Hunger's Brides (215 page)

For a long moment his surroundings do not register. Then another instant as if through a negative. The dining room is painted black beneath a film of condensation gleaming under candlelight. Black matted carpet, walls daubed in crude, red glyphs.

He thinks he can hear the thrum of water boiling.

On the cheerful tablecloth of red and white checks, three stub candles gutter—black wax pools on the linen. It is humid. He has begun to sweat.

The table is set for three. Oblong wicker basket. White linen napkin. Loaf of bread, heels cut off. Saliva floods his mouth. A pang of hunger. His lower lip throbs.

The plates are heaped with a red-brown mass like stew. Drawing nearer, he sees in the dim light that the pieces are not diced but halved or whole. He stands, hungry, sweating, staring down at the plates. But he has not moved to feed himself. It is not until he has stared for a moment at these strange vegetables that he understands that this is a heart.

This is a kidney. Heart, liver, kidney …

The room reeks of meat.

Over the kitchen's black and white parquet, the same red-brown mass flows. White fridge, a stove painted black. The fridge door is open just wide enough to slash a blade of light across the floor. He masters his need to look inside.

The floor is greasy underfoot. A stainless steel cauldron lies on its side spilling stew. He feels the moisture through his sock, then the warmth. It feels … good. He nudges off his slipper and warms the other foot. He stands, anklebones pressed together. He wonders if someone has knelt in the hot mixture, or fallen. Long muddy smears streak the floor. The tracks of some incomprehensible dance. Partial handprints, red, on the fridge door.

Two more pots of stew bubbling mud-thick, sloppy, flatulent, on the stove. A kettle boiling dry. The fourth burner red, empty, fierce. Twin sinks, piled dishes. A cleaver. Counters heaped high with raw meat. A hundredweight of meat—ragged cuts—ribs, thighs, hocks, bone.

Pictoglyphs are painted on the kitchen walls. In yellow, white, blue, red. Sun, snake, ox, dog … what might be a pig.

He touches nothing, walks out stiff-kneed over the greasy floor.

Two years before, the living room was already an office, its walls a pale sky-blue. Red symbols now on the blue walls, red handprints in the hall … The bookshelves are ransacked. In the middle of the floor a pyre of books—filleted, broken-backed. The crumpled scrolls of maps. A television lying face up on the floor. He sees now that it is switched on. Figures slide across the upturned screen and up across the ceiling. The effect leaves him dizzy, like looking deep into a face wrongside up.

In the corner, the desk stands firm … island of order, wide rock splitting a flood. Neat stacks of file folders, workbooks, computer disks. White cardboard box, “Dr. Donald Gregory” printed on the side in red felt pen. It is pleasant to read this name. His. A welcoming. The box is almost empty, a few keepsakes … amber paperweight, amethyst crystal, yellow key chain.

One sheet of paper is taped over the monitor. Underneath, the screen is nearly blank, a cool dark blue, white cursor blinking after the words,
Gentle Reader …

The sheet between his sticky fingers also begins with these same two words but is followed with the shingled shapes of paragraphs. He begins to read. It feels good to read, even if the words make no sense to him. His eyes trace the sturdy shapes of sentences … white mortar, black brick. He hears from down the hall a rustling, like leaves.

It has never once occurred to him to call out. He does not want to hear his voice now. Here in these rooms. He puts the paper in the
box. As he walks down the hall, he clutches a dull brass letter-opener in one hand. He smells starter fluid. The smell of a barbecue, he knows this well.

Smashed mirror … tiny obelisks spill rainbows on the bathroom floor. Across the hall, a door open on a darkened bedroom. This too he knows well. In the doorway he gropes for the light switch against the dark wall, turns his head, sees his own dim shadow traced across an unmade bed. The bedroom light is burnt out or broken. The solvent smell is stronger here. In the half-light by the bed he sees the body. He cannot tell if it is breathing, kneels beside it. He brings the brass blade to her lips.

He leans back toward the light, lifts the letter-opener to see if it has come away fogged. But the room is too dark. He hears the rustling as he shifts. It was not the rustle of leaves he heard but plastic. He starts, lifts a hand—it is wet, almost black. First he thinks this slick blackness is his, but there is so much.

