Authors: Tanith Lee
Good God, but the boy had
known
—his
panic, for panic it had been, his rage and mutiny that he was too small to perpetrate
against the overbearing adults. And that fat woman locking him up so he couldn’t
escape, as normally he always did from Marthe—Ercole had said, “And there’s a
little boy I see, now and then.”
“You were Awake,” Gregeris said.
They stood alone in the midst of the
grey fog, the misery of strangers.
“I mean, you were Awake, those special
Nights. Weren’t you, Kays?”
Sullen for a moment, unwilling. Then, “Yes,”
he replied.
“And so you knew it was a Night, and you
wanted to be able to go with the town, to see the fish and the mermaid—to get
free
.”
Kays didn’t say, How do you know? You,
of all people, how can
you
know?
His face was so white it looked clean.
It was clean, after all, clean of all the rubbish of life, through which somehow
he had so courageously and savagely fought his way, and so reached the Wonder—only
to lose it through the actions of a pair of selfish blind fools—
“Did you know—did you know this was the
last chance, the last Night?”
The boy had stopped crying for a minute.
He said, “It could have been, any Night. Any Night could have been the last chance.”
Oh God, when we dead awaken—the last
trump sounded and the gate of Paradise was flung wide—and we kept him from it.
Just because we, she and I, and all the rest, have always missed our chance, or
not seen it, or turned from it, despising. She slept like a stone, but he, my
son, he Woke. And I’ve robbed him of it forever.
“Kays... “ Gregeris faltered.
The boy began to cry again, messily,
excessively, but still staring up at Gregeris, as if through heavy rain.
He wasn’t crying for Marthe, how could
he be? But for Paradise, lost.
“I’m so sorry,” said Gregeris. Such
stupid words.
But the child, who saw Truth, his child,
who was Awake, knew what Gregeris had actually said. He came to Gregeris and
clung to him, ruining his coat, weeping, as if weeping for all the sleeping
world, and Gregeris held him tight.
Xoanon
It
is a bleak village for sure, held there in that arm of the land, against the
acres of the cold, grey sea. Stones on that beach as great as the pale seals
that swim by in summer. Hills behind, worn bare through their grass that has no
colour. Not a tree to be seen, for they cannot withstand the winter gales. And
the little houses, brown and white, with their little narrow windows, and the
winding street where now and then some cart goes up and down, pulled by a dark
and steadfast horse. And, on the slope, the white church, with its pointed roof
and thick wooden door. No stained glass in its walls, but that is not what the
stranger comes seeking. It is the carvings you visit.
The village lives by the fish, and has
done so for three or four hundred years, and maybe longer. Along the shore, the
boats are drawn up, painted with their names that cannot be read, unless you
speak the language of this place. But some of the boats are painted not with
words but pictures. They do not all read and write here. They do not find much
use for it, even now when there are books and newspapers to be had on the
mainland. Nor do you find a television anywhere, and only two or three radios
that give a poor reception—the sea and the sky are between them and all things,
and the weather. But in the pub there is a gramophone with a horn, and three
hundred records.
Crossing over is best done in the
summer, or on a calm day of late spring. You arrive in a black boat painted with
a girl in a long blue dress, with a wreath of shells on her yellow hair. The
boat is called
The Girl in the Blue Dress
. Old Aelin hands you out,
courteous and unspeaking. His face is like hard driftwood, brown and grey and
torn in wrinkles, and his teeth are black. But he smells cleanly of the sea, and
his eyes, where the driftwood has been opened to reveal them, are the blue of
the girl’s dress, clear and sane and strange and old. The eyes of a good man,
or perhaps a woman, for they have here no manner of the coarse old men you will
meet elsewhere, the men who think women are betrayers and fools, useful only by
a crib or stove. And indeed, the women of the village are not of that sort, and
the men are none of them of the coarser sort. They sing and tell stories, and
in these fluid tales you will hear of the pitiful sweet mermaids who have
gifted human lovers of both genders with immortal life beneath the water, of
men who have died for their women, and women who have died for their men, of
the true love of man for man and woman for woman, of the value of daughters,
and the virtues of gentleness, and how the seals have their own tongue, which
may be learned, and that in the world beyond death, all are equal forever, and
sometimes they call God She, and sometimes He, and sometimes They, or It. But
they speak of God, as of all things, with respect, and interest. You learn,
before you come, of Japanese visitors and black students, who have been
unnerved that no one noticed, in the village, or so it seemed, their physical
differences, in which they rightly took pride.
