Читать книгу Fallen - David Maine - Страница 15

34 the strangers

The desert waits for him. There is no gate saying Abandon Hope, fool but there might as well be.

He considers turning back but he knows what lies behind him and he wants no part of it. Just as it wants no part of him.

He considers trying to find his way across the hellish sand, and thinks, Why not?

He thinks, Other men have crossed it.

He thinks, And other men yet have died in the attempt.

He thinks, It might kill me too. I might collapse and provide a brief, noisy meal for a few vultures. Years from now, some camel may puzzle over my bones, half-buried in the dunes, while men wonder who I was and what brought me here to die. They might even pray for me. Imagine the irony of that. Then again they might not. Most likely, none of this will ever happen. I’ll be covered by the sands and lost forever.

Then he thinks: There are worse fates than being forgotten.

He waits for dusk and makes his way out onto the hard desert plain.

•

There are caravan tracks, so he follows them. Where they lead is a mystery but he reckons his likeliest route across is where other men have already been. He travels at night, by the light of the moon or stars, always east. The trails lead in this direction, and in any case it is easy to make sure. The sun sets at his back each dusk, casting his shadow before him like a net, while every dawn glows like a beacon on the horizon. In the silvery moonlight the caravan tracks glimmer like hope, but morning reveals them to be dry, rutted things, pocked with stones and sinkholes. He treads carefully and tries to breathe through his nose, not his mouth, to save water.

As the sun climbs high he seeks shade. Most mornings he must create his own, draping his cloak over a dry shrub or a few sticks, then arranging himself in the miserly shadow. Once he comes across the bleached bones of some enormous creature with white ribs reaching toward the sky like beseeching fingers. He drapes his cloak across the top and sleeps inside, stretching his own tired bones alongside the vertebrae.

Days wheel past. He feels himself drying, shrinking. The sun leaches moisture from his body and leaves something leathery in its place. When he wakes in the evenings his tongue has paradoxically shriveled and expanded and he must ration his water, sipping the warm mouthfuls to make them last. The drops seem to soak into his tongue before even reaching his throat. Absently he wonders how long he will manage to continue living.

Still he wanders on.

He feels the sun toughening him, transforming his clay into brick. One thing he is grateful for: his mind is not so burdened as it had been with anger and self-pity and doubt and guilt and rage. The voices that whisper in his ear from time to time have fallen silent. He has only so much energy in his body and right now, all is concentrated on staying alive. So in a way, he finds some measure of peace. Or if not peace exactly, then—stillness.

•

Birds hover far overhead. Vultures, he suspects, or hawks. He wonders if they are even hot-ter than he is, being closer to the sun. Or if they are in fact cooler, being far away from this burning plain of sand.

He has brought a quantity of mutton and fish to sustain him. It has been salted down and the bite of this leaves his mouth, miraculously, salivating, while his cruel thirst grows even more relentless. But the dead flesh does succeed in rejuvenating his own, at least for a time.

Scorpions jitter by, milky yellow. Ugly things like God’s mistakes. The sight of them chills his loins: he knows they would kill him without a thought.

•

One night a shadow looms up some distance away and he finds himself walking toward it. The shadow grows larger and blockier and suddenly resolves into a grove of trees, lurching outward at odd angles like a group of ruffians interrupted in the midst of some crime. Within the circle of trees lies a small dusty spring. Cain disrupts a pair of small desert foxes with ludicrously big ears, and collapses into the water. Owls comment from the palms above him. The pool is shallow but deep enough for him to dunk his head. He pulls up sputtering and hears himself laugh for the first time in a long while.

•

His waterskins are nearly empty. Once refilled, he drinks them dry, then fills them again. The sudden intake of brackish water causes him to vomit. Slowly, a few mouthfuls at a time, he drinks again. By morning he is fast asleep under his cloak’s shadow.

He stays there four days.

He feels the water fattening his tired flesh. At the same time he knows he cannot stay forever. His supplies are half gone.

