Mistification (Angry Robot)

by Kaaron Warren

  Marvo tried to astonish her but she was not interested. Marvo wanted to terrify Doctor Reid with a trick because he was only human and wanted to prove her wrong. And he knew he needed to save Andra from her. Andra believed what she said and was losing confidence by the minute.

  Marvo played tricks, appeared things. She explained each trick quite believably, and negated his magic. Finally, she agreed to be cut in half.

  "Let me tell you a story," he said, once she was entombed.

  Doctor Reid laughed in a strangled manner. She couldn't throw her head back and her shoulders were restricted.

  "Do you think you have to tie me down to make me listen? What makes you think I'll listen now? I can hum or sing, talk aloud. I can remember most of my thesis; perhaps I'll recite that as you tell your story."

  "This story is about a woman with a sliver of ice in her heart."

  "This is an old story. I've heard it," said Doctor Reid.

  "No, this woman has not been heard of before. It is a different woman than the one you know. This woman was born with the ice in her heart, and as a baby she would snarl and cry if any person who loved her came by. Any indifferent or uncaring person would receive gurgles and claps. Even as a baby she hated love."

  "My neck aches," Doctor Reid said. "Do the trick and let me out. Don't think you're getting to me with this story, either. I love. But not you, you vengeful bastard." Marvo was sexless with Doctor Reid. It was only with Andra he felt stirrings; only her lusty stories gave him pleasure. When Doctor Reid called him a vengeful bastard, she demonstrated how well his seduction had worked. She believed he wanted her, and that she rejected him. Andra and Marvo laughed about it later; laughed at the stupidity of such a clever person.

  Marvo spun the casket around to show the ghosts in the audience there were no strings. "Do you want to hear the story? As the girl grew, the ice grew also, so her fingers and toes and nose were always cold. She had to wear many layers of clothes in order to stay warm. Her mother thought she was attention-seeking."

  Marvo plucked the long saw from its position stage right. Holding it either end, he played it like a washboard.

  Doctor Reid remembered something about trap doors, or two girls, or something she hadn't been briefed upon. She felt it strange she was simply to lie there.

  "The girl became a woman, and she was never warm. She took a job in a glass blower's studio, because there was warmth, constant flame, but it was never enough."

  Marvo began to saw.

  "She wanted to be inside the fire," Marvo said. Doctor Reid could smell burning. She could feel a dragging at her belly, a side-to-side rasping.

  "Stop it," she said.

  "Finally, one day when the mist had cleared, she rubbed her naked body head and foot with grease and dressed in man-made fibre. She needed warming, she needed luck. She needed a piece of sea-worn coal to carry with her. The Romans carried jet, and jet is black and coal is black and coal is fuel, it warms, but once you use it the luck is gone."

  Marvo stopped sawing. He began to push the lower half of the coffin away from the top half.

  Marvo knew about limbs. He knew how they joined, where the hinges were. He had heard a tale of limbs and separation. He knew how to pull things apart and put them back together again.

  "Sadly, a neighbour came to visit and doused the flames before they could penetrate to her blood."

  The lower half containing Doctor Reid's feet sat next to the half containing her head. "I can smell my own shoes. When did I step in dog shit?"

  She began to cry. She was more exposed than any human should be.

  "Wait there," Marvo said, his breath all over her face. He walked to the door and opened it. "Come in, come in!" he said, jovial. Her cheeks reddened, like a drunk uncle's. "Have a look!"

  They crowded in, ten or twelve of them. They looked close, as close as they could get without getting their noses wet.

  "How do you feel?" Marvo asked Marcia.

  "Like a lab rat." She had never spoken so quietly in her life.

  He sent the customers away.

  "Explain that, doctor," said Marvo. He left her there for a moment or two, wriggling her toes and her ankles, then he put her back together again.

  He talked to her in a soft, hypnotic voice. His cat clawed at his shoulder, reminding him that this woman was an enemy.

  "True magic is not attractive or appealing; it is frightening. People need to believe there is a trick, an explanation. Without an explanation they cannot accept. This is the main reason for magic, religion and science."

  Doctor Reid had no words to say. Her limbs ached, as if they had been worked forward and back until they broke. They were warm at the joints. Doctor Reid was an iron lady. Her metal had been heated.

  He lifted the lid on the casket and helped her out. She lifted her foot and stared at its base.

  "Leave me alone," she said.

  "Can you explain it?"

  "Get away from me." Her clothes had changed colour and texture.

  "You are the one with the interest in us. Belief, magic, science. Remember?"

  "I'll leave you alone. Tear up my notes."

  "What about the self-esteem you've taken from Andra with all your questioning, your denying of her skills?"

