John Banville - Nightspawn

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

The child said nothing, but held a tiny hand toward me. I filled the little palm with coins. I looked at Erik. His eyes were closed. The child turned and went slowly out into the street. I crushed the paper and dropped it to the floor, where it writhed a moment, turned over, and was still. My eyes were on the coins which lay, burning dimly, on the table. How had they come there? Erik stood up, and took up his knapsack.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘The last boat will leave soon.’

The village was quiet, with somewhere a girl’s voice softly singing. We walked through the glimmering white-paved laneways without speaking. Odours wafted about us, of bread and baked fish, spices and resin. On the hills the faint shadows of the windmills were motionless against the great web of star-blossoms burning in the dark. It was at times like this that I loved the island best, times when I felt it offering me something of incalculable value, a place to live, where I might be happy. A cat came from an open doorway to watch us as we passed.

The last boat lay by the harbour wall, preparing to depart. Nightsounds crossed the quay, a clink of metal, the languid fall of a little wave, the whisper and soft hushing of sand stirring under water. A word of command punctuated the darkness with an abrupt, blunt little explosion. Out on the bar the green and red beacons winked at each other across the channel at the harbour mouth, eternally enticing.

‘Kalispera, kalispera.’

The captain of the boat, a bandy little islander with a huge white moustache, greeted us with an elaborate salute. He smiled at me, and put a steadying hand under my elbow as I climbed aboard. Dim figures stood in silence about the deck, and from the air of guilt and daring which they exuded, I took them to be island people off for a mild debauch that black Friday. Down in the dark water the lights of the waterfront burned again, mysterious and sad. In silence the boat slipped away from the pier, small waves licking the hull. All eyes were turned toward the village. I had an intimation of another, final departure in the future, and suddenly cursed myself for putting in jeopardy all this heartrending beauty to which I was heir. Then the engine came alive, a great bubble of white foam boiled up astern, a girl giggled, and we were off under the wild sky of stars.

‘I hope it will not be rough,’ Erik’s voice said with some apprehension at my ear.

‘Rough? How could it be rough? It’s like a mirror, look.’

His long gawky form leaned out over the bulwark.

‘It’s very dark tonight,’ he murmured.

We sat down on the deck with our backs against a huge coil of rope. I lit a cigarette, and in the brief yellow flare of the match saw the flash of Erik’s eyes as he turned them toward me.

‘I think it’s time for us to talk,’ I said.

He made a noncommittal sound. Someone walked past us, and for a second the flame of my cigarette was reproduced in duplicate on a pair of lenses.

‘I want to know what this little thing, this little document is,’ I said.

There was a long silence. Erik’s answer, when it came, had the mechanical sound of something oft-repeated.

‘It is a document containing certain signatures, which, if we make it public at the right time, would help our cause very much. Or it might be used to put those certain people in our power. Do you see?’

I considered this for a while, and then laughed loud and long.

‘Erik, you sound the perfect villain. Vich if vee make —’

‘But I am not the villain. I am the hero.’

There was the faintest touch of sadness in his voice. I smoked my cigarette and watched the dark bulk of the island sliding past. Someone began to sing, and someone ordered the singer to be quiet. There was an air of apprehension aboard, though what there was to fear I could not say, unless it was the wrath of god.

Delos received us into its little harbour. The other boats, deserted now, were moored in a line along the pier. The other passengers shuffled off into the darkness, while Erik and I stood on the sacred earth and looked about us. The brave stone lions stood outlined against the stars, and below them and around them the levelled town brooded in utter silence on its former glory, the ancient gods, the priests and princes who had been its first sons. I saw the dark handsome men, the women with their heavy tresses, the beggars and athletes, the children crowned with careless leaves, saw them all in the town miraculously rebuilt, moving through the streets with a dignity and elegance never achieved before or since, at ease in the knowledge that the god of all beauty was their protector; and standing there in that darkness, I felt one second of the deepest grief I had ever known, mourning the lost dead world. Then the bandy-legged captain passed us by, and called to us, and Erik said,

‘Everything is not lost.’

I do not know what he was thinking about, but perhaps he was also mourning the barren island, and he was right, for all was not completely lost, and never could be lost. We left the harbour and the ruins, and climbed the hill. Secret winds went with us, and the voice of the sea was at our ears like lost music. I watched Erik’s dark form blunder over the stones ahead of me, and I realized that I loved him. I had known him for little more than a day, and in that time he had given me no cause for love, none for hatred, and yet … and yet.

‘Erik. Erik.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

At last we found the place, lighted, a wide shingled plateau with three plane trees and some sparse dry grass. The sea lay below us now, and on its dark distance the lights of the other island glistened, a fallen nest of stars. Above us, the hill ascended into the night. A fire was being prepared, and the lamps in the trees shed a flickering light on figures moving to and fro with bundles of kindling and dry branches. I stopped for a moment on the edge of the hill and listened to the murmur of voices, and the music of a little pipe. All was not lost. We went forward. At the far end of the plateau, a makeshift bar had been set up, two barrels with rough planks laid across them. A fat old woman was busy filling bottles from a wine cask. A sharp blow with the heel of her hand and tunk, the corks were driven home. I was fascinated. Erik moved toward her, and I caught his arm.

‘I can’t drink any more tonight,’ I said.

He stared at me.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, why not, indeed.’

The old woman showed us one lonesome discoloured tooth. We carried our bottle reverently away, and sat down on the grass beneath the central tree. I sighed contentedly and sniffed at the fine dry night. The crowd on the plateau was taking to the stony ground in groups, talking together in low voices, drinking, rattling their worry beads. There were few women present. Under a further tree the musicians were gathered. There was the piper, and one or two old men with flowing white whiskers and shiny double-breasted suits. A young boy was tuning a bouzouki, bending his ear intently to the soft singing of the strings. One of the old men slowly brushed the skin of a little drum with his fingertips.

‘We’re not welcome here,’ I said.

Cold looks were being cast our way, and colder comments made behind cupped hands. Erik looked around.

‘We will not be noticed in the crowd,’ he said, mimicking me with gentle derision.

How tedious this is. Could I not take it all as understood, the local colour and quaint customs, and then get on to the real meat of things? But I suppose the conventions must be observed. And anyway, there are pearls here strewn among this sty of words. Time enough to rend and tear, time enough. Erik shall say something.