The Violinist

by Alisha Westerman

In the center of the circular hall, the young man stood to the left of the pianist­, tall and slightly bent back at the hips. He played his violin loosely and comfortably, without a touch of stiffness.  In his simple concentration, he didn’t glance at guests or gaze at the ornamental arrangements of colored glass orbs and pine boughs on the walls, but kept his eyes on the ground.  The pianist, whose own shabby appearance arguably lost him potential private playing engagements, had suggested the boy keep his eyes down so as not to put off guests. 

Argus had first seen Homr play three years ago at the entrance to Rosemist Park.  His playing was clumsy but he played with focused concentration. Argus had noticed the boy’s eyes rolled backwards until they found a comfortable place in their sockets and fixed themselves there, with one brow arched in concentration.  Argus gathered that the boy had a problem with his sight, but hadn’t yet decided whether the peculiar habit would be off-putting to an audience or suggest a sort of mad genius.  

At the first intermission, the two set their instruments on stands and retreated to the edge of the room.  Homr accepted a glass of punch and Argus a claret.

“How many people would you say are here?” asked Homr.

“Two hundred or so.”

“I guessed more.

They stood, sipping, both averting their eyes from guests.

“That voice I keep hearing…”

“The host.”

“I thought so.  Mr. Swish…?”

“Swishmitzen.  The inventor.”

“That’s it.  He’s pleased?”

“Seems so.”

The two of them watched Swishmitzen enthusiastically hover over one group, then another, like a big clumsy moth. He carried a glass tumbler at his side, which had three ice cubes in it. When he became excited in conversation he would rattle the cup impulsively, like someone about to roll parcheesi dice. 

“What’s that rattling?”  

Argus listened for a moment. “Oh that? His cup of ice.” The old man was accustomed to answering questions like this from Homr. Although, in this case it wasn’t Homr’s sight that impeded his understanding. He had simply never seen ice cubes before.  Aside from the giant block of ice delivered to the kitchen door of the boarding house each Tuesday. 

“Yes, he seems very pleased,” said Argus.  He’ll want to meet you.”

Homr lived in a boarding house near the park, and Argus, being a man of little means himself, had done what he could to help Homr find his way in the world, by encouraging him to develop his skill with the violin, as a means of income.  At first, Homr would come to Rosemist Park to listen to Homr play.  As the boy’s playing improved, Argus would wait for passersby, then plunk a few coins into Homr’s cup and loudly pronounce, “Very good.”

“Thank you, sir,” the boy would say with a dip of his head, and he would begin his next song with a flourish of energy, which caused those strolling nearby to pause for a listen.  Argus couldn’t tell and didn’t assume whether this was the boy’s innocent gratitude or he had caught on to the pianist’s timing with his praise.  

When Homr could get through a piece without errors, the pianist would then critique his tempos, thwacking his thigh with a rolled up newspaper to lead him, but always trailing off if park visitors strolled by.  When the tempos improved, Homr made suggestions as to brightness and volume.  The young violinist received all criticism openly and graciously.

Finally, Argus began puzzling out the best sequence of songs to hold listeners’ interest.  He then booked their first engagement and invited Homr, to rehearse with piano at his small flat a few blocks away.

Mercenary

by Alisha Westerman

They made me struggle as a newborn.  My nurse—someone who had not given birth to me—would not feed me until I had sought her nipple and pushed aside her shielding hands enough times to bawl in frustration.  Then, she’d soothe me and feed me until I was full.  When I pulled away she’d force her teat back into my mouth repeatedly until I cried and gurgled, choking on milk I no longer wanted.  I was fed this way from the breast until I was four, and it ensured that I grew to hate excess and gluttony and grew up believing that I must become angry before I could get what I need.  This was my first memory.  By the age of eight, my habits were formed for life.

At 12 they circumcised me. They cut the skin so tight it impeded a full erection. As I grew past adolescence, masturbation became uncomfortable.  In that way, my sexual energy could hardly be alleviated on pleasure and was redirected to training and fighting.  If I survived a number of years of battle and combat, they would use me to breed.  In the meantime the energy fueled my frustration and aggression.

