A Void (36 page)

to talk about. I know of many a local guy with a big mouth who

had no opportunity to finish his -"

And I didn't doubt that his claim had a grain of truth in it,

for just at that point I saw an octagonal gash abruptly bloodying

his brow and I saw him, almost instantly, slumping forward from

its impact. It was a gunshot wound of pinpoint accuracy such as

only a first-class marksman could pull off - a marksman who,

firing from a balcony not far away, no doubt guiding his aim

with a microvisual gunsight and smashing a fanlight window,

had got him with his first shot.

"Good God!" I said inwardly, clutching at my mouth in horror.

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I'd had a ghasdy fright and was afraid to so much as touch

him. And, in a flash, a brick was thrown in, a brick to which was

stuck by a Band-Aid a stiff card on which I found this communi-

cation:

IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, PAL,

D O N T STICK YOUR SNOUT IN OUR AFFAIRS!

Illustrating, or possibly signing, this ominous warning was a

purplish stamp portraying an individual in a hood as arrogant

and apocalyptic as a Ku-Klux-Klansman, an individual holding

aloft a flag with a trio of flapping tails.

I initially thought that it was just a bit of bad luck on my part,

that my informant was possibly part of a gang running guns or

smuggling drugs and that this gang, thinking him about to spill

it all out for hard cash, had shut him up by simply putting him

out of commission, whilst handily intimidating his "confidant"

- which is to say, yours truly - into giving up his mission.

But, studying his carcass, I saw that it too, on its right wrist,

had that unpropitious sign singling out an individual as part of

our Family. I'd unwittingly sought out a rival for my advisor!

I simply didn't what to do at that point, conscious as I was,

without a shadow of a doubt, that I was running a risk just by

staying in Ankara. But what I still hadn't found out was why?

why? why?

What finally cast an illuminating ray of light on it all was,

as almost always occurs, a miraculous combination of luck and

confusion.

I was holing up in a room not far from Ankara's piano souk

(it isn't commonly known that, globally, Ankara holds first pos-

ition, in front of Osaka, in front of La Paz, in importing old

pianos), a room I was hoping would function as a good port in

a storm. And in that room I'd lurk and languish, constandy afraid

of an assassin bursting in.

On my first night in it I was struck by a loud din rising up

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from an adjoining courtyard. Without at all panicking, I quickly

ran out on to my balcony.

In that courtyard, huddling in a kind of plaza in front of

Ankara's imposing Inns of Court, a building wholly without

proportion, a vast, amorphous, granitic block, with walls of a

particularly gaudy purplish colour, stood an incongruous group

of musicians. I call it incongruous as what I saw was a trio of

banjos, a cor anglais, a cithara, a bassoon, a bass drum and,

capping it all, a soprano singing, in a monotonously droning

fashion, as if in a clumsy imitation of plainsong, a fantastic, florid

oratorio about a Blank King and his vanishing act - a King who,

though in Abraham's bosom, would wolf down, in turn, 25 of

his own vassals.

Wildly applauding, I cast a handful of kurus from my balcony,

as I found this curious song most amusing, admiring it particu-

larly for its humour, which was both sardonic and cryptic, both

sly and difficult to grasp, admiring, too, its vividly Turkish qual-

ity, symbolising as it did a vital point of articulation for my

assimilation of that country's racial and national unconscious.

At midnight, hungry, I thought to call out to Ali, a barman

from a local snack bar, asking him to bring up to my room a tray

of mutton pilaf, couscous and fruit.

Ali brought it up and I got to chatting with him for an instant,

casually, about this and that, as you do in such a situation, and

finally about that curious musical group, Ali asking what I'd

thought of it and my giving him my opinion, a high opinion, of

its gifts, adding, "I was particularly struck by that song about a

Blank King, by its humour and its imagination."

