The Werewolf of Borschev
From Tales the Wind Told

By Brooks Mencher

Such a tale as this should not be told to a child at night. It is more fit for the day, and is fine if it's told beneath the flowered light of a summer afternoon or amid the melody of a spring day.

It should be avoided in the late autumn or winter. The daylight is skewed and strained then, and the trees are skeletal, the soil barren. It is a tale as unfriendly as the crackled, gray winter's day . . . and so the story and the season, the thinness of them, are like brothers.

But what is time to us? Nothing! So the tale begins at the threshold of a decrepit cottage that has been made by hand from bark and saplings glued together with a mortar of sour river mud, half-rotted straw and pebbles of tar mashed together into a dark gray, fetid dough. This was the home, if it could be called that, of Mokbarak, the werewolf, and it was situated a half-day's hike north of the old village of Borschev in a shallow and forgotten forest of sickly, stick-thin trees and colorless wet lichen, all lit by weak sunbeams that seem to have passed through a glaze of salt before striking the needles and leaves of the twigs. The floor of the wood: mostly mud and tufts of crushed grass, brown but wet with the winter, and sharp stones that are red and ochre-colored.

The werewolf had no visitors, no friends, no acquaintances. He lived the ultimately solitary life of a wicked, hated, dangerous animal -- and for those who knew of him, that is what he was.

"I have but a single window," said Mokbarak as he paced the pounded earthen floor of his hovel. "Candles made of rancid tallow have I, and not more, for I am cursed and live uncomfortably in my skin as if it were made of coarse ground hair matted in mud and thorns. I am hideous and fearsome to all, even to the blind, or to the mice or other small animals of the field.

"Though I have barely a window," he said, looking up at his dripping ceiling, "word reaches me of people and things, and I know of the goings-on in the world. I hear nothing from the birds -- they fear me so -- and neither a squirrel nor frog will greet me, but I know what goes on in the broad world, for I am a werewolf. And it is true, therefore," he said, coming at last upon the issue at hand, "that a great tragedy has occurred in Borschev Village this very morning, for an infant has been stolen from its cradle with no clue to the heinous crime -- nor to the more hideous villain -- and all that is left of the infant is an empty cradle and the chill winter breeze that passes over it, ruffling the pages of some book, I see, or shaking the flame of some melting candle.

"The family is poor," he continued, his scratchy voice raising slightly, "but no poorer than any other family in Borschev. They are all poor despite their hard work, but they are not bitter for it . . . they aren't even unhappy.

"The house is full of people, I see: There are the mother and the father; a boy of four years and the girl of five; also a girl, Razial, being an older child who is the mother's niece, and this Razial threads needles and trims fabric and gathers special herbs for the grandmother and she has the uncommon gift of prophesy. The grandmother also lives there! There is a cousin to the father's side who is a good gardener, living among them, and, finally, a grown nephew to the father who hunts by means of wire traps which I see in the forest on occasion and which are made well enough, though simple; and a large cat who hunts and lives outside except in the dead of winter when it is too cold to walk about. And there was the poor infant who was stolen this very morning."

Mokbarak had a boiled tea of dirt and seeds and the small, empty shells of land snails on a stove that was fueled with burning leaves and pine pitch, the thick smoke of which was expectorated into the damp air above the winter forest through a thin chimney pipe made of curled birch bark.

"The good people of Borschev will suspect that I am the villain, for I am a werewolf," said Mokbarak. "I am innocent! What is it like to receive kindness, a glance of appreciation or an invitation to a holiday dinner? The little birds flee my presence! And it is my understanding that my face is horrible to behold and strikes fear into all, be they rabbit or child, woman or man. The eye, they say, is the window of the soul, and mine are empty, and all are frightened, and they flee. And they leave my presence and I am alone in my sadness."

He sat with his cracked cup of murky tea on a small stool inside the hut and leaned against the cold, mud-daubed wall. He picked up four or five small white knucklebones from his bone bowl on the small sill of a dim window, shaking them in his hand like dice. "This is my music, and my father's before me! Rattle, bones!

Then he sighed and looked up. "An infant was stolen in Borschev! Can there be a god? An infant was taken from his crib in Borschev! and all that is left is the wind blowing over the cradle, and drying up the tears of the children. They will come after me and assemble themselves outside my door and will do me in, for I am a werewolf."

