The devil’s daughter
“Do we have a deal,
little girl?” he asked her with a smirk on his face. She looked at the stranger
wide eyed and weary, nodding her head frantically. She wasn’t quite sure what
she was saying yes to but she just wanted out of there. She just wanted to get away
before something bad happened, before this man did something she wasn’t
prepared to live with. “Now wait a moment, little girl” the man said calmly. “You have to know what you are saying yes to” he emphasized the last word as if he really wanted to spell it out for her. She didn’t like the look he had in his eyes. It was the same look she had seen million times before in the eyes of someone else, someone she didn’t want to remember. The muddy floor smeared her white cotton dress dirty. “I can show you ,right here, what you have in wait for you” the man’s smirk turned into a wicked grin.
“I don’t mind”, he said.
She was shivering from top to toe and she couldn’t stop. She bit her lip and hugged her knees.
“I don’t know” she wasn’t paying attention to his words. She knew she had to, but she believed there were slim chances of anything truthful coming out of a mouth like that. She had to run, but she knew it wasn’t possible. He would find her if he wanted to and what she wanted he might be able to provide.
“Do you want me to show you?” he huddled down in front of her and touched his crouch with his right hand. It reminded her a little of the old Michael Jackson move, except this man wasn’t dancing.
Or perhaps that was exactly what he was doing?
“I don’t want you to show me anything” she said finally. “I have seen enough, more than enough but I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you can do any of the things you are promising me” she hiccuped but she was calm enough, collected enough, to face him. “I don’t believe you” she said firmly.
He smiled.
It wasn’t a kind smile but it wasn’t a cruel smile either. It was possibly the kindest smile he could pull of. “I don’t blame you” he said. “I guess in your shoes I wouldn’t believe me either” he snorted an involuntary laugh.
“I won’t lie to you” he said after a moments silence. “I make deals with a lot of people. All I crave is to make people’s lives the way they want it to be. It’s not my fault that people are the way they are. That they want the things they want. I just provide a service. It’s up to the individual to make up their own mind, to either sit on their hands and their longings or do what it is they feel they need to do. The man in that house, your home, is one of my clients. I admit that. I provided a service for him years ago. I’ve been providing. And wickedly you are a part of that deal. But deals run out, they change, people don’t hold up to their end of the bargain. Or the bargain becomes outdated. So believe me when I say that I can make this deal with you. And I will hold up to my end of the bargain as long as it is necessary. You don’t have to trust me. You just have to hear me out.”
He stopped talking and sighed. There was a hint of regret in his tone when he started speaking again. “I’m not bad, really. I’m just neutral. I don’t do evil. People do evil. I’m just an empty conduit. My goal is twofold: to keep on existing and to pluck as many souls for my garden as I can. It’s a compulsion I can’t control just as the man in there can’t control himself. You, on the other hand, are in full right to fight back. You have the right to make deals of your own and to fight him with every fiber of your being. I can give you the power and the means to do exactly that.”
She was staring at him intently, she saw dishonesty in his eyes but didn’t know what it was he wasn’t telling her the truth about.
“Are you telling the truth?” she asked calmly.
“I never lie” he said. “I may not always tell the entire story but I never lie”.
She stared at him. He looked so young. He looked like he couldn’t be more than five years older than she was and yet he acted like an old man. His hair was dark as the night, neatly cut with a single lock of hair falling into his eyes and he moved his head quickly to the right so the lock would be thrown back.
It was such a human thing to do, she thought.
“Can you take me with you?” she asked, quietly whimpering.
The man looked startled. He sat down forcing his boots from underneath him with an awkward movement. He looked at her as if he was re-evaluating her and she knew his evaluation wouldn’t do her justice. She was just a skimpy little fifteen year old with hell on her back.
“From where I’m sitting,” she said to try and strengthen her case. “You owe me. If it wasn’t for you and your damned deal with the man in the house, my home, I would never have existed so in a weird and twisted way I am your daughter.”
He had such delicate features the man, she noticed as he frowned.
“Daughter” he mumbled, he sounded as if he was pronouncing a word he didn’t know.
“Daughter” he said again but this time there was mockery in his voice.
“You’re not my daughter” he said in a whisper.
“Would I have sent my daughter into that house?” he laughed but there was no feeling in the laughter.
“Yes” she said flatly. “You do everything for the souls and from the first moment he touched me his soul was yours”.
“I wish I could show you my garden” he whispered after a while of silence. “The magnificent view from the top of my tower. It makes the heart ache and I get tears in my eyes every time I stand there. The darkness has so many shades, so many different colors. There isn’t anything in the world more beautiful. And I’ve seen it all.”
