The Glister Part 9

It isn't Jenner. Jenner doesn't work like this. Whoever is out there is watching a spectacle, maybe playing with him, taunting him with this silence. They are enjoying the mystery, playing. Suddenly, he has the idea that it's kids, that this is some kind of stupid prank. This notion, no matter how far-fetched it seems, is a better explanation for his present situation than Jenner. Jenner would be here now, standing in close where he can do his work, not skulking in the shadows. Jenner is a professional, but this is something a gifted amateur would do-an amateur in the true sense of the word. Someone who loves loves what he is doing. Not the person who killed Mark Wilkinson and the others; this is a different thing altogether. There is no awe here, no tenderness. This is all hard. Again, the idea comes that there are children out there. But how could a child, even a group of them, do this? what he is doing. Not the person who killed Mark Wilkinson and the others; this is a different thing altogether. There is no awe here, no tenderness. This is all hard. Again, the idea comes that there are children out there. But how could a child, even a group of them, do this?

"I'm not sure who you think I am," Morrison calls out to the darkness, not too loud, but clear enough to show that he isn't afraid. "But I'll tell you one thing, you're wrong. I'm n.o.body special." He laughs again, a soft laugh that is for himself, and n.o.body else, even if they are watching him. He wants to laugh at the whole thing, the whole situation. This enormous room, these presences in the shadows, him strapped to this chair. It's ridiculous. At the same time, laughing isn't such a bad strategy either. It does him no harm, because it's not a defiant laugh, he doesn't even intend it to be that. It's soft, sad, even a little pathetic, yet it's strangely good-humored. He hears it himself when he laughs again, a note of pathos, of self-pity for a man who has no real work and a phantom for a wife, a man of his age without children or good memories or love. A man who had already arrived at nothingness before whoever is out there caught him off guard and brought him into this new, but not particularly interesting limbo. "Really," he calls again, "I'm not not who you think." And yes, it does sound pathetic; it who you think." And yes, it does sound pathetic; it is is pitiful. Sad. Which may work to his advantage because whoever is out there may well have a soft spot for sadness. People like to look at sadness, because it isn't pain, and because it echoes something in themselves. pitiful. Sad. Which may work to his advantage because whoever is out there may well have a soft spot for sadness. People like to look at sadness, because it isn't pain, and because it echoes something in themselves.

Nothing is happening, though. Still no response. "Where are we, anyhow?" Morrison asks, sounding to himself more than a little foolish. Which may be exactly what is needed because he thinks he hears something, somewhere off to the left. "It's b.l.o.o.d.y cold," he says, in the same foolish tone.

He hears another sound then. Nothing much, just a sound, like something rolling across the floor, five or so yards to the left. It's not a sound he recognizes, but he knows it isn't good. Still, he tries not to let it show that he has heard, and he tries to seem unaware that anything bad is going to happen to him. This is the one thing he remembers from school: don't look like a victim, and there's less chance you will become one. Bluff it out. Letting yourself imagine that something bad is going to happen is already a beginning, a first step into the shameful collaboration between the victim and the one with the power, a recognition that pain, deliberately inflicted and profoundly satisfying, is inevitable. He listens. Nothing, then something. Something, then nothing. Whoever is out there is getting closer, or circling perhaps, but he's not visible yet.

Then a voice comes. It is clear, youthful, though not perhaps boyish, and surprisingly gentle. "You are Morrison, the policeman," it says.

Morrison isn't sure if this is a question or a statement of fact, but he answers anyway. "I am," he says. As he says it, he feels a thin, vestigial shiver of pride, not in himself, but in the position. The office. office. He listens. The man in the dark is moving, coming forward, hovering at the edge of the light. He is carrying something-it looks like a bucket-and the lower part of his face is masked. In any other circ.u.mstances, Morrison would think the mask was a good sign-but as soon as he sees this tall, rather slender, youthful figure, he realizes that the man is beyond influence: that, however much he may like to observe, he is also someone who acts. He knows what he is going to do, it's just that he has a preordained script for the event, and it pleases him to follow that script. Now, finally, Morrison gives in to defiance. "You know who I am," he says. "So tell me. Who are you?" He listens. The man in the dark is moving, coming forward, hovering at the edge of the light. He is carrying something-it looks like a bucket-and the lower part of his face is masked. In any other circ.u.mstances, Morrison would think the mask was a good sign-but as soon as he sees this tall, rather slender, youthful figure, he realizes that the man is beyond influence: that, however much he may like to observe, he is also someone who acts. He knows what he is going to do, it's just that he has a preordained script for the event, and it pleases him to follow that script. Now, finally, Morrison gives in to defiance. "You know who I am," he says. "So tell me. Who are you?"

The man doesn't speak-and now, from some sign that is so subtle that even he can't tell how he read it, Morrison realizes that someone else is there too, standing farther out in the darkness, watching.

"Who's your friend?" Morrison asks.

The man looks at him now, his eyes blue and surprisingly soft-and Morrison realizes that he is not much more than a boy. "Who's your your friend?" he asks, not echoing, not mocking, but genuinely asking the question. friend?" he asks, not echoing, not mocking, but genuinely asking the question.

