Darkness

by David Fletcher

  ‘Dan,’ he started in a mocking tone, ‘we cannot let anyone know you are here. Because for the last two days, our own satellite phones have refused to work. And they’re our only means of communication…’

  ‘Oh,’ interjected Dan.

  ‘We cannot get you out of here either. This place is accessible only by helicopter. And we have to call it in. It doesn’t come here unless we ask it to come.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So you see, we already have a little problem – and now we have you, an endol…’

  ‘…entomologist.’

  ‘An entomologist with malaria. You might begin to understand our…’

  ‘…consternation,’ finished Dan.

  ‘I don’t know what that word means, but I know we’re fucking pissed off. And no less so since you turned up…’

  ‘Where is “here”?’ chanced Dan.

  ‘It’s a lodge. Or it was a lodge. Built by some French guys back in the nineties – and then immediately abandoned. I mean, who the fuck would want to come here? They pushed a dirt track through when they were building the place. But that’s long ago healed up, and the only way to get here – or to get out of here – is with a chopper. Stupid fucking idea all round.’

  ‘But why are you here?’

  Ghassan looked at Dan as though he wanted to punch him. But then he responded to Dan’s question with an almost credible answer.

  ‘Emeralds. Gabon is the new Madagascar. And we Lebanese just love our emeralds.’

  Dan was impressed. He had seen an emerald mining area in Madagascar for himself – and how many of the traders who were screwing the poor sods doing the actual mining were… Lebanese. It was a really plausible reason for their being in this abandoned outpost, although he suspected that being able to find emeralds in Gabon was about as likely as being able to find Elvis Presley here. Dan revealed none of these thoughts. Instead, he acknowledged Ghassan’s “straightforward disclosure”.

  ‘Well, that’s quite fascinating. I had no idea.’

  ‘No. I’m sure you didn’t,’ confirmed Ghassan. ‘But what we’re doing here isn’t really the issue, my friend, as I’m sure you’ll agree. It’s how we resolve our little communication problem and how we get your malaria sorted out. Preferably by getting you back to civilisation before the Gabonese army arrives.’

  ‘Well, yes…’

  ‘And to start with, I think you should clean yourself up – as soon as Shafeek’s sorted out the fucking water. And, erhh… Fadi’s got your clothes here, and some other stuff…’

  Fadi approached Dan, grinning madly, and opened his plastic bag to reveal Dan’s shoes, socks and pants, together with some toiletries and a towel.

  ‘The water will be here soon,’ he announced. ‘I’ll go and check with Shafeek.’

  ‘And Shafeek will come and collect you about six,’ added Ghassan. ‘You will come and eat with us.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ effused Dan.

  ‘We are Lebanese. We are hospitable.’

  ‘Thank you. I will look forward to it.’

  ‘Good,’ pronounced Ghassan. ‘And I’m sure you will forgive us for having to lock you in again…’

  ‘Ah, I was wondering about that.’

  ‘Emeralds, my friend. One can never be too careful. I’m sure you are a very fine fellow. But we have no references, you see. I mean, you might not even be an endo…’

  ‘…entomologist,’ obliged Dan.

  ‘Yes, you might not even be an… entomologist. You could be here to steal our emeralds – or to do something even worse…’ At this point Ghassan grinned a loathsome grin, and then he added a rider. ‘Mind… what could be worse than stealing our emeralds?’

  Ghassan smirked and Fadi began to chuckle. At the same time, a smiling Dan provided Ghassan with an answer to his question.

  ‘Nothing I can think of,’ he said. ‘Always assuming there aren’t any women here to steal…’

  Ghassan stopped smirking. He was clearly processing that remark. And then he started to shake his head, and the smirk had returned.

  ‘Butterflies,’ he said. ‘Fucking butterflies!’

