Can the Gods Cry?

by Allan Cameron

  “Dear Mr. Kronovich,” Bill started to sweat, “you have come here uninvited and, although I don’t deny the debt I owe you, I object to the manner in which you have unsettled my life. A life, I might say, that I had to construct anew on my release from prison. In fact, I would say that I am now a completely different man, and while I might apologise for my former self, I need to protect my new self from any danger.”

  “My dear Bill Havelock,” the man smirked more darkly, “am I a threat to you? Of course not. I am your friend and benefactor, as you yourself have admitted. The only danger to you is this terrible desire to have an explanation. This is the affliction of the modern age. Why be so restless? You now have everything, just as you were musing to yourself a moment ago.”

  “Good God,” cried Bill, “you even know my thoughts. How dare you! I demand an explanation. I have a right. My privacy has been violated. We all have a right to the privacy of our own thoughts – to privacy more generally. It is the foundation on which our civilisation has been built.”

  “If I were one of those beings you have taken me for, then you would be the one without a right to make demands, but I am not,” the man clarified with an elegant gesture of his hand. “So what I will do is this: if you can be bothered to climb the highest mountain in Wales, you will find a stone and under that stone there’ll be a piece of paper which shall declare exactly who I am. I strongly advise you against undertaking this quest, but I see that you are quite determined. There is little I can do to stop you, though it pains me greatly. Top of the highest mountain in Wales, remember.”

  The man stood up and politely took his leave. He was of slight build, very much like Bill now that Bill had given up his fixation with body-building. The man’s departure left Bill in a state of agitation. He had to know, but how long would it take him to climb Snowdon? Not long, and then he would surely know the key to the universe. A few days and he would know the identity of that magical man – in his opinion, most probably some messenger from God. At the end of their conversation, the man’s smile had become slightly demonic however; or was that just his imagination? In these matters it is impossible to say.

  Bill set off on his quest to discover the identity of the strange man who had so influenced his life – who uninvited had caused tumult once more in his mind. Those who set off in search of fundamental truths no longer travel on steeds or wander the byways on foot; they take the motorway and Bill took it in his BMW saloon. The car purred all the way, and it seemed a pity that the road did not run over the top of the mountain. He was met by a slight drizzle, but he was well kitted out with all the required outdoor gear. Of course, he was no longer as fit as he had been in his youth, but he managed to reach the summit without collapsing from exhaustion. There he found a large stone, which, once lifted, revealed a piece of paper, barely damp from the rain. Its contents came as a disappointment:

  My dear Bill,

  On reflection, I think it would be better for you if I placed a few more obstacles between you and the information you seek. You will have to climb three more peaks. Go to the highest mountain in Scotland and there you will find another note.

  Believe me, our fates are inextricably linked and I would never do anything to harm you. I strongly advise you to desist from your pursuance of knowledge that can do you no good. By the way, the view from Ben Nevis over Loch Linnhe is quite stunning.

  Yours forever.

  Bill took the news badly. He had a busy life and now he was being asked to put it on hold to seek out information which, if not a key to the universe, was at the very least a key to understanding his own existence. It was an unhappy man who drove home along the M4, and that mood wasn’t brightened by the fact that his reliable BMW broke down and he had to be towed to the nearest garage. On arriving home, he argued with his wife. She didn’t have the right coffee for breakfast the next day, and when he finally calmed down and got round to drinking the inferior brand, the liquid spilt down his best suit. The children had broken one of the panes on his greenhouse, and having to listen to the eldest’s favourite band suddenly became an unbearable imposition. While he prepared for his trip to Scotland, he started to study the paranormal. Great piles of books were ordered on line, and he passed hours in his office poring over them – without obtaining any illuminations. His experience appeared unique and his life some kind of aberration. Why had it been inflicted on him? Was it a curse or an election? The more obsessed he became about the identity of the old man and his various manifestations, the more he obsessed about himself and his place in the world. He was special, and his family could not appreciate his uniqueness.

  Eventually he set off on the next stage of his quest. The BMW purred again and the omens seemed good, but when he approached Fort William the weather changed, and wind and rain reduced the visibility. Muffled up in the best of modern climbing clothes, he set off for the summit once more. The journey was long and wild. Modern climbing clothes are good but little match for the worst of Scottish weather on the hills. Trickles of damp found their way down the back of his neck and the cold started to enter his bones. Halfway up his strength abandoned him and he sought shelter by some rocks. While he huddled up to them in his misery, he heard a cough and turned. It was, he thought, the man whose identity he was seeking out, but this time he looked haggard: no longer his urbane self but rather a middle-aged man worn out by his travails.

  “Is it really worth all this pain?” the man asked.

  “It’s you.”

  “I feel for your suffering, and have come once more to persuade to desist from this madness. What can you possibly want to gain?”

  “Now I know you really are some demonic spirit. I’m sure of it.”

  “Then desist! If you’re so certain of who I am,” he urged grimly.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Bill agreed.

  “On the other hand, you are already halfway up – perhaps two-thirds,” the man smiled wanly.

  “No, I think you’re right. I should have followed your advice from the beginning. It was given in a spirit of generosity, and I have been arrogantly ignoring it.”

