The Gnome's Feast In the night no sound could be heard but the maniacal rasping of the streetsweeper's brush. I walked silently, habitually, through the cobblestone streets, driven by the sort of lunar madness which is common in my family to wander in the dark. The moon had already set but I could not ignore it . The events of the day had affected me too strongly; I could hardly even sleep in the heat which I had before found comforting. The man from the federal offices arrived that afternoon. They sent him, it was said, to ensure our prosperity in this new era. Although we had never suffered any great economic difficulty, we welcomed him. Perhaps "we" is the wrong word, for I greeted him cheerfully only in my official capacity as son of the mayor. In my private heart I despised him on sight and I feared what might become of our community if we followed his advice. He was short, freakishly so, and malformed for his height. I noticed he was not a miniaturized person, as are so many graceful midgets, but instead a compressed stub of a man. Nothing good could come of this gnome, who smelled of dead fish and had a head of wispy, useless hair. His face was ruddy, but not in the way we construe as indicative of a jolly temperament. Rather, he seemed to be trapped in a continuous state of ineffectual fury. When I shook his hand, which he extended in a graceless, flailing motion, I pulled out of his grip quickly. His palm was sweaty and covered with grime. I had to lean down to hug him, and when I did I could smell a scent of alcohol which had previously been obscured by the overpowering fishy smell that surrounded him. It was not so much his lack of respect for my people that offended me as the disgrace of his condition, which was like that of an old man but without the justification of age. Worst of all, he would not speak. I cannot bear muteness. It is a malady that robs a man of his very character, leaves him nothing more than a lump of slowly decomposing flesh. The gnome was a particularly shameful case. Unlike those beggars who lie about in the alleys all day mumbling and whose tongues have been cut out (for that at least gives them some character), he was in full possession of his faculties. In his impudence he merely chose not to use them. To me it seemed impossible that this tiny man could be of any service at all to the village, let alone bring about a new era of economic prosperity. He was obviously physically inept, but moreover I could tell he was a moron from the shape of his sunken chin. Even though he did not speak, he demonstrated his ignorance with every action. He walked shakily, wobbling a bit in his outsize shoes; his blazer, ill-made for the climate, was at least three sizes too big. His face bore a ludicrous smile, hideously and immodestly displaying his many gold teeth. As soon as I was done greeting him, I ran back to my father's mansion with the intent of vomiting the contents of my stomach. The gnome's odor lingered with me, and my hand was still damp with his sweat. I felt disastrously unclean, wholly unfit to walk about in polite company. In the mansion there were cakes and drinks laying about on tables for the reception that was to follow his arrival, but they were to be taken outside shortly. I flung my elegant sportscoat onto a chair, unconcerned about whether it might become wrinkled. My stomach was churning and I began to drool a bit on my shirt, which though old was still precious to me. My armpits were soaked through with sweat. I tore open the door to the bathroom, unconcerned about whether I might catch someone in the act of defecation. Cleansing myself was more important. There was no one inside, fortunately; for I'm sure I looked a disgrace at the time. Wiping my mouth on a ratty towel, I fell to my knees next to the sink. Unable to stand again, I advanced slowly kneeling towards the toilet. My knees were sore and I was sure they would bruise. I leaned over the commode and readied myself. At the last moment, the sickness left me. Groaning, I stood up. There was no explanation for all this other than that the gnome had done something to me in the moment we embraced. My entire body felt raw. Not only would this visitor from the capital not improve the state of things in the village, he was a spreader of contagion. I crossed myself. All these events would bring nothing but destruction to my town. Brushing off my pants and buttoning my sportscoat, which had now become wrinkled, I went outside to the reception. It seemed the whole town was there. Poor and rich, cultured and ignorant; all had made themselves available for the gnome's reception. If any of them showed disappointment in the form their official salvation had taken, no one spoke of it. I couldn't even see it in their eyes. They seemed nothing but grateful for the gift they'd received from the capital. I was used to being disgusted by the people my father led. It's no easy thing to raise an entire town to a more worthy state of being, especially for a man my father's age. He knows this, and often we discuss it in the evenings on the veranda. He says he hopes he dies soon so I can take over; he understands that only a young leader can really save the people from their own ignorance. I agree; I always agree with my father. In the flickering of the oil lamps and the dead light of sunset, it would be improper to argue. He is in his decline, and, although it is possible to ignore at night it is obvious in the day. Things that in his youth might have sent him into a rage now elicit