The Cloven Read online

  And she also saw his vulnerability and stubbornness, especially when she tried to warn him about entering the Vorrh.

  He had stared at her across the crowded room with a recognition that strained too far. He saw her shine in the sombre darkness of that day.

  He could not wait to draw her aside and talk about her gift of sight.

  “How did it happen? Was it a slow accumulation or did it happen in one startling moment?”

  Before she could answer he spoke again.

  “Forgive me for being so blunt, so crude, but I never expected this. When your father wrote to me saying that you could now see, I imagined a slightness of vision, not a complete, perfect condition. I don’t think I have ever heard of such a thing. And certainly the doctors in London that we consulted never suggested that such a thing was possible.”

  “It was a miracle,” she said quietly.

  They talked for hours, he asking many questions, which she happily answered without ever mentioning the existence of Ishmael, whose touch had restored her vision with no explanation. It wasn’t. Then it was.

  * * *

  —

  Before he left they again swore to keep in touch and again she let her promise slide, this time for a different reason. Because in that sad day she had sensed two things about the great man which scared and surprised her. Firstly, the weird detachment that he had from the world that all else lived in. What she had thought to be only a misunderstanding held in place by her vivid childhood memory proved to be an actual tangible fact. Even while they spoke about her father and dined and drank with others at the funeral feast she sensed a division in him, as if some part was elsewhere or listening to something that was far off and remote. It never affected his warmth or engagement with her; in fact it strengthened the latter, no doubt because it was as if they were the only two people in the room. The second thing which surprised and unnerved her was their powerful mutual attraction. He of course was double her age, but this made no difference. His presence and the uniqueness of his mind illuminated his heart and how she imagined him physically. She could hear that he too understood this, and the flattery made him falter and question what he was feeling in such a place and time. Their departure had been unexpectedly painful. Each holding a great longing for the other without the nerve to dare to believe it to be true, shocked by the speed and momentum of its sensation. She had even suggested to him that he stay on for a few days after the other guests had gone.

  “That would have been such a pleasure, I wish I had considered it before. Now my travel plans are firmly established. It’s very generous of you to offer. I know little of this part of the country and you would have made such an excellent guide.”

  Cyrena smiled and took his arm.

  “I have arranged to meet another friend and travel back together after visiting the Vorrh.”

  “How do you plan to do that?” she asked.

  “We thought we might hire horses and travel through its lower territories. My friend has some business at the garrison on the far side, in the kraal of the True People.”

  They had been gently walking as they spoke, and she now stopped.

  “But that’s not possible, you would be in the forest for more than four days. It’s much better to take the eastern route close to the river, which leads straight to those troubled lands. But even that is fraught with danger.” Her grip on his arm had changed.

  “Cyrena, my dear, do you believe in these witch-doctor tales of monsters and malicious forces in the Vorrh?”

  “Yes, Oom, I do, we all do. There is something not right. Something malignant in the great forest; a condition that seriously affects the memories of men. Any amount of time in there will begin to erase parts of the mind. My family has harvested it for two generations and all our relations with it are at extreme arm’s length.”

  “Now you are really interesting me.” Marais grinned.

  “I am in deadly earnest. Ask any member of the guild. Ask anybody in this city.”

  “All right, my dear, I am listening and taking you seriously. I think I’d better do my homework first.” He placed his hand over her arm and they started walking again.

  “Well, at least talk to Quentin Talbot before you set one foot in that direction. Or his protégé, a young man called Fleischer, who has made notable studies of its folk history and collected many stories of past travellers.”

  “Those that remembered what they saw,” he joked.

  “I believe in some of those stories, that they tell the truth about that place.”

  “Yes, I am sure they do in some way.” He saw that his attempt at humour was producing the opposite effect, so he quickly reversed and joined in with a parallel comparison to her sincerity.

  “Do you see any value in these stories?” she asked with a splinter of distrust in her voice.

  “Many scientific facts are hidden in the dull purse of village fiction and even the stupefying effect of the Vorrh might be explained.”

  She said nothing.

  “And it is more than possible that such a vast mass of vegetable growth might affect a human mind.”

  Cyrena was now paying close attention to Marais’s words.

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  “Certain toxins exist in the bark and leaves of many species of plant. And some saps can be hallucinogenic.”

  “Could they take memory?”

  “No, not exactly. I use these examples to say that the vegetable kingdom is not necessarily on the side of mankind.”

  “You make it sound like an enemy.”

  He looked deep into her peculiar eyes. “No, I say that trees could fight back if they had reason to do that.”

  “How?”

  “Transpiration would be my guess. If they became tired of men, they could starve them of oxygen or change the consistency of the air we breathe. Do you know how little change it would take to wipe out all breathing creatures?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s been estimated that a change of three percent in oxygen levels would be seriously felt. Ten percent would choke all mammalian life, and fifteen percent would finish us forever.”

