Obedience and Betrayal

After I stood there for a while, feeling as powerless as I truly was, he finally said something.

"Why don't you wait outside until I'm done with your beautiful wife, boy?" he sneered.

She had nothing to contribute and just watched me with an interested expression. I briefly thought through my options and came up with nothing. He could just kill me or cast me out of the village, which would have the same effect. Of course, quick visions of me killing him flashed through my mind, but with the whole village supporting him, that seemed as good as suicide.

I knew it was what he wanted and I knew it was a sign of weakness, of submission. Still, I had no choice but to flee. His grin had turned into laughter, burning into my back. She joined him with her typical giggling. I ran back into the safety of the forest, staying in my hut for a night. My return to the house had been shameful and conflicted, but Carla had acted as if nothing happened, apart from what seemed growing disrespect for me.

My life had always been hell, but there were different phases. What followed was a different phase. Physically, Gabriel mostly left me alone. He seemed to be happy to dominate me by having sex with my wife. Mentally, the following few years were the hardest time I've ever had. They didn't bother to hide their relationship from me, anymore. Quite the opposite, their cheating was as public as the rules of our village allowed. I had always been Gabriel's most unruly subject, but he had finally broken me.

Apart from moving out of our bedroom immediately, there was nothing I could do. The concept of divorce was unknown in the village, but no one could stop me from living with her as a roommate from that point. For a while, I had hoped that this would affect her, but there was no sign of that. It made things even more convenient for them, as they could use our bedroom even when I was at home.

In my mind, we were divorced from that moment. I wish I could say that the things my ex-wife did weren't affecting me, but it took a while until I had really reached that point.

After the town meeting and the following breakfast, I went to the lake and sat on the big stone, watching the water without really seeing it. I knew that Carla would be waiting for me in our small home, trying to resurrect our marriage. She would start by pretending that nothing had happened, that we always had a great marriage, and play the doting, dutiful wife. Denial like this was the most common strategy in the village. I could just go home, join her charade and enjoy her in a purely physical way. I even had the villagers' permission to move into Gabriel's much bigger and nicer house.

In short, they expected me to become Gabriel. All the privileges, all the power, the whole easy life. All I had to do was say yes.

The thought made me feel sick. What was especially sickening was how damn appealing the idea was. I had hated Gabriel and the way he acted for years; how could I be even slightly tempted to take his role?

The villagers had suffered under Gabriel for many years. Now that he was gone, the first thing they wanted was a replacement tyrant? The old one wasn't even buried. This was their chance to live without someone dominating them, but no one seemed even remotely interested in this. They obviously needed, maybe even enjoyed, his abusive tyranny. Had I been the only one suffering? Did they think they needed his harsh rule, the juicy gossip, the entertainment?

I shook my head in confusion when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Surprised, I looked up and saw Leah, Gabriel's daughter. She had just turned 19, which meant that she was seven years younger than Carla and me.

"They really are despicable, aren't they?" she softly asked.

"Yes, and so am I."

"Why?"

It was as if she had tapped a cask. I had been silent for years. It didn't matter to me anymore. I had shut down. It was all still in there, though, waiting to get out, surprising even myself.

"Because I adored him for years. Because I regarded him as a father and I longed for nothing more than him accepting me as his true son. You know that some say that he killed my parents? I suspected for a long time, still I longed for his approval. How sick is that?"

"Oh," she just said.

"Because I just shut down after they rubbed my nose in their affair. Because I kept my mouth shut, just like all the other hypocrites. All I did, all I could do, was divorce her emotionally." My voice had risen as long denied emotion came rushing back.

She just looked at me with those big, innocent brown eyes. Her look was open and compassionate, something that couldn't be found easily in that village. She didn't judge me, which was just as hard to find.

"He was a strong man," she softly said as if that explained anything and put her hand on mine. It was startling. Right then, it seemed as if I'd just been touched in a truly compassionate way for the first time ever. My eyes were suddenly opened to a whole new world, one that was missing entirely in this toxic village. I felt the magic of genuine compassion and calmed down immediately. "You had no choice," she added.

