Dark Dance (7 page)

Elsewhere she had seen paintings; but she did not study them. In one a goat seemed to peer forth from a woman’s aproned belly.

So there is to be nothing sure here, no day, no time, no view of the self.

It was truly a madhouse.

Lacking time, only a vague hunger guided her. She found her way to the dining room and the long table was laid with ten places, and ten of the tribe were in position.

All looked up at her entry.

There were six old women in ancient dresses and four old men in mossy coats. They were all the same as Anna and Stephan, thick hair brushed back or piled up with pins. Ringed talons at work upon cold rabbit-pie and salad.

Rachaela recognized clothes and jewellery she had seen on her journey through the house—impossible to tell the faces and hairstyles apart. Could it be true that all these old women were herself in a hundred years time?

Should she sit down and eat the leftovers with them?

There was no place laid for Rachaela but a woman in a dark frock—her eyes were blind and bloomed-over and her hair was in a bun low on her neck, yet she was not Cheta, she must be Maria—was rectifying this, laying a place at the head of the table.

Rachaela sat down.

The tribe watched her take a slice of the pie and some tomatoes, lettuce.

No one spoke.

Then one of the old women, it was Miranda, said quaveringly, ‘We mustn’t stare.’

And reluctantly they ceased staring, returning to their plates, eating with the quick snapping agility of Anna and Stephan.

Rachaela did not try to make conversation. All this was a grim farce. She did not think that she could say anything that would remotely engage them, and yet they would stare at her again, twenty black eyes.

Anna and Stephan must be their leaders. Anna and Stephan were coherent, or almost, had not abandoned all pretence at normal social interaction. These were wild things dwelling in a stained-glass forest. They came to the pool to drink, ate berries and rabbit sitting upright, stared, considered, ran away or pursued. Was it one of these who had followed her?

She could think of no questions to put to any of them. In any case, would they be equipped to answer a question?
Why am I so important to you? A feared treasure, food for your thought?
They would tell her, if they told her anything, that she was supposed to be here. She was a part of them. Here was her destiny.

But actually she imagined them grubbing about her inquiry, pawing it, letting it lie.

They were so old no forms had consequence.

And Rachaela had never much bothered with the form of things, either.

She was not very hungry after all. The nursery of old ones pecked and gobbled, leaving their plates quite clean. They passed fruit between them. Their teeth, she had noticed, though discoloured, were still serviceable.

She listened to the noises of gnawing and sipping, the split of rinds and slicing of peels, spatter of pips.

They did not talk to each other even.

Even the old men at the chessboard had been quite silent.

The window, freed of its drapes, depicted a dragon fighting with a unicorn, but from the loudness of the sea, Rachaela guessed the window should have looked down towards the ocean.

Michael and Cheta came in with two teapots, and a plethora of fine china cups were set out.

Rachaela did not stay for the tea, and as she left the room, the forest creatures looked up and stared her away.

During what she supposed must be the afternoon, Rachaela found a chamber on the upper storey which contained a piano and an unstrung harp.

The harp was large and beautiful and sheathed in dust, the piano also. No one had played it for several years. Rachaela scooped the dust away and touched the keys. Their notes were surprisingly unsullied. She herself could not play. She was an audience not a creator. She longed for music in that moment, and thought of her radio brought from her case that morning. She had only one spare battery for the radio. When it was done, what then? She had seen no evidence here of radios let alone a record player.

How far away was the town? Was any transport credible? Would they let her hire a car and go to the town, or was she, fellow inmate, also now a prisoner?

She found the library too, during the afternoon, a massive room with high bookshelves, everything powdered by dust, but for a round table, polished from use. Here a pile of books was stacked ready, and an ebony ruler, inkwell and pen.

Rachaela went to the shelf and took a book at random, smoothing off the dust.

Opening it, she found that every line in the book was neatly crossed through.

She tried another book, with the same result. Another and another from different parts of the shelves. All the same.

Sylvian... busy in the library.

Nothing astonished her. She made one rotation of a defaced globe on the table, and left the library. She negotiated a way towards her room. At the intersection of two corridors, mistaking her direction, she came on a high window with a scene of a baby apparently being drowned among the bullrushes. Below stood a great taxidermist’s triumph of a stuffed horse with a man on its back in pieces of armour. The man shook a sword at her and giggled in a thin soprano.

