The Wanderess

by Roman Payne

  “Nay, friends!” I would reply, and my head would plunge back into my books. I would read until my face was blistery and I could feel the skin on my eyes cringing—as cringe the limbs of an octopus when he is thrown onto a roaring fire. Once they were gone I would put my books aside and drink a steaming tea of quieting herbs. I would press a hot steam cloth to my face to let the pores open and breathe in the solitude and the night air. I then might retake my books, and finish my scholarship; then off to bed—goodnight!

  All that during the waning moon.

  During the waxing moon, however… well that is another story! A wildebeest, a tiger, a satyr, the god Dionysus, all these I resembled more than a mere man, and still do when the holy moon grows. In general I strive for greatness and rational achievement, but I admit to you I will always have a terrible fondness for women, a tendency towards drunkenness, and a weakness for the fumes of the poppy and other miserable beauties. But I don’t blame myself much, as intoxication, like sexual euphoria, is the privilege of the human animal. Sexual frenzy is our compensation for the tedious moments we must suffer in the passage of life. “Nothing in excess” professed the ancient Greeks. ‘Why, if I spend half the month in healthy scholarship and pleasant sleep, shouldn’t I be allowed the other half to howl at the moon and pillage the groins of Europe’s great beauties?’ (‘…that is the attitude I arrived in Europe with; for drunk on wine and ecstatic from the ‘black smoke,’ I am a demigod. My father was close to the king. He was a wild-thing, adopted by royalty—therefore, adopted by society. Moral obligations—also mortal obligations—don’t apply to me. I do as I please!

  “I will do as I please…” I muttered quietly aloud while thumbing a coin on the counter.

  There I was: standing at a brightly lit counter in a taberna in Málaga, Spain. Some old customers, mostly obese types with greasy faces, were seated talking and playing dominos and drinking the local yellow wine. The young people were all outside drinking beer and sangria on the patios in the cool of the night. I recognized a few customers who had been passengers with me on the Belle Étoile. They eyed me with curiosity and whispered gossip amongst themselves. I kept to myself at the counter drinking water and thought about ordering a cold soup. It wasn’t long before I was disturbed...

  The bathroom door swung open and out came a little runt of a man, shaped like a turnip, with scaly skin and patches of rash over his eyes. He practically stepped on my heels as he stood beside me at the counter asking the barmaid for his “merchandise case.” Surveying him, he appeared to be a huckster of the commonest sort one finds littering all dirty port cities. His dull eyes tucked under a shiny tall forehead darted left, then right. Saliva gleamed on his lips. The shoulders of his ill-fitting suit slid off down his arms, giving him the appearance of a down-and-out colporteur who doesn’t make an adequate living selling goods— either because his goods are of poor quality, or because he invests his earnings in a pernicious habit. I was surprised to notice, however, that his shoes were nice—polished and made of good leather. The barmaid gave him his case, saying, “Aqui, Pulpa!” The huckster looked up at me from where I towered over him, and smiled and said, “Monsieur…” assuming I was a French traveler, and then he told me, “I am not a huckster, if that was what you were thinking.”

  He grinned and I noticed his teeth were very brown, almost black. He took out a watch from his pocket and looked at the time. The watch was real gold (I have an excellent eye), and finely made. The fact that this misfit could acquire such a handsome watch yet not engage a tailor to fit his suit jacket to his shoulders made me curious. “It’s getting late,” he whispered to me in a hushed tone. “If you want, I can show you a good place to eat, not too expensive, and comfortable. A place locals go. I notice you were looking at la carta. You seem to be a traveler.”

  Always up for adventure, so long as they don’t waste my time, kill my spirit, or deplete the happiness in my heart, I agreed to follow the runt who said he was not a huckster. We walked to a restaurant where he promised I could have an excellent fried meal cooked by a real Andalusian freidurías1 cook. It would cost me only two silver piastres and my guide would drink a glass of wine with me. The wine was included in the price of the meal.

  The two of us headed up Calle de Barroso. I walked three paces behind my guide to be proper. My hands felt for the buckles of my travelling satchels to be sure that they were wellsecured. In the moonless night, a solitary streetlamp, very tall, choked a burning flame; its light gleamed on the edges of the cobblestones and on the doorknobs of the stoopy little houses lining the street. It gleamed as well on the skin of my guide’s scaly bald head, on his shiny polished shoes, on a puddle of urine where a man or a beast had emptied its bladder.

