The Tattoos
My great-grandfather was a renowned santur player. He would not only play at weddings and feasts, but would also be invited at childbirths and diseases. So mellow and enchanting was his santur playing that women delivered painlessly and sickness abandoned at once the crippled bodies of the dying. He was so efficient that he had significantly outweighed the midwives and wizards who, of course, envied him and often used spells and sorceries to plot against his life or wish him bad. But no curse could ever affect my great-grandfather as if at the time of his playing angels with long swords would join forces around him for protection.
Of course, most people in the surrounding villages loved him and competed to have him first at their house for a treat or to offer him hospitality. They dragged him here and there and the poor man – who almost never stayed at home -hardly ever saw his family. My great-grandmother cursed the day the two had gotten married. She would loathe the santur and feel bitter that her husband paid more attention to it than to her and their children. However, she knew that thanks to the instrument their home was well supplied and they could live generously and at ease without her having to work with livestock or in the fields.
This is how the years rolled by. My great-grandfather’s reputation would spread to more and more lands. The wizards and the cunning, toothless midwives would secretly meet to find a way to get rid of him, but in vain. My great-grandfather played unstoppably wherever he was invited. Therefore, the children were born healthy, the crops were abundant and the sick found a cure.
Until one day, an ugly gypsy woman, illegitimate child of the archimandrite from whom she had inherited the skillfulness in sorcery and who – some sources claim – was her lover, found the solution while in the midst of the dark meeting. And, since her revelation was met by the others with a weak, if not suspicious, reaction, she decided to put the plan in place by herself. However, she requested the council to slaughter lambs in her name and to give her their blessing while she washed in blood. This is exactly what happened that same day at midnight, by the propitious full moon on Libra. After the ceremony, she was handed holy talismans for good luck and she soon directed towards my great-grandfather’s village, Mulberryshire.
The dark messenger arrived at dawn and quickly found the house of my great-grandfather who, of course, was not there. She knocked at the door pretending to be a peddler selling magic potions and love elixirs. Gullible and insecure as she was, my great-grandmother naturally let her in and displayed great interest in the merchandise that the gypsy woman was showcasing eloquently, like a television anchorwoman. What is more, she also offered to read her palm. The cunning gypsy woman frowned and began to mumble: “Oh my lady, you are going through hardships and even harder times are about to come”. “Ah!” sighed my great-grandmother, naïve. “I wish this was untrue!”. The bitter gypsy woman went on: “Your husband is far away, although he is no merchant or seaman”.
“Yes! He is a musician!” shouted my great-grandmother enthusiastically. “I can see that”, said the witch, “he travels through towns and villages but he does not come home. He makes
miracles happen and people love him. However, this man will soon be the bearer of a great misfortune… He will bring here a new woman and will throw his wife and children out of the house!”. “What are you saying, crazy woman?” my great-grandmother screamed in pain and anger. “Your palm is saying so, not me my lady!”. My greatgrandmother withdrew her hand and started crying while repeating to herself: “… I knew it, I knew it”. She shrank only to become a bundle of black clothes. Then, while trying to conceal her satisfaction, the gypsy woman put in place the final stage of her plan. She told my great-grandmother that the only way to keep her husband was the following: to have two tattoos drawn onto the skin using a special blue ink. “What kind of drawings?” asked concerned my great-grandmother who was a narcissist. “Two thorny bushes, one on each arm”, hissed the gypsy woman, “as soon as your husband shall come near you he shall never leave your side again”. My great-grandmother did not have to think twice to accept, so the witch used her tools to create the two tattoos.
Who really knows the ingredients of that blue ink? Some say that the azure hue was the result of an unholy mix of squashed serpent scales and crow eggs. However, such squalid recipes are made using many more ingredients which one cannot even imagine, if not a master in the art of magic.
Anyway, the tattoos were completed and the witch left my great-grandmother longing for her husband to come, although before his return home from the faraway lands more days were to pass by. When he got home, his wife prepared his meal, bathed him and lured him into their bedroom to make love. Under the candlelight, as he undressed her, my greatgrandfather noticed the two drawings on her shoulders. “What are these drawings, Anna?” he asked bewildered. “Embrace me and you shall see”, she replied lavishly.
