My master knows: everything he says confirms that he could understand my secret. All I need do is ask the questions I have stored up in my soul, and he will tell me the answer, for he is the one who can teach me what I am. Hope makes me bold. At the end of the lesson I dawdle behind.
‘Dottore,’ I say when we are alone. ‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Indeed. Speak, man.’
I will ask him now. He will tell me.
‘Then, master, let me ask: what ties a man to life? What loosens him into death?’
‘Good questions, my dear man, most excellent!’ he cries. ‘What do you think?’
‘Every living thing bleeds when it is cut,’ I say, and drop my chin. ‘That is the law of nature.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘You are an observant pupil. Every creature with blood, such as a dog, or a man.’
‘Every man?’
‘Of course.’
‘And every man, when he is cut deeply, remains open?’ I say nervously.
‘And bleeds to death. The blood is the life, Lazzaro.’
I swallow a great lungful of air. ‘What if a man was cut and did not bleed? And his flesh knitted up, and swiftly?’
I dare not look at him. He must be able to see what I am concealing: that I speak of myself.
‘It would be a miracle.’
‘Maybe I have seen such a thing, master.’
‘Pah! A piece of trickery such as you may see in one of the fairground booths on Holy Days. Men who swallow swords, or toads. My good man, cast your mind solely upon science, not fakery and magic tricks.’
He turns to leave, but my questions are burning a hole in my tongue and it seems I must spit them out.
‘Master. Does everything stay dead when it is cut?’
‘You may be sure of it. A fatal wound will kill a man. When a man is dead, he stays dead.’
His eyes are friendly and it makes me bold enough to keep on pressing him.
‘There are other things that trouble me.’
‘Indeed? What?’
‘I have thoughts I can tell no-one. Dreams. Memories. I want someone to help me.’
‘Perhaps I can help,’ he says, and starts to flicker, like the flame of a candle in a draught.
I clutch at his arm and cry, ‘Master! Dottore!’ I want to hold tight to the answers he possesses: they are here, in this place. I do not want to leave, but I am dragged away into darkness. Of all my desires, the one I most long for is to return.
A voice speaks: Don’t you understand? This is not a dream. You are not sleeping.
I look around, trying to find the blackguard who is torturing me, but I am alone.
This is your answer, says the voice. You do not want to hear it.
‘Shut up!’ I cry.
You run from yourself, it continues. But you are always at your own heels. There is no escape.
There is a deafening thunder, bowling closer and closer.
‘Please, stop. I can no longer bear it,’ I shout, and I am returned to my clean bed.
Eve, the one they call the Lion-Faced Girl, is standing in the doorway, knocking on the wooden frame.
‘Abel?’ she says.
‘Yes.’
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘I thought so, also,’ I say, blushing at the untruth.
‘What ails you?’
‘Nothing,’ I lie once more.
‘You are pale, sweating as though you are in a fever. You were crying out.’
‘Was I? I think I have had a nightmare.’
‘Indeed?’ She flicks a voluminous eyebrow; her forehead shimmers. ‘You are as bad a liar as I am, Master Abel.’
She is smiling; she means kindness. I struggle to catch my breath, to clutch at what I have just seen: the anatomy studio; picture after picture, leading further into myself. Not dreams: lives, memories. Already I am losing the meaning of it. I scrabble inside my shirt and get out my paper. I press the pencil stub into it so hard it breaks off.
‘Do you have pen and ink?’ I say.
She laughs. ‘No. What a strange request.’
‘Please,’ I say, my voice rising in panic.
Her smile fades away. ‘I am sorry,’ she mutters and disappears.
I chant, ‘Anatomy, answers, memories,’ over and over until she returns with pen and inkwell. I scrawl in a fury, trying desperately to remember more details before they fade.
‘Abel?’ she says. ‘What are you writing?’
‘I have dreams. But they are not dreams.’ I point to what I have just written. ‘I believe they are memories.’
The effort of saying this makes my teeth grind. If I tell her about my secret strangeness, she will draw aside from me. They all do.