  Customers were spilling out of a brightly-lit restaurant in the middle of the deserted street. The restaurant seemed an oasis of life in a black desert. Music and din poured into the empty and silent cobblestone lane and my guide led me into the restaurant and we took a small table. The old freidurita with sagging breasts knew my guide apparently well, she called him “Pulpawrecho” and quickly sat a carafe of table wine down in front of us, as well as some egg-tortilla which we could eat while the food was being prepared. I mentioned I wanted to abstain from wine; but I’d had a long voyage, and as the wine was included with the meal and already on the table, I decided to have a glass and served my guide and served myself. Then, after spilling a splash of wine in a saucer on the table as a sacrifice to Dionysus (as was my custom whenever wine was drunk), I pulled the bitter red juice through my teeth and let it pour into the well of my mouth. It had been a couple weeks since my last drink, the wine tasted bitter and bad at first. My guide sat across from me at the little table and sipped his wine happily through glossy brownish-black teeth, and smiled stupidly at me. I again considered the likely reason for his stained teeth.

  1FREIDURÍAS (or “freiduría”): (Sp) Establishment (such as a cafeteria or restaurant) in which food, especially fish, are fried and sold (or else consumed on premises).

  “I’m not a guide, in case you’re wondering,” said my guide, munching a piece of egg-tortilla I’d torn off and flopped in front of him to eat.

  I wasn’t wondering, but had simply assumed he was a guide, and told myself as much.

  “No, I’m not a guide at all. I’m a servant—the personal servant of a very important man in Málaga, a notable man, though he’s not old. Forty-one years. He is a voyant. Many people travel from far to have him tell their fortune as well as their future.”

  “And you live at his house, I take it. You stay at his home most of the time,” I went on to guess… “but tonight you went wandering to the pier to accost me, a traveler, for amusement? Or because you wanted me to consult your fortune-teller and fill his pockets? Or because you wanted to bring me to this friteria to eat egg tortilla?”

  “Oh, I don’t want you to consult him. Although he doesn’t live far from here. Just past the bridge. And yes, I live with him.”

  I drank some more wine and considered the servant. His black teeth interested me. They made me hungry with that old craving. Hungry, you see, because I could tell they were black from opium smoke. I thought of the moonless night, but yet, my muscles were sore from the boat; the thought of sweet opium to numb me sounded too good to pass up. Besides, the next day the moon would start to grow again.

  I was angry at myself for my inclination to vice, I longed for the day when a state of frenzy would lead my mind to sober pasture, just as it had for Saint Augustine. I longed for the day when the love of one woman would be sacred enough to forget all the rest.

  ‘Yes,’ I thought to myself back then in Málaga, licking the lips of my soul, ‘I could ingest just a little opium tonight. One little pipe-full.’ I knew it could be obtained. Yes, my blacktoothed servant friend was a servant of opium, so much was obvious; he chattered his charred teeth and his teeth made me hungry.

  “Does your master have something soothing I can buy to smoke? You see,
I’m a foreigner. I’ve just arrived on shore. I was told there are no pleasure-dens here, and it’s not always easy to find a quick connection in a foreign town…”

  “Something soothing to smoke? Strange question! How would you think to ask for that? I mean, a clairvoyant mightn’t have such a thing to smoke.”

  Ignoring his reply, I went on to say, “I’m a traveler after all, new to this country. Arrived tonight. My muscles are sore. I don’t know anyone here, etc.”

  The servant surveyed me closely with caution, eyeing the plump satchels I had seated on the chair beside me in the food house. The cowhide straps of the satchels were wrapped around my leg to avoid a thief snatching them and running off. I scratched my bristly chin and pulled the last sip of wine through my mighty teeth, deciding to drink no more alcohol that night.

  ‘You’re no gendarme,’ he was probably thinking. No, the fortuneteller’s servant realized I couldn’t possibly be a Spanish gendarme—if for my accent alone. After some more persuasion, he agreed to take me to his master to see what could be had in the way of opiates. “Make it clear, I don’t want to know the future! I don’t want any bonne aventure!”1 I hollered after him while we paced down the black, cobbled lane upon our leaving the restaurant.