She is lying on plastic bags spread out over the carpet. Her head rests lightly against the low night table. On this, the phone. As if she is waiting for a call. Or grown tired making them, has stopped to rest a while.

How long?

He has a simple thought, an easier thought. 911.

He dials, he grows cunning, thinks of fingerprints, recordings. He knows he does not need to speak, sets the receiver quietly beside the phone. The narrow-throated chatter chirps brightly on. He looks down at her, thinks of his daughter, tobogganing … happy children sliding down on a plastic sheet. Something he has seen or once done himself … something else he can't remember now.

He grips the bag. It is slippery. He forces his fingers through, clutches it between his fists, drags his burden towards the bathroom—dead weight, toward the light.

She is naked, the garbage bags are green. A black liquid pools and splits like oil on water. Black mercury on a plastic scape. The quantities are a surprise to him. Perhaps with blood there always seems more than there is. He finds in this thought a consolation.

In the hallway he lets go of the plastic slide, takes her under the arms, drags her into the bathroom. Hears a distant popping of glass under his stockinged feet. He lets her head down gently on the floor, stands over her. Studies her.

It has been so long. Has she changed? Has he? He thinks he has. Deep tan lines at her neck, elbows, calves. A sandal's brindling on little feet, out-turned. Her chestnut hair is matted. The body has become so frail. Pelvic ridge, soft declines of skin. A dressed hare's long, wasted thighs. Familiar tuft between the legs … a dark rabbit's foot. His eyes consume her. Bird knees, quill-boned ankles, rose-tipped breasts spilling back and up towards the throat, swelling their breastplate of hollow bone. Poetry … it is years since he tried this, it is good to try now. He kneels beside her as on a diamond shawl. He is pleased with the image, though its words have not yet come.

Thoughtfully his eyes follow the dotted lines traced in pink lipstick from her throat to her knees.

Afterwards he will think of a surgeon's pencil, now he thinks of meat, a butcher's diagram. Cuts of meat. He finds this thought disagreeable. He wants to cover this. He takes off his tweed jacket, drapes it over her, up to the wound. He finds it hard to cover this. He stares as into a dark well. Deep, jagged, barely oozing … a black, exhausted spring. From where belly meets breastbone, toward him it runs the full length of the first rib, shallower, more ragged at the lower end. Dull white bone. A membrane's sheen …

He rouses himself from this fascination. He must prepare the body. She has no one else. Who else is there for this? His eyes search the room. Flowered shower curtain crumpled in the tub … bare chrome towel rack, one chalked end pulled slightly from the drywall. On the toilet tank is a beige enamel basin laid with dried grasses and wildflowers. Underneath the sink a stiff grey rag, scouring powder.

Basin in his lap, in his hands, he sits a moment, watching her belly's faint rise and fall. He seems to have forgotten his plan. He remembers now … he remembers everything. Memories, moments flood back to him in their tender rise and fall. He is grateful to have something now to do. Something solemn, necessary. At the sink he adjusts the temperature. Not too hot to burn her, not too chill. He adds the scouring powder, raises a blue froth with his bright-pink fingertips.

He kneels to wash her hands. The deep blade-cuts in her left, the scratches in her right. Swishing the grey rag in the basin, wringing it dry. He is enchanted with the flexibility of her hands, the bonelessness of a small child's. Again … left hand, right. He bathes her hands. Again. Each time he feels a little older with the popping in his knees,
as he kneels close over her, across her, to the basin. Again. His head is bent low over the hand between his. He rocks again over warm, sticky knees.

His face is lost in thought. His face is lost to sight. Time is lost to him. He has reached a place he has never been. The twisted cloth unwinds as it hangs from his stilled hands. His body continues to mark a time … a slow sway back and forth, as though to music. Perhaps there is music. He appears now to be singing, murmuring a lyric. Perhaps there is music. Small parts of the story are lost. The music, the sight of his face … the look in his eyes as he shudders, once, and asks from a place far off, what do you want from me? Small parts are lost.

