The Colour of Heaven

by Runcie, James

  ‘I will come back.’ Paolo gathered up his bag and ruffled Jamal’s hair. He turned to Aisha. ‘You know that. I have promised.’

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘take this.’ She picked up a coat made from animal skin.

  Paolo leaned forward and kissed her once more.

  Salek interrupted. ‘No time. Come.’

  Aisha gripped Paolo’s arms. ‘Think of us.’

  ‘I will think of nothing else.’

  Jacopo was waiting outside. Paolo tried to focus but could only see low black clouds coming towards him. The cold air was at them, sharp and unremitting. The snow on the ground lifted and swirled in the wind, the sharpness of its grit spitting in their faces.

  ‘Help us,’ shouted Jacopo. ‘Hold on to the animals.’

  Paolo took the reins Jacopo gave him and felt the mules pull away from him, desperate for shelter or escape. Ahead he could see Salek shouting through the rain: ‘Ride.’

  They forced their way through the storm, challenging its power. The rain streaked across Jacopo’s face and the indigo dye of his beard coloured the drops of water running down his neck.

  ‘We must go on,’ called Salek. ‘Move. It will only get worse.’

  The track ahead had been transformed into a thick mud, which clung to the mules’ hooves. They struggled forward, and the rain lessened enough for them to realise the extent of the storm, to feel the cold and wet that now enveloped them.

  ‘I told you we should have left earlier,’ shouted Salek.

  Paolo had never felt so alone.

  At last they found shelter in a narrow lee. Salek unsaddled his mule and began to erect a tent but it was so wet it had to be wrung dry. Nothing had escaped the storm.

  ‘We must make fire. Dry these. Tonight it might freeze and everything will be as ice – our tent, our clothes, our food. You must find wood. I will light what we have. Go.’

  Paolo pulled a branch from a tree, ripping it away so strongly that a section of bark cut into his hand. He looked at the blood and remembered the way Aisha had caressed his face. He felt the ache of tenderness gone from his life and tried to think of every possible way in which he could see her again.

  Soon it would be night. The air bit into their bones. They lit the damp fire and sat round it, bleak in the cold, without speaking. Then they ate thin herb soup with nan bread.

  Paolo felt as if his body were no longer his own. The world had dulled; even its beauty. The brilliance of the sky, the vast stretch of rock, the open horizon before him meant nothing. It no longer mattered what he ate or where he travelled. He drifted without energy or purpose, as if the vital spark that ignited and drove his life had been removed. Every action he performed – standing, walking, or moving in any way – required an energy that he was no longer sure he possessed.

  He lay down, knowing that the last time he had done so had been with Aisha. Perhaps this was now his task – to remember her, willing all other memories to disappear in order to be replaced by the rush of love. He would think of Aisha’s eyes half closing as she kissed him, the way her breathing changed, the moistness on the upper rim of her lips. He dreamed of her caress in the half-waking, half-sleeping darkness; and the knowledge that it was all he wanted.

  He tried to remember the pores of her skin against his flesh, the quickening pulse in her wrist, and the rise and fall of her breathing: all beauty contained in that moment.

  For the next few days, weeks, or months, as long as they travelled, he would try to live in memory alone.

  TUN-HUANG

  Now they travelled east, through narrow passes and under heavy peaks, towards Cathay, sheltering in hollows and on raised ledges, making camp wherever they could. The snow often wiped away all tracks of the previous day and when fog descended it was almost impossible for the men to find their bearings. Paolo set up signs each night, pointing in the direction they wished to travel the next morning, hammering down the tents, making their possessions secure.

  The three companions stopped whenever there was water, and the rivers began to fill with the winter rains. They set out traps for animals and survived on raisins and dried mulberries, the bread they made and the water they carried. When the men were hungry they dreamed of meat – lamb, chicken, rabbit, marmot, and gazelle. Salek told them how merchants from his village would slaughter a sheep, skin it, cut it into pieces, and throw it down the sides of the mountain into the valleys, hoping that precious stones would adhere to the stickiness of fresh, bloody meat.

