Damascus Page 14

  In blood. Only blood.

  We kneel in the stinking wet earth and make our prayers. In its dying, the slaughtered beast has unleashed its bladder and bowels and we smear the slippery dung and the warm piss over our skins over our lips we lick it with our tongues, we bring the taste of over-ripened fecund harvest for that is what blood tastes of, of life begetting death begetting life, and we bring it all to our mouths. We make our prayers.

  I open my mouth once more, I let forth a lowing of pain and trembling, I have taken the dying beast into my own body and it has filled me up, it stretches my gut, my skin, and I birth it, I give birth to death and I am the living, I am its strength, its power, its courage. I drink the last of the spilling blood. I open my mouth, the paste of the blood is a thick honey coating my eyes and I am blind yet I see The God, I see fire dance its dance in spurts of warm red and shimmering orange and black night. The dry blood over my eyeballs cracks and I stare up through the shaft into the sun. I am blinded in white flame.

  I make my prayer.

  Oh fire, let it be a son this time.

  The blood drips slowly now. The stench of my fellows brings the vomit to my throat and I know my stink sickens them as well. But we are at peace, we have sacrificed and been anointed in blood to The God. We are emptied of vanities, we have no rage and we have no hate. There is a circle of light, a circle of fire where the sun, The God, fills the pit. Looking up through the shaft, there is the blue of a virgin sky, the first sky of the first day of the first creation after the last destruction. Fire scorches my eyes. But I will not close them, I will let the sun, the fire, The God have me. I howl once again, the sound soars up the pit and is flung to the sky.

  We can hardly move but I force my hand to slide down into the moist earth. I grab a handful of dirt and bring it to my mouth to kiss and to make my prayer.

  ‘O fire, O earth, O Mother, let it be a son this time.’

  We call up through the well into the light.

  ‘Drop the rope,’ we bellow, still united. ‘We are done.’

  I am the last to heave myself up the rope. Filius, the unmanned, is first. Domius is too weakened by disease to climb the rope and can’t even get up on my shoulders, so I lift him, and Filius leans down, extending a hand. With a grunt I push and Domius is pulled through the narrow opening of the chasm. I climb up the rope and through the opening to see Domius still collapsed on the ground, trying to catch his breath. His young son runs to his father’s side and cradles the sick man’s head on his lap. We do them the grace of ignoring their shame.

  A priest is chanting, singing the prayers to fire. His two boy acolytes have put on their aprons and have started hacking at the dead bullock. The sounds of life are everywhere: the shrill cooing of doves, the frantic buzz of flies are swarming over the meat, the wet kiss of the stream in the valley below us. I have the fine senses of a newborn, and as I rise to my feet I can smell the malt tang of the boy acolytes, the sharp smoke of the incense rising from the fire at the priest’s feet, the rotting dank floor of the beech forest behind us.

  The priest ceases his song. I bow and kiss his hands and Filius follows me, doing the same. Pelius has been waiting for us. We have been soldiers together and so we are bonded in friendship for eternity. He steps forward, slipping the priest three coins; he too kisses the old man’s hands. The priest makes one final blessing. In the new world of shining flame he seems ancient, his skin pock-marked and jaundiced. His trembling fingers have curled tightly around the copper. He disgusts me—his greed and his age are foul. I turn away from him but he calls me back. ‘You can take some of the sacrifice.’

  The boys step back from the kill. I grab the dagger from the younger one and squat next to the butchered animal. I can sense the old priest’s eyes on me. I grab a hind leg, cut neatly below the bone joint, rip it from the flesh. I reach into the open belly of the animal and I pull out a kidney; it is a rich purple, healthy and strong. I offer a silent blessing. I search for the other kidney and twist and pull it out. This one is blackened, a skin of white pustules covering it. I take that one as well. The animal was a weak bullock, cheap, but it was all we three could afford. I glance around and see that my comrades are still at prayers. Quickly I take the well-omened kidney and bite into it, my teeth breaking the silken membrane, as my mouth fills with a rank ooze. I gag but I swallow it all and I make my gratitude known to The God. O fire, let it be a son.

  I place the leg across my thigh and with all my strength I crack the bone. It snaps easily and I cut through the meat and hand the larger portion to Filius, for taking the kidney. I walk over to Domius and I give him the lesser kidney. He looks at it, his eyes question mine. I shrug and say, ‘Both kidneys were identical.’ His son is frowning. He has pluck and he returns my stare, but soon looks away. He is too young to challenge me. Domius nods then and, with a mighty effort, raises himself to his knees, salutes the priest and devours the raw meat. I can hear his prayer through his silence. Fire, make me whole, drive out this dishonourable disease. Grimacing, he forces down the last of the meat, but his weakness is such that he begins to retch. He vomits up a slimy slop and in desperation he then picks at the pieces of regurgitated meat and forces them back down his gullet. The boy claps a hand around his father’s mouth as he chews for it is blasphemous to reject meat offered to the gods. No number of prayers will save Domius. The gods have abandoned him.

  I counsel his son. ‘Don’t forget to make your share of payments to the priest.’

