X. Manuela
Sometimes, he wondered if he lived in a world of opposites, he wondered if he lived in the world he wrote about, if fiction was indeed only fiction, and if reality were really just her duller, and yet living sister.
Sometimes he wondered, when reading signs, hearing promises and stories, whether he should simply take everything he heard, saw and touched and turn it around, turn it over, in order to gain the truth.
Sometimes he wondered if the stories of the days when one could claim sanctuary in a church and be sure one would not be hurt, even in times of war, were indeed true, or part of the tales in which everything was back to front.
Sometimes he wondered whether wondering was painting his hair grey, creasing his skin and adding the heavy, burdensome years onto his backload to carry; whether it made him fifty when he was only five and twenty; whether it made him a naïve poet with nothing but words to offer the world, a ten year old in the body of an old man.
Oh yes, he did live in a world of opposites. In a world where society spoke of the petty shallowness of words and yet revered poets and writers. The poets and writers who often wrote pages about the futility of the word as a means of communication. His resolve, that bitter enemy of his that held him back, cowering in a corner of his mind, made his hand shake.
He didn't want to go in there. Where murder was mercy. Where a scream was a coloratura soprano. Where men with crosses hanging around their necks laughed and jeered at those weaker than them. Where kindness was a dip into icy water. Where sanctuary was synonymous with prison. And is asylum not a synonymous with sanctuary…?
And yet, in this world, this world of opposites, when one said asylum one did not think of sanctuary. He would never use that word if he wished to convey safety and protection to a reader; that word meant screams, blood, ice and fire, laughing mouths and jeering eyes, cramped rooms that smelled of death, and death itself, welcoming and welcome. Smiling and smiled at. Embracing and embraced.
Casting aside the cowering, shuddering resolve in its cold corner, he knocked on the door, loudly enough. And waited. Waited for death to hit him with a whoosh of air from behind that metal door. Were those the keeper's footsteps, or death's? Death's feet, tap, tap, walking on dirty, bloody floors; tap, tap, stepping over those who had embraced him; tap, tap, calling on those who are yet to fall into his arms.
The door swung open.
He stumbled backwards, and grabbed a protruding pipe for support; the papers in his hands, those papers of elegant calligraphy, flew up into the air like a thousand strange, white insects, and floated gracefully down, down, down…until they turned black, soaking up the puddles on the floor. Dead butterflies, with their once white, paper wings.
Death, who stood in the doorway, cast his eyes down onto the butterflies, his eyes moving slowly, right, and left, left, and right, following the young man's movements. Once in a while, they rolled upwards, and Death's jaw moved, as it he were chewing something.
Mad people are the question mark without a question
Mad people are like flightless birds;
Mad people are the apostles of a God that does not want them...
The black water seeped closer and closer to the words, to the fellow black on the once white butterfly wing. He snatched it up before it reached them. Death seemed bored. Death was a farmer, chewing a piece of straw in the doorways of an asylum. Of a sanctuary. A sanctuary from Dante's Inferno.
A shattering scream pierced his ears. The coloratura soprano. The highest note reached by any earthly singer. The scream rose to its apex, and then lowered again, rose, and fell...
Mad people are voiceless nightingales
Mad people are like erased words;
Mad people are the serfs of a master who forgot them...
Death turned his head lightly, and looked over his shoulder. Still bored, death turned back to him. Death had a red mark on one cheek. Death did not carry a scythe – he carried a big, black book. Bigger than his.
«I am the writer, I...»
«Ah, yerse, come on then, and shut the door behind yer. Ye don't want anything ter get out, do ye? That door's the reason ye sleep well at night.»
I don't, he wanted to answer, and yet, again that shaking resolve. The resolve that nearly destroyed him in front of the editor, who had scorned him, as he had probably scorned many others. This was his chance to become great. To become famous, to turn the editor's scorn to delight. The delight of a new talent.
He had to do this story in a way it had never been done before...
