Valerie O’Riordan’s short ‘The Explosion of Josiah Bounderby’ will knock you for six, while Kevin Brown’s ‘Odds Are’ depicts the sorry triumph of modern fear. Iphgenia Baal’s smart squib is anchored in forensic contemporary observation, in contrast with Larry Lefkowitz’s brave venture into Holmesian rigour, bringing you the story for which Conan Doyle’s readers were famously ‘not yet prepared’.

We are also proud to continue our ‘Gabriel Josipovici mini-series’: if you enjoyed December’s ‘The Two Lönnrots’, skip straight to his latest short, ‘Love Across the Borders’. This and Phil Bennett’s superb ‘Mikel’, an evocation of an autistic child’s experience of civil conflict in Chile, keep faith with Litro’s aim to bring the whole world to you in short stories.

Lastly, we have poetry from two writers who know their crime backwards: one from Paul Lyalls and four from the late great Charles Bukowski. No-one ever said the Post pays…

Sophie Lewis
Editor

PS – Subscribe to Litro; it’s a steal.

a fighter on the docks,

killed a man while they were unloading

bananas.

I mean the man he killed

clubbed him first

from behind

with an anchor chain

(something about a woman)

and we all circled around

while

Merryman

did him in

under a hard-on sun,

finally strangling him to death

throwing him into the

ocean.

Merryman leaped to the dock

and walked

away, nobody tried to stop

him.

then we went back to work and

unloaded the rest of the bananas.

nothing was ever said about the murder

between any of us

and I never saw anthing about it

in the papers.

although I saw some of the bananas

later in the

markets:

2 lbs. for a quarter

they seemed a

bargain.Similar Posts:

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On the first day of the first week in November, in the year 1899, the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows all day. The day following, a dense yellow fog settled upon London. It would continue a week. Holmes was chafing against inaction. “Nothing of interest in the papers, Watson?” he asked.

“Well, there is this minor mystery.” I took from my pocket something I had scissored from the Times and handed it to Holmes. He read the headnote and chuckled. “Great minds . . .” he said, retrieving from his pocket a clipping which he handed to me. It was the identical item.

“We are both interested in the fact that the ‘Matilda Briggs’ is overdue,” said I.

“Two weeks overdue. That’s the strange part,” replied Holmes.

And then occurred one of those coincidences that happen more in life than in literature. A ring at the door revealed Inspector Lestrade with yet a third identical clipping in his hand. He handed it to Holmes producing an actual laugh, and not merely a chuckle, which only such a coincidence could bring forth from the normally sober Holmes. We both waved our identical clippings at Lestrade.

“Well, well, we know what we are about,” exclaimed Lestrade. “I’ve got a four-wheeler waiting to take us to the wharf.”

“The wharf?” I inquired.

“Where the ship ‘Matilda Briggs’ is under quarantine.”

“Sickness?” queried Holmes, as we emerged from our snug residence into the London fog.

“I wish I knew for sure,” answered Lestrade.

We had hardly taken our places in the cab before the driver whipped up his horse and we plunged away at a furious pace through the fog-wreathed streets.

Holmes turned to Lestrade, “And the ‘Matilda Briggs’ has been under quarantine for two weeks. That’s why it is reported as ‘overdue’?”

“A week. The ship was berthed a week ago after it was found adrift off the English coast, a week overdue. We had to put aboard a crew to berth her.”

Holmes was on him at once. “What happened to the crew of the ‘Matilda Briggs’?”

“Disappeared,” Lestrade said softly. “Vanished without a trace.”

“Small wonder they could not report its arrival,” observed Holmes. “And what have you discovered in your week of investigation?”

“Not a great deal,” replied the detective, ill at ease. “The ship has been fog-bound for days and the investigation was not helped by a curious preference on the part of my men to be away from the scene and involved in other assignments.”

“Ah, and so you decided to bring Watson and myself into the case.”

“Yes, Holmes. This is a deucer.”

The rest of the way to the wharf passed in silence. I listened to the sound of the cab’s wheels and the rhythmic clip-clop of the horse’s hooves. Holmes was lost in thought. Lestrade fidgeted impatiently.

Once aboard the ship, Holmes was a different man from the limp and lounging figure who had prowled so restlessly round our fog-girt rooms only a short time before. He seemed entirely in his element. In contrast, I was still in a morose mood. For the fog-shrouded ship was empty, had been found empty, had stood empty. “Like standing on the deck of the ‘Flying Dutchman’, I grumbled.

“We have done your tale one better,” said Lestrade. “We’ve got one remaining crewman. Found him dead.”

Holmes was immediately alert “Where is he?”

“Oh, I had him removed from the ship on the first day. For health reasons. Dead of some disease, I presume. The same that killed the rest.”

“So you are convinced it was a disease that emptied the ship?”

“What else? The ‘Matilda Briggs’ sailed from Sumatra. A plague, like as not. Probably malaria.”

“Not likely an illness,” said Holmes. “With illness you find bodies. The ship was empty save for the one sailor. Where was he found?”

“In the crow’s nest. Some of the ships still carry them.”

“I certainly would have liked to see the body,” mused Holmes.

“You didn’t miss much. Only one unusual aspect. There were large, incisor-like markings on the body, as if he had been attacked by a bat. A large bat. Or a vampire.” This last was likely an attempt at levity on the part of the usually severe Lestrade. “In any event, a malaria-carrying creature, no doubt.”

“Maybe an incisored albatross,” I contributed my own bit of drollery.

Holmes ignored our comments, although I noticed his lips purse in disapproval of them, particularly of mine, I felt, since Holmes generally considered humour superfluous, especially during an investigation. “I regret exceedingly that I could not see those marks. I will have to do with your description, Lestrade. I would like to see the crow’s nest, however.”

Lestrade shook his head in disapproval. “Holmes, I recommend saving yourself the climb. There was nothing there of relevance.”

“I prefer to come to my own conclusion.”

Lestrade shrugged and gestured upward to where the crow’s nest was scarcely visible against the grey sky.

To my relief, Holmes requested that I not accompany him. He no doubt considered my old wound from the Afghan war. Holmes waved down from the crow’s nest. With his hawk-like features, he looked like a fierce bird of prey. Then he disappeared from view.

