The Peddler
By Edward A. Rodosek
Tara couldn’t understand the change that had come over Marcel. It had all started that day at the circus.
“Tara,” said Marcel and glanced at me over the newspaper, “the Circus Bodoni came into our town yesterday.”
“Bodoni? I’ve heard about it.” I didn’t stop mincing the greens I was preparing. “Shall we go to see the show?”
He smiled. “You don’t care a pin for circus shows, Tara. But I know you’re mad about the fortunetelling.”
I stopped my work and gazed at him. His hair was receding, but what was left was dark brown and curly. Only his long sideburns were touched with gray.
“Okay, okay,” he consented. “We could take a peep. Maybe they have some interesting animals.”
Now I chuckled. “I hope you don’t try to bribe some tamer to allow you to wash an elephant like you did last time.”
The doorbell buzzed and Marcel glanced through the window at the front yard. “It’s Bill. He surely brought me the last issue of The Threatened Nature.”
I saw him talking with the postman. About that time, the local tramp, Ida, hobbled along the sidewalk, pushing her shopping cart, and Marcel gave her some change. Coming back, he waved at their neighbor, Stillman, who was out watering his geraniums.
Our cat, Kitty, entered the kitchen with Marcel. When he bowed down and caressed her, Kitty jumped up on a chair. He gave her a small vanilla cake from the jar.
“Why do you feed Kitty so much?” I objected. “You just look at how fat she is.”
“Oh, she’s just mad about those vanilla cakes,” he said smiling.
Our old Ford inched through the dense crowd in the amusement park.“It’s hopeless,” said Marcel. “We’ll never find a free parking space.”
“Look, Marcel,” I shouted, “there on the left!”
He made a sharp curve into the last free space. I carefully stepped out of the car onto the soaked grass, but the mud presented a slippery obstacle.
“Give me your hand, Cinderella,” Marcel said, “otherwise you’ll loose your shoe.”
I chuckled. “Oh, Prince Charming, thank you so very much. Where is the ticket office?”
We started to hustle through the crowd. There was a deafening roll of drums. A brass band thundered, and sawdust stuck to the mud that was already caking our shoes. Finally, we managed to find some seats on a bench, pressed between a fat man and a mother with a whimpering baby on her lap.
The show was already in full swing; in the middle of the arena, a huge cage was set and the tamer in it cracked his whip.
“Look, Tara,” Marcel’s eyes widened. “The tigers — four, five, six! Aren’t they magnificent?”
Soon the workers removed the cage and the elephants came in, holding one another by the tail. After them, riders appeared, showing their skill on the galloping horses, and then the snake-man and the trapeze artists. There were all the usual appearances but none of them were really any more than average.
I glimpsed at Marcel and tried to subdue his yawning. I neared my lips to his ear and he nodded with relief. While we got up and squeezed out of the big tent, the uproar behind us became more bearable.
I took Marcel’s arm and we walked along the long row of brightly decorated stalls and countless little twinkling lights.
“Where do you wish to go now?” he asked me.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I think we shouldn’t need to search for too very long.” After several steps, I stopped and pointed my forefinger to the left.
“Aha,” Marcel said. “I knew it; that was the real reason we came here.” He loudly read the worn inscription over the entrance to a small cabin. “‘The Omniscient Fatima — your past, your future — useful advising for you.’ Oh, what a cliché! Do you really want to enter?”
“What a silly question. Give me a tenner.” He sighed and handed me the bill. “Will you wait here for me, Marcel? I won’t be too long inside — ten, maybe fifteen minutes at most.”
“That’s out of the question,” he answered. “I’m going to find a tent with beautiful young belly dancers. Maybe they’ll also serve the arrack and an opium pipe.”
I bent my brows.
“Okay,” he added. “I’m going to look around the nearby stalls and I’ll be back here in twenty minutes or so.”
When I went out again — confused and disappointed — Marcel wasn’t there yet. Of course, I had only been inside five minutes and that was fully in vain.I still couldn’t comprehend why had the fortuneteller behaved in such an odd manner. After she took the tenner, she had offered me a crystal ball, prophesying from coffee grounds, or reading the future from my hand.
Madam Fatima was babbling all the time while I reached out my left palm and she held it under the table lamp. Instantly she became silent and her bronzed face went noticeably numb. She let go of my hand, got up, gave the tenner back to me, and began to excuse herself.
“Sorry, ma’am, regretfully I couldn’t see anything from your palm. My magic power is helpless in your case; you know, that happens sometimes.”
She neither replied to my question nor did she listen to my objections.
“Sorry again, ma’am, no hard feelings.” Then she quickly helped me, gently but firmly, out of her cabin.
