IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume I: Welcome to The Charadoc!
Chapter 45 Mischa
Monday,
April 20, 2708, continued "I
want to kill," the child-man beside me says. Imad’s downy chin has not yet felt the
razor's touch. A dark window frames a
thin curve of silver so slim that it almost might not be there. New
moon waxing, I think. Too late for vendettas. And I wonder where I picked up that bit of
folklore. But it doesn't matter, the
clouds soon close and thicken, and we shall have a storm. We
watch over Imad's sister, Mischa. Her
internal injuries breed infection beyond my reach and she tosses in
delirium. We take turns, one of us
sponging her off while the other one fans her.
The cool water and the little fan-made breeze afford the only relief
from this stultifyingly humid night, as though the whole world has taken fever. But
my mind keeps drifting back to that other delirious child, Yeshu. Oh please, God grant that I not lose this
one, too! At least not till she knows
one moment of happiness, one single moment that can break through the nightmare
of her memory and her pain. Give me that
moment, Lord God, let me nurse her to that point. Yeshu. Lost, without any consolation that I could
give. Again I feel that sense of a
bullet in my belly, so real that it's all I can do not to curl up tight around
this fantasy of pain. Imad
says, "I will hunt down the rich and powerful--all of them, everybody who
believes in privilege--for what they did to my sister." "They
didn't all do it," I tell him.
"Only one man did. Most of
the rich never even heard of your sister." "They
let it happen," he replies, gently wiping a sheen onto Mischa's
cheek. "They made the culture that
could let it happen." "You
don't know all the factors that went into that." I retreat into sociological objectivity
before I, too, lose my soul. He
points a shaking finger at his sister and barks, "I know that!" The child's belly swells like pregnancy, but
she will never give birth, this not-yet-woman, not even if she lives. A blanket hides the mangled genitalia: I try
not to imagine what blunt object came to hand at that furious moment, I try not
to think about it, but I know that she can think of nothing else, and images
keep groping for my attention like an obscene call, something violently
disgusting invading my peace of mind. "But
they don't," I remind him.
"Most of the rich don't know the full extent of the excesses of
some of their number." His
tears fall hot like the sudden downpour that bursts outside. He folds in on himself and mumbles,
"They don't want to know. They
don't care." I
hand him the fan and take over the basin and rag myself. He fans his sister with a hurricane fury, as
though he could winnow something off of her.
I pray that Rashid finds those antibiotic herbs that he went looking
for; I can't hold Alysha off indefinitely from triaging out this frail and
unlikely warrior. Maybe the rain will
sharpen the scent for Rashid to help him find what we need. Silence
falls between us because we can't stand any more words for awhile. Outside the rain pounds down like all the
unspoken words in the world strike our compound, a bullet rain, a storm of
fury. Mischa tosses and mumbles something
that almost sounds like, "Should've cut my lips," but that can't be
right. I
want to escape. That's a prisoner's
duty, isn't it? I escape back in memory
to the rich and silky world that Imad so despises, that last wild party at
Soskia's, dancing like I could crush all the world's troubles under my feet,
like I could skip around danger like firecrackers and not get burned, like the
music could drown out all the unspoken words pelting down on us into one great
mire... ...and
suddenly I can see myself out there, braids flying as I spin, lamplight on my
sweat-polished face as I raise bared arms bear arms raise arms I rebelled to do
that but... I
snap back. I had nearly fallen asleep
sitting up. Weird--the way my memories
sometimes shows me a picture of myself like that, like I looked at me from
somewhere else. "Her
fever's breaking," Imad tells me.
"See--she's sweating on her own, now." I
pull up a couple of mats. "Then we
can get some rest. Here, we'll stay
right beside her, so if she needs us we can wake up right away..." He already breathes deeply and regularly,
unconscious before his head hit the mat. I
settle down more reluctantly. I keep
vaguely remembering nightmares about finding myself trapped in an enormously
obese body, every move a struggle against gravity, the motion of my arms
restricted by the bulk that pushes them outward, the constant strangled sense
of crowded lungs and heart. Maybe I did live too softly before my capture,
and the nightmares won't let me forget it... (...I wheeze like a broken-down machine by
the time I make it to the top of the stair.
I pause to catch my breath and mop off my face before I enter my
benefactor's private chamber. Outside I
hear the gallop of a distant horse and the laughter and shrieks of children at
play. "Ah, Malcolm. Thank you for coming." The old gentleman looks up from the window
he'd been brooding at, and the gracious smile fails to smooth out the lines in
his brow. "Have a...have that seat
over there." He steers me to a
sturdier chair than most of the delicate antiques in here; I'm used to these
little humiliations. "What may I do for you, Master
Mukheymer?" He glowers out the window again as the air
hangs heavy and hot and silent all around us.
"When I was a boy," he finally says, "My father used to
tell me that if I needed to select a doctor, ask a doctor in a different
specialty to whom he'd go in a like circumstance." He looks up to me. "If you had a son--a child as dear to
your heart as if you carried him in your arms still, yet a grown man now--and
his behavior, um, disturbed you, what psychiatrist would you send him to?" "Assuming he would go?" I shake my head. "I'm afraid I've been rather cut off
from the rest of the medical establishment for years." He nods with resignation. "Of course. You've been on the road." No, I spent my reputation on the poor, along
with all my cash. Then he looks back at
me from the last ashes of hope.
