The Testament of Yves Gundron (37 page)

“I ought, then, to have turned down the Low Road and back to town, but the meadows were beckoning. The stalks of the flowers grew twice as high as any near town, and I thought what a delight it would be to bring them back for my mother and for Prugne, even if the blossoms were past their prime. Thea was all too happy to romp in the grass, and she pulled me slowly through it, letting it tickle her flanks and the flanks of the cart, giving me ample time to reach over the sides and take flowers.

“Before I knew what was what, Thea had taken me so far into the meadow I could not see back to the roads. On such a fine, clear day, though, I knew I could gauge my way back by the sun in the sky, and I feared not. It was much farther to those mountains than I had at first supposed, but at last, in the late afternoon, we attained their feet, and there did I give Thea her oats. The great peaks rose up to enclose me, all along their sides the leaves of the trees gone to red, gold, and brown,
and I lay down amid the grasses for a nap, dreaming of fairies and the abandoned farms.

“When I awoke, it was dark. Thea was restored by her repast, and stomping her forefeet to remind me of duty. But it was too late to turn back, and I was not yet done my day of freedom—my first, Yves, in as long as I can remember—so, walking carefully in the dim light of the waning moon, I led her along the foot of the Western Mountains. We passed a frothing stream, from whose waters we were both glad to drink. And at last I lay down in the cart to sleep.

“The next morning, I saw that we had stopped near a path such as that cut by the waters of the spring rains—not half so wide as a road, but reasonably straight. I tethered Thea to an oak, and began to climb uphill in anticipation of a fine view back to the village and to town.

“Soon enough I grew tired of the ascent, but the mountain continued to rise up before me. I could no longer see down to Thea in the valley; I had no choice but to continue upward. I climbed until the sun was high in the sky, and continued to climb as he began his descent, and still had not reached the summit. As I made my way higher into the hills, a strange, unpleasant smell began to reach my nostrils, like filthy laundry before Mum takes it out in the yard to boil. And my ears were assaulted with a noise like thunder, though the skies were clear. Near sundown, after what seemed an eternity, I at last came upon my view. A clearing opened up in the trees, and though mine was not the highest mountain, I could see what lay below.

“What I saw, however, made no sense to me. Mandragora was nowhere in sight, nor the steeple of St. Perpetua, nor the fortifications of Nnms. My eyes roved far in search of the familiar sights, yet did not light upon them. In their stead, I looked down upon a gray emptiness, mottled with blacks and whites, but stretching more or less uniformly out to the horizon, where it joined the sky. I feared that I would lose my balance in contemplation of this sight. Slowly did I realize that this was what Mandrik had told me of—I had come upon the sea, and the grayness that stretched everywhere was the water no man can drink. There were two white things, shaped like ash leaves, bobbing up and down upon the water, and in each of them sat a man. Boats, I thought; I had heard the word. Three more boats were tied with strings to the rocks at the bottom of the mountain. In the tiny sliver of barren land between the foot of the mountain and the waves, I saw a cluster, tight as
a flock of sheep, of four small houses, each exactly like the next, and painted whiter than winter's first snow. There were no animals in sight. From the sooty roof of each house rose the frightful skeleton of a scarecrow, on which the rooks of this village nevertheless brazenly perched. All around the village were great leafless trees tethered to one another by strings. I stared at the village long, for I still could not imagine myself so turned around that I could not see Mandragora, and my eyes would not accept the ugliness of what lay before them.”

Here he paused for a moment, and blinked as if to clear his vision. “I could not turn away, Yves. Having seen this apparition of strangeness, could I make my way back to Mandragora, with only half a story to tell?” His tone, and the fervor in his eyes, reminded me of my brother's—and I realized that what we took in my brother for divine inspiration might in fact be simply the physical manifestation of the desire to talk of what the eyes had seen. It occurred to me that I had been mistaken about my brother, and his calling, all along.

“I walked down the treacherous slope toward the sea. As I drew nearer, the sound and the smell of the water grew ever more vivid. The sweet scent of dung was nowhere around, and I could not discern anything like the scent of fire except a stench like the airplane let off when it died. I thought I heard people talking, but saw no one but the men in the boats and one lone housewife, in a skirt so short it revealed her very kneecaps, pinning the brightest clothes imaginable to a string between two barren trees. She retreated into the farthest house without having seen me. There were strange noises—rumblings and hums, whose origins I could not name, but which made me uneasy.

