by Meira Chand
She ran faster and faster, until it seemed she might take flight. And pass up and out of the ring of clouds like thread through the eye of a needle. Her heart bumped up and down, the memories jerked about in her head, sometimes leaving her like shooting stars to project on the sky in strange cloudy landscapes. There she saw again the yellow thickets of gorse and the snowy nets of hawthorn trees beyond the old farm wall. And growing clearer, firming slowly, emerged from them the face of the Reverend Mother years before. An old face, finely cracked like the glaze on ancient porcelain, and the white net of the hawthorn became the stiff white wings of her bonnet. We shall have to see. We shall have to see, she said in the voice of the Novice Mistress of long ago. When she spoke again it was the voice of the Bishop. What do you desire? In the face the old eyelids were wrinkled and lashless.
‘Grace and mercy.’ She cried the words aloud into the night. But they drowned beneath the splashing feet.
Run. Run. Run. The rhythm thumped in her head.
Run. Run. Run. She was unravelling like a ball of wool, her mind uncoiling loop by loop. She felt its slow disintegration, and a light-headed delirium seeping in. She had lost her mind, she had lost her faith. God had grown tired of her support. Or she had never supported Him enough. It no longer mattered. She was beyond hope and all redemption. The day before she had listed her sins in neat inked letters on a piece of blank white paper. She had rounded and carefully firmed each one, but in their little hieroglyphical list they looked alien and unimportant. The paper was still in the pocket of her habit. She crumpled it in her hand and it blew from her easily into the night, washed along the road, before being trodden under pounding feet.
Now everything in her was mixing and glittering and swirling together, like the tinsel bits of a kaleidoscope. As soon as a pattern formed in her mind it blew up and changed again.
She wished she was a bird.
Suddenly. Desperately.
Run. Run. Run. Faster. She was sure she could fly.
The small black circle of sky hovered high above. The crow returned again, flapped over their heads, then wheeled up and was lost. Why could she not fly? She thrust out her arms, propelling them up and down.
Run. Run. A strange exhilaration filled her. She began to laugh aloud, unburdening herself to the madness. The child, Kenichi, looked at her in fear, and the noise began behind her then.
A rushing, accompanied by the cracking of twigs, louder than the movement of water. A rumble, a slither. She heard the screams of the children. Suddenly the whole crocodile of bodies was parting and breaking around her, running confusedly in all directions. The torches slashed and parried in mid-air, their gleaming blades of light impotent before the collapsing bank of earth. Orders issued and voices mixed, discordantly.
The screams became louder. Before her a black mass of earth slid down upon the road, almost engulfing several of the children. Yoshiko shouted and snatched up Kimiko and with the other arm pulled Jun back from where he clung to a tree stump, already over the side of the road. The edge of the ravine veered suddenly up at Sister Elaine, like a deep wound in the dark beside her. The children slithered and fell, one clutched at the skirt of her habit. She was pushed suddenly off balance by Eiko who lunged forward from behind to grab Tami and Toshio as they rolled into a heap to the very edge of the precipice. Then there was a loud confusion of fresh cries.
Sister Elaine looked behind and saw in the torchlight a great wave of mud and debris bearing down upon her. She screamed and stumbled against Kenichi, clutching him to her. The landslide descended upon them, sweeping them up in its cold wet mess.
She was sliding, rolling, turning. A clammy mush smothered her, mud and grit filled her mouth. Blunt objects jabbed her body, there were other small arms and legs mixed up with her own. She seemed to turn head over heels in a pulpy sea, falling. Falling. Something struck her on the chest and pain seared through her body. Then a wave of blackness claimed her.
15
She opened her eyes. The sky was a small black coin high above, and stared out of milky clouds. She saw now it was truly an eye, a dark, dilated pupil looking down, expressionless, upon her tattered bit of destiny.
She could not move. The heavy wetness of clothes plastered her body, the skirt of her habit was swaddled tightly round her legs. Each time she breathed a great pain thrust up in her chest. Wet mud caked her face and neck. It seemed she lay in a swampy grave. The moonlight was insipid, and when she tried to move she cried out in pain.
