The Undertow

He followed the line of trees on the top of the hill, then down by the creek, silver blue under the sunlight of the afternoon, and the plane opened in front of him, the house built jut next to the grove, its rooftop red and capped by a chimney. He dismounted from the horse, and slowly walked past the fence, until he saw one of his daughters running towards him. Father, she said, a man is waiting for you. He put off his dusty hat, the sun was fiercely shining from above and he wiped the sweat from his forehead. Ok, he said, and put the reins of the horse in the palms of the girl who smiled at it and led it to the stable. He went into the house, cool inside, with drawn curtains, and opened the door of the study. There was he sitting, in the gloomy room, with closed windows where the air was stifled; the man was young, under 30 in any case, tall, in white elegant suit, with clear blue eyes and pale skin. Slow gestures. He shook his hand, their eyes met for a second, and he sat by the table, opening the window to let some fresh air from outside.

Mr Hudson, the visitor said, I called you a week ago, do you remember? Yes, Hudson did. A week ago this man called from – New York? Chicago? It did not matter really – and Ally, the youngest daughter told her father it was for him. He frowned. He was not used to talking on the phone. Then he heard the same voice he was hearing now, low, a little bit husky, with flair of arrogance. Mr Hudson, my name is Frank Stevens, I am calling from … (yes, the name of the city he had forgotten) to ask you if you accept orders for small monuments. Small monuments? Hudson sat on the chair by the phone. What do you mean? Well, if you are available, I would better come to you personally. Ok, said Hudson, you are welcome, but I live on the mountain slopes of X mountain, quite far from cities and, perhaps, civilization in general, so…Nevermind, I would come.

Frank Stevens was here now. He was sitting in his white suit, his legs were crossed; he pulled his hand in the pocket of his jacket and took out a cigarette, long and thin one, white, and lit it. Hudson hated cigarettes but said nothing. Frank’s face was surrounded by a dim veil of smoke. His lips were a bit plump, pinkish, having a kind of childish outlook. Stevens was staring straight at Hudson, then started to talk slowly, with the same arrogant tremble in his voice, while gesticulating with the hand holding his cigarette. So, about half a year ago, Frank’s grandfather, a magnate in the chemical industry, the founder of a highly successful company on the market of pharmaceuticals, died. Frank’s family loved their parent and grandfather and wanted to have a monument on his grave. They wanted a sculptor who was really…able, to put it this way. Frank had talked with several but neither seemed to be good enough. Then, in Philadelphia, he visited the church (No, Mr Stevens, Hudson interrupted him, it is not a church, it is called a temple) ok, the Temple of the Twelve Evangelical Saints of Jesus Christ…by the way, there they told me you belong to their church? Yes, Mr Stevens, I do… So, in this Temple, I saw a sculpture, wow, I said, it is a great one, a real monument, with angels and doves and…well, it was so beautiful, I asked the priest, and he said it was your deed, Mr Hudson. So now I decided to ask you if you would take up…the job. In terms of remuneration, everything will be settled…I think we can pay you well. Frank’s pinkish lips opened, a small gust of smoke floated from inside and he smiled lavishly.

Hudson turned to the right and looked through the slightly opened window; the day outside was bright, the afternoon was hot, he could see the stable, and three of his seven children playing around the horses, the kids were laughing, in their green shirts and blue dresses, under the shadow of a big tree overhead. They were running round that place, trying to catch each other, sometimes stumbling, sometimes crying when they would fall on the dusty ground. Then he turned back to the cigarette smoke and Frank Stevens.

I usually take all sorts of requests. Yes, I can make a grave monument for your grandfather. But I have several conditions. First, I would work here, at home, I don’t want to move somewhere else. Also, I want to know exactly what you fancy the monument would be like. And third, I would not make anything indecent on the monument. I say it because often people ask me to make a sculpture of nude bodies and so on - I don’t like it. It is against my beliefs.

