by Lana Popovic
“It’s a hypothesis in human aesthetics,” he went on. “A Japanese robotics professor, Masahiro Mori, coined it in 1970. It applies to things like robots and computer animation, and it means that when something looks and moves almost, but not quite, like an actual human being, it can make people uncomfortable. Disgusted, even. The closer you get to human without the thing actually being human, the more people find it revolting.”
A prickling pressure built behind my eyes. “I think I know where you’re going with this, Luka. And I don’t think I’m going to like where you end up.”
“Just bear with me. If you want to, you can slap me when I’m done. Or kick me in the face with your baby foot, whatever you need. But I think you should hear this.”
“Fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “Go for it, then.”
“You and Malina, and your mother. None of you have ever had many friends, right? Just me and Niko, mostly, and Nev. Jasmina was close to Jovan, and spent a little time with my mother, but that’s it, as far as I know. And I think . . .”
“Go on.” My lips felt numb. “Tell me what you think. Too late to spare me now.”
He drew a deep breath. He didn’t want to tell me this, and that made it all the worse. “I think it’s because the three of you look the way you do. You’re so beautiful, Iris. All three of you so stunning that it’s stupid, it makes people uncomfortable because it doesn’t feel real, somehow. You give people chills.” He stole an earnest glance at me. “But it’s just an illusion. As soon as you talk—as soon as anyone gets to know you—the feeling shatters.”
“But it’s there. It’s there to begin with, you’re saying.”
“Yes.” His voice dipped much deeper than normal, like it always did when he was uncomfortable. “It is.”
I huddled against the door as if I could somehow teleport through it and out into the ravine below. Because I knew exactly what he was talking about. It reminded me uncomfortably of what Čiča Jovan had said last night about our mother, the uncanny quality of her beauty and poise. Maybe she hadn’t merely been trained to be beautiful. Maybe she’d somehow been born to be trained.
And if Lina and I were of her blood, maybe we were somehow the same.
“So, what, it’s like Blade Runner? You think we’re androids. Something that just wears human skin.”
“Damn it, Iris, I think you’re gorgeous.” His voice was low and vehement. “I used to look at you every day, and even though I could practically graph a model of your face, I always want to look at it more because it’s never exactly like I remember. It’s always better. It’s—”
I looked into the rearview mirror, at the sliver of my features visible in the glass. Sunlight slanted over me through the window, playing on the creamy skin I shared with Lina and our mother, smooth as a nectarine, poreless like a baby’s. “I know you’re only trying to help. But I don’t really need to hear your compliments, or whatever you think they are, at this very moment.”
“I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t think it mattered.” He reached over and slipped his hand behind the back of my neck. There was nowhere to go, so I tolerated it. “Please believe me, Iris. I think it has something to do with this Dunja, with Marzanna, with all this. And I’d rather tell you everything I know if it might help. Even if it hurts at first.”
I dropped my chin into my chest, and we were both quiet for a while. He kept his arm draped over my seat, his hand buried in my hair.
“I’m still going to wallow for at least thirty-seven minutes,” I finally said, tipping my head back so his palm cupped my nape. “Possibly thirty-eight.”
I could see him smile from the corner of my eye. “I can live with that.”
I TRIED TO nap after that, huddled uneasily against the door. I had no idea what might be waiting for us at Ostrog, but I had the queasy, churning sense that it was going to be worse than anything I could dream up. The feeling I’d had at Our Lady of the Rocks, the low-level revulsion, was beginning to seep into my skin again, as if I’d been coated with something itchy and loathsome, like mustard seed and lard. I hadn’t even noticed it when we set out, but by the time we’d descended into the Zeta River Valley, the plain that cupped Podgorica, Montenegro’s capital, and Nikšić, the next biggest town, I was about ready to shred off my own skin.
