by Knox, Tom
He sat down. Staring at his own hands, then at Julia.
“What are you going to do? When we finally get … away?”
The American woman sighed. Her expression was strained.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Not anymore.”
Jake said nothing. But the silence seemed to embarrass Julia, so he stood, straightened his chair, and continued his walk past the terrace tables.
The day was bright and clear, sharp and mountainous. The villagers were tilling their steep brown fields. One old woman gave him a broken smile as he walked the path to the stupa.
Positioned on a large, high promontory of rock, the stupa overlooked one of the most spectacular stretches of the canyon. Down there were the heaven villages; much farther down was the cascading river, a juvenile tributary of the Mekong.
The Mekong. The very concept threw up a kaleidoscopic series of recent memories. It seemed to Jake as though he had been following the great Mekong all these weeks, from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang to Phnom Penh to Yunnan. The mighty Mekong. And now he was near the source, where the crystal waters tumbled, violent and tragic.
He climbed the last steps and placed a hand on the stupa. Silence enveloped him.
The only noise came from the wind horses—the prayer flags fluttering in a stiff sunlit breeze. Each flag, of red and blue and faded yellow, was written with the wishes of the villagers, praying to the holy mountains.
Remorse fell like a silent snow. What had he done? He had lost everyone. His sister, his mother, his friend, now Chemda.
Everyone.
In a few hours the last truck would leave Bala village and take the long road to Zhongdian. And he would be on it. Running after Chemda. He was going to find her. He knew he would spend the rest of his life trying to find her, if that’s what it took. He could feel the wind carrying him.
A chillier gust kicked up. The little prayer flags fluttered in the silent breeze, petitioning the universe, filling the quietness. Arms of snow embraced the rocky summit of White Buddha Mountain: like a mother, folding a son in her love, and never letting go.
51
“What you did was very brave. Audacious!”
Officer Rouvier steered the car around a corner. Ahead of them, through the drizzle, Julia could see the distant stones of the Cham des Bondons, dark and elegiac. It was as if they had been waiting for her to return; as if they knew she was coming back.
“I don’t know about bravery,” she said. “I just did what I did. What I had to do. Thank you for collecting me from the airport.”
The Frenchman smiled, slightly, and squinted at the pattering rain.
“You have already thanked me twice, Miss Kerrigan. But I am still confused. What are you going to do now? You really want to spend the winter out here?”
He gestured at the bleak and rainy moors; the wind-lashed causse.
“My college in London has given me another few weeks’ paid leave. Because of … well…”
He didn’t reply to this. They drove past a farm’s broken gate, where a brace of horses looked dismal and forlorn in the wet. Another lonely standing stone loomed through the mist.
Julia recalled her own ideas. Of Easter Island. The monuments to a violent and dying culture.
Rouvier spoke: “So you will go back to London in the spring?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I like to think that I have choices.”
Rouvier agreed. Then he said, “You also have a very good brain, Miss Kerrigan. Your theory, about the caves and skulls, it was right!”
“Ghislaine’s theory.”
“No.” He spoke firmly. “Yours. You do not know what he wrote, and you either discovered it again, or you made a better one. I am sure you made a better theory. So it is yours.”
The rain was the only sound, discreetly chattering on the car’s roof.
They were very near Annika’s old cottage now. With that realization she felt a reflux of fear and grief, which she strove to quell. This is just a place. Just an old cottage. That’s all. Just an old house.
She spoke, quickly: “I’ve rented a small farmhouse for about two months, it’s in the next village from Vayssière. Les Combettes. It’s very cheap in the winter.”
Rouvier nodded. “I’m not surprised. Most people escape in the winter. This is not Juan les Pins in August. They should be paying you for staying.” He softly smiled her way. “It will be lonely out here?”
“I don’t mind loneliness.”
“But … Mr. Carmichael?”
She shrugged. “Things change.”
“Bien sûr.” He nodded, slowing the car as they took the last turn for Vayssière. “I know this all too well. I am now divorced myself. Ah … this rain. Il pleure.…”
“Dans mon coeur, comme il pleut sur la ville?”
Their shared laughter was gentle. He stopped the car a few meters from Annika’s front door. Julia glanced across. Yes, her car was still there. Where she’d left it, all those weeks ago, when they had quit the place to go and see Ghislaine’s body. She’d never got around to picking it up again. And now here she was. Picking it up again.
Like a chauffeur, Rouvier came around to her side of the car and helped her out. Then he assisted in carrying her bags to her car and stowing them on the backseat. Neither of them looked at Annika’s cottage window as they worked. The small window that gave onto the sitting room.
When her stuff was in the car, Rouvier stooped and kissed her hand in an unselfconscious way. As he looked up, he said, “If you get really lonely, you must call me. We can drink a pastis in the excitement of Mende.”
“Thank you. It might be nice to do that. In the big city.”
There was another exchange of smiles, tinged with sadness. Rouvier opened his door, started his engine, and was gone.
For a moment Julia stood, tense, in the faint drizzle; sensing the presence of the past. Then she climbed in her car and briskly drove to the next village down the road. Les Combettes.
It took her just two hours to install all her stuff in her rented cottage. The kitchen of the little house had a good view of the stones. So did the window above her desk. Julia ignored the view: instead she sat down, took out her laptop, and put it on the desk, alongside a small bottle of water.
Her fingers were poised. She opened a new page, and typed:
Some Speculations on the Origins of Guilt and of Conscience in the Paleolithic Caves of France and Spain
For a second or two she stared at the words on her screen. Then she erased the sentence and gazed at the blankness, at the drizzle on the windows, at the lawns and moors. A shaft of bleak sunlight had pierced the clouds; it shone down on the fields, making the sodden feather grass sparkle, momentarily: a sudden harvest of jewels. She tried again:
The Sad Hands of Gargas: On the Origins of Human Guilt and Religion in the European Ice Age
Nodding to herself, she took a sip of water, and then she added three more words:
By Julia Kerrigan.