‘Abel, you look as though you are about to faint clean away. Wait,’ she says, although I have no intention of going anywhere.
She returns a moment later with a glass of clear liquid, perfuming the room with the sharp oily smell of gin. She glances over her shoulder into the corridor before seating herself at the end of my bed.
‘Thank you,’ I say, and take the drink.
It fortifies me surprisingly well. She smiles, and the long moustaches framing her mouth quiver. There is a pause.
‘You are stranger than the others, Abel.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. Can you not see it?’
‘I do not know,’ I say, turning away from her clever eyes.
‘George has his wonders painted on to him. Bill? Well, he is a boy, and an exaggeration only. I never heard of any man who can do what you do.’
‘No, I dare say you haven’t.’
‘I think there is more to you than that, even.’
‘Yes?’
I endeavour to sound careless, although my heart is pounding with mixed fear and exhilaration that she can read me so clearly. She leans forward and takes my hand, grasping it firmly. As we touch, a profound sensation seizes me, as though my innermost being is reaching up towards her from a deep well.
‘Oh,’ she whispers. ‘I did not expect … I feel …’
‘What?’
She breathes heavily awhile, and then smooths out her ruffled face.
‘You.’ She smiles.
We stare at each other. I feel a tantalising hope that I may draw close to the shore of friendship and understanding. I do not know if I can trust her. I have been wrong before. I draw my hand away. She hangs on.
‘No, Abel. Let me. There is such—’
‘Confusion? As if I do not know that myself.’
‘Far from it, Abel. I think I see … wondrous things.’
I am torn between my aching need for communion and answers, and the quaking fear of how badly it turns out. The hungry pawing of the fortune-teller is disturbingly fresh in my memory, as is the bewildering rejection of Alfred, a man who called me friend. My fear triumphs.
‘Please. No more.’
‘Why are you so afraid?’
‘Mrs Arroner—’
‘My name is Eve.’
‘Eve, I am sorry. I am a coward.’
‘Are you indeed?’ she says drily. Her smile is warm. ‘Very well. I shall never force you to anything you do not wish.’ She busies herself with rolling a lock of hair round and round her finger. ‘Let us talk of other things.’ She nods at the document I still have in my lap. ‘What is that piece of paper you carry about, Abel?’ she asks.
‘It is the record of who I am,’ I begin. ‘The thread which I pray most devoutly might lead me out of this labyrinth.’
‘How very politely you speak, Abel!’ She laughs, but there is delight in the sound rather than cruelty. ‘I almost see you in a brocade waistcoat to the knee, doffing a three-cornered hat trimmed with feathers, like a prince from a history book.’
‘I would bow as deep, if it should please you, my lady,’ I say in an affected twitter, caught up in the easy playfulness that sparks between us.
‘You are quite the dandy.’ She laughs agai
n and claps her hands softly. ‘I believe you are rather droll, Abel.’
‘I believe you may be right.’
We smile at each other, shyly at first, her eyes demurely cast down; then more boldly and freely until she lifts her head, tossing her abundant curls in a swinging cloak about her shoulders. Her eyes shine beacons into mine. Then her head turns quickly, and I hear it too: the clump of a man’s feet along the corridor. She starts to her feet and is leaning casually against the door by the time George saunters in. He looks at her and then at me.
‘Cosy little chat, eh?’ he says, and whistles softly.
‘Indeed not, George,’ she replies. ‘It is almost time for the show.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes. It seems one of my daily tasks is to rouse you men into activity. At least Abel is present.’
‘Always ready and Abel?’ he sniggers.
He stretches out and plucks away my document before I can stop him.
‘What’s all this then? Writing love letters to the lady of the house on the sly?’
‘It’s his, George. Give it back.’
‘What? Not got a tongue in your head?’ he taunts, waving the sheet just out of my reach. ‘Want this, you meat-head?’
‘Yes, I do.’
He squints at the crowd of words. ‘“I am a—” What’s this nonsense?’
‘George, do you truly wish to reveal that you can barely read?’
‘You bitch,’ he growls, crumpling the paper.
‘Oh no, George. The Lion-Faced Girl, remember? Most assuredly not a dog.’
