The Hunchback Assignments (3 page)

“But it”—he stood a bit straighter—“it’s just the way I am. You don’t like it?”

“Please don’t change for me. It isn’t necessary.”

She closed her eyes and allowed herself a few last sobs, then composed herself while Modo let his face slip back to its usual from. He blinked away tears.

“Don’t cry, Modo. Your eyes will be red like mine,” she said. “I’m a soft, silly woman.” She cupped his face and patted his shoulder, inadvertently touching his hump. “You’re a sweet, beautiful boy.”

Her words made him glow. He had, of course, felt his face enough that he was aware of the large protruding mole tucked next to his nose, and that above his right eye he had a spongy bump. Mrs. Finchley had gently called them beauty marks. But she never explained his hump in such terms. If he turned his head he could see the edges of it.

Mrs. Finchley stood and straightened her apron. “Come now, let us work on Latin history. Today, we shall read about Caesar Augustus.”

“I love Suetonius,” Modo exclaimed, following her to the bookshelves where she took down a worn copy of
De Vita Caesarum.

Modo felt other eyes watching him, heard a soft noise. He spun around and gave a start at the sight of Tharpa, his combat instructor, standing in the doorway, his eyes dark and intense. Tharpa was holding a burgundy carpetbag.
Since he rarely spoke, all Modo really knew of him was that he was from India. How had he unlocked the doors and crept across the hardwood floors without so much as a creak? Tharpa was a panther.

Modo tugged on Mrs. Finchley’s elbow, and she turned and shuddered a little when she saw Tharpa. “You’re not scheduled to train him today,” she said. Modo gave Tharpa a little wave.

Tharpa’s reply was to step aside as his master strode through the door, dressed in a fine suit. His cravat matched his white hair. His green eyes peered intensely out of his angular, pale face.

“Mr. Socrates!” Mrs. Finchley said. “Had I known you were coming I certainly would have prepared tea and biscuits.”

“No need. I came on a whim. How has our pupil been?”

“He still learns so effortlessly.”

Mr. Socrates crossed the room and looked down at Modo. “It is a pleasure to see you again, Modo. Are you obeying Mrs. Finchley in all matters?”

“Yes, Mr. Socrates.”

“I see you are reading Suetonius. Good. What is your opinion of Julius Caesar?”

“He—he was strong.”

“Yes. But what was his greatest strength?”

Modo scratched at his eyebrow. “Umm …”

“Don’t preface your thoughts with ‘umm.’ It’s boorish.”

“His greatest strength was that he was … he was …”
Modo searched for a word that described Caesar. Brave? Intelligent? “He was very determined.”

“Determination will take you a long way. Good answer, Modo.” Mr. Socrates took the carpetbag from Tharpa, reached inside, and handed Modo a book. “I think you’re ready for this. It is Colonel Graham’s translation of
On War
, by Clausewitz. The prose is clunky but passable and—” He paused, picked up a book that was lying open on the side table. “
The Light Princess.
Mrs. Finchley, why is this book here? It wasn’t on my list.”

“Sir, it’s only to improve his imagination. His ability to think.”

Mr. Socrates’ eyes narrowed. “Ability to think? If he reads books for children he will remain a child.” He handed the book to her. “Have him read Shakespeare or Coleridge if you must encourage flights of fancy. I thought I’d been clear that any other books must first be vetted by me.”

“They will be, sir.”

Modo stared at his feet, ashamed that Mr. Socrates knew he had been enjoying a child’s book. Am I acting too much like a child? he wondered.

Mr. Socrates turned back to Modo. “Tharpa certainly praises your skill and strength. He claims you’re an apt pupil.”

Modo blushed.

“It has been four years since I rescued you. Four years that you have spent in these three rooms. You have been extremely diligent in your training and your studies. I’m pleased by your performance.” He put his hand on Modo’s
shoulder. Is this what fathers do? Modo wondered. Mr. Socrates wasn’t his father, but he was the closest thing Modo had to one. Mr. Socrates lifted his hand and looked at it as though he had surprised himself with that gesture. “You are well worth the investment, Modo. Now, would you like to one day see the outside world?”

“Yes. Yes!” Modo exclaimed, beaming. Then, catching himself, he replied with some restraint, “I would enjoy that very much, sir.”

“Patience, Modo. That day will come soon enough. Today we have a different, more important lesson. But I must warn you, it will be a hard one.”

