Christmas Trees & Monkeys

by Keohane, Dan

  The eight year old crawled under the sheets without replying. His father waited for the ritual to begin. Liam squirmed, kicked the sheets, pulled out his arms from the blankets. Slowly settled.

  When it came time for Donel’s part he paused, not wanting to follow the routine. Not tonight. He wanted his son with him, wanted to ask again, demand, Liam, stay up late with me.

  Nobody spoke, though the boy normally would be spouting off details about school or a book he was reading. Waiting for the moment his Da was ready to close the door before offering a detailed answer to “what did you do at school today”, even if the question had been asked two hours earlier. Tonight Liam remained quiet. He did smile, keeping only to the essence of the routine, quietly, reverently.

  Perhaps, Donel thought, the boy didn’t understand the significance of tonight. If that was so, wouldn’t he have wanted to stay up late? Liam’s coping better than you, he thought. He wants to be alone, to sleep away the memory instead of languishing in self-pity like his father. For one his age the ritual of “bed” overpowered all else, this night more than any.

  Donel knelt beside the mattress and tucked the sheet under Liam’s chin. Kiss on the forehead. Press of sheets.

  Liam turned in the bed’s cocoon until he lay on his belly.

  Touch of hair. Time for Donel to leave.

  “Last chance,” he whispered, rising.

  “Good night, Da.”

  Donel began to close the door.

  “Da?”

  Hope. Donel paused. “Yes?”

  “I’m OK. You know?”

  The statement was so adult, so certain in tone, his father was mute for a moment. Finally Donel half-smiled and said, “I know.” He closed the bedroom door.

  * * *

  Tonight was the second anniversary of that bloody moment in his family’s life. This seemed now to be an annual ritual. Remembrance. Spending one evening every year before the telly, images flashing by, words buzzing from the speaker, seeing and hearing nothing but the silence of the house.

  Donel closed his eyes, head against the back of the couch, and thought about the past. He tried to recapture a moment of happiness, one when Cloida was smiling, crossing the kitchen to embrace him as he arrived home. It never happened, not really. Even before their son was born, his wife existed in a cloud of self-imposed darkness. She emerged often, but then only for a short time. Cloida would inevitably drift back into the tempest of her mind.

  Perhaps she saw the road ending from a distance away. Donel sometimes thought so, sitting in this chair, not watching the television. Staring at the wall as if waiting for his wife to step out of the paper’s fading pattern, born anew, emerging from the chrysalis where she’d hidden herself.

  Every time his train of thought wandered this path, he thought of Father O’Nan. Where has she gone? Donel asked once after the funeral. O’Nan’s answer of silence sliced a hole in Donel’s world, never to be repaired.

  She was somewhere lost in her cloud, drifting in the darkness she’d cultivated during her life. That was not the priest’s unspoken answer, but Donel clung to it. He knew what O’Nan was not saying. Where is Cloida? Burning for eternity.

  With shaking hand he lifted the glass to his lips and wished Liam had stayed up. Comfort to another brings comfort to oneself, someone had said in the blur of those first few weeks after Cloida’s death.

  Liam was so small two years ago. His loss was not the same, an absence felt but never understood. Not like Donel’s. It’s never the same with children. Donel wondered if he might not be slowly brewing his own dark cloud. If so, where would that leave Liam?

  * * *

  Liam lay on his side within the sheets. He stared ahead, willed himself still. The bedroom shadows leaned away from the nightlight, casting the room in an angled sleep-time world.

  Tonight she would come back, as she had the year before. Da would not understand. His world was work, fixing the car, missing Mum in his own way. Liam wanted to go downstairs and lay on his father’s lap, sit beside him on the couch, watch an old movie.

  But then he might miss her when she came. Might start to forget. If he was not here, waiting, would she ever come again?

