The Knowledge Stone

by Jack McGinnigle

  Finally, with agonising slowness, Monday morning came. Julian sat tensely in his office. Surely that clock has stopped! He rose several times to check. Each time the creeping progress of the second hand revealed that the clock was operating normally. Finally, a soft knock. Coffee. She had come! Julian was frenetic: ‘Come in!’ His voice booming joyfully. ‘Yes, just put it there; come and sit here.’

  Oh, she was so beautiful, so elegant, so perfect, so fragrant, so feminine, so desirable! She, looking at him with a slightly uncertain smile as she sat down. He, grinning hugely, sitting as close to her as he dared. Perhaps their hands could touch momentarily as he offered her a biscuit? They did! Julian nearly fainted with the intense thrill of it.

  So the delight of the training sessions proceeded. In truth, Julian made very little attempt to train Sunia for her work. There were two reasons for this: firstly, he was far too busy showing her how clever and knowledgeable he was about the matters of the Firm. Secondly, his knowledge of the work of the General Office was quite sketchy; he left all that firmly in Margarite’s control.

  By the end of the week, he and Sunia sat closely together at the computer terminal, he showing her what to do and sometimes even guiding her soft hands on the keyboard. Each blessed occasion of touching her hand or arm was a golden moment for him.

  During the following week, while the “training” continued unabated, Julian discovered that Sunia sometimes ate her lunch in the nearby park.

  ‘Why, so do I,’ he exclaimed gleefully, ‘why don’t you allow me to buy you lunch from the sandwich shop and then we can eat together in the park.’ This seemed a good idea to Sunia; she was quite happy to strengthen her relationship with her senior manager. She thought this might be good for her prospects in the firm. Julian was delighted when she agreed and seemed to be pleased with his offer. This provided him with a new and wonderful opportunity; on the narrow park benches, it was possible that their thighs might touch! A further escalation of bliss for the infatuated Julian.

  Although Julian’s strong attraction to Sunia could so easily have been based on sexual lust, this was far from the truth. At first sight, Sunia had literally transfixed Julian with her beauty. Months later, she remained a truly magical creature to him. With closer contact, he had judged her as feminine perfection itself and their relationship had grown as she responded to his attention, smiling when he joked, showing (simulated) grave attention when he was serious. As a result, Julian’s attraction to Sunia had turned into a pure, deep and incandescent love. He worshipped her and would never have attempted to take advantage of her in any of the traditional male ways. Day and night, she was in his thoughts.

  It was during one of their lunchtime visits to the park that Sunia informed Julian it was her eighteenth birthday on the 15th day of the following month. Julian immediately decided that he should give her a birthday present on that day. He knew this would require serious thought. While he always marked Margarite’s birthday with a card and a present, casually selected, Julian knew it would not be appropriate to buy something expensive or lavish for Sunia – although he would dearly have liked to. If he gave her something expensive, it was likely to cause problems in the Department – laughter, derision or even jealousy among the staff. No, it would have to be something relatively inexpensive but unusual. Something that would express his love to her without giving the game away.

  For some time now, the evening meal at the flat had become a silent affair. When Julian and Margarite were first together, they used to chat quite happily on a whole range of trivia. As time passed, Julian became increasingly keen to expound his views on the vagaries of world politics, international finance or global sociology. If not that, there was always the theme of the World/Region/Country going to the dogs! While Margarite did not always agree with Julian, she admired the energy he put into expressing his views on such a diverse range of subjects. And, more importantly – she loved him. So, even in disagreement, she would sit quietly and regard him fondly, often employing the popular lover’s strategy of switching off meaningful hearing!

  It was no longer like that. The situation at the Department was worsening and Margarite was becoming more and more worried and frustrated that Julian would not listen to her warnings about Sunia. Suddenly, the silence was broken with shocking brutality: ‘I want you to leave.’ Julian’s voice was harsh and flat.

  ‘Leave? What do mean leave? Leave what?’ Margarite’s response was full of puzzlement.

  ‘Leave the flat. Stop living here.’ Margarite was dumbfounded.

  ‘Julian, what’s wrong? What have I done to upset you so much? Whatever it is, I’m sorry. You know I love you, Darling.’

  He shook his head. ‘I want you to go. Now.’

  NOW! She was transfixed in panic: ‘What do you mean? You don’t mean right now, do you?’

  ‘Yes. I mean right now.’ His voice hard and unyielding.

  ‘But I have nowhere to go – where would I go?’ Her response was shrill.

  ‘Oh, ring up one of your friends. I’m sure they will take you in until you can find a new place to live. Go on – do it now!’ His tone was offhand and callous.

  Margarite stumbled from the room, her mind whirling. He was deadly serious – she knew that. It was his flat. She would have to obey. She started to weep as she packed some essentials in a suitcase. Then she rang a friend and asked if she could stay the night.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ The friend could not help asking.

  ‘I’ll tell you when I come,’ Margarite sobbed. She returned to the main room of the flat. Julian was still sitting motionless at the table.

  ‘Can’t you even tell me what’s wrong?’ Margarite wailed. ‘You know I love you so much. Tell me what’s wrong, I will apologise and you could forgive me. Don’t punish me like this.’

