It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “The tale I have to tell is best not told in a public place, so I’ll invite you to my house instead.”

  “I just want to change.”

  “And I don’t want to miss you for a second lest you should vanish like a dream too good to be true or like an epiphany too fleeting to remain.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A revelation from God!”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “A revelation of God.”

  “Now you’re just plain silly, you know.”

  “No, it’s you who are silly, failing to recognise love when standing face to face with it; failing to see the truth of what I’m saying or das Ding an sich. That which really is, for I see you as that which really is, both the particular organism of muscles, blood, bones and memories, and the transcendent reality, though they basically are one and the same thing – ”

  Bhāvebhyaḥ śūnyatā nānyā na ca bhāvo ’sti tāṃ vinā. A pleonastic ascertainment – an old inflatable life-belt – things are not different from emptiness but there are no things without it.

  “They only appear as distinct entities on the explicate surface.”

  Unable to make much sense of his rapturous panegyrics she felt nevertheless touched by the authenticity of his emotions but thought it most prudent still to lodge a formal protest.

  “But you don’t even know me?”

  “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

  Shrugging her shoulders good-humouredly she did not feel she could neglect his entreaties any longer and having followed her gently swaying hips upstairs he stood looking out of the window to see the green fields in the distance through the raindrops that trickled down over the window pane – and the Barn Swallows as they flew to and fro across the tips of the Red Clover for a mouthful of Hymenoptera – while she sat – cross-legged and at ease now – in front of the dressing table – to comb her auburn curls and look at her caged reflection in the gilt-framed glass with a spontaneously contemplative air that made the suchness of the scene – the tathāgataḥ knowing reality – as caught in Vermeer’s Het melkmeisje or in Schrijvende vrouw met dienstbode – that this was so – exactly so and not otherwise in any detail whatsoever – force itself in upon his senses with such a strength that everything around him became dark and the sound of thunder echoed in his ears. As he swayed to and fro with the impact of the realisation he had to hold on to the window sill to avoid falling for she might be ready to match him after all.

  “Well, shall we go now?”

  Her cloud-white dress deepened the colour of her hair and touched – even in this shaded light – the soft sheen of her pearl earrings – maybe a trophy from a recent treasure hunt. Following her down the stairs and out into la bonne pluie he opened the door for her in the car – toujours – toujours la politesse – and closed it when she had settled comfortably in the seat. His hopes had not dared to be that daring and the pouring rain that shrouded the fields and the trees in mist prognosticated now a nourishing future.

  “Are you always so polite?”

  Her question was open to four different interpretations. Simple irony as a tentative test – rather inappropriate equality preoccupations – curiosity about what life during l’ancien régime really would have been like or natural empathy.

  “Politeness, I hope, should be an expression of spontaneous consideration?”

  Pleased with his answer she rearranged her dress while he backed down the driveway towards the black-shining asphalt scar that facilitated physical communication to the detriment of spiritual communion. À rebours. They sat in silence beside each other listening to the raindrops on the windscreen and to the slushing whirr of the tires on the road. He tried to divine her state of mind by catching the rhythm of how she breathed and she tried to divine his state of mind by catching the rhythm of how he breathed. From time to time he looked askance at her to see that she was looking askance at him. Their tender tentacles touched timidly in mid air. From time to time he caught a glimpse of her smooth knees like two ripe August plenilunes partly shaded by the dashboard but forced his eyes back on to the rainy road ahead though he remained howling up against them in wood-wild agony. Softly – softly – he sensed that she still was agitated and nervous beneath her calm and rather dignified grace – for her destiny was changing course – and she had not got her bearings yet – but he had – both for himself and for her – if only she would let him take her by the hand. That was the question and there was the rub. She was still on one level wavering between scepsis and trust – so he had to kindle her sense of trust in herself – in fate and in him – that was of course what he had to do – but how? By being utterly naked and fiercely sincere – though without overstating his case – but without understating it either – only by unflinching honesty could he win her over – by making his quest for le saint graal which she had come to manifest a part of her present reality – and by being in no doubt about the eventual outcome as that had been ordained by the stars of fate – although he did not know if he really believed in it or if he merely regarded it as being philosophically plausible or maybe even just psychologically convenient for it meant a release from a great personal responsibility – amor fati and fatum amoris – though they had both to be brightened by humour – the quality that redeemed everything else. He felt her presence as a tangible pressure on his left side – like the scend of a great wave carrying him away and wondered if she were aware of it or if she felt his presence as a force on her right side? When he turned the key to stop the engine he wondered why he had no recollection of how he had driven back – he could not recall a single image or a single sound – as if he had been dead-drunk – to such a degree had he been engrossed in her concrete presence beside him – though instead of a numbing of consciousness it had been caused by a focusing of consciousness.

