The Nichan Smile

by C. J. Merwild

  That is when he perceived a change. First a numbness, then a slightly uncomfortable pull, or a swelling of his blood vessels. Like . . . a cramp. Next to him, the child stared at him. Domino then noticed for the first time that the human’s eyes were different from each other. Both were black and amber, but the left one was almost entirely black, as if the pupil was fully dilated, showing only a thin orange outline.

  As if the child had felt the change in Domino’s scrutiny, he closed his eyes and his breath quickened. The muscles of Domino’s arm stiffened.

  The cramp then disappeared, and Domino examined his wound again. His heart leaped. The cut wasn’t one anymore. It was now but a thin, pinkish scar. Amazed, he raised his arm to eye level to examine it more closely. With his thumb, he stroked the slight bump trailing along his flesh. No pain. Apart from the crystallized blood on his skin, there was no evidence that the cut had been inflicted less than an hour ago.

  Grinning, Domino turned to the other child, who had pulled back to sit on the floor, panting.

  He just did that! He has the gift!

  Domino sat up and laughed, glancing at his arm. “You’re nice. Thank you.”

  Lips clasped together, the human took a breath as if this act, this gift he’d just used, had exhausted him. Then he jumped when the door opened on the other side of the small room. Mora was already back, a piece of bread in one hand, a bandage wrapped on itself in the other. He stopped on the threshold, noticing how close to his brother the other child was.

  He shut the door behind him, frowning. “Is everything all right in here?”

  Domino displayed his arm for all to see. In an instant, he’d forgotten his earlier discomfort. “Look!” he said. “Look what he did.”

  Mora took a few steps and sat down next to his brother. His expression metamorphosed at the sight of the scar. He raised his eyes to the human, who watched them as if attentive to Mora’s reaction to his work.

  “It’s he who—”

  “Yes!” Domino cut him off, bouncing on the bed. “He put his hand there, and it was all strange inside my arm, and then I got better. He made the cut go away.”

  The corner of Mora’s lips curled in a faint smile. He contemplated the closed wound one last time, then turned to the human. “Bietche.”

  Domino ticked and finally diverted his attention from his arm. “What’s that?”

  “It means ‘thank you’ in Sirlhain.”

  “You speak Sirlhain?”

  This impressed Domino who turned to face the human. This one wore a brand-new expression Domino had never seen before. Confusion too, but still suspicion. But something had changed.

  “No,” Mora said. “The woman, Matta, taught me to say ‘thank you’ in Sirlhain. She was in the sanctuary when I returned. You should thank him too, Domino.”

  “I did, but he doesn’t understand.”

  “Well, tell him bietche.”

  “Bietche?”

  Mora nodded. Domino turned and articulated the word as distinctly as he could. The human’s hands relaxed around his knees, and Domino repeated the word again, enjoying the way it sounded in his own mouth. It was the first foreign word he learned. He repeated it again and again.

  “I think he got it, Domino.” Mora stopped him, forcing his brother to face him. “Are you feeling better?”

  So much better. “Yes.”

  “No dizziness?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I brought you some bread to get your strength back, but if you’re feeling better, we’ll save it for dinner.”

  Domino looked at the piece of flat bread his brother was holding and pouted. “Can I have it anyway?”

  Mora giggled and offered the food to his brother, who froze as his mouth opened wide to take a bite. Domino had just thought of something.

  “Do we have to tell Uncle Ero?”

  Mora shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “The kid’s still scared of everyone. He jumps at the slightest noise. He can’t even take a bath by himself. If we tell Ero, he’ll ask him to treat people or . . . We don’t want to scare him, do we? We don’t even know what he can do with the gift.” Domino stuck his arm out in front of his elder brother to refresh his memory. “I know, I saw it. But your cut wasn’t that deep. Maybe there’s nothing he can do about a more serious wound. He’s very small, you said so yourself. Can you imagine how he’d feel if we showed him a very serious wound?”

