The Ecliptic

by Benjamin Wood

  ‘OK. I get it. OK.’ The door was still sealed up and would not open when he pulled it. He questioned it with his eyes, following the line of it around the frame. ‘Where’d you get this stuff—supplies? It’s pretty strong. I could use something like that.’ There was a full roll left on my workbench. I had plenty stashed away, so I told him he could take it, as much to ease my conscience as to please him. ‘You’re a lifesaver,’ he said, spinning it round on his fingers. ‘This’ll be perfect.’ He moved for the door. ‘Now, how do I—?’

  ‘Just pull.’

  He turned the handle and yanked hard at the door until the tape ripped back and the studio lights spilled onto the path. As he stood halfway into the night, the streaks upon his torso became gently luminescent. ‘I don’t see my clothes out there. Bad sign.’ He shuffled into the darkness, each stride hindered by the blanket. I wanted him to stop, and turn, and tell me he was mistaken, that he did not recognise me at all. But my will could no more influence a boy and his behaviour than it could stop him dreaming.

  On an island as exposed as Heybeliada, the rain did not fall, it rioted. The wind carried it across the lawns of Portmantle in shivers, churning up the dirt-soil in the flowerbeds, bullying the pines until their topmost branches cowered. It had strength like no rain I had ever encountered, a swell, a rage, a constancy. And the provost’s dog knew better than to go out in it. She lay on the front steps, one paw below her snout, observing the havoc being wreaked upon the grounds—in better weather, she could have been out there, digging and rolling, but instead she was obliged to keep me company on the portico. ‘I don’t know what you’re whimpering about,’ I told her. ‘We’re both waiting.’

  The provost had left us, momentarily, to make a phone call in his study. His little cup of Türk kahvesi was still steaming on the wicker table and the last bar on the heater was just firing up. He must only have been gone a few minutes, but I could not shake the feeling that the entire morning was draining off into the sluice, and that he would not be coming back to resume our discussion at all. We had hardly begun talking before Ender had arrived in the doorway, mumbling something in Turkish; the provost had checked his pocket watch, holding it close to his good eye, and excused himself. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he had said. ‘This won’t take a moment.’

  I knew that he had returned to Portmantle in the night because his dog’s unmistakable yapping had awoken me. For such a small animal, she had the shrillest bark, a yelp that rose and dropped away like an aggravated hiccup. I had gone up to the mansion just after dawn to catch the provost on his coffee break. No matter what the season, he always took his coffee outdoors, in that spot of quietude before the guests emerged for breakfast and the day moved into gear. This was the surest way to get his full attention without having to go through the rigmarole of arranging an official appointment.

  The sight of the rain had almost kept me in my studio, but I had unfurled the hood from my collar and braved the worst of it. I had gone no further than a few yards before my shoes began to squelch. At the mansion, I had found the provost’s wax jacket hanging in the lobby and his green umbrella touch-dry in the stand, so I knew for sure that he was home. Next thing, the old dog had scurried into view, followed by two very ponderous feet descending the staircase. I could not have mistaken those Ottoman slippers or the flimsy bamboo rod as it clacked against the banister posts. ‘Is that Knell, up with the lark?’ the provost had said, reaching the hallway.

  ‘It is, sir. How was your trip?’

  ‘None too satisfying, I’m afraid.’

  He was such a tall man that when he walked under the lampshade it swayed mildly in his wake and the closeness of the light burnished his forehead. He had a bulk of grey-white hair that sat upon his crown, aslant, and two deep runnels flanked his mouth like designs worked into leather. We guessed that he was no younger than sixty, though he had the smooth-skinned hands of someone half that age. He was stone-blind in his left eye and he compensated for this with the use of the cane and the help of Nazar, a mongrel stray that he had trained into an apathetic guide-dog. There was an educated air about him that often edged towards the pompous, but he was much too deferent to the residents and their talents to ever be accused of conceitedness. For the sake of formality—and because his name was held back from us—we addressed him as ‘Provost’ or ‘sir’, and every time we did, his features twitched a little.

  ‘Step out with me,’ he had said. ‘Gülcan’s bringing my coffee. If I’m lucky, she’ll read my grounds and tell me I’m going to live a long and happy life.’

