Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  * * *

  —There’s a rat in separate. Say it.

  He did.

  —Emma faced a dilemma.

  —Poor Emma.

  —You’ll scratch through, boyo.

  Morgan set aside the spelling primer:

  —Now, about the other thing.

  There once was a sod called Elf Rider

  Who guzzled a gallon of cider

  He farted some brass, right out of his arse

  And said, I’m my own best provider!

  —You have to face it sometime.

  —I’ll be more careful. Try harder.

  Morgan pulled up a chair.

  —Listen to me, boyo.

  Straddling, eye to eye.

  —No one gets through this place without getting whacked. It isn’t possible.

  So far…?

  —It isn’t that bad. Not as bad as you think.

  He wasn’t that bad. That was why he’d never had it. Mistakes, yes. Unpleasant at worst, sent away until nicer. He wasn’t bad. Not like other children.

  * * *

  The broth made him gag, and his guts turned again.

  —That must have been some potted tongue.

  Kardleigh held the pan, but mention of it prolonged the heaving, until his eyes flooded down his face. Kardleigh took the pan away and returned with something milky:

  —Try to swallow that. Nothing for it but time.

  * * *

  Orders of magnitude more severe, Grieves’s arm. Given without quarter. Smiting, not ministry. To think of what he wasted fighting Morgan as long as he did. So long dodging a paper sword, so long refusing what later left too soon. The first time—Morgan’s patience expired, dragged to the study, given with the palm of his hand—he’d been shocked more than hurt, yet he kept fighting even as Morgan pulled him up by the elbow:

  —Something to say?

  —Sod off, you bloody wank!

  Morgan kept holding, with a look that saw all, gave all:

  —Thank you. You say, thank you.

  * * *

  The clock in the Tower hauled them forward gear by gear. It tolled four, and blood came into the sky. He and Morgan mounted the stone stairs to the passage above the chapel and then, iron ladder, untangled the chain to the hatch. Moss hadn’t been up on the roof in years, not since the last time with Morgan. Inside him was an ache, a craving still, and he felt how much he missed what they did, how habit-forming it had always been. Then came the blade, the realization that this would be the last time, last hungry good. And the last chance, on this roof, to say what he owed Morgan to say:

  —I’ve never, you know. Not to anyone.

  So much that was real had no words to describe it.

  —I know, Morgan said.

  —Never spoken, much less written.

  —I know.

  —So, how did Halton…?

  Morgan flicked his cigarette over the edge:

  —He read something.

  It fell to the walk; they’d have to fetch it back.

  —Of Riding’s, Morgan said.

  —Riding? You and Riding?

  —Please.

  —I knew you were close, but—

  —What do you take me for? Morgan said.

  —Then how on earth could Riding…?

  Morgan lay back and covered his face:

  —And he got it all wrong!

  —Halton?

  —Riding. A misunderstanding. A ludicrous, logical misunderstanding.

  If only the life, if only the cake …

  —And now it all makes terrible sense.

  If only it all were dough again.

  * * *

  She was awake when Jamie opened his eyes, and she put her mouth on him. If every waking could be like this, he’d get her children until they had nowhere to put them. It felt like those times, lost behind the veil, when they could have devoured each other all the day and still be left hungry.

  * * *

  —Why don’t you go see Riding in the Tower, Moss said.

  —Wouldn’t know where to start.

  —Suit yourself.

  —Besides which, do you know what else your friend Halton told me?

  —I’ve had about enough of that cunt.

  Morgan gave him a clip for old time’s sake:

  —He reminds me of you.

  —I wasn’t that pretty.

  His arm itched. He unbuckled his wristwatch and scratched until it was raw.

  —I suppose I might have been almost as much trouble.

  Morgan took his wrist and rubbed away the marks:

  —Halton said that Riding wasn’t really ill. Said he makes himself sick, does it on purpose.

  Moss suppressed a curse. He was sick of Halton, sick of Riding, too. Both were spoiled and deserved what they got.

  —How does Halton know so bloody much anyhow? Does he peep through keyholes, or what?