That damned gypsy must have been nuts, no doubt about that. And I was crazy for persuading Marcel to visit that silly circus. I should simply forget the entire incident.
I took a walk to the nearest sweets stall and ordered a coffee. After about twenty minutes, I decided to return to the fortuneteller’s cabin.
Marcel wasn’t there yet, so I ambled through the stalls looking around. Then I noticed a dark, lonely figure standing aside with his back to the crowd.
“Hey, Marcel!”
He turned round slowly as if he had just woke up, his strange, absent-minded gaze never ceased to amaze me.
“Where have you been, Marcel? Is everything okay?”
He nodded without saying a word and stepped slowly, hesitantly up to me. Then he pulled the car keys out of his pocket and without looking at me, he resolutely headed toward our car. Trying to keep pace with him, I looked at his profile and noticed he was . . . well, different in a way, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
His expression was severe, tightly pressed lips, a protruding chin, with his gaze fixed straightforward. Had Marcel always been this way? No, it was different. For heaven’s sake, I surely know my husband after seven years of marriage.
His silence made me nervous. “Did you find anything interesting?” I inquired.
Marcel shrugged his shoulders indifferently, still avoiding my eyes.
I wanted to know and I didn’t want to stop asking until I found out. “You’ve certainly visited the lion’s cubs? Or a hypnotist? The House of Ghosts?”
He shook his head repeatedly and that irritated me. “Damned, don’t be so mysterious! Where have you been?”
Marcel hesitated for a moment. “I was at a peddler’s. His tent stood at the south end of the alley.”
“At a peddler? What was he selling? Did you find anything worth buying?”
Marcel shrugged again. “He didn’t have anything I wanted. So we just talked for a while.”
“You talked with a total stranger — what about?”
“Oh, I don’t remember. About this and that. Nothing in particular.”
“I don’t believe that,” I commented. “It must have been more then nothing in particular for you to look so absent-minded now.”
“I am not absent-minded.” His voice became gruff. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
He unlocked the car and sharply drove away before I had time to fasten my seat belt. Neither of us broke the silence all the way home.
Marcel garaged the car while I went upstairs to our bedroom. I undressed myself, and stretched on the sheets. There were no signs that my husband would come after me. I picked up a book but after some time I realized I didn’t have a clue what I was reading. So, I turned the light off but I wasn’t sleepy at all. I lay on the bed, miserable, hopeless, exhausted, and confused. Finally, I went to the bathroom, looked for a sleeping pill, and washed it down with a gulp of unpleasant tepid water.
All I needed now was a good, long sleep. In the morning, everything would be okay, as always.
I didn’t know how long I had slept when a brutal hand grabbed me and turned me over on my back. What . . . a moment later I realized that it was Marcel.“Hey, wait!” I protested. “If you suddenly want sex, this is not the way to –”
Marcel’s hand covered my mouth and before I managed to push him away, he pushed my legs apart with his knees. I resisted and tried to tumble aside but his body was strong and heavy. He took me violently and heedlessly, without any kisses, and without any foreplay, like a whore. He didn’t care a bit about my rage and it didn’t disturb him in the least. I felt only disgust and shame.
Luckily, he finished quickly and tumbled from me on to his side of the bed. Tears of despair fell down my cheeks; I started to strike him with my hands. I punched him with clenched fists — his back, his arms and legs, and the pillow with which he protected his head. Just as suddenly, my strange man left and I could only sob. I tottered to the bathroom and started to rub my body with a soaped sponge. I stayed under the warm shower so long I nearly fell asleep in the shower. Feeling dizzy I descended the stairs into the living room, grabbed a pillow and a blanket, and there I laid down on the sofa bed.
The sun streaming through the window woke me at eleven. My tongue was swollen and a repulsive taste resided in my mouth. As I got up, I recalled what had happened the night before. An odd mixture of feelings flashed through my mind — disbelief, anger, humiliation.Marcel was on duty, thank God, so he wouldn’t return before six. How would I behave? What would be proper to say to him after such a grave conflict? That wasn’t just an ordinary quarrel, damn it! It was . . . it was something I couldn’t understand. It was as if I had dealings with a stranger instead with my Marcel, my husband, who I’d known all those years.
I pondered at least a dozen possibilities as to how I should behave and I discarded them one after another. Not scolding, not reproaching, not a threat of divorce — nothing seemed proper to me. I puttered around the house, tried to tidy up the rooms, displaced things aimlessly and then put them back. Before I realized the time had passed, I heard the familiar noise of Marcel’s car.
Oh, God, was it possible that it was already six o’clock? My mouth was dry, and my palms wet. I sat down in the armchair against the door so I could see his face the moment he entered. I heard Marcel’s steps coming near and then he entered the living room.
