The War of Immensities

by Barry Klemm

  “The ocean itself has died,” Rogelio uttered, but he rowed.

  They approached the skiff where the arm dangled. Already he could see that the two men were still in the boat, lying in the bottom amid the nets as if they were their own catch.

  “It is the boat of Santiago,” Rogelio declared.

  The Padre reached awkwardly and grabbed the protruding arm of Santiago or perhaps his brother, and immediately, though the skin was chilled by the night air, he could feel the warmth beneath.

  “Santa Maria,” Padre Miguel gasped. “They are not dead but only sleeping.”

  *

  This was the right place, no doubt about it, except it wasn’t anymore. It was gone in a instant, and then this was no longer the place to which he had come, but nowhere, just the middle of an empty paddock.

  Brian Carrick knew immediately the waiting was over, although nothing had changed, and it was time to pack up and go home. Mostly he felt a strange sense of freedom, liberated by senses that had forced him to come here, apparently by mistake.

  He remained for a while, making coffee and squatting by the fire, to be sure, but there was nothing left for him here. The sun was preparing to rise. He pissed on the ashes to make sure no fire remained, shouldered his pack—his humpy—and started back toward the truck.

  It had been a clear night, almost full moon, the Milky Way prominent, Mars and Jupiter high. He had enjoyed the night time best, when he lay, looking at the stars. Next time, if there was a next time—and somehow he sensed there would be—he resolved to know them all. It was the first time in his life that he had ever had the time or been relaxed enough to lie in the dark and study the stars. He was awed.

  Now they were dimming out in the lightening sky and he gave them a final glance and a smile as he marched toward the truck. He felt good. He would drive through the morning and be home at lunchtime, and then would come the tricky bit when he tried to explain all this to Judy.

  *

  After breakfast, they stood in the glorious morning sun outside the Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo and wondered where to go.

  “It’s gone,” Lorna said.

  “What’s gone?” Chrissie gasped, checking their suitcases.

  “We don’t have anywhere to go,” Lorna said, frowning, looking up and down High Street. The morning traffic was on the move in Bendigo, people and cars and trams hurrying between the drab grey buildings.

  “You mean this is where we were going?” Chrissie said in disappointment and disbelief.

  “Apparently.”

  “Can’t be.”

  “No. It isn’t either. It’s just the feeling has gone.”

  “Yes. You’re right.”

  In Bendigo, they found the hotel, planning to continue their journey in the morning only now there was nowhere to go. They stood in the busy main street, the tall redheaded girl and the slight Asian one, frowning at the morning traffic.

  “Well, what now?” Chrissie wondered.

  “I suppose we go home again,” Lorna said with a shrug.

  “That’s silly. We can’t have come all this way just to spend a night in a flea bitten hotel in Bendigo, wherever that is.”

  “You have to admit it was different.”

  “Different from what?”

  “Imagine how our friends will admire our spontaneity and adventurous spirit.”

  “I’m not telling anyone about this. They’ll have us locked up.”

  “Maybe we can justify it by doing some shopping in Melbourne.”

  “Can we?”

  “Sure. Best retail therapy in the Southern Hemisphere, they reckon.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so sooner. Direct me to the train.”

  *

  After breakfast while the kids readied themselves for school, Felicity flicked on the television to check the time and the weather and the news while she got the dishes out of the way. Balance of payments, political anarchy in Eastern Europe, more strikes threatened, more government cut-backs; she yawned as she stripped off the plastic gloves and apron.

  Wendell came in from pulling the car out of the garage and began to shuffle through his briefcase, making sure he had everything he needed. She barely noticed where they said the eruption had happened, under the sea anyway and some fishermen somewhere. It was odd the way the word volcano snapped into her attention these days... “...one by one, the rescuers found the fishermen unconscious in their boats. Over sixty islanders remain in a coma at the mission hospital tonight, most of them otherwise uninjured...”

