Breaking Light

by Karin Altenberg

  Afterwards, he tried not to think about this episode. The next morning, he stood and glanced over at the place where the couple had lain. The sand was disturbed but there was no other trace of their lovemaking. Later, Gabriel wondered if it had happened at all – or whether it had just been another one of his lewd fantasies.

  And yet something had changed in him that night. It was as if his eyes had opened for the first time to the image that had been drawn in dark contrast on the inner wall of his heart on that day by the Giant’s Table. As he looked out from the depths of his sleeping bag the next day, the sky looked different, as if something had dirtied the air. In this dull grey light, Gabriel could sense that witnessing the sexual act on the beach had merely put a faint smudge on his heart where that other dark memory had been lurking for so long. But, instead of fear or disgust, he felt a strange surge of euphoria and gratitude and he smiled to himself, wishing that there had been some way of telling Michael that there was nothing filthy between them, that the badness was all Jim of Blackaton’s, and that what Jim had done to Michael that day on the moor was in no way related to the lust and yearnings that had begun to stir inside him soon afterwards. Touching another person could be forgiven; it was different from the thing that Jim of Blackaton had done to Michael – an act of such violence that it had split the skies open and let the darkness into the world, an act so powerful that it could tear two friends apart like a bolt of lightning cleaving a tree. How deluded they had been to fall under the spell of shame. How little they had understood about the nature of things. He wanted to tell Michael that he could be clean again and that the beauty that had gone could return.

  *

  While he was walking, constantly moving, his feet creating their own rhythm, his past seemed weightless and distant. He was a stranger in the past and the present was moving, moving. He reeled through this present – he had a purpose at last, if only just to keep on walking.

  He walked north along by the sea now, through the ludicrous beauty of those summer days. He walked to the rhythm of everything that had come before and everything that lay ahead. And, all the time, it – all of it – was singing inside his head, dum, dum, dum-be-di-dum.

  Sometimes, he had to make his way into a village to buy some bread and eggs. It did not worry him particularly that he was running out of money. He would find a way, he was sure. People addressed him along the road; some wanted to ask and others wanted to tell. It didn’t matter much. It was all the same in the end. As long as he didn’t give too much away.

  But, for the most part, he kept his eyes downcast so that he was unaware of any effect he might have on other people. And, often enough, he wondered why he was there at all.

  Not long after the episode on the beach, he was crossing a meadow and passed a lamb sleeping alone. He stopped to watch it for a moment, wondering why it was not with its flock. He looked around and saw the rest of the sheep moving slowly, like a patch of bog cotton, in a field further up the slope. Just then, the lamb woke and raised its head to the bright day. It looked so fresh, so new to the world, that Gabriel had to laugh. ‘You’d better hurry up, if you want to catch up with your friends,’ he said. His voice frightened the creature, which struggled to stand, and, as it did, he saw with dismay that an extra pair of legs was sticking out from its belly. Gabriel flinched, and looked away.

  *

  After reaching the sea again, he began to weary of walking and sat down, resting his head between his up-drawn knees by the side of the road. The road was not busy, but every now and again a lorry would drive past at high speed, churning up clouds of dust in its wake. He whistled between his teeth. Birds looked down from a wire. Soon, a lorry slowed down and stopped beside him, spewing fine road dust and car fumes.

  ‘Where’re you headin’, boy?’ the driver shouted out of the window.

  Gabriel got on to his feet and brushed down his trousers. ‘East,’ he replied with insouciance.

  ‘Hop in. I’ll take you as far as the bridge at the old ford.’

  Gabriel thought for a moment, looking around, before he picked up the backpack at his feet and climbed up into the passenger seat.

  ‘I’m Bob,’ the driver said, cheerfully, putting the lorry into gear and releasing the clutch. He was a small and plump man. Almost bald, he wore his shirtsleeves rolled up, as if to show off the mat of ginger hair that covered his arms and hands.

  ‘I’m Gabriel,’ the hardening boy replied over the engine noise, and decided that that was as far as he would go.