Morrison smiles. "I don't have any friends," he says. He's not being sad, or pathetic. He's not playing tactics. He has no friends and this man, this boy, knows as much. In fact, this boy knows everything about him. Or he thinks he does-only, he doesn't, because n.o.body knows everything about anybody. In fact, Morrison thinks, n.o.body knows very much at all. "When I was a kid-" he begins, changing tack.

"Not good enough." The man's voice is still quiet, but suddenly hard.

"What do you mean, not good enough?" Morrison is genuinely annoyed. He had just remembered something about himself, something true, and he had wanted to make it real as well, in the telling. "You haven't heard what I was going to say."

The man takes a step closer, then stops. He is in the light now and because he is in the light, Morrison can see that what he is carrying really is is a bucket. "No childhood stuff," the man says. "It's too easy." a bucket. "No childhood stuff," the man says. "It's too easy."

"But that's where it all begins," Morrison protests. He hears the slight crack in his voice and is annoyed with himself. He's let something go now, and he can't get it back. It was the surprise of the bucket, of course, that broke his concentration. Right now, all he wants to know is: What is in that bucket? "Where are you going to find an explanation, if not in the distant past?"

The man nods, and puts down the bucket. "Do you have have an explanation?" he asks. He seems genuinely curious, not about the question itself, but about the question of whether Morrison-who is beginning to see himself now, through this man, as a type, as a character in a story-has even bothered to look for an explanation. It's something that Morrison finds insulting, as if this man wants to deny him everything, not just a life, or an explanation, but even a soul. Or maybe what he is denying is the soul itself. The very possibility of a soul. Someone like Morrison can't have a soul of his own, because the soul is intrinsically good, intrinsically clean, a piece of property borrowed from G.o.d and all His angels, to be returned some day, pearly and clean and undamaged. The idea makes Morrison angry, and he wants to tell this man, this boy, that he's wrong, that the soul is wet and dark, a creature that takes up residence in the human body like a parasite and feeds on it, a creature hungry for experience and power and possessed of an inhuman joy that cares nothing for its host, but lives, as it must live, in perpetual, disfigured longing. "Well?" The man is still gently curious, and waiting now, making s.p.a.ce for Morrison to speak. an explanation?" he asks. He seems genuinely curious, not about the question itself, but about the question of whether Morrison-who is beginning to see himself now, through this man, as a type, as a character in a story-has even bothered to look for an explanation. It's something that Morrison finds insulting, as if this man wants to deny him everything, not just a life, or an explanation, but even a soul. Or maybe what he is denying is the soul itself. The very possibility of a soul. Someone like Morrison can't have a soul of his own, because the soul is intrinsically good, intrinsically clean, a piece of property borrowed from G.o.d and all His angels, to be returned some day, pearly and clean and undamaged. The idea makes Morrison angry, and he wants to tell this man, this boy, that he's wrong, that the soul is wet and dark, a creature that takes up residence in the human body like a parasite and feeds on it, a creature hungry for experience and power and possessed of an inhuman joy that cares nothing for its host, but lives, as it must live, in perpetual, disfigured longing. "Well?" The man is still gently curious, and waiting now, making s.p.a.ce for Morrison to speak.

And now Morrison can see into the bucket, or at least one side of it, which is spotted and streaked with something white, but he doesn't want to seem too curious. "When I was just a kid," he begins, deliberately, with the air of an invited speaker, "my mother took me on holiday. My father couldn't come, he had to work-"

"What did your father do?"

"He worked here, at the chemical plant," Morrison says. He looks the man in the eyes. "I a.s.sume that's where we are. At the chemical plant?"

The man ignores the question. "This "This is your explanation?" he asks. Morrison nods. "All right," the man says. "Go on." is your explanation?" he asks. Morrison nods. "All right," the man says. "Go on."

Morrison looks at the bucket. The contents are white and wet and he can smell something. A familiar smell, like chalk, but not quite. "We went to visit my aunt," Morrison continues. He feels sad, more or less resigned, not that interested in what he is saying. "She lived by the sea, but it wasn't like this. It was beautiful. Just by her house was a little beach, with this very white sand, and on the beach, a little pier or jetty running out into blue, clear water. I can't tell you how blue it was, or what a gift that pier was to a boy like me. A boy from this place." He looks at the man. He must be a boy from this place too, but who is he?

The man nods. "Go on," he says.

"Well," Morrison says, "I swam there every day, of course. They could hardly get me out of the water, even to eat or sleep. It was summer, really warm, but the water was cool, very cool. And I loved that water. It was my home, my element, a friend to me." He looks at the bucket. He suddenly knows that something terrible, truly terrible, is in store for him, and it has to do with this white, chalky substance splashed and spotted across the side of this bucket. "What's in the bucket?" he asks. The question surprises him. He hadn't intended it.

"Finish the story," the man says. "We have lots lots of time." of time."

