THE BEAST

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Loudly - very, very loudly - on that huge old wooden door, size of a barn door but much more solid - hundreds of years old oak wood, like the doors of Hampton Court, the castle that Henry XVIII stole from the Bishop

The bangs came in two sets of three blows, as if delivered by some beast with three fists, so loud that she imagined that she saw a flash of white light at the back of her eyeballs. It was unbearable.

"Who is it? Who is it?" She screeched frantically, her own hands clasped to her throat as if they were the claws of some other beast trying to strangle her. The monster never answered.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

She was bolted to the floor. Eyes wide and wild, face engorged with blood, her once imperatorius voice now down to a feeble pleading squeek - "Who is it? Who is it?" Clutching her throat ever tighter, squeezing her own throat closed, falling to her knees on that bare stone floor. 

The lights flickered momentarily, then went out. Darkness rolled down the mountain slope, levelled out on the river bank, hesitated momentarily, and then fell off into the water. It took to the water like some massive denizen of the deep, gave off it's endless black ink, and made the water impenetrable.

The banging continued, and I, a mere witness, could only watch. The blows were so heavy that their vibrations were loosening the brass screws that held the door together. As if some invisible hand were turning the screws, I watched as they jumped and turned under the terrible blows. This cannot hold, I thought.

Her face was deathly pale. Loose strands of her thick black hair fell over it. She continued to bend forwards until her face was invisible, against her knees, her tiny voice almost gone now, her hands still clutched around her throat. She was involuntarily strangling herself in sheer terror. A stream ran out between her knees. There is a point at which a human being reaches such a state of degradation that they almost cease to be human. It is a grave and dangerous point because it plays completely into a predator's hand: the victim herself has disposed of her own humanity, and despatching her now could be easily achieved without much compunction. You're no longer killing a human being - you're just killing a squirrel, or a tortoise, or a flea, you know. There's no humanity there to make you stop and think. You could just do it and walk away with a clean conscience, as it were.

That's probably how serial killers do it: they dehumanise their victim - make them wear a sack over their heads or a mask or something, and gag them, so that they don't see their eyes or hear their voice - and having done that, the rest is easy. It's no longer a human being. The normal rules don't apply.

Of course, there must be exceptions. There must be killers who would actually want to watch the life force fade in their victim's eyes. But these are not utilitarian killers: they do not kill because they want something else and the victim just happens to be in the way: these people are artists: they kill purely for the pleasure of killing itself, and to enhance their style and the art form generally. All these dreary little cops-n-robbers TV series, where clever little psychologists and dedicated, hardworking, good old cops get on the trail of a serial killer and eventually they capture him and then it ALL COMES OUT how he was ill-treated by some swine of a parent or whatever, tralala, lala, lala, tiddley-pom - what rubbish. They've missed the bloody point.

The point, you see, for the true artists at Killer & Co, is the mystery, the fascination and the awe of death itself. How do we die? What goes first? What lasts longest? Is it, for example, true that "your whole life flashes before you" (and that it's so boring)?

There's a story (true? Not true? No idea) about a psychologist who attended the execution of the nobles at the guillotine at the time of the French Revolution: he got various prisoners to agree to try to blink their eyes after their heads were chopped off, as a sign that their brains were still working. The results of the experiment were inconclusive because there were so many uncontrolled variables not accounted for - but logically, if the brain can survive for five minutes without oxygen (I am informed that that is correct), then that detached head is still alive in every sense of the word when it rolls into the basket. Not for long, of course, but at least for a couple of minutes.

That would interest a true exponent of the Art of Murder.

I once had a nightmare about strangling a cat. I think I had thought it through pretty well. I tied a ribbon round it's neck - the cat thought we were playing. It was a pretty ribbon. I think it was a pink ribbon. It had a slip knot. Then as the cat frolicked, it became aware that it couldn't get the ribbon off with it's claws. But I didn't pull it tight - I just watched as the realisation dawned on the cat that it had a problem. It transitioned emotionally from playful mode into frantic mode. Cats can get pretty frantic and they look very funny when that happens - their fur gets all jagged and spiky and their movements become jerky and their eyes get a wild look.

Then very gradually I started to close the loop around it's throat. At first I don't think that it occurred to the cat that I had anything to do with it's predicament - but then - eventually, came the moment of truth, when it dawned on the cat that I WAS THE PROBLEM. In my nightmare, the surge of power that I felt when I could see that the cat now fully appreciated that it was in mortal danger, and that I was the master of its life and death - oh, I have to tell you, sex has nothing on that feeling!

