His mud-gloved hand pointed to the forest, where all the trees shone with a metallic glow. In a brusque movement, I detached myself from the mountain soil. I heard a bizarre sound, and I felt moisture under my muddy hand. I bent low to examine the place where I had been lying. From the spongy rock oozed a thick dark fluid. I was appalled.
Toine kept pointing at the forest. In the vault of the sky, the stars scintillated with a cold light. The entire mountain glowed while blue flames rose from the abyss.
Then, beyond the red-dust desert, beyond the chasm and the wide clearing, the entire forest bowed. This adoration of nature enthralled us. In the meantime, the mountain vibrated with violence. Then, as it had happened each time, the stars paled and winked out, one by one. At our feet, the mysterious nature had melted into the night that plagued our diseased eyes. A deep blackness swallowed us. We were lost. We were nothing. The shadows of oblivion enveloped us like a leaden carapace. Soon we were part of a slumbering fellowship.
I awoke with the impression of a long ascent from the bottom of a pit. Darkness still inhabited the world. On the horizon, a pink shade was about to engender the red day but for now the sky, empty, enjoyed solitude. Hidden by the wall of the night, the plain was only darkness, as silent as a hole dug into infinity.
With my mud-caked lips, I called Toine. My voice barely carried, and I wondered whether I had called him or just imagined I had. Or had I become deaf? Withdrawing into the hopeless agony of expectation, I closed my eyes and began to tick the seconds off an imaginary rosary.
A noise I remembered all too well told me Toine had detached himself from the stone. Then a perfect silence reigned.
Little by little, as the red glowing deployed, blurred shapes became visible. Then, for the first time, on top of the mauve sky, appeared the summit of the gigantic mountain. It soared into the heavens like the tip of a thorn. Clinging in cl.u.s.ters to the mountainside, uncountable silhouettes of all kinds of beings seemed to continue their ascent toward eternity.
I turned with some effort to Toine to ask him whether we should go on or not. My question remained unspoken, trembling on my earthen lips: he was horrible to look at. The mud mask had become solid, while the features, rough and impossible to recognise, gave it the aspect of a face in gestation. The only trace of life on his face was his gaze, which left me with no uncertainty about my own appearance. I should have lost my mind right then, but a strange calm inhabited me. Was it the beginning of acceptance?
Toine tried to tell me something but his half-open mouth, already stiff, could only utter incomprehensible sounds. When he struggled to rise, I understood he intended to continue our ascent. Did he really believe our salvation lay on the other side of the mountain? I could not think any longer. I submitted to his decision.
Every movement caused pain. The crusts, like too-heavy armour, hindered our progress. From time to time, we held on to those stone creatures. Breaking loose from the mountain, they would slide down toward the plain, and slide, and never stop. Although the position of the sun indicated that we had been climbing for hours, the top of the mountain seemed as far away as ever.
Save for the oppressive weights on our bodies, we no longer felt physical discomfort. No hunger, no thirst, no fatigue. On the other hand, our breath became belaboured in the rarefied air. To inhale, we had to open our mouths into a grimace similar to one that was repeated on every statue. The slope grew steeper, almost vertical, but it did not bother us. We stuck to the rock as if we had suction pads on our hands and feet. Slowly we rose toward the summit, which was charged for us with promise and hope, but at the same time our mineral metamorphosis became more noticeable, more repulsive. Our hands, with fingers swollen and thickened, could not form fists any longer and remained open. Our stiff limbs gave us the heavy gait of moving statues.
At a distance, well beyond desert and forest, we could see the ocean. The red sun seemed to gaze at its blazing reflection. Silence reigned. When we reached the top at last, we were spent but full of hope. For a long time we rested, stretched out on the ground. We must have looked like two heaps of mud. The moment of truth had come. While negotiating the various stages of our journey, we had been aiming at a target that meant salvation. Now what would we discover on the other side?
We were afraid of rising and finding out if life existed on the other side of the mountain. Still reclining, we gazed at the immense stretch of stone that covered the summit. In contrast to the slopes, the summit appeared to be as smooth as the flag-stones of ancient dwellings caressed by many feet. In the centre, shaped like a bowl slightly higher than the surrounding rocks, was an immense crater. A kind of enormous pit with a rounded rim. A well with an orifice elongated toward the top, tulip-like.
Toine scrambled to his feet. He seemed to have found a new determination. Seeing his gaze sweeping everything around us, as if he were looking for something, filled me with curiosity, and I stood. I understood when I noticed that not a single statue stood on the rim of the crater. All had stopped their progress before the summit. Unless they fled it, I thought in anguish.
Fear returned to us like a voyager welcoming old companions as soon as we started across that extraordinary esplanade. We advanced like automatons. We had to skirt the crater, which was a small mountain itself. From afar, the reddened sky watched us. We drew near the line that marked the limits between life and death. Under our thick carapaces, our bodies shuddered with torment. Nothing had changed in the abodes of the sky. All was deep silence.
A few metres from the crater, we saw other summits, similar to the one on which we stood. The farther we went, the more sprang up. On the other side of the mountains were no woods or plains, merely more mountains soaring toward the red sky. No hope remained in this world of silence. The slab of rock under our feet began to vibrate in a stronger way.
