He had left the knot at once and opened the barn doors. He called them inside and they brought me along, staying close in around me and grinning. I was deposited in a corner while they went about their business, always staring and grinning at me, turning their heads away to chatter with each other and turning them back to me, getting ready to play new games with me—I tried to get the big farmer’s attention. They instantly flickered their hands as I was waving mine and, mewling over my voice when I tried to speak, a number of them noticed me speaking and rushed to me babbling syllables back to me. They called the big farmer, calling him Felix, of all things, and he stood and stared at me again, over their heads. They were cooing and muttering at me and wringing their hands in imitation of me; presently a lump of bread was produced somehow, and Felix watched them hold it out to me and snatch it back again and again.
I got to my feet and began again, pointing out the open door and even forcing my way through them to point directly to Wite’s mountain, I said “Wite” and they who were all pointing already and staring at me said “Wite” back through their grins staring at me. Felix watched. I felt weak and suddenly nearly fainting with dizziness. They caught me and carried me to the corner, laid me down on the hay and hovered over me grinning and saying “Wite” every now and then. I was sure Felix the big farmer understood me, why I don’t know, and I tried to call him or get up but I was forever pushed gently down. They would yell “Felix” over their shoulders in my tone of voice, and with the same subtle mispronunciation, and then say “Wite” to me. Sometimes I would look past their heads and see Felix standing over them, staring down at me, I knew he understood me when I spoke. I fell back in weakness and frustration over and over again.
I closed my eyes and came and went, every time I opened my eyes one or another of them would be staring grinning down at me only inches from my face, and I would start weakly and try to wave the face away, wave them off. They would imitate me and more would join them from other parts of the barn, even while I got the impression that most of them were by then asleep. Felix, or whatever his name really was, was nowhere to be seen, one or two were staying up with me, taking turns hovering like an anchor on top of me, pawing my chest and shoulder a little sometimes to wake me, so I would give them something else of mine to imitate. They tormented me until the bell called them outside. Daylight was everywhere, I bounded up and saw them filing outside, smelled the food they’d been eating a moment before. The place was stifling with bad air and cooking smells. I looked everywhere for Felix, he turned up immediately in front of me with a mattock in his hands—he held it out to me, the knot of them watched silently staring and grinning. I pushed it back and pointed over their heads to Wite’s mountain, they imitated. I started talking to Felix and was immediately drowned out by their voices. Felix pushed the mattock at me and let go, I let it drop. Felix was turning but turned back and picked up the mattock. Felix threw the mattock to me, I caught it and threw it down, pointing and trying to make myself heard over the uproar. Felix thrust me into the knot and suddenly I was with him in the middle being dragged to the field. They brought me with them to the field, Felix pushed the mattock into my arms and I let it fall and tried to make myself heard, Felix looked at me. I spent that day dragged up and down the field with them as they worked, they didn’t ignore me, they worked at me without stopping, they never broke off work or missed a day in the field, they worked endlessly, today they worked at me, smiling and staring when they could, I had to stay on my feet all day exhausted and starving as I was and they were nudging me out of their way forever, leaving me no peace, never letting up on me but forever nudging me to this side, nudging me to that side, pushing me a little back out of their way, pushing me a little forward out of their way, drudging back and forth all around me with a little push and then a nudge this way, pushing me this way and then nudging me back again, adjusting me every moment, without letting up, I tried to speak at least to Felix, or whatever his name was, but what good did it do me to try? The tools would hammer against the ground and the knot of them would cackle like chickens echoing my voice, my calls to Felix, chattering “Wite” back at me when they had nothing else to say, I would open my mouth and the cackling would surge up over my voice and drown me every time, I couldn’t make myself heard. I only wanted to fall over into the dirt and let them cover me over or plow me under if they liked, they would do as they pleased, they knew nothing past that, I already knew, I somehow was determined to tell Felix anyway, I was determined to tell Felix, if no one else, because he could follow what I said, that I believed was certain. I was sure he would understand me if I could only tell him. I spent that day dragged up and down their neverendingly overturned field, until the bell struck and the knot cinched in around me, Felix just behind me, they carried me back with them. Again Felix went off and opened the doors for them, then I all at once rushed at him, I was all at once too fast for them, I seized Felix by the arm and pulled him inside, I shut the one open door behind us, I shut the knot of them out for a moment and they piled up against the windows, Felix was glaring at me and trying to get around me.
