Matryoshka

by Ricardo Pinto

  ‘He can’t see,’ says Octavio.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll light it for him.’

  When Cherenkov hesitates, the boy grins: ‘I’ve had tobacco before, from my father’s pipe.’

  Cherenkov gives him a cigarette and Octavio takes a few puffs, and makes a face. ‘Not as nice.’ He guides the Neanderthal’s hand to the cigarette in his mouth. He pulls the huge hand against his chest and inhales, pulls it up and exhales over it.

  The Neanderthal’s wrinkles flatten as his face widens. He sniffs his fingers and his bony brow creases. He allows the cigarette to be slipped between his huge lips, and breathes in. He explodes a cough. Septima laughs from the shock. Octavio chuckles. When the Neanderthal grins he reveals teeth as big as a horse’s. Cherenkov is grinning too, warming to the man as he takes another puff. The Neanderthal gets the hang of it. With the cigarette tiny in his mouth, he looks like a cartoon gangster.

  ❖

  Cherenkov wakes from a nap and finds that he is alone. He staggers off across the undulating ground. He spots Septima and Octavio talking, and hails them. The boy turns a tear-streaked face vaguely in Cherenkov’s direction.

  Septima barks at the boy: ‘Only savages wander around naked!’

  Octavio’s face reddens. Cherenkov raises a hand, but Septima slaps it away and continues to glare at the boy, who glares back, his willowy brown body planted as firmly upon the rising and falling sargasso as if he has roots.

  Cherenkov addresses him: ‘Hey, Octavio, how do you cope with the flashes?’

  Octavio’s forget-me-not blue eyes widen. ‘Flashes? Oh, you mean the light.’ He grins.

  Septima juts her face close to his. ‘You must be almost blind! Where’s your hat?’

  The boy frowns, lowers his eyes, indicates the Neanderthal’s hut with a jerk of his head.

  ‘While I go to the boat and find you something decent to wear, you go and fetch your hat.’

  ❖

  They watch her stomp off, cursing at each stumble.

  ‘What’s eating her?’ asks Cherenkov.

  Octavio shrugs his shoulders up into the golden nest of his hair. He wipes his nose.

  ‘What did she say to make you cry?’

  The boy shrugs again and ambles off towards the Neanderthal’s hut. Cherenkov falls in beside him, reeling with each step, admiring the boy’s easy balance.

  ‘Octavio, how did you come to be here?’

  The boy glances at him. ‘I stowed away.’

  ‘But why are you still here?’

  ‘I wandered off and got lost among the islands.’ Octavio grins. ‘They move about: stepping stones adrift.’ The grin thins. ‘When I got back, they were gone.’ He frowns. ‘I was scared at first, though I knew someone would eventually come to rescue me.’ He looks as if he might cry, but rallies with a smile. ‘As long as I can bathe in the light everything’s just fine.’

  He looks up at Cherenkov wide-eyed. ‘I know where Heaven lies!’

  Cherenkov grips his shoulder and turns him so that he can examine his face.

  The boy frowns. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Cherenkov blinks, shakes his head. ‘You look familiar...’

  They resume their journey and soon reach the Neanderthal’s hut. He ducks in after the boy. It’s difficult to make anything out in the gloom, but he manages to find his rolled-up raincoat. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Not sure,’ says the boy. ‘Wait, I’ll show you!’ He rummages in a corner, finds something, and pushes past Cherenkov who follows him out into the light.

  The boy offers him an apple. ‘Here.’

  Cherenkov takes it; though wrinkled, it’s still firm. He takes a bite; it’s sweet and delicious.

  Octavio bounces a small tricorn hat on his thigh. ‘That apple came here with me.’

  ❖

  Septima misjudges a dip that forms in the ground, lurches and would have fallen had Cherenkov not caught her. She thanks him even as she elbows him aside; she puts down the bundle she has clutched under her arm, and pulls out a stripy jumper, and shakes it out. Octavio scowls.

  ‘Put it on,’ she says.

  Octavio squints up at Cherenkov. ‘Do I have to?’

  Septima snatches at the boy’s arm. ‘Never mind him. Put it on.’

  Grumbling, Octavio pulls the jumper over his head. It falls to his knees.

