In a Mist (4 page)

“Roy!” says the woman, who after she smiles and speaks, is obviously Alice. “This is Roy,” she says to the man, who also smiles, coyly, and extends his hand.

“You'll never guess who I happened to meet, Roy.”

“Dean Glasner,” says the man. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Roy's throat constricts as he shifts the weight of the parcel onto his left arm, and extends his right hand to meet the hand of Glasner. The parcel slips slightly. The old newsprint gives way and Alice screams as little moist red bits resembling teeth and severed fingertips clatter onto the sidewalk and come to rest in the flickering neon light of the Wolverine Lounge marquee.

The gypsies packed up and left the grove just as the rain began to fall. That afternoon, after the storm broke, Edgar and Morty found plenty of dead-fall on the ground, scattered about the muddy ruts where the wheels of the caravans had rested. Edgar picked up a branch, grasped it with both hands and struck it against the trunk of an oak tree as if it were an axe.

“I'm glad that storm chased those nasty gypsies away. What are you up to Edgar?”

“I'm whacking fallen branches against trees. It's a game I've just invented.”

“That's boring and dumb.”

Despite Morty's show of disapproval, Edgar knew this was exactly the sort of pointless activity he enjoyed, and was not at all surprised when he claimed the largest branch as his own and reduced it to splinters against the trunk of an oak, making its branches sway and causing more leaves to fall. Morty was abnormally broad and hairy for a ten-year-old. He had appalling breath and a grotesquely mangled patch of skin on his right forearm, a scar he claimed to have acquired while helping his father butcher a leg of lamb. Morty never raised his voice above a hoarse whisper. He always sounded rather as though had been yelling severely
the day before. Several of the older children in the village remembered a time when he could speak like anyone else, and it was rumoured his father had once forced him to drink boiling water. Whenever this was mentioned in Morty's presence, he would shove the off ender into the mud and sit on his head. Other children tended to dislike Morty. They disliked him even more than they disliked Edgar. In fact, a good deal of dislike that would normally have been levelled at Edgar was diverted by Morty, and though he never said so Edgar was grateful for this.

“Edgar.”
    “What is it, Morty?”
    “You're a bastard.”
    “Piss off Morty.”
    “Go knob your mother.”

There was nothing Edgar could say at times like this other than “Piss off ,” for he really was an illegitimate child. Sometimes Morty would remember that Edgar's mother was dead, in which case he would say, “Go knob your dead slut mother.” These perpetual insults were punctuated with an occasional shove in the mud, so Edgar would not forget that along with being an orphaned bastard, he was also small and weak.

The two boys had just about exhausted their supply of dead-fall when they came to the withered old oak at the edge of the grove. Edgar gave the tree a good whack and was winding up for a second when he noticed something protruding from a hollow at the base of its trunk. He dropped down, soiling the knees of his trousers as he stuck his head in the narrow opening. The darkness of the hollow, it seemed, was filled with crumpled newsprint. He had barely begun to investigate when he was interrupted by a tremendous pain in his rear-end.

“Piss off ,” he screamed, his voice muffled by the trunk of the oak.

“You deserve it,” said Morty. “Why do you have your head in a tree like a bastard?”

The question, Edgar realized, was inevitable.

“Thought I saw something but turns out there's nothing in there,” he said, having extracted himself, he hoped, in a casual enough manner.

“Let me have a look!” demanded Morty.

“Why? So I can wallop your rear-end? There's nothing in there, Morty.”

“Out of the way!”

Morty shoved him aside with a good deal more force than necessary, and Edgar tottered and fell in a puddle, thoroughly soiling the clean parts of his trousers. Morty stuck his head in the tree as Edgar wiped the grime from himself.

“Liar,” whispered Morty, withdrawing his head from the hollow. “You're a lying bastard. There's newspapers in there. You were reading papers like a bastard.”

“That's right,” said Edgar. “Why don't you tell me what I was reading about?”

“Reading's for bastards,” said Morty. “I should wallop you for reading!”

“I'm going home now,” said Edgar, his bottom still smarting. “It's getting dark. Besides, this tree-whacking game is dumb.”