A jumble of voices replied, high and far away. She closed her eyes, still hearing the torrent and tumble of water nearby. Turning her head she saw, only a few feet below where she lay, a swollen stream of water gushed.
From high above the light of torches swung down in long blades, searching. She saw a huddle of faces grouped behind them, and remembered a painting of angels’ heads staring out of a break in clouds, pale emanating rays of light spilling out around them from Heaven to earth. Here all was darkness and mire. She wondered if she were in Hell, and for a moment was certain of it. Until she remembered the great wave of mud closing down upon her, and Kenichi pressed hard against her body. Slowly it came to her then that she lay somewhere at the bottom of the ravine, injured, for her body was filled with suffering, and seemed pinned beneath a weight. She called out again, and the sudden rush of breath knifed within her chest.
Voices replied once more, and the probing fingers of the torches swung frantically about, settling on her suddenly in a blaze of startling light. She drew a sharp breath and half closed her eyes, for in the light now she saw the black swell of a heavy branch across her feet, pinning her to the ground. Painfully lifting an arm, she tried to push it away, but her strength seemed gone, the branch did not move. Her hand slipped on its rough wet skin.
‘Sister Elaine.’ Eva’s voice came from far away, a sound from another world, her mind felt numb to it. ‘Daniel is coming down. Is Kenichi with you? Is he there?’ The words were thrown to her, spaced and even and she struggled to retain them, to connect to the world above, using each word as a ladder. She looked up at the menacing eye of black sky in its sea of milky cloud, and remembered the desperate measure of each moment. Panic and life flowed into her. She tried to fight the pain and struggle free of the grip of the fallen branch. How long had she lain there? How long was there left? Listening then she heard again, faintly, the restless moan of the storm, waiting in ghostly wings to re-enter a battered stage. Above the sinister aperture moved on, imperceptibly, imperturbably.
‘Kenichi. Is he with you, Sister Elaine?’ Eva called again. But Sister Elaine was without the strength to answer. Each time she breathed under the weight of the branch pain seared her chest. It was punishment, just the beginning of something she had known must come, eventually. Just the beginning, of that she was sure. In the silver light of the moon the world had become a devious landscape, and she hoped she had not landed in purgatory. It was probably all that was left to her now.
She heard the noise, but took no notice until it came again, a scrabbling, moving sound. She could not tum to see, and lying there became afraid, aware of her vulnerability. She pictured some small animal pulling its way towards her, a rat, a weasel or a cat, and shivered, helpless. A twig cracked, a shower of small stones fell into the water. Something large was moving behind her, she felt its presence, nearer and nearer. Suddenly Kenichi spoke.
‘Will they come in time?’ He sat down beside her.
Above, the voices were active in discussion, the torchlight swung and jerked about, sometimes opening up upon them, sometimes leaving them in darkness. In a sudden frame of light she saw the child huddled beside her, clothed in a skin of mud. Tributaries of tears ran through the dirt of his face. She remembered again the globule of glistening spit on her red and bitten wrist, but felt no antagonism now.
‘Do you think we shall die when the wind comes again?’ he asked in a flat, even voice. Some strange fate had cast them together, for what reason she did not know. His
small life was no less barren than her own, she understood that now. She felt for the first time, in this dead black world, the uselessness of summoning God. There was only herself and the child, rejected and alone. Her fears, she realised suddenly, were no longer for herself, but must include Kenichi, who squatted beside her. With difficulty she reached out a hand and placed it on the child’s knee.
‘They are coming down. They will rescue us. Until then we must wait together.’ She patted his thigh, and the child nodded silently.
‘Are you badly hurt? Can’t you move?’ he asked, looking at the heavy log across her. Scrambling up suddenly, he started pulling at the branch, but it barely moved and his agitation of it made her groan. He knelt beside her again in concern.
‘Are you all right? I can get it off you. I know a way.’
