The river is the river

by Buckley, Jonathan;

  ‘I see him more as a flogger than a floggee,’ she says.

  Martin’s laugh is quiet and drowsy. ‘Mind you,’ he says, ‘I can just picture you in a rubber catsuit.’ She pulls back a little to look at him; he nips the tip of his tongue and curls an eyebrow. Nudging a strap aside, he kisses her shoulder.

  ‘I’d look like a seal,’ she says.

  Closing his eyes, Martin whispers: ‘Seals are sexy beasts.’ A finger travels down her throat and crosses a breast.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she says; but if Naomi were not upstairs, perhaps within hearing range, sex would be happening now.

  Soon Martin is asleep. Kate is not. Memories and imaginings, none of them coherent, bloom and vanish in her mind; the figures of Naomi and their mother appear and reappear in places that have no substance; then she is in Córdoba.

  24.

  In the Museo Municipal Taurino, Kate recalls, she and her sister had stood before a squad of mannequin bullfighters. Each mannequin was kitted out in full regalia, with encrustations of sequins and beads on silk and satin of the gaudiest colours – cyclamen, cerise, gold and apricot side by side. The outfits were like something a Las Vegas showgirl might wear, their father remarked. Photos showed bullfighters in triumph, preening in front of slaughtered animals, as if making statues of themselves, to be worshipped. These men were fatuous, the girls agreed. ‘The Portuguese are sad, but the Spanish are mad,’ said their mother, not for the first time. Spain, she maintained, was a nation of hysterics. Fado is melancholic and philosophical, she said, but flamenco is childish melodrama. Religion in Spain is nothing but morbid saints and flagellation. Bullfighting provided another proof of the Spanish sickness. In Portugal the animal is fought by men who have no weapons – ‘it is braver’, she maintained, ‘and not cruel’. In Spain the bull must always die and it must die for the audience: it must suffer and bleed, and the crowd has to see its suffering. In Portugal, a bull may fight and afterwards be freed to pasture, to breed; in Spain, the animal will always die, to amuse the people. ‘Torture is the whole point,’ she said, raising her voice for the benefit of the museum’s other visitors.

  In one photograph – Kate can picture it now – a bull with horns as thick as a man’s forearm was arrested in mid-leap; the tip of one horn was no more than an inch from the matador’s face. Had the matador not arched his back at precisely that moment his jaw would have been destroyed, yet he gave the appearance of examining the horn with relaxed curiosity, like a botanist on holiday, inspecting a branch of unusual blossom. Naomi was entranced; she examined the photograph minutely, as though it showed a momentous event in history. Another picture was given similar attention: a massive animal leaned into the matador as it veered to attack the cape; the matador was Manolete, the caption informed them. He was as slender as a twelve-year-old. It was hard to understand how so slight a man could have stayed on his feet when buffeted by this monster; harder still to fathom how he could have maintained this nonchalance – he seemed to be inspecting the crowd, as if idly wondering whether a certain acquaintance might be present that afternoon. With Naomi, the effect was the intended one: she admired the courage that was so histrionically on display. She directed her sister’s attention to the obituaries on the walls. One misstep and a horn removes your guts, and you die like the great Joselito; one unexpected movement and a horn goes through an artery, and you bleed to death as Manolete did. She uttered the names as if she had long revered them; an hour earlier she had never heard of Joselito or Manolete.

  These people are absurd, Kate told her sister. Naomi did not disagree, but said that there was also something superb in their courage. She envied their self-certainty, she confessed. Later, perhaps months later, she said that the face of Manolete, as he studied the bull that was about to charge at him, was like the face of the saints they had seen in so many paintings in Spain, the saints who held a skull into the light of a candle and gazed into the empty pits of the eye sockets. ‘Look at this imbecile,’ urged their mother, at a photograph in which a blood-smeared matador, holding aloft a severed ear, submitted himself to the torrential applause of the crowd. His grin, she thought, was that of a half-witted bully. ‘All that, just to get people to like you,’ she said. Naomi said nothing, because, as she told her sister, she knew that her mother was wrong – the adulation of the spectators was not the only reason; it was not even the main one. At the heart of the performance, she could believe, there was a moment in which the man became a solitary in the midst of a multitude. The fight became a spiritual exercise, she said. That is what she had said, Kate is sure. Naomi tried to imagine what Manolete would have been thinking as he faced the bull, the embodiment of death. El momento de la verdad – the phrase, for Naomi, was more than bombast. Kate remembers her sister in the museum, standing beside the effigy of Manolete; above him, displayed like the relic of a martyr, hung the hide of the bull that had killed him; and Naomi stood there with her head bowed, as if in reverence. She was fifteen years old; before the end of the year, their father would be dead.

