Tom Knox - Bible of the Dead

‘Which is?’

‘It’s not a byproduct, it’s not a spandrel or a parasite or a trick, it’s not even something to keep us chatty and cheerful and healthy… it’s…’

‘It’s what?’

Fishwick gazed at Jake. ‘We evolved eyes to see the sunlight. We evolved ears to hear the wind. And our minds are wired for faith… because?’

‘You mean: we are meant to believe because there really is a God? You have become a believer?’

The surgeon shrugged, and gestured, once again, at the sublimity of the landscape around them.

‘You know, the villagers here, they were once so isolated, just sixty years ago, they thought they were the only people in the universe. Imagine that?’

But Jake didn’t want to imagine that, he didn’t want to imagine anything. He didn’t want to think of his own cold withered future, grey as the sands in Sovirom Sen’s Japanese garden. So he stared at the gorges and at White Buddha Mountain. He stared at the nothingness.

Fishwick was sighing. ‘I do really have to go. I am so sorry the surgery proved irreversible. All I can say is – have a little hope. Sometimes neurones can heal spontaneously, we don’t know why. The mind retains its many mysteries. Goodbye Jake.’

Jake watched him descend the steps, and disappear down a path that led to the rear of the laboratories.

The wind from the forests was mild. But his tea was cold. And the hollowness inside him was profound. Like a silenced bell.

The days passed, the nullity abided. Jake dreamed of nothing. He stared at the sky. The day of their departure approached.

On the seventh day following the failed operation, Jake woke early and looked across the bed.

It was empty.

There was a note on Chemda’s pillow, in an envelope.

He took out the notepaper and read.

I know you don’t love me any more; and I know you can’t help it.

This is too painful for me: because I still love you. Goodbye.

C

He put the note back in the envelope; he dressed. Trying not to think. The very last truck was due to leave Bala this afternoon. He wanted to run outside and race down the valley. He didn’t know what to do.

Julia was sitting on the terrace.

‘Chemda has gone,’ he said.

She stared at him, and her gaze was searching. ‘I know. She told me last night. A villager was taking his fruit to Zhongdian market – at dawn. She went with him in the pickup. I’m sorry, Jake.’

Jake remembered his mother, abandoning him in the night. So this was another woman – abandoning him in the night. And he couldn’t blame her.

He sat down. Staring at his own hands, then at Julia.

‘What are you going to do? When we finally get… away?’

The Canadian woman sighed. Her expression was strained.

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. Not any more.’

Jake said nothing. But the silence seemed to embarrass Julia, so he stood, straightened his chair, and continued his walk past the terrace tables.

The day was bright and clear, sharp and mountainous. The villagers were tilling their steep brown fields. One old woman gave him a broken smile as he walked the path to the stupa.

Positioned on a large high promontory of rock, the stupa overlooked one of the most spectacular stretches of the canyon. Down there were the heaven villages, much further down was the cascading river, a juvenile tributary of the Mekong.

The Mekong . The very concept threw up a kaleidoscopic series of recent memories. It seemed to Jake as though he had been following the great Mekong all these weeks, from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang to Phnom Penh to Yunnan. The mighty Mekong. And now he was near the source, where the crystal waters tumbled: violent and tragic.

He climbed the last steps and placed a hand on the stupa. Silence enveloped him.

The only noise came from the windhorses – the prayer flags fluttering in a stiff sunlit breeze. Each flag, of red and blue and faded yellow, was written with the wishes of the villagers, praying to the holy mountains.

Remorse fell like a silent snow. What had he done? He had lost everyone. His sister, his mother, now Chemda.

Everyone.

In a few hours the last truck would leave Bala village and take the long road to Zhongdian. And he would be on it. Running after Chemda. He was going to find her. He knew he would spend the rest of his life trying to find her, if that’s what it took. But he would find her.

A cooler wind kicked up. The little prayer flags fluttered in the silent breeze, petitioning the universe, filling the quietness. Arms of white snow embraced the rocky summit of Buddha Mountain: like a mother, folding a son in her love, and never letting go.

‘What you did was very brave. Audacious!’

Officer Rouvier steered the car around a corner. Ahead of them, through the drizzle, Julia could see the distant stones of the Cham des Bondons, dark and elegiac. It was as if they had been waiting for her to return; as if they knew she was coming back.

‘I don’t know about bravery,’ she said. ‘I just did what I did. What I had to do. Thankyou for collecting me from the airport.’

The Frenchman smiled – and squinted at the pattering rain.

‘You have already thanked me twice, Miss Kerrigan. But I am still confused. What are you going to do now? You really want to spend the winter out here ?’

He gestured at the bleak and rainy moors; the windlashed causse.

‘My college in London has given me another few weeks’ paid leave. Because of… Just because .’

He didn’t reply to this. They drove past a broken farmgate, where a brace of horses looked dismal and forlorn in the wet. Another lonely standing stone loomed through the mist.

Julia recalled her own ideas. Of Easter Island. The monuments to a violent and dying culture.

Rouvier spoke:

‘So you will go back to London in the spring?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. I like to think that I have choices.’

Rouvier agreed. Then he said:

‘You also have a very good brain, Miss Kerrigan. Your theory, about the caves and skulls, it was right!’

‘Ghislaine’s theory.’

‘No.’ He spoke firmly. ‘ Yours. You do not know what he wrote, and you either discovered it again, or you made a better one. I am sure you made a better theory. So it is yours.’

The rain was the only sound, discreetly chattering on the car roof.

They were very near Annika’s old cottage now. With that realization she felt a reflux of fear, and grief, which she strove to quell. This is just a place. Just an old cottage. That’s all. Just an old house.

She spoke, quickly:

‘I’ve rented a small farmhouse for about two months, it’s in the next village from Vayssiere. Les Combettes. It’s very cheap in the winter.’

Rouvier nodded. ‘I’m not surprised. Most people escape in the winter, this is not Juan les Pins in August. They should be paying you for staying .’ He softly smiled her way. ‘It will be lonely out here?’

‘I don’t mind loneliness.’

‘But… Mister Carmichael?’

She shrugged.

‘Things change.’

‘ Bien sur .’ He nodded, slowing the car as they took the last turn for Vayssiere. ‘I know this all too well. I am now divorced myself. Ah… this rain . Il pleure …’

‘ Dans mon coeur, Comme il pleut sur la ville ?’

Their shared laughter was gentle. He stopped the car a few metres from Annika’s front door. Julia glanced across. Yes, her car was still there. Where she’d left it, all those weeks ago, when they had quit the place to go and see Ghislaine’s body. She’d never got round to picking it up again. And now here she was. Picking it up again.