Cursed Little One

Cursed is the little one, on whose face are visited the blights of heinous sin. Not a hair on all her body has the little one; her skin is riddled with red boils from which ooze yellow pus that reeks of decay and stench. Her skin is yellow and thin like parchment, and where it is torn it never heals, but instead festers and stinks before receding to a hot pink scar. There is a line of warts where her eyebrows might have been, her lips are scaly and cracked. She must be fed by nurse through a straw, and even that is difficult for her, as the sores on the inside of her throat make it painful for her to swallow. At the end of her nose there is no cartilage: her nostrils open out from the inside of her face like a serpent’s; a flap of skin like an uvula hangs where her nose should have been. Each morning when the little one rises after a brief and fevered sleep, her eyes are caked with gunk, and she must cry for nurse to wash them with water. But no matter! Already the eyes are red and inflamed and the irises milky; anyone would think she was blind. Soon it will be so. Her fingers are twisted and the nails curl in on themselves so stubbornly that they cannot be trimmed. Gangrene will set in to the wounds. Already the cursed one has lost two of her toes. On one cheek is a growth that looks like a barnacle encrusted on the hull of a ship. Doctor says that when it bursts she will be left with a hole into the side of her mouth. Her body exudes a foul stench, and it is vile to be near her. Many people, the cursed one among them, have wished that she were dead.

It was her family that first called the little one cursed. When she was born she looked just like any baby girl, but inside a week the blight had descended upon her to avenge an unspoken wrong. At first the family prayed that the curse would lift and their daughter recover, but with age she has only grown sicker. So they lock her at the top of the house, where her stink will not rise to any inhabited place, in an attic that swelters in the summer, and rattles with icy wind all the winter through. They pay nurse to feed her, tend to her, change her dressings, and clean her wounds. The family themselves never visit, lest the curse be found contagious; they never speak of her outside the house and within the house they speak only in whispers. And they hope, in silence, and in the silence between the words of their prayers they pray, that soon the little one will die, and with her soul the curse will be lifted.

Years ago they sent for the best physicians, who came to examine the cursed one, diagnose her, and prescribe their chosen physik. Time passed: the little one grew worse; never at all, not even for a moment, did she improve. A celebrity surgeon treated the child with radiation, but it only made her weaker. She was given tinctures and balsams, denied food and water, and given leeches. A celebrated naturalist made her drink venom of rattlesnake, and for one week she vomited blood. One apothecary said the sickness could be cast out only if fever were induced, and the little one was infected with Belladonna. It had no effect, save to give her hallucinations and fever. Even the faith healer could work no miracle. The little one grew sicker and sicker, but not yet sick enough to die.

In the summer, word came of a monk who was said to work magic. As a rule the family was not superstitious; they were educated and shrewd, and did not fall victim to fairy tales and peasant hoodoo. But the idea settled in them and took root; desperation made them vulnerable to unaccountable hope. One day the little one’s father drove to the monastery and requested an audience with the monk, who consented. The man spoke of his daughter’s curse, living a life half-human and half-demon, locked in an attic to protect her fellows, putrid and stinking, unfit for company, trapped in a rotting body, agonised, hounded by fate, denied even the mercy of death. The man spoke, and the monk wept.

The next day he came to visit. He was offered sugar water but said he would not take it until after he had seen the girl. Her father showed him to the room at the top of the stairs. Nurse opened the door to admit him.

The heat that day had not been kind to the cursed one. Her wounds had opened and were seeping into the covers of her bed. When she moved, her scabs tore, but it was agony for her to lie still. She was very thirsty, but the boils on her throat prevented her from taking drink. Her eyes felt raw and rusty, whether she held them open or closed. The stench in the room was putrid, yet the monk did not draw back. He walked to the girl, and sat on a stool next to her bed.

