▲
The rest of the tour, inevitably, was anticlimactic.
Oh, there were further wonders, back inside. The Saloon and the Library and the Dining Hall. The Double Helix Staircase, descending which was like being swallowed by a vertical maze. The Cavern Pool, for indoor bathing, which was an immense cavity hollowed from the mountain, hosting not only a full-size Olympic pool but also a wonderland of artificial waterfalls and dark whimsical grottos. But everything paled compared to the cold wildness of the view from the Terrace.
Last on the list was the Games Arena. It opened off the lowest landing at the bottom of the Helix Staircase, and was, Clara promised Rita as they came to its entranceway, perhaps the most remarkable feature of the entire Observatory, little though its title suggested it.
But upon hearing the name, a memory stirred in Rita, and she paused, making the major-domo stop too. ‘Isn’t that where my father died? I was told it was in some kind of sports hall or gym.’
Clara’s expression turned mortified. ‘You’re right, it was in the Arena. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think.’
‘What was he doing there, do you know? I mean, with his heart, he wasn’t playing sport, or on an exercise machine, was he?’
‘No, it was nothing like that. The Arena wasn’t even fully finished at the time. He was just there inspecting construction, as far as I know—and that’s when he had the heart attack. It was Mr Richman who found him, when he came down for his morning run. He called for help immediately. There are always medical staff down at Base, and they got to your father as quick as could be, but there was nothing they could do.’
Rita nodded. It was all as she had been told. A heart attack. And there was certainly no reason to avoid the place where it happened. She wasn’t superstitious about things like that.
And yet …
Clara added, ‘But in any case, of course, we can skip the Arena if you’d rather. You can come here any other time.’
‘I would rather leave it for now,’ Rita admitted, ‘if it’s all the same to you.’ And quite apart from anything else, the truth was she was weary of staring in awe at the spectacle of the Observatory. There was only so much grandeur you could take in, sometimes.
Clara pressed no further. ‘In that case, we’re done. Oh, there’s plenty more I can show you later if you’re interested, some of the hidden areas that keep this place running, like the winch room, which is impressive. Or I could give you a tasting tour of the wine cellar, or the cheese room. But enough for now. I’ll show you to your apartment. And there’s no need for a long climb up the stairs again, we’ll take the elevator.’
They were standing at the foot of the great well in which the Double Helix Staircase rose, towering intricately above them. Ignoring the stairs, Clara led Rita to a door in the outer wall of the well. It opened to a small lift, as conventional as any hotel elevator, and in it they rode up to the first landing below the level of the Atrium. There, two guest wings ran off in opposite directions, one north, one south. Taking the southern way, they passed down a corridor of lush carpet, the walls decorated with paintings. The corridor curved slightly, its further end hidden, and sets of double doors opened along the left wall. At the third such doorway the major-domo paused and put a hand to the latch.
‘I hope this will suit you,’ she said. ‘Kushal and Madelaine also have apartments in this wing. I only tell you so you don’t think you’re alone down here. I know how easy it can be to feel isolated in this place, as if no one else is here. But rest assured, other people are around.’
Rita nodded, realising that indeed a vague unease had been rising in her. Apart from the house manager and the maid whom they had met at the beginning of the tour, they had not, in all the grand rooms and hallways, encountered another soul.
The major-domo pushed open the door, ushered Rita through. ‘Well, here we are.’
The apartment was huge, at least four times the size of Rita’s own back in Melbourne. A brief exploration led by Clara showed that it possessed two stately bedrooms (Rita’s bags were waiting in the largest), two opulent bathrooms, a fully fitted-out kitchen, a dining room, and a sprawling living space filled with couches and armchairs, all of it fronted by a glass wall, twenty feet high, facing east to the Wheel.
The two women end up in the kitchen. ‘There are basic supplies in the fridge and the pantry,’ concluded Clara. ‘Coffee and tea and so on, and breakfast stuff like milk and cereal. For most other meals during your stay Mr Richman hopes you’ll be joining him and the other guests. But if there’s anything else you want stocked here, you only have to ask. Just dial housekeeping—it’s nine on the phone there. And if you’re hungry at any time dial the kitchen, that’s number eight. There’s always a chef on standby when guests are in residence.’