Not suspecting a thing, when the man reached to hug her, the two drawings on her shoulders turned into real blue thorns and pierced his hands. My great-grandfather suddenly screamed in pain and pulled away. The thorns regained their two-dimensional form. “What did you do, crazy woman?” the old santur player yelled outraged. Then, fearful as she was, his wife revealed all the details about the appearance of the gypsy woman and their pact. My great-grandfather brought the candle near his wife’s shoulders to observe the drawings: they looked like fractals. Dark thoughts stormed into his mind while he fell asleep. His wife, however, remained sleepless crying all night long.
Evil manifested itself the following morning when my greatgrandfather took the santur out of its case to practice a little. Horrified, he realised that the music he played was nothing but a cacophonous noise stripped of sense or melody; a strident dissonance with no rhythm that purposelessly confused the musical scales, dieses and flats, and all this hodgepodge of sounds produced a terrible discord that made you want to cover your ears. He let the drumsticks in shock while sweat ran down his forehead. “This is impossible” he thought. He took back the drumsticks and began to play once again; the outcome was the same, if not worse. So, he kept trying all morning. How terrible it was to see that in spite of having the melodies so clearly in his mind, his hands seemed to act autonomously and to refuse to take any brain orders. Scared, he observed the small circular wounds that his wife’s magical drawings had left him the night before. For days, and even weeks, he went on hoping that when his wounds would be healed he would regain his touch, but in vain. He even turned to the wizards – his very enemies - paying them in gold for a cure, although, of course, those black dogs not only did they refuse to help him but also spitefully laughed up their sleeve.
One morning, after a long time he was fed up with the realisation that there was no escape, he took the santur and threw it down the well in the yard. Then, he left without saying ‘goodbye’ to anyone and never returned. Some say that he traveled to Bulgaria and founded a new religion. My greatgrandmother, shocked by the events that her imprudence had caused, ordered her children to descend the well to recover the santur using ropes, to repair it and to learn how to play it. Her wish and curse to them was to never let it go from their hands and that every male descendant shall learn this art from his predecessor, forever and ever until the end of time; until the moment there would be no more santurs, witches, women, or men.
What is more, because she did not stand to look at the two pitiful drawings branded for life upon her, she decided to selfmutilate by cutting her arms right at the shoulders’ line. However, since she could not do it by herself and no family member would ever accept to undertake such an abominable task, she referred to the community executioner. But even he refused claiming that he first had to receive orders by the Court of Justice, meaning a sequence of events should take place: indictable offense, arrest, trial, condemn, sentence.
Anna, my great-grandmother, had never broken the law except that now a gruesome idea was stuck in her mind. After all, she felt defeated, betrayed, desperate, and ready for anything. She ran back to the village of the gypsy woman, the very one who had brought her so much misery. The gypsy lived in a cave, on the outskirts of the village. My greatgrandmother unexpectedly and silently burst into the dirty cave while the witch was cooking her meal. “Do you remember me Charybdis?” screamed my great-grandfather’s heartbroken spouse: “Look at me closely! Because I shall be the last image you have of this world!”. And, charging like a hyena upon her, she carved out her eyes before the pitiable witch was able to react. She took them in her palm and departed, leaving the poor gypsy screaming in excruciating pain and horror.
After many hours of walking, my great-grandmother - covered in sweat, dust and dirt - reached the Judge’s door. She knocked and when the wise attendant of Themis opened the door she threw at his feet the juicy, carved eyeballs. “Look what I did! ” she said. “I came to turn myself in!” she said and then collapsed. Usually, for a crime like hers the law reserved a punishment equal to the mutilation of the upper limbs along with blinding. Nevertheless, due to the many extenuating circumstances that were presented by her legal representatives, the sentence was limited to the first part. So, my great-grandmother’s wish was ultimately fulfilled.