“What’s he doing?” asked Lestrade.

“He has bent down to examine the area with his magnifying glass for evidence,” I answered, privy to the great detective’s methodology.

Lestrade shook his head in dismissal of Holmes’ methodology.

“Find anything,” he asked sceptically, when Holmes descended.

“Yes. An inscription on the wall, surely by the deceased. Two letters, written in his blood, and written, I would say, in terror.”

“Terror?” exclaimed Lestrade.

“Yes, they were scrawled as if in terror or panic. Two letters: GI.”

“Ah, I recall now that the constable who climbed up there did say something about two red letters with those initials. He speculated that the man had been trying to write the word ‘gin’, that he wanted a drink.”

“Not enough to write it in blood,” replied Holmes, “even for an Englishman.”

I rather appreciated the ‘even for an Englishman’ quip, Holmes’ indulging in humour was so rare. I wasn’t sure it was humour.

Somewhere from the direction of the ship’s stern there came a sound, like some great creature scurrying. Holmes’ suddenly alert pose showed that he had heard it, also. Lestrade frowned. “We heard that sound, too, a couple of times. Rats, probably.”

“If so, no ordinary rats,” Holmes concluded.

Suddenly he stooped and picked up something from the deck. It appeared to be a long piece of bristle. Holmes peered at it for a moment.

“I can tell you what that is, Holmes,” ventured Lestrade. “A brush bristle. There are no sailors in the world that can top our British lads when it comes to sweeping the decks.”

Holmes examined the bristle under his glass. “No, this filament is not from a brush. Do you have the cargo manifest, Lestrade?”

Lestrade did. “Jute and sundries. No animals,” he pronounced, divining Holmes’ direction.

The strangest look formed on Holmes’ face. It was there only a moment. “What is it?” I asked him.

“Only something, some legend about Sumatra, involving a fearful – I cannot recall what creature.”

The lower jowl of Lestrade’s bulldog face tightened. “I should have brought along some constables, but I wanted to keep this thing as quiet as possible.”

I surmised Lestrade wanted to take credit for any success Holmes might achieve in solving the case without witnesses to dispute him. He knew Holmes was above caring about such ‘honours’. The resolution of the conundrum was sufficient reward.

“Watson and I are armed. So are you, I trust.”

The little detective smiled. “A long as I have my trousers, I have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket, I have something in it.”

“Well, then, we should be able to handle it – whatever ‘it’ is. I want to check the captain’s cabin. Maybe the log will reveal something.”

The log revealed nothing. “I’m not surprised, Holmes,” Lestrade said. “An entry in a captain’s log about a fearful bat wouldn’t impress the captain’s shipping company.”

“Maybe he didn’t have time to make an entry. Whatever it was that killed the sailor would have been upon him before he could enter anything. Or maybe he was too frightened.”

“It’s a giant mystery, alright,” nodded Lestrade.

Holmes jerked his head up as if he had been galvanised by an electric shock.

“That’s it! The letters. The ‘GI’. The poor man was trying to write the word ‘giant’.”

Lestrade turned white. “If you are trying to frighten me, Holmes, you are doing a good job.”

And then there occurred something totally unexpected, something that in retrospect, all that had taken place on the ship so far should have prepared us for — and yet how could anything have prepared us for it? A grey-brown appendage suddenly shot through the open doorway.

The look on Holmes’ pale face was of greater horror than I had ever seen him express before. The faces of Lestrade and I surely bore a similar expression.

“A snake!” shouted Lestrade.

The snake in ‘The Speckled Band’ shot through my mind, but this creature was far larger than that snake had been. More electrifying yet was the huge eye that above it peered in at us through the doorway. My mind grasped immediately that a ‘devil-fish’, a giant squid, was attempting to tentacle its way into the cabin.

Holmes reacted first, drawing his pistol and shooting four shots. The eye and paw, for that was what the appendage revealed itself to be, a huge paw, withdrew at once from the doorway.

The three of us stood amazed. Then Holmes cautiously stepped through the doorway, pistol ready.

“Come on out,” he said in a voice promising safety.

Lestrade and I emerged cautiously.

Bloody splotches led to the side of the ship. A glimpse of a dark, shapeless blur was followed immediately by a huge sound of something vast entering the water. The upper fountain of a great splash could be seen momentarily. Holmes ran in its direction. We followed.

Waves buffeted the side of the ship and some splotches of blood on the sea’s surface indicated where the giant rat had plunged.

“That is what the legend told of,” exclaimed Holmes, remembering. “The giant Sumatran rat.”

Our Baker Street premises seemed protective indeed after the adventure which had befallen us.

“As I see it, then, Holmes, the last sailor ran to seek refuge in the crow’s nest after being bitten. He died from loss of blood or, after a time, disease. In his weakness, he left us only his partial explanation. The rest of the crew were so terrified that they leapt off the ship without lowering the life boats, poor souls.”

“Admirably summarised, Watson. The creature sneaked aboard in Sumatra, probably when the crew slept. The rat hid or was busy in the stores until after the ship sailed. Rat poison wouldn’t have deterred him.”

“I suppose not, Holmes.”

“The giant rats are confined to an inaccessible portion of the island where they live in caves. This creature must have been thrown out of the pack or suffered chemical imbalance similar to that which causes the lemmings to head for the sea. And the giant rat explains that filament which I picked up from the deck. It seemed to me similar to a rodent’s hair, but I dismissed the possibility because its huge size threw me off.”

“But Holmes, there is one thing I still do not understand. Why did the lone sailor climb up to the crow’s nest and not jump ship in panic like his shipmates.”

“It’s hard to say. Possessed of more courage, perhaps, or his need to leave a testament to what happened, as he tried to do. There is a certain type of individual, Watson, who is driven by a need to chronicle.” Here Holmes winked at me.

“What troubles me, Holmes, is that the eye of the creature seemed intelligent, as if there were a soul concealed in the animal.”

“Such discoveries are what make the field of criminal investigation so interesting,” replied Holmes laconically.

Larry Lefkowitz has had stories, poetry and humour widely published in the US, Israel and Britain. He is looking for a publisher for his novel about a literary critic’s assistant who is asked by the critic’s widow to complete an unfinished novel left by her husband.

thrash the beamer,

smash it into the housing estate.

