The Colour of Heaven

by Runcie, James

  ‘When you have known the worst there can be no worse.’

  ‘But I do not know what it can be like to live without fear.’

  Aisha blew the dust away from the polished stone and began to carve into its surface, decorating the brooch with the shape of a phoenix. ‘You are so young.’

  ‘And you think that you are old?’

  ‘Of course. Older than you.’

  Paolo noticed that when she lowered her head to concentrate, her dark hair fell forward onto her hands. She had to stop, momentarily, brushing it back across her shoulders. It was one movement, made without interrupting her concentration, as if she were quite alone. Paolo watched the glint of the incising tool, held firmly between her fingers, moving against the blue stone.

  ‘There.’ Aisha looked up and seemed surprised that Paolo was still in the room. She observed him strangely, tilting her head in the light. Paolo wondered if he had done anything wrong.

  ‘Your beard,’ she said, as if she had not noticed it before. ‘Do you think it suits you?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I think you would look better without it.’

  ‘All men have beards. Jacopo told me.’

  Aisha took the mention of Jacopo’s name as a challenge. ‘I would like to see you without one.’

  ‘You would not mind?’

  ‘No. I would help you.’

  ‘Remove it? You know how?’

  ‘I learned to shave my father when he was old. I know how to do it.’

  ‘I am not sure that I want to be clean shaven.’

  ‘No? Be brave. Live boldly.’

  Paolo smiled. ‘There must be more to it than shaving.’

  ‘But it’s a beginning,’ Aisha replied. ‘Have courage.’

  ‘How can I argue with you?’ Paolo answered.

  ‘I am sure you can learn.’

  The next morning she took Paolo down to the river and told him to wash his face and wet his beard. She lit a fire, and warmed a bowl of water and wet tallow soap, rubbing the lather between her hands. Then she began to pat it gently against his face.

  ‘Not too cold?’ she asked.

  She pulled her father’s knife from her belt, and sharpened it on a flint from the ground.

  Paolo wondered if she had ever killed a man.

  ‘Trust me.’ She smiled. ‘Close your eyes.’

  She stood behind him and began to shave underneath his chin, stroking the hair upwards, tilting Paolo’s head in the cup of her hands.

  He felt the sharpness of the blade raze through the hair of his beard, the cold air freshen against his newly exposed flesh, the back of her hand against his face.

  Then he tilted his head back and felt it rest against her breasts. Aisha moved round to face him. She smiled, and he blushed as she did so, as if they both acknowledged that his last movement had not been an accident, that all he had wanted was to leave his head against her.

  She began to shave his cheeks, stroking the hair downwards, and then dabbed the soap away with a cloth.

  Paolo felt the cold air on his face, the warmth of the water, and the softness of her breath. He closed his eyes, letting her guide his face in her hands, breathing in the scent of almond and rosewater.

  Aisha washed the knife, and then dried it on her skirts, before beginning again on his left cheek. ‘What do you hope for,’ she asked, ‘in your life?’

  ‘It is too much, I think.’

  ‘Tell me. Open your eyes.’

  She met his look and would not continue shaving until he spoke.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘I want to look at you. Like this. Now.’

  ‘Then look.’

  ‘When I look closely I see with a terrible sharpness.’

  She leaned back. ‘Even my flaws. I must be careful.’

  ‘You have no flaws,’ he answered seriously.

  ‘Now you flatter me. I think you should look again.’

  ‘I am looking,’ he said.

  ‘And what do you see?’

  ‘I see the fall of your hair against your neck, and the way it curls like a wave. I see that your eyes are not always the deepest amber, but can even become a dark green, opalescent, always changing, and that I would have to spend many hours looking into each one if I were ever to be able to describe their true colour.’

  Aisha stopped. Only then did she realise how serious he had become. She threw him the cloth. ‘Tell me more stories. Let me hear your voice.’

  Paolo dried the rest of his face. ‘I do not know what to say.’

  She sat down beside him. ‘Tell me anything.’

  ‘There was a man,’ he began, uncertain where his story might lead, ‘who was afraid. He was so afraid that he was even scared of happiness, because he knew it would always have to end. He set sail on a journey, over the seas and across the world, hoping to lose this fear. He carried it like a bundle on his back. Everywhere he went he would open the bundle and show it to the people he met. At first he tried to sell it. Who will buy my fear? I ask for only five silver coins. But no one wanted to make such a purchase, even in order to give it to their enemies. So the man reduced the price to three silver coins, then two, then one. Still no one wanted the bundle of his fears. Then he tried to give it away. Again, he had no success. But one day, towards the end of his journey, he thought that he would leave it behind, hide it somewhere. And so he came to a cave high up in the mountains. And in the middle of the cave was a woman. He opened the bundle and showed it to her. And the woman took out the fear and looked at it. “You call this fear?” she asked. “This is nothing.” And suddenly the fear was gone, cast out into the winds.’

