by Athanasios
“He is a very large baby, Jose.” Bonita refused to hide the obvious. Sooner or later, he would find out. It was better if he faced it now.
“But he is not a monster, is he?” He simply could not understand Paula’s reaction. He had seen babies this big before. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what Paula had said.
“Be prepared; many people will feel like Paula.” Bonita saw that she had to be blunt with him. There could be no short cuts; he had to know everything about his son.
“But he isn’t a monster, is he?” He was not responding. His wife has just died. He had only, a short time ago, gone from being cared for by his mother, to being cared for by his wife. He was barely an adult, himself, and was confused. He couldn’t be allowed to believe Paula.
“Maria did not think he is a monster. Now, how about his father?” Bonita held her breath and looked for the answer in his face and eyes, past anything he might say.
“No, you’re right. If Maria knew that he wasn’t a monster, then he isn’t.” Even though Jose decided to honor his wife’s beliefs, Bonita did not see any conviction in his stare, nor hear it in his words.
That night, he left the baby alone with Bonita and the dead mother. Only a sheet covered her, stitched up and ready. The infant was awake and looked around. He looked up at a coalescing shadow in the corner of the room. It collected into a darker form, with obsidian, damned features. The baby watched with knowing eyes and listened with consenting ears as it whispered. Any other child would’ve lost their mind, watching this cold, stygian thing form itself out of the unhallowed particles that clung to and encompassed the night. He was eager for its arrival.
“Greetings and blessings upon you, Lord. We are empowered to watch over and bear witness to your majesty.”
The Darkness moved toward him like purposeful, unholy smoke. It enveloped the small, pink shape and, in seconds, he stared, unblinking, in its midst. It fit and was absorbed through the skin, knowing and fitting him like the most complete, perfect mate. It filled every pore and empty part. Once it fully enveloped him, his blood ceased to flow and he neither drew, nor released, breath. It was a feeling to which he grew accustomed, like a violent temper or barely-controlled murderous strength. Then, the voice spoke through his thoughts.
“We are You, Master. Without Us, You would not be who You are.” The voice never spoke again, but remained in his mind and became as inseparable as skin, or reluctantly accepted limbs. The shade sought to comfort him over the tumultuous experience of birth - especially this one. Despite the fact that it was innately evil, it only expressed love. He was only hours old, but understood that it was right. Because of its presence, so shortly after his birth, he had self-awareness and knowledge of his surroundings. It was a clear, unclouded knowledge. His infant innocence knew and welcomed this Darkness. He knew that without light, there was no darkness, and without darkness, there was no light. The absence of one negated the other.
TIME: FEBRUARY 9TH, 1962. SAO PAOLO, ARGENTINA
Several days after they laid Maria to rest, Bonita, Jose and the infant returned home. Bonita put him to bed and, a half hour later, was ready to leave.
“Nino is asleep now, Jose. You are lucky with him. He is a very quiet and calm child. He will be very easy to take care of.” Jose hardly heard Bonita’s calming words. He walked away from her as he sheepishly asked why some people looked at them so oddly. They pointed at Nino like he was a freak.
She tried to calm him down and assure him that Nino was just a big boy. Bonita wanted to believe Jose would support his son. However, she did not feel that he would be strong enough to oppose the beliefs of the rest of the town.
Their respective emotions were so transparent. One was frightened and unsure, while the other had a silent confidence, as though carved from stone. Jose was very unsure of himself; he needed constant positive attention.
“That old Paula has told the entire town by now. I won’t get any peace.” He felt trapped in a life without his Maria. The child felt trapped in a life, subservient to his limp spine. Disgust began around the wrinkles of Jose’s eyes. He never said anything directly to the boy, just watched reprovingly.
“Jose, do you think he is a freak?” Bonita wanted to ascertain the extent of his fear.
“I don’t know what to think. He looks fine to me.” Jose could not look at her, turning to face the opposite direction. He didn’t dare show the fear within, but Bonita felt it.