In a panic, knowing the story will have no effect on anything, Morrison goes on talking, but now he can hardly bear to talk. It's as if the story itself were a form of torture and not whatever it is that this man, and some accomplice out in the shadows, have planned for him. "I loved that water," he says. "I thought of it as my friend, my companion. Slipping into it, off the end of that dark pier, was like returning to something that had always been there, something that predated everything else in my life. I trusted it utterly." He pauses: he is breathless now, tired again. "Then, on the last day of the holiday, a current came, out of nowhere. It was a real force of nature, a mysterious black current-not a ripple on the surface, but this quick dark force under the water that grabbed me like an animal and started pulling me under and away, away from the pier, out into the sound." He stops, breathes, sees the bucket. Plaster of Paris, he thinks, without knowing why. He remembers the smell, an old smell, a childhood smell. "I almost drowned," he says. "I thought I was going to die. And it really happens, at that last moment. You know, how they say you remember everything, your whole life flashes before you, every detail, all in a flash. Well, that's true, because it happened and I remember it. Only, it wasn't my life. It was somebody else's memories that flashed through my mind." Morrison stops. He is surprised by what he has just said, because it isn't what he had meant to say. Yet, oddly enough, it has a ring of truth to it. "I was remembering somebody else's life," he says. "Somebody I didn't know." In spite of everything, Morrison is almost pleased by this.

The man doesn't say anything for a moment. Instead, he kneels to the bucket and starts pulling out a length of what looks like wet bandage. Morrison can't tell whether he is listening, or if he has been listening all along. Finally, however, the man speaks. "So what happened?" he asks, as he separates one strand of bandage from another.

Morrison watches, fascinated. "I died," he says, almost as an aside.

The man laughs softly. "But you're still here," he says. He carries a length of the wet plaster-covered bandage to the chair and begins winding it around Morrison's right arm. "You know what this is?" he inquires, softly. He sounds like a doctor, with that good bedside manner.

Morrison nods. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asks.

The man doesn't answer, but continues to dress Morrison in the wet bandages.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Morrison says.

"No?"

"No." There is no mistaking, now, what is happening. Morrison knows he is going to die, but he doesn't care about that. He just wants it to be over. "I made mistakes, but I didn't do anything wrong-"

"What about William Ash? What about-"

"I didn't kill kill anybody." anybody."

"But you knew what was happening."

Morrison hesitates a moment, then. It isn't deliberate, and it isn't what he knows the man thinks it is-a calculation, a guess at how much the man knows and what he might get away with-but he does hesitate, and he knows right away that this is a terrible mistake to have made. He doesn't know why it happened-he has been through it all a thousand times, and he has resolved it all as well as he can, but he's never heard anyone say it out loud before. He's never been accused. accused.

"Well?" The man looks him in the eyes.

"I knew," Morrison says. He feels an almost unbearable sadness descend upon him, a weight, hanging in his bones. "But I couldn't do anything-"

Suddenly, another voice is speaking, a boy's voice, coming out of the dark. "You could have done something," something," this boy's voice says, and Morrison turns to see who it is. The boy is masked, like his companion, but he seems familiar to Morrison, a boy he can almost place, unlike the man who is working still, working steadily, building up a casing of wet bandages around Morrison and the chair. this boy's voice says, and Morrison turns to see who it is. The boy is masked, like his companion, but he seems familiar to Morrison, a boy he can almost place, unlike the man who is working still, working steadily, building up a casing of wet bandages around Morrison and the chair.

"I couldn't do anything," Morrison says softly, to the man by the chair. Then, after a pause that really is deliberate, he plays his one last card, speaking even more quietly, even intimately. "I have a wife," he says.

"What was that?" It's the boy talking, angry, mocking. "What did you say?"

"I said, I have a wife," Morrison repeats, still speaking to the man, who has turned back to the bucket.

"What has your wife got to do with it?" the boy shouts. "You were the police. You were supposed to protect people."

The boy is right, of course. Morrison knows that. But he is also wrong, because he thinks Morrison is someone else, he thinks he is worse than he is. Still, he nods. He is about to speak, when the man turns round and starts wrapping Morrison's face with a wet bandage, the cold, clinging plaster chilling his skin, tiny granules of it seeping into his mouth.

"Don't worry," the man says, "I'll leave a s.p.a.ce for you to breathe."

Morrison is in a state of panic now, but he cannot move. He cannot do anything. Soon he will be unable even to speak.

"They used to wrap people up like this," the man says, "back in the old days, as a treatment for tuberculosis. Did you know that?" It's like having a conversation with an over-friendly barber: the man even cranes sideways and looks into Morrison's eyes to make sure he is listening. It means something to him, this story. He has planned this carefully, and the story sits at the center of it all, like a spider in its web. "Tuberculosis isn't just a lung thing," the man continues, once he is satisfied that he has Morrison's attention. "It affects the bones too. They would leave people in these casts for weeks, to prevent deformities. To straighten them, so to speak." He pauses-and Morrison detects a wistfulness in that pause, as if the man is remembering something that had once happened to him. "It would drive them crazy, of course," he says. He steps back to look at his handiwork. "A little more here and we'll soon be done," he says, though Morrison isn't sure if the man is talking to him, or to the boy in the shadows. He can already feel the bandages drying around his arms and legs. He's in a body-size cast now: soon it will all be dry, and he will be like one of those tuberculosis patients of old. Will it drive him crazy? Will it straighten him? Is that what this is about?

The man returns from the bucket. "Yes, it must have been a living h.e.l.l," he says. "For the patients, I mean." He works quickly now, building up layers, solidifying his creation. Finally he runs out of bandages. He bends to Morrison's face. Only the nose and the eyes are still exposed. "Don't go away," he says.

