But what was it they had to continue?
Your education, of course.
Did he mean that there was still more of the underworld to explore?
Not for now. I have other things to show you first.
What things?
You’ll see. Rest now, then come to me later, when everyone else is asleep.
And with that he was gone from the orphan’s mind. For a moment she smiled up at the fading sky, as if to watch after him fondly. Then she slipped through the wire and made her way, unobserved, to her little hut. Throwing off her dirty clothes, she put on her bathrobe, went to the washroom and showered.
Then she got back to work.
She was exhausted, yes, but there was no question of her resting. She was too happy for one thing, but more importantly, she had missed an entire day of chores. Already it was time to help serve dinner. And her absence had been noticed. When she hurried into the kitchen, the cooks snapped grumpily at her and shook their ladles. She couldn’t understand what they said, but she didn’t need to. Where had she been all day?—that’s what they meant. What did she think she was up to?
It was the same in the wards. There were certain inmates with whom she usually spent a little time in the afternoons, playing simple games or merely listening to their mad ramblings, but today there had been no chance. In fact, she had to admit that it had been several days since she had really sat with any of them. Now those patients were sulky and withdrawn with her. And the nurses, too, gave her some hard and wondering glances. It was as if she had never been away for a day before.
Well, actually, she hadn’t. Never for a whole day. But the orphan found she didn’t care. In a way, their puzzled expressions were almost funny. If people only knew what they looked like sometimes, the way their lips and eyes moved. The truth was, nothing could spoil her good mood. It was more than just relief, she realised—it was anticipation. She was looking forward to later in the night, when she could go and be with the foreigner again. Not just mentally, but in person, in his room, by his side.
In the meantime she ducked her head and hid her smile, and once dinner was over and the kitchen clean, she was free to take her mop and venture off into the more remote parts of the hospital, away from everyone else.
Normally she was happiest this way, working quietly by herself into the night—but for once the evening dragged. It was very hot, and the familiar chores were strangely frustrating. As always, she strove to perform them well, but tonight her mop felt stiffer than usual, the grime on the tiles seemed more deeply ingrained, and the sting of the cleaning solution in her nostrils was more galling. What was the point of mopping anyway? The floors would only be dirty again tomorrow.
Her mind wanted to be elsewhere. It wasn’t even so much that she longed to be soaring again through the heights, or plunging into the fiery core of the planet, it was just that, after the visions she’d seen, the dreary rooms and hallways around her felt altogether too small. There wasn’t an inch of them she didn’t know and hadn’t cleaned countless times before. How had she never noticed it previously? That for day after day, year after year, she had restricted herself to such tiny confines?
Madness, really. Another kind. But then no one had been able to show her what lay beyond. Not the doctors or the nurses, anyway. They weren’t capable of it. It needed a special talent, which only the foreigner possessed. He was the real reason she couldn’t focus on her work tonight. She was too distracted, waiting until she could go to him. She didn’t think she’d ever experienced such an impatience before. Such a dissatisfaction with the present. Wanting time to move faster.
It didn’t, of course. It moved slower. But eventually it was long past lights-out and all the day staff had gone home. That only left the night nurse. Normally he would stay in the front wards all night, no bother to her at all. But the orphan decided she should check on him. It wouldn’t do if he came wandering.
On any other evening, she would have gone by the covered walkway to the front wards and then clumped noisily through the halls to find him. Most likely he would be in the office. But tonight she didn’t want the night nurse to see her; he might assign her some menial task out of sheer mischief. So instead, after exiting the back wards, she left the walkway and circled around to the side of the front building.
In doing so, she became aware that this was another new experience—creeping about in the dark, trying not to be seen. Usually, no one really saw her anyway. But this was different. For once it was her choice to be invisible. The thought made her smile. She felt conscious of everything; the darkness around her, the warm air, the murky stars, the smell of the grass and the jungle, the noises of insects.
The front wards were mostly blacked out, but light shone from the office, and the sounds of a radio drifted through the open window. The orphan edged carefully across a dusty flowerbed and peered over the window sill. The night nurse was there, on the far side of the room, sitting side-on to her, his feet on the desk, his shirt open to catch the breeze from the old electric fan. He appeared to be reading a magazine.
The orphan shook her head. He was so lazy! At best he might rouse himself to stroll through the back wards around dawn, to make sure that all was in order before the day staff returned. Useless. Why did the old doctor even put up with him? The previous night nurse had been a cheerful old man who not only kept a proper eye on the inmates, he had sometimes even helped the orphan with the cleaning. But when he had retired, this sneering, superior youth had taken his place.
She found herself studying his bare arms and chest. He had an ugly face, no doubt, but as much as she squirmed now to remember it, for a few weeks after his arrival she had actually considered him attractive. His body was slim and smooth, after all, and there was a certain languid grace about him. Indeed, she had briefly, alone in her bed at night, fingers between her legs, imagined him there with her.