Years later, she said Jose wasn’t a bad man; he tried as best he could. She said that failing to love is not the same as editing or ending the emotion. He just wasn’t able to take care of his son. Had the child been left in his care, it could have been a sad existence. As it turned out, they were both spared what could’ve been an uncomfortable, if not painful, life.
“So, what does it matter what everybody else says? He’s your son.” From his words and tone of voice, she could not tell what he believed. In the end, she convinced herself that it was impossible for a parent not to love his own child.
But if everybody else thinks so… he thought. This was followed by the realization that he just didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t even have the spine to say he was merely following convention - he accepted the community’s view that his baby wasn’t quite right.
“Jose, he is your son. Everybody else can go to hell. Now, I’ll be back tomorrow before you go to work.” Bonita covered her head with a colorful shawl and closed the door behind her. Jose turned and went to stand over the crib.
Asleep, the child breathed shallowly. He was unaware that his father made the sign of the cross and dropped to his knees, beginning to pray for guidance. He was making a mistake. He sought guidance, though for what he was unsure.
A week after the funeral, Bonita, packing her bag, waited for Jose to return from work. He walked in, followed by two older women and, behind them, a demure, young woman with auburn hair and green eyes.
“Bonita, this is Rosanna and her two aunts, Natalie and Gabriella. This is Bonita. She has been looking after Nino while I’m at work.” Jose rushed through the hasty introduction and hung up his coat.
Bonita, nodding her greeting to the trio, noticed the two older women were whispering to each other and nodding towards the baby.
At their appearance, Nino decided to get a better look at them and crawled away from his blanket on the floor. Gabriella, a plump, squat woman with a bright, multicolored dress and brown hair, streaked with grey, fearfully backed away. The other, Natalie, who was taller and dressed in a brown, green-striped dress, looked down as he crawled up to them.
Two feet away from the group, he dropped to his bottom and looked up. He first focused on Gabriella, who backed further behind Natalie. Losing interest in her, he focused on Natalie, and when she began to cross herself, looked away to Rosanna, who reluctantly approached.
Rosanna was smaller than her aunt, Natalie, but was quite solid and compact. She knelt down and nervously extended her arms. Seeing her interest, he felt the corners of his mouth arch up. He reached out to be picked up. As she took him into her arms, she cooed at him as her aunts fell all over themselves to be furthest away.
The baby calmly regarded them, then reached out to his father, who turned away. Since they walked in, he had watched the superstitious display with the same familiar pained expression.
“Bonita, I thank you for your help and would appreciate it if you could stay another week until Rosanna and I are settled.”
“I would be happy to, Jose. Just knowing this special child is an honor.” Bonita was relieved to see that Nino and Rosanna had taken to each other. She thought that Jose was becoming more distant from Nino. Rosanna seemed to be a caring woman and she could show him how to be with his son. Bonita believed a good woman could save any man from his faults.
“Humph! Special, indeed. How old is he again?” Gabriella could barely speak and surprised herself by saying anything at all. She was trying to show some courage in this situation; she wanted to
come out of all of this with some dignity.
“What difference does it make? He needs a mother. I can’t do it alone,” Jose answered, silencing her and further exiling her behind Natalie.
“He can’t be older than three months, but he already acts and looks at the world like a grown man.” Natalie flashed defiance at Jose. He would not intimidate her. The whole town was whispering about Jose and his freak son. “It’s not natural. Come, Rosanna, let’s leave this place.” Natalie looked at her niece and was incredulous when she ignored her.
“No. We made a deal. Your price has been paid and you can’t back out now. The wedding will be Saturday, just as we planned.” Jose was adamant. He would not let his salvation walk out with two nutcase aunts. Like a doomed man, he showed a will, borne of pure desperation.
“You don’t expect us to go through with this, do you?” Natalie could not believe that this man was being so difficult. They had not known that he, or his son, was like this. All you had to do was spend a few moments with the freak and you would feel it — the pure malevolence and eerie presence.