  And with that he was moving to the grille and was soon on the other side of it with Fadi. Then, when the padlock had been secured, Dan found himself on his own once again, and he immediately collapsed on the bed. He felt weaker than ever and bone-weary, but at the same time immensely smug. He had been convincing. He knew it. Or at least convincing enough to put doubt into his captors’ minds. And at the moment, that was all he needed – other than a supply of water to his cabin.

  This arrived a mere ten minutes later and was announced by the sunken bath beginning to fill up on its own. Dan lost no time in making use of it – and the toothpaste and toothbrush that Fadi had brought him. He didn’t shave, as he’d not been brought anything to shave with. And when he’d bathed, he didn’t thereafter keep himself entirely clean. Instead, he opened the vein in his arm that had been used for the drip, and rubbed his arm with his right hand to coat it in blood. This he smeared onto his left hand as well – so that he’d be fully prepared for dinner when his solicitous hosts arrived to collect him…

  thirty-four

  It was Shafeek, aka Jack, who came to collect him, and his arrival was perfectly timed. Dan had just concluded a little exercise in enforced contemplation. He had reminded himself that he was in a situation that was riddled with all sorts of perils and pitfalls, and that it might help him to avoid them if he took some time out just to think about how he was and how he felt. This wasn’t too difficult. To start with he felt physically bad, but sustainably physically bad. He was a much-wounded beast who was now in constant pain and enfeebled to the point where everything he did was an effort and only served to debilitate him further. But he could still manage – just about – and mentally he was more alert than ever. His chronic sadness had already been hugely diminished by the exertions of the last few days and by the knowledge that he was at last pursuing something that had been planned for many months and that now constituted his sole purpose in life. However, he was now so close to realising what he’d set out to do that his longstanding melancholia had been displaced entirely – or maybe fashioned into an invincible resolve. Because that is how he felt: energised and eager to do battle – and to win that battle. And if that involved pushing his ailing body beyond its limits once again, then so be it. In any event, he thought, eating a meal with the enemy and maintaining a façade for however long it took was hardly going to be as demanding as pulling himself up a stream for three days. Just as long as he didn’t have a seizure or fall into unconsciousness, he would be fine. And he might even enjoy it…

  It was still just about light as he and a silent Shafeek walked from his cabin to the venue for their meal. This was a ramshackle construction beyond five more box-like cabins, all identical to his own. And joined to this much bigger building by a short covered walkway was a large open-sided structure with a tin roof. That, decided Dan, must have been the lodge’s dining room, and the ramshackle construction must have been the lodge’s HQ, the place that would have housed the lodge’s kitchen, its offices, its stores and maybe some sort of accommodation for its staff. Whether it had ever been used for its designed purpose, Dan did not know. But he reckoned that it was now in use as a home-from-home for three Lebanese gentlemen, none of whom was particularly interested in home improvements or even home maintenance. It really did look a dump.

  Inside, it was just as bad. Or at least, the room into which Dan had been led was just as bad. He had managed the walk from his cabin, with the effort leading to only a small dip in his resolve, and he was now taking in the ambience of this room. It might best be described as irretrievably messy and, despite its generous proportions, remarkably gloomy. There was only one small window in one wall, and because the glass in this window had probably never been cleaned since the w
indow had been installed, the room was lit from within – by just two filthy fluorescent tubes. One was directly above a table in the middle of the room and one was hanging on the wall above a disgusting-looking stove. Dan reckoned that the only benefit of this subdued lighting arrangement was the fact that it helped to obscure so much of the rubbish that littered the room and that would have been better housed in a dustbin. There was everything and anything all over the place: used food cans, discarded boots, a pile of blackened banana skins, crumpled magazines – and so much else. Dan was not impressed, and he suspected that had he been allowed to inspect the other rooms in this building, he would have been equally unimpressed.