He pulled his arm every time from my grasp, I was already fixing him with my eyes and starting to talk directly into his face, I spoke clearly and directly into Felix’s face so that even Felix, or whatever his name was, who had never been fixed like this and spoken to so directly, had to stop and listen, he was helpless not to listen, Felix listened because I could speak so that he must listen, at least when he and I were alone inside the barn with the others shut out. When he was naked without them, I told Felix about Wite in the mountain, I didn’t waste time, I didn’t tell Felix anything like the whole story, I told Felix what was essential, what was at stake, I warned Felix about Wite, I told Felix who Wite was. Felix, who had never been spoken to so directly, understood what I was saying. He listened. There was no doubt of that. He fell back from me but he listened and clearly he understood, because he paused, Felix seemed bewildered, and the racket that had been bustling outside, at the windows, fell off, when they saw him pull back from me and saw that he seemed bewildered by what I said. They hadn’t understood me but they were watching Felix. Soon it was quiet and Felix, or whatever his name really was, seemed to notice that they were watching him. I didn’t detain him when he went to open the door, Felix went outside, the knot gathered around him without speaking. Felix turned and beckoned me outside, I went outside, Felix looked at me, Felix asked me, “Where are your things?” I pointed to the flat boulder by the well, the boulder was half-buried and I had dropped my bag there behind it and tied my horse near to it, Felix told me “Get them.” I went over to the boulder, this was the first time I’d been apart from them since I’d come, it felt strange and wonderful to be able to move so freely and without forcing my way against a sort of blizzard of abuse, and picked up my bag. I turned to face them and looked I suppose expectantly at Felix, Felix had just picked up a rock and he threw it at me, it hit me in my head. I suppose it knocked me down. I suppose it knocked me unconscious for a few moments.
My head was swimming, I couldn’t get up for a few minutes, I don’t think I did fall unconscious. When I got to my feet the sky was already almost completely dark.
The sky was almost completely dark, I was getting to my feet and even though the sky was clear it was getting dark, Wite’s mountain hadn’t moved but it seemed to swell until it blocked the sun, everyone stopped when this happened and looked up, there was a burst of thunder from the mountain and the sky darkened, the wind came up all at once and the bell starting ringing by itself loud regular peals that set its heavy edges humming and jerked it a little side to side without jangling it or breaking the regular rhythm of its shouts, everyone watched it and flinched with each loud peal—Felix whipped back and spun falling on his stomach in the hay, he turned onto his side holding his shoulder, I saw a stain spreading beneath his fingers, Felix was staring at a rock lying a few inches away from his nose, he raised himself on an elbow and looked wild
ly around recoiled as another rock struck his chest knocking him flat on his back. He rolled over and started scrabbling toward the barn, a rock cracked against one of his knees and he screamed and faltered, a heavy rock flew out from between the trees where no one was and curved in the air arcing down and crushing his hip, Felix screamed as loud as the bell and I saw him drive his fingers into the ground, everyone else had screamed when they saw where the big stone flew out and Felix had turned to stare over his shoulder, a rock shot out from the trees and broke his skull, everyone was trying to pull away from him but something kept the knot together in that spot, rocks the size of apples, and larger, streamed past me in all directions toward them but they were stuck together in one mob around Felix’s fallen body, more and more and the rocks were flying faster and faster and getting smaller and smaller whizzing past me like bullets, I turned my head and a black cloud of rocks too dense to see through shot past me and tore them all to shreds punched apart the barn behind them so that it listed forward and collapsed in splinters, the knot was a huge red heap, the boulder behind me rose in the air as if it were a dead leaf and flew over my head gaining speed and it smashed into the remains of the barn flying straight through and stopping just above the treeline instantly rising and flying back moving smoothly and erratically in the grip of an invisible hand up into the air and then pounding them into the ground, rising up with gore and slamming down harder and harder. The bell stopped and the boulder lay half-buried in the ground in a pile of pulverized rocks, the ruins of the barn behind it with the dust still rising.
I had been holding my head. The bleeding had already stopped. The sky was as bright as it had been before. Near me, Felix’s unmarried sister-in-law lay bawling on the ground by the well with her hands screwed over her eyes. She had not joined in with the rest of them immediately when they came back, she had been somewhere else. Without saying anything to her I collected my things by the torn spot where the boulder had been and left immediately. I went to find my horse where I’d tied it. How blue the light from my window is getting. When the trees closed around me I remember the humid air cooled my exposed blood, where my scalp had been cut. The air between the trees cooled my exposed blood and refreshed me a little.
