CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SAIRA’S wet trousers were sticking to her body. He could see the shape of her legs, her bottom, beneath the soaking material as she climbed above him. Months of living in the harsh conditions of Sanaam – her excursions into the sand dunes – gave her a lean strength he didn’t possess. But despite the alluring view, Jack could only muster the energy to think about his next footstep.
Looking over her shoulder, Saira could read his pained expression feeling in her gut that their ascent was to prove fruitless. There would be nothing in the hillside and daylight was fading. Even if they descended to the broken road before nightfall, it could be days before another vehicle passed. She should have known better than to allow her child-husband to navigate their position. He was soft; unused to the trials of outdoor living.
The cross on the map they had been given was clear. What it denoted was another matter. Saira scanned the slopes around her but could see nothing but undulating banks of green, interrupted only by families of broken boulders. As the howling wind retired, the sheep called out for an encore. Grasping handfuls of wiry heather, they pulled themselves upwards. As they climbed, the landscape melted into fog.
Jack adjusted the bracelet, still stiff on his wrist. How far had they climbed? It must have been an hour at least since they had left the cab. There was no rain but he could feel droplets of moisture in the air attaching to his body without the need to fall. Groping in the mist for certainty, mounds of heather gave way to rocky ground in which a clear path could finally be seen.
A sudden noise, the open-mouthed hiss of an animal, just a few feet away caught Jack by surprise. His canvas-clad foot slid on the wet stone causing his body to surge towards the groundless sky. He wavered momentarily, floundering for balance. Saira grabbed his arm; her hands wet, clammy and frozen. For a moment Jack felt he was floating in limbo. He neither fully occupied either air or land. The position of his feet – a matter of such importance only a few moments ago - now no longer had any bearing on his survival. Producing a growl seeming incapable of her slender frame, Saira dug her heels against a jutting ridge of rock and heaved until they collapsed into the hillside. Numb with shock, neither said anything about the sound which startled him. If some animal were on the hillside, they could see nothing through the fog and had no choice but to resume their climb.
Jack focused on his footsteps, looking two or three steps ahead. The mist began to thin. Patches of bright blue broke through the vapour. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but in the distance below he could see… a figure, a man standing on the rocks, their head crowned with glorious light, like a rainbow bent into a brilliant circle of colour. His gasp drew Saira’s attention.
“It’s a trick of the light…” she squinted at the apparition. “Your own shadow reflected on the clouds. A Brockenspectre. It’s not uncommon to see them in the mountains, usually bigger ones than this.”
“What about the light around the head? The rainbow?”
“It’s the way the light refracts through the water droplets – just like a normal rainbow.”
Sure enough, he recognized the slouched weary shoulders. And when he raised his arms the distant silhouette, gave back a distant salute. Cutting through the wispy ribbons of fog, he gulped down his surprise as the ghostly shadow followed them, darting behind thickets of worn scrub, sometimes dropping back, but always mocking the teenager’s weary gait and doubled-over stance.
Suddenly, they stepped out into the clear out of the rain and cloud into brilliant sky and… heat. Jack could scarcely believe the inversion. Both stripped off their clinging plastic anoraks. Looking back down the hill nothing they could see nothing except an impenetrable blanket of moisture.
Above them was the final slope. Steep cliffs, turreted with the same broken black rock, frowned upon them, hiding the summit. Tufts of heather sprouted through the cracks; the only sign of life. Flat stone walls gave no quarter and surrounded the top in a near perfect circle of rock.
Slowly they circumferenced the citadel, testing the broken rock with their plimsolled feet.
“Where now?” Saira moaned. “You said the way would be obvious."
Jack could not reply. If they stayed on the hill, they would only more cold. He pulled back on his clammy anorak and gazed upwards. Midway up the black rock, there was a distinct line of scree and vegetation which ran jaggedly towards the precipice.
“There looks lies a route up there.”
“Are you crazy? You’ll kill yourself doing that.”
“You stay down here. Once I get up I’ll be able to get a proper look for miles around and spot any shelters or tents.”
“You’re really going to do it?”
“See there,” he pointed to the zig-zag of broken stone. “There are enough steps in it to pull myself up. It’ll be like walking up a staircase.”
