Goodbye Note || October 20th - 28th, 1876 || Self-Para || Felix Suda Rune
The final silence would stretch for days this time. Another Friday Felix waited on the steps leading up to her house. Blood a dry and forgotten stain on his left ear. He stared off at nothing with those impossibly dark eyes.
It was that faraway gaze that unsettled the suspicious. The way he stared beyond their shoulders. Those eyes that said things in their unintended wisdom. His perceived comeliness was beyond the structure of fathomed language. Not so weathered by the burdens of his father and the gleeful violence of other children. Nothing but the tips of his fingers, and the deformity of his ear. He was a curiosity, a source of unease, and to the unblind young women of the neighborhood, a sinful attraction.
Two young women his age, Adel and Beatrix, slowed past Danique Beenhouwer’s house. Adel giggled at the pitiful sight of him. He was doing it again. Staring off into the void of his own mind, looking like a clothed and painted statue. Was he praying? Did he have any thoughts at all? What did a head full of silence feel like?
It was Beatrix who opened her mouth. Smiling, tugging a brown ringlet of her beautiful hair behind her ear. She had his attention. The first consonant of hello followed by a startled gasp, being tugged by her sister as one would correct a family pet. Around the corner they went, and disappeared. Red-brown eyes followed the trail of her white and green skirt. Goodbye, first love.
He knew where she was. Every Friday, Danique visited her sister by the river. The sun said its goodnights between proud brick buildings, kissing the water with its glimmer, and gave affection to the shine behind his eyes.
Danique stood several feet from her door. Her body wasn’t as strong as it used to be. Shoulders heavy with the burden of time. Mauve shawl tight about her, cane gripped with white knuckles, looking upon the lamentable sight of the only son she had ever raised.
Another beating. After nine years of sharing Felix Rune with her neighbor, she could no longer recognize the culprit. The tailor’s dreadful son had a personal vendetta, but most likely the perpetrator shared the same roof.
She didn’t know what happened. For seven years he had lived a reconstructed, reasonably respectable man. Not a drop of genever had touched his lips.
Nine years ago, he had talked the most unholy nonsense. Had stormed her front door belligerent, shouting obscenities, demanding the return of his son. Demands she refused through the crack of her door until he sobered.
But you don’t know what you’re hiding, he seethed. That boy belongs to Satan. I must give him back to his mother.
Again, she slapped him. Called him a lunatic.
That boy was an innocent, and he a disgraceful waste of consideration. Did he hear himself? she said. You’re the sin. A black shameful stain. Repeat what you say to a priest and see what they’ll do with you. It’s the drink. It’s drowning you. It made you see things.
And for seven years, the black spot remained scrubbed. But then, something happened. She didn’t know what it was that dripped the black ink back on his soul. The same reason he greeted De Drie Hoera like a long-lost friend, and why the tailor’s son was no longer sole blame for the blood on Felix’s face.
Two years of misery, and for what? Another of his hallucinations? She could only assume Clemens had been sneaking drink. A calamity, she predicted, that would be the end of him someday.
In his 14 years, not once had Felix flinched from her touch. Today was no different. She pinched his chin, turning his head to examine his newest wounds. Her heart ached. Her throat burned.
“You have a key.”
He opened the door for them. He said nothing and she expected nothing. On days like this, she would be lucky to have a single word of gratitude or a mumbled goodnight before the agonizing return to his chipping green door.
Stewed potatoes and celeriac with boiled eggs, salted herring with herbs.
Neither said a word over supper. Not once did he look up. A thin invisible thread wound her stomach when he rubbed at his ear, winced, and snapped his fingers. He did that more often, now. Testing his hearing. Still something there, but not much left, now. There was no way of knowing the true villain. Engel, she assumed. The one with the most practice. The boy was a predictable fighter. Every fight same as scripture. A coward’s blow to the back of the head. A fist to his kidney. A fist to his ear. Felix had long ago memorized his dance, but Engel was nothing if not relentless, and patient around corners.
Engel. A profane and contrary name for an idiot child. There was satisfaction in knowing the harrier would never forget Felix Rune; with his crooked nose and errant chipped teeth. Both Danique and Clemens shared pride in the unhandsome figure Felix had shaped.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to see my brother. He tells me he might have work for you.”
Felix looked up from his plate. She knew how to get his attention. For months now he had sought work. She had discouraged for the sake of education for long enough. Any excuse for him to be his own man. Even if escape was only miles away.
