by Lowe, L. Lee
The man’s voice is very faint, but the words are clear enough. Jesse can’t see the other’s face from this angle—and knows that the man can’t see his—but he shakes his head. No way. He isn’t going to take this man’s life.
‘Do it, Jesse,’ the man says. ‘Now. Crow time. No time—’
Jesse stares at the man’s head. The blond hair is dirty and ragged, and where the barbed wire cuts viciously into his scalp, matted with dried blood and pus. Sweat drips in front of Jesse’s eyes, and he cautiously loosens his grip to wipe his brow with a forearm. A feeling of dread is beginning to steal over him; inevitability. It’s the only thing he can do for this man. You put any animal out of its suffering if far enough gone. He learned that from his grandmother almost as soon as he could speak. But a man?
Jesse’s legs are cramped from holding his position overlong. He eases his left leg out from under and flexes it, then his right. Little by little he inches along the limb as far as he dares, until he hopes he’s close enough to do what the man is asking . . . what’s necessary. Maybe. He tries not to make any sudden movements. The branch sways and dips under his weight so that he feels very precarious. Slowly, hands unsteady, he reaches for his knife. What choice does he have?
Then it strikes him.
‘How do you know my name?’
No answer. Not a sound from the limp body.
A drop of sweat from Jesse’s forehead drops onto the crown of the man’s head. The man gives no sign of having noticed this strange form of intimacy. Jesse can’t make out if he’s still breathing. Has he spoken to Jesse at all? Or is this another elaborate trick, some Grandmaster’s slight-of-hand to outmanoeuvre him once again? Or his own mind conning him? How can he tell?
Jesse allows himself another downwards glance. In less than ten minutes he could be on the ground. If none of this were real, all he has to do is ignore the hanging figure; and if it were real—well, the man is dead, or as good as. No need to do anything, is there? Except worry about how to get back.
And face himself afterwards.
Jesse shuts his eyes. One face after another, each one his, each one different—not much different, perhaps not even noticeably different—but different enough to find brushing his teeth and combing his hair and meeting his own eyes in the mirror uncomfortable. And if he can’t hold his own look, how will he hold Sarah’s, or anyone else’s who matters to him?
With a small toss of his head to clear the sweaty hair from his eyes, Jesse begins to edge back towards the trunk. He’ll have to approach from another angle. That it’ll take longer can’t be helped. Jesse knows he can’t kill a man, even a dying man as an act of mercy, without looking into his face.
By the time Jesse has reached a new position, he’s worked out a plan. The quickest death would be a thrust into the base of the skull, just above the rise of the spinal column. Fast and sure, but difficult from the front, and all but impossible from here. It would have to be the heart. Gripping the knife in his right hand, Jesse pushes himself out a little further on the limb, not daring to move beyond the third set of opposing branches. If the wood cracked they would both die. The torso slumps just beyond him, the man’s face still partially obscured by leaves. Jesse wraps his legs tightly round the bough, transfers the knife carefully to his left hand, and pulls back the obstructing branch to get his first clear look at the man’s face, to offer him at least that mark of reverence while taking his life.
‘Forgive me,’ Jesse says as he raises his arm to strike. Only the shock of recognition, which paralyses him for a few seconds, keeps him from dropping the knife, or falling.
Jesse is looking into his own face.
The face is sunken, the skin sagging—worn thin like old cloth—but blackened rather than faded by the sun. There are deep fissures in the lips and at the corners of the mouth, and dried froth as well as blood streak the chin; at some point the tongue has been bitten till it bled. Greedy flies cluster at the corners of the eyes. And the nose has been broken from a blow, and it too has bled. It’s a death’s head with flesh and hair still intact, though just barely. Jesse would not have been surprised to find it hanging from some medieval pike, or outside a tribal shaman’s hut. But there is no mistaking the features. It is his face.
The man stirs and opens his eyes.
‘No time,’ he repeats, and his voice is thin and weak and distant, as insubstantial as early morning mist above the lake. It floats hesitantly towards Jesse, dissipating as it approaches. The end is not far off.
‘Who are you?’ Jesse asks, his voice sharp. However cruel it is to question someone in extremis, he’s unable to help himself.