  The closet was not in his line of sight, so he did not see something shift in the dark, sheltered from the nightlight across the room by the partially-closed door. The figure moved forward, molding itself from the blackness. Long legged, naked. The figure stepped across the carpet, almost floating. The head of a snake topped the otherwise flawless female body. Its eyes were dark, unmoving. Softly in the light the figure emerged from the closet, drifted toward Liam’s bed, keeping out of sight before it stopped, hesitant. It stood like a surreal statue and waited.

  Liam stared ahead, forcing his eyes to remain open. Nothing before him. Dark corners bled into the light. His eyes eventually closed in sleep.

  * * *

  Downstairs, Donel snapped awake. He’d fallen asleep on the couch again, the ritual broken early this year. Perhaps he was already bored with the repetition. He straightened, lifted his glass and drained the last stale swallow. He checked his watch.

  Eleven-fifteen. He still had work tomorrow, get Liam off to school. Donel stood up and went into the downstairs bathroom. He’d check on Liam after, try not to wake him. Let tonight be like any other for his son. Maybe next year it would be so for Liam’s father. Cloida went away of her own accord, time to forget and live what life God had in store for the rest of her family.

  * * *

  The growing odor, the sense of a presence in the room made Liam’s eyes open. Murky vision gritty with interrupted sleep. For a moment he did not remember and gasped when he saw the figure standing before him. Memory returned. He made sure not to look at the face, not to respond.

  See me, the figure seemed to say, unmoving, beautiful but soundless. Acknowledge me. Please....

  Liam stared at the legs, smooth, almost reflecting in the glow of the nightlight. He wanted to look at the figure in its entirety, see it completely. But to do so would be to acknowledge it, and to see the head, which in the periphery of his vision seemed to collapse and expand, shifting first from a snake’s then suddenly sprout horns and fur, gray like a goat’s, melting again into a muddy lump. He stared at the legs, but knew what was demanded of him - see it for what it was, who it was, let the face come into focus, sharply beautiful like he remembered.

  He sensed the struggle of the visitor, wanting to reach out to him but unable, a statue of flesh cold to the touch.

  Come to me, it didn’t say.

  Liam slipped from the cocoon of his bed sheet, keeping his eyes downcast, wanting to embrace the perfect legs, let the thing lift him into its trembling arms, hold him and rock him to sleep, sing, coo, shoosh, love.

  Remember.

  He stared at its feet. The skin around the ankles had dried, lacking its initial luster. It was as if Time itself was blowing like a dry wind about the woman - no, the thing.

  He risked a look further up until the head was a blur above him. He looked down quickly. Had he seen a dog, angry, snarling, a wolf? Not a goat this time.

  I am real....

  The corporeal voice was jagged with desperation, tingling through him, trying to pull him forward. Liam struggled to be still. He watched its skin crack, fade to an ashen gray in the glow of the nightlight.

  Look at me... I am real.. I am....

  It did not say his name, nor had it the year before, or the year before that when Liam awoke loudly from a nightmare. That first night Liam had seen his mother standing by his bed, her head bloody and misshapen. That long ago night the image disappeared quickly, leaving him alone in the room and hearing his father’s voice down the hall, Oh, my God, Cloida, Oh, My God. Over and over. Not coming into the boy’s room for a long time after.

  * * *

  Donel ascended the stairs, stopped outside Liam’s door. He thought of Cloida, and how it was she who once performed this nightly ritual, walking in and standing beside Lia
m’s bed. She would only stare, waiting to see if he was breathing, drinking in the sight of him before softly walking away and closing the door. She never touched Liam in those moments - fear of waking him. A few moments every night. Donel would stand where he was now, the door ajar, waiting for his wife to emerge glowing in the warmth of a mother loving her son.

  On that final night two years ago, she hadn’t checked on Liam. She’d gone straight into their bedroom, opened the dresser drawer and pulled out the pistol which she’d kept hidden for God-knew-how-long. When Donel had seen his wife bypass Liam’s room he should have known, should have followed her. Instead he waited for his wife to emerge into the hallway with an embarrassed smile. How could I have forgotten to check on my son? she might have said.

