Out of Nowhere (2 page)

Whether from the abbot’s news or from his own weakness, Stephen suddenly felt faint. He almost collapsed, and the monk had to help him back to his bed.

‘The best thing you can do now,’ the monk said, ‘is to get some rest.’

‘You don’t really think I’ll sleep after what you’ve told me, do you?’

‘Then the next best thing would be some proper food. You must be hungry.’

At the mention of food the boy’s stomach rumbled. The abbot smiled.

‘No need to say more,’ he said. ‘I’m busy now, but I’ll come back to see you later. I’m afraid we’re all kept very busy just coping with our other patients. Our numbers are very low at the moment – only three Brothers and a novice.’

‘This is really an abbey? You’re real monks? I don’t mean to be rude, it just seems … strange.’

‘Ours is a lay order,’ the abbot said. ‘So I suppose, in a way, we’re not “real” monks. In a way you could even say that it’s not a “real” abbey. We train novices here, so we’re really no more than a glorified school. Now, I’ll stop talking and send you up some food. You must be starving – I’ll ask Fräulein
Herzenweg to bring something to you.’

‘You have women working here?’

‘Oh no, not normally. It’s hardly the done thing in a monastery. She’s our other amnesia case – Fräulein Kirsten Herzenweg, your fellow patient.’

‘But you know her whole name.’

‘She had letters addressed to a person of that name. It may not be her name at all – she doesn’t recognise it – but it’s nice to have even a tentative identification. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Stephen wistfully. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Stephen’ was only a word. He felt sure that it was his name, but how could he be certain? It was only half a name, anyway. He envied Fräulein Herzenweg that tiny luxury of an extra word.

‘I suppose I had no papers?’ he asked.

‘No. No papers of any kind. I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve no need to apologise,’ Stephen said. ‘It sounds as though you saved my life, and I haven’t even thanked you.’

The abbot smiled.

‘No disrespect,’ he said, ‘but we’d have done as much for anyone. You rest now, and eat, and get some strength back. Then you can help us to deal with whatever this is. That will be all the thanks we need.’

He left the room with his long, gliding step, closing the wooden door behind him. Stephen lay on his bed, trying not to think about himself, whoever he might be. Instead he thought about Fräulein Herzenweg, his ‘fellow patient’. Maybe her lot wasn’t so enviable after all. She must wonder if Fräulein
Herzenweg
was a stranger whose coat or bag she’d picked up in
passing. Maybe the real Fräulein Herzenweg was dead, or maybe she was one of the other patients – one of the mad ones. And what was a name worth on its own, anyway? It was only a couple of words – it didn’t make up a whole person.

He was so busy thinking about Fräulein Herzenweg’s name that he gave no thought to the person attached to it. If he had any image at all, he pictured a German woman in her thirties or forties. A timid tap on the door interrupted his thoughts and a small, long-faced young girl with short, very blond hair came into the room carrying a tray. She looked about his own age, which seemed almost stupid to think since he didn’t know what that was.

‘Hello,’ she said, grinning at him.

‘Fräulein Herzenweg?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Kirsten Herzenweg,’ and there was a touch of pride in the declaration.

‘You’re German?’

‘Actually, I seem to be Danish. Three of the monks here are from the continent and have quite a number of languages between them, so we checked. I speak okay French, good German and fluent English, but my native language seems to be Danish. Just think, I can remember all those languages but I can’t remember anything about my own
life
? Isn’t it crazy?’

She was carrying a cloth-covered tray. Now she sort of brandished it at him.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘Food!’

Stephen’s stomach rumbled again. It seemed to be fretting that its owner might not speak up for it. Kirsten Herzenweg laughed at the sound – a curiously carefree laugh for someone
in her situation.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’ve eaten already, but I’ll have tea with you if I may.’

‘Please,’ Stephen said, trying to show some manners. His mind, like his eyes, fixed on the tray as the girl put it on the big table and whisked the cloth away. Then he went and sat, and for the next ten minutes he ate ravenously. Kirsten said he’d eaten nothing since his arrival, except some broth that the monks had managed to pour down his throat. That explained the abbot’s reference to ‘proper’ food.

Kirsten poured strong tea into plain, brown mugs.

‘There’s coffee here too,’ she said, ‘but very little. It’s a real treat. We’ve just about run out of a lot of things. The monks weren’t prepared for anything like this. We plan a foraging expedition to one of the towns tomorrow.’

He heard pride in her voice when she used the word ‘we’.

‘Is there really no clue as to what happened?’ he asked.

‘No. There’s no news of any kind. Not a soul to be found so far except those poor people –
we
poor people, I should say.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘It’s terrible to think what might have become of us if the monks hadn’t found us, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ Stephen said. Personally, he found what had happened to them pretty terrible anyway, whatever it had been. ‘But there must be something out there. Have the monks searched?’

‘Only as far as the nearest village, and that’s just a cluster of houses at a crossroads. They’ve been up to their eyes looking after all of us. But tomorrow, Philip and I are going to the local market town. It’s the main town in the area. Maybe we’ll
find people there.’