  As they approached Cathay the vegetation became richer and they found themselves in a grove of bamboo trees, stretching out into the distance. At last there was lushness, a swathe of green, the possibility of spring. The bamboo bent low under the weight of the snow, snapping as suddenly as a broken bone. The men cut the first of the new shoots and heated them with boiled rice, their purple nodules like old brocade, the white skin coloured like pearls. When it was necessary to cross a river they made a raft from the bamboo, lashing each rod with hemp.

  When they finally arrived they discovered that the streets of Tun-huang were filled with traders, water-sellers, dancers, acrobats, musicians, and singing girls. Noodle makers offered breakfast delicacies of mutton and goose, steamed pancakes and fragrant rice. The women of the city hung branches of willow over their doorways and prepared marrow soup, swallows’ nests smoked with slices of duck, and beef with ginger, star anise, and rock sugar.

  Salek spoke to a man selling firecrackers made from sticks of bamboo packed with gunpowder. He told them that they had arrived in time for his play of explosions, and that in the evening he would light the sky, challenging the heavens with fire.

  Paolo had never seen Jacopo so at ease in his surroundings. Before them stood the Jade Gate decorated with carved lions and gleaming with a translucent green light. Beyond he could see piles of the jewel on the traders’ tables: snow white, emerald green, lavender blue. Men worked with cutting tools, treadle wheels, whetstones, and polishing paste to shape the precious objects that lay before them: triple hoops, rings, amulets, pendants, and necklaces; hairpins decorated with pearl-eyed dragons breathing ruby flames; jadeite drops and pearls the size of canary eggs. Everything that might celebrate life, decorate existence, or protect the wearer against evil lay before them. Paolo could see mountains in stone, forests in agate, rivers in marble, and faces in jasper. The jade was so pure that the traders believed it could preserve flesh from decay, raise the dead, strike down the faithless, and protect a spirit on its journey into the afterlife.

  Jacopo began to test a piece of rough stone, longing to know what might happen when the rock revealed its secrets. ‘When the skin of jade is one inch thick, even the immortals cannot guess what lies within.’

  ‘How long will we stay?’ Paolo asked.

  ‘You must help me. Hidden here are jewels of lesser worth, fakes, and forgeries. I must hold each stone, weigh it, see it, and even try to mark it. And then, when I know, when I have truly looked, we can trade and return.’

  A loud gong interrupted the conversation. The jade merchants packed up their stalls, firecrackers shot up into the sky, and the town was transformed into a festival of light and heat, food and noise. Wheels of coloured fire spun in circles in the distance. Rockets shot upwards. Paolo could see the fireworks reflected on the lake, as water and horizon became one. Clouds of smoke burst open with fountains of colour, spraying, spurting, and cracking into life. He had never heard such noise, ripping into and against the wind, challenging destiny and darkness.

  ‘Huo yao tsa hsi,’ said a man, laughing and pointing, trying to explain what was happening. He scurried amidst the fireworks, crouching down, lighting rockets. He looked out into the distance and up into the sky, pleased with his work. He asked the crowds to keep away, but Salek urged Paolo to look more closely at the man as he sent flames into the air. The fireworks were reflected in circles of quartz in front of his eyes, tied with a leather strap around the back of his head.

  Paolo edged close
r. The man was wearing spectacles, but they were different from any that he had seen before, and they seemed to allow a clear view of the night sky. He could see into the distance.

  The next day Paolo insisted that Salek ask for the firework maker’s workshop. If the man could help him then perhaps he would be able to find true perspective at last. It was so long since he had tried such lenses in Venice that he had almost forgotten how frustrating the experience had been. But now he was filled with hope. Clarity of vision could, at last, be a liberation from the frustration of an out-of-focus world, as if surfacing from underwater into the sharp clarity of day.

