Little Nothing (9 page)

Smetanka is delighted by the turn of events. Word spreads in advance of their arrival in new towns. The carnival's most reliable acts, Margolius, the Combustible Man, who can make smoke come out of his ears and nostrils before flames burst from the top of his head; Evo, the Fish Boy, whose mother has sewn flippers onto his back to go with the fin-like hands he was born with; and three-breasted Magdalena, and even Juliska (and Pavla feels a bit guilty about this), lose patrons to the Wolf Girl. Each night the lines in front of Smetanka's tent are the longest of them all. Pavla stops badgering Danilo about leaving. After all, she has no argument. They are neither of them indentured to the doctor and yet both of them stay.

—

T
HE
CARNIVAL
STOPS
are few as the warm months draw to a close and by the time of the first snowfall, nearly all the acts have dispersed. The Chinese twins and the human skeleton travel to
southerly countries where the season is longer. The giant returns to his village, where he spends the winter cramped inside a house he shares with his average-sized wife and children. The combustible man has been hired by a circus across the ocean where he will be shot out of a cannon while his hair is on fire. Without a plan, and fretting about money, Smetanka orders Pavla to change the act. Once she has lowered her hood and revealed herself as a wolf to the sparse, cold, and drunken audience, she and Danilo follow a new script:

“You are a wolf!” Danilo says.

“I'm no wolf. I'm a maiden,” she says.

“If you are a girl, then you must prove it. Otherwise I will get my gun and shoot you and use your pelt to make a winter coat for my dear mother.”

“But I have no pelt. I have skin just like any girl.”

“Show me.”

And so, little by little, as the stragglers in the audience hoot, Pavla begins to undress. One glove comes off. Danilo demands more proof. She removes the other. Danilo says that for all he knows she is a type of wolf out of Asia that has no hair on its paws. Off comes her boot and so on until she is down to her slip. The exposure of her stretched and scarred body is torture. Danilo falls to his knees before her and claims that hers is the most beautiful female body he has ever seen and that despite her terrible face, he promises to love her forever.

As Danilo speaks, his eyes glisten and his voice trembles. There are evenings when something unmistakable passes between them, and despite her mortification at being unclothed
before the shivering onlookers, she feels she never wants the play to end. But she knows he is only acting.

“You don't have to work so hard,” she says to him one evening as they clean up the tent. The night's crowd was particularly violent. A man not preselected by Smetanka stormed the stage and grabbed Pavla from behind, grinding himself into her. “You don't have to convince anybody. They just want to see me strip.”

“You're making fun of me.”

“I'm just trying to save your wasted effort.”

“It's no effort. And it's not wasted,” he says quietly.

His intensity is unnerving. He starts toward her and for a moment, she forgets who she is. But then her terror overwhelms her, and just when he is close enough that she can smell his breath, she lets out a roar and he backs away.

Danilo does not walk her to the caravan. She supposes he has gone to the tents Smetanka visits to drink and perhaps find a woman he can pay to do what she is too scared to do. Nights are freezing now, and once she is inside the caravan, she lies down, still bundled in her coat. She worries about what will happen to her. The towns are shuttering for winter. Most people will not earn money until planting season, and when even the most debauched and desperate citizens can't afford the price of a ticket, Smetanka will not be able to pay her even the few coins he does now. She can't go home and make her parents' lives more difficult. She has nowhere to go. Maybe she could trade her services as a housekeeper in exchange for a room until the season begins again. She laughs at her preposterous optimism. Who would hire her? She will have to sell herself to the lowest kind of men who
would find her an erotic thrill. She has heard women complain about the treatment they receive at the hands of their drunk husbands and lovers. And the carnival whores. Women with bruised faces. Women who cannot walk properly for a week after a rough night. She remembers her mother's stories about the monster and the sausage. She begins to drop off to sleep. With Danilo, it would be sweeter. Such intensity to his gaze, as if he were always on the verge of telling her something she wants to hear. She closes her eyes and lets herself imagine his hands on her face, the face of her girlhood, when she was the pride of the village with her azure eyes and golden hair. His hands pass over her shoulders and her chest. And then they move down. She unbuttons her coat. She pulls up the hem of her dress and finds the warm skin of her belly. Her fingers slide beneath the waistband of her underwear. She lays her hand on the fur that is meant to be there, that all women have. For she is a woman, isn't she? Isn't she? She closes her eyes. The caravan door squeaks open. She hears footsteps, the rustle of cloth. Her Danilo. He's forgone the prostitutes. He's come back.
You will find love
, Františka told him. He must realize that he already has, that she is here, that she has summoned him with her thoughts! His hand is on her arm.

