I am gone.
This is not a fairy tale, but the true history of my double life, left behind where it all began, in case I may be found again.
My own story begins when I was a boy of seven, free of my current desires. Nearly thirty years ago, on an August afternoon, I ran away from home and never made it back. Certain trivial and forgotten matters set me off, but I remember preparing for a long journey, stuffing my pockets with biscuits left over from lunch, and creeping out of the house so softly that my mother might not know I had ever left.
From the back door of the farmhouse to the creeping edge of the forest, our yard was bathed in light, as if a borderland to cross carefully, in fear of being exposed. Upon reaching the wilderness, I felt safe and hidden in the dark, dark wood, and as I walked on, stillness nestled in the spaces among the trees. The birds had stopped singing, and the insects were at rest. Tired of the blazing heat, a tree groaned as if shifting in its rooted position. The green roof of leaves above sighed at every rare and passing breeze. As the sun dipped below the treeline, I came across an imposing chestnut with a hollow at its base big enough for me to crawl inside to hide and wait, to listen for the seekers. And when they came close enough to beckon, I would not move. The grown-ups kept shouting "Hen-ry" in the fading afternoon, in the half-light of dusk, in the cool and starry night. I refused to answer. Beams from the flashlights bounced crazily among the trees, and the search party crashed through the undergrowth, stumbling over stumps and fallen logs, passing me by. Soon their calls receded into the distance, faded to echoes, to whispers, to silence. I was determined not to be found.
I burrowed deeper into my den, pressing my face against the inner ribs of the tree, inhaling its sweet rot and dankness, the grain of the wood rough against my skin. A low rustle sounded faraway and gathered to a hum. As it drew near, the murmur intensified and quickened. Twigs snapped and leaves crackled as it galloped toward the hollow tree and stopped short of my hiding place. A panting breath, a whisper, and footfall. I curled up tight as something scrambled partway into the hole and bumped into my feet. Cold fingers wrapped around my bare ankle and pulled.
They ripped me from the hole and pinned me to the ground. I shouted once before a small hand clamped shut my mouth and then another pair of hands inserted a gag. In the darkness their features remained obscure, but their size and shape were the same as my own. They quickly stripped me of my clothes and bound me like a mummy in a gossamer web. Little children, exceptionally strong boys and girls, had kidnapped me.
They held me aloft and ran. Racing through the forest at breakneck speed on my back, I was held up by several pairs of hands and bony shoulders. The stars above broke through the canopy, streaming by like a meteor shower, and the world spun away swiftly from me in darkness. The athletic creatures moved about with ease, despite their burden, navigating the invisible terrain and obstacles of trees without a hitch or stumble. Gliding like an owl through the night forest, I was exhilarated and afraid. As they carried me, they spoke to one another in a gibberish that sounded like the bark of a squirrel or the rough cough of a deer. A hoarse voice whispered something that sounded like "Come away" or "Henry Day." Most fell silent, although now and then one would start huffing like a wolf. The group, as if on signal, slowed to a canter along what I later discerned to be well-established deer trails that served the denizens of the woods.
Mosquitos lit upon the exposed skin on my face, hands, and feet, biting me at will and drinking their fill of my blood. I began to itch and desperately wanted to scratch. Above the noise of the crickets, cicadas, and peeping frogs, water babbled and gurgled nearby. The little devils chanted in unison until the company came to a sudden halt. I could hear the river run. And thus bound, I was thrown into the water.
Drowning is a terrible way to go. It wasn't the flight through the air that alarmed me, or the actual impact with the river, but the sound of my body knifing through the surface. The wrenching juxtaposition of warm air and cool water shocked me most. The gag did not come out of my mouth; my hands were not loosed. Submerged, I could no longer see, and I tried for a moment to hold my breath, but then felt the painful pressure in my chest and sinuses as my lungs quickly filled. My life did not flash before my eyes—I was only seven—and I did not call out for my mother or father or to God. My last thoughts were not of dying, but of being dead. The waters encompassed me, even to my soul, the depths closed round about, and weeds were wrapped about my head.
Many years later, when the story of my conversion and purification evolved into legend, it was said that when they resuscitated me, out shot a stream of water a-swim with tadpoles and tiny fishes. My first memory is of awakening in a makeshift bed, dried snot caked in my nose and mouth, under a blanket of reeds. Seated above on rocks and stumps and surrounding me were the faeries, as they called themselves, quietly talking together as if I were not even there. I counted them, and, including me, we were an even dozen. One by one, they noticed me awake and alive. I kept still, as much out of fear as embarrassment, for my body was naked under the covers. The whole scene felt like a waking dream or as if I had died and had been born again.
They pointed at me and spoke with excitement. At first, their language sounded out of tune, full of strangled consonants and static. But with careful concentration, I could hear a modulated English. The faeries approached cautiously so as not to startle me, the way one might approach a fallen fledgling or a fawn separated from its doe.
"We thought you might not make it."
"Are you hungry?"
"Are you thirsty? Would you like some water?"
They crept closer, and I could see them more clearly. They looked like a tribe of lost children. Six boys and five girls, lithe and thin, their skin dusky from the sun and a film of dust and ash. Nearly naked, both males and females wore ill-fitting shorts or old-fashioned knickerbockers, and three or four had donned threadbare jerseys. No one wore shoes, and the bottoms of their feet were calloused and hard, as were their palms. Their hair grew long and ragged, in whirls of curls or in knots and tangles. A few of them had a complete set of original baby teeth, while others had gaps where teeth had fallen out. Only one, who looked a few years older than the rest, showed two new adult teeth at the top of his mouth. Their faces were very fine and delicate. When they scrutinized me, faint crow's feet gathered at the corners of their dull and vacant eyes. They did not look like any children I knew, but ancients in wild children's bodies.
They were faeries, although not the kind from books, paintings, and the movies. Nothing like the Seven Dwarfs, Munchkins, midgets, Tom Thumbs, brownies, elves, or those nearly naked flying sprites at the beginning of Fantasia. Not little redheaded men dressed in green and leading to the rainbows end. Not Santa's helpers, nor anything like the ogres, trolls, and other monsters from the Grimm Brothers or Mother Goose. Boys and girls stuck in time, ageless, feral as a pack of wild dogs.
A girl, brown as a nut, squatted near me and traced patterns in the dust near my head. "My name is Speck." The faery smiled and stared at me. "You need to eat something." She beckoned her friends closer with a wave of her hand. They set three bowls before me: a salad made from dandelion leaves, watercress, and wild mushrooms; a hill of blackberries plucked from the thorns before dawn; and a collection of assorted roasted beetles. I refused the last but washed down the fruit and vegetables with clear, cold water from a hollowed gourd. In small clusters, they watched intently, whispering to one another and looking at my face from time to time, smiling when they caught my eye.
Three of the faeries approached to take away my empty dishes; another brought me a pair of trousers. She giggled as I struggled beneath the reed blanket, and then she burst out laughing as I tried to button my fly without revealing my nakedness. I was in no position to shake the proffered hand when the leader introduced himself and his cronies.
"I am Igel," he said, and swept back his blonde hair with his fingers. "This is Béka."
Béka was a frog-faced boy a head taller than the others.
"And this is Onions." Dressed in a boy's striped shirt and short pants held up by suspenders, she stepped to the front. Shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand, she squinted and smiled at me, and I blushed to the breastbone. Her fingertips were green from digging up the wild onions she loved to eat. When I finished dressing, I pulled myself up on bent elbows to get a better look at the rest of them.
"I'm Henry Day," I croaked, my voice raw with suffering.
"Hello, Aniday." Onions smiled, and everyone laughed at the appellation. The faery children began to chant "Aniday, Aniday," and a cry sounded in my heart. From that time forward I was called Aniday, and in time I forgot my given name, although on occasion it would come back part of the way as Andy Day or Anyway. Thus christened, my old identity began to fade, much as a baby will not remember all that happened before it is born. To lose one's name is the beginning of forgetting.
As the cheering faded, Igel introduced each faery, but the jumble of names clanged against my ears. They walked away in twos and threes, disappeared into hidden holes that ringed the clearing, then reemerged with ropes and rucksacks. For a moment, I wondered whether they planned to tie me up to be baptized yet again, but most of them took scant notice of my panic. They milled about, anxious to begin, and Igel strode over to my bedside. "We're going on a scavenger hunt, Aniday. But you need to stay here and rest. You've been through quite an ordeal."
When I tried to stand up, I met the resistance of his hand upon my chest. He may have looked like a six-year-old, but he had the strength of a grown man.