Morrison wants to look round, to see where the boy is, but already he can't move. All he can see is the man, walking away with the bucket, walking into the darkness, where he stays hidden for some time, before returning with another bucket. The man sets this bucket in the exact same spot as before and begins his work again. "Enter ye in at the strait gate," "Enter ye in at the strait gate," he says, and continues as he binds Morrison with the bandages, going quickly, building upon the framework he has already created. he says, and continues as he binds Morrison with the bandages, going quickly, building upon the framework he has already created. "For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." "For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." He stops speaking and stands back. "There," he says. "You're done." He looks at Morrison. Far away, there is a sound, a small sound, the flutter of a bird, or wind through a broken cas.e.m.e.nt, Morrison cannot tell, but it's not a significant sound, it's not someone coming to the rescue. Still, the man stands a moment, his head tilted to one side. Now, though, it's silent again, a silence that seems to deepen and broaden the longer the man listens, as if he were making this silence happen, simply by giving it his attention. Morrison listens too: for a moment, they are joined together in a fleeting complicity, two men in a room, listening, waiting; then, suddenly, shocked that he hasn't seen it before, he realizes that He stops speaking and stands back. "There," he says. "You're done." He looks at Morrison. Far away, there is a sound, a small sound, the flutter of a bird, or wind through a broken cas.e.m.e.nt, Morrison cannot tell, but it's not a significant sound, it's not someone coming to the rescue. Still, the man stands a moment, his head tilted to one side. Now, though, it's silent again, a silence that seems to deepen and broaden the longer the man listens, as if he were making this silence happen, simply by giving it his attention. Morrison listens too: for a moment, they are joined together in a fleeting complicity, two men in a room, listening, waiting; then, suddenly, shocked that he hasn't seen it before, he realizes that this this man, this speaker of Bible verses, is the one who killed Mark and left him suspended in the poison bower. man, this speaker of Bible verses, is the one who killed Mark and left him suspended in the poison bower. He He is the one who took the other boys, the one who killed them all and, now that speech has been taken away from him, Morrison desperately needs to ask why he did it. Why the boys and, now, why is the one who took the other boys, the one who killed them all and, now that speech has been taken away from him, Morrison desperately needs to ask why he did it. Why the boys and, now, why this, this, when the man knows that Morrison is innocent. Now he can see that, in this man's mind, something has been achieved by this ritual of bandages and Gospel, just as something was achieved in killing those children. He thinks of the verses the man had quoted and, for himself, he adds in the one that seems most significant, for this moment, for this act. He wants to say it aloud, but he can't, because the plaster-of-Paris bandages are already thick around his face, already beginning to dry, and his mouth is set, speechless. All he can do is repeat those verses in his head and look this man in the eye so that, perhaps, by some effort of will, he can communicate his thoughts. when the man knows that Morrison is innocent. Now he can see that, in this man's mind, something has been achieved by this ritual of bandages and Gospel, just as something was achieved in killing those children. He thinks of the verses the man had quoted and, for himself, he adds in the one that seems most significant, for this moment, for this act. He wants to say it aloud, but he can't, because the plaster-of-Paris bandages are already thick around his face, already beginning to dry, and his mouth is set, speechless. All he can do is repeat those verses in his head and look this man in the eye so that, perhaps, by some effort of will, he can communicate his thoughts. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," "Judge not, that ye be not judged," he begins, putting everything, all the life that remains to him, into the thought. he begins, putting everything, all the life that remains to him, into the thought. "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Morrison is not a churchgoing man, in any meaningful sense, but he knows this pa.s.sage from Matthew, he knows it well. It is written along his bones and along his veins, and in the well of his skull. Morrison is not a churchgoing man, in any meaningful sense, but he knows this pa.s.sage from Matthew, he knows it well. It is written along his bones and along his veins, and in the well of his skull. "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

All this time, the man has been watching him. Morrison even thinks he has got through, that the man really is hearing the verses that Morrison is thinking. Finally, however, the man leans in and fixes Morrison's eyes. His look is questioning, like the look the teachers would have when they punished him in school, a look so full of self-righteousness that he would always refuse to dignify it with a response. After a moment, the man says, not loudly, but loud enough so Morrison hears it clearly through the bandages: "I'm giving you time to repent yourself," he says. "Use it well."

With that, he is gone, moving off into the darkness, disappearing for a few seconds, then reappearing in Morrison's line of vision, walking away into the dark again, accompanied now by the boy, who must have been there all along, watching, listening. The two vanish for a long time into the darkness, and Morrison thinks he is alone now, frozen, suspended in time and s.p.a.ce, and the panic is almost impossible to bear-like the panic of Thomas a Kempis, when he was buried alive, only worse, since Thomas could at least fight, he could claw at the lid of his coffin, he could scream and moan and pray. Then, when the panic has built to a point at which Morrison feels he might lose consciousness and fold into some kind of mercy, he sees directly ahead of him, where there had only been darkness before, a bright circle of light, fiery, brilliant, utterly inexplicable. For a moment, that is all he sees; then, as his eyes adjust to that sudden brightness, he sees two figures, the man and the boy, walking into this brilliant light, walking into the fire and disappearing into its radiance, as if it had been their natural element all along, sparks returning to the light, flames returning to the fire. It is a terrible moment and, even after all they have done to him, he feels afraid, for them as for himself, because surely they know what they are doing, surely they know that they are walking into the fiery flames of h.e.l.l, never to return, but to be extinguished, forever.