  Aisha looked straight into his eyes. ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘She began to fill the bundle with stone. It was the most beautiful stone he had ever seen. But it was also the heaviest. So, when he picked up his bundle to leave, he found that it was too heavy for him to carry. He was trapped.’

  ‘And was he happy?’

  ‘He had never been happier.’

  ‘And how did they live?’

  ‘Together, of course.’

  For a while they were silent. ‘If only life were such a fable,’ Aisha said quietly.

  ‘Perhaps you have listened to the wrong stories,’ Paolo replied.

  ‘Or lived the wrong life. Come. It’s cold. I’m hungry. We must go back.’

  That night in the men’s tent Jacopo questioned the wisdom of Paolo shaving his beard. Was this love or youthful defiance?

  ‘Have a smoke at my pipe,’ said Salek. ‘Now that you are a man.’

  Jacopo chuckled.

  ‘There is no need to tease me,’ Paolo protested.

  ‘Do not be angry,’ said Salek. ‘You should thank us. We left you alone.’ He turned to Jacopo and added darkly, ‘Together.’

  Both men laughed, as if the word ‘together’ had never been more amusing. ‘She misses the company of men,’ Jacopo observed. ‘And you have been good to her.’

  ‘But how good?’ Salek could not help adding.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Paolo testily and the men then sat in silence. Salek took out his pipe and Jacopo prepared to pray. They could hear the mules stamping their feet in the cold outside, the cry of a wolf in the distance, and a woman singing her children to sleep.

  ‘Why do you like her so much?’ asked Salek.

  Paolo could not think how to answer. ‘I do not know. Her presence. Her eyes,’ he said simply.

  ‘Describe them.’

  Paolo thought for a moment. ‘They are the deepest amber, as variable and as uncertain.’

  ‘What kind of amber?’

  ‘Like the heart of a fire as it gradually dies.’

  ‘And how does the right eye differ from the left?’

  ‘I have only looked clearly into her right eye, the side nearest to me.’

  ‘Some would say that you had only looked into half of her soul.�
��

  ‘This is only her physical appearance. There is more to her than what I see. And you know too that my sight is bad.’

  ‘But you think that you love her?’ Salek asked.

  ‘I do not know. All I do know is that I can think only of her. Is that love?’

  Jacopo returned from his prayers. ‘You wish that we tell you now, in this cold?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of which love do you wish me to speak? The love of God for us or our love for God? The love of a father for his son, a mother for a daughter? The love of a child? The love of a husband? The love of a wife? Each is different.’

  ‘The love of another. A man and a woman.’

  ‘A man and a woman.’

  ‘You and Sofia.’

  ‘That is for us alone.’

  ‘Do you think of Sofia all the time?’

  ‘No, but she is always with me. I hear her voice.’

  ‘And what does she say?’

  ‘I talk with her. And she consoles me. I think sometimes that if I have this love in the world then nothing else matters. There can be sadness, there can be tragedy, but all that counts is this love.’

  ‘Then why do you travel?’

  ‘Sometimes I love her more when we are apart. When I live with her all the time it is more difficult. Our love is kept by distance.’

  ‘And you trust her?’

  ‘Of course I trust her. You insult me to ask such a question.’

  ‘And she trusts you?’

  ‘Does it look as if I stray like a dog?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then don’t ask me. What’s happened to you? You think you love her, this widow?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I cannot understand her.’

  ‘No. But perhaps she cannot understand you. A young Italian boy …’

  ‘And she is older, I know. But I feel safe.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘You mean love should be more than safety?’ Paolo asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Jacopo replied.

  ‘All I know is that I can see only her. In my thoughts and my dreams.’

  ‘Only her?’

  ‘She is all I care about.’

  ‘Describe her voice to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just describe it.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I would like to hear what you have to say,’ said Jacopo firmly.

  Paolo thought, and tried to remember the last words she had said to him. If only life were such a fable … ‘It is like a song that I have always wanted to hear.’

  ‘And is it the last voice?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Jacopo took a long, slow breath. ‘You want me to tell you of love?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then imagine that you are dying.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘I will make it easier for you. You are on a bed, not in battle, or at sea, or at the bottom of this mountain. You are comfortable, but you are weak. There is a goblet of water by your side, made from Venetian glass. You are not hungry. And there are no distractions. To have such concerns would be futile; for you know that you are going to die. You are waiting for it quite calmly: the last darkness, the final silence.

  ‘And as you wait, in the dim of the evening, warmed by the last of the sun, you become aware of a person lying down beside you, hushing you to sleep. But who is this person? What do they say?

  ‘You know at that moment that this is the last voice that you will hear on earth. The final farewell. You will die with this voice telling you how much you have been loved, whispering goodbye. But whose is the last voice? Would you like it to be hers?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Think. Imagine. Now you are lying there. Can you hear her voice?’

  If only life were such a fable.

  ‘Or is it the voice of your mother?’

  I have done all that I can. I have not lived for myself, but only through you. I wanted to do this. I wanted to love.

  ‘I cannot hear clearly. There are too many voices.’

  ‘Then listen harder.’

  You think you love her, this widow?

