Anonyma Read online

  There was enough of conversation to hide the void—inattention—that remained in me as constant as the rustling of the papers against the window. Untranslated, I think, with regret. I stopped reading long ago, unable to extend my concentration on text beyond the point of form. To decipher, one must understand something beyond the confines of materiality. The essence of writing, from that time—a majestic, dignified gloom, teeth-deep in the workings of a parallel world. Carrying out such a task casually would be a cruel injustice. To carry it out in vanity, as Nicholas had done, would be an affront to nature and the unnatural, alike. He wanted me to translate the book. He wanted to know how the ritual must be done.

  While once these dark texts birthed a colored wonderment, now I descend, in stale boredom over them. As discontented as vegetables drowning in slime.

  The book itself is a dead man’s cologne—fragrant with the thickness of plastic and a faint hint of rot and flowers. I tuck myself in with this finery. Run the cool cover over my thighs and begin again.

  ▼

  Vava is as sick as one can ever be, but not as sick as mother, in her tomb.

  Home is a house of somber weight. Tired feet creek past the doorway and into the shabby kitchen. Peeling yellow paint and discount furniture, cramped into the most inhospitable of places. She steps around loose plastic bags on the floor, noting it needs to be swept, and leans into the parlor.

  There sits Vava, in a daze of memory. Hearing me come in, she remains as still as a corpse.

  I enter my bedroom, the heat of exhaustion rippling through my legs. After placing my bag against the closet door, I toss one shoe and then the other, glitter heel crossing past dim lamplight and scratching the posterior wall. I don’t lie down on the bed but kneel, staring at myself in the mirror opposite me. Sliding off of the sheets, stepping with weighted grace to the chest of drawers beneath the mirror… The lowest drawer pulses with the animal magnetics of bitter memory. I hesitate, sliding the door open, drawing coin belts and bedlahs, black letters and paper without care, concentration centered on the lowest of contents.

  I’ve taken to an unbridled fascination with the eccentric and untoward early in life, but there was no fascination so entrenched as the one I had for Von Aurovitch. It began with a small clipping in the local newspaper, detailing the anniversary of an exhibition held in the city one hundred years prior.

  We basked in the archaic pessimism of Von Aurovitch’s works. In addition to his massive catalogue of sculptures, paintings, etchings, and machines, he released two written works. One, a collection of essays from his earlier years, detailing his philosophical leanings and journey of self-discovery in extreme locations across the globe. The other, his fragmented translation of the Scaearulldytheraeum, a book pulled from the deep sands of my Persian ancestral lands, detailing the most precious details regarding life, death, and worlds beyond the realm of human sight. These were the obsessions that drove him mad, warping his once whimsical and somber art into machinations of madness.

  As time went on, and his madness devoured the last of his reason, his creations grew more grotesque, more abhorrent, and somehow, more realistic.

  ▼

  I’m awake —somewhere in the fourth hour, before light, to read. I feel like a ball of filth, but must make something of the morning, despite this. I read the end chapter only, and became distracted enough by the pounding in my skull to abandon it. A waste of a day, perhaps? I will take to reading later, provided my condition improves. I cannot take the darkness of these characters now.

  IV.

  I am trying to escape the memories for as long as possible. I hope to finish the ninth Cantex of the Scaearulldytheraeum for analysis, though progression is slow. The untranslated sections grow more common, the deeper one gets into the tome. I believe it will take me until Spring, possibly even until summer to finish. I would dearly like a draft by Christmas day. That would be the ultimate gift, wouldn’t it?

  Every year I promised myself love in time for winter. In time to stand together on the woodland bridge, in snowfall. To share one gentle kiss. Another year arrives, without a hope in hell of this. Will it ever manifest? This dream of passion? I don’t believe so, though I ask the universe anyway.

  All I want in this life is love and independence. A family of my own. To dance in the way of my ancestors again. I would throw away all other pursuits for these.

  ▼

  It was heard about town that I had my books. Before the dark shadow crept over me, I could often be seen in small bookshops in the northern corner. Those very places that housed aging editions of the most insidious handiwork in the realm of sorcery and daggers. But never fiction. Never fiction.