«Hey, ye listening? Come one, I 'aven't got all day!» Death spoke in a cockney accent, with his sunken blue eyes and hair as short as his stubble. Motioning to him to follow him, he retreated into the dark. Into the sanctuary...
The darkness engulfed him whole, at first, before the flickering torches on the walls, in some terrible parody of a medieval dungeon, illuminated the room, illuminated what he wished he could not see.
Mad people are the foam on waves;
Mad people are like keys without a house;
Mad people are the sketches of an artist who has died...
He walked, walked, walked through Death's bird market with its million cages, walked though seas of eyes and twisted figures, walked, wishing he were blind, he, so frightened of blindness. So frightened of an abscence of light that was the darkness.
Mad people are unfinished books;
Mad people are like the footsteps of a mouse;
Mad people are the tears of a man who never cried...
He walked, walked, walked, his eyes half closed, trying not to see the hands, like claws reaching out for him, still fresh. Still alive. Still sane. That was the pure genius of it; no injustice could ever be proven. For if one was not mad when he was claimed by this sanctuary, he would be a minute later. Clutching at the bars. Whispering, shouting, crying...whispering...
«Manuela,» whispered a voice, «Manuela...»
He stopped dumb.
Silence.
Suddenly, something grabbed him.
A hand.
A claw.
He tried to wrench free, and yet it was pulled further and further down, or was it up? He did not know the difference any more.
He could feel clammy breath on his ear.
A match flared.
Death stared at him.
He sighed in relief. Sighed and then laughed, laughed at the irony of it, laughed so that soon, one at a time, others started laughing, laughing in different tonalities and rhythm, in a fiendish death chorus, in a deadly bacchanalia song.
And yet, one voice could be heard above all of them, even though it was the quietest.
«Manuela,» it whispered. «Manuela...»
«What the 'ell do ye think yer doing, huh?» asked death in his cockney English. «I told ye, follow me!»
«Manuela,» again, «Manuela...»
Mad people are voices in a world without ears,
Mad people are like the notes without a key
Mad people are the folk of a kingdom that is gone...
«Manuela,» it whispered, «Manuela...»
«Well, that's the man yer looking fer.»
Death brought the match to the cage. A man sat prostrate against a wall, his hands on his legs, palms upturned. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks, too. His nose was a parrot's beak. Death's brother. Death's mortal, unfavoured brother.
Mad people are the snowmen in the sun,
Man people are like pens without ink
Mad people are dead lovers of a wife that has moved on...
«Manuela,» said Death's brother. «Manuela...»
«I'm afraid you are mistaken....uh...sir. I'm afraid, I'm looking for the keeper. For Mr.-»
«Ah, who yer looking fer used ter be the keeper. I'm the keeper now, and that's 'im, son. Life's not been kind to 'im, ye see...»
«What happened to him...he worked here once, did he not?»
«Ah, ye,» said Death, still chewing on his farmer's wheat, «ye, 'e did. Then a mad girl ran away from 'ere. Beauty, she was, an 'e says she was a German, 'er name was Manuela, though I'm not sure. In fact, I'm certain that girl was no German, and 'er name was not anything like that.»
«How did she...Manuela...whoever she was...escape?» he asked, looking around, looking incredulously at those iron bars, and the hands, the claws that could not break them.
«Thing is, 'e set it up 'ere like a business – ah, wanted to make money an' all. 'E said 'ed sell the women's hair. Sectioned 'em according to hair colour. Well, then this young lad comes along,» death measured him with his sunken eyes, those sunken, electric blue firepoints, and, seemingly satisfied with what he saw, continued, «not much older 'an you, mind ye. Says 'e needs yellow hair. God bless 'is wit, he took the girl and pointed a pistol at the poor man, and took 'er away. The other women nearly killed 'im, jumped on 'im with murderous intent, they did.»
Mad people are the glass shards of a window,
Mad people are like candles with no wick,
Mad people are the children of a man who doesn't know them...