  I walk to where I have abandoned my robe, tear off a fragment, wrap the meat in the rag.

  The priest scatters dirt over the fire and incense. His acolytes begin to dismantle the scaffolding.

  I offer to help the boy take his father to the river but my offer is declined. ‘That is my duty,’ he says firmly.

  Domius is dying but he leaves behind a brave son. I am shocked by the violence of the jealousy I feel, and force down a curse. I know I was correct to keep the good kidney for myself; this time, the gods willing, I will have a son.

  Pelius gathers my robe, I take my share of the sacrifice, and we begin our descent down the hill. The flies are swarming over me now, shattering all peace. I search for the deepest pool in the stream and I walk into it.

  In the dying afternoon light Pelius washes me in the cold, clear water. It too lives, this water; it dances and shimmers with light, it too is a child of the gods. Pelius dunks my head under and I hold my breath as he washes the crust of drying blood off my scalp. I scrub at my face and my neck; I wipe my chest and belly as Pelius washes my back; the water churns as I stand upright. Pelius vigorously scrubs my thighs but his soldier’s hands become womanlike and timid as they approach my ruined leg. A little further downstream the luckless Filius is also washing away blood and muck. We are no longer united—no longer warriors or victors, but a cripple, an impotent cuckold and a doomed man.

  That night, the Goddess reigning in the sky now that her betrothed is asleep, we feast in the courtyard. Here are my neighbours, my brothers and their families, my mother in wedded kin and her sons and their broods. We men form a circle and the women sit in an outer ring behind us, our babes on their laps. The infants crawl around the edge of the carpets, the children play on the stairs and the bigger boys run and holler and kick stones in the alley outside. The night fills with excited talk. And then the food comes, earthenware laden with grain cakes, with aromatic beans and farro, with fire-scorched marrows and roots, and pitchers of wine. Bowed and covered, the girls step between us and lay the platters in the middle of our group. The talk abruptly ceases. Eyes shine, mouths swallow and noses twitch. It is a truth; we all become mere animals at the sight of food. A young nephew leaps off his mother, crawls over his uncles, lunging for a grain cake. The mother shamedfacedly steps over the men and swoops on the boy, gathering him in her arms. She smacks him twice and he begins to howl.

  I raise my arm and stop her from punishing him. ‘Let him eat,’ I say to her. ‘Let him enjoy the feast.’ />
  Ferros, my eldest brother-in-law, throws back his head and laughs, revealing blackened, toothless gums. ‘You’re feeling generous tonight, Vrasas.’ He cups his hands together, shakes them five times in my direction. ‘Bless you, bless you, brother.’

  He pulls the child from his wife, breaking off a small piece of the grain cake, holding it over the boy’s head as the little tyke twists and struggles to get it.

  ‘He’s a strong lad, this one, isn’t he?’

  The men murmur agreement but his unkind grey eyes are looking straight at me, taunting, ugly. He smiles down at his son. ‘Your uncle is host, boy. Ask him if I may feed you.’

  The boy’s eyes are all greed. Hunger stretches the skin of his face, his chin points towards me but his eyes won’t leave the cake dangling just out of his reach. Though he has recently begun to speak, his hunger is so desperate he cannot form words. I suppress a grin. I am sure that if I were to hesitate a moment longer the brat would reach out across the circle, reach for my face and scratch at it.

  I quickly mutter a small blessing to The God, and Ferros drops the crumbs of cake straight into the boy’s open mouth.

  ‘Is it good?’

  The boy ignores me. He yelps, like a pup, wanting more cake.

  ‘Is it good?’ I yell this time.

  He turns to me, his face twisted in spite. He nods exaggeratedly, then grabs for more cake. His father throws him off roughly, returns him to the women. ‘Enough. You’ll eat when it’s your turn.’

  The boy is only an infant but he is already defiant, insistent; this is what a son must be. Compliant, always needing to please—that is what my daughters are.

  My eldest brings out the largest platter. Carefully stepping around her uncles, she makes sure not to catch a man’s eyes, not even mine, as she squats and places the dish of still-sizzling meat on the rug in front of us. Hunger now beats as a heart. All we are is hunger.

  I raise my hands to the sky, palms open. The moon is ascendant, the Goddess keeping vigilant watch. And I dare it, to challenge her. I whisper it to myself, emboldened by the blood I have feasted on this morning: I will continue to honour you if I am granted a son. I close my eyes, my arms still raised to night. All are waiting, desperate and furious in their hunger. I am terrified from my wager but I must open my eyes. I do, and there, in the black, a star soars across the heavens.

  I call out the name of the Goddess, I call out the name of the gods and The God, I cup my hands and shake them over the food five times—air, water, earth and fire, but above these all the sun, we are all servants to the sun. I remember and honour my dead—my father, my mother, my brothers, my comrades—and only then do I drop my arms to my sides.

  With the food blessed, we men fall on it like dogs. In a breath, our lips, our chins, our fingers, our smocks are stained and glisten with fat and grease.

