Turning Back the Sun

by Colin Thubron

  Rayner switched on the headlights again. “You”ll tell me where to stop?”

  “I know the place. Is not far.”

  The track could not have been used for months. The wheels purled along an artery of sand and tiny, reddish stones, and rustled over dying thorns. But in the wilderness ahead of them flickered a horizon of broken fires, so distant that their flaring and dimming seemed indistinguishable from stars. How did people live out here? There seemed to be nothing but saltbush and acacia, and sometimes the white trunks of eucalyptus trees glimmered like planted bones.

  But Rayner sensed the natives quicken behind him. They were coming home. Their straw hats were gone and their faces, each shadowed in its canopy of coarse hair, had come alive, and were watching. They exchanged short, quick sentences. Whatever happened in the old man”s body, Rayner thought, he would feel better here.

  By now they seemed to have been travelling a long time, and the path had almost faded. Sometimes the headlights scattered groups of gazelles, and once they came upon a file of long-horned cattle standing asleep across the track. A kilometer beyond, the blackened shell of a farmhouse appeared. And beyond that, nothing.

  A few minutes later, where a cairn of stones marked the way, the old man said, “Now we go footwalking.”

  They clambered out into a sudden hush. On one side the foothills showed stark; on the other was wilderness. The air shrilled with cicadas and the sky was awash with stars. They stood awkwardly together. Rayner did not know how to say goodbye. He might have clasped the girl”s hand, but her arms circled the quilt and water bottles, and she was already gazing along the hills where they would go.

  The old man lingered by the car door, but his body seemed less a burden to him now. His breathing filled it. He was fumbling inside his shirt, and at last pulled out a necklace of mussel shells which he thrust against Rayner”s chest. In the dark of his face and of the night, Rayner saw his smile gleam. He realized that he would miss him. He even experienced the unaccountable sensation that the savage had always been with him, but was now going away. The mussel shells glimmered in his hands. He had nothing left to say. But he reached out and took the old man in his arms.

  As the natives moved out of sight, following the lea of the foothills, Rayner wondered how far they would have to go. They seemed to be walking into nothingness. Their slow, private dignity no longer struck him as strength, but as a kind of melancholy, and the two dark shapes merging with the plain looked suddenly vulnerable.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Rayner had anticipated his aunt”s letter for so long that when he returned from work next evening and found it, he was seized by apprehension that it would not contain what he had hoped.

  Written in a faltering parody of her old hand, her words dropped to him out of another realm. The arrangements for transferring her house to him were almost complete, she wrote, and she hoped he could meet her lawyers soon. His temporary residence permit was enclosed. She did not know how he regarded his future, but her friend Dr. Morena was seeking a junior partner, and she had made bold to mention Rayner”s name. She thought the partnership a pleasant one, and the indefinite extension of his permit would only be a formality. She imagined that Rayner would not lightly give up his present, thriving practice, but perhaps he would write to her? She had less than six months to live.

  He read the letter again then folded it into his shirt pocket. This old woman, whom he scarcely remembered, had in his eyes acquired magical status. A frail, dying lady in bombazine and a toque hat—yet one push of her bony hand, and the wall of government control had gaped open. How had it happened so simply? Perhaps the network of state repression was loosening at last, and he had not known.

  He walked light-headed in the garden. The torrid summer had hammered it into a rectangle of brown. Even the hibiscus hung prematurely withered. But October was near, and perhaps the autumn rains, and in the darkening air a gasp of breeze sprang up and died. Outside the back door, the natives” departure had left a crescent of crushed grass. Inside, Zoë had cleared away the cinders from a charred circle in the rug, and a column of soot still radiated to the ceiling.

