The Scar (35 page)

“Egert,” she said promptly, “we need to go home. Do you understand me?”

His lips moved soundlessly; then they moved again. The words barely carried to the girl. “Who are you?”

She broke out into a sweat: could he really have lost his mind from the shock he experienced on the square? “I’m Toria,” she whispered in dismay. “Don’t you recognize me?”

Egert’s swollen eyelids fell once more, screening his eyes. “There are such stars in the sky,” he said quietly.

“No,” she took him by the shoulders again. “That’s wrong.… No sky, no stars. I’m Toria, and my father is the dean. Remember, Egert!”

The last word turned, broke into a sob, and Egert raised his eyes. His gaze turned strangely warm. “I … I’m not crazy. You … don’t be afraid, Toria. Stars … constellations, like the beauty marks … on your neck.”

Toria involuntarily put her hand to her neck.

Egert moved his lips again. “They’re singing.…”

A discordant, drunken song rang out somewhere nearby. A squeaking could be heard from the nearest roof: a reveler, who had somehow managed to get up there, was resolutely unscrewing a weathervane.

“Is it night?” asked Egert.

Toria took a breath. “Yes. Today was the Day of Jubilation.”

Egert’s eyes dimmed. “I did not find … didn’t find … Now I won’t find … Never…”

“The Wanderer?” Toria asked in a whisper.

Egert moved with difficulty and sat up, supporting himself against the wall. He nodded slowly.

“But he’ll come again next year,” she said as casually as possible.

Egert shook his head. “A whole year. I won’t live through it.” In his words there was not a drop of theatrics, only a calm conviction.

Toria suddenly came to her senses. “Egert, we need to leave. Get up! Let’s go.”

Without moving from his spot, he gravely shook his head. “I can’t … I’ll stay here.… You … go.”

“You mustn’t,” she tried to speak as convincingly and gently as possible. “You mustn’t, Egert. You’ll be trampled underfoot here, let’s go.”

“But I really can’t,” he explained, amazed, and he continued without transition, as if pondering the problem. “A beetle without wings. He was without wings.… Going back … impossible. Stay inside, Mama.… Why did it go wrong? The dead … probably … don’t walk. Impossible to go back…”

His eyes once again clouded over. Panicking, Toria began to shake his limp shoulders with all her strength. “You are alive! Alive! Egert! Get up, now!”

“Toria,” he whispered distantly, “Tor-i-a … What a name! I’m alive. No, not that. Toria…” He stretched out his palms, folded together. “This could be a butterfly.… It settled on my hand … like a gift … once in my life … And I killed it, Toria … then, in Kavarren. I killed … him. And I killed myself because…” He separated his fingers, as if letting unseen sand flow through them. “… because I lost … Toria.” He slumped backwards weakly.

She stared at him, not knowing what to say.

“Is it really you?” he asked in a whisper. “Or is all just … Will they meet me there?”

Frightened, Toria said, “No. It’s me.”

He tentatively stretched out his hand and carefully touched her cheek. “I never had anything so … Poor Egert. The sky is empty, not a single star … Nothing … real … only Toria alone … nothing else. The road is hot, sun … I am alone … I don’t need to live. I’m … there. Thank you … that I saw you,” His hand fell. “Thank you, sweet Toria.…”

“Egert,” she whispered in fear.

“So bitter,” he said, lowering his eyelids. “A necklace of stars … I wronged you so. Never in my life … Forgive…”

He flinched. He opened his eyes.

“Toria. A square of murderers. Murderers on the block, murderers in the square, and I’m a murderer … Heads, eyes, teeth, mouths … Why does no one want to finish me!” He suddenly jerked, almost stood up, and then once again fell down, subsided, went limp.

“Egert,” she said desolately, “you must not think about that right now. If you don’t get up right this second I don’t know what I’ll do.” And, in truth, she did not know.

“Leave,” he replied, without opening his eyes. “All kinds of people … on the streets. Holiday … night. They will want … If they want to hurt you, I won’t be able to save you, Toria. I will stand by and watch … And I won’t be able to help … Leave.” He raised his eyelids and Toria met his hopeless, gentle, pain-filled gaze.

“Oh, don’t you worry about me!” she rapped out, trying to speak past the strange feeling that suddenly squeezed her by the throat. “I’ll take care of myself. Now, get up!”

