These were the circumstances of Caurer’s death, but because of her public renown, and the love and respect in which she was widely held, she could not pass quietly from view. Her life was praised, celebrated and memorialized throughout the Archipelago in every form of the media.
I too was involved as a reporter in the search for information after her death. I was sent to Rawthersay to speak to people who had known or worked with her, and my impression of the great woman was deepened by what I saw and heard.
But there were difficult questions unanswered. The principal one concerned the cause of her death. No thryme colonies had ever been discovered in the temperate zone of Quietude Bay, let alone on Rawthersay itself, so the revelation that she had suffered a fatal bite caused great alarm throughout the islands. However, the usual searches and precautions confirmed that no colonies appeared to have been settled. The death certificate was in its way unambiguous, and the professionalism of the doctor who had signed it was never in doubt, but even so there remained a feeling that we were not being told everything.
Throughout her life Caurer had enjoyed robust good health, which naturally would not protect her from a stroke or a heart attack, or one of many other underlying causes of unexpected death. Any of those remained a possibility, a genuine death behind the one that felt a little unlikely. It was tragic and heartfelt, she was widely and sincerely mourned, but I at least, and many other journalists, continued to feel a nagging sense of mystery.
My own researches turned up the surprising information that shortly before her death Caurer had travelled unaccompanied to Piqay to be present at the funeral of the author Chaster Kammeston. This in itself was unusual: Caurer travelling alone was almost unheard of. Although she had been subjected to intrusive media coverage while using the ferries to reach Piqay, it turned out that in practice most of the media outlets who had cottoned on to her journey were all from the islands along the fairly narrow zone of the Archipelago through which she had travelled. For some reason it had spread no wider, certainly not to me or to the offices of the
I could not help wondering if the death of Kammeston might not have had something to do with what followed almost immediately after.
I was probably not by then the only one asking that question. After much travelling around, however, and after many further interviews, I came to the conclusion that although we had certainly not been told the whole story, there was nothing in the public interest about it, and that Madame Caurer was entitled to privacy, in death as in life.
Such thoughts rushed through my mind while I stood there by the sign that announced Caurer’s presence. Then I stepped forward and pressed the intercom bell. I heard nothing.
After waiting for more than a minute I pressed it again. This time a woman’s voice came faintly and tinnily through a small metal speaker. ‘May I take your name, please?’
‘I’m Dant Willer,’ I said, pressing my face to the green-painted grille. It was hot from the sun and a number of tiny dead insects crusted the gauze.
‘Madame Willer. I don’t recognize your name. Are you a parent?’
‘No. I’m a journalist.’ I sensed asperity in the silence that followed. ‘Would it be possible to come in?’
I heard the woman clearing her throat — a thin rasping noise in the speaker. She started to say something, but the words would not form. A quick popping noise came through the speaker. I could not help it: in my mind’s eye I imagined an elderly woman, leaning forward unsteadily to the intercom microphone. Another rasping noise, as she cleared her throat.
‘We never grant interviews. If you are not the parent of a student here, you have to make an appointment. But we have nothing to say to the press, so please don’t be troubled by the effort.’
There was finality in her tone and I sensed that she was about to break off the contact.
‘I was hoping to see Madame Caurer,’ I said quickly. ‘Not as a journalist. Would that be possible, please?’
‘Caurer is not here. She is busy on other work.’
‘Then she is normally here in the school?’
‘No. That is incorrect. Tell me your name again and what it is you want.’
‘I am Madame Dant Willer. The truth is that I am a journalist for the
‘I’ve remembered your name now. I think you wrote a book about the range wars on Junno. Is that right? Is that who you are?’
‘Madame Caurer —’
But the background hiss of the intercom suddenly ceased and I knew that the brief exchange had ended. My senses were alive. I stood there limply in the heat, the fulgent, unrelenting sunlight, with the sound of the hot breeze passing through the tree branches around me, the insensible dashing of small birds, the stridulation of insects, the white glare on the unmetalled road, the sweat running down my back and between my breasts, the burning of the drive’s stony surface through the thin soles of my sandals.
I suddenly realized I might perish there in the tropical heat because I was unable to move. I held to the metal bars of the gate by a force of will over which I felt I had no control. I tried to raise myself to see better, but from this position the only part of the main building that was visible was a brick wall, next to some white-painted outhouses.
I was convinced I had been speaking to Caurer herself.
I was certain she was there, inside the building a short distance away. I was unsure what to do, and anyway I was incapable of acting on any decision. I pressed the intercom button several more times without response, then sagged again. I felt the back of my neck burning and blistering in the heat.
Then she said, ‘I think you will need this.’
She had appeared on the drive beyond the gate and was approaching me slowly. In one hand she held a tall glass tumbler, in the other a flagon of water. Condensation clouded the side of the jug. The weight of it was making her arm tremble and I saw concentric ripples darting across the surface. Caurer was there, actually there, an arm’s length away from me. She poured the water, her hand shaking because of the weight straining her wrist. She filled the tumbler to the top, passed it to me through the bars of the gate.
Our fingers briefly touched as I took the glass from her.
She stood straight before me as I gulped the water gratefully. She was taller than I had expected, smooth- skinned, not smiling but not unfriendly, steady in her gaze, wearing a pale blue dress, a broad-brimmed white hat.
She said, ‘I admired your book more than I can say.’
I felt overcome with amazed pride and contrary humility. ‘Thank you, Madame Caurer — I didn’t think you would know the book. That’s not why I’m here —’
‘How long have you been out in this heat?’
I just shook my head.
The gate slowly opened making a whirring noise, a motor somewhere hidden. Nothing now separated me from her. She still had not moved — the frosted flagon of cold glass unsteady in her hand. She stood erect, regarding me seriously and with a sudden intensity. I felt so scruffy, unsuitable, dressed in clothes not even good enough for scrambling around lost ruins, let alone meeting this woman. I straightened myself, to try to meet her steady regard as equally as I could. Caurer of Rawthersay, standing there, an arm’s length away.
I had never seen her before, not even a picture. But I stared back at her, dizzy with a sense of recognition. She was me, we looked alike! It was as if a mirror had been thrown up in front of me. I raised one hand. She lifted her own, the one not gripping the jug. I felt the same intensity in me that I was sensing in her. My head began to swim. I could not hold the upright posture, because something had happened to weaken me. I slumped, looking down at the ground. I focused on my legs, my bare feet loosely strapped inside the sandals, and was ashamed of the dirt and dust that begrimed me, the black lines between and around my toes.
