Archangel Morpheus
Forrest Aguirre
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Forrest Aguirre
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Chapter 1
The grist for my tale ascends from the boiling of my thoughts. They are a churning stew of experience, blind opinion, psychic stress, belief, eccentricity, and whimsical fantasy. It is this moil of confusion that prevents me from objectification. They collide, debate, and contradict one another, each vying for acceptance from me in an attempt to become my reality. They claw at each other, trying to submerge their immediate opponent in obscurity, only to be taken and shoved under by another. A thought surfaces from the dark well of sub consciousness; I view, with stark clarity, its face. It is as utterly vivid as any physical object I have seen, heard, tasted, or felt. Then, after hovering in my view only momentarily, the thought is pulled from beneath like Dante's Sullen and Angry in the River Styx, disappearing into an ill-defined gloom, only to be replaced by the slow surfacing of another. It is as if the stage is mobbed by the audience, an anarchical confluence of Masses' Tyranny imposed upon the director's wishes, the play writing itself. It is uncontrollable, this onslaught of visionary sub consciousness. I am engulfed by it.
Yet, despite the sheer volume of these thoughts, there is little real impetus behind the human imagination, constrained as it is by the domestic worries that weigh us down. We have an immense cranial capacity, but utterly fail to fill it, to reach our full potential. For every dream fulfilled - a sexual fantasy realized, a long-lost friend found, the childish bravado of finally standing up to the school bully (or a viable substitute) - there are countless dreams that remain just that. Our willpower and hope are insufficient to overcome our fears and primal desires. You cannot fly away from monsters, you are incapable of returning a loved one to life, and your vision is too clouded by the day-to-day to allow you vision sufficient to see clearly into the worlds beyond your waking state. You cannot realize your dreams.
That doesn't stop you from trying, however. Something compels you. Something unseen, arcane, and wonderful. I know. I feel it also.
I must objectify my evisceration. In my best academic fashion - which is not saying much, given my lack of formal education, though I have been educated, as you will see - I self-narrate an account as sterile as the white, featureless room in which I lay.
The doctor makes an incision. I feel pain, burning. A rupture. An assistant reels out my intestines. There is no emotion in the eyes above her mask. I feel emptiness. Void. Another woman, unmasked, approaches the table. She is beauty incarnate, an angel, no less, her gold halo embossed with the seven names of God, a kabbalistic crown floating over her shining red hair. She leans over, pressing her wine-hued lips to mine and a divine wind suffuses what is left of my body as others - all but their hands and forearms hidden by the canopy of her white-feathered wings - tug at my lungs and heart. I feel no pain this time as the organs dislodge from beneath my ribs, though a sense of loss washes over me as warm, sticky blood cascades down my sides. But the loss is forgotten as she kisses me. Her breath is frankincense mixed with roses, and I feel a narcotic numbness filter through my soul, my tongue and lips tingling with the taste of honey. She lifts her head, speaking words no mortal can comprehend in a language the sound of trickling water, of lemon trees in a warm sea breeze, of an infant's coo. She is trying to comfort me, wiping my sweat-drenched brow with silk kerchiefs, touching my face the way my mother did when I was young and ill.
My inner ears are then removed, next my eyes - my empty sockets only to be re-filled with giant fire opals, their brilliance reflected in the glory of her own heavenly orbs. I see more clearly now, the haziness of my initial waking gone. Academic objectivity has fled, replaced by the subjective experience of the sublime.
A canary perches on each of my earlobes, the pair chirping understanding into me. "Hear the language of the Archangel Morpheus, new child." I listen to their voices, like zephyrs across a crystal-strung harp.
"Bring the organs."
"As you wish, exalted one."
"The essence is here."
"Very good. We will complete the operation."
The angel lifts her wings and I see the doctor above me opening a gilded chest. Brightly painted images of the cosmos swirl on the box's sides and lid like Messmer's and McCay's animated pictures: clusters of young blue stars, cloud nebulae, the rapid lighthouse flash of variable stars, comets, planets, rings of ice and rock. Silver hinges swing open the mouth of the box, contents emptying in a sparkling cascade out of the polished olive-wood chest into my abdominal cavity, my man-womb of new life. Pink parchment scrolls etched with gold dust sigils tumble against my spine, Faberge eggs roll into the positions once held by my organs, held in place by crushed diamonds, square-cut rubies, and molten platinum sinews. But even with the weight of all this treasure within me, I am light as an ethereal wisp.
They suture my belly with silver cords, though no scars show on my flesh.
And I am reborn.
Chapter 2
Sunlight peeked in through an un-blinded window. Encountering no resistance, it crept across the white linen that hung from the edge of a bed, then climbed up to caress the young American's unshaven face. He buried his tousled brown hair under a pillow, then emerged with a look of weary resignation. A stack of papers cascaded off a bedside table as he stretched sleep from his limbs and yawned. Voices welled up from beneath his balcony, shouts in French bubbling up, along with the smell of baking bread. He reached down and picked up the papers, shuffling them into careful order:
1) Topmost: A photograph, black and white, of a young man dressed in a military uniform - American Expeditionary Force, 28th infantry. His dark eyes and hair a reflection of the one who now held the photo, only clean-shaven and a touch younger than the observer, if the lines on the observer's face were indicative of age. Beneath the Army-issue cap, a thick brow and large nose, as of a boxer, and a broad smile that seemed to take up altogether too much of the boyish face. A name tag on the chest read "Allbright".
2) Next: A typed manuscript on US Government letterhead:
The 28th infantry attacked CANTIGNY at 06:45 hours, May 28, 1918, after violent artillery preparation of one hour. The regiment advanced in three lines. The first line closed in to within forty to fifty yards of the barrage, which progressed at the rate of 100 meters in two minutes. This was done to lessen casualties should an enemy barrage be put down. The third line conformed to the advance. The objective was reached as per schedule at 07:20 hours. Patrols were immediately pushed forward and automatic rifle posts were established in shell holes on the line of surveillance to cover the consolidation of forces. The second line, which advanced, consolidated with a line of trenches and wired the line of resistance. The third line, on its arrival, began the consolidation of these strong points, one about 200 meters east of the chateau in CANTIGNY, the second in the woods at the cemetery just north of CANTIGNY. "D" company of the 1st Engineers supervised the consolidation of these strong points and the lines of surveillance and resistance. Throughout, the attack progressed with only slight resistance and with practically no reaction on the part of the enemy artillery. The section of French flame throwers proved invaluable in cleaning up the town of CANTIGNY and driving the enemy out of dugouts.
