I stared at him in astonishment, still sweating profusely. I figured that the heat, or the thirst, must have released the last tethers of his mind. I climbed down off the berlinga and tied myself to his rope and ordered him to lead me to this mirage. I gave instructions that we were to be followed by another four, equipped with binoculars and loaded pistols.
We carefully climbed up our side of the dune and reached the top. We raised our heads over the ridge and halfway down the other side there was a circular flat surface like a plateau. That seemed to be the exact spot where we were supposed to offload the salt. Unbelievably, our eyes attested to the fact that there was a thick, white layer of fresh snow covering the plateau. I looked up at the relentless sun, which was baking us to above fifty degrees, and couldn’t imagine how that could co-exist with the snow.
I chose two men to go down with me and check the frozen surface. We adjusted our ropes accordingly and started down the slope. The guard next to me sped ahead, desperate to put some ice in his mouth and was about to take his first step on the ice when I warned him to tread very carefully since we didn’t know whether it was firm enough to support him. He extended a tentative leg and gently placed his boot on the white surface. We all heard the crunch that fresh snow makes when compressed, so he brought his other foot forward and declared that the surface was firm. Driven by thirst, he bent over, scooped up a handful and put it to his mouth. His eyes bulged as he spat it out.
“It’s salt. White salt.”
White salt – we’d forgotten that salt was white. If violet salt was exposed long enough to the atmosphere, it turned into white, common salt, unless it had been treated. Obviously the plateau had somehow trapped the fumes from nearby craters and the salt had precipitated and formed the thick layer. The guards were massively disappointed but, I must admit, I was relieved that I hadn’t come across yet another thing that defied logic. I broke off a piece and crumbled it in my hand. Some things that seem totally incomprehensible from a distance can become obvious from up close, as long as you have the courage to approach them. I felt that this thought could characterise most of my experiences of the past few days, but my mind was too tired to think straight. I ordered the unloading to begin.
We fixed the pulleys to the crest of the dune and lowered the bags carefully. We stacked them up in medium-sized piles so that they wouldn’t cause the ground to give way. The directives ordained that the bags should be placed in a certain shape – a “B” shape. Perhaps they’d approach from the air and needed to see the shape from a distance – not that it was possible for aeroplanes to fly in this magnetic cloud, but what else could I imagine? I drew out the shape on the ground and we placed the bags as directed.
After some time, we’d finished. The guards sat on the bags and their eyes asked the question: Now what? Do we just wait around? I’d no idea what we should do or what to wait for, or even whether we should be waiting at all. On the other hand, how could we just up and leave the salt to its fate? I climbed to the top of the sand dune and scanned the desert with the glasses but could see no sign of any kind of life approaching. I came down in a quandary. A quarter of an hour passed. I paced around, checked the horizon with the glasses, not a soul. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the company of sunburned, bedraggled guards, plastered with sand, thirsty, looking at me with mounting desperation. I read the instructions again. Nowhere did they mention that I was to guard the bags until the next lot showed up, I was only to bring and dump them here. Okay, I’d done that. There in the middle of nowhere I’d stacked them in a “B” shape. If there was anything else, it should have been written in the directives. I tore up the papers and called out for us to start back.
The announcement was met with exclamations of relief. Finally logic had prevailed. The guards’ backs were broken and their hands injured by the planks, but everyone felt that it’d be downhill on the way back, partly because we knew where we were going, why we were going there and why it was imperative that we get there. The berlingas were empty and light, they moved easily and could carry anyone who passed out. The sun grew softer as the afternoon wore on and our hopes were raised. We’d begun to believe that we’d make it back to the Colony alive. Throughout the whole way back, I didn’t think once about the Suez Mamelukes, who were only conspicuous by their absence. It wasn’t the fact that they hadn’t appeared that was remarkable, but the fact that I hadn’t thought of them at all.