  I tire of myself in every aspect. Life, mind, and cage. I want only to soar beyond this place, these memories. To know love, safety, pride. Worth, even.

  It seems so little to ask of the universe, until I realize that the ever-constructing universe is indefinable, and within the body. My body is tired, tired, broken by him him him. Though today improved profoundly with the passage of hours. A dark storm brews on the horizon. I sat outside, enjoying the heavy sting of wind on our cheeks. I took a walk afterwards, through the woods on my usual path. I was taunted by memories for a bit, but quickly disengaged from my conscious mind. A moth, floating gently to its demise, shook my past from me.

  I miss him so much sometimes. Is this possible? Or maybe the sense that I meant something, even if that something was dark. This sensation, this aching, will pass with time, won’t it? For now I will sleep, I will read, I will study life literature, and I will heal alone.

  ▼

  It would seem that every book I read that examines the Scaearulldytheraeum, there are deeply disparaging excerpts aimed at women. I can’t help but feel hurt, or angry, every time I encounter such a passage. They speak of the shame of womanhood. Of the weakness and evil of femininity. I will never understand such an attitude. Understand the origins, the precursors of its development? Of course. But to think one can’t reason beyond such a dark set of interpretations…

  I have never felt more like a woman. In the love I feel for a man who breaks me open, the despair I feel over those who have sought to destroy me, all for being both woman and the possessor of a deep, prevailing resolve.

  There are giants who hold books from the motherland, chronicling the events of the first earth. They have no patience for the whispers of small men. Hazy plots of grandeur soak his conscience. I have heard these words—doom design- in the book. No resentment lingered as heavily as the great resentment: that anything given in love, freely, would never be returned. Not honestly.

  Oscilla, my pet snake, a blind, white beast as tired as myself, lurks on the far bookshelf. She watches me turn the pages, in angst.

  It is unlikely in such places that the use of truth is wholly effective. Distancing myself from alchemy and the wisdom of sages, it became clear to me that curiosity, when justified, will never have a proper audience.

  I am afraid to reveal myself as ready, hiding instead in the black thistle of my dreams. I awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Shards glittered across the bed sheets, damp from the remnants of the shattered bottle. A broken rhythm crowds my senses. Everything I had ever heard buzzed in my ears. Heathen whispers from the monstrous corner of the universe.

  It’s long past midnight. I’m in bed, staring at my breasts, guilty and at a loss as to how they have become so large. They are beautiful, yes. Though I think, rather wasted. I could be a great lover, and a greater mother.

  V.

  Housed in the netherworld of The Noctuary tower, the Majestic theatre is a hovel of confabulated circuitry. A wishing-well of edifice and smites. The shows housed there are brusque and demented, always with glimpses of savage body parts under lights of red and blue. Dirt, blood, water, spew, and dust. These were the holy markings of the Majestic stage, and no matter who came in and tried to gussy up the dump, these elements would remain. But there is no dust that sparkles quite as eeri
ly as that which sits atop peeling gold.

  Twenty actresses had played Ariette in twelve cities across the East coast. All were unknown actresses, or so I am told. They were not even billed by their true names. I’ve heard whispers that they were street girls that Bezalel had picked up on his night haunts, but I think not. I was not of his traveling troupe and cannot claim to have been witness to any motivation or materialization of malice. There is no such information in my eyes, ears, mouth, and these hands are worthless with the ink dwellers. I know nothing of Bezalel before this city. But of all that happened here, I can tell.

  I loved the play. He knew this. Knows this. Of course he would bring it to my city, where I couldn’t resist attending. The Curse of Ariette was the masterwork of another Von Aurovitch accolade. One who has been dead almost a century. Goethern’s blue lady, the centerpiece of the whole affair, drives the plot, the myth, the legend. She was the only one Von Aurovitch ever loved. All else fell into the bounds of rancor and despisement. How she had ascended these ranks to find sanctuary in his dark heart had remained a mystery to all—and a fascination.