We were nearing the origin of that beating heart. Our own hearts beat in unison with the hidden giant. Nothing could give us a new hope. We were no longer tempted to live, but the crater, the probable cause of all our hardships, attracted us. Toine went first, trying to climb up the rocky collar that encircled the orifice. I followed with no hesitation. As though under a spell, we felt our fatigue fall away when we touched the rock. Our anguish remained, fuelled by our instinct, which pushed us to flee as quickly as possible. Despite our fear, we reached the crater. Fascination was stronger. A circle of stone wide enough for us to walk on skirted the crater of a dormant volcano. The proximity of the abyss compromised our balance. When I approached the crater, my legs trembled.
Our eyes, dazzled by the light, could not pierce the darkness of the abyss, but we could clearly hear the sound of breathing rising from the bottom, while the rhythmic beating increased.
Toine stood there, head bent, eyes fixed to the void. His face had no human features. He was like a mirror, for he displayed what I had become.
My old companion"s shoulders collapsed, as if an enormous weight crushed him.
That is when I glimpsed that horrible thing at the bottom of the crater. The sight almost propelled me into the accursed pit forever.
Floating in the middle of a lake of blood, a blue eye with an immense pupil stared at us.
Toine screamed, and the effort cracked the mud mask, disfiguring him.
I let him pull me away. When we arrived at the rim of the crater, Toine pushed me, sending me rolling a few metres down toward the slab encircling the summit. Instantly, fatigue engulfed us. Crawling a little farther along the ledge, we let ourselves roll down the steep slope of the mountain. At first, we slid at great speed, jostling the other statues like us. We were now a crowd of mineral creatures hurtling down the cursed mountain. Then we were stopped as though stayed by an invisible hand, our backs to the stone, without the possibility of pulling ourselves loose.
The only memory I have, after centuries spent living inside a stone, is of the gentle touch of tears on a man"s face.
The Salamander.
Merce Rodoreda.
Translated into English by Martha Tennent.
Merce Rodoreda (19081983) was an important Catalan writer whose novel La placa del diamant (1962, translated as The Time of the Doves) has been translated into over twenty languages. Rodoreda fled to France during the Spanish Civil War and, robbed of her home and language, wrote almost nothing for nearly two decades. She began to write short stories as a way of reclaiming her voice, and many of these tales contain more than a touch of the surreal or fantastical. In "The Salamander" (1967) Rodoreda uses the weird in the service of transformation and commentary on ignorance. This masterful new translation by Martha Tennent also appears in The Selected Stories of Merce Rodoreda (2011).
I strolled down to the water, beneath the willow tree and through the watercress bed. When I reached the pond I knelt down. As always, the frogs gathered around me. Whenever I arrived, they would appear and come jumping toward me. As soon as I started to comb my hair, the mischievous ones would stroke my red skirt with the five little braids or pull at the festoon on my petticoat full of ruffles and tucks. The water would grow sad and the trees that climbed the hill would gradually blacken. But that day the frogs jumped into the water, shattering the mirror in the pond, and when the water grew still again his face appeared beside mine, as if two shadows were observing me from the other side. So as not to give the appearance of being frightened, I stood up and without saying a word began walking calmly through the gra.s.s. But the moment I heard him following me, I looked back and stopped. A hush fell over everything, and one end of the sky was already sprayed with stars. He stopped a short distance away and I didn"t know what to do. I was suddenly filled with fear and began to run, but when I realized he would overtake me, I stopped under the willow tree, my back to the trunk. He came to me and stood there, both arms spread wide so I could not run away. Then, gazing into my eyes, he began to press me against the willow, my hair disheveled, between the willow and him. I bit my lips to keep from screaming; the pain in my chest was so great I thought my bones were on the point of breaking. He placed his mouth on my neck, and where he had laid his mouth I felt a burning.
The trees on the hill were already black when he came the following day, but the gra.s.s was still warm from the sun. Again, he embraced me against the willow trunk and placed his open hand over my eyes. All of a sudden I seemed to be falling asleep and the leaves were telling me things that made sense but I did not understand, things spoken more and more slowly, more and more softly. When I no longer heard them, I asked him, my tongue half-frozen in anguish: What about your wife? He responded: you are my wife, you alone. With my back I crushed the same gra.s.s that I hardly dared to step on when I combed my hair; I used to tread lightly, just enough to capture the wounded smell. You alone. Later, when I opened my eyes I saw the blonde braid hanging; she was leaning over looking at us with empty eyes. When she realized I had seen her, she grabbed me by the hair, whispering "witch." Softly. She promptly released me and seized him by his shirt collar. "Ah, ah, ah," she kept saying. She began pushing him and dragged him away.
We never returned to the pond. We met in stables, haylofts, the root forest. But ever since the day his wife took him away, people in the village have looked at me as if they weren"t looking at me, some furtively making the sign of the cross when I walked by. After a while, when they saw me coming they would rush inside their houses and lock the doors. Everywhere I heard a word that began to haunt me, as if it were born from light and darkness or the wind were whistling it. Witch, witch, witch. The doors would close and I walked through the streets of a dead village. When I glimpsed eyes through parted curtains, they were always icy. One morning I found it difficult to open the front door, a door of old wood split by the sun. In the center of it, they had hung an ox head with two tender branches wedged in the eyes. I took it down it was heavy and, not knowing what to do with it, left it on the ground. The twigs began to dry, and as they dried, the head rotted; and where the neck had been severed, it swarmed with milk-colored maggots.
