The Palace of Curiosities. Rosie Garland

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СКАЧАТЬ once more I see the gash beginning to draw shut. It is most curious. I run the blade along the new join and tease it open. My body obeys, and parts its lips, only to begin closing once again the moment I lift the knife away.

      A shallow cut proves nothing. I dig a little deeper. There is pain now, but one that rouses me to a strange wakefulness. As a man swimming underwater breaks the surface and feels breath fly back into his body, so do I fly into myself. My body sparks into liveliness, including that masculine part of me, which also raises its sleepy head. I grind my teeth: how can I possibly feel arousal with the cutting open of my arm? It is shameful. I would rather be the piece of dead meat that everyone calls me than this degraded creature.

      I examine the wound, excitement mixing with horror. It gapes, and I can see through to the dark red within. I have seen enough meat cut open to know there should be blood, and now. Tentatively, I push the knife back in, draw it out once more. This time I should leak, but I do not. I turn my arm around in the small light, wondering at this mystery. The candle shows me what I do not wish to be real: other than a moist smearing on the metal itself, all is dry.

      I stare at my disobedient arm, and once more the ragged edges of skin begin their drawing together. I push my finger into the hole to stop my body re-forming itself, but the flesh closes, pushing me out with a firm pressure, like the tongue of a cow. It takes a little while longer, but there is no halting the knitting-up of the slit.

      I shake my head and tell myself that this is not a proper test. Perhaps only my left arm is possessed of these strange qualities. I should cut a different part of my body – but not my other arm, for that is too similar. I roll up the leg of my trousers to the knee, select a spot on the calf and push in the point of the blade.

      A drop of blood trickles down, catching in the mat of hair. My heart leaps with joy; I am bleeding. But no more follows and already the cut is barely to be seen. I jab at a different spot and feel a fresh surge of hope when a fat red bead falls as far as my ankle. A second drop spills from the wound, followed by a third. Breath gathers tightly in my throat. I am a normal man: I bleed.

      Then the flow thickens, and stops. The wound blinks its eye, and closes. This is not possible. I must be normal; I have to be. There must be some place on my body that does not heal. But where? I drag my trouser-leg up as far as it will go and poke the blade into the pale ochre skin of my thigh. There is barely a smear of scarlet for my trouble. I try again; healing occurs straight away.

      Maybe I need to go faster, to beat my body at its game of healing. But however quickly I jab the point of the knife, each cut starts to close up before I have time to make the next; the quicker I stab myself the quicker the doors of my flesh slam shut, matching my frenzy for hurt with a frenzy for healing. My breath scales a ladder of panting gasps as I climb closer and closer to myself. I am – I am – I am not Abel. Rather, I am not merely Abel. I am broad as the desert, tall as the sky, deep as the ocean. I know the answer to all my questions. It is all so clear, so simple. I am—

      So close. I soar towards the sun of understanding. As my body heals, heat sears my wings and I plummet into familiar darkness. There is no attainment to be found: my hand wearies, and I cease my battle. The knife is barely marked with moisture; the skin of my legs and arms flecked with creamy marks that fade as I watch. A few moments more and they are gone. My ribs heave up and down, and I realise I am weeping. The candle gutters and goes out.

      I do not understand what manner of man can skewer himself with a knife and shed not one drop of blood, and have his body remake itself. I look like a man. I eat, drink, shit, sleep, lift and carry, the same as every one of my fellows. But I am unlike them. I do not know who I am, or what I am.

      I hide a great secret, one that marks me as grotesque. Am I man or animal? I can no longer call myself either: I do not have the comfort of calling myself a beast, for a beast can be butchered for the use of mankind, and I cannot serve any such purpose. Nor can I say that I am a man, for no man can do what I have done: cut myself and heal, against nature. It is terrifying. It raises my hopes towards understanding only to dash them most cruelly. It thrills and humiliates me. What kind of creature am I? I have no answer.

      I stumble back to the cellar, crawl back to my mattress. Alfred is humped beneath his jacket. I want to shake him awake, and smile, and call him slug-a-bed, and thereby assure myself of my humanity. But it is the middle of the night. I close up the knife and put it under my blanket. There is nothing left to do but attempt to sleep.

      My eyes bore into the darkness. I see my work: carcases swaying from the ceiling, each one cleanly cut, ready for the butcher’s slab; I know they are all my doing. I am proud and slap the nearest, feeling the cool clean flesh against my palm. I know this: it is what I do. I name each part: the shank, the loin, the flank, the rib, the wing, the blade, the clod, the words sinking into some deep, comforting place. I am a slaughter-man. It is all I am. A plain and simple man.

      Let sleep come, I beg the night. The soft delight in which I take such pleasure. Where there is neither fear nor worry. It does not hear my prayer. The questions torment me. Why do I not bleed? How can I heal like this? I feel the granite ice of my mind begin to crack with such a groaning that it rends me head to heel. A cleft appears and light spears through the chink, casting fearsome shadows. I want to force myself shut, return to that safe vacancy where all is quiet. Yet I am also ravenous. I hunger to know what is in that great light, what I might discover when I shine the lamp of understanding upon myself.

      I struggle with the need to know and the need to run. I blunder into nothingness: a dark room, darker than the inside of closed eyes, where I hold out my hands and pat the black air, afraid of stumbling into walls, or ditches, or worse. A day ago, I was a wiped plate. I was empty, clean, untouched. Now, I stand in the slaughter-house and see my body cut open, peeled by my own hand and yet healing. I do not want this body. I am too frightened to close my eyes again, for fear of what I might find there.

      The next morning, Alfred does not need to rouse me, for I am already awake.

      ‘Let’s get to work,’ he grunts, and it is all the greeting I have from him.

      I want his smile, the warmth of his eyes when I call him friend, the easy way he guides me into the day. We walk in silence, the air freezing between us. I try to think of a topic of conversation that does not involve cutting. I fail, so great is my need to be unburdened.

      ‘Yesterday. It was – strange,’ I try.

      ‘Indeed? I don’t recall,’ he snarls and hides his face behind his collar.

      ‘But, Alfred—’

      ‘Oh, can I have no peace? There’s nothing to talk about, Abel. Nothing.’

      I grasp his shoulder and swing him about. All I want to do is talk to him. I do not understand why he will not listen.

      ‘Abel, get your hands off me. You’re really pushing your luck.’

      ‘Alfred, I am …’

      My voice quavers, and his features soften. He takes my arm and pulls me to the wall, glancing up and down the street.

      ‘All right, all right; if you are truly that upset. Let me help you, then. Tell me.’

      ‘In truth? You want to hear?’

      He sighs. ‘Yes, I do.’

      ‘Yesterday, when I cut myself …’ I gasp. ‘You saw it. I healed.’ I chew on the words, straining to free themselves from my mouth.

      ‘Very well. I saw it. СКАЧАТЬ