Rachaela stopped.

‘Giddy-up,’ insisted the rider, kicking the sides of the stuffed animal so clouds of dust were released.

When she had passed him and gone on, she sensed his stealthy presence at her heels. It was this one, presumably, who had followed her, and this one who brought gifts of mice. Maybe he caught them himself. He was not exactly like the others, his hair worn very long under the helmet of the armour. He must have discarded that or she would have heard him clanking through the corridors.

Reaching her room at last she had a weakening sense of relief. She locked her door and lay down on her bed, conscious of the pure face of the Devil reflected on to her own. She slept almost at once, as if a spell had been put on her.

The window was dark and the black clock said seven-thirty. Firelight made the room clandestine.

There were matches by the bed, tapers on the mantelpiece, and she lit the candles, the lamps.

She prepared herself as before, for an intimate dinner with Anna and Stephan. After all there were questions she must ask. The needs of hygiene and vanity—toothpaste, powder. The matter of batteries for the radio. More books without lines ruled through them... If she was to stay she must —
must
—

In the corridor, over the undertow of the ocean, Rachaela heard a new step passing. It was not like the others, lighter and more swift. Something brushed against the door.

Rachaela held her breath. Something different was in the passage.

Then it was gone.

She could not make herself go to open the door for almost a minute, and when she did so, nothing, naturally, remained to demonstrate who, or what, had passed.

Add that to the questions, then.

There was a curious odour in the corridor. It reminded her of some pleasant thing. She could not recall.

‘You must give a list of what you require to Cheta. The van which comes to the cottages carries most things, most known brands.’ This, Anna, in response to the first question.

‘But I’d prefer to choose for myself,’ Rachaela said.

‘Oh no,’ said Anna, ‘could it be worth it, such a long and difficult walk. It’s heathland, you know, beyond the wood. Uphill. Cheta is very strong, aren’t you, Cheta?’

‘Yes, Miss Anna.’

‘But you are not used to such a trek. Seven miles.’

Rachaela noted that the distance seemed to have grown.

‘Couldn’t I hire a car to take me to the town?’

‘Oh, my dear—so expensive. The town is thirty-five miles away.’ Should Rachaela believe this? ‘Besides, so awkward to hire a car. We have no telephone at the house.’

‘But there was a car to meet me at the station.’

‘There is a public telephone in the village. Carlo called the company from there. It was still necessary to send them directions.’

Awkward then, but not completely beyond the bounds. But Anna was evidently discouraging her. Let it rest for now. The precious van would supply batteries perhaps, and other basic essentials.

Tonight five places had been laid at the long table. Only two other Scarabae had presented themselves, the two old men from the blue chessboard, Dorian and Peter. They ate voraciously as wasps and now and then stared at Rachaela, not wanting to miss more than a little of her presence. They did not speak beyond a word or two. She was glad she had not breakfasted with them.

Three old women had come into the room during the meal, which comprised a soufflé and fish in a hot sauce. The names of the old women were Miriam, Livia and Unice, which as usual did not mean very much. They did not stay, only filled their eyes with great draughts of Rachaela and pattered out.

‘There was something outside my room,’ said Rachaela.

‘That would be Uncle Camillo,’ said Stephan. ‘He likes to play tricks, cut capers.’

‘Yes, I think I saw him on a stuffed horse. And he’s been following me.’

Anna shook her head gravely. ‘Camillo is very old,’ she said quite seriously. ‘Very naughty. But harmless as a silly child.’

‘It wasn’t Camillo.’

Anna hesitated. She said, ‘There is a large cat in the house. A nocturnal beast. We see it rarely, it leads its own life.’

Rachaela shook her head.

‘I don’t think a cat—’

The door opened.

‘Here is Sylvian,’ said Anna. ‘Sylvian, here is Rachaela.’

The eraser of books came forward slowly, his hands clasped at his chest, eating eyes on Rachaela.

‘I’ve been wanting to meet you,’ said Rachaela. ‘Why do you rule through all the words?’