“We don’t have any ropes and the rock is soaking wet and… Look we can come back if you really want.”
He wasn’t listening. The idea was not in his imagination anymore. It was the route – the only route - to whatever secrets were on that peak. His old arrogance had not been entirely demolished by his adventures. And before his wife could speak again, he strode purposefully towards the barrier.
Up close he realised the ascent would be no walk up the stairs. The wall was chunky and riddled with cracks providing ample holds for his feet and hands. Uncertain hands gripped the first jutting boulder above his head. He tested his weight. It held without giving measure. Satisfied, he placed his foot in a broken crack and hauled himself upwards, catching a second shelf of black stone with his right hand.
Saira, meanwhile, stayed silent considering whether it would be best to grab this stupid youth and pull him from the rock face yet she was torn by spectatorship. The first few metres were straightforward and looking down, Jack saw he was already well above the fractured rock floor.
Would his courage fail him? There was now only one way. He hauled further grabbing a firm outcrop of rock and bringing his left foot onto a ridge filled with green moss. His arms were tingling now and he felt a shudder in his stomach which carried up his body, settling in his clenched jaw. Looking upwards, he saw a further clump of stone and jamming his hand into the space, so that it wedged tightly, he trusted this position and pulled his right leg to a ledge almost parallel with his chest. The movement seemed almost untenable and yet he held firm onto the rock. Moving his other arm to an outcrop above his head, he pushed hard on this leg and gained further distance.
Below Saira felt entirely powerless. She could do nothing – and it was too late for Jack to descend. A fall at this height on to the broken black stones would mean serious injury if not death.
The scale of his recklessness was now swift dawning upon him. Looking below, the ground swelled towards him. Shaking arms stung with pain and his heart was pounding in his chest harder than he had ever felt before. He pushed onwards with his legs. The next handhold was easy and he grew in confidence with his next lift yet this was not to last as he climbed further.
Down below, Saira was an insect, as was he to her. His eyes watered as they measured the distance back to the plateau and the untested security of the pebble path he thought he had seen. And if he was wrong? If it was no more than a few loose chunks of stone, what then? Tentatively he edged his foot to the ledge above. Small steps. That was the key. The shoes he had worn in the desert were surprisingly sticky against the rocks despite their wet, gleaming appearance.
As his body grew smaller to her, Saira contemplated the possibility of being widowed yet a seventh time. But their whole enterprise was wrong. What would they even do when they found the father? Son and father could travel to a new place, a safer place, if there was such a thing, but hat then? Would she go back to the dry city of Sanaam to live in solitude, carrying out her tests in the desert or fulfill the desperate vow she had taken only days ago.
Her thoughts returned to the distant insect on the mountainside, now only metres from the gravel slope and what he hoped was safety. Despite burning anger at his selfishness, she could not help a grudging admiration for his physical courage.
His arms quivered with tension as he neared the ledge that was now so close. It was a solid path! The small but distinct trail of broken gravel was punctuated by cracked shelves of stone which formed a natural staircase across the face of the black rock citadel. Just a couple more inches and his fingers free from their terrible burden.
Thinking too far ahead, he allowed his tired limbs to relax. Breathing heavily and with his legs shaking at the knees he pulled himself up further – expecting at any moment to topple backwards towards death. His fingers slipped as he made the final lunge at a protruding stone above the ledge but quickly slapped onto the wet surface, sliding on the moss-covered rock before halting. Pulling with all his might, he brought his left foot level with this and hauled himself onto the ledge with a gasp of surprise and relief.
Heaving for breath he stared straight into the dying blue sky, finally daring to lean forwards and wave to his wife below. He opened his mouth as if to scream but no sound came out.
In the mist beyond the plateau where Saira stood, a figure was moving in the gloom. Rubbing his eyes, he stared at the dying sun and then again to the towering silhouette praying to see the rainbow glow of the Brockenspectre. But there was no halo this time which adorned its head.
Down below, Saira saw surprise in her distant husband’s features. She turned to see the strands of fog fall away from the emerging shadow.
The woman who approached was old and bony in body, but flowed with a restless intensity, her eyes flickering with unassailable pride.