  Then they went. The road began to move, faster and faster, into a tunnel of high hedges – too fast for his mind, which had walked at its own rhythm for over a week. He felt nauseous and closed his eyes hard. The wind tore at him through the open windows. He leant out and opened his eyes. A raptor circled in the empty passage of sky above the road. That’s when he noticed a peculiar smell from the back of the lorry.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Roses.’ The man chuckled and hunched over the wheel as they turned a sharp corner. ‘You like it?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Gabriel. ‘Yes.’ But he wasn’t so sure. There was something disturbingly musky amongst the heady sweetness, something that made him think again of the couple on the beach.

  The driver was whistling some jaunty tune.

  ‘I love my job. Driving around in a lorry full of roses, thinking of all them women.’

  ‘What women?’ Gabriel wondered.

  ‘The gorgeous ones, son. The sort of women who are given roses. Perfect, milky-skinned, red-lipped … Phwoah!’

  Bob gripped the wheel harder so that his knuckles whitened under the ginger hair. For a while, Gabriel too tried to imagine these women, but it was no good.

  ‘Have you ever seen a lamb with six legs?’ Gabriel asked instead, not to show off, but just because he could not get the sight out of his mind. It sat there, even when he tried to conjure up a milky-skinned woman.

  ‘Ha!’ The man who called himself Bob laughed. His eyes were clear as mirrors. ‘If I saw a freak like that, I’d wring its neck.’

  Gabriel did not know what to say.

  ‘Bloody scandal that such creatures are still being brought into the world today. You would have thought that they’d have bred them out by now.’ Bob shook his head violently and spat out of the window.

  ‘They are mutants,’ Gabriel tried to explain. ‘It just happens.’ He thought of Bob’s spit dribbling down the side of the lorry.

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s not gonna happen in my world; I can tell you that for free, son.’

  Gabriel frowned at that and looked away. How bright was the day and how dark it was in amongst the hedges.

  They went on and did not speak much for a while.

  ‘It’s a nice day,’ Bob said once.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gabriel. ‘It’s nice.’

  His legs were beginning to hurt and he tried to move them, but his rucksack was in the way.

  *

  At last, the lorry stopped and he found a new path and followed it into the woods. He walked for an hour or so between oaks and beeches, the nettles high on either side of the path. And that was where he stumbled upon them relaxing in the sun – the prop gang.

  It was midday and the woods were empty. The road he had just left passed by a hundred yards to the south and, to the north, beyond the valley, was the sea. Gabriel remembered that he had not eaten for a while and he knew by the throbbing at his temples that he was dehydrated. He looked down at his clothes; the leather boots and flannel trousers were covered in dust and his cotton shirt, open at the neck, was pasted to his back. Somewhere, far down the road, earlier in the day, he had removed the woolly jumper and stuffed it into the backpack that he carried now, slung over one shoulder. He threw down the backpack on the ground. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and pulled his hand through his hair. A few beads of sweat had caught in the downy rag that attempted, once again, to cover his upper lip. He wiped his face with the damp handkerchief. His head
was pounding still after the lorry drive and the light that sieved through the canopy of leaves was beginning to hurt his eyes. I need a drink, he thought to himself. I really need a drink. He looked around again but the place offered no clues. A whiff of air, as stale as his breath, brought the scent of moss and rotting leaves. Somewhere a dog barked and the sound carried like a gunshot through the slow air.

  With a sigh, he decided to walk on along the ridge of a deep ravine. Far below, he could hear the purling of water amongst rocks. Some small animal, a mouse, perhaps, stirred in the undergrowth of last year’s leaves and spiky twigs as his tread crackled on the hard path. He had not walked for long when he heard mumbled voices from somewhere nearby. Straining his ears, he followed the sound off the path towards a small clearing.

