Lapvona(14)

‘My father hates beggars, but I think they are free,’ Jacob went on.

Marek bristled at what he thought was Jacob’s naive hubris. He told God in his mind, ‘Forgive him his insolence,’ but only so that God heard him. Marek didn’t really care about God forgiving Jacob.

‘How much did your new boots cost?’ Marek asked.

‘How should I know? How much would you pay for them?’

‘Ten zillins?’

Jacob laughed. ‘This is why I envy you, Marek. You don’t know the meaning of money.’

They walked silently for a bit across the dark side of the mountain, and Marek’s sweaty shirt cooled as it clung to his chest. He watched Jacob walk ahead of him, the soles of his new shoes slippery on the dirt, his shiny trousers gleaming with the dust stirred at each step. Marek’s pants were worn thin at the knees and rolled up around the ankles. The material was stiff with dirt and stained and scratchy. Marek had only one pair of pants. Every time he saw Jacob, which was once a month or so, Jacob wore a new outfit, his garments perfectly fitted to his body, which was, month by month, taller and stronger and more beautiful, Marek thought. On any other day, he would have been happy to climb the mountain with Jacob, but he felt weary from last night’s beating and his time with Ina. He believed that Ina was like a mother to him, and that, had Agata not perished, he would have received the same closeness from her instead. He presumed that every child—he wasn’t sure when a person stopped being a child—sucked its mother’s tit to soothe its nerves, even with no milk to be had. He assumed Jacob did this as well. Jacob was so certain, so calm. And so Marek assumed that Jacob’s mother’s breasts must be much finer than Ina’s, and instead of envy toward Jacob for his good fortune, he felt anger, as though Jacob’s fortune were an insult to his own. Maybe it was the dark light and the smoothness of Jacob’s stride that pierced Marek’s heart with a disdain that he could not shake. ‘God, please relieve me of this temper,’ he prayed as he walked, but he was burning inside even as he was cool on the outside. Just then, they turned into the sun again and they were steps away from the cliff where Marek said the bird nests were supposed to be.

‘Can’t you walk any faster?’

In the sudden eye-blind of sun from shade, Marek hadn’t noticed that Jacob had gone on far ahead of him. Marek tried to run, but he tripped over a rock and hit himself in the chin on the ground. He accepted the pain gladly, as he understood that God was exacting punishment for the hatred Marek had felt in his heart just then. He got up, his ears ringing. His head rushed with blood. When he regained his balance, Jacob was yelling in the wind. ‘Show me where those birds are!’

Marek picked up the rock he had tripped over. It was heart shaped and heavy; he could carry it in one hand. He ran up the rest of the path to where Jacob stood, now overlooking the cliff. Just as Jacob turned and said, ‘I don’t see any nests up here. Why have you brought me—’ Marek flung the rock at him. Jacob, quick on his feet, stepped backward to avoid getting hit and swiveled his body toward Marek. So smooth were his movements, so quick was he, that these maneuvers happened simultaneously. He sprang from the cliff’s edge, pitched toward Marek, his face happy with fight, but his foot slipped—his new shoes were too slick—and he skidded backward and tried to catch his balance with one foot tensed on the broken root of a tree sticking out over the cliff, but he couldn’t. He fell. He fell and said one word as he flew down through the air: ‘No!’ and Marek heard him land on the plateau below.

Had God seen? Marek looked around. The wind stilled for a moment, then stirred again. There were no cliff birds, no nests on the cliffs. Marek had lured Jacob up for nothing. A joke, he’d thought. The only birds who lived up so high were vultures. He took a step toward the cliff and peered over the edge. Jacob had landed on a stone outcropping. He lay on his side, as if in a casual repose, but as Marek squinted down he saw that a sphere of blood was widening across the rock like a halo around the boy’s head.

‘Help!’ Jacob cried.

Marek couldn’t move. The blood was black as sap, and Marek felt his knees buckle and shake when Jacob cried again, ‘Help!’ as he rolled onto his back. Now he stared straight up at Marek. His face was split and flattened on the side that had hit, and an eyeball was hanging from its socket. Marek got down on his knees as though he would pray, and he did—‘God, forgive me!’—and curled up on the dry hot ground. He could hear Jacob crying out, ‘Help me!’ His voice was not clear and strong as it used to be, but gurgling and shortened, like a poor person’s voice, a beggar groveling in the shit and piss outside a rich man’s window. ‘Marek?’

Marek was quiet. He watched the sky fill with thin gray clouds.

‘Help?’

Marek was grateful that the sun had been subdued. His skin chilled, his heart slowed. Eventually he couldn’t hear Jacob crying out and wheezing anymore. He took another look over the edge of the cliff. A few birds had landed on the outcropping and were blithely sipping at the blood that had pooled in a shallow of rock. This turned Marek’s stomach. He stepped back from the edge and vomited into the dry dirt: clear saliva came out, like a fountain. He realized that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. It was now late afternoon. Jude would be wondering where he’d gone. If his father thought Marek had wasted the whole day at Ina’s, he would be angry again. And Marek knew Jude was already tired from the work of being enraged last night, so this new rage would be a passive rage, one that was too steely and cold to come out with the passion of violence, but would be pure evil. It was a feeling that left Marek alone and jumpy. And on a day like this, having killed Jacob, he did not want to be alone. So he decided to run down the mountain as best he could—despite the burning acid in his throat and his hunger and fatigue and the throbbing in his head coming from his jaw and the soreness of his broken ribs. He had left Jacob’s bow and arrows at the top of the mountain. Maybe he would come back and get them one day. If the bandits came to the pasture, he could protect the lambs and his father. Wouldn’t everyone be surprised if this small, twisted creature came to be their savior after all? These were his stupid thoughts as he ran.