from him only a phlegmatic cough. Often I have refused even to acknowledge him when he is in such a state, thinking it perhaps more decorous to leave him to his own devices. In the evening, however, when he is lucid after a nap, I find great joy in conversing with him on all manner of subjects. He is a learned man, which makes it even more of a shame that the townsfolk he is consigned by law to love are so hopelessly stupid. I used to love him for disdaining the world, but now I find it more difficult to do so; in fact, when he hugged the gnome again at the reception that day, it seemed almost heartfelt. I was offended when I walked out onto the patio and saw them embracing. The gnome was so far beneath my father in both height and dignity that when they hugged he looked like he was picking the tiny man up off his feet. Nor was this any sort of political gesture. I looked at my father's face and saw it was marred by an obtuse smile. There was nothing pleasant about all this. Why should this horrible joke of an official make my father so joyful? It revolted me that they should have become so close so quickly when the gnome remained mute and my father was a man of letters. Both were quite obviously drunk, but that excused nothing. It only encouraged my fury. We had not had such a reception in town for many years and were perhaps somewhat ill-prepared for all this. Then the band began to play, and my father and the gnome executed a quick box step. Such childish behavior seemed almost natural when attached to the gnome's tiny frame, but it did not fit my father. Resigned to this misfortune, I cut myself a slice of cake and sat down on a lawn chair. The music was delightful, although not modern, and at least I could appreciate it. The band was one of the most well-respected in the province, with none of the metallic tone which so often mars less practiced musicians. The gnome's feast went on for hours. I remained in unmoving in my chair for much of it, although my disgust often brought me close to outburst. The gnome, I thought, was poorly made for life on earth. He could serve no purpose, so far as I could discern, save to make me enraged. In my bitterest moments I thought him some personal curse delivered from God to me, but my learning has taught me better. God owes me more than such relentless punishment for my loyalty. When the sun began to set, a group of farmers clumsily lit lanterns around the border of the patio. Secretly I wanted to strangle them for ruining what small solitude the darkness promised me. All through the day people had approached me, bothering me for a bit of conversation or asking me my opinion on the weather. For the record, we had suffered no weather to speak of for the past month. I'd hoped that nightfall might have given them an excuse to leave the party and return to their individual occupations. Nothing of the sort occurred. Instead, more wine was poured and more meat served. Various townspeople, in ever-increasing states of drunkenness, began to make all sorts of obscene propositions to me. My father, gurgling incomprehensibly, wandered around the mansion grounds like a waterless duck. One by one, the lanterns were gradually extinguished. Each in turn gave a sputter, and a shower of sparks, and then fell silent. We'd burned all our lamp oil for the sake of a single reception. More would have to be imported from the coast, and, in the meantime, I would be unable to do any writing after dusk. My rage grew into a personal animosity towards the hideous gnome who'd brought this all to pass. Three of my friends, now thoroughly drunk, ambled up to me and asked me how I'd liked the reception. Knowing how they loved to take advantage of me in my irate moments, I kept myself under control. Instead, I asked them to meet me at my house before dawn tomorrow to take care of a personal matter that had been irritating me for a little while now. They all agreed, but said they might be a bit late because of breakfast. Try as I might I was now incapable of sleep. Without even resting my head on a pillow I knew this. When I was so full of rage as I was there was nothing in the world that could quiet my furious mind. Only time might salve it; I would have to let it expend its own energy into the air like a dying beast. When I was a child I had often gone on night walks after a particularly furious argument with my father. I hold this local custom responsible for the maintenance of order in our household. Often there were others in the street at night, but this evening they were empty. Everyone had gone home and immediately to bed, stuffed full of food and drink at the reception. In the houses I could hear the noises of poor digestion, the moans of children who were inexperienced with so much decadence. Old men tottered drunkenly into bathrooms, crashing into furniture, vomiting up the contents of their bellies on carpets and tile. I knew this was only the beginning of our ruin. Tomorrow everything would begin to rot and a stench like sour death would rise in the streets. No one would be able to move to clean anything. They’d be awed by the sheer mass of their error and, unable to correct it, watch from windows or decrepit porches as everything they had accomplished was slowly ground into the dust of the streets by the forces of decomposition. I could no longer bear to be in the streets; I turned back and made my way home. In front of the mansion I encountered the crystal fountain which my father had erected less than a year ago to celebrate the strength and