Matryoshka

by Ricardo Pinto

  The Neanderthal reaches them, shouts and shakes his head. He thrusts his hand towards the incandescent clouds that simmer over the island; he puffs out his cheeks and blows; he makes violent undulating motions with his arms; he plucks at them and jabs a finger in the direction of his hut.

  Septima leans close to Cherenkov. ‘He’s right: look at that ocean. If we go out now we’ll founder.’

  Sullen, Cherenkov nods.

  Though eyeless, the Neanderthal seems aware of where the boat is. He fumbles for its prow, grabs hold, and begins to drag it further from the violent sea. They join in, heaving in synchrony with the waves in the ground. When the Neanderthal releases the boat, they nod at each other, clamp their hats to their heads, and follow him inland. Unable to keep the opal bands in place, they are exposed to the blinding currents of light that lash the sky.

  ❖

  Rain drums the pelt roof of the hut as they shelter beneath it. With a grin, the Neanderthal distributes pears, and radishes whose wilted leaves are still green. Octavio peels an orange and offers it to Cherenkov.

  ‘I’d prefer an apple.’

  The boy finds him one. In the flashing light, Cherenkov peers at it, and pushes it against his lips; it really is still fragrant. He bites into the flesh; it is still sweet, still juicy.

  He chews a radish with the bits of apple still in his mouth. Septima won’t hold his gaze.

  Octavio leans close to her. ‘Am I in trouble?’

  Septima shrugs.

  ‘With Mama and Papa?’

  ‘For stowing away?’

  ‘And not returning with Sexta?’

  Septima half glances at Cherenkov: ‘No, you’re not in trouble.’

  The boy peers at her from under his fair brows. ‘Has Mama missed me?’

  Cherenkov sees Septima stiffen. She cups Octavio’s cheek. ‘Of course she’s missed you, darling.’ Cherenkov looks away to hide his frown.

  The Neanderthal motions with his hand and they make a space into which he drops nearly half a cheese. Whole it would have been the size of a human head. He hacks off wedges with a flint blade, his eyebrows rise as he sniffs each with his enormous nose, before he passes it round.

  Cherenkov samples his wedge, and nods. ‘It’s good.’ He notices some red ink on the rind. He reaches over and turns the cheese. It is marked with an “X’ bisected by a long stalked “P”: a symbol for Christ. He frowns and peers at writing running around its top: AQVILEIAE.

  He points at the Christ mark. ‘Russian?’

  Septima scowls. Octavio squints at it. ‘Greek, I think.’

  Cherenkov points at the writing. ‘And this?’

  The boy angles his head to read it and looks surprised. ‘Roman.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  The boy points. ‘That V instead of a U.’

  Septima pushes the cheese wheel into the Neanderthal’s hand. ‘Wherever it came from, it’s delicious and I for one would like some more.’

  ❖

  Lightning rends the sky; thunder engulfs them, and a tearing, screaming wind. The hut flaps like a trapped bird. They ride the ocean’s rage as it arches the island’s back as if trying to dislodge them. The Neanderthal snores with a grin on his face.

  ❖

  They emerge into a world remade. The familiar topography has been so transformed that they could imagine that the storm has flown them to a different island.

  The Neanderthal decants water into a leather bottle from a bowl he left out to catch rain.

  Septima pales. ‘The boat!’

  She lurches down the sargassum slope in the direction where they left it, and Cherenkov scrambles after her.

  ❖

  They find the boat heeled over in a shallow pool of water. They circle it.

  ‘The hull looks unholed,’ says Cherenkov.

  Octavio speaks from behind them. ‘Is it all right?’

  They turn and see he is there with the Neanderthal.

  Cherenkov grins. ‘It seems fine, thank god!’

  ‘Except,’ says Septima, frowning, ‘that she’s beached.’

  A new stretch of sargassum lies between the boat and the ocean.

  ❖

  As Cherenkov and Septima watch the Neanderthal move off, Octavio sits astride the prow dangling his legs. The boat has stubbornly resisted their efforts to budge her.

