Borderlands

by Unknown

  “Eat me,” whispered Little Brother. “Once I’m inside you, nobody can ever hurt you again. I’ll be there to protect you.”

  In the morning, shivering, terrified, and strengthened, Hugh went downstairs to face his mother and her new man. Behind his eyes, other eyes watched, though their lids were closed. His first words that morning were a whisper. Mother and her new man leaned close to hear them, then away, their faces twisting, and after that, everything changed.

  LADDER

  T.E.D. Klein

  Several years ago I cited Ted Klein as one of the most underrated writers in our field. He is the author of a handful of excellent novellas full of brooding visions of darkness and a large, ambitious, and highly successful novel called The Ceremonies. He has written a few short stories and articles, and that, friends, is it. Ted writes with a careful, measured style, and he takes his time doing it. His writing is like that exceptional running back who displays the rare combination of both grace and power. Unfortunately, Klein is not a prolific writer, and we see far too little of his work on an annual basis. For all of the above reasons, I was therefore determined to have the first volume of Borderlands contain a T.E.D. Klein story.

  And you should know: Ted didn't make it easy for me.

  It wasn't until I was actually up in New York, turning in the book manuscript to John Douglas, my editor at Avon Books, that I actually added Ted's contribution to the volume–he met me at Penn Station with a dot matrix draft printed on yellow legal pad paper. I'd been bugging him for the story for months and he kept telling me it was coming along and that I have it on time. There were moments when I almost didn't believe him.

  And yet he came through for me. The story which follows, "Ladder, " is earmarked by Ted's usual precise prose; untypical because of its brevity, but typical because of its subtle cleverness. Klein's stories always have a dimensional density about them, an almost palpable reality, and given impetus by events which seem so oddly unique, it is difficult to imagine them not being real.

  "When asked to identify the mood of our times, she answered, 'A desperate search for a pattern."

  —Prof. Huston Smith on Rebecca West

  Birth, I see now, was merely a rung on the ladder. Rather deflating, when you think about it; you live, you struggle, you learn and grow and suffer, and you realize, after nearly seventy years of searching, that your life has been nothing but a metaphor. It's not the sort of thing you see while you're living it, of course. It's like that Greek said, the one they used to teach in school: you can't judge whether your life is a success or a failure until its final moments. Though my memory's not so keen as it once was, I remember that remark; I suppose it must have stuck in my mind because, even as a very young boy, I was consumed with curiosity. How would my own life turn out? What would I judge it to be, as I lay dying? But now the question of its success or failure seems sadly beside the point–less important, anyhow, than the one raised by Dame Rebecca. The answer to that, too, has to wait until the end; you can't see the pattern while you're living it. And you certainly can't see it while you're busy being born, dragging that first chilly air into your lungs, already exiled, forlorn in the sunlight of a winter's morning, the damnable game already begun. Though I have no memory of the time, the first thing my eyes beheld was probably the heath, with the icy waters shimmering behind it…. And it will likely be the last.

