The Map

by T. S. Learner

  Gabirel chose not to answer, but August had the strong feeling the fear of discovery was not the cause of the youth’s terror.

  The darkroom was a cave drenched in red light, the infrared bulb a beacon in the small space. Two workbenches ran along two walls – on one the enlarger sitting like an oversized microscope, the frame beneath the lens ready to clip in the light sensitive photographic paper; on the other two plastic trays of developer fluid and fixer fluid. Strung across the room was string with metal clips from which to hang the film. There were also several rows of black containers to develop the film itself. Standing in the centre, August reached for one of the strips of negatives now drying on the string. The chemical smell of the developer and fixer took him straight back to his own darkroom in London and back to the hours he’d spent developing photographs alone in this artificial dusk. He’d always loved the particular solitude that was distinctively the photographer’s; the darkroom a magician’s workshop in which he alone had the power to conjure up images.

  Mateo the café owner, grumbling about the late hour, had let him in at eight that evening. Peering at his watch under the dim red light bulb, August could see it was already past ten, and his three strips of negatives, were hung, pegged and drying. The one he was most interested in was the film he’d shot earlier that day of the maze and ruin. August looked at the negatives to see if they were ready to develop. They seemed dry enough. He had twelve images in total: five of the maze, five of the ruins and two of the wall. Careful to keep his fingers on the edge of the film, he fed it into the gate of the enlarger, excitement beginning to rattle through him like the distant roar of a train. He switched on the enlarger light. Immediately, it shone through the negative, projecting a blurry image below. It was one of the shots of the maze, taken from above. He focused the image by rotating the lens, and the shape of the labyrinth emerged in sharp detail. August bent down and examined the image – it was a near-perfect aerial shot. There was a slight angle but he could clearly see the whole design as if from a bird’s perspective. Pleased, he switched off the enlarger light and slipped the photographic paper into the frame between the lens and switched the light back on, timing it so that the image was burned into the paper. After stopping the timer, he placed the sheet of photographic paper to one side and repeated the process until all twelve images were invisibly absorbed onto the light-sensitive paper.

  Now he was ready for the developer. After resetting the timer for three minutes, he carefully slipped the first photograph under the clear fluid, using tongs, and the image of the maze started to appear. This was the moment of transformation August had never ceased to find fascinating, creating images from what appeared to be blank paper. He stared down into the tray; there were the tops of the hedge, the gravel paths appearing between, the details drawing together faster and faster until it was possible to see the individual sprigs of rosemary within the hedgerow. At that point, a second before the timer went off, August pulled the sheet from the tank, shook the excess fluid off over the sink, then plunged it into the fixer so that it could cement the image to the paper for ever. It was then, peering down at the floating photograph, that he recognised the shape of the maze. Not quite believing his eyes, he turned back to the enlarger and moved the filmstrip in the gate so that the next negative was lit up. He focused it. It was unmistakable – the maze had been constructed in the shape of the kabbalistic Tree of Life. He recognised the symbol from his Oriental studies. Like a square with two triangles fixed to the top and bottom, it had ten circular bases at various corners, with one at the pinnacle of the design and another fixed to the bottom.

  August tried to recall the lectures he’d attended at Oxford on the subject, and exactly what each circular base meant. He remembered they were called sephiroth and represented various stages of spiritual enlightenment on the way to the top sephirot. He looked back down at the photograph. The ten sephiroth were clearly visible and there were always only ten. Now he could see that the confusing walkways he had been travelling along in the maze were the paths connecting the bases, all of which he seemed to recall had spiritual meaning, as each sephirot was considered a state of being between the manifest existence of all thoughts and the prime ‘Emanation of the Creator’ – each station representing a spiritual stage of evolution of the individual on his journey. Only a man with considerable knowledge of the kabbala could have envisaged such a thing. And that could only have been Shimon himself. But why go to such elaborate lengths, unless you wanted to both conceal and send a message?