He chewed, swallowed. “Glassblowing?”
“Yes, that brother.”
A potato was rolled across his plate. She could tell this didn’t interest him, but what held his attention aligned too closely with his father’s inclinations. If she could just push him in another direction.
“This is good for you. Good things happen when you do good.”
She barely flinched when he stabbed his potato with his fork.
“You’ve said that for years. Wie goed doet, goed ontmoet.” If you do good, good will be done to you. An old Dutch proverb. Karma. She believed in it as much as the church down the street. It was ridiculous. Just words.
“I say what’s true.”
He shook his head.
“You be a good boy, good things will happen.”
“What about the bad people? What happens to them?”
“All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish.”
He shook his head.
“What book, boy?”
“Isaiah,” he swallowed wetly. Another quote she’d said for years; he knew it by heart.
Danique nodded, groaned as she rose from the table with her empty plate.
“Finish your food. You will read to me.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville was a favorite between them. In nine years, she had him read cover to cover three times. They were near the end. He, by the fireplace. She, in her favorite chair. Evi purred contentedly in her lap. There would be no embroidery tonight. Her eyes were closed, enjoying the cadence of his voice. She knew before long his father would come knocking. Tonight was one of those nights she would refuse. Tonight, Felix was her boy, not his.
The placid reading came to a quiet pause.
“I don’t want to work for him.”
“He will keep you as his apprentice. Food, clothes, money. It will be good for you to learn a trade. You will have a good reputation.”
“I don’t want it.”
Danique opened her eyes. His figure quite small silhouetted by the dying fire. This little ember she didn’t want to go out. She said nothing. She forced many of her demands on his father; Felix’s education, Clemens’ sobriety, and church as often as their feet could carry them. The length of rope she had to pull was nearing its end. She could feel the fray between her fingers as Felix began again, gently flipping the page to the final chapter.
That night, her boy climbed into bed with her. He hadn’t curled by her ribs since he was 7 years old. He clung with both hands to her nightgown. She didn’t have to hear them to know angel-killing tears now stained her clothes.
“My boy,” she mourned. “Tell me, what hurts?”
Trembling, he refused. Every muscle in his body was iron. If only he could revert to an infant state. He tried. To coil so securely, so safely, as to retrace the steps to his mother’s womb. He could never.
She could give the only comfort she knew. With every other fight, the tears, the blood, the bruises, she quoted Deuteronomy.
"Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid nor tremble at them, for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes before you and with you and among you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”
Silent sobs became silent weeping, became silent sleep.
The week that followed echoed his silence. Not once did he leave the house. He cleaned, cooked, and slept. No more Herman Melville. No more of the Holy Book. He stared out the window at the sunrise, the rain, the sunsets. He snapped his fingers over his ear. He scratched behind Evi’s ears.
Danique limped to the green door. Knocked with her cane. The door opened. Another of Clemens’ familiar bad habits. The house was a mess without Felix cleaning up behind his father. Dirty plates and a broken chair, clothes strewn about, ignored for just one item.
She returned home with a nearly empty bottle of genever. It was this one item that seized her boy’s attention. Watched with a neutral expression as she poured what remained into her mug. She knew better. She knew those eyes. She just needed to see.
The mug nearly reached her lips when she felt his chilly hand on her wrist.
“No.”
“No?” She offered the mug.
He shook his head.
“That’s right. You’re not your father. You can be anything else. A glassblower, a merchant, a chimney sweep. I don’t care what you are. Be something.”
The bottle and mug were left on the table. Wrapped in her shawl, they took a walk to the river and back.
Another night of potatoes and fish, of pickled vegetables and tea by the fire.
That had been the intention, but only Felix noticed that neither had locked the door.
And it was Danique who noticed her mug had been emptied.
“My boy,” she said, quietly, “my boy, why?”
“I didn’t.”
For the first time in his life, she didn’t believe him. The silence followed for the last time. Those words, I didn’t, were the last he ever spoke aloud in her presence. He slept on the floor. He slept in the bathtub. He did not sleep beside her.
The following morning, a new quiet stung sharply at her ears. The absence of footsteps. The clicks of her boy’s tongue as he played with Evi. There was no fire downstairs, nor one in her bedroom. No tea waiting for her on the table. Only a note.
I took Moby-Dick with me. I won’t stop praying. I’ll be my own man, I promise. I’ll pray for you. Please pray for me. I love you.
