Connor’s limbs grow heavy as he succumbs to sleep under unfamiliar stars.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Bloodcurdling screams. A broken line of Turkish soldiers charges across no-man’s land.
Stumbling and faltering, they step on the mangled limbs and body parts of dead and dying men, pressing faces, noses, into the ghastly mud. Thick red ooze wells up over the edges of boots, sucking on bare toes bound in rags and worn leather soles. It hasn’t rained for months; the dirt is saturated with the lifeblood of thousands of dead soldiers.
There. Like a piece of liquorice wending through the deranged landscape: the Anzac trenches. Almost within reach.
Henry and Ed run like rabbits, ducking and darting as the advancing troops close in.
Art hangs back behind his brothers, heart pounding. He could pass the boys . . . longer legs . . . has a few years on both of them . . . hell, faster runner. In a chase over the flat neither of them could touch him. But he can’t turn his back on them. All but holds his arms out, herding them to the relative safety of the trench.
Need to know they’re safe.
I promised.
Almost safe. Relief. They’re over the edge, beneath the firing line. Out of harm’s way.
Now, my turn.
Legs pump, eyes darting. Bloody obstacle course. Barbed wire, severed limbs, bomb craters.
A banshee scream. The ground disappears from beneath his feet. The hot rip of metal through flesh.
Heat, blinding light. Lungs compressed.
Ears hurt.
Can’t see. Feel nothing.
White.
Something now. Through the grey.
Whine. Ears buzzing. Something. I hear something. What is that?
‘Art?’
‘Artie!’
‘You all right, Artie?’
No. Go back.
Ed and Henry.
You were safe.
Go back.
They crawl across the mud towards him, clutching their rifles.
‘Bugger off, the two of you.’ He’s poleaxed by the searing pain from where the flesh hangs from his leg in ribbons. Ground tilts, head spinning. Breath catches in his chest. ‘Leave me.’
‘Yeah, whatever you say, mate.’ Henry.
On their feet now. Crouching, zigzagging towards their brother.
Art lifts his head. A trail of bullets spatters in a line towards them. The firing stops.
‘Leave me!’
From a nest of sandbags, a Turkish gunner heaves another bandolier towards the barrel of his machine gun. Bends, peers down the sights.
‘No! . . . Leave! . . . Go!’
The Turk squeezes the trigger as Henry and Ed cross the last patch of blood-sodden earth and reach their brother.
White hot flashes from the muzzle.
The gun spits bullets.
They hit their marks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The sun warms Art’s face. His eyes close gently against its glare.
Head tilted slightly towards one shoulder, his arms are outstretched, one palm turned down towards the ground, the other cupped and turned towards the heavens, his lips curled gently into a beatific smile. Tiny blooms of condensation form in the chilly dawn air as Art exhales. Slowly spinning on the ball of one foot, the other propels him in a circle, pushing off a small woollen prayer mat.
Art’s threadbare tunic has been discarded, exposing his emaciated and ruined torso to the feeble rays of the morning sun. His belly is as hollow as a greyhound’s, his ribs and collarbone so prominent they cast shadows on his sallow and scarred skin.
His foot slips. A cascade of gravel and eroded mortar trickles and bounces down the steep sides of the crumbling castle wall. He stumbles, one foot hanging into the void. Instinct kicks in. On the wall top, his toes scrabble for the rug’s rough edge. The coarsely woven wool flaps in the wind that eddies between snaggle-toothed ruins.
Art rights himself; looks down from his vertiginous eyrie. Far beneath his feet, the russet-coloured roofs of the houses at the base of the peak look like playthings, the people walking along the winding streets and alleys as inconsequential as insects.
Pale dawn sunlight rakes through the tree trunks as Connor and Hasan follow a narrow shepherd’s trail towards the summit of a long range of forested hills. The sappy and invigorating scent of pine fills the air as the horses labour up the slope, crushing the carpet of fallen dark green needles that lie underfoot.
As the sun rises, swarms of industrious bees descend on the forest, crawling over the rough orange bark of the towering pine trees. Connor swats away a persistent few that are bent on landing on his face.