  She was looking toward Wendell desperately. “Wennie, did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “It’s the same damned thing. I’m sure of it.”

  “Same what?”

  “Same thing that happened last time.”

  “Would you care to make some sense, my love?”

  She paused to think. The news report had moved on to other matters. She tried desperately to gather in her head the little she had apprehended. “Canaries? That’s what they said. The Canary Islands. Where are they?”

  Wendell regarded the small cage in the corner grimly. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the canary?”

  4. THE LEMMINGS OF GRAN CANARIA

  The chilled hand of God reached out and touched Lorna as she came in from the bright sunshine to the shadowland of the church. She shivered as the holy spirit entered her body, discerned that she was of no interest and passed on, leaving her sullen and alone.

  She walked into the church fully conscious of the fact that her body, as well as her mind, exhibited an inappropriate attitude. Her heels clacked on the floor and rang through the chamber about her, defying any attempt she might have made to creep along. The cold touched goose bumps on the flesh above her neckline and made her nipples stick out prominently. Her blue-green skirt was way too short and her blatant young thighs were a clear challenge to the sanctity of the faithful—even St Peter would have been obliged to leer and let her in through the Pearly Gates, despite a life led as sinfully as her circumstances allowed. And the green beret perched on her brilliant red hair was at just the right insolent angle to offend the stained-glass saints gathered in the windows to right and left.

  Lorna was letting them have it, right below the belt and she knew it as she pouted sexily and cast her eye about for mischief. But she was as surprised to be here as Jesus would have been to see her, even if it had been arranged for a long time. This was the particular church where Chrissie had planned to be married, on this very day, just one hour ago in fact, and Lorna had always been projected as first bridesmaid.

  “If the building doesn’t collapse when you walk in,” Chrissie had joked.

  Well, here she was and it hadn’t, but they built these places solidly, perhaps for that very reason. As her eyes accommodated the depths of the vast chamber before her, she could make out the shiny things and silken cloths of the altar at the far end of the long aisle. She would have been standing down there, in the long mauve dress that Chrissie had planned for her, shoes and handbag to match, her hair up and flowers woven into it. The other two bridesmaids—John Burton’s sisters—were flat-chested and protested when they saw the designs and how their necklines were planned to plunge, for the dress had been conceived to Lorna’s specifications. Now that bit of fun would never be had. It was sad, so sad.

  Lorna started to move again, her heels incriminating her, looking to right and left as she went. There was only one other person in the chamber, huddled in prayer right down the front, just a lump of hunched shoulders from Lorna’s perspective, but she knew it had to be Chrissie—in the saddest and most unloved moment of her life.

  Lorna had been out searching for hours now, at all their friends places and every bar and cafe they frequented and it only occurred to her very belatedly that she would be here. Burton the Bastard—well, you couldn’t blame him really: who’d want to marry the fruitcake that Chrissie had become—had called it off two months ago when he got out of hospi
tal after his so-called beloved had bounced a vase off his head in a fit of irrational jealousy.

  It was the second time she had hospitalised him—on the first she had run him down in her car when she saw him crossing the road arm in arm with a female that in her blind rage she had failed to recognise as being one of his sisters. But it wasn’t just that. Chrissie had worked herself into such a state of nerves with her mad fears that this or that would go wrong and the wedding would be a disaster that, in the end, when it was called off, it came as a blessed relief.

  Chrissie had lost her driver’s licence, she was on a good behaviour bond, she had lost her job and all of her friends except Lorna. All this from Chrissie the Mouse, the quiet thing in the corner whom Lorna had originally befriended on the ski-slopes because her skinniness made Lorna look all the more voluptuous and her quietude emphasised Lorna’s smallest moments of outrageousness.

  Now there was only Lorna left—the falsest of friends had been the truest in the end. It was she alone who was there to keep count of the pills in the bathroom cabinet and, eventually, to rush Chrissie to hospital when she did, at last, make a complete hack of slashing her wrists.