Another day I discovered a headless pigeon, its breast red with blood. On another, a premature, stillborn sheep and two rat ears. When they ceased hanging dead animals on the door, they began to throw rocks. They were the size of a fist, and at night they banged against the windows and roof tiles. Then they had the procession. It was toward the beginning of winter, a windy day with fast-moving clouds. The procession, all purple and white from the paper flowers, advanced slowly. I lay on the floor viewing it through the cat hole. It had almost reached the house. I was watching the wind, the statue of the Saint and the banners when the cat wanted inside, frightened by the chanting and large candles. But when he saw me, he screeched and humped his back like the arch in the bridge. The procession stopped. Again and again the priest gave his blessing, the altar boys sang, the wind twisted the candle flames and the s.e.xton marched up and down as the purple and white paper flowers swirled madly about. At last the procession left, and before the holy water had scarcely dried on my wall, I went in search of him. I couldn"t find him anywhere. I looked in the stables, the haylofts, the root forest. I knew every inch of the forest; I always sat on the white, bone-smooth root, the oldest root.
That night, when I sat down, I suddenly realized I had nothing left to hope for: my life faced the past, with him inside me like a root inside the earth. The following day, they scribbled the word "witch" on my door with a piece of coal; and that night, outside my window, in a loud voice so I would hear, two men said that I should have been burned at the stake when I was little, together with my mother who used to escape into the sky with vulture wings while everyone was asleep. I should have been burned before they needed me to dig up garlic, bind the wheat and alfalfa and pick grapes from wretched vineyards.
I thought I saw him one evening at the entrance to the root forest, but he ran away when I approached; I couldn"t be sure whether it was him or my desire for him or his shadow searching for me in the trees, lost like me, moving back and forth. "Witch" they cried and left me with my misfortune, which was not the one they would have wished for me. I thought about the pond, the watercress, the thin branches of the willow tree. Winter was dark and flat, leafless: there was only ice, frost and the gelid moon. I couldn"t leave the house, because to walk in winter was to walk in sight of everyone, and I didn"t want to be seen. When spring arrived, its leaves tiny and joyful, they built the fire in the center of the square and gathered dry, well-cut wood.
Four of the oldest men in the village came for me. I called to them from inside, saying I wouldn"t accompany them, but then some young men with large, red hands appeared and smashed the door with an axe. I screamed because they were taking me from my house, and when I bit one of them, he struck me on the crown of my head. They picked me up by the arms and legs and threw me on top of the pile of wood, as if I were just another branch; they tied my hands and feet and left me there, my skirt up. I turned my head. The square was crowded: the young people were standing in front of the elderly, the children in their new Sunday smocks in a corner, holding olive branches in their hands. As I gazed at the children, I noticed him: he was standing beside his wife with the blonde braid. She was dressed in black and he had his arm around her shoulder. I turned back and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, two old men were approaching with bright torches, and the children began to sing the song about the witch who was burned at the stake. It was a very long song, and when they finished, the old men announced that they couldn"t light the fire, I wouldn"t let them. Then the priest walked over to the children with a basin filled with holy water and had them moisten the olive branches and throw them over me. Soon I was covered with olive branches, all with tender leaves. An old, hunchbacked woman, small and toothless, started laughing and left. A moment later, she returned with two baskets full of dry heather and told the old men to scatter them on four sides of the bonfire. She helped and after that the fire took. Four columns of smoke rose and as the flames began to climb, it seemed to me that everyone heaved a sigh of relief and peace, a sigh that came from deep down in their chests. As the flames mounted, following the smoke, I watched from behind a torrent of red water; and behind the water, every man, every woman, every child was like a shadow, happy because I was burning.
The bottom of my skirt turned black, and I could feel the fire on the small of my back. Every now and then, a flame bit me on the knee. It seemed to me that the ropes that bound me had burnt away. Then something happened that made me clench my teeth: my arms and legs started to become shorter, like the tentacles on the snail I once nudged with my finger; and below my head, where the neck joined the shoulders, I felt something stretching and poking me. The fire screeched and the resin boiled. I saw some of the people who were observing me raise their hands; others were running and stumbling into those that hadn"t budged. One side of the bonfire collapsed, sending embers flying. When the logs caught fire again, I thought I heard someone say: She"s a salamander. And I began to move across the coals, very slowly, because my tail was heavy.
My face was level with the ground as I scurried on my hands and feet. I headed toward the willow tree, following along the wall; but when I reached the end of it, I turned and from a distance I could see my house burning like a torch. No one was on the street. I made my way to the stone bench, then to the house and through the flames and embers, hurrying toward the willow and watercress. When I was outside again, I turned back because I wanted to see the roof burning. While I was watching, the first drop fell, one of those large, warm drops from which toads are born. Instantly more drops fell, slowly at first, then fast, and soon all the water from above fell, and the fire was gradually doused, spouting huge columns of smoke. I stood still, and when I could no longer see anything, because thick, black night had fallen, I started crossing puddles and mud. My hands enjoyed plunging into the spongy sludge, but my back feet kept getting stuck in the mud and were tired. I would have liked to run, but I couldn"t. A thunderclap stopped me short in the middle of the path; then came a bolt of lightning and between the stones I spotted the willow tree. I was panting as I approached the pond. Once I was beyond the mud, which is formed by dirt on land, I found the marsh, which is dirt deposited in water. I moved into a corner of it and stayed there, half suspended between two roots. Then the three little eels appeared.