  The Firth of Lorne, that was the waters' name; can you think of a starting place more fitting? It was fit, at least, for me, who have never married, never fathered children, never stayed in one place long enough to make a lasting friend (except the holy man), never owned any property but the tiny bungalow where, lying on my cot, an old Navy pillow propped up behind my back, I'm now scratching out this memoir. The Lords of Lorne once owned a third of Scotland; now the estuary that bears their name borders a region of deserted forts, ruined castles, and roofless crofts, their stone portals tumbled down and half concealed by meadow grass, the families that built them long since scattered to England or America or the other side of the world. Any of these houses, in their years of habitation, might have passed for the one where I was born, near the coast between Kilbride and Kilninver. Its low ceiling, heavy beams, and whitewashed plaster walls afforded barely space enough for the three of us, but as the beloved only child of two elderly parents, I was happy there. My father was a minister's son from Glasgow, my mother a MacDougall, of the clan whose ancient stronghold, now little more than rubble, stands on the island of Kerrera in Oban Bay. From the Esplanade at Oban, the region's largest port, you can still make out the ruins; as a child I liked to think of them as my ancestral castle. Beyond Kerrera lay the headwaters of the firth and, looming in the distance, the mountains of Mull. Steamers—they were called "puffers" in those days—plied among the islands, from Mull to Lismore, Colonsay, Coll, and the Outer Hebrides Other boys dreamed of sailing on them, to see more of the world before they died; I was content where I was. I planned, in fact, to continue sheep raising like my father; we had a flock of black-faced Argyllshires whose regular comings and goings from pasture to fold, daybreak to dusk, season to season, filled me with a sense of peace. Though we owned a car, our lives, by the standards of today, seem almost medieval in their simplicity. I remember doing schoolwork by lantern light, a single lantern for all three of us, and how we'd try to keep one coal glowing all night in the stove to light the fire again the next morning. It never occurred to me that the sight of glowing coals could ever be anything but precious…. I loved the way the heath would change from green in spring to purple and gold in the fall, and how it gleamed like crystal in winter. I would gaze across it every day as the rattling old bus, its windows leaking draughts of icy air, drove us children to Church School in Kilninver. Over the doorway, I recall, carved into the granite, were foot-high letters spelling out the opening line of Saint John: In the Beginning Was the Word. I wasn't a clever student—I had trouble seeing the connections between things, even then–but I worked hard at pleasing my teachers. My parents were pious people, and I believed in a strict but fair Creator who, as they did, hid His kindly intentions behind a stem exterior. I remember how comforting it was to think of the Lord as a shepherd, and we His sheep…. But then, one rainy night on the very eve of my graduation, just as my parents were returning from Oban in their car after buying me a new wool coat, a suit, and a bound set of Youth's Companions, they were swept off the road by a freak storm; or perhaps it was the fault of a rain-smeared windscreen. The car, with their bodies, was discovered at the bottom of a glen. The coroner described it as "an act of God." Immediately my world changed forever. I was alone now. My father, I discovered, had not been as prudent as I'd thought; he'd borrowed over the years from a neighboring family of landowners and had left me in debt. I had to sell the farm to them—the house, the flock, the pastures. They offered to let me stay on, but I knew it was time for me to go. God, I told myself, had done this for a reason; He had plans for me. Sensing that I'd been thrust out into the world like a sheep from the fold, I packed my things, ready to submit to His will.

  Forth I went, my new suit in a satchel beneath my arm, to seek what I thought was my destiny. I had already sold my coat. My Youth's Companions lay unopened amid the pile of books I was leaving behind; my youth was over. I would have to make my own way now, settle in a town, and learn a trade. I did know something about wool; I knew its grades, how to unkink it, how to make it take the dye. I was not, I told myself, entirely unprepared. Unlike my fellows, who dreamt of America, I had an idea that the course of my life–the pattern, if you will–lay toward the east; something, I see now, was calling me in that direction, toward my eventual encounter with the holy man and the secret he revealed. Into the Lorne flows the River Awe, cutting through the Pass of Brander from the Falls of Cruachan, and it was toward these magical names that I turned my steps. The heath was swimming in wildflowers, like foam on a choppy sea, as I walked to the highway and waited for a ride, wondering if I'd ever be coming back. Gl
en Mor, the Great Glen, lay ahead of me, sixty miles of waterway cutting across the highlands, from the Lynn of Lorne beside me in the west to Inverness in the east, where Loch Ness meets the Moray Firth and flows into the North Sea. The region that I passed through was as picturesque as I'd once been told, with menacing crags and pine-shadowed valleys, ghostly waterfalls and scenes of ancient slaughter. The land here had seen its share of blood; but beyond it, I knew, lay the wide world.