Wave to the helicopter,

I ain’t sick and I don’t need a head doctor,

it ain’t stealing when I take your car,

it’s just another form of drug with which

you’re not used to dealing.

My drug has more than highs and lows,

it’s got 4-wheel drive accelerator feeling,

I thrive on its buzz,

at last I’m alive, I need its rush

and you must know it’s never this

exciting on the paving.

Grand Theft Auto results in a nice long secure stay

at one of those high-walled government ‘resortos’.

At night I lie awake

and listen out for the sound stolen tyres make.

Just let me get at your steering,

so I can slam your family hatch

through its gearing

until I’ve floored my life out of the estate,

driven your car far away from all that I hate,

until I make it to some

distant woodland clearing,

where I apply the match and watch the flames catch.

In 2008 Paul was poet for the London borough of Brent and he performed at the new Wembley Stadium. He has two poems in the new Penguin a-z of children’s poetry. ‘Don’t try this at home’ is taken from his new collection Catching the Cascade. (www.paul-lyalls.com)

The wind blows the sign over and I set it back up.  Drive it six inches in the ground and look at the large X.

I step inside.  What’s left of the boxes, mostly dishes and photo albums, are scattered around the living room floor.  Melissa’s in our bedroom packing up loose pieces and still crying.  Michael’s sliding his Hot-Wheels the length of the hall’s hardwood floor.  I grab a duffel bag and a ’66 Mini-Mustang spins between my legs and hits the baseboard.  In the room, masking tape is stretched and ripped.  I take the bag outside and wedge it under a kitchen stool.

Melissa slams something in the living room and I yell out to be careful with the white box.  “That’s your China.”  I slide a door mirror farther in and out of the corner of my eye the white box is cartwheeling toward me from the front door.  It hits the ground at my feet and rolls toward the X.

The China I gave her on our second anniversary.

The broken pieces sliding end to end, I force the box between the mattresses.  Already, I’m starting to miss her.

It’s smothering out, and the sky’s the colour of soaked tissue.  Thunder shakes somewhere inside it.

Our neighbour, Hewitt, comes across the yard, two beers to a hand.  He’s wearing cut-offs with boots and striped socks yanked up to the knees.  “Jesus,” he says, “Christ.”  He says, “Hotter than a blistered pisser in a pepper patch.”  He slips a beer in each pocket, tosses me one, and cracks the other open for himself.  His hands and clothes are caked white with paint.

“Got my fence painted,” he says, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

I open my beer, and say, “I see that.”  I tell him, “Might wanna cover it up.”

“Cover what up?”

“Your fence.”

“Cover it up, it’s still wet.”

“Gonna be soaked.”

He waves his hand and looks up at the clouds.  “That’ll miss us,” he says.  Then:  ”Looks like you’re about finished.”

Yeah, I tell him.  “Almost.”

“Well, I came over to share a beer and tell you….”.  He puts the can to his mouth.  “Those ‘chicken shit’ cracks?  Me and the fellas were just drunk.”  He takes a drink and says, “You know.”

“Forget it,” I say, and take a sip.  Michael runs out in the yard with a model Blue Angel held over his head, slicing the air.  “Mikey!”  Hewitt says.  “What we got there?”

“Airplane,” Michael says, dips and rises and sweeps back through the door.

“So,” Hewitt says, “Melissa still not talking to you?”

I shake my head.

Inside something thumps and shatters, and Melissa says: “Damn it, Michael.  Go outside and play!”  Michael starts crying, and Hewitt whistles and hits his beer.

I tell him she’s going to her mother’s for a while.  Taking Mike with her.  “Tell me,” I say, “will a woman really divorce you for thinking you’re a coward?”

“Hell if I’d know,” he says.  “Mine left me for telling her to get out of the car.”  He crushes his empty beer can.  “Of course, I was hitting fifth gear when I told her.”  He laughs, pats my shoulder, and looks at the sky.  “Nope.  No way it’s gonna rain.”

I load a few more boxes and sit on the back bumper of the truck, knuckling the sweat from my eyes.  Hewitt’s into his second beer, occasionally digging at his crotch, and burping.  He peels a sliver of dried paint from the Vietnam tattoo on his wrist.

“What was Vietnam like?” I’d asked him one afternoon, after we got to be friends.

Sitting on his porch, he rubbed the tattoo and stared out at the yard.  “At times,” he said, “like having a second to live every second you’re alive.”

With the wind picking up, he shifts a floor lamp in the truck and says, “Talk to the police again?”

I lean back against the boxes and nod.  “They’ll keep their eyes open,” I say, wiping my cheek.  “They’re dead-set on it being a prank call.”

What the police were investigating was a phone call that came around two in the morning last month.  What I was told during this call was that the occupants at 1031 Audrey Lane were going to be killed.  “Sacrificed,” the man on the phone said, “by His people to the Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

An offering of a family to show their unflinching faith to God.

My family.

“Disembowelment is really a noble way to die,” he said, me still wiping sleep out of my eyes.  “You should feel honored.”

The police traced the call to a pay phone in the Hill district.  Given the location, they said, it’s probably just some kids screwing with the phone book.  They asked if we knew of anyone who’d do this.  Who might try and scare us.

And no, we didn’t.

They asked if the man called us by name.

No.  Just the occupants at this address.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time,” they said, “these things are just a hoax.”

When I told Hewitt about the call, he bit his lower lip and said, “A sacrifice?  You mean in the Abraham sense?”  Playing poker that night, he said, “It’s gotta be a joke.  I mean, I’m gonna take someone out, I damn sure don’t call and tell them.”  Shuffling the deck, he said, “Even Isaac didn’t know until his back was against Moriah.”

The first week after the call, I hardly slept.  Every shift in the house, I was peeking around the corner.  When the air kicked on, my body went numb.  When Michael woke up crying from a nightmare, I almost threw up.

“Just get an alarm system,” Melissa said.

“I can’t believe you’re not a little more concerned,” I said.

“I made the same calls in high school, myself,” she said.  “Except I’d be sales representatives or the IRS or porn store clerks.”  Rubbing my cheek with her thumb, she smiled, shook her head, and said, “On the phone, you’re whoever you want to be.”