  Lorna made her way forward, closing in on the pathetic heap in the front pew that her friend had become. It was Chrissie, all right, who had never shown pronounced religious leanings in the past, but revealed now that she knew how to get deeply into prayer. A childhood confined to a convent had not been a total loss.

  One space had been left as if Chrissie expected her and Lorna sat in it, leaning back, folding her arms, crossing her legs to give God the very best aspect of her thighs. Chrissie did not respond, on her knees, hands locked under her chin, head retracted into her collar like a turtle, tears dropping from her nose and chin to a not inconsiderable puddle on the polished timber beneath.

  This scene Lorna regarded for as long as she could stand it. Eventually, she reached and tapped Chrissie savagely on the shoulder with her clawlike fingernail.

  “Lorna, that hurts.”

  “Pain therapy, my sweet. To burst you out of your melancholy and back into life. Get up before I start kicking you.”

  “I’m not melancholy,” Chrissie said, but she did not move.

  “Sure you ain’t. Chrissie, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “Yes, I know. I meant to leave you a note but I forgot.”

  “Chrissie, being here isn’t doing you any good, you know.”

  “I’m at peace here, Lorna. Why don’t you try it? Come on, kneel.”

  “No way. Come on, sit up or I’ll drag you.”

  “Just let me finish this prayer...”

  “Not a chance.” She grabbed her by the shoulders, pausing only to eye the altar in mock apology. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr God, but I want to talk to her now. You had your chance and you blew it. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Merde, Lorna, don’t you know anything about going to church.”

  “Only those few things I haven’t managed to blot out of my memory completely. Come on, sit like a person. Tell the deity goodbye and talk to me.”

  Chrissie managed a few, doubtless more appropriate, parting words with God and then wearily moved back to a sitting position. Lorna immediately saw that the situation was worse than she imagined. Sure, there were tears still streaking her cheeks and her mascara was everywhere and her nostrils flaming and lips blubbery, but none of that was unfamiliar in recent times.

  What was strange was her eyes, which had suddenly taken on a far-away look, a weird tranquillity and penetration that Lorna had never seen before. Had the poor girl finally, completely and utterly, tipped right over the brink?

  “Okay,” Chrissie smiled limply. “What can I do for you?”

  “Chrissie, why torture yourself like this?”

  “This isn’t torture.”

  “Oh no? Being the only person to turn up for your own wedding sounds like torture to me.”

  “I’m not alone. You’re here. And God is here.”

  “Maybe, but him and me ain’t on speaking terms.”

  “You can speak to Him through me.”

  “Cut the crap, Chrissie. And let’s get you out in the sunshine and away from this forbidding place.”

  “Why don’t you try opening your heart just a little, Lorna? It can’t be all glass. God only needs the tiniest crack to shine through.”

  “It isn’t my heart that needs repair, Chrissie.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Lorna. I can do it for both of us.”

  “Do what?”

  Chrissie glanced about. She took a tissue from Lorna and began working as putting her face back together. That, at least, seemed to be a good place to start.

  “I didn’t mean to come here,” Chrissie said, and then she ran an eye over Lorna’s appearance and shook her head in dismay. “And I sure didn’t mean to drag you into this. But I was thinking about what might have been—you know how I am. Just lying in bed this morning, letting the thoughts flow.”

  “At present, that is about the most dangerous thing you could do.”

  “Well, suddenly, it hit me. I knew!”

  “You knew what, exactly... or don’t I want to hear it?”

  “I had this image. You know. Me in my wedding dress, standing before the altar all by myself.”

  “I’m thankful you left the dress at home.”

  “All of a sudden, I knew I wasn’t alone at all. I might not have been standing in the church for the reason I expected but I was still standing there for a reason.”

  “You lost me.”

  “I was here because God called me.”

  “Oh fuck, you’re going back to the bloody nunnery, aren’t you?”

  “No, silly. After all those years in the convent which made no impression, suddenly it happens now.”