The man—or youth, for all Jesse can tell—tenses, and his ravaged throat works as he tries to swallow, Adam’s apple nearly breaking through the skin. His legs, now dangling loose, kick a bit against the branches to which they’d been lashed, and even his penis, shrunk to a pre-adolescent bud, stirs. There is a last reserve of energy, or will, in him yet. He blinks once, and his eyes open into Jesse’s with all the empowerment and clarity that death bestows. Blue. They’re such a startling blue. Jesse shivers, and a voice—but whose?—comes to him across a vast distance . . . Jesse . . . The gaze becomes a tether: a tunnel: a truth into which Jesse is drawn inexorably, by the sole means a nature like his could be led.
. . . Jesse . . .
‘Use the knife.’
‘I can’t,’ Jesse whispers. ‘Not now.’
‘Now.’ The man shudders, then licks his lips with a swollen tongue. ‘Hurry.’ Beginning to gasp again. ‘Do it . . . accept . . . your . . . our . . .’
Jesse raises the knife but the enormity of what he’s about to do rolls over him in a great wave of revulsion. To kill in cold blood, while the man still lives and speaks. A man with his own face. No. He can’t do it. He relaxes his hold on the knife, then tightens it again as the man’s breathing becomes rougher, his eyes more intense. They seize Jesse in the iron grip of a man drowning.
now
no
release us
can’t
what you alone know is the most powerful knowledge of all
Jesse’s hand trembles as the thoughts chase round and round, and round again. Do it. Do it. The man’s eyes blaze with purpose. All the life left to him is concentrated in this one last effort. Death is very near. His pupils dilate. Jesse sees his own reflection, but only briefly, for the lens opens, the tunnel stretches before him, and he is spiralling towards the light.
‘No!’ Jesse sobs even as the blade flashes and pierces the man’s chest.
‘Yes!’ The exultant cry shakes the ash from root to crown.
Jesse falls from the tree.
Chapter 30
And wakes to a world in flames.
Jesse hisses and narrows his eyes to slits, and the fire shrinks to a blowtorch sun, just rising over the horizon. His head is pounding, his spit tastes coppery. Shutting his eyes again, he travels swiftly through his body. Aside from a certain ache in his right shoulder, which has probably taken the brunt of his fall, he can find no real damage. He licks some caked blood from his lips. The sand is dry, fine, and surprisingly cool beneath his cheek. He needs to pee and, worse, he needs a drink. Cautiously he lifts his head for a better look.
The golden light of a new day before the clock takes hold. The sun drapes a gently undulating ribbon, rose and orange and bronze, across the glossy swell of water stretching endlessly before him. A thin grey line, smudged like charcoal, shows him where sailing ships once dropped off the rim of the world. Jesse realises that the pounding he heard is not in his head at all, but waves breaking against a beach. It’s loud, much louder than imagined. He can smell the salt on the freshening breeze which nuzzles his face. Seabirds swoop and screech and dive the entire length of the shoreline, fishing for breakfast, and a few stand on their stalky cartoon legs in the shallows and eye him with undisguised disdain, or just curiosity. He eyes them back. Rubbery tangles of what first seemed to be a mess of plastic
dumped by some tanker or container ship glisten green and dark red and grey and inky blueblack: seaweed. Bleached driftwood lies scattered like clean-picked bones among shells so various and plentiful that Jesse can only draw one conclusion: no human foot has ever stomped or oystered here. Untouched, he thinks with pleasure—new. So this is the sea.
About ten metres behind him a solitary ash tree towers over the dunes—his ash, he supposes. He has a suspicion that ash trees don’t normally thrive at the coast. There is no figure hanging in the tree nor lying anywhere in sight, only a jagged dead bough not far from the trunk.
And a sphinx crouching atop a slope covered in thick tufts of grass and profuse yellow-flowering, spiky shrubs.