There was also a woman, once, who
pointed out that the value the village set on animals was flawed, for they live
by fishing the seas and eating the fish. But the villagers nodded politely to
this woman, and since she could not speak their language, and they only a
little of hers, she did not hear of their service, which is held twice a year,
in which they bless the fish and ask pardon of them, as too they do when they
catch them. In the service, the priest explains that the world is, in some ways,
not well made, which is not the fault of God, since She, He, They and It did
not construct all the world’s laws, in fact only those laws which are benign,
tidy and pleasing to everyone. Through their own fault, or error, man and beast
must sustain themselves, and cannot always do so without meat in some form.
Until a new world is made, this cannot be put right. In truth, most of what the
village catches is taken to the mainland, and before the winter closes the sea,
the seals are fed a catch to assist them on their journey.
Most visitors leave
The Girl in the
Blue Dress
tired from the hour’s crossing, which can be a discomfort even
in summer, and go up the street to the public house, which has a painted sign
of a strong, handsome man with the tail of a shark. This pub is called
The
Guest
.
Here they serve you local drink, white
whisky with the scent of turf, a thimbleful powered like any triple measure
elsewhere, and a milder pale yellow ale. Or there is tea to be had. On broad
plates they will bring you golden loaves whose dark inner flesh tastes of nuts,
pickled apples from the village orchard tucked behind the houses, trees crooked
and little, that produce a sharp red fruit, cheeses like the best of Northern
France, and, if asked, flakes of smoked fish with whipped fried eggs.
In winter, the fire burns in the huge
fireplace of the pub, but in summer the dense stone walls keep out a blistering
heat. The rafters are low enough to stun you, if you should be more than short,
and they have hung about them long ribbons that check you, should you forget,
and so save you a headache. Almost no one in the village is more than five and
a half feet tall, it is true. But they are formed all in proportion, on a
smaller scale. Aelin is probably the tallest of them, for he is five feet ten
inches, and in the pub he walks bent over.
When you have dined and rested, you can
go through the village, and up the slope of the first hill, towards the church.
On this slope, it seems you must look back, and down below, the village is, and
the huge sea beyond. There comes the sense of immensity, as when you gaze up
into the sky, perhaps the sky of night with all its million, billion stars. How
small is the village, the land itself, and from that vast firmament of silver
water, what may not come?
When you resume your climb, you may
think how bare the church is, so stark and white, and inside you anticipate few
ornaments, and you are correct to do this, for there is almost nothing at all.
The windows are narrow and plain, and have shutters against the storms. Though
there is an altar it has on it only ever a bare white cloth. There is no
crucifix, though—once you have grasped their language—you will hear them speak
of Jesus Christ, and as if He were well known among them, the son perhaps of
some grandmother a couple of generations gone. But they speak too of others,
and it may occur to you to wonder how they have heard here, cut off as they
are, uninvolved as they are in television and telephone, of Mohammed and
Buddha. And then again there are names they will speak you will not recognise,
probably. And besides you may mistake these names for those of their
forefathers, these sons of grandmothers, until maybe there is mention of what
might be termed a miracle—conception without intercourse, ascents to heaven,
transformations and healings, resurrection and rebirth. All these matters are
apparently as normal to the villagers as the boiling of a kettle or the turning
tides of the sea. The only way indeed you may be sure that they are speaking of
some great one, some One who has come from God, is by the tone of pride in their
voices. For they are
proud
of Mohammed and Jesus and Buddha, and all the
others. They smile as they speak, as if they told you instead how rich and
powerful and beautiful their ancestors have been.
On the altar, however, there is a cup
made of iron, and from this they drink water during the services, a sort of
communion, perhaps. The stranger too, if he or she is present and so wishes,
may join in the ritual. But the services are held irregularly, you cannot be
sure you will arrive at the right time.
Usually the church stands empty and
unlocked, full of light, cool in summer, frozen cold in spring. You look about,
and so regard the nine long pews, which are all that are ever needed here,
though once, there were more. The wooden carvings are placed one at the left or
south end of each pew. Finding them, it may be you are surprised that they are
so small. You may need to bend close, to put on spectacles, or produce a
magnifying glass.
Then you will see that the carvings are,
in their own manner, very simple, although perhaps attractive to the eye.
Perhaps they will seem at once mystical, imbued with all that is provoking and
inexplicable. Or sinister; they might seem to be that. Or, you may be
disappointed. Having come so far and so uncomfortably to this pared spot,
despite the good food and drink you may have taken, and the looks of the
villagers, their kindness, their glowing stained glass eyes.