In the morning I"m not sure if it was the following day or another I slowly emerged and glimpsed the high mountains beneath a cloud-dappled sky. I scurried through the watercress and stopped at the willow trunk. The first leaves were still inside the sprouts, but the sprouts were beginning to turn green. I didn"t know which direction to take; if I wasn"t paying attention, the blades of gra.s.s poked me in the eyes. I slept among the blades of gra.s.s until the sun was high. When I woke up, I caught a little mosquito, then hunted for worms in the gra.s.s. After a while I returned to the marsh; I pretended I was sleeping, because the three playful eels promptly reappeared.
There was a big moon the night I decided to return to the village. The air was filled with scent, and the leaves on all the branches trembled. I took the stone path, being very careful because even the smallest thing frightened me. I rested when I reached the front of the house: I found nothing but rubble, stinging nettles, and spiders spinning and spinning webs. I crawled around to the back and stopped in front of his garden. The sunflowers were growing beside the rose-scented geraniums, their round flowers on the verge of bending. I proceeded along the blackberry hedge, never questioning why I was doing it. It was as if someone were telling me: do this, do that. I squeezed under the door and entered. The ashes in the fireplace were still warm. I stretched out there for a while, then scampered around a bit before crawling under the bed. Dead tired, I fell asleep and didn"t realize when day dawned.
When I awoke, it was night again and I glimpsed shadows on the floor; his wife was moving back and forth with a lit candle. I could see her feet and part of her legs in white stockings, slender at the bottom, swollen toward the top. Then I saw his big feet, the blue socks falling over his ankles. I saw both of their clothes fall to the floor, and I heard them sit on the bed, their feet dangling, his beside hers. One of his feet moved up and a sock dropped, and she pulled off her stockings with both hands. Then I heard the sound of sheets being pulled over them, and they spoke in low voices. Much later, when I was accustomed to the dark, the moon entered through the window, a window with four panes separated by two crossed laths. I crawled over to the light, directly beneath the cross. I began to pray for myself, because inside me, even though I wasn"t dead, no part of me was wholly alive. I prayed frantically because I didn"t know if I was still a person or only an animal or half-person, half-animal. I also prayed to know where I was, because there were moments when I seemed to be underwater, and when I was underwater I seemed to be above, on land, and I could never know where I really was. When the moon disappeared, they woke up and I went back to my hiding place under the bed, and with tiny bits of fluff I began to make myself a little nest. I spent many nights between the fluff and the cross. Sometimes I would leave and go down to the willow tree. When I was under the bed, I listened. It was all the same. You alone, he would say. One night when the sheet dragged the floor, I climbed up the sheet, hanging on to the folds, and slid into the bed, near one of his legs. I lay as still as a corpse. He turned over and his leg weighed me down. I couldn"t move. I had trouble breathing because he was smothering me. I rubbed my cheek against his leg, being very careful not to wake him.
One day she cleaned the place. I caught a glimpse of the white stockings and the crumpled broom, and when I was least expecting it, part of a blonde braid hung down to the floor and the broom swept under the bed. I had to escape because the broom seemed to be looking for me. Suddenly I heard a yell and saw her feet running toward the door, but she returned with a lighted torch and hid half her body under the bed. She wanted to burn my eyes out. I was slow and ungainly and didn"t know which way to go. Blinded, I b.u.mped into everything: bed legs, chair legs, walls. I don"t know how, but finally I found myself outdoors. I headed to the puddle beneath the horses" trough and the water covered me. Two boys saw me and went to look for canes and started poking me. I turned my face toward them, my entire head out of the water, and looked them up and down. They flung the canes down and ran away, but came right back with six or seven older boys who threw rocks and handfuls of dirt at me. A rock hit my tiny hand and broke it. Terror-stricken, I dodged the poorly aimed ones and managed to escape into the stable. She came after me with the broom, the screaming children waiting by the door. She poked me and tried to drive me out of my corner in the straw. Blinded again, I b.u.mped into buckets, baskets, sacks of carob beans, horse legs. A horse reared because I b.u.mped into one of his legs, and I grabbed hold of it. A thrust of the broom hit my broken hand and almost tore it off, and a black thread of drool rolled out of the corner of my mouth. I was able to escape through a crack, and as I was escaping I heard the broom prodding and poking.
In the dark of night I headed to the root forest. I crawled out from beneath some shrubs that shone in the moonlight. I wandered around, lost. My broken hand didn"t hurt, but it was hanging from a tendon, and I had to raise my arm so it wouldn"t drag too much. I stumbled along, first over roots, then stones, until finally I reached the root where I used to sit before they took me away to the fire in the square. I couldn"t get to the other side, because I kept slipping. On, on, on, toward the willow tree, toward the watercress and my home in the marsh, in the water. The wind blew the gra.s.s and sent pieces of dry leaves wafting through the air and carried away short, shiny filaments from the flowers by the path. I brushed one side of my head against the trunk and slowly made my way to the pond and entered, holding my arm up, so tired, with my little broken hand.