“You are not Marcel, are you?” I heard myself saying. “Who the devil are you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” He needed only a few seconds to overcome his first surprise. His gaze seemed strange, soulless.
“You are not my husband.” I stared at his stern features. “I want my husband — I want my real Marcel to come back! He shall love me again, the way he loved me earlier, all these years!”
He glared at me recklessly. “Tara, you’re either drunk or out of your mind.” His voice was restrained, his attitude steady.
“What . . . oh, God, what happened at that damned peddler’s? What has that devil done with you? Did he implant something in you . . . some demon?” I was on the brink of tears and I felt my fists clenching so hard that my nails thrust into my palms. “Answer me, damn you!”
“Why should I answer you?” His voice remained indifferent. “You just said that I was not your husband. I’m somebody else, a stranger. Therefore you haven’t any right to ask me personal questions.” Calm and self-controlled, he walked into his study and closed the door.
I wanted to go after him and confront him head on, he had no right to treat me the way he did, but I couldn’t do that. All my arguments seemed unconvincing and my entire imagination vanished.
I was still sitting in the armchair when he came out of the study dressed in a sweater and flannels. The odd thing was that I felt an embarrassment while he obviously didn’t. He took armfuls of books from the shelves and carried them out into our backyard. I was dumbfounded. Among his choices were five or six complete bound volumes of The Threatened Nature, his favorite magazine.
Not long after that, I noticed the smell of smoke. I went to the window and saw Marcel burning the magazines inside an old steel barrel. I didn’t understand. He loved those magazines, and before yesterday he had been literally obsessed with reading them.
I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich or two for my own supper only. While I was buttering my bread, I heard a painful groan from outside and noticed something white flying past the kitchen window. What . . .?
I rushed to the window just in time to notice our white cat running in a panic away from Marcel. He kicked at her, a spiteful expression on his face. He kicked Kitty, the beloved pet that he’d always caressed and spoiled!
My blood was boiling. I had patience when he treated me rudely but that was too much! I wouldn’t allow him to wreak his malice on the poor animal. I rushed through the entrance hall but Marcel was already getting into our old Ford. He turned the car onto the street recklessly, running over a neighbor child’s bike.
“What are you doing, you bastard?” I shouted with rage. Then I realized that wasn’t an accident. He instantly braked, and violently drove backwards, completely distorting the poor bicycle. Throwing the car into drive, he sped down the empty street.
I was confused, angry, and dismayed. Who could I ask for help, or at least for advice? My parents were dead, my only sister was somewhere overseas, and my best friend Sophie was in the maternity ward at the hospital. What about some adviser for married couples, or a shrink? Oh, no. They would surely demand I should first talk reasonably with my husband.
I shook my head. Maybe that was the only way. I mustn’t give up after the first try. I have to persuade Marcel to listen to me, and both of us have to try understanding each other. Calmly, as two adult, civilized people.
Hours passed, and then it grew dark but Marcel still hadn’t returned. Late in the evening, I went upstairs to our bedroom. I grabbed his pajamas, two pillows and a blanket. I held them as far from me as I could and carried them downstairs to the living room. Tonight I was going to sleep in the bedroom. In the locked bedroom.
Again, I waited in vain for hours, waiting for sleep . And again, I had to get up to fetch a sleeping pill. The living room was still empty and quiet.
The slanting beams of the rising sun woke me. I heard Marcel’s steps, and the opening and closing of the living room door. While I descended the stairs, I saw Marcel’s bedclothes folded up where I had left them the night before. So, he didn’t come home until morning. He’d never done such a thing during all the seven years of our marriage.He entered the room and this time he didn’t avoid my gaze; he only nodded to me.
“Marcel, do you have a minute or two for me now.”
“Of course.” The words weren’t hostile, in fact they were strangely neutral.
“We must talk about what happened. I will be open-minded and I expect you to be the same, okay?”
He shrugged. “I’ve nothing to hide. I also wouldn’t lie to you — if that is what you mean.”
“Everything . . . everything is different since we came from that . . . oh, hundred times cursed circus! I haven’t the slightest idea what has been done to you by that damned peddler. But it has to be something awful — something evil!”
His attitude remained calm. “Why are you thinking that way?”
“Listen, Marcel.” I could barely utter that name. “Ever since that evening you have become a total stranger to me. And probably I became a total stranger to you, too.”
He tacitly shrugged, obviously agreeing with what I’d said.
“Help me to understand; at least that much I deserve after seven years of marriage.” I had to dry my tears and I hated that emotional response of mine. “You . . . you have to give me back my Marcel as he used to be. We both must take certain steps, together.”
“What do you propose?”
