The Adjacent

by Christopher Priest

  I halted. I backed away.

  I stood by the edge of the café area, staring across. Who was she? She was young – I guessed she was still in her teens. She was barely out of childhood, on the brink of womanhood. A student at the university? She had come across the square from that direction. She was glowing with youth: she had a slim, agile body, long delicate hands, her fair hair was drawn back in a pony-tail. She was wearing tight white jeans and a loose jacket. Sunglasses were propped up on her brow. As she sat with Tomak, she crossed and uncrossed her legs, spoke vivaciously, made him laugh. She rarely looked away from him. He was her first love, the one she would remember just as I was remembering, for the rest of her life, for the rest of mine.

  The waiter brought her a soft drink with ice, which she sipped, staring at Tomak across the rim of the glass. He was telling her something, waving his hands expressively. I knew that gesture. I knew all his mannerisms.

  She was too old to be his daughter – or he was too young to have a daughter of that age. But could they be lovers? She looked as if she was at least seven or eight years younger than him. They were acting together as if they knew each other well, were close or intimate friends, but once she had sat down opposite him he let go of her hand and seemed to be content just to chat casually with her. They were both smiling a lot and the girl was leaning towards him with her elbows on the table, holding her drink in both hands.

  I was incapable of moving away. I stood there at the edge of the square, where the paths crossed the grassy parkland and the tables belonging to the restaurants and cafés spread out across their allotted areas. I knew that I was probably making myself prominent by standing so still, staring so obviously across the café concourse, but I felt paralysed by the discovery of this young friend of his.

  Tomak sometimes glanced around expressively while he spoke to her, and once or twice his gaze came in my direction. He must have noticed me there, yet somehow he still did not recognize me.

  They left the table, scraping back their chairs, then straightening them before they walked away. He let her go first. They walked past me, as close to me as Tomak had been when he left the café the day before. Once they were in the open he walked beside her, his arms swinging at his side. They did not touch each other.

  I let them get a long way ahead of me, then I followed. I maintained the distance, but because they were walking slowly, sauntering, wrapped up in each other’s company, I was soon catching up with them. I went more slowly. I dawdled behind them for a long time, certain they must realize they were being followed, but they were preoccupied with each other. I was confused, anguished, but also full of a kind of awkward happiness.

  I knew I should turn away, walk home, leave these carefree and infatuated young people to each other, but it was just not possible. My rationale for being here on this island was Tomak, and in some mystifying, unsatisfactory but undeniable way, I had at last found him. Walking away was not a decision I felt I could take.

  They walked slowly past the shopping area of the town then entered a narrow street, a place of deep shade created by the tall houses on each side. He led her to the door of an old building, where there had once been a restaurant at street level, with several storeys above. The windows were all bricked up. Tomak unlocked the door and she went in before him. He followed, slammed the door and I heard the lock turn.

  I hurried home, collected my car, and when the couple emerged from that secretive-looking building some two hours later I was parked unobtrusively at the far end of the street.

  By keeping them at a distance, driving deviously, watching, following, I eventually discovered where Tomak lived.

  22

  What then followed was a sequence of events which I am not proud of, and was not proud of at the time, but such were my intense feelings about Tomak that I could hardly have acted otherwise. Every spare moment I had I devoted to trying to solve the deeply personal mystery that this man presented. I had to come to some kind of understanding of the turbulent feelings he aroused, and the enigma that surrounded him.

  I soon learned his regular movements about the town: there were certain bars or restaurants he favoured, houses or apartments he sometimes visited. He walked everywhere, having no car or other vehicle. Once I saw him being driven again by the friend who owned the small grey car I had seen outside the theatre.

  I followed him whenever he went to meet his young companion. He saw her once or twice every week, always in the café in the square by the university, and after a relaxed conversation they would walk to the large old building and lock themselves inside. I had to wait for them to emerge, fighting down my feelings of sadness and jealousy. I envied what appeared to me to be their unworried life together.

  In the evenings, when he appeared never to meet her, I regularly went to watch the entrance to his apartment from the darkened streets outside the building.

  On one evening of intense humidity, in a wave of hot air flooding across the town from the simmering interior of the island, I took up what I believed was a secure position close to his apartment. Thunder rumbled out at sea. I was in a shadowed place from which one window was visible, often uncurtained at night. I could also see the main door to the apartment block. I could observe when he left or arrived. The lighted window did not give on to a room – it was a hall or passageway of some kind. I rarely saw him there, except when he moved to and fro between the rooms, but it was enough of a view to prove to me, more or less beyond doubt, that he never took his young girlfriend to the apartment. But I was more obsessively interested in the man who had been Tomak than in the girl.

  I was aware of the torpid stillness of the town. The oppressive weather was bearing down on the houses, keeping people inside. The storm seemed to be approaching no closer to the shore. Sometimes I saw lightning flickering far off to the east. Traffic moved in the distance but there were no cars in the streets around me. The normal noises of the city seemed hushed, muted. The birds were still. Leaves rustled above me as the hot, slow wind blew. I heard insects stridulating in the trees and bushes. Wherever my bare arms touched the side of my body, I felt the burning of inescapable heat. The town was waiting for the storm to break, relishing the prospect of a cleansing downpour.