«'E was never the same after that, ye know. Smashed all the windows and went wild, 'e did, after that. Had to lock 'im up,» death chuckled mirthlessly, and the wheat fell out. He picked it up and continued chewing. «All 'e talks about is this girl. Manuela, Manuela. It's all you 'ere. Well, I'd better be on me way, son. Once ye done with 'im, I trust ye know yer way outta here.»
Speechless, he nodded as Death turned and left.
Death's brother stared at him intently.
There was no way telling what colour his eyes were.
They were far too sunken.
Suddenly, Death's brother sprang up, and grabbed him by the collar, staring into his eyes. Deep into his eyes, with his maddened, tormented eyes.
«Manuela,» ... «Manuela...»
For a moment, time froze.
The hand on his collar constricted.
Blood rushed to his face.
Words rushed to his mind.
«She's ok...She'll come back to you,» he said, knowing he shouldn't, knowing he was doing; here, they dunked them into icy water. Beat them and drowned them in their own blood. Now he was drowning them in false hopes.
«Manuela?» Asked Death's brother once again, staring as intently, and yet loosening his grip on the young man's shirt.
«Yes, Manuela," his writer's mind worked. Worked at pace with his fear. "With her beautiful yellow hair. Long, flowing. With her sweet eyes. With her clear mind. She will come for you,» he said quietly.
Death's brother smiled.
«I can go to her. To Manuela,» he said. The young writer gasped. Gasped at those words. Those understanding words. Common words, simple as light.
«Yes, you can go to her,» he said slowly, and the fingers dropped from his collar, «You can go to Manuela.»
And he lay down, Death's mortal brother, he lay down on the hay as if on a bed of silk and satin. As if in a home fit for a human. As if in a world fit for certainty and perfection.
«Manuela,» he said once again, «I am going to you.»
A euphoric expression took over his face for a moment. A moment of true bliss. His blueish eyelids drooped. His sunken eyes closed. He slept. Slept soundlessly, his lips moving ever so slightly.
«Ye must be the writer,» said a voice behind him. He jumped. A burly, black-haired, black eyed man stood behind him, wielding a large axe. He hoped the red stains on it weren't blood. He hoped with all his heart.
«Yes,» he said, restraining the urge to be sick.
«Hm,» snorted the man, and wiped his nose with his enormous arm. «Well, ye can't really get much from 'im. All 'e talks about it his wife.»
Startled, the young writer's eyebrows shot upward.
«His wife?»
«Yerse, Manuela. Ye'd be surprised I remember it, but since it's one of the few understandable words ye hear in this place, it's quite memorable." He laughed. Mirthlessly, like the keeper. Like Death. "She died after they 'ad been married for less than a month, years an' years ago. Caught 'er death in the streets. Consumption, I think. Turned 'im into a wasp, it did. Apparently, he never forgot 'er although one thought 'e would with all that goes on 'ere. It's a real struggle to stay sane, an' the only way ye can do that is by detaching yerself from yer life.»
«But the girl...the girl that ran away...»
«Ah, that blast that crazy lill soul, she looked like Manuela. Her hair, in any case. 'E thought it was 'er...e "realized" it was 'er...after that girl ran away. He didn't notice the resemblance before in any case. Only after she left. After she was gone. Or so I think. Perhaps he never got a good look at 'er before he went to cut 'er hair off for that young man."
The young writer clutched his papers to his heart with trembling hands. If he dropped them here, they would soak, not with grime, but with blood. Blood from that axe. Blood that cannot fade. Red on white. Piercing, bright.
«Yer better off outta here, son. Get out before we 'ave to lock yer up too.»
Unceremoniously, the man turned his back and left, leaving a trail of blood behind him, dripping, dripping from that axe.
«Manuela,» whispered the man in his sleep. «Manuela...»
Mad people are of flesh and blood
Mad people are, like people are
When wounded; left alone, they pass away...
Into earth, as we all shall
Into air, as we shall be
Into the salt wind of the sea...
As he turned to leave, he looked back at that man on his bed of hay.
The man who now was with Manuela.
His chest was still.