The Codex

68

The four brothers stood rooted to the ground, staring into the rectangle of darkness. They could not move, they could not speak. The seconds ticked on into minutes as the flow of foul air ebbed. No one made a move to go inside the tomb. No one wanted to see what horror lay within.

And then there was a sound: a cough. And another: the shuffle of a foot.

They were paralyzed, mute with anticipation.

Another shuffle. Tom knew it then: Their father was alive. He was coming out of the tomb. Still Tom could not move, and neither could the others. Just as the tension became unbearable, in the center of the black rectangle, a ghostly face began to materialize. Another shambling step, and now an apparition appeared in the gloom. Another step brought the figure into reality.

He was almost more horrifying than a corpse. The figure halted before them unsteadily, blinking his eyes. He was stark naked, shrunken, stooped, filthy, cadaverous, smelling like death itself. Snot ran from his nose; his mouth hung open like a madman’s. He blinked, sniffed, blinked again in the dawn light, his colorless eyes vacant, uncomprehending.

Maxwell Broadbent.

The seconds ticked by, and still they remained rooted to the ground, speechless.

Broadbent stared at them, one eye twitching. He blinked again and straightened up. The hollow eyes, sunken in great dark pools of flesh, were darting from each of their faces to the next. He took a long, noisy breath.

No matter how much he wanted to, Tom could not move or speak. He stared as their father straightened up a bit more. The eyes roved once again across their faces, more penetrating. He coughed, the mouth worked a bit, but no sound came. Broadbent raised a trembling hand, and finally a cracked sound came from his lips. They leaned forward, straining to understand.

Broadbent cleared his throat, rumbled, and took a step closer. He inhaled again and finally spoke:

“What the hell took you so long?”

It roared out, ringing off the cliffs, echoing back out of the tomb. The spell was broken. It was their old father, there in the flesh after all. Tom and the others rushed forward and embraced the old man. He gripped them fiercely, all at once and then each one in turn, his arms surprisingly strong.

After a long moment Maxwell Broadbent stepped back. He seemed to have expanded to his usual size.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, wiping his face. “Jesus, Jesus Christ.”

They all looked at him, unsure how to respond.

The old man shook his great gray head. “Christ almighty, I’m glad you’re here. God, I must stink. Look at me. I’m a mess. Naked, filthy, revolting!”

“Not at all,” said Philip. “Here, let me give you this.” He pulled off his shirt.

“Thank you, Philip.” Maxwell put on Philip’s shirt and buttoned it up, his fingers fumbling clumsily. “Who does your laundry? This shirt is a disgrace.” He attempted a laugh and ended up coughing.

When Philip began taking off his pants, Broadbent held up a large hand. “I’m not going to strip my own sons.”

“Father—”

“They buried me naked. I’m used to it.”

Borabay reached into his palm-leaf pack and pulled out a long piece of decorated cloth. “You wear this.”

“Going native, am I?” Broadbent awkwardly fitted it around his waist. “How do you tie it up?”

Borabay helped him tie it around his waist with a knotted hemp cord.

The old man knotted it and stood there, saying nothing. Nobody knew what to say next.

“Thank God you’re alive,” said Vernon.

“At first I wasn’t so sure myself,” Broadbent said. “For a while there I thought I’d died and gone to hell.”

“What, you? The old atheist now believing in hell?” said Philip.

He looked up at Philip, smiled, and shook his head. “So much has changed.”

“Don’t tell me you found God.”

Broadbent wagged his head and clapped a hand on Philip’s shoulder. He gave it an affectionate shake. “Good to see you, son.”

He turned to Vernon. “And you, too, Vernon.” He looked around, turning his crinkly blue eyes on each of them. “Tom, Vernon, Philip, Borabay — I’m overwhelmed.” He placed a hand on each of their heads in turn. “You made it. You found me. My food and water were almost gone. I could only have lasted a day or two more. You’ve given me a second chance. I don’t deserve it but I’m going to take it. I did a lot of thinking in that dark tomb…”

He looked up and out over the purple sea of mountains and the golden sky, straightened up, and inhaled.

“Are you okay?” Vernon asked.

“If it’s the cancer you’re talking about, I’m sure it’s still there — just hasn’t kicked in yet. I’ve still got a couple of months. The son of a bitch got into my brain — I never told you that. But so far, so good: I feel great.” He looked around. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Tom said, “Unfortunately, it’s not going to be that simple.”

“How so?”

Tom glanced at his brothers. “We’ve got a problem, and his name is Hauser.”

“Hauser!” Broadbent was astonished.

Tom nodded and told their father all the details of their respective journeys.

“Hauser!” Broadbent repeated, looking at Philip. “You teamed up with that bastard?”