"Perhaps, from the basics of your own medical training you might
unravel some of my son's more..." and he winces, "...unfortunate
compulsions?" I smile sadly. "As you see," I say, patting my
belly, "The only thing I know about treating compulsion is what doesn't
work." I have never seen him look more miserable. "It's a dark road, isn't it?" he
says. "A dark and wearing road that
winds deeper and deeper into shame. You
don't know how you ever got on it, you don't know how to get off, you don't
know why you can't stop going forward.
The only thing you do know is that somehow, at some point, it is all
your fault." "Whatever your son is doing, Master
Mukheymer, he is an adult, responsible for his own actions. You have no blame in this." "No, you do not, after all,
understand." He picks up a family
portrait full of uncles and aunts and cousins and siblings arrayed on the broad
steps to the mansion's porch, a matriarch and patriarch at the top as fragile
and imperious as a crumbling text of law.
He points out a boy to one side with a scared-looking grin, a man's hand
on his shoulder. "See him? That's my Reynaud, some ten years ago. Somewhere along the line I didn't protect him
from learning something that no one should ever learn. Somewhere something horrible happened to
him." He shook his head, eyes
downcast. "I have read all about
the etiology of such things; something awful must've happened. But nothing I read spoke of a cure." I feel the blood drain from my face as I
guess at what he dares not say. Outside
the window I hear the galloping come right under the window. Reynaud likes to give the children horseback
rides, I recall now with a creeping feeling in my scalp. He likes to set the little girls in front of
him on the saddle, but he always goes too fast, holding them in place with one
hand while he snaps the reins with the other.
Or he puts them in back where they have to hang onto him for dear
life. Faster and faster he rides until
they scream, the wind in their hair as they hold on tight. * * * I open my eyes, gasping for air. I had been dreaming. The pillows behind my shoulders had slipped,
making my sleep apnea worse instead of better.
I shove them back into place, rearranging them to bring the cool ones underneath
on top. Someday I shall choke in my
sleep and never wake up. My chest heaves
till at last I no longer feel like a little girl who screamed all the wind from
her lungs. Gradually my heart's gallop
slows to a canter. Strange dream. Reynaud doesn't even ride horses; he prefers
the roar and sputter of his motorcycle.
But it seemed so real at the time that I blink to find myself here in
the humid dark, sweating on the sheets, praying for a little breeze to ruffle
the curtains through an open window. We did have a conversation, Regin
Mukheymer and I, before I went to sleep, but it had to do with the ruins of the
nearby university. He showed me a map,
with roads no longer used--paved roads, still intact enough to hold at least
some of the woods at bay, passable at least for a rugged vehicle like mine,
though a GEM would do better. But he also warned me to watch out for
brigands, I mustn't forget that. They
camp in the ruins, sometimes, or so he has heard. He offered to send some household guards with
me, and then stopped himself. He'd
forgotten--the guards all went out to beat the bushes for some servant's
daughter, lost or run away or who knows what.
She’d been missing for some days, actually, but only now had Regin found
out, and sent help for the family--peasants get secretive sometimes for no good
reason. He shook his head, his face as
sad as in my dream. The mother must be
inconsolable, he said. Children have no
idea, he said, how much heartbreak they can cause their parents. I remember telling him that I'd pray to
find the child soon. He thanked me, and
as he did he handed me a list of books he'd like to read, if I should find them
intact in the long-lost library. That's the way the real conversation
went. It’s just like dreams to dredge up
muck from the past, and all the nasty things that crawl in it, to mix in with
the clay of recent life. Suddenly a shudder goes down my spine as
the cool breeze finally comes, just a little puff to turn all my sweat to
chill, while a pattering of rain begins to fall. I remember something. I turn on the bedside light and fumble
through the pockets of the pants I wore that day, as the rain builds, hard and
sudden. Here's the list. Psychiatric texts, every one of them, books
on abnormal psychology. I fold it back up, slip it into my pocket
and turn out the light. It was just a
dream. You don't know anything,
Malcolm. It was just a dream.) It
was just a dream. I had fallen asleep by
Mischa and my leather collar had caught on the edge of the mat; that's why I
choked, not that I suffocate on a cushion of fat wrapped tight around my
throat. I reach down and feel my little
waist, firm between my hands, and sigh with relief. I shall never grow so fat. I
glance over at Mischa. She still sleeps,
past her crisis, looking better. And her
brother, he rests too. He whimpers a
little and then turns over, reassured when his hand finds his sister, never
opening his eyes the whole time. All
around us I hear the night-creatures, and faint drips, and the distant rumble
of thunder, for the storm has also moved on.
And underneath it all I listen to the blurry sound of many sleeping people,
breathing all at once, each in their own rhythm, some healthier than
others. I see their lined-up bodies as
shadows upon shadows, like brush-strokes of ink on a charcoal background. Didn't Jonathan show me some intriguingly
disturbing picture like that once, as part of my education in the arts? I
settle back down, myself. Time I joined
them all in slumber. Tomorrow's debridement
day and I'll need all the rest I can get.
Makhliya doesn’t have the muscle to help with that. |
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