The next day I looked at alarm systems, but it’s useless if you think about it.  Alarms scare rapists or burglars.  They spook peeping toms.  But some religious zealot doing “God’s work,” they wouldn’t give two shits about loud noise.

By the second week, I suspected cashiers, waiters, and joggers in the park.  I looked over my shoulder at mechanics, bank tellers.  Even business clients.  Everyone was an Abraham.

“I think we need to move,” I told Melissa, one day after work.

And she said, “You lost your goddamn mind?”  She shook her head.  “It was just a prank call!”  Digging in her flower garden, planting grandiflora roses, she told me, “You’re not uprooting our lives because some college punks got in your head.”

I told her how I come home from work and hear the puddles of my wife and son’s blood squishing in the carpet.  How around every corner, the walls are splashed red.  “I’m out of town, you guys are here alone,” I said.  “You can’t have one second to live,” I said, thinking of napalm and land mines, “every second of your life.”

The third week, a large red X was painted in our yard one night, and the next morning, I put our house on the market.

There’s a fine line between being a coward and a news segment.

Three years ago, on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, I stepped on a nail while jogging barefoot on the beach.  Miles of sand and my foot finds that nail.

I told Melissa to start packing.  “Ninety-nine per cent,” I said, flipping through the yellow pages for ‘Moving Trucks,’ “is not my kind of odds.”

Last summer, a family of four was murdered in Spokane, Washington.

In Salt Lake City, a family of six was tortured and killed on Christmas Eve.

From the back of the moving truck, I watch the sky whiten and grumble.  Hewitt comes back across the yard with more beer, looking up.  Melissa comes out with the last box and her eyes are red and swollen.

“Hello Mrs. Melissa,” Hewitt says.  “Looking beautiful as always.”

“Not hello,” she says, staring at me.  “It’s goodbye.”  Her eyes are drawn tight.  “You wanna still be neighbors?” Melissa says. “Because the house next to my Mother’s got toilet papered last week.  They’ll for sure be moving out.”

I bite down and my jaw pops.

“Just set it down anywhere,” I say.  “I’ll find a place.”  She sighs, shakes her head, and sets it down.  Going back inside, she stops beside her dying flower garden.  Stares at her withered hybrid tea and floribunda roses.

It thunders and Hewitt looks up and says, “Women.  Can’t live with them—by God, it’s gonna rain.”

A family of three was butchered in Haddonfield, New Jersey last Fourth of July.

“Know what she said?” I say.  I say, “Said it was probably me that painted the X so we’d move.”  I throw the box in and it catches.  “She didn’t hear his voice,” I tell him.  “That guy meant what he said.”

He tells me fear’s powerful.  “In Nam, men would put a knife in their thigh or blow a toe off to get out.”  He tells me when he was in high school someone was carving up heavy women around his neighborhood.  How after the seventh one, posters of a red cross with a tape measure around it popped up everywhere.  They said: “Be safe.  Lose weight.”

He says, “After that, those women got in the best shape of their lives.  Fear,” he says, “can be as healthy as Slim Fast.”

The door of the moving truck slams and I jump.  Inside Melissa’s leaning her head against the window, her eyes closed.  She’s rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Even if she doesn’t want a divorce,” I say, lowering my voice, “I’ll always be a chickenshit.”

Hewitt says, “She’ll come around.”  Taking a drink, he says, “People always come around.”

A blade of lightning forks down and leaves an afterimage.  Thunder cracks somewhere close.  Hewitt downs another beer and says, “You gonna follow the news?”

Two Octobers ago, a family of three was slaughtered while vacationing on the Cape.

“The news?”

He nods his head and says, “Before the war, you dodged the draft or went to college, someone was called up to take your place, go for you.  Then,” he says, “someone takes the place of the guy who took yours, and so on and so on.”  He peels a chip of paint from his elbow and Michael runs between us with his plane, his lips pursed to sound the engine.  Hewitt says, “Someone’ll move in after you.”

A family of three or five or seven or nine was killed at 1031 Audrey Lane, one month after moving in.

He laughs and says, “You’ll be fine, but Friday night poker’s shot to shit.”  He holds his thick paint-crusted hand out and I shake it.

“Why’s this shit happening?” I say.  The first few drops of rain dot the driveway.  Hewitt squints and holds out his hands to feel the drops.  “God works in delirious ways,” he says, pats my shoulder, and starts back across the yard.  “Shoot me a call sometime,” he says, not looking back.

Michael’s yanking at my hand and holding out his airplane.  “It’s broken,” he says, and holds up a piece.

“Hop in the truck,” I tell him.  “I’ll fix it later.”

I slide the truck door down and latch it at the bottom.  The rain is starting to hiss and across the yard Hewitt’s running around, covering his fence with an old tarp.  “Shit!  Shit!  Shit!” he’s saying, holding a beer in one hand and working the tarp with the other.

I give the house a last walk through.  Stop in what was our room and look at the four bedpost marks in the carpet.  “That’s it,” I say, and it bounces off the empty walls.  I go out and lock the door.

At the four-way stop, a tan Contour turns onto the street.  It slows down as it approaches our yard.  The window slides down and a man leans out.  My insides go light and rise, the tendons breaking their grip.  Muscles hovering completely off the bone.

The man shields his eyes from the rain, jots down the number on the sign and drives away.

That saying “blinded by fear” is wrong.  It’s really “blinded by indifference.”  Because fear shows you real monsters exist, their claws always inches from the throat.  You don’t see them; it’s because you don’t want to.

They’re the voices on the other end of early morning phone calls.  They lie between you and your wife at night, your backs facing.

They’re that one per cent everyone ignores, the nails in the sand waiting to scrape bone in the arches of bare feet.

Standing in the rain, I think about the next family to move in.  And about the Vietnam draft.  The next in line, filling your slot.  How you could’ve been responsible for fifty dead soldiers without knowing how to hold a gun.

I wish I could say I hope it’s all a hoax.  That the next family will live safe and sound in their new home.  But I can’t.  Sometimes, pride’s more important than humanity.

I get in the truck and Michael’s singing, “Rain, rain, go away….”.  Melissa’s still leaning against the window, eyes closed.  I run my hand through my soaked hair and look at the house reflected in the side mirror.  Picture the door outlined in police tape.