Prepared by Major General E.F. McGlachlin, Jr., Commanding General, 1st Div., U.S. Army.
3) Beneath this, a mud-stained, handwritten page from a journal:
May 27, 1918
Another barrage of artillery and mustard gas. My gas mask has become my second face, as it were. My sweat and the infernal burning mud have made the already awkward apparatus practically bind to my flesh. Well, it does its job, I suppose. They had to pull Robertson back to the ambulance, as the poor boy had dozed off in his crater and didn't notice an incoming gas shell until it popped and spilled its contents all around him. Rumor is that he's still alive, but I hope not. A life with gas-scarred lungs is no life at all. God forgive me for saying so, but he'd be better off dead. I can't just sit here and wait for an unfortunate incident like Robertson's. I am consoled, oddly enough, by the news that we will test our offensive capabilities by attacking the village at dawn. I am scared, yes, even terrified. But anything is better than sitting here and waiting for the sky to explode above me. I will run in the third wave if everything goes as planned. My job is to help establish a strong point at the cemetery. A sad irony, if you ask me, but headstones offer excellent protection.
4) Finally, a Posthumous Certificate of Commendation for Valor:
ALLBRIGHT, JARED H.
Rank and Organization:
Private First Class, US Army, Company A, 28th Infantry, 1st Division.
Place and Date:
Cantigny, near Montdidier, France, 28 May 1918.
Entered Service at:
Rhinelander, Wisconsin.
Born:
29 July, 1889, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
G.O. No: 4, W.D., 1919.
Citation:
In advance of an assaulting line, PFC Allbright was separated from his troop by a gas barrage. He was last seen attacking enemy troops who were manning a machine-gun nest, using his bayonet to despatch five enemy soldiers before a number of shells exploded around his position. Declared MIA 30 May 1918, presumed dead.
From the midst of the papers, an envelope slipped out. He looked at it quizzically. "Didn't see this," he said to himself. His eyebrows raised in surprise then settled into a satisfied smile as he saw the return address. He opened the envelope and pulled out the letter gingerly, carefully unfolding it so as not to tear it:
Dearest Jeffrey,
My love, I hope this letter finds you well. It has been several weeks now since you left for Europe. Frankly, I am a bit worried about you. I hope that this whimsy does not distract you from more important things. I understand the need you have for closure, but I had hoped that the letters and reports that you had gathered would satisfy that need. Alas, you are a man of little faith, as I know, a logical thinker, and you want to see for yourself the evidence of that thing you find so difficult to accept. I am certain that this logical mind of yours will put us in good stead when we raise our family.
Father, against his better judgment, has sold the Allbright farm as you had requested. The land has been divided equally into nine, one-hundred acre plots, the big house sold separately, and the farmette and barn sold to one of the land purchasers, a gentleman from Chicago, an architect of some sort. The money from the sale has been wired to your hotel there. I trust that it will or already has arrived there safely.
Your Aunt is well, but she is concerned for your well-being every bit as much as I am. She has been so good to you since your parents have been gone. Perhaps you should reconsider, come back, and put her mind - and my own - at ease.
Please won't you come back?
Lovingly,
Nora
The young man sat staring at the sheaf of papers for a long time, a grim purse creasing his lips. He shook his head and set the papers down on a table with a heavy sigh.
He squinted as he exited the old chateaux, then shaded his eyes with his hand as he scanned the courtyard - empty, as most of the villagers had gone to the market at Montidier. Soon, however, a figure appeared from between two buildings. It crossed the cobblestones, waving to the young American, urging him to approach.
The two met in the middle of the courtyard, their shadows short in the late-morning sun. The newcomer looked younger, blonde-haired, mustached, wearing a dark grey suit altogether inappropriate for the afternoon heat to come. He smiled, blue eyes shining over his sharp cheek bones and thin nose.
"Mister Allbright," he said in a thick German accent, "so good to meet my cousin face-to-face in a time of peace."
The American smiled warmly. "Please call me Jeffrey, Herr Allbrecht."
"Jeffrey it is, then. We are family, after all. Please, forget the 'Allbrecht' and call me Hans. Come. I will show you the place."
The two walked west, passing between a pair of recently-constructed buildings, rust-dyed plaster uncracked and smooth with newness. Architectural order seemed to collapse past these twin signifiers of peace, however, and the artillery-plowed hillocks at the edge of town arose before them, crenellated ruins rising from time to time like sea serpents skimming the surface waves of no-man's land. Here there be monsters.
Hans pointed to a high hill to the northeast. Gravestone merlons alternated with graveyard embrasures, creating the illusion of a hilltop keep, a sepulchral castle amidst the detritus of past battles. Long grasses had taken root here despite the short interval between the armistice and the present. Four years passed and life had already renewed this field of death, golden stalks swaying in a warm summer breeze that threw Hans' unfashionably long hair to the wind. Perhaps this was no fortress of death, Jeffrey thought, but the barley-haired, gravestone crowned head of the sleeping God of War.
They stopped at the base of the hill. Hans pointed to the crest.
"There. That is where I last saw your brother, my cousin."
Jeff wondered if the cousin referred to was himself or his lost brother. The flatness in Hans' voice made it difficult to tell.
Jeffrey squinted, as if looking for some residual evidence of the men who fought on the day his brother disappeared. A bullet, a scrap of cloth, anything to concretize the mental abstractions of war and loss, something to hold.
"He was quite brave, you know. His first battle, no?"
Jeffrey nodded.