            There were up to 80 of us in any particular class. Each class was ten months apart.  They regulated the breeders’ fertility and calculated conception down to the day.  This made for thousands of mercenary trainees, excluding the females.  Females were separated from us when breastfeeding ended to start training as servants and breeders.  A select few who showed  aggressive proclivities would train to be fighters for arenas showcasing the exotic. 

In the baths, they limited the hot water so that we fought for the comfort of warm water as we bathed. They frequently made all the water icy cold, which humbled even the most dominant of us.  Forgive me for using “they”, but I was never able to learn much about the vast network of control and power alliances that made possible this system into which I was born.  They even had ways to regulate gossip.

            I was fed excellent meat, grains and vegetables.  No fruit, nothing sweet.  Bitter teas of herbs, but no mead or wine except after a significant victory.  By 20, I was fully trained—thick muscled, competent in a chariot, and always on guard.  The only time I was relatively at ease was in sleep, when I slept like the dead but with my jaw locked in anticipation.  I can still remember inhabiting that body of mine—sinew and limb, veins and muscle, incredibly powerful and wretchedly abused.

            One day, an orderly brought me into a smoke sauna that was generally used in purification processes for the sick.  It was dark in there, aside from stripes of daylight streaming through wooden slats that covered all the walls.  The floor was stone.  The place was full of pungent, unfamiliar incense smoke.  Three medical sorcerers stood waiting for me.  They were all very tall and thin with long beards and wore long, thick robes.  I was told to lie on a table.  As I had already been circumcised and castration was only a rumor associated with distant, feeble societies, I had no reason to fear.

Letters to Featherspacks

by Alisha Westerman

Dear Featherspacks,

I like writing short poems. Bear doesn’t approve of it. He says, if I want to write something short for people to read, send them a postcard. But I think they are good practice, and may eventually find their way into an epic. He doesn’t think I should show my cards before any of my epics are published, but it’s going to be so long before I ever produce a publishable one. I have two more years at University before I get my degree in Epic Poetry, then five to six years at writing temple – if I’m accepted into one –  then my pilgrimage, then ten years of travels and journeys, as set out by my mentors. I mean, you have to know what you’re talking about or at least live long enough to see enough. I figure that, along the way, I can write poems, or postcards.   

I have a column in Mellifula Observer – not poetry though. How it started was when Bear got sick, I was writing to update friends on how he was doing and they’d bring my letters to Lotus Land and read them at the gatherings to get the word out. From there, some of the Storians we knew started making duplicates and announcing them before their readings at the theaters. Then all the theaters where Bear used to read wanted to be able to update their audience. Then other theaters – the ones who wouldn’t book him because he was a “no name” and now saw they missed out – they also got a hold of duplicates and began advertising that they had Letters on Bear, either on their Marquis or in the newspaper. “Letters on Bear before every show,” these ads said. Even if there was nothing new they’d read my most recent letter. Which made no sense to me.   

But Orlando explained that it’s not about the news, at a certain point, especially in the more touristy theaters. “Bear’s name has spread,” she said. “His youth, his talent, his predicament. It’s dramatic and it’s local and so everyone wants to be a part of the experience.” Orlando comes from a long line matchmaker from her mother’s side. She has an inherited talent for understanding all things appealing to others. 

“But what about when he was healthy?” I said. “If they care enough to be a part, they could have gone to see him read his novel at the Bayleaf Theatre or the Laphe Café. They could have upped show attendance so that his pay would be higher, so he didn’t have to work as a courier, pedaling around like a monkey, as he described it, because he couldn’t book anything further than Mellifula or outer Wordislaw.”

“Death and illness lends mystique,” said Orlando. She has a way of putting things. Her own writing is extremely vivid and perfectly worded—the work of an articulate perfectionist. She’s a fourth year student epic poet, and if I hadn’t known her my whole life, I’d be extremely intimidated by her. She’s very tall and she’s got this slow, low way of speaking that makes everything around her go quiet. “When death is at your door,” she said, “or in your case, when death is in your sitting room, waiting for your beloved, your words have a certain weight.” I guess she’s right. It gets a person thinking that if death were weighting their words, how carefully they’d choose them.

