The Colour of Heaven

by Runcie, James

‘Come with me then.’

  ‘No. These are my people. And there is my son. Do not think you can arrive and change my life.’

  ‘I am not asking you to do such a thing. I only wanted to be with you.’

  ‘But how? You must return. If you stayed then you would realise how difficult our life can be. Teaching Jamal, slaughtering animals, living in cold and poverty. You have no knowledge of these things.’

  ‘I have travelled the world.’

  ‘And always moved on. For how long have you stopped? Never. You do not know what it is to live here. How can I ask you to do this?’

  It was the first time she had acknowledged that she had even imagined a future life with him.

  ‘Try,’ Paolo replied. ‘Ask me.’

  ‘You must tell me,’ she replied. ‘Show me how such a thing may be possible.’

  ‘I can only do so by loving you.’

  ‘And how will you do that?’

  ‘By thinking only of you. By caring for both you and your son. By promising to return, and never leaving when I have done so.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘Why?’

  Paolo leaned forward and kissed her. He closed his eyes, unable to believe either his daring or her response. So, he thought, this is what it is to begin.

  His head filled with darkness.

  Then gently she pushed him back.

  Jamal had been watching.

  Now Paolo became obsessed with the idea that Aisha’s feelings were perhaps no more than pity. She looked upon him as another son. He was in a competition with Jamal that he could never win.

  He watched the boy gathering stones by the river, picking them out, inspecting each one for size and shape, colour and smoothness. This then was his challenge: to love the boy who would not be loved. And how could he love him when the boy fell so short of his love for her? What was it to love another man’s child?

  He remembered that this was what Marco and Teresa had done. He must learn to love as they had loved.

  He sat beside Jamal and helped him to sort the stone. As he did so, Paolo suddenly imagined Aisha making love to the boy’s father. He tried to bury the thought back inside him, the jealousy and lust. That love was past, he knew, but yet it was ever present. The boy was testament to the fact.

  How would he ever be able to match that passion? How could he replace it or redeem it? What was it to love someone who had already been loved? How could he make Aisha’s life anew? And how could he think that he could ever be a father to this boy?

  They began to divide the pieces of stone Jamal had collected from the river into tone and hue, light and dark. As they did so, Paolo realised that the boy was like him. He too had been alone, shy, and awkward. He too had avoided people, thinking only of pattern and of stone, hard to love.

  Hard to love. That is what I am, Paolo thought. I once heard Marco say so. That is what I must be. I am lucky that anyone takes any interest in me at all. I should help this boy in his loneliness because I know what it is like to feel abandoned. We will be fatherless together.

  They separated the stone.

  Perhaps I could be an elder brother, Paolo thought. A brother who knew what it was like not to see well; a sibling who could protect him. And through his concern for the boy he might win the love of his mother. But could he really love the boy who was not his, or would he have to pretend? And if he did so, Aisha would surely be able to tell. He could make people believe that a piece of glass was a jewel, but how could he counterfeit love for a child?

  Paolo drew a circle in the ground. Then he placed the darkest blue stone in the centre. They would create a pattern together and it would radiate colour, moving from the darkness at the centre out to the palest lapis lazuli on the outer rim. He wanted the boy to understand the depth and detail of the blue that Aisha saw: azure and cerulean, cobalt, sapphire, royal, navy, and marine; the reddish blue in damson and madder; the greenish blue of beryl, turquoise, and aquamarine; blue ash, lake, and indigo.

  As they worked Paolo noticed that Jamal could tell depth and tone with astonishing clarity. The circle contained the subtlest variation, each stone shading into another. He smiled and pointed up at the sky and then back down to the earth, the blue circle above and below them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ It was Aisha’s voice.

  Paolo turned to see her, standing against the sun. ‘We have been working.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Jamal ran to his mother. ‘My brave boy.’ She smiled, taking him into her arms.

  The same words. Paolo felt the surge of jealousy and hopelessness once more. He looked at the way in which her son clung to the folds of Aisha’s skirts, his head against her waist.

