Maabeloff's Transition

When Gustav looked in the mirror, it was always the same.  That monster that he loathed was staring back at him with those marble black eyes.  His reaction was always the same, a groan of disgust would rise in him until he could no longer bear looking at his own reflection.

It was an accident.  A horrible, senseless accident had turned the child prodigy into this disgusting creature who was forced to wear a mask when he went into public which wasn’t often these days.  He had played the palace at St. Petersburg in front of the Czar who offered a standing ovation.  But that was such a long time ago.

Wrong place at the wrong time.  Antichrist attempted to assassinate the Czar when he finished playing Tchaikovsky on the piano.  When he wandered into the green room where the bomb was planted, it detonated, blowing off his ears and bottom jaw. The heat from the explosion melted his left eye and charred both ears which the surgeon had to remove.  All he was left with was a scarred disfigured face that shocked anyone who happened to see his unmasked face, especially the children who would scream and run from him whenever he passed them on the street.  

He would retreat to his private room to sulk and wonder why he had been chosen to carry such a heavy burden.  Even the gargoyles on the ceiling of his father’s estate were as frightening to look at as he was.  His father insisted that Gustav wear a face covering so he would not disturb the hired help around the fine country estate in Toksovo. Boris Svantovock drew the short straw and he was tasked to feed the jawless Gustav his evening meal.  It usually turned out to be a messy affair, but Boris was adept at handling the rebellious son.  

“How is Gustav this evening?” Madaline would ask when Boris would come into the kitchen with a plate filled with discarded chunks and bits Gustav could not or refused to ingest.  

“Each day he seems to become more obstinate.” Boris would nearly shake as he put the platter on the counter near the kitchen sink. The general disorder and disarray disgusted Boris who had been schooled in proper etiquette. “I was not hired to do this kind of work.  The boy does not have a proper jaw and most of his meal winds up on his shirt.” 

“Ivan, his father feels that we can care for him.” She shook her head.

“The boy needs to be put into a home for the disabled. “ He sighed.

“He would never hear of it.” She smiled, “He feels his family has the resources to care for him here.” 

“Yes, provided one of us deals with him.” Boris slammed the leftovers into the garbage can. “I don’t know how much more I can take.  His face…is not a face.  He has only one eye while the rest of his face is scar tissue.  It isn’t human.” 

“I have never seen it, Boris.” She put both hands on her hips. 

“You are lucky.” He sighs a long exhale.  “The face is not human.”

Madeline coughs into her hand and when Boris turns, he sees Gustav standing there. Using his chalkboard, he writes, “I was hoping to get another biscuit.” 

“I shall get it for you.” Boris declares feeling a bit uneasy that Gustav heard his last comment. Boris reaches into the steambox and removes a biscuit. “Do you want me to feed it to you?”

Gustav shakes his head and exits the kitchen with his biscuit. 

“He heard me.” Boris hisses.

“He moves like a shadow at times.” Madaline stirs her stroganoff.  

Fidgety and restless, Gustav puts on his face covering and leaves the grounds without telling anyone where he is going.  The streets of the town are bustling with a traveling show set up on the banks of Kagalovsky even though the ground is saturated with rain and very swampy.  Wearing his face covering, no one seems to notice him as he moves through the crowd.  

There is a sword swallower dressed like a Cossack who smiles when he is placing the sharp blades in his maw. Gustav knows that one mistake could be fatal which makes this display tantalizing.  

The explosion was nothing more than a flash of intense light.  He did not remember the sound even though he was almost completely deaf for almost a year. The bomb was placed up high which turned out to be eye level when it detonated. A juggler who had just lit a cigarette was blown to bits, but the bomb was so powerful, it ripped Gustav’s face apart even though he was standing several feet from  the unfortunate entertainer.  

He tasted blood and then he didn’t as his jaw had been severed and was left hanging by a small strip of flesh from his injured face.  The heat made his skin bubble.  Rescuers thought he was dead.  They put him on a litter and covered him with a blanket. It wasn’t until he moved his fingers that the medics realized he was alive. His father never left the hospital and spent every night in a chair by his bed for the three week stay. 

A sign was posted that claimed, “Madam Bavatar could cure anything.” 

There was a large rather hostile looking man at the entrance of the tent.  When Gustav tried to enter, the man stopped him, “You must pay the fee.” 

“How much?” Gustav wrote on his chalkboard.

“Are you dumb?” The large man asked.

Gustav wrote, “Da.” 

“It’s one thousand Rubles.” He told Gustav.

