Piranesi(51)

A metre or so below us the Back and Upper Arms of the Horned Giant emerged from the Wall. There was a Space between his Back and the Wall, a sort of marble pocket. I jumped; it was a distance of approximately two metres sideways, one metre down; I managed it with ease. I looked up at 16. Her eyes were wide with apprehension. I held out my arms. She jumped. I caught her.

We were now shielded from the Other’s Gun by the Giant’s Body. I heaved Myself up his marble Back to look over his Shoulder.

The Other had turned away from us and was trying to reach the boat. But he had left it too late. The Waters were as high as his knees and the contending Waves were dragging at him. As he struggled, he seemed to grow heavier; the boat by contrast grew lighter, freer. It danced on the Waters, spun from one Part of the Hall to another; one moment it was by the Northern Wall, the next it was halfway to the Western Wall. The Other kept changing direction to follow it, but by the time he had taken a few arduous steps, the boat was somewhere else entirely.

Suddenly it was as if the boat remembered the purpose for which it had been brought here; it seemed to make up its mind to save him. It turned and sailed directly towards him. He held out his arms and leant forwards to catch it. It was barely half a metre from his grasp. For an instant I think he had his hand on its bow; then it twirled around and was gone, borne away to the Western End of the Hall.

‘Climb! Climb!’ I shouted. It was too late to catch the boat, but I thought that if he climbed, he might still save himself. But he could not hear me above the Sound of the Waters pouring into the Hall. He continued to wade desperately, uselessly, after the boat.

There was a Great Rush and a Great Roar in the next Hall; a Weight of Water hit the other side of the Northern Wall. Boom!!! And then I was grateful that we had climbed down to the Horned Giant. If we had still been standing on the Cornice, we would have been flung off the Wall. But the Horned Giant held us fast.

Spray as high as the Ceiling exploded through all the Northern Doors. The Spray caught the Sun; it was as if someone had suddenly thrown a hundred barrelfuls of diamonds into the Hall.

Great Waves surged through the Northern Doors. One plucked up the Other and threw him against the Southern Wall. He crashed into the Statues at a point about fifteen metres from the Floor. I imagine that that was when he died.

The Wave drew back; he disappeared into it.

Meanwhile the little inflatable boat whirled about on the Waters, sometimes engulfed by them for a moment or two, but always reappearing immediately. If he could only have reached it, it would have saved him.

Raphael

SECOND ENTRY FOR THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH IN THE YEAR THE ALBATROSS CAME TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HALLS

Waves crashed against the Southern Wall; explosions of white Spray filled the Hall. The Waters covered the Bottom Tier of Statues; the colour of the Waters was a stormy grey and their Depths were black. Several times Waves passed over our heads, but they fell back the next instant. We were drenched, we were numbed, we were blinded, we were deafened; but always we were saved.

Time passed.

The Waves sank down and the Waters became peaceable. They began to drain away into the Staircases and the Lower Halls. The Heads of the Bottom Tier of Statues reappeared above the Surface of the Waters.

In all this time 16 and I had not spoken to each other. The Roar of the Waves would have made it impossible for us to hear each other and in any case, we had been intent on saving ourselves and each other; we had had no thought for anything else. Now we turned and looked at each other.

16 had large dark eyes and an elfin face. Her expression was solemn. She was a little older than me – about forty, I thought. Her hair was black with wet.

‘You are Six … You are Raphael,’ I said.

‘I’m Sarah Raphael,’ she said. ‘And you are Matthew Rose Sorensen.’

And you are Matthew Rose Sorensen. This time she framed it as a statement, rather than a question. This was surely premature. It would have been better to keep it as a question. But then again, if she had framed it as a question, I would not have known how to answer it.

‘Did he know you?’ I asked.

‘Did who know me?’ she said.

‘Matthew Rose Sorensen. Did Matthew Rose Sorensen know you? Is that why you came here?’

She paused, taking in what I had just said. Then she said carefully, ‘No. You and I have never met.’

‘Then why?’

‘I’m a police officer,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ I said.

We fell back into silence. We were both still dazed by what had happened. Our eyes were still full of images of the Violent Waters; our ears were still full of their Sounds; our minds were still full of that moment when the Other was flung by the Wave against the Wall of Statues. We had nothing at that moment to say to each other.

Raphael turned her attention to practical matters. She examined the injury to my forehead and said that it was not very deep. She did not think that I had been hit by one of the Other’s bullets; more likely I had been grazed by a shard of splintered marble.

The Level of the Waters continued to fall. When they came no higher than the Plinths of the Bottom Tier of Statues, I began to consider how we would get down from the Horned Giant. We could not return the way we had come since that would involve a leap upwards onto the Cornice. I did not think that Raphael could manage it. (Indeed, I was not sure that I could either.)

‘I’ll go and fetch something to help you climb down,’ I told her. ‘Don’t be anxious. I’ll return as quickly as I can.’