Shadows brought early twilight, shapes were unfinished as if in some fifth season, static, held in the gallows-grin of a clan undeniably withstanding the present. I was shocked by realizing that some, loutish, wizened, were children, listless, without promise of harlequin grace, without curiosity. No torrent of being would thrill these folk. Whatever the Custom would reveal, they would not pour themselves into the ecstasies of rock-youth, would bawl no New Europe, were ignorant of Aldous and Timothy, Chef and Red Danny, would breed laboriously, like badgers, be extinguished without publicity or protest. Meanwhile, their feebleness yet defied Paris, Brussels, Club Med.
Muttering, nudging, they eventually began lining both sides of the unlit, unpaved lane, beneath the dark, massive overhang from which thinner shadows stretched like claws. Air was thickened by smoke from low roofs and the proximity of more animals. Summer seemed to have recoiled.
Custom had apparently resumed, or perhaps begun, like an ill-managed rehearsal, haphazard, with tedious intervals, caterers on strike. A hoarse outburst greeted a hermaphroditic apparition, its breasts plainly artificial, draped in dirty green folds, mincing between the dim avenue of onlookers, waving an old toasting-fork before going rigid, motionless, staring inwards. Another figure was visible, in conic hat, mute, waiting, an axe at its feet, red even in this bad light. Others filtered from alleys and doorways in white Arabic surcoats, sashed, shabby. They stalked up and down, their gestures stylized but comprehensible only to the natives. One performer, in damaged, once-gilt crown, a knobbed truncheon protruding from his groin, adopted a limp, to a lugubrious chant that slowly petered out to a grumble while he was grabbed and held aloft by several others. We remembered later the Pope, the US flag, likewise forbidden to touch ground, at particular ceremonies.
More characters were pacing around the axe in perfunctory circles, unsteadily, like inexpert comedians feigning intoxication, reminiscent of the Meinnenberg wedding. Torches of tar and broom suddenly flared, during which the axe vanished, leaving the caste mournful, bereft, until, miming despair, beginning another shuffle. Various props were upheld: a halter, dented fireman’s helmet, a twig painted with red blobs, perhaps berries, precaution against witches or spirits. The dance, if dance it were, was oddly furtive, without music, weighted by the ponderous heads and legs, though clearly satisfying the threadbare villagers. One actor, slouching alone, was strapped to a leather hump that the others would surreptitiously touch, then bow to the still statuesque figure with toasting-fork, mock trident. One face was unearthly: sunken, barely detectable eyes, parched skin, so loose that it seemed carelessly hung on the skull.
Like Greg, they were close to the earth, detached from our world. Torchlight cancels time. Had mighty vessels collided off Cuba, nuclear-fission smashing civilization, these sorry wraiths could have become aristocrats, teaching brute survival to those, like anonymous Meinnenberg refugees, frantically plunging for cabbage stalks, potato skins, crouching from rumours of approaching hordes or flame. No passion sprang from the faces stiff as masks. If a Magian star had once lured outsize tribes across Europe, they had shrunk, with coinage and language, were wedged, almost inert, like climbers stricken on the cliff face, like the satyrs, demons, wild men that strayed into the edges of medieval manuscripts. Or circus folk proscribed by Animal Rights. Or possibly our Latvians.
Despite some revulsion, I yet, in a manner, bonded with them, though to Nadja they must be anthropological examples of minor significance.
To encouraging growls, a couple, their eyes thickly ringed by charcoal, had loped forward, dangling a third, like a half-filled sack, one onlooker stooping to kiss him. Voices immediately livened, mouths widened into grins, many toothless, fires flared from darkness above, hovels and street filling with a grinding, wailing chant.
Nadja was to admit that she had actually been fascinated, as if by a screen murderer, a Peter Lorre, whose simplest action – selecting a razor, handling cord, emptying a jug – is hideously fateful. The unmelodious chant she interpreted as ‘To the Oak, to the Hill, the Cleansing’ interminably repeated.
By now, I was bored, sickened by monotony and stench, longing for a fountain, dragon-fly glitter, even Blue Grass tunes, above all, for drink, strong, very expensive. My flickering sympathies evaporated into morose anticipations of the difficult trek home. The other visitors had already left. Nadja remained, rapt, seeking clues in these graveyard tableaux to Dancing the God, which must require lunatic guesswork as much as insight.
No garlanded hackabout followed, no antique melody traceable to Transylvania. A pocked, thin-haired creature, possibly female, handed us balls of dirty cloth to throw at a wooden hunk, headless, trussed in a ragged blue sash, which was then swung over a fire to another monotonous dirge. And then. My prayer was partially answered. The full moon slid over the summits, complementing the fires, and, on cue, an outburst of Scott Joplin-like jazz from a tinny transistor, the glum celebrants regaining vigour like Underworld spectres refreshed by sacrificial blood. Slow, twitching gyrations transformed to hopping, like children avoiding pavement cracks. Almost all joined in, Nadja alarming me by showing inclination to seize my hand and drag me amongst them.
Relenting, she confided, with unreliable seriousness, that the dead had certainly been present; several still were, surly and unappeased. Counting dim figures, we would never reach the same number. The fumes, wavering lights, the moon, ‘Bright Moon of the Nameless’, did indeed create intimations of tricky rivals.
‘At least,’ Nadja finally permitted departure, ‘we were not made to watch sizzling cats!’
Far, too far off, urban lights were almost unreachable as grails. Disturbed, a crow flew past, low, wing-beat irregular. ‘That’s Cledon.’ Nadja’s assurance was unassailable. ‘A prophetic sign. Not very good.’
‘I don’t like it, Erich. I feel…’
‘But I could scarcely refuse.’
I had learnt from my cowardly, devious refusal of Claire’s appeal, but Nadja’s fine eyes darted impatiently. ‘With your face and arms you can do absolutely but absolutely anything. You are Thor, but asleep. Raise hammer.’
Since our excursion she had been admitting headaches, keeping her own bed, not complaining but subdued, leaving me to late-night movies, mostly sci-fi fantasies of outer space convulsions, domestic pets mutating to double-headed monsters, seas to salt-pans, outweighing Custom and the ill-balanced crow.
Whether she had really learnt much from Custom I had yet to discover. She was more preoccupied by this new intrusion that disagreeably confirmed Cledon.
Andrejs Ulmanis had telephoned. Harshly implying rights of entry, he wished to visit us. Now. Immediately. No discussion. On a matter of neighbourly understanding, he insisted, costing us nothing. A brief formality.
I could only assent, Nadja mouthing annoyance. We waited, fractious, uneasy, until, an hour later, he strode in without knocking, ponderous, blue-shirted, examining new surroundings, not in admiration of paintings, books, carpets but as if suspecting a recording machine or bugging plant. He held papers, like a warrant to search the house.
Nadja, with a mutter only with some effort likely to be construed as apology, at once left us, though doubtless listening behind the door and willing me to refuse all requests. At her departure his tough, lined face minutely relaxed, reducing him from manic desperado to an old-timer lounging outside the saloon. Or an indigent peasant forced to appeal to a notorious usurer.