Through the moon-streaked water, I could see the three eels coming. They blurred together: linking with each other, then separating; twisting together and tying knots that unraveled. Eventually, the smallest one came up to me and bit my broken hand. Some juice spurted from my wrist; in the water it looked a little like smoke. The eel was obstinate and kept pulling my hand slowly, never letting go of it, and while he pulled, he kept looking at me. When the eel thought I was distracted, he gave me one or two jerks. While the others played at twisting together like a rope, the one who was biting my hand suddenly gave a furious yank. The tendon must have been severed, because the eel swam away with my hand. Once he had it, he looked back at me as if to say: Now I have it! I closed my eyes for a while, and when I reopened them, the eel was still there, among the shadows and splashes of trembling light, my little hand in his mouth. A tiny bundle of bones fitted together, covered with a bit of black skin. I don"t know why, but all of a sudden I could see the stone path, the spiders in my house, their legs hanging from the side of the bed: white and blue, as if the two of them were sitting above the water, but were empty, like laundry hanging on the line, rocked by the lapping water. I saw myself beneath the cross formed by the shadows, on the color-charged fire that screeched as it rose and didn"t burn...While I saw all of these things, the eels played with that piece of me, let go of it, s.n.a.t.c.hed it again, and the little hand pa.s.sed from eel to eel, swirling like a tiny leaf, all the fingers spread apart. I was on both sides: in the marsh with the eels, and partially in that other world, without knowing where it was. Until the eels tired and the shadow sucked up the hand, a dead shadow that little by little scattered the dirt in the water, for days and days and days, in that corner of the marsh, among gra.s.s and willow roots that were thirsty and had always drunk there.
The Ghoulbird.
Claude Seignolle.
Translated into English by Gio Clairval.
Claude Seignolle (1917) is a French writer known as one of that country"s best fantasists. As a child, his grandmother used to tell him stories that inspired his future emphasis on dark and macabre tales, many based on legends of the French countryside. A literary prize bearing his name recognizes works related to French folklore. Seignolle has not been widely published in English, aside from a Texas A&M University Press collection in 1983 and a limited edition of his novella The Black Cupboard (2010), from Ex Occidente Press. Gio Clairval provided this definitive translation of his cla.s.sic story "The Ghoulbird." The bird of the t.i.tle evokes a trope from Gothic literature said to be a bad omen.
My old friend, Dr. *** from Chateauroux, had recommended that I visit the manor of Guernipin in Brenne, between Mezieres and Rosnay, if the master of the house was kind enough to invite me, his mood being such that he was seldom inclined to grant the requests of the strangers who solicited him.
I thus discovered Guernipin and Geoffrey de la Tibaldiere, an unrepentant zoologist and, quite fortunately, for a man with his pa.s.sion, a bachelor sacrificing his comfort to accommodate an exceptional collection of animals, stuffed or preserved in jars. The man lived in a small room furnished with a simple cot, each of the other twenty comfortable rooms packed with a dusty and docile wildlife. He introduced me with enthusiasm to his domestic zoo, confessing that he had come down with that persistent and invasive collector"s fever in his childhood. He had foolishly caught the infection by the age of eight when he playfully trapped all the insects wandering about the property of Guernipin, and encased them in empty matchboxes, carefully labelled admirable tiny coffins, once brand-new but now withered by time like the skin of their owner, who appeared to be the trusting type, to the point that he let me handle his treasures.
Guided by the most perfect of experts, as Mr. Tibaldiere was a brisk old man of eighty-five and a collector"s piece in his own right, I was invited to peruse a shambles of feathers, bristles, and scales.
That first afternoon, we explored only the rooms of the ground floor, and when dusk drew the curtain on those local or exotic marvels, I was left with a craving to see more pieces. But having acquired a taste for this hunt so devoid of danger and exertion, I did not know how to hint at my desire to see the rest. He whetted my appet.i.te by suggesting that I should sleep in the tall four-poster in the country-style bedroom he had set up in the garret of Guernipin. We would dine informally in the kitchen and continue to explore his scholarly memories, while eating an omelette with chanterelles and a truffled confit of duck. Sylvain, the servant, would see to replenishing our gla.s.ses with a Reuilly wine that was lordly in its small ways. Indeed, Mr. Tibaldiere being talkative, my attention would satisfy his imperious desire to describe his treasures.
The bouquet of the Reuilly enhanced the aroma of truffles and chanterelles, and quickened the already nimble speech of my host. At midnight, which was lazily spelt out by an ancient, potbellied grandfather clock, he was still speaking, his back to the fire, a.s.sisted by Sylvain, a fifty-year-old man tanned up to his hairline. Sylvain looked like a Moorish crone, a common feature in this part of Berry, so close to Poitou, where the Saracen occupation had left traces in the peasants" blood.
Mr. Tibaldiere recounted his remote and adventurous hunts, when cross hairs on his rifle did not quiver in front of his eye; he lovingly dwelled on the local tradition, his youthful hours spent in patient exploration of burrows, nests and lairs, and he glorified the vibrant life of this country suspended between water and earth, an unparalleled paradise to sedentary and migratory fauna. At one o"clock in the morning, my head swam with new knowledge in ornithology: mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), gadwall (Chaublasmus stepera), shelduck I will spare you the Latin pochard, heron, coot, wheatear, water rail (Rallus aquaticus but, I have not forgotten), all minutely described: appearance, calls, habits and more.
