Imperial Fire

XXXIII

A hard road still lay ahead, but once they reached the treeline two days later, they dropped back a season in a morning, descending through birches burning with the last flames of summer, walking under cloud-forests of fir and rhododendron. Flocks of tiny birds flew through the trees, trailing a song like tinkling bells. Sections of the path were missing, obliterated by seismic convulsions that had swept away bridges and collapsed the stone ramps the villagers had erected to span awkward gaps in the side of the gorge. Using ropes, it took Wayland and Zuleyka a day to travel half a mile.

The track descended to the river and they camped where it raced past the remains of a bridge.

‘We’ll wait until morning,’ Wayland said. ‘The river will be lower then.’

It fell three feet overnight, still too high to ford. Wayland searched upstream and down, looking for an alternative crossing point. The villagers had built the bridge on the only practicable site and he returned with a fatalistic shrug.

‘We’ll just have to swim across.’

‘I can’t swim.’

He tied a rope around his waist and handed the free end to Zuleyka. A hundred yards downstream the river plunged through rapids. ‘Don’t let go.’

He stripped to his breeches and launched off into water not far above freezing point, beating his arms and legs like a frantic frog before reaching the other side forty yards below his starting point. After a lot of coaxing he persuaded Zuleyka to enter the water and hauled her across. The dog followed unassisted. He lit a fire and they drank scalding chai.

‘We’ve got only enough food for one more day,’ he said.

Naked under a blanket, Zuleyka regarded him with a look that seemed to catalogue all his faults. ‘I came with you because I thought you’d keep me safe. If I’d known that you’d drag me over stormy mountains and icy rivers, I would have chosen another companion.’

‘Like Lucas?’

‘Why not,’ Zuleyka said. She snapped her fingers. ‘At least he would have put my wishes above his own.’

Wayland considered the claim. ‘You’re right and wrong. Wrong because Lucas could never have found a way through the mountains. Right because he could have offered you a brighter future than I could ever give you.’

Zuleyka’s interest was piqued. ‘Oh,’ she said, squiggling forward. ‘How so?’

Wayland stirred the fire with a stick. ‘Lucas is Vallon’s son.’

Zuleyka leaped up, inadvertently exposing one breast. ‘No!’

‘Yes.’

‘But Vallon…’

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because it’s none of your business. I’m only telling you now because it makes no difference.’ Wayland coughed and indicated Zuleyka’s nakedness.

She looked down. ‘I can’t believe you’re shocked by a glimpse of a woman’s breast. You piss in front of me and I don’t complain.’

‘I don’t waggle my cock about.’

‘If you did, I might be able to see it better.’

‘Ha, ha.’

Zuleyka pulled the blanket apart. ‘There. Take a good look.’ She undulated her pelvis. ‘I bet your wife can’t do that.’

‘Grow up,’ Wayland said.

She ran off and the dog followed. Her laugh rang witchy among the trees. ‘At least your dog loves me.’

That much was true. Batu — ‘Faithful’ — had grown up with Wayland’s daughter and was happiest in the company of women.

Zuleyka returned as if nothing had happened. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ she said.

Wayland regarded her with tired resignation. She was like a child, her emotions swinging this way and that. ‘Didn’t mean what? Your disappointment in my manhood or your insults to my wife.’

‘I didn’t mean it when I said I regretted coming with you.’

‘I don’t regret having you along.’

That night he told her about Syth — how they’d met, wooed and wed. Zuleyka sat quiet for a while.

‘You’d never leave her for me, would you?’

‘Not for anyone.’

‘What if you weren’t married?’

‘I don’t know. You and I are too different from each other — like ice and fire, two elements perpetually at war.’

‘Fire melts ice; ice douses fire.’

Wayland laughed. ‘Chalk and cheese, then.’

They picked their way across the wreckage of a landslide that had swept away a swathe of forest, scattering trees like toothpicks over masses of broken rock. Wayland came round a corner and halted, at first unable to take in what lay ahead.

The valley had narrowed to a gash blocked by a thousand-foot-high slab of mountain that had split away from the right wall and toppled against the opposite face. Wayland spent a day searching for a way over the rock door and returned to tell Zuleyka that it was unclimbable.

‘Are you saying we have to go back?’ Zuleyka said. Her voice broke. ‘Go back where?’

Wayland contemplated the river. Down here the current crashed against rocks and threw up welters of spray, whirlpools sliding over the surface as if searching for prey. The strongest of swimmers wouldn’t last a minute in that torrent. He looked at the tunnel into which the river disappeared.