At that moment, Mokbarak heard the sound of people outside his hut. He heard them right now; he was sure of it. But he counted only two! Very quietly, he stood up, as he had been sitting on the stool, and he crept closer to the door so he could hear what was happening outside.

"Mokbarak, open you this door!" shouted Grandmother. She and the granddaughter, Razial, had run and jogged and walked much of the morning, and the winter mud was slapped like brown dung on their boots and smattered on their thick wool coats, and Razial's ankles were cold though she wore two pairs of socks. Their hands were red and almost cracking, their noses running, and the chill vapor of their breath carried high over Mokbarak's hut and did not dissipate, for it was that cold.

"Grandmother," whispered Razial. "I have been meaning to ask you why we ran here, to this hut of Mokbarak the Werewolf? Did he? We saw that my baby cousin, Rozbarak, was taken from his dear cradle and stolen away by means of the window nearby! I have always loved our Rozbarak and I wish to help find him at any cost, but I know you do not suspect this evil is the doing of Mokbarak the Werewolf!"

"This is true, Razial my child," whispered Grandmother, "but we will find that the men of the village, enraged as they are, are fast on our trail here to the hidden home of Mokbarak, the Werewolf, meaning to do him in and thus to make him pay for this crime. But we have arrived before them because we have other business with Mokbarak."

Mokbarak, meanwhile, listened attentively to the conversation on the other side of his door. "I am a werewolf," he shouted to Grandmother, "and am cursed by God! I have a fire in me that troubles me dearly and I cannot guarantee your safety in my presence. If the rage descends upon me -- a horrendous affliction that sets me apart from men and from all the creatures of the Earth, forcing them to cast me out like a vile bag of bones -- then woe unto all men, woe until all creatures on Earth, all creatures under Sea and Sky, all demons under Earth and Sea!"

"Werewolves have very good ears," Grandmother said to Razial. "And a very inflated opinion of themselves." Then, turning to the door, she said, "Open the door, Mokbarak and hear what I have to say!"

"I know what you will tell me," said Mokbarak, raising his voice, for he was uncomfortable and had begun to pace around the small hut. He took a hurried sip of his filthy tea and silently raised his fists against the walls that protected him. Then he moved back to the door and through the crack of it he said, "You think an evil creature has taken the infant! And not I, Mokbarak the Werewolf! What direction did it go? you will ask. And I will answer, 'West, to the old cave!' The direction opposite the trail to my sweet cottage! And you, Grandmother, will tell me 'Yes, yes, the cave! The shadow creature!' and you will ask me more about the cave, more about the monster therein, the monster who stole the child, and you will want me to guide you there, thinking you will rescue your Rozbarak! Admit it! I am correct!"

Razial looked at her grandmother and said, "What he says makes sense to me. But how could he know what monster stole dear Rozbarak? Surely his knowledge will die with him, for all the village is following us here -- they will trample this hovel and slay him who is within!"

Grandmother began whispering. "The cave is a terrible place, and there are many frightening stories about it. It is hard to find, Razial my child. Hard to find, you ask? That is because sometimes it is in one place and sometimes in another; sometimes it exists and sometimes it is nowhere to be found, evil place that it is." She could hardly be heard, and in an effort to listen, Mokbarak had edged up closer and closer to his door, straining his ears to hear. Though he had the fine senses of the werewolf and could hear a fly on the other side of his door if he concentrated, Grandmother whispered so quietly that he had to get closer and closer, his ear now touching the door itself.

Grandmother was too cunning for Mokbarak, and in an instant she leaped at the door, bursting it open and throwing the werewolf back against the wall in a horrific tumble. Immediately she was upon him, and though he was stronger than she by many times, Grandmother had the element of surprise and had been able, even in the darkness of the room, to grapple the werewolf to the floor and set a choke hold on him from behind, leaving him defenseless. At any second, she could have snapped his bones and ended his miserable life.

"I have never wanted to be a werewolf," he choked. "The people of mine are not evil by desire! . . . (choke) that is, we have never chosen to be evil! Cursed we are, generation after generation, (choke) for we have a rage within us which we cannot control. For my part, I have always turned my empty eyes away . . . I cast my eyes to the ground. I eat vegetables and herbs and drink tea from the forest leaves. For long years I have hurt nor man nor beast!"

"Obey me or I will kill you," said Grandmother in the ear of Mokbarak.