Michael’s singing, “Come again another day.”

I know every night, I’ll watch the news and scan the headlines.  And one day, there it’ll be, and the look on everyone’s faces will say it all: You were right, they’ll say, jaws slack and eyes wide.  You were right all along.

Kevin Brown has had work published in over seventy journals and was nominated for a 2007 Journey Award and a Pushcart Prize.  His first book Ink On Wood is due to be published in the summer of 2010.  His website is www.InvisibleBodies.com .

His wife, Rachel, crouched in the cloakroom under the stairs, buffered by the winter coats and wellingtons, and stared into the darkness as she pressed the button.  The cracks around the doorway flashed white and red and orange, and the door itself buckled inwards, the frame splintering around the hinges.  A shake of plaster dusted Rachel’s hair.

She removed her earplugs and climbed through the broken door.  The ceiling in the hallway had collapsed; the snapped end of a pipe spilled rusty water onto the floor where it mixed with the plaster dust to form an off-white paste, like the icing on a cheap wedding cake or slush on the driveway.  Rachel trod grey footprints along the carpet into the kitchen.

Josiah littered the room, limbs and innards spread wide.  The glass cabinets had shattered, decapitating him; his head sat lopsided on the table and regarded her uneasily.

“What did you do that for?” it asked.

Rachel crouched level with the table-top and watched the tongue writhe.

“I’m using my initiative, Joe,” she said. “At last.  How about that?”

She could already hear the faint wail of sirens.  Somebody was banging at the door; the letterbox clanged.

“Rachel? Hello? It’s George! Are you alright?”

Josiah’s mouth twitched.

“Don’t let that wanker in my house.”

“It’s hardly your house now, sweetheart, is it?” Rachel said, and patted him on the head.

She moved quickly now.  Wiping her hands on her dressing gown, she knelt and searched among the debris for her husband’s hands.  They had scuttled behind the fridge and clung white-knuckled to the metal grid at the back, which was warped and sparking from the explosion.  Rachel kicked them awkwardly into the middle of the room, where they clutched one another, trembling.

Josiah’s head on the table wobbled and strained to see.

“What have you got there?  Stop it.”

Rachel hustled the hands into a corner with the side of her foot.  The fingers scrabbled at her ankles, grasping and scratching and drawing small beads of blood that mixed with the plaster dust and dripped pinkly onto the cold kitchen tiles.  She picked up the hands and threw them out the window.   They dropped like old gloves into the flowerbed.

“This is for the secretaries, Joe,” she said, and the head’s eyes flicked back towards her.  It licked its lips, glanced around the room.

“Yes, I need to talk to you about that,” it said.

But already the cheeks were yellowing and stiffening, and the mouth, smeared with dust and spittle, struggled to shape the words.  At the back door, the feet and lower legs were ramming the cat-flap.  One foot caught on the metal rim and flopped half-in-half-out, toes wiggling.

The sirens outside had stopped, and a splintering crash came from the hallway as George attacked the front door.

“Rachel?  Where are you?” he yelled.

Josiah’s head tried to turn to the noise, and fell over sideways.  “I can’t feel anything,” it mumbled, rolling back and forth in the middle of the table.

“Hush up now, Joe,” said Rachel, and she quickly hooked her fingers into the gaping mouth.  She took the detonation device from her pocket, lodged it between his teeth, and pushed his jaw shut.  She held his face clamped like that as the lips and eyes moved slower and slower and stopped, the lips in a grimace, the eyelids spread open.

George had made it as far as the hallway.  Rachel flung the kitchen door wide and threw herself into his arms.  George hugged her.

“Jesus, babe,” he said.  “What happened?”

“Oh, darling,” she said. “It’s awful.”  She sobbed.

Josiah’s head stared at them through the open door; it watched George’s hands grip Rachel’s buttocks, and it couldn’t blink or turn away.

Rachel smiled as the paramedics rushed inside.  They cordoned off the house and led her to the ambulance.  The smell of cordite floated in the air like apple blossom and cherry pie.

Valerie O’Riordan is an MA student of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.  Links to her work can be found at www.not-exactly-true.blogspot.com.  She is working on her first novel.

are limited to brief moments

of happiness:

like the eyes in the look of a dog,

like a square of wax,

like a fire taking the city hall,

the county,

the continent,

like fire taking the hair

of maidens and monsters;

and hawks buzzing in peach trees,

the sea running between their claws,

Time

drunk and damp,

everything burning,

everything wet,

everything fine.Similar Posts:

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On the platform she takes his hand. – Can you see a taxi sign anywhere? she asks him.

- There, Mum! he says, swerving off suddenly to the left. Once again she marvels at how big he has grown in the past few months.

In the taxi she gives the driver an address and sits back, peering short-sightedly at the passing houses.

- Are we going to see Philippe?

- Not now. We’re going to the hotel first.

- And then we’re going to see him?

- No. Tomorrow morning.

He is silent, playing with his backpack. Then, – Is this Geneva? he asks.

- Yes.

He is silent again.

- I thought we could go for a boat-ride on the lake, she says. Would you like that?

He is silent, staring out of the window.

- Would you? she repeats.

- I don’t mind, he says, not looking at her.

- Hotel du soleil, the driver says, pulling in to the kerb.

The next morning, at breakfast, he asks again: – Are we going to see Philippe today?

- Yes, she says.

- Where does he live?

- Not far from here. We’ll walk.

In the street she says: – Look, one can see the lake from almost anywhere in this city.

- Come on, she says, stopping and waiting for him. Why are you dawdling so much this morning?

She holds out her hand but he does not take it. He reaches up to my armpit, she thinks, soon it will be my shoulder, and then he’ll be as tall as I am.

She looks at her watch: – We’re early, she says. Let’s go and have a coffee.

- I don’t want a coffee.

- You can have a coke.

Though autumn is drawing in it’s still warm enough to sit on the terrace.

- Don’t do that, she says, as he sucks noisily at the dregs of his coke through the straw.

He puts the glass down on the table.

- Do you want another? she asks him.

- He looks at her in surprise: – Another coke?

- Why not? she says. We’re on holiday.

She laughs, but he goes on looking at her, puzzled, across the table.

