Auerbach's Destiny / Memorial

Auerbach's Destiny

There is a road that passes between Bannersley and Marlomare. These two towns could not be more different. Bannersley is a farming community in the hills, and Marlomare a bustling fishing town by the sea with ships that come to sell their exotic goods and purchase the renowned fish of Marlomare.

It is not a long road. It is a well-kept road. And on this cool spring day, twenty-one-year-old Auerbach is making his way along this road, from Bannersley to Marlomare. He carries a pack on his back that contains all of his possessions, for he is leaving Bannersley forever.

Auerbach is a tall man, but his parents in Bannersley are short. He is a lanky man, but his parents run to fat. His eyes are blue, and those of his parents are brown.

As he grew older, he thought that he might be a changeling, or perhaps – in his darker musings – that his mother might have been with another man. But when he asked his parents to explain, they told him to wait for his twenty-first birthday.

And when that day came, after they ate the cakes and the oranges from the south, Auerbach asked again, and his parents told him.

He had been born of other parents, and they lived in Marlomare. They had entrusted him to his current parents for safekeeping until he reached his twenty-first year. Now, he was to return to Marlomare.

“They said that you have a destiny to fulfil,” his mother said. (Was she his mother?) “That you will be the savior of the land.” And then – “Forgive us.”

So, Auerbach forgave them, and he packed his pack, and the next morning he started on the path to Marlomare, only a day’s hike from Bannersley.

He was not walking fast, or slow; he took the road as it came. If there was a destiny, it would wait.

His new parents – his ‘real’ parents? – were named Trissa and Caric. They welcomed him into a much larger house that had its own shrine. There he met Master Dyrel, high priest of Marlomare.

“Young man,” the priest said after they had burned incense and bowed to the idols of the gods. “I have been waiting for this moment for twenty-one years.” He nodded at him. “You have a destiny, my boy. You will be the savior of the land.”

“All right,” Auerbach said.

“The prophecies have foretold this event for hundreds of years,” the priest went on. “You are a great fighter.”

“I am not a fighter,” Auerbach said. “I prefer the arts of love.”

The priest harrumphed. “You practice the arts of love with your fellow men.”

Auerbach shook his head. “No, I only favor the company of women.”

The priest disregarded these comments. “Once you have assumed your role, a great menace will arise from the east and strike catastrophe in our land,” he intoned in a more solemn voice. “As foreseen, you shall be the one to vanquish this menace.”

“I suppose,” Auerbach said, and shrugged. He was getting quite hungry.

Dinner was a strained occasion. These are my parents, he thought, watching them recite strange prayers before the meal. They are tall, they are lanky, they have blue and green eyes. Why did they abandon me twenty-one years ago?

“It was your destiny to be raised by another,” his mother explained while they were eating the beef and potatoes. “We were desperate to keep you, but Master Dyrel said you were the anointed one. You came at the time of the star showers, you were covered in a caul [KAWL], and you had the triangular birthmark on your shin that was foretold.”

“I do have a birthmark on my shin,” Auerbach admitted.

“We gave you the name Araso. The midwife who delivered you brought you to your parents.” She smiled. “But we shall continue to call you Auerbach.”

After dinner, a burly young man came to call on Auerbach. His name was Rusten, and he was to be Auerbach’s partner in love and in battle.

Rusten played his lute for Auerbach in the garden, and Auerbach listened. It was a good performance. “But men do not interest me,” he told Rusten. “I am sorry.”

Rusten pressed his lips to Auerbach’s. They were dry and warm. “Did you feel nothing then?” he asked.

“I felt the hairs of your beard tickle my face,” Auerbach replied. “But you played the lute music well.”

Rusten sat back and strummed a few chords. “I have spent years practicing and fighting and training for the battle ahead. It is my destiny, as much as it is yours.”

“I would hear your lute again,” Auerbach said. “But there is no need to press your lips to mine once more.”

As Rusten began to pluck out a sad melody, Auerbach thought that there must have been some terrible mistake in all this.

The next morning, Trissa and Caric took Auerbach to see Marlomare. The streets were full of citizens and visitors. The market was full of sellers and buyers. Money flowed like water throughout the town. Auerbach saw no sign of any catastrophe, no sign of menace.