And still the white flutter behind his eyes, this confusion, this muted gesturing. There is something this flutter is concealing. Something hiding from him on the other side. He cannot keep her hands clean, though they are now more dear to him than anything. He cannot keep them clean. He has washed them many times in warm water. But now the left is bleeding more than ever. Something is very wrong with this bright, red blood, its rise and fall. She is alive. There is something else he should be doing. He has risen to a crouch.

She is alive.

She is bleeding to death.

No towels
there is nothing—no, not his filthy socks—he tears his T-shirt off, balls it tight against the chest wound. He holds it there, remembers she gave this shirt to him … some kind of joke of hers. The wound bleeds profusely, hot, bright. He has broken something open in her. Again. She is bleeding to death. Tie it down, bind it tight—he is tearing at the green plastic sheet, trying to rip it into strips. It is slippery, it won't tear. It is strong, it won't tear. Brightness spilling over the floor. It won't tear … his weakness, its strength make him want to weep. He hacks away with a slippery shard of glass clutched tight in his fist. It is no good, it won't cut straight.

He is on her now, tamping the T-shirt down with the pressure of his own chest. It is tight. There will be less bleeding. Everything will be alright, he thinks this through the whiteness….

It is warm here. The room is so white. Walls, tub, sink. He could fall asleep. He feels the smooth warmth of skin on skin. Remembers how it once was with them.

It is only later that his arousal will fill him with a mortal, scorching shame. Now it only stirs and deepens his confusion; he lies trembling slightly, like a dog half-trained. He pushes the coat down over her thighs. With one hand he fumbles open the button of his jeans. He arches his back, spreads wide the fly. He would love to take off his jeans, feel the full, swelling length of skin on skin, but he cannot do this without lifting the pressure from her chest.

He has taken her before in her sleep, more than once. This warmth, this whiteness … But it has been so long. A long time. He feels the need to ask. A kind of delicacy. He looks into her face, waiting, to see if she will wake.

She is having trouble breathing under his weight. But she is bleeding. She is breathing, she is bleeding. He must stop one of these. It is important here, he knows, not to be mistaken. He must stop one of these.

Relief
… he feels a dizzy urge to write the answer down. He leans down to give her his breath, seals her lips, the prince's kiss, the kiss of life. She stirs. Under him. Now she will wake. Everything will be alright now. She stirs. He will ask if it's okay. Her eyes open, she smiles up into his. Warmth, reassurance … those green and amber eyes, so near. The light runs out of them. Three convulsions.

One.

Two. At the second the fingers of her right hand claw his forearm.

The third wracks her—the smiling face crashes into his then the head slams back against the floor. A low echo, muffled … sodden. He hears it still.

He hears a siren, wailing now. Far off. An accident somewhere, the roads are hell.

As at a switch being thrown pain hits him in a wave. A mix of voltages and frequencies. A raking—his
arm
, flame in his knees and feet, cold agony in one palm … mouth scorched, at his temple a dark bloom of pain.

His nose is bleeding again.

The siren is for him. He looks down over his hairy, blood-caked length. Run. He sees himself as he shall be seen,
run
. They will see him, they will know him
they will know
. He scrambles to his feet, does up his pants, turns—

In the hall an animal cunning stops him, the small ally within. He turns back for the coat draped across her thighs, does not look at her
as he lifts it, at his lucky rabbit's foot. He remembers the phone. With a pillowcase, he wipes the receiver clean. Walks back to the living room. The cardboard box.
Take the box with the name
. His cunning is a friend to him, a small animal in the night. He lifts the box but pauses. It is nearly empty. A few keepsakes….

He fills it with the things stacked neatly beside, slips through the sliding door and over the rail. He protects his hand with a pillowcase.

The air is less cold. A warm wind has stirred.

Into the pit of his stomach seeps an icy sensation. In the rearview mirror, as he turns back toward the boulevard, coloured lights flash gaily in the street.

He runs away. He saves himself. He is unmasked.

He runs.

Let the record show it. Let it show his face. By these works he shall be known.

B
RIGHT
C
HILD