- Or something else? She says.

She fumbles in her bag, takes out a packet of cigarettes, selects one, lights it. – What’s the matter? she says. What are you looking at me like that for?

- Nothing, he says.

He retreats into himself.

- Go on, she says. Have a milk shake.

- Will you have one?

- No. I don’t think so. But why don’t you?

- No thank you, he says, in his most adult tone.

- Another coke then?

- No, Mum, he says, I don’t want anything,

She calls for the bill, stubbing out her cigarette as she does so.

From her bag she takes a pair of soft black leather gloves. She draws them on, pressing between her fingers, smoothing them over her wrists.

- Do you like them? she asks, holding up her hands for him to see.

- They’re all right, he says.

- I think they’re very nice, she says.

In the street she takes a piece of paper from her bag, examines it. The boy waits, looking idly round him.

- Come, she says. She pushes him ahead of her.

They round a corner. She says: – Look out for number 52.

He walks beside her. She can feel the heat of his body against her side. – Here, he says.

She presses the buzzer and the door opens. Opposite them is a lift. – Fifth floor, she says.

In the lift she opens her bag and feels about inside it. Then she examines her face in the wall mirror.

The lift stops. The inner doors slide open. They get out.

Three doors give onto the landing. She peers at the name on one, moves to the next, rings a bell.

Silence.

- Come, she says to the boy. Stand here beside me.

She rings again,

Silence.

She waits.

Finally she says: – All right. We’ll come back later.

The lift is still there. She opens the door and pushes him in ahead of her.

In the street she hesitates a moment, then turns right in the direction of the lake.

- What are we going to do? he asks.

- We’ll have a little walk, she says.

He walks beside her, absently.

They pass a café. – Come, she says. We’ll have a drink.

He follows her onto the terrace. She finds a table and sits down.

- What will you have? she asks him.

- Nothing, he says.

- You must have something.

- I’m not thirsty.

- On a hot day like this?

- The waiter is standing beside them. She orders a glass of wine for herself and a coke for the boy. When he returns the waiter makes a great show of opening the bottle and pouring the contents into a long glass half-filled with ice.

The boy stares ahead of him.

- Go on, his mother says, when the waiter has left. Drink up.

She peels off her gloves and lays them on the table beside her.

- I’m not thirsty, the boy says.

- It’ll do you good.

- Mum, he says, it’s the second one this morning.

- Never mind, she says. This is as special occasion,

Reluctantly, he draws the glass towards him and sips the drink through the straw.

She has drunk her wine. She is examining her face in a pocket mirror she has taken from her bag, She applies some lipstick.

She returns the lipstick and mirror to her bag, snaps it shut. – Go on, she says, Drink up.

- I’ve had enough, he says,

She calls the waiter, pays.

She puts on her gloves, stands up. – Come, she says.

In the street the boy says: – Mum, I need to pee.

- Wait till we get to Philippe’s.

- And if he isn’t there?

- He’ll be there.

They retrace their steps. In the lift mirror she again checks her face. The boy stands beside her, impassive.

Once again she presses the bell. This time, after a pause, there is the sound of footsteps.

The door opens.

He stares at them in surprise.

- Veronica! he says, when he realises who it is. What are you doing here?

- Are you alone? she asks him.

- Yes, he says, still staring.

- May we come in?

He steps aside. She pushes the boy in ahead of her.

- Where’s the lavatory? she asks. He needs to go.

He closes the front door. – I’ll take him, he says.

When he returns she has gone into the large light living-room next to the entrance hall and is standing at the window.

-       Veronica, he says, coming towards her. What do you want?

-       Then he sees the knife in her hand. – No, he says, Veronica. Put that away.

-       He reaches out a hand to push her away but she brushes it aside.

-       Veronica, he says.

She leans into him and pushes the knife into his stomach as far as it will go. He gasps and sinks onto the sofa, dislodging a large glass ashtray on the little table by the sofa, which slides to the floor and smashes to pieces. She stands over him, puts her left hand on his shoulder and pulls out the knife. He gasps again and seems to fold in two. She wipes the blade of the knife on his trousers and puts it back in her bag.

The boy is standing at the door of the living-room.

- Come, she says. We’re going.

He stands, looking into the room.

- Philippe’s not feeling very well, she says, taking his hand and turning him towards the front door.

In the lift she examines her face in the wall mirror.

- Come, she says, as they leave the house. We’ve got to get to the hotel and collect our bags.

She sets off down the street. He trails a few steps behind her.

In the train he sits opposite her, staring out of the window.

Finally he says: – Will we have to go back to Geneva?

-       No, she says. I don’t think so.

-       I’m glad, he says, I didn’t like it much. Did you?

-       I liked the lake, she says.

- I didn’t like it much, he says, putting on his most adult expression.  It was too pretty pretty.

She laughs, hearing the expression in his mouth.

-       It was, Mum, he says. Didn’t you think so?

-       I suppose so, she says. Now be quiet. I want to sleep.

Gabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 and has lived in England since 1956. He is the author of fourteen novels, three collections of short stories, six critical books and of a dozen plays for stage and radio. His most recent book is Two Novels; After & Making Mistakes (Carcanet). Carcanet will be publishing a volume of new and selected stories, Heart’s Wings, later this year.

The curtains let a sliver of light in, but I can’t face the silent city yet, so I stay under the covers where it’s warm and safe. Reasoning that my hands might picture what my eyes dare not, I reach for the nearest sketchbook and let my fingers settle on the cool pencil trapped in the pages. The image that comes terrifies me: they’ve broken the city, shattered the rock it sits on, and we’re all drifting out into the Pacífico, bobbing about on lonely fragments of vulnerable earth.

*

Mama marches into my room. I’m under the bed sheets, shaking. Come on, you’re going to school, she says.

The family is around the table. Papa isn’t reading a newspaper; he looks into space. Josep my brother is kissing Mama and stepping out of the door. An empanada is sitting on my plate, but this is wrong and I start humming. Tranquilo, Mikel, tranquilo, says Mama, pushing me towards my chair. I take a couple of bites of breakfast, but it’s leftovers and the pastry is hard and the filling has congealed.

Soon, Papa leaves for work and Mama begins running a comb through my hair. The knots catch like they always do, and my head is jerked around. But this is normal and it makes me feel better.