  Three young men, somewhat older than him, were sprawled out, resting in the dappled shade of the shrubs. A few empty bottles were lying in the grass around them. One of the youths seemed to be telling a story, but fell silent when he spotted Gabriel. The other two, who had been facing the storyteller, turned lazily to see what was going on. As they watched each other across the silence, Gabriel could hear his own heartbeat. The summer heat seemed to be pushing towards him, sipping the air out of his throat. His tongue had swelled and he felt like opening his mouth and letting it hang out. Instead, he swallowed and tried to speak, but the noise that escaped sounded more like the croak of a rook. He tried again, his dry mouth rasping on the words. ‘How do you do?’ he said, and, realising how ridiculous he sounded, like Stanley on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, he tried again. ‘I wonder if you have a drink? I’m thirsty …’ His words trailed off as he watched the glassy faces of the young men on the ground. They were casually dressed; the one who had been telling the story wore a soiled string vest and baggy cotton trousers, held up by braces; a battered straw panama had been pushed to the back of his head. The other two were similarly shabby in collarless shirts and faded denim trousers. One of them was smoking a cigarette and the third one, sitting slightly apart from his friends, resting his back against a tree trunk, was lithe and athletic, with a remarkable head of reddish blond curls. Gabriel thought for a moment he looked familiar, but he could not place him. Their eyes were a bit glazed and they seemed to look at him with sluggish remoteness rather than with hostility, as if they expected the cue to come from him. The smoker took the cigarette from his lips and spat on the ground. Gabriel watched as a string of dribble hung in suspension from his lower lip.

  Suddenly, as if somebody had turned over a page, the storyteller whistled between his teeth and spoke: ‘Well, well, well. If it ain’t a tinker.’

  Gabriel frowned. He did not like being called a tinker, but he was not quick enough to answer back. He could feel his face going a little red and hated it. Pointing with his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the road, he said, inanely, ‘No; I just came from the road. I have been walking for a week now.’

  ‘Go on. You don’t say,’ the guy with the braces said with flat irony and the others laughed.

  ‘Hey, Charlie, give this guy a beer; he’s as dry as a desert.’

  It was the youth with the copper curls who had spoken and, when no one moved to get Gabriel a drink, he scrambled to his feet and pulled out a bottle from a canvas bag that was sitting in the shade. He tugged the cap off and walked over to Gabriel, who had not moved. ‘Here you go,’ he said with a hazy smile, and handed the bottle to Gabriel. ‘I’m Reynard and this –’ he pointed towards the storyteller and smoker in turn – ‘is Charlie, and Stan from the States. You can call me Rey.’

  Gabriel only nodded and put his head back and drank from the bottle. The three youths watched him attentively in silence until he had emptied the bottle. Rey chuckled, as if he found the situation particularly funny.

  ‘So, have you got a name, then?’ asked Rey, his eyes merry.

  ‘Gabriel,’ he said, looking down at his boots, which were partly covered by dry leaves. It occurred to him that Rey’s voice did not sound local. There was a slight twang to it that he could not place; perhaps it was from the east. He looked up and blinked once against the faded gold and green of the woods around them. ‘My name is Gabriel Askew.’

  ‘Gabriel,’ Rey repeated, thoughtfully. ‘That’s quite a mouthful. Do you mind if I just call you Gabe?’

  Gabriel stared at the stranger in surprise. Something eerie and intent flickered in Rey’s gaze now, he noticed, and he saw that his eyes were green and a bit slanted, although perhaps this was just on account of the sun, which had suddenly found its way through the leaves of a great oak behind them. ‘No, I suppose not,’ he said, hesitantly.

  ‘You been on the road for a while, then – spent all your money?’

  Gabriel blushed and nodded.

  Rey regarded him keenly for a moment before turning to the others. ‘What do you say, guys? Do we want to help this kid to a decent meal?’

  This resulted in a round of laughs. The man called Charlie spoke first: ‘You’ve got to work for your food in this world, boy. You’d be better off hanging out with us for a while. Here, have another beer.’

  ‘I’m not sure …’ Gabriel hesitated.

  ‘Ah, go on, Gabe,’ Rey sniggered. ‘Relax a little; you look like you have come far, or perhaps you just don’t know where you’re going … I think you’re due some good times, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose I could stay for a while, until it cools off …’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Rey called, triumphantly, and nudged the smoker with his foot. ‘Hey, Stan, move over; make room for our new friend.’

  Stan stabbed out his cigarette on the grass and shifted reluctantly to one side.

  ‘Come on, guys; we may just as well finish off all the drink – we’ll get paid again tonight,’ Charlie said, hoisting four bottles out of the bag.

  ‘What is it that you do?’ Gabriel asked and accepted another bottle. He sat down in the grass.