  When the Neanderthal returns, he unslings a shoulder bag and draws out a large flint. He runs his thumb along its edge and grins. He faces the stern, legs apart, raises the flint and swings it into the sargasso. It slices through the seaweed. The next swing cuts deeper. Soon he has made a trough that fills with seawater.

  ❖

  When the Neanderthal puts the flint down, Cherenkov makes to take it up, but the giant seizes his arm and shakes his head.

  ‘I understand how precious this must be here,’ Cherenkov looks around him, ‘in this stoneless world. But I’d like to help.’

  The Neanderthal snorts, but let’s go.

  ❖

  They take turns. When the stone blunts, the Neanderthal takes a cobble from his bag and, by repeatedly striking tiny flakes from it, and testing with his thumb, he gives it a new edge.

  ❖

  One final swing and the ocean rushes in along the channel they have cut. The pool around the boat deepens; the boat slowly rights itself and floats free.

  ❖

  Cherenkov and Septima leave the Neanderthal and the boy sitting on the shore gazing out over the ocean, and scramble aboard the boat to check their supplies.

  Cherenkov takes hold of Septima’s arm. ‘Is his mother really still alive?’

  She frowns.

  ‘Why did you lie to him?’

  Septima pulls free. ‘When my mother returned without him, my grandmother did miss him; so much so she succumbed to grief and went early to her death. She was entombed the year that I was born. That much is true: as for the rest,’ she shrugs. ‘What benefit is there in getting him upset before he needs to be?’

  ❖

  Septima looks at her chronometer. ‘It’s time to go.’

  Cherenkov looks about them. ‘Where’s Octavio?’

  Septima groans. ‘Not again…’

  As she staggers back towards the Neanderthal’s hut, Cherenkov scans the gentle hills and ridges of piled-up seaweed. When earlier the boy had argued that he wanted to stay behind with the Neanderthal, Septima had told him he was being stupid: ‘What would your parents say if I were to return home without you?’ Octavio had sulked, but seemed to accept that he had no choice.

  Cherenkov spots the boy on the new highest summit the storm has thrown up, and heads towards him. His path takes him directly towards the oncoming flashes that his hat, with its opal band, cannot block without blindfolding him.

  Feeling his way, he scrabbles up the slimy seaweed mount. When he nears the summit, he circles round so that he can come up to it side-on to the light. Sure enough the boy is stood there, his hat in his hand, drinking the light with unblinking eyes.

  ‘We’re leaving now,’ Cherenkov says softly.

  The boy turns to him, eyes angelically blue. ‘Come, Cherenkov, take a look, please just take a look.’

  Cherenkov feels that Octavio has a power over him that he does not understand – a power that he resents; still he plods up to stand at his side. He turns, and a deluge of light breaks over him: a flood that comes from, it seems, the other side of the universe; a flight of needles of indescribable intensity pierce him to his heart. He screws his eyes closed, covers them with his arm, but that makes no difference; the light slices through him, so bright it bleaches out every shadow – until he feels that every impurity in his body has burned away.

  ‘Do you hear the singing?’

  It takes Cherenkov a while to be able to remember where he is; to recall to whom that voice belongs.

  ‘Singing?’

  ‘Listen.’

  Cherenkov becomes aware of a sound almost beyond hearing, and that seems to eman
ate from the very vibration of the light that pours through him. As his mind catches hold of it, the sound grows stronger, clearer: a song that a diamond might sing; a song that resonates him to boundless joy.

  He feels the warmth of the boy’s small grip.

  ‘I would like to go there one day. Perhaps you’ll come with me, Cherenkov. Wouldn’t you like to go to Heaven with me?’

  For a moment, made eternal by the vibrating singing light, there is nothing Cherenkov wants more.

  A dull voice carries up to them from duskward. ‘We must leave now!’

  As he turns away, the light dims. Eventually the opal band quenches the light altogether and he can see the world as it really is: leaden and lifeless.

  Septima calls up to them: ‘What are you two doing?’