The sphinx stares at him without moving, without blinking. She’s waiting for him. There is no doubt whatsoever in his mind about this; he knows it instinctively, in that same part of his being which gives him fire. He rises and stretches, testing his shoulder, which twinges in response but will do. Then treading cautiously among the shells, he walks to the water’s edge to relieve himself. He marvels at how good it feels to stand with his bare feet in the icy water—it’s shockingly cold—and pee. He’s a bit surprised that the sea isn’t warmer, for the air is mild and summery despite the teasing gusts of wind. It’ll be hotter, certainly, when the sun rises high overhead. At last the sea: he’s tempted to swim, but zips his jeans instead and turns to survey the dunes. He’s desperately thirsty. Finding water takes precedence over any other actions.
There are a number of tidepools and even a stretch of saltmarsh fringed by tall reeds but nothing which tokens a freshwater source. He studies the sphinx, who seems prepared to wait indefinitely. She must drink; perhaps she knows of a stream or pond nearby. He digs in his jeans to see what he has about him: the top, a crumpled cigarette packet and his lighter, keys, a folded note, a condom in its foil packet (he grins a little, remembering the boy scout motto: even in Paradise he’d be prepared). Not much to facilitate survival, though he’s very pleased by the presence of the top and the cigarettes; the lighter too, since he can’t take alternative means of starting a fire for granted. But where is his knife? Hunger is already beginning to pluck at his belly. Once he finds water, he’ll need to eat. He has no idea how long he’ll have to spend here. Or even if time flows in the same way with which he’s familiar.
Jesse has been shying from the events which have brought him to this place. If it even were a place, he reminds himself wryly. But now the thought of his knife releases attendant memories: the park, Nubi, the hanging man, the sacrifice. Sacrifice—a harsh word, yes, some would say archaic. But even in this age of superstars and gigabytes, there is still sacrifice. Only who has been victim, who priest?
And then he thinks of Sarah. He smiles, and for a moment it’s as if he’s drinking at a swift silver-sprung mountain stream, fed by glacial waters. He drinks and drinks again: a wild sweet cold that eases his thirst but rises with a sharp stabbing ache into his head; and soon is angry at himself for the wetness on his cheeks. There’s no room for self-pity, not if he wants to see her again.
He approaches the foot of the ash and circles it slowly to reassure himself that no body lies concealed behind the massive trunk or a sheltering root. He needn’t have worried. All he discovers are his trainers, socks stuffed inside, which he pounces on gladly. They’re proof that this indeed is his tree and that a crossing has been effected, though what kind (and where to) he can only guess: the tree is an axis, or perhaps a focus not unlike his little top. Which, come to think of it, spins on its own axis—and is also carved from ash.
He sits down on a projecting hump of root and puts on his socks and shoes. There’s another, perfectly sound reason to appreciate the footgear. His feet are already scraped by the rough bark of the tree. Who knows what other terrain he’ll have to cross?
Behind the root, half hidden by a large stone and a clump of bright purple coneflowers, he spies a length of severed rope. Further diligent combing of the area turns up more rope; and then the twist of barbed wire, almost buried like a treasure, a royal circlet in the sand. Finally, he sees another glint of metal and with a cry of delight falls upon his knife like the old friend that it is. Naturally it will come in handy. But it means far more to him than a simple tool, and he examines it keenly—there’s the nick like a teardrop in the bone handle, and there, his grandfather’s initials, worn almost to illegibility. As he tucks the knife into his belt he can hear again his grandmother’s voice: use it well, Jesse. This time he answers aloud, his words as much a bridge to the past as a pledge: ‘I will, Gran, I will.’ He pictures her nod of satisfaction, the quick gleam of pride she always took such pains to disguise.
Now for water. Jesse sets off towards the sphinx, who is not far distant. The going is hard, for there’s no path and he has to clamber uphill through the sand dunes, where the ground under him shifts and slides away unexpectedly, and then up a steeper bank, whose exposed slope is cut away in large raw bites, as if a prehistoric earthmover had feasted here, and which is slowly eroding under the force of the winds blowing off the sea. Once or twice he loses his balance and scratches and cuts the palms of his hands on the thorny bushes he grabs to keep from falling, or on the grasses whose leaves prove surprisingly sharp, like paper. When he finally reaches the crest of the hill, he looks back. Already out of breath, he gasps, feels his throat and lungs expand with sudden dizzying speed, in order to inhale the poetry of it all, the dazzle and bewilderment and sheer glory. The curve of the coastline lies spread like a nude before him. No photograph, no film could do justice to the beauty and power of the canvas; no words to the exhilaration he feels at seeing it for the first time. But like all things human—and whatever else he might become, he is and will always be a man—his ecstasy is short-lived, or carries the seed of its own destruction—his imperfection—since he is saddened too, that he’s seeing this in solitude, without anyone to share the moment, hideously alone, without Sarah.