‘The river has found a way through.’

Zuleyka pointed at the tunnel. ‘I’m not going into that.’

‘The only alternative is to return to the settlement and wait until the pass opens next summer.’

Wayland climbed down to the torrent and worked his way over slippery rocks towards the entrance of the tunnel. It formed a right-angled triangle about twenty feet high, and God knows what obstructions and hazards lay inside. He squirmed across a mossy slab and flexed up on his hands, peering into the interior. He could see about forty yards before the light ran out. The tunnel might be a hundred yards long or a mile. There might be rapids and waterfalls.

He climbed back to Zuleyka. ‘I think we can do it.’

Zuleyka crammed her fingers between her teeth. ‘Darkness and drowning are my worst nightmares.’

‘Tomorrow we’ll make a raft.’

All next day they searched for trunks of the right size. The landslide had stripped the trees of most of their branches, which was just as well because Wayland had no edged tool bigger than a knife. They selected eight saplings about twelve feet long and six inches in diameter, dragging them by rope back down the path and then lowering them one by one onto the river bank upstream of the tunnel.

Wayland lashed the trunks together with rope. When the raft was finished, he tethered one end to a boulder, slid the craft into the river and stepped aboard. ‘See,’ he said, rocking from side to side. ‘It’s unsinkable.’

Zuleyka summoned a tepid smile. The dog retreated, tail curled under its belly.

It was growing dark by the time they made camp and ate the remaining scraps of food. Somewhere in the forests above them a tiger roared and monkeys chattered. The dog whimpered and stared into the darkness. Wayland threw another log on the fire and kept it burning bright all night.

The sun hadn’t appeared above the cliffs when he led Zuleyka down to the raft. He gauged by the waterline that the river was more than two feet lower than it had been the evening before. He stepped onto the raft and held out a hand to Zuleyka. She hung back.

‘Surely there’s another way.’

‘No, there isn’t.’

Shaking with fear, she scrambled onto the raft. The dog refused to come and Wayland ended up dragging it aboard and tethering it. He’d given some thought to safety and had tied loops to the trunks as handholds. He’d considered fitting safety lines but decided that if the raft broke up, they’d stand a better chance floating free.

He looked at the tunnel. ‘Here we go,’ he said, casting off. ‘Lie flat and hold tight.’

The raft slid towards the entrance. The walls closed around them and the raft bucked in a wave. Wayland knelt at the front, peering into the gathering darkness. The raft nudged a boulder and swung round so that he was facing backwards, looking at the rapidly disappearing triangle of daylight. Before he could face front again, the raft hit the wall with a force that threw him on his side. Without the handhold, he’d have been tossed into the river. It was pitch black now, with no way of anticipating when or where the next shock would come. He lay flat on the raft, one hand across Zuleyka’s back. The dog was howling and flinging itself against its tether.

‘Stay still, you dumb — ’

Another collision drove the words back down his throat. He felt the trunks give beneath him.

They glided down a calm reach before picking up speed. The slop and gurgle of water echoed against the tunnel walls, the noise building to a roar.

‘Waterfall,’ Wayland shouted. ‘Hang on.’

The raft shot forward and plunged nose-first into the river. Water washed over Wayland and then they were back on an even keel. He checked that Zuleyka was still with him, then felt for the dog. It had gone. The booming of the fall receded behind them.

‘I can see daylight,’ Wayland shouted.

Against the grey haze he made out two rocks dividing the current. The raft spun towards them and struck broadside, the current canting it against the rocks and holding it there. Wayland tried to push it free but couldn’t exert enough leverage. He was soaked through and cold to the core.

He struggled onto one of the rocks and shoved against the raft with his feet. Slowly it began to swing around. A last effort and it came free, the current whisking it away too fast for him to scramble aboard. He threw himself after it and just managed to cling on to the trunks as it sped downstream.

The light grew. A few gyrations carried them out of the tunnel. An eddy spun them towards the bank and Wayland found his footing. Zuleyka sprang onto land and helped him climb out. He crawled a few feet and collapsed.

‘Good girl.’

He came round to find the dog licking his face and Zuleyka chafing his back. A warm sun beat down into a glade bright with butterflies.

‘I’m all right,’ he said.

They hiked down a well-trodden path cushioned with pine needles, passing through pockets of sunlight and shadow. Magpies with azure wings scolded overhead. The trees opened up ahead of them, the path falling away down a steep wooded slope. Wayland and Zuleyka stopped at the top. Neither of them spoke.

