Tearing Down The Statues

by Brian Bennudriti

  Availing nothing, he sought clarity from the figurine, “Am I imagining you or is this some kind of test? I don’t understand. Are you the Augur, peeking in on me? Preparing me?”

  Cold soapstone rested lifelessly, a ridiculous puffy beard jutting upwards and thick eyebrows clouded carved, blank eyes. The supplicant waited, then turned back to the hearth, to the fresco that stared harshly back at him..or maybe it was laughing silently. He honestly couldn’t have said.

  “How long are you going to keep me in here?” He stared until his eyes crossed, waiting and tracing his fingers against the wall. After a moment, the squeaking sounded again from the corridor. It was more consistent this time, and louder.

  The carab figurine spoke again, “A private chamber, they said. Virgin solitude and monastery silence while you contemplate the great mystery; and you get the one with the squeaky air conditioning. Your thundercloud just follows you everywhere!” The carab man chuckled again, but was shushed by the man in the room.

  At once, a damp headed and shiny faced fellow poked in through the doorway as the squeaking stopped, “Know you’re busy and whatnot, all that, just need to sit for a blink.”

  The supplicant froze in disbelief at the fellow’s trashy behavior. “Just a blink, mind you. You won’t go SHOO me, there’s a good man!”

  The new arrival shuffled in, tugging on a rickety cart decorated in thin copper filigree and wobbling on one wheel. Inside was an oversized portmanteau, its leather faded and cracking in spots. The cart jostled slowly up and down as he rolled it near the cushion where the carab was. The man wasn’t terribly old; but he was out of breath for the effort all the same. He wore a changepurse around his waist which rattled and clinked when he moved.

  “What are you doing? You can’t be in here.”

  The new arrival only waved his hand in dismissal, “Not more SHOOing, please. Never seen such in ten years. Nobody wants to chat, to make gentle conversation…nothing but ‘storms in the symbols’ and whatnot. Pure junk and rude, after all my time served! Let a man earn his keep, right?”

  “They said no visitors. You can’t sell me anything if that’s what you’re doing here. I paid a lot of money to be here, you’ll get me pulled out!”

  The fellow nodded as if in agreement, “How could anything be in the reading if you didn’t put it there? Answer me that! Let a man earn his keep. Bad for business, I say. Let it go.” He rested his feet on the cart and his head on the cushion, breathing out dramatically to signal his pleasure at finally finding a place to roost. Quiet improperly, he broke wind and only after a moment apologized.

  “Sorry about that.”

  Stitched into the leather on the old portmanteau were the words, ‘Pain Seller’ in an ornamental script. Surely inside were his wares, whatever they were. The supplicant noticed the stranger didn’t close his eyes long, but rather lifted his head and scanned the room with the eyes of a salesman.

  “Ask him what he’s selling.” The carab figurine chimed.

  The merchant sat up, acknowledging the supplicant’s modest clothing, threadbare and patched, and his duffle bag in disrepair and clumped in a corner beside some dirty shirts. He paused on a nickel and malachite bracelet hanging from a loop on the duffle. Here, as he gauged the supplicant’s means and despaired somewhat from what he discovered, here he had not found a man of substance.

  “You’re rambling. You really need to leave before someone-“

  The pain seller only looked tired, locking eyes with the supplicant, “Knock it off, you’re glad I’m here.”

  He pointed at the fresco, watching the both of them from its cold stone wall, “’Cause that thing is driving you crazy. Am I right? Watches me pee, even. I’m fed up with it. Come on, you’re glad I’m here. Let’s just sit for a blink. Just a blink, mind you.”

  Having conceded, the supplicant went quiet. It was a fair point. It was in fact the pain seller who next spoke.

  “So, do you know what you’re going to ask it?”

  “It’s personal.”

  The pain seller chuckled, “Umm hmmm. You’re going to ask it what might have been. What might have happened to you should certain things have gone another way. Yeah?”

  Surprised, “How did you-?”

  Nodding toward the duffle, “Second-hand military kit bag…bracelet’s a woman’s…” He squinted and turned his head to one side as he evaluated the supplicant’s face, his own nose and cheeks red and roadmapped with tiny red veins. “You have the look of a failed businessman about you.”

  “Well, I said it’s personal.”

  “Yeah.” The pain seller nodded and leaned forward towards his cart. “Been hitting these halls for ten summers, gooseberry; and there’s a bit of a pattern to it. D’ya mind?”

  He gestured to his portmanteau and cart, his eyebrow lifted and a sly grin on his pink face. He sought permission to open his little portable shop. The supplicant was a bit dazed suddenly, having thought of something. He poked a single finger forward and jabbed it into the merchant’s shoulder to test its solidity.

  “Real enough, ay? D’ya mind, I said?”

  “Did they send you in here?”

  “Nobody sent me, gooseberry. They’d flip if they saw me at this. Ten summers running; and not a sniff of my underarms! I’m some kind of record, no doubt. Can we get on with it then? I’m real; and nobody sent me. We’re good on that, right? No SHOOing? No storms.”

