Rupert Thomson - The Insult

‘You see?’ I said. ‘I told you there was nothing to worry about.’

Mazey straightened up and stepped away from the pool. From his trouser pocket he brought out the old blunt pen-knife my father had given him. He felt in the other pocket, found a piece of dowel. Then he sat down on the terrace, his long legs sticking out in front of him, his big shoes pointing at the sky, and, bending his head, began to whittle. He didn’t expect anything in particular from life; he’d be happy with whatever he was given. I wanted to take his head and hold it close against me, but I knew this would only have infuriated Karin, who thought he was guilty and who was standing at the bottom of the steps, staring at him, her mouth drawn tight, her eyes accusing.

Not long afterwards — in May or June, it would have been — she went south with the Salenko boy. I never knew exactly where.

There was nothing memorable about Jan Salenko — nothing, that is, except his memory: he won a village competition when he was eight, and all the children used to tease him about it. I’d noticed him watching Karin for years, his eyes full of her as we crossed the street or drove by in the car, but he wasn’t the only one, and he was shy, too, so I didn’t think it would come to anything. I suppose she must have become aware of how he felt and then realised he could be of use to her — especially when she found out that he wasn’t frightened off by the mysterious arrival of a child. There’s not much a man won’t do when he’s besotted. Nobody suspected an elopement, though, not even me.

Strangely, it was Mazey who felt the loss most keenly. In fact, he seemed to be expressing it for all of us. Like a lightning conductor, he drew all the bad feelings down upon himself. He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t even listen to his wind-chimes any more. There were nights when he walked through the hotel opening every door to every room, every cupboard, every drawer. In the morning it always looked as if we’d been broken into. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t speak to me at all. Not one word.

My father came to visit me one evening. It was rare to see him in the village, even rarer to see him upset. He stood in front of me with his face lowered and the muscles shifting in his jaw. He told me that he’d been working in the barn as usual, building a linen chest for the Minkels family, when he heard sounds coming from the house. Thinking it might be someone who was up to no good, he took his gun off the wall and went to have a look. The whole place had been turned upside-down. Cupboards had been opened, drawers pulled out and tipped on to the floor, curtains torn off their rails. It looked as though a hurricane had just passed through. A movement in the window caught his eye. Something outside, in the yard.

‘Mazey,’ I said.

My father’s long jaw swung towards me. I’d startled him. Yes, it was Mazey. He called to the boy, who was moving in the shadows at the edge of the clearing where he could not be seen. He called again. Mazey stepped out into the sunlight, blinking.

He walked up to Mazey, and Mazey just watched him coming with that empty face of his. Mazey was sweating, and there was blood trickling from a cut on his wrist.

My father pointed at the house. ‘Was it you?’

Mazey took a step backwards. The shade on his face like a birthmark, the blood sliding silently between his knuckles.

‘Why did you do it?’

He held Mazey’s gaze until he felt the edges of his vision blackening. But Mazey was the first to turn away. He walked into the trees, the light and shadow dappling his back, and my father noticed once again how Mazey moved in straight lines, ignoring paths and bridleways. As the crow flies, he remembered thinking to himself. He watched Mazey fade into the gloom of the wood and found that he could breathe more easily.

‘Sometimes I look into that boy’s eyes,’ my father said, ‘and I feel like I’m in quicksand and I’m —’

‘It’s the baby,’ I said.

‘The baby?’

‘Nina.’

Later that night, when Mazey returned home, I took him into the kitchen and sat him down at the table. I reached for the first-aid tin. The cut wasn’t serious, but I wanted an excuse to keep him close to me while I talked to him. I had to explain that Nina was gone and wouldn’t be coming back, and I had to do this in a way that didn’t make it seem as if it was his fault. I had to find an explanation that would break the bond between them, that would persuade him to let her go. I poured a few drops of iodine on to a ball of cotton-wool and began to clean the cut with it. His arm flinched and I heard the air being drawn in through his teeth, but his face didn’t register any pain.

‘The baby,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Hiding.’

‘No. She’s not hiding. She’s gone.’

He looked at me.

As I dried the skin around the cut, I told him that Karin had taken Nina away. He wanted to know where to. I explained that, when a woman had a baby, the baby came from inside her. From here, I said, and placed one hand over my stomach. He bent down and put his face close to my hand, watching it, as though it was about to change into something else. I wondered how to go on. I decided it would be simpler not to mention fathers. When a woman had a baby, I said, the baby belonged to her. She could take her baby away with her, if she wanted to. She could take her baby anywhere she wanted. It was her baby. He didn’t say anything. I tore off a piece of gauze and taped it over the cut. Nina had come from inside Karin, I said. Nina was Karin’s baby. And Karin had taken Nina away with her. They were gone, maybe for ever.

‘That’s what’s happened,’ I said. ‘That’s why you can’t find them.’

I looked up. Mazey had placed his right hand on his stomach and he was staring down at it.

‘There’s no point looking in cupboards,’ I went on, ‘or in drawers. You won’t find her there. Do you understand?’

But he didn’t answer. He was still staring at his hand.

During the autumn of that year, stories began to circulate. At first people thought there was a bear on the rampage, despite the fact that no bears had been seen in our part of the world for more than a hundred years. Next they thought it was a pack of wolves. Then somebody remembered the circus that had passed through the region that summer. They remembered trailers with no windows, their side walls painted with ferocious beasts and scenes of carnage and mutilation. Supposing one of the animals had escaped from its cage and was now roaming the countryside? It had to be some kind of wild animal, something exotic. Because dogs and chickens were being killed. Not just killed either, but torn apart. But not eaten. Just ripped open and left there, gaping, on the ground. Nobody had seen anything, of course. The stories took a darker twist. There was talk of pagan rituals and devil worship. An article appeared in the local paper: WHO COULD DO SUCH A THING? For a while, suspicion fell on a young couple who had moved into a woodsman’s cottage on a lonely stretch of river north-west of the village. They had dark eyes and dark hair, and the girl wore unusual jewellery. It was enough to keep the fires of rumour stoked up high.

I noticed that Mazey had become restless, as if the talk had affected him as well. I didn’t want to chain him up again, but at the same time I was worried about him wandering too far. After all, what if there was some truth to the rumours? What if he tangled with a wild animal or fell into the clutches of a Satanic cult? I couldn’t warn him; he wouldn’t be able to understand the kind of danger I was talking about. Maybe I could follow him, though. Then, if he got into trouble, I could help. It was an idea. And hadn’t I always been curious about where he went?