  * * *

  Meeting the clairvoyant, and obtaining some opium for future travels…

  The servant and I crossed a bridge and came to a house where outside a wooden plank was hammered to a wall and a name was burned into the wood in large lettering. It read:

  1 BONNE AVENTURE: French expression dating from the 15th century, meaning : “Fortune-telling”

  DRAGOMIR, STANISLAS V. — CLAIRVOYANT

  The hunchbacked servant slid a key into the door and the two of us entered a dark stairwell. Before starting up, he turned to me and begged some money. “You wouldn’t have one or two piastres to lend me, would you?”

  I reached into my waistcoat and pulled out a silver twopiastres coin and handed it to the beggar. He snatched it up and said, “You are a saint, Señor. Just, please don’t tell my master I asked you to lend me money, I ask you kindly.” I shook my head and he bade I wait at the bottom of the stairwell while he gained permission for me to enter. Just then, a fat old woman appeared on the stairs with hot tears streaming down her face. She pressed a rag to her mouth, and sobbing, she came towards us and passed us. She didn’t look into our eyes while she exited out into the Spanish street.

  “She’s been to see the master,” the beggar whispered, “and obviously she wasn’t happy about what she learned.”

  I waited in the dark stairwell as the wretchedly small figure of the beggar-servant climbed the steps to the door high at the top of the landing. He knocked twice; the door crept open. He disappeared inside.

  I meanwhile waited, clicking my tongue, dreaming of the Spanish woman I hoped I would meet and love now that I was in this new and strange country. She would be like a flower, I thought, fresh and soft, but not too young; she would be mature in years, old enough to know how to arouse me, and be versed in the arts of conversation, seduction, and sensual love. Such was what I dreamed to find in Spain, but my pleasant dream was interrupted when the servant appeared at the landing, holding a fiery candle. He signaled to me to climb the stairs. And soon I found myself standing in a room of gothic design, spacious and richly-dressed, with high-vaulted ceilings, dim like an old library, tall ironwork windows, and tables piled with papers. Smoking candles were everywhere.

  “A foreigner? Welcome, foreigner…” came the voice of the man who cut an impressive figure behind a mahogany desk beneath two high-arched windows. He seemed extremely tall, although he was seated, and was extraordinarily thin. He removed the hat on his long pointed head—seemingly out of politeness—and a torrent of dark hair swirled like a storm around his ears. “My name is Dragomir,” he announced with authority, “You are in my home.” The two eyes in his long face shone like a pair of hazel-colored stones, or like distant fires burning in the darkness. I approached to shake my host’s hand. “Excuse me for not standing,” he mumbled in a low voice, “I hurt my leg yesterday. It will heal.”

  As the master of the house greeted the stranger, the servant hopped around like a mad fool on springs, lighting the various plates of candles, filling the curious room with blazing light. The odor of myrrh resin entered my nose, and through it, I detected the sweet smell of opium. I was aching with desire. “Chit, chit, chit,” my teeth chattered while a saucer of porcelain clattered beneath a cup of tea that was brought to be swilled or sipped.

  “I can tell you’ve come from far,” the fortune-teller said, staring steadily at me. “You have a strange past. A very curious past…” I waved my hand at this in annoyance. I disliked bonne aventure since I believed what these fortune-tellers had to say was probably true, and pity the man who knows his fate! The servant meanwhile was perched in the shadows of the room like a stone gargoyle on a medieval cathedral.

  “I didn’t come to have my fortune.”

  “I don’t have your fortune!” laughed the fortune-teller, which surprised me entirely. “No, not tonight, I don’t have it at least…” He stood and walked over to the window and opened the drawer of a wooden chest and stayed there a few moments. When he came back, he had a slender pipe of brass with a decorated ceramic bowl. “Are you hungry? There is some Spanish cheese. As well as wine. You are a guest. Whatever you’d like . . . Pulpy, go make a plate of cheese…”

  The servant’s lip was dripping with saliva as his master set a ball of brown opium on a plate. “Wrecho!” demanded Dragomir, louder this time. “Fix the stranger some food to eat!”