But it had been foreseen.

After midday meal, Auerbach asked to see the town’s graveyard. “This is an odd request,” Caric said. “Does our company not please you?”

“I am tired, and I wish some silence after the noise of the town,” Auerbach replied. Trissa and Caric had only been his parents for a day, and so they could not divine his lie. His other parents would have known in an instant.

The graveyard, shrouded by fog, stood on a hill overlooking Marlomare. Auerbach moved from one stone to the next, rubbing the dirt and moss from each inscription and studying them. Then he stopped at one gravestone and sat before it for a while, thinking.

That night, he gathered Trissa, and Caric, and Master Dyrel, and Rusten at the house and told them. “There has been a mistake,” he told them. “I am not the chosen one.”

The priest shook his head. “But it has been foretold. You have a destiny –”

“—as the savior of the land,” Auerbach concluded. “That was Araso, and I am Auerbach.”

They did not understand why he would refuse his destiny.

“Your child, Araso,” he told Trissa and Caric in a gentle tone, “passed away as a baby. The midwife must have felt some guilt, for she buried him in an unmarked grave, and procured another infant. Likely a foundling.” He pointed to his chest. “That was me. That was Auerbach.”

They did not want to believe it, but he showed them the proof: he did not know how to fight. He preferred women and not men. And the birthmark on his shin might well be a square instead of a triangle.

“I do not feel the calling you would wish of Araso,” he said with finality. “I do not have a destiny here.”

Caric cried more than Trissa. The priest’s face was dark, then stormy, and then he left before any rain could fall from it. Auerbach filled his pack and bid goodbye to his parents – or rather, not his parents.

Rusten came with him to the edge of Marlomare. “Are you going back to Bannersley?” he asked.

Auerbach looked at the expanse of green land before them. “No,” he said at last. “I have no destiny in Bannersley either.”

He paused. “We have shared a kiss, and so I would entrust you with a secret.”

Rusten smiled. “Such is the custom here in Marlomare, as well.”

Auerbach grew serious. “There was no other infant.”

He watched the thoughts play across Rusten’s expression. “Then –”

Auerbach smiled. “I was to be the chosen one. Foretold by centuries of prophecy. Destined to be the savior of the land.”

“Then you must not leave!” Rusten protested. “You must stay and fight with me!”

Auerbach shook his head. “There is no need,” he said. “I studied Master Dyrel’s words with care. No catastrophe shall befall the land, so long as I do not accept my role as chosen one. It shall never come to pass.”

Rusten laughed. “You are as sly as you are lazy, one-who-is-not-chosen.” He sighed. “Then I shall say farewell, and should you pass through Marlomare again, I will play the lute for you once more.”

“They may discover that there is no gravestone bearing Aroso’s name,” Auerbach said. “It is unlikely that I should return to Marlomare. But I will keep the memory of your performance in my mind, if not your bearded lips. You have a talent for the lute.”

They clasped hands, and Rusten watched the chosen one – the not-yet-chosen-one – pass over the hill and away from Marlomare. Then he thought of his lute, his music.

Rusten looked down at his callused hands, scarred from training and fighting. Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps he had another destiny.

-----

Memorial

That morning, Watt awoke.

He washed his face in the basin, then pulled off his nightshirt and slipped on his tunic. In their little cottage in the middle of the woods, he had no need for modesty, and so he left the hose neatly folded by Tamon’s on the floor.

It was a fall day, still warm where the sun came through the cottage’s mullioned windows, but chilly in the shadows. Watt pulled on his clogs, and walked out of the cottage and into the garden.

Many of the flowers had already wilted or fallen, but there were some that only bloomed in this season: bright yellow sunflowers, pale pink hyssop, and his favorite – the coneflower.

The coneflowers stood nearly as tall as Watt: narrow yellow petals with light orange brushstrokes coming from their purple centers. Tamon had told Watt that scholars had another name for the coneflower, but Watt could not remember it.

He took three of them, regretting having to pick them, but knowing that they would soon fall if he did not. Then he took the three long steps from the flowerbed to the gravesite.

The mound of dirt was fresh. No grass would grow upon it before next spring. With care, Watt knelt down and laid the three coneflowers on top of the grave. He closed his eyes.