He stopped speaking for a little while. Standing in the top of his tower, in his mind, welcoming the beauty. Looking into the depths of what kept him going, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade… and so on and so forth into eternity which stared him in the face each morning.
“I wish I could show you. Then you would know why I’m never sorry. These people do horrible things to each other and in my garden they are kept out of circulation. They are my flowers until the day comes that everything is no more. And that day will never come I’m sure.”
She wanted to put her hand on his, to console him but she knew that would be a mistake.
“He told me I would like it” she started. “The first time he did it to me. I remember he had such a condescending tone in his voice. I knew I was in trouble right away. He said I would like it and he asked me to climb in his lap, to sit there as still as I could. So I did. I always did what he told me to. I don’t know why.”
She noticed a look on his face but continued.
“He started gently enough. But it was always scarier when he was gentle. It was as if he expected me to like it too. As if he demanded that I did. I can’t remember how old I was. It’s as if this has been going on forever. And yet it hasn’t. I know a time exists where this didn’t happen but I can’t get there. I can’t be in the past. When I started struggling he became violent. And I preferred that, so I kept on defying him. Gently so that I wouldn’t get killed. I never wanted to die. I still don’t but…”
She hiccuped. The memory smelled like rain after a thunderstorm.
“I’d rather be one of your flowers” she finished. There was a tear in her eye.
He reached out his hand and wiped it away.
“You were the only way he had towards any kind of power. People often do anything to feel powerful. Fucking you was his way to feel powerful. His way to live”.
“Perverted swine” she said and the expression on his face meant that he knew she wasn’t only speaking of the man in the house but the one sitting opposite her in the moment.
“Yes, I guess you’re right” he said.
“He locked me up in his cellar. Sometimes for weeks. He gave me food and told me he would only let me out if I did the things he wanted me to. He wanted me to act a special way and do special things for him. And if I wanted to get out into the sunlight I had to do these things. I had to grovel in the dirt. And I realized that for the right person I would have gladly groveled in the dirt and done all those things but not there and not for him. He made beautiful things feel grotesque. He could ruin the sun by just looking at it.”
“Just like me” the man said in a louder voice than he had intended.
She stared at him for a moment that felt like forever. Stared at his hair, his eyes, his lips, his nose. Frantically searching for something within him.
“Is that what evil is?” she asked him suddenly, quiet as the dew.
“I guess. When you do something to change the world of another person for the worse, in a way that the person doesn’t want, you are doing selfish acts. I guess, in the simplest terms, that’s what evil is. You shouldn’t take my word for it though. I have no grasp of the concept. I only know what I am.”
He stood up and strolled back and forth on the muddy floor which dampened the sound of his steps.
“Do you hate me for providing the conduit for what he did?” he looked at her and for an instant she believed she saw regret in his eyes but it vanished quickly like a dying light in the night.
“I hate you” she said.
“It’s such a simple equation” he said. “People do bad things to other people. They change their innocent view of the world. They change their inner spirit, slowly but surely. In the end these people, these victims, start to change the world for others. Start to do bad things themselves. Not all of them. It’s avoidable but it’s a likely scenario.”
“The violated become violent” she said as she stood up as well. “Will I become like that?” she asked.
It was such a simple question.
“Probably” he said.
He ran his hand through his hair and turned around to face her.
“I wouldn’t mind being a flower in your garden” she said sniffling.
He looked at her, again as if he was re-evaluating her again. She let her white muddy dress fall and stood naked before him. It was such a simple movement. Such a simple act but it startled him. Yet he showed no sign of surprise. No sign of amusement or of bafflement.
He stepped closer to her and laid a hand on her breast gently. His hand was ice cold and she couldn’t help but to step away from him, no matter how much she wanted to stay put, stay still.
“Isn’t his touch much better?” he asked her simply. “Isn’t he to be desired over this?”
She frowned and felt an old embarrassment rise within her.
“Do I have to choose between the two?” she asked him angrily.
“Do I not have the power to pick up my dirty dress and walk out of this godforsaken place, with my dirty soul and my dirty body?” she shriveled up and fell to the ground, the mud smearing her buttocks brown.
“You can go” he said.
The silence between them was painful for her. It made her entire body shiver and her soul twist. He was hard again. He was as he had been when he first came into the stall and confronted her. Asked her if she wanted a deal with him. Asked her if she wanted all her dreams to come true.
“But, little girl, you won’t” he said finally.
It was like a hay fork had been thrown at her, as if it had pierced through her body, pierced through her heart.
