The Water Diviner (38 page)

A
rt shuffles along the crumbling Afion battlements, faltering when his walking stick slips on the flat stones or shifts in the rubble. As he moves he looks between the gaps in the saw-toothed crenels towards the town that spills down the side of the hill.

Through the haze of battle he sees his windmill in the square, sheared off at the waist and bent over double, its head swinging listlessly in the wind. The gift he had bequeathed to the village that had taken him in when the prison gates were thrown open is now reduced to scrap. When the freedom trains bound for the ports of Smyrna and Constantinople had eventually come for them, Art’s fellow inmates had clambered eagerly aboard, their war at an end. He had chosen instead to hide in a local opium house, which provided a different kind of escape.

Art reaches the highest point of the battlements, where the rampart meets a stone turret that has been decapitated in some ancient conflict. He winces as he kneels and unrolls his prayer rug so that the knotted fringe hangs like a cat’s paws over the edge of the tower wall. He pulls himself up on his stick, teetering on his brittle leg as gusts of wind lash at his clothes.

Settling himself, Art inhales deeply and closes his eyes, blocking out the thunder of cannon, the rifles spitting and the wailing of new widows that hangs on the wind. Creeping his toes forwards until they curl over the edge of the precipice, Art raises his right hand, its palm facing upwards, and drops his left arm, palm facing down. He tilts his head towards his right shoulder and waits for the rapture to grip his body.

Art is transported. He opens his eyes, staring out over the ransacked landscape, and is carried to a place in his past he will never escape.

He doesn’t feel the shattering pain in his leg any longer. His limbs seem disconnected, detached from his body.

Henry lies beside him, skin now grey and bloodless, his face slack, spattered with mud and gore.

Gone.

Ed lies opposite, face contorted in pain, teeth grinding, eyes screwed into pinpricks of agony. He writhes in the mud, glistening coils of intestine looping out of the gaping hole in his side. Reaching across the blood-sodden mud, Art grasps his brother’s hand, squeezes it, wishing he could stop his suffering.

His breathing comes in fits and starts as Ed fights to draw oxygen into his lungs. His body is broken, but still it struggles to survive.

‘Art? . . . Art?’

Battling to hold back his tears. ‘Yeah, mate. I’m here.’

‘I’ve dirtied myself, Art. Can’t tell what’s blood and what’s shit . . .’ Ed’s muscles spasm, his teeth chattering and limbs quivering uncontrollably.

Quieter now.

‘I want Mum.’

Art weeps. ‘Hang on, mate. Someone will come for us.’

Ed’s eyes are clear now, blue eyes penetrating the ghastly fog of the battlefield. He pushes his gun across the dirt towards his brother.

‘I can’t shoot myself. They won’t let me in heaven.’

No.

Art’s breath catches in his throat. ‘You can’t ask me.’

‘It hurts something shocking. I’m a gut-shot rabbit, Art.’

No. No.

‘I can’t . . .’ Art feels as if he is sinking into the mud, floundering, desperate. ‘Please, mate. Don’t ask that. I can’t.’

‘You’re my brother. You have to do it. Please?’

No. No. No.

Ed forces the gun into Art’s hand and holds the muzzle against his own forehead.

‘Please, Art?’

Art looks deep into Ed’s sky-blue eyes, and feels his finger resting on the trigger. Acknowledges his brother’s calm and peaceful resignation.

‘Take me home, Artie.’

Art draws breath.

Cocks the hammer.

‘Climb onto the carpet, then, mate. Let’s get out of here.’

Art squeezes his eyes shut, tears coursing through the mud and blood on his cheeks. ‘It only works if your eyes are closed, Ed.’

As one.

‘Tangu!’

The gun fires.

The crack of the pistol in Art’s mind becomes the blast of a Greek shell as it crashes into the fortress wall below where he stands.

Art is blinded by his tears. He has lost his bearings, can no longer negotiate the nebulous line between fantasy and reality. Oblivious to the stones and gravel thrown up in the air and the rubble threatening to give way beneath his feet, he lurches forwards.

Connor reaches the top of the stone stairs and is nearly blown back, head over heels, by the blast of incendiary air and flying debris. He steadies himself – his head clearer now – and peers through the dense and sooty smoke for any sign of Art. He lumbers along the rampart, stumbling and clutching onto the crumbling remains of the wall. There. A shape in the gloom. He catches sight of his son, balancing on the edge of a deathly drop with his arms outstretched.

What the devil is he doing?

The realisation comes to Connor before the question has even properly formed in his mind, an overwhelming sense of loss sweeping over him as he watches his son embrace the sky.

‘No! Art . . . No, son! Please! I beg you . . . You mustn’t!’

Connor runs towards the turret, coming to a halt once he is within reach of his son, fearful that he might startle him. Art hears the fall of his father’s boots and turns to him.