  “True, but I have been an important influence in your life, and you shouldn’t turn your back on this quest without thinking it through very carefully. Curiosity is the trait that distinguishes humanity from dumb animals, but it always comes with a price – only the pusillanimous ignore its siren call. Life is about discovery, and better the discomfort of knowledge than the vegetal comfort of ignorance. Live, whatever the cost. You have come this far,” he argued in a smooth and persuasive voice.

  “You’re right,” said Bill, and he started off into the rain and wind with the determination of a polar explorer. The truth must be uncovered whatever the cost. The truth he eventually uncovered was this disappointing letter:

  Dear Mr. Havelock,

  You are a man of great fortitude, but I doubt you have the fortitude to undertake the next test: I ask you to go to the summit of the highest mountain in France and find the note I leave you there. Your frustrated friend.

  During his drive home, Bill fell asleep and crashed his BMW into a roadside barrier. The car was a write-off. He continued his journey by train. In a miserable mood he staggered home. His wife was distraught to hear of the car. His eldest had dyed his hair pink, which provoked a paroxysm of rage in Bill, but his wife defended the child. Boys do these things now, she cried, and he felt the family were closing off to him. Good riddance. Hadn’t he provided them with everything they had? Well, not quite. His wife had a good job too. He sulked in his study and read his books on the paranormal. They still made no sense. Only cranks write such things.

  He returned to the gym. This time the aim was not to look like an oversized plastic toy from the eighties, but to train for endurance. He walked for miles and learnt to climb. He started to look at himself in the mirror again, but now his narcissism was not aimless. He knew that his life was a finite thing, and he could make it significant by discovering the identity of that
chameleon spirit who haunted his existence. Was this all a punishment for a single act of wanton cruelty? Perhaps, but he could turn his suffering to his advantage. No one could now hold him back from the achievement that would forever be associated with his life. He would be remembered for having revealed the malign spirits that populate our dreams and their physical manifestations. He would be famous and respected, not simply rich and comfortable. The spirit had been right: no courageous soul could fail to be driven by its innate curiosity. This is what it means to be human.

  The next expedition took two years to prepare. He planned it very carefully, so that no accident would prevent him from achieving his fated purpose. For most of the climb, the going was very easy, but two hundred yards from the peak a sudden squall of snow obscured all vision and he struggled up the final stretch on his hands and knees. On reaching what he thought to be the summit, he could not find any written message. He crawled around in circles for about half an hour and then he saw a seated figure in front of him. “Where’s the bloody note?” he shouted.

  The grey silhouette against a white background of swirling snow replied in a deep and terrifying voice, “Why are you crawling on the ground, Bill Havelock? Are you overwhelmed by the elements? If you are, then you should not be here. Those who seek the truth should not be fearful; they should be immune to all feelings and all sensations.”

  Bill stared at his persecutor: “I am looking for your note.”

  “There is no note this time. I will give you your next task,” said the seated figure, whose eyes suddenly flashed red light that pierced the grey.

  “Now I know you are a demonic force,” Bill uttered in a broken voice. “Why do you torment me?”

  “You torment yourself with your quests and ambitions, and then you blame me. Return to your family and forget me.”

  “I can’t. You know that, spirit; that is why you urge me to do what I cannot do?” Bill shouted against the wind. “The devil you are, and who knows where you’ll take me? But I no longer care.”

  “I am no devil,” the spirit replied. “I am the one who makes people obsess with themselves and their existences. I am the one that so convinces them of their own importance that they live out their existences in terror – never able to accept their lives as a leaf allows itself to be blown in the wind. Climb to the top of the highest mountain in the world and I promise to reveal myself to you.”

  “Spirit, why do you torture me? Reveal your secret now. I can climb no more mountains, and the cold has entered my soul. I now believe in nothing except death, and would embrace it happily.”

  “Come then,” said the spirit, “and drink some of my brandy. It will warm you and give you courage.”

  Bill approached the grey figure, and as he did so the shape took on a clearer form. He could now make out the face and it frightened him. It was skeletal – barely covered with the thinnest possible layer of flesh and skin. What teeth there were, were black and pointed – worn by an enormity of years. The old man – the ancient man – cackled and grinned as he poured brandy into a brandy balloon with a slightly tremulous hand. “Drink it all up, my friend. This will open the way to greater understanding and the solace you crave. Life is not bad, if you know how to live it, and you don’t.”

  Such promises from such a man or spirit should not be relied upon. As Bill drank the liquid his head started to spin and the ancient man took off in a vortex complete with the throne on which he sat. As he went, he laughed loudly and roared, “Beware, Bill Havelock, beware of all you have: your ambitions, your thirst for knowledge – such a fragile thing – and all your property. I can have it off you at any time, and all those things will drag you down to hell – to hell on this earth, so you will beg for death as you did just now.”

  A helicopter took Bill’s body off the mountain, and the doctors were convinced he could not live. But he did, though something died. It was a maddened stare that glinted from whatever consciousness survived in Bill’s head. It could hold a stranger and chill a friend’s blood. Within six months of his return, his wife and children fled, and he would never see them again. Who knows if this saddened him or even registered in his febrile brain? He set about organising the fourth and final climb towards the skies. This one would be expensive and much had to be done. He worked late into the night on the project and studied the religions and philosophies of the world in the hope of understanding all the calamitous events of his life, but nothing brought easement to his soul.

