Piranesi(55)

Raphael’s voice answered him: ‘Something about the attempt caused him to disappear?’

‘Yes.’ Laurence Arne-Sayles again.

‘Something happened to him during this … this ritual, whatever it was? Why? Where do these rituals take place?’

‘You mean do we perform them on the edge of a precipice and he just fell off? No, nothing like that. Besides, it needn’t necessarily have been a ritual. I never use them myself.’

‘But why would he do that?’ asked Raphael. ‘Why would he perform the ritual or do whatever it is? There’s nothing in what he wrote to suggest he believed your theories. Quite the reverse in fact.’

‘Oh, belief,’ said Arne-Sayles, laying a deep, sarcastic emphasis on the word. ‘Why do people always think it’s a question of belief? It’s not. People can “believe” whatever they want. I really couldn’t care less.’

‘Yes, but if he didn’t believe, why would he even try?’

‘Because he had half a brain and he recognised that mine was one of the great intellects of the twentieth century – perhaps the greatest of all. And he wanted to understand me. So he made the attempt to reach another world, not because he thought the other world existed, but because he thought the attempt itself would grant him insight into my thinking. Into me. And now you are going to do the same.’

‘Me?’ Raphael sounded startled.

‘Yes. And you are going to do it for the exact same reason that Rose Sorensen did it. He wanted to understand my thinking. You want to understand his. Adjust your perceptions in the way I am about to describe to you. Perform the actions that I will outline for you and then you will know.’

‘What will I know, Laurence?’

‘You’ll know what happened to Matthew Rose Sorensen.’

‘It’s that simple?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s that simple.’

Raphael tapped the device; the voices fell silent.

‘I didn’t think that was a bad idea,’ she said, ‘to try and understand what you’d been thinking at the point you disappeared. Arne-Sayles described what to do, how to go back to a prerational mode of thought. He said that when I’d done that, I’d see paths all around me and he told me which one to choose. I thought he meant metaphorical paths. It was a bit of a shock when it turned out he didn’t.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Matthew Rose Sorensen was shocked when he first arrived. Shocked and frightened. And then he fell asleep and I was born. Later I found entries in my Journal that frightened me. I thought that I must have been mad when I wrote them. But now I understand that Matthew Rose Sorensen wrote them and he was describing a different World.’

‘Yes.’

‘And the Other World has different things in it. Words such as “Manchester” and “police station” have no meaning here. Because those things do not exist. Words such as “river” and “mountain” do have meaning but only because those things are depicted in the Statues. I suppose that these things must exist in the Older World. In this World the Statues depict things that exist in the Older World.’

‘Yes,’ said Raphael. ‘Here you can only see a representation of a river or a mountain, but in our world – the other world – you can see the actual river and the actual mountain.’

This annoyed me. ‘I do not see why you say I can only see a representation in this World,’ I said with some sharpness. ‘The word “only” suggests a relationship of inferiority. You make it sound as if the Statue was somehow inferior to the thing itself. I do not see that that is the case at all. I would argue that the Statue is superior to the thing itself, the Statue being perfect, eternal and not subject to decay.’

‘Sorry,’ said Raphael. ‘I didn’t mean to disparage your world.’

There was a silence.

‘What is the Other World like?’ I asked.

Raphael looked as if she did not know quite how to answer this question. ‘There are more people,’ she said at last.

‘A lot more?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘As many as seventy?’ I asked, deliberately choosing a high, rather improbable number.

‘Yes,’ she said. Then she smiled.

‘Why do you smile?’ I asked.

‘It’s the way you raise your eyebrow at me. That dubious, rather imperious look. Do you know who you look like when you do that?’

‘No. Who?’

‘You look like Matthew Rose Sorensen. Like photos of him that I’ve seen.’

‘How do you know that there are more than seventy people?’ I asked. ‘Have you counted them yourself?’

‘No, but I’m fairly sure,’ she said. ‘It’s not always a pleasant world, the other world. There’s a lot of sadness.’ She paused. ‘A lot of sadness,’ she said again. ‘It’s not like here.’ She sighed. ‘I need you to understand something. Whether you come back with me or not, it’s up to you. Ketterley tricked you. He kept you here with lies and deceit. I don’t want to trick you. You must only come if you want to.’

‘And if I stay here will you come back and visit me?’ I said.

‘Of course,’ she said.