  “Like the arm of the human you killed?”

  He lowered his eyes to his piece of bread, and his appetite died as the memory of the two men his brothers had fought to protect him returned, of that arm that had been savagely torn off, as only a huge nichan’s mouth could do. The nichan smile, as their people called it, all in sharp points. The proud smile of a suffering people, his mother used to say.

  “Exactly like that, yes,” Mora said, ruffling his little brother’s hair.

  He was right. If the human found himself in that kind of situation, exposed to mutilated bodies, he would run away, and this time no one would ever find him again. Domino refused to put him through such an ordeal.

  The usual pensive pout froze Mora’s face as he studied the human from the corner of his eye. “And you know, Vestiges with the gift are . . . unpredictable. We don’t always know what they’re capable of. People are sometimes afraid of them. Domino, look at me. He has the gift. Now we know he could be dangerous.”

  “He’s my friend,” Domino said, words he knew woven of lies and hopes warming his innards. “I’m not afraid.”

  “I’m not, either. But if anyone finds out, if Ero finds out, we can’t predict what will happen.”

  “We don’t tell people.”

  “No. We don’t tell anyone.” They exchanged a long look of connivance. “I’m going to put a bandage on your arm. No one will know it’s healed. Domino, listen to me.” And the young nichan looked up at Mora’s unexpectedly serious face. “Not a word to Beïka about it.”

  Further explanation was unnecessary. Domino nodded. Something in Mora’s eyes spoke a reality both brothers were already aware of.

  “Where is Beïka?” Domino asked.

  Mora sighed. “He found himself some playmates.”

  Immediately Domino’s mood darkened. He’d succeeded; Beïka had made friends only a few days after his arrival at the Ueto Clan. By what kind of miracle was that possible? When Domino approached the other children, they looked away and left for no reason. Why? Domino tried to talk to them. He wanted to get to know them and have fun with them. None of them ever answered, as if his breath were poison.

  Bread crumbs fell on his legs as he scratched the crust, lost in his thoughts.

  Mora swept them away with one hand. “Why are you sad?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Domino . . . ”

  “You know why.”

  “You found yourself a friend too, Domino,” Mora said, cocking his head to the human.

  “It’s not true. He’s afraid of me.” This fact broke his heart.

  “You think so?”

  Domino nodded, not daring to look at the other child.

  “I don’t agree. Look at your arm. Look. Nobody forced him to do that. I think he wanted to be nice to you. He’s afraid of everyone, but he made a huge effort to heal you.”

  Filled with new hope, Domino looked for any trace of lies in his brother’s eyes. There were none.

  Mora resumed. “Give him time, all right? Perhaps he too needs a friend. Besides, true friendship is something you have to earn.”

  “So I don’t deserve it?”

  “Domino, do you remember what Mama told you? How you were born?” The little nichan nodded. “We thought you were gone for good. The healer who came to help give birth to you couldn’t feel you move. We couldn’t hear your heartbeat anymore. It had just stopped. And then, after long minutes, it came back, louder than ever, so strong Mama smiled like I’d never seen her smile before. And the healer sai
d something to Mama. Do you remember what she said?”

  Domino didn’t have to dig into his memory. He loved that story about his birth, told by his mother as much as by Mora.

  “She said, ‘He’ll be strong and brave, so he needs to get out and breathe.’ ”

  “Strong and brave,” Mora repeated, stroking his brother’s hair. “That’s what you are, Domino. Of course you deserve his friendship, but he doesn’t know it yet.”

  After that, Mora cleaned the blood that had dried on Domino’s arm, put the bandage on to create the illusion, then gave him a change of shirt. Not having received much clothing on their arrival, they had until then been asked for their laundry to clean it regularly. Now that they were part of the clan, it was up to them to take care of the task.

  So Domino got up, recovered from his emotions, gathered up the dirty laundry, and followed his brother to the door. He turned around as it opened to see if the blond boy followed them. To his astonishment, the child had gotten up, still in his corner, a half-eaten piece of meat at his feet.