“Dani,” she whispers. He moans. She feels the warmth of his fingers on her skin. When he runs his hands over the numbed scars at her armpits and around her groin, she feels nothing. But that insensitivity only makes the feeling of his fingers on the undamaged parts of her all the more exquisite. She feels the weight of him as he moves on top of her, as his leg parts her thighs. He exhales heavily, his breath smells of—

She opens her eyes just as Smetanka grabs her crotch. She screams and tries to push him off her, but he is too heavy. She cries for Danilo, but he does not come. Smetanka spits into his hand and reaches down then pushes himself at her, groping for entry. She opens her mouth to cry out one last time, then just as he is about to enter her, she closes her jaw around his neck and sinks her teeth into his skin. The taste stuns her. It is as if she has been starving and finally had her first bite of meat. She clamps down to secure his neck between her jaws and then shakes her head back and forth to loosen the meat from the bone. And now she can think of nothing but eating more, of filling her belly to steel herself against the oncoming winter. Effortlessly, she throws him off. She mounts his cowering body and attacks his face. She swallows and goes for his stomach, his thighs. She turns him over and bites down on the fleshy mounds of his buttocks. When she has finished, and there is nothing left of him but bone and sinew and hair, she lifts her head and
howls.

T
he bullet is lodged in her flank.
She twists around and licks the wound, trying to dislodge the nugget of metal, but it is wedged in too deep. She should never have gotten hurt. She should have been nimble and swift and able to run well out of the reach of the mob. But the meat she ate in the caravan was stewed in the same foul brew that drenches the sweat of her pursuers and it has made her slow. Now, as she begins to move again, she feels as if she were pushing her legs through deep mud even though the ground is cold and hard. A day ago, the first snow fell and although it melted quickly in the open fields, here in the forest where, despite a bare canopy, the sun seldom penetrates, it patchworks the ground and gathers in drifts at the bases of trees. The cold feels welcome on her paws, and when gusts of icy wind whip through the branches and seep into the outer layer of her fur, the dullness of her body abates and she feels physically alert. She wants to roll around in the soft snow and numb her
flank, to eat mouthfuls of the stuff to moisten her dry tongue. But she hears the snap and splinter of wood, then heavy bodies crashing through thickets. They have been following her trail of blood and now they are close.

She lifts her snout and opens her jaw. The sound begins as a silence in her chest as the bellows of her lungs expand. She tilts her head back to make more space in her throat. The sound needs to travel, she doesn't know how far. For a moment, she hesitates. She is alone and injured. The men are near. Her sound will lead them right to her. But she will not survive on her own. The note vibrates in her gullet and against the roof of her mouth. It starts low, and then her throat constricts so that it rises, up the tree trunks, up to the top of the leafless branches, growing louder as it flies into the frigid, white sky just like the flock of birds that passes overhead. She waits, her ears twitching forward, listening. But she hears only the footfalls of men, and now their voices.

Then a deep sound penetrates the forest. The howl is unbroken and direct. It builds in intensity until it feels as if it is suspended in a long arc from its source to where she stands. Higher cries join in, riding above the first, followed by a percussive flourish of barks. When one call winds down, another layers itself on top so that the pack seems numerous. But she is sure there are only three singing back to her, and that they are not far away. She might reach them before either her leg gives out or the men pull close enough to fire on her again. She moves. The pain explodes and she feels it everywhere—in her leg, her belly, her teeth, the tip of her snout. Her senses close down so it feels as if she were racing blind except for a prick of brightness in the
center of her vision. She aims for that light and runs as hard and as fast as she can.