Yes, you may think. Well, and is this
all? This little curved fish creature that has something about it of the whale,
and which symbolizes the sea, for on its back it carries a tiny carven boat.
And, moving forward up the aisle, to the west, there is the carving of a
goblet, not unlike that which stands on the altar, but upturned, so some
visitors have asked if it was not wrongly attached. Beyond the upturned cup is
a carved sun, emblematic, an image seen very often and in many areas, even on
the wrapping paper sold for birthdays. At the end of the fourth pew a tiny man
and woman stand embracing, and a tinier child clings to the woman’s long skirt.
From their costume, these three, the carvings can be dated, to some mid-point
of the 1700’s, as the villagers do date them. At the end of the fifth pew is a
skull, Spare and universal as the previous sun. And at the end of the sixth,
something more complex, an angel, apparently, a winged being. Its face is so
small it has no features but a suggestion of eyes, although minutely the
feathers are scored into the wings. On the seventh pew is another fish, this
one roaring like a lion. On the eighth pew a presentation that may defeat even
the youngest eye, the strongest spectacles, and the magnifying glass. After
much study, if you have the patience, you may behold an amalgam of things,
cows and sheep, fish and cats, snakes, dogs, men and women, and countless other
icons, most not decipherable. In the scramble of shapes it will eventually come
to be seen that everything here is winged. On the ninth pew however, there is
no use in study. This carving, it seems, is an abstract pattern, something not
often demonstrated at that era, conceivably the invention of a broken mind.
This final woodwork is disturbing, insulting to some, like a cheat. To come so
far and find only these little things, and this last thing, so meaningless,
therefore unimportant. Besides, have you not seen all this already in the
pamphlet on the mainland, or reproduced in some glossy book that deals with
the carvings of churches? Why then did you come? But, yes, there is still the
ultimate bizarre object.
Out from the church then you go, an hour
or five minutes after you entered it, and walking on the path that they have
shown you from the village pub, you ascend the rest of the barren hill, and the
white church falls behind.
In summer there will be sheep out on the
hills, and three or four cows, brown cows with heavy heads bearing each the
white crescent of the moon. The sheep are shaggy, and they have been described
as pink. Their colour is old and washed by rain, but their faces, like those of
the cows, are profound. They graze placidly, and let you by without fear or
sullenness. If you should like animals and wish to touch them, they will come
up to you at a call. Sometimes the horses from the carts are there also, and
they gallop, but again they are careful not to alarm, or so you may think, and
let you caress their rough electric manes. Under or upon the stones on the
hills you might see a spotted snake, harmless. You may stroke these as easily
as the cats in the village street, if you care for snakes or cats. You may have
heard that the seals too will let you approach them, though only the villagers
feed them by hand. It is the same with the birds, and with everything wild that
lives thereabouts. Do not be amazed that a fox trots to you out of the bushes,
sniffs at your foot or knee. The rabbits that feed in the low fields between
the hills never run away, unless by accident you almost tread on one.
Over the third hill, and you will be glad
of your walking shoes, you find the last curiosity of your trip. To some this
has more value, to others less, than the carvings attached to the pews in the
church.
Much has been said of it, the ruin of
the boat. Firstly, that it is a ship and not a boat at all, with the bone of
her strong mast still sticking up, formed of the wood that must come from far
away, where the gales do not reach, formed of that wood which made the
carvings. Her shell is intact, though the weather has leached it all to a grey that
is almost white. But there are holes in the flanks of her and in the deck, and
the cabin amidships has mostly fallen down. The metal on the wheel is red with
rust bright as flowers.
Of course, reason tells you, that they
brought her here, the villagers, though for what purpose? Perhaps
straightforwardly to abet their peculiar story. In the story, the ship or boat
fell down from the sky, fell slowly enough that many saw her, and, when she met
the earth, slowly enough she did not entirely shatter to bits.
On the side no mark remains, but you
will know that, like the boat of Aelin, this one was also called
The Girl in
the Blue Dress
, and so painted. In those days of the eighteenth century,
not one man or woman in the village could read or write.
The spar, or part of the spar, remains,
and perhaps a gull or greenfinch will perch there. It will watch you as you
circle round the boat, look at the places where they hauled in their nets heavy
with fish, at the wreck of the planking. Before the bird flies off, probably
you will be weary of the ship that is a boat, but you will sit on the warm
hillside if it is summer, to rest before returning to the village. In spring
even you may rest. It is a hard walk, going and coming down.