“I don’t understand,” Modo said.

“Well, Modo, in all this time you have not seen your own reflection, have you?”

Mrs. Finchley cleared her throat. “Mr. Socrates, I—”

“This is not an appropriate time to speak, Mrs. Finchley,” Mr. Socrates replied without allowing his eyes to stray from Modo’s face. “Before you meet the world, you must first know yourself. Do you understand?”

Modo looked from his teacher to his master and back again.

“Do you understand?”

Modo nodded, hesitantly.

With that, Mr. Socrates pulled a small hand mirror from his vest pocket. On the back of it was depicted a royal lion inlaid with gold. The glittering mirror hypnotized Modo. Mr. Socrates turned the mirror slowly toward Modo’s face.

Modo looked into the glass and saw, for the first time in
his life, his own eyes blinking. One eye was larger than the other, protruding like an insect’s. His enormous teeth were crooked. Bright red hair grew in clumps on his head. He had imagined his face as everything from beautiful to scarred and ugly, but this was much worse than he’d dreamed; uglier than any illustration he had ever seen. Disbelief turned to horror, and Modo’s eyes grew wide and welled with tears. He looked up at Mrs. Finchley and whispered, “You told me I was beautiful.”

Collapsing on his knees, Modo slapped his hands over his eyes and wailed. He rolled into a weeping, moaning ball, his hump pressed against his shirt.

Mr. Socrates lowered the mirror. “I warned you that this would be a hard lesson. You are deformed. You are ugly. Remember this day, Modo. It’s the day you learned that you’ve been given an incredible gift. Your unsightly countenance may seem unbearable now, but because of it, the world will always underestimate you. Natural selection has endowed you with your second gift, your capacity to change your deformed features, an ability that other men can only dream of. It is a most wonderful and valuable asset. Together, we will develop it.”

Modo had stopped listening. The ghastly image of his face had been burned into his vision. He let out a sharp cry and beat at his head and his hump, as if to pound the abnormalities back into his flesh. He kicked so hard he propelled himself back into the wall, knocking plaster loose.

“Stop wailing!” Mr. Socrates commanded, and Modo tried to suppress his rasping. He calmed himself until he
emitted only the occasional whimper, keeping his hands clamped over his face.

He looked up from the floor. Their eyes were on him. Mrs. Finchley had been crying. Tharpa was, as always, unreadable, but Mr. Socrates, surprisingly, looked a little sad. “I know you are only five, but you must learn to control yourself,” he whispered. “You must.” He reached into the carpetbag at his feet and pulled out a flesh-colored object. Modo squinted at it, making out holes for eyes and a mouth. “I ordered this especially for you all the way from Venice. It is a mask. They are made from papier-mâché, so they’re very light. You’ll hardly know you’re wearing it.” He set the mask on the floor beside Modo. It had a straight nose and perfectly formed lips. Modo whimpered again.

Mr. Socrates turned away, abruptly. “Do not comfort him, Mrs. Finchley. That is an order. He must learn to accept his appearance. Let us leave the boy now. We shall have tea. I’ve brought a sample from the Tea Derby, fresh from Foochow.” And with that he strode to the door, Tharpa and Mrs. Finchley at his heels. Mrs. Finchley glanced back, but Modo hid his face again.

Through his blubbering, he heard the door lock behind them. After several seconds he reached out and touched the mask. It was cold and hard. He picked it up and explored the eyeholes, the two smaller holes for his nostrils. He pushed the mask onto his face, pressed his back against the wall, and wept.

S
weat dripped into Modo’s eyes as he climbed the rope to the skylight cupola. It was the twelfth time in the past hour that Tharpa had commanded him to “ascend with utmost speed.” Modo paused at the top, held on with one hand and with the other rubbed at his latest mask. With Mrs. Finchley’s help he’d constructed it from flour, water, paper pulp, and glue. He’d given it a devilish, grinning face.

He leapt to a nearby rope, swung to the opposite wall, and climbed down, headfirst. “You are strong for a child of nine years,” Tharpa said in his formal English. Modo grinned with pride. On the ground his bowlegs and awkward form were clumsy, but his large hands were made for climbing. He flipped over a sawhorse and landed on his feet. “Zounds!” he said.

Tharpa didn’t react, so Modo flipped again. “Zounds!”