"I had great difficulty seeing things that day, as you might imagine. The French flamethrowers were rather busy. There was smoke, not the normal white or yellow veil of gas, but a black pallor floating over everything, infecting the air from ground to sky with charred dust, a thunderstorm of soot. Occasionally, a flame would light up the battlefield, allowing me to see snippets, like photographs, beyond the little crater in which I hid up there," Hans pointed again to the top of the hill by which they stood, "at the old village cemetery, we had a maxim-gun crew. A reliable group. Smart, experienced, disciplined. After we hit the American troops with gas and artillery, this gun emplacement was to cut down any remaining troops that might make a charge. The French, we knew, were already crawling through our wires and we expected the Americans to hit our positions that morning. We did not expect a lone American to spring up, as if from the ground, beside the machine-gun nest and begin killing our men with a bayonet. It was absurd. Our men were so surprised they could not effectively react. I only caught a few glimpses, in snapshot, of this apparently suicidal madman before a series of artillery shells - impossible to tell whose they were, at that point in the battle - exploded around the emplacement. His identification tags, the ones I mailed to you after the Armistice, landed near my shell crater some twenty meters away. Of course, we were routed, stunned, quite honestly, by that first American offensive. Many of us knew then that it was only a matter of time before we would be defeated. We knew the war was as good as done when your doughboys started fighting."
A sostenuto of quiet followed. Jeffrey's quavering voice finally broke the uncomfortable silence.
"You . . . you are sure it was my brother?"
"They were his identification tags. And meeting you now, face-to-face, there can be no mistaking. You resemble him in every way. When I look at you it is as if I am seeing a ghost."
"We - Jared and I - were, are twins."
"I am truly sorry, cousin Jeffrey. He fought bravely," Hans looked down the hill to the village. "Perhaps you should have some time alone. I will meet you back at the Chateaux."
Jeffrey watched Hans retreat down the slope, then turned to the hill, staring at its grassy side.
Grass and gravestones dissolve to aether as I burrow with my eyes into the moist soil beneath. Detritus parts, pebbles move aside, and worms veer off, clearing a path for my scrying into the underworld. The corpses of the war-damned grapple, each soldier swimming in the wet brown darkness until he collides and intertwines with another. Groups of dead troopers embrace, limbs locked in unending combat, groping for purchase on eyeless sockets, vermiculate hands thrust under emaciated ribs and over shoulders, pulling tattered shreds of uniform and stray flesh. Spiked helmets are torn from their wearer's heads, bayonets fumble off into dirt to hide behind slick roots, epaulets disappear down long animal burrows. All the while a murmuring bauble of voices - French, German, English - percolates up through the soil, white worms carried aloft through the dirt on the whispers of the fallen. I listen carefully, hearing the dried rasp of artillerymen attempting to yell, their voices near-silent screams. My ears perk at the gurgling breath of phosgene victims. I am the sole audience member to the chorus of the dead. I listen intently, but my brother's voice is not among them.
The sun had reached its apex when Jeffrey turned away from the hill, eyes wide and unblinking. He sighed and cleared rheum from his eyelids, as if waking from a deep sleep. He slowly shuffled back to the village, rising and falling among the barley-rich shell craters of Cantigny battlefield. A short, sharp wind cut down through the trees, chilling his sweat for a moment, then dissipated into calm and afternoon heat. The wind suddenly smelled of decay.
A few villagers had returned from the markets of Montdidier and were now milling about trading collected gossip on the village square. There was a brisk business in hearsay that day, and Jeffrey noted their vigor, a vivaciousness that manifested itself in lively conversation, laughter, and gesticular expression. It was as if war had never touched this village, despite all evidence to the contrary. The voices of the dead had been effectively silenced and shut up in the afterlife forever. The only hint of past conflict was the occasional wary glance cast by the villagers at the lone German, who sat waiting for Jeffrey outside a small cafe near the chateaux. As the American approached, a tall black man walked out of the cafe and sat next to Hans, white robes billowing in waves over his dark skin. He smiled broadly at the German, brown eyes intense above his broad, flat nose. His hair was shorn up to the red fez that surmounted his head. A light wisp of beard at his chin was the only indication that this was no youth.
"Jeffrey," Hans said as he and his companion stood up from their chairs, "let me introduce you to Ahmed Mahanjero, an old friend of mine."
Jeffrey extended his hand, eyeing the black suspiciously, but saying nothing. The newcomer towered over the two whites, which intimidated Jeffrey to no small degree. Mahanjero held the American's hand for an uncomfortably long time, then spoke.
"Mister Allbright, you have much pain inside."
Jeffrey removed his hand slowly, his stare never straying from the brown eyes above him.
Hans cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had settled between them. "I have known Ahmed for some time. We fought alongside each other during the Maji-Maji rebellion in East Africa. Ahmed was one of our best Askari. He is the best tracker I know, Jeffrey. I thought he might help you in your search."
Jeffrey nodded, his gaze relaxing. "Hans, my brother is not dead. I feel it."
"I feel it also, Mister Allbright," the African spoke in soft, soothing tones. "But we must let the evidence inform our intuitions."
Hans looked at them both with determination set in his eyes. "Then we should begin, my friends. Jeffrey, will you retrieve your papers?"
