It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  XXIV

  She woke him with a kiss that took his breath away – and launched him on the golden sunlight of the morning. Behind the shimmering halo of her chestnut hair pinpricks of semi-transparent dust danced in the air streams from the open windows. The Starling was praising his life here and now with a new variation of chirping – fluting and intermittent snarling – that endeared him to his mate and marked the extent of his dominions in the garden. The heat in her lips rekindled their communion of yestreen to suggest the vast potential that lay unfurled as a seedling in each instant – but she jumped out of the bed with a teasing smile for it was almost too easy and too tempting to continue – so a postponement would make her all the more desirable. Yawning he rose to follow her broadly rolling hips out into the sober bathroom where the service – the mummery and the rituals of the daily day began.

  “I’ll make tea while you shave.”

  “We can take the rest of the chicken, tomatoes, olives, a piece of Comté and two bottles of Chablis, a loaf of rye bread and butter; but remember a bread knife, a corkscrew, a knife and plenty of ice.”

  But she was already halfway down the stairs – intent upon the prospects of her aristeia – so what effect would it have on her buoyancy when she no longer would have any of her finest hours to look forward to? The meaning of life was spontaneously fostered by the struggle to survive – but if this sense of meaning was not assured by the presence of death or at least starvation waiting just around the corner philosophical uncertainties proliferated. No – he was doing her a grave injustice here by projecting his churlish presentiment out upon her complex art. Such a risk would be hypothetical because of her natural aseity – but could he continue to give her that sense of excitement she had found in her chosen vocation of redistributing the hoarded wealth? Fighting gave her some of the same excitement – so she might begin to miss her exercise of skill – energy and self-assertion – and if they should fight together it would invariably become a passion play. If she enjoyed it he would enjoy it even more and that would kindle her from top to toe – unless the daily wear and tear of uxoriousness made all such pleasures stale. However – it was the sense of danger – the uncertainty – the pitting of her wits – her craft – her art – against the world of the unknown that inspired her to dream and act. The Broads would be peaceful in that respect – but the jungle might suggest the presence of danger – at least until she understood that there hardly were any unless she deliberately chose to disregard all sensible precautions – and yet there would always be the sudden thunder of the heart when an unexpected encounter froze all movement. Twice a year for eight or ten weeks – depending on her mood. The excitement might last a couple of years and in the meantime she would be bound to change – but here was the rub! He loved her because she was game – because she had courage. He would have to see if she could sense a keener excitement in existential danger – so that she would feel bored by challenging social conventions and giving insurance companies lame excuses to boost their rackets. That should be possible – but again – what would happen later when she grew accustomed to his jungle lore? Nevertheless – when feeling the infrasound in the full-throated roar of a Tiger at close quarters – preferably a Tiger she could not see in the undergrowth or better still at night – she would get her fill of excitement – involuntary gooseflesh – a true sāttvikabhāvaḥ. Such an experience would stay alive in her memory as it suggested the ineffable – but the predilection for adrenalin and dopamine release would begin to diminish when the prospects of a family became paramount – but what would he do then with his own craving for adventure? Extrapolating from the present parameters would be a fallacy for he would change as well. On the other hand the thrill of danger might lose some of its edge if she became fascinated by the intricate connectivity of Nature – if that incurable and ever escalating curiosity – once it had taken hold in the mind – about the natural world – could be stimulated? Especially as there were no repetitions – only variations over a given pattern on the participatory stage. And yet – if she outgrew her joy of taking risks she might lose some of her mana as well and where would that leave him? Marooned in the doldrums – nevertheless it was only the day to-day that had any meaning. The future would be an abstraction far beyond his power of divination. So having shaved carefully and drenched his head in cold water he went downstairs to see her standing in her fluffy white housecoat and make tea with the light streaming in upon her from a blue infinity – quite as happy as the leaves outside were green. It was the exactness of this reality – the overwhelming precision of each single detail of interrelated form and colour that had the greatest spectrum of associations – the greatest ability to suggest the absolute – the soul – that which never could be painted or expressed – as Vermeer had shown with uncanny insight and unparalled skill for he had not seen that which is so much with his eyes as sensed it with his inner eye – tryambakaḥ.

  “Such a lovely morning, ideal for an excursion on the river! There’s toast on the table. Pour the tea in two minutes. I’ll have a quick bath.”