—

T
HE
THREE
WOLVES
stand on a snowy rise. Two males are dark brown with black masks, but the third male is entirely white, so white that it is impossible to distinguish its paws from the snow it stands on, so bright that it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. She slows her pace and moves carefully now. The white wolf snarls at her, baring his teeth. He lunges forward, then backs up, then prances forward again. His tail is poised behind him, level with the ground; his ears lie flat against his head. Unsure, she stops moving. Slowly, the white one advances. The two dark ones follow closely behind his flanks, their growls quiet and tense, their heads held low. As they slowly make their way down the knoll, they keep her in their sights. Once on flat land, they advance. The white wolf's body stiffens as he readies himself to attack. His lips pull back, his ears pitch forward. Then he rushes ahead, snapping his teeth, stopping just short of her. Her leg is on fire and she is weak. She backs up but she doesn't have the energy to run. The white wolf is about to lunge when suddenly, a sharp crack. The white wolf stops moving. The dark ones unleash frantic yips and scatter. Has she been hit again? She waits for the pain to announce itself as it did the last time, first as something precise and almost bearable before it lacerated her, spiraling through her body, knocking her down. She feels nothing but the insistent throbbing of the old wound in her leg.
The men have missed their mark and opened up a chance. The white wolf turns and races up and over the crest of the rise. She follows but just as she starts her descent, a man appears. He raises his gun and aims it toward her face. She looks into his dark, liquid eyes. His terror shifts something inside of her and she snarls at him, baring her teeth. The white wolf shrieks as a rock hits his side and he stumbles, sliding the rest of the way down the incline. Three other men are closing in. “What are you waiting for?” shouts one of them.

She doesn't know what those sounds mean. The one with the gun stares at her. His arms tremble, the gun wavers, drawing a wobbly circle around her head. “Pavla?” he whispers.

The others raise their guns just as the white wolf regains his footing. He snarls and charges them. Terrified, they back off and the white one escapes into the woods.

“Shoot the bitch, Danilo!” a man cries as he runs away.

“Is it you?” the man with the gun says. She doesn't understand him, doesn't know why he lowers the weapon, why he reaches out with one hand as if to touch her. She sees the tip of the white wolf's tail disappearing between the trees. What is this man offering her? There is nothing in his hand. No food.

“Pavla?”

She turns and flees into the forest.

—

D
AY
AFTER
DAY
,
she trails them as they search for food. They kill a rabbit, a vole, small prey that is hardly enough to satisfy the
three of them. Whenever she draws too close, hoping for a leftover bone or a taste of flesh, they turn on her, snarl and bark their warning, and she retreats again, dragging her wounded leg behind her. Snow falls continually now. The cold energizes the pack and they move quickly. She follows them beyond the tree line and across an open field. The wind is so strong that it feels like she is pushing against something solid, and she can't keep up. When she loses sight of them, she follows the scent of their urine.

Finally, when they stop to rest, she gets the chance to catch up. She settles down at a safe distance and they pay her no attention. She watches the two dark wolves tussle. Sometimes one flips the other and takes the bared throat in its jaws. At other times, the game is reversed. Occasionally, the white wolf joins in, but mostly it is the dark ones who vie with each other while the white one looks on, ears up, nose in the air, attentive for the sound or scent of something promising or dangerous. She sleeps only when they sleep, and then she wakes at every noise, fearful that one of them will attack her. When they move on, she trails behind slowly so that at times she can only see the others as shadows through the scrim of snowfall. Sometimes, when she is so weak that her other faculties seem to fail her, she realizes that she is not following them at all but has only directed herself toward the dark shapes of rocks, and she has to find them all over again. After a few days, the bullet settles into her muscle in such a way that, although there is a constant pinch, she can move more quickly. Still, she is starving. The others ignore her, but they do not chase her off, and so she keeps following, watching closely, trying to understand how she might win a place among them so that she can survive.