  The servant leaped up to obey his master until I said: “No, please, I thank you. Kind of you. We just ate; and I’d prefer to taste that opium, as my muscles are sore from travelling.” I glanced to the high ironwork window and saw the night was completely black outside. No moon lighted upon the world on this night. I knew I would eventually have to go find a hotel room or a bed of some sort. There would be rooms to be had down at the port. You can find anything and everything at the docks of a port city. Especially where the climate’s sultry, where criminals and vagabonds abound.

  Dragomir stood tall beside me packing a pastilla of opium into the ceramic bowl and lit the wick of the lamp. “For the stranger,” he said.

  I took two fast and long inhalations as the pill of opium vaporized in the bowl. The sweet black smoke flashed me back to a memory of that market stall in Turkey where I met a pretty young lady walking hand-in-hand with a little boy when the sun was burning my neck. She was from my city and was very pale, with white arms and delicate hands. The rest of her body was covered in a disguise, so as to smuggle the child. The kid belonged to her sister. The two were waiting for a boat. I felt this sudden urge to go find that pretty lady in disguise, to join with her, to join with the entire world and all of its people. I felt an incredible lightness and joy carry me away. The pain in my joints vanished, then I returned to the room where I had been. I reveled in this newfound lightness and bliss. A hearty laugh escaped me: “Oh, it’s been a long time!” I said.

  “Pulpawrecho?” the clairvoyant called to his servant, while I handed him the pipe and he passed it on to his slave. Pulpawrecho collapsed on the opium with avarice and sucked up the sweet smoke. Dragomir took a long puff when it was his turn. He asked me again did I want food or wine? I said no.

  “More of the pipe?”

  “No. But some for later, for which I’ll pay. I’d like to have some while I travel…”

  “Of course, of course…”

  We were all silent a moment.

  “Do you want some wine? A liqueur?”

  I told him no, and begged myself to leave them, to return to the port to find some lodging.

  “Now may I ask you your name?” Dragomir sat back down in his place. Pulpawrecho squirmed and uttered sighs of ecstasy as saliva dripped from his face. With an exalted grin, he smacked his lips and cried out to himself: “Ah! Pulpawrech
o!—aye-ayeaye!—Pulpawrecho!” and floated neatly on his perch.

  “My name is Saul, the son of Solarus of Tripoli. My father was an adventurer like me. He disappeared somewhere in the east, in Asia. Now I, in my generation, am headed to London where I have business with a merchant.” I had no reason to weave lies and untruths as I was doing, but I did so for the sheer pleasure of telling a good lie. Some of what I said was true, though some was invented. I wanted to tell untruths also because I was conducting an interview with a clairvoyant and I yearned to see if he could detect a lie. My father had been an adventurer, like me. So much was the truth. His name had been Solarus. I hadn’t lied about that. Though he didn’t disappear in Asia, and I wasn’t going to London.

  “Solarus of Tripoli?” the clairvoyant turned to his servant, “We met a Solarus, did we not my fine Pulpawrecho?”

  Pulpawrecho nodded his doglike head. Dragomir took another inhalation of the pipe and smiled with pleasure. “I do like that,” he said. “You noticed I didn’t ask who you are before first taking care of your needs? I am very Homeric in that way. A stranger should always be offered food, wine, or whatever he needs to be comfortable before being asked who he is, and from where he comes, before asking him to tell his identity.”

  I showed Dragomir the copy of The Odyssey I was carrying with me and he smiled knowingly as though it is natural that we should both have Homer on our minds. I told him then that I’d always wanted to own a great library. “But since I was born to be a wanderer,” I sighed with regret, “I think I will never have a great library.”

  “Hmm…” said Dragomir, leafing through the book, “I can’t read Greek. Though I do know five languages well. Pulpawrecho brought me my first copy of The Odyssey, in Spanish, a long time ago. I had asked him for it. He’s a good servant. You see I keep him dressed well, he has nice clothes. His watch is his nicest possession, but that he procured himself.” He turned to his servant, “You are so quiet tonight, Pulpawrechito, you have nothing to say tonight? The devil chomped your tongue, eh?”