"Being strong doesn't excuse his being an asshole," I asserted.

"You know, I'm not any better."

"You, Leah? You're the only one who's really innocent in this hell-hole."

She laughed, sounding surprisingly bitter, and gripped my hand. I felt like I was betraying my nonexistent marriage by accepting it. How sick was that? The moment was magic, but it didn't last long and I immediately missed it when she released my hand and stood up. Then she did it. She actually smiled at me. It was a genuine heart-felt smile. I felt myself smiling back and was surprised that the muscles required were still working.

After she left me, I was even less able to decide how to handle all of this. Every new piece of information, every turn of events seemed just to add to my confusion. Sighing, I went home to a wife who had slept with another man for years, while I felt guilty for having held hands with another woman.

For a few days, I relished the work load waiting for me in the forest. The work was hard, dirty, dangerous and gave me an excuse to stay away from my home and the village. In short, it was the lesser evil by far. When I walked to the edge of the wood in the early morning, I usually turned back to take a look at the village.

Nothing was moving, the early morning mist hid the streets and made the houses look like islands in a grey, fluffy sea.

That village was not just the only home I'd ever known, it was my whole world. I sure didn't like the place anymore, including most of its inhabitants. The problem was that there just was no alternative. I knew, of course, that there was an outside world. The village had always assigned someone to deal with it, to trade goods and to get news. That person had been Gabriel, of course, and no one had envied him for it. The outside world had always been a threatening place; from an early age we had heard horrific stories about it. The village I looked back upon might have been a cesspool, but it was a safe place for me and the others. Like most people, I preferred a known situation, even if it was bad, to something unknown.

Sighing, I turned around to start my long march into the forest.

"Simon..." she tentatively said one evening. I looked at Carla and suddenly realized how much she had changed since his death. It was as if something solid had been removed from inside her body. Instead of the confident, sometimes arrogant, posture she always showed, she had somehow collapsed permanently. Even her face was softer. Sometimes, she reminded me of a sock puppet without the hand giving her a structure.

"Yeah?" The hardness that had left her body and her voice had somehow crept into my own. I continued to eat the exceptionally good meal she had cooked. Those had become the norm recently, and like the constant and always turned down offers to have sex with her, they were a big change in my life. Carla was by then eager to have sex and sleep in the same room with me again.

I still felt divorced from her and didn't want to send out wrong messages or create precedents. She was obviously disappointed, but accepted it. Like everybody else, Gabriel had trained her well in the art of handling rejection.

"Simon, they want to have another town meeting."

"Hmmm. Again?"

"Will you go?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you're curious."

She smiled impishly and I suddenly saw the old Carla. The sweet innocent girl I had been married to before Gabriel had shown an interest in her. He had just taken her away from me, like an apple he had plucked from a tree. There hadn't even been token resistance from her.

Those thoughts quickly drove the warm feeling that had been spreading in my gut away. She saw it and the smile left her face, being replaced by a sad expression.

"Simon, it's... You have to know..." she started, but couldn't find the words to complete those sentences. She, too, longed for what we had lost and she, too, had no idea how to get it back.

"You're right, I will go," I said, if for no other reason than to release her from her futile search for ways to make things better. She just nodded, blinking her eyes to stop the tears from falling. I registered her emotions, but didn't feel any compassion. Too much had happened.

"Simon." Annette had obviously been assigned as spokesperson at some point. "We all know that life in the village has never been easy. Still, it's the only home we know."

I zoned out a bit, because there was nothing substantial she had to say and her words reminded me of my own thoughts on that morning I had looked back onto the village. This led me to think about my day at work until some key words pulled me back into the present.

"...you could count on everyone's support. Especially that of all the women, you understand?"