‘Where are the flowers?’ Connor is curious.
‘The flowers?’
‘Why are the bees here? I don’t see any flowers.’
Hasan looks towards where the insects swarm around the tree trunks. ‘No – they are here for that . . .’ He points towards a cottony-white substance that sits in patches on the rough boughs. ‘The bees use it to make honey. Pine honey. It is the best in Turkey.’
Connor can’t help but marvel at the fertility of this country. ‘You are so fortunate here. There is so much abundance.’
His companion laughs. ‘Yes, so very lucky. People have been fighting to take it all for many thousands of years.’
The irony doesn’t escape Connor.
In the distance, a tiered and jagged line of massive mountains stretches towards the pale blue sky, the lower slopes dark with dense forests. The upper reaches are bare of vegetation and thickly edged with something blindingly white; Connor realises with a start that it’s snow – something he has never seen before. One peak towers above the others, its summit disappearing into the clouds.
Hasan gestures towards it. ‘Mount Dindymus. To the ancient heathens, it was home of the most important god, the Mother Goddess of fertility, Cybele. She rode a chariot drawn by two lions and could cross between the worlds of the living and the dead.’
‘They never make it that easy for mortals. I need a chariot like that.’
‘I suppose they think it’s against the natural order of things, crossing from death to life and back,’ replies Hasan.
‘What’s against the natural order is parents burying children.’
The men reach the ridge, the hill falling away steeply on either side of them. They rein in their horses and take in the spectacular view. The grid-like overgrown streets and semicircular theatre of the ancient city lie far behind them. Ahead stretches the great Anatolian plain, the fields blushing pink and dotted with countless small hamlets. In the distance, the roads that traverse the plain converge like a starburst on a larger town. At its very centre is a steep-sided crag, the most prominent geographic feature in the undulating plain. Fragmentary walls tumble down from its summit.
‘There is Afion.’ Hasan points at the ruins. ‘Your Opium Black Castle.’
Connor laughs. ‘You Turks have a lot of ruins.’
The men descend towards the open fields and join a narrow, rutted road that meanders towards Afion. The path cuts through densely sown fields of plants with thick thigh-high stems and lacy grey foliage. Rounded petals as fine as silk flutter in the breeze: carmine red, rose pink and snow white. Where flowers have bloomed and fallen, obscenely plump seed pods nod atop spindly stems, sap awaiting harvest.
Two lone figures – a man and a woman – stand in the opium poppy field, heads bowed and arms extended, deftly cutting slits into the side of the ripe seed pods with curved blades. Hasan calls out a greeting to the man in Turkish.
The old man lifts his head, raising his hand to shield his gaze from the sun, his currant-like eyes buried deep within his wrinkled eye sockets. He expresses no surprise at seeing the imposing uniformed figure before him. He returns Hasan’s greeting, and the two men have a short conversation in Turkish. The old man points a pink-stained hand as he speaks.
Hasan turns to Connor. ‘The Greeks are moving fast. Last night they
were in İscehisar, only thirteen miles away. Come, we must hurry.’
Spurring their horses on, the two men gallop along the dirt road towards the outskirts of Afion, where they encounter a group of Turkish villagers fleeing their homes. Children herd sheep and goats beside women carrying their children, while men push handcarts, household possessions piled haphazardly on the flat trays. The trickle of refugees becomes a deluge and Connor and Hasan are forced to slow their progress as they swim against the tide of the exodus.
Before them, the peak at the heart of Afion looms large; white-plastered homes are clustered about its base. The houses thin towards the outskirts of the town and are interspersed with small fields surrounded by low, rough stone fences that enclose animal pens, orchards and vegetable gardens. Connor looks across the recently ploughed rich soil towards an open plaza which is surrounded on three sides by long, low buildings.
At first, he doesn’t register what is right before his eyes. It’s a sight so familiar to him that, for a moment, he pays it no heed.
Then, it hits him. Flat wide sheet metal sails turn in the wind atop a spindly frame. A windmill. Just like one of his windmills.
Connor wheels his horse around and gallops up the lane towards the square. ‘He’s here!’ he cries.