  That, of course, was not going to happen. Instead, Shafeek – presumably having decided that Dan was too weak to run off – told him to wait while he fetched Ghassan. He must have been in another part of the building with Fadi. Dan would therefore soon be treated to the company of all three of his hosts for the evening – but not before having been left on his own. It was more than he could have hoped for, even if he was denied his hosts’ company for only seconds. But he would have to move quickly…

  First he went to the table, where there was an untidy pile of cutlery (clearly destined to be used for the forthcoming meal), and he picked up the whole lot, making quite sure that he handled every single item before placing them back on the table. Then he immediately moved to the stove, where what looked like some sort of beef stew was bubbling away in a pot – and he spat in the pot. With a stew-stained wooden spoon that had been lying next to the pot, he then gave the stew a good stir before shuffling back to the centre of the room, there to stand next to the table in readiness to greet his hosts. He felt very pleased with what he had done, and especially pleased at just how much saliva he had been able to add to the evening’s repast. Then Ghassan walked into the room, followed by Shafeek and Fadi, and the evening’s dining experience got underway.

  It started with a question from Ghassan. It was clearly designed to solicit an answer and not to constitute any sort of greeting or to convey any feeling of concern.

  ‘How is the malaria?’ he asked. ‘Any better?’

  Dan responded with one word.

  ‘No.’

  Ghassan grunted. He didn’t seem at all interested in Dan’s answer to his question. And then he snapped his fingers at Fadi and used just one word himself. This was ‘drinks’.

  Fadi made his way to a dirty, wheezing fridge that had been hiding in the shadows and opened its door. Dan could see that all it held were cans of beer. Four were extracted and Fadi then proceeded to open all four. This prompted Ghassan to employ a few further words. They were addressed to his guest.

  ‘Would you prefer some whisky?’ he asked. ‘We do have some Johnnie Walker.’

  Dan was slightly taken aback. Weren’t beers and whisky both alcoholic? Nevertheless, he managed a response.

  ‘Beer’s fine, thanks. But…’

  ‘Medicinal,’ interrupted Ghassan. ‘Stops us getting fucking malaria.’

  Dan nodded. Then he tried another question. This one he got to finish.

  ‘What about the water here?’

  ‘What about the water here?’ responded Ghassan.

  ‘Well, can you drink it?’

  ‘Yeah. If you want to pick up parasites or dysentery. But if you’ve got any sense you’ll just use it to wash in.’

  ‘Where do you get it from?’

  Ghassan frowned.

  ‘Shit, you like asking fucking questions, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m a scientist. I’m just interested.’

  Ghassan snorted.

  ‘It’s a borehole. We pump it up. And before you ask, we use solar – which, unlike our communications shit, is still fucking working…’

  ‘No luck so far then?’ sympathised Dan.

  ‘What do you think?’ snarled Ghassan.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yeah. Ah. And whether losing the satellite and you turning up unannounced is just a coincidence we have yet to work out…’

  Dan tried to look just moderately amused.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘You can’t think…’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, my friend. But let’s just forget our little problems for now and get on with our… Lebanese hospitality. Starting with some beers…’

  This was the signal to sit at the table, where Fadi had now plonked the four cans of beer. And as Dan, Ghassan and Fadi sat down, Shafeek collected one of the cans and then took himself to the stove to cook up some rice and give a further stir to the stew.

  Ghassan didn’t appear to be in an especially talkative mood and Fadi seemed completely detached. So Dan decided to initiate a conversation, and did this by fleshing out the details of his “butterfly expedition”. He found it ridiculously easy to make it sound convincing simply by recounting what had happened to him on the way from Ngaga – with the addition of some allusions to butterflies, but of course without any reference to the assistance he’d received from David. Ghassan seemed barely interested, but it did prevent him from returning to the possible connection between Dan and the loss of that satellite connection.

  When the food finally arrived, the conversation then turned to Lebanese cooking. Shafeek led the way with an explanation of how the only worthwhile beef stew was a Lebanese beef stew, and that without the addition of the correct amounts of cumin, coriander and cardamom, a beef stew couldn’t end up as even a distant relative of a Lebanese beef stew. Ghassan then joined in by discussing a whole list of Lebanese dishes, and how these were far superior to those from any other country – and infinitely superior to any of the stuff that passed for food in England – before he then went on to recount a whole list of memorable meals he had enjoyed – in Lebanon.