  His face was stony. ‘No. You can collect your belongings when you find somewhere else to live. Goodbye.’ He turned away and completely ignored her as she stumbled from the flat.

  Fortunately, her friend’s house was not far from Julian’s flat. Margarite wept bitterly as she trudged along. The doorbell was rung. The door opened and Margarite fell limply into the arms of her friend.

  The situation at DC worsened further. Julian spoke to Margarite only when necessary and, although she looked at him with pleading eyes full of love, he ignored her approaches. His manner towards her was cold and unfeeling. On several occasions, she had tried to speak to him about their relationship but he refused to talk about it: ‘I’m far too busy to talk about out-of-office matters. Anyway, you and I have absolutely nothing to talk about.’ As he said this, he looked at her with hard and hostile eyes.

  Inevitably, this friction at management level had its effect on the staff. Where the ambiance in the General Office had always been one of efficiency and cooperative cheerfulness, now everyone was subdued and nervous, suspicious of the appearance of either of their managers in the room. Everyone, that is, except Sunia, who had been taken over by Julian as a sort of informal Personal Assistant – a PA who in fact did no work but often joined him in his office.

  Margarite, still technically in charge of the girl, had long ceased to allocate her any work; Sunia’s attempts at DC work were always hopelessly disorganised and riddled with mistakes. Margarite regretted that she had to spread Sunia’s workload among the other staff but there was nothing else she could do. Meanwhile, Julian remained enchanted by the beautiful Sunia and sought to be with her as much as possible. Making her his informal PA had been a masterstroke! Now he could be with her for hours each day and they could get to know each other even better.

  The days and weeks passed and Julian had certainly not forgotten about Sunia’s eighteenth birthday. As the date approached, he really had to get down to the task of finding the right present for here. Nothing too expensive; something unusual, preferably beautiful, (just like her
) and relatively inexpensive. He started searching in the town, peering earnestly in shop windows. Then, one day he noticed a rather scruffy Antiques and Collectables shop in one of the narrow side streets. Now there was an idea – maybe he would be able to find something unusual for Sunia in such a shop.

  Moments later, he had opened the flimsy creaking door and entered the shop. The door banged shut behind him noisily, propelled by a powerful closing spring. Julian had never visited this particular shop before and was surprised to find how dark and depressing it was inside. He was the only customer and he started wandering around rather self-consciously under the incurious gaze of an elderly man perched on a stool behind a small rickety counter.

  ‘What a load of old junk,’ Julian thought as his eyes ranged over a bewildering range of items, piled high on every side, ‘everything from tumbledown tables to tawdry trinkets!’ Julian smirked, pleased with these apt alliterations. He paused by a battered glass case and, through smeary glass, scanned the antique jewellery jumbled inside. There were one or two quite attractive pieces but he quickly concluded that a gift of jewellery might be too ostentatious for the occasion.

  Just as he was despairing and beginning to work his way towards the front of the shop, with the intention of darting gratefully into the fresh air, he noticed a shallow, splintered wooden box filled with a number of stones of various shapes and sizes, all pierced with holes, presumably so that they could be assembled on a cord or chain. Sitting on the top of the pile was a beautiful smooth piece of rose quartz, a roughly oval shaped disk about four or five centimetres long.

  Julian paused and picked up the quartz, examining each face of its smooth, cloudy surface by the light from a nearby dim bulb and then holding it up to the daylight of the shop window. Against the daylight, the quartz now glowed rose-red, with a characteristic, star-shaped diasterism projected on its surface. Certainly it was a very attractive item.

  ‘I think I might have found the perfect birthday gift for Sunia,’ he thought joyfully, ‘how clever of me to have thought of coming in here.’ He saw that there was a tattered ticket stuck to the side of the box. Scrawled words read “Unusual Stone Collection €20.”

  Julian approached the motionless man behind the counter:

  ‘How much is this?’ he held up the rose quartz stone. The man sighed and heaved himself from the stool to lumber across and look at the label on the box.

  ‘Eighteen euro.’ The voice gruff and laconic.

  Julian responded sharply: ‘I don’t want the whole box. I just want this particular stone.’

  ‘That’s right, eighteen euro for that one.’

  Julian felt his face flush: ‘Look,’ he said hotly, ‘the whole box is just twenty, isn’t it? So how can one stone be eighteen?’

  The man looked at him with pity. ‘Because it’s a collection, see? The collection is twenty but if you’re breaking up the collection, that one is eighteen.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Julian was raising his voice, ‘you’re trying to cheat me.’

  The man regained his seat on the stool: ‘Suit yourself,’ he said, ‘that’s the price. Do you want it or not?’

  ‘No I don’t,’ shouted Julian, ‘I’ll take the whole box for twenty!’ Julian would show this appalling man who was going to win this particular contest.

  ‘Just as you like,’ the man said, handing him the box, ‘give me twenty euro.’

  Seconds later, Julian was back in the street, distinctly bemused that he had just bought an “Unusual Stone Collection”. However his disquiet was soothed when he lifted the beautiful rose quartz stone from the box: ‘This is very beautiful, a perfect gift for my perfect love. I’ll get a little thin silver chain for it.’

