The Hanged Man: Part 8: Lithia
Post #73: In which our ghosts follow us ...
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Dar considered for a minute. “Did you recognize the boy in Baba Yaga’s story?”
“Oh, yes,” said Artyom at once. “That was me. I was a horrid young wart but I was also dreadfully unhappy and alone. I’ve writhed over that memory all my life. Now to find out it was Vasilisa! My God! But I can’t undo what I did. I’ve always tried not to think of it, to forget it, told myself no one ever need know.”
“And then Baba Yaga put the frog on the table, as it were,” said Dar. “And everyone saw it and smelled it and got slime on their hands, except frogs aren’t slimy, really.”
Artyom winced, remembering.
“So, you recognize the boy but you don’t recognize the ruler?”
“My father was King, not me. I know he’s dead now — I was there when he died and I closed his eyes myself. It doesn’t matter. My father was King. I’m not.”
“You don’t look like a king. You look like a tough soldier who’s gotten into trouble and been kicked out.”
“I do?” Artyom looked down at himself. “I suppose I do. I wanted to leave my identity behind. Most of my gear is with my traveling party. I wore my plainest hunting clothes to initiation. I sold my ring and nearly everything else of value I had with me.”
“What did you keep?” asked Dar curiously.
Artyom took the frog gig from his belt with his left hand, slid the knife out of its sheath with the right, and handed them up to Dar.
The peddler tucked the reins under his thigh. He laid the knife in his lap and turned the frog gig over in his hands. His eyebrows rose in surprise.
“You’ve carried this with you — all these years?”
“I tried not to. I tried to put it away. Once I even tried to bury it. But I couldn’t stand not having it, though it hurt me, so eventually I gave in and began to carry it again.”
Dar cautiously tested the sharpness of one of the trident prongs with his thumb, then laid the thing in his lap and picked up the knife. The handle was stained and notched, shaped with long handling. The blade was sharp and well-tended.
“That was my grandfather’s knife,” said Artyom. “He died when I was a boy, but I remember him. He used to spend time with me in the forest, teaching me to hunt and track. He loved horses, too, and let me help in the stable sometimes. I’ve carried that knife since the day he died. I remember him skinning a deer with it. I learned to use a sword and other weapons as well, of course. I was a soldier at one time, as every ruler must train in fighting and war. But no weapon ever felt as much a part of me as that knife.”
“So, your whole life has been framed by the child you were and your grandfather. You’ve walked between them.” He handed the gig and knife back to Artyom, who replaced them in his belt.
“I suppose you could say so.”
“It seems to me that’s who you are, then, someone between the child and the grandfather. Somewhere within that frame is your real self.”
“I’m not as cruel as that child,” said Artyom quickly. “I know right from wrong now.”
“So why do you carry him on your hip?”
“He’s like that damned rabbit! I can’t get away from him!”
“And your grandfather?”
“I’m not the man he was. He was good and wise. He always knew the right thing to do in life. He’s my only memory of warmth and safety, of being loved for who I truly am.”
“Will you hear two stories about things that follow us?” asked Dar.
Artyom glanced up at him. He sat loosely, back slightly curved, reins in his hands.
“All right,” he said cautiously.
“An unhappy man surrendered himself to a wise teacher, asking to learn the ways of enlightenment. He was full of fear. He had tried and tried to rid himself of his demons without success. No matter where he went or what he did, his fears and anxieties followed him.
Everything became much worse under his teacher’s guidance. The teacher instructed him to live simply and he filled his days with tasks like chopping wood and carrying water. He owned nothing and had nothing with which to distract himself. There was only himself in each day and the work necessary to living. His demons followed him everywhere, whispering in his ears.
He learned to meditate. He learned ancient arts of self-defense and disciplined movement. He fasted. He prayed. Nothing worked.
One day, in despair, he asked to be sent into the wilderness alone. He no longer wanted to live and hoped in solitude he could find a way into death and peace.
He was taken to a cave in the high remote mountains with only a couple of tools and the clothes on his back. He decided he would sit in the cave and allow himself to be engulfed by his demons, hoping they would drag him down into death.
The man sat cross-legged on the floor of the cave and looked out at the world from his high perch. He felt hungry and exhausted. For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to let go of his defenses. With every breath, he opened himself more widely to his demons.
For a long time, nothing happened, except that a wonderful feeling of peace flowed into him. He felt like a fist that has at last been unclenched. The hoarse muttering of the demons had been replaced by the honey of silence.
