Part 13 (1/2)

'How?'

'Guess.'

'But you're telling me now.'

'You, yes. You're the new Traveller. He's the only one who's allowed to know. In the past he would kill the old one and replace him.'

'As what?'

'Priest. King . . . chieftain. Whatever you like.'

'You mean a sect? And he's the leader.'

'No. He's just the Traveller. He's theirs.'

'So they don't marry?'

'Of course they do,' she said. 'They marry and have children and become wives and get an education and become professional. They live normal lives.'

'Whereabouts?'

'Everywhere. They're all over the place dispersed, perhaps. But they keep the secret. And occasionally they meet him and have their rituals. He travels around, meets them at one of the sacred places, whichever is nearest to where they live.'

'So they never meet all at once?'

'That's impossible. Some live in Israel. In America. But most of them live in Europe. Whenever they can, they try to go to the place where he is to appear. Like here.'

'That's all piffle,' he said, gripping her upper arms, almost too hard.

'Of course,' she said lightly. 'But watch out for the old Traveller. If he realises you're going to replace him, he may kill you. Such things have happened. In the old days the old one killed all newcomers who threatened to take his place. Or else he himself was killed. Nowadays the old one just gives way.'

'What do you mean, gives way?'

'Goes away. Tries to find a new life. A normal life, or whatever. But that's not all that easy these days. He has never worked.'

'What has he lived on, then?'

'The women. Some of them are wealthy. They donate money. For the other ones' travels, too.'

'Are they going to the cave?'

'Yes.'

'What are you going to do there?'

'You won't be told that until you've been initiated. You mustn't show yourself until this festivity is over. We'll let the old one know afterwards.'

'You're lying,' he said. 'You think I'm childish enough to agree to this.'

She laughed. It sounded soft. She had become much softer, much kinder. He was not so afraid of her as he had been at first. But he didn't like her teasing him.

'Tell me what you're going to do tomorrow. Seriously. And who those women are.'

'We're going to the Stone G.o.d Cave.'

'I don't believe it exists.'

'Oh, yes, it does, up on the high mountain. The path past the ice house. You can look through the gap in the curtains tomorrow morning and you'll see the whole company crossing the river.'

As she lay on her back with her eyes closed, he could look at her properly. He looked and felt with his tongue. Her skin was so thin at the temples, he could see blue veins through it; those were thin, too. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s flattened as she lay like that, the teaspoonful middle rosy brown like the sweet spoonful of jam on top of a pastry; there were blue veins on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as well. She had been vaccinated on her left arm, but otherwise had no scars. The fair curly hair in her loins was even coa.r.s.er than elsewhere, tickling his nose and smelling of the sea. She was kind now. Perhaps she wasn't teasing him, but just amusing herself. Tomorrow she'll tell me who she is, he thought. Tell me things that are real, about herself. She likes me now.

After she had left him, he couldn't sleep. He had slept nearly all day. He no longer knew what day it was, Sunday or Monday. The two had merged into each other. He was tired and his eyes were smarting, but he went out into the bright, clear night and its birdsong. That was better than lying on the bunk counting the timbers in the cabin walls.

They were all asleep in there now and he could wander round the house, looking at it. He stared at the rough wooden s.h.i.+ngles covering the walls. Silhouettes of dragon heads crowned the ridges, and there was an iron weather vane shaped like a three-tongued flag. The gla.s.s in the windows was old and distorting, gleaming reddish in the morning sun, and all the curtains on the upper floor were drawn.

He wondered where the cave was, if it actually existed. She had said it wasn't far. The path began at the ice house, crossed the river over a footbridge of two logs and went on across a marshland sloping upwards. The path was easy across the marsh between islands of firm ground with birches and one or two small spruces. He took that way and enjoyed moving quickly without having to think. His body warmed and all his anxiety vanished. Hundreds of birds were calling and whistling all round him, thousands, he thought, thousands of birds calling and I just keep on walking.

The path appeared to lead up to the high mountain. After he had walked for twenty minutes, it became steeper, over stony ground extending in what must be an eastwest direction, long rocky offshoots from the mountain. In the end he was balancing on a very narrow ridge and approaching the hillside. Or the mountainside, he thought. Norwegians called every b.u.mp a mountain.

