It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “Here, let me – ”

  He took the almost empty glass out of her hand and placed it beside his own on the lacquered pinewood – to see that the two-fold image – the notion of a pair – was present everywhere as a given prerequisite. Complementarity permeated space as an unseen but tangible pattern or maybe as a morphic field – to tell them of their future acts. The thick woollen blanket protected them from the cold that did its best to creep in through sudden openings – so they cuddled each other for warmth and better comfort – but turning round in the sheepy darkness he kissed her as she enclosed him in her hand like she had wanted to do for the last twenty-four hours. His masculinity – golden luck and green fortune – sent shivers up and down along her back – for she sensed him in the space of her mind as well – in a universal realm of her own – as the substantial mystery of the Other. Exploration and fulfilment. A chill rippled through her heated blood. The outer and the inner or yīn-yáng currents merged to lose differentiation or distinction. Softwarm night rain. He nibbled at her lips – kissed her to dream and kittled her to withdraw – intensified to coyness. Colour reflected the quality of the stimulation. April water in a river curling from brink to brink with the momentum of gravity. Mana and manna. She lifted her head to throw the blanket aside – a topsy-turvy change to ease the Way – smile with swimming pupils – breathe the cool night air in with open mouth and roll in over him to continue at her leisure – but close beside his ear the thin threatening whine of a mosquito – closing in to suck – revealed that there was a gap somewhere in his elaborate defences. For every single nudge she laughed and waited a while to savour the impact. The mosquito had settled on his cheek but if he moved his hand with sufficient violence to have a chance to hit it before it was too late he might very well upset her progress so he resigned himself to suffer the itching and let a drop of blood feed the new generation of warblers – but his momentary annoyance disappeared in the distance when she touched his lips. As soon as the sensation of the kiss had become all-encompassing a Reed Warbler – sitting beside them in the sedges – began to sing. She felt instantly that his attention moved away from her and looked up – so he pulled her head down and kissed her breathless enough to forget the world around them which seemed to do what it could to make them divert their attention from each other but harmony prevailed as her movements accentuated the soft or sharp blue-green flutes – whistles and snarls of his evening song. Music unfolded in time – movements in space and time to further synchronisation of affective states. Settling or soaring she substantiated her progress as satisfaction incited desire for an escalation of satisfaction. A dancing embrace of two mutually stimulating neurotransmitter systems. A fine sheen of perspiration had begun to adorn her cheeks – brow and upper lip – dew drops of excitement – but her quiet moans arose and subsided as waves that washed in over a flat and sandy shore. While he absorbed her zest through the receptors in his fingertips he was struck by the image of the woman who had been telling him about her lucid dreams. She had appeared to be a handsome – a well-meaning – an intellectually and emotionally mature woman of comparatively affluent means – in the prime of her life – but the fervour she showed now delighted him though he also felt astonished because he had been so mistaken that he had had no real inkling about the nature of the cumulus the sparkling cirri in her eyes had prognosticated. How could he have been so blind? The only answer was sheer lack of attention or lack of perspicacity – so he had to make amends now and meet her honestly on her own chosen terms – and as their comparable affinities became more aligned her buoyancy inspired him to stimulate her on all fronts – and when the loop of energy closed she released her fragrance in tune with the turning of the stars which the darkness of the subconscious had called forth – but he had hardly time to recuperate before she continued to intrigue him by the shimmering hues of her emotions – though touched by a sudden Roman air he pushed the notion of trying to determine whether it predominantly were him or her own proprioception that inspired her aside. Probably both and it was anyway a hindrance to consider such issues now – but she bewildered him – because of his failure to see what he saw. The sensitive humour and analytic reflection of last night had been superseded by an intuitive capacity to leave it all on Earth. While the Reed Warbler had ceased singing there were at least three Nightingales that vied with each other on both sides of the rill and her movements – which made the boat rock gently from side to side and the water respond with faint sounds – deepened his instinctive awareness of the Summer night. Her breath sweetened the leafy air – her flat flaps rolled like ripples out over the sedges – her eyes were whetted with light and her lips melted upon his till he gasped into her mouth and she tried to push him down through the boards of the boat. Hazy jade green rays arose in tune with the soughs that rose up from the soles of her feet and as she relaxed to fall down upon him as if she had fainted he caught a glimpse of molten satisfaction in the corner of her left eye. Evolution had simultaneously to be both linear and cyclic. Breathing heavily she lay still as if exhausted by her display of activity while he caressed her lightly – to further the lengthening frequencies of her mood – but gradually the beating of her heart slowed down and all of a sudden he knew that she had fallen asleep in his arms – protected from cold – inattention and harm – hereabouts. Closing his eyes he felt the night air touch his eyelids and the distance to the Reed Warbler – who had begun singing again – began to diminish till there was no distance left. Here and there among the leaves the stars were only faintly visible as the night lacked the darkness of a truly absent Sun. Her warmth and her weight dissolved his thoughts. Existence – nothing more or less – that was enough – just a long slow exhalation – extinguishing all prior –