“Yes, yes, impressive,” Tharpa said, but Modo couldn’t tell if his instructor was mocking him. After five years of his tutelage, the Indian remained completely unreadable.

Three days a week Tharpa would train Modo in what he called “the fighting arts.” The rest of the week was spent reading history, learning languages, and memorizing maps on which all the countries of the Empire were marked in red. As part of his schooling, Modo would dress up in costumes with Mrs. Finchley, perfecting accents and pretending to be other people. Her years as an actress made her a fine teacher. And Modo assumed he was a fine student, for she praised him regularly.

Modo could now effortlessly list the order of precedence, from Queen Victoria down to gentlemen allowed to bear arms, and who should be seated next to whom at a dinner party. Why Mrs. Finchley wanted him to know such trivial matters, he couldn’t imagine.

Once a week, Mr. Socrates would visit carrying a photograph or a portrait and he’d set it on an easel in front of Modo. “You must become this person,” he’d say, and Modo, with all the willpower and imagination he could muster, would visualize his body shifting and the structure of his face changing until, finally, painfully, his bones would actually move. More often than not, Modo failed to sustain the transformation, and moments later slipped back to his ugly self. But, once in a while, he would shift his shape so completely that his eyebrows, nose, and lips were similar to the person in the portrait, and he would manage to hold the look for as long as ten minutes.

On those rare days when Modo succeeded, Mr. Socrates
would dole out a smattering of praise. Modo could feed on one passing “That was satisfactory” for a week, enthusiastically practicing at night in bed, shifting his face, his shape, hoping to receive another compliment when next they met.

At one session, feeling brave, Modo asked, “Why do I have this ability?”

“Chameleons modify their color according to their surroundings,” Mr. Socrates explained. “Hares change their brown summer coat to white for the winter. I’ve seen species of fish that glow to hypnotize their prey. It’s the perfect survival skill, Modo, to bewitch your enemies, to blend in with your friends. It’s an adaptive transformation. Mother Nature has given you this gift.”

Mr. Socrates kept calling it a gift, but Modo wasn’t so sure. He thought of the hours he’d spent changing his face and body, always reverting to his original form. Why couldn’t he be changed forever? Mother Nature had been cruel to him.

He understood that a son should learn from his father. He had been told about being abandoned as a baby, so he had no father, but still he yearned for his master’s attention. He wondered what Mr. Socrates did when he wasn’t at Ravenscroft. Sometimes months would pass without the usual weekly visit and he’d explain his absence with a lesson, such as, “I was visiting Afghanistan. Point it out on the map.”

He was away now, and had been for over a month, but Tharpa had arrived like clockwork.

“You do not need to wear your mask for me, Modo,”
Tharpa said. “It is made for the outside world. You will not always be able to hide behind it when you fight.”

Modo undid the knots and removed the mask, setting it on a table. He felt naked. This was not a face for the world to see, Mr. Socrates had told him so. At the master’s insistence, Mrs. Finchley had long ago hung a mirror in the bedroom. Modo still had not grown used to his own reflection.

“Now, let us spar,” Tharpa directed and cracked his knuckles.

Modo raised his fists.

“Not boxing, nor savate.” Tharpa reached for two long bamboo swords. “
Kenjutsu.
”

He tossed Modo a sword and immediately swung at him, forcing him to parry. They moved side to side, slowly. The
tick
and
tack
rhythm was mesmerizing to Modo, so much so that he was completely surprised when Tharpa kicked at a small stool and sent it into Modo’s knee.

“Anything can be a weapon, Modo. Even your own breath.”

Modo laughed, but Tharpa looked quite serious. A second later he smiled. “It depends on what you eat, of course. Garlic and onions: very dangerous.”

This time Modo truly guffawed and at that moment Tharpa swung a blow toward his head that Modo parried with ease. “Laughter relaxes the muscles,” Tharpa said. “Your technique is more natural now. Anger tightens them.”

Modo struck back and Tharpa parried the blow.

“How long will I have to stay inside Ravenscroft?” Modo asked.

“Sahib will decide.”

“Has he told you?”

“Sahib has not shared his plans with me.”

Modo thought he saw an opening, so he snapped the sword down, but Tharpa turned it away. Modo watched his teacher’s steady eyes.

“When you look at me, you don’t cringe,” Modo said.

“There’s no reason to,” Tharpa answered. Modo dodged to one side a moment too late; the bamboo slapped his shoulder and stung.