  "I'll write a retraction," she said. Her voice was quieter than it used to be. "I won't mention any names but she'll know that she was right and I was wrong."

  "Once you've done that, all memory of this will fade. Won't that be nice?"

  She nodded. "Thank you. Thank you."

  Marvo watched the moment of change in the doctor's face and found it exciting.

  Later, he described it to Andra and she cried.

  "You love me," she said.

  Marvo continued to seek the moment of change, and found that there were places where science and religion met, where magic and religion met, where science and magic met.

  He learned that to ward off the evil eye from a child, you should spit three times in the child's face while turning a live coal in the fire (magic) and saying, "The Lord be with us" (religion). He found out so much about the evil eye, hoping to ward off doom and danger. Other evil eye customs which exist in strictly religious homes are to draw blood from above the mouth, or to hang a lucky (ring-shaped) stone behind the door.

  He learned that to counteract the evil influence which causes the curse: take a child before sunrise to a blacksmith of the seventh generation and lay the child on the anvil. The blacksmith will raise his hammer as if to strike hot iron, but will bring it gently onto the child's body. If he repeats this three times (lucky three) then the child will thrive.

  Andra also loved to learn of cures and spells. Marvo told her, "Another mix of magic and religion is the word 'Abracadabra', which protects from diseases. It is said to be compounded of the three Chaldean words for the Holy Trinity."

  He drew on a scrap of paper:

  A B R A C A D A B R A

  A B R A C A D A B R

  A B R A C A D A B

  A B R A C A D A

  A B R A C A D

  A B R A C A

  A B R A C

  A B R A

  A B R

  A B

  A

  "Some say it's the name of the supreme deity of ancient Assyrians. Written on parchment in this form and hung around the neck with a linen thread, the words may act as an antidote for fevers, diarrhoea and toothache."

  "I know a lot about these amulets. Would you like to hear the story of the amulet I keep by my bed?" She fetched it and showed him the hanging charms.

  The Amulet

  One of my relatives, from long ago, was given this amulet by grandmother, from a time when magic was the religion. It was a beautiful necklet kept in a beaten metal box, a small thing which rattled as she shook it. She wore it about her neck for fear of getting sick because there was terrible illness all around.

  A soldier recognised the amulet as being more than a neck decoration, and she was arrested, accused o
f magic and thrown into a shadeless pen, where they left her without food or water for three days.

  "Will you forsake magic and accept the Lord into your heart?" she was asked. She clutched at her amulet, but it was gone.

  "Of course," she said.

  In the next pen was a man awaiting execution for communing with the dead. He claimed to have been passing by the graveyard simply to reach home; however, the premise was too unlikely.

  You know that amulets provide three types of magic. Some give confidence and faith. Others are for a double purpose; they protect and cast spells at the same time. The third sort are of similars, providing homoeopathic remedies and protection. So a stone shaped like human foot may protect from gout. A mole's foot looks cramped, and it cures cramp. Quartz looks like molar teeth and will prevent toothache.

  For wisdom, carry the tongue of parrot, crow and lark.

  For longevity, take ivory and elephant's hair bound with gold wire.

  For constipation, nutgalls and camphor.

  To protect yourself from sorcery wear a ring of copper, silver, gold or iron on the finger of your right hand. If you wish to be virile, find the skin of a black antelope.

  The Egyptians saw the amulet as great in their religion. It was a symbol of protection.

  The buckle protected from evil influence.

  The vulture is worn for protection.

  A papyrus sceptre gives the dead vigour and renewed youth in the next world.

  Wear an ankh for life.

  This frog is for fecundity and resurrection.

  The crab protects from fear.

  This fish protects me from gout, or other diseases.

  The scorpion protect from insect stings and reptile bites.

  The leopard and lion protect me from wild animals and give me courage.

  This tooth will protect against lightning.

  All of these have been used to explain the world and its disasters.

  The clenched fist amulet wards off evil influences and signifies vigorous action. It has been used by the people of Africa as a symbol of strength, and it brings fear to the battered wife or child.

  I thought I had enough protection. But I could not save my town. First there was their belief that I was a witch. That was when the evil began, when they hated me for that. I began to wear my amulets, paint my eyes, protect myself from them. I thought they were evil, that they acted of their own free will and could control themselves.

  But when they realised I could not be hurt (though my parents suffered badly, innocent victims not even noticed by the perpetrators) they moved their attentions elsewhere. It was like a disease. The more they hated, the more they needed to hate.

  I visited the young man they picked on next. He had been caught curled up with a cow, keeping warm on a cold night, nothing more, he said. But that was not enough. Children passed his home mooing lovingly and the adults began to want him hurt. I visited to give him an amulet to protect him but he did not trust me. And my visit made things much worse for him. They said he was my lover, that I had bewitched him. He wandered the streets, begging people to talk to him, but he only made them angry.

