Arc IV
Chapter XXXV
How Strange the Sound…
"Human beings are funny. They long to be with the person they love but refuse to admit openly. Some are afraid to show even the slightest sign of affection because of fear. Fear that their feelings may not be recognized, or even worst, returned. But one thing about human beings puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within."
Sigmund Freud
[8 days later.]
Eight bottles, nine bottles, a dozen bottles –
No bottles.
Just numbers,
How strange the sound…
"Girls… I'm a very old man." The gunslinger mumbled as he tried hard not to lose sight of the tiny numbers displayed right in front of his cobalt eyes. Those girls weren't interested in the economy of the brothel – their quiet laughter had nothing to do with the coldness and the distance of any possible mathematical equation. "Seriously, ladies… I'm a very, very old man." Black added nonchalantly, his fingers cruising mid-air as if attempting to shoo them away. But youth is avid, and hungry, and oh so relentless.
The bar, now silent and nearly deserted, was the muted witness for the carnival of souls to exhibit all of its different hues colliding against the darkest of nights. He knew one of the girls that were flirting with him, El-A, the one who had let him know that Rosario had been attacked, the one who trembled before the doctor's contained ire, like a leaf trying to survive a devastating hurricane.
The other two girls he had seen them before yet he didn't even know their names – he just remembered them from watching them go up and down the stairs every night, always escorting a different client, always offering a new sort of amusement, a new smile, a new deviation of the lives they should have lived.
The brunette and the honey-eyed one; he had categorized them, simplifying their physiques and mutilating the majority of those intrinsic aspects of their personalities.
"I won't say this again, ladies – I'm just way too old…" Black smirked, his masculinity satisfied to know those three girls were persistent in their countless attempts of seducing him, revolving all around him like moths to a flame. El-A sat on his lap, causing the ancient gunman to rest his pencil on the table and offer her a broad smile.
"You don't look that old." The honey-eyed one whispered in his ear, taking advantage of his apparent moment of weakness.
Black placed his chapped lips on the brunette's neck, his warm and humid words drawing shapes and figures all over her skin, his cobalt eyes still fixed on El-A: "I'm old enough to know I don't need to pay for those things I can get for free," he sentenced, nonchalantly, "not anymore." He raised an eyebrow, his left hand now resting carelessly on the girl's waist –
Of all your dresses,
of all your skins –I prefer the simplest ones,
the most sacred ones,
you always look so lovely, my dear ones
but I…
it seems I am always wearing death.
Pushing the numbers aside from his mind, the man tried to concentrate on the delicate ministrations those three young women were dedicating him. In a way, he concluded bitterly, it was as if those girls didn't quite know how to act around a man if he wasn't trying to purchase what they had to offer. Drenched in their so-called affection, Black glanced over the stairs to notice the darkness pooling around every corner: she, the one he had been trying to reach, had been avoiding him again. The task, so resolute and condescending, melted in the notion of those six hands roaming through his body – those digits brushing his clothes, he knew – none of those fingers belonged to her.
"We don't do charity." The honey-eyed one whispered, her tongue flicking out of her mouth to caress the corners of his lips.
Well done, Rosario. Well done.
In an environment composed by women only, men were cruelly demoted to a lower league: they were just clients, customers pretending to obey the rules of a false publicity: the need to satiate a nonexistent hunger, the desperation to feel something, anything at all. Black had already felt those young, intrepid eyes deconstructing his being as an attempt to apprehend his one true shape. The night when he had decided to jump over the bar and help them: they had watched him with such innocent devotion back then, as if he was some sort of a mystified master supposed to teach them something extraordinarily important. The look of expectation they had offered him back then, as if he was some kind of a prophetic phenomenon they couldn't quite comprehend. The many numbers he had written on those pages tried to summon him back. The man studied the cyphers displayed before him with an unusual thirst: maybe he could teach them, after all – teach them how to administer the place, how to calculate incomes and outcomes, how to run an inventory. El-A killed the distance and tasted his numb lips, pushing his every thought aside – how weak the flesh and how tormenting the feeling.