"Where is my mother?" I asked.
"Béka and Onions will stay with you. Get some rest." He barked once, and in a flash, the pack gathered by his side. Without a sound, and before I could raise a word of protest, they disappeared, fading into the forest like ghostly wolves. Lagging behind, Speck turned her head and called out to me, "You're one of us now." Then she loped off to join the others.
I lay back down and fought tears by staring into the sky. Clouds passed beneath the summer sun, rolling their shadows through the trees and across the faery camp. In the past, I had ventured into these woods alone or with my father, but I had never wandered so deeply into such a quiet, lonesome place. The familiar chestnut, oak, and elm grew taller here, and the forest rimming the clearing appeared thick and impenetrable. Here and there sat well-worn stumps and logs and the remnants of a campfire. A skink sunned itself on the rock that Igel had sat upon. Nearby, a box turtle shuffled through the fallen leaves and hissed into its shell when I sat up to take a closer look.
Standing proved to be a mistake and left me woozy and disoriented. I wanted to be home in bed, near the comfort of my mother, listening to her sing to my baby sisters, but instead I felt the cold, cold gaze of Béka. Beside him, Onions hummed to herself, intent on the cats-cradle in her busy fingers. She hypnotized me with her designs. Exhausted, I laid my body down, shivering despite the heat and humidity. The afternoon drifted by heavily, inducing sleep. My two companions watched me watching them, but they said nothing. In and out of consciousness, I could not move my tired bones, thinking back on the events that had led me to this grove and worrying about the troubles that would face me when I returned home. In the middle of my drowse, I opened my eyes, sensing an unfamiliar stirring. Nearby, Béka and Onions wrestled beneath a blanket. He was on top of her back, pushing and grunting, and she lay on her stomach, her face turned toward mine. Her green mouth gaped, and when she saw me spying, she flashed me a toothy grin. I closed my eyes and turned away. Fascination and disgust clawed at one another in my confused mind. No sleep returned until the two fell quiet, she humming to herself while the little frog snored contentedly. My stomach seized up like a clenched fist, and nausea rolled into me like a fever. Frightened, and lonesome for home, I wanted to run away and be gone from this strange place.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Chapter 1
Don't call me a fairy. We don't like to be called fairies anymore. Once upon a time, fairy was a perfectly acceptable catchall for a variety of creatures, but now it has taken on too many associations. Etymologically speaking, a fairy is something quite particular, related in kind to the naiads, or water nymphs, and while of the genus, we are sui generis. The word fairy is drawn from fay (Old French fee), which itself comes from the Latin Fata, the goddess of fate. The fay lived in groups called the faerie, between the heavenly and earthly realms.
There exist in this world a range of sublunary spirits that carminibus coelo possunt deducere lunam, and they have been divided since ancient times into six kinds: fiery, aerial, terrestrial, watery, subterranean, and the whole class of fairies and nymphs. Of the sprites of fire, water, and air, I know next to nothing. But the terrestrial and underground devils I know all too well, and of these, there is infinite variety and attendant myth about their behavior, custom, and culture. Known around the world by many different names—Lares, genii, fauns, satyrs, foliots, Robin Goodfellows, pucks, leprechauns, pukas, sidhe, trolls—the few that remain live hidden in the woods and are rarely seen or encountered by human beings. If you must give me a name, call me hobgoblin.
Or better yet, I am a changeling—a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. The hobgoblin becomes the child, and the child becomes a hobgoblin. Not any boy or girl will do, but only those rare souls baffled by their young lives or attuned to the weeping troubles of this world. The changelings select carefully, for such opportunities might come along only once a decade or so. A child who becomes part of our society might have to wait a century before his turn in the cycle arrives, when he can become a changeling and reenter the human world.
Preparation is tedious, involving close surveillance of the child, and of his friends and family. This must be done unobserved, of course, and it's best to select the child before he begins school, because it becomes more complicated by then, having to memorize and process a great deal of information beyond the intimate family, and being able to mimic his personality and history as clearly as mirroring his physique and features. Infants are the easiest, but caring for them is a problem for the changelings. Age six or seven is best. Anyone much older is bound to have a more highly developed sense of self. No matter how old or young, the object is to deceive the parents into thinking that this changeling is actually their child. More easily done than most people imagine.
No, the difficulty lies not in assuming a child's history but in the painful physical act of the change itself. First, start with the bones and skin, stretching until one shudders and nearly snaps into the right size and body shape. Then the others begin work on one's new head and face, which require the skills of a sculptor. There's considerable pushing and pulling at the cartilage, as if the skull were a soft wad of clay or taffy, and then the malicious business with the teeth, the removal of the hair, and the tedious re-weaving. The entire process occurs without a gram of painkiller, although a few imbibe a noxious alcohol made from the fermented mash of acorns. A nasty undertaking, but well worth it, although I could do without the rather complicated rearrangement of the genitals. In the end, one is an exact copy of a child. Thirty years ago, in 1949, I was a changeling who became a human again.
I changed lives with Henry Day, a boy born on a farm outside of town.
On a late summer's afternoon, when he was seven, Henry ran away from home and hid in a hollow chestnut tree. Our changeling spies followed him and raised the alarm, and I transformed myself into his perfect facsimile. We grabbed him, and I slipped into the hollowed space to switch my life for his. When the search party found me that night, they were happy, relieved, and proud—not angry, as I had expected. "Henry," a red-haired man in a fireman's suit said to me as I pretended to sleep in the hiding place. I opened my eyes and gave him a bright smile. The man wrapped me in a thin blanket and carried me out of the woods to a paved road, where a fire truck stood waiting, its red light pulsing like a heartbeat. The firemen took me home to Henry's parents, to my new father and mother. As we drove along the road that night, I kept thinking that if that first test could be passed, the world would once again be mine.
It is a commonly held myth that, among the birds and the beasts, the mother recognizes her young as her own and will refuse a stranger thrust into the den or the nest. This is not so. In fact, the cuckoo commonly lays its eggs in other birds' nests, and despite its extraordinary size and voracious appetite, the cuckoo chick receives as much, indeed more, maternal care, often to the point of driving the other chicks from their lofty home. Sometimes the mother bird starves her own offspring because of the cuckoo's incessant demands. My first task was to create the fiction that I was the real Henry Day. Unfortunately, humans are more suspicious and less tolerant of intruders in the nest.
The rescuers knew only that they were looking for a young boy lost in the woods, and I could remain mute. After all, they had found someone and were therefore content. As the fire truck lurched up the driveway to the Days' home, I vomited against the bright red door, a vivid mess of acorn mash, watercress, and the exoskeletons of a number of small insects. The fireman patted me on the head and scooped me up, blanket and all, as if I were of no more consequence than a rescued kitten or an abandoned baby. Henry's father leapt from the porch to gather me in his arms, and with a strong embrace and warm kisses reeking of smoke and alcohol, he welcomed me home as his only son. The mother would be much harder to fool.
Her face betrayed her every emotion: blotchy skin, chapped with salty tears, her pale blue eyes rimmed in red, her hair matted and disheveled. She reached out for me with trembling hands and emitted a small sharp cry, the kind a rabbit makes when in the distress of the snare. She wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve and wrapped me in the wracking shudder of a woman in love. Then she began laughing in that deep coloratura.
"Henry? Henry?" She pushed me away and held on to my shoulders at arm's length. "Let me look at you. Is it really you?"
"I'm sorry, Mom."
She brushed away the bangs hiding my eyes and then pulled me against her breast. Her heart beat against the side of my face, and I felt hot and uncomfortable.
"You needn't worry, my little treasure. You're home and safe and sound, and that's all that matters. You've come back to me."
Dad cupped the back of my head with his large hand, and I thought this homecoming tableau might go on forever. I squirmed free and dug out the handkerchief from Henry's pocket, crumbs spilling to the floor.
"I'm sorry I stole the biscuit, Mom."
She laughed, and a shadow passed behind her eyes. Maybe she had been wondering up to that point if I was indeed her flesh and blood, but mentioning the biscuit did the trick. Henry had stolen one from the table when he ran away from home, and while the others took him to the river, I stole and pocketed it. The crumbs proved that I was hers.
