It led him endlessly across the stiff grass to the embers of another of the bonfires. By its light, De Menes saw that no demon held his hand, but that Tehuech had brought him there. He knew exactly why. She was still naked, but she’d also scraped off the paint.
He pulled his hand away, trying to remember the way back to his own fire and the security of the tent, but fear had made him an unthinking being, a sheep led to slaughter. He turned back to the girl, and a movement above her breasts told him that she wasn’t completely bare. A necklace of stone and shells and driftwood danced above her breasts.
Seeing where his gaze lay, she smiled. “Joao,” she said. She removed the necklace and held it towards him with both hands, saying something incomprehensible, and then “Joao,” again.
He shrugged and bowed, allowing her to pass the offering over his head. It caught on one ear, but was soon in place around his neck.
“Thank you,” he said, and she smiled back, understanding the meaning, if not the words.
Joao felt more relaxed. Having accepted her gift, he felt that it would be all right to return to his camp. He turned away from the fire, the afterimage of the embers dancing in his eyes. He waited for them to subside, for his night vision to return.
But, instead of disappearing, the moving lights came into sharper focus, resolving themselves into points of light just beyond the ember’s illumination. Eyes that stared unblinkingly back at him, seemingly an arm’s-length away. De Menes recoiled from those eyes, his steps taking him straight into Tehuech’s waiting embrace.
He knew the fire was all that kept them away, and that the girl was all that kept the fire alive, and that the creatures of the netherworld were not there to interfere, but to bear witness to a consummation.
The following day dawned bright and clear; memories of the previous night burnt away, but De Menes was still surprised to wake inside the tent. He had no recollection of having returned, and his memory of the rest was blurred as if veiled in grey fog. But it had not been a dream: the clicking of his new necklace as he crawled out of the tent assured him of it.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Carrizo chided. “The sun’s been up for an hour, and Magalhaes is back. He found some more savages a little further west, and they seem a bit more advanced than these. We have to pull up the tent and return to shore.”
The manual labour allowed De Menes to temporarily forget about midnight rendezvous and ghostly eyes and, as he approached the sea and its waiting boat, he felt an enormous weight lifting from him. Each step felt lighter than the last.
A small party awaited, natives mixed with sailors. The savages even helped to load the boat, only asking a few trinkets and some cloth in return for their unnecessary help, which were given gladly—too often, the sailors had had to fight natives who took a dim view of outsiders. Tehuech, amongst the local group, said nothing and kept her gaze on the ground.
Finally, as De Menes was about to step aboard, one of the older women came forward, and said something to Herrero.
Herrero listened, and turned to Joao. “I’m not really sure what she said, but I think it was “That man wears a wedding circle,” and she pointed at you. Do you know what she’s talking about?”
De Menes hung his head. “I think I do.” He pulled the necklace back over his head and walked to where Tehuech was standing, heart heavy with dread and remorse. He held the jewellery out to her, but she made no move to take it and refused to meet his gaze, eyes resolutely turned away. Finally, he left it at her feet and stepped back. Still, she gave no sign of acknowledgement.
Joao walked back to the shore and boarded the boat. None of the savages made any move to stop them.
As the Trinidad left the hills with eyes far behind, the crew began to taunt De Menes, asking what had happened, and attempting to get the details of what they imagined must have been one of the more sordid escapades of the journey. But he refused to elaborate and the speculation soon passed into the realm of wild orgies and fantastic pleasures.
De Menes heard none of it. The lewd shouting seemed to him a far-off whisper. As the ship advanced, it grew fainter and fainter.
Even the ship itself seemed to be fading. It had sailed into a fog which became thicker as they sailed through it. The Trinidad’s prow became a ghost of itself, and soon, even the mainmast, scant metres away, seemed a spectre.
A small tremor of panic coursed through him as he realised that the deck beneath him was no longer solid, but made of ethereal mist, but he simply shrugged it off. Understanding had replaced fear, and a broken trust was suitably punished. Perhaps the endless, featureless grey at the end of the world would not be as bad as the visions of fire and torment that the hell of his own land promised.
And perhaps, just perhaps, he would be called upon to bear witness in some distant future, thereby remembering what it was like to tread upon the grass at the end of the world, and share the love of one of its guardians.
The Tomb
Chen Qiufan
This is entrance; and exit, of course.
The dim blue light slid across the cold, wet, rock y ceiling and into deep darkness. Between the indistinct here-and-there stood a mouldy wooden counter, the type in an old-school by-the-hour hotel, with the bell, the chair, the, and the man.
A hand as skinny as an insect was wiping the metal plate with a black cloth clipped between the fingers. The man, hidden in the blue shadow, breathed upon the plate once in a while till the engraved words shone:
“That seeing they may see, and not perceive.”
“Ding.” The bell quivered on the counter. The face lifted immediately—the fine wrinkles bathed in the blue light—and gathered into a smile. “Hello, sir.name is Chen, code V0817. A pleasure to serve you. Are you passing by or assigned here, please?” He straightened his legs, his back slightly bowed and his hands curled on his breast, rubbing against each other and jerking like a pair of mating arthropods.
No answer.
“Hmmm, confidential? No problem. Please register?” He opened a purple book and drew out a rusted pen. The edges of the blue pages had grown black.
Again, no answer.
“Want to look around? Okay. Let me introduce some lovely neighbours to you.” Calmly, he closed the book with a loud snap, removed the keys from the wall and staggered into the darkness while holding onto the rock wall.
“You liked the words on the plate. Well, that’s from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4, verse 12. No, no, I’m not a Christian. Religion no longer matters if you are already in hell. You said you call this place ‘Alice’s Rabbit Hole’?”
Chen was deep in thought, his skinny fingers scratching a few scraggly lines into the wall like a long musical score without any notes. Must’ve been from section B.
The British are the only ones into such silly fairy tales. The Greeks called it “The Prison of Hades”, Argentineans, “The Library of Babel”, and Americans, “Zion”, which is Biblical, but more likely they took the name out of movies. With all these names, all of them mourned the past glories of their civilisations.