by Jeffrey Ford
The next morning, even before sunrise, work was begun on the body of Soffea. Down by the riverbank, the raccoon brothers and a troop of possums and badgers excavated the special blue clay that would be the substance of the figure, while the lode that had already been mined was being slapped into shape by the wide flat tails of Weeber and his family. Siftus stood close by the beavers, instructing them on each curve of the leg they were presently working on. He now had his drawing well memorized, and he would stoop over the appendage from time to time in order to sniff the progress of its creation. Lemurs had gathered thin green branches from the surrounding trees and stripped the bark off them. Before the mole would put the finishing touches on the leg, these saplings were to be inserted through the length of it.
Off in the woods, other creatures gathered necessary items; the teak branches from which the horns would be cut, the most blathering of leaves from the blabbering trees, tufts of hair from passing creatures who were interested in supporting the project but who had no ready skill. The ants of the tower sent out their famous warrior, Due-Sin, riding a darning needle, from which he was to lasso as big a mosquito as possible to ignite Soffea’s mind. The bees of the honey tree, held a lottery, to see which of their hive would receive the honor of filling the heart. An otter cracked fresh water oysters against a rock, searching for the most beautiful pearls. As all this commotion went on below, Vashti flew to and fro, giving orders, rejecting or accepting parts for the new minotaur and generally rallying the morale of her work force.
Belius rose early that morning. After a light breakfast, he went down into the cellar and gathered his gardening tools. With rake and hoe and shovel over his shoulder, he went out into the rows. He worked like a maniac, weeding and harvesting. The sweat poured off of his back, and, before ten o’clock, he had to remove his white shirt. Not once did he rest for fear that if he had a moment to himself with nothing to do he would again begin to relive the horrible events that the flea had accused him of. By eleven, he was looking over his shoulder every now and then to see if Pezimote was coming. The tortoise never showed up, which was unusual. Then it struck him that none of his friends had come to visit. He began to wonder if Thip had already told on him.
When the sun dial cast a shadow at five before noon, he put down his rake and went back into the tower. He climbed the stairs to his study, sat down in his chair and put out his arm. As if out of nowhere, Thip appeared on the table in front of him. The flea was almost three times as large as the night before. Belius could make out his blackmailer’s face now and could discern a silk hat and cape. The flea spent no time on amenities but jumped right onto the arm and sunk his spikes into the welt he had made the night before. The grown maxillae were now as big as dull pins, and, when they entered the scar, it was pain on top of pain. Thip drank deeply for five minutes. When finished, he stood up, wiped the blood from his mouth, tipped his hat and leaped to the window sill.
“Till tomorrow,” he cried and because of his prodigious growth, Belius could hear him. Then he jumped out the window, the cape flying up behind him, and was gone.
Late that afternoon Belius went down to the sea to look for Pezimote but could not find him anywhere. He sat down on the sand and watched the sun sink into the water. “If I could just talk to my friend, I would tell him what I’d done. I know he wouldn’t forsake me. He would have some plan as to how I could clear myself and make everything right.” When darkness had nearly taken over, though, he knew the tortoise would not be coming that day, and he stood up and headed home.
On his way along the beach, he happened to glance at the tree line of the woods which came nearly to the ocean’s edge. Just at that second, something moved from behind one tree to a position behind another, making a flapping sound like a bird frightened into flight. He stopped and stared now into the darkening woods. For a long time he waited, and then it moved again. What he saw made him clear his eyes with the backs of his wrists. Standing a few yards off, trying to hide behind a tree that was too small for that purpose, was his old overcoat. It appeared as if it were being worn, but he couldn’t make out a face or pair of legs.
“I see you spying on me,” he yelled. The coat turned and ran. Belius stood in quiet puzzlement for a minute before fear broke out all over him like a rash, and he hurried back to the tower. That night, once again, sleep was sacrificed to memory.
On this particular morning near the end of the winter season, Belius finally traveled the ninth and last horrendous circle of Hell, making his way up and then down the hairy length of Satan to emerge beneath the stars. With the last word read, he gave a great sigh and closed the book as not to further torment the already pitiful souls trapped between its covers.
He stood up and stretched his arms. Through the parlor window, he could see that a light snow was falling. Moving over to that window, he stood and stared blankly for a time, considering how much he had learned in so few months. In the beginning it seemed that he would never even memorize the alphabet, but his mother’s patience and encouragement gave him the confidence to conquer his initial fear. On the day that he read and understood his first paragraph by himself, he knew that there was nothing to stop him from completing the Inferno by winter’s end.
The Dictionary that had been his Bible for those cold weeks, now lay on the table next to the leather bound epic, its pages hoof worn, torn and scribbled and separated from the binding. Instead of being stymied by each new word he had never before known existed, he would take it as a challenge and dive headlong into that kingdom of words. Every meaning, like a compound of matter, he found to be made up of smaller atoms of meaning that each in their turn had to be looked up. He adopted his mother’s patience and laboriously searched out the smaller definitions and then gathered them together in his mind to create the conglomerate that was the word he had originally sought. In a notebook with the design of a black swan stitched into the cover, he would copy down all of his discoveries.