“I’m sorry,” said Philip. “I figured…”

“You figured he’d know where I went. My fault: I should have seen that was a possibility. Hauser’s a ruthless sadist, almost killed a girl once. The biggest mistake in my life was partnering with him.” Broadbent eased himself down on a shelf of rock and shook his shaggy head. “I can’t believe the risks you took getting here. God, what a mistake I made. The last one of many, in fact.”

“You our father,” said Borabay.

Broadbent snorted. “Some father. Putting you to a ridiculous test like this. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I can’t understand what got into me. What a damn stupid, foolish old bastard I’ve been.”

“We haven’t exactly been My Three Sons,” said Philip.

“Four sons,” said Borabay.

“Or… perhaps there are more?” Vernon asked, raising one eyebrow.

Broadbent shook his head. “Not that I know of. Four fine sons if only I’d had the brains to realize it.” He fixed his blue eyes on Vernon. “Except for that beard, Vernon. Good Christ, when are you going to trim that hairy appendage? You look like a mullah.”

Vernon said, “You don’t look too clean-cut yourself.”

Broadbent waved his hand and laughed. “Forget I said that. Old habits die hard. Keep your damn beard.”

There was an awkward silence. The sun was rising higher above the mountains, and the light was turning from gold to white. A flock of chattering birds flew past, dipping and rising and swerving in unison.

Tom turned to Borabay. “We need to think of our plan of escape.”

“Yes, brother. I think of this already. We wait here until dark. Then we go back.” He glanced up at the clear sky. “It rain tonight, give us cover.”

“What about Hauser?” Broadbent asked.

“He search for tomb in White City. He not yet think of looking in cliffs. I think we get by him. He not know we here.”

Broadbent looked around. “You didn’t bring any food with you, by any chance? That stuff they left me in the tomb wasn’t fit for an in-flight meal.”

Borabay unpacked food from his palm-leaf backpack and began setting it out. Broadbent shuffled over a little unsteadily. “Fresh fruit. My God.” He picked up a mango and bit into it, the juice running out of his mouth and dripping onto his shirt. “This is heaven.” He crammed the mango into his mouth, ate a second one, and then polished off a couple of curwa fruits and some smoked lizard fillets.

“Borabay, you could open a restaurant.”

Tom watched his father eat. He could hardly believe that the old man was still alive. There was something unreal about it. Everything, and nothing, had changed.

Broadbent finished his meal and leaned back against the stone wall, gazing out over the mountains.

“Father,” Philip asked, “if you don’t mind telling us, what happened to you in that tomb?”

“Philip, I’ll tell you how it was. We had a big funeral — no doubt Borabay told you all about it. I drank Cah’s infernal drink. The next thing I knew, I was waking up. It was pitch-black. As a good atheist I’d always believed death was the end of consciousness. That was it. But here I was, still conscious, even though I was sure I was dead. I’ve never been so frightened in my life. And then, as I fumbled around in the darkness in a total panic, I had a sudden thought: Not only am I dead, but I’ve gone to hell!”

“You didn’t really believe that,” said Philip.

He shook his head. “I did. You have no idea how terrified I was. I wailed and howled like a lost soul. I begged God, I prayed on my knees, I repented, I swore I’d be good if only he’d give me one more chance. I felt like one of those poor sods in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment crying out for forgiveness while being dragged down by demons into a lake of fire.

“And then, when I was all tired out with wailing and self-pity, I began to recover a bit of my sanity. That’s when I crawled around and realized I was in the tomb — and it dawned on me that I wasn’t dead after all, that Cah had buried me alive. He’d never forgiven me for what I’d done to his father. I should have known it; Cah always struck me as a shifty old fox. When I found the food and water I knew I was in for a long ordeal. I had planned this whole thing to be a lighthearted challenge for the three of you. And then suddenly my life depended on your success.”

“A lighthearted challenge?” Philip repeated skeptically.

“I wanted to shock you into doing something more important with your lives. What I didn’t realize is that each of you is doing something important — that is, living the life that you want to live. Who am I to judge?” He paused, cleared his throat, shook his head. “Here I was locked up with what I thought was my treasure, my life’s work—and it was crap. It was useless. Suddenly it meant nothing. In the dark I couldn’t even look at it. Being entombed alive shook me to the core. I found myself looking back on my whole life with a kind of loathing. I had been a bad father to you, a bad husband, greedy, selfish — and then I found myself praying.”

“No,” said Philip.

Broadbent nodded. “What else was there to do? And then I heard voices, a bang, then a rumbling sound, and the light came in, and there you all were! My prayers had been answered.”

“You mean,” Philip asked, “you found religion? You’re a believer?”

“You’re goddamn right I found religion!” He lapsed into silence, looking out over the vast landscape stretching below, the endless mountains and jungles. He shifted, coughed. “Funny, I feel like I’ve died and been reborn.”