Turning Back the Sun(53)

“Yes I do. That was an unfortunate accident. I remember your father had to sack the native maid when he returned.”

“I”d forgotten that.”

“Well, you were only five. We could afford more native servants in those days. They weren”t very reliable, and who could blame them? They were paid nothing. This one somehow started a fire which gutted half the house. Luckily she rescued you first.”

“I don”t even recall her.” Rayner”s memory reached back in ache and puzzlement; it strained at the blue gauzes of smoke, trying to see distinctly. “I thought it was my mother.”

“Your mother was not in the house.”

“Where was she?”

His aunt looked down and observed her hands. They were glazed with liver spots as big as coins. “I don”t know where she was.”

The nurse emerged onto the terrace, glanced at them, then went back indoors. A pair of hoopoes skittered over the grass. Rayner closed his eyes against the dazzle of the declining sun; its colors swarmed behind his eyelids. He heard children giggling in the garden next door. Aunt Birgit”s hand, hanging limp now, discovered the cat under her chair and started weakly to stroke it. For a long time its purring was the only sound in the world.

At last Aunt Birgit said, “The house, you understand, is only yours if you want it. I wouldn”t blame you for not staying in this city. I wouldn”t stay if I were a young man.”

Rayner did not know what to answer. But if he lived in the capital, it would not be on this street. He would feel too much a child again. But he said, “If I decided to sell, it would be nothing to do with the house, only the city.”

His aunt nodded. “It”s always been an awkward site for the capital, you know. It”s pretty, but it”s not practical.” She eased herself to her feet. “In the end all our best young minds go to other places. You, for instance, and Gerhard. This is only a place to be a child in.”

He escorted her back to the house. She walked delicately and very upright, as if supported by an unseen stick. Once he took her arm, but she flicked his hand away. He did not know if he revered or resented her.

It was as they were climbing the three steps to the terrace, and he was looking down to where the balustrade met the earth in a rounded finial, that he remembered the lizard. The terrace was identical to the one in his parents” house, and something in the way the stone ball disappeared into the ground, leaving a ruffle of warm dust around its base, awoke in him a memory of the lizard”s trial.

Ivar, Gerhard, Leon and he had trapped it while it was basking under the ball. It was a bloated ghekko, the color of damp earth. Gerhard yelled, “Let”s execute it!” But he might have been teasing Leon, who was squeamish. Their treble voices rose in the dust. “We”ll put it on trial!”

They sat in a row before it. Ivar had secured its leg with a strand of string. It froze, panting. Gerhard picked up a small rock and placed it ceremonially in front of him. “It deserves to die.”

But Leon had turned white. He was staring at it in fascinated recoil. “I say we let it go.”

“You would.” Ivar turned to Rayner. Even aged nine, he had somehow seized the initiative and made himself chief judge. “Gerhard votes for death, Leon votes against. What do you say?”

Rayner demanded, “What”s it done wrong?”

Gerhard thought. “It eats flies.”

Rayner rebelled. He sometimes hated Gerhard. “That”s just its nature.”

There was silence. Then Ivar nodded, perhaps reluctantly, but repeated, “That”s just its nature. You can”t count that.”

“Then you can”t count anything!” Gerhard said.

“You can,” Rayner answered. “It”s got to be a nasty kind of lizard, say, or a nasty bloke—like you!” They scrambled together, fists flailing. Rayner and Gerhard were always fighting.

But Ivar shouted, “Stop! The trial continues!”

The tousled line of judges reassembled. It was astonishing what power Ivar already had, and an uncanny composure. He seemed to know everything. He appealed to Gerhard, “What else is wrong with this lizard?”

But Gerhard had no imagination. He glared dourly between Rayner, Leon and the ghekko, and ground his rock impotently into the soil.

At last Ivar said, “Rayner and Leon vote against, so that”s two against one.” He untied the ghekko”s leg. Its white cheeks pulsed, but it stayed where it was. “I declare this lizard okay.”

Leon cried, “We win!” But he was in the grip of a secret excitement. He couldn”t take his eyes from the lizard. Rayner tried to poke it into life, but it remained motionless, like a carving fallen from the balustrade. Only its gills went on pulsing, and once it opened a weak, pink mouth.

At last they grew bored. Gerhard marched home, singing derisively, and Ivar and Rayner scrambled onto the terrace, arguing. Then they sat quiet in the sun, feeling exhausted. Irritably Rayner wondered how Ivar always managed to turn himself into the leader, but he could uncover no method. He doodled with his toes in the dust.

But after a while, just beyond where they sat, they heard a dry, violent pounding. They stared at one another, crept to the balustrade and peered over. Then they saw something which neither of them ever spoke of again: it was too private, too unaccountable. Beneath them, with cold, frenzied blows of the rock, Leon was pulping the lizard to death.