Frank smiled, then nodded – ok, no problem. Hudson stood up on his feet and walked towards the door – I would show you some of my works. They walked side by side in the narrow corridor and down the staircase, the smell of tobacco wafted in the air round Frank, he was stepping graciously, with the flexibility of a well-built physique, and his eyes were quickly indicating the objects in the house – some paintings, a vintage lamp, a pair of chairs, the curtains in orange colour, the stifled smell of the air. Hudson was avoiding his eyes. They went through and arcade and into a small yard, a dusty one, with several sculptures on the ground. One consisted of seven angles in white mantles, each holding a strange replica of a trumpet, extending their hands to the outside viewers. You are keen on angels, right? asked Franck. I get many orders from Temples like the one in Philadelphia, so I do religious themes. Hudson pointed to a tall figure of Jesus surrounded by five children looking upwards to his calm face while he was smiling. So you are religious, right? You are in that church, the Apostles? Hudson nodded. Yes, he was born in that church, he was baptized there, he married there, he lived his life through it. Frank walked around with cunning curiosity in his smile, then looked through the window – the mountain cliffs were somewhere overhead. You have chosen such a secluded place to live, Mr Hudson. I don’t like cities, he replied, I want to live here. But the nearest town is about an hour away, you don’t get much people coming round, do you? Hudson waived with his hand. It does not matter. I like the place. Frank shrugged his arms – I can’t imagine life outside the big city, he said. He touched the forehead of one of the kids on the sculpture. As if they are alive…Frank raised his astounded eyes – you really got talent, Mr Hudson.

Hudson saw him off to the veranda. Outside was parked Frank’s sport car, shiny black one. He put his hat on, and looked to the right. You seem to love children…How many do you have? Seven, four girls and three boys. Then Frank opened his pinkish lips in a wide smile. God bless them, Mr Hudson. They talked for a while, then Stevens went into his car and disappeared amidst the heat and the dust of the road.

Hudson, standing on the veranda, was still able to smell the scent of tobacco in the air of the late afternoon. That night he went to bed late, his wife was already asleep, her body protruding under the white sheets. He switched the lamp and lied there in the dark. On the next morning he made a quick phone call, drove the car out of the garage, waived to the kids sitting on the fence of the stable and disappeared in the vastness of the valley. The mountain cliffs were somewhere behind, he was heading to the city. It slowly emerged from the thin morning mist – people, cars, buildings of concrete and glass. He drove straight to the Temple, a vast building of stone in mediaeval architecture, with four towers topped by angels with extended hands. The gate was open and he stepped in; the interior was white, the floor was covered by marble and the walls – by frescoes of various biblical themes. In the centre there was a big marble cauldron full of water. Hudson waited by a column reaching the ceiling of this great hall. The sunrays were creeping at his feet, he watched them in silence. Then a shadow appeared and he saw that Prophet Williams was approaching. Short, bald, with long greyish beard and in white long robe, he smiled and shook Hudson’s hand.

They walked for a while until Prophet Williams opened a white door to a narrow room with a small window overlooking an inner court. Prophet Williams, Hudson said, it came again. The prophet looked at him in surprise and wanted to know more. Yes, prophet, yesterday a man came to my house…he is from the big city, yes, and he wanted to order a monument but then I felt it again, prophet Williams, like the whisper of the demon, the way I described it to you so many years ago…The prophet stood up, walked to and fro in silence. So you feel it, you feel it now? It came back again, prophet…It is burning me, here - Hudson touched his chest. The prophet mumbled: that demon, that demon…I thought you overcame this when you were twenty, I thought it is too late to appear again…Now you have a wife, children, home, family… At the time you came to me, so many years ago, you were alone, you were on the brink, and that whispers were shaking and twisting you but now…Hudson touched his forehead and closed his eyes, as if he was trying not to cry. Prophet, I live away, I live away in the mountain just to be away from people, just to be away from men…I do not even go to the exhibitions of my own sculptures…I have made seven children, I am a loyal father, faithful to God…and now – I feel this longing again, father, this sin. The prophet interrupted him: You know it is sin, you know it is the most abhorrent and disgusting of human nature to long after other men instead of lawful wife. You know it. You have to overcome it. Once and for all, or you will be damned, damned for eternity – the prophet shouted. How did it happen? Hudson shrugged his shoulders. I just felt it while I was sitting and talking to this man, yes, young and handsome one but…I don’t know. I can’t sleep prophet, I cannot.