‘I’ll show the two of you!’ He scowls, striding out.
I spring to my feet.
‘Leave it,’ hisses Eve. ‘Don’t provoke him.’
I ignore her and follow George to the kitchen. He dangles my paper over the range.
‘I knew you’d come. You have to see this.’
He drops it into the flames and I am on my knees straight away, hand in the heart of the fire. What I manage to rescue is charred beyond reading. Amongst the scattered words I pick out slaughter, friend, speak, jump.
‘Fuck me.’ I look up and see George, his features squirming. ‘Your bleeding hand.’
The skin is sizzling, peeling into curls. He backs away, tripping over his own feet in his haste to be out of the room. I watch my flesh bubble: it begins as a tickle of warmth, the heat growing and growing until I look about me and discover myself in the heart of a conflagration, thrust into another of my memories. I smell the bitterness of burning hair; the crackling roast of my skin, which crisps without blackening; the fume of green wood stacked round my shins. I am not alone: I am surrounded by other men, bound like myself, and shrieking, for the blaze finds them delicious.
Flames tumble up my arms and I hold them before me, observing their fluttering. ‘I am sweet!’ I shout, my words parched to nothing in the heat; but the fire will not feast upon me, although I yearn for it to sink its fangs and taste me.
It shrugs me off, hovering but not devouring; making a halo of gold to display my nakedness; consuming my clothes, my hair, all my externals, even the very air, but not my flesh. I touch the ropes binding me and they fall into cinders: I walk free, carrying the furnace from place to place, and am preserved within it.
I wake, the scent of grilled meat hovering in my nostrils, gasping with the shock of what I have seen. A hand alights on my shoulder. I look up into Eve’s face.
‘Abel, what is happening? Oh, your hand.’
I hide the vile flesh under my armpit. ‘You are horrified.’
‘No! I am surprised. That is all.’
Her eyes sparkle with friendship. I so wish to place my trust in her. But I have been betrayed, so many times.
‘How can you want to draw close to a monster such as myself? You cannot understand. No-one can.’
Her eyes wince, and I cringe with shame at my rudeness: I did not think myself so cruel.
‘I am sorry. I spoke harshly. I am not harsh.’
‘No. You are not.’ She regards me steadily. ‘Show me.’
I draw out my hand hesitantly and she seats herself on the floor beside me. We watch my skin rekindle, grow back pink and shining. After the time it would take to eat a bowl of soup, I am whole again.
‘Abel, I should count it a singular honour if we could be friends,’ she says.
She gets to her feet, patting out the creases in her skirt, reaches out her hand and pulls me to my feet with surprising vigour.
‘Eve,’ I breathe, and squeeze her hand. ‘I should value it above all things.’
‘Thank you, Abel,’ she says tenderly. ‘And, in truth, it is time for the show.’
On the playbill Eve’s face is flattened out like a dried splash of tea staining the paper. But when she steps before the lights she comes to thrilling life. The warm air rising from the candles causes her hair to float about her head as though she is being carried on its wings. Abundant tresses mass round her delightful face, tumbling over her cheeks like a stream over pebbles. She is afire in the candlelight, a tapestry of gold threads mixed with bronze. I did not think myself so rhapsodical. Spun gold and bronze? Perhaps I was a poet once. Not a very good one, if my art bent towards such over-burdened phrases.
Her whole body – or, at least, all that we are permitted to observe – gleams with smooth fur. I see how modestly she endeavours to veil her downy breasts, for they are in danger of toppling out of the neckline of her dress. It is cut very low at Mr Arroner’s insistence: ‘To add a bit of piquancy,’ as he puts it.
A man at the front cries, ‘Go on love, a bit more leg!’
She smiles at the audience, her teeth clamped together, and declines to accommodate the request. There is a growing chorus of wolfish howls.
‘Show us your knees!’ says another hopeful, only to be ignored.
Mr Arroner stands to the side, grunting with exasperation at such a missed opportunity. He waves his hands as though pushing up an invisible sash window, gesturing for Eve to lift her skirt. Higher, higher.
