John Banville - Nightspawn

‘Ah,’ he murmured. ‘The white man.’

I nodded to him.

‘Hello.’

I went back into the room, my lips forming the German’s name. He was gone. The bed still bore the imprint of his bones, but of the man himself, there was not a sign. In the second or two while I stood there staring, my mind went back to search for a lapse in the time I took to gag above the garden. Andreas came in and found me with one finger raised, the smile of the ‘r’ in Erik still lingering on my jowls.

‘Has something happened?’ he asked.

I turned to him, and my teeth, of their own will, clenched themselves. I was not capable of telling him about that blood and death. It was a shyness almost.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing, I felt sick for a minute. Where has he gone? He was here a minute ago.’

‘Was he? You are very pale.’

He was humouring me. I wanted to kick him in his fine gleaming teeth.

‘For Christ’s sake yes, he was here, on this bloody bed.’

He went to where their bags lay in a corner with their guts out on the floor. I watched his fingers scrabbling inside one of them, and for an instant I glimpsed the beasts. Later they were to come in herds. He drew out a flat leather flask, unscrewed the cap ( eek eek ) and filled it to the brim with tawny liquor.

‘Here,’ he said, bringing to me the little cup. ‘Drink this.’

The brandy spread its thin hot roots along my nerves. I sat down on the bed. Eek eek, said the cap. Andreas watched me with a sidelong look as he put away the flask. I began to whistle soundlessly, tapping a finger on my knee. The cripple sat down on one of the straight-backed chairs and carefully arranged his misshapen limbs to fit the severity of the wood.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked irritably.

He continued to study me with mild curiosity. At length he said,

‘I am trying to … to place you, is that the word? But you do not fit. Tell me about yourself. You are Irish? They said you were a writer.’

‘I was.’

‘Not any more?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m still a writer. Is that all you want to know?’

My impatience amused him. He smiled and clasped his hands. The chair cracked its joints.

‘You don’t like me, Mr White, do you?’

‘I don’t dislike you. I have no reason to dislike you.’

‘Ah. You should be a politician.’

‘I leave that to others.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing. It sounded right.’

Now it was my turn to smile. He touched the corner of his mouth with a fingertip, and said,

‘It is a pity you don’t speak Greek.’

‘How do you know I don’t?’

‘I do not know, of course, but you always speak to me in English.’

‘Always? This is the second time I’ve met you.’

‘Well, yes. But my English is not equal to yours.’

Ice crackled among his words.

‘You do all right,’ I said. ‘Of course, I’m keeping it simple for your sake.’

‘You are very kind.’

‘Think nothing of it.’

‘Do you trust me?’

‘No.’

I had not been prepared for the question, and the answer was out before I could check it.

‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think I know.’

We said no more for a time. He watched me with his head held on one side.

‘What are you waiting for?’ I said.

He laughed. It was an oddly musical sound.

‘If we are to do this correctly, as the movies tell us, you should now say, “Look, what is this.”’

‘Look, what is this?’

‘I am trying to find who you are, what you are, why you are with us. Why are you with us, Mr White?’

‘Does it matter? What do I know about you?’

‘But I need to know.’

‘Why? Don’t you trust me?’

‘I also have no reason to distrust you. But there is something which tells me that you do not take seriously what we are trying to do. It is a game to you.’

I pursed my lips for a moment thoughtfully. Then I asked,

‘Do you take it seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘To the point of melodrama, right?’

Without noticing it, we had been leaning steadily forward, until now our noses almost met. We retreated, and took a deep breath each.

‘The army, Mr White, the king … what is there to say? Perhaps you do not realize how things really are here.’

‘I realize.’

‘Then you agree that it is serious? You agree that the … the little thing for which we are searching is very important?’

‘If you say so.’

His calm cracked for the first time, and his hands began to tear at each other.

‘It is not because I say so, it is not —’

I stood up, saying,

‘I’m off.’

‘Mr White, you make me afraid. Cowards make me afraid.’

In the doorway I turned. This was my moment. I said,

‘You know, I have a notion that our friend Herr Twinbein will be the man to help you. Toodle-oo.’

Endgame. There are jaws that can really drop. Andreas had such a one.

I walked down the hill toward the harbour. The heat was oppressive, and the still air crackled with static electricity. Far out over the sea, the sun had ripped the clouds, and below the rent, the water was alive with molten gold. Part of me knew where I was going, and part of me was trying desperately to deny that destination. But all my bravado had been expended on Andreas, and I was a leaf in the wind. I came again to the little square, so changed now by what it had lost, sunlight, silence, the dead man. A small group of villagers stood talking together in hushed voices, and a stout policeman kept guard over a dull brown stain in the dust. I walked slowly around the perimeter of the square, each step descending without a sound, as though I moved through water. By the stunted tree I halted. The waning day was luminous with silver light filtering down through the clouds. A small wind came up from the harbour and stirred my hair. I took a coin and a bit of broken glass from my pocket, and bending low, I scooped a hollow to bury them in the ground at the base of the tree. I should have chanted a spell or two. I turned, and turning halted. Something of the square was moving, some subtle thing was shifting through a tiny violence, as though the very light were rending itself asunder. From an alleyway came the flash of a fang and one red eye, there, gone. A bird rose from the tree, its wings disturbing the sky, and left behind it to float down the air a single, tufted feather.

I went to my room and crawled into the narrow bed, feeling like a very sick little old man. The sky lowered and pressed against the window with soft blunt insistence. Strange evening light was about me. I fell into a hot and horrible sleep as the thunder began to bellow.

In herds.

Epataphios, procession of death, wound snake-like through the streets, with little bells, and voices weeping in the dying light. First came the cross grotesquely leaping in the acolyte’s small hands, Christ recrucified in gold, ringed round by candle blades, and after that the bier, draped in a purple pall. Petals of flowers fell like snow among the wreaths of roses, the yellow lemon blossom. Came the shy girls and widows, the wives, old men and boys, the priests in robes of stately red and purple. Incense and wax, sweat, death, fire and flower, all these were brought together into the image of a tiny angelic child in white, singing plaintively, mourning with unconscious splendour the little lost hopes of men. I turned away, troubled by things which I dared not investigate, and took to the lanes and deserted back streets of the village, a three-legged dog at my heels. The storm had washed the air, and now a drenched limpid tenderness was abroad on the evening. Darkness drifted slowly down, like soft black glass, from out of a pale sky. With my hands in my pockets I wandered aimlessly, musing on the passage of time, death, the mystery of art. At least, if those were not my thoughts, they should have been, on such an evening.