The sky had darkened, clotting with gray clouds; I hoped it wouldn’t rain too hard for us to reach the mountain monastery. Luka drove us around Nikšić’s rustic outskirts, through dirt roads that wound around brick houses with trellises, little orchards, and plots of cabbages, their heads round and ruffled like flower buds.
“How far are we?” I asked him, scratching at my tingling scalp.
“It’s right up there,” Luka said, pointing through the windshield. “See? We’ll have to pass underneath the pipeline that carries gravel from the mountaintops down to the plain. And then go even farther up.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered, following his gaze. “That is—that is very high up. How did people used to get up there? It’s practically vertical.”
“There you go again, underestimating our forebears. They got up there the old-school way, with horses and donkeys and on foot, on paths carved into the side. There’s still a series of steps cut into the cliff through the car road, for pilgrims who want to climb.”
My stomach bottomed out as soon as we began to ascend onto the road that led up to Ostroška Greda, the sheer slab of rock into which the monastery had been carved. As we rose higher, the road’s serpentine curves coiled back on each other ever tighter. Without speaking, Luka took my clammy hand and placed it over the gearshift. It shuddered beneath my palm, and he curled his hand around mine. We shifted from gear to gear, cutting the switchbacks together, and this small scrap of control calmed me until a measure of awe crept in. The lush valley seemed impossibly far below us, a deep, rich green like algae, scale models of forests bisected by farm fields, villages, and vineyards between them.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “This is the tightest portion of the road, but Saint Basil is the patron saint of travelers. They say no one’s ever had an accident on the way here.”
“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they,” I said through gritted teeth. “I doubt any plummeting peasants ever made it onto his permanent record.”
We finally reached the little cliffside plateau that held the monastery’s two tiers, and Luka eased us into the empty parking lot outside the monastery gates. I nearly tripped over myself in my urge to scramble, weak-kneed, out of the car. “I think I need something to eat,” I said tightly. That queasy, skin-crawling feeling kept sweeping over me, and I thought I might throw up if I didn’t line my stomach with something.
“There’s a shop that sells relics and food over in the Lower Church, on the first tier of the monastery,” Luka said. “We can get something there before we go into the monastery proper.”
The Lower Church’s facade reminded me of a film set, as if the stone archways, cream-colored balcony, and three inlaid mosaic icons had simply been rested against the stone of the cliff behind it. Inside the shop, the shelves groaned with golden jars of honey, herbal creams and tonics blessed by the monastery, and rows of wine from the vineyards in the villages below.
I picked one of the busier honey jars, dense with dates, almonds, and apple slices, and we carried it up the steps that led to the monastery proper and its terrace. The prune-faced, kerchiefed woman at the shop had given us some plastic spoons, and Luka and I dipped into the honeyed fruit.
“It looks like something your mother would have made, doesn’t it?” Luka said, swirling his spoon through the sticky mass. My heart went raw at the thought of her, and of Lina back in Cattaro, without me. “Although messier. A little lacking in presentation.”
“I think it’s perfect,” I said. I propped my elbows on the stone wall and gazed over the lowland plain below, emerald beneath the leaden sky, a cool, piney breeze stirring my hair. Looking down over the valley seemed to settle
me a little, soothe the feeling that my skin had flipped inside out, nerves dangling raw on the outside. “It tastes just like this valley looks.”
“That’s what they say about honey,” Luka agreed. “Every kind is different depending on where and when it was harvested. Even a batch from the same hive can taste completely different two weeks later. People who really know honey can tell exactly where each batch is from, and when.”
We looked up as a priest approached us, his black robes brushing the dusty stone. He was in his thirties, almost as tall as Luka and the peregrine kind of handsome so many Montenegrin men were, hawk-nosed and full-lipped beneath a neat beard. He was eyeing us sourly, and I could see his gaze flick to me and then purposely away, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath stubble. It reminded me of what Luka had said, and I wondered if I’d spent my entire life misinterpreting the way people looked at me.