Several men burst into tears when the scout first returned at a run, shouting at the top of his lungs that he’d seen the Colony. The exhausted guards could no longer keep pace with the cyclists pedalling their lighter vehicles and so the berlingas kept getting bogged down in the sand. Spokes snapped and tyres melted; with hope had come a release of tension that probably made that last kilometre to safety the most difficult. Dehydrated, bloody, half-dead, but finally certain to live, what we’d kept in reserve had been spent in that instant of jubilation. It was as if that glimpse of the Colony had been enough for us and we didn’t have to physically reach it. Our mission had been accomplished. Our legs no longer obeyed, it seemed as though we were moving further away with each step we took. We even had to make a conscious effort to draw each breath. Thank Allah that the guards at the outpost spotted us with their binoculars and they ran out to help. Our pride, our egos had totally evaporated. All we wanted was to lie spread-eagled on the sand and have these fresh guards, with their clear faces, pressed uniforms and polished boots, lean over us attentively so we could surrender to their confident care, nothing else.
Independently of my will and defying reason, I called out in a broken voice for all the men in the caravan to make one last effort to reach the borders. If my body actually moved, it wasn’t in response to my brain, which had lost the ability to communicate with my muscles, but through a mysterious will of its own. My brain registered in wonder that the outpost was getting nearer and nearer to me, without registering that my limbs were moving. It was only when I got near enough to touch the wall with my raised arm that I became convinced that we had returned. The cyclists cheered in relief, finally back on terra firma and glorious Colony cobblestones.
Behind the outposts, I could see a fleet of ambulance berlingas and the shape of Dr Fabrizio. He saw me and rushed over, placing his shoulder under my arm to prop me up. I didn’t have the strength to ask him how he’d got here. I leaned against him and slumped. Out of the depths of my daze, I heard him say, “He sent us to wait for you. I’ve prepared camp beds in the Infirmary. Damn you, Drake, you’re enormous, how can you expect me to hold you up?”
26
Letter of Judith Swarnlake
(page 48)
LADY REGINA BERA
… The salt is escaping through the desert!
I wonder whether the previous inhabitants of the Dead Sea had felt the Evil approaching before the Overflow wiped them out – had they felt that hollowness in the pit of their stomachs that we felt? What about those Sodomites and Gommorians of the Biblical Dead Sea, before having the punishment of Yahweh unleashed upon them, could they not see a warning hovering like a cloud over their homes? We could, so clearly, that the strength of the signal was terrifying in itself. Unless, perhaps, we had developed a heightened sensitivity because we had already felt the lash of punishment; and you learn to respect premonitions rather than to let yourself be taken by surprise twice.
The salt was escaping through the desert. I might have been shut in the Palace, but I could feel it departing like something being drawn out of my own body since, in this part of the globe’s crust, our bodies had become the earth’s loudspeakers. There are no animals or plants to get between us and the deep subterranean rumbling; there is no civilisation to distort or occlude the messages; the connection is immediate and crisp. The flow of the crystals had changed direction and was now going up the waterfall instead of down. Not through the port, but via the desert. The desert gates are not considered exits but an entranceway for lepers, thieves and ghosts. Anyone who ha
s lived in the Colony has learnt to respect the desert. It is straightforward, absolute and it always turns the same face to you. The desert never fools you nor does it tolerate those that try to fool with it.
I got up and walked to the window, at least I thought I had, but the window in my maid’s room is not in the same spot it is in my old room, so I actually fetched up against the wall. I put my fingers on the hard surface and felt the foreboding surge up them like electricity. A sense I must have shared with all inhabitants of the Colony. It must have been four in the morning, but no one was sleeping because fifty berlingas laden with salt were heading north along the cobbled streets. No one could sleep untroubled and secure from now on.
It is obvious I am not a brave woman. If I had been I wouldn’t have been in this situation now. But given the circumstances, I did what many a brave woman wouldn’t have had the guts to do. I dared and succeeded. I returned to my bed, shut my eyes and fell asleep.