  “It’s here that I seek shelter from the rain for the moment, as you know.”

  His smile reflected the discrimination she had shown when she chose to break into his house and caused him to fall in love with her.

  “Oh yes, and it’s a very nice garden.”

  “Do you like flowers?”

  “It depends, I love the wild flowers of the country-side.”

  “They fit the landscape and the climate naturally. Apart from roses I have only wild flowers.”

  “But were the roses you came to give me the other morning all your own?”

  “No, my roses do not bloom yet as you can see. I had to buy them at a florist, that was why they hardly had any smell, but come inside, you are getting wet.”

  He opened the door to invite her in and suggest a familiarity that might make her feel at ease.

  “Let us celebrate that we at long last have met each other on equal terms.”

  He took a bottle of Champagne on the top shelf of the refrigerator.

  “Do you always drink Champagne?”

  Light-hearted teasing and curiosity – true women’s nature.

  “No, but there is that about you which calls for it.”

  “Oh, is there?”

  He wrung the cork out of the thick green neck of the bottle and filled their glasses. She liked that there was and she liked to pretend not to know that there was. He felt a keen urge to say something poignant but found it more prudent to wait.

  “Yes, and you would know it as well as I do or much better.”

  “Then it’s only because I am used to it and you’re not.”

  Bubbles – prickling inside his nose. Melons – fresh hazel nuts – Dog-roses – ripe pears.

  “Maybe the basic art in life is not to succumb to stultifying habits which blunt the light of reality, but to stay naked to suffer each event unmitigatedly, to sense it as it is: a wonder, a marvel, and to be grateful for being alive enough to experience it. So I doubt what you just said for I don’t think you take all that m
uch for granted either, not even yourself.”

  He had put plates – cutlery – bread – butter – tomatoes – slices of lemon – Salmon roe and Comté on the table without knowing what he had been doing – as if acting in a dream about her.

  “Maybe I don’t, but you’re certainly very philosophically minded. Oh! It looks nice.”

  “Only at the moment. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes I am!”

  “Try this roe here, with just a drop of lemon, then it will not spoil the Champagne.”

  “It’s delicious.”

  She was beginning to feel more relaxed. The security of being able to eat – food as communion. It was as usual a question of being attentive and of the right amount of Champagne – Jamaica Rum or true religion. She had a good appetite and he felt relieved to see her chew her food with such gusto. Her behaviour was spontaneous. She practised what she felt.

  “Do you cook your own dinner?”

  “More often than not, but usually I just browse on raw vegetables and bread.”

  “So do I, but I’m not a good cook.”

  “Haggis?”

  “Oh I hate it.”

  “You’ve had too much, perhaps?”

  “Yes, and also too much salmon, but not roe though, we never had that, I think.”

  Looking upwards and sideways she visualised the evenings when she came home hungry from the wind-swept hills along the coast.

  “I should have thought about that and offered you something else.”

  “Oh no, this roe is excellent. What do you mean by saying you should have thought about that.”

  “It’s a long story and as I promised I will tell you when we have tea, or coffee, if you want.”

  “Tea, please!”

  He made four cups of Darjīling and she placed the cups on a tray. It all came naturally now – step by furtive step. Her waist was narrow – her hips broad – her gait the wind’s ways.

  “It’s still raining, otherwise it would have been more pleasant to sit in the garden.”

