by Jeff Kamen
The couple exchanged a look.
‘I’m assuming he had it on him at the time, because he never sent the letter as planned. Maybe he sent a different message in the end, or did it through someone else. Possibly ... possibly someone he shouldn’t have trusted.’ He hesitated, thinking of the police guarding the door beyond which hung the throttled body. ‘I don’t know. Anyway, either he lost the sample, or he had it on him when he met Cora and used it then, or ... or it just so happened that worms were already at work in the garden at the time he met her, and he did something else with it.’ He shrugged, pushing away images in his mind that threatened to mislead him. ‘Maybe a balloon had landed there,’ he mused, ‘or landed nearby, and he realised what was happening. Either way, once he knew his enemies were coming, he must have suspected they knew a lot already, just to have followed him that far. There had to be a reason why they knew where to go looking.’ He stared at the table, his eyes bright with concentration. ‘They were hunting him down. That’s why he left. He was scared the secret would be discovered by them, used wrongly.’
‘Who, Marty? Who would be a threat to him?’
‘People he used to know. Who he lived among. It’s hard to explain, it’s ... well, it was people who wouldn’t have grown soil with what he’d discovered. They’d have used it to destroy us, to colonise everywhere, maybe even here. To run it all their own way.’
The couple nodded slowly, fractionally out of unison.
‘Thankfully, he ended up meeting you,’ he said. He smiled, and as though picking up on this, the couple smiled back. ‘My guess is he was following the balloons. After all, they were carrying the worms away. Maybe he saw one going overhead when he was here.’ He sat forward, fingers linked. ‘That’s what I’m thinking now. Maybe he found out something about soil growing somewhere and wanted to know more.’
‘That .... that makes sense, Marty,’ said Sylvie, nodding to her husband. ‘I mean, after all, he was soil mad.’
‘But balloons?’ said Karoly, frowning.
‘The soil’s made by worms,’ he said. ‘The balloons were carrying them. He must have wanted to send out as many as possible before they could be stopped.’ He held up the strip of rubber. ‘Did he have something like this tied to his glider? Or anywhere else? Even in with his things?’
‘He ... may have,’ Karoly said, exchanging another look with Sylvie, who murmured noncommittally.
‘He had it tied around mine. I think he ... that he used it as a reminder. In fact I’m sure he did. To keep himself going. To help him believe.’ He exhaled, struggling to find the words. ‘It was the second time he’d had to leave a family behind. He must have found it hard. Very hard.’
‘Of course,’ Sylvie said.
‘And you know what else I think? He wanted to find some soil where a balloon had landed and bring back a sample for you. I think that’s what he wanted to do. I think he always planned to return here, then go home. That’s ... that’s why I need to find where he went next. To look for any other clues.’
‘Oh, Marty,’ Karoly sighed, shaking his head, ‘I’m sorry we don’t know any more. All I can say is that he headed south. That’s all I know, I’m afraid. Isn’t that right, love?’
But Sylvie was staring away.
‘... Sylvie?’
‘Wait,’ she said, as though conjuring up deep reflections. Then after a moment, turning to Karoly, she said, ‘He left after those traders came, don’t you remember?’
Karoly narrowed his eyes. ‘Really? Traders?’
‘Yes, love. Don’t you remember he bought that pot? We’ve still got it somewhere.’
Karoly sat blankly a minute, then looked at her. ‘You might be right,’ he said, at which Moth leant in earnestly.
‘Can you remember what they look like?’ he urged. ‘The people, where they were from? What they were trading? I know it’s not easy, but please, please try to think.’
They tried, and he made a note of all they had to say. To help, he took them painstakingly through everything they knew about his father, starting from the day he’d first arrived. He asked them to bring up anything, no matter how trivial the detail, no matter how insignificant it might seem to them now, or had seemed at the time. The couple obliged willingly, but after an hour or two they began to flag, and he found himself losing track of things.