  ‘Who are you, and why the hell are you following me?’

  He was there without warning. He must have left the apartment block by another door, approached through the gardens or yards at the back of the buildings. He had emerged from a gated entrance close to where I always stood.

  I was shocked into silence. Embarrassed by being caught. Frightened of what he might do. But above all electrically aware of his closeness to me.

  ‘You’re stalking me. Why?’ His voice was raised, angry.

  I stumbled back, away from him, but there was an ornamental shrub behind me, bulging out into the street, above the containing wall. I normally depended on its foliage to conceal me as I waited but now it was blocking my escape.

  A light came on, dazzling me. He was holding a battery torch, shining the beam into my face.

  ‘Let me have a look at you!’

  I said at last, but feebly, ‘Tomak? It is you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Has someone sent you? Is it blackmail? Is that what it is?’

  At last I was hearing him speak. Although he was angry his voice was the same as I remembered it, but now he was speaking in the Prachoit demotic, the popular language of people who were born on the island. I understood demotic but found it difficult to speak, unless I had time to think ahead about what I wanted to say.

  Now I just said, ‘Tomak! Please! Don’t you remember me?’

  ‘You look harmless enough. Why are you following me? Is it Ruddebet’s father? Has he put you up to this? Is he paying you? What are you trying to find out about us?’

  ‘I can’t see you with that light in my eyes!’ I cried. I was dazzled by the flashlight beam – he was just a dark shape. ‘I’ve been searching for you, Tomak. I heard you had been injured, suffered te
rrible burns. I came to find you. You must remember what we promised each other.’

  ‘What you’re doing is illegal. You probably think I’m not aware of you, but you’ve been following me all over town. Ruddebet too. What are you up to? She’s just an innocent girl. It’s a crime – you know that? Stalking is dealt with by populace vengeance. Do you want me to call my neighbours?’

  ‘Please listen to me. My name was Kirstenya when we were together. I’ve had to change it since I’ve been living here, but I was Kirstenya. Don’t you remember? Kirstenya Rosscky. We were brought up as brother and sister, but when we grew up we fell in love with each other. War was breaking out around us, and I flew back home to find you. I did find you, close to where we lived. You were with a squad of your troops, trying to rescue people trapped in their houses, and dealing with the fires. Shells were landing everywhere. There were awful explosions and aircraft were above us. Dive bombers! Don’t you remember those terrifying bombers, Tomak? It was as if the whole city was on fire. I wanted you to escape with me, but you advised me to flee while I could, while I still had an aircraft. You told me there was a plan for the army and air force to regroup. You told me to go there, to a city a long way south of the invasion.’

  ‘What’s your name? I’m going to report you.’

  ‘I flew to the other city, but although I waited as long as I could you never arrived. I had to move on, keep moving. I left messages for you everywhere I landed, because I was told I had to escape. I’m a qualified pilot – you knew that. They needed me, the generals in charge. It doesn’t matter how, but I got away. Then when I was safe, weeks later, I heard that the enemy had rounded up most of our army officers and they were taken to an isolated place, a forest somewhere, or an uninhabited island, and then massacred. I was terrified you were among them.’

  ‘I’ll give you one last chance. If you promise to stop doing this I won’t report you to the policier.’

  ‘I just wanted to see you again. Don’t you remember me?’ I shouted the last words, losing control. ‘When we were children, then later as we grew up. The flying! You must remember that? Your father was a flying ace. We went together to races and festivals.’

  ‘Keep away from me. You understand? And if you see Ruddebet’s father, tell him to mind his own business too.’

  ‘Don’t do anything, Tomak – please! I’m sorry. I meant no harm.’

  He still had not touched me, and he kept his distance from me. He switched off the torch at last.

  ‘How do you know my name?’ His voice was suddenly much quieter, less hostile.

  Now I could see his face, half-lit by a street-lamp somewhere behind me. It was Tomak, it was not him. The physical resemblance was astonishing.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this. I won’t do it ever again.’

  I began to retreat from him, pushing around the ornamental shrub, but I was scared of turning my back on him. Thunder cracked suddenly, much louder and more frightening than before. It was like a physical blow. Tomak had become a stranger. He could not be the man I was hoping to find. Yet the dilemma remained, head and heart, heart against head. It must be him! Everything about this man was strange, threatening, but the threat came from my own foolish actions, not from him. Tomak was always gentle with me.

  I was overcome with a sorrowful guilt, a realization of what I had done, seeing myself as he must be seeing me.

  Something lay between us. It was intangible, inexplicable: we seemed to be shouting to each other across a divide. It was as if we were in sight, physically close, adjacent to each other but separated by misunderstandings, different lives, different memories. How could Tomak have forgotten me? That was impossible. Who was this man, if not my lover?

  He was making no effort to detain me, so in a rush of rising shame I turned away from him and began to run, hurrying away from him down the dimly lit pathway. I looked back once – he was standing where we had been, a tall figure in the dark. I was so sorry, so overcome with guilt.