"I will not!" said the werewolf. "I am cursed (choke) and afraid and I will not help you!" Mokbarak waited for the rage of the werewolf to rise within him, but for some unexplained reason, it would not. Strong and evil as he was in his natural state, the rage doubled and tripled his power. Yet it was not something in his control, and, for now, it seemed to have abandoned him.

Grandmother squeezed, and the werewolf's bones pressed together. She pressed hard and his ribs began to rub each other; she strained and his very spine began to curl. His joints began to pop. And wriggle as he might, his muscles were useless in her ironlike grip.

"Guide us to the cave and through it," she said through her teeth. "I will put a tether on your miserable neck and you will lead us to the cave and into it deeply, and we will steal back our Rozbarak from the evil creature that has taken him!"

"Never!" said Mokbarak, "for you do not know the monster that lives in the cave! I am a werewolf -- half man, half beast. Half evil! and my evil is a curse, a life I did not choose but was chosen for me! That creature," he gurgled, choking under the pressure, "is more evil than I, having chosen to be so, having nursed its own sinister nature in the darkness of its cave, and it hates all men, it hates and hates . . . but it is not cursed as am I!"

"What can make a werewolf submit?" asked Razial quietly, as if speaking to the walls. While her grandmother held Mokbarak immobile, the werewolf weeping in pain and fear, Razial sat down on the stool not far from where they were on the dirt floor, locked together in a death clamp. Razial leaned over and spoke gently with her grandmother, trusting completely in the older woman's control of the beast. "For Grandmother, he is strong and will surely put himself to death before he helps us. If you break the poor creature's back, and snap it like a twig, he will die and be buried in a shallow grave and be forgotten, and the light will never shine on him again, neither sun nor moon, and the birds will not gather at his grave and there will only be sorrow, for he had lived his life as if it were a curse, and died in the curse, tired and thin, his soul tired and thin as well, and he would have done neither good nor bad for all his years."

Mokbarak gave a half-hearted attempt to free himself, and there was the sound of another joint popping. Then he lay still again, and Razial continued speaking with Grandmother.

"The Earth may weep at his death, but it will never know why, Grandmother, and none will mourn for him, for though they may see that he died, no man had ever known him, none could call him 'friend' for none had ever called upon him at all, and his body will be taken far away in a cart, a silent, clomping horse guiding it along a road, and the birds will never sit with Mokbarak, and the small yellow birds with the red heads will never sing a song to him, ever, for he will be gone."

The werewolf, though his very ears were throbbing from the pressure exerted by Grandmother's grappling hold, listened to the girl's words, and began to weep silently. Surely this would not come to pass! Yet, he knew, this girl had the gift of prophesy! His body went limp, for he felt tired and thin, just as Razial had said, and he was full of remorse for a life that he had never chosen. "Agreed," he whispered, "for I am lost. I will take you to the cave, and you will faint away -- for it descends to hell itself! You may tether me by the neck and I will never strain at my binding; but, rather, I will do whatever you command. But keep the granddaughter from my sight, for I do not want her to see my ugliness. That is all that I ask."

"Done," said Grandmother, and with that she loosened her grip and they both stood up once again, for werewolves are true to their word. Razial, at Mokbarak's bidding, averted her gaze, and he, in turn, did not look at her directly, but saw her only in his peripheral vision.

They left the dire hovel that Mokbarak called his home and began the trek deep into the woods. No sooner had they vanished into the stripling forest than the men of the village of Borschev arrived at the werewolf's home. Clearly, they saw the signs of a great struggle, and there was blood here and there, near the table where the werewolf had first crashed when Grandmother burst through the door. But this they interpreted as all that was left of the stolen infant, Rozbarak, and they cried aloud and beat their chests and ripped their shirts in grief. Alas, they thought, they were too late and the child had gone to his fate, the werewolf having fled into the forest where it would never be found until the end of the world. So they began the trek back to the mother's home, wishing they had not this bad news to tell her.

Meanwhile, Mokbarak led Grandmother and Razial through the forest. It was still morning, and the werewolf took long strides along the boggy trail. The sun was up but the sky was gray and brown; it was brown and pink, pink and mud-green. There was a hissing in the trees, which was the wind, and Grandmother knew this, Mokbarak knew it, but Razial did not and she worried that there were snakes in the twisted, barren limbs of the thin trees. But as they walked the trail, the three of them made little noise themselves. The werewolf did not strain on the tether that was tied around his neck. They walked along in this order: Mokbarak, tether on his neck; Grandmother, holding the strip of leather; Razial, bundled in a thick coat that was too large for her and reached down to her ankles, its hem soaked from the water and frost that laced the bushes along the trail, and it was discolored from the melted mud.