Rita could only nod, almost faint with luxury by now.
‘As for dinner tonight, it will be at eight in the Dining Hall—but predinner drinks will commence around seven in the Saloon. Will you be able to find your way there, or would you prefer I come and collect you?’
‘Oh, I can find the way, I think.’
‘Then I’ll leave you to settle in. Unless there’s anything else?’
‘No, thank you. And thank you for showing me all around. It’s … well, it’s all amazing.’
‘Thanks to your father, yes.’
Rita saw the major-domo to the door, closed it behind her, and with a relieved sigh turned to face the apartment once more.
So—she was here.
Already the real world felt a million miles away and a thousand years ago—and she had five days yet to get through. Rita had not wanted to stay so long when all this was being arranged, but somehow, resist though she might, it had gone from being a weekend visit to a few days and finally to five.
The real world … Yes, this house was surely not the real world. The Observatory might be made of solid stone, but it was a piece of fantasy, a billionaire’s indulgence. And yet, it was also what her father had spent the last years of his life designing. His masterpiece.
So, what did she think of it?
She wandered slowly through the living area, noting the solidity of the floor beneath the carpet, the quality of the furniture and of the appliances, the precise lines of every edge and corner. This apartment alone was perfect in its beauty and proportions.
But as for the rest of the Observatory … that she couldn’t decide upon. She could not even settle on what to call the style in which it had been fashioned. Time and again during the tour she had been reminded of Gothic cathedrals, with all the soaring arches and pillars of stone, and all the ornate follies carved from the rock …
And yet the style was not really Gothic. After all, the purpose of those old cathedrals was to inspire, in man-made walls and roofs, the same kind of awe that a natural wonder would. The great cathedrals were artificial wonders, built to bring the faithful, via awe, into the presence of their god. But here, the Mount already was a wonder. Her father had not raised walls to create awe, instead he had tunnelled cunningly to dazzle the mind with the hidden innards of the earth. His purpose had not been to create an artificial mountain, it had been to reduce a real mountain to human scale.
So, no, not Gothic. But what, then? In truth, she could see hints of so many styles here: contemporary American hunting lodge, mixed with Swiss chalet, mixed with French Chateau, mixed with German baronial schloss. Yet it was none of these things. Not as oppressively male as a lodge, not as clinical and sparse as a chalet, not as fanciful as a chateau, not as darkly louring as a schloss … It was its own style, unrivalled anywhere else in the world, and how could it be rivalled, for there was only one Mount, and only one Wheel, towering above.
Rita sighed. What did style matter, and what did it matter if it was to her taste or not? The question was this—and she could not help but ask herself in the old way, in the way she had sworn that she had given up—was she okay here? Did she feel anything here?
Anything wrong?
Oh, she knew well enough what the old her would have thought of the Observatory. She would have called it an obscenity, and felt only pain here, her own, and the pain from the stone all around. Now she searched within herself for that same pain … but there was nothing. Despite the moment earlier on the Terrace, none of her old senses were active—the stone around her felt as dead as stone surely always was.
Wasn’t it?
Rita stared at the glass wall. Beyond it was a narrow balcony, running the full width of the apartment. It was recessed snugly into the Mount, sheltered by an overhang of rock, and had a high parapet of stone, but even so it looked, to Rita’s gaze, a terribly exposed position, naked to the wind and to the long plunge to the sea below.
Dare she go out there? It could be accessed by another of the airlock doorways. Beside the inner door, the little display was glowing green for safety, as had the display upstairs.
She moved close to read the figures. Temp, –5 C. Wind Av, 18 kph. Wind Max, 37 kph. A little colder, then, and a little windier than it had been on the Terrace some half an hour ago.