  I went down the road, took a side turning, ran down that, then another. A terrible flash of sheet lightning, flickering blue-white four or five times, lit the road and the houses around me. I was alone in the night, running and stumbling, frightened of the dark, frightened now of the ferocity of the storm. Thunder again thudded deafeningly above me. I finally came to the main road and from there was able to work my way back through the silent streets to find the place where I had left my car. The rain broke about me as I arrived there, but I wrenched the door open, scrambled inside. My dress was already soaked through, my arms and legs were wetly glistening. I sat in the car for several minutes before I felt able to drive. I was trembling and shivering, and alone in a violent storm. Hard rain fell, swamping visibility and drumming like huge beating hands on the roof of the car. Cascades of floodwater poured down the street outside. I was terrified the car would be washed away. I started the engine, moved the car to the centre of the road where the flood was not pouring so deeply. I felt the welcome relief of the breaking weather after weeks of torrid heat, but my inner life was as suffocated and undecided as ever before. I knew I had lost everything, that my quest had ended. I had made the search for Tomak central to my life but now I had to put that behind me.

  Eventually, I put the car in gear and drove slowly back to my house. The roads were littered with fallen leaves and branches, rain continued to fall, the streets were awash. The storm moved on as I drove up the hill to my house, the thunder rumbling away in the distance. I parked the car, then walked through my garden to the house. I felt the blessed relief of the rain-washed air, the temporary cool of the dripping trees and the puddled earth.

  23

  The next day I changed my car in case Tomak recognized the old one. I began to wear different clothes, I made superficial changes to my appearance: I arranged my hair differently, wore dark glasses, tied scarves around my neck. I felt ridiculous, and constantly in danger of him carrying out his threat to report me, but in spite of what happened during the night of the storm I could not let it go. I knew I was edging down into something more psychologically dangerous than obsessive curiosity, but I was trapped in a dilemma of my own making.

  Then something happened that brought closure for me. It was perhaps a timely intervention, saving me from myself.

  I was in my new car, watching the old restaurant building Tomak and his young girlfriend went to whenever they met. A few minutes earlier I had noticed them meeting in the café in the square, so I guessed where they would be next, and not long afterwards I saw them entering the tall building. Once they were inside I left the car where it was and went to a small café a couple of streets away, where I bought a cold drink. I knew that they always stayed inside the building for at least two hours, so I had time to kill. I sat at a table under the canvas canopy and browsed the daily newspaper. After an hour I strolled back to the old restaurant building, intending to stand at the intersection where the traffic turned, and where there was a clear if distant view of the door to the building. I took up position beneath a tree and opened a book to read.

  I became aware that someone was approaching me in a deliberate way, crossing against the traffic, waiting for cars to pass then stepping forward quickly. I kept my eyes on my book. My heart leaping, I assumed it must be Tomak, but when I looked up I saw it was an older man, dressed in casual shirt and shorts, striding towards me. His manner was anything but casual. He raised a hand towards me, pointing a forefinger at me.

  ‘Are you waiting for my daughter?’ he said. His manner was forthright, but unthreatening.

  I shook my head, uncertain what to say. ‘No – a friend.’

  ‘That magician, the illusionist. I’ve seen you before, hanging around him. You keep following him.’

  I felt it was none of this stranger’s business, so again I simply shook my head. He was close beside me. He took my arm in a gentle hold.

  ‘I don’t know your name,’ he said. ‘But you and I have interests in common. We need
to speak. Shall we go somewhere that we don’t have to shout over the traffic?’

  There was a park beside the intersection, so I allowed him to lead me, not discourteously, through the wrought-iron gate to the area of mown grass and flowerbeds beyond. We walked to the shade of a grove of trees planted on a shallow slope. A brook ran down through the trees towards the edge of the park.

  I made sure that where we stopped was a place from which I could still see the door to the building. We were now much further away, but it was in sight.

  ‘You should know who I am,’ the man said. ‘My name is Gerred Huun. The young woman who is currently inside that building is my child, my only daughter. Her name is Ruddebet.’

  In the Prachoit custom he removed a plastic ID card from his pocket and let me see it. I responded with my own.

  ‘I am Mellanya Ross,’ I said.

  ‘I’m concerned about the effect your friend might be having on my daughter. I need your help.’

  ‘I know nothing at all about your daughter,’ I said, mentally thrusting away from my mind the hours I had spent obsessively imagining and worrying about what her relationship with Tomak must be.

  ‘If you’ve seen her with your friend, you know that she is barely more than a child. In fact she is just eighteen years old and in a couple of months she will be starting university. She’s an intelligent, talented girl. She has been accepted for a degree course that is academically demanding and yet will allow her to develop her love of sport. I was once a sportsman myself, as was my wife. My wife, unfortunately, died three years ago. Ruddebet is now the only family I have, and I am concerned that she should not be led astray. This man, this idle magician, is several years older than her, and I don’t know what he’s up to.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can help,’ I said, but a sympathetic understanding was starting to grow in me. Interests in common, indeed.