They were back in the world. The torrent they’d been following was a tributary of a broad river flowing south through a valley covered in dense forest. Far below them a suspension bridge crossed to a road. Wayland could see a few travellers on it. Smoke drifted up from houses in cultivated clearings. Above the ridge on the other side of the valley the sky was curtained by a majestic range of snow mountains.

By noon they were eating dumplings in a hostelry for merchants and pilgrims travelling between the burning shrine at Muktinath and the lowlands of Nepal and India. Wayland purchased clothes for himself and Zuleyka. A local directed them to an inn standing high above the river. The innkeeper gave them a room with a wooden balcony overlooking the road and asked if they wanted to eat.

When Wayland woke next day, the food they’d ordered lay untouched inside the door and Zuleyka lay in purring sleep. The purple bloom of twilight filled the valley when she woke.

‘I’m not putting on new clothes until I’ve bathed,’ she said.

The innkeeper told them that they could wash in hot springs that welled out of rocks not far upriver. His son showed them the way, bowing to a Hindu couple seated naked in an alcove above a spring of hot bubbling water.

Wayland and Zuleyka stripped off at the next thermal spring and slid into the water. It was almost too hot to bear. They wriggled onto stone shelves, gasping in the steamy atmosphere.

Looking at Zuleyka, Wayland remembered that he’d first made love to Syth after they’d cleansed themselves in a makeshift sauna on the shore of a Greenland fjord.

‘You look sad,’ Zuleyka said.

‘Just tired.’

It was another two days before they made love. For Zuleyka it was a painful experience. It turned out that she really was a virgin.

She dabbed blood on Wayland’s forehead. ‘By Luri custom, that makes us husband and wife.’

They stayed in the inn for a week, regaining their strength, growing comfortable with each other’s bodies.

On the seventh morning, Wayland was sitting on the balcony, watching Zuleyka brush out her hair, when he heard music in the distance. Zuleyka jumped up. Wayland stood.

Around the bend to the north strode a man leading a white mule sporting a red plume and trappings covered with silver bells and tassels. A file of men and women followed, the men in high-waisted white coats, the women wearing bloomers and tunics in a riot of colours, bangles on their wrists and hoops in their ears. One of the men played some kind of wind instrument, the women singing and keeping time with tambourines. Padding behind the ensemble came a bear on a leash.

‘Luri?’ Wayland said.

Zuleyka nodded, her face radiant. She called out and the procession halted. The man leading the column looked up, shading his swarthy face. Zuleyka called again and ran down the hillside. The Luri clustered around her and they conversed for a long time before she made her way back.

‘They’re returning to India for the winter,’ she panted. ‘We can go with them.’

Wayland watched her pack her few possessions.

‘Hurry up,’ she said.

‘I’m not coming with you.’

Her face fell. ‘There’s only one road south. At least stay with me until we reach the lowlands.’

Wayland took her in his arms. ‘Have you been happy these last few days?’

She nodded.

‘So have I,’ Wayland said. ‘Let’s part while the memories are still sweet.’

‘We can make more happy memories.’

‘Your people will never accept me as one of their own, will they?’

Her eyes flickered.

‘You see,’ he said. ‘It’s better this way.’

She stood before him. ‘Good bye, then. Thank you, Wayland.’

He kissed her. ‘Good bye, Zuleyka.’

She flicked a tear away. ‘I can’t believe that’s all. Not after everything we’ve been through.’

‘It isn’t all. I won’t forget you.’

Zuleyka reserved her tears for the dog, spilling them onto its rough head. ‘Good bye, Batu. Look after your master.’

The leader of the Luri troupe called out. Zuleyka squared her shoulders and walked away.

‘That song you sang to the troopers in the Kara Kum,’ Wayland called. ‘Does it have a name?’

Zuleyka sniffled, half-crying, half-laughing. ‘It’s called “When we meet”.’

‘Sing it as you go, will you?’

He watched her hurry down the hill, so fleet of foot, so graceful. The leader of the troupe lifted her onto the mule. She looked up at Wayland, raised her hand to him and faced the road ahead. The musicians took up their instruments and struck up the air that had so captivated Wayland.

The dog lifted its head and howled.

‘You can go with her if you want,’ Wayland said.

The dog looked at him and ran forward a few yards before stopping and looking back, its tail wagging uncertainly.

‘Go on,’ Wayland said.

The dog bounded down the hill and streaked after the Luri. Wayland listened as the song grew faint with distance, climbing up the hill to keep the cavalcade in sight. The music faded away and Zuleyka rode around a bend in the road, out of his life and into memory.