They walk for days with no food. Then one afternoon, when the snow turns a cast of blue and the forest feels especially still, the white wolf catches a scent and takes off at a fast trot. The others follow behind, their footfalls soundless in the snow. She picks up the odor as well and her body tightens and becomes suffused with a sudden energy so concentrated that she no longer feels her injury or her hunger, only a keen, thoughtless purpose that propels her. Soon enough, she sees the deer. They stand in a clearing, heads up, as still as the trees around them. Then, all at once, they break into a run. The wolves are faster, though, and soon they have caught up and run parallel to the herd. The white wolf leads the others, maintaining a wide margin between himself and the deer. The dark ones follow suit and so does she, running behind the pack. Just as the sun dips below the horizon and it becomes harder to judge the distance to a tree or see where the sky stops and the snow begins, one of the smaller deer slows down and separates from the others. The white wolf narrows the distance between himself and his lone target until he is so close that in one final bound, he falls on the animal and attacks its hips. The deer breaks its stride and stumbles but somehow manages to pull itself up, break free, and keep going. One of the dark wolves lunges at its head, attacking its snout and eyes while the white wolf sinks its teeth into its side, tearing a gash in its hide. The deer falls. The wolves make quick work of opening up the body, exposing the flesh and organs and the still-pulsing heart. The deer pedals its legs, as if it doesn't know that it is finished, that its blood and innards are spilled onto the snow, and that it is being devoured. Soon, it stops moving altogether.

The smell of flesh and blood overwhelms her. Slowly, keeping her body low to the ground and her tail between her legs, she approaches the feasting wolves. One of the dark ones sees her and barks. She stops for a moment, but her hunger is too powerful. When she sees a morsel of flesh lying on the snow, she darts forward and claims it. The white one, its muzzle covered in blood and slick, quivering meat turns on her fiercely. Grabbing hold of the meat that hangs from her jaw, he wrestles it from her, then charges her, forcing her to back off. Defeated, exhausted, she lowers herself onto the snow, taking a small consolation in a bit of flesh that remains lodged in her teeth. She lays her head on her paws.

—

W
HEN
SHE
WAKES
,
it is dark. There is no sound. The wind has died down and the cold has absorbed all but a trace of the smell of flesh. She sees the dark outlines of the others who sleep not far from her, and beyond them, the carcass. Slowly, she gets to her feet and, keeping a wide berth, creeps past the wolves, drawing nearer to the carcass by degrees, expecting at any moment that one of the others will attack. When she reaches the eviscerated skeleton, she takes a scrap of hide in her mouth. The first taste sends her into a frenzy and she tears through the remains, crunching down on bones to get at the marrow, swallowing the sinew and tendons the others rejected. She eats until there is nothing left and then she sleeps.

She's woken by a frightened yelp. The two dark ones are fighting. One tosses the other on its back. But instead of allowing the
fallen one to get up and resume play, he bares his teeth and clamps down hard on his victim's throat. The downed wolf shrieks. She creeps closer, and then closer still, and then throws herself into the fracas, teasingly pouncing on the aggressor, then falling to the snow. He is still intent on the other wolf, so she stands and swats him playfully with her paw then falls to the snow again and rolls onto her back, exposing her neck. Distracted, he releases the wolf and begins to play with her, nudging her with his muzzle, nipping her ears, grabbing her by the withers, shaking her, letting go. He allows her to stand and mount another playful attack on him before, once again, throwing her to the ground. The other one joins in this mock fight and whatever danger existed between the two wolves is dispelled. The white wolf who has ignored everything up until this point, content to groom himself, stands and heads deeper into the woods. The others leave off playing and fall in with him. She follows, only closer this time. After a while, the white wolf circles back and falls in with her. As she walks beside him, she shifts her stance so that she is lower than he is, her shoulders hunched, her head bent to the ground. He walks next to her for a long time. When he finally pulls ahead to lead the pack, no one chases her away.