Jeffrey's room had heated up significantly in the summer sun. Perspiration dripped from his brow to his cheek, sending tiny rivulets running like wadis across a hard, dry desert. He reached for the dossier of information on his brother, accidentally knocking over his own journal, which fell open on the floor:
29 July, 1918
Jared,
This would have been, indeed, should have been, your 19th birthday. I took a train home to visit our parents. Mother and Father are both sick, nearly to death with the flu. Mother constantly clasps the locket containing our pictures. She puts on her most stalwart face, but her pain, her emotional pain, not her physical suffering, is clear to see. Here I sit in the room we shared growing up. It is nearly the same as the day you left to enlist. The only thing missing is you. I couldn't bear to sleep alone in that room after you left. It's awfully quiet. Not that you were ever loud or obnoxious in any way. Quite the contrary. You were one of the most soft-spoken lads I have ever known, and a paramour of kindness. I hope you have forgiven a brother his occasional unkindness, sibling rivalry being what it is. Perhaps I was jealous that you, on the inside, were a better person than I, despite our appearing the same on the outside. Just part of growing up, I guess. Still, you never pressed your advantage, even when it would have benefitted you to do so. Maybe this is why I still don't fully understand your decision to join the military. It contradicted, no, contradicts, your very nature. You were the good boy, Jared, always the first to concede an argument, the most willing to share. You were the one who pointed out all the beautiful things to the rest of us, the one who practically dragged us away from dinner to see a brilliant sunset, the full moon over the snow, the first flicker of fireflies against the woods, or the scintillating northern lights. You were the dreamer, the romantic, while the rest of us were the typical practical farm family. How you could voluntarily participate in the ugliness of war, I shall never understand. Your ambitions, I am afraid, have been sacrificed on the altar of misplaced patriotism. Somehow, though, I sense that your dreams will live on, that you will always be a part of us.
Jeffrey stooped down, closed the journal, and set it on the table. He turned, and as he left, the click of the door resounded through the empty room, a rifle-bolt echo off of once-devastated, now-reconstructed walls.
Chapter 3
The trio approached the cemetery hill, gathering beside a scorched yew near the twisted, semi-molten iron remains of what once must have served as a fence. The fleur-de-lis-tipped metal tentacles seemed to hold the trunk's remnants in a precarious balance, a dance of entropy. Jeffrey wondered which would endure: the child of man's forges, meant to differentiate and contain the dead, or the dying yew that tried to encroach on the graveyard, bending the fence to its will and, thus, erasing the boundary twixt the living and the dead. Would the tree, fed by the nutrients of the dead, overcome the constructs of the living, or would the memorials to the dead, built by the living, send the tree to its own early grave?
His reverie was interrupted by Mahanjero, who spoke in an authoritative voice, conveying the importance of the matter. "Mister Allbright, I will need your papers."
The American stood stiff, incredulous. "Why?"
"Those papers are our best clue to what happened with your brother, Mister Allbright. Please hand them over."
Hans, understanding his cousin's uncertainty, interceded. "Jeffrey, I have seen Ahmed work miracles in the field. His foresight thwarted at least two ambushes set for my men and one set by my men, and it was only as a direct result of his abilities that we were able to root out Mwene Kigale, one of the most notorious of maji-maji witch doctors. I know what these papers mean to you, but if we are to learn the truth about your brother, you must hand them over, as he says. Consider it a sacrifice on your family's behalf."
"But those papers are irreplaceable!"
"And your brother is not?"
Jeffrey grew silent, while Hans continued.
"Cousin Jeffrey, the papers do not hold the memory of your brother. The heart holds the memory. Your soul is ingrained with it. Now you must make the sacrifice in order to have the opportunity to turn the memory into a thing of the present, rather than a thing of the past."
Reluctantly, Jeffrey handed the portfolio to Mahanjero, who examined the papers, studying each one for several minutes. He set one aside, holding it to the ground with one hand while reaching into his robes with the other. He removed a small cowhide pouch tied with twine and, after loosening the neck of the bag with his teeth, emptied it on to the photograph of Jared Allbright.
Jeffrey looked on in confusion as the contents of the bag spilled forth - a chicken leg, still bloody, what appeared to be a lion's tooth, a pile of some sort of sparkling blue dust, a crumbling chunk of red ochre, and several black peppercorns. Hans walked up next to Jeffrey and held his cousin's arm tightly as Mahanjero struck a match and set fire to the photograph underneath the pile of paraphernalia. Though prepared for a struggle, Hans was surprised when Jeffrey simply grew slack, too baffled to react with any kind of violence.
Jeffrey stood, jaw agape, as the small lick of flame hit the blue powder and erupted into a shower of silver sparks that bounced off the base of the charred yew by which they stood. For a brief moment, he thought of stars on the night sky, clusters of fire blazing in the dark heavens that enveloped the earth. This cosmic epiphany faded quickly, though, as the stench of burning reached his nose, a putrid smell, like a meat-packing factory, a smell full of death, altogether too strong for a mere burning photograph. Something, he knew, had been opened, a gate, a door, to . . .?
Mahanjero, closing his eyes, uttered a string of unintelligible words, barely pronouncable by the human tongue, a strange and mystical tongue that evoked an atmosphere of alien-ness. He raised his hands high above his head, then drew them down toward him, as if plucking some invisible objects from the sky and gathering them into his chest. He crossed his arms in front of himself, rocking from side to side, as if cradling a baby. After a time, he opened his eyes. A look of disappointment crossed his face.
"I am sorry I had to do that, Mister Allbright," Mahanjero offered with a respectful bow, "but we must be certain. Now I know that your brother does not squirm with the dead beneath us. Had he been here, his spirit surely would have come up to punish me for the desecrating act. You see, Mister Allbright, I have put myself at great personal risk. I do this for the sake of my good friend, Sergeant Allbrecht."
"And I thank you, my friend," Hans replied. "But this only tells us where my cousin's brother is not, and we wish to know where he is."
Mahanjero's face grew solemn. "I anticipated this, and spoke with those on the other side, seeking information. The dead, they have heard rumors, words travelling through the earth, beneath the ground, under the feet of the living. They remember the courage of the warrior Jared Allbright and have listened for his name. Now the dead, they are not so smart, but they cannot lie to me. They say they have most heard his name uttered most loudly from Marrakesh."
"In Morocco?" Jeffrey asked, incredulous.
Mahanjero nodded. "It is so. They have spoken it."
"Ahmed," Hans said, "how long ago did the . . . they hear mention of Jared?"
"I have told you, friend Hans, that the dead are not so smart. Besides, there is no such thing as time after death. The dead do not comprehend 'now' or 'then,' 'recently' or 'in the distant past'. They measure things by the life force, by intensity of being. Your brother," Mahanjero turned to Jeffrey, "has a most powerful spirit for the dead to have noticed him so readily from the vale of the living."