  Across luminous starlit water – this little boat of ingenuity. Rocking her in his arms – a-light – a-love – soulbright night-eyes – murmuring a human word – the air was wafting it away. Rippling pewter crescents across a darkening surface with moon-shadows of Reeds – whispering in the breeze. Wet sand and sun-rays – the seashore stretched out with cliffs and well-wooded promontories – flying slowly above the glittering surf along the reefs – salty air and the uplift of the wind beneath his naked arms – to catch it all – to embrace it all – urgently while it lasted – every nook and every dark declivity – to get her taste – to feel her weight – to hear her – to sense her everywhere – in communion with that which was –

  Images formed by feelings – a reality based on affective states – not as now affective states based on reality. But because of that more real than that to which he had woken up – although it had formed both the images and the sensations in the first place. So reality was a function of feeling. Reality was felt – the felt state was that which made it real – and everything but felt states would be unreal and have scant importance. Serenity – love – wonder – courage – sorrow – misery – rage – disgust – despair. Life and life only – beyond the rational mechanic of the mind that dealt in advantages and disadvantages. But as it was getting late and as he did not know what arrangement she had made for the evening he decided reluctantly to wake her though it was a mortal sin to wake someone who was fast asleep – an act of violence against the soul – once upon a time in México an exoneration for unpremeditated murder.

  “Sally, do we have to go back now?”

  She opened her eyes to look at him and focus upon the present – here and now.

  “What time is it?”

  “About half past eleven, I think.”

  “All right. Then I can be back at twelve or thereabout though I don’t want to, you know.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He rose and filled their glasses.

  “Here, it will help you to survive.”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “So did I, and I had a strange or rather both a strange and a realistic dream, almost lucid, I suppose. It must be your influence. We were
sailing together and embracing each other just like we did before we fell asleep.”

  “Or it could be a lingering effect of the mandrake leaves I had early in the morning?”

  Obscured by the darkness her smile was indistinct.

  “I don’t know or I cannot remember the metabolic fate of atropine and scopolamine, but after more than sixteen hours or so the half life – ”

  “Then it must be me.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  While she sat still to savour the hour and their affinity he began paddling but when the net touched the leaves of the Rowan he had again to lift its branches up over the scaffold.

  “You know, this is as it should be, real.”

  Diving down in under the mosquito net he kissed her – delighted by her sense of appreciation.

  “It’s beautiful here.”

  “It is as it really is.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “No!”

  Surprise and disappointment blighted the tonal colour of her voice.

  “I don’t think so, I know it.”

  Putting her hand out under the net and up along his leg she touched him as an affirmation that all was well with the world at least right now. In the depth of the Broad it became easier and he paddled fast because he imagined that she had to get home quickly – but found her degree of discretion by avoiding to burden him with the tactics she had had to implement in order to escape the probably rather dark house of matrimony an indication of emotional maturity as well as a proof of good breeding. A light breeze was blowing now and he could already discern the berth across the finely bristling expanse of star-lit water. So each end was also a new beginning – another instance of participation – a timely recurrence. Taking down the mosquito net and picking up the empty bottle – the glasses – the telescope – the tripod and the plastic bag – the mattress and the blanket they walked up to the car and drove back. The silence of communion remained consensual as a further indication of the harmony they had shared – but having arrived in the low land of spying eyes she upheld the distance between them but stroked her thumb across his hand as a reaffirmation before she succumbed to the pressure of apparent necessity and left him alone to drive home.

  VI

  The rays of the Sun had painted the day new when he was ready to greet it with his presence but there was a light grey brush stroke of clouds above the western horizon. Despite his poignant communion with Sally the features of her face – which arose from his sleep-drenched awareness – made his heart beat faster to follow her tracks to the sweet or bitter end. Past events needled him to remain sceptical or even cynical as trust – both in himself and in others – often had been naïve – so if and only if he could rely on his inner compass to be immune from the deviation of wishful thinking would she be likely to respond in kind. But reality refashioned by desire gave the courage needed to go on living from day to day. Vain hopes and vain fears – there were only experiments – breathless trials and haunting failures but he ought not to speculate about the results of his actions – so he lay still to empty his mind of thoughts and conjectures – to reach a state of being with no conscious dross which gravity could pull at –