Mama says the buses have started running again. I didn’t know they’d stopped. Maybe that’s why I was kept home for a week. We step outside and I feel the quiet again, like no one’s breathing.

The bus arrives, eight minutes late and chugging through the morning haze. There are few people on board, and we manage to sit. I’m in the window seat, nose close enough to feel the chill of the glass. Mama picks through a magazine, but I can see her reflection glancing up at me. A military jeep sits at the corner of Avenida Holanda, with a posse of soldiers hunched together nearby lighting cigarettes and casting dark shadows. Shops are open, and a few people mill about looking for groceries, but there seems little on the shelves. A couple of streets later, a truck blocks the pavement in front of a house with its front door lying in the road. People are walking slowly past, while others lean from windows. Two soldiers here aren’t smoking; they heft guns and push the onlookers away. I’m the only one on the bus looking out of the window.

Around the central plaza, roadblocks have been set up. Sandbags are laid out everywhere like sprouting fungi. More guns. People are shouting. Mama squeezes my shoulder when a soldier boards the bus and stalks the aisle, examining faces and shaking out bags. I can’t meet his eyes, so I look out at La Moneda. The walls are blackened and part of the balustrade has broken away. Mama looks away.

*

Mama gets out at the school with me, kisses my forehead and goes off to catch another bus to her work. The Escuela Para Niños Autistas uses a spare primary school classroom that reeks of disinfectant and the mould that is gradually consuming it. I wait in the playground with the other students; some of the more afflicted ones standing next to a tired parent. From smeary windows all around us, children stare with unchecked curiosity. Finally, the volunteer teachers Marta and Jose arrive and unlock the doors.

I’m the last in, but the lights are still flickering desperately. A scented candle is lit, and an ancient gramophone begins to crackle and pop. The teachers arrange us on the floor, and a man’s voice resonates around the damp walls, accompanied by a folk guitar. Jose looks up at Marta, who makes a face I don’t understand, and they begin to drift around the room in floating movements that match the pace of the song. The other children mimic them or stand and sway, but I dig out a box of pastels and some scrap paper and head for the table near the window – I don’t dance.

I lay out a spectrum of pastels and the first sheet of paper, then look out of the window. I sit and watch the primary school children recite their times tables and before long I notice my hand is sketching outlines. Something has caught like a fish on a line and now I should reel it in to see what it is. I’m blocking out the music, the clump of feet on floorboards and the musty smell and letting my hand lead itself. Reaching for colours, my hands move faster now, gaining a feel for the image, but Marta is speaking. You work so confidently, she says. What is it?

For the first time, I look at the paper. It’s like waking from a dream: I have a sense of what it was, I can almost taste it, but I cannot say what it is. The colours have overrun the paper anyway, leaving bands of red and orange across the table. Paper is never large enough to contain my work.

Marta can see my frustration, and she strokes the back of my hand until I’m breathing normally. She is a gentle person, with a round face and bright threads woven into the thick black hair that falls down her back. On days when Josep brings me here they often talk and laugh.

I expect her to go back to the dance, but she stays. Were you okay last week, Mikel? she asks.

I tell her I ran out of paper. She nods. And your family?

I don’t understand her question, so I ask one of my own. Who is that singing, Marta?

He is a folk singer, Mikel.

I like his voice.

Yes, many people say that.

*

The rattling bus climbs back up through Providencia, and I see more people on the streets. Teenagers gather in the shade of a spindly araucaria tree, talking in clusters, and elderly men play chess in the park. The soldiers look on.

I get off a stop early and cut into an alley adjoining the street. A little way along, a wooden gate is set into one wall. The bolts holding one panel in place have rusted through, creating a flap through which I can just about squeeze. A vacated printer’s workshop, a place of shadows slit through with pale light from cracked windows under the eaves. I set a candle down on the floor and light it with matches I shouldn’t have. The bricks glow a vibrant orange in response to the flame, then I take in the azures, the violets, the crimsons, jades, yellows and whites daubed over great swathes of the walls. Bats live up in the roof space, but the walls are mine. I take out the pastels.

This place has been my life, day after day after day. Almost one entire wall is covered now in the vivid shades of the city. Stepping back, I can see how my style has changed as I’ve found the confidence to trust my hands and eyes, and how the subjects and palette, too, have evolved to match the events I live through. I am proud of my wall, and even over the coming weeks as people talk in whispers of the junta and los desaparecidos, I lose myself in recreating the city as I see it.

Then, on a rainy day when I’m standing on tiptoes trying to finish a helicopter buzzing over my mural city, a man squeezes through the gate panel. He’s only a little taller than I am and his dark leather jacket hangs loosely off bony shoulders. Until I see the bristles on his jaw I think he’s a child.

Dropping the pastel, I step away from the wall. He sniffs the air and scratches notes into a pad.

How old are you?

Thirteen.

More scratches in the notebook. He looks over at the wall.

Did you do all of this?

…

The soles of his shoes crunch closer on the rough concrete floor.

Look at me.

I look, but can’t hold it.

I said, did you do this?

A small nod. I need the bathroom.

He walks again, off into space behind me. Crunch, crunch.

When he speaks again, his voice is everywhere, like a conscience.

We are making a new society here – fixing the country. The crime and corruption is going to be washed away. Do you know what that means? It means Chile will be strong again!

Between the echoes of his voice, I can hear rain pattering the windows. Suddenly, he’s at my ear.

Does this mean anything to you?

Something trickles down my leg, tickling the little hairs. It is warm and wet.

He leans close, and I smell cigarettes and alcohol. He notices the puddle mingling with dried bat droppings at my feet. If I see you here again, you and your family will regret it, he says.

*

I’m running over infinite carpets through endless galleries that ring to the sound of my booming footsteps. The works of masters blur in my peripheral vision. I round another corner, leaning in like a motorcyclist, the soles of my shoes slipping and squeaking on the polished floors, and run into Mama’s outstretched arm. She looks at me for a long time, shakes her head and leads me into Sr. Valdez’s office.

