‘What do you think?’ ventured Nebsuel. ‘I have used all of my knowledge; it is the best of my work, of that you can be sure.’
The words nudged Ishmael. He stood up and very slowly approached Nebsuel. He took the old man’s hand and brought it to his lips. This was another kind of kiss, one that nobody had ever taught him.
The days passed quickly, with each better than the last. He gained strength and learned much from Nebsuel, who found it novel to have such a keen and sagacious student; he could show off his knowledge and tell tales of wonders and impossibilities all day, without the young man’s attention ever straying.
The face became pliant as Ishmael practised with it. His moods could be read, and communication became more fluent. The bow lived in a corner of the house, wrapped and silent, recognised but unengaged.
Nothing had been heard of Sidrus. The dove did not return, so they could not know whether he was healthy and fuming with rage, or if he had painfully rotted apart. As the weeks passed, they became less watchful; Nebsuel removed some of the more virulent charms that he had placed about the house for protection.
An unexpected friendship grew between the unlikely pair; for a time, they played at father and son. Tsungali occasionally came knocking at night, not to frighten them, but to announce his presence, and register an anxiousness about the length of Ishmael’s stay. For a while they disregarded him and continued to work together in the ramshackle house. But growth and satisfaction can only hold a young heart for so long, and one morning, without apparent reason, Ishmael announced that it was time for him to leave and find his place in the world.
‘What’s wrong with this being your place in the world?’ grumbled Nebsuel.
‘Nothing,’ replied Ishmael, ‘but I have another one that I must confront first.’
‘I suspect you’re right,’ said the old man, grudgingly.
They spent the coming days making preparations for his departure. Like the experience of all about to separate, the strain of an imagined elsewhere bore a hurtful torque on the moments they actually inhabited. The night before Ishmael’s departure, when they heard the impatient ghost moving back and forth outside, Nebsuel became bad-tempered and melancholic.
‘Begone, you midnight nuisance! He will be yours tomorrow. Allow us a final evening together without your tramping.’
The words seemed to resonate with the spirit of Tsungali; they heard him change direction and walk away.
‘Do ghosts ever sleep?’ Ishmael found himself asking.
‘Yes, but not the sleep of men; theirs is an emptier kind of slumber. Our sleep is always fulclass="underline" from catnap to coma, it brims over. Those hollow ones have thin, dangerous dreams.’ There was a pause, as if the air might be listening. ‘It is contagious to some; thin sleep can last for centuries,’ Nebsuel continued. ‘It can allow its owner to become modified or change themselves entirely. Some say the creatures that infest the Vorrh use it knowingly for that purpose, that they bury themselves deeper and grow young, in their desire to return to nothing. It’s the only way they can ever escape the Vorrh and their charge at its centre.’
‘If they lie buried and forgotten, how is this known?’
‘Because some get dislodged, dug up by animals or men, dragged to the surface. These are the dangerous ones, because they no longer know what they are, and if they enter the world of men, they grow back deformed into its shape.’
‘You mean that some of them walk with us out here?’ Ishmael sounded at once fearful and defensive of his new world.
‘It is said to be.’ There was a pause while both men seemed to ponder the impossibility of such a thing.
‘Do they breed with women?’ said Ishamel.
Nebsuel laughed. ‘It is better and worse than that. Some mix the contagion of their sleeping with a knowing human, and fuse with humans inside its influence.’
‘To what advantage?’
‘If an Erstwhile and a willing human enter that condition and seal themselves away from the world, they become something else, something quite different, without form, like a memory, a tangible genie of the place where they hide. It can insist itself into the imagination of all who that pass by, stirring up great feelings and powerful emotions in the unsuspecting traveller. Some say that such a thing has been used in the defence of holy places. Jerusalem is said to be guarded that way, protected by longing. It is even said that the spirit of the forest himself is composed of such an unmitigating force, that the Black Man of Many Faces is held together by it.’
These were big thoughts for Ishmael, whose head was already full of the melancholy of departure. He asked no more questions, and Nebsuel offered no further wisdom. They stared into the fire as it flickered in its raised iron grate in the middle of the room. They stared and sipped wine and said nothing.
The next morning they embraced in the doorway. Nebsuel had prepared a travelling bag full of potions and charms; it sat awkwardly in the door frame between them. The bow was already outside, and the old man felt a lightness and relief at its departure. As they said their goodbyes, Nebsuel gave his warnings and advice, and Ishmael offered his deepest thanks. They vowed to meet again, and parted.
It had been seven years since the outrage, and now he was returning to London by public demand. He wondered if his machine was still there, gathering dust in those lonely rooms. He had packed the pistol and the key to find out.
For the first time, Muybridge was getting tired of his long transatlantic shuffles. Each trip seemed to take a little longer. The jewels of the night sky and the luminous waves seemed dimmer and less appealing, and he spent more time in his claustrophobic cabin, planning and brooding about what might await him.
He would anticipate the criticisms of those who constantly whinged about the ‘validity’ of his work, and rehearse for their unprovoked attacks. He had hounded his critics ruthlessly with his letters to the press. The ship rocked against his adversaries, and all who would disclaim him: the cowards who hid in the shadows and waited for the moment to belittle him; those who objected to his retouchings, his improvements on the original, slightly blurred pictures; the artless, who envied his talent with the brush and the lens. He would have them all, open them up from crotch to craw for such impertinence. Again the ship rocked, and he thought about those who had betrayed him or let him down. There were many, and in some ways they were worse than the obvious foes.
He wondered why Gull had stopped writing to him. The last four letters had gone unacknowledged; not even the set of prints he had sent appeared to warrant a reply. The doctor may have been busy, but surely it wouldn’t have taken much to extend a common courtesy?
Essenwald had changed; Ishmael sensed it the moment he entered its outskirts. It had grown impatience out of its security, become frantic and hectic inside the dynamo of its industry. All this was worn in the air: the scent of qualm.
Walking through the streets, he shaded his face from the crowd. He was not yet used to showing himself openly. His was still a face that caught glances, made strangers gawp, but no longer in abject horror. Their reaction was now rooted in something else, a compulsion he did not fully understand, though he recognised at least three of its components as surprise, curiosity and pity. Of the few who had seen him so far, none had run or cried out in shock; either they had searched for a deeper understanding or simply turned away. It was a transformation of wonderful importance, and it fuelled an excitement that bubbled and pumped inside him.
In the five days it had taken him to reach the outskirts, he had used almost all of the money and food provided by Nebsuel on his departure. He thought about his ability to survive in a world that was so expensive. Previously, he had been sheltered from such realities; now, the mechanics of existence were dawning, and he found them baffling and rather crude.