The Best New Horror 6

by Stephen Jones

Dr Pretorious was caught at dawn the next day, as he tried to leave the city in a hired skiff. The fire set by Dr Stein had burnt out the top floor of the palazzo, no more, but the old man had died there. He had been the last in the line of a patrician family that had fallen on hard times: the palazzo and an entry in the Libro d’Oro was all that was left of their wealth and fame.

  Henry Gorrall told Dr Stein that no mention need be made of his part in this tragedy. “Let the dead lay as they will. There’s no need to disturb them with fantastic stories.”

  “Yes,” Dr Stein said, “the dead should stay dead.”

  He was lying in his own bed, recovering from a rheumatic fever brought about by the cold waters into which he had plunged on his escape. Winter sunlight pried at the shutters of the white bedroom, streaked the fresh rushes on the floor.

  “It seems that Pretorious does have friends,” Gorrall said. “There won’t be a trial and an execution, much as he deserves both. He’s going straight to the galleys, and no doubt after a little while he will contrive, with some help, to escape. That’s the way of things here. His name wasn’t really Pretorious, of course. I doubt if we’ll ever know where he came from. Unless he told you something of himself.”

  Outside the bedroom there was a clamour of voices as Dr Stein’s wife welcomed in Abraham Soncino and his family, and the omelettes and other egg dishes they had brought to begin the week of mourning.

  Dr Stein said, “Pretorious claimed that he was in Egypt, before he came here.”

  “Yes, but what adventurer was not, after the Florentines conquered it and let it go? Besides, I understand that he stole the apparatus not from any savage tribe, but from the Great Engineer of Florence himself. What else did he say? I’d know all, not for the official report, but my peace of mind.”

  “There aren’t always answers to mysteries,” Dr Stein told his friend. The dead should stay dead. Yes. He knew now that his daughter had died. He had released her memory when he had released the poor girl that Dr Pretorious had called back from the dead. Tears stood in his eyes, and Gorrall clumsily tried to comfort him, mistaking them for tears of grief.

  For Ernest Thesiger, in memoriam.

  GARRY KILWORTH

  Wayang Kulit

  GARRY KILWORTH was born in York city, England, of itinerant parents and he was raised partly in Aden. He has lived and worked in more than twenty different countries throughout the world and has an honours degree from King’s College, London. He currently resides in the swamps of Essex, close to the Black Lagoon, but admits that he and the Creature are just good friends.

  The author of numerous novels and collections for both adults and children (his SF novel The Electric Kid recently won Britain’s Children’s Book of the Year Award), his latest horror novel is Archangel, a supernatural thriller and a sequel to Angel.

  The World Fantasy Award-winning writer reveals that “ ‘Wayang Kulit’ was conceived live in a palm leaf hut on the island of Bali, a place where shadows are real and magic is close to the skin . . .”

  SHE CLOSED THE DOOR gently and was gone, and her leaving made little difference to the ambience of the room.

  I lay on the rough-hewn bed, with its carved end posts, for another hour, just staring at the ceiling. Then I got up and went out onto the balcony. It was five-thirty in the evening and the sun was setting on the Balinese rice terraces. A beautiful, light-green landscape surrounded the hut, the tiers dropping away to the front and rising above behind. The hut seemed to be floating like some forgotten gazebo in an emperor’s garden. Beyond the fields, in the far distance, was Gunung Agung, one of the many dominating active volcanoes.

  The duck herders were calling in their flocks on the rice terraces. The herders carried bamboo staves, twice the height of a man, which slimmed out to whip thin at the top and were arched, weighted by coloured rags. They stuck this in the ground and their ducks gathered around it. When they finally left, the ducks following, the tall crooks made the herders appear stately, like princes in the midst of a gabbling rabble.

  I sat in the rickety bamboo chair and drank some cold tea.

  It was the forest at the back of the town that had frightened her. The mosquitos, even the cockroaches and snakes didn’t bother her as much as they did me, but the forest had troubled her. We had been out walking and I insisted we follow a path through the undergrowth. She would have none of it, saying she didn’t like the shafts of light, lancing the lacework canopy. They worried her, especially when there was a breeze, stirring the branches, causing the patterns on the ground to change.

