Maria Jastrzębska
From THE TRUE STORY OF COWBOY HAT AND INGÉNUE
At one of the stalls sits the bald-headed El Maestro Wu Wu, his
eyes closed, hands upturned on the folding wooden table
in front of him. A winding queue of people waits to
hammer a silver nail into each outstretched palm. Sudden
as a cuckoo clock his eyelids open wide and, though
Ingénue is standing some distance back, she feels his
gaze fly out to hers. Wouldn’t you like to try? he asks so
softly it seems no one but her can hear. Children and
adults alike smash the nails into his hands in a kind of
frenzy, sometimes exceeding the three turns they have
paid for. Ingénue shakes her head, Oh no I was only
wondering…El Maestro Wu Wu chuckles and finishes
Ingénue’s sentence: only wondering how to protect the
cartilage. Yes! Ask my old compañera de armas about the
lao gun points when you go home, she can tell you all
about the palaces of suffering, he says. And give her my
sincerest wishes. Seeing Ingénue’s confusion, Wu Wu
adds: Ask Dame Blanche. And then his eyelids snap back
shut.
Two rows of white houses hang like loose teeth from the sky, a gap
between them. When the mist lifts, Ingénue gulps down
her mint tea, grabbing Cowboy Hat's hand. They follow a
curve in the road till they reach the top of the rocks
where half the town perches on the cliff's edge. Its
mirrored twin looks back at them from across the ravine.
Further along, a bridge has been built to join up the two
sides of the town but where they stand, sharp as an intake
of breath, there is only a drop.
Don't lean over says Cowboy Hat. Soldiers beaten with
sticks and mayales were dragged from the Plaza of the
Ayuntamiento and hurled down from this cliff. People
say their spirits, espíritus de los lamentos, rising from
the dry riverbed will catch you by the ankles and drag all
the way down.
The boy had hurried along the snow-covered road, his breath in
puffs of steam, feet sinking in snow that was sticky like
his grandmother's rice. The sky turned darker, a few
smudges of light still left, golden as honey. She had told
him not to be late, would pull his ear between her thumb
and finger. That's when he heard the first shot. Stopped
at the top of the hill and saw the soldiers.
One by one his grandmother, then his father and brothers
were led out only to fall onto the snow. Then his mother
and sister were pulled away, lifted onto a truck. He
noticed smoke still curling from their chimney. After
he'd been sick and bent down to clean a little vomit on
his shoe with a handful of snow, he turned and ran back
the way he’d come as fast as he could along the snow-
covered road.
Tell me about your hunger, Dame Blanche says. The old hunger
which never goes away. Its grip on you a strong arm
marching you away from me even now. As people age
the hunger in them hardens. They end up bent double
from carrying it like a boulder on their back and yearn
for release. Hunger solidifies, it is a charred tree. The
first time your hunger spoke it could play a tune and
charm, now it only growls. Once your lover might have
cradled you, sung you lullabies, now your hunger
repulses her. When you call she sighs like someone
climbing the stairs wearily carrying a bedpan or a
transparent box of medication.
In the small chapel of white stone they kept a coffin ready. In places
where the water ebbed away you could cross the river on
foot to reach the opposite shore. Only at any moment the
river might return. They laid the bodies of those washed
up in the chapel - soldier, donkey rider, child – leaving
the coffin open in the hope someone would come by to
claim them, though many times a person was buried
before anyone knew their name. Rocio came with her
mother and aunts to put flowers on the altar and light
candles. Don’t gawp, her mother pulled her past the
coffin, but Rocio always stole a glance at the body, its
skin blue-red and once she noticed the garland of green
algae in a man’s hair.
Get up, he yells, but she knows as soon as she stands he will knock
her down again. Think, she tells herself knowing with
each blow, each fall, she grows weaker. She has already
looked round for a weapon, but there is nothing in the
yard. Only the plough and tractor parts too heavy for her
to lift. Get up! With what is left of her strength, she hurls
herself at his ankle and bites down hard. He curses,
surprised by such sharp pain. Without thinking, he tries
to free his leg while she clings on like a rabid dog. He is
roaring now but she feels something slacken then
suddenly he is losing balance. Whipping her body round,
her teeth still sunk into his leg, she pushes with both
heels behind the kneecap of his other leg. He topples.
She rolls away and hears a crack as his head hits the edge
of the plough. A stream of blood inches its way towards
her. She doesn’t know if he is still alive or already dead,
doesn’t know what frightens her more.
And what she might have said: I see the rivers better when I go with
you. Trees twist away to lean across the water, alder,
oak, their branches almost brush the branches on the
opposite bank. They dip their leaves in pockets of gold,
shake, picking out fistfuls of green light. Your silence
canters beside me. I see horses loose as smoke in the
distance. At the water’s edge, just as the light is fading a
sounder of razorbacks runs past, sows in early autumn
sable coats. Their tongues hanging out, fiery as sunset,
heraldic red.
When a body is re-assembled each bone (206 of them, if all were to
be found) is carefully placed. What joy, what a sense of
satisfaction for those who have worked long hours when
a scrap of cloth – say, yellow franela – is found and
fits the missing person’s description. Someone can be
identified at last. Without the meat and potatoes there is
no narrative, only an anonymous jumble of limbs, or
rather parts of limbs, (the scaphoids, fibulas,) in numbers
which would overwhelm most people.
It’s obvious when you think about it. There’s nothing
more to fear from the dead. It’s the loss of distinguishing
marks, which terrifies. And yet, in or out of love, after
the initial swelling of bodily tissues, as a person passes
from excitement through to the next stage, heart rate and
circulation of blood increasing, respiration elevated, as
they are nearing climax through an almost random
sequence of involuntary grimaces and vocalisations, it’s
the exact opposite of individuality or separate
consciousness their mind craves. During those euphoric
convulsions what it yearns for – and reaches – is a kind
of oblivion, la pequeña morte.
Copyright © Maria Jastrzębska 2016
Maria Jastrzębska has had poems in Shearsman, Poetry Wales, Poetry Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and recently Hallelujah for 50ft Women (Bloodaxe). Her third full-length collection was At The Library of Memories (Waterloo Press, 2013) and her selected poems, translated into Polish, have been published in a dual language collection Cedry z Walpole Park by Stowarzyszenie Żywych Poetów, in their Faktoria series, Poland, 2015. She is currently translating the work of Polish poet, Justyna Bargielska. She also contributed to the Lee Harwood tribute in Molly Bloom 8. mariajastrzebska.wordpress.com