Black Spring (15 page)

I
have never been more unhappy in my life! For the past hour I have been sitting on my bed holding the red cord on my dressing gown, but I haven’t had the courage to loop it around the beam and hang myself. Finally I threw the cord away — I kept thinking of how it would hurt me, how that red line would cut into my neck, and how my face would turn blue & ugly, and I could feel the awful dread of being unable to breathe even though my body was writhing with the need for air — and I just couldn’t do it. I despise myself: I am such a coward in my heart. Yet — perhaps I am not so craven after all: it is not my end that fills me with most fear. I think of Damek — I couldn’t endure to so sever myself from him, not for a minute, not for a day, let alone for the empty wasteland of eternity! — For I would go to hell if I killed myself, and he would not, because he is a shining soul who will himself fly to heaven and be with the angels, and we would never ever meet again. — I cannot bear even the thought of that. I would even suffer such despite as I live in now rather than that.

So I’ve dragged this old schoolbook out from underneath my bed, as I have to talk to someone, & I am all alone. I don’t need the book anymore, since Mr. Herodias left for the South, so I might as well complain to this paper as to the wall. — It is quieter, anyhow, and no one will threaten me and tell me to be silent. How I wish I could have gone away with Mr. Herodias! He never liked me much, but when I threw myself on the floor and begged him to take me & Damek south, he didn’t treat me as contemptuously as I expected. He even looked a little sorry. That was the most I was ever going to get from him and his niminy-piminy mouth. I suppose he didn’t like me because I didn’t like him, but it’s strange how much I miss him. I miss everything and everyone. I miss Papa and I miss Anna and I miss how things were, I miss them so badly that it hurts me in every part of my body. If Damek weren’t here in the house this minute I think I would die from sorrow.

I am so sad today that I cannot even be angry.

I am banished to my room & the door has been locked, & the key to my own bedroom is now in Masko’s fat, sweaty hand, which is humiliation enough! — and Damek is beaten and silent & locked in his own room in turn. That coward doesn’t dare beat me! — But today he ordered that Damek be beaten, and that sour old demon Kush thrashed him until the blood came & Damek never made a sound. But he was shamed, he was shamed in his soul, so that he wouldn’t meet my eyes even when I rushed to him, and he pushed me away when I sought to comfort him. — & now we are not permitted to speak together. That makes me sadder than anything, to see my dear Damek humiliated — and because he dared to outface Masko, to defend me against his foul, wicked words.

I wish I really were a witch. But I’m not a witch at all. I daren’t tell anyone, not even Damek: not being a witch is a worse shame than the mark of magic. I cursed Masko two months ago, and nothing happened: where are the boils & the wasting sickness? — each day I look in hope and I see no mark, not one single sign that the gods heard me and took my part. I think it is I who am cursed.

Masko sits all day in the drawing room, where he has taken down the beautiful paintings that my father set there and instead put up his vulgar daubs in cheap gilt frames, so it is now ugly & graceless. And there he drinks glass after glass of porter and gobbles his messes of pigs’ trotters & goose-fat pancakes, and all you can hear is his heavy breathing and slobbering, and then he gets on one of the poor horses, and he goes out to play cards. He is a poison; he makes everything around him vile. I see him looking at me sometimes, his sly eyes rolling in his puffy cheeks: he stares at my front in a way that makes me feel very hot. — Once when my skirts were hitched up to milk the goats — because I am just a servant now! Me, of the royal blood! — I turned around and there he was, not five paces away, and I knew he had been looking at my ankles, and it made me feel filthy, as if I had just rolled in all the dirt in the yard.

I think he is a little afraid, a little, that my words were potent and that he is cursed, and I think that is the only thing that stops him from following his eyes with his fat greasy fingers. I swear if he touched me, I would kill him. I would drive even a butter knife through his windpipe, and I would stab out both his eyes with a fork — and it would so please me to see the blood splattering down his ridiculous shirtfront!

There! — I am feeling angry now. And now I am not so sad.

D
amek still lies abed, but I was able to creep in this evening while Masko was out playing cards. He told me to stop crying, and that we should wait until we both grow up, because then we will take our revenge on Masko. He had on his black face when he said that! — He seems then as stubborn as the mountains themselves & as merciless. If I were Masko, I should be very afraid of him! I believe he would follow Masko into the very pits of hellfire itself, to exact his retribution. It comforted me, but all the same, it is such a long time before I grow up! — I might even be dead by then, and I would much rather see Masko at my feet sobbing & wailing for mercy right this minute. I said so to Damek, and he told me not to be foolish.

He knows my curse didn’t work, although he loves me too much to say so out loud. — Time will restore all, he said. If it were anyone else speaking, I would believe he was telling me to be a lady and to forget my anger. Damek would never say such a thing to me.