  Forts William (named for William III) and Augustus (for the Duke of Cumberland) stand guard on either side of the glen, their broad streets sloping toward the great Caledonian Canal. Fort William, the first I reached, was noisy, traffic-clogged, and, I thought then, highly exciting; it was the largest town I'd ever seen, with handsome white houses, hotels crowded with vacationers, and the grey granite mass of Ben Nevis rising up behind it, its top obscured by clouds. One look at the women in the shops, all of whom seemed beautiful, and I resolved to go no farther; I would settle here. And I did…for a time. I put up at a cheap boarding house near the edge of town and found work in a tailor's shop, fitting hikers with tweed suits–in those days one dressed up to hike–and mending worn collars. I'd been employed there less than a month, however, when one morning I arrived to find the street filled with shouting firemen and the shop a smoking ruin. I don't know if they ever found the cause. At the time I suspected the landlord's younger son, who'd had a dispute with the tailor; now I suspect God, who has lightning at His command. It was clear to me, at any rate, that I had to move on. I continued eastward, to Fort Augustus, at the foot of Loch Ness, where anglers stalk salmon and Americans search for monsters. The King's Own Highlanders were garrisoned at the fort there, and I soon found myself a job helping keep the books for a firm that made uniforms for these troops. And then I fell in love. I shan't write down her name; I haven't done so in half a century. Sometimes I manage to forget her; I think I prefer it that way. Anyhow, I hoped to marry her, and plans were made, and then she got ill–she had a brother in the garrison, where a fever was raging–and finally God took her. No use protesting; He simply had other plans for me, and the girl had gotten in the way. I see that now; it's why I'm writing this, so I'll see it all for what it was before I go. I wasn't supposed to linger at Augustus; my destiny–my great destiny–lay somewhere to the east. Pushing on to Inverness, I booked a passage for Edinburgh, where I found a ship to travel on, the Saracen. She was a rusted old tramp steamer, her twin smokestacks stained with grime, but they needed a purser on her and were willing to hire me. Besides, I liked her name. I signed on board, eager to see what God had in store for me.

  Ports all over the world welcomed me in my quest. We docked at Lisbon, the Canaries, and Capetown, then sailed north to the Maldives and Bombay. In succeeding years I transferred to other ships and added new names to my catalogue of places seen. In a single year I saw Athens and Adelaide, Singapore and San Francisco. In another I did nothing but sail back and forth between Manila and Hong Kong. I saw a temple in Java where they worshiped small green spiders, and a woman in Ceylon who gave herself to snakes. I visited the New Hebrides and New Caledonia off Australia, lured by the Scottishness of their names, and the great port of New York, a universe away from the tiny ruined hamlet of the same name near my birthplace, at the edge of the Inverliever Forest and Loch Awe, where anglers feast on salmon and trout. The world left its marks on me, but I welcomed them. In Shanghai my face was slashed during a robbery, but I found the scar handsome. In Montevideo my nose was broken in a waterfront brawl, but I decided I liked it better that way. I was aimless, for once; I enjoyed it. I fell in love with travel. For a while, in the early years, I worried that God had forgotten me; then I hoped He had. Throughout these years I found myself employed with increasing frequency by the Brittanic East India Company. The work–the purchase of shipboard supplies, the keeping of books–came easily now, and the Company and its concerns were seldom in my thoughts. But it seemed I was in theirs, because when the director of agricultural development unexpectedly took sick and died, they made me his successor.

