It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “That’s the spirit! Come the three corners of the world in arms, and while I pack the car you could begin to make breakfast.”

  The night was cold and shivering in the fresh air from the windows he dressed.

  “Here’s a sweater and an extra pair of trousers, but when the Sun comes up it will be warmer.”

  The tea was drawing while he packed the car. There were no calls yet – but the call of Dawn. Four Water Lily cups floated in the sink to cool. Still drowsy with sleep they made sandwiches and boiled water for the thermoflasks. Her practical efficiency – which was spontaneous – delighted him for she could imagine several links in the causal chain beforehand and act accordingly. Just before leaving he remembered to take a bottle of Madeira – in case of an emergency – but neither of them had woken up yet. The lingering lethargy of sleep was still smothering their senses in woolliness – to shield them a little while yet both from the world and from each other – but he drove quickly – guided by habit – each minute was precious – for time spent out of the jungle was time wasted – so as soon as the Monsoon clouds cleared. At the landing he parked in lee of the White Willows and more attentive now to the small sporadic sounds in the thickets they carried their all too human impediments down along the path to the boat.

  “How peaceful it is here and the song of the Nightingale – ”

  “The whole morning chorus will soon begin but you had better put this Jungle Oil on your sleeves, coat, socks, gloves and hat, like last time.”

  “I thought the net was enough?”

  “If you have to use the telescope or the binoculars you’ll have to get outside of the net, but it also depends on how keen the small vampires are to drink your blood.”

  Caressed by her satisfied attention he attached the rafters to the frames – secured them with the cramps to the gunwale and lashed them together with marline and while she arranged the mattress and the blankets he spread the mosquito net out over the scaffold.

  “At long last we’re ready.”

  As he loosened the moorings she sat down expectantly in the stern for the dusty cobwebs of too little sleep had by now been brushed away from her senses by the early morning air.

  “How lovely this is!”

  “Life, without human interference.”

  “You mean, we spoil everything?”

  “No, not you and maybe not I, but the suicidal course of society spoils everything.”

  He paddled outwards from the brink – quickly and silently. It was always as if he were too late or as if the light came far too fast – but she savoured his eagerness as an auspicious sign.

  “If you multiply greed by fear, and then divide this sum with the sum obtained from multiplying ignorance with apathy, you’ll get the Zeitgeist of any given society.”

  “It’s too frightening to contemplate in detail.”

  Loud twitters came now and again from the thickets along the brink and her shivers made him regret having broached a subject that did not befit the Dawn – the Broad or their moods.

  “The human species is not animal enough to bear very much reality.”

  “Maybe I never really thought so – ”

  “Hence we will exterminate ourselves and all other Mammals, but after one or two hundred million years life will have evolved again to form sophisticated animals and plants; so to survive from day to day we just have to visualise this unimaginable perspective.”

  “Cold comfort, isn’t it?”

  She was as well aware of this as he so his simple sincerity evoked her lenient female empathy.

  “Chilling to the bone, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  “And yet we can be grateful for the fact that we’re floating on the water here and that life still unfolds around us as it has done in the past.”

  “Yes, we should not focus upon to-morrow too much, but live in the pure present. That’s what it’s all about, anyway, the eternity of the present.”

  “So let’s leave Doomsday, Ragnarök and Armageddon to the future if we can.”

  “Being here with you makes that easy – ”

  The twilight was quickly vanishing – the chorus grew louder and louder every minute. A new day. A new day in which to live!

  “And I am grateful for every minute we have here together.”

  “ Dying is less hard if we have truly lived, the less that is the case the harder death will be.”

  She rose to sit down on his knee.

  “Shush! Let me give you a kiss instead.”

  They slipped in under the mosquito net and undressed. Her female circadian rhythm – her survival instinct erased his thoughts about extinction and Ragnarökr. A huge blue balloon carried him away from his stale fixed patterns of thoughts. Her nakedness banished his grey premonitions. It was a remedy she used instinctively. The most potent remedy available – far stronger than any of her sage and savage herbs was the sensitivity of her lips. A return to Paradise where all was well with the world – within as without.

  “That’s better, isn’t it.”

  His smile confirmed her conjecture – and her womanhood. That was what she wanted to express – to manifest – to fulfil – so he was encouraging her to do whatever she wished – to let the Earth meet the Sky in a flash of lightning. His joy of accepting her – as she was – without harbouring second thoughts – without trying to forge emendations made the fragments of doubt about her right to do what she did insignificant. If it felt right it was right. There were no other touchstones and no other parameters could exist in the reality of daylight or of starlight. The Sun coloured her eyelashes violet and yellow – like dew – a slight breeze was beginning to waft through the mosquito net. The treetops on the brink did not change shape – they were stranded in the shallows. From afar – the sound of an old two-stroke engine reminded him of the broad-beamed Doggers of his childhood. The rhythm merged first with her heartbeats and then with his own – and all of a sudden he knew that she was just as aware of it as he was – and that she had chosen not to say anything about it so that it would continue to fuse them together with the sounds of the water lapping the flank of the boat and the clear whistles that sparkled in the brittle twitter of a Sedge Warbler less than three meters away on their heart port side. They touched each other – they were touched by the water and the Sedge Warbler – the swaying reeds along the brink and the morning-hungry Cormorants who were passing them at treetop height. Communion – holy and hale – or life beyond conceptions – but it was only a while after the sensation had ceased to be new that a conglomeration of words gravitated towards each other to form a coherence that could hint at what had already passed. A bird of prey – probably a Marsh Harrier – circled upwards on the rising thermics. The net made it impossible to use the binoculars and it was too pleasant to lie with her thus in the early sunlight to verify his observation. Rubbing her instep to and fro over his ankle like a Cat incensed by Catnip and laughing quietly – she lifted her eyelids to ask.