“That’s a lot.” He wrote.

“Yeah, but she can cure anything.” The man held out his hand. 

Gustav peeled the mask back revealing his hideous face. The man shuddered as he was startled and  shocked by the boy’s appearance.  Gustav put the money in the man’s hand, but he eyed Gustav, “My mistake…two thousand rubles.” 

“Can she fix this?” He wrote.

“I’d like to say yes, but your face is very damaged.” He held out his hand as Gustav put more rubles in his hand. 

He walked into Madam Bavatar’s tent where she sat in an incense fog with a shiny turban headdress sitting atop her head. Two strapping men dressed in loose fitting shiny pants flanked her on both sides.  The room was dark, so Gustav could not see very well with his one eye. 

“Who do we have here?” She purred as the men on either side stood as still as statues. “I have been told that you are in need of some powerful magic.” 

“Magic?” He wrote down, “I am beyond magic.” 

“Let me have a look.” She put her hands on his face covering and peeled it back from his face.  She gasped upon seeing the scars and physical damage. “You poor child. Your transition will take everything I have to offer, but it shall be worth the trouble.” 

“What must I do?” He wrote.

“Just sit there, my child and let the herbs and magic do their best to restore what was lost.” She dipped a dirty rag into a bucket.

The first contact with the wet cloth made Gustav jerk in his chair.

“Try to sit still.” She put the cloth back into the bucket. “This may take some time.” 

Her touch was gentle and he could feel a tingling of the places she touched with the damp cloth. With his left eye he watched as she continued to massage his face with the cloth.  A wry smile crossed her face as she worked.

“How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Strange.” He wrote on his chalkboard.

“Strange, eh?” She chuckled.  “What happened to your face?” 

“Bomb.” He wrote.

“Oh dear.” She shook her head as she continued to apply the cloth to his badly damaged face. “Let me see.” 

She took a step back and smiled.  It had been a long time since someone had looked at his face and smiled.  Wiping her forehead with her sleeve and the back of her hand, she whispered, “It is beginning to work.” 

He grabbed for the mirror. She shook her head, “Do not expect miracles yet, Gustav.  There is so much more I have to do.” 

“Angel.” He wrote.  

“You will sleep on my couch tonight while the elixir does its magic.” She dabbed the cloth on his face. “A healer from the Jewish settlement taught me this.  He was an ancient man named Hogarth.  He had a white beard that nearly hung to his knees.  His fingers were bent with age, but he restored the face of a young man who had been badly burned in a fire.”

“I am a monster.” He wrote.

“I must confess that your face has been badly damaged, but I can already see improvement.” She assured him.  He finally reached the mirror and put it up to his face.  

His reflection had changed in the time she had been working on him.  In place of the wrinkled burned flesh was now pink new skin.  He became excited.

“Keep calm.  The best has yet to come.” She put her hand on his shoulder and with the other retrieved the mirror from his hands.

“What about my jaw?” He wrote.

“Patience.”  She shook her head, “Some miracles take longer than others.” 

It made sense.  Already he had seen improvements in his appearance, but living without a mandible had caused him great pain and grief.  If Madam Bavatar could produce that miracle, he would consider the fortune he had paid to be well spent. He closed his eyes so he could feel every nuance of his transition as she continued to apply the elixir to his mutilated skin.  Areas that were once pained and sore, areas that were a source of constant pain were soothed in the salve  she continued to apply.  

His fingers were poised over the keyboard of the grand piano set on stage before the Czar.  Only fifteen years of age, Gustav Maabeltoff was one of the most celebrated prodigies in Russia.  His well earned reputation at the Moscow music school had garnered him an audience with Nicolas II.  His whole family was seated in darkness off stage as the bright stage lights burned down upon him. The conductor stood in the pit with the rest of the orchestra, but he would give the boy a nod to begin his piece Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto 1.  Alexandra had told his father that this piece was one of her husband’s favorites.

“I will play it.” Gustav affirmed as the Empress smiled and nodded. As it turned out, it would be the last time Gustav would play the piano, but he played it flawlessly for Nicolas II.  The czar stood up once he had played the last note and the rest of the audience followed suit. 

“That was impressive.” The juggler said as he put the cigarette to his lips.

A second later the entire world disappeared. 

“Your transition has started.” She said as she put the damp cloth into the bucket. He put his hand to his face and felt places that weren’t there before, places where the knot of scars untangled into a fresh new carpet of soft skin.

“I feel sleepy.” He wrote.