Then he felt a hand upon his shoulder. “Do not do this,” Tamon said, Tamon with his deep gravel voice.

Watt opened his eyes and looked at Tamon sadly. He got to his feet, took the three steps back towards the cottage, and started his daily routine. He made his simple meal of bread and fruit. He swept the rooms that did not need sweeping. He picked the vegetables that were ready to harvest from the flowerbeds on the other side of the cottage. He brought water back from the well in a jug and a basin.

Tamon was at his side with every step.

The next morning, Watt awoke.

He washed his face, then exchanged his nightshirt for his tunic. There was no need for the leggings today, with nobody to see him for miles around.

Another fall day, warmer than most but with the hint of winter to come. Watt went out into the garden.

He picked three of the coneflowers with a smile. He had told Tamon that they reminded him of the sun. And when Tamon had asked him, why choose the coneflower and not the sunflower to remind him of the sun, Watt had said that, “One does not choose what one loves. I did not have to choose you. I knew from the first moment.”

Watt took the three long steps from the flowerbed to the gravesite, then knelt down and laid them on the grave.

“No more,” Tamon said beside him. “Please. Have I changed that much? Am I no longer the person you know?” Tamon shook his head. “Have we grown apart these last eight years? Are you simply ignoring me?”

Watt got to his feet and took the three steps back to the cottage. It was time for his meal, and then it was time for sweeping and cleaning. Next came harvesting the vegetables and fetching water from the spring. A quiet life, but there was always something to do.

The next morning, Watt awoke.

After scrubbing his face with water, he dressed in his tunic, passed through the cottage, and went to the flowerbeds. Three coneflowers. Had they been in bloom when he and Tamon had met? Watt could not remember. He could only remember Tamon.

Watt took the three long steps to the grave, knelt down, and placed the coneflowers on the mound. “I have died,” Tamon said beside him. “Is that it? I am a phantom, or a spirit, and you can neither see nor hear me. Am I right?”

Watt looked at Tamon and shook his head.

It seemed that the work of maintaining a cottage in the woods had no end: cooking, and cleaning, harvesting and fetching water. There was a town not far away, but the cottage was self-sufficient for the most part.

The next morning, Watt awoke.

Water on face. Tunic on body. Walk through cottage. Three coneflowers from the flowerbed. Three long steps to the gravesite.

And Watt kneeled by the dirt and placed the three coneflowers on the grave.

“Do I even exist?” Tamon asked, sitting next to him. “Placing flowers on a dead man’s grave is not the way to move on,” he said gently. “I know this. You must not keep doing this.”

Watt shook his head yet again.

Meal. Sweeping. Cleaning. Harvesting. Fetching water. Sleep.

The next morning, Watt awoke.

He did not wash his face. He did not remove his nightshirt or put on his tunic.

Tamon stood between Watt and the coneflowers in the flowerbed. “I cannot permit this to continue,” Tamon said, arms crossed. “You would pull out all of the flowers you loved so much.”

He turned to the flowerbed to show Watt how few were left. Then a look of confusion crossed Tamon’s face. Watt saw it as well: none of the coneflowers had been picked. All were standing.

“If no flowers have been pulled,” Tamon said, “Then…” He took the three long steps to the gravesite and knelt down. The marker was wooden and crude, but the name had been painstakingly engraved: WATT.

Tamon looked up at Watt, who did not speak. “Forgive me,” Tamon said. “I cannot let you go.” His hand caressed the top of the grave, which was bare of flowers. “In my mind you rise every morning. You wash your face. You put on your tunic. You make your meal and you come to the garden to tend your flowers.”

Tamon rose to his feet. “When…it happened…it was not real,” he said to Watt. “I could not believe it was real. Better to think that I was dead. That I was some projection of your mind. Even that you hated me so much, you would not speak to me.”

He walked the three steps back to the flowerbed, and reached out to pick one of the coneflowers. But Tamon could not bring himself to do it.

The moment he picked that flower, the enchantment would end, and Watt would be gone. Better to spend his days as the ghost in Watt’s life, the echo in Watt’s mind.

Tamon sat in front of the patch of coneflowers and waited. Waited for the sun to set and rise again, and for Watt to wake once more.