The Blasphemer

by Nigel Farndale

  The sudden flaring glow of a Verey light makes his silhouette visible to the guns and he dives for cover in a nearby hole. He finds himself feet away from the face of a man whose moustache is a parched yellow. There are bubbles of blood in the man’s open mouth and confusion in his dying eyes. A blinding explosion fills the air with shrapnel. In the light of the blast, Andrew sees the dying man’s face sliced off with surgical precision. It is hurled like a rubber mask against the side of his own face. The sweet effluvium of cordite and newly spilled blood crowds his senses. The mask feels hot and wet. He claws at it and dives into the water as another shell lands. When he surfaces, it is to a hellish rain of soil, blood and steaming intestines. The blood mixes with the water. The dying man has gone. Only his haversack remains. Andrew crawls out and drags it back into the hole. He tips out its contents and fumbles through it looking for iron rations. There is one tin of Fray Bentos bully beef and another of hardtack biscuits. He peels back both lids and crams the food into his mouth. The biscuits make him thirsty again. He scoops up a handful of muddy water but it is undrinkable, poisoned by chlorine and corrupted flesh. He becomes aware of an ungodly stench: sweat, excrement, sulphur. Only now does he see the other occupants of his hole: one man scalped by shrapnel, his brains spewing over his forehead; another dissected, the whole of the front of his chest down to his stomach carved open and spread apart as if in an anatomy lesson. Carbon monoxide is lingering in the crater, left by the shell that made it. As he lies here, Andrew slips into a stupor.

  After an hour the shelling subsides and the rain eases to a drizzle. The soldier shivers and checks his pocket watch. It has stopped. He gives it a tap with a cold and trembling fingertip and then winds it up. His head is aching. The night sky fills with flashes from flares and whiz-bangs. Seeing a shadow approach from the enemy line, he pretends to be dead. When he feels it is safe enough, he looks up and sees a man staring down at him, his face illuminated by light, poised like a German star shell. He is a British soldier, a ranker, his uniform intact. He is standing perfectly upright, apparently oblivious to the danger. When he smiles at Andrew, his teeth are luminous against his mud-darkened features. The soldier looks at once familiar and strange. More ghost than man. He belongs here in no-man’s-land. When he holds out his arm and beckons with repeated rolls of his wrists, Andrew obeys, grateful for any contact with life in this place of death. He crawls through the mud, using bodies for cover. Then, as if tugged upwards by strings on his hands, he gets to his feet.

  For more than an hour, the soldier leads Andrew through the dark landscape, between the trenches, always staying ten yards ahead. Eventually they see strands of barbed wire that look orange and golden as they loop up out of the mud. Sprawling against these are grey-green uniformed corpses, two or three deep, covered in clay and flies. The night is hot and windless. The horizon is shot with purple. It begins to rain again. As they approach the wire, Andrew can see it is draped with entrails. Men have been tortured by demons here; are being tortured still, their wounded cries unstanchable. The leg of one of the German bodies has been ripped off, leaving the ragged end of the femur sticking out. The other leg has been twisted back to front. What remained of the man’s uniform has been ripped open to reveal a similarly ripped abdomen gaping with bowels. Steam is rising from them.

  In the distance is a strip of land that, despite its bowl-shaped cavities, is recognizable as a track. The Menin Road. Andrew can make out a sign handwritten in English, HELLFIRE CORNER. The only other features in the landscape are grey, splintered trees and hedges of glistening wire. As his eyes focus, he realizes the landscape is also clotted with dark shapes. A distant party of stretcher-barers runs between them looking for survivors. The ground is undulating and covered with coarse grass. After a few hundred yards, the gap between them never closing, the two men come to a river, snaking out, crossing the front line. With red moonlight reflecting on its rain-pummelled surface, it looks like a river of boiling blood. The soldier in front points to what looks like a giant turtle shell: half an empty wooden beer barrel part submerged in mud. Andrew recognizes the man now. They had been photographed together in the trench the previous night. He hesitates for a moment before wading out through the mud, pulling the barrel free and dragging it to the water’s edge. With firm kicks he is able to push himself out into the current, his body resting on the convex centre. The river is deep. As he drifts away from the noise, he turns to wave his thanks, but the soldier is receding from view, a shadow returning to his line.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  London. Present day. Four weeks after the crash

  ‘Good morning, Thomas.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Ibrahim.’