  They climbed up the leads and negotiated the hatch. He tied up the chain, and at the bottom of the ladder, Morgan took his arm:

  —Wait.

  They couldn’t do it there, but in the study, once more, if they hurried?

  —What if, Morgan said, young Halton’s not the only one at keyholes?

  The picture bloomed, in all its idiocy.

  —Riding? Through a keyhole?

  —He saw, he heard, but he got it all wrong. Completely arse-over-elbows wrong.

  28

  Fünfundzwanzig Juni, Bavaria—Dear Uncle John, We’re leaving Bad Wörishofen for Budapest tomorrow. Hymanfinger has arranged for Mum to be treated by Dr. Zoltan Zarday. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, the celebrated Persuasionist? His remedy consists of a series of talks with the patient. He asks questions and then explains the cause of the disease. The force of his logic is said to persuade people back to health. It sounds unmedical, I admit, but the results speak for themselves. Mum feels certain he can cure her. In any case we can learn Hungarian. I’m getting perfectly tired of Wie lange sind Sie schon hier? Also, I believe Zoltan Zarday is a Friend.

  * * *

  It was five days before food stayed down. Kardleigh insisted there had been no post for him, though of course there was prep. Moss brought him books from his cupboard, things he’d tracked down on her mention but not yet read. The Ash Wednesday poem made no sense, but it caused him to shed tears, such was his weakness. As for Miss Sayers, he’d never heard of the woman, but if her Lord Peter could turn a jailhouse interview to seduction, what could really be impossible?

  Upon release from the Tower, he found only one letter in his pigeonhole, from his mother. Three days were the longest he’d gone without hearing from the girl; now six? Stepping on the bottom row, he reached for the back of his pigeonhole. There had always been a gap, but was it wider? He sought out Fardley. There was a chink, he explained, between his pigeonhole and the wall. Was it possible anything had fallen? Fardley stiffened: There was nothing skew-whiff about pigeonholes. Attached to wall. Wouldn’t move until the Day of Judgment. The end of time. Fardley had a line in repetitions, but just as the man searched for another apocalypse, inspiration struck and he shifted his fish and chips, revealing the tray for Grieves’s evening post. If the young master had exercised a bit of patience, Fardley said, he would have found his pigeonhole full in less than an hour, for here were three, correction four, letters to his name.

  The library stairs taxed his strength. He sat by the window, breathless.

  The first two were dated four days earlier, the third and fourth afterwards. She’d changed to envelopes bearing a stripe. Both of the earliest began in medias res—which the first? All postmarked Budapest and concerning, it seemed, the fabled Zoltan Zarday.

  He said he was leaving in ten days’ time for a lecturing tour, but the treatment takes two months, at minimum.

  It took persuasion to get past his secretary, a young man with some French. (If the girl had unleashed a fraction of the whirlwind she’d been at the Academy, Gray reckoned the lad had little
chance.)

  My mother would be a quick patient, Dr. Zarday. She has experience with persuasion.

  (Asterisk, to her correspondent: Friends were called Quakers, which was what her family were. They operated by persuasion.)

  Can you see, now, why I knew Zoltan Zarday was the one?

  The Hungarian resisted, but she was up to the challenge. If he could not accept her mother, she asked that he refer them to another persuasionist. Alas, he replied, he was unique, which was why his schedule did not permit—

  She could come anytime, I said, day or night. I confessed I’d taken a horrible gamble, that when Mum had learned the Kneipping was a failure, she wanted to go home, and the only way I could get her to try Budapest was to tell a little (well, substantial) lie and say my godfather had written him and that he’d agreed to take her on.

  The next envelope picked up with descriptions of a consulting room, a high-ceilinged apartment on the first floor, oil paintings, a tiled stove diffusing the last of the day’s heat. She described the man’s inscrutable response to her throwing down the gauntlet and more or less insulting him (in another post?); their adjournment to a cukrászda (meaning?) that overlooked the Danube; crimson chairs in wrought-iron, a table covered in crumbs (café?).

  Have you ever tasted Hungarian kavet, Miss Líoht?