  At the bank he was feared and detested, but his brilliance was undiminished. He had no joy in what he did, as though his nerves had been severed. He saw the world but it did not affect him.

  Ten years passed and he aged. His was now a dry and brittle athleticism, but he did not for a moment give up his intentions. The day arrived and he was at base camp with a crowd of hired Sherpas – sulky and badly paid, but too fearful of the man with the maddened stare to rebel. He barked his orders, but it was not anger but a lack of all feeling that drove him on.

  They started off and as they went, the Sherpas fell away, in part as had been planned and in part because they sensed that his soul had been sold to the devil who could drag them down even as they climbed. Bill quickened his pace as his goal came ever closer and spoke less and less. Finally, there were just three of them: the madman and his two remaining Sherpa servants. The sun was shining on the peak, and Bill knew that this was where he would finally come to know the truth. Then, as they struggled up the last stretch with their oxygen masks, a tendon snapped in his right ankle. Immune to pain, he wriggled on the ground. “Carry me up,” he screamed.

  “It is too far,” they replied.

  “Too far. Nowhere is too far. I would go to hell and back. Lift me up and carry me.”

  “No sahib, it is too far. We cannot help,” they persisted.

  “This will strengthen your will,” he took out an enormous wad of five-hundred euro notes. Their eyes brightened with desire as they reckoned up the houses that could be built and the cars that could be bought. Greed sinewed their resolve, although they never thought to steal the cash; he held them with that maddened eye. They lifted him up and hope of wealth lightened their load. They struggled up and never spoke. Life can produce brief moments that silence even the most garrulous tongues. At times they had to slide him up the icy slope like some piece of baggage, but he never complained. The Sherpas worked tirelessly and some small part of their brains was counting joyfully the wad of euros ready to be spent. At last they got there and there it was. A round stone was resting on a single sheet of paper, white and flapping in the gentle breeze.

  Bill crawled towards it, grabbed it and then pulled himself upright against a rock. After so much effort, he intended to read it with the dignity of a man who is not crawling on the ground. He looked at it and then started to laugh. After all that, he thought. Each of his eyes produced a tear, and they ran in unison down his pitted face.

  “I told you so,” a voice declared. “I told you that the truth disappoints while seeking the truth can stimulate. I told you to let go and live, but you would not listen.”

  “Listen…” he replied and laughed an aimless laugh.

  The Sherpas rummaged in his jacket, took the wad he’d promised them and fled, leaving him to commune with the empty air. The man who had been distracted by wanting to be the strongest, the best and finally the most knowledgeable man, now knew that he had simply needed to be a man and care for other men and women.

  “Show yourself, you spirit of hell,” he cried.

  “Hell is in your head,” the spirit appeared before him in the guise of the man who had once sat in his office. “Read out those words you have come so far to read. Hear their hollowness and weep some more.”

  Bill twisted his face in anguish and read, “I AM YOUR SELF, YOUR TYRANNICAL SELF!”

  And then, as though he’d recited some magic spell, a crowd of all his past selves appeared: his various childhood selves, his body-building self, his prisoner self,
his selves as he evolved through his banking career, his self returned from Mont Blanc, his more recent wizened selves. The crowd of clones began to sing “Sympathy for the Devil”, first with the normal manner of “rhythm-and-blues” and then increasingly in an unintelligible wail as they started to spin around the anguished soul. Suddenly they stopped and, in the same instant, disappeared. Bill’s lifeless body fell to the frozen ground.

  The Essayist

  I met murder on the way –

  He had a mask like Castlereagh –

  Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

  Seven blood-hounds followed him:

  “The Mask of Anarchy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley who was “dimwitted” enough to be outraged on hearing of the Peterloo Massacre, and then started to bite the hand that fed him.

  Let me take time out from these short stories to speak as the author in an imagined dialogue with Wolfe Henry, a critic, essayist, television personality, celebrity intellectual and autobiographer extraordinaire. As I live on a remote island where conversation is hard to come by, because there are too few people and too many televisions, I am known to engage in the odd imagined dialogue. Often my interlocutor is one of the weekend newspapers; I raise my voice and they end up hiding somewhere on the floor, where sometimes they sulk for weeks.

  One Saturday, I read a long review of Wolfe Henry’s latest collection of essays, The Revolting Cubiculum. Life is tedious, the reviewer said, and every week great mounds of dross no one should have even thought of publishing are heaped onto his desk, but just occasionally a little gem will slip out of a jiffy bag – and that gem is a work by Wolfe Henry. The encomium was fulsome and concerned both the man and his work, but although long, it was so busy doing what encomia do that it said very little about either except that they are superlative. In fact the article said only two things of substance: that Henry likes provoking the Left, and that Henry hates to come across a hanging participle, a grammatical error that the reviewer does not understand but still finds fascinating. In truth, Henry is a much more amusing and genial Henry Higgins than the original.