  “But it’s also cosy to sit here and watch the rain outside.”

  A soft light trickled down through the clouds. The drip-drop-dripping flowers and the drooping leaves of the trees slept patiently through the deluge knowing that the rain would sustain them – and this state of accept and trust which exuded from the green growth of life suffused her now.

  “It is, it certainly is.”

  As she settled in the sofa he sat down in the chair beside her. It was still safest to be cautious though painful not to be bold.

  “So I’ll begin with the beginning of my story which of course also is your story. That night we met I had been trying to find the nest of a Barn Owl and came home rather late though intending to get up around three o’ clock so that I could sail around on the Broad as usual and enjoy the morning chorus of the warblers and see the changes in the early light; but as I had begun looking for the nest in the vicinity of the church and had come more than halfway home, I made a short cut across the fields to reach the back entrance of the house. So you would not have been able to see that I switched on the light if you had waited somewhere outside on the road.”

  “I did, and I thought the house was empty. I prefer empty houses.”

  “Of course! I woke suddenly and I would, I think, have woken as soon as you had come into the room if I had not felt sleepy and inattentive; nevertheless, I became frightened by seeing a stranger in my bedroom though also enraged at the audacity to disturb me in my sleep. However, I didn’t know what I should do, but I managed to get hold of the flashlight I always have beside me without making a sound, and when you turned round, having examined the contents of the drawers in my writing desk, to investigate the bedside table, I knew that you would see me; but I did not know if I could pretend to be asleep in such a way that you would feel reassured. This uncertainty forced me, in spite of my fear, to take the initiative, imagining that an attack would be the best defence under the circumstances.”

  “But you had no way of knowing if I had a knife or a gun with an efficient silencer, and you only had a flashlight?”

  Did she show a degree of anxiety or was it just his lop-sided imagination? No, it had to be both though the degree of their relative strength would only appear later.

  “Retrospectively I know that it was a grave mistake. I had nothing in the house it was worth fighting for; nothing, I could not give away gladly; but I did not think rationally, in fact, I felt both incensed and afraid, so I sat up in the bed, shone the light in your face and chanced to tear off your mask. Then you said three words, namely ‘Oh hivven nae!’ and when you opened your mouth I saw, in the glare of the lamp, the faint trace of what looked like the scar of a cleft palate operation, and when you kicked me I fell back in the bed while you dived out through the window and caught hold of the Wisteria. As you have a kick like a horse I felt stunned, but rushed down the stairs just in time to hear you drive away and when I had been running around for twenty minutes on bare feet I realised the absurdity of the quest and went home.”

  “I thought that there were no one in the house as there had been no lights on all evening, and on the two previous nights, when I had checked, there had been no lights and no car either.”

  “I had been looking for Long-eared Owls near Tichwell and I had left my car at the church.”

  “It’s so easy to make mistakes, small mistakes.”

  “It is; but when I came back I realised that I only knew three things about you, and that all three things were equally important. As childhood accents are liable to surface when the emotional intensity is acute I knew that you had been born in Scotland, probably in the north of Scotland, and having caught a glimpse of your palate behind the teeth I thought it likely that you had had a cleft palate operation. The third thing I knew was that you excelled in some form of martial art. Armed with this general knowledge I flew to Inverness, hired a car and began interviewing women aged between twenty-five and thirty-six, or so, by asking them to say ‘Oh heaven, no!’ with as much annoyance and anger as they could muster. In appreciation of their efforts I presented them each with half a bottle of Sauterne. Having interviewed four women in Inverness without finding any accent that matched yours I drove further north, to Thurso and from Thurso I sailed to Stromness and drove to Kirkwall. On the ferry I recorded the accents of two women, one from Aberdeen, and one from Stromness, and in Kirkwall the accents of two women, both from Kirkwall. Neither the Aberdonian nor the Orcadian accents matched yours, but the Aberdonian came quite close. Next day I drove back to Inverness, and from Inverness to Nairn, Buckie and Aberdeen. In Buckie I interviewed a woman, about thirty years old, I think, who said ‘Oh hivven, nae’ with exactly the same pitch and tone as you had used. I had it confirmed by two other women in Buckie, one was about twenty and the other about forty-five. In Aberdeen I found that the accent was not as pronounced, at least not as far as I could tell; and that left me with the conclusion that you must have been living somewhere in the Moray, Buckie or Banff area as a child and – ”

  “Yes, I have a broad Doric accent, or had. It’s not so pronounced now, but of course, in such a situation it’s perhaps bound to reappear.”

