Lights in a Western Sky

by Roger Curtis

  ‘There!’ I said, banging it down.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Ten pence change. Careful how you spend it.’

  I said I would be.

  She was sitting by the window. Didn’t see me, didn’t look up when I passed. She looked sad, like Chloe says I look when no-one’s around to annoy me, and I’m thinking about things. I thought first I’d sit next to her, but that could have ended it, ’cause I’m no great talker, so I went two seats behind, and after I’d sat down we got to the next stop and more people got on.

  I knew when he got on where he’d sit, even though other seats were free. His hair was black, not brown like mine, and he had to bend his head. ‘Is this seat taken?’ he said.

  I thought, silly bugger! Anyone could see that!

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll move my bag.’

  Soon he was telling her he could see from her clothes she was a nurse. Then he asked her which hospital and she said Weatherden Hospital and he said he knew it. So she asked him why and he said his wife was treated there and then died of cancer.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, really kind like.

  But he told her there was no need to be because that was two years ago and they’d done all they could. He said the staff there were just wonderful and that pleased her.

  ‘They’re a good bunch,’ she said.

  ‘But still overworked, I guess,’ he said. I liked the way he said the right things all the time.

  I could have sworn he shifted nearer to her, moved his head closer to hers. Then someone rang the bell and people got off, but not them, and I was glad ’cause I was getting worried about where I was going. Then they started talking again.

  ‘After your wife died… it must have been difficult for you,’ she said.

  He told her he’d become a bit of a recluse – which I guess is someone very unhappy – and drowned himself in his work. Though it couldn’t have killed him as he said he’d come out of it now. Then he told her he was a fashion photographer and that she was far too young to have tasted life’s problems. Funny how I can remember them talking like it was just now.

  ‘Well, actually, no.’ she said. ‘You see, I lost my sister, about the same time as your wife, it must have been.’

  ‘Can I ask what happened?’ he said.

  ‘Knocked off her bicycle – and she hardly ever rode it. I can still see the ambulance coming up the drive. Somehow I knew even before they brought her in. We did everything together – parties, discos, holidays in Spain. We were twins, you see.’

  ‘It does explain something,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Something about you – when you first spoke. Something in your voice. Compassion, understanding, I don’t know. You have a beautiful voice.’

  She seemed to think that was a funny thing to say. ‘Have I?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, strange we should have so much in common.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  I’d watched their heads getting closer and closer. All along I’d felt sorry – about the deaths, I mean. But there was something else that made me listen, made me think about couples in the park, going about holding hands, making me feel… well… empty inside. I could never understand that, like I could understand what they do indoors, like in Chloe’s magazines that she hides from Ma.

  Then, hey, we were coming into town. There was the Odeon, and it was Lord of the Rings and Chloe had promised to take me. Then, shite, they were all getting out, and these two, but it wasn’t my stop yet.

  I watched them get up, keeping together like they would never separate, and he said to her, ‘By the way, I’m David,’ and held out his hand. Then people coming down the stairs pushed between them and I don’t think he heard her say her name was Amanda, though I just could.

  There were so many people on the pavement, some fighting to get on, others just milling about. From my window, high up, I could see they’d lost each other. I saw their heads looking round, worried like, as if they didn’t know what to do. Then David tried to push back into the crowd. He almost reached her but didn’t go far enough. Once they almost touched, but there was this big bloke between. Then they began to walk away.

  Something Chloe said comes into my head. She said, ‘Johnny, you’re only ever thinking of yourself, you never do anything for anybody.’ It was like Chloe was sitting next to me talking into my ear, telling me to do something. And I suddenly saw it wasn’t too late. The last bloke in the queue was arguing with the driver, so I still had time. I had to push though.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ the man said. ‘That was this lady’s toe!’

  I told him I had to get off to help someone, and he said I couldn’t push people around like that and then I jumped off before he could grab me.

  I dunno where she went, but I could still see him, being so tall and that, way down near the cinema. It was him I had to follow.

  I thought I’d lost him. Always a loser, Chloe says, before she feels sorry and cuddles me. So I ran up and down a bit, but no good. I thought I’d go into Macdonald’s, but even I knew 10p wasn’t enough. Then there he was at the crossing, making to run for it before the light went red. Silly bugger, I thought, to do so dangerous. Perhaps he was still thinking about her, to be so stupid. So I ran up behind him.

  ‘Mr David, Mr David,’ I shouted.

  He was halfway across when he heard. Maybe he was expecting to hear, ’cause I was close then. Anyway he stopped and turned to look.

  That was when the car hit him. A big black one with windows you couldn’t see through. People came running and then I couldn’t see him. When I pushed through there he was, with blood running from his head into the gutter. I felt bad that I wouldn’t be able to help him much now. Getting them together, I mean. By now a lot of people were crowding round and jabbering. The driver said, ‘He came right across me, I had no chance.’

  ‘Has anyone called an ambulance?’ someone said. And another man said he could hear it coming. And people quietened down a bit.

