Shadows & Tall Trees (9 page)

After all the bats were killed, though, he couldn’t bear to hear the name spoken. Each time was like a punch to the heart. He knew he deserved it, every hard hit, for not stopping the slaughter.

He didn’t tell the nurse any of this. He might, he thought, if something happened between them. If she really loved bats, he could show her the cave, they could see it together and she’d cry with him, maybe.

But she didn’t come again. Next time, the nurse was a man, bright faced and cheery, who made them all laugh.

One morning, Jason appeared. There was silence as always. He surveyed the room. “Can you stay for a while, Theo? It would be good to have a chat.”

Theo nodded.

“Excellent,” Jason said. He walked over to the elderly man, placed his hand on the back of the chair, and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

The elderly man gave a little shudder. “Me?” Theo heard him say.

Jason led the elderly man though the door. The waiter (there were three of them, Theo knew, all kind, efficient, professional) said to the nurse, “You’re all done now. You’ll be paid for the month. And thanks.”

The other regulars congratulated Theo. He still didn’t know what he was lucky about. No one discussed it. But it was a cure; they’d seen it. They knew it worked. Theo himself had seen six people go through the door and never return to the café. He’d seen three of them later, walking down the street, transformed. Flowers appeared in the café, with notes saying THANK YOU. Like flowers sent to nurses in hospital.

There was no follow-up because he knew no names, but still, even to have one day feeling that way would make it worthwhile. Even if it was just that one day.

Theo ordered herbal coffee and cheese but could swallow nothing. Sometimes he felt so exhausted, so suddenly and completely drained, he wanted to lay his head on the table and sleep. Sometimes he did nod off, wake to find himself still there, his coffee cold in front of him.

Theo was grateful for the pile of magazines, so he could withdraw into himself, not engage. Many were tourist magazines from Dusseldorf and he flicked through these, looking for things to talk about

When Jason sat down an hour later, Theo said, “How long did you live in Dusseldorf?” thinking it a safe, intelligent question.

“Never even been. I just like the sound of the name. Don’t you?”

“Except people don’t call your cafe that, do they?”

“Don’t they?”

“They call it Death’s Door Café.”

“Because of the doors.”

He pointed at the huge wooden door where the ill people entered. The door Theo wanted to enter.

“We call that Gladiator. We dunno how many died behind it. But plenty. You can see sweat marks from their hands as they stood leaning against it. Some came through okay. But plenty died.”

“I’m . . . curious to know what’s behind that door.” Theo wished he had a script, but everyone spoke to Jason differently. “You’ve taken a lot of people through.”

“I have. When I get to know someone well, sometimes I’ll let them through.”

“I’d like that. I need that.”

“People do.”

“But I’ve been given . . .” Theo couldn’t say the words aloud. He’d told no one the timing, barely acknowledged to himself that his life could be counted in months.

“You like it here, don’t you?”

“I do. Really. There’s something very calming about the place.”

“That’s what we aim for. Our customers . . . mostly they’ve made a decision. Come to an acceptance, or had a realization. It calms you, to be in that state of mind.”

Jason Davies put his hands on Theo’s.

“Can you tell me who recommended you?”

“Nobody. I just heard about it.”

“Usually we only accept recommendations. How did you hear about us?”

Theo blinked. “I’m afraid I eavesdropped on a plane. I guess they thought no one could hear, because they were talking under a blanket, but my hearing is very good. I had to find the place myself, though.”

He knew everyone was listening, because he had heard all the other interviews, both the successes and the failures. He hadn’t identified why some failed.

“Tell me about yourself,” Jason said. He had the questionnaire on the table before him. “It says here your greatest fear is bats.”

“No! Not at all. The death of bats. That’s my greatest fear.”

Jason tapped his nose. “Is this an element of your disease?”

Theo felt his cheeks flush. He rubbed his nose. All his life, blood had drained from it when he was nervous, scared or tired. Children weren’t smart enough to think of connecting it to bat’s white nose fungus, but he thought of it himself and he didn’t mind. He liked the similarity.

“No, this is just nerves. My fingertips go white sometimes, too. It’s not life-threatening. Not like the bat disease. It gets carried from one cave to another by people who love bats and want to see them all. One of those ironies.”

“People are a bit like that, aren’t they?”

He asked Theo about bats, simple questions, leading him to feel comfortable, relaxed.

“All right. Look, come through.”

Jason led the way through the gladiator door, through a short hallway to a bright-red door covered with stickers of unicorns, rainbows and puppies.
Family of four
b1952, b1953, b1975, b1980, d1984
.
Theo touched it.

“Father gathered them in the toy room and shot them all,” said Jason. “Incredible tragedy. But don’t things lose their awfulness over time? Become gossip, or matters of curiosity?”

Theo realized he was asking an actual question.

“It’s still awful, isn’t it? That the children died. And the wife.” Theo thought he heard voices inside and the sound of a ball bouncing.

Jason smiled. “Yes. Of course it is. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Theo thought this made no sense at all.

Jason led Theo to a small, sunny alcove. A young woman sat there, sipping from a delicate tea cup. Her black hair was soft around her head.

