The Maggot People (6 page)

Günter jumped out of the van and shook himself, apologetic and somewhat ill-at-ease. “Hello, Purissima. We're back.”

“Of course you're back; you were always coming back. Ariel looks ready for the cemetery, I can practically smell the corpse already.” Her voice smattered like shiny rivets flung angrily at a tiled floor: rapid-firing pidgin English with strong Spanish, possibly Mexican, roots.

Günter yawned. “Maybe. She has pain… and numbness.”

“Pain and numbness… pain and numbness…” Purissima shook her head, filled with a pleasurable regret. “Those twins I've lived with for so long I don't even notice them no more. They don't kill you, that's the only good thing to be said of them.” Purissima spun round and led them down the garden path, after throwing Michael a skew-whiff gaze and murmuring into his ear: “You're her latest lamb, I suppose?” Before Michael could respond, Purissima clapped her hands: “Quick, quick. Bring her round. I will make a bed for her, I will fetch herbs.”

She disappeared with a swish of her skirts.

“Fucking herbs!” said Günter. “Mumbo jumbo. It's medievalism, it's the jester's fucking cap and bells round the ankle… know what I mean?” His hairy loins and swinging scrotum trotted off as he sought out some shade at the bottom of the garden under overhanging trees.

Ariel climbed out of the Transit with infinite care, as if she had a razor blade lodged in her innards. “Give me your hand.”

They stumbled round the white wooden house, along burgeoning flowerbeds. At the back, a tourist bed had already been placed in the middle of a large rose garden. Purissima returned with a basket of ointments and immediately began helping Ariel out of her sweat-soaked clothes, rubbing rose oil into her scalp and neck. Michael stood indecisively at her side, wanting to help but not quite knowing what to do. He sat down in the grass, watching, not speaking. An hour passed, then Purissima took his arm and whispered, more slowly now:

“Come inside with me. She must sleep.” As they made their way back to the house, she continued: “They've retreated slightly. Confused. Rose oil has a restorative effect on the system. The massage has to be repeated every four hours. But you have to stay away from her. Do not touch her, do you understand? Keep your filthiness away from my precious love.”

“Will she die?”

“One day we all die; even
you
. We leave our precious skins on the floor, we step out of the cage and we're free.”

“When… will she die?” he persevered.

“Oh, when her time comes.” She raised her sharp little fist and shook it in front of Michael's chin, then stalked off with a muttered curse.

Later, Michael tracked down Günter, who was sitting with his back to them, looking out over the lavender fields. “Sorry if I don't turn round,” said Günter. “The wind is right in my face. I'm in lavender heaven.”

“No, no… I only came to ask…”

“You want to know what's happening. Okay. It's really not much more than a grand tragedienne mystifying what any fool could see. Drop a lump of shit from a very great height and watch what happens next.”

“Who are you Günter? I'd like to know.”

“I can tell you but it will take a little time.”

“Could you annotate?”

“I like you when you're sarcastic, Michael; it's so much better than your shocked-little-boy act. You should really cultivate sarcasm.” His black dog-lips parted in what one might choose to see as a smile. “Very well, for you I will annotate,” he said.

11
.

“I was a weak-spirited young man,” said Günter. “In myself I had nothing, I was born with a love of my mother's breast and I did not move beyond this love of the breast. I grew up in East Germany. In those days it was a brutal place; there was every opportunity for weak persons to be decorated with medals and insignia as a way of labeling themselves, quickly and conveniently explaining their status and identity. Even when I was a boy, they put me in a uniform and taught me to shoot and march. A private has to salute more or less any scum in uniform, signifying that he respects the other person's rank and defers to him. This is about as low as human life can get, Michael. We were all very keen on it in those days, everyone had to have a label on him, thank Christ they hadn't invented bar codes yet… we would have spent our whole fucking lives going through scanners.”

“What period are you in?”

“After the war,” said Günter. “I am talking about myself and I am annotating.”

“You must be old, then?”