“So you will make me what he is?” she asked simply. “Will I become a grotesque monster like him? Hiding in the midst of everyone doing things people vomit when they hear of it. Wen they realize it’s happening next door? You will make me like him” her last words sounded like a simple statement although she was desperately pleading.
“You will never be like him. To each his and her own. You won’t become what you fear the most but you can become something others loath and fear. But evil isn’t only in those who are hated. Evil is in everyone.” He said this so simply, as if he was telling her that the weather was pleasant or the cat was out. She hiccuped and fought the tears with everything she had. They gathered like a soar lump in her throat and she had to pull everything she had together to be able to speak.
“I don’t believe you” she said quickly. “You’re lying.”
“No” he said. “I’m not lying. I am incapable of lying. When I say something you can belief, it is what I belief. I am, on the other hand, no god. I can be wrong.”
She wasn’t listening to him. She buried her face in her hands and shaking it frantically.
“You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying” she mumbled to herself.
He walked over to where she sat naked on the ground, stopping right beside her. His face was hardened but the lock of hair was stubbornly hanging over his forehead.
“Do you want to tell me more about what you’ve gone through? Do you want to sit down there in the dirt wallowing?” he spat the words out of his mouth.
“You can sit there feeling sorry for yourself. You can blame me for everything if you like. I am not your father, but it is my fault you are here, in this place with him. But if you are just going to wallow you will never move on. You will stay miserable in this place forever groveling in the dirt for someone you are never going to want to grovel for and in the end it will either make you a miserable ghost of a human being or it will turn you into a murderer, a mad woman” he made a face but she was unable to see the irony in his expression, unable to understand because she had forgotten.
“The choice is yours” he said.
His voice was hard as stone and he pushed her with his boot. He didn’t kick her but he pushed her hard enough for her to winch. She didn’t move, for an instant she stayed there with tears running down her cheeks. Then she stood up, brushing the dirt of her thighs and her ass. She crossed her hands over her chest, childlike, and stared at him. Her face was as stone ridden as his.
“Is that how you convince people they need to become the doer, the people doing something nasty so they will turn into one of your precious little flowers?”
One corner of his mouth raised but he fought the urge to smile.
“Yes. That’s how I do it. I told you I am not the good guy. I play people together. I turn them and I twist them and things become what they become. I don’t force anybody into anything. I just play with what is already there. I am a power and not a man as you see me.”
“So there is no use getting angry with you?” she asked suddenly smiling.
“And I guess you don’t care that I am naked before you?”
He was a bit startled at her joke. He wasn’t used to people making fun of him. Especially little girls who were supposed to be easy target. A target in a trap he had already set to trigger.
But he knew very well that she wasn’t quite like the rest of them.
“What will come of you?” he asked her as she picked up her dress. She frowned and fondled the dress between her fingers. She was about to put it on when he took it away from her and threw it up in the dirt.
“This is not your dress” he said. “You don’t belong in a white, smudged dress that makes you look ten and not fifteen. You should rather be naked. You should walk with your head held high. Be proud. You should become whatever it is you are bursting to be. Cry if you like. Swear if you like. Kill if you like, it’s all the same to me. In the end you will either end up in my garden as one of my most beautiful flowers or you will tread another path.”
“Will I see you again?” she asked him almost longingly.
“I’m sure you will.”
There was a hint of finality in his voice.
“I will” she said and walked towards him. “I will and I will take my fate into my own hands. I will go away from here and become whatever it is I should be. And although there are evil people in your garden I am sure that there are many good too. That’s why you think it’s so beautiful. And I’m sure that if I become good I will still be allowed to become one of your flowers?” she kissed him on the cheek gently.
“Goodbye” she said and ever so slowly she walked out into the darkness without waiting for his answer.
He could see her skin glistening as she walked slowly down towards the highway. His eyes turned red but he watched her walk down the road with her head high. A tear tickled his cheek and he brushed it off quickly.
“I’ll see you later” he whispered and turned his eyes towards the house, her former home. It was time to collect one of his uglier flowers. He smiled contently because the weed made the others prettier still. There was no such thing as a perfect garden without the weed, he thought. He moved quickly from the stall and into the house. It was time to collect the soul of the man that had just been murdered.
He wasn’t sure that the simple deed would guarantee her a place in his garden. He was sure she didn’t remember. Perhaps later she would. It didn’t matter to him. He was happy to see her take her fate in her hands without his help. She would earn a place beside him one way or the other, her own way.
He smiled contently and swept the soul from the man’s last breath before it went free sweeping through the atmosphere and upwards.
Now it was time to go home.