  “I’m not answering any of your questions. If the Augur’s what it claims, then it doesn’t need to send parlor trick faith healer spies to pry information out of me before the Audience.”

  The merchant looked insulted, “You’ve been in here a little too long, don’t you think? A little too long, I think. Watches you pee, gets in your head. Doesn’t it? I’m just trying to get a little something for myself and sell a bit. Captive audience and all that. Sell a bit. Just a blink; and I’ll have this open. You’ll see. D’ya mind?”

  The supplicant smiled thinly, perhaps deciding to play along, and signaled for the merchant to go ahead with his thing, whatever it was. Of course it was incredibly discordant to hawk trinkets or souvenirs within the hallowed Augur’s temple; and though no one had shown him the written rule prohibiting such, there was certainly one. The merchant clicked an old mechanism unlocking the case and set the suitcase to open vertically like a reliquary, still resting on the old cart. He hesitated.

  “Any thoughts before I open this? What might I have inside?”

  The supplicant only passed his hand as if swiping away a web, “Pills, I suppose. Some sort of illicit medication.”

  The merchant hummed, grinning, “Huh uh, no pills or draughts, gooseberry. Not me. Pain Seller, it says. What sorts of pain, you might wonder?”

  “I don’t know. Get on with it, whatever it is.”

  “Come on, then. Have a go at it! You’re a brainy one – thoughtful type and wandering in search of yourself. ‘S my take, at least. What sorts of pain might you think? What in the world might I be on about? Think like a philosopher. Think where you are!”

  “Alcohol or pornography, something a wife might addict herself to while her husband travels on business?”

  “A try, no doubt. A try. No draughts. No booze. Nothing my mother, bless her, wouldn’t approve. So much closer to the mark. Think where you are!”

  The supplicant waved his hand and shook his head in surrender, “Cheating love letters…”

  With a showman’s grin, the merchant creaked apart his case and laid it wide open, pulling from their recessed positions a number of tiny shelves and racks and at last setting up his cheap store before the two of them upon the cart. Hanging from hooks and jammed within drawers were postcards, old silvers, tiny picture frames no bigger than a man’s thumb, doll’s clothing, statuettes, a velvet bag of toy coins, a shining white pair of infant shoes, a mummified shenna - stiff and missing a leg, opals and papers, and assorted bits and pieces one might find in a poor neighborhood’s pawnshop. There were curled pho
tographs on old canvas, the way they would print them before electronics. It was an argosy of useless flotsam and mementos.

  The supplicant was unimpressed, “What a bunch of junk. You’re talking about other people’s pain. You’ve got…what, sob stories for all this stuff? Why would anyone pay for that? I’ve got my own problems.”

  The merchant’s head was turned to one side slightly, the sly grin still wide, “Try something, gooseberry. Why don’t you?”

  “No one could make a living like this. Who would buy stories of other people’s grief?”

  With a determined and maybe frustrated frown, the merchant reached into his case and pulled from a stack an old photograph on yellowing canvas inside a tin frame with strings of maple leaves engraved along its length and width. The colors were faded; but it portrayed a woman, not young and not yet old, dancing with a much younger man. The merchant held it forward and awaited acknowledgement.

  The supplicant said, “A wedding maybe. Some sort of social. His mom, I’m guessing?”

  “Do you want to hear or not?”

  “I don’t know. Yes.”

  The merchant lifted an eyebrow, “You’ve got to settle down, then. Listen more closely and think like somebody waiting in a place like this. You’ve got to see what I tell you. Can you do that?”

  “Okay. I get it.”

  “See Audra’s face, her expression. Look at that. It’s a strange turn to have a snapshot of the very happiest moment of a person’s life. Strange turn! Sixty three autumns, all that happens to a person through their whole life; and this short dance was the treasure. Isn’t that something?”

  “Who’s the boy, then?”

  “Don’t presume. Not his time yet.” The merchant rested his hand, lowering the photograph till his wrist settled on the case. The supplicant’s eyes followed, scanning Audra’s eyes closely, her face and her poorly fitting dress.

  “Audra was gentle. She didn’t say anything if she hadn’t something kind to say. Not like her parents who only screamed at each other, screamed at nothing at all. It was her way to gently pick up the pieces of whatever they’d shattered, one by one. They were always breaking things. She’d stack them into piles humming to herself, then sweep them neatly into the trash before the mess itself became the fight. That’s who she was, gooseberry. Who she was. Anyway, they both went away when it was clear Audra’s white-haired grandmother could be taken advantage of. Grew up lonely, didn’t she?”

  The supplicant took the photograph and frame from the Pain Seller’s hand. Audra’s eyes were bright, her smile full and wild.

  “She took a wrong-headed husband, though. When he talked about dreams and the country, about getting out of her town and seeing brilliant lights in her eyes. He never hit her really, but came to say things about her habits and her body, about what she was doing wrong and how short she fell. Scattered his time with friends and rebuilding machines, and forgot things he’d promise to do for her and her birthdays. That dress there in the picture…something he bought her once twenty six days after her thirtieth birthday. This was the first time she’d actually been somewhere to wear it.”