“The reliquary is closed,” he said finally, sighing. “No one should be allowed in there until we’ve properly resanctified it, but I hear the powers that be have decreed otherwise for you. Even still, I’m hesitant to let you pass. It isn’t right, adding insult to injury that way.”
“I’m not sure what you were told, Father,” I tried, tugging at the hem of my shorts, wishing I’d worn something longer. The buzzing on my skin was growing so thick and uncomfortable I felt like I was covered in a swarming blanket of flies. “But our—my mother died, not three days ago. She was murdered, and the police don’t know why or by whom. I’m just looking for some peace on her behalf, Father. Please.”
He wavered for a moment longer. “All right, child,” he finally conceded, his eyes sliding away from mine again. “For the sake of your mother’s soul, then. I’ll come in with you and administer the saint’s blessing, but you may not approach the remains as we’d normally allow. You will stand in the doorway, both of you.”
He turned and swept ahead of us, robes swishing.
The rock-hewn monastery was smaller and blockier than the Lower Church, square and snowy against the sheer cliff it had been carved into, its whitewashed surface scored with tiny slits for windows. It looked as though it had been partially swallowed by the rusty, yellow-streaked rock around it, as if the mountain had once been a ravenous stone Titan before it settled.
The priest led us past the main entrance, toward a terraced area that ended in a tiny black metal door emblazoned with a cross. “This is the cave-church of the Holy Cross,” he said, fishing a heavy, bronze key out of his robe pocket. “Normally there would be many gathered here to receive blessing, but we’ve been turning pilgrims away since yesterday.”
“What happened?” I asked. “If you can say.”
“The remains were desecrated, child. Some devil-ridden blasphemer stole one of our saint’s finger bones, if you can imagine something so grotesque.”
My gorge rose, and I abruptly wished I hadn’t had so much honey. Whatever was happening here wasn’t just beyond the pale. It was sin, mealy and soiled.
My stomach still churned as I followed Luka into the cave-church, ducking my head under the door’s low threshold. The father stood in the farthest corner of the little grotto, next to a massive cross of wood and gold. Biblical frescoes, richly pigmented like cave-paintings, covered the rocky walls and low ceiling, from which hung gilded censers. The reliquary that held the saint’s bones was swaddled in burgundy velvet with a golden fringe of tassels, like some morbid bassinet.
As soon as I set foot inside the cave and took a breath of ancient stone and incense, the nausea and roaring wrongness swelled until I choked back a dry heave. My scalp tingled, my ears buzzing as though we’d stepped into an apiary. Instead of fear, a strange, blind rage began howling inside me—like a gale of winter, like the roaring song of storms—and I barged ahead, pushing past Luka until I stood with my fingers wrapped around the wooden edge of the shrine. The priest’s shrill voice echoed faintly, as though from somewhere far away, because he couldn’t touch me here. This had nothing to do with him. This was between me and it, the aura that surrounded these dry and shrouded bones.
And it hated me. Just like I hated it.
How dare you hate me, a whisper curled inside of me like smoke. How dare the remnants of you pitiful man, who groveled for a mewling child-god only to be reduced to withered tendon and dusty bone, lay judgment upon the likes of me? The ancient gods attend to me, you skeletal, marrowless heap. WHO ARE YOU TO SPURN ME AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE DONE?
The grotto had fallen away from me entirely, and all I could see was Mara’s face as it had been in the dream—her black hair whipping in the snowy wind, her teeth white as winter flurries in her smeared face as she shrieked through my own mouth. And I adored her just like I had before, waves of toxic love pounding over me, glistening like rainbows in puddles of black oil. This pile of human kindling in its cradle had no right to hate her. Feeling anything toward her was a privilege, and even hatred was too good for him.
By the time I came to myself, I realized I was standing with my fists clenched and my teeth bared so widely I could feel the ache up to my temples—I had said all of that aloud, snarled it at the reliquary in a lock-jawed hiss. I was still making a growling noise in the back of my throat, and the fug that surrounded the remains was so dense it felt like a malarial pool, like this place would seep into my blood and sicken me if I let it. The roots of my hair itched furiously, and I could nearly feel every separate length of ribbon that twined through the strands, as if the ribbons had come alive.