  It was Zoë who concerned him now. The sun had set, and in an hour she would return. He went into the kitchen, found some bread and fruit, and waited for her. His elation contracted inside him. He suddenly resented his own passion for her. For years he had dreamed of his return, and now it was darkened by this violent, wayward love for a woman who had abandoned any wish to return herself. And he dreaded his own pity, his regret. She”d known from the start that he intended to leave; but he”d told her one thing with his mind, and another with his body. They had never talked of marriage, yet despite everything it had hovered in his thoughts. He had the idea that if he”d known her in another place, perhaps as a young girl in the capital, then they might have made a future. But now, in her earthiness and stormy disenchantments, she belonged here.

  He could not take her back with him.

  Then he became alarmed by his own fear of loss. It welled up inside him like nausea. He tried not to think of her. He hated his own weakness, if that is what it was. He realized, even in the kitchen, how his surroundings had become hers: the choice of food, the herbs, the fruit baskets, the capricious cat. He kept his eyes on his meal. He tried to avoid his own sorrow by thinking of her future. He could not envisage it. She was only twenty-eight; yet often people were overawed by her. Her exuberance and naturalness attracted them, but there was something else—mercurial and perversely independent—which fended them off.

  As the door opened, he could not anticipate her mood. It always played on her face, and was governed by the reactions of that coarse audience to her dancing. But tonight her eyes were on him. “You”ve had good news.”

  “How did you know?”

  “You”re looking guilty.”

  Then he told her. He told her about his aunt”s illness and that he”d soon return to see her; and yes, he would accept the medical partnership, and the house. The opportunity would never come again.

  As he spoke, his tone grew harsh against its own apology, and his gaze lifted from the table to her. But she had slowly turned away from him and was facing the blackwood dresser hung with crockery. She said, “I ought to be glad that you”ll be happy.” But the dresser clinked faintly, as if trembling under her hands.

  “I don”t know about happiness.” He sounded strained and suddenly futile.

  Then her gaze was on him. “So you”d desert the town and your practice for that place?”

  He tried to retrieve his own harshness. “The town doesn”t need me. The October rains will be here soon, and then all this madness will fade away. If I could cure the disease, I”d stay. But I think it will cure itself.” He felt his voice falter and reached out to her, but she had turned her back again. “I think it”s benign.”

  He was sick with himself. He had momentarily forgotten about the disease, her secret rash. He”d persuaded himself that the epidemic was transient. But he couldn”t know. He wanted to touch her, but guessed she would wrench away, so he went on sitting in front of his half-eaten meal, which suddenly looked gluttonous. He said, “Leszek will be all right. He has two younger doctors wanting to join the practice.”

  But Zoë”s back had hunched as if against a sandstorm, and in its thickened bulwark it seemed to hold all her dashed pride and growing resentment. Her anger was seeking a conduit, but had not found it. Not the town, no, nor Leszek. It was not them that he was so violently deserting. She said in a brimming voice, “Did you always know you”d leave me?”

  “Yes.” The moment he said this he realized that it wasn”t quite true, but it seemed better not to tell her now.

  “That must have been strange.”

  Yes, he thought, strange and terrible. Yet while you were living the relationship, even with the prospect of eventual betrayal, it seemed natural. But he could not explain to her this waiting to return, this knowledge that completeness lay somewhe
re else. Zoë did not understand that kind of thing. He said, “You knew I”d go back to the capital. I always said so.”

  She turned round now. Her face was gaunt. “I didn”t believe you”d go on preferring a place to a person.”

  “It”s not just a place.” He despaired of explaining to her. He himself was beginning not to understand. When he asked himself, Why? Why? he was answered only by an immense, irrational yearning. He said, “It”s like being … whole again.” But her face was an angry blank. “It”s my past. I felt natural there.”

  “Aren”t you natural with me?” she cried. “But I suppose the girls are better there, with their swanky clothes and accents.” She hovered above him trapped between fury and sadness. “I don”t understand you! When you”re with me, I feel you”re mine. But when you”re on your own, God knows what happens to you. I think you just forget. Do you? What happens?” Then her anger overflowed. “I think you just go cold, like a snake back in water! You accuse this town of materialism, but why are you leaving it? Because you want a new job! And a grander house and a suitable girl!”