  They joined the early-morning crowds travelling out to the fields on the edge of the city and stopped at a separate compound, far away from any other building, made of stone and fired clay. The governor had decreed that firework makers were even more dangerous than bakers or potters and must be kept well apart from other businesses. He knew how easily a conflagration could take hold.

  Paolo and Salek passed through a spirit gate and entered a small courtyard filled with piles of bamboo and small wooden barrels stacked neatly on raised platforms. Through a half-open doorway they could see the silhouette of a man asleep in a low bed behind a screen of wood and rice paper.

  ‘He is probably drunk,’ said Salek. ‘Let us fetch him water.’

  ‘Why can’t we wait?’

  ‘He has been celebrating all night. But if we give him something to drink then he will thank us.’

  They collected water from the courtyard, carrying it back in a wooden bucket, and then sat beside the firework maker. Salek tried to shake him gently awake, but the man only grunted and turned over.

  Paolo saw the spectacles lying on a low table. Unlike the familiar pebble lenses, these were their opposite, cut quartz, with polished faces, thin in the middle and thick at the edges. He reached over and picked them up, feeling their weight in his hand, examining the leather and bone bridge that supported the two lenses. Then he held them up to his eyes. Objects in the room became dazzlingly sharp. Clearer shapes and intricate textures came into focus in an expanded vision for the first time. Lengths of bamboo leaning against the wall; iron tools lying on benches; powders and scales, striker lights, flints, and charcoal; all these objects now made him part of a composition that helped Paolo place himself more solidly in the world.

  Salek shook the sleeping man again. He stirred and reached out for the glasses by the bed, patting the surface of the table, trying to find where he had left them.

  The lenses were still in Paolo’s hands.

  The man sat up, his eyes still closed, and groped for the spectacles again. He could see nothing without them.

  ‘Here,’ said Paolo.

  The firework maker looked confused. Perhaps he was still dreaming. He put on his glasses and stared at his visitors with surprise, inquiring what they were doing in his workshop at this time of the morning. Then he dipped a beaker into the bucket of water and drank it in one draught. He filled it again, dipped his fingers, and rubbed his eyes between the lids and the lenses, washing himself awake.

  ‘You would come to know my secrets?’

  ‘We would.’

  ‘They are not to be shared. I can sell you my goods, but the recipes are sacred from the ancients.’

  ‘It is not flame that we seek,’ said Salek.

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘I want to know where I can obtain the lenses that you use, the quartz against your eyes,’ said Paolo.

  The firework maker smiled, pointing to his spectacles.

  ‘I made them.’

  ‘You appear to see far off, into the distance. I watched you. You saw both the sky and the fireworks clearly.’

  ‘Yes, I see as well as anyone with these.’

  ‘Can you show me how you make them?’

  The firework maker looked at Paolo as if assessing whether he was worthy of his secrets. ‘What would you give for such sight?’

  ‘Almost all that I have.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘Stone. Jewels. Goods. Money.’

  ‘But if I make them for you, to see the world differently, perhaps you will not like it.’

  ‘I want to see it clearly.’

  ‘And you are sure you can accept what might happen if you do?’

  ‘I cannot imagine it, but I am prepared to accept the risk and pay the price you think fit.’

  ‘Then come,’ said the man suddenly.

  In the workshop a group of men gathered round low benches making candles and rockets, concocting great arrows of flame that could be shot into the sky with a crossbow, poisonous smoke balls, flame-throwers, incendiary whip arrows, fire pots, underwater bombs, and paper bags filled with quicklime and sulphur that would explode on contact with water. The firework maker showed Paolo rip-rack crackers and fire lances, fiery oil in bowls, iron-headed military rockets, and even an explosive basket of eggs. He told them how he could colour the sky with fire and flame, making blue smoke from woad, purple flames with indigo, violet from cinnabar, and yellow from saffron and sulphur.

  Salek stayed back, watching the workers cut lengths of bamboo, boring holes into the side, strengthening the base with cladding and then packing each section with explosives.

