Rebecca Lim - Fury

In the middle of a raging downpour, Uriel starts to sing:

Suddenly, there’s no wind, no rain, just the sound of his voice. I stop dead in my tracks in astonishment — at the aching beauty in his voice, in the words, in the melody, cast in some ancient and peculiar minor key.

All of us have stopped, in a ragged, drawn-out line down the narrow, rocky trail, except Uriel, who keeps walking in long, easy strides, singing in a pure, clear, resonating tenor that seems to come back at us from all the surrounding mountains.

Mateo points into the sky, astounded, and a giant, winged shape seems to coalesce out of the darkness above us, out of the rain. I tense instantly, preparing to duck, or to fight if it be demon born — until I see that it’s a bird. Not the falcon Uriel sang of, but a giant black condor, its wingspan at least nine feet across. It passes so close overhead, in a single smooth sweep, that I feel a rush of air, hear the sound of its wings passing over, as Uriel finishes with his original refrain:

I join him, feeling almost compelled to do it, singing in an alto counterpoint that is rusty and hesitant, but as weirdly resonant as the thread of Uriel’s melody:

Our voices echo back at us from the stone before dying away. As the song ends, Uriel just keeps walking, as if we have not just produced the most glorious sound anyone will ever hear on this mountain.

Mateo shouts in wonder, ‘I have walked these paths for many, many years and I have never seen a condor pass so close! It’s as if he brought it down from the sky.’

Still awe-struck, he hurries to catch Uriel.

I continue uphill, occasionally glancing back at Ryan trailing behind us, head down against the rain. I wish he’d make some attempt to try and catch me; there’s so much I want to share with him. Carmen was a soprano, and I’m not! I want to tell him, though what use that information would be is anyone’s guess. Even when we’re not together, I find myself telling him things in my head, or storing up impressions, anecdotes, stories to tell him later, though we might never have a later. It’s got to be proof of love, or at least of madness.

I think this is the first bad fight we’ve ever had; and this edgy, unsettled, unhappy feeling I’m having is the feeling of being shut out.

My feet suddenly hit cut granite: an Inca stairway carved from living stone; and above the sound of the rain there’s the sound of something else, something elemental, that’s growing in power. Then I round a corner, and see a ruined city of light grey stone clinging to the cliff face, spilling down the side of the mountain in graceful, concave terraces, punctuated by ancient fountains and watercourses. Behind and above it, across a ravine, is a raging, tumbling waterfall — glorious, eternal, uncaring, vastly swollen by the interminable rain.

I turn automatically to share what I’m seeing with Ryan, but, of course, he’s not there.

Mateo shouts down to me from the pathway above: ‘Wiñay Wayna!’

And I know that the name of the place means ‘forever young’, but it is young as we are young. It endures, like we do, because we were made to.

I see him turn to Uriel and gesture. I can tell that he’s suggesting a break, but Uriel shakes his head. Mateo argues, and points down to Ryan, who is still struggling below me on the stairs, every line of his body telegraphing his sheer exhaustion and misery.

‘Ryan? Break?’ Mateo calls to him anxiously.

Ryan looks up and shakes his head, proudly, bitterly, before looking back down at his boots. So we don’t stop for a break because no one’s asking to stop, and Mateo has no choice but to agree.

We pass the mysterious, curving terraces of Wiñay Wayna in the driving, dismal rain, and keep walking, keep moving upwards.

When we finally begin to descend through a cloud forest of twisted tree trunks, ferns, orchids and lush, dark green leafy plants, my internal clock tells me it’s just before midday. It’s warmer now, and the thick cover overhead shields us from the worst of the rain. Green hummingbirds and butterflies dart amongst the foliage.

Mateo overrules Uriel at last, insisting upon a rest break. He hurries back along the paved Incan roadway to fetch Ryan.

Uriel shrugs off the pack of supplies and studies our surroundings with barely concealed impatience. ‘Ryan’s holding us up,’ he says bluntly. ‘Remind me again how he’s supposed to be useful?’

‘He’s committed,’ I say tautly. ‘He can hardly turn around and go back now. Like I said, he’s with me , and you don’t have to like it, you just have to deal with it.’

Mateo and Ryan stagger into view, and I hurry down the path to meet them, shocked at Ryan’s pallor, how badly he’s shaking.

‘He’s hallucinating,’ Mateo says worriedly as I take Ryan’s other arm over my shoulder, curve an arm around his waist. ‘He keeps saying he’s seen the Devil and the Devil looks just like him.’

‘I wish he was hallucinating,’ I mutter.

We spread out the rain ponchos Mateo brought along and lie Ryan on them. I hold him until his core temperature rises and his breathing evens out and his anger returns.

He sits up finally. ‘I’m fine ,’ he snaps hoarsely, trying to fight his way out of my embrace.

But he’s exhausted, and I just lock my arms more tightly around him, refusing to let him go. Suddenly it’s a battle of wills, an all-out wrestling match on the grassy embankment, and we’re sliding around on mud, getting tangled in the plastic of the rain ponchos, until Uriel drags us off each other, still cursing.

‘This is the way you show love towards one another?’ he says incredulously.

‘No,’ Ryan rasps, splattered with dirt, his hard expression suddenly dissolving. ‘I usually say it with flowers. But flowers are too subtle for someone as pigheaded as she is.’ He turns to me and says warily, ‘Friends?’

‘You know I’d always take a round of Greco-Roman wrestling over flowers, so no hard feelings,’ I shoot back.

Ryan laughs out loud, and some of that horrible edginess that’s been plaguing me all day, like my own personal black cloud, dissipates at the sound.

We smile at each other, and Uriel says disgustedly, ‘I don’t understand you.’

Mateo approaches hesitantly, handing us each a bottle of water and a plastic plate loaded with food from the pack: slices of fresh bread topped with torn pieces of a soft, white cheese, with a side of some colourful-looking salad involving potato and cucumber, sliced onion, beetroot and mayo. I see him take in Ryan’s forlorn appearance, before his eyes slide uncomfortably away from me, from Uri — completely dry and neat as two new pins.

Uriel and I exchange glances of our own.

‘The food looks lovely, Mateo,’ I say casually, ‘but how about you and Ryan take a little more of ours? Uri and I are still working off breakfast.’