  And a few days afterwards, in Toledo, Kate recalls, came the encounter with another saintly effigy, the miniature St Francis. Their father, always prepared, had a marked-up map of the city, with numbers signifying each of the things that had to be seen. He led them in procession to the cathedral, through debilitating heat. The streets were monochrome in the brutal light, but inside the cathedral there was succulent colour, in stained glass that glowed turquoise and gold and scarlet in the heights of the building. All were duly amazed by the immensity of the church, by the mighty larchwood altarpiece, by the famous Transparente, with its tumult of alabaster sculptures. In the Treasury they were amazed again, by the gilded monstrance of Juan del Arfe. ‘It weighs five hundred pounds, and for the feast of Corpus Christi they carry it through the streets,’ their father informed them, reading from his book. Nearby, in a glass cabinet, stood the idol of St Francis. Lips parted, pallid, he stared into the heavens. Kate assumed that the shock of his ecstasy was what had drained the blood from the holy face. It turned out that the deathly pallor was in fact the pallor of death: what the figure represented was the saint as he had appeared, uncorrupted, when his tomb was opened in the presence of Pope Nicholas V, in Assisi, in 1449, more than two centuries after Francis’s death.

  Kate had been bored by the El Greco paintings to which they had been compelled to pay homage within hours of arriving in Toledo – all those grey-faced starvelings, those wisps of the holy spirit, as indistinguishable as candles. The tiny St Francis, on the other hand, made her laugh. He was made of wood, mostly, but the dainty rope that hung down the front of the wooden cloak was made of hemp, and the eyes were painted glass; real hair had been used for the eyelashes; the teeth – irregular, with a gap both top and bottom – were tiny lozenges of ivory. The literal-mindedness of it was pitiful; it was the apotheosis of kitsch. She thought up phrases, and wrote them down: apotheosis of kitsch; devotional dolly; hallowed homunculus; a perfectly preserved specimen of micro-saint. She made a remark to Naomi, but was ignored. Naomi had put her face to the glass, and was staring at the little figure. The upturned eyes of St Francis were directed at something that no one else could have seen, like the eyes of a sleepwalker; Naomi put her own eyes into his line of sight, and kept them there, unblinking, as if to receive the transmission of its visionary gaze.

  She was not the same person as she had been in Fátima, said Naomi afterwards, in response to teasing. In Fátima she had been intrigued by what those pilgrims appeared to be experiencing, and had wondered, despite her common sense, if what they believed might be true. The story of the Resurrection and everything else had seemed improbable, but could anything be more improbable than the idea that the universe had arisen out of nothing? For the girl at Fátima it had not been possible to dismiss everything that she had seen there as a manifestation of delusion. At Toledo, on the other hand, she had no doubts. In the interim there had been many conversations with her mother, about the stories in the Bi
ble and the lives of the saints, and she had arrived at a certainty that could not be admitted to her mother, but was admitted to her sister: it was a fiction, but a fiction of marvellous complexity. There was no risk of conversion, she assured Kate. She could not say exactly why she had been so taken by the figurine of St Francis, but it had nothing to do with God, she insisted.

  That night in Toledo, as Kate remembers, she and Naomi were allowed to roam the streets together, leaving their parents at the hotel. They came to a courtyard where the buildings were all unlit. The sky above the courtyard was like a roof of black granite, speckled with mica. Scrutinising a portion of the sky through the loop of a thumb and forefinger, Kate began to count the stars. She counted twenty, then counted again and saw forty. Like microbes of light they continued to proliferate; there was no end to the number of them. A scent of vanilla was in the air; somewhere high up, two loud televisions were tuned to different channels. Kate began to look for constellations; with a finger she traced a figure onto the blackness. She named it, for the instruction of her sister. Naomi said nothing. She was staring into the sky, and her mouth was open slightly, as if in mimicry of the expression of the little St Francis. ‘You look like the village idiot,’ Kate muttered, tapping the underside of her sister’s chin; and Naomi laughed.