  He’d heard a “pop” and found Cloida in the middle of their bedroom floor, shattered head bleeding into the carpet.

  Now, he paused outside his son’s room and tried to calm himself. He should have known it was an illusion - getting through tonight without remembering every detail.

  * * *

  Forgive me.

  The legs rough now, bumpy and gray like wet sand. Liam knew it wasn’t too late. He could look up, see the demon before him, say he loved her. He missed her. But a deep part of him, too mature to express, too clear to ignore, knew that such an acknowledgement of its existence, of its self, was all it wanted. Forgiveness, remembering who it once was and what it meant to him. He wanted so much to give it to her - to it. It was an it. But to accept, acknowledge its nature would somehow set it free. He didn’t understand completely, but Liam knew if it was free it would never come back.

  Something burned, far across distant hills. The odor tickled at the back of his nose.

  Legs dried, pillars of cracked brown earth, an ancient monolith, statue of dust and worship for the boy. Then a faded leaf drifted down, skin flaking, falling in autumn.

  The right leg shattered. The figure tilted a little before the left leg fell. The body collapsed into a growing pile of itself. Splintering torso falling over knees, breasts indistinguishable from stomach, from the increasingly neglected contents of his sandbox. Smell of burning, shoulders crumbling to dust. Liam followed their descent to the carpet, the pile wide and thick. The face spread out before him, shifting, fading. Liam wanted to stare into its hollowing expression, but closed his eyes instead.

  The non-voice screamed, grabbing for whatever lifeline the boy might have been inclined to throw. He hadn’t. Eventually the burning smell dissipated and was gone.

  Liam lay on his belly, ear to the carpet, and imagined his mother’s figure falling back into the place she’d cast herself, a dark world, fire and clouds drifting over statues made of stone and flesh. Everything burning.

  It didn’t matter. As long as she kept coming back each year to plead with him. Maybe some day he would set her free. He didn’t want to forget, nor wanted her to forget him.

  * * *

  Donel opened the door. Liam lay as he had the year before - on his belly in the center of the room, face turned towards the closet door, mouth askew in sleep. He’d fallen off the bed.

  Donel walked into the room. The closet door was open. He walked over and clicked it shut, then lifted Liam off the floor and down onto the bed. The sheets were still tight. Donel had to pull hard to make an opening wide enough to gather his son beneath them. He thought about the sheets. Liam couldn’t have simply fallen out of bed.

  Maybe they’d been sharing the same vigil after all. Though the father would have preferred to share such a moment with the son, he knew everyone had their own way.

  Liam did not wake. Donel wondered if he was feigning sleep. He ran a hand across the boy’s face, brushing stray hair away. Unlike Cloida, Donel preferred to touch his son each night, feel the reassuring warmth of skin. He’d done it every night for two years, a ritual he relished more than any other. He bent down and kissed Liam’s forehead.

  Before he closed the door, a small voice said, “Good night, Da.”

  Donel smiled but did not turn back. “Good night, Liam.”

  “I won’t forget. She was beautiful, you know.”

  Donel nodded, knowing his son would not see the gesture. “Go to sleep now. You’ve got school in the morning.” He closed the door, and crossed the hall to his own room.

  — — — — —

  About “White Wave of Mercy”

  Fiction writers aren’t known for their obsessive research habits. In fact, if we could include a Research Checker on our word processors to accompany Spelling and Grammar, we’d be a lot happier. But sometimes the work at hand calls for some detailed analysis if it’s ever going to get off the ground. Editor Brian Hopkins knew this. He was a self-admitted research junkie and edited a series of anthologies in which the stories have to take place in a foreign (but factual) locale. Said locale must be thoroughly understood and/or researched by the author. The Extremes anthology series was pretty successful, and garnered some Bram Stoker Award nominations.

  For a while I carried with me an image (which I assumed would one day become a story) of a young boy living on an isolated island somewhere, standing on the beach and seeing the shimmering image of a generic White Man hovering before him. I didn’t know what the image would ever develop into, if anything. But stories are like that, sometimes they’re not ripe enough yet to pick.