Then, just as suddenly as it burst upon his eyes, the brightness vanishes and the great room is dark again. The man and the boy are gone, lost in the flames, and Morrison is alone.

HEAVEN.

WHY IS HEAVEN SO BRIGHT? WHY DOES THE LIGHT BLIND US? IN ONE story I heard, the first thing the soul wants to do, when it gets to heaven, is to turn and look back toward the life it left behind-but then, if it did, if it could, it would see that everyone it ever knew was still in purgatory. And then heaven wouldn't be heaven anymore. No matter how beautiful heaven is, and even though the soul understands how terrible the old life was, it wants to go back, because of those others. Not because it loved them, or cared so much about them, but because they are calling out from where they are and the soul can't shut out their voices. It belongs with them. It belongs to the earth. story I heard, the first thing the soul wants to do, when it gets to heaven, is to turn and look back toward the life it left behind-but then, if it did, if it could, it would see that everyone it ever knew was still in purgatory. And then heaven wouldn't be heaven anymore. No matter how beautiful heaven is, and even though the soul understands how terrible the old life was, it wants to go back, because of those others. Not because it loved them, or cared so much about them, but because they are calling out from where they are and the soul can't shut out their voices. It belongs with them. It belongs to the earth.

And this is why heaven is bright. This is why it is blinding. So that we can never look back.

The Moth Man hadn't said anything, after he'd shown me the machine he had constructed from his father's notes and drawings. He didn't explain anything, or tell me what was going to happen to me when I pa.s.sed through the portal. Maybe he had tried to put something into words when he first brought me to the room, but I was still drunk or whatever from the tea and I didn't get what he was saying. Whatever he said or didn't say, though, he didn't explain anything. This isn't that kind of a story. He didn't take hold of my arm and say, "Quick, come with me. I'll get you out of here," like Harrison Ford in some adventure movie. He didn't sit me down and run through the plot, filling in all the gaps, like Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes after the mystery has been solved and the criminals have been taken away. He didn't explain the mystery because he was was the mystery, only he was the counterbalance to the mystery that had gone before, the first step in a new beginning. Like the crazy photographer says, in the mystery, only he was the counterbalance to the mystery that had gone before, the first step in a new beginning. Like the crazy photographer says, in Apocalypse Now: Apocalypse Now: he was yin and yang, thesis, ant.i.thesis, synthesis; he was the dialectic in the form of a living, breathing friend. And I still call him my friend because that was what he was. To begin with, I thought I knew him, but then I saw that, even if some of him was old, even if he came, in part, from the world I had known before, he was also new: an unforeseeable new creature, suddenly released from some secret hiding place to walk and breathe and act, as if for the first time. Like Ariel, maybe, at the end of he was yin and yang, thesis, ant.i.thesis, synthesis; he was the dialectic in the form of a living, breathing friend. And I still call him my friend because that was what he was. To begin with, I thought I knew him, but then I saw that, even if some of him was old, even if he came, in part, from the world I had known before, he was also new: an unforeseeable new creature, suddenly released from some secret hiding place to walk and breathe and act, as if for the first time. Like Ariel, maybe, at the end of The Tempest. The Tempest. He was a friend, but he was another kind of friend, like the friend you imagine you're going to have, but never quite find, all the way through your childhood. A friend who's so close, he might as well be you-and maybe he is, in a way. You're partly him, he's partly you. He knows what you don't know and you see what he misses. He was a friend, but he was another kind of friend, like the friend you imagine you're going to have, but never quite find, all the way through your childhood. A friend who's so close, he might as well be you-and maybe he is, in a way. You're partly him, he's partly you. He knows what you don't know and you see what he misses.

