‘Magic? Magic is the language of the devil, and very useful to know.’
Erik, on the ground, woke up for long enough to raise a fist and cry,
‘Der Teufel, ach, was könnten Sie über der —’
The music ceased. There was silence. Into the black sky the echoes faded, tinkling like small steel springs uncoiling. Silence. My drunken brain stopped reeling for an instant, and I saw enormous cylinders of polished glass gliding in utter silence through the depths of space. Then, from somewhere close at hand, I heard small sounds, the scuffling of feet in dry dust, and a gasp, another, of laboured breath and, last of all, a grunt. The one-armed cripple from the taverna came limping into the firelight, leading on a piece of string a — what was it? — what? … a little lamb. They halted near the flames, two oddly pathetic creatures, and looked vacantly around them. The lamb licked its lips. Panting and shuffling, the cripple loosed the cord from the animal’s neck, and, grasping its haunches between his knees, he pulled back its head. (Look, it was not I who arranged this particular farce, so do not blame me if the leading players are hams, the script unspeakably banal, the whole shebang played out years ago — personally, I despise such shoddy trappings.) A knife appeared in his hand, the cripple’s hand, yes, he had only one, and with one swift stroke he opened the fleecy throat. The little pipe sent up a shivering cry.
Sweaty pencils poised, panting hunters of the symbol? There is wealth in store.
The animal’s hoofs were still twitching in the dust when the cripple swept it up in his arm and scattered its black blood into the fire. The flames roared a note in harmony with the pipe, and the other instruments broke out into a wild dance. The young men leapt to the whine of drum and strings, whirled and turned, sweeping low to smack their palms on the ground, yelping, groaning, weirdly gasping. I found myself leaning forward on the crate where I sat. One arm hung down, and my fingers tore the roots of grass. Helena lifted her hand to her forehead, and the gesture seemed extraordinarily slow and graceful, a branch lifting in the wind, a flower falling. The cripple now was dancing in his way, leaping and hopping among the dying embers of the fire. I rose unsteadily and wobbled across the plateau, climbed blindly to the summit of the hill, and stood there a moment to survey the night. A hint of the sea came up, and a cool wood wind. I saw towers falling, and for all I know heard voices too, speaking out of exhausted wells. Then, with a sigh, I leaned out toward the welcoming darkness and calmly threw down the side of the hill my day’s remains, salts and acids, blood, wine, and the shadow of murder, all went flying out into the void in a black and burning stew. Then, as they say, I must have fainted.
To be honest, I did nothing of the kind. I puked for a while, and coughed, and wiped my nose on my sleeve, felt very sorry for myself, groaned, and began the process all over again, until there was nothing left inside me but bad air and spleen. Why do I make drama from a fit of drunken vomiting? Because the drama was not there.
After the climb down the broken slopes in the dark, under the stars that gave no guidance, after the thorns, the stones, I came to a little grove of pines, and sat down exhausted with my back against a rock. Far below, through the trees, there was the faint glimmer of water. The night had turned cold. My bones were stiff. With my arms around my shivering knees, I nodded, nodded, waves of sleep carrying me down to the sea, the weeds and the wild water. I thought I wanted to die, but I knew nothing yet of that black wish. Twigs crackled behind me, and soft steps approached through the wood. My teeth chattered with fear. Cautiously I peered around the rock, and squeaked in terror to find before my eyes a pair of knees.
‘Mrs Kyd? Jesus Christ.’
She moved past me without a word, and took a step or two to the other side of the clearing. I could barely see her slim outline against the murmurous trees, though she was not more than six feet away from me. A wind sprang up.
‘You frightened me,’ I said.
‘Did I?’
Her voice had changed. I listened vainly for it to come again, and tried to think of some question to provoke it. We were silent, not moving, catching faint words in the wind. At last I asked,
‘Is that the sea down there?’
‘Yes. The channel.’
‘The channel?’
‘Yes.’
I sighed.
‘A channel. Not even the ocean, not even that. It’s always the same with me, always second best. If it was the ocean now I might have indulged in a soliloquy. A word about the fish. Pisces my sign. The fish is a noble animal, and recognized as such is given, like man, a singular plurality.’
The trees took my worthless words, examined them, and set them free into the sky. The figure before me said nothing, and for a moment I had the notion, for some reason terrifying, that I had not spoken at all. I dug my fingers into the soft pine needles beneath me and cried,
‘Well say something, can’t you?’
There was a soft laugh, and then what sounded like,
‘I missed her night looking for you.’
‘What? What the hell is that supposed to mean? All right, all right, I don’t want to know.’
I sulked for a while, wrapped in my cocoon of arms and legs, my arse slowly turning to ice. Then, since my partner would contribute nothing to the general merriment, I said,
‘Listen, all right, I’ll tell you a story, that will keep our spirits up, or those other spirits down, ho ho. Ahem. I’ll tell you the one about Cain. He went up into the mountains one day, and … no, I can’t. He went up into the mountains, to the old man who lived there. “Old man, “he said, “my life lacks direction.” This is ridiculous. Are you sure you never heard it? Well anyway. “My life lacks direction, I’m enclosed on all sides and I can’t see.” The old man told him to go back into the valley and break down his house, and Cain said,
‘“But I built that house with my own hands. It’s all I have.”
‘But he went down, and brought out his wife from the house, and with an axe he smashed the walls and windows, and the great roof-tree. Lying that night in the open fields, he looked up at the dark mountain, thinking. In a little while he was back with the old man, who said,
‘“Your wife is still with you.”
‘So Cain left his wife. It went on like that. Cain gave away all his money, and all his clothes save for one torn shroud.
‘“Put away your pipe and drums,” the old man told him.
‘Cain broke them all, and there was no more music. That was the hardest loss of all.’
I paused, and looked up through the branches. A star fell.
‘When he had destroyed everything, Cain was happy for a while, wandering like a leper. Happy, yes, yes, but soon he had travelled every road, and there was nothing before him, and the sea seemed all around him. Bent and broken he climbed the mountain. The old man scratched his chin, and looked at the sky.
‘“You have a brother,” he mused.
‘“I have,” Cain answered. “I have a brother that I dearly love —”
‘“Kill your brother.”
‘“What? But I love him.”
‘“Kill him, kill him tonight while he prays.”
‘“But he’s all and everything I have,” said Cain. “He’s all I have to love.”
‘“While you love you will never be free,” the old man told him, shaking his head vehemently.
‘Cain went down, and in the violent night he stole an axe and opened his brother’s head while he prayed. Then he went back to the old man, his hands still bathed in blood, and he asked,
‘“Now what shall I do?”
‘The old man said nothing.
‘“What shall I do?” Cain screamed, falling to his knees.