  ‘I can only hear your voice. I can only imagine yours.’

  ‘I am flattered.’

  ‘I want it to be hers. To feel her lying down beside me. For her to be with me, just as I would be with her, now, if I had to do such a thing. I would go to her. I would listen to her breathing. I would breathe at the same rate, as if my breathing could become hers so that she should live and I might die.’

  ‘And would you cease your travels, stay here and never leave? Give up everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Never return to Simone, see Venice or your mother?’

  ‘Perhaps my mother is already dead.’

  ‘I do not believe you think this.’

  Paolo thought what it might mean to leave and what it might be like to stay. ‘And you? Whose is the last voice you would choose to hear?’

  ‘You ask me a question to which you must already know the answer.’

  ‘This is true. But I want you to say it. Tell me.’

  ‘Why, the voice of my wife, my beloved, my Sofia, crying across the wilderness,’ Jacopo replied.

  Before Paolo slept he tried to remember the way in which Aisha looked at him. If only he could find a piece of amber that would match the beauty of her eyes and live on after her death.

  Her death? Why had he imagined such a thing, now, as if he were half in love with the idea? Perhaps it was because he would then have experienced suffering, and those who knew him well would learn how much he had loved. Through his bereavement he would demonstrate that his love was greater, truer, more passionate than anything his companions had ever felt.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  It was Salek.

  ‘Still thinking of her?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then go to her.’

  ‘I do not dare.’

  ‘Love her. It is what I would do.’

  ‘I am not you.’

  ‘Go.’ Salek turned as if to sleep. ‘Tell her.’

  Paolo tried to ignore him but could not stop thinking. He did not want to sleep lest he dreamed. He felt the fragility of the earth underneath him, as if it might give way at any moment. Then he tried to imagine how high the sky must be above him. He lived in a chasm of air between earth and heaven of which he could make no sense, in which he was lost.

  And then he decided.

  He would tell her now.

  He stood in the main tent watching Aisha as she slept, her long dark hair falling against her back. For a moment Paolo wanted nothing to change, for him to stay here, looking. Then she stirred. And in that instant, even though she could not yet know that Paolo was in the room, he already sensed that he should leave.

  But he could not do so.

  He approached the bed, sat on its edge, and lay down beside her. He listened to the wind outside and to the rise and fall of her breathing. He tried to breathe at the same rate. Perhaps he could stay here in her bed for ever, without her even knowing. He tried to think how long it would be until dawn.

  But then Aisha woke with a start, frightened, half asleep, confused. ‘You.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you doing? Here in my bed?’ She turned onto her side and smiled.

  Even in the darkness, Paolo could tell that it was a smile of pity: the smile of a mother.

  At once he knew that his cause was lost; before she said anything more, before she reached out to stroke his cheek or brush the hair from her eyes, he knew that he should be anywhere other than here, that he had made a mistake.

  ‘Jamal is sleeping,’ she whispered.

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ said Paolo.

  Aisha smiled. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, still hoping that he was wrong, that she would take him to her.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I am too sad for you. I have much t
hat is past. You are still young.’

  She took him in her arms, and they held each other. Paolo buried himself in her, and she gathered him to her, but not in the way that he wanted. She cradled him as a mother cradles a boy.

  He began to cry and hated himself for doing so. He could do nothing to stop it, as if he had been waiting for this moment throughout his journey. He cried for his life and for her pity; for being in her arms, for her love. And he cried for his own foolishness and stupidity; for his own youth, which, it seemed, he could never escape.

  When would he ever be old enough for desire to be realised, passion felt? How long must he wait?

  And then, since he must still be a boy, he felt the years slip backwards into his childhood. He cried for his mother, for her arms around him, and for safety; for a love that was unswerving, a love that he could trust for ever, and which would never let him down. He cried for the distance between them. He thought of home, the streets, the people, and the glass. The roads he knew. The church of San Donato. He cried for the laughter of his friends, and even for his father, shaping the glass in the fire. He cried for the fact that this journey might never end. And then he cried for her, for Aisha, for her life, and for her tragedy, a story he could not change or redeem, that he could neither heal nor comfort.

  ‘My brave boy,’ she said.

  Later that night, after he had left Aisha, Paolo saw Salek leaving another tent, looking almost secretive. He could not understand it.

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ His guide smiled. ‘Like you, I have found a friend.’

  ‘You have been very quiet about it.’

  ‘Of course. I do not need to tell the world.’

  ‘Is that what I have done?’

  ‘You have been a boy. Perhaps you should try to become a man.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’ asked Paolo.

  ‘Patience. Restraint. Calmness and strength.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Paolo replied.

  When Aisha saw Paolo the next morning she was guarded, as if she had made up her mind that both their love and their friendship could have no future.

  ‘You are distracted by the stone and by me,’ she told Paolo. ‘Do you ever stop to think what our life here is like? It is survival. Shelter, Food, Birth, Death. Love is a luxury. We do not expect it. And it does not come twice. Your life is privilege, adventure. You go where you will. I cannot.’