The trail twisted and turned. At times, it seemed they were walking upside down, perhaps on the underside of the Earth. At some moments the moon was out, and at other times the sun returned. Once, Razial was convinced she saw two suns, and then there was no sun at all, for one had swallowed the other. "Such is the nature of the path to the cave," mumbled Mokbarak as he led on. "Its entrance is known only to the monster who lives there, and by werewolves such as I who live half in one world, half in the other, and know no peace by night or day."

At last they arrived at the mouth of the cave. It appeared as a small, circular hole in the side of a hill, and it was surrounded by dead grasses and sticks of wood so that the opening looked smaller than it really was. The air that came out of it was foul and warm, and there was a trickle of water coming from it that was thick and discolored with illnesses and other unclean matters. Razial covered her mouth and nose with a kerchief, and Mokbarak led them into the cave.

Immediately, it enlarged into a great cavern, and there was a mild light, allowing Grandmother and Razial, after a few minutes, to see. The ceiling was very high, like a cathedral, and the rock of the walls and ceiling were formed to look like sculptures of horribly contorted creatures and grotesque beings of the darkness.

The first thing Razial noticed was living beings that looked much like men, and they were in their skins but without shirts or hats, and were about waist-high and the color of mud. She was very afraid, for there were many, many of them, and they were hunched over, squatting, and probing the mud with their fingers as if looking for something in the filthy soil of the cave. She looked around and thought she could see many hundreds of these poor souls.

Feeling her questions, but not looking at the girl, Mokbarak said, "Grandmother, this is the first region of the cave. You unfortunately asked me to bring you here and I have obeyed. If you faint away, I will pull you to safety as best I can, but I will not look after you and neither protect you. Instead, I would attempt to re-enter this tomb and search for the child."

"You were right to bring us here," said Grandmother, "for we have a mission to accomplish. We must go on."

"These are lost souls," said Mokbarak. "This is the saddest part of the cave, but not the most hideous, neither is it the most evil. These poor people have lost their way and have given up their will and their minds, and they squat down into the mud and seek little things in the mud, blind as they are to any light or any other person. They are the monster's slaves. They make me very sad and I do not like to be near them anymore."

"Take the tether from your scrawny neck and strap up seven or eight of them," Grandmother demanded, loosening her grip on the leash. "Lead them along in front of us as we walk deeper into the cave."

"I have agreed to obey you, Grandmother, but truly, they disgust me and I pity them and in their presence I grow sad. But I will do as you bid, for you have my word, the word of the werewolf," and so he tied them all by the neck and as they proceeded deeper into the hole, Mokbarak steered the eight creatures on the strap in front of him as if they were cart horses.

"I don't wish to spend more time descending into the cave," said Razial. "It is a place that hates all life, and I am thankful it is not accessible to normal people." Then Razial made a prediction. "But I will do these things, in this order, and will accomplish the task: Grandmother and I will follow Mokbarak down, down, down, and after a time the werewolf will ask to unleash the lost souls because he pities them. Grandmother, then, will agree to let them free, and Mokbarak will instruct them to walk on, deeper into the cave, walking in front of us, and this they will do, for they have no understanding other than to walk on as the werewolf commands them.

"Then," she continued her prophecy, "Mokbarak will shout for them to stop, after they lumber off some way. They will squat, the eight of them, and start poking at things in the ground, as they are wont to do."

All this occurred exactly as Razial predicted. In the end, Mokbarak told them to walk on, deeper into the cave, and they obeyed, and Mokbarak commanded them to stop, and they again obeyed, squatting and poking at things in the soil of the cave. Grandmother then told Mokbarak to take the tether and coil it like a whip and carry it in his hand with a firm grip.

At that moment, far into the chamber, and in the center of the floor of the chamber, they saw the monster holding the stolen child, Rozbarak! Razial gasped; Grandmother held her by the arm.

Grandmother and Razial froze in their steps, unable to lift one foot or the other, unable to speak and barely to breathe, for the monster was so frightening that it seemed to crush their chests and fuse the bones of their legs and arms and bodies. But Grandmother's well-laid plan unfolded without her participation, just as she knew it would!