  ‘Good morning,Vicky.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Ibrahim.’

  ‘Good morning, Martha.’

  ‘Good morning, Hamdi.’

  An appreciative giggle erupted from the rest of the class.

  ‘That’s enough,’ the teacher said in his gentle voice. ‘Martha, see me at break.’

  The child’s plan had worked: she was to be given a chance to be alone with Mr Hamdi Said-Ibrahim.

  As the ticking-off of names in the register resumed – ‘Good morning, David …’ – Martha closed her eyes and fantasized about being kissed by Hamdi. Although she was only nine, Martha knew about sex. Her father had told her about it, using the terms ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’, after she had appalled him with her ignorance by asking: ‘Do you sex Mummy?’

  Nancy had been furious. Both father and daughter learned from that episode. When Daniel had subsequently explained to Martha how Darwinian natural selection was proof that God did not exist, he had sworn her to secrecy, at least until she was twelve. Martha had agreed. She wasn’t convinced by her father’s arguments anyway, partly because he had been clearly wrong about sex. He had told Martha that sex and love do not become ‘issues’ for a girl until she reaches puberty at about the age of twelve. She knew this wasn’t true because she regularly fantasized about being kissed by Hamdi. She was in love with him and, as soon as she was old enough, she was going to marry him. That was another reason why she thought her father might be wrong about God: Hamdi believed in God, only he didn’t call his god ‘God’, he called him ‘Allah’.

  When the bell for break sounded, Martha remained at her desk. Hamdi didn’t notice her at first as he was marking homework sheets. ‘Martha,’ he said when he looked up. ‘Why are you still here?’

  ‘You told me to see you in the break, sir.’

  ‘Oh.’ A faint smile. ‘I did, didn’t I. You were cheeky to me this morning, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why did you use my first name when I had told everyone to address me by my surname?’

  ‘Because I like the sound of it, sir.’

  Hamdi pursed his lips to suppress a smile. ‘I want you to copy out the first five lines from this page.’ He handed her an opened book of poetry. As Martha took it, Hamdi resumed his marking. Martha retrieved a pencil from his desk and surreptitiously snapped the point of it with her thumb. She took the pencil sharpener from the teacher’s desk, sat down cross-legged on the floor at his feet and began sharpening the pencil into his bin.

  ‘You don’t have to do it here, Martha. You can do it at home.’

  ‘I want to do it here,’ she said.

  Hamdi frowned and, after a minute, looked down. ‘Are you all right there, Martha? That pencil is taking a lot of sharpening.’

  Martha gave a shrug and jutted out her lower lip.

  ‘Anything you want to talk about?’

  Martha shrugged again. ‘Is it true Muslim men have, like, lots of wives?’

  *

  At 3.30 that afternoon, Martha’s class filed out into the playground and children began raising their arms when they spotted their mothers, or nannies, standing behind a yellow line. Hamdi shook hands with each child in turn as he checked them out. When it came to Martha’s turn he gave Nancy a little wave and mouthed: �
��Can I have a word?’ He shook Martha’s hand and said: ‘I just want a quick word with your mummy.’ Martha ran off to where a friend of hers was throwing a tennis ball against a wall.

  ‘How is everything?’ Hamdi asked, glancing at her sling.

  Nancy tugged at her hair. ‘Oh, you know. Surviving … Martha been OK?’

  ‘Well, that is what I wanted to mention. She seemed a little upset today. Thought I should tell you.’

  ‘Upset in what way? Crying?’

  ‘No, she seemed like she needed a hug.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nancy looked across at Martha, who was dribbling the ball past her friend. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Is she keeping up her cello practice?’

