The Dark Stranger
short story
by Stephen Collicoat
I am old. I draw close to death, but at least may claim that once I
lived.
During the course of an eventful life, I have travelled through or
worked in many countries. I once swallowed an emerald before a customs
search in Laos, made love on a beach in Samoa, was beaten in Paris and left
to rot in the worst jail in Brazil.
As a hobby, I collected stories. Many were long, pointless and poorly
told. Some - just a few - were enthralling. Most of those featured in
the stories would kill before they allowed the tales to be published.
They need not worry.
I am content to spend the remaining weeks or months in my Queenslander
house set high on a cliff, its wide verandahs overlooking the dense
rainforest. In the crisp morning or toward evening, I draw back the wooden
shutters to let the cool winds refresh my sparcely furnished,
high-ceilinged rooms. Few know I'm here and noone is welcome to visit. I am
happier this way.
I wish I could also open the shutters of my mind. How pleasant it would
be to throw open all the doors in my mind and feel the stale or
poisonous air escape!
I wander, but the story I'll now tell is quite short. Yet, I have felt
its strange power ever since I heard it as a child. Part of its
attraction is that it concerned my grandmother. Because she was almost
painfully honest, I know this queer tale to be true.
I was born around 1900 on an island off the Dalmatian coast.
Our family of nine lived in a two roomed stone cottage. Mother, father
and grandmother slept downstairs while the six children slept in the
loft. We sweltered through the summer nights in the loft under the thin
crust of tiles that baked all day in the fierce Sun . In the winter
however, cosy, aromatic warmth rose from the cast iron cooking stove below.
We were poor, but no poorer than most on the island. I didn't wear a
pair of shoes until I was six, but nearly all the children in my school
also went barefoot or wrapped rags thickly around their feet when it
snowed.
There was a scattering of rich people on the island. That included the
owners of the Hotel Carolina or the founding family and some senior
executives of the Lloyd Triestine Line. These remote and glittering
socialites moved into their villas along the coast during the warmer months.
Then like migrating birds, they returned to Trieste as the first chill
winds blew in from the sea.
As a teenager, grandmother worked as a maid both at the Carolina and in
several of the villas. Often she would entertain us with stories of the
outlandish clothes, food, sport and romantic liasons of the rich. The
other children loved these tales, but I preferred her half-remembered
fantasies of giants, ogres, goblins, beautiful princesses and brave young
knights. What were stories of groaning dining tables to me, compared
with the excitement of buried doubloons or the unbreakable spell of a
fiendish witch?
How strange it seems. My brothers and sisters are long cold in their
graves, while I live on the other side of the world in a country I had
not heard of until I was 17. Yet I have only to smell a pungent sprig of
rosemary or taste the soft gritty paste of polenta to once again be in
that little hut, warming myself by the fire as I listen to grandmother.
'Tell me the story of the Dark Stranger,' I would beg.
'Oh no, not that old nonsense again!' my father would groan, pouring
himself a glass of sharp, red wine from the wicker-covered demijohn in
the corner. He had little time and less respect for his mother-in- law.
'Tell us more about the rich people, Grandma,' my sister, Mattea would
plead.
I knew that Mattea dreamed that one day she too would be rich and
ardently courted. The strange fact is that she finally achieved her goal -
an astonishing feat for a barely literate peasant girl born on an island
at the most remote edge of the Hapsburg Empire. Little good it did her
in the end!
Not that I will say a thing against the dreams of Mattea. She and I
moved far from the narrow life of the island, following our stars. Mine
was to lead a life of adventure, while hers was one of glamour. Who am I
to judge whether Mattea had a lesser or better vision? Neither matters
now.
'No,' my grandmother decided, ' Carlo asked first, so I'll tell you of the
time I met the Dark Stranger.'
The other children groaned while I hugged myself in anticipation.
'When I was thirteen,' grandmother began. 'My mother told me to take a
basket of vegetables to the market.'
'We lived far from the town. The only way I could reach the market was
to walk. It was important to be there early as it opened shortly after
dawn. In that way, you secured a good position and it was then that the
servants from the Carolina or the villas along the coast bought produce
for that day's meals.
'To reach the market at dawn, my mother woke me at 3am.
' ''You're lucky,'' she remarked, glancing out the window as I ate my
meagre breakfast.
'Lucky! I couldn't see what was lucky about rising in the middle of the
night to carry a heavy basket to market.
' ''The weather's fine and there's a bright moon to light your way,''
mother explained.
