Sweet Eleanor

A conte cruel by Arbogast

This tale appears in Arbogast’s forthcoming collection, THE GRAVEYARD OF PAST PLEASURES

There is no greater lie than the oft-repeated maxim that “time heals all wounds.” Time never heals anything. Instead, if the wound is severe enough and has cut deep enough into the soul, then no healing is ever possible. The best an injured party can accomplish is half-hearted acceptance. Life can continue to move for the afflicted, but it always moves with a certain hitch in its progression.

I speak these words not from an academic distance, but rather from a close familiarity that can, at times, cause me physical pain. I am an injured party, and my injury has festered since that terrible night during the spring of 1911. What should have been the happiest evening of my young life was ruined by the utterance of a single word: “No.”

Eleanor Florence, the love of my life and the undisputed angel of Dartmouth College, rebuffed my offer of marriage underneath a portico bestrewn with honeysuckle. I can still recall how that May moon hung low and awkward on that evening, and, whenever I cannot sleep, I find myself cursing the moon for always being a mute witness to my misery.

Eleanor said no. Had she then eased into a life of academic pursuits, with the quiet desperation of spinsterhood following that, I would have forgiven her rejection. Had delicate Eleanor fled New England for the howling wilderness of the West, or the filthy stew of New York City, I would have similarly let go of her memory. However, Eleanor’s decision to refuse to accept my proposal of marriage was worsened by the fact that she did accept someone else’s offer.

Archibald Crane—my perpetual nemesis.

Although I was plenty popular at Dartmouth, my name could not draw half as much attention and excitement as Archibald Crane’s. Archie was a legendary lover and fighter—the captain of the rowing team, a middleweight boxer of local renown, and widely considered the most handsome and charming man on campus. The fact that he also came from a wealthy family with extensive acreage in the vicinity of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, only further made him attractive to the opposite sex. After wining, dining, and reportedly bedding the most desirable sorority sisters on campus, Archie decided to bury his wild oats and marry my sweet Eleanor.

And she accepted.

To say the news crushed me would be a gross understatement. Eleanor’s betrayal (for that is how I conceived of it) disturbed my life’s equilibrium so significantly that I abandoned my initial career path and set about pursuing a completely different end. I disregarded my father’s wishes and declined to pursue my education at Harvard Law. I would not even hear of it when he tried to sell me on lesser schools such as Brown and the University of Pennsylvania. I abandoned academics altogether and volunteered to become an officer in the 8th Cavalry. My signature was accepted, and after receiving my mandatory training in the arid scrublands of South Texas, I was shipped to the Philippines just in time for the final push against the Moros of Sulu and Mindanao. I was bloodied at Bud Bagsak, and for the remainder of 1913 and 1914, I took part in the grisly mopping-up operations on Jolo. I took no special pleasure in killing; I took a special pleasure in a task well executed and a job well done.

Unlike most of my contemporaries, I let the Great War pass me by. While the other men eagerly took assignments for France once President Wilson declared war in 1917, I decided to remain behind in the Philippines. A fellow New Englander, Colonel Harlan West of Rutland, Vermont, pulled plenty of strings and helped me to get my commission transferred from the U.S. Army to the Philippine Constabulary. As a third lieutenant in charge of a motley assortment of natives who all jabbered in a million different tongues, I was mostly occupied with keeping the peace between constables from the Visayas and the haughtier fellows from Ilocos or Luzon. I am not ashamed to say that I cracked the whip from time to time and that I became proficient in the art of strict discipline. I made more than a few troublemakers bleed.

My time as a constabulary officer was not entirely wasted putting down internecine squabbles. The wages, along with the relatively low price of land, allowed me to accumulate enough capital to purchase a sprawling rubber plantation that had formerly belonged to an Andalusian nobleman. I also inherited the dead nobleman’s servants, and within a fortnight of purchasing the land, I found myself a member of the landed gentry with a faithful Moro manservant and a beautiful Sangley cook who enjoyed warming my bed.

Besides money, the constabulary service also provided me with a great education, the kind of education not taught at Dartmouth or Harvard Law. My uniform and golden badge granted me access to the manifold secrets of the Orient. I often found myself as the sole white man in Chinese gambling parlors or secret opium rooms in the bowels of bordellos. I learned to speak rudimentary Tagalog and Bisayan, and thanks to a full year spent as a member of the minuscule Criminal Investigations Division, I was introduced to the East’s greatest art: torture. I arrested Chinese and native criminals who proved to be da Vincis of pain. These men, often morphine addicts or slaves to alcohol, butchered their victims with such finesse that I would frequently find myself admiring their genius. I sometimes got so captivated by their skills that I would praise them aloud. These moments earned me the ire of my fellow American officers, while the natives learned to fear me.

The one exception to this rule was Ferdinand, a constabulary sergeant from Siquijor. I did not know it at the time, but Ferdinand’s home island was notorious for the black arts. “Witch Island” was a rough translation of its nickname in Bisayan. Whether through actual practice or just ancestral memory, Ferdinand proved to be enchanted. The owl-eyed man shadowed me for several weeks before finally approaching me one night with an offer of marijuana. I accepted the cigarette, and before I knew it, I found that I had a taste for the devilish green plant.

The drug was the gateway Ferdinand needed to introduce me to something else, something more powerful. It is called pangkukulam, and Filipinos dread it as our ancestors in Europe did old crones and black cats. Ferdinand was again an exception to the general rule. He did not fear pangkukulam; he practiced it. He informed me during the night, both of us bathed in pungent smoke, that he was the son of an aswang, or a type of shapeshifting witch with a fondness for blood. Ferdinand was proud of his ancestry, he informed me, and, after whetting my appetite with many horror tales from his native island, he told me he could introduce me to a particularly powerful shaman. A residual trace of my Methodist upbringing initially froze my tongue, but another puff on the cigarette and I was all too eager to meet a real witch doctor.

Ferdinand, my bronze-skinned Virgil, took me deep into the bowels of Manila where, tucked away behind a putrid restaurant selling a Frankenstein mixture of local fare and imported American standards, he pointed me towards a little shack that sat at the end of a trash-strewn alleyway.

“He is in there,” the sergeant said with a delirious grin. Even in broken English, I could see and feel his madness in every syllable. And yet, despite this, I followed his instructions and rapped upon the shaman’s dilapidated door.

“Come in, my son,” said a disembodied voice. The shaman’s English was excellent, and after getting to know him a little better, I learned that he had gleaned our tongue following many conversations with General Waller.

“You are far from my first American son,” he smirked after bidding me welcome to his shack. I tried hard to penetrate the gloom behind the candlelight, but I never discovered what else was in that hovel besides the scrawny, leather-skinned shaman. What I do know is that the wretched place smelled foul, with a blasphemous mixture of herbs and putrescence being the most pronounced scent.

“I see that you are a hungry spirit,” the little witch doctor said before I could even introduce myself. The shaman smiled and revealed a mouthful of black teeth, hanging low and bleeding.

“What am I hungry for?” I inquired. The shaman laughed again, and his mirthless humor filled the room with shadows. I thought I saw one of the shadows detach from a wall and stand beside me in the shape of a large, musclebound man.

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “Everyone, even the shadows, has hunger. As for you, you hunger for revenge. You have a lust for it. You have a need for it.”

“Revenge,” I repeated. “Revenge,” I said again. Yes, he was right. I did lust for revenge; my soul cried out for it. I had wanted revenge since the awful evening in May 1911, and, for the first time, I recognized that my desire had to be met regardless of morality.

The shaman smiled his wicked obsidian smile again. He reached into the darkness, and with a speed that seemed unnatural for such a decrepit figure, he produced a small burlap pouch. He bounced it in the air once so that I could hear the pouch jingle.

“Everything you need for your revenge is in here,” he said. I watched as beads of sweat poured down his naked chest and made a small puddle on his ratty trousers. The toes on his bare feet wiggled with excitement. “You must burn the herbs every night, and when you do, you must remind the spirits of your desires. They are busy and can be forgetful.” He laughed again.

“What else must I do?”

“You must wait. You must cultivate patience. You can never skip the ritual, no matter what. And you can never lose your lust for revenge. My advice?” Here, the shaman leaned back, thus casting half his body in shadow. He picked at his ear and then his nose before placing the finger into his mouth. Judging by his wide grin, he enjoyed the taste of himself. “My advice is to dream always about your suffering. Go to your bed each night with that bad memory playing in your mind’s eye. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I hissed. The shaman handed me the pouch and manually closed my fingers around it. With a greasy finger, he drew an invisible symbol on my wrist.

“You will pay me after your desires have been fulfilled.”

“What is the price?” I asked.

“The spirits will tell you. They will make it obvious.”

With that, the shaman snuffed out his candle, leaving both of us in total darkness.

***

The ritual did not last days or weeks, but years. Two years, in fact. During that time, I retired from the constabulary and became a full-time producer and seller of rubber. My fortunes grew each year thanks to voracious customers in Manila, Tokyo, and San Francisco. I used most of this money for investments. The remainder went to my home, which soon rivalled any castle in Europe, and to monthly purchases of the shaman’s herbs. I assiduously followed the ritual every night. Then, after my marriage to Agatha Crossley, formerly of Atlanta, Georgia and the daughter of an Episcopal minister in Manila, I had to move the shrine to a secret compartment in my home’s library. There I continued to burn the herbs and repeat the same pleas, night after night. I would never let anything interrupt me. I surprised myself with my utter dedication to foreign rites. Never once did my enthusiasm waver, and never once did I ever lose conviction that my day of reckoning would come.

It came following a tremendous thunderstorm. It was again May, but this time the year was 1924. It was a Saturday evening, and I found myself alone. A series of fortunate circumstances was to blame for my delightful loneliness. My wife was away for the weekend, visiting her father in the city, while my beloved manservant was observing some religious occasion or another in his home village far to the south. As for the cook, I had sent her away months prior in order to hide her pregnancy from my wife. The baby was mine, you see, and I paid the Sangley girl a princely sum to raise the child in secret. She would eventually return, and we would continue our affair, but on that rainy Saturday evening, she was far, far away.

I took a seat on the veranda to enjoy the rain’s last moments. This was my custom, and so too was my habit of stripping to the waist, grabbing a day-old newspaper, and basking in the humidity with a fresh cigarette. Sometimes my cigarettes contained marijuana, and sometimes they were cigars instead, but that evening I smoked regular Virginia tobacco. I enjoyed inhaling and exhaling as I read about the goings-on in Manila and Washington, D.C. In my relaxation, I did not immediately see the ragpicker and his cart as it inched closer to my property. The miscreant’s wooden wheels made deep indentations in the muddy lawn, and, after coming to a stop right in front of my veranda, the wheel gradually sank so deeply that it became stuck in the earth.

“Excuse me, sir?” asked a timid voice in English. “Do you have any items that you’d like to donate?”

I did not immediately lower my newspaper. My property frequently hosted wandering gypsies and migrant workers. I had learned early on in my baronage that Filipinos had little respect for private property or boundary lines, so the best one could do was to coldly shoo them away.

“I have nothing, sorry,” I said with the newspaper still covering my face.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t believe that. I mean, a house this size is bound to have waste.”

“I already told you; there’s nothing.” I could not hide my annoyance. Yet, the assertive ragpicker would not let it hinder him.

“Just one scrap, please. My wife is starving, and we’re saving up money to go back to the States.”

“Look, you…” I dropped the newspaper and, to my shock, scowled at a white man with a bushy blond beard. The man was absolutely filthy. Splotches of grease and dirt coated his skin like leprosy, and what teeth he had left in his head looked rotten. His clothes had more holes than Swiss cheese, and his canvas shoes were so worn that I could see his toes poking through the top.

“How the hell did you wind up in this pitiful state?” I asked the man.

“I could lie to you, sir, and say that I am the victim of circumstance. Or I could blather on about bad luck. The truth is that I am a slave to John Barleycorn, and I have been his slave ever since I came to these godforsaken islands.”

“Why did you come here in the first place?” Without realizing it, I had slipped into the old policeman’s habit of interrogation.

“I wanted to make a fortune in oil, sir. I come from a long line of prospectors, sir, and I wanted to make my own mark as an oilman. My late father wanted me to pursue more stable commodities like gold or silver, and to remain in New England. But…erm…what can I say? I have an adventuresome spirit, and thus I wound up here.”

“Did you say New England?”

“Yes, sir. I’m from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

My heart dropped in my chest, and my throat seized up. My hands trembled violently enough that the newspaper rattled in the stagnant air.

“Uxbridge, eh? I once knew a man from Uxbridge. You may be a relation. Crane was his name.”

It was the ragpicker’s turn to be flabbergasted. His jaw hung slack, and his eyes widened to the size of saucers. He pointed a blackened finger towards his chest. “My name is Crane, sir. Archie Crane.”

“Archie Crane?! You….you…went to Dartmouth, right?”

“Yes, sir!”

“And you’re married, yes?”

“Indeed, sir. My wife should be right here.” Archie turned at the waist and used his thumb and forefinger to whistle. His summons was answered by a woman hiding behind a tree. When she emerged, I knew instinctively that it was her. She looked rough and more than a little dirty, but it was still my sweet Eleanor.

“Eleanor!” I exclaimed.

“How did you know my wife’s name, sir? Have we been acquainted before?”

I sat back down in my seat and began to laugh with great gusto. I felt tears forming in my eyes as my stomach churned like the sea, caught off guard by the unexpected levity.

“You’re Archibald Crane, she’s Eleanor Florence, and I’m Thomas Hook.”

Eleanor dropped the miscellaneous items in her hands and raced up the steps towards me. She cried, “Tom!” before wrapping her arms around my neck. She showered my cheeks with kisses. Archie could do nothing but look on in bewilderment.

“I cannot believe it,” he said. “Of all the impossibilities…”

“Oh, darling,” Eleanor said over shoulder, “don’t question it; just accept our good fortune. Tom, it’s so wonderful to see you.”

“It’s even better to see you, Eleanor. Won’t you both come in for some refreshments?”

“Oh, that would be just wonderful,” Eleanor hummed. “We haven’t had much to eat these past weeks, and we’re both dreadfully famished.”

“Tired too,” Archie added.

“Well, my home has plenty of rooms for both of you,” I said. The impish smile was in danger of taking over my face completely. I had to pinch my outer thigh to keep myself from doubling over with laughter.

“Looks like you’ve done quite well for yourself, Tom,” Archie said.

“Yes, I have. Took me quite a while, but after a few battles here and a few investments there, I can now live out the remainder of my life in comfort.”

“Lucky dog,” he said with a slow shake of his dirty head. I was delighted to see the shadow of jealousy on his countenance.

“I admire you,” Eleanor added. “It takes a lot of guts and intelligence to accomplish all of this.”

“Thank you, my dear. Now, I’m sorry to inform you both that my…uhm…helpers are gone for the weekend. Seeing as how I’m a rotten cook, I can only provide bread and cheese. Oh, and there’s plenty of whisky too.”

Archie’s eyes lit up at the word “whisky.” Eleanor looked over at him and placed a warning hand on his wrist, but the old boy was far too enraptured to pay her any mind. He picked up a glass from an end table and held it out for me. I promptly filled the glass to the brim with Kentucky rye. I watched with cat eyes as my canary downed the drink in one go.

“Would you like another?” I asked.

“If you don’t mind,” he said.

“No, I don’t mind at all.”

“Archie,” Eleanor said with a hand on his shoulder. “I really don’t think you ought to drink anymore.”

“Bah!” he bellowed. “I’ve been on the wagon for weeks and look where it’s gotten me.” Archie grabbed the fresh glass of rye and greedily poured it down his throat. “When I was drinking, we had bad luck. And when I stopped drinking, we still had bad luck. So, given that, I believe that I ought to be at least a little happy if I am bound to suffer. And rye makes a man happy. Isn’t that right, Tom?”

“I’m always peachy after a tipple or two.”

“A tipple! A tipple, he says.” Archie began to sing to himself. His songs were old ones from our university days. I joined in for the first two but thereafter let the old boy shine as a soloist. His voice was terrible, but I loved seeing him sing. What I liked even more was watching him drink all my rye. I offered him bourbon. It too disappeared with alacrity. By that point, Archie was blind drunk and completely oblivious to anything but the world spinning before his eyes.

Eleanor looked in horror until I calmed her mind.

“He can sleep all day tomorrow. The poor boy needed to cut loose, it seems.”

She brought a swift fist down into her open palm. “That’s the problem, Tom. He’s been cutting loose our entire marriage when he should have been saving money. He’s been such a spendthrift. You know, I’ve even caught him taking my own money and spending it on alcohol. The man’s a useless lush.”

I gave Eleanor sympathetic eyes. I offered a glass of wine, but she refused. I then offered to make her tea, which she accepted. I left her alone with her sleeping, drunken husband as I made two cups of oolong. I also sliced some French bread and cut up some cheddar cheese for both of us. Lastly, after making sure to mark our cups, I added a strong touch of opium to Eleanor’s drink.

We both enjoyed the vittles in silence. When the bread and cheese were all gone, and after both of us had consumed our tea, I asked my sweet Eleanor the world’s most pressing question:

“Do you regret it?”

“Regret what, Tom?”

“The marriage. Do you regret marrying Archie?”

Eleanor looked thunderstruck. She bolted upright in her chair and made ready to defend her husband, but, after once again peering down at the snoring abomination dressed in filthy rags, she relaxed her posture and turned to face me.

“Yes, Tom. I regret marrying Archie.” Eleanor began to cry. Small rivulets of tears ran down her face. I did my best to catch most of them with a napkin. She appreciated the gesture and, without prompting, kissed me delicately on the cheek.