‘Let’s go to just before he left,’ he said, after they’d taken a break, and when it came to them thinking again about the traders, he asked them to focus on specifics: the appearance of the people and their trailers, their numbers, the goods they’d brought; any other features of their stay.
The couple sat brooding.
‘They were dark,’ Sylivie said. ‘Was that them, or were they later? Weren’t they quite tall?’
‘You know what, Marty,’ Karoly said, rising, ‘it’s hopeless, it’s all gone from my mind. Let’s ask around. See who remembers. See if they can help.’
Moth found that memory of the traders was scant among the villagers, who’d not seen them again since that visit. Yet among the vague words and half-recalled descriptions of bright clothes and cloaks, he managed to piece together a story he believed to hold a vital truth.
It involved a quantity of soil that one of the merchants had seen aboard a cargo ship, the origin and name of which was unknown. Of the villagers who’d recalled it, all had said the same thing — that the merchant had said it was special.
He believed his father, too, had heard talk of this ship; and that, duly inspired, the moment he’d felt well enough to fly again, go exploring, he had gone.
After another search of the hayloft, during which he found nothing more than a few half-rotted and useless items, he packed his things and prepared to leave. He flew away the following morning. A cheering crowd saw him off close to the ridge he’d overflown on his way in. He swooped back over the rooftops as the villagers drifted home, tipping his wings in a final salute before the warm thermals bore him coastwards. He flew for hours. When eventually he landed, he carried the glider out of the wind, and for a long time sat with his head in his hands. Recovering, refocussing, reaching for his strength.
Chapter 68 — A Storm
Filled with a new impetus, he returned to the trade route. He flew in the heat and he flew in the painful grey dusk, flew both late and early. He stood in the thermals with the ground throbbing up at him and the sweat pouring from his body in drips.
On landing, he’d talk with those who understood him, and to others he made gestures, flapping his arms and showing his glider wings to explain himself. He spoke of balloons and worms and masked figures in pursuit, spoke of a man easily misunderstood, a man obsessed with soil.
But not one thing he spoke of was met with recognition.
Then his luck changed. A woman he got talking to at a water trough had seen a glider pass overhead some years before, whilst on her way to market. Soon afterwards, he noticed two other women at a wayside stall flapping their arms back at him, pointing south excitedly, the pair of them grinning when he checked that it had happened long ago, and that it was not himself they were referring to. Within days, landing high in the mountains, an old shepherd told him of a man fitting his father’s description who’d slept in a storm hut he occasionally rested in. The man indicated the mattress on the floor, then mimed a fevered brow. ‘Groznica,’ he said.
Moth nodded gravely to show he understood, then flew swiftly on.
It was news, it was confirmation that his father had continued on his journey, it was encouragement. Yet the thought that his father had fallen sick again, so soon after leaving Karoly’s, made him feel nervous — and then more than nervous.
He found himself calling at apothecary stalls thereafter, asking his way to nurses and herbalists and vendors of marvellous cures. A few times he even slunk into hospices, where the near-dead lay in shuttered silence, although on making such visits he hardly dared to ask any questions, terrified of the answers he might receive. But it was not to be like
that: the man he described to his listeners had no match anywhere.
He thought this was a good sign to begin with, but a week later he’d not come across another soul who was able to help him. In spite of his earlier experiences, he flew out to the nearest coastal islands and searched the bleak villages there. A week later, tired and drawn in the face, he returned to the trade road, there to roam among its sprawling settlements, dizzy from repetition and weak from hunger.
By now he could scent illness in his nostrils, and became aware of a faint circulation in his mind of visions, twilights, schemes he had no name for — strange ephemera he knew he’d have no means of controlling should they worsen, take him over. Yet he would not stop, would not rest himself: the trail was growing cold and his fear was that it was ending.
After a few impulsive sorties among the outlying hills, he wheeled away to the vast interior, aware that faith was all now, and to waste time worrying that his father was sick or injured was to undermine what was already a desperate mission. He glided on determinedly, yet the image of the shepherd’s face, creased with concern, would not leave him. It made him slow, grow uncertain. Made him stop.