"Then Jared is alive?" Jeffrey asked, hopeful.
Mahanjero squinted, as if trying to see in darkness. "Too difficult to tell. His light burned bright in life. What the dead see might merely be an afterglow. Or, perhaps he is alive. Your answers, Mister Allbright, are not here. They are in Morocco."
We walk down a leagues-long hallway of cathedral height, the angel and I, surrounded by a bright glowing fog that wisps up about Doric pillars constructed of white marble. She steps next to me, but the sound of her buskins as they pad across the marble floor are distant, like echoes from a faraway canyon floating out over a flowered mountain meadow. High above us, near the vaulted roof, I spot a frieze, alternating triglyphs with metopes containing a bizarre array of scenes: A cow dances on its hind legs to the sound of a crystal metronome ticking behind it; a mechanical being, all pipes and cogs, is surrounded by a shining halo, metal arms thrown back and goggled face to the sky where a ghostly metal Madonna has partially materialized among the clouds; a bald woman stands on a desert plain, naked, but almost completely enwrapped in a bodysuit of living butterflies that peel off of her to whirl about in a passing dust devil.
"What is this place," I ask, my voice coming from somewhere other than my body.
She turns her opal eyes to me and answers in that oneiric voice, "This is the Hall of Dreams," and I know she cannot lie.
"Where are you taking me?"
Her breath smells of cinnamon and clove, the scent wafted about by the air of her slowly-waving wings. "You are now prepared to be sent on your journey."
And in a moment we stand before two immense wooden doors set on hinges of pearled pink stone engraved with Sanskrit characters that I cannot understand. She reaches her long, delicate fingers up to grasp the golden geese door handles, then opens the oaken portals. I am enveloped in a cascade of glowing white mist.
"Where shall I go?" I cry out.
"You will know. You will know."
She is gone, and I know that I am lost.
Chapter 4
The ship Peroit steamed from the port of Le Havre towards Casablanca, it's grey prow furrowing the waves above the gloomy wrecks of barnacle-encrusted Spanish galleons, of rusting Portuguese cannons, of Roman sisterseii glittering through green fathoms of salt sea. Two days out now, and night would soon fall – twilight before dawn's arrival at the traveler's destination.
Jeffrey lay in his bunk below decks, falling asleep to the gentle slosh of waves against the ship.
A glowing column of steam spews into the indigo sky behind me as I leave my shift at the hometown paper mill , open electric light pushing the factory cloud heavenward, a pillar of fire by night brightening the darkness. From the opposite direction, the graveyard shift shuffles in, a grim army of industry marching from their afternoon slumbers into an artificial dawn. I weave through their somnambulant ranks, out into the night.
On the horizon, another glow beckons me. It is a traveling fair, recently arrived, and Jared awaits me there, hidden somewhere among the exultant mass of day workers: "Seven O'clock sharp, hall of mirrors," he told me. I press on toward our rendezvous, the suffused glow metamorphosing into an Ezekiel's whirlwind of sparks, spiraling wheels and corkscrew tails of luminescent color flinging laughter and the sounds of celebration upward to the brightening stars.
As I pass the half-destroyed picket fence that demarcates the fair, the din of voices and steam-generated music grows almost unbearable. Carnies, debutantes, and charlatans attack the dignity of any who dare refuse their challenge to a test of strength. Fair-goers are mocked for their inability to match wits with the latest chess-playing automaton. Vague fortunes are told in low mumbles behind canvas tent-door flaps and top-hatted mustachios with faux European accents invite the curious to view their freaks of nature.
The local carnival attendees are as plain as the carnival employees are odd. The men – dairy farmers, loggers, and factory workers – are large, rough-handed toughs of mainly northern European stock, the women smaller, yet no less hardy, of the same extraction. They are people of the earth. Dirt and sawdust fill the creases of their skin, the wrinkles around their eyes, giving them the false appearance of youth and even softness. They crave entertainment, desperately seeking reprieve from the tedium of the farm, forest, and factory. They are, of necessity, parochial, and, of want, in need of escape from their parochialism. We live isolated lives here. One might spend their entire life in the confines of their family's township. The opposite end of the county is a strange land, and beyond the county line, Terra Incognita. The carnival has drawn a number of strangers, foreigners, even, to the fields betwixt our town and the mill. I am at a loss as to how or why they came here, of all places. Immigrants are not unheard of here, of course, as family members invite other family members to come over from the Old Country. But this group is different, a strange admixture of silks and rags carried by the wind, as if they were composed of airy fabric, their brown hair and dark eyes peeking out from behind veils and from underneath worn hat brims. They seem inclined to shift and sway, never quite settling into the landscape on which they stand. Or do they stand? It is difficult to tell whether their boots, full of holes and held together with bandages, really touch the ground. I wonder what they think, what they feel, interweaving themselves through the tents and temporary buildings of the fair. They seem more a part of these structures' fiber than of the earth on which they are planted, as if they are sewn together, being forced to move when the carnival moves, following the lights through Egypt or Sinai or Hell or wherever the caravan may lead them.
Still there are many familiar faces. The Stordahls, on whose land the tents had been erected, wander about smiling, dazed by the transformation that has overtaken their erstwhile pasture. The mayor stumbles about with a boot of lager in hand, respect and authority dissolving in alcohol, making him a clown in demeanor, if not dress. He might not win the next election after this, except he's the only lawyer in town. Our town bartender, Herman Larsen, in contrast, stands sober, stoic even, immense hands pulling at his overall suspenders as he contemplates the subtle deception of false facades and the barely-veiled spectacle of greed that has planted itself here, almost in the Stordahl's garden. I find it odd. Mister Larsen is typically a cheery man. This night, however, his face is nearly expressionless, save for the hint of disgust in his pursed lips and disapproving eyes.
I approach him, but have to yell to be heard above the noise of a calliope, which pipes the sky full of music: "Have you seen Jared?"