spirit of the townsfolk (although in truth he despised both). Water flowed down its flanks silently; after the revelry someone had chipped the rim. The damage was irreparable and the fountain was irreplaceable. A vision of the dawn rose before me, stained blood-red. In the morning when I woke up and saw for a second time this idiot gnome who had been sleeping in my father's house curled up like a lima bean, I became even more disgusted. For one thing, I immediately recalled my own youth, which had not been so long ago, and the way I'd been scared to sleep in the open back then. To my perception, the manner of this gnome was precisely the same: full of fear and deserving of nothing but the most intense disrespect. But, after all, he was not here by his own free will. He seemed not even to have the mental capacity to direct himself in one direction or another; only he went away from pain and towards pleasure. This, as the scholars wisely told us, is most certainly no way to lead an enlightened sort of life. One must have directions, one must have aims. One must be certain where one is going! It is certainly a terrible thing to be prodded by pain into greater anguish. Thinking thus I was not so sure his lack of intelligence excused him so much as it damned him. I myself have always been disappointed and slightly disgusted by those who seem to lack self-control. The way I'd seen him smiling and chuckling to himself yesterday only made it worse. Anyone catching him in one of his more jocular moods (if this thing can be said to have moods at all) would have said he was a man of most delicate personality, but I knew this was not so. Indeed he seemed to exist as a parody of my way of thought. So when I woke before dawn and sat in the old velvet-lined chair next to his bed and stared at him intently I was merely investigating. In the false dawn which occurs not terribly early on winter mornings I could barely catch his outline. This itself was not so horribly revolting. Sillouhetted in repose he seemed like any other man sleeping despite the way he was curled up; he just looked a little shorter than he was. Dwarfs we'd had before in town and them I could cope with. I was just concerned about anything so disturbingly new that I would be forced into some great revision of my lifestyle. I rolled a cigarette from a little pocket kit I always carried with me, even in my bathrobe. The sun rose sluggishly, like someone had wounded it during the night. I almost lit up, but I was concerned the smell might disturb my subject so instead I was cautious. When the morning light finally and conclusively rolled over the windowsill I suddenly became almost sick to my stomach. Everything I saw before me seemed disjointed and disastrously improper. The first thing I noticed was that the gnome was sleeping naked. This was a custom in many parts of the country though none did it here for propriety's sake, and I was rather opposed to it for personal reasons. He was hairy from head to toe, but especially about his ankles and wrists. I would suppose he was the sort of person you'd call “swarthy,” if you were going to use any terms at all. I thought instead that he looked like some kind of great ape. In the schools they showed postcards from exotic locales with mountain gorillas surrounded by an eerie mist which everyone recognized as being universally characteristic of autumn. His facial hair showed no special pattern of organization, in sharp contrast to those well-respected men among my people whose beards and mustaches were nattily trimmed. In short, my first impression had been correct and I detested him. When I looked him over more closely I was even more repulsed. He was a bit chubby, and his limbs seemed ill-suited for the torso to which they were attached. The arms and legs were both too long and too thin. They belonged on some figure far more elegant than this mismatched jumble of human parts that'd been deposited among us and which those with authority in our village had been powerless to reject. I envisioned them on a warrior or a runner of great fame, rather than miraculously jointed onto this stubby little gnome. Indeed I almost wanted them for myself, if they could be had without the accompanying hair. In this aspect at least I was envious; I'd been born with somewhat atrophied legs and had always wanted a more pleasantly shaped pair, one that would allow me to play at sports and to work outside. But to compensate I've worked hard building up the muscles over the rest of my body, and if I make sure I'm never seen without pants everyone believes I'm perfectly normal. These things, however, are unimportant. What in my mind seems more critical is the way he was sleeping, curled up, as I've said, like a lima bean. Only dogs sleep that way freely. His position was almost fetal, but not quite; instead it was something altogether unnatural to the human form. His neck was bent as a disturbing angle, as were his hips, and if one did not examine closely one might have thought his knees were bent backwards. This thing was only a trick of the light but I could not help thinking it was the product of some insane intent on the gnome's part. Then as the light grew I was revolted by his face. I have always detested people who don't know enough to see to their own hygiene, and our guest was clearly among that number. He was still coated in fishy-smelling grime, his face a uniform shade of grey interrupted only by darker lines along his nose and eyes. I wondered how he could breath through all that soot