  As he replaced the stone in the box, he could see that there were a few other semi-precious stones there, possibly agate, onyx or even amethyst. At the same time he could see that others were variegated pebbles of the type found on seashores.

  ‘Maybe some of the others will be nice, too. I’ll have a look at them later. You never know when they will come in useful.’ So saying, he entered the firm’s garage and placed the box of stones in the boot of the BMW.

  That evening, he had locked his car and was walking away when he remembered Sunia’s birthday gift. Returning to the car, he retrieved the box of stones and carried it to his flat, placing it on the kitchen table.

  ‘I’ll have something to eat first, then I’ll have a look at these,’ he told himself. Julian prepared himself a simple meal and drank some wine. Then, after clearing up, he removed the rose quartz from the box and tipped the rest of the stones out on the table.

  ‘Some of these are very nice,’ he said to himself as some semi-precious stones were revealed. Even the pebbles were quite nice, some having been machine-polished. Then his eye was attracted to a slightly rough yellow stone that sparkled in the light. Its shape was roughly cylindrical and there was a jagged hole pierced through it towards one end. He lifted it up to examine it and his finger and thumb slid naturally into the depressions where the hole had been made.

  The slight jolt he felt was the evidence that the power associated with the Stone had registered its “handshake” contact, while the momentary giddiness and loud rustling sound which followed marked the transfer of a mysterious energy of influence. For a moment, he imagined the stone had glowed brighter. Certainly, everything was altered.

  Sunia

  There is always a reason for the way people turn out – and Sunia was no exception.

  Here she was, approaching eighteen and, like everybody else, being judged in two fundamental ways. The first is by physical appearance and, here, it is clear that Sunia scored highly. Of course many people acknowledge beauty and transmit admiration and goodwill towards it; however, not all people react like this. Some examine the beauty they see before them and compare it to their own. Then, if they find themselves wanting (as they often do), they transmit dislike, rejection and malice.

  The second is by perceived intellectual ability, a judgement that is often based on tangible academic achievements. Here, Sunia achieved a low score. People acknowledge high intelligence and are impressed, even awed, by its presence – although their reactions may be contaminated by feelings of inferiority as they compare their own achievements.

  People know that beauty is “skin deep” but intelligence is far more complex. However, low intelligence, allegedly demonstrated by poor academic achievements, is much simpler to judge; universally, it is looked down upon, derided or even reviled.

  It was the first day of a new term. Arriving in the sunshine, the girls were hugely and noisily excited, enjoying making contact once more with their special friends after the long parting of the summer break. Their parents stood beside the laden refreshment table, sipping coffee and exchanging comfortable trivia with that special quality of comradeship which is a feature of such gatherings at “good” private schools. Across the neatly paved driveway, the car park area was filled with shiny, top-specification cars; Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Range Rover, Cadillac and the like.

  Suddenly a hush fell on the easy chatter as a gleaming, pure white Bentley Continental whispered into view, its open top revealing a sumptuous interior of figured walnut and finest cream leather. In the silence of arrested time, the assembled parents were struck by that unsettling blend of admiration and dismay.

  From this wonderful car stepped a new girl, a hesitant fourteen-year-old Sunia, immaculately turned out in the uniform of the school. Her future classmates examined her with hostile impassivity. Observing the transfixed onlookers, Sunia blenched and thought, ‘I hope at least one person will be kind to me.’

  This proved to be a vain hope. Although she was politely received by her classmates in the presence of a teacher, it was not long before the verbal attacks started. Sneering hurtful questions about her parents, her previous life, her
interests and achievements; insults about her appearance, speech, dress and other qualities. Then came the exclusions, total rejection by the group; any individual attempt to be compassionate to her brutally supressed.

  This was soon followed by the cyberattacks through mobile phone and social networking sites; a plethora of deeply distressing messages and misinformation transmitting hurt and hatred. Finally, the physical violence, with Sunia often emerging from changing areas or wash rooms, bruised, dirty and considerably dishevelled. If she was particularly unlucky, a mobile phone video of the attack and its embarrassing result would be posted on the Internet for the world to see – until the authorities acted to remove it as “unsuitable”.

  Happily, Sunia’s life had not always been like this. Fourteen years before, she had been warmly welcomed into her cosmopolitan family, a much loved baby daughter. Both her parents were people of considerable intellect and, with their teaching and encouragement, Sunia developed well in her early years and showed a lively intelligence. At the age of five, she attended her first school in Europe and established herself successfully, coping well with the initial lessons and becoming popular with her classroom peers.

  Unlike the majority of her classmates, within two years Sunia was no longer a pupil at that school – and no longer living in Europe either. She was now in Asia and had to cope with the trauma of starting at a new school, not as a pupil starting her education but as a new girl amongst the “old hands” who had been together since the beginning of their formal education.

  This is often a difficult transition to make because the new pupil is in danger of becoming an outcast. After some struggle and unhappiness, Sunia’s outgoing and pleasant personality overcame the adversity of the situation and all was well. Unfortunately for Sunia, this pattern of movement continued to be repeated every few years.