  The rotting grass-halm bridge had swayed in the up-hill wind above the gorge but there had been no other way to cross the swollen river. Taking chances – incomplete evaluations – only fostered by convenience or necessity. The implacable desire for live beauty ignited each single step. A fleeting glimpse – the spectrum of bright green contrasting with iris yellow and mauve-grey – the delicate creamy-tipped tails and the nourishing dew drops that glistened on the Magnolia leaves –

  When the Sun shone from the South-East and fair weather clouds sailed like Mute Swans across the blue his diffuse sensations crystallised to acts. Considering the possible progress of the issues ahead he would have to telephone Seymour for by giving him plenty of time in which to absorb the initially unwelcome change to his daily routine he could avoid too stubborn a protest – pleading prior engagements or inability to make the necessary rearrangements.

  “The Crescent Clinic!”

  Jessie’s crisp voice tingled through the copper wire – so the secretary must have taken –

  “Good morning, Jessie, now listen carefully, this is the Loch Ness Monster speaking from the bottomless bottom of the intergalactic ocean. Is Algy up and about this early in the morning?”

  Her ringing laughter – within his ear.

  “Why do you call him ‘Algy?’ No one else does that.”

  “Simply because he hates it. And it does him good to be fretted a little, especially as you’re always pampering him.”

  “He would contest that rather hotly, I think, but I’ll put you through though he’s busy – ”

  “Gloriously splendid good morning to you, O Seymour! Listen to what I have to tell you for I need your help, cooperation, good-will, time and sympathy right away.”

  “Is it man slaughter, murder or something for which our language has no proper denotation?”

  “You couldn’t guess it in the age of the present universe.”

  “Come on, tell me. I’m busy and I have work to do.”

  “I’ll only tell you at the right time and at the right place.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Sunday morning on the bonny bank of the Spey when you catch the Salmon of your dreams.”

  “What are you raving about?”

  “I need immediate access to all female cases of cleft palate admitted to hospitals in Aberdeen during a period of about eleven years. I must look through them, guided by your experience and expertise. I’m off to Inverness to-morrow and plan to meet you at Aberdeen airport Friday afternoon or Friday evening, so you have several days in which to invent a story that will enable us to get access to these records on a Saturday. With your subtle sense of drama, your ability to spot the salient detail and your decent social connections it should be pretty easy. I’ll secure fishing rights Saturday and Sunday, and either send you back home alone Sunday evening with a large Salmon or accompany you if my investigations reach a point where I cannot get any further information in Scotland.”

  “You’re mad! What shall I say? What kind of research project could possibly justify such – ”

  “Pas de problème, mon vieux. Presumably the operating techniques are constantly improved, so you want to ascertain how women who usually cannot grow a beard and who have had one or several operations of a specific kind, actually manage to cope thirty years later with their scar. You want to quantify how it has influenced their lives, I mean, either as a pilot project or to verify or falsify an already published result. This should of course be seen in relation to the necessity of providing better funding for research that might improve the techniques and hence the living conditions of the women concerned and thus minimise the risk that they will end up being dependent on social services. ”

  “Of course I can see that such research might be relevant but I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in it; and furthermore, it must already have been done ten times over.”

  “You’re under no obligation to publish the result in The Lancet. It just happened that the preliminary results when compared with controls fell short of what was statistically relevant or something else equally vague.”

  “You’ll ruin me, you’ll destroy my already battered and tattered reputation.”

  “Nonsense! Your reputation will not suffer, and you might even learn something worthwhile and you can then with a good conscience maintain that the depth of your social engagement is unlimited, exactly that which makes a doctor a human doctor, like Oliver Sacks for example.”

  “What is it you’re looking for, really? If I knew that I might come up with a better idea.”

  “Infant females whose cleft palates were so severe that while they did heal on the u
pper lip traces would still be visible when looking into their mouths thirty years later.”

  “Such degrees of partial healing would be rather hard to predict at such an early state – ”

  “Presumably most of them would have follow-up operations before reaching puberty, and anyway, the most serious as well as the least serious cases could be disregarded.”

  “Aha! You’re looking for a particular female, I knew it! I knew it had to be something like – ”

  “Yes, that’s what it’s all about. We must have access to all cases that are from thirty-seven to twenty-seven years old. I’ll telephone to-morrow and get a genuine proof of your genius.”

  “Then I’ll have to get hold of old John MacKenzie. There is a children’s hospital in Aberdeen, I ween, and I think that all cases of cleft palates would end up there. John might be able to open the portals of the hospital and make the staff search the records. It has to be done manually.”

  “Promise them each a bottle of Champagne or Port or whatever they like. Make certain that the files will be there waiting for us first thing Saturday morning. My future happiness is at stake.”