The Traitor

by Michael Cisco

  I had seen Wite devour the spirits of the soldiers. He had known long in advance that they were coming, and had robbed the crypt to be ready for them. This much I realized immediately as it happened. Wite was not so strong after that. He was worn out, lay unconscious for days and recovered slowly, leaning on me. Tzdze did not show herself after that, and kept Xchte with her. Wite had devoured the spirits of the soldiers as they died, he wasn’t “starving,” but, if I can make myself understood, in killing the soldiers he had thoroughly burned himself, the sort of thorough burning that is never thoroughly healed. I want to say that Wite was not reduced by this, but thoroughly scorched and sensitized, that he was thoroughly changed and concentrated in a smaller volume than before, and something like—he was ruptured by the struggle, and his nerves were flayed. For all this, Wite needed time to recover, and he recovered quickly, though not to the same strength as before. Wite said nothing in particular to me. I knew he had robbed the crypt for strength enough to face the soldiers. Wite still hadn’t taken his life, and I began to think Wite was afraid.

  I began wondering if he would kill himself, or whether he would simply haunt Tzdze’s house until more soldiers came and finally killed him. Wite would not have the strength to fight more soldiers, and more soldiers were certainly coming. I knew, from various signs Wite had inadvertently given me, that he didn’t want to be killed by soldiers. He had insisted on killing himself, but he still did nothing. When Wite could walk again, he began wandering the grounds and woods as before, but he seemed to avoid the stone outbuilding. Once, when Wite was crossing the grounds and I was watching him as I often did from a window, I saw him glance up at the stone outbuilding and then turn away and move quickly off into the trees. When I saw the expression on his face as he looked up at the stone outbuilding, it dawned on me that he was terrified. Even Wite was afraid of what he might do—Wite was terrified of his own plan. I remember leaving the window and going to sit down, and barely making it to the chair. I was so shocked that I nearly fell. I sat there for hours, shocked. It was shocking to think that Wite was hesitating, it had never occurred to me that he would hesitate at anything, I couldn’t understand Wite hesitating. How could Wite hesitate? It is characteristic of me that I assumed Wite had made a decision, or changed his mind, and that it only then occurred to me, when I saw Wite from the window, that he might be faltering. I remember a dreamlike feeling that I can’t describe, I’ve had this feeling a number of times and, while it is more or less always in my mind I have no control over this feeling, it will suddenly attack me all at once and I will be terrified, thinking that nothing is real, that even I am not real. My wife was one of the few people I’ve known to recognize this feeling; she said she had once felt something like this dreamlike feeling, as if she and the world were all suddenly struck through with little gaps—her words—the little gaps where things are, without moving apart or disintegrating, anything so clear as that, hanging separate and apart. I had this feeling when I saw that Wite was terrified of his own plan, and irresolutely hesitating.

  I sat in that chair for a while. Then at once, uncharacteristically for me, I was all “assembled” and thinking practically. I thought of the soldiers coming for Wite, who would not be able to fight them, and would consequently most likely be killed by them. Much more important to me, I was thinking of Tzdze and the danger to her, from Wite and from the Alaks, who could arrest her for harboring Wite. I went directly to Tzdze’s suite, but she didn’t answer her door, Tzdze never answered her door to me. She hadn’t left her rooms for over a week. I decided to come back the next day. I was reading in my room that night when Tzdze appeared at my door, wearing a terrible face, and frantic.

  Tzdze came directly up to me and seized my arm—she said, “I’ve poisoned Wite—he’s still alive! I gave him strong poison and he drank it all, but he hasn’t died!” I don’t think I understood. She said, “I put it in his brandy, he drained the bottle and is still alive, downstairs at the table!” Tzdze was shaking my arm and trying to pull me along. She said, “He drank it and started shaking, and fell on the floor, but he’s still alive!” I think I was able to talk then, then or soon after, while Tzdze was moving quickly around the room wringing her hands. Tzdze seemed horrified, she was asking what had she done to no one in particular, certainly not to me, what had she done, what was she trying to do, she was frightened by her own resolution and she was afraid it hadn’t worked. To have tried and failed to kill Wite, for Tzdze, was the worst possible thing. I told her something—like this, “Wite is a soul-burner, he can resist poisons. He’s using his power to burn off the poison.” Tzdze complained that she’d given him an enormous dose, enough to kill a dozen men, she’d thought it would be enough even for Wite.