  She asked him to call her Cordelia. His closest friends, he said, called him Zarday. (Where were her mother and governess at the time?) He smoked a pipe: description, accouterments. He discoursed: we Magyars this, we Magyars that; a castle that withstood Tartars, Turks, and even the feeble plot of Bela Kun (cracking name for a villain, noted); Matyas Cathedral made mosque by the Ottomans (Had she taken notes or was this from memory?), now finally restored. There, statue of Saint Stephen—martyr? No, king. Coffee, pastries (names, she confessed, copied later from a menu); how to drink kavet: in tiny glasses, all at once, with a toast, Eggy-Sah-Gara.

  Letter three broke off there. She couldn’t have teased him more if she tried. The tea bell rang. He ignored it. Letter four:

  There’s a constant ache in my ribs. You’d laugh if you saw me. Here she is finally being treated by Zoltan Zarday, we’re in the most beautiful city, and all I can think of is my grandparents’ cottage in Drayton Fen where we lived when I was small. There was a smell in the air a few nights ago, near the river, that reminded me, and now all I want is England.

  They were doing bits of The Odyssey in Greek. Nostos, homecoming; nostalgia, longing for same.

  The way I see it, we’ll be home before summer’s end, I’ll go back to school, and Da will have been frightened enough that he’ll come home and be good to her. He loves her better when he’s been away, and if she would only believe in him, everything would work out.

  Up the side margin:

  I think there’s a good chance I can make this happen.

  Page two, dated next morning:

  I keep imagining you reaching into your pigeonholes and taking down my letters. You hide them in those secret pockets of your jacket until you can sneak up to our Chair Loft. Sometimes I read my horrible script and try to imagine you looking at it. Deciphering? Scornful of its mess? Can you smell the sausages they make in the restaurant downstairs? What about my mother’s verbena toilet water? What becomes of my letters once you’ve read them? I suppose they start to smell of mildew and cabbage. I still haven’t been able to eat cabbage (was it called chin flab??) since. And I haven’t laughed like that.

  The papers she touched could escape Budapest; for the price of a stamp, they chugged to the sea, boarded a packet across the Channel and the night mail to Yorkshire, where Fardley’s stained fingers sorted them by House. The words her pen had scraped into the page, thoughts captured by the swirl of her ink, these alone had a passport to nostos.

  Uncle John, You’re making my work more difficult than ever. I’ve stopped showing her the articles you send. The Lancet put her into tears most of the evening! She already has Miss Murgatroyd pestering her. (I can tell you’ve been writing her, too, though she won’t admit it.) Whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish, please stop, if only for my sake.

  John had written his publisher and negotiated terms for delivery: excerpt in September, finished manuscript by April. Arguments could be revived, new evidence sought, fresh avenues explored. Chaos might drive war, politics, and human intercourse, but it need not prevail everywhere.

  You mustn’t believe a thing Miss M says. She distrusts Zoltan Zarday because Mum is usually in a delicate state when she returns from her treatment, but it’s helping her. You must trust me. She has more energy than she’s had in weeks and most importantly, she adores him.

  He had never tolerated drivel from his students, even from the thickest of the Third, and he would not tolerate it elsewhere. If necessary, he would begin the book over from scratch. If necessary, he would write ten letters a day across the Channel. If necessary, he would forgo sleep entirely.

  I can’t believe you’d take Miss M’s word over mine! Zoltan Zarday is a gifted physician. He has not “exerted unfair influence over an infirm woman.” And he most certainly never “brainwashed” me in our first meeting!

  Term finished in less than three weeks. He would prepare his reports in advance and take the first train south.

  I know Miss Murgatroyd is respectable and well meaning, but if only you could see the change in Mum since we’ve come to Budapest, you’d believe in Zoltan Zarday. He’s a good man. I mean a man actually filled with goodness. He wears a thick beard like a Viking. She likes to tease him about it, and today she told him she was going to bring soap and razor to shave it herself. Apparently his reply was, “You like boyish men, Margaret?”