He stretches out his albatross arms and points to the hall of mirrors, not even trying to compete with the racket. I thank him, smiling, and walk on. He neither smiles nor stops pointing, but stares blankly at the doorway. As I climb the steps up to the hall of mirrors entranceway, I look back. Larsen is still pointing, now directly at me, in an accusatory way. Frisson charges the nape of my neck. Red light flares near him as a flame-eater regurgitates fire just past his head. But his slack face remains ashen. As I enter the building, I exorcie his grim visage from my view, though not from memory.
The hall of mirrors is silent, save for the occasional creaking of boards underfoot. I can hear the calliope music no more. The air is dry and smells of sawdust, as if the frail wooden structure was freshly built. There is a warmth here, but the occasional gap in the boards lets in thin streams of cold air. The lighting is poor and I am alone. A gauntlet of distorting mirrors of varying shapes and sizes stretches out ahead of me. One step I am horrendously obese, another desiccated, pear-shaped yet another. But I have no time for tomfoolery and must move on to find Jared. A quick succession of malformed Jeffreys (I suppose they could be Jareds to the outside observer) vanish in my wake as I walk toward the exit, disappointed that we missed each other. Halfway through, I stop, the sound of another set of footsteps reaching my now-elephantine ears. I turn past my long-faced reflection to look back down the hall. There is a flash, a glimmer, then nothing.
"Jared?" the Jeffreys in the mirrors call out.
Nothing.
Then the wood creaks on the opposite side of the room, as if a phantom were shifting its ghostly weight from one foot to the other.
I carefully back toward the exit. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see myself, with Jared behind me, in the reflection of a particularly large mirror. I turn.
Nothing.
I look back at the mirror and realize that it gives the viewer the illusion of having two heads. I laugh at myself nervously and, hearing the sound of footsteps again, turn towards the entrance to share a laugh with my brother.
Nothing is there but the sound of approaching footsteps tapping and groaning over the floorboards now.
I flee the hall of mirrors. As I exit, running, the calliope music sounds in my ears like thunder. The air is colder here, and the smell of new sawdust is replaced by the distant stench of freshly-manured fields.
It takes a few moments before I realize the ridiculousness of my plight, frightened by my own reflection and a creaky floor. I laugh out loud at myself as I walk through the freak show, the bearded lady and the hunger artist both eyeing me with contempt. I give no regard to them as I see a familiar figure. There, standing with his back to me, is Jared. I know that hair, those clothes, that confident stance. I approach, chuckling, ready to share my silly exploits with him.
I put my hand on my brother's shoulder. He turns, and I become icy cold with shock as a black face, smiling widely, wickedly, reveals two rows of artificially-sharpened teeth, each filed to a gleaming point, like rows of glass shards atop a mortared wall.
"Jeffrey!" the shark-toothed man speaks. "I knew you would meet me here!"
"Mah – Mahanjero! But Jared . . ."
"You worry too much about your brother," he says condescendingly, but with a bit of pity. "Sit, I must tell you something." He offers me a low stool.
My shock bids me sit. I do, leaning up against a caged railcar with a large sign nailed to its side, reading:
MAHANJERO, BLACK SAVAGE CANNIBAL
OF
DARKEST AFRICA
The words are flanked on either side by paintings of skulls atop piled bones. The smell of bratwurst, popcorn, and beer waft in from the nearby food tents. The hunger artist drools, eliciting a coo of delight from a pair of young children standing outside the cage.
"You must be careful with this dream of yours," Mahanjero warns me, "this dream of finding your lost brother. The way you see me now, this is a result of misplaced dreams."
As he speaks, the landscape changes, cages and tents melting to green and brown – an ancient forest thick with trees, envelops us. The noises of the carnival have ceased. Moonlight dapples the forest floor, illuminating brown leaves, lichen-covered logs, and gray mushrooms growing in near-perfect circles on the ground. Glowing splotches of phosphorescent moss pulse through windblown trees, giving an aura of breathing life to the woods. They are a brooding entity inhaling the crisp late-autumn air. A tunnel forms through the limbs. Unseen hands have pulled back the tree branches like the curtains of a child's puppet show stage, allowing us egress. We glide through silently, carried along by our feet, which do not touch the ground, leaving whorls and troughs of dried detritus in our wake. We stop at the edge of a large clearing as a doe skitters into the woods at the opposite side of the glen. From our left, two figure, one much larger than the other, enter the open area. They kneel together in the center of the glade, unpacking a knapsack. Twine, knives, a glass jar, and a lantern are each removed from the bag by the pair. The larger of the two lights the lantern with a long match.
His face is dark complected, like Mahanjero's. He resembles my acquaintance, in fact. Only this man is older and even more robust. He is athletic, his thick chest evident even in the loose-fitting plaid shirt he wears this cool night. He speaks to his smaller companion – merely a child – in a hushed voice.
"Mahanjero, we must move quickly!"
"Yes, father," the smaller of the two replies. He cannot be older than ten years. I turn and look at Mahanjero, who smiles at me with that lethal mouth and points to the scene, redirecting my attention to the pair. They have begun unrolling the twine, but for what purpose, I cannot tell.
"Like I told you, Mahanjero: small, tight knots, like your mother used to make." The elder carefully scanned the edges of the clearing, looking for something.
"Yes sir," the youth hesitates. "But mother . . . I don't remember much of her." A hint of sadness clouds his words.
"No time for that now, son. They will be out soon, and we must catch a few. Otherwise I will lose my work and we will have to go back . . ." he paused, weighing the words "to the city".
The look of shock on young Mahanjero's face belies his fear of whatever waited in "the city". He redoubles his efforts. Soon, though, a crease of concern appears between the boy's brows.
"Why must we catch them, father?"
"A man must eat," the words were carefully chosen, detached, clinical, deliberate.
"But we eat food. Bread, rabbit stew, tomatoes."
"Yes, son, but food that one grows or buys cannot help a man to fly."
The young Mahanjero looked incredulous.
"You see me fly out of that cannon, and it appears I have been shot right out of it, yes?"
The hint of a smile appears on the boy's face.
