Luke Williams - The Echo Chamber

After the market, after spinning around and around, after our running through the streets, and the empty square, after my thirst, and the dogs, and the hard climb to the fourth floor — after all this, a mood of exhilaration had come over me. Something inside me was straining towards Ade. I felt myself pulled physically, and walked towards him. He went to sit at the edge of the floor; his legs overhung the square. I sat down beside him, and he didn’t move away. It was possible to hear, above or between the roar of the wind, a chiming sound, as of struck hollow pipes. I pointed into the darkness.

‘What’s over there?’

‘The square,’ Ade said

‘And after that?’

‘The sea.’

‘And after that?’

‘England.’

‘And after that?’

‘The silent world,’ he said, and let out a nasty laugh.

I heard the clanging of the pipes, and the dogs, who had started barking, a restless, dangerous sound. Ade said, ‘Over there is where Olu lives.’ I got up. I no longer felt empty or light or lost, but enraged. I pressed my lips together and felt a knot of anger in my chest. I started to walk away. It was Ade’s turn to follow.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said. Now the dogs were laughing like hyenas. It was at that point that I should have left to go in search of the silent world. Instead, I got up and climbed some stairs. When I reached the final step I sat down and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew Ade was shaking me, saying, ‘Quick.’ I followed him up to the fifth floor. He had spotted the labourers coming down the stairs; it must have been the end of their working day. Soon we saw their lights, tiny flames encased in what looked like globes of glass, but that was all, we could see no other trace of the men. The lights winked at us from inside their tiny glass globes, and the globes moved also, but moved differently, swaying and jerking as if suspended on invisible strings. We watched until the last light vanished from the square.

I turned to Ade. ‘I want to ask you something.’

‘What?’

‘What did you whisper that night after supper when I sent you to the other end of the garden?’

‘Eh?’

‘You know, when I was telling you about the silence.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘You must remember,’ I said. ‘That evening when we were looking at The Ring magazine and you told me about Hogan Bassey and boxing at your school and Olu and all the rest.’

‘Eh,’ Ade said. ‘When you told me you could hear everything, but you couldn’t prove it.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘what did you whisper?’

‘What does it matter?’ Ade asked.

‘Just tell me,’ I said.

‘Well. The first time I whispered, Sammy McCarthy . The second time, Joe Lucy .’

‘Who are they?’ I asked.

‘They are the boxers Hogan Bassey defeated in Liverpool.’

I wanted to say, ‘I bet Sagoe would crush you in a boxing match.’ But I didn’t. The dogs kept quiet too. Ade rose and found a stick, which he began to beat against the scaffolding.

What else do I recall from that evening? The cold, the air standing up against us like something solid, thoughts and feelings passing through me like a desert wind, my eyes running, my dry mouth. Huddling next to Ade under a sack, I thought about the night of his beating, how afterwards I had let myself into his bedroom and taken him in my arms, how I had moved my hand under his pyjama trousers then passed my fingers over the welts. And when I thought of this, I drew myself closer with one hand, and with the other I searched for the cord of his shorts. But the way he withdrew from my touch, not hurriedly but with a stony sort of dip of his head, I knew that this — my — privilege was gone. Once or twice in the night we heard a truck slipping along in the dark, and now and then its lights came sliding across our blind vista. I mention this only because light was the exception, it being pitch-dark and the harmattan.

It was somewhere towards morning when I opened my eyes. The sun was big and orange, its surface stained with black marks that appeared to spread like broken clouds of ink. Was it this that prompted us to try to leave the building? Was it as we climbed down the stairs that Ade fell over the edge? It was so sudden. I didn’t even hear his cry. And I did not alter my course but carried on descending towards the square. As I walked via the foundations and peeled back the wooden fence, my thoughts darkened. What had happened to Ade? He had fallen. But where? How far? Later, I discovered that Ade had survived. In that moment, however, as I made my way out of the building, I neither knew nor cared. Hadn’t he mocked me almost continually these past weeks? Hadn’t he tried to ruin my self-belief? Yes, I thought, he had put himself on the right side of truth and wished me gone. I felt light. It was astonishing, the way I felt light, so suddenly. Out in the open I started to walk in the direction of the wind. Progress was difficult. I hardly thought of Ade, but when I did I thought how good it was that this had happened. I had come near to losing my confidence, and my faith in my powers of listening, also in the silent world. I started to run. It was all the same to me if Ade lay broken and dead, lost in the storm. My mind was black. My thoughts circled like ravens around a kill. I thought no more about going back. As I ran I told myself I would embrace darkness and silence, because that was what was in my nature, which was blacker than Ade’s, and wicked, I thought; and love and friendship was not in my line. So I ran through the harmattan towards the silent world.

When the dust lifted next I had a glimpse of the water. Then the air thickened, and it was as if a red curtain had suddenly come down. I stopped to listen. The silent world was getting close. It was no longer a whisper but a swift wind or snow sliding, and my heart opened to its pull and storm-silence. The further I walked, the deeper it became, until, scrambling over rocks, I felt a force drawing in all the sounds, swallowing them towards its centre. I walked on, scared, more than half-willing, not caring, I thought, if I lived or died. I was tired. The thought of Ade was starting to weigh on my stomach. I pushed these thoughts away. Soon I found myself by the water’s edge. The sky had lightened to a raw pink. I sensed a crack in the earth. I walked up to it and now I was standing before a chasm extending like a tram track to my left and right as far as I could see. I stood shaking, doubting. Perhaps, I thought, Ade was lying in the foundations of the unfinished building, with broken bones. I half-turned, ready to retrace my steps to return to my friend. But the wind picked up, and I felt that charged whisper, and I left doubt behind.

I closed my eyes and stepped off the edge.

I fell through the thick dark. I fell and fell. On hitting the ground I lost consciousness. When I woke my body felt hot and broken. I was in some kind of pit. Light of a kind came from I don’t know where, a pale light unlike any I had seen or have seen since. Lying on my back I couldn’t see beyond my knees, which gave me a thrill. I tried to lift my arm, but it was too stiff. The other was not so badly hurt and with great effort I managed to raise it in the air. Reaching up, I felt nothing, and I rejoiced. To my right and left were steep walls. They were damp and warm against my sides. Below the ground was more compact, but still warm, and it flaked off at the touch of my nails.

I had fallen into one of the city’s open sewers, although I did not know this at the time, because I could see no further than half a yard. My body would barely move, I was in pain, and yet I felt terrifically happy. Strange! My whole being throbbed sweetly. After several hours of blissful rest I understood why. It was completely silent in this pit. I could hardly believe my good fortune. I listened hard, not wanting to hear, but trying desperately to hear, the tiniest sound. But there was none. I laughed and wept, celebrating my arrival in the silent world, until, exhausted, I fell asleep.