  Fascinated, August turned back to the photograph. Now he could trace the path Izarra had led him along. Suddenly, he noticed the last sephirot they must have arrived at, the one he’d seen with vervain and the lilies growing in it. Set against the other nine, it was far more obvious – it was the only one in the maze that had a dark centre. The centres of the rest of the sephiroth were bare and gravelled.

  He looked at the sephirot at the bottom. He searched his memory, trying to envisage the diagram of the Tree of Life he’d studied years ago. It came flooding back – the bottom station or sephirot was called ‘Malkuth’ or ‘Kingdom’ and was considered the tenth sephirot – the one at the top of the tree was considered the first. But why did this Malkuth have something growing in it and the other nine were bare? Was this symbolic in itself? Was it linked to Izarra’s family or to the location? August was about to begin printing the photograph when something else caught his eye. The old ruin and the wall stood at some distance from the maze. He noticed there was a strange mark on the wall, some kind of outline against it, like a silhouette. It looked like a group of people. A shiver ran through him. He’d seen people lined up against a wall like that before, back in 1938. With his heart pounding uncomfortably against his ribcage, he slipped the photographic paper into the enlarger and developed the photograph. Once more he watched the image condense and clarify in the tray. There was the shape of the people against the wall – a wall that had been completely devoid of markings or shadow when he’d looked at it with his naked eye. And there was the maze. Now he was completely convinced his first impression had been right; the maze was a depiction of the Tree of Life with its single planted sephirot. It had to be a clue, the beginning of a message calling out to him over the centuries.

  Yet the image burned into the wall was a contemporary, far more sinister anagram.

  There were beads of light shooting over a low horizon, somehow they were both anti-aircraft fire and musical notes, a visual orchestration that sounded out in his dream, the guttural boom of a low D followed by an E a full octave higher. Jimmy was running across a desert – a monochrome landscape – going full pelt, his body young and strong, the sand compact and solid under his feet. He knew in that unexplained unquestioning way of the dreamer that if he reached the horizon and ran straight into it, he would die. And that’s what he wanted. Wanted so much and with that thought a white circle appeared in the grey sky, growing in brightness, seeming to radiate coolness not heat. Slowly, Jimmy realised it was not an imaginary moon but the ring of cold steel pressed against his head. He woke with a jerk.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy.’

  Recognising the voice, Jimmy froze. The barrel of a handgun was pushing into his forehead, pinning him to the pillow. The intruder leaned back into a strip of light that cut through the darkened bedroom from the streetlight outside. Now Jimmy could see Damien Tyson’s eyes clearly. They were exactly as he remembered, utterly devoid of emotion and impossible to read. For a moment he hoped he was still dreaming.

  ‘Hello, Damien. I was wondering when you’d come for a visit.’

  ‘I could kill you now or we could talk.’

  ‘If you kill me now, you’d be doing me a favour.’

  ‘In that case, we’ll talk.’ With his gun still trained on Jimmy, Tyson sat on a chair. He switched on the bedside lamp, trapping them both in a tense intimacy. Jimmy began to sit up in the bed.

  ‘Hands over the covers, else I’ll shoot.’ Tyson’s voic
e was matter of fact. Jimmy, now with his back against the wall, laid his heavy gnarled hands on top of the chequered bedspread.

  ‘I figure it must be eight years you guys have been watching me. What are you after, Damien? The operation was completed and neatly tidied up. Why, you even had the others silenced. What more could the department want with a washed-up old jazz player, who’s not even a card-carrying member any more?’

  ‘I was just carrying out orders. I’m sorry about your girlfriend, but I always thought she was a little out of your league.’ Tyson was irritated by Jimmy’s seemingly casual manner – he wanted more fear, he needed more fear.

  Jimmy’s fists tightened as he fought the impulse to jump out of the bed and attack Tyson.

  ‘Easy, old fella. I’m a little trigger-happy at the best of times, but then you’d know all about that.’

  Jimmy glared across the room, cursing his physical weakness.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You went to London to visit an old buddy recently, an old socialist friend of yours. Like to tell me why?’

  ‘I got sentimental.’