But all too soon she’d realised that what she’d mistaken for languid grace was actually more a stubborn stupidity, and that there was nothing else to him. He was just a spoilt, selfish, half-grown boy. And how inferior that made him, compared to a man like the foreigner. Even helpless and passive as he was, the foreigner radiated such assurance, such maturity. His experiences had honed and strengthened him. He wasn’t lazy, or selfish. He was an adult. And his body was adult too.
The night nurse stirred, glanced around the room quickly, then turned the page of his magazine. The orphan noted that the paper seemed to have no writing on it. It was only colours and shapes. And yet the night nurse studied it intently. Then, after another glance around, he moved his hand down into his pants.
Oh! He was going to do that? The orphan couldn’t help it—she was too buoyant: she laughed. Right out loud.
The nurse surged from his chair, magazine flying, hands yanking his pants up, his face red as he stared about. The orphan couldn’t stop laughing, it was just too funny, she was nearly doubled over, stumbling backwards through the garden. But by then he’d spotted her and was at the window, yelling furiously. In fact, he was climbing through the window, his fists clenched like he meant to murder her.
She ran, still laughing. It didn’t even matter that he was chasing her. What could a boy like him do anyway? She was tougher than him. In fact, that was part of the fun, running in the darkness, darting under trees and around corners, his angry yells falling further behind. He would never catch her. She was outside herself, floating slightly above, so that the hospital was laid out below. She could weave about the buildings effortlessly. And she could see the night nurse circling blindly in her wake.
She paused in a cranny behind the laundry to catch her breath, and to try to still the gasps of laughter. From the other side completely of the back wards she heard a last frustrated shout from him and, by some fluke, for the first time in days she understood his words exactly. He was calling her nosy and retarded and stupid and a bitch and she better watch out next time—which only elicited a final smile from her.
/> Silly boy, playing with himself. Ha!
She watched from her mind’s vantage point as he gave up and plodded back towards the office. But then suddenly all the laughter was gone, and instead the foreigner was there inside her head, cool and controlled.
It’s time, he said.
At last! She hurried off towards the crematorium, wondering at the excitement in her. Was she…? Yes, she was; the chase, the laughing, even the idiot night nurse reaching into his pants—it had all put her in a mood, there was no denying it. She thought of the foreigner’s body again, lying there under the single sheet. But that was crazy. He couldn’t move, and anyway, something was surely wrong about even thinking—
You seem disturbed.
Mortified, she covered her thoughts as best she could.
Has someone upset you this evening?
No, no…
And thankfully, he did not press. She was already inside, and coming down the hallway to the crematorium. All was silent and dark. In the little dayroom, the television was switched off. Good. They would not be disturbed.
Except—
She paused, listening. There was a sound from one of the bedrooms. She was so eager to get to the foreigner that she almost chose to ignore it. But then it came again. A stifled sob, from the men’s bedroom. The orphan went to the door and looked in. A pale light came through the window, illuminating the two beds. In one, the archangel slept, stretched out like a fallen tree, stomach down, his book tucked under his chin. The other bed was empty. And in the corner, staring up at the window, was the duke, his mouth a cut of misery, his face glistening with tears.
The orphan stared. What was wrong with the old man? Was he in pain? She approached him, cautious despite her concern. She had not forgotten how enraged he’d been during their last encounter, the day after the eruption. Yet there didn’t seem to be any rage in him now. His head was thrown back abjectly and his shoulders shook as he cried.
The foreigner was in her head. What are you doing?
Couldn’t he see? The duke was distraught about something.
So? He’s mad.
Was that all he had to say? The old man needed help!
There’s nothing you can do for him.
But a flush of guilt had come over the orphan. In her preoccupation, she had been neglecting people like the duke. Why, she couldn’t remember the last time she had walked with him in the yard, and she knew how much he liked her company.
Ah. Well, you must be prepared for that. You’ll have less time for him now. Him, and all the other inmates.
But they were her friends. They needed her.
It’s hard, I know, but our own business is more urgent.
It was? But why?
You’ll understand eventually. Hurry now.
Her eagerness flared again—that voice, so close, so strong, wanting her—but she resisted. She was not going to leave the old man until she had comforted him. In fact, wasn’t there something the foreigner could do?
I’m no doctor. Or psychiatrist.
But he could enter people’s thoughts! If he would just look in the old man’s head, maybe he could see what the problem was.
There came a sigh. Very well.
The orphan felt his presence withdraw from her, and she waited. The duke fell silent, his eyes widening in the darkness. Then—
Bring him to my room.
He would help the old man?
If I can. The foreigner sounded oddly moved. And as it happens, his madness may be instructive to you and me.
In what way?
Just bring him.
She did as she was told. The duke was still silent and staring, but it was only a matter of pulling gently on his hand to lead him out of the bedroom, through the dayroom, and then down the short hall to the furnace room.
The foreigner lay motionless in his bed, his blank eyes wide open.
Good. Sit him in the chair.
She did so, and the old man sat obediently. He seemed dazed. She wasn’t sure he even knew where he was.
She turned to the foreigner. Well?