“If you could go back to that May evening all those many years ago, would you have given me a different answer?”

“Yes, Tom. Of course, one cannot alter the past, just like one cannot predict the future. It’s only now that I know I made a mistake. I…I…Hope you’ll forgive me.”

I did not answer her. I stared at her and made a few indeterminate sounds. I wanted her to feel uncomfortable, and I succeeded. Eleanor squirmed a little in her chair.

“I can’t imagine that you have any regrets,” she said.

“I had one once,” I offered.

“But you don’t anymore?”

“No,” I said. “I’m now becoming satisfied.”

“My, what a weird thing to say,” Eleanor said through sleepy lips. I noticed that her eyes had started to droop. I offered to make her another cup of tea.

“No. I think I ought to go to bed. I suddenly feel quite tired.”

I reached out and cupped my hands underneath her chin. “I can’t let you sleep down here in a chair. Please, take my hand and follow me to a guest bedroom.” Eleanor could neither open her eyes nor mumble words, so a soft nod was her only means of communication. I picked her up by the arms and guided her towards an upstairs bedroom. I felt my glee rising towards a crescendo, and when I looked back at Archie—the sleeping and drunken cuckold Archie—I momentarily lost all control due to sheer excitement. I felt a volcano of joy make a mess of my trousers.

***

Archie’s bender lasted two whole days. This gave me more than enough time to make the requisite excuses to keep my wife and servants away. I informed them that a virulent strain of influenza was present in the house and that, as a contagious sufferer, I required quarantine. All accepted the lie as truth.

My next phone call was to Ferdinand, who in turn contacted prospective buyers, including the ancient shaman from Manila. It was one of these prospective buyers—a Javanese merchant interested in increasing the profitability of his business—who made enough noise to finally rouse Archie from his slumber.

“Wha…what time is it?” he inquired.

“Just a little before noon,” I said. “Would you like some coffee, old boy? You’ve been asleep for a long time.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days, I think.” I handed him a cup of black coffee. He swallowed the brew in one gulp without burning his tongue or throat. He asked for another.

“My goodness,” he said. “Two whole days of sleeping. I guess I needed it.”

“I should say so, old boy. You looked pretty beat, and I must say that you slept like the dead.” The Javanese chuckled at this turn of phrase. Archie asked about the man, and I introduced him as a client.

“He’s here to buy something very precious. Something very, very unique.”

“An antique?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s a new hobby of mine. Brand new, in fact, and it seems to be very popular. I’ve made a lot of money in the last two days.”

“A lot of money?” Archie’s eyes lit up. “And you sell it from your house?”

“Yes, indeed. I could…uhm…cut you in, if you’d like?”

Archie’s alcohol-fueled lethargy evaporated, and he jumped off the couch in order to pump my hand. “You have no idea what this means to me, Tom. I’ve been down so long that I started thinking that I’d never see light again.”

“Well, call me sunshine then,” I joked. Archie embraced me and carried on with several more compliments. I calmed him down and took him by the crook of his elbow. We made our way upstairs, with the Javanese following close behind. In all that time, Archie never once asked about his wife, but he did pepper me with a million questions regarding money.

“The money?” I said. “The money, old boy, is behind this door.” I rapped once before slowly pushing the polished teak inwards.

“We have another customer, darling.”

Archie took one step into the room before turning around and screaming down the stairs. I heard his cries throughout the house and even further beyond. I went to the bedroom window and watched as the still-drunk man scrambled for the unforgiving wilderness.

The Javanese asked me about Archie.

“An old friend. Not someone who knows much. I’m a bit sad. I expected a different reaction. She’s his wife after all.” I pointed towards the bed. “I was sure he’d try to fight me. I guess he’s a coward at the end of the day.” I briefly massaged the now-pointless switchblade in my pocket.

The Javanese looked unfazed by the information. His inscrutable face appeared a trifle bored, if nothing else. I motioned for him to go ahead and pick his desired cuts. He nodded, moved towards a table at the foot of the bed, and selected a sharp tantō blade. He placed several gold and silver coins on the table. It was a significant sum, which meant that he was interested in the more expensive parts.

I leaned against the window. I fished a cigarette from my pocket. I enjoyed the blended tobacco and marijuana. I let it coat my lungs. It felt good to float a little in that room. I was deliciously high as the Javanese began to make his first amputations. He started with a finger, then he removed a thumb. His last two cuts saw him take large chunks of flesh from the thighs.

The drugged, blindfolded, and gagged Eleanor—my sweet, naïve Eleanor—could do nothing but sway against her restraints.