  ‘We are the prop gang for a travelling show,’ Charlie explained and inclined his head towards the distance. ‘We got a day off today …’

  There was another round of laughs at this.

  ‘That is,’ Charlie continued, ‘we took the day off. Thought we deserved it, as we’ve been slaving our guts out lately.’

  ‘So, you see, we need to fortify ourselves; the boss can be pretty mean, if he finds out.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right; the cheapest, grubbiest boss in the world,’ Stan muttered wryly, and lit another cigarette.

  ‘Depends what you’re prepared to do for him,’ Rey remarked, casually.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Like what?’ Stan seemed suddenly interested.

  ‘What?’ Charlie tutted in mock bafflement. ‘Are you saying that three shillings a day is not a high enough wage to keep Stan the Stabber safe on the deserted roads of the Old World?’

  ‘Shut up, Charlie. I’m warning you …’

  ‘Oooh,’ Charlie cooed like an old woman. ‘Now you’re making me scared. Perhaps you would rather go home to Oklahoma, where I’m sure you’d get a very warm greeting. I bet they’d all be lined up to welcome you back – sheriff and all.’

  Rey regarded Gabriel with an eyebrow lifted. He winked, but Gabriel looked away. Where had he seen Rey before?

  ‘I told you to fucking shut up!’ Stan shouted and threw an empty bottle at Charlie’s head. It missed by half an inch and fell on the grass with a dull thud before breaking with a chinking sound against a stone. The sound reminded Gabriel of something – a moment suspended in his memory – an instant of clarity and darkness. He tried to hold on to it, but it was gone, lost in a blue haze. He frowned and looked up at the others, who seemed to have fallen asleep on their backs in the grass, as if under a sudden spell. A deep green shard of glass caught a ray of sunshine and reflected it back into the sky, as if from under water.

  Gabriel took another swig from his bottle. And another. He was beginning to feel quite drunk. He was not used to alcohol, especially not on an empty stomach. He look
ed back towards the path, where the sunshine was dancing in the air. It looked like the path of a road in a fairy tale where you would expect the highwayman to appear, all dressed in green. He contemplated getting up and walking away, but his head was too heavy. The song of the wind in the treetops was suddenly deafening, as if waves were tumbling on to a shore nearby. How had he not noticed it before? It was as if the insistent noise had just been switched on in his brain. He boxed the side of his head lightly, as if to get rid something lodged inside his ear.

  He heard another noise from nearby and looked up to see Rey sitting with his back against the tree trunk again, laughing softly at him.

  ‘Dear, dear … Has the drink gone to your head?’ Rey whispered gently and tilted his head so that the copper locks stirred.

  Gabriel stared back at the golden youth, but his head felt too heavy for his neck. He tried to keep his eyes open, but the world seemed to be moving and he felt nauseous. For a lingering moment, he was sure the world had shifted; like a mirror, it had been set at a different angle, the two of them the only witnesses.

  *

  He woke into a warm, furry dusk. For an instant, he could not remember where he was. There was a dull pain behind his eyes and a metallic taste in his mouth. Then sound started to return through the thick night: at first, the sound of the undergrowth, and then another noise – an engine being revved. He closed his eyes again to the dark and breathed deeply. The air was heavy with scent: the moist smell of moss and herbs, the thick scent of honeysuckle and the earthy stink of animal shit. It was all coming back to him: the tunnel of time that signified his journey, the lorry drive, following the path into the woods and the drink in the glade … Abruptly, he sat up and looked around. Black limbs of trees seemed to reach up towards patches of violet-white sky, recently abandoned by the sun. The others were gone; there was no sign of them apart from a slight impression in the grass around him. He was suddenly afraid. On his hands and knees now, he searched in the gloom for his backpack. He found it only a few yards away, where he must have dropped it earlier in the day. ‘Okay, calm down,’ he said to himself and stood up. Brushing dry twigs and leaves from his clothes, he looked up to see a couple of lights through the trees; they seemed to stare at him like the eyes of some forest beast. Taking a step towards them, he realised they were the headlights of a car, about a hundred yards away. This made him laugh. The car was parked, but with the engine running.