cross the battered bridge, the light has left the sky; it is weightless, rising higher and higher until stars puncture its fabric. In a hut, just where the climb begins, a solitary man has kindled a fire and is playing a flute. Gloom fills my heart and mercifully ejects all fears of the dark, of animals and phantoms. But my friend walks fast, and every now and then lights a match, perhaps to scare away creatures hiding in the trees or in the rocks. Breeze that is by turn cool and warm flows over us, taking away the drops of sweat on our faces and necks. We stop only twice to get our wind back. We reach the road in less than a quarter of an hour. My fingers are swollen, I move them like apes do to make them thin and long again.
My friend has to make a call, and I need a sip of water. So we walk along the road that cuts across the meadows to the kiosk where we take turns drinking from a bottle before he goes into one of the phone booths. I want to call her. But I know there is little point; the pit of despair separates us. A beating of drums lures me out of the kiosk. I find locals arrive in small groups and assemble in a nearby ground where a strange rite has commenced – men and women, joined to one another in chain-like formations, perform some sort of a tap dance around an effigy, their feet churning dust to the beat of the drums. I grab a boy from the shoulder and ask about the ceremony. From whatever little I gather it is to commemorate the recent death of one of their kin. To me it sounds nothing like the music of grief, and maybe it is not. I do not realise when my friend joins me. We watch until clouds of dust have completely filled the ground and only the beating of drums can be heard.
For dinner we eat a local form of spaghetti cooked in a red sauce. Before I fall asleep, just as I close my eyes, I see the words ‘SHOOT TO KILL’ painted in white on the cliff that towers above the shooting range inside the cantonment.
Next morning we walk towards the church under a sky low and grey with clouds. There are pines around it, but the grounds look pale and unkept. Under a few trees, stone benches gather dust, awaiting visitors. The church is over a century old though it appears much older, like a medieval chapel in some Scottish village. It is open now, and you can see people sitting in the pews listening to the vicar who is making most of this opportunity, reciting in an animated voice and a language I can barely understand something to do with a tussle between Christ and Lucifer. Outside, several shoes and slippers are stacked in pairs next to the front wall: harmless temple practices brought over to other doorsills. While my friend busies himself with observing the stonework, I drift towards a bench where a little girl is sitting, absorbed in a game of marbles she is playing with herself. The sound of my approaching step makes her look up. Her small arms and legs are coated with dust, her hair unwashed and her frock dirty and torn in places; the skin of her face is parched and scabrous. Yet her eyes are alive, deep dark pools that will drown anything that falls into them. And with these liquid eyes, she smiles at me, and the smile enters me, fills me.
Tahiti
One who loves must share the fate of his loved one
.
Mikhail Bulgakov
I
For some time now I have lived in the hills, in a settlement built a century or two past with not a few old, impressive structures in it. What will, what labour must have gone into them, today less than a drop in the pool of time. Weight of age-old stone on trembling spines, again and again and again. Occasionally, they’d bring to mind an ancient monastery I had visited in those remote mountains of which Kipling had spoken so reverentially, towering high atop a cliff, blunting its summit. Above was the clear blue sky and behind the rugged precipices, snow in their highest crevices, even as the dry terrain below merged far off into the horizon.
That thrust which begat art in rocks so
My friend has to make a call, and I need a sip of water. So we walk along the road that cuts across the meadows to the kiosk where we take turns drinking from a bottle before he goes into one of the phone booths. I want to call her. But I know there is little point; the pit of despair separates us. A beating of drums lures me out of the kiosk. I find locals arrive in small groups and assemble in a nearby ground where a strange rite has commenced – men and women, joined to one another in chain-like formations, perform some sort of a tap dance around an effigy, their feet churning dust to the beat of the drums. I grab a boy from the shoulder and ask about the ceremony. From whatever little I gather it is to commemorate the recent death of one of their kin. To me it sounds nothing like the music of grief, and maybe it is not. I do not realise when my friend joins me. We watch until clouds of dust have completely filled the ground and only the beating of drums can be heard.
For dinner we eat a local form of spaghetti cooked in a red sauce. Before I fall asleep, just as I close my eyes, I see the words ‘SHOOT TO KILL’ painted in white on the cliff that towers above the shooting range inside the cantonment.
Next morning we walk towards the church under a sky low and grey with clouds. There are pines around it, but the grounds look pale and unkept. Under a few trees, stone benches gather dust, awaiting visitors. The church is over a century old though it appears much older, like a medieval chapel in some Scottish village. It is open now, and you can see people sitting in the pews listening to the vicar who is making most of this opportunity, reciting in an animated voice and a language I can barely understand something to do with a tussle between Christ and Lucifer. Outside, several shoes and slippers are stacked in pairs next to the front wall: harmless temple practices brought over to other doorsills. While my friend busies himself with observing the stonework, I drift towards a bench where a little girl is sitting, absorbed in a game of marbles she is playing with herself. The sound of my approaching step makes her look up. Her small arms and legs are coated with dust, her hair unwashed and her frock dirty and torn in places; the skin of her face is parched and scabrous. Yet her eyes are alive, deep dark pools that will drown anything that falls into them. And with these liquid eyes, she smiles at me, and the smile enters me, fills me.
Tahiti
One who loves must share the fate of his loved one
.
Mikhail Bulgakov
I
For some time now I have lived in the hills, in a settlement built a century or two past with not a few old, impressive structures in it. What will, what labour must have gone into them, today less than a drop in the pool of time. Weight of age-old stone on trembling spines, again and again and again. Occasionally, they’d bring to mind an ancient monastery I had visited in those remote mountains of which Kipling had spoken so reverentially, towering high atop a cliff, blunting its summit. Above was the clear blue sky and behind the rugged precipices, snow in their highest crevices, even as the dry terrain below merged far off into the horizon.
That thrust which begat art in rocks so
Similar Books