Surprised, I looked at her again. That was as direct as the village rules permitted. I briefly looked around to see if Leah was present and was relieved to see that she wasn't.

"Yes, Simon, you've got me right." She smiled as if she had just found the killer argument that would solve all their problems at once.

Seriously, all of the women? Physically, the offer wasn't very tempting, but it spoke volumes of their desperation. That was their own problem, though. Not wanting to be mean, I just ignored their offer and cut to the chase. "Please, would you just tell me what exactly it is that you want from me?" My tone wasn't unfriendly, but it was probably less enthusiastic than Annette expected.

"Simon, you know that the village needs a leader. That's the way it's always been and the way it's always going to be. One needs to lead, the others need to follow. Gabriel was far from perfect, but he never let us down." She was right about that. We could always count on him to be an immoral and violent asshole.

"We all know that it is an honor, but also a huge burden," she continued. "To make things easier for him, we have always done what we could to support him. You know this better than most, as you were among those who made the biggest sacrifices."

I felt my face getting red and looked at Carla, who had suddenly found something interesting on the floor to look at.

"It goes without saying that this support would be available for the new leader as well," she proudly concluded, obviously assuming that it would be me. Otherwise, she would have just offered Carla to another man.

"Let me get this straight. I would be expected to make the same sacrifices for Gabriel's successor?" I knew what they wanted, but wanted to play with them a bit.

That surprised her.

"Simon, we want you to be that successor."

"I see. Is it correct that all privileges Gabriel enjoyed would be mine as well?"

"Exactly," she replied with a very satisfied expression, as if that one retarded child had finally understood something. I had expected them to try and lure me into Gabriel's position, but given the importance of fake morals in the village, the thinly veiled offer of sexual privileges with the other wives still surprised me.

I looked around at what was on offer. I wouldn't say that the women were ugly, but life in a poor rural village sure takes its toll and most of them were proof of that. If I were a polite man, I'd say that their bodies were pleasantly rounded and their faces told the stories of a challenging life.

It suddenly struck me how embarrassing the situation was. There I was, looking at the bribe on offer, which clearly consisted of a bunch of frumpy housewives. They were unappealing to me; they were fully aware of the fact and still they endured the humiliation of me inspecting the merchandise with brave smiles on their faces.

How could they do this? Didn't they have any pride? I felt myself losing even more respect for them and the way they debased themselves. I should have felt compassion, as Leah had felt for me, but instead I felt contempt. Shit, I was turning into Gabriel more and more by the minute, and there seemed nothing I could do about it.

"So, this is it? I can have my pick of the wives? What do you think about that, guys? Felix? What do you think?" I goaded him. That was of course another totally Gabriel-like move, but I felt unable to avoid it.

Felix' wife Ellie was the only half way attractive woman in the village, apart from Carla and Gabriel's daughter Leah, of course. He had followed the exchange with a pained expression on his face. I wasn't sure if it was because his wife had just been offered to me or because he wanted the position for himself.

"Fuck you," he hissed, but didn't dare to stand up. Surprised, I realized that I was standing in the middle of the room and that I had no idea how I had gotten there.

"What did you say?" I replied aggressively, taunting him, just like Gabriel would have done.

"Shut up, Felix," Ellie admonished him. "This is important."

He looked up at her, unbelieving, then at me. I knew with total clarity right then that Gabriel had sex with Ellie as well. I had never known about it, meaning that she had been more discreet than Carla. She had just given up that discretion and was openly offering herself to me. Her husband's feelings didn't seem to count in the least. He clearly realized this as well, as he slumped down while she kept her fake smile.

"Nothing. Nothing. I'm fine," he finally conceded.

Shit. He, too, had just submitted to me. That damn idiot. I wanted to scream at them to get their heads out of their butts, and grow some balls. How could I do that? If I screamed at them, they would just cower further. Was this what made Gabriel the asshole that he was? Was this inevitable? Was this bunch of weak, subservient beings inevitably generating a brutal, ruthless leader?

