It Takes a Thief

by Niels Hammer

  “I’ll brush it with the Fir branch, we can always make improvement later if necessary.”

  “If I hold the bag can you tip the loose earth into it?

  “There must be around eight or ten kilogrammes here. We’re ready, you have the torch, the walking stick and the tube?”

  She nodded and followed him out through the thicket. When they reached the glade he shook the loose earth off the trowel and wiped it in the grass before putting it back into his pocket.

  “Is there anyone on the path?”

  “No warm-blooded beings as far as I can see.”

  Kneeling down Caitlin drew the tube to and fro over the tall grass till nearly all the earth had been wiped off and when he had put it in under his coat they continued down to the ditch. Having crossed the bridge she crept down the brink and dropped the loose earth in the water but he gave her a hand when she climbed up over the dew-soaked grass on the slope.

  “Would it be worth while to go back later to see how well the hole has been camouflaged?”

  “Especially now when everything grows so quickly the traces of disruption will soon disappear.”

  “But as the place was shaded the grass was patchy and – ”

  “Listen! What was that?”

  “A frightened Water Vole.”

  “It’s easy to walk through the Brambles now. There’s a bird there in the reeds. I heard it move.”

  “Yes, a large bird, either a Heron or a Bittern. We’re close to the bridge now.”

  “What’s the risk of meeting anyone here at night?”

  “Very small, but not quite negligible. However, if it’s raining and if it’s cold one can be certain of being alone. The best time to come here and remain unobserved would be in October before the trees are stripped bare; but of course walking along such a path as this there will always be a risk, though it may be eliminated by frequent use of the infrared binoculars. That will give one time enough to slip into the shrubbery unobserved.”

  “It must be somewhere around here. Yes, a little further down, I can see it.”

  She removed the faintly glittering strip of plastic from the branch and put it into her pocket. They jumped the trench and worked their way – guided by the compass – in among the trees.

  “There’s the oak.”

  They crossed the small glade and Caitlin removed the plastic tape from the branch. Using the red light he dodged the low-hanging leaves and searched awhile –

  “In this silence it makes a considerable noise when we move through the undergrowth.”

  “Much more than a Fallow Deer, or even a Boar would make. All right, lets begin.”

  “Take the tape first.”

  Caitlin drove the tube down into the earth with single-minded attention and wriggling the tube loose she opened it to dislodge the earth on the plastic sheet. While he illuminated the hole with the red fire from the torch she placed the container at the bottom and put segment after segment of earth on top of it – the last one studded with two rusty nails.

  “Now it’s only the topsoil that’s missing. It fits neatly. Come a little closer with the light.”

  He swept the brown leaves evenly out over the place with the Fir branch and held the plastic bag open so that she could deposit the superfluous earth in it.

  “It’s tempting to use the bright light to see if everything looks fine, but a light in the dark can so easily be seen even from a distance and we are like most other animals incurably curious.”

  “Especially of a light seen in a wood at night. Use the red light, but take your time.”

  They withdrew cautiously and if there were traces of footprints he wiped them out with the Fir branch. Having crossed the glade they moved as quickly – while following the reading of the compass – as they could through the thicket till they reached the path.

  “Do you have the stick, the infrared binoculars and the six pieces of tape?”

  “Yes, and you have the trowel, the plastic bag, the branch and the tube.”

  “You told me about the woman from Praha, but what about your connection in Greek Road?”

  “That’s a different matter and not so easily handled. I will tell him, however, that I have reason to be suspicious and will have to take it easy at least for a while, maybe six month maybe a year, depending on what happens.”

  “But will he not resent that you deprive him of a source of income?”

  “He has sense enough to know that a diminished source of income would be preferable to the risk he would run if I should become exposed enough to make him traceable.”

  “Would he not be curious?”

  They had now reached the bridge and Caitlin crept down the brink to wash the tube with a tuft of grass. Shaking the water off she gave it back to him and he handed her the bag with the loose earth while a family of frightened Water Voles jumped down into the ditch further downstream.

  “We’ll place the tube in the shed. It’s used for planting crocus corms, lily bulbs, and it’s so long because then you don’t have to bend down. Of course he will be curious, but he will also prefer not to know. Then he does not have to remember what it is he has to forget.”

  “I am beginning to feel tired.”

  “Come on, I’ll drive you home and put you to bed.”

  He laughed and kissed her as they walked but she stopped him.

  “That’s better. You can only do one thing well at a time.”

  The peace beneath the trees here – the strings were sounding though they had not been touched and that which he was became for an instant a breath on the lips of the Summer Night – but they continued – neither slowly nor quickly – yet eager to return home to rinse the mulch off their hands and wash their minds clear with silence and serenity – though not so much to erase the recent memories – but rather to brush all activity aside so that they could meet one another again – naked and liberated from prior thoughts and impressions – in a pristine encounter.

