{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70145/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70145","id":"gutenberg_70145","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70145","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Category: Short Stories","Horror tales","Science fiction","Short stories","Spouses -- Fiction"],"text":"The Marrying Monster\n\n                            By CLAUS STAMM\n\n           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n                    Fantastic Universe March 1960.\n         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\n\nGoro put down his tools and relaxed into a pile of wood shavings, his\nback against a half-finished bathtub. To enjoy the evening cool, he\ntold himself, wiping his face with a blue and white rag. Actually,\nhe wanted to postpone the evening meal. Either the rice would be\novercooked to a sticky goo or he would be picking hard, underdone\nkernels out of his teeth all night. And bean soup, when he made it,\nalways had things swimming in it that had no business there.\n\nA night insect went _weep-weep-weep_. The sound, the night\nfalling, and the thought of his own cooking made him think of his dead\nwife.\n\n\"She was a good cook, poor thing,\" he thought out loud. \"My, my--how I\nmiss her.\"\n\nHe gave a deep sigh. Oh, to have a wife again--a jolly, round wife and\na good cook. Just like the old one with perhaps the small exception\nthat she would not eat a man out of house and home and herself into\nthe grave in the bargain. Had he said that aloud? Bad sign, when a man\ntalks to the night insects--better to go into the house, better to eat\nrice and bean soup. He shuddered.\n\nHe began to get up and paused halfway, one hand against the wood of the\ntub, the other shielding his eyes. He peered into the forest that came\nalmost to the work yard. Someone was coming through there, he heard it.\nHe sat down again. Fireflies flitted among the trees. What if it were\nhis wife's spirit--would it be a chubby ghost? It should be.\n\nA woman walked out of the forest.\n\nShe was tall, he noticed, watching her thread her way among finished\nand unfinished buckets and tubs, tall and slender--almost gaunt. She\nhad her sleeves tied back out of the way with a white _tasuki_\ncord, as though ready for hard work, and her bare arms were wiry and\ncapable looking.\n\nShe bowed.\n\nGoro scrambled to his feet, catching a splinter or two in his shoulder\non the way up. He bowed.\n\n\"Good evening,\" said the woman. \"Is this the house of Goro, the cooper\nwho wants a wife that does not eat too much and is a good cook?\"\n\nGoro's eyes crossed and his mouth fell open. His fingers scrabbled.\n\n\"You _do_ look unwell ... like a starved goldfish,\" said the\nwoman, \"--I don't mean to seem rude.\"\n\n\"I haven't had dinner ...\" said Goro, for want of anything brilliant to\nsay. He felt wondrously helpless; things like this did not usually come\nup in the tub-making business.\n\n\"Naturally, poor thing. I'm sure you can't cook well, either,\" said\nthe woman and Goro marvelled how ever she had guessed it. \"Well, I can\ncook. I can do the work of three women. Into the house with you now,\nbefore you catch cold. Shoo!\"\n\nShe drove him ahead of her into the house.\n\n\"I would say I'm quite charming,\" she said, closing the door behind\nthem, \"when one gets used to me. As for my name, why, 'wife', I think,\nwill do nicely.\"\n\nAnd sometime in the next few days still with the feeling that he was\nbeing left out of things, Goro found himself married.\n\nThe new wife was an excellent cook and indeed did the work of three\nordinary women. Dinner was never late, and the house was generally\nspotless. She spoke neither too much nor too little. On evenings when\nGoro came home discouraged, she always had some good remark ready\nabout the tub-making business--how much artistry and labor went into\na good bucket, how unreasonably little money went to the hard-working\nartist--cheering things, flattering things. Goro gained weight and was\nnot unhappy. At mealtimes his wife ate a little more than a bird but\nnot quite so much as a large cat.\n\nThe food bills went up and up.\n\nGoro gradually discovered that with the little eating going on, he was\nusing up food at a rate to feed six or seven coopers together with a\nfew aunts and uncles.\n\n\"Curious ...,\" he muttered, \"... very,\" and determined to investigate.\n\nOne morning he made a great fuss about getting measuring equipment\ntogether. He told his wife that he was going to a village half a day's\nwalk away, to take measurements for the village head-man's new tub.\nThen he went a short distance into the forest and waited behind a tree.\n\nWhen he saw his wife go to a nearby meadow to gather mushrooms, he\nflitted around to the back of the house. Hiding his tools behind\nthe rear door, he crept inside. He shinnied up the center pole and\nflattened out against one of the big ceiling beams. And waited.