by Keith Korman
With a deep sigh that sounded like I’m almost sane, she tried to see that last memory as it really happened. Little It had smashed all Mother’s china horses. And Mother meant to kill Little It, stomp her and mash her for the terrible thing she had done. Once again she was a little girl and fled down the empty hall, crying, “Daddy! Daddy!”
Father was reading from his favorite picture book, with the pretty color drawings inside. Looking up, surprised, he caught her as she leaped into his arms. Then kissed her, cooing, ‘There now, there now …”
His voice trailed off. Little It tried to burrow into his big man’s body. Mother’s sneering face floated in the air. Then, contemptuously:
“Why, if it isn’t my dear Herr Küssen, Herr Kiss-Kiss and his Kitty Kat.” Little It felt a bubbling gas pain inside — not the delicious hold-on-to feeling but a cold and hungry pressing, crawling around the slow corners of her bowels, forcing its way out. She held on tight as Mother glided into the room, reaching with both hands to take her away. “Give her to me,” Mother said politely, as if nothing were wrong. “Now, if you please …”
“What do you want with her?” he snapped. But suddenly, as if Mother knew his very thoughts, Father’s arms began to tremble.
“You will hand her over,” Mother said with a smile. “Because I know about you two. I’ll tell our maid. I’ll tell the shop people. I’ll tell your business associates. And if only one person believes me, you’ll still be ruined. The police will come to the house. With their questions. I’ll give them the hairbrush and say I saw you doing it to her —”
Mother licked her lips, savoring the sick taste of her words. “I own you. From the second I let you touch her, I owned you. And the little beggar too.”
Father’s arms squeezed tighter and tighter. She struggled to break free, but the more Mother sneered, the stronger the arms held on. She felt the slow fear bubbling in her guts come pressing out. She was letting loose, going all warm and juicy down Father’s leg. And when Mother saw, she clutched her sides and leaned weakly on the doorframe for support. There was only the warm juice, Mothers terrifying soft laughter, Father quaking with rage. And Little It alone. Ashamed …
Rough hands hoisted her in the air, then threw7 her across the big man’s knees. Panties ripped down. The hot strike of pain. Father spanked her wet, runny bottom, while deep inside a clutching mouth spastically opened and closed. Silently screaming each time the burning hand struck. The smell of her potty-go everywhere. While the man cried, “You don’t own me! No one owns me!”
She thought it would never end. Sweat ran down her face as Mother snarled gleefully, “Go on! I’ll tell them anyway! The whole neighborhood! The world’“
Father’s hand came and came. Her behind turned into a warm, wet throb, growing larger and larger, swelling to the size of a pumpkin, then the size of a horse, then filling the room. Little It thought it would never stop. She did not feel her Father’s single slaps any longer but only the dull hugeness of her behind. Yet when he struck she felt a distant pulse, throbbing like the beat of a muffled drum. Mother’s face had turned into that of a donkey, braying, “Herr Küssen and the Kitty Kat! Herr Kiss-Kiss and the Kitty Kat!”
What did those silly words mean? The last thing she saw was Father’s picture book, which had fallen on the floor. The open pages calling her. Beckoning her to leave the awful room and vanish safe inside. And then her huge rear end finally filled the universe, throbbing into infinity with a light of its own.
“Behold the Queen of Sparta with the hot rear end!” Fräulein sat once more in Herr Doktors dark office. “Really two people all along. My M-mother as the Queen. And ! … I the hot rear end.” She pushed her precious book across his desk. She saw the title clearly. No mutations. No mistakes:
THE EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT POTTERY
Artifacts from the
Prehistoric Peoples
of the
Péloponnèse
Herr Doktor looked silently at the cover.
“Inside is everything we talked about. The Queen who rules the earth and the sky at night. The killing and the sacrifice. How they lay with their women in her temple under the moon …”
Clearly the book had seen much wear. The corners were frayed, ragged edges along the binding. Slowly, he opened it. Inside even worse. The title-page gone. The frontispiece in tatters. Page after page: contents, introduction, the first few color plates. Herr Doktor flipped faster and faster, looking for something to lock his eyes onto. But the book contained nothing but ribbons.