She glanced at her watch. It was just past five o’clock, and the winter sun, hidden behind her to the west, would be setting. She could not see the sky from this angle, however. The entire glass wall showed only the immensity of the Wheel’s western face, ten kilometres away across the air. If she wanted to see the sky, she must go out.
Steeling herself, she slid open the inner door, passed through, closed it, proceeded to the outer door and slid it open too. Then, her gaze lowered warily, she stepped out onto the balcony.
The cold slapped at her again, but within the hollow of the balcony there was little direct wind. She took a step to stand as close as she dared to the balustrade, then looked out.
The Wheel rushed at her all over again, its ramparts of ice and snow and stone seeming to be toppling forward. Then the vertigo eased, and she could study the face in all its multi-coloured vastness. Directly opposite her the cliffs and snowfields were now a deep blue, shadowed as the sun sank below the horizon. Higher up, the shadow paled, and the snow and ice turned from deep azure to pale cerulean, and then finally to a dim white, before flushing red perhaps eight or nine kilometres above her, where the dying sun still shone.
Higher still the cirrus clouds remained, bathed pink from beneath. But now, here and there, the bank was breaking up, and through the gaps she could glimpse sections of the upper half of the mountain. Ten, fifteen, twenty kilometres above her, inconceivably distant, bare faces of grey stone shone softly on the edge of space.
And higher yet, bright in the sunlight, another bank of cloud hid the ultimate summit. Except, how could any cloud be so high?
Or in fact—?
Rita’s breath caught.
She was not looking at cloud. She was looking at something solid, a faraway ridgeline glimpsed through a shifting rent in the cirrus, two lines that steepled to a point, a blunt, misshapen apex infinitely remote, etched against the blue-black, as far away as the Moon. She could scarcely believe it, but it had to be—it was the summit, the very Hand of God, thrust high in the middle stratosphere …
Then the gap in the cloud shifted and closed, and the vision was gone. Rita shuddered. What a hideous, lifeless place that final ridge looked from where she stood. Impossible to imagine that it was of this world at all, or that men had ever stood there.
No, she reminded himself. Not men. Only one man had ever stood there. One man alone, out of all the thousands who had tried.
And she was about to have dinner with him.
10
ABOUT THE HAND OF GOD
Excerpt from The Cloven Sky—A History,
Roger Fitzgerald, 1991
The name by which the summit of the Wheel is known, the Hand of God, (or, less commonly, the Palm of God) did not come into vogue until the 1930s and owes its origins to the development of telephoto lenses.
Of course, long before the 1930s photographers were capturing images of the Wheel. But though early photographs could show the lower slopes of the mountain in detail, the uppermost ridge and the oddly shaped knob of the summit remained indistinct. People were also studying the mountain through telescopes in the early years, but these too failed to give a definitive view. This was partly due to the limitations of early spyglasses, and partly to the fact that the viewers were usually standing on the decks of rolling ships. There is only one stable platform in the vicinity from which to view the Wheel, the peak of Observatory Mount (the Wheel’s summit is not visible from the lower parts of Theodolite Isle) and for most people that was out of reach.
But in 1931, new distortion-corrected telephoto lenses came on the market, and in 1932 an expedition armed with such lenses set up camp atop the Mount, and so made the first comprehensive photographic studies of the peak. Almost as soon as the first shots of the summit were published, the phrase ‘Hand of God’ entered the mountaineering lexicon.
For what the photos seemed to show—though in truth, the imagery was still infuriatingly imprecise, more suggestive than definitive—was that what had appeared from afar to be a blunt knob was in fact a knurled upthrust crag. And that crag looked (from the angle of Observatory Mount, at least) for all the world like a half-clenched fist. The thumb was especially prominent, its scale hard to fathom, but most likely about three times human-height, the fingers more generalised, but seemingly curled in a shadowed overhang, perhaps even a cave. And between thumb and fingers was an open flat space—a palm.
So: a giant fist of stone, so large that a man might stand within it, thrust like an offering upwards to heaven from the top of the tallest mountain on the planet—what else was it ever going to be named but the Hand of God? It’s not known who exactly coined the phrase, but the credit hardly matters, the illusion (if that’s what it was) was so potent that everyone who beheld those first photos came to the same conclusion.