  “I”m just going where I”ll feel committed. It”s a finer place than here.”

  She said stubbornly, “I don”t remember that.”

  “I do,” he said, “and if I could get you back there, I would.”

  She almost shouted, “I don”t want the fucking capital! I want you!” Then, as if she too despaired of being understood, she turned cynical. He”d never heard her like this before. “That charming city! When I was last there they threw out all the prostitutes and dancers”—she executed an obscene pirouette in front of him—probably all the artists too, anybody who”d suffered anything, so they were left with the most beautiful city, full of children, I expect, with a few angels and mutes. You”ll love it …”

  Rayner said cruelly, “You mock it because it rejected you—or you rejected it.”

  “Oh yes. I wasn”t good enough for it. I had to be got rid of, like a germ. Now that I”ve been gone ten years, it must be ever so pure.”

  But when he looked up at her expression, Rayner saw a familiar desperation: her ferocity against herself, the conviction of her inner worthlessness. And in this moment of disclosure he realized that she did, in some part of her, want to return, but could not, and he was racked by guilt and sadness. He was abandoning her, diseased, to a failing job in a fear-ridden community.

  “But Zoë …” He wanted to tell her he did love her, but the words shook on his lips and would not come out. He had no right to tell her anything.

  She glared at him and cried, “Don”t you bloody pity me!”

  Then he reached out, pulling her against him, and kissed her mouth. She twisted it away from him, but he kissed her cheeks and hair, as if this was all that was left to him, and she slowly relaxed in his arms. Eventually she murmured, “I”m all right, I”m all right,” but her voice strayed into trembling, then she sat on the floor and the tears coursed down her cheeks. He knelt beside her, rocking her, while she buried her face on his chest. He found himself repeating like a prayer, “If only you could join me,” but she simply answered, “What would I do there?”

  For several minutes they sat together without talking, exhausted. The cat came and curled itself round them. Zoë said, “When will you go?”

  He steeled himself. “In a couple of days. I”ll be back in two weeks … to clear things up.”

  “So quick.” She ran her fingers over the cat”s fur with a little broken laugh.

  Then her head returned to his chest and he could sense, rather than hear, the renewal of her weeping, like a deep, sighing storm, which shook her body with regular convulsions, whose epicenter lay far inside. It was as if she were crying not only for him but for her broken past, her lost parents, her dead child. He had no way left to comfort her. He was numbed by the depth of her grief.

  She whispered, “Damn you.” He cradled her against him. Sometimes she might have been asleep but for the clenching and unclenching of her fingers in his shirt. He wondered how soon she would resurrect, but as he did so she became two women in his mind. The vibrant, dancing Zoë, he thought, would revive tomorrow. But the one in his arms, whose face had been thinned away by tears, the one without self-belief, she might not exactly recover at all, but store him away in the pantheon of her failures, as proof of her valuelessness. When he tried to see her future, he could not. It even crossed his mind that she might return to Ivar. And he could not predict how much—over how long a span—he would yearn for her.

  He asked, “What will you do?” as if she might somehow change course.

  “I suppose I”ll go on in that place, dancing.” Then she added, “But you won”t be there.” She seemed to have to remind herself of this, cruelly, out loud. “I expect I”ll start to hate it, remembering what you thought of it. If only there were windows down there. But there”s no light. And it”s true, they”re pathetic, those girls, Felicie and the rest. They”re ill half the time, all just hoping for a break one day, a decent man, or any man. There”s not one of them happy. But they seem to need me, and I try to like them …”

  She was talking of her loneliness, but too proud to give it that name.

  “I”m sorry.” He”d never heard her speak so sadly of her work.

  “If you were sorry, you”d stay.” She said it bleakly, drained of resentment. Just a fact. Then she stood up. “I”m going home.”