We are still young and we have no money of our own. Damek says he knows how to get rich. He thinks about money all the time, even when I laugh at him & tell him it’s vulgar — he just shakes his head at me and tells me I’m thoughtless & the only way to get back at Masko is to be richer than he is. But even if Masko were in his grave now, the king would not allow me to inherit the estate. Where do you find money? Damek will not tell me. He is very vexing when he chooses to be.

He still cannot lie on his back, but he is so patient & good in his pain! — Truly, he is an angel. Even Anna’s ma says so, and she never praises anybody. She’s even worse since Anna left; she’s all puckered up like a prune, but I can’t blame her for that. Everyone in the village says that Anna was only a daughter, and that daughters will always leave their mothers, but that shouldn’t mean that a daughter is nothing. In our house it has always been different, at least up to now, but I suppose neither Anna nor I had brothers, and perhaps were more loved — no, I can’t think of that! It is too painful.

It is very dull doing chores. I wonder how Anna bore it all those years. I have to wear such ugly dresses: all my good clothes have been packed away. I wonder that Masko dares to treat me this way! Even Fatima says it is an insult. The people of the village still feel loyalty to the House of Kadar and do not like to see the family honor smirched — and by such a buffoon! I do not understand why the king hated my father so, that he would send such an heir. What did my father do to merit such ill-treatment? He was a good man, the best of men; and he loved the villagers. I have never seen anyone so upset as when the vendetta came here: his face was white, and he struck his forehead with his hand, & I swear there were tears in his eyes, to think of all the sorrow that would be visited upon his people.

I know why the king hated him, although I do not like to own it. It is because of me & my mother. Anna thought I didn’t know what is said about me: if I mentioned it, she always talked about something else until I stopped asking. But I know. I see the fear & contempt in their faces as soon as they see my eyes, and I hear the murderous thoughts inside their empty skulls, as clearly as if they spoke them. I know perfectly well that if it weren’t for my father, the villagers would drive a stake through me as quick as thinking. If only it weren’t the eyes! If witches had strange ears or an extra finger, I could hide those or chop them off, but I cannot conceal my eyes unless I blindfold myself.

No one dares to say it straight to me, because of the royal blood: at least, until now they did not dare. Masko makes no bones about calling me a witch and all but calls for my blood, and some cowards follow his lead: Johka of the Low Pastures spat and made the Devil sign when I walked past him today, & I heard the girls giggling in their hands when they saw me in my old clothes, which are covered in darned patches!

The humiliations every day are like burning coals; they scorch me to my very marrow. — But I pretend not to notice. I make sure I walk as proudly as if I were still a princess. Already there are those who forget to call me Miss Lina, who only a short time ago were plucking at my skirts begging to be noticed. I abhor them all — they are small, worm-minded creatures, & they deserve worse than the flames of hell. If I were God, I would lock them in a bathhouse forever and ever. I can see them already, squashed together in a tiny freezing cold room which stinks of their own rank odors so they cannot escape them! — and I would set them to work sorting pins until their fingers bled and they were mad from tedium, and I would never let them sleep or stop working. That would serve them right.

I was afraid yesterday when I saw Masko in the square, talking to the Wizard Ezra: my first thought was that they were plotting to kill me, since both would like to see me dead. Masko looked very nervous: he was bobbing up & down with his stupid lace collar flapping up into his face, so that if I had not been so anxious I would have laughed out loud. Then he glanced across the square and saw me there holding my basket, watching the both of them. I swear that he jumped, as if he were guilty, so I am quite certain that he was speaking about me.

Then the most astonishing thing happened: Wizard Ezra, who had his back to me, turned around and stared at me. He had his usual cold sneer on his face, but I refused to look away, and for the first time in my life, he met my eyes and nodded civilly, as if in greeting. Old Yiru saw it too — I saw him standing stock-still with his mouth open in shock! Ezra has never so much as deigned to notice my presence, unless it were to call me a wickedness & a walking blasphemy, or some such vileness. I was never so surprised! — I almost didn’t respond, but I remembered in time to make a quick curtsey and then went quickly about my business, as both of those men make my innards boil with contempt & I do not like to be near them.

All the same, I take some hope from what I saw. I believe the Wizard Ezra dislikes Masko even more than he does me. He might refuse to countenance killing me out of spite for Masko. It is almost a good joke. Damek thinks that might be the case, but he tells me to be careful. I no longer have the key to my bedchamber, but now I put a chair under the handle each night.

I am wondering if it is true that I am not a witch. I am almost sure that I am not. — & yet it would be so unfair, to have all the appearance of it & yet none of the power! If I am to be burned on a stake or stabbed through the heart, then I ought to have some joy of it. — This morning I was serving Masko his breakfast (and trying not to vomit at the sight of that repulsive face, his jowls wobbling like jelly & covered with little beads of sweat as he chewed on his fried kidneys) — I studied him as I always do, and I thought that he seemed a little haggard, as if he had slept restlessly, and I am certain there is a sore upon his lip. Maybe curses take a while to work. I don’t care how long it takes, as long as he dies as horribly as he deserves.