  “It’s certainly not pronounced now; but anyway, to get access to the records of female infants born with a cleft palate I asked an old friend of mine, Seymour, who is a doctor, to come up to Scotland. We spent a day going through the files at the Children’s Hospital in Aberdeen.”

  “That’s where I had the operations as a child.”

  Even if she had shuffled off the impacts of the past pain the memories were still vivid enough for her to shiver slightly – though not physically.

  “I knew that one child out of seven hundred and fifty would be born with a cleft palate, and narrowing our investigations to a period of about eleven years we found thirty-six cases, and that number fitte
d very well with the theoretical estimate, but if I had failed in my search there I would have returned to continue in Edinburgh.”

  Sipping the tea he let the memories unfold according to their strength and place in time. Leaning back she sat with her left leg lifted and her hands folded around her knee to look at him with her head slightly aslant. Her fingers – strong and shapely – angelic caresses – Harpy talons.

  “Did you tell the women you interviewed why you wanted to record their accents?”

  “I said that I was studying Scots accents, and that my name was Doctor Aubrey Saint-Clair from the University of Milwaukie.”

  “Why did you tell such a lie?”

  She looked straight at him. Honesty – honesty.

  “I do not have a doctorate in applied linguistics and I thought that to get a fair chance of goodwill and cooperation a scientific background would be necessary.”

  “And none of the women bothered to verify your credentials?”

  “I had made a printed questionnaire to facilitate the note-taking, but I don’t even know if there is such a university as the University of Milwaukie.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “If I had been met with scepsis or antagonism I would have terminated the interview.”

  “I see!”

  Perhaps he now appeared to be somewhat devious or even untrustworthy in her eyes?

  “To get access to the files in the hospital Seymour had to pretend that he was engaged in research on cleft palate operations; but as his initial investigations suggested that his hypothesis could not be substantiated he had to abandon further research. As he is an extremely keen angler we spent one and a half day fishing in the Spey River, and much to my delight, for he had really stretched his sense of what he thought would be ethically defensible in order to help me, he caught a very fine Salmon. In the evening we flew home with his trophy packed in ice. Now I had a list of names and I felt fairly confident that one of the names on the list would be yours. Then I asked Fjodor, also an old friend of mine; it is he whom I have to telephone before twelve o’ clock, to find someone who could extricate the files of the members of all the martial arts clubs from King’s Lynn to Ipswich. There were about thirty-seven clubs and they had about eight thousand members. I received lists from thirty-one clubs, three clubs proved to be difficult to access and three clubs required my personal membership before Fjodor’s connection could get copies of the lists, but I began the search with what I had. If concentrating on surnames with matching Christian names it would be easy and straightforward, but if that failed I knew that the problem facing me would be huge, for it meant going through the Christian names on the assumption that you had married, a conjecture that I initially had disregarded for various reasons. When going through the lists searching for these thirty-six names your name came up in file number twenty-four. As your last name is very unusual, one person in twenty-six thousand two hundred and eighty-one is called ‘Cushny,’ and hardly anyone else ‘Caitlin Jean’ I felt certain that it had to be you, but of course I had to confirm it. So I asked your neighbour, the farmer, if I might use the small grove behind your house to look for a rare bird, a Rosefinch. He gave me his permission and I spent two days with the telescope watching your house. The second morning I saw you turn round to close the door and using the telescope I saw you en face and had just enough presence of mind to stifle a shout of joy. When you drove away I hurried down to see the house and look for alarms along the fence and the gateway, but found none. However, at the back of the house you left the window open for the Cat. I opened it fully to crawl in and look around.”