  “Come,” Domino encouraged him, waving.

  The human hesitated for a second, two, three. At last he made his decision. He took one step, another, and then followed them outside.

  Domino was delighted.

  V I

  “And Nida? Nida? Or Gus? I like the word ‘Gus.’ ”

  Domino’s hands weren’t focused on his task anymore. Bent over his washboard, he’d stopped taking care of the dirty laundry the moment his excitement got the upper hand.

  Marissin refused to engage in this conversation. The sky was getting darker—heavy tarnished clouds raced in their direction from the bamboo forest—and he wanted to finish his chores before dinner. Someone during lunch had predicted rain for the evening. Marissin didn’t wish to be outside when it fell.

  He rubbed harder against the washboard, up and down, his legs numb from crouching by the river. His fingers were freezing, barely holding the cloth, forcing him to press against the soapy board with his palms.

  Amidst the lapping of the clear water, Domino’s voice resounded again. “ ‘Gus’ is not a name, but I like it. Don’t you know it? My mother used to say that ‘Gus’ is the word we use to talk about that moment when we’re cold— No, it’s when we wake up, but we think we’re still dreaming. Yeah, that’s it. It’s special, isn’t it? Gus. Gus? Gus?”

  He repeated the word several times, sometimes opening his mouth without letting the slightest sound come out.

  He worked the movements of his tongue against his palate, teeth, and lips. A piece of advice Matta had offered Marissin to improve his use of the main dialect of Torbatt, one Domino loved to put in practice with his own language.

  Matta was a woman of words. She had come back to see Marissin as promised, first once every ten days or so, then more often. During those lessons, she sat with him and spoke mainly in Sirlhain. Domino had insisted on attending these lessons. For the first month he’d come only occasionally, appearing just before the end of the lecture, a moment before Matta judged it was time for her to return to her duties. Then Domino had gone to great lengths to be part of all these sessions, shirking Mora’s supervision—which seemed to suit the young man quite well, as he had recently been spending more and more time with a young woman named Belma.

  Sitting at a table in the sanctuary with the two children, Matta had laid in front of her a sheet of paper drawn from the folds of her tunic, writing down as she went along with a charcoal stick to illustrate her words. The signs she drew on the crudely pressed sheet were gibberish that resembled the footprints left in the wake of the village chickens. It had been a surprise to find out that those signs bore a meaning, just like the ones from the Artean.

  Sitting high on his heels near Marissin, Domino smiled. It was obvious Matta’s mouth only talked nonsense to him. Yet he rejoiced. When she’d begun to use Torb during the lessons, Domino’s excitement had been snuffed out before resurfacing, as lively as boiling water overflowing from a cauldron. He then interrupted Matta once, twice, and ended up sitting in the corner of the room, forced into silence or else he would be sent outside.

  After two months, the woman had decided to teach the two boys how to write, and Domino never found himself in the corner again. The Uetos didn’t write; the vast majority of them couldn’t even read, Matta had told Marissin in Sirlhain. Domino would be an exception.

  The intonations, the rhythm, the pressure of the tongue against the teeth, against the palate. The list of instructions grew longer every day, and Marissin found in each new addition the limits of his patience. Matta then made it clear that it was urgent for him to learn to hunt as well, for nature would be merciless once he was thrown out of Surhok. Each of her distributions reminded the boy of his resolutions. He went back to his studies. He was smarter than she thought.

  They wouldn’t kick him out. He’d made up his mind.

  After several weeks, Marissin recognized most of the words he heard around him. He still spoke very few of them himself, but he was now able to say “yes,” “no,” and “thank you” from time to time.

  Matta strongly encouraged him to formulate complete sentences and reprimanded him if he stuck to his overused “yes” and “no.”

  If speaking the Torbatt’s language had felt like a silly game, after five months of intense work, his mind had turned Torb.