The entire volume, it seemed, had been ripped to shreds.
Chapter 10
The Abyss
“But I wasn’t crazy then. Not yet.” Fräulein took a handkerchief from her sleeve and patted her damp face. “Mother created me. Like a story or a painting. And it took all her ingenuity and effort. She never quite terrorized me into blind obedience. I was terrified, yes — but never obedient. And time passed….”
Her younger childhood and middle childhood. They tried giving her an education, as parents were supposed to do. On many days the maid dressed her for school, brought her to the schoolhouse, and sat her at a wooden desk. The other children stared at her but kept away,-they seemed afraid. And the teacher who stood at the front largely ignored her too, approaching her desk only to open her workbook to the proper spot. Little It managed to turn the pages and follow along, closing her workbook when the lesson had finished. But she rarely spoke in class, and the teacher seldom asked her questions. At the end of the day the maid came to the schoolhouse door to bring her home…. Years dripped by like drops from a rusty pipe…. She grew too big for her clothes, which she wore till they faded, became tattered, then fell apart. Mother never bought her new ones to wear, except for appearance’s sake, so as not to arouse the attention of her schoolmates or strangers on the street.
“Until I was nine or ten, she crammed me in a beat-up high chair.” Little It towered awkwardly over the kitchen table. Having to lean down to reach her food. Never eating enough. Too cramped. Too crushed to run away. A mannikin. “But always a secret part of me safe from her.” Fräulein lowered her voice. “What I did in private.”
She touched the handkerchief to her mouth in dread, then kneaded it into a ball as if to wring some strength from it. Time and again she stole into Mother’s bedroom to steal precious moments with that lovely hairbrush and its lovely handle. And when Mother caught her, which was often, she chased her, dragging her by the hair, slinging her into the high chair, where she tied her down with cords. And when Mother left the kitchen, she forgot Little It existed. In time she learned to wriggle free. Fleeing to the toilet, locking herself in. Then sitting in the dark for minutes or hours until Mother tired of her shouting and left Little It alone. Then later, in the safe and quiet, she would come creeping out.
“She used to do something to make my bottom sore. Concoctions spooned down my throat while I sat strapped to the chair.” The spoonfuls gagged her and burned their way out as she shivered over the chamber pot or the toilet.
“Delicious brush. Slapped thigh. Gagging on the choke spoon. Sore red bottom. Pleasure and pain all mixed up between my legs until I didn’t know one from the other. Then hiding in the pages of the book. Forgetting who Î was. Or where …”
Fräulein unwound the knotted handkerchief, searching its folds for answers. “Father’s picture book was my escape. Begging the pages to take me away. I found a place to be alone with the book, where no one could find me….”
Little It found the iron stove in the kitchen. The oven was the safest place she knew. Crouching in the dark for hours at a time. Making it a big, soft nest with pillows. Keeping the door open a crack, so light shone in. And there studying the book, asking it to let her in and let her stay … Once, she must have fallen asleep. For she awoke in the warm dark. The maid had shut the door and lit the broiler underneath. At first she kept quiet, listening to the hissing of the gas below. But as the heat filtered through the pillows, s
he struggled to get out. The door jammed,- she pushed and hammered. No use … She must have screamed, because the maid yanked open the door and the pillows billowed with smoke. Her dress parched, the skin on her legs red. “‘Are you roasting me for dinner?’ Little It asked. The maid got so mad she spat, ‘Shut your filthy mouth! Or I’ll cook you with those pillows!’“
The book went back to the drawing room bookshelf and she to her room. But Mother found out about the pillows. Mother always found out…. From the awful time she broke the china horses, it all became blacker and blacker.
“I never really knew the time or where I was.” Except that she seemed to be standing on the ledge, looking out over a great chasm. And when the ledge finally gave way, she slipped. Falling forever in an abyss without end …
She had been staring at the wonderful pictures in Father’s book. The Water Jug, À red clay jug, the naked figures black. A fierce man with a sword was slaying his brother. The fallen one bled from his belly. He wore a deer pelt, with antlers in the skull. The Slayer loomed over him, sword arm raised for the final blow.