Then, slowly, the man began to feel irritated. Where were his demons? They’d pursued him relentlessly all his life. At last he’d stopped running and they’d vanished. He was ready for death. More than that, he could hardly wait to welcome it.
He decided he sat in the wrong place. Perhaps the demons would feel more comfortable approaching him if he sat in the cold shadows at the back of the cave. He rose and moved, resettled himself, breathed.
After a while he began to feel the need to pee.”
Artyom snorted with laughter. Dar looked down at him. “Even holy men need to pee,” he said reprovingly. “Even men who want to die need to pee. It’s only natural. Don’t interrupt.”
“Where was I? Oh, yes, after a while he began to feel the need to pee. He was so disciplined that neither hunger nor cold compelled him to move, but his body became more and more insistent and at last he stood, rather stiffly, moved to the mouth of the cave and relieved himself on the doorstep.
He stood there, filled with an exquisite sense of relief and ease, looking out across the landscape of steep mountains and valleys. He was suddenly conscious of a vivid feeling of life within him and around him. He thought he might be feeling joy, actual joy, here where he’d come to find death. The air on his flesh felt thin and cold. The sun slid behind the shoulder of a mountain. He wanted a fire.
He built a fire and luxuriated in its color and warmth. He fed it stick after stick for the pleasure of watching them consumed by dancing flames. He lay down peacefully on his stony bed and slept.
After a few days, he made his way back down to his master and his life among other people. He became in his turn a wise teacher and many students came to study with him. He became famous for teaching the power of yes.”
Artyom walked beside the turning cart wheel. Gideon’s hooves made a patient sound on the road. Dar lounged in the seat above him. He watched his square toed, worn boots move a step at a time, one after the other. He was conscious of his own resistance.
“No is safer than yes,” he muttered.
“Is it?” asked Dar, without much interest. “Are you ready for the second story?”
Artyom grunted.
“Come on, man, show some enthusiasm! It’s a tale of eastern splendor. You’ll love it. It’s one of my favorites. Behold,” he declaimed, with a bold gesture of his arm, “the tragic tale of Abu Kasem’s slippers!”
“There was once a wealthy merchant named Abu Kasem. He was well known for his miserliness and ability to drive a hard bargain. He didn’t believe in wasting money on things like bathing and his clothes and turban were rags. You could smell him coming a mile away.
Equally famous were his odiferous slippers, which were old, worn, patched and stained. The soles were studded with nails from every cobbler in the city. Once the slippers had been green, made in the latest fashion with the toes turned up, but that was ten years ago. The lowliest of servants would have been ashamed to wear them now, but Abu wore them everywhere. They were inseparable from his public character.
One day, Abu Kasem made two especially good deals. First, he acquired a collection of fragile crystal bottles. Then he bought a batch of fine, sweet rose oil from a perfumer who had fallen on hard times. He told everyone about his purchases and speculated with pleasure on his future profits. He decided to treat himself and stopped at the public baths for his yearly soak and a steam.
When he arrived at the baths, Abu met a fellow merchant in the dressing room. The man lectured him on the state of his slippers, the state of his clothing, and the state of his reputation. He advised him to buy a new pair of slippers, as he was a laughingstock. Abu contemplated his awful slippers. ‘I’ve been thinking about this myself,’ he said, ‘but I do think there are a few more miles in these.’ He departed to enjoy his bath, leaving the merchant gagging in the presence of his temporarily discarded green slippers.
While the miser relished his rare treat, the Cadi of Baghdad, the judge, also came in to take a bath. Abu finished first, and when he returned to the dressing room, he couldn’t find his slippers. They’d disappeared, and in their place sat a lovely new pair. Well, Abu thought to himself, my friend decided to honor me with a gift. Maybe he thinks it’s good business to win the favor of a rich man like me! Abu put on the new slippers and returned home.
When the judge emerged later there was a quite a scene. His servants looked high and low and couldn’t find his slippers. Behind a curtain they found sat a tattered disgusting pair that everyone knew belonged to Abu Kasem. The judge was furious and immediately sent for the culprit and had him locked up. Of course, they found the missing slippers on Abu’s feet. He spent a night in jail and paid a heavy fine — and received back his beloved slippers!
Abu went home, sad and sorry. In a fit of temper, he threw his treasured slippers out the window and they fell into the river. A few days later, a group of fishermen thought they’d caught a particularly heavy fish but found, to their dismay, Abu Kasem’s instantly recognizable slippers in the net. The nails in the soles had torn several holes in the nets, and the fishermen were angry. They hurled the sodden, stinking slippers through an open window into Abu Kasem’s house.