  Nothing was more satisfying than to hear and understand. Marissin knew everyone had uttered a lot of horrors and rudeness about him. He was a Vestige, and his young age made him neither stupid nor naive. He now no longer had to wonder whether or not he was the subject of conversation or taunting, or if someone was insulting him. He knew that at best he was invisible; at worst, he was “it.”

  Even the language switched in his dreams. But the men rarely talked before squeezing the rope around his neck. They didn’t talk much, either, when they pulled on the end of the rope . . .

  The rag slipped from Marissin’s grasp. A hand flew in front of him, catching the wet cloth before it got lost in the water.

  “Here,” Domino said, putting the cloth back in the other boy’s pale hands. “It’s fine if you don’t like ‘Gus.’ ‘Nadi’ is good too. ‘Nadi’ means ‘cold wind,’ you know. My name, Domino, means ‘day of night.’ ”

  The other child knew that but refrained from making any comment. Answering to Domino usually led to more talking, and the current amount was more than enough.

  “Mora says my name is like that because I was born one day when it was all dark. A day of—”

  “Faces above, your voice makes me want to cut your tongue!” A voice cut in that startled both Domino and Marissin.

  Beïka walked down the path leading to the river, lacing the front of his pants. His cheeks were red, matching the color of his ears on each side of his shaved head. “What if you tried to shut the fuck up, for once? We can hear you through the walls.”

  Beïka kicked his little brother’s ass, and Domino turned, baring his teeth once again, hands full of clothes dripping water in the dust. Mora had gone hunting with several of the clan’s other nichans, including Ero. Therefore, Beïka feared no reprisals.

  Marissin knew all too well what Domino’s brother was up to when he wandered into the village in the company of his friends. The human and Domino had caught them smoking long, dark, acrid-smelling cigars in the back of the village. Domino had narrowly avoided the glowing stalk that Beïka had brought close to his face to threaten him, defying his little brother to tell Mora everything.

  And then there had been, the day before, that repeated sucking sound almost masked by Beïka’s high-pitched groans. As they approached, wrongly worried, the little boys had only had time to see a girl kneeling in front of the teenager, her face and mouth pressed against his crotch. Then Beïka had asked his friend to swallow something, grabbing the length of her short black hair. Cheeks red, eyes low, Domino had hurried away, forcing Marissin to follow.

  The human couldn’t get the th
ought out of his mind. What had exactly happened inside their hut? He wouldn’t ask Domino about it. Not to initiate conversation was also to avoid conflict.

  Beïka gave his brother another push in the butt, harder, as if to test his patience.

  “Stop,” Domino said.

  Beïka’s smirk was brighter than daylight. The next second, he bent down, picked up a handful of dirt, and threw it into the basket of freshly laundered clothes waiting to be laid out.

  Domino shouted and pushed his brother with both hands. A vain gesture, for Beïka was faster, stronger, taller, and a jerk craving a good fight, even with a seven-year-old.

  He grabbed his little brother’s wrist as it flew by. “Why do you bother trying to find it a name?” Beïka said as he pulled Domino up in the air, shaking him like a hare brought from the hunt. The little boy kicked and punched. “It’s fucking useless, so shut up. And remember that shit is supposed to get out of your ass, not your mouth!”

  “Let go of me!”

  Marissin clenched the dishcloth. It wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed such a brawl between the two brothers. The last time, there had been a crack, and Domino had squealed. After that, he’d massaged his swollen shoulder for days, trying not to strain his right arm. When the Vestige had attempted to heal him, Domino had refused, fear in his eyes. Once alone, he’d explained that Beïka mustn’t know about Marissin’s abilities. His gift was a secret.

  The crunch would come, the human was certain of it. He didn’t want to hear that crackling, or the scream that would burst out of the young nichan’s mouth. He still preferred Domino’s babbling to the moaning his older brother exhorted from him with repeated assaults.