He twisted himself into an awkward contortion until his neck and shoulders were beneath the low space under the log. The torches spilt down suddenly upon them, like a spotlight, cutting off the night, encircling them. The child began to push, his muddy face contorted by the effort. His body was tense and rigid, absorbed in pushing, his feet dug into the mud. Slowly he began to rise. The light stayed on him, they were watching from above. Beneath the mud his face grew purple and his eyes bulged with the strain. At last he was up enough to kneel, the branch lifted free of Sister Elaine and lay across the boy’s shoulders. He manoeuvred back, swivelling on his knees until he was clear of Sister Elaine, then shrugged it off. It resounded on a rock and rolled with a loud splash into the stream.
‘Is that better? Can you move now?’ he asked anxiously, coming back to kneel beside her.
It was easier, the pressure was gone, the pain was a fraction less. ‘I think I have broken some ribs,’ she said. She could still hardly move, and took shallow breaths, unable to inhale deeply. The child’s face was close to her. Its dark shape struggled to open and communicate.
‘Does it hurt very much?’
She only nodded, not wishing to alarm him. And wondered again why they had both been thrown here against their will to share the same abandonment. It seemed strange that they, who only moments before, in another dimension on a flooded road, faced each other in contempt, should now, on this marshy shelf, draw together as allies.
‘Shall I help you sit up?’ His dark eyes, so close to her own, both asked and answered his unanswerable questions. The tight glaze of defence was gone, she saw now a small and delicate face, watching her. A face in which everything that must happen had already happened, too soon. The weight of experience already shaped his response to life for better or for worse.
She tried to murmur comfort, but heard herself utter only a few limp words. The distances in life had always overcome her. She knew no way to unlock other people, for she herself had never opened. Lying there she felt ashamed, that it was the child who came to her. Tears roughened her eyes.
‘I don’t think I can move. We must just wait. And pray.’ The last word was only habit. It seemed suddenly of more use to put out a hand, and cover the child’s small fingers.
‘They’re coming down now. It won’t be long. Look.’
They saw Daniel swing over the edge of the ravine, a torch hung round his neck, and begin to feel his way down, hanging precariously, high above them. The light and faces at the edge of the ravine turned away and vanished, leaving only darkness and the moving spot of Daniel’s torch.
‘Go on. Go. Hurry.’ They heard him shout upwards to a lingering voice.
The small fingers under Sister Elaine’s hand turned up a warm palm and responded with a grip. She shook it gently.
‘We’ll be all right, I’m sure.’ The words sounded more convincing now.
They waited together in the dark, straining their eyes on the descending light, bobbing and swaying. Above them all the black orifice moved on.
16
Daniel lost his grip, and fell the last few feet, landing awkwardly on the mess of debris within which lay Sister Elaine, half buried still, Kenichi beside her. He flashed his light upon them and saw their relief.
‘Are you badly hurt?’ He knelt beside Sister Elaine digging about her with his bare hands.
‘There, can you move your legs?’ He sat back on his haunches, the large face of the torch breaking open the grim black landscape about them.
Now they could see the mound of branches, rock and mud that had swallowed them. The arms of shrubs stuck out at twisted angles, like battered limbs. The body of a dead rat lay near Sister Elaine, plastered with mud, small teeth bared in its open mouth, its belly split and bloody. She shivered and looked away. Hesitantly she moved her legs and found them free and whole.
‘It’s my ribs, I think something is broken,’ she apologised.
‘Oh Jesus. We’ve only got five minutes left.’ Daniel shone the torch on the angry stream coursing beside them.
‘What’ll happen to us? How will we climb up?’ Kenichi anxiously asked.
‘We can’t climb back. What we’re going to do is follow the stream. We’re already at the bottom here. Round that bend Eva says the stream meets with the road again near the Coopers’ house. They’ll meet us there, or Mr Wilcox will wait for us. I hope they make it in time, they have the whole shoulder of the hill to cover. If we can manage the water it should not take us long. Come on, we must hurry.’ Daniel put his arm beneath Sister Elaine’s shoulders.