"Easy now, girls. The man is not our customer. He's our employee." Alexandra's disembodied voice romanced the last 'e' through parted lips, such a crude remark and such a melodious sound, almost as if she was singing - the enchanting sounds intonated by each color of her voice, the mischievous song of a mermaid that knows her drowning sailor like the back of her own hand.
He looked up, trying to find her, yet his dilated pupils found nothing but darkness and the hollowed, empty space she should have occupied –
How strange the sound,
the echoes of my own voice -
and how startling the mirrors,
how unsettling the faces,
and how sad their artificial love,
their artificial voices,
their hauntingly real hunger
the mirror -
speaks.
[In a way, he can't help but to feel sorry for them, knowing it all too well, his eyes seeing those bodies in just one unique dimension, those skins adorned by just one single light.]
He shook his head, tormented by the notion: he wasn't able to see past the whores.
[His mind, turbulent and shadowed, still longs to find her there, the invisible hands of her colorful voice dragging him down and making him dance the sweetened waltz of everything that's not exactly the way it should be. Yet his song is completely still; he's bound to dance the dance of those who don't move anymore.]
He knows the mirror.
the mirror -
speaks.
As the brunette traced the outline of his masculine jawline with the tip of her fingers the thought shook him from within.
[The mirror: it does speak, it does tell quite the eloquent stories: the way he thinks about those girls is the exact same way they all think about him - they can't see past the monster.
I am always wearing death.
He looked up again.
/ taps his fingers on the table / the brunette / his fingers / her fingers / his jawline / he looks up again / six hands / she's not there / the simple mercenary / the whore and the mercenary / the mercenary and those girls / his fingers on the table / she's not there / the honeyed eyed one / the kiss / his fingers tapping on the table / she's not there / taps on the table / the kiss / the numbers – he can only see those girls as moons with only one face left to show: the easy one, what everybody sees.
Unidimensional…
They have become unidimensional entities in a world full of overlapping faces.]
I am always wearing death.
(That's why like those girls,
there's only one face
for them to see
when they look at me.)
[But the numbers don't lie; they never lie. Eight bottles, nine bottles, a dozen bottles… The discrepancy is as peculiar as it is bewildering for the old cowboy. The brunette / The honeyed-eyed one / his lips, nipped by their lips / hands, she's not there / six hands, a dozen bottles / the discrepancy / the kiss / the laugher / the distraction.]
"Girls," Her stern voice proves she's not bluffing, "silence."
The mercenary raised his eyebrows, the notion too clear to be ignored now that the doctor's phantasmagorical apparition had provided him with a glimpse of sanity: those unidimensional beings were not interested in romancing him, they were merely distracting him from the most obvious of truths: the numbers never lie but they can – and they will – expose those who try to bend them.
He got up and tipped his hat to those girls observing his departure with such saddened eyes; like a mesmerized sailor trying to reach for the source of his enchantment, Black went upstairs and stepped inside Alexandra's room.
He had seen little of her during those eight nights he had spent working at the brothel.
Their interactions had been limited to an indispensable minimum, not only the doctor wasn't interested in spending any time with him but also he had started to suspect that her uneasiness around him was not just a frightening tale he had made up inside his own twisted imagination: he himself was still having a hard time trying to decipher how to act around her; maybe it wasn't so crazy to believe that she was having the same problem. Her ambivalent moods had put him to the test, revealing contradictory shades that had little to do with the nearly uptight consistency she had shown over a decade ago.
"El-A, towel." Her voice greeted him from the bathroom.
"I'm not El-A." The gunslinger replied shyly, his tranquil pace coming to a halt, his fingers faltering, allowing the papers he was carrying to land on her bed.
There was a brief moment of silence yet her determined words caressed his ears with renewed determination:
"Erron, towel."
The mirror,
still speaks.