The next leg of the journey is even harder for the brief respite he has enjoyed. Heat bouncing up off the sand pummels him even at night, and he wonders if he has stumbled into Purgatory, or perhaps some outlying district of Hell. For ten days he sees nothing living, aside from scarabs and silvery-leafed twigs no taller than his ankle. Even the scorpions and raptors have vanished.

On the eleventh day his food runs out.

His water is reduced to a few gummy mouthfuls in one waterskin. Cain takes to chewing on the other skin to battle the ache in his stomach and throat. He wonders if he has the energy to catch a few scarabs, and if he does, whether he could bring himself to swallow them. He decides: probably not.

There is no shrub to drape his cloak over in this wasteland, nor any skeleton save his own. So each morning he burrows into the sand with the cloak spread over him to ward off the sun. An irreverent part of his mind notes that most people wait until they are dead to get buried. He assures himself that it is a common habit among the denizens of the desert, the beetles and snakes and mice.

He lies there all day and into the night. The night is when he should rouse himself, get moving, but it is so hard to stir.

So hard. Night glides by on black wings, and then it is morning again.

—Here, take a little of this.

Cain protests weakly, rolls over, seeks oblivion.

—What’s that on your face? Some kind of. Oh.

A pause then. Heavenly silence. Cain groggily hopes it will last for—

—Oh. I see.

Heavy hands on him then.

—Doesn’t leave me much choice, does it? I’d rather be abed, but you’d be dead by evening.

When Cain next flutters awake, the earth pitches beneath him. The sun is at his back, low and orange against the sky: it is sunset again, and he rides on a camel. He falls forward nearly prone on the animal’s back, but his feet have been tied to stirrups so he cannot slide off. The smell of the thing is heavy in his nostrils, a surprisingly sweet blend of fur and grass and shit. A fly crawls on Cain’s face, and after some time he notices it and rouses himself enough to shake his head and then straighten up. Another camel is in front of his, someone riding it, leading his own mount with a tether.

Cain tries to speak and hears a coarse grating. He coughs, clears his throat, and tries again:—Who are you?

The other rider turns to face him. He wags back and forth as his camel plods on.—So you’re awake.

—Seem to be. I owe you my life if I’m not mistaken.

The man grunts as if this is no great debt. Black eyeballs glitter from beneath dense brows, above a mustache that grows long and droops like a cat’s whiskers.

—What is your name? Cain asks again.

—Yarin, the man answers.

—I am in your debt. My name is—

—I know who you are, Yarin says quickly, as if afraid to hear Cain say more.—Rest now. You’re weak and wrung out, and I don’t have enough water for the both of us.

They ride in silence. The camels wear thick metal bracelets that clink, clink as they step across the hardpan, a homely sound against the vastness of the sky. To Cain there is a strange kind of poetry in this, and he feels peculiarly nostalgic for this sound he has never before heard.

—Why do your camels wear jewelry? he asks as the first stars glimmer in the turquoise.

The man regards him as if seeking hidden messages in this question.—So I can find them when they wander off.

And a part of Cain is a little disappointed at this utilitarian purpose.

At dusk they reach another spring. The man is so casual about it that Cain wonders if such things are marked in some way that he has overlooked. Beside the muddy puddle the camels hunker down, burping and farting, while Yarin lights a fire and grills a pair of fresh rabbits he produces from somewhere. In silence he skins and roasts them on a spit he swiftly constructs from a few fallen twigs.

—Thank you, says Cain when he is handed one of the still-smoking carcasses.

Yarin grunts.

Cain remarks his companion’s stiff silence, his nervous glances flickering into the darkness around them. He asks a few questions about the man’s travels and business and receives one-word answers. Cain’s impatience swells. Finally he growls, You needn’t look over your shoulder quite so much. It’s not as if I’ve got the demons of Hell at my command.

Yarin squints at him.—That’s a promise?

He does not seem to be jesting.

—If you’re so afraid of me, Cain says, you could have left me where I lay.

Yarin meets his gaze with a black-irised one of his own. Behind that drooping mustache he looks distinctly unhappy.—Let me tell you something. If I could have, I would.

—Why didn’t you then?

Now the man looks frightened, as if he has spoken too much. He attacks the rabbit flesh, masticating it as if the poor creature has given some offense.—You know why. I’m a man of God, and you carry the mark.