  ‘It’s raining quite hard out there.’

  ‘I know. Isn’t it perfect?’

  We had taken our places on the creaking wicker furniture: he upon the cushioned swing-seat at the east wing of the portico, with his enormous legs awkwardly crossed, and I on a low chair opposite. The dog had circled several times before settling at his heels. ‘So—what’s on your mind?’

  ‘Who said anything was on my mind?’

  He had rubbed the pale dog-hairs from his trousers. ‘You only come to see me this early when you’ve got a bone to pick. That’s a good phrase, isn’t it? Bone to pick.’

  ‘Yes, sir, it is.’ I had steeled myself, not wanting to waste time. ‘There are a couple of things, actually, that I thought you should know about.’

  ‘Are you listening to this, Nazar?’ He had reached to pat the dog. ‘Didn’t I tell you we should’ve stayed in bed today? The complaints are coming in already.’ He had leaned back, smiling. ‘Go on. Let’s take them one at a time.’

  ‘First of all, there’s Fullerton.’

  ‘Yes, I heard about that.’ He had steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips. Then he had caught sight of Gülcan arriving behind me and his focus had shifted. He had spoken to her in Turkish and she had said something back, laughing as she handed him the dainty white cup and saucer, and by the time they were finished conversing the provost appeared to have forgotten the thread of our discussion. ‘I don’t know what else you expect me to say.’

  ‘Well, for a start, I think you might have underestimated the amount of supervision he needs. Last night, I found him sleeping in my closet. He was completely nude.’

  ‘This was after the incident at dinnertime?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I see.’ He had deliberated on this information, rocking in the seat. ‘Rest assured, I’ll be paying a visit to the boy today. It was always my intention to introduce myself this afternoon. If he has caused you any bother in my absence, I can only offer you my apologies, Knell, and my gratitude. I hope it hasn’t been too much of a distraction.’

  The provost was known for the stubbornness of his diplomacy, and I had anticipated this type of response. ‘It’s not that he’s a bother. Not in the least. I’m just concerned for him, that’s all. He needs more help than I can give him. He’s suffering quite badly, I think, and I don’t know if things are working out very well for him here.’

  ‘The boy can judge that for himself.’

  ‘We talked a bit last night, about dreams he was having. Did you know about those?’

  ‘Really, Knell, you mustn’t feel it’s your job to counsel him. I’m back now, and I’ll see to it that he’s adequately looked after.’

  ‘But did you know about the dreams?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You should have told us. I mean, if we’d known, we could’ve made things easier for him.’

  ‘There is nothing you or anyone could have done. I’ll be straight with you: I wasn’t told how much the dreams affected him, but I am fully in the picture now. I have spoken again, rather seriously, with his sponsor this morning, and I can assure you that we have everything under control. I must say, I’m surprised that you’d expect me to discuss the boy’s private information. He may be young, but he’s entitled to exactly the same courtesies as everyone else under this roof. Would you like it if I talked to Gluck about your difficulties, or Crozier?’

&nbs
p; ‘Who’s Crozier?’

  ‘Our Italian guest.’

  ‘Oh. Him. No, of course not.’ In all my time at the refuge, I had never found the provost’s even-handedness so deeply aggravating. ‘Still, sir, you have to admit that his behaviour is a concern.’

  He had glowered at me then. ‘I thought if anything would be a concern, it would be MacKinney’s situation.’

  ‘She’s next on my list.’

  ‘I see.’ He had bent to ruffle the dog’s ears and nuzzle her head. ‘Stay in bed, I said. Have a lie-in, I said. But you wouldn’t listen, would you, scamp? Now look at the trouble you’ve got us into.’ When he looked up again, his smile had vanished. ‘Knell, don’t worry. There is nothing the matter with the boy. His dreams are part of his creative process—that’s all you need to know. Frankly, I’m only entertaining this conversation because you have his best interests at heart, but you must allow me to handle it beyond this point.’ The water had kept on clubbing the roof above our heads, battering the mansion walls. ‘Goodness. This rain.’ The provost had turned to admire it. ‘Doesn’t sound like this on the mainland, you know. It has a different kind of music altogether. Makes the heart beat stronger, coming home to rain like this.’