Well after midnight, they put me to bed, and such a comfort may be the greatest invention of mankind. In any case, it tops sleeping in a hole in the cold ground, a moldy rabbit skin for your pillow, and the grunts and sighs of a dozen changelings anxious in their dreams. I stretched out like a stick between the crisp sheets and pondered my good fortune. Many tales exist of failed changelings who are uncovered by their presumptive families. One child who showed up in a Nova Scotia fishing village so frightened his poor parents that they fled their own home in the middle of a snowstorm and were later found frozen and bobbing in the frigid harbor. A changeling girl, age six, so shocked her new parents when she opened her mouth to speak that, thus frightened, they poured hot wax into each other's ears and never heard another sound. Other parents, upon learning that their child had been replaced by changelings, had their hair turn white overnight, were stunned into catatonia, heart attacks, or sudden death. Worse yet, though rare, other families drive out the creature through exorcism, banishment, abandonment, murder. Seventy years ago, I lost a good friend after he forgot to make himself look older as he aged. Convinced he was a devil, his parents tied him up like an unwanted kitten in a gunnysack and threw him down a well. Most of the time, though, the parents are confounded by the sudden change of their son or daughter, or one spouse blames the other for their queer fortune. It is a risky endeavor and not for the fainthearted.
That I had come this far undetected caused me no small satisfaction, but I was not completely at ease. A half hour after I had gone to bed, the door to my room swung open slowly. Framed against the hallway light, Mr. and Mrs. Day stuck their heads through the opening. I shut my eyes to mere slits and pretended to be sleeping. Softly, but persistently, she was sobbing. None could cry with such dexterity as Ruth Day. "We have to mend our ways, Billy. You have to make sure this never happens again."
"I know, I promise," he whispered. "Look at him sleeping, though. 'The innocent sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care.'"
He pulled shut the door and left me in the darkness. My fellow changelings and I had been spying on the boy for months, so I knew the contours of my new home at the edge of the forest. Henry's view of their few acres and the world beyond was magical. Outside, the stars shone through the window above a jagged row of firs. Through the open windows, a breeze blew across the top of the sheets, and moths beat their wings in retreat from their perches on the window screen. The nearly full moon reflected enough light into the space to reveal the dim pattern on the wallpaper, the crucifix above my head, pages torn from magazines and newspapers tacked along the wall. A baseball mitt and ball rested on top of the bureau, and on the washstand a pitcher and bowl glowed as white as phosphorous. A short stack of books lay propped against the bowl, and I could barely contain my excitement at the prospect of reading come morning.
The twins began bawling at the break of day. I padded down the hallway, past my new parents' room, following the sound. The babies hushed the moment they saw me, and I am sure that had they the gifts of reason and speech, Mary and Elizabeth would have said "You're not Henry" the moment I walked into the room. But they were mere tots, with more teeth than sentences, and could not articulate the mysteries of their young minds. With their clear wide eyes, they regarded my every move with quiet attentiveness. I tried smiling, but no smiles were returned. I tried making funny faces, tickling them under their fat chins, dancing like a puppet, and whistling like a mockingbird, but they simply watched, passive and inert as two dumb toads. Racking my brain to find a way to get through to them, I recalled other occasions when I had encountered something in the forest as helpless and dangerous as these two human children. Walking along in a lonesome glen, I had come across a bear cub separated from its mother. The frightened animal let out such a godforsaken scream that I half expected to be surrounded by every bear in the mountains. Despite my powers with animals, there was nothing to be done with a monster that could have ripped me open with a single swat. By crooning to the beast, I soothed it, and remembering this, I did so with my new-found sisters. They were enchanted by the sound of my voice and began at once to coo and clap their chubby hands while long strings of drool ran down their chins. "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Bye, Baby Bunting" reassured or convinced them that I was close enough to be their brother, or preferable to their brother, but who knows for certain what thoughts flitted through their simple minds. They gurgled, and they gooed. In between songs, for counterpoint, I would talk to them in Henry's voice, and gradually they came to believe—or abandon their sense of disbelief.
Mrs. Day bustled into the babies' room, humming and tra-la-la-ing. Her general girth and amplitude amazed me; I had seen her many times before, but not quite at such close quarters. From the safety of the woods, she had seemed more or less the same as all adult humans, but in person, she assumed a singular tenderness, though she smelled faintly sour, a perfume of milk and yeast. She danced across the floor, throwing open curtains, dazzling the room with golden morning, and the girls, brightened by her presence, pulled themselves up by the slats of their cribs. I smiled at her, too. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into joyous laughter. She smiled back at me as if I were her only son.
"Help me with your sisters, would you, Henry?"
I picked up the nearest girl and announced very pointedly to my new mother, "I'll take Elizabeth." She was as heavy as a badger. It is a curious feeling to hold an infant one is not planning to steal; the very young convey a pleasant softness.
The girls' mother stopped and stared at me, and for a beat, she looked puzzled and uncertain. "How did you know that was Elizabeth? You've never been able to tell them apart."
"That's easy, Mom. Elizabeth has two dimples when she smiles and her name's longer, and Mary has just one."
"Aren't you the clever one?" She picked up Mary and headed off downstairs.
Elizabeth hid her face against my shoulder as we followed our mother. The kitchen table groaned with a huge feast—hotcakes and bacon, a jug of warm maple syrup, a gleaming pitcher of milk, and china bowls filled with sliced bananas. After a long life in the forest eating what-you-can-find, this simple fare appeared a smorgasbord of exotic delicacies, rich and ripe, the promise of fullness.
"Look, Henry, I made all your favorites."
I could have kissed her right on the spot. If she was pleased with herself for taking the trouble to fix Henry's favorite foods, she must have been extremely gratified by how I tucked in and enjoyed breakfast. After four hot-cakes, eight strips of bacon, and all but two small glassfuls of the pitcher of milk, I complained of hunger, so she made me three eggs and a half loaf of toast from home-baked bread. My metabolism had changed, it seemed. Ruth Day saw my appetite as a sign of love for her, and for the next eleven years, until I left for college, she indulged me. In time, she sublimated her own anxieties and began to eat like me. Decades as a changeling had molded my appetites and energies, but she was all too human, growing heavier with each passing season. Over the years, I've often wondered if she would have changed so much with her real firstborn or whether she filled her gnawing suspicion with food.
That first day she kept me inside the house, and after all that had occurred, who could blame her? I stuck closer than her own shadow, studying intently, learning better how to be her son, as she dusted and swept, washed the dishes, and changed the babies' diapers. The house felt safer than the forest, but strange and alien. Small surprises lurked. Daylight angled through the curtained windows, ran along the walls, and cast its patterns across the carpets in an entirely different geometry than beneath the canopy of leaves. Of particular interest were the small universes comprised of specks of dust that make themselves visible only through sunbeams. In contrast to the blaze of sunlight outside, the inner light had a soporific effect, especially on the twins. They tired shortly after lunch—another fete in my honor—and napped in the early afternoon.
My mother tiptoed from their room to find me patiently waiting in the same spot she had left me, standing like a sentinel in the hallway. I was he witched by an electrical outlet that screamed out to me to stick in my little finger. Although their door was closed, the twins' rhythmic breathing sounded like a storm rushing through the trees, for I had not yet trained myself not to listen. Mom took me by the hand, and her soft grasp filled me with an abiding empathy. The woman created a deep peace within me with her very touch. I remembered the books on Henry's washstand and asked her if she would read me a story.
We went to my room and clambered into bed together. For the past century, adults had been total strangers, and life among the changelings had distorted my perspective. More than twice my size, she seemed too solid and stout to be real, especially when compared to the skinny body of the boy I had assumed. My situation seemed fragile and capricious. If she rolled over, she could snap me like a bundle of twigs. Yet her sheer size created a bunker against the outer world. She would protect me against all my foes. As the twins slept, she read to me from the Brothers Grimm—"The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was," "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Singing Bone," "The Girl Without Hands," and many others, rare or familiar. My favorites were "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding Hood," which she read with beautiful expression in her mezzo timbre, a singsong much too cheerful for those awful fables. In the music of her voice, an echo sounded from long ago, and as I rested by her side, the decades dissolved.
I had heard these tales before, long ago, but in German, from my real mother (yes, I, too, had a mother, once upon a time), who introduced me to Ashenputtel and Rotk?ppchen from the Kinder- und Hausm?rchen. I wanted to forget, thought I was forgetting, but could hear quite clearly her voice in my head.
"Es war einmal im tiefen, tiefen Wald."
Although I quit the society of the changelings long ago, I have remained, in a sense, in those dark woods, hiding my true identity from those I love. Only now, after the strange events of this past year, do I have the courage to tell the story. This is my confession, too long delayed, which I have been afraid to make and only now reveal because of the passing dangers to my own son. We change. I have changed.