Whether her voice had gained an especially imperative intensity or whether Egert had somehow finally recovered his senses, he tried to do as she commanded, but only with their combined efforts could they stand Egert’s heavy, clumsy body on his feet. Toria offered her neck. Egert’s arm now lay across her shoulders, and even through the coarse fabric of her dress, the girl could feel how his arm stiffened, wary of causing her pain.

“Yes, be brave,” she whispered, trying to stand more steadily. “Hold on, Egert. It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

Walking turned out to be more difficult that she had thought. Egert’s legs did not work very well. Despairing, she finally gasped, “No, this will not do! I am going to run to the university. I’ll get help.”

Egert immediately sagged down onto the pavement, and Toria could hardly keep her balance. Experiencing a strange unease, she repeated as confidently as she could, “I’ll be quick. It’s really not all that far. You’ll wait for me, yes?”

He lifted up his head.

Toria caught sight of his eyes and sank down next to him. “Egert, I’m not abandoning you. I’ll get people, my father will help. Egert, I am not abandoning you, I swear.”

Egert was silent, lowering his head. The words dropped from his mouth quietly, “Of course. Go.”

She sat next to him for a while then said briskly, “No. We’ll get home ourselves. We’ll rest for a while, and it will be easier. Okay?”

Without looking at her, Egert took her hand. She flinched but did not pull away.

For a long time he smoothed her palm with his fingers. Then he squeezed it, not painfully, but Toria could feel the beating of his pulse in his hand. “Thank you … Surely I … don’t deserve it.”

They walked for the rest of the night, stopping now and then to rest as they made their way through the intoxicated revelers. A foggy dawn rose up. The city, worn-out and enfolded in silence, seemed like a vast, disarrayed feast table, welcoming the morning after a cheerful and bounteous wedding. The smoke of torches, fireworks, and crackers dispersed. The morning wind played in piles of discarded rubbish; chased bottle corks, tattered ribbons, and curls of streamers along the pavement flooded with wine; tore the damp fog crouching in the breezeways to pieces; and chilled the two haggard wayfarers to the bone.

Toria and Egert walked toward the arched bridge over the canal. A paper cap with a tassel, lost by someone, was floating on the surface of the water, which was as rough as a rasp. The empty streets and blind windows seemed abandoned, uninhabited; there was not a single soul around except for a tall man who stood motionless in the very center of the bridge, gazing at the water.

“We’re close,” wheezed Toria, arranging Egert’s arm around her shoulders more comfortably. “We’re almost there.”

With his free hand, Egert caught hold of the railing. He suddenly stood stock-still, as if he had sunk up to his knees in the stone.

The man on the bridge turned his head. Toria caught sight of an elderly face, cut through with vertical wrinkles, with large, clear eyes. The face seemed familiar to her; only after several seconds did she remember that the man standing before her had once stayed in the tragically memorable Kavarrenian inn, the Noble Sword.

The Wanderer stood motionless, not taking his eyes off Egert and Toria. His gaze expressed nothing, or at least it seemed so to her.

“Egert,” she said through suddenly parched lips. “It’s fate.”

Egert took a step forward, clawing along the railing with his hand, and then he stopped, unable to make a single sound.

The Wanderer turned his face away. He held a bunch of tiny sparklers in his right hand: one of them dropped into the canal, leaving a wide, spreading ring on the water.

Egert remained silent. Minute dragged after minute and one after the other the sparklers fell into the water.

“Egert,” whispered Toria, “Come on! Take a shot. Try! Now.”

Having depleted his entire stock of sparklers, the Wanderer cast a farewell glance at the two stricken travelers and, the bottom of his cape fluttering in the wind, began to walk off the bridge away from them.

A dry hissing sound became audible: Egert was forcing air into his parched mouth, which was as wide open as a black pit.

Flinging away his arm, Toria darted forward so quickly that the hem of her dark dress blew out in the wind like a sail. “Sir! Stop a moment.… Sir!”

The Wanderer slowly came to a stop. He turned his head round, curious. “Yes?”

Toria ended up so close to him that if she had wished it, she could have stretched out her hand and touched the intricate hilt of the sword at his waist. Hardly able to withstand his unwavering stare, she blurted out right into his wrinkled face, “Here is a man. He wants … He needs to talk to you. It is a matter of life and death; I implore you, hear him out!”