‘The words,’ repeated Sylvian. He looked too fragile to be interrogated but this did not stop her. They were all fragile as the chitinous wings of grasshoppers, and predatory as locusts.

Tn the library. And there was a globe with scratches across the continents.’

‘Words mean nothing,’ said Sylvian, ‘they gather like the dust.’

‘Words convey concepts and dreams,’ said Rachaela.

‘Also nothing.’

‘So you deface the books.’

‘I correct them,’ said Sylvian in his cracked firm voice. He unclasped his hands and spread them out, ‘When I have finished, the library will be sound.’

‘I hope I can find some portion you haven’t damaged,’ said Rachaela idly.

‘The north wall,’ he told her, helpful. ‘I have yet to work there. A long task.’

‘Sylvian does what he feels he must,’ said Anna, the translator. ‘I’m sorry if you wished to read the books. But I send for books from the town. Allow me to order some for you, if you will give me some idea—’

‘Are the books delivered here?’ Rachaela asked swiftly.

‘Oh, no. The van brings them to the village, and Carlo carries them back for me.’

‘I see.’

‘And the globe,’ said Stephan, smiling benignly. ‘That isn’t the work of Sylvian. Alice scratched at it with a hat pin.’

‘The places from which the family has been driven out,’ said Anna.

‘The pogroms,’ said Rachaela.

‘Oh, Sasha uses that word,’ said Anna. ‘It’s a word she finds applicable. It will do.’

‘So many countries drove out the Scarabae,’ said Rachaela, the globe suddenly vivid in her mind.

‘Why?’

‘The family is ancient,’ said Anna.

‘And unpopular,’ chuckled Stephan.

‘Superstitious fears of the ignorant,’ said Anna.

‘Of what?’

‘We are different,’ said Anna. ‘You’ve seen. We keep close, and have our own ways.’

‘The windows here,’ Rachaela said at random.

‘Some have come from our other houses. We are safe here.’

‘But the windows,’ persisted Rachaela, ‘scenes from a Bible of hell.’

‘Just so,’ said Anna simply. ‘Several were broken by the mob and have been pieced together by artisans. Not all are old. Some new ones were fashioned.’

‘And you don’t like the views from the house.’

Anna said, ‘It’s the daylight we dislike.’

Rachaela remembered the double doors of the hallway. She visualized Cheta and Carlo on their journey to the village, muffled as if against a storm.

Night creatures then, nocturnal like their cat.

‘And you expect me to live like this?’ Rachaela said.

‘You will come to find it comfortable,’ said Anna.

In their places, Dorian and Peter abruptly laughed, as one.

Rachaela said, ‘Aren’t I allowed to go out?’

‘Of course. Of course, Rachaela. By night or day. Oh, let me show you the garden. Come.’

Stephan hurried before Anna to widen the door, already ajar, which Rachaela had seen revealed the previous night. It led into a conservatory of gigantic plants. Ferns towered to the glass roof. Ribbed and ornately paned, the glass was clear.

A stone lion’s head stood among the cups of flowers.

‘Here is the way,’ said Anna, and thrust wide a second door on to the open night.

Rachaela gasped with instinctive relief.

There was the smell of leaves and frost, the night breath of great trees.

A moon hung over the land, an unbroken chandelier. It showed with its blue-white shine the garden of a fantasy, rampant and overgrown. A yew tree, a poplar, a cedar spreading tremendous boughs, and oaks like columns to uphold the sky. A roof of bare stitchwork which in summer would be a parasol of foliage. Ivy mounted the trees, and the rose briars had climbed upon the cedar.

The sea raced and boomed, tireless, on the wall of night.

‘At the end there is a little gate. A path leads along the cliff. Quite safe if you are careful,’ said Anna. She raised her face of wrinkles and fissures into the balm of the moon. ‘Smell the pines,’ she said. ‘Such terrible trees, they overgrow everything if they can. Carlo weeds them out from the garden, and cuts the lawn in summer.’ She flitted forward like an aged fairy. The others ventured after Rachaela, murmuring and susurrating, into the garden. Stephan pushed in among the shrubs to inspect the briars, Dorian and Peter posed grotesquely on the rough grass, Sylvian in the doorway.