There exist in this world a range of sublunary spirits that carminibus coelo possunt deducere lunam, and they have been divided since ancient times into six kinds: fiery, aerial, terrestrial, watery, subterranean, and the whole class of fairies and nymphs. Of the sprites of fire, water, and air, I know next to nothing. But the terrestrial and underground devils I know all too well, and of these, there is infinite variety and attendant myth about their behavior, custom, and culture. Known around the world by many different names—Lares, genii, fauns, satyrs, foliots, Robin Goodfellows, pucks, leprechauns, pukas, sidhe, trolls—the few that remain live hidden in the woods and are rarely seen or encountered by human beings. If you must give me a name, call me hobgoblin.
Or better yet, I am a changeling—a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. The hobgoblin becomes the child, and the child becomes a hobgoblin. Not any boy or girl will do, but only those rare souls baffled by their young lives or attuned to the weeping troubles of this world. The changelings select carefully, for such opportunities might come along only once a decade or so. A child who becomes part of our society might have to wait a century before his turn in the cycle arrives, when he can become a changeling and reenter the human world.
Preparation is tedious, involving close surveillance of the child, and of his friends and family. This must be done unobserved, of course, and it's best to select the child before he begins school, because it becomes more complicated by then, having to memorize and process a great deal of information beyond the intimate family, and being able to mimic his personality and history as clearly as mirroring his physique and features. Infants are the easiest, but caring for them is a problem for the changelings. Age six or seven is best. Anyone much older is bound to have a more highly developed sense of self. No matter how old or young, the object is to deceive the parents into thinking that this changeling is actually their child. More easily done than most people imagine.
No, the difficulty lies not in assuming a child's history but in the painful physical act of the change itself. First, start with the bones and skin, stretching until one shudders and nearly snaps into the right size and body shape. Then the others begin work on one's new head and face, which require the skills of a sculptor. There's considerable pushing and pulling at the cartilage, as if the skull were a soft wad of clay or taffy, and then the malicious business with the teeth, the removal of the hair, and the tedious re-weaving. The entire process occurs without a gram of painkiller, although a few imbibe a noxious alcohol made from the fermented mash of acorns. A nasty undertaking, but well worth it, although I could do without the rather complicated rearrangement of the genitals. In the end, one is an exact copy of a child. Thirty years ago, in 1949, I was a changeling who became a human again.
I changed lives with Henry Day, a boy born on a farm outside of town.
On a late summer's afternoon, when he was seven, Henry ran away from home and hid in a hollow chestnut tree. Our changeling spies followed him and raised the alarm, and I transformed myself into his perfect facsimile. We grabbed him, and I slipped into the hollowed space to switch my life for his. When the search party found me that night, they were happy, relieved, and proud—not angry, as I had expected. "Henry," a red-haired man in a fireman's suit said to me as I pretended to sleep in the hiding place. I opened my eyes and gave him a bright smile. The man wrapped me in a thin blanket and carried me out of the woods to a paved road, where a fire truck stood waiting, its red light pulsing like a heartbeat. The firemen took me home to Henry's parents, to my new father and mother. As we drove along the road that night, I kept thinking that if that first test could be passed, the world would once again be mine.
It is a commonly held myth that, among the birds and the beasts, the mother recognizes her young as her own and will refuse a stranger thrust into the den or the nest. This is not so. In fact, the cuckoo commonly lays its eggs in other birds' nests, and despite its extraordinary size and voracious appetite, the cuckoo chick receives as much, indeed more, maternal care, often to the point of driving the other chicks from their lofty home. Sometimes the mother bird starves her own offspring because of the cuckoo's incessant demands. My first task was to create the fiction that I was the real Henry Day. Unfortunately, humans are more suspicious and less tolerant of intruders in the nest.
The rescuers knew only that they were looking for a young boy lost in the woods, and I could remain mute. After all, they had found someone and were therefore content. As the fire truck lurched up the driveway to the Days' home, I vomited against the bright red door, a vivid mess of acorn mash, watercress, and the exoskeletons of a number of small insects. The fireman patted me on the head and scooped me up, blanket and all, as if I were of no more consequence than a rescued kitten or an abandoned baby. Henry's father leapt from the porch to gather me in his arms, and with a strong embrace and warm kisses reeking of smoke and alcohol, he welcomed me home as his only son. The mother would be much harder to fool.
Her face betrayed her every emotion: blotchy skin, chapped with salty tears, her pale blue eyes rimmed in red, her hair matted and disheveled. She reached out for me with trembling hands and emitted a small sharp cry, the kind a rabbit makes when in the distress of the snare. She wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve and wrapped me in the wracking shudder of a woman in love. Then she began laughing in that deep coloratura.
"Henry? Henry?" She pushed me away and held on to my shoulders at arm's length. "Let me look at you. Is it really you?"
"I'm sorry, Mom."
She brushed away the bangs hiding my eyes and then pulled me against her breast. Her heart beat against the side of my face, and I felt hot and uncomfortable.
"You needn't worry, my little treasure. You're home and safe and sound, and that's all that matters. You've come back to me."
Dad cupped the back of my head with his large hand, and I thought this homecoming tableau might go on forever. I squirmed free and dug out the handkerchief from Henry's pocket, crumbs spilling to the floor.
"I'm sorry I stole the biscuit, Mom."
She laughed, and a shadow passed behind her eyes. Maybe she had been wondering up to that point if I was indeed her flesh and blood, but mentioning the biscuit did the trick. Henry had stolen one from the table when he ran away from home, and while the others took him to the river, I stole and pocketed it. The crumbs proved that I was hers.
Well after midnight, they put me to bed, and such a comfort may be the greatest invention of mankind. In any case, it tops sleeping in a hole in the cold ground, a moldy rabbit skin for your pillow, and the grunts and sighs of a dozen changelings anxious in their dreams. I stretched out like a stick between the crisp sheets and pondered my good fortune. Many tales exist of failed changelings who are uncovered by their presumptive families. One child who showed up in a Nova Scotia fishing village so frightened his poor parents that they fled their own home in the middle of a snowstorm and were later found frozen and bobbing in the frigid harbor. A changeling girl, age six, so shocked her new parents when she opened her mouth to speak that, thus frightened, they poured hot wax into each other's ears and never heard another sound. Other parents, upon learning that their child had been replaced by changelings, had their hair turn white overnight, were stunned into catatonia, heart attacks, or sudden death. Worse yet, though rare, other families drive out the creature through exorcism, banishment, abandonment, murder. Seventy years ago, I lost a good friend after he forgot to make himself look older as he aged. Convinced he was a devil, his parents tied him up like an unwanted kitten in a gunnysack and threw him down a well. Most of the time, though, the parents are confounded by the sudden change of their son or daughter, or one spouse blames the other for their queer fortune. It is a risky endeavor and not for the fainthearted.
That I had come this far undetected caused me no small satisfaction, but I was not completely at ease. A half hour after I had gone to bed, the door to my room swung open slowly. Framed against the hallway light, Mr. and Mrs. Day stuck their heads through the opening. I shut my eyes to mere slits and pretended to be sleeping. Softly, but persistently, she was sobbing. None could cry with such dexterity as Ruth Day. "We have to mend our ways, Billy. You have to make sure this never happens again."
"I know, I promise," he whispered. "Look at him sleeping, though. 'The innocent sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care.'"
He pulled shut the door and left me in the darkness. My fellow changelings and I had been spying on the boy for months, so I knew the contours of my new home at the edge of the forest. Henry's view of their few acres and the world beyond was magical. Outside, the stars shone through the window above a jagged row of firs. Through the open windows, a breeze blew across the top of the sheets, and moths beat their wings in retreat from their perches on the window screen. The nearly full moon reflected enough light into the space to reveal the dim pattern on the wallpaper, the crucifix above my head, pages torn from magazines and newspapers tacked along the wall. A baseball mitt and ball rested on top of the bureau, and on the washstand a pitcher and bowl glowed as white as phosphorous. A short stack of books lay propped against the bowl, and I could barely contain my excitement at the prospect of reading come morning.