  “What happened now, exactly?”

  “The ... the feeling... Whatever it is that sent us running all over like mad things. Don’t you see? That’s what happened to us.”

  “It didn’t happen to me...”

  “That’s why we went to Australia. We were called there by God.”

  Lorna rolled her eyeballs toward Heaven where, she suspected, many other eyeballs were also being rolled upward. “I doubt that God is waiting for anyone in Bendigo.”

  “It was just like Moses being called upon the mount, and Saul to Jerusalem, and Paul to Rome. We were touched by the hand of God and he drew us along.”

  “I’ll ask God to keep his bloody maulers to himself, thanks very much.” But she shivered. She always made her best jokes when completely unnerved.

  Chrissie gripped her arm, leaning close, her eyes aflame. “Lorna, be serious for a moment. Wasn’t that how it felt?”

  Lorna thought about it for a micro-second. Yeah, sure, that was how it felt. Lorna and Chrissie, goeth down to Bendigo and sayeth unto them, yet forty days and Bondi Beach will be destroyed... It would have made sense, had it not been so bloody ridiculous.

  “What were we supposed to do, Chrissie? Lead the Children of New Zealand back to the land of milk and honey that they broke their necks to get away from?”

  “It would help if you would take this seriously, Lorna.”

  “I’d need to be omnipotent to do that.”

  “Lorna, whether you believe it or not, we were drawn to Australia and it was obviously for some purpose known only to God.”

  “That much I believe. So fucking what? God’s purpose fizzled.”

  “No. You said it yourself that morning. We didn’t get to wherever we were supposed to go.”

  “No one ever does.”

  “We will next time.”

  “There isn’t going to be a next time.”

  “Oh yes there is. And right away. Lorna, can’t you feel it?”

  Lorna reared back, no longer mocking as she stared. “Feel what?”

  Chrissie tightened the grip on her arm and her eyes with her newfound limpidity stared into those of her horrified friend.

  “Lo
rna, it’s happening again.”

  *

  One of the women ran on ahead to raise the alarm at the mission station.

  “Demons!” she was shrieking as she rushed about the dusty courtyard. “The demons are taking our men!”

  She might have been possessed by the demons herself, such was her state of hysteria as she finally collapsed in Padre Miguel’s arms.

  “The demons have turned them into zombies.”

  Padre Miguel needed no further explanation. He might have come to this island from Morocco and before that Spain but he knew all there was to know about demons, zombies, and throbbing rituals that drove women to a frenzied hysteria.

  He rose, giving brief instructions to the sister regarding the sedation of the woman, whom he recognised as one of those from the village directly above the mission. He started walking in the direction of the village—the woman’s arms had flailed generally in that direction anyway, but he didn’t have to go far before he heard the commotion coming down the path toward him. Female voices, shrieking in terror, pleading in desperation. It was just a few minutes after dawn when the men ought to have been heading down the other path to their skiffs in the roadstead and the day’s fishing. Certainly it was far to early for such agitation under any circumstances.

  Padre Miguel backed off, returning to the hospital grounds. Plainly the problem, whatever it may be, was coming to him. They were such a skittish lot, right along this coast, full of mysteries and rituals and legends. He called to the sisters, ordering more sedatives, bracing himself with a brief prayer, and stood in the middle of the courtyard and waited. The commotion advanced right to him although what worried him more was a brief moment when the breeze carried voices from farther off, from another of the villages further away, where a similar cackle of women’s frantic voices seemed evident.

  The first of the men entered the camp. They were, indeed, zombies. Padre Miguel had seen this before, often, but only ever at night when drink and drugs drove the men to this catatonic state during the satanic rituals. They walked steadily, eyes wide and unseeing, offering no response to the women who clawed and buffeted them and shrieked in their ears. There were about thirty men in all, the full complement of fishermen from the upper village, he assessed, and every one of them possessed by the same demons. This was going to take some stopping.