  We had sat together quietly, listening to the noise—all those tiny impacts accreting—until Ender had appeared in the doorway to inform the provost about the phone call. ‘Telefon’ was the only word that I had been able to interpret from their exchange. The provost had sighed, placed his cup on the table, and stood up. He had told Nazar to stay and guard me. ‘Watch out for this one, she bites,’ he had said.

  Now, the breakfast bell was clanging in the mess hall and even the old dog was getting restless, eyeing the doorway every time she heard a footstep.

  And still the provost kept us waiting.

  He presided over the refuge the way an auditor haunts an office building, removed from us yet always in our midst. We knew very little about him, in fact, and relied solely on what we had gleaned from our sponsors’ explications. They said he was the son of a Turkish envoy, though Quickman claimed he had been told ‘ambassador to France’, and MacKinney insisted it was ‘political attaché’. They said that he had held a number of accountancy positions within firms across Europe (this much was consistent with all our sponsors’ stories) and that the role as provost had been bestowed upon him after the death of his wife to a lengthy illness (accounts diverged as to which disease she had suffered from: sickle-cell anaemia or leukaemia). They said that he was schooled in Switzerland, England, and America, and that his grasp of many languages would be clear to us when we arrived (it was). They said he dabbled in essay writing: some papers on English and Turkish literature had been published in journals (this was reasonable, given his tendency towards the poetic). They said he composed accounting textbooks and received significant royalties from them periodically (we had seen no evidence of these texts, but there was no reason to doubt they existed, and he did seem particularly pleased each time Ender retrieved the mail from the post office box in town).

  According to our sponsors, the provostship was determined by a board of trustees. The board comprised one retired provost and five former residents, and there was a strict recruitment process, tailored to find a certain type of candidate: childless, unmarried, comfortable with isolation, passionate about the arts, respectful of artists but not creative in his own right. The provost’s role demanded resoluteness, fairness, and stoicism. It was his job to maintain regular contact with the trustee board and to uphold responsibility for admissions, departures, budgeting, bookkeeping, as well as the daily oversight of Portmantle’s operations and its limited staff. In return for all this, he was afforded the most resplendent view of Heybeliada from his penthouse window, three good meals a day, the company of so-called brilliant minds, and a permanent escape from the demands of mainland living. We were not told how many provosts had gone before him, but Pettifer judged the mansion to be late nineteenth century, and so, by extrapolation, we assumed no more than ten.

  And still he kept me waiting.

  Pale smoke was spuming now from all the studio flues, clotting the rain. A couple of residents began to appear at their doorways in pyjamas. Another came strolling up the path towards the mansion in a bright yellow poncho. I believed he was a Frenchman, though he may have been a French-speaking Belgian or a Swiss, and his name was either Anderson or Sanderson or neither. He was handsome but incredibly short. (One afternoon last spring, he had forced us all to watch a preview of ‘a little work in progress’, which had involved him sitting on the lawn, topless, tying blades of grass to his stomach hair to form a kind of umbilical cord, which he then wrapped around his throat. Immediately afterwards, he had distributed pamphlets with three pages of typewritten text explaining the meaning behind the performance and its title: L’enfance des autres. Quickman had skimmed through it and remarked, ‘I think this is one of those works that is better viewed posthumously.’)

  As the poncho neared the front steps, Nazar began to spasm; she reared her head and bayed. The poncho halted. The rain slapped its big yellow hood. Nazar got on all fours, yapping, yapping, yapping, and the poncho waved its arms and called to me: ‘Hey, why don’t you do something about this dog, uh? Crazy animal!’ I was about to get up, but then the provost strode into the portico, clattering his cane on the floorboards, and he took the dog by her collar, hauling her back. ‘Calm down, Nazar, you’ll give yourself a stroke, carrying on like that.’ She quietened. ‘There’s a good girl. Save your energy.’

  The poncho hurried up the steps and into the house, thanking the provost on his way past: ‘Merci, Monsieur. Je ne sais pas pourquoi votre chien me déteste autant. Mais je suis content que vous soyez de retour.’

