The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz

10

After offering his drawings before the lion-king Boaz-Jachin burned them on the plain where the lions had been killed. He took a large metal trash basket from the refreshment stand, put his drawings in it and set them afire.

He expected the guards to see the flames, and stood near the spectator’s hill where he would have a chance of dodging out of sight when they came. No one came. The flames leaped up, sparks and flakes of charred paper drifted over the plain, the fire died quickly.

Boaz-Jachin climbed over the chain-link fence again, walked back to the town, and slept in the bus station.

He felt cosy in the bus going home. He felt cool and easy, clean and empty, as he did after making love with Lila. He thought of the road to the citadel of the dead king, how he had felt walking on it each time. Like the lion-hunt hall, it was his place now, printed on the map of his mind. Its daylight and its darkness were in him now, its crickets and its barking dogs and stones. He could travel that road when he liked, wherever he might be.

When Boaz-Jachin got home his mother was out. He was glad to be alone, glad not to have to speak. He went to his room and took out his unfinished map. He put Lila’s house on it, the last king’s palace, the plain where the lions had been killed, the hill he had sat on, the road he had walked, and the two bus stations.

His mother came home and made dinner. At the table she spoke of the difficulties of managing the shop, of her constant tiredness, of how little she was able to sleep and how much weight she had lost. Sometimes Boaz-Jachin saw her face waiting for a reply but he could not always remember what she had been saying. Her face became strange to him, and he became strange to himself. Again he felt empty, but it was not the easy emptiness that he had had in the bus. It was as if something had gone out of him and now he must follow it into the world. He was restless, and wanted to be moving on.

‘Why?’ said his mother.

‘Why what?’ said Boaz-Jachin.

‘Why are you looking at me that way, I said,’ said his mother. ‘What are you thinking about? You look a thousand miles away from here.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Boaz-Jachin. ‘I don’t think I was thinking about anything.’ He was thinking, maybe I’ll never see you again.

Late that night he went down to the shop and looked at one of the big wall-maps. He looked at his country on it and the place where his town was. He ran his finger over the smooth surface, felt the lines of seeking that led from his town and other towns, his country and other countries, converging on a great city far away across the sea. His father, he thought, would be there, and with him would be the master-map he had promised to Boaz-Jachin.

He went to the office, opened the cash box. It was empty. His mother, then, had noticed the absence and return of the money that he had taken the other time. Boaz-Jachin shrugged. He had enough money of his own to live on for two weeks or so if he slept rough, and he had his guitar.

He packed his rucksack, put his map in it, took his guitar. He left a note for his mother:

I am going to find my father and get my map.

He went to Lila’s house and slipped a note under the door:

I thought that I would ask you to come with me but I have to go alone.

Boaz-Jachin walked out through the sleeping town, past the palm trees and the square where the jet of the fountain continually rose and fell, past dark shops and houses and dogs that went their several ways, past bright closed petrol stations. He walked out to the road, heard the stones of the roadside rolling under his feet, felt the night in the road and the morning that was coming.