Yes, the prophet recalled how, more than twenty years ago, this man, as a youngster, with curly long hair, a real man of arts, came to the Temple, where he was baptized by his family, where he used to sing in the choir and study the Bible and the words of the Prophets, and cried because he had felt the demonic whispers of the most abhorrent sin – but the prophet saved him. You should not befriend men, you should not live among men, you would marry and touch only your wife, and you will have children to show God your repentance and submission. Prophet Williams reveled at the sight of Hudson – how he strayed from the devilish desires, and lived with the stones in the secluded farm away from here, in the calmness of God’s grace. Now the prophet was seeing the same shattered youngster, twisted by the desire for flesh. But, he reiterated, one wrong step, one wrong step, and he would fall in the lake of eternal fire.

Hudson did not say anything more, he walked out, under the sunlight of the bright summer day, and his eyes searched for the place he had parked his car, trying to identify only objects and not human faces. On the way back home he stopped by a creek and threw up, his stomach was twisted by a sudden physical pain. The lake of fire would be like this hot fiery field, he thought, the constant purging rays that would pierce his bare flesh for eternal life. Nightmarish. One step, he recalled the words, just one step and all was over, God’s grace would fail, fail, fail.

In the warm evening he walked around the house with slow steps, up and down the staircase. He crossed the court, the stable was locked, he looked inside to see the two horses, brown, very beautiful, and he touched the back of the closer one, a mare with white spots on the forehead. The skin was warm, the blood of life was beating intensively underneath. Hudson left the stable and, under the darkness of the oncoming night, sat on the veranda, and waited until the house went asleep. One by one the lights in the windows went off, the silence was complete, he could hear only an occasional cricket. The mountain tops were high above. He had never been there, he was afraid to climb so high alone, and he was afraid to seek a partner for the journey. When it got really dark, Hudson walked to the window of the bedroom and could see his wife there on the bed – auburn hair on the pillow, a hand over the white sheets, her face hidden by the darkness, but he knew that calmness has relieved her expression. In the next room were sleeping his daughters, in their white night robes, next to each other, and the window was slightly opened to let some fresh air in. In the other one were the boys. Hudson stood there, recalling the time when he was a kid and, just like them, used to sleep in a room full of brothers and sisters; on Sundays they would go to the Temple and pray, and talk with the Prophet; Hudson’s father, a farmer, preferred religious education because it was cheaper and simpler. They were mainly studying the Bible in a small hall at the back of the Temple, together with the scriptures of the Prophets and their revelations, and they were taught to recite them, just like magical formulas. And when he was 16, his father decided to send him to an ordinary high school in the city. He had to leave the farm and live in a rented flat with four more men. He was tall and strong, clumsy, quite funny when among his classmates, and thus made him sad so he cried secretly, alone. What he found himself to be good at was breaking stones with his big hands. And, when the heat came, when he heard the siren’s call for the first time, he ran to the Temple and asked for salvation, for he was on the brink. So he married a decent girl and withdrew to this farm, making sculptures with his big string clumsy hands, and found the calmness of the mountain relieving, like a cold morning shower. The house was big and beautiful, and he loved his children. She was also a good wife.

He went into the small yard where his sculptures were. He touched the forehead of a marble angel. And the horses, he loved them. This calmness, this silence. The night was silent. He sat back on the veranda, looking to the dusty road, and the sudden memory of the man sent chill down his spine. He shook his head, as if to wake up from a dream – the house, the horses, early morning breakfast, the smiling wife, while the children kneel down to pray, and the dust and the stones, making angles out of rocky pieces, and the cool wind coming from the mountain at evening and at dawn…But it was still there, this scent of tobacco, two fingers holding the cigarette, slight smile, husky arrogance, and Hudson trembled like a feverish child. God, he mumbled, I have everything I wanted, under your wishes, why did you bring this back to me?

When the dusk began to withdraw from the sky, leaving wide streaks of red and purple and yellow, he put on his coat, his boots and went out, it was cold but he walked fast, almost running, past the stable, and up the slope, jumping from a stone to a stone, from a rock to a rock, and the cliffs were getting closer and closer, as he was rising up above. On the peak he sat on a stone, alone, all alone, so alone.