  Cherenkov pulls free of the boy’s grip. He half stumbles, half slides down through the heaped up seaweed. Septima looks past him to the summit. Cherenkov glances back: the boy is up there alone.

  Septima cries out: ‘Octavio, please, we really need to go.’

  For a moment it seems as if the boy has not heard her, or chooses to ignore her, but then he stomps down towards them, tears in his eyes. Cherenkov wipes some from his own.

  ❖

  They take their leave of the Neanderthal on the shore. He helps push their boat out. They raise the sail and begin to tack in a long zigzag to windward.

  Six

  For what seems days, they have sailed away from the light. Imperceptibly their world darkens.

  ❖

  Octavio pulls the raincoat over his head.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ says Cherenkov.

  The boy shuffles closer, bleak-eyed. ‘See for yourself.’

  He opens the raincoat and Cherenkov gazes at the slight body beneath. ‘What?’

  ‘See how we fall away from our angelic state?’ Only the merest glimmer now emanates from Octavio’s flesh.

  ❖

  They slice through a blue-hued void, the passing of time marked only by what they need to do to keep their speed. Steering. Tacking the other way into the wind. Warning the others to duck. Swinging the tiller; the boom sweeps over their heads; the sail flaps like a massive gull, catches the wind, pulls taut. Creaking, the boat eases to its new course.

  ❖

  On his back, in the belly of the boat, Cherenkov does not stir when the crossing boom drags a line over his legs. Arms wrapped across his chest, he stares into space.

  ❖

  Septima leans on the tiller, and doesn’t notice that Cherenkov watches her. She seems lost in the slow sweeping rhythm as she tacks them endlessly upwind. Her face is as expressionless as the ocean, but her eyes, lowered, are in constant movement. Sometimes her lips twitch as if she is whispering.

  ❖

  Eyes brimming with tears, Octavio announces suddenly that he is happy to be going home. Cherenkov and Septima stare at him.

  ‘I’ve missed Mama and Papa!’

  ❖

  ‘You have to tell him!’

  Septima glances up at Cherenkov. ‘He’ll find out soon enough.’

  Cherenkov gazes back at Octavio as he takes his turn to steer the boat. ‘We can’t let him continue to believe his mother’s there waiting for him.’

  ‘Is this about his discomfort or yours?’

  ‘You’re happy to have him live your lie until he reaches Eboreus?’

  Her face reddens and she looks away. ‘If it’s worrying you so much, you tell him!’

  ❖

  The next time the boy talks about his parents, Cherenkov says: ‘Octavio, there’s something you need to know.’

  When he sees the expression on Cherenkov’s face, Octavio loses his grin. Cherenkov edges closer to him. He glances back to Septima who steers the boat, her face stiff as a mask.

  He holds the boy’s gaze. ‘You know that Septima is your niece?’

  ‘I don’t really believe that.’

  ‘Nevertheless it’s true.’

  The boy raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Your sister is now much, much older than you. Your father is alive, but aged.’ He clasps the boy’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Octavio, but your mother is dead.’

  The boy wrenches free, and fixes him with cold eyes. ‘Why’re you saying this to me?’

  ‘You need to know.’

  Octavio sways across the boat towards Septima. ‘He’s lying, isn’t he?’

  Septima gazes out to sea. ‘He speaks the truth.’

  ❖

  Octavio is curled up against the prow.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ says Septima.

  ‘It was the kindest thing to do.’

  ‘You’re sure of that, are you?’

  She examines his eyes, and softens. Tears run down her cheeks. She puts a hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry; I’ve made a mess of everything.’ She shakes her head. ‘I used to be so certain…’

  As she moves to let go of his arm, he covers her hand to keep it there. ‘Considering what you’ve been – what we’ve been through – certainty of any kind would be rather crazy.’

  She frowns, looks down. ‘They never recovered from the last war, from the shame of defeat…’

  ‘My uncle fell in France, my mother mourned him; it broke my grandmother’s heart. I know.’

