A dozen voices hummed rhythmically in the back of her head as she hopped down the stone steps and walked off the quad. A men’s chorus, a tune she had heard a long time ago, as a child … a memory fragment. Her father’s study, smelling of pipe smoke, as he handled his old books with more care than he ever used for people. She’d heard the song in there.
It was a pleasing memory, it made her smile, but it warned of danger. The song was a warning.
She cut across an alley to get to the winding pedestrian bridge that would take her to her new apartment in the 19th Ward. “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm,” the chorus hummed in her head. What was it?
The moon was high and glistened on the Genesee River. Housing was cheap in the neighborhood on the other side because it was supposed to be crime ridden. It wasn’t, but black people lived there, so never mind that it had the highest concentration of residences containing PhD’s in the city – its reputation was cemented into campus lore like a medieval superstition. All she had to do was look at the data to know better, but most people couldn’t get rid of it that easily. She was proud of herself, finding an apartment that nice on a grad student’s salary – her first time living off campus, since she’d left home.
“Hmm hmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm,” it was a kind of rhythmic chant, or … what?
Then … the high voice that sang over it was clear like a bell, like a chime, so pure she couldn’t tell if it was male or female, a boy soprano or a girl tenor. She stumbled at the force of it.
Oh where are you going to, said the false false knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
It sang over the humming, the strange words locking into place with the rhythmic chant as though it were a drum beat, the rat-a-tat that kept soldiers walking in time. Her father’s face, his old hide covered books bound with red thread, appeared before her. She had been young, and she was not supposed to be there when he read these things. He’d looked up, seen her, and his eyes had fallen because this was a riddle and to hear it was to be in mortal peril. But she remembered the answer to the song, the set-up, the premise, that moved it forward, and the beautiful star-voice sang the response to the call:
I am going to me school, said the wee, wee boy
And still upon the road he stood!
“Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm,” the chorus in her head hummed, keeping time. “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
The river was before her. The pedestrian bridge in front of her. Her father had gestured and she had come forward. The door had closed behind her. She remembered the sound of the lock. “I am so sorry,” he’d said, shaking his head. The riddles had just begun.
Oh where are you going to, said the false, false knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
The purity the voice, its cadence, she’d never heard anything like it. Beautiful, predatory – she wondered if it was the sound sharks make when they sing. She stepped on to the bridge. Something was coming for her, waiting for a wrong answer.
I am going to me school, said the wee, wee, boy
And still upon the road he stood!
“Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
It was the right answer. She was a student. But she was coming from her school, not going towards it. Did that matter? She had looked up at her father, confused, frightened, but he had only put a finger to his lips and turned the page. It had been hot in the study, brutally warm. A cold wind blew now.
“Forbidden knowledge,” her father had told her once, “is a kind of disease. It can be caught. Contracted. It can lie dormant, until conditions bring it out. It can be imprisoned, kept in books like a virus in a test tube. We have not overcome ignorance, so much as contained the truth we do not wish to live with.”
“Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
Oh what is that upon your back, said the false, false knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
Her backpack, containing her iPad with her textbooks loaded on. Was it playing with her, this beautiful sharp toothed voice? Or did it really not know? Or was it a ritual, the way a defendant is asked to make a plea and a prisoner is given a last meal?
Atweel it is me books, said the wee, wee boy
And still upon the road he stood!
Books, yes, carrying books now was the right answer, and again her life had answered the riddle correctly. “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” She reached the peak of the bridge, half-way over the river. It gushed and roared in the dark.
The preliminaries were over: she was at the point closest to the moon. The voice turned malicious.
Oh I wish ye were in yonder tree, said the false, false knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
Thunder clapped. The river rose. “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
The false knight … the false knight … the false knight wanted to know how she would survive standing at this great height, all alone. “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
“What is the false knight?” she’d asked her father as he’d taken scented oil from a smoky decanter and dripped it upon her hair.
Her father placed the decanter back upon the forbidden shelf, next to the rocks from Jerusalem, and rubbed the oil into her scalp.
“You will not understand,” he said.
“Why does he want to hurt me?”
“Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
“He is the lie that corrupts, the seduction we cling to, the star that leads astray. The fruits of the only original sin.”
“The devil?” she’d asked. She felt his fingers tighten around her hair.
“You do not understand!” he said roughly, still holding her tightly. But then his voice softened. “The devil is a superstition,” he said, “and that word has two meanings. One you already know, I’m sure: a superstition is something you are too old and too wise to believe in. But there is another, hidden, meaning to that word, for a superstition is also something you are not old and wise enough to understand yet. The devil is such a superstition. As you understand the false knight now, he is ridiculous to believe in. You would be a fool to think such things. But someday … someday … my sweet child … if you meet him on the road you may come to understand that everything mankind has built, we made so that we would not have to answer his riddle.”
A good ladder standing under me, said the wee, wee, boy
And still upon the road he stood!
“Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.” “Hmmmm hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm.”
There was no ladder, but she was standing on a bridge that spanned the river. Was this close enough?
“We must take steps,” her father said, “to protect you now. I hope you never understand.” The next time she saw his study, the books were gone, and he never opened them again.
The wind blew. The wind howled. Her father had begun calling her “my little butterfly,” from that day on, because he feared that she would be fragile when she finally flew away. She clung to the railing and wondered if a strong gust of wind could really throw her over the side, into the river below.
Oh I wish ye were in yonder sea, said the false, false, knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
Something had changed. Her father had protected her, all these years, and campus had been a shelter from the world, but now she moved out of their power. Lightning cracked. Thunder boomed. The wind pusher her chest into the railing, shoving her towards the water.
She shouted at the wind, at the thunder: “This is what’s supposed to happen! I’m a grown woman! No one can protect me!”
It was the wrong thing to say. The False Knight had found her, ready or not.
Oh I wish ye were in yonder sea, said the false, false, knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
Thunder crashed. The wind was too much, she would die if she stayed here, at the top of the narrow bridge – she had to go forward, running the long dark blocks towards her home, or turn back to the university, where it was bright and safe but nothing was truly hers.
“Will I be pretty?” she’d once asked her father, and he’d said “yes.”
“Will I live a long time?” she’d asked, and he’d looked away when he said “I don’t know.”
“Will I be strong?” she’d asked, and he was silent.
Oh I wish ye were in yonder sea, said the false, false, knight
To the lovely little child upon the road …
“Be careful,” he’d told her, long ago.
She didn’t have the answer, now: she didn’t have the answer to the False Knight’s riddle that would keep her from falling into the ocean. She could only run forward, forward, into darkness, into her future, and hope there was an escape on the other side.
Oh I wish ye were in yonder sea, said the false, false, knight
She turned. She ran. Ran back the way she’d came, towards the campus, towards the big stone buildings, away from the only home that was truly hers and back towards the light where she knew she’s be safe.
The wind grasped for her, but she didn’t look behind. The humming softened, the voice was gone. She would stay in well lit places from now on, spending her life as an academic, and avoid the dark road, and the uncertainty where the wisdom of age resides.
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Benjamin Wachs has written for Village Voice Media, Playboy.com, and NPR among other venues. He archives his work at www.TheWachsGallery.com.
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This piece was read as part of a production of “Action Fiction!”, sponsored by Fiction365 and Omnibucket.