  I could see he was breathing, but his face was white. There was grey hair over his ears. Perhaps he wasn’t so young after all, and too old for her. But maybe that didn’t matter too much. A bit later the ambulance came, then the police. They were quick taking him away.

  ‘You with him, son?’ someone said.

  ‘No,’ I said. But someone next to him said, ‘I heard you call out to him. David, you said – I heard you call it.’

  ‘Whatever,’ the first man said. ‘If you want we can follow them to the hospital – my van’s just around the corner.’

  ‘What about the police?’ the other man said. I could see he wasn’t happy.

  ‘Best avoided, mate, in my experience,’ the first man said.

  It was a little blue van, with a ladder on top and full of paint cans. It smelt horrible inside, a bit like the man’s leather jacket. I could still see the blue light flashing in the distance. The man asked me my name, and I told him Johnny. I could see a reflection of the light in the Macdonald’s window. A man inside seemed to be biting at it, which made me laugh. Then I saw the driver looking at me a bit queer like. There was a queue at the cinema, so maybe it wasn’t a good time to go.

  ‘I want to see that film,’ I said.

  ‘Haven’t you got other things on your mind, sonny?’ he said.

  I didn’t answer. I don’t think he was interested in films. There was something going in my head that made sense. What had happened to David and where we were going somehow seemed right.

  I don’t think the driver liked me very much, from the way he looked at me when he wasn’t driving fast and just missing people.

  So I said, ‘This is fun.’

  He seemed to think so too, although you wouldn’t have known it from his face. He said, ‘
You just go on thinking that, kiddo. Make the most of it – enjoy it while you can.’

  Then we turned a corner and I spotted the big red letter and the black gates of the hospital. There was a queue at the bus stop and for a second I looked for her there. But of course she wasn’t because she’d have to have flown back to beat us and wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway.

  ‘Am-an-da,’ I said.

  ‘What did you say?’ the driver said.

  ‘David’s friend,’ I told him. ‘She’s a nurse in this hospital.’

  I could see the ambulance at the entrance. I jumped out when the van stopped behind it and then they were all too busy getting David off to notice me. I’d done enough and wanted to go home now. So I crept round the building to the door I’d come out of. It was locked, but the next one wasn’t and then I found myself in the corridor where Ma’d had bad thoughts about superman. I wondered if she still had him. I wanted to hold him again, so I sat down and waited and then they found me.

  Ma wasn’t too pleased. ‘You little devil,’ she said. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Helping someone, like Chloe told me to,’ I said.

  She said they’d all been worried sick and emptied the blanket room.

  We went into another corridor, past where the ambulances came, but I couldn’t let on I knew that. Another one was coming in. I stayed back a bit to see where the body went so I’d know where they’d taken David. Where I knew Amanda would find him.

  Outside the sun came out and that seemed right. I knew I would see her there, coming up the path from the gate. And there she was, holding an armful of clothes that Chloe said were from the cleaners, which is why she went to town in the first place, I suppose. She saw us and stopped. I liked her smile.

  ‘Johnny Tranter, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘I did what you would have wanted,’ I said.

  ‘Did you? Well that’s good. Well done you.’

  I liked it that she hadn’t even noticed Chloe.

  Then Ma spoilt it and said, ‘Johnny, what nonsense are you talking? Take no notice, nurse.’

  She walked away. Then something funny happened. Like someone took hold of my head and was trying to turn it round, and I had to move my feet to stop falling over. She’d got to the top of the steps, Amanda, and was standing there, not moving. Then she put the clothes on the wall and looked back at us. Didn’t wave or anything, just looked. There was a man in black clothes behind the glass door, waiting for her. I saw her pick up the clothes and go inside and they started talking. Then Ma grabbed my hand and yanked me away as if I’d done something wrong.

  Ma didn’t understand. I don’t think she’ll ever understand. But this time I didn’t get cross or try to annoy her. So I looked up at her, sweetly, like Chloe does when she thinks she’s being clever.

  ‘You know something, Ma,’ I said. ‘I think I’m good at helping people.’

  Then Chloe’s grinning face popped out from behind a tree, and suddenly I felt hungry and thought about watching telly and how it was getting a bit cold.

  And at the gate another bus was coming in.

  The Two Nuns

  The regional paper – the Eastern Aegean Weekly – made much of the story and, by appearing to endorse the popular interpretation, had given it credence. Sister Anna had disappeared on the Thursday, the name day of Saint Annabel but, more tellingly, Ascension Day in the Christian calendar. The combined power of these associations had not only filled the island’s churches on the following Sunday, but had led to an invasion of Mount Vathos by the curious and the blindly faithful during the days that followed. The ancient monastery of Moni Agiou Ioanni – two thirds of the way to the summit and previously visited by only the most intrepid of travellers – was destined to become both a site of pilgrimage and a perennial tourist attraction.