  “You move your foot like a Cat who, purring with delight, opens and closes her paws.”

  “Then I’ll take a nip at you now.”

  She wriggled his lower lip up and down between her teeth.

  “I’m hungry!”

  She looked at him to see if he also had become hungry – and instantly her hunger made him hungry. He got hold of the basket and filled the tea-strainers in the cups with tea leaves and almost boiling water.

  “Let’s taste that Madeira while we wait and whet our appetite.”

  He filled her glass with the sweet rose-dark liquid and she buried her nose in its fragrance.

  “Do you think we can remove the mosquito net?”

  “As long as the Sun shines we’re safe.”

  Body volume and dehydration. He rose to roll it up and she threw the tea-leaves out over the gunwale and added honey to the Darjīling – whi
ch as a second flush would be slightly heavy.

  “Fresh air makes you hungry.”

  “Or it’s something in the air, maybe you?”

  A kiss of whortleberry jam.

  “When we’re together here the compulsion to talk tends to vanish.”

  “Maybe the urge to communicate settles at the more basic level of a shared silence?”

  “Do you have an answer for everything?”

  The mischievous note in her voice – he had to kiss her again.

  “You know I don’t.”

  “Sometimes I’m not all that sure.”

  “But do you have any objections against such an attempt to explain?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  They laughed in unison – together and apart.

  “Could we get so close to the brink that I can have a look at the flowers?”

  “Maybe you can skip ashore beside the large Goat Willow over there.”

  He paddled downstream along the sedges. At the inlet the water was deep enough to make the prow nuzzle the brink which was bristling with the bright elongate leaves of Yellow Irises. Using the anchor rope he secured the boat to a root and sat down on the mattress with the binoculars while she began to explore the flora of the meadow behind the trees. Terns were fishing at a distance that precluded identification – though possibly Sandwich Terns – and two Grey Herons stood partly hidden among the reeds on the opposite brink – but they were hard to see in the mottled tangle of leaves and stalks – for the veering sea breeze moved the reeds to and fro and the reflections of light and shadow in the rippling water – over-shadowed by the crowns of the trees along the brink – shone in rosy grey and black transparency – so that steady shapes and colours came to resemble splintering pieces of a puzzle. The morning was unfolding like a flower – the light that skimmed the water surface – the light that fell on the leaves – was absorbed and reflected. Sitting cross-legged he placed the tripod in the stern to adjust the telescope. The Heron to the right was drawn so close that he could touch her with his hand. As always the remarkable immobility was diagnostic – the ability to stand still with the pointed dagger of the bill ready if a frog or a fish should come within striking distance. Fishing and yet appearing not to fish. An image of hypocrisy if seen in a human mirror or perhaps a suggestion of Skylla. The large round pupil was shining black inside the wide yellow iris as the gaze was fixed on the space between the surface of the water and the grainy sediments at the bottom. He wanted to see the explosive down-thrust of the bill though he probably only would be aware of it when the Heron withdrew the bill from the water with a frog or a fish between the mandibles – but as the boat suddenly moved the pure blue of the Sky filled all his field of vision and turning round he saw Sally as she sat down beside him with an armful of flowers and a question on her lips.

  “A Grey Heron. Do you want to have a look?”

  “Oh yes!”

  Her eagerness had the soft and clear ring of a girl’s laughter but the mellow tone of her voice was that of a woman. When the boat had ceased rocking up and down he focused on the Heron to the left and moved aside to let her see.

  “You may have to adjust the telescope here so that it fits your eye.”

  He guided her hand up to the broad riffled ring that changed the focus length.

  “I’m looking right into its eye. What a marvellous instrument. It’s not moving, as in a picture.”

  “To avoid detection all movements have to be suspended, but when a fish or a frog comes along the movement with the bill is so quick that it’s almost impossible to see it.”

  After a while she grew impatient with the Heron’s immobility and pushed the telescope aside.

  “Don’t move. There are lots of flowers there. It’s a fine biotope. Did you know that?”

  She began putting Buttercups and Poppies into his hair.

  “Yes, how many have you found, and what are you doing.”

  “Don’t ask such silly questions! Seven species. Don’t move.”

