, with a deafening roar the statue split in two, one side crashing to the ground, killing five of the leaders. The others stood in terror, silent. The muttering had stopped.
Panicked, the remaining leaders ran, tumbling and shoving in their haste, to the ground. They saw their peers, crushed, beyond help.
Amongst the living was the man who had ruled the ten tribes for most of his life. The other leaders turned on him.
"The god is angry. You have failed him," said one, a powerhungry ruler who wanted more than his tribe, who wanted them all.
With these words, the tribes descended into civil war. The ten tribes went to war for the privilege of taking control of the half-god, the silent, broken half-god.
My relative was killed by a wild beast; or perhaps an omnibus.
#
Marvo rewarded her with beautiful nipples.
Marvo was happy to find a contrasting story as soon as he left the rich woman. He passed through the doorway to the salon, holding his breath to keep the smell of Andra in, and he saw a girl sitting there, slumped in the doorway.
Under the Bridge
Under the bridge is where I used to live. We had homes, and possessions, like people who live in houses, but less encumbered. More basic. Our question was "Where will my food for today come from?" The question in the towns is "What job will I do?" but the job is for the food.
Under the bridge there are no jobs. There is sleeping and finding drugs. There is taking drugs. There is eating what food there is. There is sex, on occasion. There is laughter; there is self-deprecating laughter. People do not laugh at each other here.
There are no locks. No doors, no windows. The only roof the underside of the freeway, one hundred metres above.
When the world is quiet and you remind yourself to listen, you can hear the thup thup thup of cars travelling at a constant and careful speed over the bridge.
Most of us there loved to talk. We talked about everything. We read old newspapers and discuss those events. We talked about our friend who was stabbed in the real world, left the bridge for the streets and was stabbed to death. We talked about not usin
g any more, about cleaning up and moving on. We'd always keep in contact, we'd have reunions and laugh about how we lived the way we did, remember the time the car crashed over the side of the bridge and burnt up, remember how warm we were that day? Remember when the guy, whatever his name was, that ex-cop who still had muscles and felt suspicious to us because he pretended he could easy give up? What about when one of his ex-cop mates came around to hassle us all and saw him there and said, "So that's what happened to you?" and the guy climbed onto the bridge and jumped off? Some sad memories there, strong stuff.
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