  I told her that Wite was far too strong, something like that, through my confusion. Tzdze took my arm again with urgency and said, “Will he recover?” “Of course,” I said, “within the hour, if that long.” Tzdze was beside herself—“Who knows what he’ll do? He’ll tear the house apart, and the servants, Xchte!” She was in anguish. “We can’t let him!” she was saying, “He mustn’t recover, he has to be finished, I have to finish him, while he’s still poisoned! Tell me what to do!” I said, with a confidence that puzzles me now, “He will only be able to die in the stone outbuilding.” Tzdze implored me to help her bring Wite to the stone outbuilding. She and I went downstairs, to Wite. He was lying on his face beside the table, trying to drag himself forward on his elbow. He was shuddering and had vomited a little. I took him by the shoulders and dragged him to his feet. I could feel Wite burning off the poison, his whole body was buzzing like a plucked wire. The air around him trembled as if with intense heat, and a biting vapor was steaming from his skin. I looked at his face, I saw nothing there. Wite was taller than me and struggling feebly.

  I threw my arms around his chest from the front and lifted him that way, telling Tzdze to take his arms and hold them behind his back. Tzdze took his arms immediately, and I carried him outside. Wite was surging up almost out of my arms, but he was weak and delirious from the poison. His head rolled back and forth and he gave a few little screams. Wite’s body was light and brittle-feeling, but I felt it pounding against me, as if it were bursting at the seams, and jerking upward nearly out of my grip. Tzdze was looking at me with her eyes nearly screwed shut, her whole face was screwed shut and closed, shut down on itself. I realize this describes nothing clearly but I have no right to put Tzdze’s distress too plainly before you. We carried Wite swiftly up the slope to the stone outbuilding. He was scarcely any weight at all, even I could carry him and not be tired. I brought Wite into the stone outbuilding and pushed him up against a pillar. Tzdze came around behind and held his hands to either side of the pillar. When I saw Wite, nearly fainting there, held up by my hand in the shadow of the stone outbuilding, against the pillar, with Tzdze’s white, stricken face peering at me over his shoulder, I felt a dying feeling as if I was turning to stone. All my intention was gone. Tzdze was—I won’t say. She suddenly held up a knife she had brought with her, Tzdze had taken it from the table without my noticing. Tzdze told me to take it, and I found it in my hand. Tzdze was holding Wite’s arms. Wite’s head was still lolling on his neck, he was fighting to hold it up. Tzdze shouted, “Please!” Wite saw the knife and he began struggling more urgently, muttering, trying to talk to me. I stood there with the knife. Tzdze shouted, “Please hurry!” She was in pain. I stood, holding Wite up against the pillar with my left hand and with the knife in my right, and as I remember I see my hand thrust out in front of me, pressing Wite’s rocking chest, Wite was sobbing, his head was upright and shaking a little, looking at me, he said, “I don’t want to die,” Wite told me he didn’t want to die, Tzdze was there over his shoulder, saying “please” to me. Wite was regathering his strength and was nearly fit to defend himself, he was still vulnerable then. My hand only went forward with almost no strength behind it as if I were only giving Wite the knife and it slid in beneath my left ha
nd only a little, Wite almost screamed but his throat was already flooded, the throb of his body was delivered to me across the palm of my left hand and through the handle of the knife, I pushed the knife into his chest to its full length meeting almost no resistance, and Wite was sobbing with a knife in his chest, the sobs being delivered across the palm of my left hand that held Wite up against the pillar and the palm of my right hand that still held the handle of the knife. I felt Wite’s dying sobs in my own body. I moved back and Wite collapsed at the foot of the pillar, his arms slipping out of Tzdze’s grasp. Tzdze had gone completely silent when I stabbed Wite. I had no blood on my hands. Wite’s blood was too congealed. My hands were white. Tzdze came around to fetch me, to try to bring me down to the house. Wite died quickly, as we were rushing away. I had lied to Tzdze when I told her Wite could die only in the stone outbuilding. Where did I find the presence of mind to lie? I wanted to bring Wite to the stone outbuilding, because Wite had said he wanted to die there. Wite had begged me not to kill him.