  Now, every time Paolo saw Aisha, Jamal was there. When the boy was not standing by his mother’s side, or even between them, he was never far away, like a guard who never left his watch. The more Paolo tried to ignore him, the more interesting Jamal seemed to find him. The boy never wearied. And every time Aisha spoke either of the past or her future life she would talk of her son, defensively and with pride. ‘Do not be angry with his silence,’ she urged.

  ‘I am not,’ Paolo lied.

  ‘He has closed his heart, and so his mouth is silent.’

  ‘Will he ever speak again?’

  ‘I do not know. Every time I see him, every time he clings to me, I am reminded of what I have lost. Sometimes it hurts to have him near me, but I will never be without him. I would die rather than lose him. I have to show all who know me that love is stronger than death; that I will keep him safe, and no harm will come.’

  When Aisha settled her son the following night, he looked up and said simply, ‘You love him more than me.’

  ‘No, Jamal, I don’t.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘I love him differently.’

  ‘Then you admit that you love him.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to say love,’ she replied.

  Aisha tried to stop thinking about Paolo. It was absurd. But as she cut away at the stone she found that she could not concentrate. She kept hearing his voice and remembering the way in which he looked at her.

  He had a dedication and a steadiness that appeared unshakeable. Perhaps it was because he could see so little of the world beyond himself that he knew the immediate world far better: the world of thought and emotion rather than distance and action. But what was he really like? And why did he love her?

  As she made an incision into a piece of lapis, the knife slipped and cut into her left hand. Drops of blood fell onto the stone, dark red against the blue. Despite the pain, she stopped and looked at the wound, watching the blood fall, unable to believe that she had been so careless. She stood up and looked round for cloth with which to bandage her hand. There was none.

  The cut was slight but deep, and she pressed her right hand over the wound. She would have to consult her sister.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Shirin asked.

  ‘I have been careless.’

  ‘You never cut yourself,’ her sister replied.

  ‘Now I have.’

  ‘Here,’ said Shirin. ‘Let me look.’ She took a cloth and dipped it in a pail of water, and then dabbed away at the cut. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘Then I know.’

  ‘You have noticed?’

  ‘Of course I have noticed. Everyone has. You don’t expect such things to be secret?’

  ‘Nothing has happened.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It is foolish.’

  ‘Once you start to love,’ said Shirin, ‘it is hard to want to stop.’

  ‘I have loved once. Isn’t that enough? Was that not my fate?’

  ‘No. And perhaps it is time to leave mourning behind.’

  ‘I do not want to betray the memory.’

  ‘Dujan would have married again.’

  ‘I am no
t talking about marriage.’

  ‘But you are talking about love.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Aisha simply. ‘I would like to love again. To be saved.’

  ‘He will be leaving soon,’ said Shirin. ‘Perhaps he will never return. Why not love him now?’

  ‘Because I do not want to hurt him. And I do not want to lose him, to suffer loss again.’

  ‘But you are not happy.’

  ‘Do you think I am mad?’

  ‘No, I think you are fortunate.’

  ‘I do not feel fortunate.’

  ‘You are.’ Shirin finished bandaging the hand.

  Aisha met her sister’s eye. ‘Do you think I should continue to see him, even if I know he must leave?’

  ‘He may return. Has he said so?’

  ‘He has.’

  ‘And you believe him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aisha, ‘I do.’

  She considered Paolo once more: his strange seriousness. I love this man, she thought.

  When Aisha saw Paolo again she hardly knew what to say. It was the first time he had seen her so nervous, and he was anxious about her hand. Yet when he tried to comfort her, he found her quite resistant.

  ‘If you are so worried then you could stay now, without leaving, and look after me,’ she challenged.

  ‘You know that I have a duty.’

  ‘And I know that you could send the men on with the stone without you.’

  ‘I must go. I made my promise. As I have promised to you. Then, I hope you can see what it means.’