A hot wind blows from the southeast, kicking up the dust that flies from the heels of Connor’s charging horse. Hasan turns back and urges his mount into a canter, in pursuit of his companion.
Connor’s excitement and anticipation reach fever pitch. Entering the plaza, he leaps off his horse before it comes to a halt, throwing away the reins as he bolts over to the windmill’s base. The sails spin cheerily in the strong wind, a makeshift pump rod rising and dipping, drawing water from the water table below before shooting it out a spout and into a deep stone trough.
Hasan draws his horse up beside the Australian and dismounts. ‘What is this thing?’
‘It’s Art’s.’ Despite himself, tears well in Connor’s eyes. ‘Art made this. It’s a windmill.’ He cups his hand beneath the spout; cool water rushes across his palm. ‘It pulls water up from below the earth.’
‘Are you sure he made it?’
A wave of relief and certainty washes over Connor. ‘Yes. It can’t have been anyone else. Art is here. I know it.’
Hasan moves towards one of the buildings on the edge of the square. A thin plume of smoke twirls skywards from its partially open door. In the shadows, an old man sits on a low, rush-bottomed stool with legs outstretched. Eyes wrinkled contentedly over a hand-rolled cigarette, he nurses a rifle in his lap.
‘You should retreat to the east, Hadji,’ Hasan hails the old man in Turkish. ‘You cannot win here!’
‘I’d rather die in my own home, thank you.’ He rocks on the chair, avoiding Hasan’s eyes.
‘Then, may Allah protect you.’ Hasan smiles. ‘Brother, we are looking for a stranger. An Englisher. He came here as a prisoner. Are there any strangers in the town?’
The old man looks into the far distance and lifts his shoulders, eyebrows raised. ‘No. Everyone is gone. Cowards. Every last one of them.’ Spittle gathers in shining beads on his pendulous, liver-dark bottom lip. ‘Cowards.’
Hasan turns from the old man. ‘Joshua Bey!’ he calls. ‘Come . . . we will find someone else to ask!’
Reluctantly, Connor leaves the windmill and follows Hasan into the narrow streets behind the square. The town is ghostly, deserted. For the first time since they fled the train, they can hear the distant sound of explosions. Hasan detects a sense of urgency beginning to build in the Australian, whose breathing has suddenly quickened.
Connor can’t restrain himself any longer and begins to cry out. ‘Art! Arthur! Where are you?!’
The two men round a corner to find an improbable scene. Perched around a small table set in the shade of an ancient fig tree are four men, cigarettes clamped between lips or clutched in gnarled paws. They are engrossed by the set-up of a backgammon board sitting on the table in front of them.
‘Peace be with you.’ Hasan speaks to the men in Turkish.
‘And with you,’ the men respond without looking up.
‘We look for the man who built the windmill in the square . . . the pump for the water. Do you know where he is?’
One of the backgammon players raises his bushy, silver eyebrows and makes a clicking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘No. He is gone. He left with the Turks.’
One of his companions corrects him, pointing to a ruined church further up the slope. ‘No. The sin-eater is still here. In the old church.’
Hasan nods, places his hand on his chest. ‘Thank you.’
The man with the eyebrows shakes his head. ‘May this madness end.’
Connor has no idea what is being discussed. ‘Everyone has left. So why are they still here?’
‘They are Greek. They have nothing to fear.’ Hasan nods towards the church. ‘Joshua Bey, up there. There, you may find what you are looking for, God willing. But you must hurry.’ He looks over Connor’s shoulder. ‘You see that smoke? The villagers are burning their crops rather than leaving them for the Greeks. They only do that when there is no hope.’
With his heart in his mouth, Connor looks towards the church and fixes his bearings on the belltower on the roof. He loosens the reins, gives his stallion a swift kick in the side and the horse explodes up the hill. He steers through the cobbled streets and packed-earth lanes of the town, zigzagging and turning, his eyes locked on the church roof. Connor’s steed is bred for battle, calm under fire and surefooted on narrow mountain passes. It gallops through the streets with reckless glee. Its haunches flex and strain as Connor shifts his weight in the saddle to corner, and then pats the horse’s neck when they straighten up on the other side.