  XXXI

  The afternoon – golden and mellow – with hardly any wind left in the air – the glowing fields – the hedges with swarms of mosquitoes and dragonflies – the scattered rows of trees with heat-drowsy leaves – the amply winding rivers of sweet sluggish water and the dark-glittering Broads bordered by thick beds of sedges – were suggested as composite images projected from past sense impressions – by the sounds – the light and the fragrance that came in through the open windows – but noise from cars and mechanical devices eroded a silence that could not have been grazed by the wind – the waves – the songs of warblers – the barking of Foxes or the laughter of children – only deepened. Barn Swallows – sparkling as nights and days against the haze of blue in the distance – flitted past the windows – twisting and turning in their broad-mouthed hunt for Hymenoptera. Barn Swallows and Killer Whales – acrobatics of a light and a dense ocean – aerodynamics and hydrodynamics – undertakers of flies and mosquitoes – of seals and of fish.

  They would have been asleep at least since nine and he felt fresh after the adventure of the morning. The Kingfisher – a flash of azure and dawn-light – the dagger of death pointing downwards – and then the flashing scales of the flapping fish in his or her bill a second later – had epitomised the mother-naked beauty of life and death in unison – but Caitlin had also seen the Bittern walk on tip-toe through the mud as if afraid of getting wet feet and heard the bottle-boom reverberate through out the misty twilight. His enthusiasm had hardly inspired her for she had the ability – on which everything else depended – to see – sense and hear that which was. He had just shewn her what life was where life was lived fully in the all-encompassing present – in the here and now in which all non-human animals intuitively lived and which all religious systems endeavoured to make their adherents reach – the truth or the reality within the Gates of Eden – or indeed the tathāgata-state of b
eing alive in the suchness of the present moment. If the Daimōn of the forest – Araṇyāni – the wetland and the jungle could remain her chosen mirror – if she could continue on her Way – fulfil her pilgrimage – a pilgrimage that would never end – she would not now miss her acquired habits very much – for when she had held her breath as they lay hidden beneath the low branches of the old White Willow at the confluence – and the clamour of the Cranes had become louder and louder till they passed them at tree-top height to disappear in the horizon as the Sun rose – the pressure of her fingers had told him that the shadow of their broad wings and their yearning clarion calls had deepened her gratitude for being alive. He felt grateful to Nature for the epiphany and to her for being open-minded enough to accept the experience of that which was for what it was and nothing more – but then he knew that she was wide awake and looking at him.

  “Are you thinking about me?”

  “When you heard the Cranes and saw them just above us I sensed your wonder at being alive – ”

  “But that’s also, is it not, why you – ?”

  “Yes, but there may be no ultimate cause, at least none as far as I can see, for I cannot imagine that you could be different from what you are, a given, like space and time, a – ”

  “Am I supernatural?”

  As on that day too. Her laughter came bubbling out between her lips as she kissed him.

  “Of course you are supernatural, a real woman, a revelation, a poor frail mortal, a wilful fury, a fiery Vixen, a honey Elf, a sagacious goodwife, a keen scientist – a careful – ”

  “I see that I have quite a lot to live up to.”

  “But you don’t have to try; it’s merely my feeble attempts to try to circumscribe that which is uncircumscribable by playing with a few inadequate comparisons and epithets.”

  But what was not uncircumscribable?

  “It all comes naturally?”

  “If it didn’t it wouldn’t be real.”

  “You do know how to make me feel good in more ways than one or two, and keen to trust you.”

  Both aspects were present in equal degree – the plain denotation and the bitter-sweet irony of the connotations – so he took her in his arms fully aware of how his projections tended to enhance or further the development of certain characteristics – and that that was the exact opposite of detachment – non-interference or Stoicism as castigated subconsciously or rather malgré lui in the speeches of Brutus – for that was a kind of indifference – a standing apart as a Kantian voyeur – the least attractive of the three alternatives growing in the same hedgerow. On the contrary – his acts and desires implied willed interference – responsibility for the common future and involvement in and with another living being – the opposite of tāṭasthyam – aloofness – a possibility her very existence precluded. Embracing life – embracing death.

  “When is it we have to be there, at this dinner to-night?”

  “Around seven, but it’s only ten minutes away from here. We’ll call a cab.”

  “Do I have to dress?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “Well, I do!”

  “Then I’ll dress as well to match you.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No, of course not, but it was a relief to finish the practical details last night so that we had time to go out early; however, it suddenly struck me that you may have other liabilities beside the woman in Praha and ‘the man in Greek Road,’ so do you still have some small secrets left?”

  “No, hardly any secrets, just a few things I haven’t told you yet just as there must be quite a few things you haven’t told me either. But what are we going to say to night? There’ll certainly be someone who will want to know how we met so we had better stick to the same fairy tale. I applied for membership in the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds yesterday, so wouldn’t it be best just to repeat what we said to Barbara that we met at the bird hide beside the Broad?”