Alone on a dusty plain, he stood wingless and dust-caked, staring upwards. As if to force an image of his father into the sky so as to believe that seeing him was possible; to spark hope into his tired and jaded imaginings. The heat was rising and once more he had no idea what to do. For all he knew, he’d passed his father weeks or days before, neither man recognising the other, both busy in their new and separate lives.
The glider was buzzing on the ground where he’d left it, and he walked away stretching, rotating his arms and shaking the blood into them, looking out at all compass points. Wondering where to set off to. Turning, he studied the isolated peaks that framed the coastward view. North and east, he took in the baking flats and their miles of parched and shrivelled weeds. East to south, there was nothing but barbed thorns and toxic scrub; the ash clouds hanging eternally over the cratered hinterlands.
‘Give me something!’ he cried, his call echoing in the stillness. Then, more hoarsely: ‘Anything. Just don’t fade like this. Don’t fade.’
Inside his bag were some dry food scraps; he found no coins at all. Taking out the wallet of hooks, he wondered what he might fetch for them if they were polished clean. Then he thought again. He should put them to use.
A few days later he was mending nets and preparing fish for trade, the man who’d hired him agreeing he could sleep among the tackle and stinking creels he kept in a hut near to where the boats were moored. During this time he traded his boots away, and clad in thin sandals he worked hard and did what he could to hold himself together.
In spare moments, moments of need, he read back through the letter, picking through the days of that earlier past when all that was in his mind was the thought of escape. He pondered this. Wondering to what degree things had really changed since then. Wondering if he’d always be waiting, clinging onto hope, never quite reaching that which he believed to be within his grasp. He asked himself if he’d failed his father all along. True, he reflected, many metsats had gone out, but what of ...
It will be with the offspring ...
The girl ...
Yes, the girl. Why had he not thought to turn around and pursue her, given the absence of clues or certainty where he was now?
He began to consider more seriously the idea that his father was with her at that very moment — and then with a groan he dismissed it. Picturing it, his father treading through the burn, the raw and cindered wastes, discovering everything blackened, the mountain slopes and base included ...
Surely he wouldn’t stay there. Surely he wasn’t with the girl. Surely it was impossible. Surely ...
He read the letter anxiously by candlelight, beneath the frigid aura of the moon. Whispering to himself. Going over his father’s disappearance as he’d done with Karoly and Sylvie. Right from the beginning, back in Nassgrube. Every detail, every clue. Nothing missed out. Thinking it all through, over and over again.
One night, restlessly wandering, he approached a broken wall, through which he saw a ragged party seated at a fire. Rough figures cooking, rolling dice. One of the men was strumming an instrument. He saw a white cockerel flapping in a basket. A metal tooth flashed, and as drunken laughter wheezed into the night, he turned from them to be alone.
Down in the salt shingle he lay listening to the boom of waves in the dark. A sound which would usually calm him, but not now. A horrible image kept returning. One he was helpless to rid himself of.
Like a foul dream, it always began the same way: he and his father meeting at last, overcome with delight at finding one another. Then the pair of them flying northwards. Calling to each other and joking around, more like two old friends than anything. A wonderful time for them both and each pointing out the world’s great beauty to the other. Flying through the mountains and coming in sight of their homeland, on the lookout for the place they knew so well.
Both. Knew. So. Well.
He and his father. Landing just a few yards apart. Tired, glad to be back again. Talking quietly as they slipped out of their harnesses, then approached the gate. Evening now, a glimmer of firelight beneath the kitchen door. ‘Come on, Dad,’ he would say, turning to the figure hesitating in the garden. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Going to the door to knock on it; calling out to ...
It’s the past, I cry, it’s gone. It’s gone ...
The little hooklets clicked and nicked. Unpicked.
Seeing the look on her face as she saw them standing there. Happy horror. Then her face as his father took her by the hand and led her upstairs, stern and masterful.
There to strip her naked, while he, Moth, her lover, lay writhing in the room below, clawing at the bedclothes, at the walls. Night after night spent in agony, scoring the plaster with smouldering fingernails while the ceiling creaked and groaned.
Think what I say. Think. Please. You making this love a Klaus love ...
While his father was ravishing her. Hot hands caressing her body.
He could feel a pressure building in his skull, was growing lighter, everything spinning, a voice shrieking woundedly inside. What would he do? Could he stop them? Could he lie there and simply listen to it? Listen to her giggles and gentle sighs? What would happen?
Then something seemed to give, explode. His mind was flashing, flashing white. He saw himself racing up the stairs, the smouldering forbidden stairs. A length of chain in hand, unable to stop himself. Opening the flaming door to her room. Seeing the tapestry over the headboard, nailed to the wall. Yellow and white rays blazing celestially around the figure of splendour. The chain taut between his fists as he went stealthily forward. His father snorting, thrusting brutally. Then he was pouncing, dropping the chain over his father’s head and slipping it to his throat. Pulling at him, wrenching him, dragging him off her body and away, dragging him backwards with his arms flailing, the room revolving black and red with the screaming as he strangled him to death.
You making this love a Klaus love. I don’t want a Klaus love …
But nor did he, nor did he, he raged, yelling across the stones, but what was he supposed to do?
Then he heard footsteps crunching towards him. Voices were calling out. As the revellers drew near, he struggled to his feet, and was upright and buttoning his shirt by the time they’d gathered round him.
He waved them away, said something about falling asleep, that he must have been having nightmares. That he was okay. That he was perfectly and absolutely one hundred per cent okay. ‘Okay?’
He ran from them, and then, from the shade of the broken wall, he peered out and watched them return to their fire.
Knowing he was nothing of the kind.
~O~
The sixth moon arose, swollen and yellow, basketed in dust. Huge belts of charged air were billowing from the north, showering the coastal settlements with debris.
The wind fe
lt fresh and different and seemed to awaken something in him, to sober him. Looking to the west, he saw a snakeskin trail of embers pulsing along the earth’s darkened rim. Deep coals that appeared to crack and sift infernally. He ate a supper of picked fruit and meat scraps and carried the glider up into the hills. Pushing himself beyond what was tolerable, his clothes hanging loose, dust plastered to his beard. He reached high ground by nightfall and climbed to a vantage point among the rocks to survey the land, his dark locks streaming.
Something written in that eerie swirl of darkness. Prophetic. Just then a lone strand of lightning tremored out at sea. The incoming storm felt ripe with meaning, and in that pale electric branch he saw proof of it, a semaphore glint of the divine, or whatever agency was there to sanction his onward path — whatever force held sway over the country and all its citizens, his father among them.
For he could not work alone, he saw that now; something else was needed, perhaps some blue-faced deity of light which might by chance take pity on him, grant him right of passage through the roiling air and tie his own fate to his father’s, and by such means bind them together. Somehow the journey had to end, traders or not, soil or not. Yes, he thought. This was the venue for it, this the stage.
Another shaft stood crookedly, then vanished. He unwrapped the glider, and with his back to the wind, fastened the joints. When everything was ready he strapped himself in, the long grass gnashing at his feet. He fitted his goggles. Then he cantered down the slope, and seconds later, with his weight on the bar and the straps kicking back at him, he wheeled away.
Soaring again, he could feel his heart pound with blood for the first time in days, feel the lifeforce returning. He levelled out, and then on spotting the pinprick of lamps below, he descended towards them and swooped over the mottled homesteads yelling and hooting, letting the bad flow out and the good flow in and his lungs fill with air. ‘Sudbina,’ he cried, ‘sudbina … sudbina ...’ The terrified folk who saw him coming went scurrying for cover and he bore down on them recklessly, skimming over the rooftops. People were screaming, slamming their shutters, cats and pigeons fleeing mirror-eyed in panic. He circled round again, his laughter resounding hollowly down the flues and emptying the gusting streets.