  What are you afraid of? I had asked her.

  Of getting lost, she replied.

  But there’s a path through to the other side, I said.

  Not that kind of lost, she had answered – lost forever.

  This answer was incomprehensible to me and I gave way to my temper, shouting at her, calling her an idiot. It was, I saw now, inexcusable of me, but the damage had been done. I was not forgiven. Later she told me she was leaving.

  We had been thrown together in a vernacular hut in the middle of rice fields and I guess it had put a strain on the relationship. Maybe it wasn’t the forest? Maybe it was us – or just me? Maybe she’d discovered, after seven days together, seven nights together, she just didn’t like me? Or that our cultures were too different? Hell, I didn’t know.

  Anyway, I sure as heck wasn’t going to stay on Bali now and thought I might go to the coast tomorrow, to find a ferry.

  I went indoors again and had an all-over wash in the mandi at the back. A kind of concrete bath with a saucepan for splashing water over oneself, the mandi substituted for a shower in the cheaper accommodation. I was on a backpacking holiday, using the Lonely Planet Guide. It meant I was free to do as I wished, go anywhere I pleased, and pick up whatever accommodation was available. Nyoman, a local woman, had attached herself to me several weeks ago, and I had begun to think we were in love with each other, but those feelings had evaporated.

  I dressed in shirt and slacks, and remembering the mosquitoes, thick socks. Then with torch in pocket I took the raised narrow paths down to the town, which happened to be Ubud, the place of the artists and carvers. Everywhere there were paintings for sale, and textiles, and wood carvings. I had already bought a root carving of a lizard emerging from its hole, and a painting of Garuda surrounded by villagers. Nyoman had persuaded me to buy both the carving and the picture.

  Nyoman was fashioned in the fay mould of the Balinese. She had dainty limbs and a light step. She had the shy smile and quiet demeanour. I was beginning to miss her already.

  As I walked down the main street, pieces of paper were thrust into my hands by hopeful touts. There was one inviting me to an “old ritual dance – sanghyang – a trance dance in which Rama sets out to rescue Sita from the clutches of the Demon King assisted by a huge army of monkeys”. The flier wasn’t clear whether the monkeys were with Rama, or with the Demon King, but knowing the local monkeys it was probably the latter. One had bitten Nyoman on the ankle when I wasn’t looking.

  There were the usual Barong and Kris dances, a dedari dance and a jaran dance, but the one that took my attention immediately was an invitation to a wayang kulit.

  I had read a good deal about the shadow puppet plays and I knew that tourists did not often get invited. The wayang kulit had religious significance and was actually performed mostly in temples during the day: was for some reason necessary to the temple rituals. The dalang, or puppet master, was a consecrated priest, a mystic, and was regarded with some awe.

  I went back to the man who had given me the wayang kulit flier.

  “I can go to this?” I asked.

  “Yes mister.”

  “How much?”

  He named me a figure in rupees, which seemed reasonable. One might bargain for a bemo taxi, or a carving, but not for a ticket to a shadow play.

  “I’ll take one,” I said.

  “Two?” he asked, seemingly puzzled.

  He had obv
iously seen me with Nyoman.

  “No, one,” I replied, firmly.

  He nodded and then looked me in the eyes. “You want for someone to come with you?”

  I stared at him for a moment, then said, “You mean you?”

  He smiled disarmingly. “I can tell you about the shadow puppets. It will mean nothing otherwise.”

  I nodded. He was right. Although I knew a good deal already the wayang kulit was immensely complicated and complex, full of heroes and heroines, demons and ogres, and a cast of hundreds. I might enjoy the spectacle, but I would have only a vague idea what was going on. The stories were from sacred classical literature, written originally on palm-leaf manuscripts, and brought to life mythic beings from both the natural and supernatural worlds. It would help to have someone with an inherent knowledge of the art.

  “You’re hired,” I said. “How much?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “You pay my ticket.”

