‘The second arrow is drawn,’ he said. ‘The darkness is fading. Strength is coming back.’
He laid the fourth drawing over the third.
‘The first spear lies under our feet. The spearman of the king is empty-handed,’ he said.
He laid the fifth drawing over the fourth, then stepped back. In the moonlight the lion-king’s eyes looked out at him from the shadow of his brows.
‘The second spear, the last weapon, the spear of the king, lies under our feet,’ said Boaz-Jachin. ‘We rise up on the turning wheel, alive and strong, undying. There is nothing between us and the king.’
9
The city was quiet, the birds were singing, and the sky was losing its darkness. The clock said half-past four. Jachin-Boaz could sleep no longer. He got out of bed, dressed, made himself a cup of coffee, and went out.
The street was wet, and on the pavement lay wet blossoms from the trees that overhung the railings. The street gleamed under the blueish light of the street lamps and the blue before-dawn light of the sky. A crow cawed, flapping slowly overhead to settle on a chimney-pot. A taxi hissed softly down the street, passing once, twice, over manhole covers, double-clanging each time. A telephone kiosk, like a large red lantern, lit the drooping blossoms of a chestnut tree.
Jachin-Boaz’s footsteps had an early-morning sound. His footsteps, thought Jachin-Boaz, were abroad at all hours. Sometimes he joined them, sometimes not.
Ahead of him were the river and the dark bulk of the bridge under its lamps against the paling sky. Jachin-Boaz heard a manhole cover clang, and found himself waiting for the second clang that would be the sound of the lifted edge dropping back. He had heard no cars passing. There was no second clang.
He looked back over his shoulder and saw, less than a hundred feet away in the blue dawn, a lion. He was large, massive, with a heavy, black mane. He had lifted his head as Jachin-Boaz turned, and now he stood motionless with one paw on the manhole cover. His eyes, catching the light of the street lamps, burned like steady pale green fires under the shadow of his brows.
A church clock struck five, and Jachin-Boaz realized that he had heard the lion before he saw him. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted, he felt deathly cold. He had heard the lion first. There was no hope that this was like the newspaper headlines, the mind playing a trick on the eyes.
A taxi entered the street, approaching the lion from behind. The lion grunted and turned, the taxi made a U-turn, went back the way it had come. Jachin-Boaz did not move.
The lion turned towards him again, his head thrust forward, his eyes fixed on Jachin-Boaz. He seemed not to move, but only shifted his weight slightly and was closer than before. Again, and closer.
Jachin-Boaz took one step back. The lion stopped, one paw slightly lifted, his eyes always on Jachin-Boaz. The thing is not to run, thought Jachin-Boaz. The lion seemed to be gathering himself. Surely he’s too far away to spring, thought Jachin-Boaz. He took another step backwards, trying to move as subtly as the lion had done. This time he saw the rise and fall of the lion’s shoulders, the sliding of his heavy paws.
Jachin-Boaz, backing towards the bridge, had reached the corner, his eyes still fixed on the lion. To the right and left behind him lay the road along the embankment. He heard a taxi coming over the bridge, turned his head just enough to see that the FOR HIRE sign was lit. He raised his arm to signal, pointing along the embankment.
The taxi turned right as it came off the bridge and pulled up beside Jachin-Boaz. He was still facing the lion, with his back to the taxi.
The driver slid the window down. ‘Do you want to go backwards or forwards?’ he said.
Jachin-Boaz felt for the door handle behind him, opened the door, got in. He gave the driver the address of the bookshop where he worked.
The taxi pulled away. Through the rear window Jachin-Boaz saw the lion standing motionless, head lifted.
The taxi hummed along smoothly. There was full daylight now, and there were other cars ahead, behind, on both sides. Jachin-Boaz leaned back. Then he leaned forward, lowered the panel in the glass partition between him and the driver.
‘Did you see anything back there where you picked me up?’ he said.
The driver looked up at Jachin-Boaz’s face in the rearview mirror and nodded his head. ‘Proper big one, weren’t it?’
Jachin-Boaz felt giddy. ‘Then why didn’t you … Why didn’t you …’ He didn’t know what he wanted the driver to have done.
The driver looked straight ahead as the taxi hummed through the traffic. ‘It’s nothing to me,’ he said. ‘I thought it was yours.’
10
After offering his drawings before the lion-king Boaz-Jachin burned them on the plain where the lions had been killed. He took a large metal trash basket from the refreshment stand, put his drawings in it and set them afire.
He expected the guards to see the flames, and stood near the spectator’s hill where he would have a chance of dodging out of sight when they came. No one came. The flames leaped up, sparks and flakes of charred paper drifted over the plain, the fire died quickly.
Boaz-Jachin climbed over the chain-link fence again, walked back to the town, and slept in the bus station.
He felt cosy in the bus going home. He felt cool and easy, clean and empty, as he did after making love with Lila. He thought of the road to the citadel of the dead king, how he had felt walking on it each time. Like the lion-hunt hall, it was his place now, printed on the map of his mind. Its daylight and its darkness were in him now, its crickets and its barking dogs and stones. He could travel that road when he liked, wherever he might be.
When Boaz-Jachin got home his mother was out. He was glad to be alone, glad not to have to speak. He went to his room and took out his unfinished map. He put Lila’s house on it, the last king’s palace, the plain where the lions had been killed, the hill he had sat on, the road he had walked, and the two bus stations.
His mother came home and made dinner. At the table she spoke of the difficulties of managing the shop, of her constant tiredness, of how little she was able to sleep and how much weight she had lost. Sometimes Boaz-Jachin saw her face waiting for a reply but he could not always remember what she had been saying. Her face became strange to him, and he became strange to himself. Again he felt empty, but it was not the easy emptiness that he had had in the bus. It was as if something had gone out of him and now he must follow it into the world. He was restless, and wanted to be moving on.
‘Why?’ said his mother.
‘Why what?’ said Boaz-Jachin.
‘Why are you looking at me that way, I said,’ said his mother. ‘What are you thinking about? You look a thousand miles away from here.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Boaz-Jachin. ‘I don’t think I was thinking about anything.’ He was thinking, maybe I’ll never see you again.
Late that night he went down to the shop and looked at one of the big wall-maps. He looked at his country on it and the place where his town was. He ran his finger over the smooth surface, felt the lines of seeking that led from his town and other towns, his country and other countries, converging on a great city far away across the sea. His father, he thought, would be there, and with him would be the master-map he had promised to Boaz-Jachin.
He went to the office, opened the cash box. It was empty. His mother, then, had noticed the absence and return of the money that he had taken the other time. Boaz-Jachin shrugged. He had enough money of his own to live on for two weeks or so if he slept rough, and he had his guitar.