  She intertwined his curly hairs with Comfreys – Bird-foot-trefoils and Water-crowfoots.

  “And I even found some Butterworts and Germander Speedwells, but the Marsh-marigolds are too large. I had better put them into your hair here just above the ears.”

  Still dewy from the night – the smell was light and green.

  “There! You should have a look at yourself.”

  “It ought to have been Vine leaves. Flowers would fit Maia.”

  “Never mind, you look pagan and real. A return to the earth, but you ought to have a beard, not a long one though, that would make you look old, not a short one either, as that would scratch, just a short soft beard.”

  “So that you could put flowers into my beard as well?”

  He laughed and was on the point of shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Don’t laugh or the Marsh Marigolds will drop out. I want to remember you like this. My Woodwose.”

  “Now you are romantic!”

  “Not more than you. Maybe we’re just romantic in slightly different ways though in lots of ways our instincts are identical; and besides, we share preferences, likes and dislikes.”

  “But what does this mean?”

  “It’s an initiation, but into what? A relationship with me? With spring? I don’t know. I only know that we share some pagan traits and that I’m confirming this bond we have with each other and with nature. I want to see you crowned with flowers. I feel a deeper clarity when I look at you now, as you have come into your own. Clothes do not suit you, flowers do.”

  “I can say the same about you, but I cannot consecrate you with flowers as long as I cannot move.”

  “You can do that later. Nothing is as true as this! You’re at one with the flowers.”

  He had to sit still to keep the flowers in place and as slowly as the day grew brighter – holding him around the neck – she began.

  “You’ll shake the flowers off.”

  “Shush! Never mind that now.”

  An ancient rite – a Summer morning rāgaḥ – clear and playful – a comely purple manifestation of nature – an antithesis to conventions – idées fixes and boredom – blighting life – just here and now – resurrected as the day to-day ardour flowed from the primal source – Cordelia’s silence. That level – that ability – the sine qua non of life – so he inspired her to transcend the world for the inner unfoldment of joy – a bud opening to the inner light. She followed the same pattern as she contained – like he did – a common phytophysiological level. Lips – melting snowflakes – lips – slanting sunlight – thighs – smooth ice and night softness – breast to breast and heart to heart in gusts and lulls. Reaching a coherent rhythm he held her tightly – ready to rescue her from the fall out into the unknown when she jumped – as she knew he would when she touched him to the quick. His tickled laughter flowed up over her tongue. An avalanche once set in motion – troughs and crests – and her ninth wave swept him out into the Sea – the Sea from whence they came.

  With tears of exertion in her eyes she looked at him to seal their communion. As he licked the saline water off inside her canthi she began laughing as if she had shed twenty years of experience. When released from expectations – prejudice and second thoughts the human animal was as lovable as a Dolphin – a Tiger – an Oak or a Dandelion. He felt grateful because she shared her day with him. Misanthropy flourished in the absence of β-endorphine – oxytocin and honest emotions – but clouds coming in from the West were beginning to obscure the Sun and in their shadow the air did not feel warm any longer. She sought protection in her blouse and sweater when she began to shiver like the surface of the water now did all around the boat.

  “It’s suddenly getting quite chilly.”

  “Lets creep in under the blanket – ”

  “And have another glas
s of Madeira.”

  She sipped the dark pungent liquid off the rim. A cat lapping up cream – so neatly that only a few drops were left to adorn her whiskers. Lying side by side and hand in hand they watched the clouds gather over their heads at a height of four or five thousand feet. Just as sprightly as the early morning had been just as hushed the late morning was now. She closed her eyes and so did he to ease the fall toward sleep.

  Cold drops of rain woke him up. They would both be drenched to the skin before they could reach the shelter of the car so the sooner they began to go back the less the risk would be of catching a cold. Shivering in the rain he dressed while she – amused at his concern – looked at him with one eye from beneath the edge of the blanket. Loosening the rope from the root he began paddling as the rain drops swept through the air to wet his clothes till they clung to his skin like a coriaceous epidermic extension.

  “Are you not wet?”

  “Humid rather, but I’ll soon have to get up and dress. My clothes are wet though.”

  “Just use the blanket, even though it’s wet it’s more insulating than your clothes would be.”

  “When will we be back.”

  “In half an hour.”

  “Are you not cold?”

  “It’s cold but as long as I paddle I can keep warm.”

  “Should I help you?”

  “You don’t have to, but you can give me a glass of Madeira. It’s not the best remedy in such a situation, but I like the sweet fragrance and the fiery sensation, as an antidote to the rain.”

  With a wry reluctant face she braved the cold and gave him the glass which he emptied in three slow draughts while the boat came to a standstill. The air was saturated with a low steady susurrus of white noise from the raindrops as they finger-tipped the skin of the water. No birds were singing now – but Teals – Shelducks and Pochards thrived in the deluge.

  “I’m getting cold.”

  “You could put on your clothes, even if they’re wet they’re better than nothing.”

  “Yes, and I’ll do like you and paddle, then we’ll come home more quickly and I’ll get warm.”