\n\nHis wife came back and put on the fire the largest pot in the house.\nFrom the storage bins she took about five pounds of rice and fell to\nwashing it. She ladled out enough bean paste to nearly fill another big\npot, and made bean soup.\n\n\"Who,\" wondered Goro on his beam, \"is she expecting, and how many of\nthem?\" He blinked, blinked again--his eyes rather rolled up.\n\nShe had slid the kitchen door out of its frame and was using it for\na dumpling factory, lining the dumplings up--lines and lines of rice\ndumplings like fat well-paid soldiers.\n\nThen she stretched and peered about as if to make sure she had not\nforgotten something. Satisfied that she had not, she parted her hair\nand exposed the mouth in the center of her head.\n\nGoro made a circle of his thumbs and forefingers, trying to calculate\nthe size of the thing and nearly fell off his perch. It was fairly\nlarge.\n\nInto this crater, his wife pushed dumplings by ones and twos and they\ndisappeared. To make certain, she washed them down with all the bean\nsoup, ladles of bean soup.\n\nWhen she had disposed of everything she waited a moment, expectantly. A\ncheery, satisfied rumble came from the top of her head.\n\n\"Burps, too,\" thought Goro. \"A regular volcano. Wonder if there'll be\nsmoke.\" He was too interested to be frightened.\n\nBut nothing further happened. She bound her hair back neatly, smiled,\nand left the house on some errand like any good, wifely wife.\n\nGoro slipped down and out of the house, picking up his tools on the\nway. He went back into the forest, found a comfortable tree and sat\ndown against its trunk to smoke his tiny pipe and think.\n\n\"I must have married one of the monsters the priests and old men talk\nabout, a yamam'ba. A 'mountain-mother'. Hmm,\" he nodded, bit his lip,\nand squinted his eyes.\n\n\"Now why do you suppose they call them that?\" he asked a squirrel that\nsat upright near his left foot, like an attentive, furry little doctor.\n\"They come from the mountains--fine. But what's motherly about them, I\ndo not understand.\n\n\"Squeerp!\" said the squirrel, and ran halfway up the tree. From there\nit peered down and examined Goro's head.\n\nHe tilted his head back so that the squirrel could get a better look\nand told it that, at any rate, this was no kind of wife for a good man.\n\nThen he stood up and began to walk home, looking down at the ground,\nkicking thoughtfully at fallen leaves and occasionally scratching his\nhead.\n\nHe came out from among the trees and across the yard of his home,\ndragging his feet like a man who has walked a long way.\n\nHe started speaking as soon as he put down his tools.\n\n\"Wife, I have been thinking about our marriage and--it hurts me to\nsay it, you understand--but it was too sudden. No--don't interrupt,\"\nhe said, though his wife had shown no sign of breaking in. \"I'm very\nsorry, but I feel that we're simply not suited to each other.\"\n\n\"All right, husband, I'll leave,\" she answered in quite an ordinary\nvoice, \"even if it makes me unhappy. Could you do only one thing for me\nbefore I go? Nothing much--I'd like you to make me a tub--as a kind of\nsouvenir. A very large one. For bathing in.\"\n\n\"The simplest thing in the world,\" said Goro, glad to get off so\neasily. \"I have one ready, it happens. The very one I was sitting\nagainst when you came out of the forest. A very sound tub, one of my\nbest.\"\n\n\"It has a lid, I hope,\" she said.\n\n\"All of my tubs have lids,\" said Goro. \"Well-fitting lids. Water stays\nwarm in _my_ tubs, even without a fire, once that lid is on. Come,\nI'll show it to you.\"\n\nHe led her out to the tub.\n\n\"See? There's the lid, right up against it,\" he said, thumping the tub\nwith his fist. \"Feel that wood! Isn't it a beauty?\"\n\nShe looked into the tub and agreed that it was getting harder and\nharder to find real quality in tubs. \"Too bad there's that large hole\nin it,\" she said.\n\n\"Hole?\" said Goro. \"Hole? A hole in one of my tubs? Impossible ...\nwhere's that hole!\"\n\nHe put his hands on the edge to raise himself and peered over.\n\n\"There. Bottom right,\" she said. \"Can't you see it?\"\n\n\"Oh, the bottom ...\" said Goro, leaning further over the edge. \"It's\ntoo dark to--\"\n\nShe seized Goro's trousers in a firm grip and heaved.\n\n\"--see,\" he finished, at the bottom of the tub. He was still wondering\nhow he had gotten down there when the lid came down, bang, and it grew\nvery dark. He felt the tub sail up, come to rest on something and begin\nto move forward with an up and down rocking movement.\n\nIt did not take Goro long, in his bucket-shaped night, to realize that\nthe yamam'ba, having no further reason to pretend a feminine weakness\nshe probably despised anyway, had placed the tub on her head and was on\nher way home. To the mountain.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" he called out. \"Where are we going?\"\n\n\"To dinner,\" came his former wife's voice through the wood. It grated\nunpleasantly. He decided to ask no more questions.