  Unable to sleep, Kate lies beside her sleeping husband. She gazes into the ceiling, and imagines the night sky beyond it; it is like lying under the lid of an enormous tomb. Turning onto her side, she shelters against Martin. Sleep is still not possible. She flees to her room. With no purpose, she skims some of the notes that she has made. She can picture Afonso in the bar; she imagines a man who is Oszkár, sitting with a man who looks like Brahms, and an American in a linen jacket. While adding detail to the figure of Oszkár, she has a thought, and turns on the computer.

  V

  25.

  From the stairs, Kate hears Lulu talking in the kitchen. An inaudible remark from Lulu elicits from Naomi a laugh which is loud and full-throated, and does not sound like Naomi’s laugh. At the door, Kate stops to listen. Lulu is talking about her friend Taryn; evidently Taryn has dumped her boyfriend, Scott, after some misbehaviour at a party; Scott claims there were mitigating circumstances: he was pissed, but not as pissed as Belinda Sargent, who threw herself on him, according to Scott. ‘And if Belinda Sargent throws herself at you,’ says Lulu, ‘you’re really in trouble, she’s a very big girl. A huge great pair of mitigating circumstances.’ Again her aunt laughs, a little less loudly; it seems as though sustained hilarity has sapped her strength. ‘And the other thing about Belinda Sargent—’ Lulu resumes, as her mother comes in.

  ‘Good morning,’ Naomi sings, extending a hand to the side, for her sister to take. At the same time she looks at Lulu and nods her head slightly; this appears to be some sort of cue.

  Turning to her mother, Lulu makes sounds that may or may not be words.

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’ve just said,’ Kate responds, as seems to have been the intention.

  In the same voice as before, Lulu repeats: ‘Jó reggelt, anya.’

  ‘“Good morning, mother,”’ Naomi translates.

  ‘Lulu vagyok,’ says Lulu.

  ‘“My name is Lulu.”’

  ‘Nem—’ Lulu begins, but she has to look to her aunt for a prompt.

  ‘Tudok.’

  ‘Nem tudok jól magyarul.’

  ‘“I cannot speak Hungarian well,”’ Naomi explains. She leans back in her chair and, looking at Kate, directs an open hand towards Lulu, as if presenting a pupil for praise. ‘Picked that up in a few seconds,’ she says. ‘Perfect pronunciation. Much quicker on the uptake than me.’

  ‘One smart bitch,’ says Lulu, glancing at the clock, as her mother sits down. ‘Got to go,’ she says, though it’s some way short of the time at which she usually leaves. She goes to the fridge and takes a slug of apple juice from the carton.

  In different circumstances, Kate would tell her to use a glass.

  ‘Your daughter has been entertaining me,’ says Naomi.

  ‘Gossip,’ says Lulu, after a second gulp. ‘Friends and acquaintances,’ she adds, to reassure her mother that the gossip had nothing to do with life at home.

  ‘She knows how to tell a story,’ Naomi tells Kate. ‘Must get it from you.’

  Lulu comes over to her mother and gives her a kiss on the brow. ‘I go,’ she says. She steps back and holds out her arms in a half-formed gesture of embrace, directed at her aunt. ‘Well—’ she says.

  ‘OK,’ says Naomi, standing. ‘I’ll come to the door.’ She follows Lulu into the hall, where some quiet words are exhanged. Kate hears the front door open, then her sister calling up the path: ‘Be impactful! Leverage those talents!’ Finally, at higher volume: ‘Remember: you don’t have problems – you have challenges!’ When she comes back into the kitchen, the smile suggests that she has just said goodbye to an incorrigible friend. She returns to the table, still smiling; she sits down, and says nothing.

  ‘That appeared to be a parting,’ Kate remarks.

  ‘I have delighted you enough,’ answers Naomi. She looks towards the door and says: ‘You must be very proud of her.’

  ‘You’re going back to London?’

  ‘I am,’ says Naomi. ‘I did tell you, Katie,’ she says; the tone is apologetic, though it’s clear that she thinks no apology is due.