The "terror phase" passes quickly. Now we're through the playful phase, and through the terror phase, and moving into the end game. The cat is now as much of a danger to itself as it is to everything around it. It thrashes around madly, throwing itself off furniture, leaping up, throwing itself against walls. It's starting to froth at the mouth, breathing comes with difficulty (I haven't closed off the windpipe fully yet), it's eyes are not coordinated - and then I close the windpipe. It's not jerking around wildly now, just twitching. I think it knows that it's dying. I am looking into it's eyes. It's quite still now, and it is looking into my eyes. For the first time - the very first time - we actually SEE each other.

It only went on for about a minute, but I know - I absolutely know - that for a moment there, we actually connected, animal to animal, and something very primitive and ancient happened. A spark passed between us. Did we switch places? Am I a cat, now? Did the old me die inside that cat's body? Who am I now?

But I have digressed. I just want to wrap up that business about the girl in the castle.

The massive door shatters into a million splinters and this dark, cold world falls silent. For a full minute (which is sometimes a very, very long time) nothing moves and there is no sound. A cold Northern wind sweeps into the room, scattering anything and everything before it. It is not clear whether the girl on the floor is living or dead, but she does not move and her breathing is inaudible. It is a moment of uncertainty in the balance between life and death. A million stars sparkle in a sky which is so cold and so clear that we of this dreary modern time could hardly conceive of it, for this is the time before time, the time after time, the time of no time, the time of any time.

Ever, ever so slowly, she relaxes the fingers round her throat, she relaxes her wrists, she relaxes her forearms, then her upper arms, then her shoulders. She draws her first deep breath, but still she does not dare to look up. Another precious, precious minute passes. She opens her downcast eyes, braces her thin waist, straightens her upper body while still on her knees - suddenly she notices how they ache - and she looks at the place where the door had been. It's just a big square open space now. There's nothing there. Just a view across a dark and silent valley, lit faintly by a yellow moon, which also leaves a pathway to infinity across a cold, placid sea. The lemony light fills the room, the cold wind plays with her hair, her tears dry, and terror departs. The beast has gone.

She will soon marry her lifelong, best friend, and they will adopt many orphans and she and her friend will rule and be known forever as the Two Queens.

But she will die young and her partner will bury her here on this very hill, with it's beautiful view of the sky and the stars and the mountain and the sea and the road to infinity. And she will watch over this place forever.

And fear and terror will be no more.

© Harry Friedland MARIMBA 28 April 2022

MEAD

 Mead 

Who remembers Mead? 

When I was a kid it was a Pesach tradition to serve mead at the seder table. For some reason we never had it at any other time of the year and I assumed that it had something to do with Pesach, which is not correct. It was supplied by the local kosher delicatessens and in spite of the fact that it had a low alcohol content, it was regarded as a “kids drink”, although obviously everyone enjoyed it. If you don’t know what it is and and want to know more, you can go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_in_Poland. Suffice to say that most non-Jews refer to it as “Honey Beer” when they don’t call it Mead. 

A quick reference to the Wikipedia article makes it clear that mead originated in Eastern Europe – mostly Poland and Ukraine, the European Jewish heartland before WWII – which is why European Jews were familiar with it. 

But mead used to be very difficult to store because it came in big glass screw-cap bottles, it was highly volatile and if you managed to get through a whole 8-day Pesach without at least one bottle exploding in your liquour cabinet, you were lucky. Of course, an explosion like that would leave the interior of your liquour cabinet (and everything in it) covered with a sticky, syrupy-sweet coating which gave off a most heavenly smell but was hard to clean off.

Nevertheless, it was a known and accepted risk. 

One night after we were all a-bed – let's say 2.00 a.m. - we were woken by a muffled “bang” from the front end of the darkened house (lounge, dining room, who knows?). You don’t really hear the bang itself, because you’re asleep: what you do get is the memory of the “bang” after it’s happened. So you lie there, in your still-awakening state, and you ask yourself, “Did I just hear a bang? Am I dreaming? Was that real?” and you lie still and wait to see if you can sense anything else happening. But you are worried, because you don’t know what it signifies and you’re pretty sure that something just happened inside the house (if it wasn’t a dream, that is – and you’re still not sure about that).  

I was thirteen, so although I felt a certain amount of fear, it really wasn’t my place to do anything about it, such as go and investigate – that was my parents’ job. I could hear movement in my parents’ bedroom – they were talking in stage whispers – then footsteps. They’d obviously decided that whatever it was, deserved investigation. 