I knew that I would wake up in a different Colony, which was why, when I got up, I peered through the slats of my shutters at a scene that didn’t surprise me. The people were in a state of shock – some stood still, hands tucked under their armpits, while others wandered about, babbling to themselves. Where was the salt going? That only one single route existed for the salt to leave the Colony was an axiom on a par with the earth being round and circling the sun. The idea of an alternate route was conceptually unacceptable, like having an orifice at the back of your head as an alternative mouth. If the Seventy-Five risk the emergency despatch of the salt through the desert to save it, what else could that mean, if not that the days of the rest of us are numbered?
I carefully left my erstwhile maid’s room, checked the corridor and headed for the kitchens, hoping that I had turned in the right direction. Now that the building had been emptied of personnel, its size seemed to have doubled, or tripled, because I get lost so easily. I forget which floor I’m on, I mix up corridors, I am surprised by unexpected doors and my feet lose count of the steps if the light is dim. It must be that for all these years I have gauged the dimensions of my surroundings only with the aid of the perpetually moving bodies that filled the Palace with their presence and the sounds that they produced: the white caps of the servants, the sly looks of the stewards, the tuneless whistling of the cooks and the scraping of gardeners at work. Now it is as if I am wandering about in an abandoned flagship, stranded for centuries on a deserted sandbank, targeted by soaring seagulls. I am disoriented by the unbroken silence. I climb onto the deck, explore the gloom of the holds, pace around the once proud bridge but the only external sound that reaches my ears is the wind whistling through the sail-less masts. Below deck, there are plenty of stores – food, clothes, stationery – but no people.
It helps me to have a set routine, to help keep track of the time, otherwise the surrounding void would swallow me into some kind of limbo. I constantly need to have a clock to consult and since I lack the time to wind up all the clocks of the Palace, I ensure that one clock per floor is properly wound up. The trouble is that I forget which one is keeping time so I have to dash to the next floor to cross-check and even then the thought that I might trust a clock that I might have wound by mistake continually haunts me.
At eight-thirty sharp each morning I bring the breakfast tray to the Governor’s Pet. I knock on the door that used to be my door and enter without waiting for a reply. Bianca is always awake, huddled near the shuttered window, painstakingly sketching meandroses. She doesn’t see me, doesn’t hear me and doesn’t eat what I bring. I collect the old tray and leave. Today, for a change, I saw her lying on the floor attentively listening to the floorboards. I realised that she had felt it as well. How could she not – she belonged to this land more than any of the rest of us. She looked at me and for a moment I thought she might have seen me – recently I had begun to doubt that Bianca sees what she looks at. She murmured, “Three down,” which confirmed that she hadn’t. I shouted to her that her breakfast was on the table and left the room.
Out of habit, after leaving this room, I go in the direction of my husband’s bathroom and try the handle. I find it locked and then I remember that the person who expected lather for his morning shave is no longer alive. Bera had demanded that I prepare the lather, although we had plenty of servants for this task, because it was an integral part of my humiliating routine. He strictly specified that the foam should be whipped up by hand and that the razor be sharp enough to bisect my hair. If the blade didn’t bisect the strand dangling from his fingers, I was in deep trouble. Long-bladed razors were his fetish, a fact that might explain why he was attracted to a Liverpudlian streetwalker like myself, whose file in Scotland Yard’s archives is stained by the blood that dripped from such blades.
That daily morning routine, from room to bathroom, had imprinted itself in my memory and it was hard to break out of. Today I mechanically made my way to the bathroom door, opened it and entered. I wheeled the glass-topped table over to the hand washbasin, checking with a glance that the toothpaste tube was full and the bar of soap freshly opened. Next I whipped up the lather with hot water, beating it hard to make it fluffy. I brought out new towels and stropped the razor. I chose three shaving lotions, a hydrating cream and an antiseptic cream in case of a nick.
Throughout this procedure there was something nagging me, as if there was another item that I hadn’t prepared but I couldn’t think what it might be because every time I checked all the gear seemed arrayed properly in front of me. I raised my eyes to the mirror. The black eyes that I saw watching me through the mirror paralysed me. My neck refused to turn to face him. That’s what had escaped me, the fact that I had no business being here. He was sitting, studying me, in the armchair with the leather cushions that Bera had used when shaving himself. He obviously had been sitting there when I had barged in, but I hadn’t looked into the mirror and so I hadn’t seen him. I couldn’t think of how to explain myself. The blame lay on the unlocked door. If he hadn’t wanted to be disturbed, he should have locked it. I struggled to breathe.
