The Traitor

by Michael Cisco

  How will I tell, I draw and draw and draw and draw, how will I tell this? These events have no order in my memory, it is all one event with no end of attached moments, it’s all one moment with forever more ramifications. I can only stare back at this time and see-saw from being exhausted to being panic-stricken, just shaking and aggravated to a sort of threshold where I am always nearly dying. I pointed myself at Tzdze’s house and set off, but when I found myself on the road in the woods, the narrow road, I woke up all at once and found myself there, as if I had walked there in my sleep, found myself brought along this road back toward Tzdze’s house, and it was suddenly like a nightmare, I was being returned to where I had been terrible, to the very spot, the house and the stone outbuilding that hovered over it, and the bluff, and the cave where I had put Wite, with Wite over everything, looming over the house and the forest from the heights of the bluff like a headstone, and that’s where I was going, to where he would be looking down on me forever. I remember when the trees came apart and Tzdze’s house was all of a sudden in front of me.

  The courtyard gates were repaired, that was different, and they opened wide for me, and though I kept my eyes down the stone outbuilding was right there, I couldn’t help but see it. I saw it and I seemed to feel it sitting on my chest, the spot where Wite had been killed by me shut down on my chest, I saw it and the house beneath it and I felt suffocated just like before. Tzdze’s house was opening for me like my coffin, I had come there to step down into my grave and let it close over me, and I felt that start to happen as I laid eyes on the house and the stone outbuilding overhead, and I went ahead even though the air in my lungs was going stale, and my lungs were squeezed shut and tightening. The courtyard gates opened wide for me and I went inside. Tzdze was standing at the balcony. When I saw her, I went all to ice. Tzdze was standing at the balcony, looking down at me like the stone outbuilding, coldly looking down at me, but with no feeling, only as paralyzed and unchanged and blank as me, looking up at her. We reflected each other precisely. We had neither of us budged from the moment of Wite’s death. We did not greet each other. I came inside and went directly to my room, which was as I had left it, and was right away just as at home as I had been. When Tzdze and I met face to face, need I say that we had both been counting on our time apart, or just on time, to give us something new, start each of us, or at least one of us, but neither of us had started.

  We sat without speaking, in step with each other, certainly, the two most immutable people in the world, the most unreal people, and the stone outbuilding was there at the table with us, walking along behind us, blankly staring back at us as the third party that was she and I together. Don’t roll your eyes! Don’t think I don’t know how I sound—read this however it pleases you to read it. I take it back—roll your eyes all you want, why shouldn’t you? I didn’t ask why Tzdze had sent for me to come at once, perhaps in the hope that time and new business would have given me something new, and that from my new start Tzdze could start as well, even if she were actually to get up and take only a step away. What was left of the two of us, what wasn’t stifled and slowly expiring, was only the exhaustion and panic of being trapped with only your own disintegrating body. We had been reduced to degenerating bodies together, that means we were both only our own deaths, or already ghosts, more ghosts than Wite ever was. I’m not being extravagant—in short, as I’m trying to say, we had something to finish before we could have even an opportunity to go on. One dies, and that’s an end, but one outlives oneself and keeps on living an afterlife, and that’s unbearable. As ghosts, Tzdze and I were dead without rest, we were able to feel that we were dead, we were dead but things weren’t over, and everything we did was shameful and disgusting, horrible, because even just going on without doing anything profaned death for us.