  She looks up into his eyes, chuckles raggedly, ‘Better than I who came to it from another world.’ She looks into the infinite glowing void beyond the boat. ‘From this world.’

  Her attention returns to him. ‘When the Party came, brutal as they were, they brought a kind of redemption. People drank it up; became giddy on their promises. With less reason than they, I allowed myself to be blind to what they were.’

  ❖

  For a while they are easier with each other. They take turns to sit with Octavio, until he uncurls and accepts the food they offer him. He remains sullen.

  ‘It is to be expected,’ Cherenkov says quietly to Septima as he pats her shoulder.

  ❖

  Cherenkov confesses his fears to her about returning home to America.

  Her face stiffens. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about your friends, or the authorities: I think you’re likely to find they’ve lost interest in you.’

  Cherenkov moves to the prow and gazes out over the ocean, but he keeps glancing back at her with a frown.

  ❖

  He wakes with a haunted expression and raises himself to look over the bow: they are adrift in a furtive twilight. He grips the boat and peers into the gloom: a light glows up ahead. A chime carries towards them across the water.

  As the Tribune’s tower looms up with unnatural rapidity, his face tightens. Septima and Octavio stare pale-faced at the tower.

  Seven

  Eager hands grab the ropes Cherenkov and Septima cast out. Both are aware of the two prominent figures on the quayside; like mannequins in their gleaming silks and jewels.

  The boat clunks against the quay and is made fast. Septima steps off first; Cherenkov follows with Octavio. Cherenkov stares at the Tribune and her consort: their faces are lined; skin sags from chin and jaw line. The Tribune is stouter: her consort much thinner.

  At first they have eyes only for their daughter, but when the Tribune’s gaze strays and finds Octavio beside Cherenkov, what little colour she has beneath her rouge dies. She becomes so still, she could be a painted doll. She stares at Octavio and he stares back.

  ‘What is this?’ the old woman demands.

  Octavio spots another figure, a hunched man wearing a ruff. He approaches him. ‘Papa, papa, is that you?’

  The hunched man, the Lord Anzolo, raises rheumy eyes; they widen. ‘No.’ He tries to push Octavio away, but the boy slips past Anzolo’s gnarled hands and grabs hold of him. Octavio clings to his father, and sobs. Anzolo stares down at the boy, and his mouth hangs open.

  ‘A ghost!’ he wails.

  Octavio struggles to hold him up as Anzolo sags to the cobbles. Septima and the Tribune cry out. The Consort barks a command. Guar
ds impede each other as they stoop to lift the old man. Octavio gets in the way, tries to help.

  White-faced, the Tribune looks on as her father is raised from the ground. She regards Octavio with cold eyes.

  Cherenkov cries out: ‘He’s your brother, he’s Octavio!’

  The Tribune turns on Cherenkov. ‘I know perfectly well who it is!’

  Her husband tries to put his arm about her. ‘Come, my dear… This is not the place…’

  She shrugs the arm off. ‘It is a ghost.’ Her gaze softens, but Octavio does not see this; weeping still, he gazes forlornly towards the archway through which his father was carried.

  ‘Come,’ says the Consort and takes hold of his wife. She allows herself to be led.

  Cherenkov kneels beside the boy. ‘Octavio?’

  The boy doesn’t answer and so Cherenkov scoops him up. Septima is frozen.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She becomes aware of him, nods almost imperceptibly and paces towards the opening. Cherenkov follows with Octavio in his arms.

  ❖

  High in the tower, remote from the hiss and slap of the ocean, the Tribune moves aside in a doorway to let her daughter enter the room behind her. As Cherenkov makes to follow, the Tribune blocks his way.

  ‘You two must be wanting to bathe, to change out of those filthy garments.’

  ‘Whatever you’re going to discuss… Highness, will involve me.’

  The Tribune’s mouth thins. ‘I would speak with my daughter alone.’

  Septima’s voice carries out to them. ‘Let him come, Mama, this does involve him and he has earned his right to be present.’

  The Tribune does not move out of the way.