Voices in the Dark (2 page)

Jasmine was crying; at six years old, the noise and solemnity had got the better of her.

‘Here, come here,’ said Leo, and tried to pick her up, but she shook her head and shrugged up her coat so that only her eyes showed. Leo reached out helplessly, and his hand found my shoulder instead. Somewhere, a band was playing, and every few seconds, the gun salute in the Royal Gardens shook the foundations of the city. Starlings rose in drifts from the ruined armaments factory. They circled dizzily over us, making endless patterns against the clouds.

Not long after that, a fine drizzle began. ‘Oh, have some mercy!’ said my mother, struggling with her new black umbrella and swiping at the tears on her face. It sounded like a stupid thing to say – as if the clouds would hear her and keep the rain from falling. But everything this morning had sounded stupid. The river hissed and seethed as the rain fell harder; the raindrops thundered on the wood of the coffin. We stood beside the open grave while the priest, a bishop from the south who none of us recognized, drifted over and opened his prayer book. ‘Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,”’ read the bishop. ‘“He who believes in me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”’

I did not know if Aldebaran had believed in God. He had never spoken about it. The bishop had a thin and cracked voice, and the rain made it feebler. He kept stopping to wipe the rain from his spectacles. It came down like arrows. The regimental uniforms of the foreign heads of state were spattered with mud up to the knees. Jasmine broke free and knelt down on the side of the grave. She
watched the coffin descend, not caring that the dirt and rain covered her Sunday clothes.

‘Jasmine, come back,’ murmured my mother.

‘Let her,’ said Leo. ‘It’s all right.’

‘“We brought nothing into the world, and we take nothing out,"’ said the bishop. ‘“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away: blessed be the name of the Lord.”’

As the coffin descended into the earth, the drums and the cannons fell silent. We each threw a handful of wet mud into the grave, and the foreign dignitaries and government ministers stepped forward and did the same, staining the sleeves of their uniforms. The king was so close on the other side of the grave that I could make out the tears standing in his eyes. He gave Leo a quick nod. They had met each other once, years ago. But the king was already turning now, and the guards ushered him towards the graveyard gate. The band took up their dirge again.

We listened to the procession fading. Then we could hear only the drum, and afterwards not even that. The rain dripped from the spokes of my mother’s umbrella and gusted across the graveyard. Crows flapped, buffeted one way, then the other in the driving wind that howled in the dead branches of the trees. Someone had cut the grass around Aldebaran’s grave, but beyond that, the graveyard had lost all appearance of order years ago.

‘Come on,’ said my mother. ‘Let’s go. There’s no point staying here.’

Leo shook his head. Out of the rain, two figures were appearing: my grandmother, in her neat mourning clothes and with a black scarf over her head, frowning because of the rain, and Father Dunstan, our own priest, after her.

‘Will you say another prayer, Father?’ asked Jasmine,
sniffing, as he came up beside us. ‘Uncle didn’t know that old man.’

Father Dunstan stood on the end of the new grave and made the sign of the cross. His prayer book was awash; the pages buckled under the rain’s assault. ‘“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his compassion never fails,”’ Father Dunstan read. ‘“Every morning they are renewed.” ”

‘Amen,’ said Jasmine, sniffing. ‘Say another.’

Father Dunstan went on reading. He read all the funeral prayers in his book. Then the graveyard fell silent, and the rain dwindled, and there was nothing to do but go home.

In several of the houses, Malonian flags were still draped from the windows or clinging wetly to the washing lines. Beggars moved among the listless crowds with their hands outstretched. Two war veterans on the corner of the street called out as we passed,‘Spare a coin, sir! In the Lord’s name have mercy on a poor man!’ Leo gave them each a shilling. Our own street, Trader’s Row, was a mass of flags; they blazed orange from every window. ‘Look!’ said Jasmine, startled out of her tears.

‘Everyone liked Uncle,’ I said. ‘See? The whole city has come out to pay their respects to him.’

‘So why haven’t they found the bad man who shot him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But I don’t understand—’

‘Shh,’ said my mother, and put a hand on Jasmine’s shoulder to quiet her.

Leo had not heard. He was walking ahead of us with his hands in his overcoat pockets.