Sylvain slouched over an oak bench near the fireplace and, as patient as a dog that calculates in advance all the bones coming its way, yawned, loyalty incarnate. As for me, despite the strain of that long day, I dared not interrupt a host so prodigal with hospitality and words, nevertheless hoping that he, too, would soon grow sleepy. But Tibaldiere rambled on about the mythical wildlife that the fiendishly superst.i.tious peasants imagined prowling Brenne"s night. He told me about the Ghoulbird.
My curiosity rekindled, I straightened my back. A Ghoulbird! Even though I was tired, the promise of a brief legend-hunting enchanted me. Hearing that name, Sylvain had slid further on the bench, drawing near the fire as if he wished to move away from us, studying the crackling embers with the intensity of a man who sees flames for the first time.
"You should know," said Mr. Tibaldiere, "that there was a time when this family of birds had spread to the point that every marsh across France and beyond had its own mind-calling spirit, a sly winged creature that lured the naive to utter horror."
I nodded while he moved onto a brilliant enumeration: Dreadfowl of Normandy, Owlfear of Ardennes, Shrikedeath of Brittany or the Tufted Screamers of Limousin, protean creatures sp.a.w.ned by the popular imagination in days of yore, brewed by the peasants" gullible minds during troubled nights. Locally, they had a Ghoulbird, the only one still living in the country, and probably the last remaining anywhere.
Then my host raised his voice and, taking aim with an imaginary rifle, threatened, "I"ve never seen it. Otherwise !" And that sceptical man shot me a mischievous wink before turning to his servant and saying in a compa.s.sionate tone, "Is it so, Sylvain?" But, failing for once in his perfect obedience, the man did not answer.
Finally, I was released. My host rose and entrusted me to his servant, giving him orders to make sure all my needs would be satisfied, and then he dismissed us with an abrupt about-face of enviable agility. Sylvain took a jug of water, a lamp and, walking ahead of me, led me slowly, never turning around, across long corridors and steep stairways up to the attic, my room.
I was not disappointed as I had feared. Quite the contrary. The place, though stifling because of the heat absorbed through the roof, was clean and pleasant. Vast, too, with beautiful glazed beams that sparkled as we pa.s.sed. The curtained bed, made of walnut, smelled of wax, and the slightly rough bedclothes released a scent of lavender as I pulled them back. As for the four bouquets of cotton-cloth flowers tied to the posts, I feared there might be spiders hiding in there, but I rea.s.sured myself by thinking that they would certainly be pinned, labelled by species, and therefore harmless prisoners. Sensing my fears, Sylvain promptly unfolded the cloths and shook them to show me no spiders dwelled between printed petals. And he deigned to smile for the first time. Mr. Tibaldiere"s authority must have been a heavy constraint to him, and he clearly wanted to chat.
He introduced me to the various features of the place, with great courtesy, and directed me to the dressing table and the small round-shaped dormer window, which he immediately opened to let in fresh air. In this regard, as I pointed out to him that this narrow opening might be insufficient, he beckoned me to a door, which he unlocked and pushed open. We climbed a narrow stone stairway and came out on the terrace of a crenellated tower that I hadn"t noticed upon arriving at Guernipin. The view, stretching in all directions, was outstanding. Everywhere, as far as the eye could see, marshes, ponds and lakes glistened in the full moonlight and appeared to join and mingle into infinite lacings of water on dark earth. Encased in a vegetation thickened by shadows but made in fact of meagre shrubbery, the aquatic countryside shone like a jewel discarded for some minor flaw and relegated to this forgotten corner of opulent Berry.
I felt that Sylvain took great pride in my surprise. Showing the extent to which his offering moved me, I asked for details. The man knew his region by heart. I soon learned the name of each mirror consecrated to the moon, each moor and slough, the nearest so close we could have touched it with the toes of our boots, a harsh land, now in the process of drying up and hardening but still rotting, a traitor to the imprudent foot: the marsh of Gobble-Ox.
All need for sleep forgotten, I was loath to leave this wondrous nocturnal scenery, where the only missing element was a touch of life. I said to Sylvain, "What a pity that this fabled Ghoulbird of yours is only a legend; otherwise, I would have listened to its song and applauded with enthusiasm!" The servant grabbed my arm and squeezed it. I realised that my words had robbed him of his pleasure. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Never ever make such a wish, sir," he breathed out. "Particularly not under a full moon...It"s the kind of night the creature would choose to lead us to our deaths..." And he forced me to leave the roof terrace. Back in the garret room, he carefully locked the door to the tower. In the light of the lamps, I was surprised to see his crumbling face covered with perspiration. Not to mention his manifest apprehension, so strong I felt almost compelled to rea.s.sure him by patting him in the back. But, made curious by his extreme reaction and exploiting my previous display of disbelief, I used a more artful way to restore his trust. I managed to have him sit with me on the edge of the bed and, matching the tone of my questions to his concern, I obtained a few details about this dreadful bird.
And so I learned that the bird mentioned by Mr. Tibaldiere existed. Better still, the bird"s favourite place was the marsh of Gobble-Ox, right here, five or six gunshots from us and at an equal distance from the village. Its appearance was not at first frightening, and it could look like any common bird, but shifted continuously from one species to the next to fool its victims. In its call, an additional note rang out...a bit strident. It was the Ghoulbird"s curse...To listen to it was to lose one"s will to the bird and forever be the creature"s slave. Obedient, the victims rose from the beds, left the security of their homes and went out in nightclothes, like sleepwalkers, heading toward that bird of h.e.l.l, which rejoiced in any new prey. The victims went to the bird, oblivious of the mud that squelched under their feet, not realising they were padding through the marsh. And the creature would draw back, retreating further to lure its prey into the slimy depths that captured and swallowed its victims without mercy. Pessaut, Guerin, the woman called Marguerite, and so many others had died in this way. Their bodies were never found, only the footprints in the hardened banks of the Gobble-Ox, which, without doubt, had shared the meat with the Ghoulbird.