“This is Cameron. She’s going to ask you some questions, talk to you a bit about your questionnaire.”

Theo sat down and smiled at Cameron. She smiled back.

“Would you like a cup of herbal tea?”

“No, thank you. I just finished one.” Theo found it hard to contain his nerves, to maintain politeness.

“Okay then.” She was very still and Theo was still with her. “What did you think of the questionnaire?”

He laughed. “It was pretty full on. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about myself like that before.”

Do you think of yourself as a good person? Is there anything that makes you feel guilty? How much do you give to charity each year? How many hours of voluntary work do you do each week? Do you feel guilty about the number of hours you do?

“I wasn’t sure what the point was.”

“The point is never meant to be clear in these things. We just want an understanding of you and your motivations. It’s really an important part of the process. And, to be honest, we’re not interested in helping psychopaths.”

“I hope I’m not one of those.”

She smiled. “You are not.”

They talked for another hour. Theo hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long time, and he hadn’t ever talked about himself for so long. She seemed to understand about the bats, and didn’t blame him for his state of loneliness. She spun her wedding ring periodically and he appreciated the signal;
this is all it is
, she was telling him. He liked things to be clear.

Jason joined them. “Feeling okay?”

Theo nodded. He didn’t want to mention how he felt physically.

“Okay. So what we’re talking about here is a second chance. You came to us, like all the others did, because you’re desperate. You want to have another go at it. And you’re tired of the pain, and the fear. Is that about right?”

“Yes.” Theo’s throat constricted and the word came out as a whisper.

“All right then. We need to sort out the paperwork.” Jason opened the folder he carried and removed papers and a pen. “It will cost your life savings. I need to start with that. You need to begin this process with nothing to your name.”

Theo had been prepared for a high price. “If I die I’ll have nothing anyway.”

“Exactly. That’s all in the details. But then you will have to reconsider how you live your life. How you re-live it.”

“What does everyone else do, given a second chance?” He wanted that as well.

“Everybody is different. Every single person.”

Jason filled in the forms. Theo signed. He agreed never to kill, never to rape or maim. He agreed to live a good life, to make the most of his second chance. He signed the papers believing fully in this commitment.

“So . . . what is going to happen? Can I ask? What is the actual process?”

“We can talk about that tomorrow when you come back for your appointment.”

“Come here? So is there a clinic here or something?”

“We can talk about that tomorrow.” Jason said. “My suggestion is that you spend the day somewhere you care about. Somewhere important. Some will spend it with loved ones, but many prefer not to. There is nothing certain in this world and this is no exception.”

Theo knew there were questions he could ask.

“It will take all you’ve got. We’ve discussed the money. But the life. You will be leaving your past behind. The people, the places. You won’t want to visit your bat cave again.”

“There are other bat caves.”

“You’ll feel nothing for them. That memory will be lessened, so much so that you will wonder where you read about it, if you think of it at all.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Make your visits. And decide. It’s never too late to change your mind. But this may be your last chance.”

Theo went to the bat cave, his first visit in 17 months. Only the memory of them remained but that memory was strong. Hours spent on a rough mat on the cave floor, his face covered, listening to them, feeling the flap of their wings. Close to half a million bats was the estimation, and through three generations of Theo’s family there had been no harm, no damage. Then reports came in of the diseases they carried, and one scientist was bitten. Theo couldn’t even remember now if the man had died; certainly there was a lot of fuss. Theo never believed it was the bats.

His father was determined. “Too many kids here to risk,” he said, because there were cousins as well as siblings, all of them working on the farm, balancing it with school.

He was advised that fire was the best, the kindest way. That the smoke would put the bats to sleep and the fire would then burn the bodies so they weren’t left with half a million corpses, just a pile of ash that could be swept away.

Theo’s father made the children stay in the house, but it was an old place with gaps so the smell came through dead clear. They watched smoke billowing out, saw Theo’s dad dashing out for air then back in again, and again, the whole thing taking most of the day. Theo’s grandfather helped, and the brothers, all Theo’s uncles, no women allowed to kill. Women inside keeping the kids quiet, baking up scones and cakes, stirring soup, all of them talking bright and cheerful as if a massacre was not taking place.

Theo never forgave them for that.

It wasn’t as if the advice was right; the smoke did not kill them all, so many were burnt to death. And the fire did not burn them all to ash; the bodies piled at the entrance to the cave so that Theo and his cousins had to help dig the men out. Those bat bodies still warm, some charred, and the flutter of them, the sense they were still alive when they weren’t. And the smell; he’d thought he was used to guano, that he actually liked it, but this was like poison.

It was years later a journalist came to confront his father with evidence the bats hadn’t needed to die.

Theo’s father cried as the journalist continued relentlessly to tell him . . . 
you didn’t have to. Those bats had lived in the cave for 150 years and you killed them.

Theo cried, too. He said to his father, as he had said many times, “You should have saved the bats.”

The farm was no longer in his family. His father was too sick to look after anything at all. His mother long gone. “Those bats. All that bat shit,” his father said, coughing, furious.