Weekly Short Story

"Boxes for the Poor" by Brian Malone (continued from the newsletter)

People jostle by, though most veer quickly away. They avoid the rags of my poverty, my emaciation. Their eyes avoid my face. I wish, just as fervently, that I was not here in their street, in their way. Naked I rose, some place and some time now lost to memory. I found rags to cover my body, my shame. I concealed the sores on sinking flesh and the protruding joints of this grotesque frame. From house to village to town I wandered, begging for sustenance, scrabbling for my keep. The stones of the road bruised my feet. The thorns of the wilderness cut my flesh. Always I walked, and in the end wandered into this town of Syr, finding little charity in the world. Now, through the dust of the street, the people avoid me, dodging the taint of death.

I turn, slowly, struggling to stand and to raise my buzzing head. My vision wavers. I cannot be sure how long it took me to turn, to look up, squinting against the sun at the pediment. The Temple of Adon. The statue of the god in the center of his adoring women, all naked, all enraptured. The god standing, one leg thrust a little forward, a hand on a jaunty hip, his body lithe and sleek. The naked god Adon, adored, worshipped. The god, Adon, Adona, Adonis, me.

Once I was immortal, a god, once I was Adon. I plunge into memory as my eyes touch upon the face of the statue. The god in his idyll, posed on an urn, lying in a meadow eating grapes from the hands of vestals, dancing, drinking wine. Where have they gone? Where are the revelers, where the devotees, where the mourners? Where are their hearts, where the devotion?

Pain rips me back to here, now. A man steps on my foot, curses me for a dirty fool in the way of traffic. But he sees my face. Perhaps he sees something in my sunken eyes, my ragged wisps of filthy hair, my hollow cheeks. He signs against the Eye, a ward of curses and bad luck, turns and hurries away.

Once I was immortal.

Once I was a god.

I want to say something to the man, something, or to laugh at him. I want to make him tremble, prostrate with awe and fear. But he is gone, and what would I say to him that would make any difference? He does not believe in me. I am a beggar in the street, a blight on his day. What if he laughed at me?

Trembling, I stumble to the petty market bustling in the square outside the temple. No longer in the fashionable quarter of town, the market trades the rude goods that the poor can afford. No silks or spices or exotic animals here. Yet even here I linger on the fringe of place, propping my sticks up against a wall near two vendors. An old woman sits behind a cloth spread with little piles of dates and figs and lemons, a wicker fan in her languid hand to keep the flies moving. Just beyond her a man with a tight, pinched face glares at me for a moment. He squats behind a bronze brazier, grilling little pieces of fish pinioned with wooden skewers. He pulls his threadbare wallet close under his haunches, but he says nothing. Here I linger. Any further into the market and the established merchants would have me thrown out of even this place.

Once I was immortal, now I am dying, slowly.

Slowly.

I hug my rags to my wraith body, licking my lips to keep them wet, and gaze at the façade of the old temple. I narrow my eyes to slits against the sun. There I am in my glory, erect on the pediment, full-fleshed, glowing. And then there I am as well, dying, gored in the side by the boar’s tusk, lying in the verdant lea, immortal blood staining the green. There are the women, lamenting, tearing at hair and face and clothes. There are the plants withering. And there I am yet again, reborn, tall, leg thrust forward, hand on hip. There are the women, adoring, loving the god Adon, and there the plants flowering again in the meadow. There is my story carved in hoary stone on the pediment of the façade of the crumbling temple.

My temple. Dying slowly.

A wracking cough wrenches away my dreams. Some time has passed, it seems, as I lingered in my reverie. The sun hangs low behind a screen of clouds, giving a gold and rose tint to the little market. A different bustle now, closing, shutting down for the night. Soon a different commerce would take over the square, the night trade of the harlot and the hookah. I cough, deep and wet and long. String of sticky, yellowish spittle dribbles on my chin. The fish man glares again, but the old fruit woman mutters me a blessing. I nod and return her thanks before another fit strikes.

The door of the temple opens, creaking hinges, scraping wood against stone. Two small boys come out, attendants, sparse cloths wrapped around their waists. They carry wisks to brush the dirt and dust off the path of the procession. The sacrist emerges, his pendulous body wrapped loosely in cloth like the togas of upstart Roma. He bears a casket in his arms, held stiffly, his gaze averted from the street as if the dignity of the god mattered to the merchants and the prostitutes and their customers mingling in the square.