Our closest neighbours were standing out on their steps:
the pharmacist and her two sons, Mr Pascal the secondhand clothes dealer, and the Barones from next door. Michael caught my glance as we passed. He was my oldest friend, and to see him there was some consolation. We went inside; then my mother shut the door, and the noise of the crowded city vanished. Leo sat down at the table in the back room. My mother put the kettle on the stove. We all stood around and could think of nothing to say.

‘It’s so unfair,’ my mother said eventually.

‘I know,’ said Leo.

‘He would never have wanted to go like that.’

‘I know.’

There was another silence. A few raindrops crackled on the window. I added more coals to the stove and tried to turn them over without interrupting the silence that had settled over us.

‘I must say,’ my grandmother ventured,‘I thought it was a lovely ceremony. And he was old, Maria. He was eighty-six. I’m sure I’d be glad to die at such an age.’

‘He was shot,’ said Leo. ‘No one would be glad—’

‘Why haven’t they caught the man—’ began Jasmine.

‘Shh,’ said my mother. ‘I don’t know. They will.’

She went to the stove and took the kettle off it and put it back on again. Still it would not boil.

In a box on the table was all that Aldebaran had bequeathed to us. I took out the things carefully and replaced them again; it was something to do. He had not left much. The chief advisers took a vow of poverty when they were sworn into office, and after they died, all their papers were burned. There was a wooden box for Jasmine, his christening medallion for me, and a ring for my mother. For Leo there was a book in a paper wrapping that still lay
unopened. There was also a parcel with
To the baby
written across it in red ink. My mother’s baby was not due for several months, but it seemed Aldebaran had thought of everything.

Jasmine lay down under the table and began to cry in earnest. Aldebaran had been her teacher, and his death left her the last in the family with powers. Although they had argued bitterly in all their lessons, she had really been the one he loved the most.

‘Hush,’ said my mother. She knelt down beside the table and stroked Jasmine’s hair. ‘Come on, Jas. He wouldn’t want you to make yourself so unhappy. And it is not for ever. You know that.’

‘Dead is for ever,’ said Jasmine. ‘Dead means dead, and you can never be not dead again.’

‘He will still watch over you.’

‘He won’t.’

Someone tapped at the door. The neighbours were out in the street waiting to pay their respects. ‘Anselm, go and let them in,’ said my mother.

The neighbours’ chatter drowned out the silence of our house, and by the time they began to leave, darkness was falling. The Barones stayed a while longer than the rest. My grandmother was still here, and Mr Pascal, who could never be made to leave any funeral. We stood around the table in the back room and listened to the guns fire yet another salute from the Royal Gardens. Leo and Mr Pascal lit cigarettes, and the smoke rose and made strange patterns under the ceiling.

‘Tell me,’ said Mr Pascal when the silence had drawn out for several minutes, ‘who succeeds Aldebaran as chief adviser?’

‘I believe it is Joseph Marcus Sawyer,’ said my grandmother.

‘Sawyer?’ said Mr Pascal.

Mr Barone shook his head and ran his hands over his thinning hair as though he wanted to fix it in place. ‘I don’t know why the king has chosen a man like that,’ he said.

‘He is not so bad,’ said Mr Pascal. ‘He may be the best we can hope for, under the circumstances. At least they say he has powers, and it has to be someone with powers. In these days, it is a miracle they found anyone at all.’

‘As far as I heard, those powers left him when he was a child,’ said Mr Barone. ‘And all the world knows he was a collaborator.’

‘There are worse things.’

‘Are there?’ said Mr Barone with a sharpness I had never heard in his voice before. ‘Are there really worse things?’

Mr Pascal breathed out and held his cheeks there. He was a large man, and it made his face look round and shapeless like a baby’s.

‘What’s a collaborator?’ said Jasmine.

‘Come on, Jas,’ said Michael, ruffling her hair. ‘I’ll teach you a card game.’

I caught his glance and followed him out of the room, and Jasmine came after us. We sat on the floorboards of the shop, between the counter and a rack of old clothes, and Michael dealt out his stained playing cards and occupied Jasmine with a list of rules. She was still close to tears, but the distraction worked. In the back room, some argument was rising between Mr Pascal and Mr Barone. I tried to listen, but the rain obscured their voices. It was coming down hard again. Trader’s Row was deserted, except for the old newspapers that circled in the rising gale.

