Lapvona(25)

‘Good morning, Marek,’ Lispeth said now as he rose out of sleep. He had gained weight and grown since he’d come. He felt heavier each morning when he lifted himself up from the bed.

‘Good morning,’ Marek croaked. Lispeth was by his side immediately with a cup of sweet wine. He’d gotten used to her strange smell.

She brought a wet cloth to wipe his face and used her fingernail to scrape the white scum from his teeth, the sleep from the corners of his eyes. She helped him dress and combed his hair, then knelt before him and slid his feet into his summer slippers, made of thin leather.

‘Thank you, Lispeth,’ he said.

‘Your father is downstairs,’ she said.



* * *




*

Villiam was eating grapes in the great hall, keeping his mouth full so that he could stay silent while Erno whined about money. Villiam’s servant, Clod, was drawing his portrait.

‘It would take a miracle to get the land back for a fall harvest,’ Erno was saying. ‘I’ve been taking an inventory, and I still think that if you sold off some of your wheat, Ivan might be more forgiving on the interest you owe him.’

‘Please, Erno. It’s Sunday. It’s evil to discuss money on the Sabbath, don’t you know?’

‘It’s Tuesday, my lord,’ Erno muttered.

‘Every day is Sunday in God’s kingdom.’

‘Then when would we work?’

‘Please, Erno. Clod needs to concentrate.’

Erno plucked a cluster of grapes from the platter and took his leave.

‘My son,’ Villiam said when Marek appeared, happy for the diversion the boy could offer. Erno was so serious. He had no humor to him, even though he did look funny lately, his head oddly large, his fingers spindly.

‘Sit by me, Marek. Let’s have a picture of the two of us. Two generations, side by side.’

Marek complied and sat beside Villiam. ‘Are your bones hurting you today?’

‘If I say yes, will you tell me a riddle?’

‘Yes, Father,’ Marek said. But he had no riddle prepared.

‘Then yes, they ache terribly. I’m near to death in pain, ha ha ha.’

Clod stopped drawing and turned the paper around to show Villiam. It was a ridiculous caricature. Villiam slapped his knee in glee, then winced from the pain of the slap, then held himself around the middle and laughed for a long while. Finally, he wiped his eyes, found his breath, and in an instant he was bored and expectant, so he turned to Marek again.

‘All right, what’s the riddle?’

Marek’s mind went blank. He said a little prayer in his mind, but his prayers had become strange since he’d come to the manor. He found himself praying to his own mind rather than to God. ‘Think of something good,’ he prayed.

‘Quick, Marek,’ Villiam said good-humoredly. His voice was never mad or cutting. He was a kind man, Marek thought.

‘What is brown in the winter, brown in the spring, and brown in the summer?’

‘Hmm, let me think. . . . Give me a clue, Marek.’

‘It’s also brown in the fall.’

‘I’ve got it,’ Villiam said. ‘A brown dog.’

Marek smiled and nodded. Villiam slapped him on the shoulder.

‘Getting stronger, eh?’ he said.

Marek believed that Villiam truly valued his company, and that the man’s insistence on lightheartedness was a way to alleviate Marek’s guilt over Jacob’s death. This generosity softened Marek’s need to self-flagellate. The times that he’d tried to hurt himself at the manor, he had been caught. The first time it happened was the first night. Villiam had handed him over into the care of Lispeth, and she had spent the evening bathing him, cutting his matted red hair, clipping his nails, and applying salve to his cuts and bruises. Marek had been stony with her, trying not to feel the gravity of the day’s events. But then, the kindness of the salve was too much for his shame to bear. When Lispeth’s back was turned, he picked up his old shoe and started swinging it over his shoulder so that it hit him in his back. Having just finished his bath, Marek was naked and clean for the first time. He was beside himself, crushed by Jude’s abandonment and disgusted with the filth that Lispeth had sloughed off his skin. Marek deserved to be punished, not attended to by the dead boy’s girlfriend. The pain of the shoe digging into his twisted ribs and spine released what felt like a spirit of hurt, as though it had been lodged within his body and was now set free.

‘Oh please,’ Lispeth muttered in irritation, grabbing the shoe from his shaking hands. Marek let go and crouched down, both to hide his genitals from the girl and to expose his back for more lashings.

‘Then you do it!’ he sobbed.

Lispeth wasn’t moved by this at all. Rather, she was nauseated at the sight of the boy’s body. It had been hard enough for her to bathe him, holding the memory of Jacob’s beauty in her mind, how his skin felt under her wet fingers, how his muscles twitched at her touch, how he stretched his arms overhead for her to scrub his armpits so that their faces came so close. He’d stared at her and made her feel naked, too. They had never kissed or touched much outside of the bathing and dressing, but a few weeks before Jacob had died, he held her hand for a moment under the table while he was practicing his penmanship. It had been a mindless movement, as easy and natural as scratching an itch on your neck or swatting away a fly. But as soon as her hand was in his, they’d both held their breath and turned inward. They felt the pulse of blood in each other’s fingers, and just the slightest movement of a thumb or pinky was ecstasy. It had been so intense that Lispeth had closed her eyes and dropped her head, and Jacob’s mouth had opened and his gaze had drifted away from his ink and paper into the corner of the room. Then a bird flew into the window and Lispeth gasped and took her hand away and got up and went to look at the glass, where there were tiny yellow feathers stuck like a butterfly. She remembered the look Jacob gave her when she turned around, his hand still held midair where she’d left it under the table. It was a look of shock and love, something true that had been growing underground for years and was finally breaking through. She had blushed and smiled, then cleared her throat and circuitously made her way around the table and back to her chair. She folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head. Jacob took his time to collect himself, said nothing, and looked back down at the paper he’d been writing on. A puddle of ink had pooled under the pen. He crushed the paper in his hands and pulled a book into its place. He pretended to read to himself until Lispeth said it was time for lunch.