Another picture showed the jug’s back side. The Slayer chased a beautiful Lady in flowing robes. She fled, laughing in his face. Her body shone through thin veils. She held aloft the deer pelt, tempting him as she ran.
Around the top of the jug a line of men and women danced. The dancing ladies had needle faces like insects, or open yelling faces like Mother. The needle ones looked as if they would suck your insides out, the shouting ones as though they’d chew you up. The dancing men had serpents rising from their bellies, like tails in front.
Little It touched the dancing ring.
Like F-father, she breathed in awe…. Just like Father standing in the shadow of the hall. Father’s secret pet, which he showed her when she paused with the lovely handle. Father’s pet servant. Pet serpent … Then put away. Did she really see it?
A wisp of flowing veil brushed against her face. The fleeing Lady beckoned. “Come with me! Come!”
Little It wept. If only she could go with the beautiful Lady inside, if only —
Clop-clop-clop came Mother’s hooves in the hall. Since the horses died, Mother’s feet had turned into hooves. Rough horses’ hooves that grew at her ankles. Little It shoved the book onto the shelf. Then Mother stomped in the parlor, flopping back and forth.
“What are you doing? Reading that book? Stealing my brush?”
Little It backed away, silently shaking her head.
“You lie,” Mother told her.
She shook her head harder.
“To the chair,” Mother brayed. “To the chain’’
No, Mother. No! she pleaded, but no words came out. Dragged by the hair to the kitchen. Strapped to the high chair. Mother had the large brown bottle, the thick wooden spoon, and she was pouring out her home brew. It smelled of red pepper and linseed oil, of stewed socks and toilet sweat, of garlic paste and soap. The spoon thrust into her mouth. Dose after dose burned its way down her throat. Where was Herr Kiss-Kiss, to hold her in his arms? The home brew wrestled in her stomach, climbing back up her throat —
“I think that’s enough.”
Mother always knew when enough was enough.
“One leg! One leg!” Mother was shouting.
Little It stood in the hallway by the water closet. Her clothes half gone: a tattered gray chemise over her shoulders, underpants off, chill air striking her bottom. The dark wood door to the water closet stood open. Inside she saw the narrow, gloomy room, the white porcelain bowl gleaming dully, crouching like a dwarf. For some reason Mother had brought along her old brass potty.
“One leg! One leg!”
Little It strained to stand on one leg. The burning home brew burdened her guts, but she held on with all her might. She pictured a large balloon hanging off her behind like a bustle, a heavy, expanding bag like a cow’s udder, filled with liquid, which shook and quivered and threatened to break, gushing forth.
“Do you promise not to use the brush? Promise not to look at the book? Promise me! Promise!”
I prumse, prumse, Little It tried to say, but her tongue was so thick, too hard to talk. She trembled, the balloon ready to break. She couldn’t hold it any longer. She was letting go —
Just as Mother relented in a bored voice: “Well, what are you waiting for? Go on, then. Go …”
Little It went for the dark, narrow toilet. “Not there!” The dented brass pot was shoved under her behind. The balloon exploded and the burning came and she was mumbling, “Prumse, prumse, prumse …” Her bottom stung, and still more came gushing out. The reek everywhere. She gazed down the hall. Past Mother’s room. Past Father’s room. Past her room and to the landing of the stairs … À figure stood there. Long-lost Herr Kiss-Kiss. The figure wavered and was gone.
She crouched in the water closet for hours. The home brew had long run out. Later Mother took Little It to the tub to wash her body. She brought out new clothes. The old rags were thrown away. So much easier just to let it all happen — not to fight or make a fuss. Mother fixed and combed her hair. Trimmed her nails. Rubbed cold cream into the sores around her wrists. “There now,” Mother said as she buttoned the pocket flaps of the pinafore. “A little princess, all done up.” Mother brought her to the kitchen, but she wasn’t hungry. She fell asleep tied to the chair while the cuckoo bird nodded on his perch.