'She then told me how much I was to ask for each item. I was not to
spend any money and to leave the town as soon as I had finished. ''Don't
dawdle and never talk to strangers, especially men,'' she warned. When I
returned, whether for lunch or dinner, there would be a bowl of
steaming hot bean and cabbage soup waiting.
'Then she kissed me. Father didn't see me go. I heard him snoring from
behind the blanket that screened the beds from the rest of the room.
Soon, he would rise to begin another day of hard work.
'So I set forth.
'It was the second time I walked to market. Two months before, I had
carried a heavy sack of potatoes through a winter's night, balancing the
sack on my shoulders and holding a candle lamp in my right hand,
stumbling along the weakly lit, deeply rutted and muddy road.
'On my first journey, several miles from town, a fine rain began to
fall. At first, it was welcome as it cooled me. Soon however it grew into
a storm and the temperature dropped. I became soaked. I worried I might
catch a chill. We had no money for medicine and I knew of many children
- some of whom I had once played with - who died when colds developed
into pneumonia. A stall owner however took pity on me. She let me stand
by the hot coals in her brazier until my clothes steamed dry and warmth
seeped back into my cold flesh.
'The night of the Dark Stranger was not like that. All the world - our
cottage, fences and fields, the pine, larch and fir forest, even the
path leading to the road seemed painted in silver. It was a fine, warm and
moonlit night.
'Although my basket was heavy and sometimes bumped against my legs, it
was far easier to carry than the potato sack.
'As I trudged along, I softly hummed tunes I had heard my father pick
out on his mandolin. Several dogs barked, but soon I left the farms
behind and walked through the silent, open countryside as though in a
dream.'
'Were you scared?' Mattea interrupted.
'A little,' grandmother admitted. 'it was only 50 years before that
brigands roamed the countryside. Some were cruel and terrible men.'
'Tell us about Dragan Vislovec,' Gaspero suggested. 'Tell us about his
blood-stained sack. You know, the one that was full of the eyes of his
enemies.'
My younger sisters shrieked in terror. Grandma smiled and shook her
head indulgently. 'I wasn't afraid of Dragan. His gang had been caught
long before I was born. My mother remembered that time. They chained them
up on poles where the two roads cross near the village. The men slowly
died of thirst and the bodies were left there for years as a warning to
others. For a while the stench was terrible, but gradually they became
skeletons dangling from rusting chains.'
'Good idea,' my father growled. 'There are a few brigands in the
village today that should be hung. The trouble is they run the shops and have
the Mayor in their pockets.'
'Go on with your story,' mother hurriedly suggested. She knew if father
continued, he would launch into a long and bitter tirade, that could
end with him beating one or several of us senseless.
'So yes, I was a little afraid,' grandmother continued, 'And would cast
a glance behind to see I was alone.
'Once I started, thinking I saw a movement. It may have been wolves.
Fortunately, it was past Winter when they hunt in bold packs. Nothing
stirred and thinking I was mistaken, I walked on. Time passed.
'I was within sight of the crossroads, several miles from the
marketplace when I felt uneasy.
'I turned and there on the road far behind was a man. Something about
him troubled me. I turned, increasing my pace.
'Instantly, I heard breathing behind me!
'Then he was walking at my shoulder. No human could have covered that
distance so quickly. I shook with fear.
'He was a tall man. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that shielded his eyes.
A thick scarf covered most of his face. His skin was chalk white and
his cheeks were sunken. The stranger's clothes were of a style I once saw
in an old picture book. His coat and trousers were of an ancient cut. I
recalled thinking it was odd he wore riding boots when he was on foot.
His travelling cape was streaked with soil, as though he had lain upon
- or been buried in - the ground.
'He stared at me for a moment, then said gruffly, ''A fine evening.''
' ''It is,'' I agreed weakly, trying not to scream.
'Then he nodded slightly as though in confirmation of some suspicion
and took three steps forward to the crossroads when he...'
'Disappeared,' Gaspero supplied.
'That's right! Pouf! Just like that. There one moment, the next the two
roads were empty. Deserted roads in a bare countryside.'
'Who do think it was?' Mattea asked.
'Noone human. Nothing good,' grandma would always reply.
So there it is. The story of the Dark Stranger.
I am old. Soon I will die.
I will probably be here seated at my table reading when I catch a
movement from the corner of my eye. I will look up and see him. He will
emerge from the forest at the tree line where the mist curls like smoke
among the tall gums. He will look exactly as grandmother described him.
I'll stand and wave to him. I'll then invite him to mount the stairs
and join me on the verandah. I hope we shall have time to converse before
we leave.
There is much I should like to know.