‘Maybe you’ll even find people who are, you know, all right. The inhabitants.’

Kirsten made a face.

‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘It’s only about twenty kilometres away. If there were any people there, surely they’d have come looking for us by now. No. The trip tomorrow will be a major expedition, but I don’t think anyone expects to find people in the town, much as we’d love to.’

‘But they have to find people soon, I mean,
everybody
can’t have just disappeared into thin air! It’s not possible!’

‘There’s nothing on radio or television,’ she reminded him. ‘No electricity …’

‘There must be a simple explanation. Maybe it’s just a local thing. How could such a big disaster happen so suddenly? Even if everyone was dead, there’d be bodies. It’s just impossible!’

‘But it’s happened,’ she said gently. ‘Local or not, it’s happened.’

They talked about the situation for a while. It saved them from talking about themselves, which is a hard thing to do when you don’t know who you are. After he’d called the girl Fräulein Herzenweg a few times, she stopped him.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘You sound like the monks! Call me Kirsten.’

‘You think that’s really your name?’

She’d obviously thought about this.

‘It’s strange,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, Kirsten is a good, solid Danish name, but Herzenweg is German. Maybe my family came from Germany originally. The letters in my pocket were
both addressed to
Fräulein
Kirsten Herzenweg – that’s a German form of address. Oh well, in a way I rather
like
being a mystery. It makes me feel important.’

‘And the letters themselves?’ Stephen asked. ‘Did they have any useful information?’

‘No,’ she said wistfully. ‘There were three envelopes. One was a bank statement showing a money transfer, and the other two were empty.’

‘What about postmarks? Where were they all sent from?’

‘The empty envelopes were posted from Belgium. The bank statement was from Dublin.’

‘Dublin?’

She gave him a puzzled look.

‘My God!’ she said. ‘You don’t even know what country we’re in, do you?’

Stephen thought for a moment.

‘Ireland,’ he said finally, not knowing how he knew, but still certain that he was right.

Kirsten nodded and smiled.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Your home country, to judge by your accent. Maybe I’m a tourist.’

‘Did the other … ‘patients’ have anything to identify them?’

‘No. None of them. Only me.’

Again her voice was proud, as though she’d been somehow responsible for this.

Stephen soon felt tired. He hadn’t recovered from his weakness, and the food was making him sleepy. Kirsten noticed.

‘Rest,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel much better in the morning. At
least, that’s how it was with me.’

She left, taking the tray with her. Stephen got into bed and lay awake for a few minutes afterwards, thinking about her. He didn’t know what to make of Kirsten Herzenweg. She didn’t seem very disturbed by her amnesia. She was, she’d said, concentrating on the present. Maybe he could learn from her example.

‘The past is gone anyway,’ she’d said. ‘Maybe I’d hate it if I knew about it. Maybe I was someone awful, or worse, maybe I was someone boring! Perhaps I’ll never find out who I was. But in the meantime the present is here, and I’m here, and I’m needed. The monks need all the help they can get right now.’

It seemed sensible enough. In the middle of thinking so, Stephen fell asleep.

Stephen was woken at some dead hour of the night by a dreadful sound – a long, singing howl that made his flesh creep and the hairs on the back of his neck stand erect. He was terrified for a moment, not knowing where he was. Just as he started to think that he’d dreamed it, he heard it again. It was the sound a lonely, wounded night would make, if lonely, wounded nights could make sounds. It also sounded like it came from just below his window.

Stephen was shivering in a cold sweat. He wanted to crawl under the quilt and pull it over his head. Instead, he made himself get out of bed, go to the window and look out. The window was ajar, and the sweet air of the summer night brought in a scent of distant greenery. The dark blue sky was spangled with shimmering stars. The moon was fat and silver, and it lit the courtyard clearly with a cold, white light.

In the middle of the courtyard, a very tall man was moving in crazy circles around the well. He was being chased by a young monk who seemed in no great hurry to catch him. He trailed half-heartedly in the tall man’s ragged course, not even trying to catch up with him. The fugitive himself didn’t seem to notice the monk.

‘Where are you?’ he roared out suddenly to someone or
something. ‘Unshade me! It
hurts
!’

‘
Unshade me
?’ thought Stephen, puzzled. But he was sure that was what he had said. The man was old – a big old stick of a man with a gaunt face and raggy white hair that shone silver in the moonlight. His head was thrown back as he staggered around, howling at the moon. Stephen shuddered at the weird sight.

The grotesque pair rounded the well a few times. Then another monk entered the courtyard from a doorway somewhere beneath Stephen’s window, a big, bearded man who stood for a moment, watching the chase. Then he snapped at the young monk in a stern voice with an Irish accent – the first Stephen had heard.

‘Catch up, you little eejit! You’re like a pup after an ould buck rabbit, half afraid to catch what it’s hunting.’