  After we have had our fill, the mothers feed the boys, and then what remains is shared between the women and girls. The fragrance of charred meat has brought almsmen and beggar boys to the entrance of the yard. They start cackling in a mangle of languages and though most of it is noise and nonsense to our ears we know that they are begging for food.

  Pelius gets up and kicks at one of the old cripples, slapping a few beggar boys, commanding them to leave. They scatter at his shouts, but as soon as he has taken his place back on the rug, they are there again, leprous, spindly, pleading.

  I get up and grab a chamber-pot from under the stairs, go out to the street and throw the contents over the foul creatures. With threats and howls they scramble away like the dogs they are. But one of the boys spits and calls out, ‘Up your arse, Clod Foot,’ and they all laugh and start a hideous chant. Their insults ring through the alley. I limp back to my seat. Even my wife and daughters won’t look at me.

  Only Pelius doesn’t turn away. Covertly, he salutes me. And I him. We are soldiers and we will die soldiers. We are of The God, of sun and of fire. We belong to Him.

  Pelius raises his cup. ‘Vrasas, we thank you.’ He turns to my wife. ‘Arté, to your son.’

  The men also raise their cups and thank and salute us, drinking to our coming son. But the boy’s jeers still ring in my ears. I can feel the power of the sacrifice seeping away, sinking into the rotting earth.

  O, let this expense be of some use.

  O, let it be a son, I pray.

  The girls and women wash up and put the children to sleep, and the courtyard empties as the men finish their drinking and head to bed.

  Pelius has stayed and comes and sits beside me. ‘It will be a boy this time, friend, I am certain of it.’

  I want to tell him about the soaring star, and how the Goddess has assured me that I will have a son. But I cannot tempt the fates, so I keep silent. He falls asleep leaning on my shoulder and I lay him carefully on the ground and cover him with a rug. I look up through the bannisters to our room, where behind the draped curtain my wife and daughters will be asleep on our bed, where the incense will be burning and the grains will be smouldering in offering to the Goddess. My youngest will be in the middle, her hand on her mother’s taut protruding belly, feeling the beat of her brother’s heart. My wife will be clutching the small wooden phallus she bought from a witch at the markets. At the foot of the bed her mother will be sleeping, the old hag belching and farting foully through the night. I will let them sleep. I strip off my smock and lie next to Pelius. He turns, still asleep, and he drapes an arm over me. All around is the sound of our neighbours in sleep. I feel exhausted but not fatigued, still nourished and exhilarated by the sacrifice. I fall into blessed sleep, in the arms of my beloved friend, as we slept when we were soldiers.

  I have saved a strip of meat for the old prisoner. As I unlock the door and walk down the dark cramped passageway that smells of mouse shit and cat piss, I can hear him at his incessant praying, those never-ending supplications to his god.

  I enter his cell and he abruptly ceases his dirge, rudely sniffing the air. ‘You stink of blood.’

  You decrepit worshipper of death, old defouler of gods. I am convinced he is a sorcerer. He possesses second sight.

  I push open the shutter and light floods through the barred window, the hands of The God reaching out to us both. But of course the dirty unbeliever turns his back to the sun.

  ‘Uncle, I have brought you some food. That is the blood you smell.’ I unwrap the cloth and place the morsel on the low table.

  With an arrogant tilt of his head, imperious and effete at once, the old man spurns my offering.

  An old woman, that is what he is, or a petulant child. He condescends to sit on the stool, he sniffs at the cold strip of cracked skin and cooked flesh; with disdain he wrinkles his nose as if my offering were rotting. As if he wasn’t starving. My father’s voice roars in my ears, the ghost of his hand is laid on my shoulder. Arse-fuck the old cunt, place your prick so far up his Jew hole that he vomits shit from his mouth—break him! The roar is a tide, it fills me as I wrench the foul old easterner off his seat.

  ‘What right does vermin like you have to refuse a gift sanctified by The God!’

  My father isn’t there. There is just me and the prisoner. I feel ashamed. He is just a frail old man, bald, dressed in rags that are so torn I can see the faint scars on his hollow chest, shadows of past lashes all over his body.

  He nods slowly and takes the meat. ‘Your god is not my Lord.’ He only speaks Greek with me.

  With his toothless gums he starts suckling on the meat. I squat beside him and watch him eat.

  He gnaws on the flesh for a small while and he is done. Gulping, forcing the last of the meat juice down, he pushes the chewed meat away. ‘Bless you, son.’

  I answer him in Latin. ‘You are welcome, uncle.’

  I pick up the sodden meat, now defiled, and I walk to the window. I stretch onto my toes; agony pierces the tendons in my crippled foot but I force myself to stand there, looking down at the small courtyard beneath. Goats and sheep are tethered there, fow
l peck at the earth; in a pen a heavy sow and her brood are sucking at mud. An old woman sits on a stone stoop, peeling a squash. She clutches it close to her withered chest, as if terrified someone might rush past and steal it from her. She looks suspiciously at a beggar boy who is scratching in the dirt, forming a well. He finishes and then squats over it.