  He was getting excited with these ideas and a slight tremor attached itself to his energy.

  “If trees were really clever they might mix the low oxygen levels with other gases, to turn men’s minds, so that after a number of years or even generations they might become insane and more violent, and eventually annihilate each other. That potential and condition has been demonstrated from the beginning of humankind and in lesser ways in most other species in the animal kingdom.”

  Cyrena was aware that his mind was speeding, rushing through a forest of questions and conclusions.

  “Of course that is the astonishing difference between the two kingdoms that flourish and populate the earth. They live in different times and understandings, side by side. The vegetative being lost in a long thinking that communicates across all its species, sharing the common purpose of reproduction and survival in union. While the animal realm is driven by conflict and violence to achieve the same ends. Species against species in the gory imperative of the food chain. Mankind would happily butcher and devour every other living thing to expand its domain and keep its sex drive overactive.”

  He suddenly looked up and grinned at her expression of shock. He swallowed and decided that she might just have had enough of his darkening speculation.

  “But tell me something else about your part of the world.”

  Her eyes refocussed on him.

  “The True People, are they calm these days?” he asked.

  “Yes, as far as we know. The uprising was many years ago now. We have some trade with them and our agents report nothing sinister.”

  “Good, then I shall take your advice and go straight to them. They m
ade some wonderful artifacts during their famous Possession Wars.”

  “Please take care, Oom, you are very dear to us.” Her father’s death had still not truly settled in, and her speaking for them both made her affection seem even greater.

  “Don’t worry about me, my dear, I am solid Afrikaans.”

  The next morning he was gone and her life changed direction and depth.

  Soon after, Cyrena inherited her father’s house and esteemed position in the family business in Essenwald, while her brother returned to the lowlands of Europe to protect their interests there and run the receiving yards of their highly valued wood. The Timber Guild would never allow her a seat at its meetings. But respect was given to her by all its members after the unexpected death of her father.

  * * *

  —

  Marais had left Essenwald with Cyrena’s eyes still burning in his head. And some part of him feared the intensity. He forcefully switched his focus to the expedition ahead, knowing that the vastness of the forest would overwhelm such emotional disturbances. The concentration it demanded and the plain common sense of his travelling companion, Koos Nel, would establish a very different landscape of sensations. He had met up with Koos Nel at the De Bruck stables, chosen their horses, and now followed the directions suggested by the pompous young man named Fleischer, whom Cyrena had so enthusiastically recommended. Much of what Fleischer had said about the Vorrh was obviously nonsense, but his understanding of pathways and topographic features seemed sound. Marais had said nothing about the meeting he was hoping to have in a place near the western chapel path. A meeting in which he hoped to purchase some artifacts that had survived the Possession Wars.

  They left the rim of the city, all sight of it devoured by the enclosure of trees.

  They found a gully between the trees after an hour of searching. Koos Nel spurred his big, reluctant bay onto the path that they supposed was a track, with Marais’s smaller filly following.

  Koos was a farmer and not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but a man who could be trusted in a squeeze. They had known each other since late childhood, and renewed their comradeship when the poet had returned from Europe. Koos had never held a moral opinion about his friend’s addiction. There was no difference in his mind between morphine and gin. He had even accepted Marais’s weird ideas about hunting and how to treat the Kaffirs. When Koos had been invited along on this trip up north, he had jumped at the chance to leave his wife and sons and their greedy farm for a few days’ “sport” with his old pal the scholar. While Marais had been in the grandeur of the Lohrs’ mansion, Koos had been sampling the backroom pleasures of the Scyles, disposing of a good deal of his “travelling fund” in the process. He now hoped to top it up by joining in Marais’s treasure hunt. They were an incongruous pair, trotting tightly between the enormous trees. Marais’s spare leanness was stiff and agile against his mount, his long bony face and rampant eyes shifting to catch every movement around him, while Koos sat back in his saddle with the ease of a bored ploughman—large, muscular, and reserved, in the sense that he never wasted energy but held it contained, ready and waiting. He negotiated his way through the world with instinct and quick active response. In his youth those “talents” had been ill used by bouts of violent anger, often fuelled by excessive drinking. His broken nose and irregular knuckles still bore witness to those far-off days of thrilling scallywaggery. Solid farm work and management had slowed and matured him, but never really tamed his deep animal power and his delight in testing it. He was a foot and a half taller than Marais, as was his horse, which meant that he continually had to duck under low branches as they rode farther into the sumptuous depths of the gigantic forest. Where the trees were thicker, they dismounted and trudged ahead at a more cautious pace. Marais held a green army compass in one hand and kept a careful watch on the sun. The light was dazzling against the great trees and the solitude was growing as the slow horses snorted a steady passage.

