Friday, March 8, 2013

The Only Thing Worse is the Cure, Part 4


This is the fourth installment in a seven-episode serial. To read Part 1, click here.
To read Part 2, click here.
To read Part 3, click here.


I’m the reason the island grows. Until I was born, my shack barely had enough cabbage for two, and I was the seventh. Now every soul on the island eats from my garden. They say I’m magic. I’m the reason they’re all alive.

This used to be a colony for souls the mainland didn’t want. Saul says before I was born, Grandmamere couldn’t even stand up for more than ten minutes. Now she runs almost as fast as I do; I let her win sometimes. That’s what my garden does. Souls come from two islands over to beg for our leftovers, and even if it’s my suitor they say they’re visiting, it’s my food they eat, and they stay forever growing hardy, or they leave and never come back. I think that those who leave realize their mistakes and commit suicide. We might get a church next year, but I’ll only allow it if they make me a saint.

Saints have to commit miracles, and even if you don’t count my garden, I was dead for half a year before I was born. I don’t feel dead; sometimes I wonder how deadness feels. My mother was called names for conceiving me, because of how ill everybody was before my garden, and the weight got to her eventually, and she ran off, probably to Jerusalem. Saul says she was found floating in the sea, but I don’t believe it. No soul related to me could be dumb enough to run into the sea.

Grandmamere says I was born as still as a stone into her hands, and then I wriggled. I didn’t even cry. I’ve never cried. I don’t know how that feels, either.

Another saintly quality I have is that everyone loves me. I think more saints should be popular, so that we can remind the world that everything’s not about outcasts. You can’t build a church out of dying alone. It’s about community. Grandmamere loves me, and Grandgregor, and all the souls who used to be crazy, and the dock workers, and my suitor spends all day following me around. I don’t know if I’ll marry him. Maybe if we get a church, to commemorate it. He’s supposed to be rich. He gets gifts from the mainland all the time, heavy trunks and books that smell like I think a desert would. Arid tomes. People say they’re coming to see him, but they eat my food, the souls who aren’t afraid we’re contagious. Then again, maybe we are. Every mariner who comes selling things here dies. They should eat from my garden.

I don’t think I’ll marry my suitor because he’s too uncouth. He’s probably rich and always washes up, but he sleeps in the cemetery. He says it’s practice, and you have to be fairly uncouth for that to make sense. He doesn’t even bring a blanket, he just lies face down, fondling the earth. So I have to carry one for us, and a pillow. Grandmamere forces me to sleep out there with him. They like him better than me, which makes no sense, because it’s my garden that keeps the island alive. They say Grandgregor couldn’t even sit up straight for thirty years until I was born.

It’s like they’re afraid what will happen if we grow apart. Grandmamere and my suitor’s steward are always around making sure we’re together. It must be his money. They think he’ll love some other girl, which is silly, because he doesn’t think about girls. He doesn’t think about anything. Yesterday one of the souls who used to be crazy, who some nights wakes up screaming about angels in the walls, got into an argument with Saul and some mariners about predestiny and was stabbed four times in the flank. My suitor wouldn’t even look at him, even though I was trying to show him how eating from my garden had helped. Two days ago he’d eaten one leaf of a cabbage, and as soon as we walked in the crazy man got sane and didn’t bleed anywhere. My suitor went sullen, like he was unimpressed with my miracle, like he didn’t want to help.

The one saintly thing I need to do is endure a vision. I’ve never had one,  even though I faint too often, and I think fainting is a great opportunity for God to give you a vision, maybe to let me know what crying or dying feels like. No luck so far. I only faint when I’m alone. My suitor finds me and wakes me up. He’s so attentive then, which is why I bring him a blanket at night.

Grandmamere says he loves me, but old souls’ brains rot up. I don’t think my suitor loves anyone. He doesn’t enjoy my cabbage, or Gregor’s singing, or reading, even though he’s reading all the time. Sometimes, when ships anchor off-shore and souls stare at us through spyglasses, he looks at them like he can see them right in the eye. He doesn’t even enjoy that. He doesn’t enjoy us being watched even though he’s always waiting for visitors. They go everywhere for him, which must mean he’s rich. I wonder what they’d have to bring back to impress him. Sometimes, I think, he might get fed up and go searching in the mainland himself. I might go with him. I don’t know. It depends if we get a church.

Part 5, "The Lie," coming Friday the 15th.

19 comments:

  1. The repetition made me feel horrible for this narrator. Still, I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley either. I suspect she's a saint in a very old-fashioned sense of the term.

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    1. What particular repetitions gave you those feelings, Katherine? I'm very curious!

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  2. Everyone loves her - but her Grandmamere likes her suitor (who sounds very unpleasant indeed) better. Scary. Is it because he is probably rich or because it is just so difficult to like a saint I wonder...

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    1. There are many saints who were unpopular in their own times. How much of her story do you believe?

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  3. There is so much here that is only hinted at. Going for a Pynchon feel, John?

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    1. Some Pynchon explorations, possibly. It's a big experiment. What do you think is being hinted at? And do you approve of how it's going?

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    2. This format forces a week between segments. If they were strung together, they'd be like movements in a symphony. I'm going to reserve judgement until the end, when I can re-read them all in a row.

      Ha! Listen to me, talking about "judging". As though I had either right or position to judge.

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  4. This keeps getting deeper and deeper with each new instalment and each new set of eyes we see our young god through. Every new voice is a bit of a cluture shock, focsing me to adjust my understanding. How do you keep doing that?

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    1. Primarily by having a very thoughtful audience, and thank you, Bev.

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  5. Upon the second reading, I got it. The girl thinks *she's* the one performing the miracles! This was a tragicomic installment, in that regard. This story is developing quite nicely, the hook is set.

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    1. I'm glad you're enjoying it, Larry! And you may be on to something...

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  6. Ah....it didn't all click until I read Larry's comment. You sly bastard. I feel like I'll need to read the all back-to-back every time you post one now to stay on top of it all as it unravels.

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  7. So much happens in a week (reading and otherwise) I found myself having to flick back to previous installments again. I'm wondering, again, if this is stunting my enjoyment. I reached the same conclusion as Larry, but only after seeing his comment and re-reading the piece!

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  8. Oh wow! Her character varies from innocent to quite scary as the story reads. She's a bit full of herself, but my, if she/when she finds out the source of "her" magic I expect her world to come crashing down.

    I really, really love the way this serial is developing, John, and I'm glad that there will be a part next week. I'm well excited!

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  9. I really liked the voice in this and got such a sense of how fragile her world is and how it could all too easily be taken away from her or come crashing down around her. She veers from being the almost-Saint, so full of herself, to someone who is incredibly uncertain of both her future and the people in her life.

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  10. I'm not sure if she really does create the miracles or just believes she does. She I think is a complex character, perhaps what you see is not what you may really get.

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  11. I must admit, for a long time, I thought she was actually a boy! I have no idea why I thought that but it was a surprise to discover she's a girl. I can't help thinking though, no prison could ever hold her unless they populated it with sick prison guards...

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  12. I enjoyed this one. All of the narrator voices are distinct (not easy to pull off) and this week we get a bright but naive view of things. I'm not sure yet what will turn out to be true or where its going to end up but happy to enjoy the ride till then.

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  13. Curious to learn more about her suitor, or perhaps be reminded of something already learned.

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