“That is good.” She put her hand on his new regenerated cheek. “It is time for you to sleep the sleep of Adam in the Garden when God removed one of his ribs.”

He did not understand what she was talking about as a warm blanket of sleep filled his head.  She led him to the couch in the room and covered him with a warm blanket, but he was already asleep before she left the room.  

His dreams were filled with visions of his early childhood when his grandmother sat him down at the piano to teach him some old folk tunes. 

“Remember Gustav, keep your fingers just so.” She held his arms about six inches from the keyboard, “These tunes are meant to be lively to make the peasants dance.  Their labors are hard and they need a little release from time to time.” 

In her gentle manner she taught him to play Karlinka.  As his fingers struck the keys she would sit on the bench next to him and clap her hands to the tempo of the music.  “Podmoskovnye Vechera” was a bit more challenging, but once he had mastered it, his father decided he needed a teacher to help him master some of the classic compositions.  Later his teacher would recommend enrolling him in a music school.  

“I have an invitation from Czar Nicolas.” His mother held the envelope in the air as she danced in excitement.  His mother would die of consumption before he would travel by train to St. Petersburg with his widower father.  In the winter palace decorated by a heavy snowfall, Gustav saw that the city was magic as ice skaters glided on the frozen water like angels.  

Hidden from view were the Cossack guards sensing that a terrible event was about to take place as voiced in some of the renegade newspapers circulating through the city. Jewish intellectuals were spreading the writings of Karl Marx like gospel writings, forecasting the coming of a new order in Russia.  Every day it seemed, there was a new raid on one of these radical newspaper publications imprisoning the publishers as they torched the buildings. 

Gustav woke up and yawned.

His senses told him something was different.

He put his hand to his face.  He felt his jaw that was absent just the day before.

“Good morning.” She emerged from her bedroom dressed in a long robe. “Sleep well?” 

“I did.” His own voice seemed foreign to him.

“You don’t say.” She chuckled as she poured a cup of tea from a samovar. 

His fingers were feeling his new jaw for the first time.  After a moment of exhilaration, his fingers ventured up to where he felt his ear.  “I have a jaw…and an ear.” 

“I see.” She sipped the hot tea from her cup. 

“How can this be happening?” His voice echoed the joy that was spilling from his heart. 

“You did well in your transition.” She confirmed. 

“I cannot believe it.” He looked in the mirror at a reflection that was not hideous to look at. “It was just like it was before the explosion.” 

“It is.” She could not help but smile.

“I cannot thank you enough.” He hugged her.

“You must go home and show the others.” She whispered in his ear.

“They won’t believe it.” He took one final look in the mirror before leaving.  

Boris ran his finger over Gustav’s face in disbelief, uttering, “How can this be?” 

“I went to a healer.” Gustav told him.

“A death mask.” He gasped. “It’s a good thing your father is away on business.  He mustn’t see you like this.” 

“No, this is my face.  This is how I used to be.” Gustav put his face in front of the mirror. 

“I find it troubling.” Boris put his finger to his lips as he shrugged. 

“How can this be troubling?” Gustav pointed to his face, exasperated. 

“It is something that covers who you really are.” Boris shakes his head.

“I was a deformed monster until I met Madam Bavatar.  She fixed me.” Tears ran down his cheek.  Without warning a piece of his cheek landed at his feet after being soaked with his tears.  Boris bent over and picked up what had fallen from Gustav’s cheek.

“Seems to me there is a flaw in your transition.” He shook his head as he held the fallen bit of flesh to Gustav’s eyes. More tears followed along with more pieces of his face.

Glen Hawthorne looked at himself in the mirror and smiled.  Once his transition was complete, he’d change his name to Gwen.  He still appeared quite masculine, but over his transition, his face would soften and the makeup he was using would look more natural.  At the moment, however, he looked like a boy dressed as a woman.  A male impersonator.  His psychiatrist told him the transition would take time.  

“All good things come with time.” He said during one of their sessions. 

His father called him a freak.  His mother called him an abomination.  She quoted from the Bible so he would know that God hated him too.  

His friends read him a story about a Russian man named Gustav Maabeltoff who went through a physical transition only to have his transition melt away in a wash of tears as his own father rejected what he had become.  They read it from Pinterest.  The story was entitled “Man with no face.” 

“Sounds like a bunch of BS.” Glen commented as they laughed after reading it to him. 

It was quite clear, the meaning. If he went through it, he would become a monster just like the unfortunate Gustav Maabeloff.  

She did not feel like a monster as she stared at herself in the mirror.  To her, beauty and ugliness are just subjective anyway.