The twins began bawling at the break of day. I padded down the hallway, past my new parents' room, following the sound. The babies hushed the moment they saw me, and I am sure that had they the gifts of reason and speech, Mary and Elizabeth would have said "You're not Henry" the moment I walked into the room. But they were mere tots, with more teeth than sentences, and could not articulate the mysteries of their young minds. With their clear wide eyes, they regarded my every move with quiet attentiveness. I tried smiling, but no smiles were returned. I tried making funny faces, tickling them under their fat chins, dancing like a puppet, and whistling like a mockingbird, but they simply watched, passive and inert as two dumb toads. Racking my brain to find a way to get through to them, I recalled other occasions when I had encountered something in the forest as helpless and dangerous as these two human children. Walking along in a lonesome glen, I had come across a bear cub separated from its mother. The frightened animal let out such a godforsaken scream that I half expected to be surrounded by every bear in the mountains. Despite my powers with animals, there was nothing to be done with a monster that could have ripped me open with a single swat. By crooning to the beast, I soothed it, and remembering this, I did so with my new-found sisters. They were enchanted by the sound of my voice and began at once to coo and clap their chubby hands while long strings of drool ran down their chins. "Twinkle, Twinkle" and "Bye, Baby Bunting" reassured or convinced them that I was close enough to be their brother, or preferable to their brother, but who knows for certain what thoughts flitted through their simple minds. They gurgled, and they gooed. In between songs, for counterpoint, I would talk to them in Henry's voice, and gradually they came to believe—or abandon their sense of disbelief.
Mrs. Day bustled into the babies' room, humming and tra-la-la-ing. Her general girth and amplitude amazed me; I had seen her many times before, but not quite at such close quarters. From the safety of the woods, she had seemed more or less the same as all adult humans, but in person, she assumed a singular tenderness, though she smelled faintly sour, a perfume of milk and yeast. She danced across the floor, throwing open curtains, dazzling the room with golden morning, and the girls, brightened by her presence, pulled themselves up by the slats of their cribs. I smiled at her, too. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into joyous laughter. She smiled back at me as if I were her only son.
"Help me with your sisters, would you, Henry?"
I picked up the nearest girl and announced very pointedly to my new mother, "I'll take Elizabeth." She was as heavy as a badger. It is a curious feeling to hold an infant one is not planning to steal; the very young convey a pleasant softness.
The girls' mother stopped and stared at me, and for a beat, she looked puzzled and uncertain. "How did you know that was Elizabeth? You've never been able to tell them apart."
"That's easy, Mom. Elizabeth has two dimples when she smiles and her name's longer, and Mary has just one."
"Aren't you the clever one?" She picked up Mary and headed off downstairs.
Elizabeth hid her face against my shoulder as we followed our mother. The kitchen table groaned with a huge feast—hotcakes and bacon, a jug of warm maple syrup, a gleaming pitcher of milk, and china bowls filled with sliced bananas. After a long life in the forest eating what-you-can-find, this simple fare appeared a smorgasbord of exotic delicacies, rich and ripe, the promise of fullness.
"Look, Henry, I made all your favorites."
I could have kissed her right on the spot. If she was pleased with herself for taking the trouble to fix Henry's favorite foods, she must have been extremely gratified by how I tucked in and enjoyed breakfast. After four hot-cakes, eight strips of bacon, and all but two small glassfuls of the pitcher of milk, I complained of hunger, so she made me three eggs and a half loaf of toast from home-baked bread. My metabolism had changed, it seemed. Ruth Day saw my appetite as a sign of love for her, and for the next eleven years, until I left for college, she indulged me. In time, she sublimated her own anxieties and began to eat like me. Decades as a changeling had molded my appetites and energies, but she was all too human, growing heavier with each passing season. Over the years, I've often wondered if she would have changed so much with her real firstborn or whether she filled her gnawing suspicion with food.
That first day she kept me inside the house, and after all that had occurred, who could blame her? I stuck closer than her own shadow, studying intently, learning better how to be her son, as she dusted and swept, washed the dishes, and changed the babies' diapers. The house felt safer than the forest, but strange and alien. Small surprises lurked. Daylight angled through the curtained windows, ran along the walls, and cast its patterns across the carpets in an entirely different geometry than beneath the canopy of leaves. Of particular interest were the small universes comprised of specks of dust that make themselves visible only through sunbeams. In contrast to the blaze of sunlight outside, the inner light had a soporific effect, especially on the twins. They tired shortly after lunch—another fete in my honor—and napped in the early afternoon.
My mother tiptoed from their room to find me patiently waiting in the same spot she had left me, standing like a sentinel in the hallway. I was he witched by an electrical outlet that screamed out to me to stick in my little finger. Although their door was closed, the twins' rhythmic breathing sounded like a storm rushing through the trees, for I had not yet trained myself not to listen. Mom took me by the hand, and her soft grasp filled me with an abiding empathy. The woman created a deep peace within me with her very touch. I remembered the books on Henry's washstand and asked her if she would read me a story.
We went to my room and clambered into bed together. For the past century, adults had been total strangers, and life among the changelings had distorted my perspective. More than twice my size, she seemed too solid and stout to be real, especially when compared to the skinny body of the boy I had assumed. My situation seemed fragile and capricious. If she rolled over, she could snap me like a bundle of twigs. Yet her sheer size created a bunker against the outer world. She would protect me against all my foes. As the twins slept, she read to me from the Brothers Grimm—"The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was," "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Singing Bone," "The Girl Without Hands," and many others, rare or familiar. My favorites were "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding Hood," which she read with beautiful expression in her mezzo timbre, a singsong much too cheerful for those awful fables. In the music of her voice, an echo sounded from long ago, and as I rested by her side, the decades dissolved.
I had heard these tales before, long ago, but in German, from my real mother (yes, I, too, had a mother, once upon a time), who introduced me to Ashenputtel and Rotk?ppchen from the Kinder- und Hausm?rchen. I wanted to forget, thought I was forgetting, but could hear quite clearly her voice in my head.
"Es war einmal im tiefen, tiefen Wald."
Although I quit the society of the changelings long ago, I have remained, in a sense, in those dark woods, hiding my true identity from those I love. Only now, after the strange events of this past year, do I have the courage to tell the story. This is my confession, too long delayed, which I have been afraid to make and only now reveal because of the passing dangers to my own son. We change. I have changed.
Chapter 7
Six months later, in April 1890, I found him dead inbed. He was on his back in bed, so at first I thought he was asleep. I talked to him, but he did not move. Then I saw that the skin on his face was blue, so I knew he was dead.
He did not usually sleep on his back. His enormous head was very heavy, so he usually sat up in bed with his arms round his legs, and his head on his knees. He could sleep well like this.
But he wanted to sleep on his back like you and me. Hetried to sleep on his back that night, but his heavy head came off the bed, and he broke his neck. He died very quickly.
Next day, the Chairman of the London Hospital, Mr Carr Gomm, wrote to the editor of The Times again.
The Times, April 16th, 1890
Dear Sir,
Three and a half years ago I wrote to you about a man called Joseph Merrick. This man was called‘The Elephant Man' because he aws born with a very ugly body. Merrick was not ill, but he could not work, and he had no money.
The readers of The Times felt sorry for him, and they gave me a lot of money for Merrick. Because of this money, we could giveMerrick a home in the Lon-don Hospital. It was his first good home, and for three and a half years he lived here happily. The doctors and nurses of the hospital helped him, and many important people visited him. He read many books, he went to the the atre, and in the summer he stayed in the country for six weeks. Because of your readers’ money, we couldgive him a happy life.
Last night Joseph Merrick died quietly in his bed. He was a man with a very ugly body, but he was a good, kind man, and he had a lot of friends. We liked to talk to him, and we are all very sorry because he is dead. A lot of people are going to remember him for a longtime.
There is some money left, so I am going to give it to the hospital. Thank you, sir, for your help.
Yours faithfully
F. C. Carr Gomm
Chairman of The London
Hospital
He did not usually sleep on his back. His enormous head was very heavy, so he usually sat up in bed with his arms round his legs, and his head on his knees. He could sleep well like this.
But he wanted to sleep on his back like you and me. Hetried to sleep on his back that night, but his heavy head came off the bed, and he broke his neck. He died very quickly.
Next day, the Chairman of the London Hospital, Mr Carr Gomm, wrote to the editor of The Times again.
The Times, April 16th, 1890
Dear Sir,
Three and a half years ago I wrote to you about a man called Joseph Merrick. This man was called‘The Elephant Man' because he aws born with a very ugly body. Merrick was not ill, but he could not work, and he had no money.
The readers of The Times felt sorry for him, and they gave me a lot of money for Merrick. Because of this money, we could giveMerrick a home in the Lon-don Hospital. It was his first good home, and for three and a half years he lived here happily. The doctors and nurses of the hospital helped him, and many important people visited him. He read many books, he went to the the atre, and in the summer he stayed in the country for six weeks. Because of your readers’ money, we couldgive him a happy life.
Last night Joseph Merrick died quietly in his bed. He was a man with a very ugly body, but he was a good, kind man, and he had a lot of friends. We liked to talk to him, and we are all very sorry because he is dead. A lot of people are going to remember him for a longtime.