“I know,” said Morty. “That's what I told you. See you tomorrow.” Morty proceeded to lumber off in the direction of the butcher shop where he lived with his father.

Edgar made a show of strolling in the opposite direction, toward his grandmother's. As soon as Morty was out of sight, he crept back to the edge of the grove, glancing over his shoulder to ensure he was not being followed. The
last traces of grey daylight slipped behind the hill as he approached the withered oak. He stuck his head inside the hollow once more, and drew aside the crumpled newsprint to reveal what lay beneath. In the dimness of the hollow he could discern the faintest metallic glint. He ran his fingers over the treasure he had found: four necklaces, two with jewelled pendants; three bangles; five rings; and handfuls of coins beneath it all. He thrust the coins in his pockets until they bulged to overflowing. He placed the necklaces around his neck, concealing them beneath his shirt and placed the bangles on his slender wrists. He held his arms out into the darkness before him and stumbled out of the grove. The pendants clinked softly together as he made his way along the path to the outskirts of the village. Clouds obscured the moon and the stars. The sky was black as pitch.

* * *

His grandmother let him keep a silver coin, claiming the rest of the loot as her own.

“Gypsy treasure is wicked,” she warned, “and is not to be squandered by little boys.”

Edgar protested the injustice, but in the end there was nothing he could do. Malevolent thoughts filled his head that night as he drifted off to sleep.

When he awoke the next morning the sky had cleared and the mud puddles had begun to to dry. He went into the village to console himself with the luxuries his single coin might aff ord. At the druggist's he purchased a pocket-sized edition of
Mutiny on the Sierra Madre
, and with his change he bought sweets, one for himself and one for Morty. He returned home and had read halfway through the second chapter when Morty banged on the door and demanded he come outside. Edgar discreetly tucked the novel beneath his
shirt, unwilling to leave it behind.

Even after devouring the sweet Edgar gave him, Morty was in a particularly nasty mood, and though restless did not feel like doing anything at all. The two of them ended up at the edge of the grove, lying in the grass on the hill, watching smoke issue from the chimneys of the village. Edgar did his best to keep quiet and made no mention of the treasure. Morty took up his favourite topic of discussion, which consisted of naming all the children in the village and describing the terrible things he would like to do to them. This raised Morty's spirits somewhat, though Edgar had heard it all before and was bored. Morty soon became entirely engrossed in his morbid fantasies, gazing dreamily toward the pale blue sky. Unable to resist the opportunity, Edgar reached beneath his shirt and retrieved his book. He opened the paperbound cover and studied the ornate frontispiece, which featured a tri-masted galleon in flames and a sailor with two earrings and a cutlass between his teeth.

“Edgar,” said Morty. “Do you think it would be worse to be put to death by the rack, or by flogging?”

Edgar looked up to find Morty glaring at him in a seething rage. Morty grabbed the book from his hands and was halfway down the hill before Edgar could protest. By the time Edgar caught up with him the book lay open face-down in a mud puddle, the heel of Morty's filthy boot applied squarely to its spine.

“Jesus bastard!” Edgar screamed, launching himself at Morty. He caught his adversary off -guard, having never dared attack him before. He landed on top of Morty with a muddy splash, but before Edgar could get to his feet, Morty was sitting on his head, demanding to know where the book had come from. Realizing the hopelessness of his predicament, Edgar spat out a mouthful of mud and proceeded to
tell Morty about the treasure in the hollow of the withered oak, and how his grandmother had claimed it as her own, leaving him with a single coin.

“Selfish bastard!” Morty fumed, in his most terrifying whisper. “We could have shared the treasure and both been rich! I should kill you for lying.” He contented himself with a brutal punch in the small of Edgar's back before lumbering off to the village.

* * *

Edgar and Morty hardly spoke a word to one another in the years that followed. Edgar's grandmother stashed the hoard in her own secret hiding place, and, on the first of each month, would present Edgar with a modest allowance he spent almost entirely on books. He often daydreamed of seizing the loaded pistol his grandmother kept beneath her bed, demanding to know the whereabouts of the treasure, running off with the riches to find a band of gypsies and appointing himself their leader. But he lacked the resolve of his favourite adventure heroes. His grandmother was in ill-health, and he decided instead to bide his time.