"Sorry about the girls, they can be very annoying – they are just so young and careless..." Alexandra said, apologetically, yet the tone of her voice had already distanced her from the ones she was talking about. Black rested his hat on her bed, right on top of his papers, and walked to the bathroom where she was waiting for him – picking up the towel she had placed around the doorknob he stopped and sat down on the floor, his back resting against the bathroom door.
"I'm not going to walk all the way over there."
How strange the sound
of my own words
leaving your mouth.
[She smiled, and the gesture seemed tender, sweetened by a memory that maybe lacked luster in the back of her mind but still pulsated and resonated inside her nonetheless, fixated inside the souvenirs she still possessed of the time they had spent together, before the fire, before the distance; before themselves. He smiled in return, and his gesture seemed pure, as if he was trying to summon the one she was before, before the fire, before the distance; before themselves.]
Stretching his left arm, Black handed her the towel: "It's alright; I know where to draw the line." The murmur leaving his mouth caused the doctor to offer him an unexpected, quiet grin. She covered her naked body with the white towel and knelt down before the man – with her thumbs, she traced the outline of his lips: the crimson souvenirs that the girls' affectionate ministrations had managed to imprint around his mouth quickly illustrated her pale digit –
"If you say so…"
She stared at her own colored finger then looked up to find his gaze still fixed on hers then smiled, broadly now; the genuine nature of her gesture was contagious, causing his own lips to grin as well as an attempt for him to mirror the light in her eyes.
[She stood up, but the towel refused to accompany her and so it pooled around her bare ankles – so many marks on that body could never redefine such beauty. Her shadow towered over him, like a monumental obelisk meant to emulate the glimmering lights of those better days that are never coming back. He could only stare – and it was rude, and it was impolite but he couldn't help it. She walked past him and his determination ceased to exist – now his neck was struggling, trying to catch a glimpse of her figure as it moved near the bed, as it examined the nervous numbers he had projected on those papers, as it lit up a cigar and exhaled a turbulent cloud of smoke that traveled, resolute, towards the open window; as it chose, oh so deliberatively, the indigo nightgown determined to cover her silhouette – the material seemed just so delicate and fragile, it gave an incomplete idea of nakedness; a raw illusion shaped inside her real shape, his neck struggled and she knew, she saw, she smiled – just like he knew, he saw, he smiled: they didn't know how to act around each other anymore.]
The doctor sat on her bed and beckoned him. Crossing her legs, she acknowledged the eyes of a small child seeking permission in the shape of that relic of a man. He sat beside her, his hands resting on his pressed thighs. Adolescence, it seemed, was the best term – if not the only term – left to describe the mutated nature of their still-evolving bond.
"I've found several discrepancies between the numbers you gave me and my own calculations."
Look at me now,
breaking the ice
with nothing but the shards of an antique attraction
I still can't seem to control.
Don't be fooled by the expendable idiosyncrasy of my numbers,
I know that you know better
than to trust
my own mathematical existence.
[The material, so delicate and gentle looked so fragile against her skin. He couldn't help to look; his eyes took on the unavoidable voyage over her eclipsed topography. He noticed each mark, each scar; even the subtle movement of her chest every time she breathed in and out. The tender, harmonious cadence of her warm respiration - and the landscape of her punished being still looked so diaphanous to him. This time her eyes acknowledged his undivided attention. This time he did not blush. Alexandra crossed and uncrossed her legs, her back arched and her shoulders – firm and unrelenting; set the pace for the elegance of that body of hers to declare war on the ancestral ties behind the concept of shame. She knew, he was sure, she must have known the thin material covering her body now was not enough to prevent those phenomenal shapes of hers from reaching the outside, the curtain too weak, too indelible / Shame is not a concept made to endure the test of time / his eyes too eager, too hungry and she knew. But she didn't care – at least, not like she had surely cared before, when explored by those same hungry eyes, while summoned by those same craving, eager eyes. He wondered now because she knew, she must have known – he was able to see everything that was to be seen about her, indigo skin, the completion of her shapes knows no color.]
"Someone might be stealing bottles from the larder." Black, making an ulterior effort, found the strength to speak again, beginning to fear his own eyes, knowing all too well he could be making her feel uncomfortable.