“Old. Yes, I am old. You can't see my age in my face, but you wouldn't have recognized me back then, either. I was very fond of marching about and saluting as soon as I saw some shit coming along with polished boots and vodka on his breath and his red nose stuck up in the air. People were big on sticking their noses in the air; they felt they were very important and had to tell everyone about it.” His eyes blinked intently. “You know, I think it's the main reason why Marx came up with his socialist claptrap. The workers in their lumpy old clogs must have got pissed off in the end when the haughty ones came marching past in their shiny boots, waving their brand new guns. Jealousy, I think it's the only human emotion.”

“You were going to tell me who you were, Günter.”

“One needs a bit of detail to do it properly. I could tell you about a section of wall I had to guard. People always think all the guards were posted around the fucking Brandenburg Gate, but most of us were stuck in some god-awful village full of stinking peasants. We lived on sauerkraut and sausage; we felt it was good enough for us, as long as it was meat we felt we were doing all right. The only good part was I had a decent girlfriend. She was a cook in a hospital canteen; she used to iron my clothes and make porridge in the evenings. I don't know where she was from, she must have been Armenian or something, she squelched like mud in the bedroom but I couldn't get her pregnant however hard I tried. Later I realised she was a maggot girl. Little bitch filled me with them too; then she died. I went over the fence after that, claimed political asylum and hitchhiked down to Rome. It didn't take me long to hang up my uniform and join a religious order. I was a novice for a few years. The rest is history.”

“You know Günter, I'm starting to suspect you of being a bit of a liar.”

“Oh, I am. Lying is what one has to do if one wants to convince people of anything. Even history is a lie; it's a massive constructed lie. Religion is the hugest lie of them all.”

“No wonder they turned you into a dog. I would have turned you into a something strange, like an anteater.”

“The only truth,” said Günter, “is that air comes in and out of your nostrils.”

Across the garden Ariel was once again being massaged by Purissima.

“Is her time up?” said Michael.

“Oh, she has time enough. Time we have. Life we don't have,” said Günter. “Speed is not something I admire anyway. Speed is a rejection of everything I like; a love of speed may even be a disease of sorts. I'd like to dissect the brains of people who like motorbikes. For the good of the human race. I mean turn them into medical research.”

“Is this your idea of annotation?”

Günter looked at him with narrowing eyes. “There is something about you that surprises me, Michael. You seem quite small, but once you open your mouth, one begins to sense there's more substance.”

“I thought we were talking about you?”

“Yes. We were. I was a kid as well, a long time ago. After the war, after all the shits in uniforms were rounded up by the Americans and the Russians and either shot or packed into trains and taken away, I went into the hills and threw away my uniform and learned about cows and milking and making cheese. They were good years. I rarely went to the bottom of the valley; I stayed around the high pastures and hardly spoke to anyone except the farmer I was working for. It was at this time that I first got interested in religion. I suppose the paraphernalia interested me, the cloaks and vestments and candles and rituals and crossing oneself at every opportunity; it was more or less the same as the army, except in the spiritual world all the killing would be done by a higher power.” He raised his paw, to make a distinction: “And interestingly one would not be killed until after one had already died. I am speaking of damnation, of course. God would fling one into a burning pit if one had not done one's duty. I liked this, it freed humans from the awful necessity of butchering each other; at least that's what I thought at the time. I went for it hook, line and sinker. But before I could act on it I was arrested. They put a gun in my hand and told me to start patrolling and shoot anyone I saw. It seemed reasonable for a while.”

“Maybe you should write a book about your life, Günter.”

“I can see you are laughing at me, Michael. In fact I did write a book. It didn't do very well. I think it was banned, either by the Russians or the East Germans. My theories were no crazier than theirs, but humans always get murderous if anyone comes up with a different theory, especially if it involves any sort of religious ideas. God help the man who expresses any kind of opinion about the color of God's beard. Wake up, fuckers, God does not have a beard and beards do not have a God to attach themselves to; they float around aimlessly in space. Most wars have been fought over details, Michael. What sort of trousers you should wear? Should you eat cow hocks or boiled fish? Is it correct to play a mandolin? Should you wear your hair long or shave your head?” He growled. “It makes my teeth itch; it makes me want to sink them into a larded, pompous ass.”