  He would leave behind the pitiful reserve that had shackled him, the pigeonhearted tact, the failure of nerve. He’d arrive on their doorstep and set down his bags. He would speak, and they would listen!

  I suppose it was inevitable, Tommy Gray.

  It had become habit—letters daily, begun any which place.

  Miss M unveiled her diagnosis today: auto-intoxication, brought on by a weak colon. She and my mother are so churlish with one another. My mother wouldn’t care a fig for M’s opinion if it didn’t include criticism of ZZ, who we all know is holier than St. Matyas.

  Miss M had called the girl naive and deluded. He nearly gasped reading it. Who would dare?

  “Cordelia, dear, philosophies like those of Zoltan Zarday are the product of unhealthy dissipations. What those people call Internal Consciousness is nothing more than a gruesome and abnormal self-absorption.”

  Even his mother would loathe this old trout. He burned to give her a piece of his mind.

  Uncle John, There is no need to think of coming to Budapest! What does it matter whether Hymanfinger recommended Dr. Zarday or not? Mum’s eating more than ever, and in three days we’ll be moving on to Switzerland, where she’ll be under the constant supervision of a renowned medical staff. In the third place, it would give her a desperate scare if you dropped everything and came here. She’d think she was dying!

  * * *

  A bargain had been struck with the Hungarian, or so he gathered (lost lacuna?). Zoltan Zarday had made arrangements for them to take the Cure at a sanatorium convenient to his lecture tour (not, please God, near Hans Castorp). He had promised to pass by and see his patient, but now, it seemed, the indomitable Miss Murgatroyd had made her last stand. Mrs. Líoht must be told the truth about the Hungarian’s qualifications, Miss M insisted. She must be told that dear Mr. Grieves had not recommended him. If necessary, Miss M would summon Mr. Grieves herself.

  The installment ended abruptly, and he had to wait two days for a short page, backdated, describing not her clash with the governess, but her tour of local houses of worship. I went to three churches today, even a Jewish one. She didn’t explain what she’d done in those places except to say she was listening for messages. Three churches that day, two the day before, but no Almighty wire.

  The envelopes lo
st their stripe and acquired Swiss postage. Would you know, Tommy Gray, it happened just as it always does when you most need help. At the Gellert Baths (Budapest), she’d discovered a leaflet in English. The governess, in turn, read it with relish, and its essay by an English physician expressed her views to a T. With it, Miss M approached her employer. “For example, Margaret dear, here is some literature about a simple home remedy, Carmola, recommended by a Dr. Light, guaranteed to resolve digestive ripples within two days.” The mother thought it a cruel joke and responded in kind. Elle a reçu leur congé. (Footnote, in pencil—Carmola Ltd her father’s business, Carmola his product though he’d never touch it himself; of course he wasn’t a physician, but you had to say so in the medicine business.) The governess was bewildered. Elle a fondu en larmes. She never understood the bait she’d taken. Elle était mise au vert. She failed to recognize English spellings of Irish surnames. Elle est maintenant hors de page. She failed to recognize the assassin’s knife when wielded by a girl she thought innocent. J’en ai fait mon deuil. The mother’s position, Gray thought, was like Hans Castorp’s sled. Il n’y a si bonne compagnie qui ne se quitte. High on a slope skidding down to a grave.

  * * *

  The Gimmelwald Heilanstalt, John gathered, was the genuine article. His goddaughter’s handwriting had come under control, and Meg wrote him three lines daily. Their calm prose calmed him in turn: The establishment perched on a cliff in the Alps. From any window, gray-and-white granite reared into the clouds. At night, the air hissed with waterfalls. A godly, righteous, and sober life after all the mess. Absent the governess, recalled home by family crisis, his goddaughter had become her mother’s companion, more sister, she claimed, than daughter. She was on hand during the indoctrination. She took notes at lectures on Right Living. She reminded her mother how long to inhale, how quickly to exhale, what position to assume while breathing, how many layers of rug to maintain around which limbs. She chided her for sitting indoors, a vice apparently known as Being Unfaithful to the Cure. The hours were the hours of childhood in that regime whose sole aim appeared to be the pacification of the physical machine.