Why not try climbing down? No, my boy is in the tent. What if something happens?
Why not give it a try? No, I can’t.
A blind climb? I can’t!
Why not try it barehanded, with no gear?
These questions fascinate him, stirring the blood in his veins. At some point the man gets up, fastens the chalk bag to his waist, changes into his rock-climbing shoes, and starts slowly climbing down the rock he sees in front of him. All inhibitions have been overcome; nothing can stop him now.
In the darkness, the cliff is like a knife and a shadow, hard to grasp. The man has strained his senses and used up almost all his strength, only managing to get five meters down. It is still not too late to go back up. But the man does not go back … or, one should say, he doesn’t go back up. He continues his descent, first feeling around with the tip of his toes, and then shifting his weight when he finds a new foothold. He tries to maintain three points of contact and to avoid overburdening his shoulders and fingers on either side. If you could see him in the darkness you would exclaim, What a superb climber! He is bold and focused, his body consummately trained and possessing a simian aplomb.
Right then, the man hears someone else on the cliff, and not that far away.
A climber can hear the faintest of sounds when he concentrates his attention. Everything is audible: fingers thrusting into the muck, fingertips slipping over moss. If there’s food digesting in his gut or force being sent to his toetips he can hear it. But at this particular moment the man hears something else, the sound of breathing. Clearly there is another climber up there.
Another person blind climbing? On the same cliff?
That sound stokes his competitive streak. Unconsciously, his movements quicken. It is like a test of strength between the two men in the darkness. The other makes haste, too, and his every move is conveyed through the rhythm of his breathing and the occasional faint rustling of his clothes. Neither needs to be told which of them is one step ahead, which of them is the swifter at finding the next toehold.
That’s when the man’s dreamscape reappears.
In a moment of carelessness, his foot slips and his movements suddenly accelerate. The force of the fall pulls his left hand away from the wall for a hundredth of a second. With the man’s usual reaction speed, he should have enough time to grab hold of the rock again, but just at that moment, very unfortunately, something like an enormous beetle flies right into the bridge of his nose, momentarily dazing him and sapping his strength for a hundredth of a second. He starts falling. The clouds and constellations disperse, everything around him dissolves into darkness, and all that remains is void.
His shattered helmet lies on the ground. The pain is excruciating, as if every bone in his body has been snapped. This is not a dream. An irksome rain begins to fall. It should be falling on the grass where he is lying, but somehow it sounds as if it’s falling into an abyssal lake.
He can only get his eyes halfway open, and, blurry-eyed, all he can see is a shadow kneeling by his side. The shadow says, “Broken, every bone.” The man can’t tell from his voice whether he is the blind climber just now, but from his smell there is no doubt about it.
“Am I dead?”
“Pretty much. Fall in a place like this and you’ll be dead before anyone finds you.”
This is absurd. It does not sound like the man has any intention of saving him.
“Can you help me?”
“No, I can’t help anyone,” comes the reply, impassive, unwavering, unhesitating.
In spite of his physical pain, the man is quite conscious, and his vision gradually clears. He notices his counterpart is looking at him, but when their eyes meet it is less like he is looking at someone else and more like he is looking at himself. He closes his eyes again but finds himself haunted by the other’s eyes. What amazing eyes the fellow has, as if innumerable tiny ponds have converged into an immense lake.
How come it looks like he has compound eyes? How could a person have compound eyes? Am I seeing things? the man thinks to himself. The man with the compound eyes has no intention to help or leave. He is just looking at the man quietly.
Then, for some reason, drowsiness overwhelms him. He starts to yawn. At first he yawns once every half a minute, then once every fifteen seconds, then ten, then five, until he is yawning nonstop, with tears in his eyes. Then he passes out.
Later he wakes, not knowing how much time has passed. He still feels sore all over, but is now actually able to sit up, and then stand. He can move without difficulty, except that any time he moves an injured part of his body he feels a heart-wrenching agony. It is as if all that remains of this body of his is a leaden despair. Noticing that the man with the compound eyes is still there, he tries asking for help one more time.
“Doesn’t matter if you don’t save me, but my son is up there, on top of the cliff. I beg you, please save him.”
“I can’t save anyone,” replies the man, impassive, unwavering, unhesitating. “Not to mention that there’s nobody up there to save.”
“Nonsense! My son is up there! I don’t care who you are, but please, please, I’m begging you, you’ve got to do something!” The man doesn’t know where he found the strength to shout.
“You know very well …” the man says, his innumerable ommatidia flickering, his compound eyes like an undertow that would suck you in, drag you down and drown you, “… there’s nobody up there, at all. Nobody at all.”
Part X
27. The Forest Cave
A dinner with too much millet wine had put them all in a mood of disoriented rapture. So when Umav suggested they go spend the night in the Forest Church, everyone agreed it was a great idea, including Detlef and Sara, who hadn’t understood a word.
Standing in front of Heaven’s Gate, a name Anu had given to the two massive weeping fig trees at the entrance to the Forest Church, everyone was shining his or her flashlight up and down the trees from various angles and listening to an intricate symphony, of the breeze blowing through the grove, owls hooting in the trees, muntjacs calling from mountains over yonder, insects chirping nigh, and Stone and Moon barking from time to time. Detlef and Sara still didn’t know what was going on. Having no idea of the Forest Church, they’d assumed this would be a light evening stroll, not a hike through a primeval forest.
Then Anu, who’d looked drunk to begin with, walked to the front of the group, faced the “House of the Ancestors” to the one side of Heaven’s Gate and began performing a libation. People who don’t understand Bununese would on first hearing think it sounds like pieces of wood knocking together. It is a solid, seemingly rooted, arboreal language. His prayer complete, Anu took out the wine flask and shot glass he carried at the hip, poured the wine into the glass and sprinkled it on the ground. Then he poured another glass and passed it around so each could say a prayer in his or her own language and take a tiny sip of the wine. Dahu held Umav’s hand and they recited a Bunun prayer. Hafay prayed in Pangcah, Detlef in German, and Sara in Norwegian.
“No problem, the forest can understand what everyone’s saying,” Anu said, immediately returning to his usual jocular self and lightening the somewhat solemn atmosphere a bit.
“There might be big brothers and sisters here, so you need to poke the grass with a stick as you go along,” said Anu, his voice softening. “A big brother or sister is a poisonous snake. We mustn’t just say ‘snake.’ That would be disrespectful.” Then he turned his voice back up to its original volume and said, “Everyone follow me. Don’t shine your flashlight in people’s eyes, and listen to the footsteps of the person ahead.” Dahu translated Anu’s words into English for Detlef and Sara.