He took the Alsatian’s advice. Stunned, Ariel slid to the floor with her fingertips pressed to her temples. He clambered over into the driver’s seat while she dragged herself into the back. The kilometers slid by like slow contractions.
The petrol gauge was almost on zero. Ariel spoke from the floor: “Take the next exit; get off the motorway.”
No sooner had she spoken than he saw a sign, then a slip-road running down a long incline bordered by tall yellow mustard flowers and wild poppies.
“Turn right at the top. Follow the signs to Vegnier-du-Lac.”
Again, he followed her instructions. They drove for another twenty minutes.
She remained on the floor, concentrating on the grisly thing taking place inside her head: tiny, mulching maggot mouths pressing against her cerebral cortex, gobbling at her nerve endings, muzzling their tiny lips against her emotions.
The warning light was flashing on the fuel gauge. They had no money left — they’d spent the last of it that morning on a cheese baguette.
Michael wondered how he would break it to Ariel that very soon they’d be marooned in the middle of a flat, barren landscape bisected by a long straight road studded on both sides with rows of white-painted poplars.
“Almost there,” said Ariel. “When you see a large field on the left full of deep blue lavender, hang a left. The road runs straight through it.” She winced and continued, although she was racked with pain: “There it is; take the next left, a gravel track with a string of grass and boulders in the middle. Just keep going…”
Michael saw the track and turned off. They drove through a fragrant landscape, banks of lavender on either side. Ariel wound her window down and breathed deep.
“Good. See the white house, that’s where we’re going.”
Up ahead he saw a cottage embedded within flowering shrubs, fruit trees, and a mountainous rose espalier, the scent of which hit him with a druglike heaviness. Ariel groaned. “Stop by the gate, I can’t walk… and then go knock on the door. Be quick, please.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed as he saw a slight figure, a woman in a long flowing dress standing by the wicker gate. She was holding a double-barreled shotgun that seemed almost longer and heavier than she was.
“She’s got a gun.”
“It’s only Purissima,” Günter commented in the back. “She’s a terrible shot.”
Along the last few bumpy yards of the boulder-strewn track, the engine choked with a last-ditch lurch. The woman tapped the barrel of her rifle against the glass.
“Get out, Günter. I’m not putting this thing down until I’ve searched the car.” She nodded towards Michael. “Who’s that man with you?”
“Don’t worry about him,” said Günter. “He’s harmless.”
10
Only when Purissima drew closer did Michael see how tiny she was: jet black hair and a birdlike body made of sticks and wire and peppercorn eyes that knew everything in an instant. She reached barely to his chest. When she spoke she had an unsettling habit of moving in closer and closer, opening her mouth as she did so, like a spacecraft docking. The listener usually found himself retreating: there is something unpleasant about an open mouth. Lips are nature’s clever disguise, a decorative rim to the digestive tract.
Günter jumped out of the van and shook himself, apologetic and somewhat ill-at-ease. “Hello, Purissima. We’re back.”
“Of course you’re back; you were always coming back. Ariel looks ready for the cemetery, I can practically smell the corpse already.” Her voice smattered like shiny rivets flung angrily at a tiled floor: rapid-firing pidgin English with strong Spanish, possibly Mexican, roots.
Günter yawned. “Maybe. She has pain… and numbness.”
“Pain and numbness… pain and numbness…” Purissima shook her head, filled with a pleasurable regret. “Those twins I’ve lived with for so long I don’t even notice them no more. They don’t kill you, that’s the only good thing to be said of them.” Purissima spun round and led them down the garden path, after throwing Michael a skew-whiff gaze and murmuring into his ear: “You’re her latest lamb, I suppose?” Before Michael could respond, Purissima clapped her hands: “Quick, quick. Bring her round. I will make a bed for her, I will fetch herbs.”
She disappeared with a swish of her skirts.
“Fucking herbs!” said Günter. “Mumbo jumbo. It’s medievalism, it’s the jester’s fucking cap and bells round the ankle… know what I mean?” His hairy loins and swinging scrotum trotted off as he sought out some shade at the bottom of the garden under overhanging trees.
Ariel climbed out of the Transit with infinite care, as if she had a razor blade lodged in her innards. “Give me your hand.”
They stumbled round the white wooden house, along burgeoning flowerbeds. At the back, a tourist bed had already been placed in the middle of a large rose garden. Purissima returned with a basket of ointments and immediately began helping Ariel out of her sweat-soaked clothes, rubbing rose oil into her scalp and neck. Michael stood indecisively at her side, wanting to help but not quite knowing what to do. He sat down in the grass, watching, not speaking. An hour passed, then Purissima took his arm and whispered, more slowly now:
“Come inside with me. She must sleep.” As they made their way back to the house, she continued: “They’ve retreated slightly. Confused. Rose oil has a restorative effect on the system. The massage has to be repeated every four hours. But you have to stay away from her. Do not touch her, do you understand? Keep your filthiness away from my precious love.”
“Will she die?”
“One day we all die; even you. We leave our precious skins on the floor, we step out of the cage and we’re free.”
“When… will she die?” he persevered.
“Oh, when her time comes.” She raised her sharp little fist and shook it in front of Michael’s chin, then stalked off with a muttered curse.
Later, Michael tracked down Günter, who was sitting with his back to them, looking out over the lavender fields. “Sorry if I don’t turn round,” said Günter. “The wind is right in my face. I’m in lavender heaven.”
“No, no… I only came to ask…”
“You want to know what’s happening. Okay. It’s really not much more than a grand tragedienne mystifying what any fool could see. Drop a lump of shit from a very great height and watch what happens next.”
“Who are you Günter? I’d like to know.”
“I can tell you but it will take a little time.”
“Could you annotate?”
“I like you when you’re sarcastic, Michael; it’s so much better than your shocked-little-boy act. You should really cultivate sarcasm.” His black dog-lips parted in what one might choose to see as a smile. “Very well, for you I will annotate,” he said.
11
“I was a weak-spirited young man,” said Günter. “In myself I had nothing, I was born with a love of my mother’s breast and I did not move beyond this love of the breast. I grew up in East Germany. In those days it was a brutal place; there was every opportunity for weak persons to be decorated with medals and insignia as a way of labeling themselves, quickly and conveniently explaining their status and identity. Even when I was a boy, they put me in a uniform and taught me to shoot and march. A private has to salute more or less any scum in uniform, signifying that he respects the other person’s rank and defers to him. This is about as low as human life can get, Michael. We were all very keen on it in those days, everyone had to have a label on him, thank Christ they hadn’t invented bar codes yet… we would have spent our whole fucking lives going through scanners.”