And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave

Author:Nick Cave
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9780141935324
Publisher: Penguin Adult
Published: 1990-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

XII

She spooked the nag. That ah know. Ah saw it all. And she saw me.

Ah was in town on account of it being the night before the ‘burn-off, when cane-workers and Ukulites alike celebrate the beginning of the harvest, and people, on the whole, are too busy eating and drinking and flirting with the neighbour’s wife to make an example of me. But that doesn’t mean that you can go and do a rain dance in the middle of Memorial Square either.

Ah sat on a painted rock beside the old pump and trough, and, looking between mah knees, ah read the little copper plaque that had been embedded in it.

‘Ho, every one that thirsteth,

Come ye to the waters.’ Isaiah 55:1

Donated by U.V.S.B. 1921

Ah listened to a four-man jug band that stomped about on a low trailer, to which the goddamn sorriest looking nag ah had ever seen was hitched. How a horse could get that bowed, ah’ll never know. In an attempt to brighten up the festivities in his own little way, the Turk had crowned his horse in a flame-red fez, complete with black tassel and black elastic chin-strap.

It was while ah sat there, minding nobody’s affairs but mah own, that mah hair began to bristle and mah hands grew raw and itchy and ah felt this peculiar sensation that ah was being watched. Ah began to sweat, grow short of breath, wheeze. Mah hands burned and pulsed and ah blew on them but that did no good at all, so ah plunged them up to the elbows in the cool water of the trough. Ah held them unner for a full minute – then, when ah felt mah blood seem to level up, ah lifted them out. Ah shook mah arms around until they were almost dry, too afraid to look up and hoping to hell that this feeling – that ah was the object of someone’s scrutiny – would pass. It did not.

Ah looked up and our eyes locked. Just like in the painting! She was standing beside the nag, patting his neck but staring straight at me. Through me.

Ah wrenched free and tumbled off the rock. It was only the size of a pumpkin, but ah sprawled on mah side in the gravel, grazing mah hip in the process. It stung like shit. Ah heard some people laugh.

Ah sat back on the rock, bent low, head between mah knees, wincing in pain, her eyes tearing into me. When ah looked up again she was smiling at me – an evil, gloating grin that showed her small white teeth. She mocked me. A mere child.

Leaning closer to the nag and patting his nose with her little pale hands, she raised herself up on tippy-toes and whispered something in the horse’s ear. Witch’s words. A hex. She smiled again and again she showed her teeth. A moment or two later, ah saw one white eye roll wild in the horse’s head, then he reared and kicked and reared again.

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