Involuntarily, Cain reaches for his face. Stops himself.—The mark is merely a warning, he says. He wills his voice to remain steady, as if talking about the alignment of the stars, or the differences between a cactus flower and a lily.—To prevent any man from murdering me. No more.

Yarin nods and chews his food. Chews some more. Swallows hard.—And if I’d found you lying there in the sun, and left you? What would you call that if not murder?

—It’s not the same, Cain mutters.

—Is to me. A man who witnesses a death without trying to prevent it is as responsible as the man who causes it.

Cain ponders this. Under those circumstances, who would qualify as his murderer—the sun in the sky or the God who put it there?

There seems no point in asking this question, so he gives up on small talk and Yarin does the same. The man is reacting out of obligation and fear, and Cain is familiar enough with those two impulses to be uninterested in spending any more time in their company than absolutely necessary.

As the night thickens around them, the two men hang their cloaks on opposite sides of the spring and prepare to sleep. Yarin says, Listen. We’ll stay here tonight and tomorrow so you can rest.

—Thank you.

—Tomorrow night we’ll move on and by morning we’ll reach the first villages. Keep your face out of sight and you’ll save me a lot of trouble.

—All right.

—Past the river Tus you’re on your own. When I wake up after that I’ll be happy to see you gone.

Not bothering to look at the other man, knowing he watches closely, Cain nods. What is surprising is not Yarin’s sentiment but how much it stings. This rejection, this cold unthinking hate. How much it pains him, like a slap against a burnt patch of skin, even after all these years. The unkindness of strangers.

There seems to be no end to the inventiveness of God’s torments.

He rolls over and burrows into sleep.

•

After the desert there remains a part of Cain that is forever dried and hardened, like a shriveled nut lodged in his mind or heart or belly. When he thinks about it, which is rarely, he feels as if some of his guilt and fury have been scorched away by the sun, leaving only this hard kernel that will remain with him forever. He knows it is there but ignores it as best he can, which is usually well enough to get through the day without trembling, without weeping, without running outside to vomit.

•

Some weeks later Cain is caught in a lashing downpour. He staggers on under the howling sky until he happens upon a hut, open and abandoned.

Inside is musty and dim. The charred remains of a cookfire occupy the center of the floor. There is only one window, small and high up, and no furniture at all. In the roof beams is a nest of jays who squawk and rattle at his arrival. Cain stretches out on the dirt floor, taking care to avoid the cold cinders, and scowls at the birds, whom he half expects to empty their bowels on him until he leaves. He wonders whose hut this is and why it is remote and empty. The world is not so filled with accommodation that people can casually walk away from one house and expect to find another.

No answer is apparent. Cain sups from cold provisions he carries, almonds and dried fruit, hard cheese and olives. Then he rolls onto his stomach—thus has he slept since childhood—and falls into heavy slumber.

He dreams of fire and is awakened by its flicker against his eyelids.

Jerking upright, he takes some moments to realize that the hut itself is not engulfed. Rather, a campfire has been built in the middle of the floor, a small pyramid of logs that chats happily as it is consumed.

—Welcome friend, says a voice like a feather.

There is a figure crouched on the far side of the fire, someone thick draped in rough pelts.

Cain finds his voice.—I’m sorry to have intruded. I’ll go now.

—’Sall right, says the voice. It is a soft voice, breathy, and strokes him like a caress. Somehow it doesn’t suit this husky shadow.—No intrusion, and no need to leave either. I’m proud to call you my friend.

Friend.

It has been a long time since he has heard that word. A sudden feverish flush smites his face. Perhaps this man is mocking him.—Do you know who I am?

The man’s eyes glitter.—Hard to guess wrong with that thing on you, he says, and Cain knows he means the mark.—I’d be a dog to tell you to go. And I ain’t a dog.

Isn’t this a puzzle. Cain sits up properly and squints across the firelight.—Come here so I can see you, he says softly.

