Love and Other Poisons Read online

  I stood in the highest tower of the castle and tried to pierce the night with my eyes, to see beyond the mountains and the forests and gaze upon the distant shores he’d escaped to. I wondered if he thought of us or if the memory had been ripped apart.

  Anca and Ioana were not twins. But they might have been. So close in looks and mannerisms, with the same glossy black hair and knowing eyes. Something about them always made me think of birds of prey. They flew easily, bodies light and bone-thin, their laughter streaming from the rafters.

  Flight did not come naturally to me. My other shape was of a massive white wolf. Smaller than his own wolf body had been, but still a sight to see.

  Anca and Ioana feared the outside; they spoke of arrows raining over a castle. There had been a great battle, though they could not recall if it had taken place in this fortress or another one. Either way, they would not venture with me.

  I rushed through the forest, seeing all manner of things in the dark as I hunted for us.

  He had kept us in our rooms, like the women in a Turkish harem I spied in the etchings of books, before the books were ravaged by moths and time. There we were to patiently wait for him, never stepping outside the walls of the castle.

  There is death outside, he’d warned us.

  Yet he’d gone out, beyond the safe limits of our home and aboard a ship.

  I’d been right. He had never loved. He never loves.

  Not that it mattered now.

  There were Anca and Ioana to look after.

  I ran through the forest, sometimes naked in my woman-shape, sometimes in the wolf’s pelt. I chanced upon a traveller or sneaked into a small house, creeping through the windows. Then I’d drink upon a sleeper, compel him to follow me through the night, and back to the castle. I’d let him ride upon my back, my wolf legs taking us swiftly through the darkness. Up, up. Towards Anca and Ioana.

  In the daytime we slept in the old chapel, inside carved sarcophagi much more ornate than the graves my sisters had been given. Ioana once told me the castle was built upon an older castle and I thought this might be true, for the sarcophagi seemed of a style that did not entirely correspond to the ruined chapel, images of women holding garlands of flowers upon the lids. But even Ioana could not say how long ago the previous castle had stood, or who had been its master.

  Not that it mattered. Now we were its mistresses, laughing as we swirled inside the empty chambers, decked in clothes of ladies who had long turned to dust, ravaged by worms.

  He had not liked our liquid laughter, the way it bounced against the ancient walls. Hating it as though it might peel the bricks away revealing an older layer of stones. He was gone, and we laughed.

  I braided tiny flowers into Anca’s hair while Ioana told us fairy tales from her childhood. Sometimes, she forgot the endings and we invented our own.

  I was careful with my looks and attire. I’d compel Anca and Ioana to bathe with me under the cold rain. Or to pull water from an old well and fill a great copper tub. Anca always said I was the vainest of us all. Ioana said I was the fairest.

  I knew I’d been his favourite and the constant ablutions, the ribbons in the hair and the heavy, old pieces of gold against my skin had been meant all for him. His absence had not altered my routine. I was still prim and careful with my clothes, my hair. Through the years, I had noticed that Anca and Ioana sometimes ignored such niceties, nails caked with dirt and blood. As though they had forgotten, or did not care, to keep any semblance of life.

  When they were in this state — and they sank into this miasma, deeply upon his departure — they might remain still for several days. Not a muscle twitching. Nothing. Just a deep silence interrupted by bouts of terrible ferocity. They sometimes gnawed at each other, not a pup’s nipping, but a full-blown attack.

  In those moments I did not know them and I wondered if this was a sign of their true age. Or simply the vast melancholy that clothed them.

  Either way, I reeled them out of this state. Reeled them into little dances and the clapping of hands. The castle vibrated with our voices.

  And whenever I’d catch myself thinking of him again, my hands running over the maps he had left behind, I’d seek their comfort and their smiles.

  It happened as it was meant to happen. The spell shattering abruptly, as it must.