Almost as quickly came the legends.
If those curled fingers really did form not merely an overhang but an actual cave, there at the apex of the world, then what was in the cave? What secret, what mystery, did it conceal? Climbers in that era were only scrabbling about the Wheel’s lower flanks, not even daring to fantasise yet about reaching the summit, but everyone else—fiction writers, fabulists, religious fanatics—could leap to the Hand of God in their minds and populate the cave with all manner of creatures and artefacts.
Jesus lived there, having ascended to the cave after his crucifixion, to await his second coming. Likewise, it was the abode of King Arthur, waiting to be the Future King. Buddha meditated there on the edge of space. Mohammed had been transported there briefly during his revelations. A whole host of Hindu deities call the cave home. Any number of human shamans and charlatans claimed to have travelled there in astral fashion. And when the flying saucer craze of the nineteen fifties kicked off, the Hand of God became the landing site for aliens of all types, or the laboratory to which they carried their abductees.
In other tales, the cave was the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, carried there by the cherubim to place the relic safely beyond nefarious human hands once and for all. The Holy Grail, of course, was hidden within the Hand, as were the prototypes of Mesoamerica’s crystal skulls, and the complete annals of Atlantis.
The maddening thing was, short of going to the summit in person, or overflying it by aircraft, there was no way to dismiss all this nonsense and confirm what the Hand truly looked like. Even up until the 1960s no aircraft could safely fly so high, and the best mountain climbers were still well short of the top. So idle myth-making could proliferate.
The most famous of all the tales, of course, was the 1959 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke, entitled 2001: An Odyssey of the Wheel, which was even more famously made into the classic 1967 Oscar-winning film of the same name, directed by Stanley Kubrick.
The novel postulates that the Hand of God is not in fact a natural formation, but was carved hundreds of thousands of years ago
by a visiting alien species. These aliens, travelling the galaxy in search of intelligent life, had found Earth lacking any such as yet, but noted that one of the many ape-type species showed promise of developing intelligence one day. The aliens also took note of this particular ape’s prehensile thumbs and dexterous fingers, knowing how critical a ‘hand’ or similar utile organ was to the development of technology in all the other intelligent worlds they had visited.
So, says the tale, the aliens fashioned a message for us, the beginnings of a trail that we could follow to find them, when we were ready for such an encounter. They carved the likeness of a hand into the highest mountain on the planet, knowing that we would be drawn there by the likeness, and that we would need advanced technology to reach it. (They could have chosen no better place. On any other mountain, their sculpture would have been quickly hidden by snow, or eroded away by wind and rain and the cracking of ice. But at a height that places it far above the weather of the world, the summit of the Wheel is inviolate.)
Within the hand itself, so the story goes, inscribed in stone beneath the curled fingers, the aliens left key mathematical symbols that would direct humanity to the next waypoint along the trail. This next waypoint was another hand, carved in a crater hidden from human eyes on the far side of the Moon, the ‘dark’ side of the Moon, reachable only when humans were capable of leaving Earth’s orbit. This, in turn, would reveal further signs that would take us to the depths of the galaxy.
Both the novel and the film were huge successes, and that success fuelled much interest in the Hand of God. But even by 1970 no climbing expedition had yet reached higher than twelve thousand metres on the Wheel, not even halfway to the summit.
But then the United States military took a hand. In December 1967, six months after 2001: An Odyssey of the Wheel hit cinemas, and after securing permission from the Australian government, on a fine summer’s day (it wouldn’t have mattered if it wasn’t fine, as the weather ceased above ten miles anyway) an SR-71 Blackbird spyplane, crewed by pilot Major William Lawson and RSO Major Gilbert Martinez, flew two passes over the Wheel at just under Mach 3 and an altitude of eighty-five thousand feet, less than a kilometre above the Hand of God.
The Rich Man’s House Page 11