There is some money left, so I am going to give it to the hospital. Thank you, sir, for your help.
Yours faithfully
F. C. Carr Gomm
Chairman of The London
Hospital
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Chapter 6
Merrick had a lo of friends now, but he was more like a child than a man. He could read about things, and talk to his visitors, but he could not go out of the hospital by himself. He thought and played like a child.
After Christmas, he wanted to go to the theatre. This was very difficult, because I did not want the people in the theatre to see him. But a kind lady from the theatre—Mrs Kendal—helped us. We bought tickets for a box at the side of the theatre We went to the theatre in a cab with dark windows, and we went into the theatre by a door at the back—the Queen's door. Nobody saw us.
Three nurses sat at the front of the box, and Merrick and I sat in the dark behind them. Nobody in the theatre could see us, but we could see the play.
It was a children's Christmas play. Merrick loved it. It was a most wonderful, exciting story. Often he laughed, and sometimes he tried to sing like the children in the theatre. He was like a child. For him, everything in the story was true.
Once he was very afraid, because the bad man in the play was angry and had a knife. At first Merrick wanted to leave the theatre, but I stopped him. Then he was very angry with this bad man in the play. He hit his hand on his chair, and stood up and talked to the man. But nobody heard him. When 42the bad man went to prison, Merrick laughed.
Merrick thought the beautiful young lady in the play was wonderful. He wanted to talk to her too. At the end of the play he was very happy because she married a good young man.
He remembered this play for a long time, and he talked a lot about the people in it. ‘What do you think they did after we left？’he asked me. ‘Where do the young lady and the young man live？ What are they doing now？’
‘I don't know, I said. ‘Perhaps they live in the country. ’
Merrick thought about this for a long time. Then he said：‘Dr Treves, can I go to the country, please？I saw the country once from a train, but I never went there. I often read about it in books. It's very beautiful, isn't it？I would like to see it. ’
The visit to the theatre was difficult but a visit to the country was more difficult. But again, one of his new friends helped us. She had a small house in the country, and Merrick could stay in it for the summer, she said.
I took Merrick to the country in a train with dark windows, so nobody could see him. Then we went in a cab to the country house.
There were a lot of trees near the house, but no people lived near it. A countryman brought food to the house everyday, but no people came near it.
I stayed with him that night. At night, it was very dark 44and quiet. In the morning, hundreds of birds sang in the trees, and everything outside the house was green. Merrick walked under the big trees, looking at things happily, and singing his strange song.
I went back to London, but Merrick stayed there for six weeks. He was wonderfully happy. Every week, he wrote me a letter.
Apple Tree House,
West Wickham,
Berkshire.
21st July 1889
Dear Dr Treves,
I had a wonderful day again today, It was very warm, so I walked under the trees and sat by a stream. The water in the stream made a beautiful noise, like singing. Did you know that？I listened to it for two hours.
Lots of little birds came near me . One had a red body in front, and a brown back. I gave it some bread, and it sat on my hand. A lot of birds are my friends, now.
I watched the fish in the stream, too. They were very exciting, because they move very fast. One minute they were there, and the next minute I couldn't see them. But I waited quietly, and they always came back. I put my hand in the water, but I couldn't touch them.
I met a big dog yesterday. It made a very loud noise, but I was not afraid. I sat down quietly and looked it, and it came and smelt my hand. I saw it again today, and gave it some bread. It likes me now.
I am going to put some flowers from the country in this letter. There are hundreds of flowers here. Did you know that？I like the little blue ones best, but they are all beautiful. I have lots of them in my room. I give them water every morning. Little flowers are very thirsty, you know!
I am very happy here, doctor, but I want to see you again soon, too.
With love from your friend,
Joseph Merrick
At the end of the summer he came back to London. He was very well, and his skin looked much better. He talked about the country a lot, but he was happy to see his friends and his books again, too.
After Christmas, he wanted to go to the theatre. This was very difficult, because I did not want the people in the theatre to see him. But a kind lady from the theatre—Mrs Kendal—helped us. We bought tickets for a box at the side of the theatre We went to the theatre in a cab with dark windows, and we went into the theatre by a door at the back—the Queen's door. Nobody saw us.
Three nurses sat at the front of the box, and Merrick and I sat in the dark behind them. Nobody in the theatre could see us, but we could see the play.
It was a children's Christmas play. Merrick loved it. It was a most wonderful, exciting story. Often he laughed, and sometimes he tried to sing like the children in the theatre. He was like a child. For him, everything in the story was true.
Once he was very afraid, because the bad man in the play was angry and had a knife. At first Merrick wanted to leave the theatre, but I stopped him. Then he was very angry with this bad man in the play. He hit his hand on his chair, and stood up and talked to the man. But nobody heard him. When 42the bad man went to prison, Merrick laughed.
Merrick thought the beautiful young lady in the play was wonderful. He wanted to talk to her too. At the end of the play he was very happy because she married a good young man.
He remembered this play for a long time, and he talked a lot about the people in it. ‘What do you think they did after we left？’he asked me. ‘Where do the young lady and the young man live？ What are they doing now？’
‘I don't know, I said. ‘Perhaps they live in the country. ’
Merrick thought about this for a long time. Then he said：‘Dr Treves, can I go to the country, please？I saw the country once from a train, but I never went there. I often read about it in books. It's very beautiful, isn't it？I would like to see it. ’
The visit to the theatre was difficult but a visit to the country was more difficult. But again, one of his new friends helped us. She had a small house in the country, and Merrick could stay in it for the summer, she said.
I took Merrick to the country in a train with dark windows, so nobody could see him. Then we went in a cab to the country house.
There were a lot of trees near the house, but no people lived near it. A countryman brought food to the house everyday, but no people came near it.
I stayed with him that night. At night, it was very dark 44and quiet. In the morning, hundreds of birds sang in the trees, and everything outside the house was green. Merrick walked under the big trees, looking at things happily, and singing his strange song.
I went back to London, but Merrick stayed there for six weeks. He was wonderfully happy. Every week, he wrote me a letter.
Apple Tree House,
West Wickham,
Berkshire.
21st July 1889
Dear Dr Treves,
I had a wonderful day again today, It was very warm, so I walked under the trees and sat by a stream. The water in the stream made a beautiful noise, like singing. Did you know that？I listened to it for two hours.
Lots of little birds came near me . One had a red body in front, and a brown back. I gave it some bread, and it sat on my hand. A lot of birds are my friends, now.
I watched the fish in the stream, too. They were very exciting, because they move very fast. One minute they were there, and the next minute I couldn't see them. But I waited quietly, and they always came back. I put my hand in the water, but I couldn't touch them.
I met a big dog yesterday. It made a very loud noise, but I was not afraid. I sat down quietly and looked it, and it came and smelt my hand. I saw it again today, and gave it some bread. It likes me now.
I am going to put some flowers from the country in this letter. There are hundreds of flowers here. Did you know that？I like the little blue ones best, but they are all beautiful. I have lots of them in my room. I give them water every morning. Little flowers are very thirsty, you know!
I am very happy here, doctor, but I want to see you again soon, too.
With love from your friend,
Joseph Merrick
At the end of the summer he came back to London. He was very well, and his skin looked much better. He talked about the country a lot, but he was happy to see his friends and his books again, too.
Chapter 5
I did not want Merrick to live by himself, like a man in a lighthouse. He read his books, and talked to me, but I wanted him to talk to more people. And I wanted him to talk to women.
Merrick read about women in his books, but he did not often talk to women. He met the nurses every day, but they did not talk to him very much. For them, he was always a creature, not a man.
One day, one of my friends, a beautiful young woman, came to the hospital. I told her about Merrick, and took her to his room. She opened the door, and smiled at him.
‘Good morning, Mr Merrick, ’she said. Then she shook his hand.
Merrick looked at her for a minute with his mouth open. Then he sat down on his bed, with his head in his hand, and cried. He cried for nearly five minutes. The tears ran down his face, between his fingers, and onto the floor.
My friend sat on the bed beside him and put her hand on his arm. She said nothing, but she smiled at him and shookhis hand again before she left.
‘Dr Treves, ’he said to me that night. ‘That lady was wonderful! My mother smiled at me once, many years ago, but no women smile at me now. But this lady smiled at me too, and she shook my hand! A beautiful lady smiled at me and shook my hand! ’
My young lady friend came again the next week, and talked to Merrick for half an hour. The week after that, she came again with a friend. They gave him some books, and had a cup of tea with him. It was wonderful for him. For the first time in his life, he had some friends. He was a very happy man. He sat in his room, and read his books, and said no more about living on a lighthouse.