What Raises Kind

by Alisha Westerman

“Don’t know why the Trekhead want to clear a new path,” I say to my Fa while he’s prepping meal on the bakeporch. “But I don’t sort it’s treach.”  Fa’s not sorry about it either way.  He just make to the shed, bring my machete and lay the sharpener by the blade on the unfinished table where we eat meal.  He’s saying I mighta finish making the table—stead of leaving another job unfinished, but to go on this trek, anymatter.

As Mountainfoot hosts, our kind honor trekkers from all over—those what come to climb the Mountain and link up with their Utmost at the Top.  We use a path on the northwest side, what we scout and clear before my birth. Step by step, you make Top in three days.  But these Desertkind want to see every sunrise, so their Trekhead sit with our Wisers and ask if she can make a new route on Southeastern side.  That side’s not too steep; hardest part’s the brushtangle—thick as a newyouth’s hair streambathed and windrun. So the Wisers offer me as their guide, for my machete skill and knowhow with unfamiliar paths. 

I think of Mem, visiting her sister down in the valley. Every full moon she go to practice reading leafwater with the valley women. She’s yet to bring me, though I’m her daughter and only child.

“Don’t think Mem care, d’you?”  I ask.  Fa shrug.  The long, wooly braid lying over his left shoulder hardly move.  The right side of his head is shorn short as a goat’s hair, in the tradition of Mountainfootkind in their lateyouth.  “Why you think the Desertkind want first light every day?” I say.

“If you don’t learn it by watching, you mighta ask.”

“Guess we start coming sunrise.”

“If you don’t take our path then you mighta bring water with.”

“Hmm.  Truematter.  From the new path we only hit a sure spring two days up.”

“Mighta thinka how to bring it, then. But now, you mighta bust open a new redpod for us to eat with meal.”  He set meal down on the table in thick, clay bowls.  Fa don’t tell me what to do, but he make a practice of mentioning what I mighta do.

After meal, I’m showing trekkers to make branchsleds like what we use to carry water and ground vedge. They have a few carts with bulbous wheels but I count at least fiveten trekkers, and I figure we need one sled every five or six members. These trekkers are good kind—warm, sharing, unsorry folk. I’m showing them how to weave the branches and from behind me one member reach out her hand, touch the marks on my shoulder, ask “What is it?”  I slip quickly away from her touch.

“Petal ink.” I say, and I’m burning inside.  I know this isn’t what she asking.  As a firstyouth I wear my long braid over my right shoulder, what mostly cover it.  I put the ink on that shoulder for a reason.  I finish showing them how to secure the woodweave and walk off, need to cool my embers.

The petal ink on my shoulder is Dancer, and now I break Mountainfoot practice and use Pastspeak to talk of old sorrow. Dancer was my dog.  I chose her when she was born.  As a firstouth I learned to raise her up. She never left my side. Her breed come from Mountainfoot region. Strong hind legs, tail curling over itself and thick round paws. Her ears looked like the Top with winter snowtips. Her eyes were like the clear moss bottom streams. Her nose and tongue were blueblack as fresh finished fire.

When we were both training and before she knew to behave, she would jump, all four feet off the earth and twist like I never saw another dog do. I figured she was remembering how she danced in some life before she was a Mountainfoot dog, and I name her thus, but that’s a secret cause our kind don’t study pastlife, what mighta keep us from the wisdom of Now. 

Mathilde’s Revenge

by Alisha Westerman

Every morning after Monsieur Hubert had satisfied his need and left Mathilde’s small bedroom off the kitchen, the master of the house bathed, dressed, and drank his tea standing at the large window, gazing out at the harbor. Mathilde would quickly clean up and dress and get back to the kitchen to continue her official work for the day. She would put on the kettle and brew Monsieur’s tea. He drank black, brewed very strong, no milk. Malthilde would lightly knock on the door of his study and bring his tray to the window, where he would take the cup before she set the tray on the side of his rosewood desk. 