"Its imagination, you say!" said Ali indignantly. "Huh! It hasn't

got a grain, an atom, an iota of imagination! It's all factual,

it's all God's truth! I, Ali, know all about this Family, all of

us in Ankara do, a family that has as its main physical trait a

narrow, livid furrow on its right wrist. I also know that, on

top of its pyramid, so to say, is a king with a right to all its

capital. . ."

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Whilst Ali was rambling on in this fashion, my hand was clasp-

ing a poniard I had thought to tuck into a mackintosh that I'd

just put on, mumbling about how frightfully cold it was on my

balcony. For it was obvious that this was a provocation on his

part, a provocation that was bound to finish with my dying at

his hands.

In fact, I was wrong. Ali -
rara avis
- was totally impartial in

this affair, candidly spilling it all out from A to Z, though not

without lots of omissions, providing a succinct history of that

wrath, and its origin, that, hounding our family, was playing

havoc with my way of living - with yours, too, and that of all

of us!

Putting scant trust in his capacity not to blab about it again,

not to shoot off his mouth about this chat I was having with

him now, which would, I didn't doubt, bring about my own

instant liquidation, I had to do away with poor Ali, first allowing

him, though, to say all that was on his mind.

Thus, having found out what I had to find out, and knowing

what I was in for if I was to stay on, I quit Ankara, cursing it

for always.

Within four days I was in Zurich. I took a taxi to Amaury

Conson's flat, dying to fill him in on all I'd found out in Ankara,

hoping, too, to know of his own inquiry into your situation.

But Amaury was kaput - shot at point-blank, again and again,

whilst busy at his Aga making his morning cocoa.

His pyjamas had drunk up all his blood, and his iris had a

twisting, curling spiral of crimson running through it that

brought to mind nothing so much as a taw of that garish kind

that boys roll back and forth in school playgrounds during lunch

hour.

Thus I'd got to know all about that which was pursuing

us, but I still didn't know in which country I might find

you.

And, from that point on, I paid visits to city upon city, Ajaccio,

Matifou, Pontchartrain, Joigny, Stockholm, Tunis, Casablanca,

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consulting thick parish rolls without picking up your tracks,

haunting town halls and commissariats without coming away

with a modicum of information from anybody . . .

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21

Which, starting with a downcast husband, will finish

with a furious sibling

For six months my only goal was to find you - until, downcast,

worn out, I had to abandon it all.

And a glorious day would dawn on which, whilst cruising

aboard SS
Captain Crubovin,
a ship sailing from Toulon bound

for La Guaira (Caracas's port), I ran into Yolanda, its chaplain's

typist and all-round Girl Friday.

It was what you might call lust at first sight - a lust that nothing

but our instandy uniting in holy matrimony could satisfy.

Wishing to go on a world tour, I bought an ultrasonic aircraft

- and a day would dawn, too, during a flight across Africa, our

civil nuptials just 12 months old and Yolanda coyly announcing

a coming birth and in fact visibly filling out, a day on which, by

dint of an abrupt drop in its supply of gas, I had to bring my

craft down damn quickly. Not without difficulty I brought about

a bumpy but triumphant landing on a particularly grim spot in

Morocco, a sandy, Saharan hillock hardly as big as an old maid's

cotton hanky, with a crash, though, which split my right wing

in two.

Our stock of foodstuffs would hold out for a month, but it

took us an arduous and scorching four days' walk finally to find

our way to a tiny oasis at which local bands of nomads would

occasionally stock up on liquid, turn and turn about, according

to which month it was.

For our first six days I couldn't complain about our condition:

in truth, it wasn't all that bad. I had a go at hunting a dahu, an

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amusing animal similar to a fawn but which, living on mountain

foothills, had such a clumsy, squinting kind of body that, to catch

it, what you had to do was approach it on all fours and mimic a

goura's irritating chirp - a goura is a songbird that dahus simply

cannot stand. Furious, caught short and, most importandy, with

its guard down, our incautious dahu would try an abrupt U-turn

and, wobbling, fall into a gully or a wadi, from which it wasn't

difficult to pull it out. Yolanda would roast it on a spit and I'd

tuck into it, finding it as scrumptious as I was now starting to

find salt pork, our usual sort of food, monotonous.