It’s curious, you know. The more I look into the minds in this hospital, the more diverting I find it. You, of course, are the miracle. But even this old man…He’s mad, no doubt, but what strange truths lie beneath his madness.
Now the duke’s eyes were moving about the room, as if he could hear voices, but couldn’t see where they came from.
Truths? What truths?
For one thing, did you know he really was a duke?
The orphan creased her brow. A duke?
Effectively. He was a very rich man. A great landowner. Or the son of one, anyway. It’s all there in his memory. His family used to own half this island. In fact, they lived in this very hospital, years ago, back when it was a private residence.
The orphan stared at the old man. So he really did own the hospital, just as he always claimed?
His family did, yes. I suppose hardly anyone else remembers it. Poor old fool. Who would credit it, to look at him now?
But the foreigner could see it, in the duke’s head?
Oh yes. It’s like a waking dream for him. When he walks around this place, he doesn’t see a rotting old hospital. He doesn’t see the dark hallways and the little cells. He sees big rooms and polished wood and fine furniture.
The orphan glanced about. The heavy walls of the furnace pressed close, yet even so, she caught a glimpse from the foreigner’s words of some other place. As if, fleetingly, all the tattered and tacked-on parts of the building were being stripped away, all the internal halls and wards, to leave a spacious and cool interior, lit by tall windows with white curtains flowing…
The old man was gazing at the walls too, smiling now.
The past is where his madness takes him. His youth. He was born and raised here, the oldest son of the family. They were local aristocracy, allied to the old colonial powers. They were exceedingly rich. They owned the entire upland plateau.
What—the plantations? The town? All of it?
There was no town then. Only a village for the family retainers. The view was very different from what it is today.
And this time the foreigner did not even need to speak the words, the vision swirled palpably before the orphan’s eyes. The walls of the furnace fell away, and she felt she was sitting in the shadows of a deep veranda, and beyond it was a green garden of grass and flowerbeds and fountains tinkling. And beyond that, where in reality there was now a wall of trees and scrub, everything was cleared and open.
Why, she could see right across the island! But it was nothing like the island she knew. The motley plantation blocks, the patches of scrub and wasteland, they were gone. Indeed there seemed to be hardly any scrub left at all, apart from pockets in the steeper folds of land. Otherwise the rolling uplands were entirely cultivated and ordered. There was no sign of the ramshackle town with all its tin roofs and red dust, there was only a neat little hamlet enfolded by green fields and drainage canals.
And all of it was…The orphan paused. For a moment it had felt like it was all hers. The sense of possession had flooded into her as warmly as sunlight. All this land, all this prosperity, all this beauty, it was owned by her.
The duke was laughing, spittle stringing in his mouth.
The view is deceptive. What you couldn’t see from here—what the duke himself never saw—was the big town on the coast.
All was not quite so idyllic there. It was crowded with refugees. The duke’s father had spent the previous decades driving all the small landholders off the plateau and down to the slums. He needed their land to grow his sugar cane. It was a common enough pattern in places like these, shifting the population, stripping the hills.
There was resistance, of course, and anger in the big town. But the duke’s father had the colonial authorities on side, and armed men to see off the aggrieved peasants. Indeed, the young duke himself was known to smash the heads of anyone who came trespassing. This was his land, nothing
was going to change that.
The duke had stopped laughing, uncertainty in his eyes.
But then the colonial powers departed, and there was chaos and revolution. About fifty years ago now, when the duke here was twenty-one—the same age as you—a mob swarmed up the hill and overran the house. The young man managed to hide, but his mother and father and sisters were dragged outside and beaten. Then they were locked in the distillery—it was a big building, where the vegetable garden now stands—and all the molasses and rum stored there was set alight, and them along with it.
The old man had hunkered down now, hands to his ears.
The duke heard their screams as they died, but stayed in his hiding place. And from that point on, he was never quite right again.
The orphan didn’t understand. That was when he went mad?
Oh, I wouldn’t say mad, not right away. Indeed, after the mob was gone, he was sane enough to fight for his inheritance. He went to the authorities—the new ones—and demanded justice in the courts. It went on for years. But in the end they threw him out and broke up his land and seized his house to use as a hospital. It was only in those later days, and only gradually—homeless, scorned—that he went insane. That’s when he started to attack people who were living on his old property. That’s when the authorities said enough, and locked him up—in his own house, no less.
And here he’s been ever since. He spent sixteen years in the locked ward before anyone thought to let him out, and after so long in there, raving and ranting and beating himself senseless against the walls, well…Now he spends his days convinced he still lives in the home of his childhood. And mostly the delusion is complete enough to keep him happy. Except, that is, when a volcano erupts next door.
But why? What was so terrible about the eruption?
So much quaking and thunder—no delusion could hide that. The upheaval frightened him out of his dream. But it was the ash that disturbed him most, raining down over his lovely home and garden. Ash everywhere, just as there was after the mob burnt his family alive. That’s the memory he is tortured by now.
Wonders of a Godless World Page 10