People began to read about Merrick in the newspapers, sohe had a lot of visitors. Everybody wanted to see him. A lot of important ladies and gentlemen visited him. They smiled at him, shook his hand, and gave him books. Merrick liked talk-ing to these people, and he began to forget about his uglybody. His visitors never laughed at him. He began to feel like a man, not a creature.
One wonderful day, a very important lady came to the hospital to visit him. I met the lady, and took her to his room. Then I opened the door, and smiled at him.
‘Good morning, Joseph, ’I said. ‘There is a new visitor to see you today. A very famous lady. ’
Merrick stood up beside his table. He did not smile, because his face could not smile, but his eyes looked happy.
‘That's good, ’he said. ‘Who is it？’
I moved away from the door, and the visitor walked in. ‘Your Majesty, this is Joseph Merrick, ’I said. ‘Joseph, this is Her Majesty, Queen Alexandra, the Queen of England. ’
Queen Alexandra smiled at him. ‘How do you do, Mr Merrick, ’She said. ‘I'm very pleased to meet you. ’Then she shook his hand.
Merrick did not move. For nearly half a minute he stood and looked at her with his mouth open. Then he spoke, in his strange, slow voice.
‘How… how do you do, Your Majesty, ’he said. But I don't think the Queen understood him, because he tried to get down on his knees at the same time. It was very difficult for him, because of his enormous legs.
‘No, please, Mr Merrick, do get up, ’said the Queen. ‘I would like to talk to you. Can we sit at your table？’
‘Yes…yes, of course, ’he said. They sat at the table. She took his left hand, the good hand, in hers. She looked at the hand carefully, and then smiled at Merrick again.
‘I often read about you in the newspapers, ’she said. ‘You are a very interesting man, Mr Merrick. You have a very difficult life, but people say you're happy. Is it true？ Are you happy now？’
‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty, yes! ’said Merrick. ‘I'm a very happy man! I have a home here now, and friends, and my books. I'm happy every hour of the day! ’
‘What a wonderful story! ’she said. ‘I'm very pleasedto hear it Now, tell me about your reading. I see you have a lot of books here. ’
‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty. I love my books, ’said Merrick. And for nearly half an hour they sat and talked about books. The Queen gave him a little book, and some red flowers, before she left.
After her visit, Merrick began to sing. He could not sing easily, of course, because of his mouth, but all that day there was a strange, happy noise in his room. He looked at the flowers carefully, and put them on his table.
He had many visits from the Queen, and at Christmas she sent him a Christmas card.
Windsor Castle
20th December 1888
Dear Joseph,
Here is a small Christmas present for you. I think it looks like me, doesn't it？I do like visiting you very much, and I am going to come to the hospital again in the New Year.
Happy Christmas!
Your friend
Alexandra
The present was a picture of Queen Alexandra, with her name on it. Merrick cried over it, and put it carefully by the bed in his room. Then he sat down and wrote a letter to the Queen. It was the first letter of his life.
The London Hospital
23rd December 1888
My dear Queen,
Thank you very, very, much for your wonderful card and the beautiful picture. It is the best thing in my room, the very best, the most beautiful thing I have. This is the first Christmas in my life, and my first Christmas present. Perhaps I had a Christmas with my mother once, but I do not remember it. I have my mother's picture too, and she is beautiful, like you. But now I know many famous ladies and kind people like Dr Treves, and I am a very happy man. I am happy too because I am going to see you in the New Year.
Happy Christmas to you, my dear friend,
With all my love,
Joseph Merrick
Merrick read about women in his books, but he did not often talk to women. He met the nurses every day, but they did not talk to him very much. For them, he was always a creature, not a man.
One day, one of my friends, a beautiful young woman, came to the hospital. I told her about Merrick, and took her to his room. She opened the door, and smiled at him.
‘Good morning, Mr Merrick, ’she said. Then she shook his hand.
Merrick looked at her for a minute with his mouth open. Then he sat down on his bed, with his head in his hand, and cried. He cried for nearly five minutes. The tears ran down his face, between his fingers, and onto the floor.
My friend sat on the bed beside him and put her hand on his arm. She said nothing, but she smiled at him and shookhis hand again before she left.
‘Dr Treves, ’he said to me that night. ‘That lady was wonderful! My mother smiled at me once, many years ago, but no women smile at me now. But this lady smiled at me too, and she shook my hand! A beautiful lady smiled at me and shook my hand! ’
My young lady friend came again the next week, and talked to Merrick for half an hour. The week after that, she came again with a friend. They gave him some books, and had a cup of tea with him. It was wonderful for him. For the first time in his life, he had some friends. He was a very happy man. He sat in his room, and read his books, and said no more about living on a lighthouse.
People began to read about Merrick in the newspapers, sohe had a lot of visitors. Everybody wanted to see him. A lot of important ladies and gentlemen visited him. They smiled at him, shook his hand, and gave him books. Merrick liked talk-ing to these people, and he began to forget about his uglybody. His visitors never laughed at him. He began to feel like a man, not a creature.
One wonderful day, a very important lady came to the hospital to visit him. I met the lady, and took her to his room. Then I opened the door, and smiled at him.
‘Good morning, Joseph, ’I said. ‘There is a new visitor to see you today. A very famous lady. ’
Merrick stood up beside his table. He did not smile, because his face could not smile, but his eyes looked happy.
‘That's good, ’he said. ‘Who is it？’
I moved away from the door, and the visitor walked in. ‘Your Majesty, this is Joseph Merrick, ’I said. ‘Joseph, this is Her Majesty, Queen Alexandra, the Queen of England. ’
Queen Alexandra smiled at him. ‘How do you do, Mr Merrick, ’She said. ‘I'm very pleased to meet you. ’Then she shook his hand.
Merrick did not move. For nearly half a minute he stood and looked at her with his mouth open. Then he spoke, in his strange, slow voice.
‘How… how do you do, Your Majesty, ’he said. But I don't think the Queen understood him, because he tried to get down on his knees at the same time. It was very difficult for him, because of his enormous legs.
‘No, please, Mr Merrick, do get up, ’said the Queen. ‘I would like to talk to you. Can we sit at your table？’
‘Yes…yes, of course, ’he said. They sat at the table. She took his left hand, the good hand, in hers. She looked at the hand carefully, and then smiled at Merrick again.
‘I often read about you in the newspapers, ’she said. ‘You are a very interesting man, Mr Merrick. You have a very difficult life, but people say you're happy. Is it true？ Are you happy now？’
‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty, yes! ’said Merrick. ‘I'm a very happy man! I have a home here now, and friends, and my books. I'm happy every hour of the day! ’
‘What a wonderful story! ’she said. ‘I'm very pleasedto hear it Now, tell me about your reading. I see you have a lot of books here. ’
‘Oh, yes, Your Majesty. I love my books, ’said Merrick. And for nearly half an hour they sat and talked about books. The Queen gave him a little book, and some red flowers, before she left.
After her visit, Merrick began to sing. He could not sing easily, of course, because of his mouth, but all that day there was a strange, happy noise in his room. He looked at the flowers carefully, and put them on his table.
He had many visits from the Queen, and at Christmas she sent him a Christmas card.
Windsor Castle
20th December 1888
Dear Joseph,
Here is a small Christmas present for you. I think it looks like me, doesn't it？I do like visiting you very much, and I am going to come to the hospital again in the New Year.
Happy Christmas!
Your friend
Alexandra
The present was a picture of Queen Alexandra, with her name on it. Merrick cried over it, and put it carefully by the bed in his room. Then he sat down and wrote a letter to the Queen. It was the first letter of his life.
The London Hospital
23rd December 1888
My dear Queen,
Thank you very, very, much for your wonderful card and the beautiful picture. It is the best thing in my room, the very best, the most beautiful thing I have. This is the first Christmas in my life, and my first Christmas present. Perhaps I had a Christmas with my mother once, but I do not remember it. I have my mother's picture too, and she is beautiful, like you. But now I know many famous ladies and kind people like Dr Treves, and I am a very happy man. I am happy too because I am going to see you in the New Year.
Happy Christmas to you, my dear friend,
With all my love,
Joseph Merrick
Chapter 4
We gave Merrick two rooms at the back of the hospital. One room was a bathroom, so he could have a bath every day. Soon his skin was much better, and there was no horrible smell.