The path ran along ledges in the mountain, and pretty soon he had to climb. He turned round when the going got slower on the cliff face and what he saw was incredible. The sea. The whole sea, misty blue in the morning sun, the mist on the horizon reddish and glowing. Out there was the sun, and above the mountain ridges the clouds had begun building up.

He had thought they were far up in the high mountains towards the Swedish border, but they were close to the sea, at the most a few kilometres from the sh.o.r.e, and he could b.l.o.o.d.y well see all the way to America. The ridge he was balancing on probably extended from northeast to northwest. He decided to climb right up and look.

On his way up, keeping to the crevices, he regretted his decision as the precipice began to frighten him. The path was still clear, but zigzagged up the cliff. Below was a ravine where he could see birds flying. When the first puffs of cloud came drifting, his face turned wet, then for a few moments he could see clouds below him, floating in the ravine, ragged and steaming. He could just see the tops of pines in the watery mist, from above, as the birds saw them.

He decided not to look down any more, but just continue up from ledge to ledge, being careful before stepping off a safe place, checking whether a stone was loose under his foot. Onwards and upwards. He'd have to find a better path down, a less steep one. There was no sign of any cave. That was all just b.l.o.o.d.y nonsense. He had gone on walking as if drunk and was now stuck on the mountainside, clouds drifting below and above him, soaking him with their moisture.

As soon as he got to the top and found firm, lichen-covered rock beneath his feet, squalls of rain came racing in and he could no longer see the sea. He hunched down and waited for a better view, but the air thickened more and more and he found himself sitting in the cloud, dripping wet. He realised he would never find a better path and the risk was that he would lose his way, so he started down. His stomach pressed to the rough, cracked mountainside, he felt with his foot for loose stones below and held on until his fingers ached whenever he had to s.h.i.+ft his weight.

A squall brought a cold shower over his back, but then another came and seemed to sweep away the worst. The sun flashed. He dared to look over his shoulder and could see right down. The sea was there again, boiling with light.

When he had gone so far that he could walk upright without the support of his hands, he noticed a thick rope fastened to a pine tree and hanging down the other side of the cliff. He went over to it and looked down. The rope had knots in it and ended just above the worn and trampled ground, a path apparently beginning where the rope ended.

He realised that you were supposed to let yourself down. The path led into the perpendicular mountainside, and opened up into a large, almost oval entrance.

The cave. So it did exist after all. As he slithered down the rope, he realised that he done the worst bit quite unnecessarily. The cave wasn't all that high up and the path to it was easy. There were ferns in the entrance, hanging from the roof of the cave inside, the dark rock covered with lichen, but not far inside. Then it became sterile. The mountain had crumbled and cracked when the cold had lifted in the spring, and he was now standing on stone and gravel.

Only the first bit was smooth, the ground beginning to slope steeply down into the darkness. Must be a d.a.m.ned big cave. He would tell her he had been there now she wasn't expecting that of him. But he had to go a little further in. There must be something there he could say he had seen, so that she would believe him.

It was too steep to walk down, so he had to sit and slide through the mess of gravel and mud beneath him. That's the end of my jeans, he thought, when occasionally he had to brake quite hard against the ground. Large rocks protruded, firmly rooted in the ground, and he could hold on to them. His eyes soon got used to the dark and the meagre light from above. The smell of rock and mud was harsh and lifeless, the smell of the underworld, nothing but stalagmites and stalact.i.tes in the roof. Not a single patch of moss.

Finally he came down to more level ground. To test out the size of the s.p.a.ce around him he tried with his voice, but his throat locked and it hurt to call out. The damp and cold went right through him and he became clumsy, wis.h.i.+ng he could squat down and just wait. But nothing would happen. He was alone with this harsh odour, with the darkness and cold that was the mountain's.

When he turned his head, he could see the cave entrance and it dazzled him. He had to sit for a while with his head turned away to get his night vision back again. He picked up stones from the cave floor and flung them around, bouncing them off the walls. He threw systematically, like fly-fis.h.i.+ng, fanning stones out from where he was standing. On their way down, the stones didn't strike the wall at right angles and he heard them hitting the ground far away.

So there was a path there the cave went on, but how far? He didn't want to know. He would turn back now. He would tell her this, anyhow, in which direction it went.

He had closed his eyes as he threw, to be able to hear the stones landing. When he opened them, he could see a bit further in front of him.

It was a rock. High and rough, upright, narrowing towards the top, taller than a human being.