  Without waiting for his answer she ran upstairs and he sat down – with her footsteps ringing in his ears and the smell of her hair in his nostrils – to savour cherry marmalade and toast. If she had been willing to abandon her project it might have been best – but he had to accept her flourish – and he had of course to admit that such an endeavour had its own special kind of excitement and satisfaction. The stolen cherries of his childhood definitely tasted a little bit better than all other cherries combined – and she had a clear cool approach as befitted her profession – so there was no need to worry and yet he knew that he would be glad when it was all over and done with. As he sucked the last drops out of the leaves on the bottom of the cup she came cruising down towards him dressed in white shorts and a short red tee-shirt to show her shapely muscles – and the impact of her joi de vivre swept like a great wind from above the sky of his mind crystal clear.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, and while you have breakfast I’ll pack the car.”

  He could not do anything else but what he did. Amor fati et fatum amoris. In the basket – bread – tomatoes – corkscrew – glasses – water – knives – salt – pepper – napkins – and butter – cheese – milk – chicken – olives in the cooler plus two good bottles – and in the car – binoculars – tripod – telescope – chart – infrared binoculars – blanket – pillows – mattress – batteries and motor. He went back to get sou’westers and a tarpaulin for the mattress in case it should rain.

  “I think we’re ready.”

  Taking her by the hand he locked the door and they drove out from the shadows of the altruistic Chestnuts and into the brilliant sunshine of red-blooded activity.

  “Regardless of what we decide to do, it does not matter all that much, we can have a lovely day on the river.”

  “Yes, we do not have to be blinded by intentionality.”

  They parked at the landing and began carrying the gear down to the boat. By saying that she was ready to give it up for his sake it became impossible for him to do anything but insist on carrying it out – but a discussion of the matter would only result in an escalation of mutual assurances. She would give it up for his sake and he would insist on it for her sake. When he had fastened the motor to the stern and they had arranged the mattress she loosened the moorings and pushed the prow outwards. The interchange of reciprocal actions had not been in doubt and this ability to relate to each other without words prognosticated both sunshine and fertile showers – but it also suggested the nature of her seawomanship. He switched on the current to the motor and wondered why he had not bought one a long time ago for the interface of water and air reduced the electric sound to a faint humming and the notion of gliding silently down the river was almost eerie.

  “While I had breakfast I remembered that the cherries I stole as a boy definitely tasted better than all othe
r cherries combined.”

  Looking keenly at him for a little while as if to be certain she took his hand and scrutinised the trees on the brink – and as the black shadow of her subconscious doubt began to disintegrate in light she sighed with relief. He would have to leave it at this stage. A suggestion would be best. In case he overdid it she would begin to doubt again and all he wanted was that she should feel more radiant than the Summer morning.

  “Yes, I know.”

  They passed several other boats – white motor-sailers and colourful wherries – but the season was just beginning. In July it would be crowded. Luckily May and June were fairly quiet – still.

  “Do you think you would enjoy six or eight weeks in Taman Negara?”

  “Where is that? And when?”

  “October and November, Malaysia, the oldest tropical rainforest – a Dipterocarp – ”

  “There’s quite a number of wherries out to-day – ”

  “Yes, but did you see that?”

  She followed the direction of his finger.

  “A Bittern just took a step back into the reeds there to avoid us.”

  “No! I couldn’t even see that the sedges moved. Then we’ll need vaccinations in September?”

  There were considerably less trees here but extensive Reed beds and the gallery bushes growing on the brinks were slipping by at a speed of about four knots. The windmills gave the landscape a thrifty and bucolic air though that was blighted by the boating crowds. The Sun was now day-hot and they had been sailing for quite a while before they came to the confluence. Here the river became broader – maybe forty metres of glittering wavelets. They passed the ruined Abbey and pairs of Mute Swans and Mallards who were feeding on the vegetation in the muddy shallows.

  “Here we ought to take care on the way back. Going against the current – ”

  “Oh I can easily recognise it!”

  “Yes, now and when we’re coming back and it’s still light, but when it’s dark and especially if the Sky is overcast shapes and distances become deceptive.”

  “Of course, but the characteristics here are unmistakable, especially now though in November or December it would be far more difficult.”