The long, thin mouth twitched slightly. “Is he mute?”

Toria was at a loss. “What?”

The Wanderer sighed loudly. He was smiling now, he was definitely smiling, but this smile did not comfort Toria at all. “Perhaps your man is mute? Why are you speaking for him?”

Toria helplessly looked back at Egert. He was standing on the bridge, his hand gripping the railing, as silent as if he had forever more lost the gift of speech. The wind tousled his matted blond hair.

“Egert!” Toria yelled at him. “Pull yourself together! Speak! You wanted to speak, so speak!”

Egert watched just as a fox cub caught in a trap watches the hunter, and he remained silent.

The Wanderer bowed slightly to Toria and stalked off.

Struck by the absurdity and improbability of what had happened, she rushed after him like a vulgar panhandler chases after the prospect of change. “Sir! Please…”

It seems that she had even grabbed him by the sleeve; she was just about ready to fall to her knees when the Wanderer turned again, now surprised. “What?”

“Don’t leave,” she whispered, gasping. “He’ll speak now.… He will speak.”

The Wanderer measured her with an intent, scrutinizing gaze; she began to tremble, feeling like she was transparent, that he could see right through her. The thin lips yet again twitched in a slight smile. “Well … Perhaps you are right. Perhaps.” The Wanderer unhurriedly returned to the bridge.

Egert was standing in exactly the same place.

The Wanderer walked up close to him, almost touching, and his eyes were on a level with the eyes of the tall Egert. “Well?”

Egert swallowed the lump in his throat. He stuttered under his breath, “Kavarren…”

“I remember.” The Wanderer smiled patiently. “A fine town…” Then he suddenly asked, apropos of nothing, “What do you think? That lottery before the execution, was it a mercy or a cruelty?”

Egert flinched. He forced himself to whisper, “Both the one and the other. There is hope in the night before the execution, but there are also doubts, torments, a passage from despair to faith and back again.… Afterwards, the betrayal of hope, and the man is not ready … to die with dignity.…”

“Not everyone manages to die with dignity,” remarked the Wanderer. “Still, how do you know? There has never been a night before an execution for you, so how would you know of such despair and such hope?”

“It seems to me,” breathed Egert, “that I do know a little, just a little. I have … learned. But to you, of course, it is clear: you know, what the night before an execution is like.…”

Toria, standing nearby, went cold.

The Wanderer, it seemed, was surprised. “Indeed? Well, that much is familiar to me, that is true. My, but you are a diligent student, aren’t you, Egert Soll?”

Egert shuddered at the sound of his own name. He pressed his hand to his cheek. “Can you remove this?”

“I cannot,” uttered the Wanderer, gazing into the water. “One can’t reattach a decapitated head. Only a complete child would torture a fly by trying to glue back the wing that he himself had ripped off. And some curses also possess an inverse power. You’ll have to come to resign yourself to it.”

It became quiet. The paper hat, which had all this time been roaming from shore to shore, finally became soaked through, became unglued, and gradually began to sink.

“I thought as much,” said Egert desolately. There was something in his voice that made the hairs on the back of Toria’s neck stand up.

“Egert.” She stepped toward him and caught hold of his hand. “Egert, everything will be … everything will be all right. Things will work out. Don’t … Let’s go home. Everything will … You’ll see, Egert—” But at that moment her will betrayed her, and she burst into bitter tears.

Egert, frozen in place from shock, steadily offered her his arm, and she took hold of his elbow. Slowly and silently they walked away. From behind they suddenly heard, “Wait a minute.”

Flinching, they both turned around.

The Wanderer stood, leaning against the railing, and pensively examined the toe of his own boot. He raised his head and squinted against the rising sun. “The curse does not have inverse power, and it may be cast off … in exceptional circumstances. This moment will occur just once in your life, and if you let it slip away, all hope will be forever lost. The circumstances of this moment are these.”

Lightly casting his cloak behind his back, he descended toward them, and it seemed to Egert in that instant that the Wanderer was the same age as he.

“Hear me and remember, Egert:

“When that which is foremost in your soul becomes last.

“When the path has reached its bitter end.

“When five questions are asked and you answer yes.”

The Wanderer fell silent for a moment. He added softly, “The curse will fall away of its own accord. Do not falter. It is quite easy to err, and a mistake will cost you much. Farewell, to the both of you. Don’t repeat your mistakes.…”