“And then?”

“Well, after I took holy orders in Rome I had even more problems, most of them because I wouldn't respect some shit because of his cloak. You know my name should not be Günter at all. It should be ‘Will You Excuse Me If I'm Fucking Unimpressed?' Because that's been the theme of my life. Always.” He lay down his head. “And now I don't care anymore. I've seen the progression of the human race, I remember those beautiful mountains when I was a young man. A few years after the war, a lot of shits with skis started showing up in the winters. The landowner cut long swaths through the trees and put up ski lifts. More and more shits started coming for the skiing, crowding the bars, eating cheese fondue and drinking copious amounts of beer. The amount of fucking going on was mind-boggling; they were worse than hogs. Maggots were hatching like locusts, spilling out everywhere.” He rolled onto his back and sighed pleasurably. “I wish people could try and appreciate how lovely it is to lie still and smell the grass.”

“I guess they want to be a bit more dynamic.”

“You know,” said Günter, “I knew a guy once; he was a filthy guy covered in tattoos and he lived in a cave and he only had two brown teeth left in his mouth. Do you want to know what he did for a living? He made soap, that's what. And he scented it with flowers.”

“I don't get the connection.”

“That's what we are, that's who I am… and you too. We're the filthy ones who make soap, but we never wash ourselves…”

12
.

In the morning when Michael woke up he vaguely remembered having been massaged in the night with essential oils, rose and something like lavender and sandalwood.

“For protection,” whispered Ariel with a smile, adding, “We are safe here. Purissima knows how to handle them.”

Michael looked at her. “What happened to you yesterday?”

“It's all so unnatural,” said Ariel.

“What is?”

“When they want more
lebensraum
you really don't have much of a choice. They start to multiply; you feel them pressing against the inside of your skin, and you know you have to start looking for the pressure valve.”

“The pressure valve?”

“Sex…” She laughed, tears glittering in her eyes. “We don't own our bodies anymore. We can't do what we want with them. The only time they ever let me feel sexual excitement is when I'm with a straight man. I mean a man who's not been maggotized.”

“So the first time we slept together…”

“… was incredible. I must have had twenty-five orgasms that night. Maggot orgasms, you know—simulated orgasms because your body no longer has the ability to… I mean, they just send the impulses up to the brain. I even had an orgasm when I came out to speak with you the first time. That's why all I could think of to say was that silly thing about ice cream. Who cares about stupid orgasms, anyway? I'm tired of them, personally.” “So it's just procreation for them?”

Ariel laughed. “Yes. For them. Go forth and multiply. That old chestnut. They reward sexually aggressive behavior with strangers. That way they find new host bodies.” Her face clouded over. “But they take away a woman's ability to have a child. They rob her of that. Not maliciously. They don't think; they don't do it on purpose. But all the most evil things are senseless mechanisms. A snake, the way it lashes out and bites you without even thinking about it. A tsunami. Are these things evil? I would say they are. Probably even maggots are evil.”

Michael sat up in shock, the realization striking home. “So when you told me that thing about how good the maggots were it was just bullshit!”

“Ach,” she said, “you were ripe for the taking. Anyway, you had a tumor, you were seriously ill.” She met his accusing stare. “Michael, if I apologized to you now it would be an empty gesture. I knew what I was doing when I picked you up. I'd probably do it again if I had to. I found myself a Provençal backwater, a village full of repressed, sad fuckers with generations of stupefied lunatics behind them. Moldering scar tissue in their attics. I put on my best dress and I walked fresh as a daisy through the village square until some dolt of a peasant came sniffing at me. By that I mean
you
, of course. I have to admit you were more sophisticated than most peasants I've had. Men who pick you flowers in a ditch and come to you with dried sweat in their armpits. With callused, dirty hands… smelling of shit, red wine, and cheap aftershave. They ask you to marry them as soon as you wake up after the first night of fucking… because they want a woman to do the cooking and cleaning, someone they can screw when they come home in the evening.”