But the creature betrayed its presence in one tell-tale way: most other birds do not sing or whistle at night. So when you heard it, you had to move quickly and bolt your door, barricade up all the openings, clasp your hands over your ears, bury yourself deep under the blankets and, above everything else, be in the company of at least another person so that one could prevent the other from responding to the evil call...
Having unburdened himself of this awkward secret, Sylvain departed in great haste, taking the lamp and leaving me in a pitch-black room. I heard him double lock the door, probably out of habit, and step down the stairway, stumbling in his haste.
The silver needle of the moon, taking advantage of the open window, slanted into the darkened garret without disturbing the heavy silence, which then engulfed me. I undressed and lay down on the bed, my fatigue dulling the stressful images put into my head by the superst.i.tious servant.
The heat prevented me from falling asleep immediately. I tossed and turned, feeling oppressed, until I decided to get up and open the door of the tower. After some blind groping, I found it. The fresh air that blew through the doorway joined the draft that entered through the window, bringing me relief. I went back to bed, and this time I slept right away.
I dreamt a dream agreeable at first but, little by little, it filled me with a vague uneasiness...I found myself in a vast ballroom, in old-fashioned garb, relaxed and content, sitting in an armchair...A beautiful young woman asked me to dance, favouring me with the most charming smile...But I declined rudely and remained seated instead of rising to my feet, eager to grant her the dance she"d requested...She, without seeming to be in the least shocked by my att.i.tude, laughed in a strange way, with three high-pitched notes balanced by pauses, creating a peculiar rhythm...Then, taking me by the hand, she pulled me into her arms...I felt myself become heavier and heavier. But her gentle strength gradually managed to lift me...Standing, I felt a sensation of nakedness and a sudden embarra.s.sment forced me to flee...I ran into a wall or a closed door, I did not know which...I fell, and people came to pick me up, pitying me...Their hands supported me and pulled me away into a park smelling of freshly cut gra.s.s...They led me to a well and, once there, either for fun or malice, they pushed me forward, to make me step over the edge...
I resisted the motion, letting myself fall to the ground, where, seized with a sudden terror, I hunkered down, refusing to partic.i.p.ate in this stupid act...And again I heard the shrill laughter of the young woman, who had become invisible. All my attention was riveted on the unseen woman, as I was filled with a belated regret for not having accepted her company...
The chill of dawn woke me. I was on the terrace of the tower, lying on the ground and shivering. A gray mist covered Guernipin, which the rising sun gilded progressively. After the first moment of astonishment, it wasn"t difficult to understand the reason why I was lying there. Surely, I had wanted to escape the sweltering garret room and, seeking fresh air, I had risen, half-conscious, to spend the rest of the night up here. Leaning out from the parapet, I discovered the impressive drop, and, upset, I realized that I had been on the point of falling from that height!
The second day with M. de la Tibaldiere was as fascinating as the day before. The man knew so much the mystery of the onager, the cyclical migration of the warthog, and provided anecdotes and biological digressions as arguments. We lunched in the park, in the temperate shade of a cedar tree as the wind, blowing gently, failed to ruffle its leaves. The table was a long tombstone taken from the floor of a deserted abbey nearby; we ate heartily on the belly of an austere priest stiffly engraved in the granite.
In the evening, we had yet to explore the second floor where, according to Mr. Tibaldiere, suddenly excited by his own words, rested the jewels of his collection: coelacanths, large saurians from Borneo, and other survivors of antediluvian times. Therefore, I dined again at Guernipin, but I managed to escape the lecture after the meal. By now the place was familiar to me so I went to bed alone, this time keeping the lamp. And, fearing a new awakening on the roof terrace, I left the door to the corridor open but firmly shut the door leading to the tower, to avoid renewing the misadventure of the night before. I went to bed and began reading a book, but hardly had I reached the third page than it slipped from my hands. I blew out the light and let sleep come. This time the heat did not torment me, on the contrary! Again, I was involved in a dream that seemed light-hearted in the beginning...I visited Guernipin on my own, only to discover new rooms of an amazing variety...I could finally handle birds, touch soft plumage...Mysterious birds of unknown shapes, which came alive and quivered under my hands...Soon they were so numerous they crowded me, pushing me, guiding me to the freedom of the park, where they remained around me, driven by a silent determination...Mr. Tibaldiere appeared on the front steps and indignantly shouted to come back before his most precious avian specimens escaped forever...Anger choked his cries, to the point they resembled a bullfrog"s call...But, not listening, I suddenly ran away, now at the heart of the cl.u.s.ter of freed birds, whose wishes I obeyed, and which led me so fast I was out of breath...I ran on until I felt a terrible tightness to my heart...Choking, I felt myself gradually hindered in my race by viscid forces, which woke me suddenly.