“Dad!” my brother called from his bedroom further down the passage 

“Go back to sleep boy – nothing's wrong” Dad responded, with absolutely no evidence to support him and not much conviction in his voice either. 

I assumed that mum and dad hadn’t left their bedroom, because none of the lights were on, but I had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom, got up, and decided to go there without the lights. It did not occur to me that that might actually not be a safe thing to do right then. As I stepped over the threshold of my bedroom door I got the fright of my life. In the dark passage beyond, a shadowy figure was moving towards me, with what looked like a club held out ahead of it. I nearly collapsed with fright. 

“Go back to your room, boy” hissed mom.

Oh, jeez, thank God, I thought – but what was she holding out ahead of her like that? 

Just then, dad appeared in the doorway of their bedroom, bleary-eyed and pretty much blind as a bat without his spectacles – and then I understood why mum was walking in front – of course – he couldn’t see anything! So there they go then, the intrepid twosome, down the passage, big mum in front with some sort of a club and little dad behind, trying to look strong and resolute – all to the inadequate light of a half-moon coming in through an uncurtained window. 

There was no way that I could just go back to bed now and pretend that nothing was happening – when, very clearly, everything was happening – so I joined the tail end of this little battle group, tiptoeing down the passage. 

They had to pass my brother’s bedroom to get to the lounge and dining room (there seemed to be an assumption that that was where the noise had come from), but no-one had actually anticipated any movement on my brother's part (this wasn't a carefully thought-out plan, you understand).  

As they drew level with his door, he suddenly threw it open and put on his room light, thereby blinding us all and adding to the confusion. God knows what he was thinking. What he would have seen in the sudden blaze of light would have been three figures arranged from the largest to the smallest, and the biggest one, that is the one closest to him, wielding a club. He let out a terrified yell, fell backwards into his bedroom and slammed the door shut in mum's face. 

It was all too much for a thirteen-year-old bladder to cope with. I felt a warm flood going down my legs and covering my bare feet. The sound which escaped my lips was a sort of despairing, woebegone cry that said, "Oh, Harry, look what you've gone and done! I'm so disappointed in you! What a shameful display of craven cowardice! Oh, how the Scion of Friedland is cast low, ye, even unto the dust …"etc., etc. But, there you are, I'd gone and pissed myself, and there was nothing to be done for it now. 

And just at that moment, we heard the second "bang!" 

This "bang" was much louder than the first, and we were much closer to it. 

And then there was a tinkling sound … like … glass … broken glass … 

But for reasons unexplained, the momentum of our little procession was unbroken and in spite of that explosion we continued to drift forward into the dark dining room until we were standing right in front of the big old oakwood sideboard, not noticing that one door of the sideboard was hanging open. 

And then came the third and most spectacular explosion. We caught the full force of it, spraying mead and flying glass all around. And being the shortest member of the procession, I got the fullest benefit of the dispersion. 

Dear readers, those of you who are of a scientific disposition will now appreciate my analysis of this curious course of events: 

1. The house is dark and quiet 
2. A stock of mead is stored in a sideboard in the dining room 
3. The stock consists of a single purchase transaction, which makes it likely that those three bottles were all part of the same manufacturing batch 
4. Being of the same batch, they had identical levels of fermentation and were at the same stage of fermentation 
5. Stored under identical conditions, they would be likely to "blow”at the same time 
6. When bottle 1 blows, the sideboard door is closed, hence the "bang" is muffled. But the explosion does blow the door open. 
7. So when bottle 2 blows, its louder – and 
8. If you happen to be standing right in front of the open door when bottle 3 blows, you get covered in it – and 
9. If you are already soaked in urine before bottle 3 blows, then after it blows, you will be covered in urine and mead and little pieces of glass. 

And, finally, what was that club? 

Well, my mother had a brother who had tried just about every career under the sun and at one stage he had been a policeman. In those days, police did not carry rubber truncheons – they carried wooden batons – ugly, hard, heavy, black-painted skull-crackers with a leather thong for securing it to your wrist – and for some reason she had inherited his baton, but she kept it well concealed in her cupboard and none of us had ever seen it before. I got hit by one of those during a student protest outside St Georges’ Cathedral in 1972 and it wasn't pretty. I can't bloody believe that my mother had one! 

I haven’t had mead at all in my adult life. Damn, I miss it. 

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© Harry Friedland, MARIMBA 2022