  The firework maker took Paolo past a yellow curtain into a room that was filled with light: the opposite of everything they had just encountered. This second workshop glowed with honeyed warmth, and on each table lay lentil-shaped pebbles of beryl and quartz, cut and polished in various sizes and shapes, each scattering the light around the room in cascades of mirrored reflection.

  ‘This is where I help people to see,’ said the firework maker, bowing. ‘I am Chen.’

  ‘Paolo.’

  Chen asked his visitor to sit on a mat in front of an open window. Then he prepared a series of lenses of different thicknesses on a small tray. He placed these lenses in front of Paolo’s eyes, asking his patient to describe the distortions he noticed in the window and in the distant horizon. At one extreme it was like viewing the world through the top of a perfume bottle. Through trial and error, Chen slowly began to eliminate those lenses that would not help Paolo’s vision; first the left eye, then the right, each needing separate attention to obtain the sharpest sight. At times, Paolo thought that he was looking through a tunnel, and the goods in the workshop became strangely disorientating, threatening, as if in a dream; his head hurt with the confusion as he tried to re-orientate himself. Some lenses made him struggle to find any focus. The concentration needed made his brain swim.

  Chen loomed large before him as he inspected every part of Paolo’s eyes, carefully examining the pupils by pulling the flesh down, asking him to look up to the heavens, down to the earth, and across to each edge of the world. Paolo had never looked into a man’s eyes so clearly. They were the colour of hazel.

  Chen held a candle up against Paolo’s eyes, asking him to follow it as he moved it from left to right. His breath smelled of rice wine, and he breathed heavily, as if already exhausted by the process.

  ‘Close your left eye.’ He held up an almond-shaped piece of quartz. ‘Now look through this.’

  ‘It is misty. Dark.’

  ‘Can you see the distance more clearly, even through this stone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If the lens has not been completely ground then the view is distorted. Try this.’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘And the other eye?’

  ‘No. Another.’

  Chen held a piece of beryl to the left eye. ‘I need to check the shape of the stone and the way it curves. Can you see more clearly with these?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I do not know if my sight will ever improve as yours has done.’

  ‘You see the clear stone that is used to magnify things close. Look at it. Turn it over in your hand. Hold it up between your eye and my eye.’

  Paolo experimented once again with distance, seeing how Chen’s eyes grew and diminished.

>   ‘It is convex. It curves outwards. Like your eyes. They see close objects too clearly, while the distance is dim. The mountains are large, perhaps grander than they are in life, but they are also faint. Everything is far away. That perhaps is why your travels have been so long. You want to arrive on the summit of the mountain but you are always reaching for the unreachable, as if you were running towards a rainbow before it fades. It is always a blur. You live in a landscape where nothing can be seen in context. As soon as you realise where you are, you are too close to see what such a place might mean.’

  ‘And the world bends …’

  ‘The world curves around you because your eyes themselves have too much curvature. Now we must make a lens that compensates for this distortion.’

  ‘But when I put quartz in front of my eyes everything is as milk.’

  ‘We must polish this quartz and make a lens that is doubly concave, thicker at the edges than in the middle. But we must take care not to crack or split the delicate centre which bends the light in your favour.’

  He took two rough quartz pebbles. Then he began to grind away at each pebble in a circular motion, hollowing the centre, smoothing the surface into a curvature to match the grinding stone. He kept turning the lenses over, checking each side, polishing them into shape with a mixture of powder and emery, holding the quartz up to the light between each stage, verifying the translucency, proceeding silently with utter concentration lest the quartz cracked or shattered.

  ‘Come outside so that we can see into the distance more clearly.’

  The air was crisp; the sky cobalt blue. Chen held a lens up to the right eye, and the distant mountain immediately sharpened into focus. Paolo thought that he could see a group of women dyeing cloth by the river; but, close to, objects were blurred, as if his sight had been reversed.

  ‘Wait. I need to adjust the curvature of the right lens, and polish the front of the left.’

  Paolo felt as if his new-found sight had been snatched away from him. ‘How long will this take?’