Jaimy Gordon - Bogeywoman

Zuk buckled on her silver sandals, I borrowed her shirt, and together we staggered up the dock. The screen door opened and there was Cousin Édouard-I tried not to gape. “My godzilla it’s Yul Brynner in Anastasia ,” I whispered in her ear, and she laughed a nervous laugh that caused me to narrow my eyes at her-just what was going on here? I swear I saw it all in one second flat: He was old, maybe thirty, and beautiful, and bald as a mahogany finial, but not as old as Zuk . These cousins knew each other well! I could smell it, they were ancient lovers, and I knew which was which. I figured she had introduced him under the Ottoman Empire to the same black arts she had lately shown me.

In fact he looked like her, the same giant-sized eyes, nose, cheekbones-so beautiful he was grotesque-the same Mongol flash, but with black ficus of body hair at the wrists and throat of his pale green shirt. He was a little shorter than Zuk, and he worried, that was what really made me stare: the bare notion of a worried Zuk. He had her beauty, he was younger and an international playboy to boot, around 16,000 miles out of my league, but his face was nicked here and there with a fretfulness quite unknown to madame-too-beautiful-on-her-horse. Was he scared-scared, possibly, of Zuk? Well, who wasn’t? Maybe her fumy dangers had affected more than his growth. And sumpm else I saw right away: he wasn’t all that glad to see us. He was worried. I saw it before she did, even before he quieted his dogs, two ringletted spaniels, and held out his arms to us and smiled courteously and bowed us in. And said over my head to Zuk: “Very interesting-the blond hair-and soulful, belligerent face, like some orphan boy from a film-some movie of Dickens maybe?- Oliver Twist I think.”

Zuk pushed me firmly forward. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped. As I stumbled by he caught my hand and pressed it to his lips-not some sleazy fakeroo but a real kiss that left a wet spot. His lips were big beautifully molded Levantine numbers, with that sorta blue tattoo of a banished mustache gleaming faintly above them. I noticed he held my hand a little longer than was strictly necessary-could be he was scoping my scars, all bazillion threads of them that looked like carded plastic fishing line in that light. But of course an international playboy doesn’t say a wrong word at a moment like that. “Come in, ladies, sit down…” And then, like Zuk back at her place, he was off and clanking around in the icebox-brought in three little glasses and the vwodka . I choked mine down.

Coupla paragraphs to be filled in later about his guns and knives, a whole wall of em. Bear rugs, raccoon lampshades, ocelot headrests-you get the picture. Ruffs of brown feathers tacked up on the bias-just the wingspreads, no stuffed voodoo turkeys with empty glass eyes. Cousin Édouard ate the meat and didn’t pay the taxidermist, I guess. But there was a sweet smell of violence and rot about the place, as though carcasses were hanging in the guestroom. He did know his way around a frypan full of dead fish: they came out to the front porch headless, cockle-shaped and gritty with golden meal. I ate six or seven. And then, sitting in the rusty lawnchairs, we got down to business.

“Édouard, is good to see you. I need little help from you.” “Tell me, have you two women really sailed all night in that clumsy oyster boat? What nerve you have, Gulaim.” “Why, what is to fear?” He shook his head. “Is very good thing, Édouard, your boat is in Baltimore for paint-sorry to commandeer, but we must stay in front of police.” “Good god, Gulaim…” His hand rose vaguely to his forehead. “Don’t you wish sometimes to live a quiet life? And my god what a genius must be that kokpar player Fazool who until one year ago never saw the sea. It’s a miracle you have not got lost or run aground, Gulaim. Or been stopped by police, or the Coast Guard.” “Actually Fazool must get out and push Jenghiz Khan for one mile of low water at Currigunk Landing-extremely tiresome but then Bogey has beautiful idea we will jump in snake-filled canal and push with him.” Zuk leaned back contentedly, smoking one of Édouard’s cigarettes, wagging a crossed foot in its silver sandal, looking sultry and piratical in sopping rolled-up pinstripe trousers and nothing but the wet pinstripe vest over her momps, with one button buttoned.

“How original… I am glad at last to see Miss Koderer with my own eyes-the famous Bogeywoman, yes?” I couldn’t help smiling at this proof of far report. Zuk smiled too. “And what you think-she is not what I have said?-a charming monster? You have noticed her latissimus dorsi and her strange quick foot like goat foot?”

“Miss Koderer,” Édouard bent towards me, “may I ask to what is owing the prodigious leather of your fingertips?” I opened my mouth to talk but Zuk beat me to it: “She plays every day kidney-shaped hospital utility basin with orthopedic brace for neck, and strings of catgut sutures-she can play as beautiful as the moon. You would like to hear?” “She has pleased the moon,” Édouard said smoothly, “she is under no obligation to the stars.” “Anyhow I didn’t bring my pukelele,” I reminded them.

“Ah! quel dommage! In any event I hope you ladies will be at home in the Dismal. You may want to canoe the ditches-I have a good Wild Duck, consider it at your service. Do take care not to fall through the turf into burning peatholes.” “Fire is bad this year?” “No more than usual,” he shrugged, “only usual is bad enough. Canebrake rattlers are pouring into the ditch all night-do keep your eyes open. You may have the blue room, as soon as Fazool fetches the, ah, hanging game out to the lean-to. Dinner is at nine…

“But perhaps you two will wish to ‘haunt the moonlit bog’ , as the poet says, like those tragic lovers of old who met ‘by firefly lamp’ and paddled off ‘through many a fen, where the serpent feeds’ -or was that the runaway slave? Saprelotte , I can never keep those two straight- pardon , I’m only a lowly diplomat, not an artiste like you two ladies. Surely one of you knows?”

“What’s he talking about?” I whispered to Zuk, who shook her head. “And I trust you will have a good holiday in my swamp,” he went on, “-until Tuesday. But then, ladies. Then-you see-”

“What, Édouard? What is Tuesday?” Zuk asked casually, but I saw her craggy knuckles whiten on the rust-speckled arms of her chair.

“Tuesday is four days from today, Gulaim. This is the least possible time I calculate it will take certain parties, with gracious but snail-paced help from my consulate, to track you two to my cabin. Before they come, with no margin for mistakes-you must be gone from here,” Cousin Édouard said with sudden firmness, looking from one of us to the other.

“What you mean we must leave from here? But this is what we hope,” Zuk said, “and not for Tuesday-already for today. So soon as you can fix papers we want to fly together to Samovarobad. You understand, Édouard? Bogey is ready for start new life in Karamul-Karamistan.”

“My dear Gulaim, do you realize what you are saying? You propose to kidnap an American child and take her out of the country.” “Kidnap? She has begged me to take her. Bogeywoman is no child,” Zuk said, “in certain ways Bogeywoman is older than I am old.” “I believe you,” said Édouard drily. “Nevertheless: not only a child, that is, a legal minor, but a mentally ill child, and a patient under your care in the hospital that invited you to the United States, after delicate diplomatic proceedings with the Soviet Autonomous Republic of Karamul-Karamistan. And not only a child, Gulaim, but a female child-that is bad-and female as you yourself are female-that is worse. You have perhaps forgotten that you are still a diplomatic representative of a Soviet government and there is a war on. Are you prepared to be an outlaw-and not only an outlaw, Gulaim, but a female degenerate-in an international incident?”