I can go on without thinking, with one step. Once I’ve stepped to one side I can keep going, days are going by, I’m travelling, the trees are drifting by me. I traveled from place to place, I may have dreamt all that traveling, the trees drifted around me, I saw that time was passing. Now my memories are getting tangled, I’m drawing everything out without inflection, you will get everything I have once I’ve drawn it out, if this is my will then I will you this testimony, you’ll understand why at the end. When the end comes, if I haven’t worked for nothing—I almost said “worked so hard”—if I haven’t worked for nothing you’re going to understand why I’m willing this to you by the end, you will know that you understand if you can do it yourself. You can believe what you like and do whatever you want. You’ll know you understand when you do it yourself. Wite isn’t interested—let them believe whatever they like and do whatever they want, as long as they know about Wite. Tell them about Wite, and then let them do what they want! What will they want then? You’ll know if you understand when you do it yourself, when Wite says “show me you understand,” and you show him.
I remember everything drifting like snow on all sides of me, blue light and trees. I never got tired of being surrounded by trees. I visited a spot between some low hills something smaller than a valley that was I’m sure the moistest spot in the forest, without being boggy, it wasn’t sodden but the air was so dewy I could feel the fluid condensing in my lungs from breathing it. That was the moistest spot in the forest, it was in among a bundle of low hills that flattened out around the waterlogged palisade of a town I’ll call Kursick; I was there in the early morning—there were already some people here and there around the treeline, mostly children with a few older brothers and sisters superintending; they were gathered at the treeline and just a little in among the trees collecting blue gills of fungus, they do this in the early morning when the air is moistest to keep the spores from getting everywhere, nothing can float in the air early in the morning, the air is too heavy for anything to float in it. At any other time of day the spores would get everywhere, after a few minutes the air would be unbreathable, too full of spores. The air is so dewy in the early morning that it’s safe even for children to go out and gather the gills. They’ll bring them back to Kursick, their parents will pulp the gills and make a paste out of them, and ferment the paste. The people in the town eat almost nothing but this appalling fermented blue paste, both in Kursick and other towns around there, I’ve never tasted it but it smells like old pickle jars. They eat mounds of fermented paste stinking of old pickle jars well into old age and then are dragged off to their graves packed in blue clay and stinking of old pickle jars. Imagine the deadly monotony of a thousand generations of sodden old paste-chewing people in Kursick and neighboring towns, sending out the children every morning to haul in more. The graves of thousands of generations past sprout fresh blue gills for the good people of Kursick and neighboring towns to suck. There was a constellation of children strung out around and just within the treeline collecting those blue gills in baskets, and one boy I noticed was doing terribly, pulling the gills off in pieces and dropping the bits all around his feet, this boy couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to what he was doing, he was wasting his time, he couldn’t pay attention to those blue gills and why should he? Who could be expected to pay attention? The boy pulled at the gills once in a while and stood stupidly in place, once in a while he would look to this side or that with a completely mindless expression on his face, he clearly went without sleep, he looked exhausted. The expression on his face was painful to look at, a child’s face magnifies everything, it was easy to see how exhausted and worn-out he was even from a distance, it was almost immediately apparent, I noticed his exhaustion almost before I noticed him in particular. The boy pulled at the gills with no attention, while I should have been invisible to them all he surely noticed me, he surely gave me all of his attention. The boy was looking directly at me even though I should have been invisible to all of them. He had stopped and had been standing looking stupidly down at his feet, then he looked out around him with abandon and at once he locked eyes with me. After a while I wanted to make some gesture and get his attention or call attention to what he was doing to himself, because he was looking at me without a thought in his head, like an animal, with nothing but silence in his head I’m sure, I know how he seemed to me, he looked at me like an animal with nothing but silence in his head and there I was in his silence staring mindlessly back at him from behind a tree where I was hiding. I wanted to remind him of himself because one of his older sisters was getting ready to bother him about the gills, because he wasn’t picking any, she pinched his shoulder and he spun around and began picking again at once without saying anything or turning to look at me again. He was pinching at the gills tearing out little bits and tossing them down toward the basket without looking. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be pointed out, although I didn’t think he was about to point me out to anyone; I retreated back a little into the woods, but I took no special pains to be quiet and I didn’t take any special pains not to be seen, although I wasn’t. I went back into the woods and sat. It’s on this boy’s account, because he is still alive and free, that I won’t give his town its proper name, I call it Kursick at random, the Alaks won’t get the name of his hometown from me.
The Traitor Page 14