  All he wanted was to get to see the show himself. That was fair enough. He knew I would probably tip him too, but that wasn’t an essential, only a possible extra.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Ketut,” he replied, and I remembered that Balinese have only four first names – Wayan, Made, Nyoman and Ketut – which they give to their children in that order. After Ketut, the sequence is begun again. My companion was his parent’s fourth, or eighth, or twelfth child.

  I left Ketut, promising to meet him outside the Frog Pond Inn at seven. The shadow puppet show was in a village just outside Klungkung, the centre of an old Balinese kingdom. It was some thirty kilometres away and would take us at least an hour on the poor back roads, past endless Hindu temples and lily ponds, banana plantations and wayside shrines.

  Walking towards the Frog Pond Inn, where I intended to eat, I strolled past the open shops and looked round suddenly, half-expecting to see Nyoman behind me. She had followed me around in life for so long I now took her presence for granted. A very quiet woman with little to say, happy to be with someone without imposing her personality upon them, much of the time you almost forgot she was there. It was only when you noticed some change, perhaps in the light, that you remembered she was accompanying you. These were not conditions I would have wished on her, or anyone, but were a fact of her existence. I used to tease her, saying she must be a closet Carmelite nun, and had taken a vow of silence.

  It was not just me who saw her in this way. In a crowd, at a party, she was hardly noticed. Even if someone took the trouble to speak to her, they did so self-consciously, as if they were afraid they might be accused of talking to themselves.

  The street was empty behind me and I continued my stroll.

  Ketut met me at the arranged time and we boarded a rickety bus full of German tourists bound for Klungkung. Just over an hour later I was sitting with a bottle of Fanta in my hand, in a palm-leafed long hut, lit only by a single 25 watt bulb which dangled, bare of any shade, from the central rafter. Around me were several Germans, one or two Australians and New Zealanders, and half a dozen British tourists.

  The rest of the room was jam-packed with locals, children and adults. The Balinese are a small, dusky, ethereal people – self-effacing and diffident – with a lightness of form which made me feel like a pantomime oaf. They seemed so much closer to the living earth on their volcanic island, a garden land of blooms and lush greenery, volatile yet with a deep, delicate beauty.

  In front of me was a make-shift raised booth. I had already walked around this object. There was a white cotton screen illuminated by a coconut oil lamp, whose light was soft and evocative. Under the lamp, cross-legged, inside the booth, sat the dalang, the puppet master. He was meditating when I passed by him: preparing himself for the performance during which he would exceed the bounds of reality, for himself and his audience, if not in actuality.

  The pusaka, or puppet chest, passed down through families as an heirloom, stood at the end of the booth.

  Within arm’s reach, down either side of the booth, were the shadow puppets, made of buffalo hide. They were flat, intricate cut-outs of gods, heroes and heroines, painted and chiselled according to precise traditional requirements.

  “First tonight is a Hindu myth,” whispered Ketut. “Kala Purana. In this the demon-god Kala wishes to devour twin brothers born in the week of Tumpek Wayang. The dalang Empu Lègèr conquers him by shadow play and purifying . . .”

  “You mean ritual exorcism? A shadow play within a shadow play, eh?” I wanted to show that I had taken the trouble to read some of the background myths. “Is this the one where Kresna smashes the demon king’s head to pieces?”

  “No,” replied Ketut. “That is Bomantaka.”

  I could hear by the reverent tone he used that he regarded the shadow theatre with intense seriousness.

  “You believe this is very holy?” I asked him.

  He nodded, slowly. “The wayang has hidden secret wisdom concerning the meaning of life.”

  “You said first – are there two shows tonight?”

  “Yes. Second comes Bima Suci, where the Pandawa brother Prince Bima is sent into the forest by a false priest to fetch holy water. Bima is attacked by ogre but he slits its throat with his long fingernail, waspenek . . .” Ketut showed me one of his own long nails and drew it across his neck. “The ogre’s soul becomes the god, Indra. Bima takes the head of the ogre back to the Brahmana priest who sent him into the forest and the priest then confesses the holy water is in the middle of the ocean.