  He nodded – pleased by her self-assurance – but under different circumstances it might have resulted in a fair fight. Roads bordered by stony houses – rivers lined by leafy trees. They watched the rural scenery pass by at such a speed that they could absorb and internalise all the details of colours and shadows. While they were aware of seeing different sights such as the reflection of a white cloud in the water – the shape of a Poplar on the brink – the sky-searching spire of a church in the distance – they heard the soft plop of a frog among the reeds – the trailing away of the trill of a Curlew over the meadows and smelled the fumes of exhaustion from a motor boat or a weedy note of the North Sea in the air simultaneously. The silence united them and expanded the present. They passed a small village stretched out along the lush brink to the south and the scattered houses suggested undisturbed traditional values as if the village had been an oasis the common mindless activity had failed to infest.

  “I love straw thatched houses, I really do.”

  “The straws give them such a natural air that they seem to have grown out of the humid soil.”

  “They are in harmony with the trees and the water that surround them. It’s that which makes them human; but what a strange mill this is! It looks more like a beacon.”

  “They must have a fine view from up there, as far as the eye can reach.”

  “ Towards the East. Are you thirsty?”

  “Yes. We can have lunch when we’ve investigated the premises.”

  “How awful! Look! It does not suit the place at all.”

  “The mindset of the people who frequent such gaudy coffin ships is unique in Europe and its name demeans the memory of Mark Twain, for he who wrote the story about the man who corrupted Hadleyburg would have abhorred such hypocritical kitsch.”

  Trying to digest the indigestible they sat in mutual silence hoping that new impressions would be able to obliterate the desacralisation – and little by little the scenery of trees and houses on the brinks began to slip by liberated from value judgments.

  “It’s a long way actually, but it does not feel like it.”

  “I thought it would take three hours or three hours and a half, but it will really take more than four hours. We should start at half past four to be there before it gets dark.”

  “No, at half past three, in time to activate the signal from the transmitter I have placed on her car as she crosses the bridge. She leaves her house at seven o’clock.”

  “There’s a little wood here at the bend where we can wait, and later we could seek shelter for a while in the inlet there, if it’s not too shallow, about half a kilometre – ”

  “There’s another low bridge.”

  “Yes, but have a look at the map again. Is it not higher than the bridge at Potter Heigham?”

  “Well, it is, it is.”

  “Then we do not have to dismantle the scaffold for the mosquito net.”

  “And there’s a railway bridge a little further on, but it’s much higher.”

  Clearing the town they reached a small wood and a little later an open stretch with flat farmland to the west. Pale green Wheat and Laburnum yellow Rape bordered by mossgreen trees.

  “We should ascertain the depth of the inlet here.”

  He shut off the current to the motor and lifted the shaft. The prow nuzzled into the creek and he went forward to paddle. After fifteen yards it became too shallow – Polenov – Abramtzevo – the still pond cradled in sunny greenery – the same warm touch of a sylvan idyll.

  “We can come back here and have lunch. The house is just half a kilometre further upstream.”

  Standing in the stern she began paddling and as he joined her they lifted the prow up over the mud and began drifting out into the river. He started the motor and when they approached what looked like the back garden of the house he lessened the speed to one and a half knot and kept as close to the eastern brink as he could.

  “There’s a fairly dense cluster of trees spreading all the way up to the house on the north side, on the south there is a thicket but it’s fairly open.”

  “What’s the distance from the brink?”

  “About eighty yards, and the fence is placed on the further side of the thicket about midway between the river and the house. On the north side the cover is good.”

  “The White Willows there! If we could get in under them the boat would be well hidden.”

  “Yes, but what about the scaffold and the net?”

  “We would have to take it down and fight the mosquitoes, but we could do that in the inlet.”

  “So only on our way back would we be exposed fully, unless we reassemble it of course.”

  “Did you notice the mooring facility just before we reached Horning?”

  “Yes, if we parked there around two we would have time to get back. I could jump off at the mooring, reach the house in five minutes, remove the transmitter on her car and rush back.”

  “It’s a fairly small place, so the car could attract the attention of a pair of electronic local eyes.”

  “Maybe. Then it would be better to stop at Wroxham. The parking lot there is larger and rather busy. It would take eight minutes either way plus five minutes if having to wait till someone should pass by. Twenty-one minutes. But parking there for the night might not be such a good idea either. Yes, of course! Why didn’t I think about that straightaway? I’ll just take the bicycle. There’s plenty of room for it here and with ten minutes each way I’ll be back in half an hour.”