All but the cleric twitched their sight towards the dreaming dog, shuddering under the table. For a moment, their eyes were dissolved of their previous purpose and shed their watch to partake in the flinch that nipped and shook the sleeping animal, unlatching it from its tension to let it swing in forgetfulness. It awoke with a shudder. The table of assassins dismissed Tsungali’s hidden stare and returned to their previous clandestine conversation.
As he walked to the door, and the semi-fresh air of the street, a single set of eyes followed his movements. Outside, he smelt evening as it settled on the high treetops, the ravine beginning to sing with returning birds. He knew this would be a place of significance for him, though he didn’t yet know when, or how. Optimism flooded his caution and he made a prayer, one hand on the talisman around his neck, the other gripping the pistol in the deep pocket of his canvas and leather gown. He would not kill his prey here; he sensed this place had something else in store for him. He collected the stumpy shotgun from its hiding place beneath the bridge and walked the stream back to his motorbike. He would kill his man further down the track.
She told Mutter to bring the next case up to the third floor. He obeyed with little relish, panting, huffing and stumbling on each turn of the staircase. At their destination, she instructed him to open the crate and leave. He did so without a word, even as quick, infuriated splinters pierced his hands.
She removed the wooden shavings and other packing, and looked into the box. Stencilled on the inside was ‘Lesson 315: The Songs of Insects’. Forty screw-capped jars nestled tightly in the crate; there were no instructions. Ghertrude gingerly lifted one of the containers and held it up to the lamp. Small air-holes had been punctured in the lid, and a letter ‘J’ printed across its top. An elegant plant cutting shuddered within, a thick brown cricket gripping its stem. She began to remove all of the jars, placing them in alphabetical order on the dining room table. After ‘Z’, the letters were doubled: ‘AA’, ‘BB’, ‘CC’.
All manner of creatures ticked inside their glassy prisons. Suddenly, as if by some unknown command, they began to chirp and strum as one, their growing voices squeezing through the tin holes and vibrating the glass, until the room shimmered with aural beauty. Ghertrude stood entranced, her hands clapped together in a gesture of spontaneous pleasure. Ishmael watched her, waiting for his lesson to begin. From below, Mutter heard the third floor come alive, shook his head and lit a cigar.
Ghertrude tried to explain the contents of the jars, but soon found she had no idea what to say. She stumbled through the first nine, before running out of words. She asked her pupil what he thought. He stared blankly at her.
‘How would I think anything?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘What are these things, what is their place?’ She blushed in her ignorance and shrank in her failure.
Many of the cases that followed were even more obscure, rendering her speechless before the packing material had left her hands. Salvation came with Ishmael’s change of heart. He decided to give up his petulant student status and listen graciously, without the rancour that had previously spilled over with his hunger for knowledge. It was true that she possessed more experience of the world outside, but he had a sharper mind to examine the facts before him, without the hindrance of their known function blinding their potential. He would try to do it her way, to speculate on the contents of the boxes and come to a conclusion based on each of their contributions.
So it was that they began to open the boxes together, with a newfound zeal, and what she believed to be a rising tide of intimate respect. It became a pleasure: the anticipation, the piecing together of meaning, the guesswork. He was easier in his movement and speech, the angles and corners of previous mannerisms smoothing into softer, more natural alignments.
Weeks passed in this way until, one afternoon, as they excitedly examined the textures and toughness of different kinds of leather, he asked, ‘When will we practise mating?’
She hoped she had misheard. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, with caution.
‘When can I put my man tube inside your cleft? For pleasure and practice?’
She blushed and became tongue-tied, her hands over-gripping the chamois in her clutch. She averted her eyes, looking down and noticing, with surprise, that his trousers were unbuttoned and gaping.
‘It’s been a long time now, and I miss it.’
‘We can never do such a thing,’ she hissed. ‘It’s unnatural and shameful.’ She was about to explain the moral codes and the potential genetic disasters, when his words finally arrived at her understanding. ‘When did you do that before?’ she asked slowly. ‘And who with?’ Even as the question formed, she knew the answer, a picture of it assembling in the furthest recess of her mind.
‘With Luluwa,’ he said. ‘Many times before.’
The shock hit her in the strangest of ways. An unknown taste entered her mouth; her spine shivered, and she had the overpowering sense of being very far away, of being tiny while her body bloated, expanding to become the size of a continent. A flapping edge of swoon treacled her eyes, making everything peripheral to her speeding distance. And worst of all, in this ocean of disgust, fright and repulsion, delight quivered, on a far-off island, on the other side of the world: in her womb.
It was two days before she could bring herself to return. She did not know how she had escaped that last afternoon; her memory had been rinsed to make space for her imagination. The image of their unholy coupling had crowded into her skull, the elbows, knees and heels knocking against the bone. When she opened the door, he was standing by the shutters, picking at paint. He turned and anxiously began to speak. She put her finger to her lips and hushed him.
‘Say nothing,’ she said. ‘Say nothing.’
She crossed the room, taking his raised hand away from the shutters and holding it tightly in hers. Quietly, she led him through the room into the adjoining bedroom, guiding him onto the edge of the bed, and unbuttoning her long raincoat. She stood before him, naked and trembling. He undressed quickly, fumbling with the buttons while she sat next to him. His last garment discarded, he placed his hands on her shoulders and felt her shudder. He was startled by her softness and warmth, and she shivered in the excitement of wrongness, the fear of the unknown and her commitment to the untold levels of power she knew she would wield from that point on. He ran his hands along her body, feeling the curves swell against his touch. She had the same contours as Luluwa, but his first teacher’s cool hardness had never moved under the pressure of his body and her rigidity had been the height of his eroticism. Now, the heat and pliancy was transferred; she was like him, and they exchanged pressures by exquisite degrees. His fingers touched the inside of her legs, leaving tiny flakes of paint from under his nails. There was a jolt when he brushed against her pubic hair. He lowered his head and looked deep into her nakedness. An unmapped cog turned in the pale engine of his near-humanity.
They coupled for two hours, shifting positions and angles until every aspect had been achieved. He fell into sleep while still inside her, his weight balanced across her. She looked down across his back at his breathing. He was drawing out of her, leaving a glistening trail across her thigh, in the shadow of his body. His penis had an anti-clockwise spiral, and turned as it retracted. In future couplings, she would find herself watching it in fascination, but for now the motion was hidden and proclaimed itself in a tickling sensation that made her squirm, waking him from his total slumber.