and whether perhaps his silence was due to an attack of the black lung, but I wrote off this possibility immediately as he could not possibly have become an official of the government with such an ailment. Who ever heard of a coal miner representing our president? He yawned, and it was clear that soon he would be awake. I checked my pocketwatch. Only a few minutes now. I observed he did not wake as normal people do, in a single sharp break with sleep. Instead he seemed to grow more and more conscious with each passing moment, like some sort of lizard stirring at the beginning of the day. The gnome opened his eyes, which I could tell at a glance perceived nothing. He didn't even know I was in the room with him, wasn't modest enough to put on some pants at least. I heard a knock at the door. Thank God! I'd become tired of all this waiting and staring at the lewd form which even now lay prostrate before me. I stood up, and, stepping into the foyer, lit the cigarette I'd rolled earlier but had not lit for fear of waking the gnome. Now I need not be concerned with that. I opened the door, and my two good friends from secondary school appeared on the stoop. I invited them in. We sat and had some coffee, and they joked a bit about having to be up at this ungodly hour. Last night I'd told them I needed help with something the next day and would they be at my house around such-and-such hour, the tenth of December. Now they were curious as to what it was all about. I offered them both a cigarette wordlessly, and we trooped into the gnome's bedroom without making a noise. By this point he was a little more awake, though he still did not really perceive us. I was exasperated. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently, making his arms flop about wildly before he gained control of himself. I suppose he understood it was time to get up, because he stood, and wordlessly I held him down while my friends got a pair of old pants on him. We dragged him out into the street. I said I just wanted to ask him a few questions, but he didn't understand even this. He just sat down without moving, and smiled that smile of his, and laughed that supercilious laugh. He was mocking me, I could tell. We all did look fairly ridiculous, me in my bathrobe, he sitting in the middle of a dirt road, my two friends standing between us. To an outsider it must have looked like some duel between madmen was about to commence. This only added to my rage, which by this point was developing into the sort of coolness that comes when one has lost control completely. I kept myself within reason. First I asked him where he'd come from, if he'd arrived here on purpose or was he just a wanderer out on the roadways. He didn't answer. Then I asked him if he intended any harm to our town or our people. These are the things one usually asks new arrivals, although strictly speaking it is my father's duty to do so. On that day, he'd chosen to delegate me, saying he'd rather sleep in that morning. The gnome still didn't answer, still smiled, still chuckled. I proffered him a cigarette. He made no move to accept. I lit it for him, took a drag to show him how it was done around here. Still the gnome did nothing, made no sign of having understood refused completely to communicate anything to me. I became sick to my stomach. I applied the lit end of the cigarette I’d offered him to the middle of his bare back. Immediately he stopped laughing, realizing that my rage had broken. I didn't speak, but all the same my mouth held danger. The little round spot on his back was bright red, flecked with black ash. In that moment there was such great tension I could not bear it, and I sensed also my friends were uncomfortable; I think even in the addled head of the gnome something awaited resolution eagerly. I put the gnome’s cigarette to my mouth, then threw it to the ground in disgust. It was of no use to me now, tainted as it was with the smell of singed hair and burnt flesh. My friend, seeing that I was barefoot, stamped it out obligingly. I returned my own cigarette to my lips. Then, all of a sudden and as one, we began kicking him. The first kick landed on his chest and knocked him over backwards, then another came down on his face and made his nose spray blood. I was disgusted. My bathrobe was completely ruined. A foot struck the gnome's groin, another his wrist; I heard a snap. Then they came too fast, blurring together like a mistake in a painting which has been brushed-over too many times. Then the assault ceased abruptly. The gnome rolled over, stood up. None of us made any attempt to stop him from rising. Then at last a look of abject sorrow and absolute terror came into his eyes, and finally I saw reflected in them some emotions which might be described as human rather than bestial. He had regained his senses. Awkwardly, he tried to run down the street towards the glass fountain, limping, trailing blood. I retrieved from my sash a revolver, two chambers of which were loaded. I pulled the trigger, but neither sound nor smoke issued forth from the barrel. In consternation, I rotated the chambers by hand so that I was sure a bullet was properly loaded. Raising the gun, I fired again, and I'm sure the noise woke father, who was in a sour mood the rest of the day. The bullet entered the gnome's back between two bones of his vertebrae, shattering his spine and crushing his heart. But it did not pass through to the other side. He collapsed into the dust, sweating profusely.
Copyright © 2000 Martin John Devecka Dr. Z |