Now we’re heading back along the strip-lit corridor.
“I enjoyed our talk in the car,” says the priest.
“Me too. I learned a lot.”
“Oh, I have nothing to teach you. It’s more a matter of throwing a little light on knowledge you already possess, don’t you think? All of us have more rooms in our house than we inhabit.”
He waves at the closed doors on either side of us, as we make our way towards the gallery. From the Great Hall we hear a wave of applause.
“The soloists,” says Cello. “We are just in time.”
“I shall look for you afterwards.”
“Yes, yes.” He holds out one small plump hand for me to shake. He looks into my eyes with a gaze suddenly full of unbearable sadness.
“Use your power gently,” he says.
Beyond the gallery door the audience in the Great Hall has fallen silent, and now we hear the music begin.
“Go.” He propels me through the door. I re-enter the high gallery just as the choir bursts out with the first great chant.
“KYRIE!”
The huge sound electrifies me. I hardly notice that the priest has not followed me into the gallery. I look down onto the heads of the crowd, trying to locate Eckhard and Ilona, or Petra and her group, all of whom are here somewhere, assembled in this hall as if for my benefit. But there are others too, many others. And there is the music. So for a short time my fear of the future gives way to the glory of the moment.
I abandon myself to the charging waves of sound, surrendering myself to Mozart, not trying to guess where he will take me, tumbling after him like a fish in a mountain stream. When the voice of the star soprano leaps up from the bed of the choir, hauntingly still, the long pure notes reaching ever further away—“Christe!”—I like everyone in the hall hold my breath and climb with her, until I seem to be higher even than this high gallery, high above my own life, looking down on it with affection but no great concern.
The music speaks to me, telling me: you are so little, you have nothing to fear. And yet I know now that I am at the very heart of all that is happening. I am both unimportant and entirely involved. My experiences have not after all been random. Just as these melting notes are finding their way back to the home key, so for me too there is a plan unfolding, and my task is to travel my road to the end. This sensation, which is one of meaning granted after all, has nothing to do with a greater mind controlling my life, neither God nor Mozart. It’s the feeling that there is a natural and fitting path for me, in the way that a stone that is tumbling down a hill apparently at random is in fact following the only path possible to it, given its starting point. On this path there are obstacles, but these obstacles, into which I crash, off which I rebound, send me on my necessary way.
“Gloria in excelsis Deo!”
I too have longed for glory. I am the hero of an adventure story, but I am not the author. That necessary shaping work has been done by those who brought me into being, the little clan formed by accident that for so many years represented for me all the faces of mankind. Then as I grew my home began to dwindle, until it seemed too small to contain me, and I longed to set out on my own journey, to make my own way. My own way! What laughable folly! Who among us has his own way? The paths are too well trodden, the roads too heavy with traffic. And yet I went, without a backward look. Then little by little, day by day, the further down the road I have travelled, the more distinct has become the image of what I have left behind: like a range of mountains on whose lower slopes I was raised, but which I have never seen before whole and entire. So turning at last, weary, unsure of any safe haven ahead, I look back and am struck with wonder at the majesty of my own towering cloud-capped home. Astonished, I ask, Have I come from this?
The great Mass marches on. Now the solo bass is booming out.
“Credo in unum Deum!”
The choir roars back its chant of triumphant faith.
“Credo! Credo!”
I think of the priest, who must say these words daily in the mass, and I wonder if he does believe in this one God, patrem omnipotentem, father almighty, factorem caeli et terrae, maker of heaven and earth, visibilium omnium et invisibilium, all things visible and invisible. If I’m God, as he tells me, I like to think I’m the maker of all things visible and invisible. Not souls or angels, but trust, friendliness, gratitude, love. These are my invisibles. Dimly, as I think these thoughts, I become aware that I am changing. That I have changed.
Now in the Great Hall of the castle, the orchestra and choir have fallen silent. Now, out of the silence, the violins and the flutes begin to play a gentle downward-spiralling tumble of melody that can only be the prelude to something big. Nobody moves: an intense stillness possesses us all. The soprano starts to sing.
As the haunting melody rises up from the platform I follow it, tugged by the fragile skein of liquid sound, up into a high and far empyrean, where simple beauty floods my senses. The soprano sings exquisitely, with infinite lightness and infinite power. I’m ravished by the sound. Everyone in the Great Hall is ravished. While such beauty possesses us, nothing hurtful can come to pass.
Now I realise that the fine chain of melody is formed out of words, and that they are words I have heard before: Et incarnatus est. And he was made flesh. This is the sublime sound of God becoming man. Because my friend the priest spoke to me of the incarnation, and assured me that I am God, I choose to take this personally, and to hear in the soprano’s voice the song of the spirit that is in me. And so I listen in a dual role, as a part of the audience, the receiver of this loveliness, and as God, its subject and source. The soprano sings to me and of me. I have entered the music.