Spurred on by this, or perhaps more afraid of the newcomer than of the old man, the pursuer put on a spurt of speed. He caught up with the staggering figure easily, and threw his arms around his waist. The fugitive lashed out with one thin arm and sent him sprawling. But the monk was suddenly game – he threw himself bodily at the man, grabbing hold of him again. This time the old man just kept going, dragging the monk behind him. It would have looked funny if it hadn’t been so sinister.

‘He’s too strong!’ the monk shouted in a panicky voice.

The bearded monk gave a loud sigh. He went over and stood in the old man’s path. Stephen noticed that he was almost as tall as the old man, and heavily built.

‘Such gods as there be, please forgive me,’ the big monk
said. Then he punched the old man, once, in the jaw. The fugitive grunted and went down like a pole-axed cow, pulling the young monk down with him. With a little squawk, the monk scrambled to his feet. He stood looking from one big man to the other.

‘You
hit
him!’ he said, sounding outraged and impressed all at once.

The big monk sighed.

‘I did,’ he said. ‘I hit him.’ He put a hand on the young monk’s shoulder. ‘It’s never nice, son,’ he said. ‘But sometimes it does just simplify things. He’ll be grand when he wakes up.’

‘But won’t it hurt him afterwards?’

The big monk bent down and heaved the long form of the old man over his shoulder. He straightened up again.

‘There’s something so big hurting this one,’ he said, ‘that a puck in the jaw won’t make much difference.’

He set off across the courtyard lightly carrying the old man across his shoulder, draped like a rolled-up rug. The young monk followed.

After they’d gone, Stephen stayed for a long time looking out at the empty night. His skin crawled, and he pitied himself. What had happened in the world? Who were these unfortunate people? And who, for that matter, was he?

The next morning Kirsten woke him early, bringing breakfast on a tray. She seemed almost giddy at the prospect of the morning’s expedition, which she insisted on calling ‘The Raid’. Stephen laughed at her.

‘It’s only natural that I’m excited,’ she said, not minding his amusement. ‘I am Danish after all, my ancestors were Vikings. Raiding must be in my blood!’

It was impossible not to smile at her enthusiasm, but Stephen wondered how she managed it in the circumstances.

Kirsten sat by the table as he ate his breakfast, but she was so excited she couldn’t sit still. Stephen hadn’t known that it was possible to hop from foot to foot while sitting down, but she proved that it was. She talked non-stop, fantasising about what they might find on the expedition. She really didn’t seem upset by the whole situation. If anything, the mystery seemed to excite her all the more.

‘You’re coming with us, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘If you feel up to it, I mean.’

Stephen wasn’t sure how he felt, but he knew that he couldn’t pass up the chance to see this brave new world. He was unnerved by the situation, but he was very curious too.

‘You’re definitely going?’ he asked.

‘Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for anything. This is like living in a movie!’

But what kind of movie? he wondered. He remembered last night’s howling. It had made him feel like he was in a horror film, and horror films tended to have monsters in them.

‘It’s not a movie,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s real. We’re not on some adventure holiday.’

‘Our expedition today is important,’ Kirsten replied. ‘There’s very little food left in the abbey. The monks get most of their food from their farm, but they don’t have enough supplies stored to deal with six extra mouths. And there are replacement parts and fuel needed for the generator, and clothes for me – I can hardly ask Philip to pick underwear for me, can I? I do know how serious the situation is – or may be. But, at the same time, there’s no way I’m going to miss this raiding party, I mean, it even sounds funny, doesn’t it: the monastery raiding party?’

He had to admit that, yes, it did sound funny.

‘The abbot insists on calling it a “reconnaissance”,’ Kirsten continued. ‘But Philip just laughs when he hears that and says, “Paul, I always knew you were a Jesuit at heart”. Which Paul doesn’t like, because he’s not even a Christian. And then again he’s Swiss – very serious!’

‘What do you mean, he’s
not
a Christian? He’s a
monk
!’

‘Yes, but this isn’t a Christian order. I’ll tell you about it later!’

‘But–’

But Kirsten had sat still as long as her excitement would allow, and was already at the door.

‘I have to help Philip finalise the list of supplies,’ she said over Stephen’s protests. ‘We call it “the shoplifting list”. Philip won’t admit it, but he’s just as excited as I am. He’s dying to see what’s
out there
. I think he’s secretly enjoying all of this. Come and join us in the kitchen when you’re dressed.’

‘Maybe Philip’s ancestors were Vikings, too,’ Stephen said.

Her laughter hung in the air after the door closed behind her.

Stephen finished breakfast quickly and went to the cupboard. His clothes were unfamiliar to him. They were perfectly ordinary: tee shirt and sweatshirt, dark denim jeans, socks and trainers. Everything, including the shoes, was spotlessly clean. He presumed they’d been laundered since his arrival. Although he knew that the monks would already have checked, he still went through the pockets carefully. There was nothing in any of them. He hadn’t really expected to find anything, but he was disappointed anyway.

‘You’re stupid,’ he said to himself. He suddenly felt that he was standing on a very thin surface, and that under the surface there was a great, sucking depth of something thick and black and smothering. He dressed quickly, trying hard to think of nothing except the journey ahead and what they might find.