  ‘That is easy to say now.’

  ‘Then come with me.’

  ‘You know that I cannot.’

  ‘Then wait.’

  Aisha suddenly felt short of breath. Why were they speaking like this? ‘Poets tell us that love is always increasing or decreasing and it never stays the same. One always loves more than the other: the lover and the loved.’

  ‘Then our task is to make it constant, unchanging …’ said Paolo.

  ‘Until death.’

  ‘That is what the priests tell us.’

  ‘And do you hope for another life, beyond the stars?’ she asked.

  ‘I would rather return here and find you again, loving in this world and this world only, without hope of another.’

  ‘Think what such a love might mean.’ Aisha looked out to the dying fires. ‘Think of your life.’

  ‘Our life,’ he interrupted.

  ‘Your life. Your future. You should not love me. I must set you free from me. It is not right.’

  ‘And if I say that it is?’ he asked.

  ‘It is not.’

  Paolo turned to face her. ‘You are worried about Jamal.’

  ‘No. I am worried about you.’

  ‘I cannot be his father.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I can try to be his brother. And I can say that I will always love you.’ Paolo paused. ‘I know this.’

  He thought that Aisha had stopped listening, that she did not want to hear these words, but then she cried out: ‘But will you love me? Do you love me? I cannot lose again. My heart cannot be made soft only to break once more.’

  ‘It is the only thing in life of which I am sure.’

  Aisha stopped, leaned forward, and they kissed once more. Perhaps this was what death was like, Paolo wondered, this surrender.

  Then Aisha pulled away. At first Paolo thought she might cry, shuddering against him, but, instead, she stepped back and looked into his eyes.

  ‘Love me,’ she said.

  The next morning Salek looked up at the hard blue sky. ‘From now on it will freeze every night. Tomorrow we must leave,’ he told Jacopo. ‘We have stayed too long.’

  ‘I must inform the woman,’ said Jacopo. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘And who will tell the boy? Perhaps he has plans to stay,’ Salek replied.

  ‘I will tell him,’ said Jacopo. ‘He must learn again what it is to say farewell.’

  They could see the women gathering the last of the mulberries in the distance. Salek was right, thought Jacopo; they had stayed too long. Now it was time. Any more lapis would be hard to carry.

  ‘You are not happy here?’ asked Aisha.

  ‘We have been made welcome. And you have shown true friendship. But we have trade in Cathay. Salek has said that we must leave before the winter or we will be stranded.’

  ‘Would that be so bad?’

  ‘We would be a burden,’ said Salek. ‘We would diminish your food.’

  ‘And you will take the stone?’

  ‘With gratitude.’

  She felt the fear and sickness of loss. The dread returned: the withdrawal of love, the end of happiness. How could she have been so foolish, committing herself so far even when she knew that it must finish? ‘Paolo will be sad.’

  ‘We have no choice.’

  ‘Then tonight,’ said Aisha brightly, but without quite knowing what she was saying, ‘we must feast.’

  The evening was brilliant and clear, and although the sun was bright on the snow, it was too cold to provide warmth. Two of the women began to make kumis, beating mare’s milk in great leather bags suspended from frames until the whey separated from the curds. Others prepared boal from honey. Paolo knew their names – Zuleika and Amaba, Rabia and Shirin, Leila and Durkhani. Another group of women were roasting a sheep over a full fire, making pilau and kabābs.

  A low horn sounded to announce the beginning of the feast. Aisha dipped her fingers in the bowl of kumis and smeared the mouths of their household gods with drink. Then she cut away sections of meat from the sheep on the spit and laid them before each of the idols.

  ‘Protect us, gods of our fathers, and gods of our sons who have been and shall be. We honour you as you honour us.’

  As she bowed before them Jacopo became alarmed. ‘I cannot take part in this.’

  ‘Leave them,’ said Salek. ‘They will not trouble you.’