  I remember the place, and it brings me to my knees. How he came to replicate a place that could scarcely be rediscovered in the woods is beyond the capacity of my mind to fathom. He must have returned to the bridge long after the last of our encounters. He must have studied it with particular obsession. How else could he have resurrected it here, on the stage? Without lifting a hand of his own, conveying only thoughts and ruminations to those in charge of construction?

  ▼

  The outline of trees can be seen in the far distance. They are starkly black; backlit by dark blue light. Tree branches loom overhead, swaying slightly. A little girl appears. She has dark hair and piercing eyes. The little girl wanders, seemingly lost and in awe of her surroundings as the dark shadow of a human figure looms in the background, watching her.

  The girl stops, noticing the moving shadow. She remains still as the shadow grows. A masked man appears, walking slowly towards her.

  The girl remains still as the man looms over her. The mask he wears is both majestic and frightening; an amalgamation of theatrical purity and whimsical predilection.

  Bezalel moves his thick hair back to show his long, pointed ears. The little girl is startled. As she stares, Bezalel reaches behind his head and slowly unties his mask. He removes it delicately, revealing his strong, painted face. Despite the profound makeup and contouring, what bleeds through is the face of a man decaying far before his time.

  The actor reaches his ghostly hand over his face and slowly removes the mask. He lowers it, revealing a profoundly structured, and faintly wicked, face. His cheekbones look to be cut from marble. His eyes Are extraordinarily light, even for blue. The man is a decaying masterpiece. But this is not the thought on his mind as he lowers the mask. His eyes are on... me.

  Why have I come here?

  He would never be seen without the sleekest of attire. His black jackets were buttoned up to the neck at all times. The silver buttons were engraved with indiscernible occult symbols from whatever ancient tome he adhered to. He wore velvet spats over his leather shoes, adding an old school flare to his gothic countenance. But it was hardly done in the manner of kitsch and camp. Bezalel was a force of profound elegance and class, and it hid the dark fire well for a time.

  Nicholas Bezalel was, for certain, what one would call a sartorial man, but this was not without its drawbacks.

  He appears to be a mere haunted shadow of his former self, although there is some forbidden strength in his demeanor.

  The little girl struggles to stand up. She stumbles, crying as she struggles to adjust to her newfound blindness. When she finds her footing, she quickens her pace, leaving the realm of the elves and exiting offstage.

  As she runs away, four figures emerge from the distance. It is four elves wearing masks. One in the center approaches Bezalel and removes his mask. He is an emaciated, strange-looking man. Bezalel turns to him.

  I sit in quiet contemplation, watching the scene.

  Bezalel shifts several steps as a jagged icicle descends from the heights of the trees and impales the girl. Blood splatters all over the stage and into the air. It looks so real.

  ▼

  I am awake within the memory of our first encounter. An exhibition of the works of Von Aurovitch. I stood in silent study, enraptured by one of Von Aurovitch’s earliest paintings, The Mare of A Thousand Wounds.

  He had the common light—a slight twinkle in the eye. They project the devil outside, guided by the manipulations of Bezalel. But I know nature, as I know myself, and the devils inside lives as freely as those who deign to erase them.

  He has no recrimination against himself. Behind the curtain of specialty, his scholarship and her artistic grandeur, behind the façade, the element of decay rolls on.

  “Anonyma. My blue lady.”

  That pleasurable pulse deep within the flesh came again. Something in the upstanding tower of platinum curls atop his head. The thin lips, the icy eyes. There was a hint of abnormality whispered only through ocular glints, askew in the most subtle of tendencies. But of gravitation, there was never any question. A hint of psychopathy lingered in the woman who chose that man. Or perhaps masochism, to the most archaic degree. My pallor, that of poltergeists, reflected in his overcast spectacles.

  He stares at me in that old way, and I feel the closeness of my grave. Is it death that I love, and seek without rest? Is this why I have come back to this place?