  I am not a native of this, one of the most easterly of the Greek islands. In fact I am an American, a graduate in aviation science at Washington State University. I came here when the Department of Conservation needed someone to pilot its newly acquired helicopter for forestry surveillance. But the little machine quickly found other uses and before long various remote communities on the island began to construct landing pads for use in emergencies. The monastery on Mount Vathos, at the limit of the forest and, at 965 metres, the highest habitation on the island, was arguably the most deserving of them all, until then being approachable only by a narrow path for the most part cut into the rock face. As an ambitious walker and climber during my time off from flying it was by this route, and not by air, that I made my first acquaintance with the monastery. That happened several months before Sister Anna disappeared.

  For a long while I have speculated on why a site at such high altitude had been chosen, and by whom. Legend has it that a hermit lived here, but the splendour of the surroundings and the panoramic view of the Turkish coast, only a few kilometres away, somehow seem at odds with an ascetic life style. But as a means of survival the site was well chosen, occupying as it does a wide and fertile terrace indenting the mountain, unique on the island at that altitude. After negotiating the last few precipitous steps, travellers are surprised to find themselves in a green and luxuriant garden with roses and chrysanthemums, raspberries and currants, and vegetables of many kinds thriving in the shelter of fig, peach and pear trees. Having taken this in, their eyes follow the wide gravel pathway meandering through the garden to the buildings. Originally whitewashed but now grey with grime, they are of indeterminate shape and rather featureless, yet somehow still splendid in their setting. It would be difficult for a traveller coming upon them unexpectedly to guess their purpose, were it not for the high and brilliantly coloured glass windows of the chapel projecting out towards the sea on the eastern side.

  My intention that day had been to skirt the buildings to gain access to the track leading up to the summit of the mountain and contemplate my next step from a point of vantage. I did not get that far. To my surprise a figure in the habit of a nun rose up from behind a clump of raspberry canes.

  ‘Good morning, brother,’ she called. ‘I am Sister Maria. It is customary for us to offer travellers hospitality. You are welcome to take bread with us. If you are interested you can also see our fine chapel.’ My Greek was just sufficient to make out what she said.

  The spectacles perched upon the beaked nose above the blackness of her habit engendered in me mixed feelings of respect and revulsion. Crude though the analogy is I was sure that the arachnid qualities of Sister Maria cannot have been lost on other travellers passing this way. I sensed, too, that she herself was not only aware of the comparison but chose to cultivate it. She led me to the buildings and set me on a terrace facing the sea. A platter of dry crusts of bread was already waiting, along with a dozen or so cats attracted by my arrival. Having witnessed the swallowing of the first crust to her satisfaction, she left me to enter the building. Soon I heard her talking to someone deep within: muffled voices, speaking with urgency. Then she returned and led me to the chapel along a dank corridor sparsely lit with candles, with closed doors on either side and between each pair of doors a fresco so dark with age that its subject was barely discernible.

  I remember how surprised I was at the chapel’s paucity of interest. The stained glass windows, close up, were disappointingly modern. The candles illuminated bare flaking walls that must once have been brightly painted. But its interest for me then, as will become clear, was of a different order. As I left, my way was barred by a collection plate held by another nun seated just within the door, so small in stature that I had not seen her when I entered. The remarkable thing about the plate was the large denominations of the notes it already contained. Startled by the tiny haggard face and too weak not to conform I put in my 2000 drachma note. It seemed a reasonable investment, however tenuous the outcome looked then.

  Outside the chapel I took the firs
t tentative step towards our goal. I tried to be casual. ‘They tell me you have a library here?’ I said. ‘Can it be visited?’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Sister Maria’s response was guarded.

  ‘Just someone in the town.’

  ‘What did they tell you?’

  ‘Oh, nothing specific… I just wondered…’

  I suppose that strict honesty is an inviolable requirement of the moral code these ladies observed. After a moment of thought she said, ‘It is rumoured that there were once caves below these buildings. Books might have been stored there. I have never seen them.’

  ‘Rumoured?’

  ‘They were already sealed up when I came. That was forty years ago.’

  My exit seemed hasty, probably because Sister Maria had sensed another traveller on the garden path. With no further word she hustled me to the terrace and left me to resume my ascent of the mountain.

  Returning from the summit three hours later the garden was in shadow, the sheltered trees and bushes curiously still against an evening sky still in motion. In this quiet place a remark of Sister Maria came back to me. ‘There are always two of us,’ she had said. That thought stayed with me during my flight down the path, and lingered during the weeks that followed.

  Summer had long passed when I saw the monastery again. The second nun, Sister Helena – the one holding the plate in the chapel – had become critically ill and Father Kalvos, the priest at the seminary on the coast, had asked me to fly her to the hospital. ‘She will never return to the mountain,’ he said. ‘But you cannot leave the other alone,’ I ventured. ‘Indeed not,’ he replied, ‘and that is why I have a second request. When you go you will take her replacement, Sister Anna? Sister Anna is new to the island and has not visited the mountain. She is twenty-eight years old, from an obscure convent in Czechoslovakia, about which I know almost nothing. We were very lucky to find her – or should I say she found us. It’s remarkable that someone so young and attractive should seek seclusion, but there we are. Oh, and like you she is an American.’