  The women gave each of the men a bowl of rice wine, sesame paste, chilli, and soy. They were to take the meat, finish its cooking in the collective broth, and then dip it in their sauce.

  Salek picked up his meat with a wooden spoon. ‘Strength to your arm, God be praised, long life to you, may you not be tired.’

  Jacopo ignored the meat. ‘It will trouble my heart. What I would give for some good Jewish food: latkes, kugel, or kreplach. It is nearly Chanukah. And what I would give for some rugelach,’ he mused. ‘Even chicken. If they just had chicken, I would be happy.’

  ‘Stop complaining,’ whispered Paolo.

  ‘Who’s complaining?’ said Jacopo. He took the bread and the pilau, and drank from the kumis. ‘Let a man dream.’

  The women sat in a circle, banging drums, chanting defiant songs of love and war. Salek began to smoke a pipe. Jacopo lay on his back and looked up at the stars.

  Warmed by the fire, filled by meat, and enlivened by the kumis, a quiet satisfaction spread through the community. For one night they did not need to think of their troubled past or uncertain future. Some of the women began to dance.

  Aisha gestured that Paolo should sit on the ground beside her. ‘Look at the sky,’ she said. ‘Watch it darken. It can change almost as quickly as a life.’

  She put her arm around him, and pulled him towards her for warmth. ‘Look now: the darkest blue before the black.’

  Together they watched the clouds fold into the darkness, each detail fading as the stars rose. They were as numberless as the dead.

  Still looking up into the sky, Aisha said simply: ‘And so you are going?’

  ‘You know that I have to.’

  ‘No. You do not have to. You want to. But let us not argue.’

  Paolo took her hand. Without thinking he began to stroke it, following the line of her fingers. ‘As I was cutting the stone in the cave today I found insects living inside it, hidden away. They were unaware of the stone, they did not fear it, and so moved on. Plants grow there: in the stone and out of the darkne
ss. That is like love. The stone may be as powerful as fate, impossibly so, and yet it can be broken. It needs to be broken; and life emerges, stronger than the stone from which it came.’

  They kissed, his head tilting away from her eye, so that he could no longer see her clearly. He closed his eyes and felt his body fall away, abandoning all thoughts of his past or his future, wanting only this moment.

  Aisha stopped as if to check herself, curious, and frightened. Paolo opened his eyes, and she was staring directly into them. He brought up his hand to shield the brightness, looking only at her, wanting no other light. Now he could see clearly, more sharply than he had ever seen anything before.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Aisha, taking him towards her tent. ‘Come with me now.’

  They could speak about anything; they could dream and talk and be as vulnerable and as afraid as they had always been but had never been able to say. They held each other and knew that this passing moment between sleep and waking, this blur between dream and reality could defy time. Aisha pulled off her dress, raising it above her head, and Paolo was astonished by her nakedness. He took off his clothes, amazed by the softness of flesh against flesh, life against life. Before, he had only been half himself. Now he was complete. His life had meaning. Nothing would ever matter as much as this again.

  The next morning he awoke with a start. Someone was shaking him, pulling him away from all that he had found.

  ‘Come, we are ready.’ It was Salek. ‘Leave her. Get dressed.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said Paolo.

  ‘You must. Everything is packed. We have done all this for you.’ Salek pulled Paolo out of the bed, picked up his clothes, and threw them at him.

  Aisha stirred and sat up, pulling the coverings against her.

  ‘We must leave,’ said Salek. ‘You know this.’

  ‘Then let me say farewell.’

  Now Jamal pushed past Salek. He had come to find his mother. He stopped as soon as he saw Paolo dressing.

  ‘Why are you going?’ he asked. It was the first time he had spoken to him.

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Quickly,’ said Salek. ‘We are already late.’

  ‘For what?’ asked Paolo.

  ‘There may be a storm. Come now.’

  Jamal pulled at Paolo’s arm. ‘Stay,’ he said.

  ‘He cannot,’ said Salek, and Paolo knew that it was true.