On his nineteenth birthday, with his grandmother on her deathbed, the whereabouts of the treasure were finally revealed to him. With her dying breaths, his grandmother told him she had been keeping the treasure safe until he became a man, so he would not squander his wealth. She instructed him to move to the capital and to use the money to pay for courses in the civil service.

Before the funeral Edgar visited his grandmother's hiding place in the attic and packed up the remaining loot. The supply of coins had been almost entirely depleted by this time. After the burial he travelled to the nearest town and sold the necklaces, bangles and rings to a jeweller, receiving
a fraction of what he had once imagined they were worth. The money he returned with still made him one of the wealthiest men in the village.

It was around this time that Morty inherited the butcher shop from his father and Edgar decided he would no longer eat meat. From then on his sustenance consisted of bread, fish, fish soup, and the pots of ale he consumed every evening. Though he had long since given up on his dreams of gypsy life, he had neither the courage nor the desire to move to the city. Instead he decided that he would do absolutely nothing at all. With his fortune stashed in the bank, Edgar spent each night in the tavern and rarely woke before ten. In the morning he would read the newspaper before taking an afternoon stroll in the countryside, where he would pass without fail the grove on the hill where the withered oak stood. Returning to town, he would pay a visit to the baker and the fishmonger, and procure his daily provisions. Marguerite, the fisherman's daughter, who had once been an obnoxious and cheerful girl whom Morty spoke of disembowelling, had since blossomed into a busty and flirtatious young woman. She always made a point of letting Edgar know he was her best customer. Fresh fish in hand, Edgar would blush, return home, prepare his evening meal and make his way to the Black Boar where he would drink himself into a stupor.

He had been living in this manner for a little more than a year the day he encountered the falcon. It was an unseasonably warm afternoon and Edgar was laboured in his walking: the heat was oppressive, and a year of heavy drinking had taken its toll on his constitution. Doing his best to ignore the sweat on his neck, Edgar allowed his thoughts to wander. He recalled a story he had read that morning in the paper about a peculiar incident in a faroff country. A little girl from an orphanage had somehow
gotten her hands on a pistol and had caused a scandal in church. During communion at Sunday mass she had produced the pistol from beneath her dress and taken a nun hostage, locking herself and her captive in the bell tower of the abbey. She promised to release the nun once she was shown proof of her mother's identity from the church records, given a sack containing the proceeds from the collection, and provided with a horse on which to make her getaway. The priest had apparently given in without much of a fight, not thinking the little orphan girl would get very far before she was apprehended. It was not until she had galloped off at tremendous speed that he was informed the girl was an experienced rider. As it turned out, the nuns who cared for the girl had permitted her to go for rides on Saturday afternoons, on a steed owned by a sympathetic farmer who had himself once been a young orphan with equestrian ambitions. Following the hold-up an eff ort was made to track down the girl's mother. But the woman had been of ill repute, and when she could not be found, the authorities assumed she had most likely come to an obscure and untimely end. No one had seen the girl since her escape and a sizeable reward had been off ered for her capture.

Edgar was wondering what might have become of this orphan girl when he came across a rabbit nibbling clover at the edge of the grove. He was not of a disposition to have his emotions aroused by such sights, and paid the rabbit little heed. He spotted the falcon a moment later. It circled above at a great height before it swooped down to strike.

“Aiee!” exclaimed Edgar, covering his face with his arms. He watched from between his elbows as the stiff ened rabbit was clutched up by the talons. The falcon circled once, answering Edgar's scream with a shrill cry of its own. Then, suddenly, it dropped the dead rabbit at Edgar's feet and flew off just as quickly as it had descended.

“Jesus,” remarked Edgar, standing before the fresh prey. He had not seen a dead rabbit in years. His grandmother, from time to time, had bought them from the young men who would snare them and sell them at market. Edgar had hated to watch her skin their furry little carcasses, but he had always enjoyed a good bowl of rabbit stew. It then occurred to him how tired he was of fish. A bit of rabbit, he thought, might make for an agreeable change in menu. Edgar took the rabbit by its hind legs, slung it over his shoulder and continued on his way toward the village.