  Ioana dreamt the castle crashed into the river far below. I held her in my arms as she wept, speaking of a terrible omen. I convinced Ioana and Anca to play hide-and-seek with me, like I’d done with my sisters when we were little. We rushed through long corridors, sneaking beneath archways and laying still, as lizards and slugs crawled besides us. Night creatures, the lot of us, out to play.

  The wind and rain whipped the castle, lightning striking nearby, and we giggled.

  I raced up to the tallest tower of the castle, wolves howling, wind screeching, and stopped in my tracks feeling a tug and a pull inside my skull.

  I knew he was returning home.

  Emboldened by his nearness, Ioana and Anca agreed to step out of the fortress some nights later. We looked for him in the coldness, in the dark, hoping we might encounter his carriage. Instead, we found the woman and the strange man. The woman bore his mark upon her, glowing like an ember. Another sister for our tribe.

  The man was untainted. Strongly-built and blue-eyed. He reminded me vaguely of my stern and resolute father and I stared at him for a long time. I thought of the night I slipped out of my house, headed up to the old castle, and the distant cry of surprise I must have imagined — I must have — springing from my father’s lips, escaping the desolate, little white house.

  We can never look back or we will be turned into pillars of salt. I suppose that is why Anca and Ioana remembered very little of their youth. Perhaps that is why they forgot themselves some days, growing fierce and empty.

  I stared at the man and he stared back at me while Anca and Ioana laughed.

  I think my silence, my eyes upon him, were my salvation.

  I do not know why he did not kill me. Though he tried. He did try. But the stake did not lodge firm against the heart. Distraction? Weariness? Perhaps my own power over mortal minds, woven in that long look, shielded me. Perhaps he felt pity.

  Whatever it was, I woke to the icy knowledge of Anca and Ioana’s death. I did not even have to look at their sarcophagi to know. But I did look. Empty. Not a bit of hair, not a speck of bone. Nothing but dust.

  I knew he was dead too. I felt his absence. I had not been this alone in years upon years. Centuries even. The loneliness reverberated through my body.

  My shift was stained with my own blood upon the breast, where the stake or a knife bit the flesh before he pulled away. I let my usual sense of cleanliness escape me and did not change my dress, eating millipedes and insects for three whole days.

  I feared leaving the chapel. I thought his enemies might return. On the third day there was a great murmur through the fortress, a rumble that startled me and had me pressed against the wall in terror. When I ventured out of the chapel I realized a section of the castle had collapsed. The old bricks had finally given away, groaning and plunging into the river below.

  The sight roused me. I no longer felt safe in the chapel.

  I turned into a wolf and leapt beyond the castle walls, not knowing where I’d go. The icy night air cut my hands, my feet.

  It was easy to find my sisters’ graves. I had not forgotten the location. I had merely buried it away, and now dug through layers of memory until I arrived at the plot of earth that kept their bones. My father’s remains might be there too, though I did not know for sure.

  I curled upon the ground and crossed my arms upon my chest.

  He had never loved. But I had. I’d loved Anca and Ioana. Their little smiles and their games. Their sweetness and their cruelty, and the way their black eyes shone in the darkness, as if burnished. It was all gone and I couldn’t even muster the energy to crave revenge.

  My fingers dug into the earth and I thoug
ht I might bury myself with my sisters. Rest my bones against their bones. Cradle them once more. I would not be alone then, for their ghosts would keep me company.

  I lay like this for a very long time and then, finally, I stood up and ripped my shift off. I fashioned a simple pouch out of it, scooping earth into it and tying it close. I thought of returning to the castle for some of the valuables there. Perhaps one of the maps. I discarded the idea.

  Years later, I wonder if I shouldn’t have returned and scooped a trinket, a map, after all. My recollection of those days has grown dimmer and dimmer. I sometimes wake up with a vision of two dark-haired women, but their names escape me. I wonder if a memento might help pin the memories in place. Or perhaps it would not make a difference. Perhaps we are all meant to wander with nothing but a handful of earth in our hands, never looking over our shoulders.