There was something about her that gave her away; her eyes exposing her intentions: maybe it was the serene elocution adorning his voice, maybe it was his calm demeanor while he spoke, maybe it was the fact that he had chosen to speak during such a delicate, silent exchange.
"I'll talk to the girls, first thing in the morning," the doctor let out softly, her dead lips unable to contain the barricading frustration. "Should we find out that one of them has been stealing wine from under our noses, I will speak to them privately to make sure they're not in trouble." She added calmly, "Like I said, they are just so young and careless…"
[They were still sitting down on her bed, side by side, like two teenagers staring at their own hands. Her legs hovered before her; the minuscule movements of her knees made her feet dance and gravitate, unable to touch the ground. He stayed still, long legs stiff and reticent, ancient feet touching the ground. She got up and walked back to the bathroom where she picked up the towel still discarded on the floor. With care yet seemingly unpreoccupied, the woman killed every single one of the drops of water still cascading down her black hair. The mercenary watched in silence as her mane danced and swirled and waltzed to the tunes of such simplistic rituals. Again the towel came to rest on the floor, now heavier than before, more definitive than before, and she walked back to her own bed where she sat back down right next to the muted gunslinger as if her body was unable to overcome the invisible, impossible magnets forcing their bodies together every single time.]
He stares.
His gaze is long, explorative.
He needs to know.
The question,
(not yet.)
"I know you had to protect your identity but I don't think I'm ever going to get used to this new hair color of yours."
She stares.
her gaze is long, explorative.
she needs to know.
The question,
burns.
"You should let your hair grow back." She said. "There's no point in looking like a prisoner when you're a free man and everybody knows it. Do you want to show them you survived your stay in prison? Is that what this new look is all about for you? Another highlight for your resume?"
[She was not mad at him, she was not angry.
The colors of her voice, far from reproaching him… it was like she truly, actually wanted to know.]
His gaze is long, explorative.
He needs to know.
"But I did survive my stay in prison. I have a right to let it show. And speaking about hair…"
The question,
burns.
"Why black?"
How strange the sound…
of my own name
crucified among
your pieces, like particles of my own existence
melting into you
(as if I was a part of you / part of me / part of us (us) / us / (a)part of us, from me, in you / as if I was a part of you / (you) (a)part of me.)
"They dyed my hair black when I first started working here." She commented, the explanation too simplistic to cover the full length of what had actually happened. "It had nothing to do with preserving my identity, actually. It was pure marketing."
Well done, Rosario. Well done.
[The mischievous light in her eyes ignited like a mad kite about to explode in the sky.]
"When I first came here the color of my hair was not important. But when I became one of Rosario's girls, she suggested a change - rumor has it that there was once a man, someone very close to power, that hated red-haired women. Nobody knew the reasons why, no one could understand the roots of his aversion towards red-haired women but they all came to accept his preferences. The man was… well, he had a reputation so everybody knew crossing him was not an option. But there came a day when the man stopped coming over – he had found someone, he had gotten married. But still, every now and then he would still solicit the company of our women – The manager would go meet him and he would choose his occasional ladies… until one day, the woman he solicited was unable to make it. Desperate, the manager decided to send her last girl on her way to the palace - did I mention he lived in the palace? – to make up for the one he had asked for in the first place. The manager prayed for his benevolence, she prayed he would understand she had no-one else but that one girl, the red-haired girl… That was the last time he ever asked for one of our girls but that's not all - his repulsion was so big, his aversion so unbearable, this man began spreading quite the fascinating rumor: red-haired women bring the worst luck of all. You know people in this realm are very superstitious. A rumor like that spread like a wildfire out of control so, during my initiation, I had to change my hair color because of someone else's unfounded speculations. Good thing is that they at least let me choose the color – and what can I say? I've always had a thing for subtle homages."
Black lowered his head in silent contemplation –
"So I'm guilty of that too…" his voice, manifesting no signs of rancor or disdain, gravitated closer to a heartfelt deduction.