The slippers landed smack in the middle of Abu’s dining room table, where he’d set up his lovely crystal bottles and was busy filling them with sweet rose oil. Now the bottles, the oil, and his dream of big profits lay in a dripping, glittering mess of broken shards on the floor, stinking of ten years of unwashed, sweating feet; dead fish and rose oil.
‘Those wretched slippers!’ cried Abu. He grabbed them, took a shovel, dug a deep hole in his back yard and buried the offending slippers. But his neighbor was watching (who isn’t interested in the doings of the rich?) and imagined something quite different. The neighbor thought the rich miser buried treasure there, treasure he didn’t want to report or pay taxes on. So, the neighbor reported Abu to the judge.
No one could believe a person would dig a big hole in their back yard just to bury a ratty old pair of slippers, especially since everyone knew how Abu loved them. He was thunderstruck when he heard the amount of his fine, and the court flung the slippers after him as he left.
Now Abu was desperate to get rid of his old slippers. He decided his best plan was to take them far out of town where they could do him no more harm. So, he drove out into the country and dropped the slippers into a deep pond. He watched as they sank down below the surface and returned home with a sense of sweet relief. But wouldn’t you know it, the pond fed the city’s water supply and the slippers found their way into the pipes and stopped them up. When the workers came to fix the mess, they immediately recognized the slippers, both by smell and by sight. Abu went to jail again for befouling the city’s water supply, and paid another large fine. And he got his slippers back!
The slippers pursued him like evil djinn! This time Abu resolved to burn them. Because they were wet, he laid them out on his balcony to dry. A dog on the neighboring balcony got a whiff of the most luscious, captivating scent he’d ever drawn into his nose. It was better than a dead cat, better than rotting garbage, better than raw sewage. It made him drool with delight. He jumped onto Abu’s balcony to find the source of that ecstatic smell. He slobbered on the slippers, rolled on them, lifted his leg on them, tossed them up in the air and—oops!--one sailed into the street below, where it hit a pregnant woman on the head and knocked her down. She went into shock and had a miscarriage. The husband ran to the judge and demanded damages from the rich old miser, who was no longer so rich. Abu was forced to pay, and the malignant slipper was returned to him.
Abu was broke and broken. He stood before the judge and raised the slippers aloft in a gesture so solemn and earnest the judge nearly laughed through the handkerchief over his nose at the absurdity of it. ‘Please, your honor,’ begged Abu, ‘don’t hold me further responsible for the evils caused by these slippers!’
The judge felt he couldn’t refuse and granted the plea.
Abu Kasem walked barefoot until he could buy a new pair of slippers.”
Dar laughed delightedly, but Artyom was grudging.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m not trying to say anything,” said Dar crossly. “You said you’d hear two stories about things that follow us. Now you’ve heard them.”
“But what’s the point?”
“The point? The point is on the green slipper!” Dar chortled and snorted with laughter for some minutes.
Artyom glared.
Dar got hold of himself. “You are a blunt instrument, aren’t you? The point is whatever the stories mean to you. There isn’t one point, like a nail the story hangs on. That’s not how it works.”
Artyom sighed. “All right. I’ll play.” He chewed at a fingernail, thinking. “The student tried to run away from his demons, but he couldn’t. When he sat still and invited them, they wouldn’t appear.”
“Right.”
“He was happy, then. He could feel his own life.”
“Well put.”
“The demons only pursued him when he ran away — because he ran away?”
Dar raised an eyebrow at him without answering.
“Humph. Abu Kasem was proud of his slippers, but then wanted to get rid of them.”
“Why was he proud of them?”
“He was proud of his reputation as a rich miser. He liked being a rich miser, and the slippers reminded everyone, all the time, wherever he went.”
“So, what went wrong?”
“They started to cost him money. He liked being rich. He didn’t want to be poor. But then he couldn’t get rid of them. All he got rid of was his money.”
“Quite a shift in priorities. At first, he clung to his reputation, his idea of himself. The slippers identified him to the world. Then all he wanted was to get rid of the slippers, but they’d become such a part of his persona it wasn’t that easy. People continued to see him as a rich old miser and the slippers kept coming back to him.”
“They chased him like the demons chased the student.”
“He couldn’t escape from himself,” said Dar. “He was like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail.”
“He had to find a new identity,” said Artyom in a low voice.
“Maybe he only had to uncover his true identity. Maybe it was with him all the time, but he’d covered it with the slippers.”
“He needed help, though,” said Artyom. “He had to ask the judge for help.”
“Oh, well, naturally,” said Dar casually. “We need other people, even a solitary devil like me — sometimes.”