  We walked by the sex shop but would not dare venture inside. Good, well-behaved Catholic kids in their school uniforms don’t do such things. Our steps slowed down, we whipped our heads towards the leather and lace on display, egged each other on, then scattered home.

  There were six of us, all twelve year olds. I was the girl of the group and had earned my place with bravado and persistence. Our leader was Jaime, witty, good-looking and more confident than any kid our age had any right to be. His only contender, Dario, threatened to snap the reins of our group by sheer force and brutality. But Dario, despite his size, was not smart enough to engineer a coup; thus we followed Jaime.

  That afternoon we’d gone for ice cream and idled at the arcade, then walked the shortest route home. The route that took us by the sex shop. We stopped to look at the display and the sign advertising “toys lingerie magazines performances.”

  “The sell foam vaginas in there,” Lalo said. “Not a doll, just the vagina.”

  “And how would you know?” Dario asked.

  “My brother saw it.”

  “What would he be doing there looking at vaginas? Your brother’s a fag.”

  “He’s not! He’s seen one! I’ve seen it too!”

  “You’re a fag too.”

  “Oh, leave him alone,” Jaime said, rolling his eyes.

  It went like that. Dario picked on Lalo, brought him close to tears, Jaime intervened. We patched it up quickly, the way only youth can.

  But Dario was not willing to cede that day. He stood up straight, taller by a head than any of the boys and glared down at Jaime.

  “He’s lying,” Dario said.

  “Am not. I saw it right there, right inside,” Lalo protested.

  “Liar.”

  He was. We knew it and with the lie the uncomfortable idea that Dario might be right about the other thing, that Lalo was a fag and we just … there was no room for such things then.

  “Hey, let’s chill and walk home, alright?” Jaime said.

  “I’m not,” Lalo said, turning to me, pleading, hands spread out.

  “If you’re not then let’s go in all together.”

  It was as though Dario had dropped a bomb. Nobody said a word or moved a muscle. Finally, hesitating, I spoke up.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No. We’ll go in and Lalo can prove he’s cool. After all, you’ve been inside before, no?”

  “Don’t be a jerk.”

  “I’ll go in,” Lalo said.

  I glared at Dario. I wanted to punch him, even if he was a gorilla, even if it hurt my knuckles. But there was no point, not now that Lalo had spoken and maybe Lalo should have punched him, but he’d spoken.

  “Good. You coming in, pretty boy?” Dario shot at Jaime.

  I wanted to say don’t go. But this was all codified. Jaime had to take the challenge or lose his seat.

  Stupid rules. Stupid boys.

  “Sure,” Jaime said with his usual ease.

  “Anybody else coming?” Dario asked.

  The other two boys did not answer, hands jammed in their pockets.

  I raised my hand, like a good girl in class. “I am.”

  Dario and Jaime both stared at me. I thought they might object. Then Dario shrugged, nodded and pushed the door to the sex shop open.

  A little bell rang, announcing our arrival and we stood near the entrance, looking around. There was a couch shaped like a pair of gigantic red lips, dildos on the walls, racks of magazines with naked girls on them, posters showing women with gigantic breasts. We had no Internet in those days. Pornography came in magazines. But when we went by the newsstand we didn’t dare to buy them, just as we didn’t dare to purchase cigarettes or enter the shop. The sudden onslaught of so many naked men and women caught us by surprise, but slowly, quietly, we realized the employee behind the counter was not even looking at us. Our parents were not going to burst through the doors. We were alone in the shop.

  We spread out, walking by the displays and looking at the shelves. I stared at a blow-up doll with a slash of red across her face passing for lips, wrapped a pink boa around my neck and poked a giant penis upholstered in purple.

  We giggled, relaxing, finding the fun in this. All the silly things for sale and the absurdity of some of the products, some of which remained a mystery to me. Plugs? What were plugs?

  Jaime and I elbowed each other, and then Dario spoke.

  “Look.”