  The word “home,” as she spoke it, was filled with a bitter self-comforting. “Home” before had always meant here.

  “You shouldn”t go back alone.”

  “Who”s going to bother me?” She tried to joke. “An old woman with a cat.” Her voice choked. “Better leave me alone. I am alone.”

  Rayner watched her pick up her bag and the cat, then hesitate, as if these were too few, and there was something she had forgotten.

  Then she left.

  CHAPTER

  20

  The next morning a cloud appeared in the sky. The first in four months, it hung alone in the hazy blue. People poured into the streets to gaze at it, or emerged exclaiming onto their rooftops. How had it arrived? Where was it going? Above the smoke pall, it hovered crisp-edged and immaculate, and its solitude lent it the strangeness of a portent.

  But little by little its silhouette smudged and it began to disperse into the suffocating ether. By noon it was no more than a vapor inexplicably blurring the sky, and soon afterwards it had gone.

  At first it left in its wake an extraordinary depression. Staring up at it, people had entertained an idea that it might expand or multiply, then darken into rain. Now they just said, “It”s gone,” and were struck by an irrational hopelessness. But later, hours after it had vanished, they were still scrutinizing the sky for signs. Their gloom at the cloud”s evaporation was slowly replaced by the memory of its mysterious arrival, and they began to say, “It”s got to mean something. There must be more.”

  Soon after dawn Rayner had noticed it sailing like a sign above the wilderness. It seemed to exonerate him: he was leaving the town with hope. Bruised by thoughts of Zoë, he planned the day as a mass execution of duties. Everything must be clean and fast. He did not want to encounter friends or even walk down the mall. So he kept his mind on practical things: seeing his sickest patients, telegraphing his aunt, booking tomorrow”s rail ticket, briefing the locum who would replace him for two weeks. All day he consciously excluded from his mind anything which might touch him with regret. He wanted nothing to dim the elation of his going.

  He tried to be brusque even with Leszek, but failed. When he told him that he intended to accept a post in the capital, the old man smiled with a faraway recognition. He”d have liked to retire there himself, he said—to the restfulness, the clement weather—instead of dying out here. But he said this without rancor, and Rayner realized that the concept of returning anywhere had faded in him. His past was too brutalized.

  It was late by the time Rayner started home. He thought without nosta
lgia of his villa above the river. He would sell it back to the cooperative in two weeks” time. Only the return of Zoë”s things would be bitter. He did not want to think about that. And as he approached the house he saw a rectangle of light suspended above the frangipani trees, and realized that she must be back.

  Downstairs she had already gathered up most of her crockery and hangings, but left others among his, perhaps forgotten, or simply because they fitted there. Her bright wall carpets were folded up on the kitchen floor. He wondered if she was angry. Then, on the table, he saw among his mail an envelope bearing the state military seal. The letter required him to report for a four-day expedition which would start the day after he returned from the capital. It was signed by Ivar. Rayner thought: so this is my punishment for getting away. He thrust it angrily into his pocket, then started inwardly to laugh. He did not mind. He did not mind anything Ivar did now.

  Upstairs, Zoë had laid a few of her clothes in a case, then abandoned them. She had come across one of his old photograph albums, and was sitting on the bed, leafing through it. She smiled at him, composed. She said, “I was beginning to think you”d gone already.”

  “No, tomorrow.”

  She was still fiercely made up from the club, her hair pressed back shining above her nape. A smear of glitter dust winked round her neck.

  “Did you make your arrangements?”

  “Yes.” He sensed that she had gathered herself together for him, in pride or shame. “You found my photo album.”

  “I was looking at where you were going.”

  He sat beside her, his hand on her knee. The album spread open on high, balconied houses and green parks behind wrought-iron railings, on friends dancing, or diving, or on picnics together. They were embalmed, of course, in perpetual summer, and everyone was smiling.