Finally, thirst had us by our throats. Our oasis was almost dry

and my aquavit would burn us without slaking our thirst.

This was my conclusion: that Yolanda and I had to light out

again, on foot, moving only at nightfall, filling up our flasks at

any oasis on our way, crossing Hoggar, surmounting arid tracts

of sand and glacial mountains and, by going southwards, arriving

at In Salah, Tindouf or Timbuctu, or, if striking out northwards,

arriving at Igli, A'in-Chai'r, Ai'n-Taiba with its fort, Ai'n-Aiachi

with its oasis, Mac-Mahon with its garrison or Arouan with its

Casbah.

But, at Hamada as at Tassili, at Adrar as at Iguidi, at Grand

Adas as at Borku, and at Djouf as at Touat, that inhuman Sahara

brought so many hardships to any foolhardy individual daring

to cross it on foot that I had difficulty making ground, particularly

as poor Yolanda was visibly about to go into labour.

Finally, with Yolanda's sobbing supplications ringing in my

brain, I had to abandon my darling to God and His compassion,

striking out on my own, walking, jogging, almost running, clasp-

ing in my hand a compass with which I could quantify my pos-

ition vis-a-vis Orion and Sirius, scrutinising my illimitably

distant, illimitably sandy, illimitably starry horizon, following a

caravan's worn-out tracks as far as it would go but also, occasion-

ally, doubling back on my own trail, and constandy hoping, and

in truth praying, that Lady Luck was in my camp.

And, I must say, it paid off, for within four days of my

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starting out I saw a goum, an Arab military unit, on patrol.

Alas! How could I know that just as its commandant was

cooling my burning throat with drops from his hip flask, an act

that brought to mind Victor Hugo's famous hussar who

Parcourait a dada an soir d'un grand combat

Un champ puant la Mort sur qui tombait la Nuit

(His combat won, on foaming colt would cross

That carcass-stinking camp on which Night falls),

a hussar who brought comfort to a straggling Hidalgo by giving

him a drop of rum and whom Hugo was fond of praising not

just for his imposing bulk but also for his unfailing sang-froid -

how could I know that, just at that instant, Yolanda was fading

fast!

For, slaking my thirst, gulping down a mouthful of hot food,

changing into dry clothing and strapping on my back an appar-

atus, minimal but functional, for honing my aircraft's cycloid (or

cyclospiral) rotor fan, that which controls its admission circuit

(what such a job actually calls for is a pruning hook or a gauging

awl; but, making up for that, I had, for tools, a drill, a mattock,

a picklock, a dipstick, a hacksaw, an adz and a nail-chuck that,

to my dismay, had a tap with a missing partition, though its

knob, thank God, was still intact), I got back to my aircraft to

confront this harrowing sight: having just had six - six! - infants

in a row, Yolanda lay dying.

Roaring in pain, I ran forward, giving my darling an invigorat-

ing drink from my flask. But, alas, with a last mournful cry,

Yolanda sank away in my arms.

Oh, what words can I possibly find to portray my profound

sorrow at Yolanda's passing away? How, to this day, can I talk

calmly of my affliction? My sorry condition? Again and again I

thought that I too would succumb, sacrificing our offspring, put-

ting a pistol to my mouth and firing it, so painful was this loss.

Pitiful survivor as I was of a gloriously happy union, laid low,

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cast down, my spirits in constant mourning, carrying my cross,

mounting, oh, fifty Golgothas, all I sought, hoping for nothing

now in this world, was to join Yolanda as quickly as I could.

And I would longingly toy with my hacksaw, for such a sharp

tool could cut through my skin with as scant difficulty as a fork