I don't really know him, though. He isn't who I thought he was, he isn't even who I thought he wasn't. All that time, I didn't even know his real name. I just called him the Moth Man, because that was who he was for me: the Moth Man, the man who belonged to the woods, part of the landscape, flitting from one place to the next, coming to rest for a while then moving on. I never knew where. I never thought to ask him his name, or where he lived, or whether he had any family, other than his father-but then, who cares about names? Who cares about some address somewhere, or the tax disk on a van, or whether he's on the electoral roll? He doesn't belong to the Innertown, I know that much, but it never occurred to me that he might belong anywhere other than the woods. If I don't know anything about him, it is because I never wanted to know. Not about names and addresses and such, anyhow. I'm not saying he wasn't the person I thought I knew when we were out in the woods looking at plants, or sitting at his campfire drinking strange tea, it's just that there is more to him than I had ever seen, but I suppose you could say that about anybody. I remember John telling me about this girl he knew, back when he was a teenager: she worked in the music shop where he used to go, whenever he had money to buy records, and he was maybe in love with her, only she was older, and really pretty, and John didn't reckon he had a chance with her so he didn't say anything, he just went into the shop and bought his record, or maybe he ordered something that they didn't have, so they could get it in for him a week later, and he was very formal, very proper in everything he said and did, so she would never know she had this secret admirer. This kid. While he was telling this, I remember my mind was racing ahead to some kind of punch line, like maybe in that Romain Gary story where the guy can't work up the courage to talk to the beautiful woman who lives in the apartment above his, even though he pa.s.ses her on the stairs every day. He can't think of anything to say, so he doesn't say anything and he just gets lonelier and lonelier, till in the end he's sitting in his cold little room and he can hear the woman upstairs having loud s.e.x with someone and he's so desperate, he's so wretched that he hangs himself out of sheer loneliness. And you have to know already-it's part of the plan of the story that you know already because these things are already written, that's what makes it all so dreary and pitiless, you have to know that, when the police come to file a report and haul the body away, the concierge tells them the woman upstairs is dead, she's taken poison and died in agony, writhing about on her bed, moaning and crying. Etc., etc. Only that wasn't John's story at all, it wasn't one of those all-in-the-diffidence-that-faltered stories at all, it was worse, in its way, because it was just one of John's stories, part of real life, where nothing's ever happening, because nothing ever does. In this story, John keeps going into the shop and standing there all tongue-tied and helpless for months and then he goes in one day and the girl is gone. He doesn't want to ask where she is, in case he betrays himself, but the guy behind the counter volunteers the information anyhow, how she has died mysteriously in the night, just two days before, a twenty-year-old woman dead in her bed from some obscure disease that has the same effect on the lungs as drowning. This is what he tells John, and John can see that he wants to tell it, because he knows John's secret, everybody does, because John is just this obvious boy in love that they're all having a laugh about, and now the guy, who's called Dave, wants to see how John will take it. And John bursts into tears, because he really was in love. In love enough not to have wanted anything, in love enough not to have said a word. And of course when Dave sees this, he feels bad and he wants to give John something to go away with, some sc.r.a.p of information about the girl-her name was Kate, I think, but I'm not sure if John ever told me, or whether I just thought it, because in the story she sounded like a Kate. Kate Thompson. Or maybe Katie. Anyhow, Dave tells him that, when they were going through the girl's things afterward, they found a hammer, a plane, a fretsaw, all kinds of tools, mostly still in their wrappers, tucked away in the drawers of her cupboard under the sweaters and socks and bras, a complete set of tools for a carpenter or something, only they'd never been used, and it looked like Kate or Katie had been buying them one at a time over months or even years, because some of them had the receipts still in the bags and the dates were all different. That's what the guy, Dave, had told John, to make him feel better-and that was what John remembered years later, when he told me the story. That, and the words the guy had repeated to him, in that poky little record shop that smelled of vinyl and warm dust, all those years ago. "People are strange," Dave had said and, when John hadn't said anything in reply, because he couldn't think of anything to say, he'd said it again. "People are strange, true enough."

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As the story approaches its end, I am still thinking of Morrison as a gift. The Moth Man knows our local bobby hasn't killed anyone, but he also knows that in its own, very particular Innertown way, the policeman's offense is too grievous to go unpunished, the most extreme form of an offense the whole town has been mired in for decades: the sin of omission, the sin of averting our gaze and not seeing what was going on right in front of our eyes. The sin of not wanting to know; the sin of knowing everything and not doing anything about it. The sin of knowing things on paper but refusing to know them in our hearts. Everybody knows that that sin. All you have to do is switch on the TV and watch the news. I'm not saying we should try to help the people in Somalia, or stop the devastation of the rain forests, it's just that we don't feel anything at all other than a mild sense of discomfort or embarra.s.sment when we see the broken trees and the mud slides, or the child amputees in the field hospitals-and it's unforgivable that we go on with our lives when these things are happening somewhere. It's sin. All you have to do is switch on the TV and watch the news. I'm not saying we should try to help the people in Somalia, or stop the devastation of the rain forests, it's just that we don't feel anything at all other than a mild sense of discomfort or embarra.s.sment when we see the broken trees and the mud slides, or the child amputees in the field hospitals-and it's unforgivable that we go on with our lives when these things are happening somewhere. It's unforgivable. unforgivable. When you see that, everything ought to change. When you see that, everything ought to change.

That's why the Moth Man does what he does to Morrison. Because Morrison knows that it is unforgivable even to be innocent when the lost boys are vanishing into the undergrowth all around us. It's unforgivable not to know where they are, even if it's impossible to know. Morrison knows that it is unforgivable for a child to disappear without a trace, and that is both his worst sin and the beginning of his redemption. Because it is a redemption, or the beginning of redemption, that scene the Moth Man so carefully stages in the Glister room. At the time, I can't be expected to understand that. I think of it as a punishment, pure and simple. I don't know how limited Morrison's involvement in the murders has been, but the Moth Man knows. He knows better than anyone, but he makes his terrible gift anyway. Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn't have accepted it- but then, if I had known then what I know now, I would have known that the gift isn't meant for me. It's meant for Morrison. Grotesque as that might sound, it's still true-for how else would a man be released from h.e.l.l, if not through some terrible, but mercifully terminal agony? In his way, the Moth Man is building Morrison a refuge. When he so carefully and thoughtfully binds him in that plaster cell, he is constructing a sacred place where the guilty policeman can be set aside and so, eventually, absolved from the sin of the world. This is how he sees it, I know, but it's only now that I see what a burden it must have been to him.