  Tyson kicked over a heavy old metal microphone stand near the wall. It fell on top of the bed, cracking across Jimmy’s shins, the sound resounding out as the musician stifled a scream.

  ‘August E. Winthrop. Fought with you at Brunete, worked with the British during the Second World War and was honourably discharged, but a little birdie told us he might be in bed with the Russians.’

  ‘Not Gus.’

  ‘Really, because you know what, the English don’t trust him and neither do we. Then there was this little incident of a murdered professor, an old college associate of his. You still feeling sentimental?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Jimmy’s guitar caught Tyson’s eye. He glanced down at the musician’s hands, twitching with pain on the bedspread.

  ‘You still playing, Jimmy? You were good at that, serenading the señoritas.’ Tyson stood and walked over to the bed. Jimmy glared up at him. His leg hurt so much he could hardly draw breath.

  ‘Sometimes when the body fails all a man’s got left is talent.’ Tyson held the gun easily at his side. ‘You gave him a parcel in London?’

  ‘Chocolates for the ladies. Gus likes the ladies, and they still have rationing over there,’ Jimmy hissed, choking back his fear like vomit. Tyson shot the index finger of his right hand clean off, the bullet thumping into the mattress like a tiny hammer. He lifted the gun to Jimmy’s forehead.

  ‘Where is it, Jimmy? Where’s the alchemist’s chronicle?’

  Jimmy stared at him, the shifting pieces of the last eight years now slipping into place; Andere’s face the night she made him promise to safeguard the book, the smashed rooms of the farmhouse after the murders, the order he never saw.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it? Not HQ that ordered the killings. You were after the chronicle all along,’ he managed to whisper before fainting.

  Tyson glanced down at the unconscious musician, spit now drooling from the corners of Jimmy’s mouth, a small pool of blood under the stump of his finger spreading through the bed like an errant blossom. It made Tyson think. He turned, scanning the flat, looking for something he knew he’d want when he saw it. It was propped up against a lamp in the corner, an album cover of one of the jazz bands van Peters had recorded with, signed by Jimmy himself. Tyson walked over, picked it up then brought it back to the bed. Lifting Jimmy’s hand, he smeared blood all over the sleeve. He waited a moment for it to dry before slipping the album cover into his shoulder bag.

  Back in his room August sat staring at the photograph of the maze. It was past two in the morning yet he was wide awake, his mind still racing to make sense of the images before him. The herbs he’d picked at the maze lay beside him, the scent of the vervain leaves and lily flower bringing back the memory of walking through the enigma.

  He pulled the photograph closer. Carefully, he drew over the top, tracing the outline of the maze. He now had the Tree of Life drawn out clearly – the symmetry was beautiful. Whoever had designed it had been meticulous. Each circular station was in perfect proportion to the next and the paths were geometrically exact. He had the same conviction that it must have been Shimon Ruiz de Luna himself. But the fact that the Tree of Life was visible only from above and at some height was perplexing. Why would someone go out of their way to create a maze that was a symbol one could only decipher from far above – was it a way of signalling to the skies? To God perhaps? If so, which God? It was like a portal to the heavens. Or was it a warning to keep away? Strangely enough, it reminded him of Mayan monuments or Australian aboriginal land markings – structures built to be viewed from a great height, yet made in eras when it was physically impossible to reach those heights. And then there was the vervain and lily growing in the centre of the tenth base, Malkuth. What were their astrological and magical meanings? Turning to the tracing, he filled in the tenth base with pencil then wrote the name ‘Irumendi’ beside it, along with the names of the plants.

  But there was something else that disturbed him even more – the unexplained configuration on the wall. August didn’t believe in the supernatural. But it troubled him greatly that the silhouette had only become visible when photographed. With a sickening sense of foreboding, he began to outline the silhouette on the photograph, feeling as if the tip of his pen were actually bringing to life the horror of the image.