She promenades from right to left and back again, singing a pretty ballad about her true love, who is a dear sweet boy and surely will return to her at any moment.
‘It’s singing!’ laughs one wag.
‘Miaowing, more like!’ pipes up another.
No-one seems particularly interested in her words. It is only when she swirls her petticoats in the chorus that they show any appreciation, and it is of a low sort. For all Mr Arroner’s continual reminders of how refined and educational we are, I observe very little refinement or desire for learning in these groundlings. Before me are slack chins and looser minds; prurience that licks its lips and smacks its chops at the sight of her parading before it.
She pauses and stands with her fists on her hips, tapping her foot, as though considering a conundrum. Then she twirls her long moustache and throws the crowd a wink as she starts her second song, a well-known air. When she gets to the chorus, she sings ‘I’m your own, your very own puss’ instead of ‘your very own girl’.
The whistles and catcalls fall silent for a full line of the next verse. She throws in a few more substitutions of ‘cat’ and ‘puss’, with a miaow or two for good measure, tossing her hair and winking at the men who had hooted at her and are now struck dumb. The laughter begins; slow at first but building into a wave that rolls from wall to wall and back again as they celebrate her cleverness in bending the tune to her will.
Mr Arroner is at the side of the stage, arms crossed over the bulge of his stomach. I watch his sour frown smooth into surprise, then astonishment, then avarice. As Eve leaves the stage to a tumult of applause, he leaps on to the vacant stage.
‘So modest a maiden!’ he carols to the crowd. ‘But who knows what tricks she might have for you tomorrow! Who can guess what she might be cajoled into revealing! There’s always something new and exciting at Professor Arroner’s Unique and Genuine Anatomical Marvels!’
At this suitable gap in the performa
nce, Bill squeezes between the shoulders of the mob, carrying a tray of pork fat cut into little squares that Lizzie fried crisp that afternoon. His cries of ‘Fresh crackling, tuppence a twist’ can be heard over the low murmuring of the audience. Mr Arroner paces in small circles around Eve, fiddling with the buttons on his waistcoat until I am sure the threads will snap under the strain.
‘What a revelation, my dear. Indeed, how you take your poor old husband by surprise. But a fine idea.’ He preens. ‘A capital notion. I believe I shall rewrite more melodies for you.’
On and on he chatters, until I notice how it becomes his own invention and Eve’s talent is quite overlooked. She sits, combing out the knots in her beard whilst he enumerates song after song which could be adapted to her needs. At last, he bounds back before the crowd to announce my turn.
‘Does it not bother you that he takes all the credit?’ I ask.
‘When he is happy, he is kinder,’ she says. ‘And is it not something to see me transformed from a spectacle of ugliness into the creator of mirth?’
With that, it is time for me to take my seat in the wavering light and rancid stink of the candles. I wind a shawl around my hips, to cover the shame of my unfortunate reaction to any deep cutting. My fingers tighten around the handle and lift the knife. What Eve has just said reverberates around my mind. It is true: here, under the eager eyes of the audience, I can act as lord of myself, even if only for a few moments.
I swing the blade in a mesmerising circle, round and round, watching light flash up and down the keen edge. At first, the movement is accompanied by the steady crunch of teeth on roasted pigskin. Gradually, the sound subsides. When I judge that I have their full and breath-held attention, I press the point into my forearm, beginning with feathery cuts which barely penetrate, flickering touches, cat’s-tooth sharp. The watchers gasp a little, roll their eyes, but I am just begun.
I twist the knife upwards and my flesh opens. I plunge inside, hear the breathing of the whole room catch, for now they think the bleeding will begin. Of course, I know the truth. I thrust my fingers into the hole, drag the lips of skin to one side and spread my body wide: red-violet, soft enough to slide inside. To a mounting hiss of disbelief I push the blade in further, ramming it back and forth, groaning with each thrust, and begging the gods to make this pain so great it may finally carry me over the tantalising threshold to my soul. I strain into this great darkness: sweat-smeared, sticky, slashed, open.
The Palace of Curiosities Page 18