  The merchant leaned in and looked as well, as if to remind himself of the dress.

  “Their boy was full of life and preferred to be where his dad was, always moving and busting things apart to see how they worked. That was his way, wasn’t it? Audra took him to fields and recital halls, to libraries and dances. Even so, the boy preferred his father’s company at exhibits and theaters, for looking at big machines. ‘My son is clean and healthy, that’s what matters’, she’d tell the neighbor beside them, who never found himself short of things to say about Audra’s lonely days. Always something to say.

  “Fairly sudden when Audra’s husband took a job in the provinces and never spoke to her again. This snapshot here was taken at the social hall the day Audra’s boy passed his trade exam and one year to the day since she’d last heard from his father. Just before the flash went off, one heartbeat before as the cameraman was stepping into place, the boy told Audra she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  The Pain Seller leaned back and rested his head against the soft cushion, “It was only twelve summers later when Audra found herself in a hospital bed being told she wouldn’t be leaving. Her boy was there – she asked if he remembered the photograph being taken. He didn’t and couldn’t remember the day at all. She smiled, shut her eyes, and gripped this tin frame. And that was all.”

  The supplicant was quiet, sad. He looked slowly around the apartment, to the motionless carab man and the crumpled duffle, the illuminated beads and painted hearth. He glanced for a moment to the ceiling, silently pondering before he spoke again.

  “Is that real? Did you make that up?”

  The Pain Seller only looked back at him silently, no sign of an answer either way.

  At last, “I’ll take the picture.”

  “You see my meaning, then. You asked why someone would buy pain. I’ve answered your question, gooseberry? Is that not right?”

  When the money had exchanged hands, the two of them sat quietly for a time. The supplicant examined the photograph, scratching his chin and studying Audra’s face, maybe rehearsing the story for himself or perhaps just experiencing her as fully as he could. The merchant stood and stretched his back at last, cracking and popping at his joints uncomfortably.

  “He’s a liar.” The carab man spoke up finally, having absented himself from the discussion for some time. Strangely, the merchant cocked his head and took notice of the figurine at almost exactly the same moment, as if he’d heard something though that was clearly impossible. He gripped the statue by its waist and lifted it at arm’s length, twisting it this way and that to observe its artistry and frowning all the while.

  “Cheap imitation. House specials are getting cut-rate, know what I mean?” With that, he shoved the carab face-down into the cushions and stepped idly to the fresco on the far wall, his hands linked behind his back in ponderance. The supplicant eyed him suspiciously, for such a thing shouldn’t have happened the way it seemed to just then.

  “So, do you really know what to expect in there? In the Circle?”

  With an expression of sudden insight, of having decided something in his favor, the supplicant stood quickly and joined the merchant beside the image still carrying the frame, facing him, “Yeah. I think so. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  He whistled softly, then pushed out his lower lip a bit, “Omens all over the place. They’re all on about it here. It’s all they’ll talk about. Black eyed emanations standing in rows seen by hundreds at Spenecia. How could that be? Weird patterns in the readings nobody meant to include but that show up over and over. Cracks in the Record – Recorders that suddenly can’t remember specific things. Some say the Salt Mystic is even coming back, how about that? What’s really going on – can you tell me that? I live in these halls, my very new friend. These halls are still at the center of everything, aren’t they? And something awful is happening.”

  “Talgos killing each other. Whatever. Happened before. Will happen again. What does that have to do with Audra?”

  The Pain Seller turned his bloodshot eyes to the supplicant, watching him and evaluating him, maybe turning over what the young man had said looking for truth in it, “Nothing’s going to step out of this wall. And that dime store thing over there, it can chatter all day; but it’s all coming from your head. But when you get in there…if you get in there…it’s not. Fourteen Recorders, gooseberry; and they’ve got the thing in their heads. All of it, back to the beginning. It talks, sounds like one of them speaking; but it isn’t. It isn’t at all. Did you know that some people, after their visit to the Circle, they never laugh again? Never laugh. That’s the sort of place you’re going.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “All they bring it is pain, gooseberry. It’s all it knows. Every generation gets worse and more lost the further they go without beliefs. Sad, isn’t
it? Ever wonder how those today, ones that can’t hold their families together or hold on to their money, raised by absent parents chasing their own appetites, how they’d handle the sorts of terrors our grandfathers saw? And the war hounds, what sorts of atrocities might they come up with given such little conscience?”

  He widened his pale eyes, “I believe in the omens, those signs. They’re real; and it’s the Augur screaming. It’s screaming at us all; and whatever the Talgos unloose on us will swallow us whole. Something awful is happening; and it’s our fault…’cause we let it.”

  Silenced and thoughtful, the supplicant only watched the Pain Seller with a creased brow. The fellow took on the expression of wrapping up, of being done with things, and suddenly started collecting his shop and pulling in the little shelves, swiveling in tiny racks into the tightly compacted case. He snapped the shiny latch, greasy with fingerprints; and it took him twice to get it to hold. He started for the darkened hallway from which he’d come.