  He had recently heard of a German called Leo Frobenius who had just arrived in Africa and planned on staying for years to dig and destroy—another adventurer looting Africa, this time for cultural artifacts. During Frobenius’s excavations he started to ask his workers what they thought of the objects “he found.” He started to collect those explanations and stories. The rumours and myths that have verbally recorded the history of all tribes across the surface of the earth and their attempts at manipulating the planet’s powers. Many of the stories had doppelgängers in other parts of the world. Impossible coincidences of narrative invention that echoed in opposite continents. One of the stories that came to light was identical to a pre-Christian tale found all over Europe, that of the green man: a creature of the forests and wild places that is the spirit of the earth and vegetation, all that is not human. Frobenius became obsessed with the Black Man of the Vorrh: a fiercer, darker being of the eternal night and depth of the jungle. There were also versions of something like this in the complex pantheon of Hindu myth. Perhaps, Marais thought, he could find this Black Man himself. He was a storyteller, after all, and what better story than that of creation?

  “I think we should go for two hours and then turn and follow our tracks back out,” said Koos. “Then we can skirt around and find your dealer of illicit goods.”

  Marais groaned a good-natured ascent. Troupes of monkeys called from the canopy, brushing flights of loudly coloured birds swirling among the branches.

  “Magnificent,” said Marais, who greatly enjoyed the contrasts to his own beloved plains.

  “What’s the game like in here?” asked Koos, patting the polished butt of his saddled carbine.

  “Nothing you would be interested in.”

  Ten minutes later they met a fork in the path, one that ran at right angles westwards. Marais was already consulting his compass when Koos asked, “Do you think this might be a shortcut, a way of flanking towards your meeting point, save going all the way back?”

  Marais looked doubtful. “We could give it a go, see where it takes us for a bit,” he responded, trying to ignore the buzzing in his head and the empty ache in his empty veins. They mounted and turned the horses, who sniffed at the new path as they entered.

  “What’s that?” Koos said, pointing up into the trees.

  Marais saw it too: a large mottled creature had slid from its camouflage and was shifting its position, hanging high in the trees.

  “Maybe a sloth or a…” He faltered, not having a name for what he saw. He did not recognise or understand the creature that was moving at a snail’s pace, crossing the branches.

  “There’s only one way of finding out,” said Koos, the truncated rifle already in his hands.

  Marais had long since learned that arguing with hunters was a waste of time. Anyway, he was curious to see what the creature was and there was only one way of reaching it. Koos worked the bolt, aimed, and fired three times in quick succession. Each round found its mark with a hard thud and a shiver. After the third the animal ceased moving with a slight whimper that might have been only the sound of the vines receiving its lifeless weight. They stared upwards, waiting for it to drop. Leaves and twigs tumbled languidly onto their upturned faces; each danced momentarily in the quiet bright sun that sent lazy spokes through the canopy. The beast held its position until the birds forgot the shots and began singing again. Then it twisted around. But instead of releasing its grip and falling, the creature peeled, like an overripe banana, from the head down, its body splitting and unzipping before them.

  “Christ, what is it?” said Koos, shielding his eyes with his large hand.

  Marais did not have an answer. He realised he was watching an unknown species die before him. After an agonising and silent time, it fell from trees in an asymmetrical, sodden parachute of skin. Koos dismounted and gave his reins to Marais, who watched as he approached the collapsed mass. He held his rifle out before him, knowing that not all prone
creatures were defenceless. He walked around it and kicked it.

  “Well, what kind of thing is it?” asked Marais.

  Koos was very quiet and bent down to look even closer. Something in his sturdy gait had changed. He looked back at his comrade with strange eyes.

  “Well?” insisted Marais again.

  “I think it might have been a man,” he said quietly.

  Marais dismounted and pulled both horses behind him. As he drew closer they resisted, stepping backwards, pulling against the reins in his firm grip.

  “Take them, let me look,” he commanded.

  Koos happily complied, walking away from the split fleshy pod. Marais knelt close to it and smelt its strange aroma of cinnamon and seashells. He peeled its fibrous winglike flaps away and saw the fragments of a rib cage smothered in its density. He poked inside it with his crop, moving the wrecked cranium that was elongated to look like a stalk. He rolled it over and saw that a dense black-brown mass like stiff hair protruded from its back, following the ripples of a knobbly spine. The horses were still shying backwards, neighing and shaking their heads against the tight reins.

  “What the fuck is it?” said Koos, shouting over his shoulder while arguing with the nags.

  “God knows, I have never seen anything like it before. We should take it back for dissection.”

  “You are joking,” said Koos. “It’s already spooking the horses and stinking the place up.”

  “We could make a sledge and pull it out.”

  “You could. I want nothing to do with it.”

  “But, Koos, this is unique.”

  “Look, man, the day is wearing and we have got other business here. If we cart that fucking thing with us, we’ll never make the west side before dark.”

  Marais looked at the sun, already forked in the high branches. He realised that his friend was right and stood up and walked away from the prize specimen and back to his mount.