Iago by David Snodin

Author:David Snodin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

30. The Truth

If this were a play, the audience would now bawl at me, the beaked fool, “Imbecile! Infantile! Ma che pazzo!” What’s the likelihood, after all, in the great scheme of things, of fabricating something so preposterous and then discovering you are at the center of the story you’ve created?

No wonder I’m in prison.

He’s not speaking to me anymore—not a word. He’s sullen and dangerous, as he was before. But during the past few days he he’s been startlingly talkative.

“We have a new door, did you notice? The carpenter’s been in. A pretty good job he’s made of it too. Take a look.”

I didn’t notice the new door when I was thrown through it, because for the first time I saw his face. It was around noon, so the sun was slanting down from the grate. He made no effort to hide behind a folded arm. His hands lay, palms downward, on his lap.

I’d presumed there’d be a scar or two, or a mouth deformed into a permanent snarl, with bared, broken teeth perhaps—something more in keeping with the ghastly malefactor I’ve always supposed him to be.

What I saw was, if not exactly commonplace, then hardly threatening. It’s weather-worn certainly; his skin looks charred and is reddish-brown. There’s none of the pallor you’d expect of someone who’s spent a long time in darkness. He’s managed to chop at his beard somehow—so that it bristles almost comically from his cheeks and jaw and chin. His whiskers are wiry, deep black with a few flecks of gray. He has absolutely no hair on the top of his head. He’s either bald or has succeeded in shaving it, and it shines like burnished copper. That is perhaps the most notable thing about him—his naked head, which, if one were to remove all its other features, would resemble a cannonball.

He is, I suppose, what one might call handsome and was probably good-looking when he was younger (he is, I think, in his forties). Everything is in proportion—the nose strong and angular, the mouth full but not too much so, the chin slightly jutting with a small dimple at its tip, the cheeks (inevitably) sunken. If there’s anything that should have made me instantly wary, it’s his eyes, which are wide, grayish-green, and intense.

He had been given fresh clothes—another surprise. They were frayed and full of holes, but his shirt and hose were dirt-free. He remained barefoot. There was no caked blood on him anymore. He’d been “scrubbed up.” That was how he put it himself. “Look at me,” he chuckled. “I have been scrubbed up—like a chicken ready for cooking!” I’m still tattered and pallid and filthy and battered. By contrast, he seemed to glow with rugged health.

He pointed. “There,” he said. “We’ve been given furniture too!” There had been none before. Now there’s a table of sorts, and chairs with rush seats, and a flimsy bench against one of the walls. On the bench are a bowl and a jug, and there’s a bucket on the floor.

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