In the first week of January, Marta didn’t arrive at the Escuela. Jose took the classes by himself, but he seemed different: shouting one minute, crying the next. The following week class was cancelled, and it has remained this way. Since then, I have been spending my days at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, where Mama works. I water plants, dust benches, and polish door handles, but there’s lots of time to sit in sunlit halls drawing on the backs of exhibition posters.

Sr. Valdez is the director of the Museo. He is sitting behind a large desk wearing a shiny suit and a furrowed brow. On a stand next to the desk is Montecino’s Santiago Nº 3. Mama gasps. Sr. Valdez offers a minute nod and leaves.

Why? Mama hisses when the door has clicked shut.

It didn’t look right without tanks.

Do you have any idea of what you’ve done? Mama’s face is red.

I feel my lips move, but what sound comes out escapes me. I’m back in the streets and playgrounds, pinned against walls or face down on gravel, fists squeezing my shirt and voices demanding to know why I do what I do. This question is nothing new; I’ll probably face it all my life, but I’m never any better at answering. People confuse me.

*

The face painted on the wall of the abandoned house towers above me, seen in profile with only his forehead, cheekbones and the broad ridge of his nose catching the light. The eye is almost swallowed in shadow. It looks a strong face, ready to take people on. Underneath, the name ‘Victor’ has been stencilled – artist or subject, I’m not sure.

Happy in the thought that others share my passions, I sit in the deep grass of the forgotten garden. When I’ve chosen my subject, I begin dashing the outlines in white chalk at a respectful distance from ‘Victor’. I work much faster now, in bold blocks of suggestive colour. And then it’s done: the uniforms with crossed-rifle shoulder patches and peaked caps come easily now; the blocky, blunt-jawed faces with steel eyes I have seen a thousand times. Here, they are roughing up a street busker, kicking his guitar case away and sending a few pesos tinkling into the gutter. I try to decipher the look in the victim’s eyes, but it’s beyond me.

I’ve been busy lately. The alleys in this neighbourhood are covered with murals of old men playing chess, tanks on street corners, young children buying groceries, and houses with broken doors, but there’s so much still to do I wonder if there’ll be enough walls.

Our house is full of quiet. Josep is reading an article in a newspaper over and over. My parents sit still on chairs next to each other. Mama has been crying and does not look at me. I can smell cigarettes.

Josep leads me into my room and tells me a story about a man who came today; it’s full of names that make my thoughts swim. I grow twitchy and nervous, but he ploughs on, about Allende and Pinochet and the DINA and Nixon and Castro. I stammer that I don’t know these people, but he says some of them are interested in me. Then he asks about my pictures and the man in the leather jacket. It is too much. I scream and try to get out, but Josep pins me to my bed – he never loses his gentle look.

*

A hand shakes me awake in the blackness. It is Josep. Get dressed and meet me downstairs, he says. Bring your pastels.

In the kitchen, I find my brother and a woman sharing a hip flask of coffee. A candle burns on the table.

Hola, Mikel, says Marta.

I don’t know what to say. I want to hug her, but I’m too shocked. Her eyes are hidden in the flickering shadows, and a scar ripples her cheek.

We need your help, says Josep.

The streets are a smoky shade of orange, and the clouds are hanging low like a suffocating pillow. Two bicycles are in front of the house. Marta takes one, and Josep the other. He puts a finger to his lips, and I climb on behind him.

Our ride is slow and punctuated with hushed conversations of which I understand little and am not included. Twice we have to dive off the bicycles and huddle behind walls or under bushes, our faces buried in the dirt of the city, hoping its darkness will protect us against roaming flashlights.

After crossing the Mapocho in a crazed sprint over one of the smaller bridges, we leave the bicycles in some bushes and trek up onto the wooded slopes of Cerro San Cristobal. It is pitch black under the trees, and we move slowly and clumsily. Odours of resin and earth fill the air. Finally, we come to the iron railings of the zoo.

We clamber over and enter this otherworldly place. Utter silence, broken only by occasional squawks and grunts. Smells of urine and straw. Marta leads us over to the lion enclosure, then pulls a large key from a pocket and opens the padlock.

It’s okay. They are sleeping indoors, she whispers.

The gate creaks open, and we move into an arena of dirt and logs with concrete walls. Marta points to a wall, and Josep takes my arm and guides me.

Here is where we need your pastels, he whispers.

What are we doing? I ask.

He digs in a pocket and pulls out a sheet of paper. Can you draw this?

It is a caricature of an army general, standing on a pile of earth from which bones protrude, waving a swastika flag.

I’m uncomfortable and hum softly to myself. The stillness and stench are not part of the city I know, and I hurriedly apply colour to the concrete. Mikel, why do you draw on walls? Josep asks when I’m finished. It seems a strange question, since he brought me here.

I look into my brother’s eyes. More than anyone else, I trust him, and I wish I could put it into better words.

It’s like a scrapbook. I want to keep images so I can go over them again by myself. Things happen too fast in real time, and I can’t keep up with what people mean, but if I draw them, they’re fixed and I think I can understand them more. It makes me happy.

So you’re not an Allende-supporting activist like the papers say?

I don’t know what he means.

Marta is waiting by the gate. She kisses me on the cheek and Josep on the lips, then bids us leave quickly.

Josep and I climb back over the railings and wait under cover of the trees. I am wondering where Marta has gone when I see a car moving slowly through the zoo with its lights off. It stops in front of the lion enclosure, and the driver gets out. The moonlight shines on his leather jacket. He casts a tiny shadow. I duck down, but Josep knows we are safe here. When I raise my head again, I can see the man talking with Marta and entering the enclosure.

Josep’s eyes are fixed on the gate. His skin is blue in the moonlight – a cold, unfeeling statue. I have never felt more confused.

There is a soft noise from the enclosure and a minute later, Marta emerges alone, quickly locking the gate behind her. Only now does Josep move.

You shouldn’t see any more.

He leads me back through the woods. At this hour, the dawn is burning the Andes into a hellish silhouette. Then we hear a roar from the zoo, like some demon venting its rage at the world. The sound whistles through the trees and past us, down the hillside and into the golden air of Santiago. I wonder if anyone hears it and fears for what it means. I wonder if I will ever understand this city and its people.

Phil Bennett is living in snowbound Hokkaido and writes short stories in his free time, occasionally going back to the amorphous novel that may or may not be getting somewhere.