She stepped forward quickly, caught me as I fell. The flagon dropped to the ground, and broke in a splashing crash on the hard surface of the drive. She had caught me with one strong arm, her body sagging to brace herself against my weight. Without the jug in her hand she gripped me with her other arm, her leg jolting us both as she changed position. I slumped against her, the fabric of her dress against my face. I felt the tumbler fall from my hand. I thought stupidly of all the broken glass around us. Then I smelled her scent, a light fragrance of mint, or flowers, or something that flew. The warmth of her body, the reassuring grip of her arms. She shifted her weight again, so that she was able to hold me better. I closed my eyes, felt safe, hot, dizzy, grimy, ashamed, thankful, but above all safe in her arms. I knew my knees had given out, that if she let go of me I would crash to the floor. The cicadas rasped around us, the sun was an endless blaze.
I was next aware of being half carried, half dragged. Two strong young men, one on each side, one shaved bald, the other straggle-haired. They were encouraging me, trying to make me feel secure. They urged me on with soft words. My bare feet scraped lightly along the dusty floor, my arms thrown intimately around the men’s necks. It was cool inside the house, the shutters down, a draught of blown air, shiny boards with pale rugs scattered, tall potted plants, terracotta ornaments, a decorated screen, a cushioned bench, long fronds over the windows.
Caurer stood beside me, her wide-brimmed hat now knocked to an angle, not yet adjusted, my dirty sandals dangling from her fingers. She was a slender woman, grey-haired, pale-eyed, in the senior years of her life, a presence of immense but silent power. I was stunned to be with her. Still she wore that same serious, uncritical regard. I hardly dared look at her, this woman who looked just like me.
In the distance, somewhere above, sounds of movement. I was in a school.
An hour later I had almost recovered. I had taken a shower and Caurer found me some clothes I could borrow. I had drunk a lot of water, and eaten a light lunch. At times I was alone, as Caurer had work to do in the school.
But at the end of the afternoon she and I were alone together in her first-floor study, and I realized during that intense conversation that without in any way planning or rehearsing it, I had spent most of my life searching for this woman, to know her.
Later I returned on my moped to Smuj Town through the dusty evening heat and the overhanging trees, the swarming midges and emerging moths, the gradually quieting cicadas. In the town the evening promenada was beginning, the measured ambling around the squares and along the shore, the gay colours and flamboyant hairstyles, the calling and gesticulating and laughing, the young men on their motorbikes, the busy cafes and restaurants, the sound of guitars.
The next day I packed my luggage, went to the harbour office for a refund on my ship’s return passage, and then was driven in a taxi to the school on the plain in the hills, behind the trees, beyond the gate, next to the ruined city.
I wrote most of my essay during the first two or three days on Smuj. I completed it later when I was living in the school house. I despatched it to the newspaper together with my resignation, and I never discovered if it was published or not. I suspect not.
Madame Caurer and I worked together for several years. Officially, my role was to liaise with the media on behalf of the Caurer Foundation, ensuring that what was printed or reported about the work still going on was accurate and true to Caurer’s intentions and wishes. In practice, much of my real work was to act as her confidante, her personal assistant and at times her adviser. Once or twice, when she felt the strain of travel or the pressure of crowds would be too great for her, I went in her place, never speaking, never pretending more than the quiet illusion my features created. When Caurer’s health at last began to fail, I became in effect her nurse, although of course she had a full medical team on her staff. I was with her when she died, having become, in her own words, her most trusted and intimate companion. We were of an age, we were so alike in every way.
It was seven years after her earlier, false death. The harmless imposture was over. This time there was a quiet burial in the grounds of her home, and the only attenders were the members of her inner circle.
Everyone at the Foundation says I still look just like Caurer, but I make no use of that any more. She is gone.
Winho
CATHEDRAL
WINHO is the so-called island of whores. It is a place of thrilling natural beauty, with a towering range of mountains rising from the western coast and occupying much of the interior. Thick forest covers the remaining plain and the lower slopes of the mountains. The island is reefed, with a series of encircling shallow lagoons, rich and diverse in sea-life. Many small towns have been built on the fertile strip between forest and sea. Until the second Faiandland invasion the traditional activities in this area were farming and fishing. Set in a subtropical latitude, Winho rejoices in warm and dry weather for most of the year. The rainy season lasts for only two months. The prevailing wind on the island is known locally as the KADIA, ‘blowing upwards to the mountains’ — in reality it is part of the system of equatorial trade winds.
Winho was invaded twice by Faiand forces in the days before the Covenant of Neutrality had been ratified or could be enforced. The first invasion led to occupation and fortification by Faiandland and it lasted for almost a decade. After a violently resisted counter-invasion by Federation forces, Winho was eventually liberated and demilitarized. Loss of civilian life was on a disastrous scale, and there was extensive damage to property.
For about ten years Winho existed under a relatively benign Federation suzerainty, but as the Covenant took shape and gained global recognition the Glaundians had to leave.
Faiandland almost immediately re-occupied Winho, allegedly because of an administrative error but in reality because of its strategic position. There were also unfounded Faiand suspicions that the Federation was continuing to use the island as a base. By this time, the Federation forces were engaged elsewhere and Winho was left unprotected. In the name of retribution horrifying atrocities were performed on many of the inhabitants, including pseudo-scientific experiments on human subjects, physical mutilation of most of the women of child-bearing age and the deportation of all males over the age of ten years. In deep poverty, many of the surviving women were forced either to flee the island, or as large R&R camps were set up for Faiand troops they went into prostitution.
Even after the Covenant rules once again removed the Faiandland occupying force, the impoverished island became renowned for its brothel culture, heavily dependent on the passage of troopships to sustain the economy. Major efforts by people from neighbouring islands to lend assistance came to nothing, because the central problem remained unresolved: the abducted menfolk of Winho could not be located, and even in the present day no mass grave has ever been found. It is clear that they were massacred. The grim search for the final resting place continues.
Winho has been for many years a focus of concern throughout the Archipelago. Caurer visited Winho and set up one of her special schools, which still exists and is regarded as a beacon of hope for the long-term regrowth of Winho culture. Caurer said she was desolated by what she found, and said afterwards that if ever her work had to be directed towards one island instead of to them all, it would be to Winho.
At another time, both Chaster Kammeston and Dryd Bathurst were on Winho, during the period when Kammeston was researching his biography of the artist. He was on the island for nearly two weeks. This is the only known series of meetings between the two. Bathurst had set up a studio on the waterfront of Winho Town, where he was tackling three of the main canvases in his Ruination sequence. We have only Kammeston’s account of what happened when the two men met, which he describes in taut and restrained language in the pages of the biography. What Kammeston does not reveal there is what he wrote in his diary, and later in one of his letters to Caurer: he was so disgusted by Bathurst’s private life that he abandoned work on the biography for nearly two years, only resuming it when Bathurst’s reputation as a painter of apocalyptic landscapes was without precedent. Persuaded by the greatness of the man’s artistic gift, and of course by pressure from his publisher, Kammeston completed his biography. He said later that it was the least of his books. To this day it is never included in official listings of his published works.
Another visitor to Winho, whose presence on the island was not known until long after she had left, was the
