Turning Back the Sun(59)
At dusk, beyond this double desolation, Ivar called a halt. There was no knoll or water hole to shelter by, not even a thicker growth of trees. They simply stopped. Some of the soldiers pegged out tents, but nobody used them. Instead they maneuvered the jeeps into a vestigial square, and rolled out their sleeping bags in the dust. When they unloaded their stores from the converted gun carriage limber, they found that the dust had penetrated even here, insinuating its grit into the bread and pressed beef, into everything except the water.
The men sat in broken circles by their hurricane lamps. On all sides the shrill of the cicadas rose in a deafening curtain, drowning even the clink of the mess tins and the desultory conversation. The troopers smoked nervously in the gathering dark. They talked in mutters, as if the forest was listening, and those who had fallen asleep lay with their rifles at their sides.
“How was the capital?”
Rayner looked up to see Ivar, bare-chested. He held a lantern in one hand and a cartridge belt in the other. “Much the same.”
He was surprised when Ivar sat beside him and stood his lantern between his feet. Perhaps Ivar had forgiven him, he thought, rather as he would pardon a wayward child, and Rayner even felt a foolish redemption. How typical of Ivar to elicit this pang of gratitude for his friendship! And after a while it seemed natural that they should be sitting here together—two old friends—rather than with Ivar”s grim lieutenant, and nothing seemed to have changed. With Ivar he had the illusion that nothing ever changed.
“So you didn”t think of staying in the capital?”
“No,” Rayner said warily. “I”ve got too used to the town.” In the lamplight Ivar”s expression remained obscure, but in case it flickered with “I told you so,” Rayner added, “All the same, it”s a beautiful city. It”s clean. It”s quiet. There”s a harmoniousness that you miss in the town.” He wondered if Ivar understood what he was talking about. “You can smell the sea.”
Ivar said, “All the same.”
“Yes,” Rayner said. “All the same.” He laughed.
Out of the forest the scream of the cicadas hid the silence. A light wind was sieving through the trees, and he noticed that half the stars were lost in cloud. It was hard to believe that the wilderness and the capital coexisted in one country.
“Did you see any of our gang?” Ivar asked. “Or have they all gone?”
“Some have gone, some have stayed. Gerhard left ages ago …”
“I know. We”ve kept in touch.”
“But Leon and Jarmila are still there, although I didn”t see her.” He realized that he had purposely avoided Jarmila, who had once symbolized them all. “But Leon was a mess. He”d been in mental hospital.”
“He was always pathetic.”
“But he was sensitive and interesting. I don”t know what went wrong.” But whatever it was, Rayner thought, had gone wrong from the start. He remembered the lizard. “And I saw Miriam.”
“Ah, Miriam.” She was the kind of girl Ivar called “a handful.” He and she had never much liked one another. He said, “She was tough.”
“Tough?” Rayner let this fly away unchallenged, like something passing in the dark he could not grasp.
Around them the soldiers were starting to extinguish their lamps. Some of them had pulled the linen envelopes from their sleeping bags as protection against the mosquitoes, and were stretched out beneath them. The night had cooled a little. Ivar continued to sit bare-chested, slapping the gnats as they landed on him, while Rayner sweated secretly under his shirt, and sensed himself advancing to a confrontation. One of the conscripts whimpered in his sleep, then went quiet. Over the soft earth of the camp”s perimeter the boots of the duty officer made the faintest, warning crunch as he moved from sentry to sentry. Soon theirs was the only lamp left shining. Now its light picked out all the rounded contours of Ivar”s face, everything so smooth and gradual in it, folding one feature into the next. Rayner looked at him.
“Where are we going?”
Ivar”s tone never changed. “South-southeast.”
Years and years of schoolboy power-play grated on Rayner as he said, “I think I know. There”s only one place on the map out here. A native holy place. You told me yourself.”
Ivar said almost courteously, “It may be holy to them. They”ve got some war idol there.” “That was missionary talk.”
“The missionaries were the only ones who”d been there.”
“Plenty of natives go there,” Rayner said. “One old fellow even told me about it, said it was a place that used to connect their heaven with earth. He spoke of it as a kind of mourning site.”
“That may be, but I never heard of it. Missionary reports tend to be reliable.” Ivar”s words fell so balanced, so reasonable, Rayner thought, they turned other people”s insane. And Ivar still had to retain the power of inflicting uncertainty when he added, “But I did not say that place was our objective.”
Rayner felt the return of his fever in a faint, damp caress across his forehead. It seemed purposely to be reminding him of itself. He said, “Out here the native clans are all different from the ones near town. The old man told me some of the names, but I”ve forgotten them.” He had a fancy that the forest would echo them back. “Anyway, they”re different.”