The next thing I knew, the priest had seized me by the shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into my bone, and hauled me out of the cave. I stumbled and nearly fell as he flung me out onto the terrace, his blue eyes ringed with white, his face pale with fury.
“How dare you,” he spat. “How dare you use such words in the presence of our saint, you daughter of hell? What are you?”
Luka stepped between us, breaking the priest’s hold. “Father, please, calm down,” he urged. “Something’s wrong with her, can’t you see that? She’s—she’s having a spell of some kind.”
“A witch’s spell, maybe! Did you see her, son? Did you see her hissing at our holiness like a devil’s cat? That girl is evil, son. Or there’s something inside of her that is.”
Luka glanced over his shoulder at me, and I could see the shock and fear on his own face before he turned back to the priest to appease him. “It’s just the grief, Father. She’s lost her mother, she’s not in her right mind—”
I was crying by then, deep racking sobs that were more terror than grief. My arms wrapped around my chest, I stumbled against Luka’s side. “I’m so sorry,” I wept. “I don’t know what that was, but I swear, I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Keep away from me, demon!” The priest backed away from me, his face contorted, frantically crossing himself. “Keep away from me!”
I went blind with tears, the world blurring around me as Luka half dragged me away. But even through the haze, I could see the wrath warring with disgust on the priest’s face as he stormed back into the monastery.
Like I was some foul thing, unnatural, everything Luka had said to me before along with everything I’d always felt inside.
NINETEEN
EVEN WITH THE RAIN THAT LASHED AT THE WINDOWS, I knew it was hot inside the Stari Mlini, but not even the shawl wrapped around my shoulders could keep me warm. Usually I loved it here, the exposed wooden beams, rough-hewn furniture, and bronze candelabras on every table, the water wheel spinning in the stream outside as the night rain sheeted down on it. And it smelled of warm things, curling cigarette smoke, beeswax, and grilling fish. But I couldn’t stop trembling. My insides felt like slush, sliding around a skeleton of ice instead of bone.
Someone had set a bowl of bean stew in front of me at some point, recently enough that it still steamed. Plump sausages bobbed between the kidney beans, and I caught a savory waft of spices, enough to make my stomach growl. So I was hungry, then. That was good to know.
Malina sat across from me, her hands wrapped around her own bowl. I could see her fingers shaking, the torn edges of her cuticles. Niko was next to her, an arm slung around her shoulders. By my side, Luka gripped my own arm, massaging me briskly as if I actually needed a boost in circulation.
“It wasn’t you, Riss,” he said. I had the dim sense that he’d been saying this for a while. “That was not you. Those things you said . . . they didn’t come from your mind. Not the mind I know.”
“It was me. It was her, speaking through me, but it was me, too.” That also sounded like something I’d said before. From the moment I’d stepped up to that reliquary, time had taken on an elastic quality that reminded me of how I’d felt after finding Mama broken. Every moment felt as long as an opium dream, but at the same time I barely remembered the ride back to Cattaro after Luka wrapped me up in the shawl and tucked me into the backseat. He’d kept me on his lap for a long time, his long body folded awkwardly in the small space so he could hold me, rocking me and crooning in my ear as I shook with tears against him. He’d asked Malina and Niko to meet us here on our way home, so neither his father nor Čiča Jovan would see me like this.
“How can this be happening?” I said through numb lips. “Who is she to us? Is she—is she even real? Because this is more than just dreams. This is some kind of open connection, a conduit. She was in me, I could feel her, and I wanted . . .” Aftershocks rippled through me, and I took a shuddering breath. “I wanted to rip apart that reliquary. Crush all those bones. Because they hate her, and she hates them for hating her, and even then I loved her so much I wanted to keep her safe.”