  Under the pen the curious dark patch began to unfurl into an undeniable picture – the outline of a row of about eight people, mainly men, August guessed, from their height, lined up against the wall. He knew this atrocity, knew what his pen would reveal. Wrestling with the urge to get up from the desk or even destroy the photograph, he forced himself to continue tracing. He reached the profile of the last figure and stopped, pen poised on the paper, his hand shaking, fighting the memory of a similar horrific scene. One in which he himself had been implicated, terribly, fatally. He dropped the pen, but the trembling worsened, travelling up through his body, memories rushing through him like flashing lights.

  August went to the window and pulled it open, letting in the cool night air. He breathed deep, trying to empty his mind, to push all his thinking into the visceral, into the immediate surroundings – the scent of the lilac sitting in a small vase on the desk, the faint hoot of an owl, the distant rush of a stream. Make yourself nothing but this, he told himself, but Charlie’s ghost came floating back on a miasma of guilt. It was pointless.

  He removed the chronicle from its bag. Sitting back at the desk, he turned to the page in which Shimon Ruiz de Luna described the first secret location of Elazar ibn Yehuda’s map then opened his notebook filled with the translation of the deciphered Spanish he had made earlier that evening. He found the paragraph he was looking for.

  My excitement was profound when, after much climbing and cutting through the thick forest behind Irumendi, I came upon the first secret garden Elazar ibn Yehuda had discovered. A botanical clue located in a tiny clearing in an ancient forest, almost invisible to the eye. It took me several hours of exploration and viewing from considerable height before I recognised with great surprise the first cipher. I wager I would have been the only person in the whole region who might have guessed at its meaning or recognised that it had any meaning at all. Indeed, it had only been after some questioning that my wife’s uncle mentioned, in a dismissive fashion, rumour of an old ruin and ancient garden hidden in the forest. His indifference both surprised and delighted me. It delighted me because it meant that I might be the first to have rediscovered the site, but it surprised me that given the local beliefs he would be so indifferent. On the other hand, he believed it to have been Roman and therefore of an invader, a monument not of the Basque, and as such, nothing to him.

  The ruins looked to be a small temple and I immediately noted that it was not Roman but Andalusian, the kind I have seen in Córdoba. There was a small plot of land in front of the ruined building. The garden Elazar ibn Yeh
uda described existed only in its foundations, but it was this that excited me so greatly, for I recognised the pattern the old withered beds made running like a matrix around gravel paths that ended suddenly and led nowhere. It is a matrix of great kabbalistic meaning, too great and too dangerous to describe in detail on these pages, but suffice to say it is like the first arrow pointing me along the path on which I am travelling. And I am determined to restore it and maintain this botanical wonder for future seekers – no matter how incongruous it might be in the terrain. I am convinced I must keep following in the great physic explorer’s footsteps, regardless of how far I must travel and to what great danger such exploration will inevitably expose me. I am convinced that transcendence lies at the end of this journey, a heaven on Earth and the possibility of Man as God. What would my father think of me now? He surely would have nothing but wonder and pride in his son. And if I should solve the enigma of Elazar ibn Yehuda’s treasure? My place in posterity both as physic and alchemist would surely be assured.

  August glanced back at the photograph of the site, the top of the maze the dark grey outline of the Tree of Life. Shimon Ruiz de Luna must have constructed the maze as a way of maintaining and echoing the pattern of the garden’s foundations, to make a living message to the future. Stunned by the epiphany, he sat back trying to remember the words Professor Copps had used to describe Elazar ibn Yehuda – and why his rumoured discovery had fired the imagination of so many people over the aeons. ‘A great gift,’ the professor had said, although he’d seemed unsure about the translation from the Judeo-Arabic Yehuda had used in his writings – a great spiritual or magical gift, an unnatural power from God that if unleashed upon humanity would either condemn it or save it depending on how the gift was used. But Elazar ibn Yehuda was both a philosopher and a doctor obsessively involved in botanical research – for benign and malign purposes. Whatever the great physician-explorer had discovered, he certainly thought it worth dying for. August checked his notes again. Elazar ibn Yehuda had lived from AD 670 to 725, which placed the ruins roughly at the time of Tariq’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.