‘Your turn, Anselm,’ Michael said, making me start. I had been thinking of other things. He handed me two crumpled cards, and I played my turn without knowing what numbers I put down. The storm rattled the windows and howled in the chimney. It made the side gate crash and shudder against the wall.

‘I should go out and lock that,’ I said.

I got up and went out. In the yard, the wind was ferocious. I wrestled the gate back into place. Then, as I turned to close it, there was a quick movement in the shadows on the other side of the street. Someone was standing there, in the dead space between the two gas lamps, watching me.

The man’s silhouette was strange; there was something unearthly about it. I looked at him, and he stared back at me. Then he turned and walked away. The breeze made the lamps gutter, and in that jumping light, I could not make out his face. But as he vanished, I saw what it was that made his outline strange. Across his back was a rifle. It gleamed as the darkness overtook him. The rain was driving down hard now out of a dull grey sky. I shivered and bolted the gate and went in.

At first I thought I would mention it to the others. But the Barones and Mr Pascal and my grandmother were all getting up to leave. After they had gone, a cold silence fell on the house, and I did not dare to raise the subject. Leo sat down at the table and rested his head against his arms.

‘Are you all right?’ said my mother.

‘I will be all right tomorrow.’ She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘At least he is buried now,’ said Leo. ‘That’s the worst thing, not knowing. All that ceremony makes things better. I don’t know why, but it does.’

None of us answered. He was speaking from experience. His parents, the famous Harold and Amelie North, had been missing for more than two decades. I knew that he still lay awake at night because he did not know where they were. It seemed Leo’s family was condemned to suffer every time our country rose and fell.

‘Come on,’ said my mother, picking up the box of Aldebaran’s things. ‘Let’s go to bed. Nothing is right this evening.’

We followed her upstairs to the living room and watched while she lit the lamps and Leo turned over the fire.

‘Here,’ she said, setting the box down on the mantelpiece. She put on the ring. I took the medallion and Jasmine the box. ‘Are you not even going to open this book, Leo?’ my mother asked.

Leo shook his head. ‘What’s the use?’

‘What’s the use? Uncle must have meant something by it. Don’t you want to know what it is?’ He shook his head again and closed the bedroom door behind him. My mother left the book lying on the mantelpiece. It was still there when we put out the lamps.

It was half past eleven, but from the square of light falling below the window next to mine, I could tell Michael was still awake next door. On nights when neither of us could sleep, we opened the windows and leaned out and spoke to each other. We had done that since I was a little boy and our family first came to the shop on Trader’s Row. ‘Michael?’ I said, and pushed the window up. After a few seconds, I heard him raise the window on his side.

‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘It must have been a long day.’

‘Yes.’

‘Here. Take this.’

His skinny arm appeared with a bottle of spirits. I took it and drank some, out of politeness more than anything. A gale blew through my room, troubling the pages of the books on the table and making the faded picture on the wall swing wildly. ‘What was the service like?’ Michael asked.

‘Grand. Like you would expect. But it was just us, those foreign heads of state, and a few famous people. He should have had more family there. I could tell it troubled Leo.’

‘And I’ll tell you someone who wasn’t there,’ said Michael. ‘The Alcyrian president.’

‘Wasn’t he?’

Michael leaned precariously out of the window and handed me a newspaper. It was tomorrow’s edition; Michael’s father always walked to the end of the street to get it from the printers’ at ten o’clock. The first seven pages were taken up with Aldebaran’s funeral. Michael had underlined a single paragraph: ‘The new president of Alcyria, the self-styled Commander General Marlan of the New Imperial Order, was conspicuous by his absence. Many saw this as a sign of the new Alcyrian government’s growing hostility towards its neighbours.’

‘General Marlan?’ I said. ‘Aldebaran hated him; he wouldn’t have wanted him there.’

‘But he should have been there. Everyone else was. Even a few of the presidents from the west and the Crown Prince of Marcovy.’

‘I know.’

‘And now that Aldebaran is gone, what’s to stop Marlan
from invading every other country on the continent?’ said Michael. ‘That’s what I want to know.’