  Septima offers him some trousers, but the boy’s hands are lost in the woollen sleeves. She pushes the trousers into Cherenkov’s hands, kneels in front of the boy, and rolls up his sleeves.

  Octavio pulls at the neck of the jumper. ‘It’s prickly!’

  ‘Let’s not worry about that,’ says Septima. ‘The main thing is that you look more like a proper person.’

  Cherenkov holds out his rolled-up raincoat. ‘Couldn’t he wear this?’

  Octavio ignores Septima’s protests, shuffles off the jumper, and puts on the raincoat. It trails on the ground.

  Septima raises an eyebrow. ‘You think that looks better?’

  Octavio answers her with a dazzling smile.

  When Cherenkov picks up the boy’s tricorn, Septima snatches it from him, and jams it down on Octavio’s head. It slides down to cover his eyes.

  ‘Now you’ll be able –’

  Octavio gasps and, before either she or Cherenkov can catch him, he crumples to the ground.

  ❖

  Octavio revives, and stares about him. Cherenkov pushes his own hat back, and is suddenly adrift in a world of pulsing light. With an effort he can see the sargassum mounds and ocean through the rays that stream past. As he turns to locate their source, the flow becomes radial, incandescent, vertiginous.

  Septima’s voice calls him back. He inches the hat back into place.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  He narrows his eyes to bring her into focus. ‘I wanted to see what…’

  Her expression of contempt looks absurd.

  ❖

  Septima tries to coax Octavio into wearing his hat.

  ‘Why do you want to shut off my light?’

  ‘It will allow you to see properly.’

  ‘What is there to see?’ The boy leans back into Cherenkov, and turns his blue-blind eyes up to him.

  ‘The world, the real world,’ she says.

  Octavio snorts. ‘I’ll do it, but only if Cherenkov tells me to.’

  Cherenkov puts the hat onto the boy’s golden head, and angles it back so that its point juts out above his forehead. ‘You can see the light any time you want just by turning towards it.’

  Octavio looks lightward and a smile brightens his face as he stares, unblinking.

  ❖

  ‘How can you bear it so long?’

  Octavio gazes at Cherenkov, his hat angled back on his mane. ‘You get used it.’ His eyes look duller than before; human.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, and points at the Neanderthal striding across the mounding sargassum with an easy stride. ‘He’s going fishing!’

  ❖

  The Neanderthal is on his belly by a hole in the sargasso, dangling his arm into the water.

  ‘Is he sleeping?’ says Cherenkov.

  Watch, mouths Octavio.

  Cherenkov watches, and falls into a trance as he and Octavio, the Neanderthal and the whole island, ride the ocean swell.

  Quicker than blinking, the Neanderthal rolls over. His arm swings free of the water; it is so relaxed it seems boneless. Silver glints in his hand: a fish that he sends in an arc through the air. It bounces on the sargassum and flounders. Octavio springs upon it with a whoop.

  Cherenkov finds a hole of his own in the sargasso and trails his hand in the ocean. Anything that touches his fingers, he hooks out, but time after time his hand comes up empty.

  ‘You’ve got to let go,’ said Octavio.

  ‘Show me.’

  The boy takes Cherenkov’s place by the hole, and brings out two fish in quick succession. Cherenkov grins, and indicat
es the Neanderthal asleep close by. ‘He taught you?’

  ‘I watched him.’

  Cherenkov nods. ‘Show me again.’

  ❖

  When Cherenkov finally manages to land a fish, he also whoops. He rolls over to look for Octavio. He rises. A little way off along the shore Septima watches him.

  ‘Do you want me to show you how?’ he calls out.

  She shakes her head. They hear a cry and see Octavio run sleek and naked towards the water. He dives in, and ripples glimmer over the swell. When his head doesn’t reappear, Cherenkov jogs towards him. Octavio’s face appears with a dazzling grin. ‘Come in, it’s lovely!’

  Septima stands over Octavio’s discarded clothes with a frown.

  ‘We’ve not washed for days,’ he says to her.