"Well, to some extent, that's true. But the flight . . . have you noticed how long I stay in the air?"
The smile widens. I note the flat white teeth.
"That, my son, is because I make them a part of me. Without them, I would be just another freeman's son shooting out of a cannon and into a net. With them," he opens his arms up like a pair of wings, "I am Bembele the Aviator, Bird Man of Africa!"
The boy giggles.
"So this is why we catch them, why we must eat them. It is our sacrament to keep me flying and to keep us out of the city."
Silence. I wonder what the boy is thinking, but the young man, seemingly satisfied with the explanation, continues working, forming the twine into tiny snares. The smile lingers, then fades into concentration and knots.
The pair set up several of these snares along the perimeter of the clearing, careful to leave themselves a hiding place almost directly opposite from where we are hidden. After the lines are strung along the ground and among the branches, the older of the two opens the jar and dumps something out of it in the middle of the clearing, then runs off to hide with little Mahanjero.
The tiny figure at the center of the scene, no bigger than the man's hand, glows feebly in the dark, pulsing brighter with each labored breath. It resembles a doll, only thin, elegant, with mature womanly features, unlike the plump porcelain dolls that I had seen girls play with as a child. The skin color under its pure white robes, however, is that of porcelain – a bruised, blood-flecked porcelain, but white with luster, nonetheless. The creature – she – moves, trying to flap the battered wings that grow from its – her – back, all to no avail. She is weak, barely able to hold her upper torso off the ground with her frail arms. Feathers have been intentionally plucked and clipped from her tiny, swan-like wings, handicapping flight, preventing escape. A look of weariness and dread saturates her delicate features.
Something flutters in the air around us. The glowing spots in the woods grow animate. Streams of angelic will-o'-wisps soon coalesce at our clearing, dancing lights among the leaves, drawn down toward the injured faerie at the center of the circle.
A rustle in the trees and the sound of tinkling bells indicates that something has been caught in the snares at wood's edge. Mahanjero's father bolts from his hiding place, exultant, and runs toward the ever-brightening beacon, its light increasing in intensity as it flips and convulses in an effort to free itself. Bembele the Aviator, laughing aloud, reaches for his prize, just as the tiny being ignites a flaming sword and severs the cords that bind it. It slips through Bembele's grasping fingers and flees back into the umber. The streams of glowing lights double back and flit into the forest darkness. The man falls to his knees and weeps. His son watches, unsure of what to do until his father, gesturing to the jar and the faerie, wordlessly instructs the boy that it is time to leave.
The pair gather their tools and bait and trudge back towards the carnival. We follow at a safe distance, still floating above the ground like dry leaves carried on a weak breeze, hovering like sprites in flight, just out of Bembele's frustrated reach.
Bembele and Mahanjero enter their small wheeled shack on the outskirts of the now dark and silent fair, the elder weeping himself into a deep slumber while the younger unpacks. Mahanjero lifts the bait jar from the pack. He flicks the side with his finger, the clinking alarms the tiny bleeding angel (as the boy fancies her), who stands up in her glass prison and turns to look at the young man.
Her voice is the shine of silver, the smell of spring at the end of a long winter, the taste of lemonade in the desert. "I can help you, Mahanjero"
He eyes her suspiciously. "How can you know my name?"
"I hear much, my young friend. I am an angel. Does God himself not speak through his angels?"
The boy nods, eyes widening.
"I have heard of your plight, Mahanjero. I can help you."
Mahanjero, unspeaking, raises his chin and looks down his nose at her, still suspicious.
"I know where your mother is, Mahanjero."
Hope glistens in his widening eyes, replacing suspicion.
"Where is she?" he demands in a whisper, careful not to wake his father.
"She is held captive . . ." she pauses to look carefully into his eyes, "in the city!"
"Who . . .?"
"No time," she interrupts. "If I am to rescue her, I must go quickly. I will free her and bring her to you. It will be like it was . . ." she pauses for effect "before . . ."
"Before," Mahanjero's eyes grow wider still, filled with memories, real and imagined, of his mother, her warmth, her womanly grace, the smile that crossed his father's face whenever she entered the room. He looks at his father, who lay asleep on the bed now, his pillow moist with tears.
"Before."
Mahanjero quietly sneaks outside with the jar and carefully lets the angel out. She crawls a few feet, then looks up to the sky, smiling. In a flash she is whisked away by another pair of tiny angels, a flaming sword in each of their free hands. Her laughter fades up through the trees and into the night.
The scene fades as I turn to Mahanjero.
"And what next?"
Mahanjero the shark-toothed bows his head.
"Bembele the Aviator took his own life the next morning. He fired himself from the cannon, without the magic of flight, having overcharged the explosive pan. He was dead before he left the mouth of the gun."
A pang of sympathy shoots through me. "And you?"
"I did my best to follow my father's profession, waiting on my mother who, of course, never came. I was, at first, a great acrobat, a worthy human cannonball. In time, however, I found that pursuing my dreams – and it had been my dream for as long as I could remember to follow my father's occupation – carries a price and can sometimes lead to unexpected results. I did what I knew I had to do in order to succeed: I consumed my father's flesh. He became a part of me and I, him. I was, for a time, Mahanjero the Magnificent, Bird Man of Africa. That is, until one of the other circus members – I think it was the hunger artist – discovered me at my grisly feast. I was forced into a cage, beaten, my teeth filed, and made to be, as you know from the sign, Mahanjero, Black Savage Cannibal of Darkest Africa."
He pauses, taking a deep breath. "You see, Jeffrey, your desire to find Jared, to know of his fate, like my aspirations to fly in my father's stead, might twist out of your control," he points to his cage, which had appeared behind us, "and imprison you".
I turn from him to see an immense copper door before me. I push open the door and plunge ahead, into darkness.
