Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

Marie flinched. Vince continued, now speaking directly to her. ‘The kid’s gone quiet but everyone else is shouting, all his beggar friends, they’re all around us, yelling, trying to grab him, but Rajan still has a grip on him and I can’t stop myself, I start hitting this child, slapping him, on the face, on the head, on the neck and shoulders. By now all the women are crying and screeching, the kids are screaming louder, the men are walking towards us looking like they want to slit our throats. I know we could be in terrible danger, that what I am doing is unforgivable, but I don’t care. I just want to punish the little bastard, I want to make sure that he never grins that grin again.’

Then Vince suddenly leapt up and shouted so loudly that Marie jumped back in fright: ‘ Polizia! Polizia! ’ He was laughing, towering above us, alive and on fire. He sat back down, his voice softening as he spun us back into his net.

‘Everything goes quiet, there isn’t a sound. The gods are smiling on us — Rajan has just yelled out the one word that can silence them. Everyone suddenly looks terrified and it seems that half the market has just vanished. Then from the middle of this crowd an old man emerges, like some kind of apparition, with a long grey beard, a turban, robe and sandals, like he doesn’t belong to our century at all. He comes up to us, grabs the kid, and then he starts laying into him. He is screaming abuse at him, he’s hurting the kid much more than I was, but the child is too scared to complain. He just howls and takes his punishment. The old man looks at me and starts speaking and Rajan translates. “This child is cursed! This child has the demon in him. Call the police, arrest him if you must.” He gives him one final slap and then throws him at our feet. The old man is looking at me and his eyes are full of tears. He is asking me to do something, he’s begging me, but I can’t understand a word he’s saying.

‘“What’s he saying? What’s he saying?” I ask Rajan.

‘“He wants you to punish this child. He says he doesn’t know what to do with him, that he is his poor departed brother’s child, may God have mercy on his soul, that he cannot do anything to discipline the child, that he will only bring shame on them all. In the name of God, will you do something?” ’

I had somehow become conscious of Madeline. She had wrapped her arms around her knees, dug herself deeper and deeper into the sofa, moving further and further away from her lover. She was entranced and fearful. I knew this because I was in exactly the same state. We were all mesmerised.

Vince didn’t look at any of us as his voice lowered. ‘It must have been the heat. The heat and not having eaten and the burning sun and the noise and the sheer animal stench of the place, but above all it was the old man appearing out of nowhere as if he were some Old Testament prophet. It was all of that and the kid being the exact double of Nazin. Her eyes, her face, her softness. I wasn’t in time, I was out of time, and I was looking into this old man’s eyes, this old man who looked like Moses, who looked as if he had spoken with God and he’s asking me what to do and all I can see are his Old Testament eyes and all I can sense is the crucifix in my palm and I just say, “An eye for an eye.” That’s all, I don’t know where it comes from but it does. An eye for an eye. The old man looks across to Rajan, who translates for him. Then it is as if all the fear and anxiety in his face disappears. There is still weariness and sadness but there is no longer fear. He grabs the kid with one hand and my arm with the other and we start following him.’

At that point Hande rose, took a cigarette and went out to the balcony. Mark told me later that she had gone utterly pale, her face drained of all colour and life. It was strange, he told me: Vince was talking about the old man’s face being weary and despairing and that was exactly how Hande looked at that moment.

‘I am following the old man, Rajan is behind me and behind him is all of the marketplace, all of the village. The little boy is now walking in front of his uncle and what astonishes me is that he doesn’t make a move to run away. We haven’t gone that far when the old man opens a door in a wall that leads into a courtyard. A group of women and girls are standing around a stove but they cover their heads and go indoors as soon as they see us. The old man pushes his nephew through the door, lets Rajan and me through but closes the door to anyone else. Some of the village kids have climbed the wall and are sitting up there cross-legged, looking down at us.

‘The old man picks up a hatchet from against the wall and hands it to me. The blade has been recently sharpened but there is rust at the base, the handle is made of knotted wood. He then grabs the kid and pushes him down so his arm is lying across a stone block that one of the women had been sitting on. He points to his nephew’s wrist. The boy is crying now, so hard that the cries are soundless. It is as if he can’t breathe, and there is piss running down his legs and wetting the earth under his bare feet.

‘Rajan is saying to me, “No, enough, what are you doing?” but the old man keeps pointing to his nephew’s wrist and ordering me and it is as if I can understand him, that he is saying this is justice and I am thinking the prophets have walked this land, we are where gods were born and destroyed and resurrected, and I am thinking about how Nazin hurt me, how she scarred me, and I am thinking of how that evil grin of hers hurt me and can still burn, can still burn through me, and I think, this punishment is just. I raise the hatchet.’

‘You’re a fuckwit, mate, you are such a bullshit artist!’ sneered Antony as he stumbled away to join Hande on the balcony.

For the first time since beginning his story, Vince looked directly at me. I’m not making it up , he mouthed, shaking his head.

He raised his arm, bent at the elbow, swung it down through the air. ‘The axe is old.’ His arm swung down and up once, twice, three times. ‘It takes me three blows to sever the boy’s hand.’

It was Madeline I was thinking of: for the first time since she’d been with Vince, it was Madeline I was thinking of. I haven’t been able to shake the memory of her as she was at that instant, her body trembling, her lips trying to form words. If it was a lie he had been spinning, it was a lie that had entrapped his lover as much as it had any of us. If it were truth, she had no more claim to it than any of us there. Madeline had realised at that exact moment what we had all known and had been too cowardly to admit: that Vince did not love her at all. Vince didn’t love any of us. He did not love me.

I said it softly. ‘You’re an evil man. Whether it is true or not, you are an evil man.’

His eyes met mine. His face was flushed, his expression grateful. He nodded his assent. I recall his relief and the wretched sadness in his eyes.

•

What was there to say after that? Did we believe him? Of course that was the question we all wanted to ask ourselves but then was not the moment for asking it. Our first concern was Madeline. She had started crying as soon as he’d finished speaking, but he didn’t comfort her or even touch her. Ashamed of her reaction, she fled into the bedroom and the women all followed her.

We men sat in uncomfortable silence. Then Mark pointed towards the hallway. ‘You have to go in and talk to her.’

Vince was nodding, as if in agreement. But then he jumped up off the sofa, searched for his shoes, put them on and grabbed his jacket. I had to look away. ‘I don’t have to do anything. She’s hysterical, I can’t abide being with her when she’s like that.’

Antony rushed in from the balcony. ‘You useless, selfish prick. You can’t walk out on her — go into the bedroom and talk to her.’