“I came nearer and nearer down the hillside to this peculiar village, yet no one stirred, no one came to hail me or bid me state my business. Were it not for the woman in the tiny skirt, and for the vague voices, I might have thought the town gone over to the dead. My heart beat so quickly it fluttered in my chest. As I descended, the houses came more clearly into view, and seemed strangely tall. They had no gardens about them, and looked nude without them.

“And as I came close to the house that was highest up the mountain, I smelled cooking meat, and my gut yearned with hunger. I had not eaten since the day before, and what reached my nose was more tantalizing than any dish I had ever yet imagined. I approached the door of the cottage—a strange door, painted greener than the grass—and
knocked upon it, but none answered. I knocked again, but heard nothing. At last I pressed against it with my hand, and it swung open into a room unlike any I had ever seen before. The floor was covered with boards like the bottom of a cart, but polished to such a sheen that I could see my own reflection. There were great windows, and every surface was smooth, bright, and clean. On top of a gleaming white box a pot was simmering, beneath the pot a pitiful blue flame. I dipped the wooden spoon into the pot, and brought forth a mouthful of a delicious beef stew. It burned my tongue, but I cared not, so ill was I with hunger. I ate and ate of the delicacy, hoping to fortify myself for the long walk back to Thea, and our long drive home to my father.

“As I enjoyed my repast, a woman entered from another room, which had been hidden to me, and she opened her mouth wide in a scream. I dropped the spoon clattering to the floor, certain I had done no wrong, but uncertain why she was so frightened. ‘Please,' I said, ‘excuse me for taking this liberty, I was hungry, and no one seemed to be at home.' ‘Who are you?' she said, her mouth trembling in fear. Her red hair was in a frenzy of short curls, as if the fire had frizzled it off, and her skirt was so short it made Ruth's old trousers look demure by comparison. ‘I'm Dirk von Iggislau, from Mandragora, the village across the hills.' Still she shook. ‘Across the hills? There's nothing but wilderness. What are you doing in my house? Get out of my house!' She raised an empty skillet in warning, and I backed up toward the door. ‘Nay,' said I, ‘it's not a wilderness. It's my village, and the city of Nnms. I am only the second of my countrymen ever to venture forth to the sea. That is the sea, isn't it? Outside?' The skillet shook with the energy of her hands. ‘Are you mad? Are you a madman come to invade my house?' ‘Nay, ma'am,' I told her, ‘just a hungry stranger seeking sustenance.' But she would not listen. A scream burst forth from her twice as loud as before. It brought two neighbor women, their hair and skirts as short, their faces as tight, to the door of her home; and when they saw me, and saw her holding a skillet against me, they hollered for their menfolk.

“Immediately I backed out the door, and began scrambling up the hill, the shouts of two men gaining ground behind me. One fellow wielded a short bat. Though I ran as fast as I could, I was still weak from hunger, and before long I fell, then felt his instrument wallop me on the shoulder. He struck me across the face, and I cried, ‘Mercy!' my
hands shielding my mouth and eyes. Those two men looked as normal as you or I, but their faces, their expressions, were unnaturally hard and cruel. ‘Mercy, What did I do?'

“‘What did you do?' asked the bat wielder from behind a grizzled yellow beard. ‘You molest our women, and then you play innocent, you tramp.' ‘I molested no one,' I said. ‘I went into the house seeking food.' The other punched my mouth with his fist. ‘For food?' he said. ‘And where'd you come from, smelling like the Devil and frightening our women like that?' ‘From the village of Mandragora, across the hills.'

“The men fell silent.