As I listen and grow in power and lightness, as I expand to the size of clouds, to become as vast and empty as the sky, I see at last what has been happening to me in the course of my strange journey. There is a puzzle here, and a solution. Et incarnatus est: not merely the divine spirit made flesh, but my fears and longings, my memories, all the matter of my mind and the edifices of my dreams, all things visible and invisible, are taking on physical form. There are more rooms in my house than I inhabit.
I am awakening. I have more power than I ever knew.
The timeless solo ends and time returns. The choir rings out the victory.
“Sanctus! Sanctus!”
I hear the click of an opening door. I have been watching the singers on the platform below. Now I look up and see a second door has opened, at the far end of the gallery, and men in black bomber jackets are entering, carrying long guns. Three, four, five men: more and more. They pay me no attention. They have not come for me; but they are here on my behalf. They pad softly along the sides of the gallery and take up positions looking down on the audience below. More and more of them file quietly into place, unobserved by the rows of people listening to the final bars of the music. The last man to come through the door stays close to the wall, in the shadows. No light falls on him, and I have no face to recognise, but I can feel those dark eyes watching me, and I have no doubts that it is him.
Knowing now what I will find, I feel in my pocket for the printed card that was given me in an envelope as I left the television studio. I take out the card, and together with it the concert ticket slipped to me by Eckhard. I hold them side by side in my hands. They are identical. I had a ticket to the concert all the time. I have been expected. Even as I was running away from the man who hunts me, I was making my inevitable way towards him.
Applause erupts below. The performance has ended. The people stand, and hold their hands raised to clap high above their heads. Why don’t they look up?
SEVENTEEN
Nobody is leaving the Great Hall. The conductor descends from the scaffolding pulpit, and is replaced by another man, who speaks into a microphone. His amplified voice addresses the audience. They all sit. The speaker seems to be announcing the appearance of a notable figure, because I hear a buzz of excited surprise, and see heads turning.
&nb
sp; This then is the secret meeting of the Society of Others. Except that it’s not secret. The men of the interior ministry are watching, with machine guns cradled in their arms. I have been sent here by the authorities to influence the debate. I did not intend to come, but here I am. And here, I now see, down among the concert audience, is Magdalena. I scan the rows and find Petra. And near the back, Eckhard and Ilona. Everything is converging.
Will I speak? And if I do, what will I say? This isn’t my war. I don’t want to be here. This is my war. I am where I choose to be. Every turn I take brings me back to this hall, this evening, this decision.
Now there comes a surge of cheering from the audience, and they’re back on their feet. Some even climb onto their chairs. They’re cheering the entrance into the hall of the promised celebrity. He’s passing down the centre aisle directly below me, but he’s so crowded about by admirers that I can’t get a clear sight of him. At last he reaches the foot of the scaffolding tower, which has been vacated by the previous speaker. There he turns, and stands bobbing his head in shy acknowledgement of the rapturous applause, and I see him clearly at last.
It is my friend Cello, the little priest. Except he no longer looks like a priest. He wears a pearl-grey shirt, open at the neck, and a light black overcoat. I hear voices calling out his name. Of course: how could I not have known?
“Vicino!” they cry. “Leon Vicino!”
He climbs the scaffolding tower, and there, raising his hands, he pats the air before him to silence the crowd. So this is the old man, the irrelevance, the failed poet, the exile. Leon Vicino has returned, to play his necessary part in the convergence that is taking place this evening. I look up to see the man who waits for me, and I find that he too has looked up at the same moment, and it seems to me that out of the shadows our eyes meet.
The applause fades into an expectant silence. Vicino takes a sheet of paper out of his pocket. He reads from it in English.
“I will not die for what I believe in, because what I believe in is life.”
So this is how it goes. My father wrote these words. I look down and see that Vicino is looking up at me, smiling up at me with a sad crinkly-eyed smile. It seems he expects me to speak. But what can I say? Am I responsible for what is about to happen? The burden is too great. I don’t know what it is I must do. Others in the Great Hall, seeing where Vicino is looking, have turned and are craning their necks to see me.
I must speak.
Why don’t they see the men with guns? Why aren’t they afraid? Vicino goes on smiling up at me, his arms stretched out over the scaffold rails on either side of him, his hands gripping the rails.
I turn again to look at the man in the shadows. His unseen eyes seem to mock me with the question: Well? Will you speak? But how can I speak when I’ve not been given my lines? I see him shrug, and look away, and give a sign. All round the gallery the men with the guns bend to their business, preparing the guns with small movements and soft clicks. Why doesn’t Vicino warn his people? Why don’t they save themselves? Why does it have to be me?
I must call out to them. I must make them see the danger.