“He’s just a big boy, that’s all. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Rosanna was used to her aunts, therefore, she was unaware that they were causing a scene.
“If you want to back out, return my payment.” His request was impossible, but he knew it would end the argument.
“You know we can’t do that. It’s already spent.” What kind of a man was this Jose Savourez? They had to accept the agreement. In time, they would become celebrities, giving up their family for the glory of God. The entire town would regard their sacrifice as mythic.
“Then I don’t want to hear about this anymore. I need a wife and my son needs a mother,” Jose emphasized each point with his finger. He needed an ally, someone with whom he could face the suspicious eyes of the town, and desperately clung to the belief that this person was Rosanna.
“He’s darling.” Rosanna continued to pay very little attention to her aunts’ needling.
“Rosanna, come away now. That boy is cursed. Cursed!”
At Natalie’s exclamation, Nino focused his attention on her, staring daggers at the two older women. They felt the Darkness reach out and tickle their hearts, almost stopping their beating and any further argument. The child wanted them to know they had reason to fear. The weak are silenced when their fears are realized. They are struck mute, cowering, as were those two women.
“No. I agreed to marry him and I will.” Handing the baby to Jose, Rosanna continued. “Jose, as planned, I will meet you at the church on Saturday.”
“Do not listen to your aunts. I will make a good husband, Rosanna, you’ll see.” He was relieved that she was standing up to the two older women; she would make a good wife.
Outside, a familiar figure watched as the door closed, blocking his view of the child. He would have to be very careful. Dressed in black, a straw hat protecting his bald head from the sun, he smoothed out his goatee. His green eyes were in deep shadow and did not register emotion. He had to take that child to its destiny. Something was horribly wrong. Whatever else John Haggios would do, his eyes would never leave that house. He absently squashed a bug under his foot as he continued to watch the house intently, backed into a deep shadow.
*********
Three months later, Rosanna was staring at her wedding picture and crying. She could not understand how she had not seen it before. How could she not have listened to her aunts’ warnings about Nino? From the first week she lived at Jose’s house, people had been telling her about the boy. At first, she thought it was just ignorance on their part, but then she began to see it. The child looked at anything and understood it. His eyes were the most expressive she had ever seen.
There was something within him that was waiting. It waited for strength. It waited for adulthood — for the time at which he could shed this helpless shell.
Nino did not need to talk, although sometimes she felt that he could, he merely chose not to speak. When he looked at her, he seemed to be speaking with his mind.
One day, after she laid him down and walked across to the kitchen, she could tell that he was staring at her. She turned and, after a moment of hesitation, he pushed himself up onto hands and knees, and with a slight smirk, stood up.
He was neither wobbly nor uncertain, but with a confident sure-footedness, he walked over to her and smiled. He wanted her to praise him, to pay attention to his accomplishment. He could not help himself; he wasn’t even a year old and he needed the attention.
It was the most revolting thing she had ever seen and she ran out of the house in hysterics. The small, plump shape turned to watch a second mother leave him.
It didn’t sadden, but merely filled him with a familiar emptiness. No tears clouded his eyes as he watched Rosanna slowly grow smaller in the distance, until she disappeared.
She sprinted headlong down the street and finally stopped when she ran into a wiry old woman with steel-gray hair. Caught in her tense grip, Rosanna glanced from the woman’s black garb to her expectant and nervous face.
“You’re the girl who married Jose Savourez. That man with the cursed son, aren’t you?” She searched the girl’s face, trying to find what was wrong.
“Please, let me go! Let me go!” Rosanna wanted to be as far away from the house and the cursed child as possible.
“What’s the matter? Is that little monster after you? Huh?” Paula could see Rosanna was in hysterics and thought that the little monster had finally gotten to her.
“No! No! I can’t stand it any longer. He’s barely six months old and he just got up and started walking, as though he had been doing it his whole life.” Her words were almost incomprehensible and she looked defeated and downcast as she gasped fearfully.