So he gives me Morrison as a gift, but he doesn't care about it. Right from the beginning, he is thinking about the Glister, and how he will show me the way through. Not to get me out out of here, but to get me farther in. All the way in. But he is patient too and he can see that something has to be done, that the old life has to be closed down. So we take Morrison, and we bring him to this enormous room, just fifty yards from the Glister. Which is what, exactly? A door? A portal? What is on the other side? I don't know, and to tell the truth I don't even want to think about it. I just know that, when the time comes, I will pa.s.s through and then I will be all the way in. of here, but to get me farther in. All the way in. But he is patient too and he can see that something has to be done, that the old life has to be closed down. So we take Morrison, and we bring him to this enormous room, just fifty yards from the Glister. Which is what, exactly? A door? A portal? What is on the other side? I don't know, and to tell the truth I don't even want to think about it. I just know that, when the time comes, I will pa.s.s through and then I will be all the way in.

I didn't know if Morrison was the killer at the start but, by the end of it all, when we leave him there in his cast, I know he isn't. Nevertheless, he was implicated, he made some of it possible, so a little bit of justice has been done. Now it's up to the Innertown to carry on that good work. They will have to get themselves an angel, and go up to the Outertown and wipe off the white marks on the lintels. Or they could just stop collaborating with the powers that be and start playing a new game. Make up some new rules, and forget all that touche pas a la femme blanche touche pas a la femme blanche stuff. But that's up to them, it doesn't have anything to do with me anymore. Dad is dead, a collaborator in his own misery all his life, a sleepwalker I was never able to shake awake. Now I am tired, and I'm not at all sure I have the heart for anything else, so my friend arranges the thing with Morrison, and by doing this he lets me see that, sooner or later, justice will be done. We shake Morrison awake, giving him the tools to judge for himself how far he is from heaven. Then we walk away and leave him there to rot. stuff. But that's up to them, it doesn't have anything to do with me anymore. Dad is dead, a collaborator in his own misery all his life, a sleepwalker I was never able to shake awake. Now I am tired, and I'm not at all sure I have the heart for anything else, so my friend arranges the thing with Morrison, and by doing this he lets me see that, sooner or later, justice will be done. We shake Morrison awake, giving him the tools to judge for himself how far he is from heaven. Then we walk away and leave him there to rot.

They say that, if you want to stay alive, you have to love something. Though maybe love is the wrong word after all. Maybe you have to be be something. Not some big shot, or somebody's baby, or anything like that. Not smart, or beautiful, or rich. Not famous or dangerous. You just have to something. Not some big shot, or somebody's baby, or anything like that. Not smart, or beautiful, or rich. Not famous or dangerous. You just have to be. be. I don't know if that makes any sense, right at this moment, but I have the feeling, as we stand in front of his strange machine, that we are about to find out. I don't see what he does to open the thing: to begin with, it's just a round door in a metal wall, a rusting metal door with letters I can just make out, all flaky and vague amid the rust and dirt, I don't know if that makes any sense, right at this moment, but I have the feeling, as we stand in front of his strange machine, that we are about to find out. I don't see what he does to open the thing: to begin with, it's just a round door in a metal wall, a rusting metal door with letters I can just make out, all flaky and vague amid the rust and dirt, GLISTER &.

For a moment, everything is quiet and still. I stand staring at the letters engraved in the metal, trying to make sense of them, then the Moth Man steps forward and reaches to open the door-and I realize that I am listening to something, up in the roof somewhere, or somewhere above the roof maybe. I can't make it out at first, then I realize that it's a flock of gulls, a big one, maybe hundreds, thousands even, and they are swaying back and forth above the enormous room. Hundreds of thousands of gulls, millions, risen from the landfill and from the gray inlets all along the sh.o.r.e to congregate above us, crying and calling out, and, behind them, somewhere hidden in all that noise, like the nut in a kernel, I can just make out the sound of the tide rushing through wet shingle, a dark, eternal sound that I know will never end, because it isn't just out there in the sky above us, it isn't just in the world, it's in me, it's written in every nerve and bone in my body. Then the Moth Man reaches out and starts to open the door to the portal.

I turn away then, to look back. Not for Morrison's sake, but to see what I am leaving behind. Or maybe to look for one last time at the place where I once belonged. I just want one last look at the only world I have ever known, reduced as it is to this cold room, barely lit by the single faint lamp that runs off the generator the Moth Man built to get the Glister running-but something off to the right catches my eye, something up in the roof beams that I've not seen before, just to the right of the lightbulb. I'm not sure why I see it, because I'm not looking for anything out there at the edge of the light. I should be looking ahead, to the door that the Moth Man is about to open, the door to another world maybe-but something catches my eye and I turn to see what it is. I don't see how it could have moved, and there's no sound, but I feel as if something has happened, that whatever it is that's out there has somehow attracted my attention of its own accord. Even then, it's hard to make it out, just a shadowy ma.s.s that seems darker than the shadow that surrounds it, but after a moment I think I can make out the shape of a body, or a carca.s.s maybe, like those sides of meat you see in the butcher's shop, the ma.s.s of it heavy and horribly still, some dark liquid dripping onto the concrete below. And I am surprised not to have noticed it before. Something like that. I am surprised-and he notices that, because he reaches out and touches my arm, gently, without the least hint of force. "Don't get distracted," he says. His voice is softer than usual, and for a moment he sounds almost uncertain, as if he is afraid I will fail in some way at the last moment. I turn back to face him.