  I killed Wite. Tzdze came and led me back to the house. Wite was still lying at the base of the column with his head at an angle. The head hadn’t fallen either forward or backward but had given way to the side and was drooping onto one shoulder, eyes half-open. Wite had said “I don’t want to die” to me before I killed him. The knife stabbed him meeting no resistance. Wite’s blood was congealed and didn’t spill onto my hands, nor was there much on his shirt. Tzdze had let him go the same moment I did. He had collapsed. Wite was already dead when he collapsed at the foot of the column, because I had stabbed him. The knife had gone directly into his heart. It had nicked his heart, because I hesitated. I had felt his heart beat at the end of the knife, through the handle, in my hand, and I stabbed the knife in to its full length. Wite was unable to protect himself. When I pulled the knife out my hands were completely white. I remember watching my white hand pull back the knife. The blade of the knife was only half-dark, the other half still shone. Tzdze had made me throw the knife down on the floor of the stone outbuilding, near Wite’s foot, which was thrust out in front of him. Tzdze took me by the arm and led me to the house. The next morning I went back to the stone outbuilding.

  I saw Wite’s body in daylight, and the knife. I picked Wite up and carried him from the stone outbuilding to the cave he had shown me. I put Wite in the cave, on the shelf he had shown me. When I had set him down, the face was turned toward me. I wanted to turn the face away from me, but I refused to reach up and turn the head. I decided to leave the head as it had turned, facing me. There was no decision, I simply couldn’t turn his head away from me. I couldn’t see the eyes through the glasses. I left the head facing me. Touching his head or his face would have been like a disfigurement. Then I had to go back to the stone outbuilding for the knife. It had not left a stain on the pavings. There were no marks of Wite’s blood anywhere in the stone outbuilding. Once I had picked up the knife, there was no sign. I picked up the knife by its handle and carried it to the cave. I had to throw myself forward on my feet to carry the knife to the cave, I had to carry the knife with Wite’s blood on it, only just a little of Wite’s blood on it, to the cave where the body was lying with its face turned toward the cave mouth where I would come in. I picked up the knife and decided to carry it to the cave and leave it there. I took the knife that I had used to kill Wite to the cave where Wite’s body was lying on a high shelf, at the back of the cave in the dark, with its head turned toward the mouth of the cave where I would come in, carrying the knife. I could see the glasses shining when I came in. I went up to his body and placed the knife beside Wite on the shelf, nowhere in particular but beside Wite. I left the knife there and turned my back, and walked out of the cave. I walked down the slope to the house without a look behind me. I just walked down the slope without a glance at the stone outbuilding or back at the cave, or at the trees around me, at anything but the grass and my feet as I walked, and thought of nothing but where to put my feet.

  I would not be able to write. It would be grotesque for me to say the slightest thing about any of this, if I weren’t called to testify to everything, if Wite hadn’t allowed it directly from the beginning. From the beginning he had consciously decided that I would testify to everything, without himself knowing what that testament would be, that much he’ll never know, but I was trusted to testify to everything, by Wite. My call was to speak it thoroughly, to the last moment, in every detail as it was for me, and when I finish my lungs will finally fail and I will give myself up once and for all, but my lungs will hold me until I finish. I’m not finished. The stone outbuilding the cave Wite’s head turned toward me, the knife that I used to killed him. Tzdze in the house at the foot of the bluff. Tzdze had poisoned Wite’s brandy, as strong a poison as she could find. Tzdze had brewed it as strong as possible. But I stabbed him, while Tzdze held the arms. Tzdze and I both let him go at the same time, to fall down at the base of the column. Wite died and Tzdze and I lived. I don’t know whether Tzdze lives, but I still live, and will live until this is finished. When the testament is finished, I will die. And I’m racing along as fast as I can, not because I’m eager to die, but because, whether I die or not, I have to finish my testament for Wite. I write as fast as I can to satisfy Wite, to make this a present for him. I write hastily to give this to Wite all the sooner, death or no death. But I won’t die until I’ve made this in full, a present to Wite, Wite through the world. This is for Wite.