For half an hour they spoke. The monk was a handsome and dignified old man, with a straight spine, olive skin and shining green eyes, thick and wavy hair the colour of snow, and a voice so soft and melodious it sounded like it had only ever spoken kindness and truth. He leant in to listen when the girl spoke, for her voice was frail and shallow – scarcely more than a gasp – but her words were full of innocence, and the monk was moved to hear her speak of the kindness of nurse who washed her wounds without complaining, and her family who kept her and loved her in spite of her repulsiveness, and prayed for her at night, though she could never be other than burthen to them. She told the monk that every morning nurse told her of the people in town, and in the afternoon, as she lay alone, the girl thought of those people, repeated their names, and asked God that they would be blessed. She said that it never made the pain less, but somehow it made it more bearable. The monk asked if she would not rather be outside, playing with other children on a summer day, but the girl told him it would not do to speak like that, since her wounds did not deal at all well with the heat, there was the risk of infection, and her appearance was such as would only frighten the other children away. The monk smiled to hear the tenderness of the girl’s heart, and when his time was done he took her hand in his own, and vowed to her that he would do everything he could to make her better. The girl sobbed.
“What is wrong?” said the monk, putting her hand quickly back onto the bed. “Have I hurt you?”
“No,” said the little girl. “Only, no one has ever done that to me before.”
“No one has ever promised to help you?”
“No – many have done that. But no one has ever held my hand before – only nurse, when she must change my dressings.”
Then the monk wept, too. “They will hold your hand,” he said to the little girl. “I promise you: they will hold your hand.”
The girl’s eyes smiled.
The man wiped his eyes. “Tell me,” he said, “does your illness hurt you very much?”
“It is not so bad, much of the time,” said the girl, “though I suppose I’m used to it.”
The monk stood up, bid the girl farewell, and walked out the door. Her father was waiting for him in the lobby. “They will hold her hand,” the monk said to him, then he left. He refused the father’s offer of sugar water.

The next morning the nurse reported that the girl’s wounds had closed. But she said it was no surprise, since a change had come in the night, and the air was cooler. On the morning of the second day, the girl’s wounds had healed. On the third morning her eyes were healthy and clear. On the fourth, hair appeared on the top of her head. On the fifth day, the family heard laughter coming from the little girl’s attic. On the sixth day she rose. On the seventh day, in the morning, she appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and asked if she might join her family for breakfast.

Not a soul spoke. All were in shock. They could not believe the sight they saw before them: a strange, beautiful little girl with bright green eyes and long, wavy black hair, and perfect skin, slightly tanned, with long slender limbs and a graceful stride. All her family stared at her, then her mother began to cry. “My daughter!” she cried, “my child!” She raced across to clutch the girl in her arms, held her to her chest, and wept, murmuring from time to time, “My daughter is beautiful, my daughter is well.”

All the girl’s brothers and sisters gathered around and introduced themselves to her one at a time, saying it was very nice to meet her indeed and promising to be uniformly good to her. They hugged her and held her by her hand, and responded to her mother’s inquiries by saying that she was certainly the most beautiful girl they had ever seen, and they were sure they would all grow to be excellent friends. The little girl smiled shyly, overwhelmed by their affection and praise. At one point she began to cry, and when they asked her if she was not well she told them that she was well indeed! More than well! Today was the happiest day of her life!

After breakfast the whole family piled into their car and drove to see the monk, but on arrival at the monastery they were informed that the monk was retreating in the mountains, and would not return until the end of the month. So the father made an appointment for the very first day of the next month, and vowed not to be even a single minute late.

The weeks passed. Each day the little girl grew more beautiful. She started at school, and immediately was the most popular girl in her class. She was lovely and gentle, and kind to everyone; she spoke softly and never said anything bad. Her life was a flush of gratitude and delight. Every night, when she returned from school, she would think of all her friends there, and pray that they would be just as happy as she.

She moved out from the attic to sleep in a sunny room on the second floor with windows that looked through the branches of a jacaranda tree. In the mornings she rose and looked at herself in the mirror, saying, “How beautiful I am! How blessed!” It always came as a surprise to her, like she had awoken into a pleasant dream. Everyone was so pleased with her! They praised her and praised her, and never tired of praising her, for she was so humble and sweet. But with time she grew accustomed to praise. She no longer derived any joy from it, but found she missed it when it was not there. It became her sick necessity. She sought out situations in which she might be admired, and looked for praise even where it was not given: she became aware of the way people looked at her, how they reacted when she entered and left a room. It delighted her to find that people thought she was beautiful, even if they did not say it – especially when they did not say it, for that suggested a reticence, a quaking worship which gratified her pride. She learned the signals that indicated when someone was struck by her. She enjoyed the nervous smiles and painful stuttering of the boys, the ways people looked at her then looked away, the pathetically transparent fidgeting and touching of faces and hands. Attention was narcotic to her, though she never had any intention of giving herself up to it. She was attracted to being attractive. Her pride pleasured itself in a bubble. She felt no interest in people beyond the interest they showed in her. Even alone, when there was no one else with her, she relived her social successes, and envisioned new ones for the future. She ceased wishing that people might be happy; she wished instead that they would thank her for showering happiness upon them. She was always excited now, and always slightly upset.