‘Can you stand? Good. This is going to be painful, but you’ll have to try. It’s our only chance.’ Sister Elaine stood unsurely, each time she breathed or moved the pain was excruciating. Daniel flashed the torch on the rushing water, then stepped down into it and steadied himself against the strong current, clinging to the side of the bank as the water pushed hard against him.
‘Come on.’ He took Kenichi’s hand first and helped him down.
‘Keep near the bank, hold on. Sister Elaine, take my hand.’ He held his arm out to her.
She hobbled painfully forward.
‘I can’t,’ she said, looking down into the swilling water.
‘There’s no other way. You must try. Come on.’
The pain shot about in her body, like hot knives ripping her flesh. She took his hand and with effort pushed herself forward and down into the cold thrusting water. The jolt of the step made her faint with pain and she collapsed to her knees in the stream. The water threw itself upon her, beating her chest, she doubled up and groaned in agony.
‘Kenichi, you’ll have to take this and guide us.’ Daniel handed the torch to the boy, then turned to Sister Elaine, helping her to her feet again. ‘I’ll carry you.’
She nodded and braced herself, but cried out in pain as he lifted her and held her cradled against him. He turned into the stream, and shouted suddenly.
‘Hey. Where are you going? Come back!’
Kenichi was clambering with the torch out of the stream, running to where they had come from. He picked up some object and came panting back to them again.
‘It’s Kimiko’s rabbit. Look.’ He held the soggy, battered blue body of the rabbit up to their inspection.
‘Never mind, come on. Quick,’ shouted Daniel. ‘Keep to the bank, off you go, Kenichi.’
They started, the child feeling the way carefully, shouting out the location of rocks or fallen debris, turning and flashing the torch on the water for them. Once he stumbled and went under, came up gasping and struggled on again. In places, to arrest a steep incline, the bed of the stream was shaped in shallow steps, and these Daniel negotiated slowly, sometimes standing Sister Elaine in the water, and lifting her up again after stepping down the few inches. The water swirled angrily about them, writhing and sucking as if to devour them, pushing into the backs of their knees. The child hung onto shrubs from the bank, the rabbit tucked under his torch carrying arm. He shouted information and encouragement over his shoulder. They passed under a railway bridge and their voices echoed hollowly in the damp stony vault, water dripped on their heads. As they emerged they saw in the torchlight the m
ain road ahead, and the crocodile of children above them on a bridge. They waved and shouted. Eva came to the rail and waited until they were beneath it.
‘There is a ladder in the wall the other side. You’ll have to cross the stream. We’ll wait for you there.’ Her face was a small floodlit sphere high above them.
‘Okay,’ Daniel shouted, Kenichi flashed the torch across the stream picking out the wet metal rungs of the ladder in the side of the bank. On the iron footbridge above, the children’s feet rattled as they hurried across.
‘Keep near, hold onto me, Kenichi. The current will be stronger out there,’ Daniel shouted.
At this lower point the stream spread out wider. The water was shallower, but the current ran hard, like sinewy ligaments straining in the water. Once a clump of weeds tangled about Daniel’s foot and he stumbled forwards. The weight of the clinging Kenichi steadied him and he straightened again.
Sister Elaine bit her lips until blood ran in her mouth with a warm metallic taste. The pain twisted within her, at each step Daniel took she winced and suppressed a cry, his arm about her was like a rack. Sometimes she opened her eyes and followed the black aperture of sky, until it began to break and dissolve. Then the few stars flickered and disappeared. The sky was moving and troubled again, the moon had vanished. Darkness piled down upon them, muttering. She felt the first wind upon her face.
‘It has started again,’ she sobbed in terror. Daniel stopped in mid-stream, looking up at the sky. They heard far off, growing nearer a sound like an army approaching, throbbing and drumming, a vicious beat.
‘Come on.’ The shout was from across the stream, lights clustered at the top of the ladder.
‘Go on. Go ahead. Run.’ Daniel shouted and the lights bobbed and dipped and dispersed in reply, leaving blackness again.