The second room had a bed, table , and chairs. I visited him every day, and talked to him. He loved reading, and talking about books. At first he did not know many books：the Bible, and one or two newspapers, that's all. But I gave him some books of love stories, and he liked them very much. He read them again and again, and talked about them often. For him, the men and women in these books were alive, like you and me. He was very happy.
But sometimes it was difficult for him. At first, one or two people in the hospital laughed at Merrick because he was ugly. Sometimes, they brought their friends to look at him. One day a new nurse came to the hospital, and nobody told her about Merrick. She took his food to his room, and opened the door. Then she saw him. She screamed, dropped the food on the floor, and ran out of the room.
I was very angry with the nurse, and went to see Merrick. He was not happy about it, but he was not very angry. I think he felt sorry for the girl.
‘People don't like looking at me. I know that, Dr 26Treves, ’he said. ‘They usually laugh or scream. ’
‘Well, I don't want nurses to laugh at you, Joseph, ’ I said angrily. ‘I want them to help you. ’
‘Thank you, doctor, ’he said, in his strange slow voice. ‘But it's not important. Everyone laughs at me. I understand that. ’
I looked at him sadly. In his one good hand, his left hand, he had the little picture of his mother. He looked at the picture for a minute, and then put it by a flower on the table. A tear ran out of his eye and down the skin of his enormous, ugly face.
‘Dr Treves, ’he said, slowly. ‘You and the nurses arevery kind, and I'm very happy here. Thank you very much. But…I know I can't stay here long, and…I would like to live in a lighthouse, after the hospital, please. A lighthouse, or a home for blind people. I think those are the best places for me.
‘What do you mean？’I ashed. ‘Why？’
He did not look at me. He put the flower on the picture and looked at it carefully.
‘Lighthouses have sea all round them, don't they？ ’he said. ‘ Nobody could look at me in a lighthouse, so I would be happy there. And blind people can see nothing, so they couldn't see me, could they？’
‘But Joseph, ’I said. ‘This is your home. You live here now. You aren't going to leave the hospital. ’ 28‘Not todsy, perhaps, ’he said. But soon. You are a kind man, Dr Treves. But I can't stay here very long. I have no money. ’
I smiled. ‘Joseph, I said. ‘This is your home now. Don't you understand？You can stay here all your life. ’ Very carefully, I told him about the letter to The Times, and the money.
I don't think he understood at first, so I told him again. He was very quiet for a minute. Then he stood up, and walked up and down the room very quickly. A strange sound came from him, like laughing.
The second room had a bed, table , and chairs. I visited him every day, and talked to him. He loved reading, and talking about books. At first he did not know many books：the Bible, and one or two newspapers, that's all. But I gave him some books of love stories, and he liked them very much. He read them again and again, and talked about them often. For him, the men and women in these books were alive, like you and me. He was very happy.
But sometimes it was difficult for him. At first, one or two people in the hospital laughed at Merrick because he was ugly. Sometimes, they brought their friends to look at him. One day a new nurse came to the hospital, and nobody told her about Merrick. She took his food to his room, and opened the door. Then she saw him. She screamed, dropped the food on the floor, and ran out of the room.
I was very angry with the nurse, and went to see Merrick. He was not happy about it, but he was not very angry. I think he felt sorry for the girl.
‘People don't like looking at me. I know that, Dr 26Treves, ’he said. ‘They usually laugh or scream. ’
‘Well, I don't want nurses to laugh at you, Joseph, ’ I said angrily. ‘I want them to help you. ’
‘Thank you, doctor, ’he said, in his strange slow voice. ‘But it's not important. Everyone laughs at me. I understand that. ’
I looked at him sadly. In his one good hand, his left hand, he had the little picture of his mother. He looked at the picture for a minute, and then put it by a flower on the table. A tear ran out of his eye and down the skin of his enormous, ugly face.
‘Dr Treves, ’he said, slowly. ‘You and the nurses arevery kind, and I'm very happy here. Thank you very much. But…I know I can't stay here long, and…I would like to live in a lighthouse, after the hospital, please. A lighthouse, or a home for blind people. I think those are the best places for me.
‘What do you mean？’I ashed. ‘Why？’
He did not look at me. He put the flower on the picture and looked at it carefully.
‘Lighthouses have sea all round them, don't they？ ’he said. ‘ Nobody could look at me in a lighthouse, so I would be happy there. And blind people can see nothing, so they couldn't see me, could they？’
‘But Joseph, ’I said. ‘This is your home. You live here now. You aren't going to leave the hospital. ’ 28‘Not todsy, perhaps, ’he said. But soon. You are a kind man, Dr Treves. But I can't stay here very long. I have no money. ’
I smiled. ‘Joseph, I said. ‘This is your home now. Don't you understand？You can stay here all your life. ’ Very carefully, I told him about the letter to The Times, and the money.
I don't think he understood at first, so I told him again. He was very quiet for a minute. Then he stood up, and walked up and down the room very quickly. A strange sound came from him, like laughing.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Chapter 3
I did not see Merrick again for two years. Then, one day, the police found him. He had my card in his hand, so they brought him to the London Hospital. He was very tired, hungry, and dirty, so I put him to bed in a quiet little room. But he could not stay at the hospital. He was not ill, and of course the beds in the hospital are for ill people. We have no beds for hungry people, or ugly people.
I told the Hospital Chairman, Mr Cars Gomm, about Merrick. He listened carefully, and then he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times newspaper.
From The Times, December 4th, 1886
A Letter to the Editor.
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you about a man in our hospital. He needs your help. His name is Joseph Merrick, and he is 27 years old. He is not ill, but he cannot go out of the hospital because he is very, very ugly. Nobody likes to look at him, and some people are afraid him. We call him ‘The Elephant Man’.
Two years ago, Merrick lived in a shop near the London Hospital. For two pence, people could see him and laugh at him. One day Dr Frederick Treves—a hospital doctor——sawMerrick, brought him to this hospital, and looked at him carefully. Dr Treves could not help Merrick, but he gave him his card.
Then the shopkeeper, Silcock, took merrick to Belgium. A lot of people in Belgium wanted to see him, and so after a year Merrick had ￡50. But then Silcock took Merrick's ￡50, left Merrick in Belgium, and went back to London.
Merrick came back to London by himself. Everyone on the train and the ship looked at him, and laughed at him. In London, the police put him in prison. But then they saw DrTreves's card, and brought Merrick to the London Hospital.
This man has no money, and he cannot work. His face and body are very, very ugly, so of course many people are afraid of him. But he is a very interesting man. He can read and write, and he thinks a lot. He is a good, quiet man. Sometimes he makes things with his hands and gives them to the nurses, because they are kind to him.
He remembers his mother, and he has a picture of her. She was beautiful and kind, he says. But he never sees her now. She gave him to Silcock a long time ago.
Can the readers of The Times help us？ This man is not ill, but he needs a home. We can give him a room at the hospital, but we need some money. Please write to me at the London Hospital.
I told the Hospital Chairman, Mr Cars Gomm, about Merrick. He listened carefully, and then he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times newspaper.
From The Times, December 4th, 1886
A Letter to the Editor.
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you about a man in our hospital. He needs your help. His name is Joseph Merrick, and he is 27 years old. He is not ill, but he cannot go out of the hospital because he is very, very ugly. Nobody likes to look at him, and some people are afraid him. We call him ‘The Elephant Man’.
Two years ago, Merrick lived in a shop near the London Hospital. For two pence, people could see him and laugh at him. One day Dr Frederick Treves—a hospital doctor——sawMerrick, brought him to this hospital, and looked at him carefully. Dr Treves could not help Merrick, but he gave him his card.
Then the shopkeeper, Silcock, took merrick to Belgium. A lot of people in Belgium wanted to see him, and so after a year Merrick had ￡50. But then Silcock took Merrick's ￡50, left Merrick in Belgium, and went back to London.
Merrick came back to London by himself. Everyone on the train and the ship looked at him, and laughed at him. In London, the police put him in prison. But then they saw DrTreves's card, and brought Merrick to the London Hospital.
This man has no money, and he cannot work. His face and body are very, very ugly, so of course many people are afraid of him. But he is a very interesting man. He can read and write, and he thinks a lot. He is a good, quiet man. Sometimes he makes things with his hands and gives them to the nurses, because they are kind to him.
He remembers his mother, and he has a picture of her. She was beautiful and kind, he says. But he never sees her now. She gave him to Silcock a long time ago.
Can the readers of The Times help us？ This man is not ill, but he needs a home. We can give him a room at the hospital, but we need some money. Please write to me at the London Hospital.
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