For the sphinx, despite her human features, does not derive from the same genetic pool. Strangely, he’s not afraid of her, but he feels more solitary in her presence than if he were utterly alone. Which in essence he is.
It’s beautiful here, but it is not his reality.
Jesse addresses the sphinx. ‘I’m thirsty,’ he says. ‘I need freshwater. Do you know where to find some?’
The sphinx regards him with what on a human face would have been a smile, albeit ironic, but says nothing.
‘Do you understand me? Can you speak?’
‘You hung from the tree. You sacrificed yourself.’ Her voice is lilting, musical. ‘The water is there, wherever you are. You only need access it.’
Jesse waves dismissively with a hand. ‘See for yourself. There’s no freshwater here.’
‘You must choose to own it,’ she says.
Jesse looks first at the sphinx, whose face has reverted to inscrutability, then down at his feet. The sandy ground seems to have nothing to reveal. Water, he thinks, clear fresh delicious water. Spring water. Mountain water running with salmon. Cold. Sweet. Plunging into a shallow basin before flowing onwards towards the sea. A light breeze ruffles his hair. In the distance, the sound of the surf. As he kneels, the sun dusts the nape of his neck with pollen’s velvety warmth, and the pool reflects a wavering image of his face. He cups his hands, dips them below the surface, and lifts them quickly to his mouth. The first draught tastes wonderful, and he pauses to savour its progress, not quite believing that the water will actually quench his thirst. He can feel it drop into his stomach and unfurl its crystal-beaded petals. Then he scoops mouthful after greedy mouthful, unable to stop before his belly is bloated. He groans in pleasure. It’s just like skateboarding, he marvels. Easy when you know how.
Jesse removes his T-shirt and splashes his face, his neck, and his chest. The water runs in rivulets off his skin, which itches from dried sweat and something else, something very like the sensations a snake might experience while shedding its old skin:
an abrasive rejection of the old and dead and useless, the hypersensitivity of the new and as yet untested. He briefly yearns for a bar of soap but then realises no ecological irritant belongs in this world. Without waiting for his skin to dry he pulls his shirt back over his head. Finally he rises and again faces the sphinx.
‘Where are we?’ he asks. ‘What is this place?’
She blinks slowly and gives no answer.
‘What do you want with me? From me?’
Again no answer.
‘Then at least tell me how to get back,’ he says, somewhat impatiently.
‘To close the unknot, first bury your dead.’
The words chill him as the cold spring water has not. Is the sphinx toying with him like the cat she resembles? He shivers and rubs his hands vigorously along his arms, as much to feel any human touch, even his own, as to smooth away the gooseflesh. It occurs to him that he may never learn her purpose and would probably not understand it if he did. She is simply too different a being. Too alien. A further intimation that there are realities beyond the reach of human imagination.
And then he wonders just how human he still is.
Jesse and the sphinx continue to stare at each other for a long while. In the end, she yields, and Jesse feels triumphant, as though he has forced an irrational number to behave rationally—or a cold and implacable universe to beat with a human heart.
‘Here.’ She moves aside to reveal a body lying behind her on the ground. When Jesse steps forward and bends to examine it, he is confronted, not with the man who hung from the tree, but with a far more unnerving sight: the father of his earliest memories, stretched out as if in sleep but lifeless as an effigy. Tentatively Jesse reaches out a hand.
‘Mind,’ warns the sphinx. ‘Touch him only if you wish him to wake.’
Jesse jerks back. ‘But he’s not breathing.’
‘That too is uncertain.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The web of dark threads is superposed and entangled in time.’