Today, I find it impossible to describe the violent revulsion I felt while I was victim to that cold thickness. Brusquely, I returned to reality, and found my feet in gluey mud up to my thighs. Hadn"t I been sleeping? Where was my bed? And Guernipin? Where was I? Prisoner to a monstrous vacuum that was slowly sucking me in, I was trapped within a stinking, nauseous swamp. My hands, my arms, in vain sought purchase: a root, a branch, my life...Sudden bellows, reminiscent of an angry bull, broke my struggle. From the marsh where I was sinking, they tore at the night. Despite my terror, I identified a heron"s call. But instead of being regular in their three consecutive notes, these cries came with no pattern, no rhythm.
Then I saw it...thrashing next to me. And Sylvain"s comments came back to me: the Ghoulbird. Did it exist? Yes, it did, for this could only be the mythic bird, shaking with justified laughter at its gullible and ridiculous prey. And here I was, in the middle of the Gobble-Ox Marsh.
Nevertheless, I saw the bird hop around as if under the same threat from the swallowing slough. Seeing my redoubled efforts to break free from the mud that was gradually gaining on me, the bird cried louder. I would have thought it wanted to coax me into escaping the quagmire. I finally managed to reach the nearest stretch of gra.s.s and, extricating myself from the greedy mud, I crawled to safety. The heron, which had come closer, supported me by flapping his wings, helping me to reach the firm soil of a pebbly path. If I did not collapse into a heap, I owed it to the angelic bird that nudged me with its beak, and forced me to rise and head for Guernipin, a solid and rea.s.suring sight within reach of hope.
Then I felt an invisible, hostile force that knotted my spirit with terror. I felt the terrifying sensation of a huge but impalpable single wing flapping around me, as nimble as a ray of nothingness in the ocean of night, an immaterial reality that pushed me with relentless perseverance to bring me back into the swamp. Without the frantic cries of the heron, which was engaged in a frenzied dance to come to my rescue, inciting me to flee, I confess that I wouldn"t have resisted the Thing that held me enthralled.
And I understood at last! I realized that the Ghoulbird be it owl, crow, heron or any bird that happened to be there and sensed the threat was neither a legend nor an enemy of man, but a protector...that it warned of the unspeakable danger it perceived...That its cries, far from being cursed calls, were a warning: terrified, the bird screamed against fear, not to elicit fear!...The Marsh of Gobble-Ox, foul lair still preserved after thousands of years, harboured an invisible ravenous monster, survivor of the times when dark powers ruled under the subtlest forms!
I then glimpsed two greenish and fleeting glows...An illusion, a reflection of my fear? No...those glowing spots were eyes! Screaming in revulsion, I wrenched myself free from the horror that had chosen me and had already failed to lure me in my sleep, out of my bed at Guernipin.
At sunrise, Mr. Tibaldiere, eager to show me around the floor of prehistoric ancestors, surely gave Sylvain the order to wake me up. But all the servant could find of me, apart from traces of mud left everywhere, was this note, doubtless destined to remain a mystery: ...Never, ever, kill the Ghoulbird...
The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be.
Gahan Wilson.
Gahan Wilson (1930) is an iconic American writer and cartoonist who has received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. (The World Fantasy Award bust of H. P. Lovecraft was designed by Wilson.) His art, routinely appearing in The New Yorker, intersects with his fiction in their shared playful grotesquery. Stories have appeared in Playboy, Omni, and, perhaps most famously, in Again, Dangerous Visions with a tale whose t.i.tle was simply an ink blob. The three-volume set, Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons (2010), showcases his art. "The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be" (1967), using Lewis Carroll"s Through the Looking Gla.s.s as partial inspiration, is one of the weirder and more disturbing tales in this volume.
I felt we made an embarra.s.sing contrast to the open serenity of the scene around us. The pure blue of the sky was unmarked by a single cloud or bird, and nothing stirred on the vast stretch of beach except ourselves. The sea, sparkling under the freshness of the early morning sun, looked invitingly clean. I wanted to wade into it and wash myself, but I was afraid I would contaminate it.
We are a contamination here, I thought. We"re like a group of sticky bugs crawling in an ugly little crowd over polished marble. If I were G.o.d and looked down and saw us, lugging our baskets and our silly, bright blankets, I would step on us and squash us with my foot.
We should have been lovers or monks in such a place, but we were only a crowd of bored and boring drunks. You were always drunk when you were with Carl. Good old, mean old Carl was the greatest little drink pourer in the world. He used drinks like other types of s.a.d.i.s.ts used whips. He kept beating you with them until you dropped or sobbed or went mad, and he enjoyed every step of the process.
We"d been drinking all night, and when the morning came, somebody, I think it was Mandie, got the great idea that we should all go out on a picnic. Naturally, we thought it was an inspiration, we were nothing if not real sports, and so we"d packed some goodies, not forgetting the liquor, and we"d piled into the car, and there we were, weaving across the beach, looking for a place to spread our tacky banquet.
We located a broad, low rock, decided it would serve for our table, and loaded it with the latest in plastic chinaware, a haphazard collection of food, and a quant.i.ty of bottles.
Someone had packed a tin of Spam among the other offerings, and, when I saw it, I was suddenly overwhelmed with an absurd feeling of nostalgia. It reminded me of the war and of myself soldier-boying up through Italy. It also reminded me of how long ago the whole thing had been and how little I"d done of what I"d dreamed I"d do back then.