\n\nDeep into the woods went the yamam'ba, cutting through thicket and\nunderbrush, the tub jouncing easily on her head, up and up into the\nmountains. Tireless on her long, rangy legs, she travelled along\ndead, forgotten roads lined with gnarled ugly trees. Goro heard their\nbranches, bump-crack-bump, against his self-made prison. A thin edge\nof lesser darkness began to show at the top. He hoped it was the first\ntime the lid had slipped on a tub made by Goro; this sort of thing\ncould ruin years of reputation. But it might mean a way out of the tub.\n\nThe opening grew wider. Looking up, he was able to see a few stars. Did\nhe imagine it, or was the tub slowing down? He hoped he was not going\nto be eaten immediately.\n\nThe tub stopped and settled.\n\nSomething rough, twisted, and snakelike appeared in the opening. It did\nnot move. Nothing moved. He put out his hand--it was a branch.\n\nHe gave the branch a delicate jiggle; it felt solid. The yamam'ba, he\nguessed, must have tired and sat down to rest against a tree. Very\ncautiously he lifted himself by the branch, trying to move neither the\nlid nor the tub which must still be resting on the monster's head.\n\nHe heard a faint snore. Top or forward mouth, he wondered. He pulled\nhimself to his feet, trying not to breathe and at last stood with his\nhead out of the tub. The branch was thick, and the next branch, right\nabove, looked dependable. Healthy wood; he appreciated that. Then came\na few feet of bark--that would be hard climbing--but above that, four\nor five branches, almost a ladder. Further, it was too dark to see.\n\nHe tensed, took a deep breath, then gave a push and sent the heavy lid\ncrashing down on the sleeping yamam'ba. Up she leaped, and the tub\nwent flying, but Goro was already climbing from branch to branch. In a\nnearby tree some monkeys woke up and watched Goro's footwork with shame\nand envy.\n\nFrom the ground the yamam'ba stared up at him. It was a rare chance to\nsee just what a yamam'ba really wore for a face, and he decided it was\nnot very attractive.\n\nDown below, the monster was letting down her horrible hair in a\nbusinesslike manner.\n\n\"Dinner will be early,\" she said with a ghastly, girlish laugh. \"I was\ngetting quite hungry.\"\n\nShe started up the tree, the top mouth opening and closing. There were\nteeth in it.\n\n\"We yamam'ba are very good with trees,\" she said, climbing steadily.\n\"Don't climb any higher. It will only make you tired and sweaty and\nbitter to the taste. Say prayers instead and become calm and delicious.\"\n\n\"I hope I burn your tongue if you have one in there,\" said Goro, a\nlittle beside himself. \"And try not to be such a chatterbox. You're\nmaking my head buzz.\"\n\nHe _did_ hear a distinct buzzing, a small roaring right by his\nhead where he was holding on to a thin branch. He tried to move his\nhand away from the sound. Something small sat down on his thumb and set\nit on fire.\n\n\"Ya-yowch!\" he said, loudly.\n\n\"Tee-hee-hee!\" went the yamam'ba, coming up with an intimate rustling\nof leaves.\n\nGoro sucked his thumb which had swollen surprisingly and stared at the\nball-like thing hanging only an arm's length away. The buzzing came\nfrom it. Very carefully he reached out to see if he would be able to\ngrab it instantly. He thought the size would be about right.\n\nA hard, scaly hand with claws came groping through the branches. He\nmoved his foot out of the way and waited for the head. It appeared, the\ntop mouth gaping.\n\n\"Tee-hee-hee,\" said the yamam'ba, using both mouths.\n\n\"Tee-hee-hee yourself,\" said Goro. \"Have a goody.\" And into the top of\nher head he dropped the buzzing ball.\n\n\"Whatever it was, it had a bad taste and your blood will wash it away,\"\nsaid the yamam'ba but just then the hornets woke up, highly irritated\nfrom lack of sleep.\n\nThey flew 'round and 'round inside the yamam'ba. A few of them tickled.\nMost of them stung. And all of them together worked a havoc in the\ndelicate equipment that makes up the yamam'ba interior.\n\nThe yamam'ba made a noise like a frying and a noise like a boiling,\nand a noise like nameless things running through the night with their\nears on fire. She tumbled from the tree, into the tub waiting below\nand bounced about inside it making unpleasant sounds too numerous to\nmention.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGoro followed, but more slowly. He arrived in time to see the tub\nskipping and hopping at the edge of the road which at that point\nwas quite narrow. It teetered for a moment and then sailed out in a\ngracious curve, trailing its uproar behind it. Goro kneeled and peered\ndown. It was very dark. From far below came a soft boompety-boomp. Then\na mere whisper of a crash.\n\nGoro got up, shaking his head. He dusted his knees and went away down\nthe road, growing smaller in the cold, lonely night.","title":"The marrying monster","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":2592}