"Fuck!" I screamed in frustration. Their heads, who had been cast downwards, snapped up in surprise. Not Felix', though. He had been watching me intently all the time. I knew this look. I had been there. I had looked this way at Gabriel for a while, back when I had still felt that rage, when I was waiting for a chance.

As I watched him, it became clearer that Felix was capable of killing Gabriel, after all. He clearly had motive and enough bottled up hate for ten murders. That meant that I wasn't the only suspect. It didn't matter in any practical sense, as the murder would never be really investigated. Unfortunately, it also meant that he'd probably have no problem killing me, as well.

I suspected that he would act only if he had a clear, risk-free shot at me. I wouldn't be able to avoid that in the long run, and wondered how worried Gabriel had been about unfortunate things like people wanting to assassinate him. If Felix were successful, the village would be his. Again, no one would bemoan my loss or investigate anything. I wondered how often that part of our village history had been repeated. The King is dead; long live the King!

My death almost seemed like a good solution, as it would stop my transformation into something I loathed.

Frustrated, I stormed out of the room and walked deep into the forest to calm down. Hours later as I turned towards my home, I knew that I still had no idea what to do, but had one enemy who had no such doubts.

Another miserable cold morning. I was used to those, but I wasn't used to my head being full of unanswered questions. Had I killed Gabriel? They had all but anointed me as his successor; was it even possible to fulfill that role without being an abusive asshole? Would I still have to shuffle through the mud into the forest and keep working there? Who'd do it if not me? I didn't even see anyone being physically able to that hard work, apart from me.

Carla had tried to seduce me again the previous night. I might be stubborn, but I didn't want her. I didn't want a woman because I'd inherited her from her deceased owner. I didn't want sex because she felt it was part of her duties. I might have been a hopeless romantic, but I clung to the belief that a wife should love her man and that should be the only force driving them together. Carla had already proven for years that she saw things differently: much less romantic and much more practical.

I'd always felt at home in the forest. I knew it like the back of my hand, and unlike all the other villagers, it never scared me. It was like an old friend, or maybe like a blanket around me, protecting me. On mornings like that one, before dawn, the town behind me was cold, lifeless and grey. The forest in front of me was a solid black block, waiting to embrace me. Nothing moved, apart from the fog slowly seeping out from between the trees.

It was good that I knew each step, each branch and root. As I got nearer, individual trees became visible. For the first time, it seemed like the path didn't lead towards a friend, but into a pitch black gullet. Unlike all other villagers, I had never seen the forest as something hostile: it had always been my home turf. On that morning though, it seemed threatening, even to me.

Shaking my head at my unfounded doubts, I soon stepped into the familiar darkness.

As always, my eyes got used to the deeper darkness and things became a little clearer. I could vaguely surmise the path in front of me. The only sound was the wind rustling in the trees. The mud had already given way to the soft, springy forest floor. This time, I was not lost in thought, as I usually was. For some reason, I kept looking around. I even looked behind me, like a frightened schoolgirl. I tried to catch the slightest sounds. Something was wrong. My back was tingling, it was almost as if someone or something was watching me.

Dismissing the thought was as important as it was impossible. Once the mind focuses on something like this, you can't get rid of it. The harder you try, the stronger it gets. Again shaking my head, I moved on, but I kept staring into the shadows on both sides. I was getting more tense by the minute and I still had a long way ahead of me.

Suddenly, something behind me cracked sharply, making me jump and turn around. Right then, something hit me on the back of my head and I fell flat forward, onto the soft pine needles. I should have been in panic, full of adrenalin, but for some reason, I didn't move at all. I just enjoyed the scent of pines, that I'd always loved. I knew that this might be my end, and I almost welcomed that thought. I sure didn't like what had happened to me recently, how I had acted, the things I should have done in the past, but hadn't, what I was about to become, what my options were and my life in general. I felt trapped in this village and my life and maybe what was currently happening was the only real escape.