  ‘Le jaune la rend de mauvaise humeur,’ said the provost. He resumed his position on the swing-seat. ‘Sorry to keep you. It never fails to astound me how much work piles up at this place in my absence. So many things to attend to.’ Dredging his coffee in one gulp, he turned the cup over on the saucer and watched the dark grounds oozing out. ‘You were asking about MacKinney?’

  ‘No, sir, I was still talking about the boy.’

  ‘Then I recommend you move on swiftly.’ He prodded the upturned cup with his finger. ‘Don’t test me on this.’

  I paused, heeding his tone. ‘Did you manage to resolve anything with Mac’s situation?’

  ‘No, things are rather bleak on that front, I’m sad to report. I can’t discuss specifics—don’t ask me to get into details, because I’m already well outside my remit—but I’ve had several meetings regarding MacKinney in the past few days. The upshot is that she will be leaving us.’

  I had been prepared for this outcome, of course, but I had not expected the numbness I would feel when I heard it confirmed. ‘When?’

  ‘First thing tomorrow.’

  ‘You know she isn’t anywhere near finished. If you make her leave now, her whole stay has been for nothing. You do see that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I understand. And it’s regrettable.’ He lifted the cup, leaving a knoll of coffee grounds on the saucer. For a good few moments, he studied the streaky remnants on the inside rim. ‘I argued her case strongly with the trustee board. A bit too strongly—they weren’t pleased with me at all. The trouble is, there have been precedents. Not in my time as provost—I had to look them up in the archives—but they’re precedents nonetheless, and everyone must be treated the same. I don’t like to enforce protocol, as MacKinney well knows, but I have no option in her case.’ He thrust the cup in my direction. ‘What does that look like to you, some kind of battleship?’ His finger was pointed at a few dark rivulets on the porcelain, but I could see no shapes, no auguries in them at all, just the trickledown mess of spilled coffee. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll ask Gülcan.’

  ‘There’s really nothing you can do?’ I said.

  ‘I’ve done everything in my power as provost. It’s a great shame to force her out, but my duty is to Portmantle
. This place will still be here—God willing—long after MacKinney or the two of us are in the ground. That’s what I have to consider.’

  ‘But it won’t be the same,’ I said.

  ‘She’ll be missed, of course. But you’ll get used to it.’

  ‘No, sir, I mean this whole place is going to change. For everyone.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘You’re putting a cap on how long we can be here. If our sponsors die, that’s it, time’s up. Doesn’t matter if we’re finished or not, doesn’t matter if we’re still struggling. It’s going to change the way we work. You might as well start putting clocks up on the walls.’

  He looked at me, his good eye half on the rain. ‘I said I wouldn’t discuss specifics.’ He rose quickly, carrying his cup. ‘Come on, Naz.’ The dog stayed where she was.

  ‘Word gets around this place, you know.’

  ‘MacKinney’s case is an anomaly. That’s all I can tell you.’ He slapped the side of his shoe with his cane. ‘Nazar, come on now. Breakfast.’ The dog followed. ‘Please make an appointment next time,’ he told me.

  Customarily, a notice was pinned to the bulletin board outside the mess hall to announce a resident’s departure. The provost would often include a quote to inflect the notice with a degree of sentiment (something like, ‘His high endeavours are an inward light that makes the path before him always bright’) but some guests left without any such kindnesses.

  DEPARTURE OF TENGALLON

  ON THURSDAY WE MUST SAY FAREWELL TO THE POET, TENGALLON, WHO HAS COMPLETED HIS PROJECT AND RETURNS TO THE MAINLAND WITH OUR BEST WISHES. A POETRY READING IN THE LOUNGE WILL FOLLOW THIS EVENING’S DINNER. CONGRATULATIONS, TENGALLON!

  —PROVOST

  The four of us paid no attention to arrivals, but departures were a different matter. It could be depressing to watch guests leaving while our own work remained unfinished. So we took a particular interest in the provost’s notices when they sprang up, because they kept us attuned to the prospect (however distant) of our own departures. We imagined how our announcements might be worded when the time finally came: