Ingenious Pain

by Andrew Miller

  He places the smaller box on the table, opens it and lifts out the most elegant duelling pistols the Reverend has ever laid eyes on. He cocks them both and looks round at the faces of his audience. *Dr Dyer, w^ould you obHge me, sir? Mr Featherstone, please to be so kind as to pass this to the doctor. Gently, sir, the mechanism is very delicate.'

  Featherstone takes the pistol. He says: 'Not loaded, I trust!'

  When About turns to him there is no smile on his face; no trace of the amiable host, the gay, resourceful travelling companion. Featherstone is visibly disconcerted. So too is the Reverend. He thinks: If this is acting, it is very good acting.

  About says: 'They are of course loaded. One does not trifle with a man like Dr Dyer. I assume that you are a doctor, sir, and not merely a barber.'

  Dyer takes the pistol from Featherstone. He says: 'Doctor enough for you, monsieur.'

  About stands. Dyer stands. Mrs Featherstone coughs. The monk strokes the cat.

  The Reverend says: 'I should Uke to see those dolls of yours again, monsieur.'

  About ignores him. 'Mrs Featherstone. Will you please give the command to fire. Whensoever you wish.'

  The Reverend looks at About in amazement. What a face! Eyes narrowed to points of darkness, mouth shut tight, jaw set firm. His arm is outstretched, the pistol aimed directly at Dyer's chest, at his heart. Dyer slowly raises his pistol. The Reverend thinks: How excellent all his movements are to watch. Makes the cat look clumsy. About is up to something. Does Dyer know that? About

  is a stranger to him. What should he think, a pistol pointed at his heart? He does not seem to care. Nothing more dangerous than a man who does not care. Or does he think himself immortal? Is that it?

  Tire!'

  Impossible to say whose finger is first to pull the trigger. The Reverend, sitting equidistant from both men, hears the snap of the pistol actions almost as one, though if he were forced, he should say that Dyer was a fraction quicker. There is no flash, no report. Yet something, some bright object - what? Birds! - small jewelled birds are emerging slowly from the end of both men's pistols, flapping their golden wings and singing a mechanical song, half a dozen notes, which, in the profound silence of the room, are the most delicate and pretty sound imaginable.

  From behind them comes a scream, ecstatic, terrified: 'Jesu! Bin ich tot}'

  The postillion is sitting up, staring madly at them from his bed of straw. In Dyer's hand, in About's hand, the little birds fold their wings and glide back into the barrels of the guns.

  'Time?'

  Mrs Featherstone, Grimaldi's old watch in her hand, says: Three minutes. Somewhat less I think.' Dyer says: 'How did you like that, Reverend?' It takes a moment for the Reverend to find his voice. He says: *I congratulate you. Doctor. It was . . .'

  Dyer washes his hands in a bucket, releasing from his fingers clouds of blood. He takes his coat from Mrs Featherstone, his

  watch, then leaves the room. The others step forward and look down at the unconscious man on the table. Mrs Featherstone says: 'What shall we do with him now?'

  Her husband says: 'Not much work for a one-armed post-boy.'

  Dusk. The Reverend Lestrade moves clumsily towards the woods in his snow shoes. He has left the other men in the stable working on the runners for Mami Sylvie. They have all been at it most of the day, have dug out the coach, removed the rear wheels and fitted two of the runners, though only after much shaving and hammering. Much cussing too, in which he, to his shame, was not the most backward.

  He has come now for solitude and for the beauty of the evening: a white sun settling over the forest, snow the colour of slate, the air pierced with light, the sky an immense glass bell in which the world's few sounds swell the silence, the plaintiveness. It is a world, an hour, created for solitude. The Reverend relishes it, feels with each hissing step the expansive inner presence of his soul. Hymn-writing weather!

  The black fringe of the forest is half a mile from the monastery, possibly less, yet it approaches with the slowness of a coastline watched from the deck of a ship, and in the same way it is suddenly there, leaping into focus, each tree its separate self, no longer black but green and purple. At the treeline he stops and looks back. Someone stands by the monastery wall. He cannot tell who it is. He waves but the figure does not wave back. Very likely, under the shadow of the forest, he is invisible. He turns and steps past the first trees. He does not intend to go far; no more than a

  few yards. Yet how seductive it is; a forest for a fairy tale! He goes deeper, threading his way towards the ogre's lair, the dragon, the fair princess.

  In time to come, when he is growing stiff and old and there are no more adventures but the last, he thinks how things might have been if, on reaching the forest, he had turned back. Was that what the figure by the monastery wished him to do? Or were they all unwitting agents of a power that had long since decreed he would not stop but walk deeper and deeper until he saw the lights and the dogs and the silent woman fleeing for her life . . .

  She runs soundlessly on top of the snow, so silent he might easily have taken her for a spirit, a ghost. It is the grey stream of her breath which tells him she is real. She stops a dozen feet from where the Reverend crouches, looks directly at him. The lights of the men move through the twilight towards them. Adulteress? Witch? He holds out his hand to her. It is an instinctive action, and for a moment it seems she might come to him, but she dives away, light and fleet as a deer, running between the trees while the torches of the men fan out into a glittering net. The Reverend thinks: They will catch her, kill her here. And if they catch me? What law will protect me in a place like this? All sense tells him that he must escape, that this is not for him to meddle with. But he waits, even creeps forward a way. There is a great confusion of barking and voices. The lights are congregating. Have they found her? His knees are trembling. He edges closer, sliding over the snow, hardly daring to breathe. He sees below the lights the dance of shadows; the woman's persecutors. Have they found her? He waits for a scream, for the sound of men killing. But the lights disperse and move away through the forest, the voices of the men and the dogs fading swiftly.

  This is where they were; here where the snow is turned over. He can smell them, the fat from their torches. He looks about, sees on the ground the body of the woman. He goes towards it,

  expects to see some horror, the snow discoloured, a gaping throat. But when he kneels, touches the dress, it is empty. Dress, shoes, stockings, scarf. Everything she was wearing. It disturbs him almost more than if he had found her body. Truly, then, perhaps she was a witch, and has taken off, naked into the air. Or have they stripped her, taken her with them to murder at their leisure? He gathers the clothes. There is still some vestige of human warmth in the fabric, and it is then, as he bundles the clothes under his arm, that he has the strongest sense that she is with him, somewhere close by. He whispers, his voice odd and strained, strange to him. He says: 'I am a friend, a friend. I am a friend.'

  He takes her scarf, ties it to a low branch, then runs with long, powerful strides through the surf of snow, out of the forest and across the luminious plain to the monastery. The company is sat in a half-circle by the fire. They look round, amazed to see the Reverend with such a look on his face and clutching what appears to be a ball of women's clothes.

  For the moment he does not explain, says only that they must come with him, and such is his air of urgency, of certainty, that Monsieur About immediately buttons his coat. Featherstone also stands, but his wife plucks at his elbow. Most strange is Dyer, though in the moment it does not seem so. He goes out with About, ties on snow shoes at the door and follows the Reverend, who is already stretching out ahead of them.

  They do not talk until they are close by the forest's edge. The Reverend says: 'There is someone we must help. A woman. The people are hunting her . . .'

  About asks: 'You know where she is?'

  1 know where we must look for her.'

  Dyer says nothing, c
aught in some confusion of his own, harassed onward perhaps by the same compulsion that has the Reverend in its grasp.

  They pass, breathing heavily, under the first trees. Moonlight

  lies like bones under the broken cover of the leaves. The Reverend w^onders if he will find the place again, yet even vv^hile wondering, knows that he shall and is not surprised to see the scarf hanging darkly from the tree.

  He begins to search, prodding with a stick among the dense architecture of the fir and snow and shadows. The others, after watching him a moment, do likewise. Half an hour they keep at it, circling out then back, coming together again. The Reverend feels himself coohng. Has he led them on a wild goose chase? Why should the woman be here? There is no sense to it at all. Yet he was so sure she would be here, hiding, waiting for his return. He catches the gleam of Dyer's eye and is forming his apology when Dyer says: 'Those were her clothes you had?'

  'They were.'

  About says: 'She will not live long in this cold.'

  Dyer says: 'She did not want the dogs to scent her.'

  He is looking over the Reverend's shoulder. Now he brushes past him towards a hump of snow by the roots of a great tree. Something darker is showing from the snow. Dyer crouches beside it. There is a moment of hesitation before he touches it. It is a hand.

  They dig, hunched over the mound like grave-robbers, scooping the snow, throwing it behind them. They work along the line of the arm to the just-warm crevice of her armpit. They uncover her shoulder, a breast, her neck. Then working up around her face. Chin, mouth, eyes.

  'Does she live? Does she breathe?'

  Dyer feels at her neck for a pulse, lowers his face by hers, his cheek by her mouth.

  'Does she live, Doctor?'

  'Faintly.'

  'She does not appear to have any wounds, praise God.'

  Dyer says: 'The cunning creature buried herself

  The Reverend removes his greatcoat. He says: ^We must hft her out. Get her to the monastery.'

  They Hft her. About says: 'How small she is.' They vrrap her in the Reverend's coat. The Reverend rubs her hands, feels them come to life between his own. She opens her eyes; The whites throw back the moonlight. He says: 'Madam, we are here to help you. Do not be afraid. Tell her, monsieur, not to be afraid.'

  Dyer says: 'She is not afraid.'

  'We must carry her,' says About. 'We must leave this place. Now. You are the youngest, Mr Dyer. The strongest, I think. You carry her first. We take turns. Allezf

  Dyer gathers the woman in his arms. Her head leans easily against his shoulder. They walk in a line out of the forest. Now and then, from far off, comes the howl of a dog, even perhaps of a wolf The Reverend shivers, feels the want of his coat; he is suddenly very tired. The moon sails on, low across the surface of the sky. He does not know exactly what has happened, only that it has happened. He does not understand how things have changed, only that they have. He is glad James Dyer needs no help to bring her in.

  The woman - for she has no other name until the Reverend dubs her Mary, after his patroness, Mary Hallam - is dressed in her own clothes, together with a cloak of russet wool belonging to Mrs Featherstone. From beneath the hood she watches the coachman lifting bags and boxes into the basket at the rear of Mami Sylvie. The horses are restless after their confinement, toss their heads, stamp the

  snow. The coachman carries out a last inspection of the runners, makes a face, shakes his head. Reverend Lestrade, coming out of the door of the monastery, asks the ladies how they do; how shall they like skating to St Petersburg? Mrs Featherstone declares she will be happy to leave in any way at all, would go on the back of an ass so long as it would take her to some more civilised part of the world.

  The Reverend rubs his hands, briefly wonders who is now wearing his gloves, then helps the ladies into the coach. Featherstone comes out in his pelisse.

  Well, Featherstone. Do you think she will run?'

  'God help us, sir, if she does not. You still think it quite wise to take the woman?'

  'I think it is our duty.'

  'I mean only that they, her pursuers, may have had their reasons for . . . They may not take kindly.'

  'It is my hope, sir, they shall not know of it.'

  'We shall be very cramped, what with the doctor coming with us too.'

  Would you leave them behind, Mr Featherstone, for the sake of a little comfort?'

  James Dyer comes out, brown coat and breeches, a long grey coat. He looks at the sky, looks at the coach. The Reverend says: *You are satisfied, sir, with the condition of the postillion? Myself I thought he looked almost easy this morning.'

  Dyer nods. 'He shall live.' He is looking past the Reverend, through the open door of the coach. Featherstone has cHmbed in and is leaning forward to talk to his wife. Between them is the woman.

  The Reverend, following Dyer's gaze, says: 'She seems none the worse for being frozen. We must consider what is best to do with her. We cannot take her to St Petersburg.'

  Dyer asks: What is your intention, Reverend? Place her in a

  convent?' He laughs, or something near to a laugh: the sharp expulsion of air from his nose. 'How would you explain those teeth? The tattoos?'

  The Reverend says: 'I had forgot the tattoos.'

  Monsieur About emerges, inhales mightily. 'Tout estpret?

  'There is only ourselves to go in now.'

  The old monk raises his hand; a blessing.

  The coach rocks, then slides forward, wonderfully smooth.

  About says: 'All we need are bells. Ting ting ting!'

  Ponko runs beside them, running and falling until Mami Sylvie outpaces him, and he is left behind, kneeling in the snow and waving, as though the coach contained his last and only friends on earth.

  Mrs Featherstone sits by the right-hand window, looking back along the smoothly curving track left by the runners. Next to her is her husband, and beside him is Mary. Monsieur About is opposite Mrs Featherstone (his view: the uncut plain, a glimpse of one of the horses, the spray from the leading runner). Beside him is the Reverend Lestrade, book in hand, occasionally taking the view from either window, now and then arching his back to relieve the tension there. To the Reverend's right, James Dyer, looking at his feet, looking out of his window; very often looking closely, unguardedly, at the woman opposite him.

  After two days' sledging they are in Riga. They stay at an inn under the shadow of the castle. The Featherstones, About and the Reverend share two rooms. Dyer and Mary have rooms of their own, paid for by Monsieur About. They feast on wild boar. Dyer finds an English merchant, asks if he has heard of any English doctors en route to St Petersburg. The merchant says he has not heard of any. His Latvian wife shakes her head. So many people pass through Riga now. More than Berlin. More than London!

  Early the following day, with fresh horses, the company board into the chill interior of their coach, clutching rolls and spicy sausages and boiled eggs. Mary is with them still. No one protests. Even Featherstone smiles at her and gallantly peels her an egg. They ride north towards Valga. The Reverend makes notes and sketches on the end-pages of Candide.

  Nov 22. Rds poor but it is easier on snow. Lght fall today. Feathers. Sky the colour of wood ash. Pm - Mrs F vomits, face quite green. We stop. M presses her about her eyes. Mrs F easier. Bad smell in coach but too cold to have the wndw down. Not much talk today.

  Nov 23. Jms Dyer - at times he seems hardly to know what he is about. NOT the same man as sewed his own head, cut Pstllns arm. Alwys looking at M. Cannot believe he has filn for her yet she has some power over him. About says it also. He is amused. About told us risque stry of the Empress and her horse. Mrs F laughing too much. My bck easier than at any time since Paris. M nvr speaks a word, least not in my hearing. Thght I saw a bear today at twlght.

  Passed a trp of cavalry on the road. The officer looked in and saluted us. Fine figure. Elgnt scar on his cheek.

  Nov 24. Lst nght in Pskov. Fortress and churches. Drank my first glass
of Kvas, made from malt water. Very quenchy. We are not to go to Novgorod. I had hoped to see it. We will pass along the shre of Lake Peipus twrds Narva. We shll then be on the Gulf of Finland and very nr our destination. All in gd spirits excpt D who lies under some uneasiness. M has her own wrld. Her eyes - gives one odd feeling to look at them. No blck cat though and nthng malignant in her face. This below: a sktch of Lake Peipus.

  Nov 25. We have wlkd on white sand beside the Gulf. Hurrah! Helsinki is acrss the water. Askd D if he was confident of winning race. I mght have been speaking in Dutch, for he did not answr. I wndr what opinion M must have of him. He it was found her, carried her. Cannot for life imgne her as a wife! Icy. Saw a ship, English, heading out of the Gulf. Last before the Sprng I thnk. Returning to coach I noticed D was limping. When I askd what was the matter he said he did not knw, then said he had fallen, which was odd as the place was entirely fiat.

  Nov 26. Lst evning we drnk a grt deal and are very subdued in the coach tdy. At our party D was almost human. Strtd telling stry about his sister and how he had wronged her. Seeing him in this mood A pressed him: Who are yr parents, Sir? D shks his head. Was Gummer yrfrnd? D answrs that he had been once. That G had been hard on him but that he in turn had been hard on G and that he was sometimes sorry for it. He seemd affected by the memory of smthng. I had a very lewd dream by virtue of all the fruit of Bacchus I had drnk. I shall not write whm it concerned. I am ashamed of it and yt it was v sweet. When I came down in the mrningfor breakfast I saw M on a bench with a grt fierce hound that had alarmed us the evning before. It was slmbring Ike a puppy at her feet. My head very thumpy tdy. Am temptd to ask M to rub it. It would not look right hwvr. Below is a picture of a sleeping Mr F who is sat oppste me wheezing Ike a bllws.