  But when I arrived at Tzdze’s house, when I saw the stone outbuilding and received from it that shock, as time passed both Tzdze and I began to feel a growing fear, every day greater and greater fear. Without saying anything to each other at first, we could see that we were both getting more and more afraid. I would all of a sudden see that my hands were shaking, and sometimes I saw even Tzdze suddenly seize her hands, to stop them from shaking. We owed it to this fear that we began to change at last. She was afraid of something, so was I, and this fear eventually woke us out of our trance and suddenly we were able to talk to each other, just like that. We started by telling each other that we were both so frightened, and by something new, nothing from that old time. This fear was the new thing that finally happened, only because we were together in that spot. The stone outbuilding was beginning to fade out of our minds because it was being overshadowed by something else more terrible, and we ended up welcoming that feeling, although we were both so agitated all the time, and for no reason, we were jumpy and strained, neither of us could sleep, drinking made it worse for me. I began to think about the stone outbuilding as a respite from this other preoccupation. The spirits had all deserted the house when Wite first arrived, and when he robbed the crypt, but they had not quit the woods, I could see them rushing through the trees like Wite had when I first saw him, with the hunting party, they were racing everywhere in the trees. I would watch them and nearly collapse from fear, from watching them, where they had never in my life frightened me before. I had eaten spirits, and now they frightened me. What were they now? They had changed, and their behavior was unrecognizeable. I would have lost my mind even seeing one of them up close, but I couldn’t stop peering out at them from the window.

  I nearly never set foot outside. Tzdze asked me to fetch one of the porters for her, and he was outside. I knew that Tzdze didn’t need me to fetch the porter, but I went and looked for him anyway. As I drew up to the trees, I suddenly saw the spirits inside, in the shade, and I wanted to turn and run, but something rushed up and took me from behind and I began walking into the forest. My feet turned toward the bluff, I was walking directly up the side of the slope, the path that we always took, the path I carried Wite along to the stone outbuilding, the path I took when I put Wite in the cave. I was walking directly up that path so fast I became dizzy, I looked this way and that and I saw nothing but trees and spirits. Then I saw only trees, and the path through the stones, up the side of the bluff, and then the stone outbuilding was there in front of me, all covered over with moss. I was still walking without stopping, like a condemned man, I was being pulled along, and when I took my eyes off my feet that were moving without my intention, against my greatest efforts to move them, I was on the mountain, with the stone outbuilding, I had no way of knowing what I would do next, I had no idea from one moment to the next what I was doing, I couldn’t have told you what I would find myself doing in the next minute, the mountain was looming up over me, the mountain was going to swallow me, it was inevitable, I walked on it like a condemned man on the gallows—I took my eyes off my feet and looked up—the cave was in front of me—I was standing in front of the cave mouth and I went right up to it, to the mouth of the cave, I was shaking and I fell, on my knees, my eyes were riveted on the ground in front of me, and then gradually my gaze began to slide forward along the ground, to the shadow thrown down by the lip of the cave, and then I saw inside the cave—I looked up all at once and I saw the two pale spots reflected in Wite’s glasses not turned toward me from the back of the cave not turned toward me from the back of the cave not in the back of the cave but from the cave inside the shadows Wite’s glasses were reflecting I could see a dim outline there was a dim outline in the cave of Wite I could see that Wite was standing just inside the shadow thrown by the upper lip of the cave. He stood there without moving and completely dark against the dark inside the cave but a visible separate mass standing inside the cave, the only light was the light that was reflected from his glasses, the two little spots watching for me and that saw me.

  Wite said hello. Wite said thank you. Wite said thank Tzdze for me. Wite said this mountain is my body now. Wite said you’re going to tell them about
me. Wite said tell them to keep off. Wite said tell them about ME, Nophtha. Wite said take my hand. I raised my arm and put my hand into the cave. Wite took my hand. Wite let my hand go. Wite said I’ll speak with you again. Wite said go tell them who the mountain is now Nophtha. I turned without getting up. I knew I would do exactly what Wite said to do. I knew what he wanted and I knew I would do it, I wanted to. I turned without getting up, smiling, the strangest smile any human being ever smiled, a smile meant for no human person, because I knew I would do exactly what Wite wanted me to do.

  I wore that smile as I walked directly down the mountain, it is a horrible smile, meant for no human person and with no human cause, with no moment of its own. It was an inhuman smile, a smile that lasted forever, like the smile of a dead body, smiling for a dead laugh at all life. It is still on my lips.

  Chapter Nine

  Did you imagine me coming down the mountain? Did you see it happen, have I written what could be called “a good account?” What did you see? You didn’t see me here, in the corner, where I was shaking, where I was terrified and shaking, frozen stiff terrified, grinning. Have you ever grinned in terror? Showing all your teeth? Have you ever grinned for nothing human, not for yourself or anyone, but nothing human and for no human reason? Did you imagine me coming down the mountain? Don’t try—who else has ever been haunted by the gratitude of the one he betrayed and killed? I went down the slope and I was all turned to weightless glass, I want to say I was coming all apart in sections hanging in the air together. Wite was there behind me all the while, almost as if he walked down with me but he wasn’t walking, or moving at all, he was everywhere with me and always concentrated directly behind me, I stopped four or five times and listened, I heard him, back in the cave. He filled up the entire mountain without ever leaving the cave. I would stop and listen, and I would hear him, back in the cave, a high, thin, mindful, quiet, insisting sound that was like a peering over my shoulder, but why would I have run from that sound? Would running have taken it away? I felt my feet place themselves over the ground like glasses, I distracted myself thinking about water glasses being set down, and sometimes turned and almost brought my eyes up to the cave, the stone outbuilding—a high, thin, mindful, quiet, insisting sound back in the cave—I distracted myself, I saw that I was floating down the side of the mountain, my whole body was light, thoroughly light, much as it is when I go without sleep, and I lie here exhausted, as light on the side of the mountain as if I’d never slept. I turned my head left and right—I saw no spirits.

  Wite had drawn off and devoured them all. There wasn’t any sound but a high, thin, mindful, quiet insisting sound, back in the cave. The still air was empty. But did I tell you that my feet were silent? I looked down and my feet were completely silent, I myself made no sound, I was terrified, I was completely silent, like a nightmare, I’d had nightmares and dreamt I couldn’t move, perhaps something was coming for me, but immediately I couldn’t move, and on the mountainside I could move and was going down the mountain but I was completely silent. I was silent. I was terrified, and grinning. Streaming with tears, grinning, terrified. And then I was thankful for being silent because if I started laughing then and I had heard myself laugh, I would have crossed into insanity. I was not insane. I’ve never been insane. But there I felt insanity come near to me, so that, if I’d laughed and heard myself laughing then, I would have crossed at that moment exactly into insanity. I was moving steadily, I was silent, I was weightless, and I was completely tensed—that was ridiculous. If you can imagine hiding your head under the covers and counting or holding your breath—I was tensed, I was trying ridiculously to stop myself from—

  —and here I can’t say from what, I could know that only if it had happened, and it didn’t, because the slope came to an end almost at a right angle to the ground, so that it was possible to say with precision where the mountain rose up out of the ground, and I was stepping down off the slope on the level ground, and the moment I stepped both feet down onto level ground, the spell was stopped. I heard both feet come down onto level ground, and after that I could hear the wind in the trees, which is a rushing sound that is hard to notice without listening for it, and the more obvious sounds, the birds and so on. I heard my breath panting out of me. I remember I sounded like a rusty squeeze-box. I was breathing so hard I nearly fell over on my face. I was immediately distracted and comforted by having such a tired body. I wanted to take note of this in particular, this moment when I crossed over from the slope of the mountain to level ground, and what that was like. This you will follow easily. But I still turned my head once, over my shoulder, and for a moment I heard—high thin mindful quiet insisting—I saw the stone outbuilding, and this time the tension seized me so forcefully I did fall on the ground and rolled over to look at Tzdze’s house, turn my full attention on Tzdze’s house and the solid level ground on which I rested, which thankfully held me there.

  Did you see that—was it clear to you? Let me tell you, that when I first was brought here I had a nightmare, I screamed and was running in every part of the cell, and beating the walls with my fists, I screamed and flailed at the wall with my head tilted back. I know all this because the guards came in and quieted me. They have never lied to me, they wouldn’t lie, they would be bad liars if they tried, and I know they weren’t lying when they told me I had screamed and flailed at the wall with my head tilted back. One of the guards showed me with little gestures what it was like, without screaming, he lightly flailed a little at the wall and tilted his head back, and they said they were frightened of me, that I was only a silhouette in the cell and that I was screaming and flailing my arms like an animal. I never remembered—not the dream, nor screaming, nor jumping around the room, flailing my arms, nor being taken up and quieted by the guards.

  I never remembered. It might never have happened. I know it did only because I trust these guards, who are simply honest Alaks. I know I screamed and flailed against the wall like an animal, that, if one was willing to put it like this, the nightmare had turned me into an animal, and I don’t remember it. I have to imagine it just like you do, without firsthand knowledge, but unlike you I know that it was me there. I imagine this horrible scene, with a screaming bestial man in the middle, just as you would, but I have to know that the screaming bestial man was me. Of course, I’m not Wite, I’m no danger to anyone. I’m no danger to anyone who doesn’t listen to me. I only clear the way for Wite, who is free to do as he likes already. I’m only the instrument Wite uses, as he may freely, as I knew from the first moment I would be. From the first moment I knew I would have to be. Thankfully this does not absolve me. I think I am finally beyond absolving. I’m grateful to Wite to be finally beyond absolving. Wite uses me at will, for what errands he thinks I might be capable of doing, and so I am an extension of Wite. I am bringing Wite to you, as Wite instructed, and his story is my proof that I am part of him and not part of you. Not any more, in the past less and less, now almost not at all, soon not at all. When I was young and most like you, what did you do? Like everyone else I was entrusted to the lot of you, like everyone else I found out what that trust was worth—but I was singled out; when I found out what this life was about I wanted only to withdraw, and for that I was specially punished. Does a boy, frightened and hysterical and cringing in a corner, suddenly pull a knife out of his shirt and stab himself?

  Don’t ask me again why I never took my own life. If you want to know why I hadn’t taken my own life, imagine that. When I was young, I spent every moment I had to myself up in the hills and in among the trees, alone, where I felt most at ease. I was frightened but much more at ease in the hills, with the trees, than I felt at the house, with my hopeless family. I came in whenever I wanted to and was punished for it. I spent all my own time with the trees. My brothers and sisters spent their time with each other, with their friends, down in the streets, but I spent all my time alone, up in the trees. I was always up in the trees, and I would have lived there as thoughtlessly as
an animal if I had been given the choice. I think, looking back, that I would have lived in the trees like an animal, and I know that my memory is confused. I didn’t have a clear idea of anything when I was a boy. Now I’m imagining what sense my memories of that time can make. I remember that I was going to change, if I could, into an animal, and that everything in the way the world appeared to me would change forever. I would forget everything. I would correct the mistake and be an animal instead, alone in a new world with no thoughts in my head, without knowing even that my new world was once my old world. Now my head is swimming. I wanted the new world. My head is swimming, I’m completely confused. I remember coming back across level ground to Tzdze’s house, and going into Tzdze’s house, wanting to see Tzdze. I wanted to see Tzdze in a new world. I waited to see that she was free, I was wondering, I was afraid for her. She had brought me to the house for Wite, without knowing it. I knew he had used her to bring me to the house, Wite loomed over the two of us and was the horizon for both of us. Sometimes it is so easy to write.

  I saw Tzdze right away when I came in. Wite was through with her, he had released her at the earliest time, the moment I set out or soon after I had set out to come back, for this visit. Without hearing from Wite, I understood everything like this all at once, intuitively. I would stay in the house and wait. Wite was going to tell me again, after some time, after making me wait. In some ways, Wite rose above nothing, he wasn’t above toying a little with me. There’s no end to the adjustments I can make in hindsight, and no value to them. I have little to say, but I’ll say it over and over to keep it in view, if only to keep my attention fixed. Will you follow my every word, or will you skip a few here and there, and more and more often? I’ve always been distracted—I hardly know what people mean when they tell me how bored they are, I can barely understand what is this boredom of theirs, a boredom I never feel, I’ve never been all that bored because I am either not paying attention or paying complete attention.