The Stranglers Honeymoon

52

‘The problem,’ her grandfather had said on his deathbed, ‘is that there isn’t a God.’

She often used to recall those words, and during the last few weeks they had kept on returning with a sort of somnambulistic persistency. There isn’t a God. Her grandfather on her mother’s side had died of cancer, had spent the last few months of his life in hospital, and two days before he died she had sat alone with him, by his bed. They had been taking it in turns: her, her mother and her aunt — they all knew that he didn’t have long left.

She had sat there in a blue armchair in the special part of the hospital reserved for the dying. Terminal patients. A grandfather on his last legs, drugged up to the eyeballs with morphine, and a sixteen-year-old granddaughter. The cancer was in his pancreas. A part of it, at least. She had gathered that if you had to have cancer, you wouldn’t choose to have it in your pancreas.

It was his last night but one, as it turned out, and as morning approached, shortly before half past five, he had woken up and reached for her hand. She must have fallen asleep in the chair, and woke up when he touched her. She tried to sit up.

He eyed her for a moment or two, with a serene expression on his face, and she almost had the impression that it was that notorious moment of clarity just before death — but it wasn’t the case, in fact. He had over a day left.

Then he had spoken those words, in a loud and clear voice.

The problem is that there isn’t a God.

Then he let go of her hand, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

He had been deeply religious all his life. At his funeral the church had been so full that she had to stand right at the back.

She was sixteen years old, and had never told anybody about what he had said.

No, she thought as she sat there in the taxi, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. There isn’t a God: that’s why we have to make sure justice is done ourselves.

The journey lasted barely a quarter of an hour. He had stopped at a hairpin bend at the top of a ravine. There was still some distance left to the pass over to the north side of the island, if she understood it rightly. When she looked back she could still see a bit of the old, narrow stone bridge over the sound leading into Argostoli’s harbour. She asked the driver to continue past the next rocky outcrop, and then stop.

She thanked him and got out of the car. The taxi continued up the side of the steep hill — she assumed it was too difficult to turn round on the narrow strip of asphalt, and perhaps there were other roads leading down to the capital. When the car had left her field of vision, she went back round the bend and saw him again. He was standing next to the purple scooter with his back towards her, staring down into the ravine. The sides were steep, rocky and devoid of vegetation, but down at the bottom, some thirty metres deep, there was a mass of dry, straggly bushes and rubbish which unscrupulous motorists had thrown down. Paper and plastic carrier bags and empty cans. And something that looked like a refrigerator.

He was standing there motionless, with a small greyish-green rucksack at his feet and a revolver in his right hand.

She ran her fingers over the mangled, ravaged skin on her face, then put her hand into her shoulder bag. She took hold of the wrapped-up iron rod. As far as she could tell he hadn’t noticed her presence. Good, she thought. The distance to him was no more than twenty metres: she gave no thought to why he was standing there, why he had a revolver in his hand or what he was intending to do. It was sufficient that she had her own plan clear and at the ready.

More than sufficient.

There isn’t a God, she thought as she approached him cautiously.

He didn’t notice her — or took no notice of her — until she was almost next to him. He seemed to be concentrating hard: but when he finally heard her footsteps and sensed her presence, he gave a start and turned to look at her.

‘Excuse me,’ she said in English, tightening her hold on the iron rod in her bag. ‘Do you happen to know what time it is?’

‘The time?’

It was a bizarre question to ask up here in this barren mountainous landscape, and he looked at her in surprise.

‘Yes, please.’

He raised his hand, the one not holding the revolver, and checked his wristwatch.

‘Twelve,’ he said. ‘It’s one minute to twelve.’

She thanked him and adjusted the scarf over her face. He doesn’t recognize me, she thought. He has no idea who I am.

‘It’s beautiful here,’ she said, and took a step closer, as if she was about to pass him. He looked out over the ravine again. Didn’t respond. The arm with the revolver was hanging down motionless by his side. She saw a bird of prey soaring up over the mountain ridge: it circled around then hovered high up in the air, almost directly above them. She took the rod out of her bag.

God. . she thought as she raised it in the air.

He turned his head and stared at her for a fraction of a second with his mouth half open. Raised his gun so that it was pointing at his own head, his right temple.

. . doesn’t exist, she thought, and swung the rod.