  He was found, beaten to death, in our garden.

  Next they picked on a girl whose sexual knowledge, they said, was too advanced. They didn't think of her father, a man with a look in his eye even I had seen. They took the little girl (whose mother would not let her wear the crab necklace I sent her) and drowned her.

  The town became frenzied. My father was killed for fathering me, my mother began to drink to forget she was my mother. No one left the town and no one entered it until there were too few people left to police arrivals and departures. Then I packed some things for my mother and me and we left the town to its death.

  #

  Marvo believed Andra, even though every story she told of her youth belied the last. The story was truth at the time she was telling it.

  They were asked to open for a stage hypnotist. There would be five hundred people in the audience at a seaside football club.

  "This will be wonderful," Andra said. "All those people."

  Marvo said, "They might hate us. They are there to see the idiot hypnotist. If they like that kind of magic they might hate ours."

  Marvo had great hatred and no respect for stage hypnotists. They took the magic of sleep and the mist and turned it into a joke. They abused the knowledge and used it to make fools of people. Making people dance like chickens was not an appropriate use of magic. He had seen many of these people and many tricks. He witnessed the cruelty of the illusionists, the laughter they brought upon their victims. Marvo saw one woman told that, under hypnosis, everyone in the room would be a long-lost friend or relative. He imagined how sad it would be to discover a lost friend or relative, only to lose them again.

  Marvo denied he played with illusion. He didn't believe so. He believed he brought excitement and love to people, and excitement was what they sought. The illusionists were all about confusion and distress. They gave things to people, then took them away. Their dreams, their hopes. The people would think they were living the life they desired and wake up to a theatre full of vicious, laughing people.

  Andra insisted they take the job. She said, "This is how it begins. Before long we will have a big show on our own and we will never have to watch another illusionist if you don't want to."

  Andra dressed all in red for the show, blood red. In a certain light it looked skinless. Marvo wore his cape wrapped around him. Nothing else. Other clothes felt constrictive. It was an adult show, so they could show nipples and bulges.

  When they walked onstage, the seats were half-filled and people chattered. They were soon silent though. Marvo found the magic of showing his magic exhilarating. He transformed Andra into a large red ball and he exercised on her, one two three four. The audience laughed at that, and gasped when he transformed his fingertips into candles.

  Backstage after the show, Marvo lifted Andra and whirled her. "I've never been so happy," he said. "This is what I was made to do." Though even saying that saddened him because he knew it was very little of what he was supposed to do. The mist seemed insubstantive and he wished he could forget its existence.

  "Let's go before the idiot gets onstage," he said.

  But Andra held his arm. "The idiot can help us get work. We'll watch his show and tell him he was brilliant."

  It was awful. The audience, the victims were told that they no longer knew the numbers five or six. They counted fingers: "Of course I have ten fingers, 12347…" – then they got confused.

  They were told they were riding a horse quickly, and they galloped and leapt, yippeed and hallooed. What about the man who woke to find he wasn't a cowboy after all? That he was still the person he was, the person he didn't want to be?

  And the others, who were told to return to the age of eight? A time when most are happy, when awareness has arrived but no responsibility, when jokes were simple and food plain, and there was someone to look after you. Imagine waking from that.

  The hypnotist made them believe in magic, then took away the belief again. He said, "I am invisible when you wake up, but you will see the things I carry."

  They saw a monster puppet, running on air, and a child, a small boy, flying. They were amazed, these victims, and their faces were full of delight and innocence. Their cynicism had gone. Then they were awoken, to the audience laughing, and they were in a sadder place than before.

  Later, while Andra was distracted, Marvo told the illusionist the truth. "Deception is your magic. Magic is the unreality of no truth."

  "All men are liars, said King David. But King David was a man. Therefore he was a liar. Therefore all men are not liars. But King David was a man. Therefore he was not a liar. Therefore all men are liars," the illusionist said, his teeth gleaming.

  "I'm going to expose you for the charlatan you are."

  The illusionist laughed. "Either that or you'll never work a big stage again. Wonder which is more lik
ely?"

  Andra was furious with Marvo when he told her what had been said. "You've lost us a good chance," she said. She wouldn't look at him and shook his hand off.

  Marvo decided to have the ruby given to her by the man in the desert reset. The jeweller, proud of his heritage, told Marvo a story.

  King Jasper

  King Nechepsus wished to strengthen his digestive organs. He spent too much time on defecation, and he could not think while he was doing so. He had a brilliant adorner, who, under orders, took a perfect piece of green jasper, and cut it to form the likeness of a dragon surrounded by rays. The king was well after that.