  ‘Yeahyeahthanks,’ Nancy said distractedly, eliding the words and bringing the conversation to an end.

  ‘Her playing is coming along.’

  ‘I know, yeah.’

  Hamdi realized Martha’s mother was not taking the hint. ‘A cheque for the past two weeks would be fine.’

  Back in the classroom, Hamdi untied his laces, removed his shoes and rubbed his stockinged feet. He enjoyed this moment in the day when the silence was heavy and enveloping. The unrolling of his prayer mat came next. The placement, facing east. The kneeling and the touching of his forehead to the mat in the same movement. The sitting back on his heels with his hands resting on his knees. In this way, five times a day, he absorbed the comfort of submission. When he had finished his prayers, he studied the article he had cut from the newspaper three weeks ago. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, the headline read. Underneath this were the words: ‘Professor swims miles to rescue fellow passengers when plane crashes into sea.’ The photograph showed passengers being winched to safety by a helicopter. There was a map of the Galápagos Islands and an inset of ‘Professor Daniel Kennedy’. Hamdi thought he had a kind face.

  He got to his feet with a supple jump and looked in his drawer for his MP3 player and noticed a handmade card. Teachers were often given cards by the children – ‘I love you’ is one of the first things children learn to write and they like to leave cards, especially the girls. But this was different. His nine-year-olds had mostly grown out of it. And this one wasn’t signed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DANIEL HAD INTENDED TO CYCLE TO THE HOSPITAL, BUT ON THE short walk from his front door to the shed where he kept his bike he had felt his brow dampen with sweat. He heard barking overhead, looked up and, through half-closed eyes, saw a skein of Canada geese flying north. They exaggerated both the silence they disturbed and that which they left behind. Migrating in December, he thought. That can’t be right. He checked his watch with a double tap. It was 10am and already the day was stifling and oppressive. There was a smell of heating rubber and melting tar. Two days earlier there had been a silver rime on the grass. ‘This weather is insane,’ he said out loud. Feeling dizzy at the notion of cycling through traffic, he looked across the street to where his car was parked. It had air conditioning and cool leather seats. He would drive. The bonnet seemed hot to the touch as he trailed the back of his hand over it before clicking off the central lock with a double beep. Inside, he popped open the glove compartment and felt for his sunglasses and, as he slipped them on with one hand, began texting Nancy with the other. ‘Have got car x.’When he started the engine, he was blasted by one of Nancy’s hip-hop CDs. He ejected it, looked at the label – 50 Cent – and replaced it with Chet Baker.

  As he approached Vauxhall, police cones reduced two lanes to one: a diversion. London had been raised from the severe to the critical security level for the past month, since the evacuation on Remembrance Sunday, but Daniel couldn’t help moaning inwardly. His destination, St Thomas’s, was in view. The diversion would mean him having to cross over Vauxhall Bridge, only to double back across the river at Westminster. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and thought about how Bruce had tried not to alarm him about his headaches. He thought too about the way his friend had been questioning him about what had happened in the Pacific, what he had seen.

  Daniel had not mentioned the turtle: partly because he did not think his friend would believe him; partly because he did not quite believe himself. He had also resisted telling Bruce about the young man he had seen, or thought he had seen, treading water. What could he say? That as someone newly in love cannot stop thinking about the object of their love, so he could not stop thinking about the young man in the water? That he was always on the edge of his mind? That he thought about him when he came down the stairs in the morning, and when he turned on his radio, and filled his kettle? Thought about him when he sat at his computer screen? Thought about him while delivering lectures, and having showers, and reading newspapers?

  No. On balance, it was probably best not to mention this.

  Daniel decided to analyse what had happened as if it were one of his scientific investigations: he would systematically rule out possibilities. What he ‘saw’ might have been something illusory, a sheet of water caused by atmospheric refraction by hot air, perhaps. More likely, the ‘young man’ had been a dugong or a manatee, the creatures which mariners used to call sea spirits. Perhaps it had been the turtle. Perhaps it had been a fisherman standing on a sandbank. He had seen sandbanks from the seaplane. And from his perspective in the water the waves would have made it look as if the man was appearing and disappearing. Except that his face had been familiar. The most plausible explanation was medical. Daniel had been dehydrated, traumatized and suffering from sunstroke. He must have been hallucinating. What was that thing called where healthy people reported seeing faces in the clouds, or on the moon? Pareidolia? Something like that. He would ask Bruce.