From the very start, Belius was enchanted by the story that Dante told. Although he was most interested in following the action of the tale, merely trying to see it in his mind’s eye and recreate the various torments of Hell as best he could, he knew, through an anxiety located between his heart and his head, that the poor lost poet had much in common with himself. It was as if he were reading about his own future or more his present situation, but seen by a Belius that stood somewhere outside the Belius that was himself.
He read on with intense concentration, struggling to catch up with the words that slowed as he gained, but which refused to relinquish the lead. The exotic Italian place names and surnames that had not been translated were like ruts that twisted the ankle of his concentration and tore him from the dream that their more familiar, domestic counterparts had created.
“I think you would do better to go on by yourself now,” his mother had told him after they finished wading through the first few cantos. “I don’t think I have ever heard of or seen someone learn to read quite as fast as you have. There’s a special gift in that big head of yours.”
Her praise elated him, and for a few days, he did not read a word, but took walks through the snowy woods, convincing himself that he was a “genius”—a word he had discovered in the Dictionary not but four days earlier. Plension and Austina happened to overhear him mumbling to himself about his brilliance one evening while he was puttering around the barn, and it was their combined hooting and ridicule that brought him back to his senses.
When he returned to the poem later that week, he saw that the next chapter contained a description of the mindless minotaur of rage that guards the river of boiling blood, and he understood then why his mother, who was in the habit of reading on ahead, had sent him off on his own.
The snow began to fall harder now, sticking to the ground and leaving a thin layer of white on the roof of the barn. The sky was a uniform grey except for one small spot of brighter dimness behind which the sun was hiding. He turned away from the window and went in search
of his mother to give her the news that he had finished. As he left the parlor, he knew instantly by the deep brown smell of coffee that she was in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
“Guess what?” he asked as he stepped into the kitchen.
She turned around from the stove where she was frying eggs. Taking one look at what someone unused to her son might take to be a grimace, she smiled and said, “You’ve finished.”
He nodded and a none-too-human grunt came from low in his throat.
“And how was it?” she asked.
“Both beautiful and horrible,” he answered with a laugh. By the way she instantly looked back to the eggs on the stove, he knew she was thinking about the scene with the minotaur.
“You’ve done very well, Belius,” was all she said as she set their plates down.
When his mother would look down at her plate, Belius would look up, studying her face. She was old now. He imagined how her looks must have changed drastically when he was born to her. It was a certainty that when his father died, her posture changed as if overnight; the weight of her loss drawing her toward the ground. All of her tears had left erosion lines of wrinkles behind when they had dried, and her eyes, themselves, had sunk back into her head, closer to the memories of her husband. The minotaur wondered, in between glances, if his mother, having passed the greater part of her years considered her life to have been a happy one.
Belius shook his head to rid himself of this knot of thoughts and rose from his seat to get another cup of coffee. As he passed by his mother, he touched her on the shoulder. She looked up to him and smiled, placing her hand for a brief second on his hoof. He stood at the counter pouring his second cup and shuddered. When he’d touched her, it was as if she were made from paper. When her hand covered his hoof, it was as light as a page from the book. He took a sip from his cup to steady himself, but the Inferno flared up in his mind and the hot coffee burned his tongue.
Before he put on his coat and boot and went out to fetch hay for the cows, he knew that he would have to stop in the parlor where his mother sat sewing and break the silence that had been served with breakfast. As he moved down the hallway, though, he heard a knock at the front door. “Diversion,” he thought. He stopped where he was and waited for his mother to answer the door. The door opened and then he heard talking. When the door closed and the talking continued, he knew they must have a visitor. Very quietly, shuffling his foot along the wooden floor and tapping lightly with his hoof, he snuck down the hall and peeked around the corner into the living room. There was Doctor Grey, looking yet more wizened than on their last meeting at his father’s funeral. The old man had his hat in one hand and with the other he brushed snow from the shoulders and sides of an overcoat that was three sizes too large.
Belius burst into the room but stopped short when he saw that his sudden appearance made the doctor back up a step.
“I finished the book today,” he said.
“Well, Belius,” the doctor said and moved forward to shake his left hoof. “So you’ve read the entire thing. Quite an accomplishment for such a short time. I knew you could do it.”
“Did you come for it?” Belius asked. “I can tell you what I think of it.”
“I’d like that, son, but not today. I’m here on another matter.”
“What is it?” Belius’ mother asked, seeming to sense some trouble in the way the doctor played with his hat, twirling it by the brim.
“I need your son’s help, mam,” he said.
“For what?” she asked.
“There’s been a pack of wild dogs ranging through the valley, killing livestock. I intend to help track them down and shoot them.”
“I’m sorry, doctor,” she said. “Belius won’t be going. Besides, he can’t use a gun, he hasn’t any fingers.”
“I see,” he said and put on his hat. “Let me put it this way, I’d go by myself, but I’m too old to go alone. It’s too dangerous. I need someone like Belius, who’s young and strong, to help.”