Chapter 5
The image of Casablanca burned bright on the young man's retinae, carving ghostly visions of minarets into Jeffrey's eyes. White-robed haji flowed through the bright streets, disappearing through archways, around market stall corners, and up cobblestone stairways, a series of spectral daylight flutters that seemed to signal the life-pulse of the city. An ancient heartbeat throbbed from its very walls. The shuffle of feet against sand and stone, combined with the low murmurings of the city's inhabitants, sounded like blood flowing against the walls of the city’s veins. Unlike the worn-down Indian eagle mounds of his native Wisconsin, which echoed only weakly from the dust, Casablanca was a symphony in crescendo, a culmination of thousands of years of construction, conquest, decay, and resurrection – one eternal round of urban immortality.
He stood on the docks, enraptured by the ebb and flow of pedestrians coursing before him. The air reeked of fish, leather, and lamb, but the smell that set this place apart from his home was the spice-laden sweat of the inhabitants. Licorice and cinnamon, black pepper and hashish oozed from the people's pores, a savory air, scents from the trees, rather than the soil, as it was back in the bars and fish-fry houses of his native dairy-land. Here, the crowds themselves mesmerized him, so much so, in fact, that he remained oblivious to the approach of a middle-aged Moroccan who emerged from a nearby alleyway.
"Mister Allbright?"
The American startled from his hypnosis.
"Yes?"
"Master Allbright. Good, it is you, and you are safe. Your friend, Allbrecht, has hired me to guide you to Marakesh. It is not good to make the journey unguided. My name is Mehmet." The short, stocky Moroccan reached into the folds of his brown robes, a smile forming in the dark nest of his beard as he retrieved a line portrait – a perfect reproduction of Jared's photograph with the initials "A.M." in a lower corner.
" Allbrecht's envoy gave this to me to help me identify you. I no longer need it." He handed the drawing to Jeffrey with a smile. "Here, it is yours to keep. A remarkable likeness."
Jeffrey took the portrait, thanking Mehmet.
"It is my pleasure, Master Allbright." He smiled, bowing. Then, bringing himself to full attention, a ridiculous gesture for a man with a paunch such as his, Mehmet spoke with a seriousness quite contradictory to his clownish appearance. "We travel by night. I will be your guide. Abdul will be our guard," Mehmet pointed through the crowd to a lone Berber, dressed in black and armed with a scimitar and lance. The Berber's dark eyes were barely visible above the black veil that covered his lower face. "We will meet you in the marketplace before nightfall." The words came as a request, as much as the imparting of information. The underlying tone made the American a touch uneasy. He would not have been surprised had the Moroccan added "or else".
"Before nightfall," Jeffrey repeated in a low voice, trying to mask his fear. He watched the guide walk over to the sinister-looking Berber with a laugh and a pat on the shoulder. Despite Mehmet's babbling, the Berber's eyes did not leave the American's until the guide turned him toward the marketplace. Jeffrey gathered his suitcase and headed into the city's labyrinthine alleys.
Three robed figures awaited Allbright at the empty market square that evening. Mehmet stood, holding the reins of two donkeys. The Berber, Abdul, stood alongside him. Behind the pair stood a tall black – two heads taller than the American – dressed in the white robes of the Haj. A club hung from a leather belt around his waist.
"Who is he?" Allbright asked his guide.
"A distant cousin to Abdul. He knows the paths well, even by moonlight, and will protect the rear. He has business in Marrakesh and, so, will travel for no pay."
Allbright and Abdul mounted the donkeys after strapping the American's luggage to his beast. They set off across town, passing through the city gates. A pair of foreign legionnaires snickered, shaking their heads at the American's gullibility, as the group faded from the aura of the city's torchlight.
Bright moonlight lit the rock-strewn camel paths, casting sharp shadows even in the night. When they crested a new line of hills the ocean at their back would scintillate in an ever-diminishing lightshow as they moved farther inland. The ocean faded. The moon moved low in the sky. And Abdul spoke:
"It is safe for us to talk until the moon goes down. I will tell you a tale to entertain you, as is our custom. It is a story that my father told the French when they first arrived here, before their war, a story of the dangers of Marrakesh. This story is old, very old, older than the arrival of the Almoravides – praise Allah for their arrival! – and concerns a travelling heathen Cushite named Lemba, from what is now the Sultanate of Zanzibar. This man, this Lemba, had been lost and wandering for many years along with his hunting dog, Yamazi – so called after the Swahili word 'Yamazi,' which means 'Shut up!' as the dog barked loudly whenever frightened. Now Lemba had grown wise in his travels. He was a cunning hunter with the assegai, a careful manager of his resources, and a good judge of character. Pain and loss had been his teachers. The lessons he learned all seemed to fall back on the same idea: trust is to be earned, not given freely to just anybody. Lemba was a good student, so that when he arrived at the Atlas Mountains, he avoided the deceptions of the witch Bil-Taureg, who tried to entice the lonely hunter with her long legs, full lips, and flat belly. He was also able to slip past the jackal men of Saiyent due to his quickness of thought and upright character, leaving them to gnash each other with their teeth. But one day, while travelling past an un-named village on the plain of Haouz, Lemba fell from his perch of wisdom and never regained his previous stature as a hero of legend. His myth ended in ignominy. No man or woman caused his downfall – curiosity alone drew him to the tents of that place and from those tents arose a scent that seized Lemba's nostrils like a ring through a bull's nose – not the scent of food or perfume or the skin of a woman, but the scent of a flower, crushed and burning in the pipes of the dreaming: the black lotus. The history is hazy now, as hazy as the great hunter's thoughts seem to have been when the smoke lured him in, sat him down comfortably, and bade him breathe a new essence, the essence of dream. One thing is sure: Lemba never left the place. The foundations of the city Marrakesh were built on the lotus-contaminated bones of that man and his dog."
"It is said that on a warm night, an invisible mist rises up through the sand. It is Lemba's spirit, seeping out of his old bones underground. This spirit, may say, possesses the unwary sleeper, invading the sleeper's dreams, causing wild fevers of imagination that, if left unchecked, will cause madness or even death or, at the very least, permanent entrapment in the land of dream." The last phrase exploded from the dragoman's lips, mimicking the sound of a trap clapping shut.