  Posts in Gibraltar and, later, Bombay awaited me. Once again my life had changed drastically; after gallivanting across the globe, I was suddenly planted in an office. I missed my vagabond days, but didn't have the strength to refuse the raise in pay. My first post, in Gibraltar, lasted exactly seven weeks; I was supposed to expedite the transfer of olive trees from Rabat to Madrid, but a Moroccan revolution cut off our supply. In Bombay, I had barely unpacked my bags before I was placed in charge of a plan designed to introduce Welsh merino sheep into the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The poor animals had been wrenched from their homes and shipped halfway around the world; I felt a kinship with them. I set up a small office in the interior, in a dusty little village whose name I could never pronounce. It seemed as remote as another planet, though the wrinkled grey hides of the elephants passing on the streets reminded me of the slopes of Ben Nevis. Only after we'd gotten set up did I discover that I'd arrived at the hottest time of year, in one of the hottest years on record. For once I didn't work hard; I sat there in my shirtsleeves and perspired. One morning a little old man, his face as brown and wrinkled as a walnut, strolled unannounced into my office. He was Mr. Nath, he told me in a shrill singsong voice, "a holy man." His forthrightness amused me, and I told him to sit down. He'd come, he said, because the locals were complaining that I'd brought the heat wave with me. They feared that I was cursed. "Well," I said, not entirely joking, "perhaps I am"—and I proceeded to sketch the particulars of my life. "I feel," I said, "a little like a pawn, constantly being shunted from one scene to another at someone else's whim. I still believe there's a design to it all, but damned if I know what it is." Mr. Nath had been listening intently, nodding as I spoke. "All lives have a pattern," he said, "that we see in their beauty and completion only at the end. One man is the second son, and will be second in all things. One will forever be doomed to arrive too late. One will go from rich to poor and back again seven times in his life. Another will always take wrong advice. Another will win only one race, at the start, and thereafter will know nothing but defeat. One will make a miserable first marriage, and then his second wife will bring him only bliss. Another will rue every day but the last. Another's life will follow the pattern of a spinti, or a chess game, or the lines from a child's nursery song. But you, my friend—" Suddenly I saw his eyes widen. He was staring at a swarm of bugs that had just flown into the room, a seething little microcosm of darting energy and flashing wings, hovering just above our heads, humming in the morning heat. They were, I don't know, gnats, mosquitoes, tiny flies…India has so many. Their presence in my office was unremarkable; the door to the other rooms had been open, and the cloth screens were riddled with holes. What unnerved me was the manner of their coming, the sheer abruptness of it, as if they'd been rushed onto the stage by some great unseen hand. The little man seemed more upset than I. "Bugs," I said, shrugging. He shook his head, eyes round with horror. "No," he whispered. "Pests!" I mistook this for a reference to the plague, and, thinking of my lost love, felt a stab of sadness. And at that moment, just as quickly as they came, the bugs vanished—simply melted into the air, as if that same great hand had wiped them off the board. The little man's eyes nearly popped from his head. He opened his mouth, made a strangled sound, and ran from the room. I was left staring at the place where the bugs had been, feeling more bemused than frightened. Those creatures didn't scare me, not then. But they scare me now. Because now I know what they were.

  The costs of running the Bombay branch proved to be too high, that's what I was informed, and I found myself abruptly–and, I might add, high-handedly–relieved of my post. Blame it on the dreadful heat I'd brought with me (for I'm more than half convinced I did), and on the drought that followed. No one had ever seen such weather; the Company's coffee crops withered, the sheep sickened and died, and the survivors had to be shipped north at considerable expense. Blame it on the war then raging in Europe, which
more than doubled the price of doing business. Blame it on an act of God. All I knew is that I was suddenly being uprooted again, another chapter closed behind me. As I stood on the Bombay dock, gazing at the ship I'd soon be boarding while, around me, workers with ropes and pulleys strained to hoist cargo into the hold, I thought of the stable world I'd known as a child; I seemed to be inhabiting an entirely different place now, pushed from one scene to the next. These gloomy reflections were cut short by the high-pitched voice of Mr. Nath, who had come to see me off. I'd become friends with him following the incident in my office; and though it was the one subject on which he'd refused to talk further, I'd relished his insights on other matters–so much so, in fact, that I'd hired him as my assistant. He had accompanied me back to Bombay; he, too, was now jobless, but seemed much less downcast than I, and was looking forward to returning to his village. As he walked me up the gangplank, he listened impatiently as I complained once more about the turns my life had taken. "Surely," I said, "God must be behind these huge changes." He gave a little sigh before he spoke, as if this were something he'd been hoping to avoid. "Yes," he said, "and no. The changes you speak of are maya, illusion." We had reached the deck now; he gripped my arm and stared at me with, for the first time, a hint of urgency.

  In the things that matter," he said, "the Lord works very slowly and deliberately, with a hand far more subtle than you imagine. Don't you know how He changes a dog into a cat?" He paused, smiled when he saw my bewilderment, and seemed about to answer his own question, when suddenly I saw him look past me; his eyes widened with horror, the way I'd seen before–with horror and, I think now, a kind of terrible understanding. A shadow fell across the deck, and I looked up, half expecting to see a swarm of insects. But something else darkened the sky: a rope had snapped, and an enormous wooden crate destined for the hold was hurtling down upon us. I stumbled back in time; Mr. Nath was not so lucky. The crate caught him almost head-on, crushing him like a bug and bursting open on the deck, its puzzling contents spilling out and all but burying my friend.