‘So they accused them of being flat-earthers?’ laughed Rebecca. ‘Nice.’
‘Exactly. Pure propaganda. And incredibly effective. Too effective. Now anytime someone criticises a new theory, they’re just another flat-earther. It’s pretty unfair, when you think about it. And unnecessary, too. They could have accused them of being like the people who attacked Copernicus and Galileo for putting the sun at the centre of the solar system. Or they could have even accused them of being bulge-earthers.’
Rebecca squinted at him. ‘Bulge-earthers?’
‘Oh, man,’ laughed Knox. ‘This is going to get complex. Maybe that’s why they didn’t use it, come to think of it. You’ve got to go back to the Greeks. Everything was made up of four elements: earth, fire, air and water.’ The Indians, Japanese and plenty of others had believed in there being just four or five elements, but it had been the Greeks who’d influenced the Europeans, and it had been the Europeans who’d believed in the bulging earth. ‘Earth was the heaviest element, of course, because it fell through air and water. It therefore had to lie at the centre of the universe. Second heaviest was water, which surrounded earth; then came air, which surrounded water, and fire, which flamed upwards in air. But Christianity had a problem with this view, because the universe was God’s creation, and therefore perfect; and it stood to reason that a perfect universe would be arranged in a series of perfect concentric circles, with earth at its centre, and the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars all revolving around it.’
‘Why would that be a problem?’
‘Because if you put your perfect circles together with your differently weighted elements, the earth should logically have been an absolutely round ball completely submerged by water.’
‘Ah. So we should all have drowned by now? Or be fish?’
‘This was a serious conundrum,’ said Knox. ‘Medieval scholars really fretted about this stuff.’
‘And what was their explanation?’
‘It’ll sound weird, but effectively they decided that God had wanted to create man, and therefore had needed dry land, so He’d arranged the universe’s mix of elements and gravitational fields in such a way that the earth bobbed in the great world ocean, rather like an apple in a bucket.’
‘So just the top bit is exposed?’
‘Exactly. But that creates problems of its own, not least that all of the world’s exposed land had to be gathered in one place. There simply couldn’t be any land on the other side of the world.’
‘And people really believed this?’
‘Oh, yes. It was pretty much accepted wisdom in Europe in Columbus’s time; so the argument against him wasn’t just that the voyage he proposed was many thousands of miles longer than he believed; but also that it would be across a wilderness of water, and that therefore they’d have no chance of finding land and restocking on the way. But Columbus knew that there was land to the west, because he’d seen Iceland for himself; he’d heard about Greenland, Newfoundland and maybe even the northern US from the men of Bristol, who regularly fished off those coasts. And that was why he dismissed the arguments of the Spanish courtiers, and had the courage to set off.’
‘Bulge-earthers,’ smiled Rebecca, glowing with the new knowledge. ‘I’m going to have to use that in my next series.’
II
The gun dealer wasn’t due until that afternoon, so Boris took Davit into town after breakfast to buy supplies. The two-man tents on offer in the camping store weren’t designed for people the size of Davit; he could only fit diagonally. They took one each, added it to the growing mound by the counter, then returned to look at sleeping bags. ‘Damned things,’ muttered Davit, stepping into one and pulling it up to his waist. ‘It’s discrimination, that’s what it is. It’s tall-ism.’
His good humour needled Boris. He’d been this way all morning. ‘So how’s the girlfriend?’ he asked.
‘I really like her,’ grinned the big man. ‘I’m thinking maybe of staying on a few days after we’re done with Knox.’
‘I wouldn’t make any promises,’ advised Boris. He didn’t know quite how, but Claudia had got beneath his skin. The evening before, he’d offered her fifty euros for a quick roll. The little bitch had turned him down flat. ‘A job like this, we may have to leave in a hurry.’
‘I’d just like to do something for her, you know? Show her a good time, buy her some nice clothes. She’s had such a hard life, and they treat her like shit at that hotel.’
Claudia turning him down had only aggravated Boris’s itch. He’d lain awake last night listening to the two of them going at it like pigmy chimps next door. There was only one thing to do when a woman got beneath your skin this bad, and that was to fuck her until the sight of her made you sick. ‘Why don’t you ask her to come with us?’ he suggested. ‘She can cook for us, translate, even scout out Eden for us.’ This was a genuine problem that had been weighing on his mind. He and Davit shone like beacons in this place; they’d be spotted in a heartbeat as they approached Eden. But no one would look twice at Claudia if she went to their free clinic complaining of a toothache.
‘I don’t know, boss,’ said Davit. ‘I don’t want her tangled up in this.’
‘We won’t ask her to do anything risky. And we’d pay her well. Five hundred euros, say. That’s a hell of a lot of money in this place. It could change her life.’
‘She’d have to give up her job at the hotel.’
‘Make it a thousand, then. I don’t care.’ It was Sandro’s money, and he wouldn’t exactly miss it. And if Boris couldn’t manage to get Davit out of his way for long enough for him to scratch his itch good and proper, he wasn’t the man he knew himself to be.
‘Great,’ grinned Davit. ‘I’ll ask her when we get back.’
III
This coast had changed beyond recognition in the eleven years of Rebecca’s absence. New villages had appeared, old ones had grown large, and the tangled mangrove of her childhood had all but vanished, leaving it like one long beach. She glanced at Daniel at exactly the same moment he looked at her. It kept happening that way, and it unsettled her. She was here on serious business, not some frivolous jaunt. She folded her arms and looked north. They reached and passed Ifaty, though it didn’t feel as though they were racing. Daniel evidently just had the knack. When he stood up to do boat things, he walked in easy harmony with the roll, whereas she spilled all over the place. ‘Something to eat?’ she suggested.
‘That’d be great.’
She unpacked two of the silver-foil packages Daniel had had their hotel prepare for them the night before. Cold boiled white rice, octopus and vegetables. She tried a mouthful. Bland, even with the tang of sea-salt on her lips. She went below in search of a bottle of her father’s home-made chilli sauce, opening cupboards at random, including a chest filled with medical supplies for patients too sick to make it to the clinic, and for anaesthetising and treating animals in the wild. She found a bottle of sauce at last, took it back up and added three drops to her rice, cautious as a scientist with a pipette, before mixing it in thoroughly with her fork. She held the bottle out to Daniel. ‘Want some?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘Be careful,’ she warned. ‘It’s very hot.’
He gave her a patronising look and splashed it all over his rice, as if to prove his manhood. She considered saying something, decided against. He took a forkful, nodded approvingly, followed it quickly with a second and then, a little more slowly, with a third. A first sheen of sweat appeared on his brow. He lifted his fourth forkful to his mouth, then hesitated. ‘Wow,’ he said, putting his fork back down. ‘You weren’t kidding.’
‘I did tell you.’
‘Yeth,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘What’th in thith thtuff?’