Then comes the high priestess. She is tall, taller perhaps than I remember, but then perhaps I am smaller. White linen robes drape from her shoulders, covered by a mantle woven of green and red and gold thread. Coifed and perfumed, bejeweled as befits the lover of the god. This one was graceful once, I remember, and beautiful in her youth. But the hems of her robes are frayed, and beneath the gauzy veil her hair is grey, her skin spotted and scored with a landscape of wrinkles. Her once rich clothes are mended and faded. She walks with her head high, august, but her body twitches and shambles with old age. She walks with a stick, a shuffling limp.

Following the high priestess the second emerges, also an old woman, adorned similarly, if less elaborately. Like the first, a husk, a shell of a priestess. Behind the second priestess walks an acolyte, a mere colt of a girl. Her uncovered face is young, smooth, the coils of her hair black as the cool, beautiful night, lush as the river valley. She walks with assumed serenity and straining energy, in the restrained gait of the high priestess. Has she been to the rites? Laughing, run naked over the grass? Pursued by the god, by me? Has she been pulled down, rolling on the soft lawn, redolent with perfume and musk? Yielded to my embrace, become one, limbs entwined, hot breath mingling? Tasted the sacred wine and the salt of skin, warm wet kisses. Has she felt rough hands caressing smooth limbs, guiding her trembling legs open? Has she been to the rites?

No. She is too young, not yet ready for the rites. And do the rites matter anymore? Too few believe, too few. When she goes to the rites, will she believe? Will the god possess the shepherd boy or cobbler’s apprentice or farrier? Will he be chosen? I have not the power, any longer. Will she couple with a god, or a goatherd? Too few believe.

The doors of the temple close. The little procession descends the few steps to the street. Two attendants, the sacrist, two crones and a girl too young for the rites. That is all. Once there would have been a host of attendants to sweep the street and others to bear canopies over the heads of the priestesses, a phalanx of men bearing the sacred regalia, a circle of priestesses and acolytes surrounding the high lady, a company of guards. Then the rites mattered, then I had power.

The procession turns away from the market. They, the two old women and the too young girl, pass through the street barely raising the dust. I want suddenly to raise my hand, to call out and command. For a moment I want to be seen, to be known despite my shame. But I stand still, turn my head, hugging my rags to my ragged body. I feel shame, and would feel even more at the lack of recognition in their eyes, at the wrinkle of their noses, at the gathering of robes so as not to brush against my filth. I have felt it in a dozen towns and villages, in front of a dozen crumbling façades. And so I slump against the wall, slowly letting my legs go limp. I slide down the rough stone until I sit on the ruddy dirt.

The fruit seller stands laboriously, bent double by age, leaning on a small stick. Her wares lie bundled in the cloth drawn up by the corners. I wonder at the strength in her to carry the burden. Once I had power. Now I wonder if I could lift the old woman’s burden. Too few believe. Yet now she turns to me, the fruit seller. Her palsied hand seeks mine. She pours a fig, and three dates, onto my palm. The fruits are soft, overripe. She thinks they will be no good for the market by morning.

“Thank you, dear mother,” I croak, “bless you.” I look up, my glance stays on her face. There is something familiar there . . . do I know her?

But she nods curtly and sweeps her burden up to balance on her bowed head. I wonder at the determination still possessed by one so old. Her stick taps lightly on the packed dirt of the street as she slowly makes her way into the evening. The fish man glares at her back, and then at me, shaking his head. He empties the coals from his brazier, kicking them to spread them out to cool. Then, with a last look at me, he picks up his own bundle and leaves opposite the fruit seller. I slump over in the street, in the gutter, adding another layer of soil to my degradation, but I cradle the fruit in my hands.

Tomorrow, I think, as I bite into the soft sweetness of the fig, tomorrow perhaps I will walk again, to the next dusty town along the dusty road. I hear there may be a village where the old ways are still honored, where I matter still. Once I was immortal. I had power. Now I am dying, for too few now believe. But dying, for a god, takes a long time in this world.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I will walk again and beg again. Tomorrow I will see what happens.

 

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