  Octavio calls out again. Cherenkov strips. When he takes off his hat, currents of light envelope him. Ignoring Septima’s protests, he throws it down and shuffles towards the boy’s voice. He reaches the edge before he expects to and tumbles into the water. The cold shocks the breath from his lungs. For a moment he drowns in a coruscating chaos. His face bursts into the air. He gulps, and his heart hammers. The surface of the water channels the light. The swimming boy leaves eddies in the clotting shimmer.

  As they chase each other, their bodies shed scintillating whorls and ribbons. The solace, each time they touch, of finding something real is not enough to anchor Cherenkov in this shifting world. He loses hold of up and down; of what is ocean, what sky. Disorientation swells to panic. He flounders and swallows salt water. He thrashes back to what he hopes is the shore.

  As he drags himself onto the sargasso, Octavio brushes past him.

  Cherenkov is shaking when he stands up. ‘Where’re my clothes?’

  Septima leads him by the arm. ‘Here.’

  He crouches, finds his shirt and the floppy shape of his hat.

  ‘Look at me!’ cries Octavio, right beside him.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ says Cherenkov, and pulls on the hat with trembling fingers.

  ‘Do look at him, he is amazing!’

  Octavio stands before him in the raincoat, and opens it to reveal his body. Cherenkov edges closer. The boy could be clouded glass, and is lit from within by countless branching tendrils of pulsing violet light.

  Octavio hunches the raincoat over his head, and gazes down at his body with an unhuman face whose eyes seem windows into an alien sky. He coos: ‘Like an angel’

  ❖

  They lie in the hut; it smells musty, salty and of oranges. The island rocks them. Waves bubble on the shore. Cherenkov can hear the others breathe. When Septima had produced her chronometer and announced that it was time to sleep, it had been easier to obey her.

  His hat over his face, eyes closed, Cherenkov is in blessed darkness. He wonders if the Neanderthal, to escape the terror of the light, had gouged his own eyes out?

  ❖

  Cherenkov wakes. He adjusts the hat that covers his face, and peeps out from under the protection of its opal band. He reaches up to touch the roof and finds that it is what it looks like: slick and wiry dark fur. A bear pelt? His fingertips snag the grain of the supporting frame: not bone but wood!

  Cherenkov raises his head and looks about him: the hut entrance is dazzling. Where have Septima and the boy gone? Suddenly he realises where he has seen Octavio before.

  ❖

  Octavio stands on the shore gazing lightward. When Cherenkov moves in front of him, the boy’s expression of bliss does not change. Cherenkov grabs him by the shoulders, turns him from the light and, grabs the protruding corner of the boy’s hat and pulls it down. The sky-blue light in the boy’s eyes snuffs out and he twists free of Cherenkov’s grip: ‘Why’re you—?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You know who I am!’

  ‘You’re the boy in the picture!’

  Octavio grimaces, ‘Wha…?’ His face smooths. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Who are the other people in that picture?’

  ‘Mama, Papa and my sister.’

  ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Sexta.’

  Cherenkov raises a hand to his head. ‘The Tribune?’

  The boy slumps.

  Cherenkov shakes his head. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s a grown woman, old enough to be… Well, Septima’s her daughter.’

  ‘She told me that, but I didn’t believe her.’

  Cherenkov grabs Octavio’s arm. ‘She told you?’

  Octavio half-shrugs, and blushes. ‘And made me promise not to tell you.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘She was afraid you’d insist on going home before it’s time.’

  ‘Before it’s time for what?’

  ‘She needs to be here –’

  ‘Three days!’ Cherenkov grits his teeth.

  Octavio nods.

  ‘Why does that matter?’

  The boy shrugs. ‘She tried to explain it – something complicated about time.’

  Cherenkov stares at the boy. ‘How can you be the same?’

  ‘As the picture? No, Cherenkov, I was only nine then.’ Tears appear in the boy’s eyes. ‘I don’t understand it, Cherenkov, I really don’t. Once, a servant told me a story in which a fisherman ended up younger than his wife.’

  Tears run down his face. Cherenkov puts an arm around him. ‘Come on, we’re going to have this out with her.’

  ❖

  They watch Septima studiously pace upon the heaving sargassum in an approximate circle; back straight, eyes half-closed, each foot placed carefully and deliberately. When she becomes aware of them she stiffens, and curses as she loses her balance. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I know who Octavio is.’