As the little girl changed, so others changed in their treatment of her. They flattered her now, but did not praise; secretly, they envied. Perhaps they were afraid of her, too. They were insecure and insincere, and resented her good luck. Had she not once been a leper? Had she not once been too horrible even to look upon? They hated her sullen hauteur, and thought it ill-deserved. They laughed at her in secret, with passionate venom.

Her family also grew accustomed to her beauty. They forgot she had once been the cursed little one in the attic: she was so different now: the past seemed just a vague and bizarre dream, belonging to another family of people. They grew accustomed to their pretty little daughter, who was sometimes delightful, sometimes difficult, sometimes sweet, sometimes morose. They accepted her, absorbed her into their own worlds, and carried on.

There was an important fête the day they promised to visit the monk, so they wrote begging postponement. The monk said they were welcome to visit the week after. But that week the father was away on business, so they delayed again. A third week came and someone was sick, and the appointment was pushed back. Vaguely, things continued.

At last the family decided that someone would have to visit the old Quaker, because it did not look well to break a promise, especially to someone so well-connected in the Church. They had long given up their silly superstition that the monk had had anything at all to do with the healing of the girl. “How could it have been him?” they said. “All he did was run off to a hut, and he did that after she had gotten better.” They laughed scornfully, and saw that clearly it had been the effect of another medicine, or combination of medicines, which had been activated by the cooler change. All the doctors said their cures would take time. How true their words had proven! All the same, a man’s word is a man’s word, so one afternoon the father took his daughter, and drove to visit the monk.

They parked on the monastery grass and walked inside. It was autumn now, and chilly. The little girl wore a sweater. She was pouty on purpose, to punish her father for forcing her to visit a creepy old man against her will. An awkward postulant with glasses and long fingers led them to the monk’s cell. At one point the girl caught him staring at her, and she was pleased to see him blush.

The postulant asked them to wait in the hallway. He went in to the monk’s cell to announce them, then came out to say the monk was ready. He held the door open as they entered.

The stench was inside the cell was horrific. The air reeked of rotting flesh. All the windows were open, and the room was icy cold. The little girl shivered, and drew in on herself. It was dark in the room, for there was no fire, and their eyes took some time adjusting to the light. Slowly they discerned a figure slumped in a chair. The creature was bald, the skin on his head full of scales. All over he was covered with blisters and boils from which oozed the most wretched pus. He had neither eyebrows nor eyelashes – a row of boils made a mockery of where his eyebrows might have been. His nose was sunken like the nose of a decayed skull, his nostrils like the nostrils of a snake, emerging right out from inside his face, separated from each other only by a flap of dangling skin. His eyes were milky and seemed blind. There was a growth on his cheek that looked like clams growing into the hull of a ship. This was particularly foul, and when the little girl saw it she drew back.

The creature rose and clasped his hands together. “You are beautiful!” he cried. “So very beautiful!”
The little girl pulled a face and turned away. She hid herself behind her father’s leg.
“I am very happy to see you,” said the monk. His voice was still pure and gentle. “I am happy to see you well.”
The girl did not reply.
“Sir,” stammered the father, “sir, we want to thank you for your – your good wishes for our daughter’s recovery. We have – well – I, we appreciate your kindness tremendously.”
The monk nodded. A drip of snot fell from his nose onto his chest. Blood mixed with the pus on his neck. “You’re welcome,” he said.
“We are – we haven’t much time, I’m afraid, since we must be home for tea, but we – you see – I’m sorry – we wanted to drop by and say that you have been a, uh, great comfort to us, in our – and – well, we’re thankful that you – that you were willing to share your valuable time with us in, uh, well – in a word, thank you, sir.”
The monk nodded again. “You’re welcome,” he said.
“Well,” said the father, and he raised his hand to touch his face. Then, abruptly, he lowered his hand, and nodded. “Thank you,” he said again. He took his daughter by the hand, turned around, and led her to the door. The girl followed half a step behind, holding her father’s hand in one hand while with her other hand she pinched her nose. They walked past the postulant and out the door. For a moment they were gone from sight, but then the father reappeared, alone, in the doorway, holding his wallet. He drew a couple of banknotes from inside it, looked around for a table or a dresser, found none, so bent and placed them in a neat pile on the floor. He stood, nodded to the monk without looking at his eyes, then turned and left the cell, shutting the door behind him. He and his daughter left the monastery, and did not return.