Bert

BERT

A short story by Anjali Paul.
Copyright by Anjali Paul 2001.

The coach left Spain and stopped in a small French town, near the
border. I watched a girl walk across a car park through the coach
window. Hips swaying through the heat haze, carving curves in the
viscous air. The man sitting beside me shifted uncomfortably.

"Warm in here, isn't it?" He said, blowing heavily through his mouth,
his eyes on her. We exchanged a glance of complicity. He was a big man,
with a plain, pleasant face and an open, easy manner.

"Just call me Bert," he said.

He had spent the journey laughing and joking with everyone on the
coach. He was all the more popular because of the sympathy he
inspired.

Across the narrow corridor, Bert's idiot son stared at his hands as
they protectively
cupped his crotch. His eyelids were heavy behind thick, thick glasses,
and he was the burden that Bert carried cheerfully, uncomplainingly,
and tenderly. I wondered how old the boy was. It was impossible to tell
his age from his features - a sullen mindlessness rendered them
ageless. As I stared at his face, I realised that, feature for feature,
it was identical to Bert's. Yet his blank, almost evil expression
transformed it, so that the overall effect was completely different. He
seemed oblivious to my gaze. His belly bulged under his faded blue
tee-shirt, over his crumpled cotton trousers. They were too short for
him, and showed the dark hair sprinkling his pasty shins; his falling
socks.

Bert, following my gaze, his smile conciliatory.

"He's not like other people," he said gently. I nodded, mildly
irritated, yet wanting to show that I understood why he needed to state
the obvious. Situations like these are layered with unpleasant
undertones, and bland, simple statements are a way of avoiding
them.

There was a sharp cry. We both turned to see his son's hands tangled in
the hair of the woman who was sitting in front of him. She had been
asleep, sprawled innocently yet suggestively across both seats. Now,
her eyes were wide with fear as she struggled to free herself from the
stuff of nightmare. Bert leapt up, and gently disentangled her from his
son's fingers.

"I'm so sorry," he said, arranging his son's unresisting hands over his
bulging stomach. "It's just that he's ... different... ."

The woman picked up her bags and silently changed her seat to one at
the front of the coach. Bert watched her go, then sat down again.

"Some people have no compassion," he said sadly.

And from the front of the coach we felt the first chill waves of
resentment wafting back towards us through the warm air, flecked with
fragments of whispered conversation.

"...so frightening..."
"...dangerous..."

"...should be in an asylum for his own sake..."

"...shouldn't be allowed..."

Later, three Italian girls, exuberant as the Spring, tried to talk to
Bert's son, for Bert's sake. There was no reaction from the boy, but
Bert was grateful for the show of sympathy. One of them patted the
boy's arm sympathetically. He looked around at her. It was a tiny
gesture, yet it seemed to take minutes; he moved as slowly and clumsily
as a brontosaurus. I was absorbed by the movement, and did not realise
what it was leading to until the girl screamed. He had caught her arm
in a half-nelson behind her back, and was kneading her breasts with his
other hand.

The girl laughed nervously as Bert freed her.

"It's okay," she said as she went back to her seat and the arms of her
friends. "I'm all right." She did not come back.

The journey continued. Bert was subdued, his popularity had
subsided.

In the evening the coach stopped at a service station.
"Let's go and eat," Bert said. I looked at his son.
"I'll bring something back for him," he said.

No-one was supposed to stay on the coach, but the driver made an
exception in his son's case. We bought sandwiches and took them
outside, so that we could eat in peace, away from the nervous smiles
and accusing stares of our fellow passengers.

The night was cool, I shivered slightly. We sat on a grass verge, and
Bert said mournfully and repetitively
''People have no compassion."

He chewed , and a strange expression crept over his face, and he said
"If only they knew."
"What?"
He seemed to change the subject, saying "Travelling far?"
"Probably," I answered.
"It was travelling that did it. Running away.. .and finding myself." He
laughed ironically, settling more comfortably onto the grass. He wanted
to tell me his story, and I wanted to hear it.

"I was born in Ireland," he began. " My parents were good Catholics,
and proved it by having seventeen children. My mother was a worn out
woman who could never remember our names; she was like a smeared pen
and ink drawing that life had faded still further. My father was hardly
ever home, and almost always drunk. I spent my childhood fighting and
starving. I left the place when I was sixteen, and as far as I know
no-one missed me, for I have not seen any of them since. Not that I
would recognise them if I did. Time has blurred their faces in my
memory.

I travelled through Europe, went to America, crossed the breadth of
India. I took odd jobs, worked in bars, worked as a navvy.