“How many times did I steal the silver hairbrush?” Fräulein said into the gloom. “How many times did Î touch myself in secret? How many thousand times did I wander over the pages of the pottery book, coming back to the picture of the Water Jug? How many times did she catch me? Strap me to the chair? Gag me with the home brew?”
She did not wait for Herr Doktor to answer, suddenly shouting, “How many billion times did I stand on one leg till Î shat on myself while Father just stood there, stood there and did nothing?”
She broke off to catch her breath. “And always the sound of Mother going clop-clop-clop in the hall. Just the sound of her sent me shrieking to the toilet. Where I sat for hours, shivering and shaking. Even now when î hear stupid horses going clop-clop-clop in the street î need to hide. In some dark, small hole. In some dirty toilet. When will it go away? Tell me!”
Herr Doktor shifted uneasily in his seat. Her voice sank to sadness. “Will it ever go away?”
He made no answer. No one knew.
There was no answer.
Little It was dreaming her favorite dream. In the empty parlor, her precious book inched from its place on the shelf. It floated out the door and down the hall, coming to visit her. Drifting gently to her room … Then opened to the page of the Water Jug. And there Little It saw the Lady of the Veils. Yet even as she stared at the picture, the beautiful Lady rose from the page and sat by her bed.
The beautiful Lady of the Veils had become her fairy godmother, just as in the stories she remembered from long ago. And though her fairy godmother rarely said a word, still, through the silent touching of their eyes, they told secrets back and forth. How Little It loved the Lady, and the Lady loved Little It back. How very soon the beautiful Lady would take her away to a wonderful place where there was no prumse-prumse, no standing on one leg or home brew in the gag spoon. Soon, soon, they would go together. Hand in hand to a warm place where the Lady of the Veils would take care of her forever.
And whenever Little It woke from this dream she ran straight to the parlor to see if the beautiful Lady was still there.
In one corner of the fireplace lay the torn cover of the book, its veined marble edges charred. Pages ripped out. Some burned. A crumble of black ashes nearby filling the grate.
She fell to her knees, gently taking the empty cover. Scrap by scrap, she collected the torn pictures in it. Her heart was crying: the beautiful Lady of the Veils had prumsed, prumsed, prumsed to take her away. How could they go away if Mother had torn the beautiful Lady to pieces?
All through the night she stared at the shredded pages in the book. All through t
he day. Just staring at the cover. Seasons passed. Summer changed to fall, autumn to winter…. She found shreds that fit together. A torn piece, another. She stole some paste from the cupboard and white paper. She pasted the scraps in place. There. The beginning of a page. Months and months, a scrap here, a shred there. The Water Jug picture came together even though it had been badly slashed. The fallen deer man and his slayer were almost totally missing. When she could find no more, she left them unfinished.
She found nearly all the beautiful Lady, but some pieces were mere slivers, as particular attention had been taken to tear and slash and mutilate her image. Her beautiful breast, which shimmered through the veil — entirely gone. Little It carefully drew it in….
Little It talked to her redrawn picture, talked to the beautiful Lady the way she used to talk to Püppchen, saying things like; “I’ve remade you. Reborn you. So we can live together. So you can take me away …” Whispering to the picture in the dark, whispering her own life into it until she fell asleep. And the Lady of the Veils came to sit on her bed, cooing softly: Soon, soon, we’re going soon….
The lights came on. Caught! She tried to hide the book under the mattress but never made it. Mother held the Brass, waving it around. “What’s this, eh? What’s this?”
It’s the Brass, she tried to say, but all she could manage with her stiff, awkward mouth was: “Iddah bah.”
“Bad. That’s right, it is bad.”
No, no, no — not right — but too late.
‘‘Herr Kiss-Kiss, fetch the syringe!” Mother ordered. But the man seemed reluctant to do her bidding,- he stood at the door uneasily, shifting from foot to foot. “Now, I say. “ With a crushed sigh the rubber syringe was brought, the man looking away, handing it to Mother without meeting her eye.
“Hold her down.”