  Around the time the call for Extremes 4: Darkest Africa came around, there was some media coverage of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Mostly on National Public Radio, since most other news outlet didn’t think that a quarter of the sub-Saharan population being infected with HIV was important enough to cover. In my usual writerly way, I began to wonder about Africa, musing conspiracy-like about the motives behind why so many of the Major Powers seemed to be ignoring the issue. Not completely ignoring, as there was a growing uneasiness among the world toward a continent with a growing population of orphans. Africa is a large, fertile patch of land, and I began to wonder the old what if questions. What if the world powers were simply, well, waiting...?

  Anyhow, I wanted to tell this story from the perspective of someone both on the outside of day-to-day events, but at the same time directly affected by them. The Mbuti pygmies are a relatively isolated race of people who live predominantly in the Congo region, also known (sometimes) as Zaire. I read a lot about them (doing my research!!!), and let what I learned guide how my character would react, say and do. I wanted the character Mabeli helpless to do anything about it, though. On a final note, I found a home for the image of the boy on the beach, except the scene shifted into the dark tangled jungles of Africa.

  Special thanks to Kevin Duffy, whose wonderful book on the Mbuti pygmies Children of the Forest: Africa’s Mbuti Pygmies (Waveland Press) was invaluable reading in the development of this story.

  White Wave of Mercy

  ‘81

  The lunchtime crowd at Yvonne’s American Deli and Grocery began to wane. The few beleaguered souls too busy to eat at a decent time nodded to the old man as they emerged with bulging take-out bags. Others saw nothing but their next business appointment.

  Mabeli sat on the bench and unwrapped his ham sandwich. Olive oil leaked from the corners, but would be absorbed by the paper before ever reaching his slacks. Regardless, Mabeli wore his stains proudly. Everything was too clean these days. In some of the newer buildings in downtown Epulu, the thick humidity and deep green smell of the forest were purified into a dull sameness.

  The sandwich was good - one of his vices and a small acceptance of the new world which had emerged around him. Mabeli liked this spot. It was close enough to the edge of the forest that the Ituri rose into view wherever he looked.

  “Hi.”

  “Bonjour!”

  The two boys offered reflexive greetings as they hurried inside. Mabeli nodded in return. His French wasn’t good enough to try with a mouth-full of ham and bread. The boys - the white one’s name was Mike, he thought - were doing what they’d been doing every Tues
day afternoon since school began. Today the new comic books were downloaded.

  Was it Tuesday? He’d know if Mike and his friend came out with noses pressed to their readers, lost in adventures that shone from expandable screens.

  Mabeli felt the same quick rush each time he saw the white boy, wondering if today was the day. A certainty that they were all being moved, wittingly or not, toward a single event.

  So long ago, the memory was clouded by the myriad of experiences in his life vying for attention. Still, Mabeli remembered. Like recognizing a kindred soul on their first meeting, he knew this boy was the one he’d encountered sixty years earlier. Perhaps his hopes had grown too strong to rule out the obvious question. How could he be so certain? Time - years - none of that mattered when Mabeli was young. Nor for his people, not then.

  Within the relative isolation of the Congo basin, the Mbuti pygmies lived as their ancestors had done for thousands of years. Beyond the protective walls of the forest, the world changed, fell and rose like the tide. It remained, for the most part, outside except when the Mbuti ventured beyond the forest to trade, or when an occasional Muzungu was drawn into Mabeli’s world for research or simple curiosity.

  In the end, the Muzungu always returned to their own world. Until the day they came in numbers, and never left.

  * * *

  ‘21

  Nine-year old Mabeli clambered among the branches in pursuit of imaginary prey. He drove the mboloko further through the brush with shouts and the beating of his spear against tree trunks. If the hunt was real, Mabeli would wait by the nets with the other men, letting the women drive the small antelopes their way. In play, however, standing still and waiting couldn’t compare to the chase.