The figure draws near, his face lit by garish flames. Little more than a boy, perhaps sixteen years old. His nose is enormous and hangs before him like a predator’s muzzle, a wolf’s perhaps, surmounted by a pair of glittering colorless eyes. His smile carries an air of supercilious contempt for the world and everything in it.

Cain is not sure that he wants to be considered friends to such a boy—man?—as this. Then another wave of fatigue assails him: perhaps he can beg off further conversation and go back to sleep. The irony does not escape him that the first person in years to have welcomed his company is, in fact, distasteful to him.

Ironic or not, it is true. He leans close to the fire.—Do you not understand this mark upon me?

Instead of withdrawing, the smile on the face broadens.—Sure I do! says the boy.—It’s why I stayed here instead of going home.

Cain is confused.—Isn’t this your home?

—Nope. This hut belongs to Ohar. Or it used to.

Cain asks, And where is he?

—Dead.

—I’m sorry.

—I ain’t, grins the boy.

Cain says nothing. The child sits near with an air of expectation, as if waiting for him to speak. Cain’s eyes drop to the fire, where a finger of flame has split a thick log and now burns hot and white out of the crease.

—Ain’t you going to ask how he died?

—Not interested, Cain shrugs.

—I killed him, the boy says. When Cain looks up the boy adds, I used a rock.

—Why, says Cain, would you do something like that?

The boy appears surprised.—I thought you’d understand, you of all people. I wanted him to die so I did it. I figured maybe you’d want to know how I did it, not why.

—I don’t care how you did it.

—I used a rock, giggles the boy.—Just like you did.

—I didn’t—well, not exactly.

—I used a rock.

They remain silent for a time. Cain feels chilled by the boy’s revelation but cannot say exactly why. It’s nothing he hasn’t done himself, after all.—He must have wronged you greatly to be so abused.

—I didn’t even hardly know him, says the boy.—He just had some stuff I wanted.

—That’s stupid, snarls Cain.—How could you kill somebody and not even know why you were doing it?

Distress splashes plain across the boy’s face.—Don’t call me stupid. You were the whole reason I did this. You were the, the, inspiration.

—Don’t be ridiculous, snaps Cain.—You’re either a murderer, or you are not. I have nothing to do with it.

A note of hysteria has edged into his voice.—A man has to be born capable of such a thing. No one can teach him how to do it if he is not ready in his own heart.

The boy looks about to start crying.—That’s not true, he blurts.—I never thought of anything like this until I heard about you. Then I said if he could do it to his own brother, what’s wrong with me? I said nothing’d stop me and nothing did. I used a rock.

Cain is silent. There is no point to speech. The fire crackles merrily: laughing even in death, Cain can’t help thinking.

Still the boy gabbles on.—And you know what? It wasn’t like I was alone when I did it. You were with me the whole time.

—Your imagination is making me tired, Cain says, which is nothing less than the truth.—I’m going to sleep. It’s all the same to me whether you stay or go.

—So the thing is, it’s not my fault, says the boy.—I never would of known how, if you hadn’t shown me. If it wasn’t for you, he’d still be alive right now.

—Sleep well, Cain mutters. He lies on his side with an elbow over his ear.—I’m not interested in hearing any more.

—Yeah, he’d probably be in this hut right now, talking to you, instead of me.

Cain is wide awake but pretends not to be.

—So in a way, the boy says, it’s like you killed him too.

For a long time Cain stares at the orange firelight flickering against the walls of the hut. The shadows carry images of his brother. Cain watches them wearily, trying to call up the rage he once felt so reliably. And fails.

When he does finally manage to sleep, his dreams are profoundly unpleasant, and he wakes up more than once, sweating and disoriented.

•

In the morning the hunt is silent but for the patter of drops on the roof. Overhead the jays mutter. Was it all a dream? he wonders. He hopes it was. Just an illusion, a metaphor of some sort.

No, it wasn’t.

Cain sits up. The boy is curled into a ball by the entryway, as if wrapped around a treasure he clutches to his midriff. Cain decides to forgo breakfast, choosing instead to step past the boy and make his way out into the drizzle. He does not know where he is going. All he knows is what he is trying to get away from, to leave behind. It is all he has known for quite a while now.