“A lot of wasted space,” he said, looking around the luxurious bathroom. “It’s at least eighty square metres, and a whole wall covered in mirrors is superfluous. My predecessor had no sense of proportion and no sense of economy, either.” His glance fell onto the bowl I was holding. “Is the foam hot?”
I managed to nod.
“Then it shouldn’t go to waste.”
He indicated that I should approach him. I pushed over the trolley with the shaving gear on its glass top. I fixed it to the left of his armchair as I would have done for Bera. My lover surveyed the neatly arranged items out of the corner of his eye but he didn’t stretch out a hand to any of them. Ha! I thought. Gotcha! Bera was left-handed. If you introduce yourself as Bera, sign like Bera and pretend to be Bera, then this trolley on your left is in its proper position. Why don’t you pick up the razor? If you are waiting for me to shave you then, again, you are not Bera because Bera forbade me to remain in the bathroom while he shaved. Knowing about my past, he would mock me by saying that I was far too skilled with the blade for his tastes.
“Are you?” he asked.
It hadn’t been possible that I had thought out loud, unless I had been staring so intently at the razor that I had betrayed myself.
“Pardon?” I said hoarsely.
“Are you, I said,” he stroked his cheek, “highly skilled with the blade?”
I stepped backwards.
“Bera forbade me to shave him,” I said curtly.
“It’s plain that he never utilised the potential of the personnel of this Palace. Would you, please?”
He settled back into his chair, threw back his head and offered me his throat. I didn’t dare move an inch closer. His head was at a delicate incline to the side, he had shut his eyes and his breathing was calm and regular as if asleep. Even his closed eyelids were perfectly still without a hint of motion from the eye underneath. Never before had a body been placed so unr
eservedly at my disposal. To be exact, it seemed that he had departed from his body in order to let me indulge myself at my leisure.
I edged forward until I was standing over his head and could confirm that his eyes were truly shut. I bent over as close to his face as I could so that my nostrils could catch his undiluted aroma. Liverpool harbour, its most remote wharf, the last silver night, my unwrinkled hand, my unclouded mind, my unfettered conscience. The normally impenetrable wall between the present and the past had parted and then crashed together again, crushing the twenty intervening years, bringing the two disparate ports into conjunction so that I could be in both simultaneously. The sensations had lived on in my diminished and deteriorated grey cells.
My hand advanced hesitantly and gently caressed the veins of his neck; my fingertips felt the pulse, the dark red blood coursing, throbbing irresistibly with the vigour of youth. The serenity of the flow took me aback and my eyelids fluttered open. That perfect alabaster skin could never be found encasing another human being. It was so mercilessly beautiful, so devoid of emotion. No inhibition, vagueness or imperfection tainted it. Its rich lustre seemed to bear down on him like a weight that would crush anyone else, as they wouldn’t be able to tolerate the absoluteness of his beauty. It enclosed him tautly, a perfect envelope for his body; there were no blemishes where any doubt or indecision could nestle and soften his image. I gazed at him like a rag and bone man would a Renaissance masterpiece. This creature was not for me, not even close.
I dipped the brush in the bowl and made sure it wouldn’t drip so as not to awaken him. Very carefully, I spread the lather on his cheeks, struggling against allowing my eyes to succumb to the gravitational pull of the bulging veins that were tinged with the blue colour characteristic of those with wheaten-hued skins. The bas-relief network that followed the contours of his throat was like the filigree cracks across a Byzantine fresco of a youth, or like a river delta frozen in time. He was cold, precious and unapproachable. I was going to shave a statue, a reclining Praxiteles’ Hermes. I felt less like a woman and more like an art restorer.
What Lot's Wife Saw Page 27