  Dan found his polished tedium very pleasing. It confirmed his view that most monsters were inadequate in some way and certainly never intellectually gifted. They were more often boring narcissists who could do little more than talk about themselves or what they themselves liked. They were limited in a way that more normal members of Homo sapiens rarely were. Furthermore, they were never comfortable with being challenged. Which is why, when the stew had been consumed by all four of the diners, Ghassan’s reaction to Dan’s response to his first question was so extreme and – to Dan – so comical.

  What he’d asked Dan was how much he had enjoyed the stew (which had clearly not fallen below Lebanese expectations even with the addition of saliva). Dan, in responding to this, had taken account of the fact that he had very likely already achieved his deadly goal, and also the fact that the pleasure he might gain by provoking his nemesis into anger could be huge. And what had he to lose – other than a life that was already lost? Which is why his answer was not what Ghassan might have expected.

  ‘Well, the truth of the matter,’ he said, ‘is that it was OK, but I really didn’t have much of an appetite, and I’ve never had any sort of appetite for halal meat. I had to pretend that it was humanely prepared meat just to get the stuff down my throat.’

  Fadi’s mouth dropped open, but Dan didn’t notice this. All his attention was on Ghassan – on Ghassan’s face. It was changing colour. It was becoming olive/red, and above the acute olive/red of his cheeks there were already two huge protruding eyes. For just a second, they put Dan in mind of the scene in Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s eyes are just about to pop out when his Douglas Quaid character is cast out onto the atmosphere-free surface of Mars. But it was just a second. Because in the very next second Ghassan, it appeared, had found his voice.

  ‘What?! What the fuck! You filthy bastard. I should kill you now. I should fucking squeeze the life out of you! You bastard. You filthy fucking bastard.’

  Dan remained calm in the face of this onslaught. After all, it wasn’t unexpected, and it hadn’t yet involved physical violence. That could still happen, he thought, but to
reduce its likelihood he now embarked on a defence of his original statement. He hoped it might possibly result in just a heated exchange and further intemperate insults, and not in the use of a knife or some other sharp instrument.

  ‘Sorry. But you asked. And as an entomologist and therefore a zoologist, I cannot condone the needless suffering of animals…’

  ‘The needless suffering?!’ exploded Ghassan.

  ‘Yes, like when people convince themselves that animals need to suffer in the name of some archaic religion…’

  Ghassan swept his plate off the table. It landed on an upturned crate near the stove and broke into a hundred pieces. He was clearly furious, and Dan was delighted.

  Ghassan then seemed to gather himself, just enough to be able to put together his next few words.

  ‘You’re a fucking bastard atheist,’ he bellowed.

  ‘Too bloody right,’ confirmed Dan. ‘I think all religions are a scourge. Superstitions harnessed by the powerful and the corrupt that should have been junked years ago. They’re a menace. All of them. And you wouldn’t get me near any one of them. Not even for all the butterflies in Gabon.’

  At this point Shafeek made a contribution – while Ghassan was clearly still trying to come to terms with what he was hearing.

  ‘You insult Islam,’ he shouted.

  ‘Well, pardon me,’ responded Dan, ‘but I thought I was the focus of the insults. Or isn’t being called a fucking bastard atheist an insult these days? And believe me, I’m not picking on any one religion. I think they’re all bloody bad, but just to varying degrees. I mean, they’re responsible for virtually every conflict in the world these days. They act as a cover for some pretty questionable cultural practices. They seem to be dedicated to the subjugation of women. And they breed intolerance, bigotry, exploitation, narrow-mindedness, and an increasing degree of fanaticism. Or is it just that I’m inhabiting another world, and that in your world religions are all a source of joy, harmony and peace?’

  Shafeek didn’t answer Dan’s last question. Instead, Ghassan returned to the fray.