I shout, but the shout sticks in my throat and no sound comes. My throat is stuffed with dry cloth. I shout again, and hear my own voice emerge, tiny and incomprehensible.
I am saying, “Forgive me.”
You who have loved me, forgive me.
My eyes fill with tears, searching for faces that are far away. Where are you, my sister? Trotting after me all my remembered life, resented, familiar. Watch over me now.
(Click, click, go the guns.)
Where are you, my father? Your wistful smile tells me, I see it now, Believe in yourself, even if I have not entirely believed in myself.
(The guns are ready to fire.)
Where are you, my mother? You sit at your desk, glasses raised over your brow, and looking up, find me in the doorway. I ask for food, money, the use of the car. And you who gave me eyes to see the world, you who sang to me on the way to school, you go to the kitchen, put a pan on to boil, rummage in your bag for car keys.
(Petra draws a hand gun from beneath her coat. She thinks I am a traitor.)
I kneel at your feet. I kiss your hands. You who have loved me, forgive me.
(Petra aims her gun at me. Vicino smiles up at me. People stare at me from the crowd. Nobody moves.)
Am I to blame for what is about to happen?
(The bullet whines as it passes close by me. Tikka-tikka-tikka, go the answering machine guns. The man in the shadows turns and leaves the gallery.)
I am to blame. I must go now.
(The people in the Great Hall begin to fall. They don’t cry out or try to escape. They don’t return violence for violence. They don’t resist. They stand still, and then they fall. The only one that is hit but does not fall is Leon Vicino. He remains standing, locked to his scaffold, his eyes still open. He has become a living statue.)
I am on my own. I am responsible. All this is for my benefit. I must go now.
I am in control after all. My will works in ways both visible and invisible. Everything that is happening to me has been chosen by me. I am not the victim: that is no more than the fruit of my vanity. I am not the sacrifice. I am the God for whom others’ lives are sacrificed. Even now as I sense the enormity of my own power I flinch from it, because I am not yet free from the source of my fear, from the pursuer who has hunted me all the days of my life, from the tormentor who drives me to hide in ever deeper burrows, in ever more desolate isolation. But I will be free. Soon now. This is what I have come to do.
I turn away from the rattle of guns. I walk past the men in black jackets, who make no attempt to stop me. I descend the stone staircase to the floor of the Great Hall. I pick my way between the dead and the dying towards the wide doors. Through the archway, onto the narrow bridge that leads to the road. Ahead, I hear the rear door of the grey Mercedes slam shut. Its engine grinds to life, its headlights blaze. The man who has hunted me is leaving. He flees me now. I have awoken. I am dangerous.
The grey car drives away into the bitter night. My boots ring on the wooden bridge as I cross to the river bank. I’m moving fast but I’m not running. I’m in no hurry.
Back along the bank of the frozen river, and into the town. The lights are all out now, the café windows all dark. I make no effort to find my way. Let my way find me.
Down a long dark street where I’ve been before, to a doorway I’ve seen before. The door stands open. Into an unlit lobby, across a cold marble floor to a closed inner door. I open this door, and close it behind me, and enter the room I have never forgotten.
Bookshelves on either wall. In the centre, a long table. An empty chair at the near end. A hand gun on the table’s surface. The only light in the room falling faintly through the open door at the far end. I sit down and take the gun in my hand, and I wait.
He enters the room by the far door, partly closing it behind him. Moving slowly, he makes his way to the chair at the other end of the table, and sits down. He remains there in silence for a moment, with his head bowed. I watch him, and feel his anger and his loneliness. Then he looks up at me, and my eyes adjust to the faint light, and I see his face in full for the first time. No, not for the first time. This is the face I see at every window, the face I am compelled to look for everywhere I go, the face I dread to find: my own. Jealous as a lover, my hunter has stalked me all my life, has caused me to love him alone in all the world, has taught me there are no others in all the world. But he has deceived me. He has imprisoned me. Now I will kill him, this familiar jailer, this guardian self, in order that I may be free. What happens afterwards is my fault. Blame me.
No need to give him a name. If you want a name, use your own. As I will use mine.
He smiles at me. It hurts him to smile. I raise my gun. All that is left now is the act of will. He sees the gun pointing at him and makes no effort to save himself. He has no wish to live.
I fire once only.
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Thob! The sound is not as loud as I had been expecting.
I open the door that was always open, into the long street that leads to my native land. I take the first step, and hear the tread of many feet. I draw the first breath, and hear the breathing of a multitude. I have become both one and many. I am walking a road that has been walked before, but to me it is new. It leads to the place where I was born and raised, which soon now I will discover for the first time.
So begins the mystery and the adventure of going home.
Copyright © 2004 William Nicholson
Anchor Canada edition 2006
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication has been applied for.
eISBN: 978-0-385-67305-1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published in Canada by
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Random House of Canada Limited
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William Nicholson, The Society of Others
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