‘Henry died without a word. Just a shot and then suddenly he was still. Nothing. His head blown away. Eyes empty.’ Art lowers his head. ‘Then I put Ed down like a dog, Dad. Right between the eyes . . .’ He sobs. ‘If only I’d waited. I told him, Dad. I did . . . I promise I did. “Someone will come get us,” I said. And they did come. The Turks would have picked him up too. He’d be here too. If I’d waited.’

Art’s admission cleaves Connor’s heart in two, bleeding not for Ed, or Lizzie, or even Henry, but for Art himself. Connor cannot imagine the rings of hell his eldest boy has had to pass through since he left that cursed battlefield. The pain etched in his eyes and the black shadow of guilt that stalks him suddenly make all the sense in the world.

Connor cannot speak. Instead he clambers up onto the turret and picks his way towards his son, blistering wind whipping his face. His boot slips on a loose piece of shale. Flinging his arms back, Connor rights himself. Looking down and watching the stone bounce and shatter on the rocks hundreds of feet below, his head spins.

He looks at his son, toes hooked over the edge of the abyss and teetering on the brink of oblivion.

Art turns towards his father, confused and conflicted.

‘Get down, Dad! Go home! You’ll get yourself killed!’

Connor smiles madly. Mimicking his son, he lifts his arms. ‘You’re all that’s left to me, Art. If you’re not coming, I have nowhere left to go.’

‘Dad, don’t do this,’ begs Art.

‘You’re the only thing left of your brothers, Art. They are alive in you. In your memories. In your blood. You want to take care of them? You want them to live on? Then get down off the bloody wall and come home.’

Suddenly an artillery shell crashes into the turret, tearing a gaping hole in the wall and spraying stones and debris skywards. The impact knocks Art backwards onto the rampart. Connor is closer to the edge now, closer to danger. A sheet of shale drops out from under his feet and he begins to slip down the face of the tower in a tumble of rubble and dust. As Connor scrambles for purchase, Art’s instincts kick in. He throws himself forwards on his belly and locks onto his father’s arm.

Connor hangs out over the ancient wall, his feet kicking and scraping for a foothold between the stones. He looks up at Art and stops.

‘Let me go.’

‘What? No!’

When Connor sees the confusion on his son’s face he tries to pull his arm free of his grip.

‘If you’re not coming home with me, then let me go.’

Art shakes his head, grips harder.

Connor swings out, kicking against the wall. ‘I’ve come halfway round the world, another hundred feet isn’t going to kill me!’

As Art takes in the absurdity of Connor’s last remark there is the hint of a smile on his lips, a hint of the old Art.

‘I reckon it might,’ he quips, and begins to pull his father to safety.

The pair scramble back up onto the rampart, chests heaving and muscles screaming from the effort. In the town below they see houses burst into flame as the Greek soldiers overrun the streets and alleys like black ants over a sheep’s carcass. Connor recalls Hasan’s warning. He turns to his son, still panting from their exertion. ‘We must find somewhere to hide. The Greeks won’t leave anything standing.’

Art thinks for a moment. ‘Come on,’ he says, tugging at his father’s arm and leading him along the wall. They stumble down a stone stair and into an open court, both crippled and sore, supporting each other as they weave across the paving.

‘Over there . . .’ Art points to a low structure covered with a partially demolished dome. ‘The castle cistern. No one will bother with this.’ The plastered exterior has decayed with time and the friable dome looks bruised and on the brink of caving in. Art finds a small doorway. He slides the rusty bolt across and pushes it open.

Inside it is cool and pitch black, but Connor catches the light from the entrance reflecting off the rippling surface and can smell the sweet water. They pull the door shut behind them and fumble in the darkness to secure it with a flimsy latch. Three steps down and Art and Connor immerse themselves waist deep in the cistern, the ice-cold water filling their shoes and soaking through their clothes.

Gradually adjusting to the dimness, Connor smiles as he sees a hint of the old sparkle in Art’s eyes, the life reappearing in his face. He dips his hand into the water and splashes it onto his face, washing away the dust from his eyes and the caustic shadow of despair from his soul.

Outside, the din of battle subsides like a train rattling into the distance.

They are in for a wait.

‘I
’m beginning to feel almost human, Dad.’

Connor glances warily over his shoulder towards Art, careful not to disrupt the barber’s concentration as he runs a diamond-sharp cutthroat razor in long sweeps down his neck. His son reclines, long legs extended, in another barber’s chair beside him, eyes closed and strong chin covered in thick, white lather. The man ministering to Art holds his nose to one side and scrapes the blade carefully across his cheek.

It’s difficult to fathom the physical transformation Art has undergone since their reunion. In the church at Afion, Connor had salvaged a dying whisper of the young man he had sent to war. When he’d embraced him, feeling the sharp ridges of his ribs and shoulder blades through the thin fabric of his shirt, Connor had known that life had lost hold of his son. His face had borne the ravages of addiction and deprivation, sharp cheekbones protruding above sunken jowls, haunted eyes recessed in bruised sockets. But now, as the barber goes to work on him, Art’s skin glows pink, the lines of his features now strong and rounded rather than gaunt and spectral.