The streets of Rainbow flash through his mind: wide, dusty and dead straight. Built on the flat, with no cliff-top forts, keeps or walls, peaceful Rainbow seems a distant world away. He turns a corner and the church looms up in front of him behind a stone wall. Brimming with excitement, Connor pulls hard on the reins and guides his horse through a low arch into the forecourt. But then, his shoulders sink.
In his mind’s eye this was a living, breathing church, newly painted with a gleaming bell hanging in its tower. He would be greeted by a bearded priest in long black robes who would call inside for Art. But there is no life here, just the dry husk of a building long since abandoned and left to crumble away. Plaster hangs from the façade like a newly-shed snake skin, but rather than glimpsing a gleaming new dermis beneath it Connor sees broken wooden battens and coarse stonework.
He follows the path to the entrance where three arches still stand against the odds. The roof of the atrium they supported has collapsed into a pile of plaster and concrete on the floor. He steps over the rubble to the front doorway, where the last pieces of the ornate marble architrave hang on grimly. Connor hesitates at the black hole where the door once resided, engulfed in a cloud of despair.
His heart sinks still further as he steps inside, whatever faint hope he had harboured in the forecourt now well and truly crushed. The interior is dark and funereal save for the light that streams in through a gaping wound in the barrel-vaulted ceiling.
‘Arthur! Art!’ he calls into the emptiness.
The room is long, punctuated by small niches. A thin layer of sand and dust has settled on the floor like silt after a retreating flood. The once beautiful tessellated floor is now buckled and broken up by roof tiles and stone blocks that have landed on it from above, scattering the mosaic tiles like loose teeth.
The interior is decorated with a dazzling gallery of frescos. They bleed from the ceiling down all the walls and run side by side the length of the building, all the way to the apse. Many have faded over time; others have lifted off the walls and crumbled to plaster dust on the floor, leaving behind large patches of grey mortar and exposed stone that gape bare, interrupting the Biblical narrative. Near the ceiling, where pigeons nest
and coo beneath the eaves, long white dropping trails run down the faces of Christ, Saint George and the full pantheon of disciples, acidic tears stripping away the vivid colour.
Connor steps closer to the wall. His eyes are not deceiving him. All the subjects of the frescos have had their eyes gouged out. It cannot be accidental. Connor runs his fingers across the chipped faces, feeling the powdery trail of the frenzied chisel marks. Someone has gone the full length of the wall and studiously defaced the icons.
‘It is because we believe depicting the prophet Jesus is sacrilege, forbidden by God,’ announces Hasan from the doorway. ‘So the locals blind them.’
In the far corner a rudimentary scaffold made from timber and rope has been erected; a feeble attempt to keep the decay and disintegration at bay.
In the adjacent corner lies an animal pen made from dry branches and pilfered roofing timber. It is now disused and has collapsed haphazardly. Gusts of blustery wind blast through gaps in the wall and blow the dry dung and rotting straw in swirling eddies around the room.
In a darkened niche set into the wall, Connor spies a cluster of odd shapes. His curiosity piqued, he walks over to inspect the collection more closely. A nondescript blanket and jacket lie beside a fire hearth. A jumble of pots and pans are scattered outside the circle of blackened stones, and amongst them is a single plate and solitary fork. Connor’s heart jumps and, without thinking, he thrusts his hand into the coals in the fireplace. Cold – dead cold. Whoever built this fire is long gone.
Connor lifts his gaze to the frescos on the niche wall. Jesus stares back at him from the gloom in lively red, orange and blue hues. The religious instruction Connor was compelled to sit through in Sunday School when he was a fidgety student stands him in good stead, and he immediately recognises the figure as the resurrected Christ, showing his wounds to Thomas, who is putting his fingers inside Jesus’ bleeding side. But unlike the other figures in the frescos, this Christ has eyes. Newly painted, not particularly well-executed, bright blue eyes. Connor looks at the next panel, and the next, confirming that all the figures at this end of the church have freshly restored eyes.
The Water Diviner Page 25