“I knew it! I knew that boy was cursed. I knew it!” Paula had been waiting for a chance like this for months. She was waiting for an opportunity to do God’s work.
“He’s only six months, yet he looks like he’s two years old.” Suddenly, this old woman looked like the only salvation for which Rosanna could hope.
“Six months? Who told you he was six months old? Jose?” The poor little girl. She was in the pit with vipers and a husband who lied to her about his demon son.
“When we first got married, and he was crawling, he said the child was three months old.” She was puzzled; the old woman seemed to be asking such strange questions. What could his age have to do with anything?
“That little devil was crawling when he was but one week old?” Paula crossed herself and said a silent prayer.
“A week? What are you talking about? He was three months old when we got married, which was more than two months ago.” This simply could not be possible.
“Child, Jose’s son was born in February. He killed his mother at birth. I know, because I was at the delivery.” She realized that she would have to act as the hand of God. This was a grave responsibility, but the other saints had not shrunk from their destiny.
“He’s barely three months old and he walks?” Rosanna felt faint and leaned on Paula for support.
“When he was born, I told them that he was cursed! I told them!” Paula held the quivering girl and felt a peculiar satisfaction. She had always known she was destined for greatness.
“And the way he looks at you… it’s as though he knows what you’re thinking. It’s not natural.” This old woman knew. She would help her. What had she gotten herself into? She held onto Paula like a drowning woman. She could not go back to her aunts; they hadn’t even come to the wedding. Rosanna was alone.
“He should have been exposed when he was born, before his father knew.” Paula’s life was dull and monotonous. She craved recognition — globally and religiously. As a child, when Paula sat in church, she had always pictured herself in the throes of agony for her faith. Her parents would see. Everyone, whoever made fun of her, would see.
“All along, Jose knew the truth, yet he married me to look after his demon
-spawned son.” Could she even trust her husband anymore? Had she ever been able to? It must be the boy. He must hold his father captive.
“Child, now that you know the truth, what will you do?” Paula determined to help this poor unfortunate. She would battle the evil in Sao Paolo. God had chosen her to take up His standard. Paula’s husband and children wouldn’t laugh at her anymore. They would all look up to her when they saw her as the saint that she was.
“I don’t know. What should I do?” Yes, the son was making the father do his bidding. He needed a mother and Jose had gone out and gotten one for him. He had known that Rosanna would never have agreed to the arrangement had she known the truth, so he made Jose lie. He had endeared himself to her, acting all cute and darling. Oh, why hadn’t she listened to her aunts? They had known. He probably silenced them too. One look from him and they both had fallen silent.
“Put your faith in God, child. Go to the new church and ask for the new priest from America, Padre Pewter. He will help you.” Everyone would look up to her. She would be respected. This girl’s agony would be Paula’s salvation.
“A priest! Yes! Thank you, Senora! Thank you!”
Rosanna turned to leave. She intended to visit the church, but for some reason, stopped and returned to her home, where she found Nino, asleep in his crib. Fearfully, she approached him, wondering how he had managed to climb back into the crib. Was he also able to fly?
She glanced at the pillow and wondered how easy it would be to just smother him and be done with it. For an instant, she glanced away from Nino and reached out, knowing that Jose would never suspect the cause of death. As she moved to pick up the pillow, she saw the creature staring at her and lost her nerve.
The Darkness within him had sensed her murderous intent. Her black thoughts alerted and touched his own. It prompted a palpable wave of malice and made her drop the pillow.
She stood transfixed. Until now, Rosanna’s fears had been based on imagination, no matter how it was fueled. This defense proved they were fact. The looks and abnormally quick development could be rationalized, especially if she lived with them. Now she realized the cause of all her anxieties and fears. This broke her trance and she bolted away, leaving the baby — and the dual presences which defined him — to look after her. This was the second time she abandoned him and the emptiness had became familiar. If a person starts early enough, he can get used to anything.