At the age of twenty-two I found myself married in South America. My
wife was beautiful, I fully recall every line of her face and body; how
her eyes and hair shone in the morning sun, but her name escapes me
now. I left her with nothing to remember me by but a few bruises.

I was not a nice man, nor a good one. I kidnapped fair-skinned babies
and sold them to sterile North American couples. On the side, I
smuggled drugs; I killed if and when I had to; I got by.

I had no friends. Even strangers could sense the darkness in me. Some
women found the hint of danger attractive-at first. I despised the
weakness of the people that feared me, I refused to admit that I wanted
their love.

Then one of my double-crosses backfired, and two rival gangs of South
American drug smugglers wanted me dead. I used some contacts I had,
escaped to Europe, and fled through France with two hired killers hot
on my heels. It was Winter.

That was how, at 28, I found myself in the Pyrenees. A lorry driver
dropped me off on a deserted road. Maybe I should say, kicked me out. I
was not the best of companions.

That was the night my life changed, and I remember every detail. It
began to snow.
I picked up my backpack and walked up the narrow mountain road. The
snow fell thicker
with the night. Colder than I had ever been, I staggered on into the
darkness. I was
a survivor, and I was determined not to die.

Then, ahead of me, I saw a tiny hut. As I walked towards it, the door
flew open. The first thing I saw was the bright, beckoning fire. It was
only as I shut the door behind me that I saw him. Now I've never been
that way inclined, but I could see that he was beautiful. A young man
in the prime of his life. And in the bitter twist of his lips, the
malice of his slanting eyes, there was something that reminded me of
myself.

"Sit down and warm yourself," he said, holding out a glass of whisky.
The bottle beside him was full. He did not have to ask me twice.

I sat in silence and drank. He matched me glass for glass. Eventually,
the whole hut seemed to glow golden as the drink in my hand. I noticed
vaguely that the bottle was still full, but by then I had become
maudlin, as drinkers often do, and my eyes filled with tears. He
watched, amused, as I said
"No-one loves me."
I hardly saw him as I rambled on
"Maybe it's because I don't love myself. They say that unless you love
yourself, no-one else can, but how can I love myself, seeing the way I
am?"

Softly, he said
"I could make it easy for you to love yourself." I looked into his
fathomless eyes.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Why, the Devil, of course," he replied, amused.
My Catholic flesh trembled with fear.
"You're going to take my soul," I accused him, slurring my words. He
laughed contemptuously
"Save it," he said. "No pun intended. To be honest, I'm feeling too
mellow to be bothered. Instead, I'm going to give you exactly what you
want. I'm going to make you lovable."

A chill ran through me as I asked
"How?"
He grinned wolfishly
"I'll take out the dark half of you. The bad side. The evil
part."

That's all I remember of the evening.

The next day, I woke up feeling as though I had slept for a year. I was
on the outskirts of a village, and the sun was shining down on me. I
sprang up, feeling curiously light and strangely content. I was
outside, the hut had disappeared. I looked around for the Devil.
Instead, I saw...him.

He lay on the snow covered ground, looking exactly as he looks now. His
face was my face, and etched on it was all the mindless bitterness of
my past. I thought of leaving him there to die, then he opened his
eyes, and I knew that I could never leave him. The good side of me
could hate nothing, least of all myself

Bert's voice faded into the night air.
Something made me ask
"What would happen if he died?"
Bert looked at me

"I would die, too. I slashed one of his wrists once, when I thought I
couldn't take any more. My own wrist started bleeding, too...but that
pain wasn't as sharp as the pain of hurting him...I love him, you
see."

He paused, then said quietly
"He kills sometimes...he's clever, he never leaves traces...you
understand, I have to protect him...." His voice trailed away. I knew I
was being warned, because I knew too much.

"I think I'll go back to the Pyrenees," Bert said. "The more I see of
how people react to him, the more I love him, and the more he hates
them. Maybe if we go back to the same place we'll find... ."

He could not say anymore. I saw the doubt in his face. What would he do
if he came across the Devil again? He had been made to love his own
dark side. Could he bear to lose it? After a while, he stood up.

"Or maybe we'll keep travelling for a while," he said.

He went back to the coach. I watched it pull away from the service
station, then went inside the restaurant to wait for another coach, to
another place. There were some chances I didn't want to take.

A year later, (almost to the day), I read in the papers that the body
of a young girl had been discovered near that service station. She had
been missing for a year. I called the police and described Bert and his
son, but they have not been caught yet.

I never saw them again.

Copyright by Anjali Paul 2001.