This was Mathilde’s favorite time of day, for a few reasons. For one, it was the last few moments before the heat had settled in, and there was still dew on the plants outside. The steam from Monsieur’s tea would rise in glowing tendrils, aglow from the morning light. She would imagine it was winter or fall in France, and that there was a chilling cold outside. She imagined this every morning, unconsciously. 

What you must understand about Mathilde was that she was a Caribbean woman to the bone. Unabashedly. Joyfully. Deeply. Uncompromisingly. And in her heart, she was also a true Francophile. She longed to visit France, loved the sound of the continental accent, the feel of it on her tongue. She loved French literature, French fashion, French music. 

This did not make her any less a Martinican. For what was Martinique, but a colonial creation-monster, from its name, to its culture, to the affinities of its people? It was perpetrators of colonialism who had brought her African ancestors to the island. And warped the island name “Madinina”, the indigenous word for ‘flowers’, to suit the French tongues of the opportunists and investors and human traffickers. And chased off the Spanish and beat out the British, to bind the African and French blood, labor and industry into one twisted, forever entangled tapestry of blood, sweat, tears and semen. 

 There is another thing that you must understand about Mathilde. And if you understand what it means to be brought up in a colonial system, you will understand this: in her heart, in her own way, she was in love with Monsieur Hubert.

Havensrail

by Alisha Westerman

Although I transformed my life with words, I’ll always think of my life as told through pictures. I see myself in a plain dress and white bonnet, crossing the town’s one bridge.  That’s how I came to live in Havensrail, with nothing but the clothes I wore and a contract for my services. 

            My parents sent me to work for Helene at the Havensrail Inn, from far out in the country where they farmed a piece of land too small to feed us all.  My father took me as far as Haveshire, which was the larger, busier town five miles away.  He stood stiffly as I kissed his cheek, then he squeezed by hands in his rough paws, turned around and began walking back home.  I walked the rest of the way alone.  I saw no one.  I was to work at Helene’s for room and board and grow up with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in.  That was all. 

            At fourteen, I didn’t think of myself as person, or as a young woman.  I thought of myself as part of my surroundings.  On the farm I had been the tops of the amaranth leaves that waved red in the sun, or the stitches in the blanket my mother knit and wrapped around me, or a mellowing ember in the hearth as I fell asleep.  As I walked the road, I was part of its crumbly brown and rocky bank.  As I crossed the bridge, I was a stone in the mortar.  And when I came to know Helene’s, I decided I was the big ledger, where I loved to watch the guests write their names with an ink pen before I helped them carry their luggage up to a room.

            It was easy to be a part of things at Helene’s.  The official name of the place was Havensrail Inn, but everyone called it after the woman who had run it for the past twenty year.  She was a kind but no-nonsense woman, who worked hard but not too hard.  She took time to talk with guests.  She used shortcuts in the kitchen.  She spent time out back in the garden cultivating herbs and vegetables.  So she was rarely grumpy with the girls who helped her cook and clean, and her face had sunlit warmth that only faded in the coldest and darkest week of winter.  

            Helene taught me how to cook for guests and how to make and turn down a bed with a real set of sheets.  I learned to identify accents from different regions. I worked and slept, rested when I needed to and was never in want.  I was occupied, for I was learning.  Beyond that, I was neither happy nor sad.  I didn’t particularly miss my family.  I was content, with no complaints and no yearnings.

Almost a year went by before I visted the orchard on the edge of town. When I first made my way into Havensrail, I had noticed it's pink glow down the hill to my right as I crossed the bridge. But I was too focuses on arriving to take much notice. I thought of the place again just as spring began blowing it's fresh breeze through the Inn. It brought the sweet scent of blossoms, damp earth and new grass rolling up over the hill. I was familiar enough with my chores and errands to feel ready to explore a little.