“‘A likely story,' the bearded one grumbled, and kicked me, but the other grabbed him by the arm, and hushed him, and said, ‘What did you say, lad? Where'd you say you were from?' ‘From Mandragora,' I said. ‘Two days' journey inland.' His eyes lit up as he whispered to his compatriot. ‘Two days? All my lifetime I've believed it a fairy tale, and two days inland?' ‘He's a madman, Murray,' said the fellow with the beard. ‘Nay,' said Murray, ‘he doesn't talk like a madman. Are you right in the head, lad?' ‘Quite right,' I answered them. Said the believer, ‘We'll have to go investigate that, then, won't we? If it's true, we'll be famous, we'll be on the national telly.' Even the bat wielder agreed: ‘If he'd come in off the sea, we'd have seen him sure; and there's been rumors up and down the coast of dark-haired strangers come seeking that very village.' ‘Please, sirs,' I told them, ‘let me go. I can bring others from my village here, or you can come across the hills to us, if you don't believe me. Only please, let me go home.' They looked back and forth between them, and the fellow with the bat kicked me a bit uphill. ‘Send your neighbors, aye,' he told me, ‘or we'll follow you home inland and thrash you good.'

“I stumbled up the hill despite the evening's approaching darkness, my eyes blinded with fear, and felt their malignant curses my whole journey upwards. I was frightened, and still hungry, and tired, and in the darkest part of the night, I could not make any progress at all. I reached the bottom of the mountain yesterday at midmorning, and found that Thea was nibbling the ivy by the roots of her tree; though she was surrounded by a pile of her own excrement, she looked at me with trust and joy. I took hold around her brave black neck and nuzzled into her cheek. I could not believe my luck at escaping the madness behind me, and did not even know for certain that the men were
not chasing behind. I drove Thea across the meadow at lightning speed. Only when we approached the road, and she slowed to her natural pace, did I realize how truly, truly frightened I had been. Don't tell Father. I must have fallen asleep sometime in my journey, or we'd have been home last night. I'm worried, Yves, about that other village. I am afraid of those people, and afraid of the sea. And I don't know what I'm going to tell my parents.”

“Such visions,” Adelaïda said. “I hope they won't continue to plague you, Dirk—Lord knows there are too many sightings of the other world happening here already.”

She said that without even knowing of mine.

“It wasn't a vision. I saw what I saw.”

“That's what they all say,” said my wife, “but what it always comes down to is the people who see visions are simply the strange folk. You're young still—you can clear your mind of this nonsense, before it's too late and you become a laughingstock.”

It was best, then, that I did not tell my wife when the dead came to dance and sing about our bed. I did not think Dirk had seen a vision. When the Beyond came to visit me, it brought nothing stranger than music and dead relatives, yet certainly my brother had seen its sights. What Dirk related did not sound impossible—indeed, it sounded exactly right. No man had ever the time or the inclination to wander out to those mountains, and who knew what lay past them? Another village, at the edge of the sea—the simplest, most likely answer.

Thea clattered back into the yard and the brakes screeched behind her as she neighed. Ydlbert ran through the door, followed by Mandrik with Ruth behind him, the child napping in her arms. I was struck by the concern on my brother's usually blithe face; and struck more that those two people, considered so odd by all of our village, could look so much like a family with a sleeping child between them. Through the open door, the sky was as gentle and blue as a hyacinth flower.

Ydlbert ran to his son and held him. “Dirk, I am so glad you've returned from the dead.”

“You needn't make a drama of it, Father. I only got lost.”

“Dirk,” Mandrik said, “this is grave news.”

“Adelaïda keeps saying it's visions, but you have to believe me.”

“What's visions?” said Ydlbert.

Ruth placed the child in her hammock, pulled the thumb from the
mouth, and covered her with a woolen wrap. I was angry at her still, and full of questions, yet was I thankful for the tender care she showed my bairn.

“We shall see yet,” said Mandrik.

“People are not visions—they're people. We can go back, Mandrik. I can show you the place.”

My brother's color was uncharacteristically high. “I am not sure it's advisable.”

“You doubt me it's there?”

Mandrik shook his head no, but did not look happy at this admission.

Ydlbert said, “What are we talking about? What have you seen?”

“A lonely village at the edge of the sea. With houses and boats.”

Mandrik and Ruth both fidgeted with their clothes. “Ydlbert,” Mandrik said, “will you permit your son to sojourn with me this day, perhaps well into the night? I believe we must talk for many hours, and I do not wish, my good neighbor, to importune you.”