“Let the other farmers take care of it,” she said curtly.
“I’d very much like to do that, but last night I sat at the bedside of a young girl who was attacked. They ripped her throat almost right off of her neck. She died this morning. This is everybody’s problem now. It’s your son’s duty to help. We’re the only two available to cover this area. The boy should go.”
“And what do these other people care for my boy?” she asked.
“Makes no difference,” he said.
“I’m going,” Belius said. He left the room to put on his boot and get his coat.
His mother ran behind him. “You’re not going, Belius. I won’t have it.”
In his bedroom he slipped his human foot into the boot without laces and took his coat from the closet. When he turned to make his way back to the living room, he saw his mother standing with her arms out, blocking the doorway. “I won’t have you killed by animals like your father,” she screamed. He walked up to her and leaned over so that his head was level with hers. Looking into the depths of her sunken eyes, he made a tremendous mooing noise that rattled every pane of glass in the house. “We’re all animals,” he said.
They went by foot over the snow-covered fields toward the woods. The doctor had given Belius a large sack to carry.
“What’s in it?” the minotaur asked.
“Bait for our friends,” the doctor answered.
“What kind of bait?”
“Just some meat,” said the doctor and then took a flask from his back pocket and drank so the conversation could not continue.
The wind blew miserably and the storm came harder. The woods were wrapped in a white silence. Occasionally there was the sound of a branch cracking with the cold and the doctor would reach down and rest his hand on the pistol that sat in a holster slung around his waist. Belius saw how the old man grew more fatigued and winded with every hundred yards they traveled, so he didn’t bother to ask any questions. He was pleased just to be there, walking beside Grey, who seemed determined and unafraid.
“If I could only live my life like that,” Belius thought to himself. “There’d be no swerving onto lost paths.”
Then he realized that he was out on the hunt in his father’s stead, and it came to him that he must act as a man would and not a child. The novelty of the adventure gave way to a sense of business and he began peering through the stands of trees in hopes he might catch sight of one of the killers. He decided he would not talk unless spoken to. Never before had he felt so completely human.
When they’d walked for a solid two hours into a part of the woods that Belius had never visited before, the doctor held up his hand and said, “That’s far enough for me. If we keep going, we’ll be in the next county.”
A few yards off to their left they found a clearing. Grey instructed Belius to open the bag he had been carrying over his shoulder and empty its contents on the ground. When the draw string at the top of the bag had been loosened, a powerful smell wafted up. The minotaur’s head jerked back as if the old physician had passed a vial of smelling salts under his snout. Belius turned the bag over and a mass of bloody meat spilled onto the snow, dying it a deep red. A cloud of steam swirled into the air. He gagged, turning away from the bait. When he looked back, he saw Grey calmly drinking from the flask and studying his reaction.
“No offense, Belius,” he said, nodding toward the mound of carnage. “It’s what they go for.”
Belius shook his head to let the old man know he understood.
“I couldn’t very well have cut up a human now could I?” said the doctor with a crooked smile.
The minotaur mustered a nervous laugh.
They left the clearing and took up a position in a natural blind of saplings and bushes not far off. Belius found a dead log and dragged it behind the cover for them to sit on while they waited. The doctor flipped the bottom of his huge coat over the log and sat down. The minotaur did the same with his tail and also sat.
“I heard you went to town a few months back,” Grey said, staring straight ahead into the clearing at the pile of raw meat.
“I did,” said Belius.
“How’d it go?”
“Not so good.”
“So I heard,” said the doctor with a laugh. “Give ‘em time. They’ll learn.”
“I didn’t mind the children so much, following me and mooing,” said Belius. “It was the older people. I tried to introduce myself to them, get into a conversation, but they either ran away or taunted me. The staring eyes were the worst of it.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s that there are people out there hating you that you don’t even know exist. Not even people, just eyes without faces.”
“Did you get what you went for?” asked the doctor, turning to look at him.
“The man at the grocery was too frightened not to fill my order. After what happened on the street, I figured if I was going to get what my mother had sent me for, I’d have to be sterner. I didn’t try to talk about the weather with him, I just gave him the list, told him to gather the items on it and then I paid him and left. If he only knew I was as frightened as he was. At least I saw how my strangeness could work for me.”
“Did you have to knock that boy over in the street before you left?” Grey asked.
“I suppose I didn’t. But a bunch of them were all around me and somebody threw a rock that hit me on the side of the head. I figured that if my being mean had worked with the grocer, it might be my only chance to gain respect. He was the closest one. He yelled something about my mother and I couldn’t help it. I clipped him on the shoulder. It wasn’t much of a swing. When he fell over, the others backed up and I walked to my wagon. I wanted to run, but I walked slowly.”
“It may not have seemed like much of a swing to somebody your size, Belius,” said Grey, “but I had to treat that boy for a dislocated shoulder that afternoon. His father was all for getting a posse together and hunting you down. Of course, I dissuaded them, but it won’t take as much next time to get them thoroughly riled.”