  Septima pales. ‘I wanted to tell you, Cherenkov, but I feared…’ Her voice tails off.

  ‘Time?’

  She nods. ‘We must remain here long enough.’

  ‘Long enough for what?’

  ‘Long enough for me to return to Eborean time.’

  ‘What do you mean return?’

  ‘Here time passes more slowly.’

  Cherenkov stares at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  Septima grimaces. ‘If we remain here the prescribed three days, by the time we return to Eboreus, eight years will have elapsed.’

  Cherenkov stares out over the sea. He glances at Octavio; shakes his head. He looks at Septima. ‘When we set off, you knew this?’

  Septima hangs her head.

  Cherenkov advances on her. ‘Why? Why did you do this to me?’

  She raises her eyes to meet his. ‘The Tribunate needs new blood; blood from the outer world. To breed within Eboreus would lessen the distance between us and those we rule.’

  ‘Why the hell should that matter to me?’

  She reaches out to him, but stops short.

  ‘Is there anything you have said to me that’s true?’

  She glances at Octavio, and blushes. ‘Our lovemaking was not a lie.’

  Cherenkov grits his teeth. ‘I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t love!’

  She digs her chin into her chest. ‘You’re right, it came from a dark place.’

  He thrusts his head towards her. ‘What darkness is it you imagine you carry that could be anything compared to mine?’

  Her nostrils flare, her lips shape as if to spit.

  ‘What is it that’s driven you to so many lies?’

  She sags to her knees, bent over, hugging herself. ‘Our existence here – in Eboreus and out upon this infinite ocean – is in one of two worlds that live, largely, in ignorance of each other.’ She looks up at him. ‘How do you imagine such ignorance can be sustained without lies?’

  Cherenkov slumps down beside her.

  She puts her hand over his. ‘You forget how long I lived in the outer world. During all that time I had to deny the existence of this one!’

  ‘How long were you in my world?’

  Septima hol
ds his gaze. ‘Eight years, Cherenkov, eight long years.’

  ‘But you only ran into me at the end of that time.’

  Septima says to Octavio. ‘Go to the hut.’

  The boy begins to say something, but the look on her face makes him fall silent. He looks to Cherenkov, but finds no support there; he scowls and stomps off. Septima watches him until she judges he is beyond hearing, and turns to Cherenkov.

  ‘You were not my first choice: I had a husband, but he died.’

  Her shoulders round as she clamps her arms over her belly. ‘You have to understand; I went seeking the same thing my mother found. Wanting to see the things my father had told me about, I went back to his homeland.’

  ‘Germany,’ spat Cherenkov.

  Septima gazes at him. ‘Try and see it from my point of view. I was so young, and utterly alone in a world strange to me, and they were so filled with certainty, and I was desperate for certainty.’

  Cherenkov grimaces. ‘You’re talking about the Nazis, aren’t you?’

  Septima raises a trembling hand, her eyes wander. She focuses on him. ‘I swear I did not know what they would become.’

  Cherenkov says coldly: ‘What they would become must have been there from the beginning.’

  Her face falls. ‘I was afraid and they were welcoming to me.’ And, when Cherenkov throws a dismissive gesture, her eyes flash: ‘Do you think I was the only one who turned a blind eye? Most people did: most people will when they’re afraid. Are you so sure you would have behaved differently?’

  Cherenkov looks at his hands. He looks up. ‘I deserted.’

  He rises and offers his hand. ‘Come on, it’s time I went home to face the music.’

  ❖

  Octavio shouts over the keening wind: ‘I still don’t see why we have to leave so suddenly.’

  Septima interrupts her survey of the eerily brightening sky to glance at him. ‘He’s decided and so we’re going. Come on!’

  Even Octavio staggers as they cross the violently mounding ground.

  When they reach Cherenkov he is gazing out at the waves. On the shore, the boat lunges as if it were already at sea.

  Septima cries: ‘Are you sure about this?’

  They hear a bellow and see the Neanderthal striding towards them. A ridge that swells up from the island hides him. It burrows furiously towards them. When it reaches them, it knocks them to their knees, raises them and the boat, and drops them as it moves on. It lifts the sargasso shore like the edge of a rug, and emerges as a glassy wave.