  “Bima meets large snakes there and cuts off their heads, but he dies in the water. When he is dead he asks the god Tunggal three questions: why does man have to die? why does man dream? what is the purest thing on earth? Tunggal says man dies when the gods leave his body, man dreams to let his soul out to wander and nothing on the earth is flawless, even flowers, though the god of love, Semara, is the purest in heaven.

  “When the Tunggal answers the questions, he opens his legs and the Prince Bima goes into his body through his phallus. In heaven Bima finds the holy water in a gold casket on a five-tiered shrine. He takes this and goes home, to rejoice with his family. The lying priest is punished.”

  He had obviously memorized this passage of English translation from a guide book of some kind, but before I could comment the electric light went out and a hushed atmosphere seized the spectators in this monochromatic drama.

  The lamplight was even more subtle now, illuminating the screen with a deep yellow glow. It might have been the moon behind that cotton divider. The musicians in the small orchestra began playing on percussion instruments and the Tree of Life appeared in shadow form on the screen. Then characters began to enter, the epic unfolded, while the dalang recited the story at the same time as manipulating his puppets.

  Very soon I was lost in the enthralling play on the screen before me. The puppets were handled with such rapidity, such skill and deftness, that after a while the rhythms of the shadows became a mesmerizing sequence of dexterous movements before my eyes, hypnotizing me. It did not matter that I did not fully understand the plot, or that many of the characters were anonymous to me, it was the vibrant shadows creating dramatic stimuli that held me spellbound, commanded absolutely my attention. I drowned in the performance.

  Arrows flew across the screen, sword fights were enacted, and surely, surely, there were at least a dozen characters, a dozen voices, at any one time in the thick of great battles, while the dalang only had one mouth, one pair of hands? How were these wonders achieved, if not by mysticism and magic? This holy man behind the screen was himself a puppet of the gods, his mind wholly engaged by them, his hands assisted by theirs. There was a kind of wizardry in force, in which the priest was but the master, and we the audience were his neophytes.

  The music was insistent, adding to the mesmeric voice, the hypnotic movements. At times it was monotonous, dulling my senses to the point of utter receptivity; at other times it was sweet and beguiling, persuading me to open my perceptions; and
lastly it could be almost cacophonic, loudly demanding my attention and my submission.

  We were participants too, in the frenetic activity being played out on the screen, this battle involving men and gods, demons and monsters. Our hearts were black shadows awaiting the deadly dagger; our eyes perceived threats to our personal safety; our hands itched to wield weapons.

  These were not simply dark images, icons flitting across a screen: they were immediately true.

  We were drawn into new ways of comprehending reality, sitting in that room.

  The battles on the screen became more frantic, more intense, until the villains were vanquished and the heroes victorious.

  The two performances had taken almost five hours during which many of the tourists had left quietly and gone home. I guessed that many of them had got bored, especially since they could not take flash photographs, the curse of the modern traveller.

  I staggered outside the long hut to get some air, grateful for the perfume of the frangipani blossoms after the closeness of so many bodies with their unavoidable human smells. Then just as the bus was about to leave, I realised my watch had gone from my wrist. Using my torch I searched the immediate area, but couldn’t see it anywhere.

  “Hold the bus,” I said to Ketut, and went back inside the hut to look around where I had been sitting.

  I couldn’t find the light switch, so I used my torch to search the floor.

  While I had my head down, there was a sudden clack from the platform above. It sounded as if someone was still there. When I looked I saw that the lamp was still on at the back of the booth. It was quiet and still in the hut now: a kind of hushed hallowed silence had descended upon the place in the absence of the dalang. Then the clack came again.

  I switched the torch off and tip-toed up the steps to the platform and stared in the booth, the temple of this priest-wizard with the magic hands.

  Surprisingly, it was empty except for the shadow puppets, still in their sockets ranged along both sides of the booth. Had one of them slipped and made the sound I had heard? Their strange cut-out heads and bodies looked sinister in the flickering yellow glow. There was fat Merdah, and Tualèn, and big-bellied Sangut, the great hero Kresna, and the kakayonan, the tree of life and sacred centre of the universe.