While they waited for the van that would take them to the hospital Jachin-Boaz and Gretel sat down on a bench, and the police constable tactfully walked a few steps away.
Jachin-Boaz sat with tears running down his face. He looked at Gretel, looked away again. His head began to ache. This was somehow her fault. If she hadn’t attacked the lion … No. Before that even. Would the lion have appeared to him if he had not … No. And of course the lion was in any case his … what?
The map. Not here. At home, on the desk. In another desk, in the shop where he had once been Jachin-Boaz the map-seller, was a notebook. Were there recent notes in it that were not incorporated in the master-map? The map was on the desk. Were the windows closed? The desk was near the window, and if it rained … And who would feed the lion?
His mind raced on but he was too tired to pay attention to it any longer. He sat on the bench with both arms bandaged and tears running down his face. Gretel leaned against him, saying nothing.
The police constable indicated that the van was at the door, and they got into it. Another constable joined them, and the two constables sat across from Jachin-Boaz and Gretel as the van moved away through the daytime streets. Around them flowed the traffic of the ordinary day. Cars and lorries, vans and buses herded together. People on motorcycles and bicycles threaded the narrow spaces between. People walked the pavements, passed in and out of shops, ascended and descended the stairs of underground stations. Aeroplanes flew calmly overhead. Jachin-Boaz sat up straight, craned his neck once to look through the small rear window. A greengrocer in overalls stood under an awning filling a brown paper bag with oranges.
The van stopped, the doors opened. Green shrubbery and lawns appeared around a handsome old red brick building with a white cupola and a gilt weathercock.
Jachin-Boaz and Gretel came out of the van, blinked in the sunlight, walked into the hospital, and were in turn admitted, undressed, examined, drugged, and taken to a men’s ward and a women’s ward that had the names of trees. In the corridors a smell of cooking wandered like a minstrel of defeat.
Jachin-Boaz, wearing pyjamas and a robe, lay down on his bed. The walls were cream-coloured, the curtains were dark red with yellow-and-blue flowers. There was a long line of beds down each side of the room and french windows that opened on the lawn. The sunlight slanted gently down the walls, not with the harshness of the streets outside. Sunday sunlight. Give up and I’ll go easy with you, said the sunlight. Jachin-Boaz fell asleep.
27
Boats sink under me, thought Boaz-Jachin. Cars get smashed. At a farm he leaned against a fence and looked into the eyes of a goat. ‘What?’ he asked the goat. ‘Give Urim or give Thummim.’ The goat turned away. Goats turn away, thought Boaz-Jachin. The father must live so that the father can die. It became a tune that his mind sang, hurrying him on.
Why am I hurrying? he thought. I’ve got nothing to do with his living or dying. But hurry was in him. He had no rucksack, no guitar, nothing to carry now. His passport had been in his pocket when the Swallow sank. That and the money he had earned on the cruise ship, the new map he had drawn, a toothbrush and the clothes he wore were all he had now. He walked down the road with long strides, going fast, signalling for a ride as he went. Who now? he wondered. Cars, vans, lorries, motorcycles whined, roared, hummed and puttered past.
The van that had taken Mina and her parents to the inn pulled up beside him. The large gentle face of the driver looked out of the window, spoke as a question the name of a channel port. Boaz-Jachin repeated the name, said, ‘Yes.’ The driver opened the door and he got in.
In his own language the driver said, ‘I don’t suppose you speak my language.’
Boaz-Jachin smiled, lifted his shoulders, shook his head. ‘I don’t speak your language,’ he said in English.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said the driver, understanding the gesture rather than the words. He nodded, sighed, and settled down to his driving. Ahead of them the numberless grains of the road flowed into sharp focus, rolled beneath the wheels, spun out behind.
‘All the same,’ said the driver, ‘I feel like talking.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Boaz-Jachin, understanding the voice but not the words. Now he spoke not English but his own language, and his voice was more subtly inflected. ‘I feel like talking too.’
‘You too,’ said the driver. ‘So we’ll talk. It’ll be just as good as many of the conversations I’ve had with people who spoke the same language. After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?’
‘After all,’ said Boaz-Jachin, ‘it won’t be the first time I’ve spoken to someone who couldn’t understand what I was saying. And when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language?’
They looked at each other, shrugged, raised their eyebrows.
‘That’s how it is,’ said the driver.
‘That’s how it is,’ said Boaz-Jachin.
‘Empty space,’ said the driver. ‘There’s a funny thing to think about. The back of the van is full of empty space. I brought it from my town. But I’ve opened the doors several times since I left. So is it still empty space from my town or is it now several different new empty spaces? This is the sort of thing one thinks about sometimes. If the back of the van were full of chairs the question wouldn’t arise. One assumes that the space between the chairs remains the same all through the trip. Empty space, however, is something else.’
Boaz-Jachin nodded, understanding not a word. But the driver’s voice, large and gentle like the rest of him, was agreeable to him. He felt very conversational with him.
‘I offered the drawings,’ he said, surprised to hear himself saying it but pleased with what he was saying. ‘I offered the drawings. I burned the drawings. Something went out of me, leaving an empty space in me. Sometimes I feel myself hurrying towards something up ahead. What? I’m a rushing empty space. The father must live so that the father can die. Are you a father? Certainly you’re a son. Every man who is alive is a son. Dead men as well are sons. Dead fathers too are sons. No end to it.’
‘You’re young,’ said the driver. ‘Your whole life is ahead of you. Probably you don’t think about such things. Did I when I was your age? I can’t remember. Yet I suppose there must be empty space in you. What will you put into it?’
‘The space wasn’t always empty,’ said Boaz-Jachin. ‘Only after the offering of the drawings. Now I’m hurrying. To what? Why? I don’t know. Lion. I haven’t said that aloud very often, that word, that name. Lion. Lion, lion, lion. What? Where?’ He leaned forward, leaning into the forward speed of the van. ‘That he took the master-map he’d promised to me, what’s that to me? I don’t need it. Maps.’ From his pocket he took the new one he’d sketched on the cruise ship, opened the window, started to throw it away, put it back in his pocket, closed the window. ‘I’ll keep it the way people keep diaries, but I don’t need maps for finding anything.’ He ground his teeth, wanted to roar, wanted to do violence to something.
‘Years and years,’ said Boaz-Jachin. ‘My eyes only as high as the edge of the table. “Let me help,” I said. “Let me work on a little corner.” No. Nothing. He wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t make clean beautiful lines. Always he had to do the whole thing. He looked at me but he spoke to a place where I wasn’t. “You will not follow me into the shop,” he said. “For you there is the whole world outside.” Fine. Good. Go into the wide world. Go away. I wasn’t good enough to work with him. So now he goes into the wide world. The shop for him and the world for him. For me nothing.’ He ground his teeth again. ‘I have to … What? What do I have to do? I have to tell him … What? What do I have to tell him? Benjamin’s father wrote forgive. Forgive whom what? What is it to forgive? Who has forgiveness to give? He held up a suit of clothes for me to jump into: the wanderer. Here’s your map. Then he ran away with the map. I jumped into the wandering clothes. Is he happy now?’ Tears streamed down Boaz-Jachin’s cheeks.