  I wonder about the need for this union. About the cries I stifle inside of me. I was weak, always. Quiet-tempered, hesitant, and true. This is no failing, of woman or man, or anyone. In a neutral world, such things become transient hues in a kaleidoscope of personalities on the living surface. In danger, however—conflict, passion, war—they become a liability.

  There are those who will seek to blame me for my burden. Who see the bruises on my face and believe I deserve them. They have to believe that. How else could they reconcile such a thing, before them? If I were innocent, and marked, then an injustice has been done. An injustice has been laid out before them. And one is meant to act in the face of injustice, not walk away. Cowardice lives in that walking. So they believe that I am deserving of this mark. Of this horrid life of mine. To think it could happen to them, or their innocent children. That this is the way of evil. And you turn from it every day, not wanting any involvement. What one fails to realize is that this, too, is left up to the cosmic rest. I have no hatred for them. No more than I do for myself.

  I walk to the offices in the back of the theatre. It looks like the waiting room of a doctor’s office, but with a desk and fewer chairs. The lights are fluorescent and the walls are white. Nicholas is in the doorway. He is no longer in his theatrical garb and wig, but wears a thinly-cut black suit. His hair is short and blonde. Without the makeup, his features are obvious, but so is his exhaustion. A haunted man.

  He says my name. He pulls my body to him, and I am as limp as the first time.

  We collapse together in this mess. He holds me around the waist, sliding his head down to rest on my stomach as I lean against the door. His face turns away, but I know what lies within him now. Those thoughts that stir with proximity to the body of your bearer—the one who robbed you of him all those years ago.

  I can feel the wetness drip from eye to mouth, and then to me. In this way, I know I am not forgiven. How could one expect any less from such a man? He wields and he wanders with the darkness of untold worlds, never without plans. My stomach turns beneath him. There will be little room for denial this time. There is something in him, beyond the confines of broken love and undying rest.

  This depression carries none of the subliminal delicacies of the romantic tradition. There is, rather, a sharp brutality to my melancholy. The kind of somber weight that causes a dull ache in the chest and rib cage, a slowing of motor skills, and the sense that a black veil had been cast down upon me from some unknown regi
on in space-time. There will be no enjoyment in former passions, no rationality even in the simplest of conflicts. My mind had become a battleground, riddled with the pounding and scraping and wheezing of a hard-fought and never-ending war. One of thoughts, one of emotions, and one of memories.

  VI.

  Pale rose ribbons cascade from my wrists. It is the darkest third of night--an endless whir, beyond sleep. In this house, I toss and turn in fear of death. Cold materials, Soaked in wax and the light of dreams, fearing only what is coming from the vastness of the night. In this house, three bellies press to the wall of dust - His. Mine. A phantom of another, fading life.

  My child dies within me. I remember the horror as though it has already passed. With a river of depression flooding through, transfixed by the menacing angles of the room. He is at attention in a fury of movement. An orgy of bones and rats sweeps across the floor. All circles around what he says in silent language. It is past bliss that haunts the womb so brutally.

  I pour the urn, the milk of moons, into the fire, tendrils of blue flame reaching up towards my hair. There is an air of doom-festivity. Blue walls, black curtains, the gaze of expectation--of loss-- in every eye. Black jelly slides off of the dinner plates, our feast one of starvation and decay. As intimately horrid as the meal of mirth and mouse. My passion for him is painful, endless. I twist my hips, lifting the skirt away from this living porcelain. Out of the half-smoke, still high from the heaviness of dreams, he pants and pulls at the ribbons, approaching from behind. He has touched the dark mist again, the look in his eye belonging to some second self, amiss in the green mist of mischief.

  Closed eyes scream into the celestial stillness. First dress, then panties, then bra, are ripped off and thrown onto the floor. Cold lips press against my back. He sits in his chair, pressing his body against mine, cock growing hard against my legs. Fingers glide across my breasts, my stomach—mouth sucking at a nipple as three fingers penetrate this hall of life. I cry out, silver passion pouring down my thighs. Collapsing into his arms—black fibres of cloth rubbing up against my skin—he carries me to the couch. The frost in his heart pours out – white dust falling over my body.