Two things occurred in rapid succession. First, Mokbarak set eyes on the creature and immediately the rage of the werewolf within him grew from a flicker to a torturous flame and in a matter of seconds he had lost all control, had lost his mind, and began screaming and screeching and striking out into the air with claw and fist, and in his madness threw himself with all his might in the direction of the monster. The metamorphosis took only moments, and Mokbarak changed into the unleashed and uncontrollable . . . werewolf.

Then, caught by surprise, the monster began to pant quickly, to hyperventilate, in and out, and it leaped away from Mokbarak, carrying the child with it. It ran around the chamber in a panic, sprinting in tight circles of insanity, its breath heaving, for no creature, however evil, no demon under Earth and Sea can withstand the wrath of a werewolf when the rage is upon him.

"Trying to look at the monster was like holding my hand over a flame," Razial said. "Every time I turned to look, my very eyes were pushed away, repelled as if by pain and fire. But I knew it had circled the center area of the chamber . . . and there it saw the lost souls that Grandmother had instructed Mokbarak to send deeper into the chamber! I could hear it breathing. When the creature saw the eight lost souls, it let out of horrible cry and ran hard in their direction, holding Rozbarak all the while . . . ran right at them and through them! I was sure it would run right into them and swallow them up and kill them! It knocked them about like wooden pegs!"

But it did not swallow them. The creature, unused to anything that could resist it, fled madly through the eight lost souls, leaping over some, pushing aside another, smashing into the rest, which were tossed into the air like bits of charcoal. Why? Because these pitiful things are always found at the entrance of the cave, near the opening, and to go through them, the creature thought, was to run to the entrance of the cave where it could escape with the child into the wide world. But instead of leaving the cave, the evil shadow was deceived into leaping deeper into the darkness, down, down farther and farther, thinking the cave door was just ahead! And the maddened werewolf, Mokbarak, ran after it in hideous, mindless pursuit!

Finally, Mokbarak trapped the thing in the darkest recess of the cave. That is all that was ever known. Mokbarak would never discuss the episode. But somehow he did leave, carrying Rozbarak to safety. Mokbarak returned, walking slowly up and up from the depths with the child in his arms, time seeming to stop, only his legs moving forward, until at last he came to the wide chamber in which he found Razial and Grandmother, and he handed the infant, Rozbarak, to them. Mokbarak led them all back from the depths of the cave and eventually they stood at the open hole that was the cavern door. He ushered them all out, and with a final glance back at the lost souls, he sighed and left the cave, never to return.

In the days that followed, Mokbarak, the Werewolf of Borschev, wandered through the forest and followed some of its rivers and creeks. When spring came, he gathered hay and herbs, leaving them near the home of little Rozbarak. Razial, knowing that she and Grandmother would use them, gathered them up and brought them indoors or to the drying shed. But Mokbarak was never seen, and there was no rumor in the village of his existence. The hut in which he had lived collapsed and slowly decayed until nothing was left except a vague gray mark on the land, like an oily residue.

After a year had passed, the eight lost souls wandered back from deep within the cave to the entrance where they were first seen. They seemed to be drawn by old thoughts, perhaps by hope, who knows? But in time, they left the cave and in their travels were drawn to Mokbarak, and he instructed them and they lived outside beneath the sun, and slept at night and smiled at the wind in the trees and finally became human again.

"It has been pleasant gathering the herbs," said Mokbarak. "I will never have a home, however, for nothing is mine. I am a ghost upon the Earth, neither man nor devil. Not by choice is the rock a rock, cold as the land around it! But there is one person, one who has graciously looked aside and allowed me to hide my ugliness. And that is enough . . . that and the cold-running water of a forest brook, the rattling of bones. . . . Finding a lost soul at the mouth of its cave and setting it on its long path to freedom, that is enough."

Mokbarak sat gazing into the clear crystal of the icy-cold stream at his feet, watched the water rush around the rounded stones, watched the red and yellow leaves swirl alone, and in pairs and triplets, into eddies that swirled along the banks. A small yellow bird came and sat near him on the stone, and it sang briefly, cocked its little red-feathered head and peered at Mokbarak. The werewolf looked aside, knowing the bird was still there, that it had remained for as long as a song, and that it still sat upon the stone with him. With him! And he listened to its song, and to the river, and to the leaves tossing in the branches above the riverbank.

Tales the Wind Told is available in paperback from Lulu Press