“We shall go back together. I mean to the place where all this began. Let’s go to the circus again. We must find that peddler and force him . . . no, we can offer him money. I have quite a lot of my own savings. We can pay him, as much as he wants. All that I want is that he lift that spell from you, for heaven’s sake. Marcel?”
“Okay, if that’s all you want.” He spoke as if we were going out for a newspaper. “And forget about your savings; he wouldn’t claim any money from us.”
I wondered about Marcel’s swift agreement. No objections, no irony — was that possible? Marcel led the way into the garage while I grabbed my purse. My hands were trembling so hard my keys fell to the floor.
There were not nearly so many visitors as there had been that earlier, fatal evening. Many of the market stalls were closed, including the Madam Fatima’s cabin and I was frightened that the peddler would already be gone, too. Marcel drove along the main alley to the end and then he stopped in front of a large tent.
The peddler’s tent was entirely different from all the others. A black, semi-translucent foil was strained tightly over a kind of slender, deceptively fragile framework. In front of the tent an empty, smooth plate, resembling black glass, was placed. It seemed to me that the plate hovered inexplicably, without any support, about three feet above the ground.
The peddler was standing in front of his tent. A tall, self-confident figure, wearing a black mantle, black hood over his head, huge sunglasses, black beard, and a mustache. His lips were blubbery, sensual, like on the pictures of Pan chasing a frightened virgin.
My mind was instantly blank, I couldn’t recall any of the words that I’d earlier prepared to say to him. Marcel was the one who restored the situation. He stepped forward and said calmly, “I’ve been here earlier, remember? The day before yesterday, in the evening.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” The peddler’s sensual lips widened in a kind of demonic smile. “You were the one who was interested in — Well then, let’s forget that. What can I do for you now?”
“I have . . . we have a sort of complaint.”
“Really? Such things happen to me very rarely. Still, I’m wholly at your service. You’ll tell me what seems to be wrong and I’ll try to correct that.” While the peddler was talking, I had a feeling his black glasses were fixed on me. “Perhaps it would be better if we talk inside my tent? After you, please!”
He flashed a smile at me, politely stretched his left arm. A door-size part of the tent slipped aside, and we entered.
During the first part of our ride home, Marcel and I remained silent.It must have rained, for on the uneven surface of the street, many puddles remained. Each time Marcel noticed a puddle near the sidewalk he drove the car close to the curb and spattered a pedestrian with muddy rainwater. That seemed so funny to me that I chuckled at every such occasion, especially when the wet splattered person responded with strong language.
“Hey,” I said, “you missed that last one.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” he objected. “The puddle was too small.”
About that time, I noticed a vagrant dog so I called Marcel’s attention to it.
“You better fasten your seat belt,” he said, as he turned aside sharply and stepped on the accelerator. The dog began to run for its life in a zigzag manner. I stooped forward as far as the seat belt allowed me, licked my lips, and watched the exciting chase. Marcel kept twisting like a professional racing driver, speeding up and breaking violently. Three or four times we nearly got the dog but then it found a gap in a hedge and swooped through it.
“What a pity!” I said. “Still, you were wonderful, my darling.”
Several blocks from our house, we saw the old tramp Ida, carrying an apple in her hand. About the time she started to push her shopping cart over a striped crossing Marcel put the engine in neutral, and, silently, we drove close behind her back.
Then he pressed the horn.
The old woman gave a shriek. Her cart overturned, and all her belongings were strewn on the asphalt ground. Her apple rolled slowly across the width of the road until the curb on the other side stopped it. I roared with laughter when I saw she was pressing her hand on her chest, her eyes horrified by fear.
After Marcel locked the garage, a thought occurred to me.
“Listen, darling,” I said, “maybe we could pay a visit to the Stallman’s this evening. What do you say?”
“Sure,” Marcel said. “We could chat a little, play cards, and even afford ourselves some drink. Was that what you had in mind?”
“Yes, darling. And, besides that, we could suggest to the Stallman’s that we should go to the circus, all together. They have three children so it wouldn’t be too hard to persuade them.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” he said.
“The Peddler” is copyright © 2006 Edward A. Rodosek and appears here for the first time with the author’s permission.
Edward Alexander Rodosek is a Construction Engineer, Doctor of Technical Science and Senior Professor in Faculty of Civil Engineering, Ljubljana, Slovenia, European Union. He is married to Rina and they have one daughter, Tejka. His pastimes are chess and long walks with his golden retriever Simba.
Beside his professional work he writes science fiction, mostly at night. He is an author of ten collections of short SF stories and four novels in Slovenia with good reviews. His short stories have appeared in Aphelion, Brew City, Down in the Dirt, Dreams Passage, Midnight Times, Nocturnal Ooze, Quantum Muse, and Vermeer.