  After driving across the bridge, he followed the police diversion down Victoria Street and into Parliament Square. In front of Westminster Abbey, he saw a ring of policemen jostling what looked like a row of shapeless, walking tents, women wearing burqas. He had heard on the news there was to be a demonstration outside parliament about a Muslim teacher who had been sacked from a Church of England school for teaching his class that Jesus was not the son of God, but a prophet of Islam.

  As Daniel drew closer he wound down his window and could hear chants of ‘Allahu Akbar!’ He could see Union flags and Stars and Stripes being burned for the benefit of a TV crew. An effigy was also in flames – judging by its makeshift mitre it was supposed to be the Archbishop of Canterbury – and the smell of burning hair made Daniel wrinkle his nose. It reminded him of the market in Quito. He had to squint to read some of the slogans on the placards: WHAT ABOUT FREE SPEECH FOR MUSLIMS? and LEAVE MUSLIM TEACHERS ALONE. One bearded imam in white robes was waving his banner, pumping it up and down. It read: BEHEAD THE BLASPHEMERS! A younger bearded man was being escorted away by police. He was wearing a bandanna and an obviously fake vest of explosives: wires and tubes strapped on with duct tape. The faces of the men in the crowd were contorted in anger. Hands were punching the air. Daniel scanned them without emotion and noticed that a policeman was doing the same, only with a video camera held to his eye.

  It was at this moment that he saw a young man in a jacket and tie who was not shouting, whose features were composed, whose protuberant eyes were set wide apart. Recognizing him, Daniel swerved to the side of the road, causing the driver behind him to blast his horn, the pitch starting high then receding as the car passed. Daniel parked on an angle and lunged out of his own car, leaving his door open. As he jumped a concrete security block, a policeman with a machine gun on a sling turned and started running towards him, shouting: ‘You! Back in the car! Now!’

  Daniel stood still, held up his hands and called back: ‘I have to see someone. He’s over there.’ He pointed. The young man was staring at him, smiling.

  The policeman aimed his gun at Daniel. ‘You cannot leave that car there, sir. Get back in. Now!’

  Daniel returned to the car and climbed back in, all the while searching the crowd. He noticed the TV camera was trained on him now. He followed the diversion signs up Bird
cage Walk and felt frustrated about being taken farther away from the hospital. Then he saw a ball of white light about a hundred and fifty yards ahead of him. At its centre a van lifted off the ground. A vibration that compressed the air against the small bones in his ear followed this sight almost immediately – a shock wave passing through the car, sucking out the oxygen. This was followed by a sullen thud.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Northern France. Last Wednesday of April, 1918

  AS AN ACT OF WILL, THE MARKET TOWN OF NIEPPE HAS CHOSEN TO ignore the Great War, meeting its psychopathic rages with a shrug. Though German, French and British soldiers have, in their turn, marched through its square, they have carried on marching, visitors passing through. The town’s only acknowledgement of the conflict comes in what it does not have. There is no water in the fountain and a tall building on the corner of the Rue de Bailleul has been stripped of its roof tiles by a stray shell, leaving a ribcage of charred beams. The window in the charcuterie has straw and empty crates on display – but the only meat hanging upside down from a hook is a solitary hare still in its fur. There are teenage boys running errands and old men sitting outside cafés playing dominos, but no young men. The streets are empty of them.

  One of the few is a relative newcomer to the town, a bearded Englishman. Every morning he shoulders the haversack that holds the tools of his trade – a wrench, a set of spanners, a pair of canvas work gloves – and cycles from his lodgings on the Rue des Chardonnerets to wherever his work is taking him that day. He always rides his bike back home for lunch, however inconvenient the journey.