There are many questions
waiting to be freed
yet his only interrogation
is silence.
How strange the sound…
Alexandra rolled her eyes in silent admittance – even if she had never stopped to actually consider it, too caught up in the comicality of such a capricious anecdote, deep down she knew Black was right. The sounds of jovial laughter startled them. The giggling girls shattered the moment as the tourbillion of steps got closer to Alexandra's door. The three girls stepped inside the room without even knocking, causing the doctor's lips to become a thin, lifeless line.
"We're done for the night." El-A informed. The brunette and the honey-eyed one stayed by the doorframe, their mouths agape and their eyes illuminated by a renewed sense of mischievousness. They blew kisses his way before the uncontainable laughter engulfed their faces. The doctor sighed, discontented by their lack of tact – she could understand the treacherous mazes of youth yet she couldn't bring herself to believe they could have such unparalleled moments of complete immaturity. Far from feeling intimidated by Alexandra's cold stare, the leader of the petite group took another step forward: "We're about to go visit Rosario, do you want to come with us?"
The doctor shook her head in silence: "It's quite late, girls. Rosario must be sleeping by now – don't wake her up, let her rest."
El-A nodded and left the room; the other two girls followed her immediately. The mercenary's tired sight, still trapped somewhere in between the door and the exact spot where El-A had been standing only seconds ago, found an anchor in the doctor's face as she stood up and closed the door.
He stood up as well, looking resolute:
"I should go as well, like you said, it's quite late." His left hand rested on the doorknob, his right hand tipped his hat. "By the way, how's Rosario?"
"She's recovering," the doctor said, "but this sort of heat does not help her condition. She's too old – her bones are too old. It's going to demand a great effort for her to get better but I'm positive she'll be walking again soon."
He offered her a half-smile before venturing his body in the completely dark corridor. Alexandra remained still in her room until the sounds coming from the empty bar confirmed her suspicious: the black geography had indeed many obstacles for the gunslinger to succeed. She grabbed a small torch and followed after him, making her way downstairs in complete silence – the auburn luminescence of the flickering flame preceded her, its warm aura embellishing the place with every step she took.
She found him standing only inches away from the bar – the door was locked, so she walked around him and searched for the old key. Balancing its weight on the palm of her hand, the woman signaled him to hold the torch for her. Black obliged, as his sepia-colored sight watched her body disappear behind the bar. After a short while she emerged from the darkness – the woman produced two silver coins and handed them to the man. He took them quietly, his ancient visage offering her an unfeeling look – he knew better than to trust each one of her moments individually, the conglomerate of instants breathing life into her existence was so much more complex than the monochrome flashes of her fragmented life. This woman he had encountered today had been warmer than expected, but the one he was going to find the next day could be colder, or perhaps more distant. Black curled his palm as he created a tight fist and grinned in her direction, trying to savor the last seconds of such a night.
"There is a name." She whispered. "Ala-m Eré – he's a nobody, but he's involved: he recruits teenagers, they say he's nothing but a jabberwocky, but he always gets the job done anyways."
Black nodded pensively, acknowledging his first potential target.
"It's still going to take me a while for them to trust me. Now that Rosario's been hurt I can see they are being extra cautious – they are not really fond of newcomers, not if they are going to sit beside them at the table." She reflected darkly.
"Patience." He whispered as they both walked to the door. "We'll get them – in due time."
She unlocked the door for the man to leave the brothel.
"Thank you for letting me know about the missing bottles." She said, causing his legs to freeze in the doorway.
"No problem. That's what you hired me for, after all… That's what friends are for in the end."
How strange the sound…
Her face shaken, yet her expression hardened, as if offended by his words.
"You are not my friend."
"I'm not your enemy either."
How strange the sound…
He turned around as he heard her say: "One thing does not define the other."
Black smirked bitterly, each one of the experiences he had gathered throughout his years weighting heavy upon his shoulders now:
"We'll see about that." He murmured as he started to walk back to the hovel. Yet his voice, suffocating the growing distance between them, echoed in her ears as she closed the door.