  He pointed at a sign with large, black, stencilled letters which announced “LIVE SHOW PERFORMANCES EVERY DAY. ”

  Actually, it said “SHO” because a letter had come off, but we got the message.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I want to go in,” Dario said.

  I stared at the sign and the red curtain next to it. I shook my head. I didn’t want to go to the back of the shop.

  Dario was already headed there. Jaime followed him and I would not let Jaime go alone — I felt he needed me. I wanted him to need me. I’d go where he’d go.

  Like dominoes toppling each other, Lalo rushed behind me.

  We pulled the curtain aside and found ourselves face to face with an attendant. I thought this would be the end of it. He wouldn’t let us go through. But the attendant pointed to another sign displaying the price of admission. We handed him the money and walked down a hallway.

  The hallway curved and we saw rows of doors with a green and red light on top of them. A man, walking a bit ahead of us, opened one of the doors and closed it. The light atop turned red.

  We glanced at each other. Dario took the initiative. He slipped behind one of the doors. The light turned red.

  Lalo, Jaime and I kept walking. I realized, as we shuffled forward, that the doors were sandwiched side-by-side in a circle. You could walk around and around eternally, lost in a loop without purpose.

  I looked at the red lights atop the doors, winking like an eye, and shuddered.

  I heard a latch slide and turning around I realized that I was alone. Jaime and Lalo had already ventured behind the doors. Biting my lip I approached a half-open door with its green light blazing and stepped into a tiny booth.

  My sneakers stuck against something gummy and unpleasant on the floor. I swallowed and quickly locked the door behind me.

  It was warm in the cabin, like the belly of a beast, but I did not take off my sweater.

  The cabin was lined with red curtains, one on each side and one in front, and there was a chair. I tugged at one of the curtains on the left and discovered that beneath it there lay a dark plexiglass partition. For a moment I wondered if one could look into the adjoining booth and thought Jaime might be there; I might glimpse his face for reassurance. Then I remembered there might be someone else. I dropped the side curtain.

  The cabin had an unpleasant, rancid smell. It was also quite dark so that the overall impression was of being hoisted into a coffin.

  I sat down on the one chair.

  I waited and wondered if I had to do something but then music began streaming in through a battered speaker; the curtain in front of me lifted.

  There was a big window, also of plexi
glass, allowing me to see a large bed.

  My window was tinted and as I looked at the room — empty, but for the bed — and noticed the other dark squares across from me, I realized the patrons could not see each other. Jaime might be there, behind one of those black squares, or he might not. The boys might have left already, played a prank on me and I might be the only one sitting in the booth.

  A woman stepped into the room. She was quickly followed by a man wearing a black raincoat. The woman sat on the bed and the man proceeded to divest her from her garments in a quick, economical manner.

  The bed they sat upon began to rotate, spinning slowly. Off came her boots and her skirt, then her shirt and her bra. The woman did not hinder the man, but she did not actively participate. I wondered if she was drunk or drugged, or simply tired of this work.

  How many times did she have to step into the room? How many times did the curtain lift for her? How many times must she be stripped of her clothes and pose upon the bed? The ticket price for the show had been cheap. It was hard to image she made anything out of this.

  The bed turned and the woman showed her genitals to the audience. She had coarse, dark pubic hair and down there she looked … odd.

  A few months before they’d shown a special film at school, shuffling us girls out from our class and into the auditorium. It was an old one, probably made in the 50s, showing neat little drawings of the vagina and explaining “the miracle of birth.” When it was over we all got sample feminine towels. Three weeks later I began bleeding.

  The woman’s genitals did not look like in the dainty pictures. Furthermore, the drawings had no hair. When the bed began to turn I saw that the woman had burn marks and welts on her ass. Those had not been in the film either.

  The music changed. The woman was now completely naked. Her dark nipples jutted out as she sat on the centre of the bed, her face like iron.

  The man was still dressed.

  Was it his turn now? Were they supposed to have sex?