  ‘You said you’d be leaving soon, yes.’

  ‘You need to have your house back,’ Naomi tells her.

  ‘What time train are you going for?’

  ‘Don’t know exactly. Mid-morning.’

  ‘How about coming with me to see Mum?’

  Naomi directs her gaze towards the garden. ‘I don’t think that’s a great idea,’ she says.

  ‘You wanted to go back,’ her sister reminds her.

  ‘It would end in tears, one way or another. I’m not good for her.’

  All visitors are good for her, Kate almost says, but she has no strong inclination to argue. ‘If that’s what you think,’ she says.

  Naomi continues to study the garden, perhaps reconsidering. ‘What time are you going to see her?’ she asks.

  ‘Probably half nine or thereabouts. I need to do a couple of things first.’

  For another half-minute Naomi’s gaze moves back and forth, from bush to bush; at some point it becomes apparent that the thoughtfulness is for the sake of appearance. ‘I’ll come down again soon,’ she says.

  ‘Before you go to Scotland?’

  ‘Yes. I promise,’ she says, with a glance like an oath.

  ‘Why don’t you stay for lunch?’ Kate suggests; her voice, almost wheedling, displeases her.

  ‘You’ve been very kind to me, Katie,’ says Naomi, ‘but I don’t want to outstay my welcome.’ It is clear that Naomi has said everything she wants to say, and probable that she suspects that her sister has not.

  ‘You won’t be outstaying your welcome,’ says Kate. ‘That’s not possible.’

  The hyperbole is misjudged, says Naomi’s smile. ‘I’ll leave when you leave,’ she tells her sister. ‘You have to get on with your work.’

  It turns out that Naomi has not eaten anything yet. Kate assembles a breakfast for her: a sliced apple, honey, a glass of juice, a single slice of toast, unbuttered. For herself she makes a cup of coffee and reloads the toaster, while Naomi tells her how much she has enjoyed the last few days; Lulu is a delight, she says, and Martin is brilliant. ‘It’s done me good,’ she says. Looking at her sister, Kate can believe that this is true: if nothing else, the appearance of exhaustion has gone.

  The sisters sit on opposite sides of the table, and they talk easily, as if nothing of note had happened to either of them in the preceding months, and no significant change were imminent. It would be best, Kate almost decides, to leave certain things unsaid. But then Naomi turns aside, distracted by a squirrel on the garden terrace, and Kate looks at the skin of sister’s cheek – it’s like the surface o
f cold coffee. Watching the animal, Naomi bites into another slice of apple; a smear of blood is left on her front teeth.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ says Kate, tapping one of her own incisors to direct Naomi to the smear.

  Naomi scowls, and wipes a finger briskly across her teeth. Having glanced at the stain on her skin, she rubs it out with a thumb.

  ‘That’s not a good sign,’ says Kate.

  ‘Getting better,’ Naomi answers.

  ‘I think it needs to be looked at.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘You should see a dentist,’ Kate tells her.

  ‘If it hasn’t cleared up in a few weeks, I will.’

  ‘You should do it now. In London. Is there a dentist anywhere near where you’re going? I’m guessing there isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll find a vet,’ jokes Naomi.

  ‘I’m being serious,’ says Kate. ‘That’s not good, Naomi. Something’s wrong there. And it’ll get worse if you don’t have it treated soon.’

  ‘It’s trivial,’ Naomi tells her. ‘Really. It’ll clear up.’

  ‘Says—?’

  ‘Enough, all right? Let it go,’ says Naomi. ‘If my teeth start to wobble, I’ll seek professional advice and submit to the recommended treatment. But believe me, it’s getting better.’ She takes a demure little bite from her piece of toast.

  ‘And what are you going to be eating up there?’ Kate asks. ‘You can’t live on honey and potatoes.’

  ‘God, Katie, you’re carrying on as if I’m emigrating to Siberia. We’ll be in a temperate zone, same as here. Civilisation will be just a short drive away.

  ‘OK. I’m only—’

  ‘If we need to, we’ll drive to a shop and buy stuff. We have a freezer. Don’t concern yourself with our diet – we’ll be eating more healthily than ninety percent of the UK population. That statistic is entirely arbitrary, but you get my point.’