For a moment, I see the body again, then it's gone and the Moth Man is there, watching me, not afraid after all, not even concerned, just curious, noticing that something has distracted me but not allowing his attention to waver, in case I do falter, and I see, at that moment, that I'm not doing this for my own sake, I'm doing it for him and-in his eyes at least-for everyone. Everyone in the Innertown, everyone on the peninsula, maybe everyone everywhere. I'm surprised.

"It's time," he says. "You're almost there."

"You're not coming," I say. It's not a question: I've seen in his eyes that he is going to send me into the Glister alone. Which I should have known, of course, because he has to stay, he has to go on with his work. He is is the necessary angel. I have an image of him going from house to house all along the peninsula, picking off the Morrisons and the Jenners and the Smiths, one by one. That's what I see in him, at the last. An angel going from door to door. The angel of death. The angel of absolution, gathering in the souls of the wicked-not as a punishment, but because G.o.d has forgiven them at last, and is releasing them from the h.e.l.l they had fallen into. Now, the Moth Man shakes his head softly, a half smile on his lips. "I have to stay here," he says. the necessary angel. I have an image of him going from house to house all along the peninsula, picking off the Morrisons and the Jenners and the Smiths, one by one. That's what I see in him, at the last. An angel going from door to door. The angel of death. The angel of absolution, gathering in the souls of the wicked-not as a punishment, but because G.o.d has forgiven them at last, and is releasing them from the h.e.l.l they had fallen into. Now, the Moth Man shakes his head softly, a half smile on his lips. "I have to stay here," he says.

Yet, even as he speaks, his face fades again and I look past him, out to the edge of the circle-and this time I see it clearly: a body, suspended in the half-light, the ruined frame of a boy hanging in the air like Icarus falling in some old painting, a boy my age and more or less my build, a boy with my coloring, as far as I can see in that light, and pretty much my height as far as I can tell. A mirror image of me, traveling on some parallel track, like the me/ not-me I'd seen in the woods, mon semblable mon semblable-mon frere. I'd thought he was dead when I glimpsed him before; now I see that he is badly cut, but still alive, the dark blood dripping from his face and hands, his body bound in something bright, swaying slightly in the air, his mouth open, it seems, as if he wants to say something, or had wanted to say something a moment before-and now I know why I want to remember all this as if it had happened in the past, even though I know it continues in the present, because the boy isn't trying to speak, he's screaming, and the boy is me, only it's me in some parallel version of the story, just as I turn and see that the Moth Man is gone. Gone forever, though I could have sworn he was there a moment before. The Moth Man is gone, and then the boy on the wire is gone and I am stepping forward into this vast, impossibly brilliant light. I step forward with the feeling that I'm going to fall, or be swallowed up, and instead I am standing right in the middle of that unbearable light-only I'm not standing I'd thought he was dead when I glimpsed him before; now I see that he is badly cut, but still alive, the dark blood dripping from his face and hands, his body bound in something bright, swaying slightly in the air, his mouth open, it seems, as if he wants to say something, or had wanted to say something a moment before-and now I know why I want to remember all this as if it had happened in the past, even though I know it continues in the present, because the boy isn't trying to speak, he's screaming, and the boy is me, only it's me in some parallel version of the story, just as I turn and see that the Moth Man is gone. Gone forever, though I could have sworn he was there a moment before. The Moth Man is gone, and then the boy on the wire is gone and I am stepping forward into this vast, impossibly brilliant light. I step forward with the feeling that I'm going to fall, or be swallowed up, and instead I am standing right in the middle of that unbearable light-only I'm not standing there there anymore, I'm somewhere else and everything is gone. The Moth Man, the Glister, the boy in the beams of the ceiling, Morrison in his plaster cell-everything I know is gone, and all that remains is the calling of the gulls, above and around me the calling of the gulls and the slow, insistent motion of the waters, slow and far away and barely audible, turning on the sh.o.r.e and in my mind. anymore, I'm somewhere else and everything is gone. The Moth Man, the Glister, the boy in the beams of the ceiling, Morrison in his plaster cell-everything I know is gone, and all that remains is the calling of the gulls, above and around me the calling of the gulls and the slow, insistent motion of the waters, slow and far away and barely audible, turning on the sh.o.r.e and in my mind.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to the Society of Authors for their support in the research and writing of this book. Also to the Conseil General du Nord, and the staff at La Villa Mont-Noir, merci a tous. merci a tous.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

John Burnside is the author of the novel The Devil's Footprints, The Devil's Footprints, the memoir the memoir A Lie About My Father, A Lie About My Father, as well as five additional works of fiction and eleven collections of poetry published in the United Kingdom. as well as five additional works of fiction and eleven collections of poetry published in the United Kingdom. The Asylum Dance The Asylum Dance won the Whitbread Poetry Award, won the Whitbread Poetry Award, The Light Trap The Light Trap was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and A Lie About My Father A Lie About My Father won the two biggest Scottish literary prizes: the Scottish Arts Council Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. won the two biggest Scottish literary prizes: the Scottish Arts Council Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award.

ALSO BY JOHN BURNSIDE[image]

FICTIONThe Dumb House The Mercy Boys Burning Elvis The Locust Room Living Nowhere The Devil's Footprints

POETRY.

The Hoop Common Knowledge Feast Days The Myth of the Twin Swimming in the Flood A Normal Skin The Asylum Dance The Light Trap The Good Neighbor Selected Poems Gift Songs

NONFICTIONA Lie About My Father