  “A month ago, and then when I returned from Scotland, about two weeks ago, when we saw each other as if for the first time.”

  “Love at first sight, a month ago at the hide on the other side and then a fortnight ago at the same place. But what about your secrets?”

  “You must tell me a secret first.”

  He had – against his best conclusions – postponed telling her about his encounters with Sally in any detail because of the potential complications it might foster for both their encounters had taken place after he had met Catlin and could on that account be understood as breaches of faith – so it left his integrity in doubt as he had insisted that he had fallen in love with her instantly – but he would have to stay naked – avoid explanations and dispel her annoyance if necessary.

  “I have already told you that I had a brief encounter with Sally, whom I have known for several years, just after we met, and then again when I returned from Scotland.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Sweet, honest and thoughtful. She knows her own mind, and she knows what she wants. She’s married to Gilbert. His paintings are abstract expressions of his perspectives, but he has a sound sense of humour.”

  “Is she in love with you?”

  The hostility was well camouflaged with curiosity – apprehension and guarded scepticism.

  “No, she likes me, but she’s not in love with me.”

  “Will she be angry or disappointed?”

  “No, rather intrigued and curious, but also pleased if she thinks we match.”

  “She wishes you well?”

  “Yes, and she still likes Gilbert, but not as much as she used to do. He’s charming, but also in the long run slightly shallow, and that is reflected in his paintings. But he’s in fact much better than his paintings, for his paintings are primarily the result of his artistic convictions while he is more the result of his innate character. That’s why they’re still married.”

  “I have told you about Iain, and I have sent him another long letter, but I have of course had no answer yet, but as he does not really love me to distraction he will merely feel that I have let him down very badly; but he also knows that the same thing could have happened to him. Apart from that there’s only one thing I have not told you about, and that’s of minor importance. If the jewels were really good I went to Antwerpen or Amsterdam to sell them. By leaving very early in the morning I could be back around midnight. And I always took great care to be well dressed. A really well-dressed woman who knows what she’s selling is treated with respect and only a couple of times did I have to come back to the same place, and then only after more than one and a half year. And I even sometimes sold standard jewellery here in London. I sold it as my own in a jeweller’s shop just off Marble Arch, and always got a good price. It might be a good idea to give some of it to him later, in October or November, if need be.”

  “How much less than the real value do you get?”

  “With care and diligence I get from fifty to seventy percent, sometimes less if the piece is difficult to sell. Did you notice the watch lying by itself in the cupboard? A watch is numbered. I think it was a Patek Philippe, it would have been her husband’s, worth probably ten to fifteen thousand Pounds, but I did not even bother to look at it.”

  “I cannot but recoil from any display of wealth as it only advertises an ostentatious or even a common attitude.”

  “Jewels used judiciously and with taste may enhance a woman’s natural beauty and in this case they will fulfil a natural function, but too opulent a display of jewels will divert the attention from the woman to the jewels and in that case they will act as a contrast by being beautiful vis-à-vis her face which then will seem to be lacking in beauty. But very few people share your other-worldly or even saintly disposition. Wealth is of course used to signify success and status and people normally feel that it enhances the image they have of themsel
ves; it gives a fine polish to the faÇade they want to display to the world. You know, vilia miretur vulgus – ”

  “Oh yes, but tibi flavus apollo pocula castalia plena ministret aqua.”

  Laughter was the saving grace. She knew – she knew that water was best – ἄριστον μὲν ὕδωρ –

  “That’s why you – ”

  “And you as well. Such things have always disgusted me. I’m quite ascetic by nature.”

  “Partially ascetic, you mean, for in many ways you’re certainly quite the opposite, hedonistic; but hadn’t we better get a cup of tea and something to eat.”

  “I would rather lie here, like this, and look into your eyes, like this, than do anything else. Here is my space.”

  “But sooner or later at least I would get hungry, and the cat! I’ve completely forgotten all about the cat, I must give him something to eat right away.”

  Pushing him aside she rose and began dressing.

  “I’ll be back in three quarters of an hour. You can wash and shave and make tea. So come on!”

  She pulled him out of the bed and ran downstairs. It would probably be so late that the morning would be ruined – unless they drove down to the landing directly after the party? He dressed to guard himself against the neighbours and placed everything in the car again. Eight sandwiches would be enough. Cheese and chicken and tomatoes. They could make tea while they changed clothes. So he should not drink too much but Caitlin could drive – and as he shaved he heard her quick steps – energy and sprightliness attuned – coming up the stairs.

  “He was starving. I had simply forgotten him because of you.”

  “I am not aware of having tried to distract you or to starve him.”

  “No, of course not. You look just like Saint Nicholas.”

  “Hagios Nikolaos! I am now his foamy mirror image for he is the patron saint of thieves and highway robbers, and an avatāraḥ kenspeckle as Hermēs.”

  “So it’s no coincidence at all?”