  Chapter Eight

  I will draw and draw and draw and draw. Years later Tzdze called me back. Tzdze sent word to me to come. I had heard next to nothing from Tzdze and then she sent me word, at last enough time had passed for that. When I saw that Tzdze had sent word to me, when I saw her name on the letter, I was shocked awake. I had been sleepwalking all the intervening time. The exhaustion and outrage and disgust of going on had come down on me so heavily, I thought about nothing all the time, or tried to, I couldn’t have any more life than a ghost after I killed Wite. Every thought that entered my head I resented, once I’d left Tzdze’s estate. From the start, I knew that I would never outlive that, or emerge from that, I was only lying and wasting time trying to wait myself out in town, of course I lived in town, I couldn’t be bothered to look after myself, I went to a town with Tzdze’s signet in my hand. When Tzdze heard I was leaving, she sent a porter with her signet to me, the signet—so that I could find work. I brought Tzdze’s signet with me and took it to so and so and so and so, and I was given this and that to do, money to surrender for a room and food and on and on, in complete bankruptcy.

  I took Tzdze’s signet from the porter knowing that I was going to use it, disgusted, knowing that I could expect nothing better from myself. After everything that had happened, what else would I do but take Tzdze’s signet and drag myself off to find work? By that time, I was too indifferent to do anything but the most obvious thing, the most pedestrian, I mean whatever came to hand. Town rose up around me like so much nonsense and the years I lived there made no impression on my memory, they recall nothing, nothing but dullness and slovenliness and tedium, night after night of insomnia, night after night of sloven and raucous noise in the street, my window was right on the street of course, of course my bed was directly under the window, naturally there was nowhere else to put it. Why didn’t I sleep in a ditch? Why didn’t I sleep with my head down an outhouse? The whole town, it seemed to me, was a huge rubbish heap in which disagreeable people burrowed and fretted. What was its name? It lived only for itself, and only the way carrion lives, or perhaps that’s how it seemed to me at the time because that’s how I lived then, meeting every dawn, after a loud night without sleep, do I have to go on? Do I have to haul myself up and down the street asking whether or not I am already dead? And with no memory I look back and know with certainty that I worked, that I did some task or other responsibly and was paid, that I was a success at whatever I did, which would have astonished me at the time, if I’d cared, that they didn’t want to see me go when
Tzdze wrote to summon me. There was no question I would go when Tzdze wrote. Apart from death, Tzdze was the only delivery I had waiting. I went, knowing in advance that the house would be the same, and my eye would be continuously hooked and shocked by the stone outhouse on the bluff, and that I would stand glued to the window, bewitched by the stone outbuilding I had never left. I’m still there at the stone outbuilding, with the knife pushing into Wite, just starting to push.

  I went without hesitation, as innocent of thought as any rock sliding down a hill. That penitentiary town put me in a brainless trance, so that even as I was getting ready to leave I had to sleepwalk through the day in a trance—if it weren’t for those brainless trances, I would have gone hysterical, they would have locked me away as they’ve locked me away now, or worse. No they would have left me to rave by the side of the street, and roll to and fro in their muck, and claw at myself until I grew too tired to move. They would have robbed me, of course, and molested me at their pleasure, but they almost certainly wouldn’t have locked me up. There were no Alaks or Alak representatives in residence whose face would need saving. I didn’t try to preserve myself by being numb and stupid, it came naturally and it made things immensely easier. It didn’t wear off until I was well out of town, until I was well clear of those walls, and the horizon had suppressed all trace of them completely. The cobwebs cleared out when I finally managed, I finally got myself in the trees. Nothing clears my mind like trees. I could go on at length.