‘We go directly to the Vorrh,’ said his acquaintance. ‘But on our way, I want to show you something.’
He mumbled agreement but was inwardly horrified by the idea of walking. He had had no intention of making the journey on foot, yet discovered himself being dragged down the main road of the filthy town by a stranger. His irritation began to rise with the heat of the day; the claws of his previous night were prickling, envious and alive.
Walking on the raised wooden pavement, under arcades of curved sandstone, he was reminded of the precise architectural splendours of Bern, where he had spent some time with his mother, shopping in the days before Christmas, the snow falling without intention, light and constant. Not a single flake had touched them as they moved from shop to precious shop, the vaulted Altstadt offering a snug tunnel of civilised proportions, the pleasure of warm cinnamon wine and pine trees scenting the frosted air.
As suddenly as he’d fallen into the fantasy, the perversity of the comparison had spat back, giving him no time to relish or ponder; his own mechanism of creative invention had turned on him once again. It had begun to happen more and more by then; the brilliance of his literary deceit had a vindictive twin, who could not see why his little word game, if it was so clever, should only function in his languid fiction. Each day it had started to apply the same rules of composition and invention to his life, twisting pleasure and experience into worthless jokes. It grabbed at his memories and perverted them with elaborate motivations, succulent in their weirdness, making stupidity and pride fuck on the hallowed ground of his genius. Here, everything was made of rotting wood and was held together by the stink of collapse. It was nothing like the elegance of Switzerland; even the grand stone houses paled into insignificance.
His irritation had mounted, turning inwards with a voracious glee. It chased him with accusations: the base of the comparisons had been exhaled from some dim childish sentiment – surely it should have been beaten out of him years earlier? And what was he doing there, anyway? He never left his rooms or his car, why had he agreed to meet this stupid savage?
So it had continued. A swarm of flies buzzed around his head, a halo of carrion, just to emphasise the point. He spluttered one out of his mouth, waving his hands about wildly to fend the others off and dropping his cane, which clattered off the boardwalk and into the soiled road. Seil Kor only laughed at his new friend’s pantomime. Indignant at the best of times, the Frenchman was entangled by an instant rage, and spat abuse into the face of the ignorant black peasant. Nothing happened. Seil Kor did not register shock or anger. He hadn’t even flinched, but converted his open laugh into a serious, frowning smile and waited.
The hiss of the final expletives drained away; the Frenchman was ready to turn and stomp back to the hotel when, with a smooth and simple action, Seil Kor took a fine, silken scarf from his head, and loosely knotted it about the red and raging throat of the small man before him. The world dropped away. The blue of the linen and the sky melted together, a fresh breeze cooling his heart and soothing his mind.
With all the venom and distress gone, Seil Kor took his hand and led him on, bringing them to the doors of a nearby church. He directed his dazed companion inside, and they sat in the cool of the interior, on one of the dark, carved pews. The Frenchman tried to find words of apology, but it had been so long since he’d used them that he remained dumb.
‘I have brought you here to understand the Vorrh,’ said his guide. ‘This house of God is for those travellers who pass near its sacred heart. The Desert Fathers founded this church before one stone was laid on another, before even a single tree was cut. They came out of Egypt like the prophets of old, came to guard and wait, to protect us and those travelling through us.’
The Frenchman looked around the chapel. Images of trees dominated the iconography; trees and caves. Black, kohl-rimmed eyes stared out of a face that looked like it had been carved with an axe. Dark, shoulder-length hair and a tangled beard framed the whiteness of the Father’s staring expression. In one hand he held a bible, in the other a staff. He sat in a cave, surrounded by the deep green of an impenetrable forest. The scene had been set on a square piece of thick and gnarled wood. The Frenchman stared at the icon while the tall black man spoke over his head.
‘The Vorrh was here before man,’ he said. ‘The hand of God swept over this land without hesitation. Trees grew in its great shadow of knowing, of abundance. The old silence of stones was replaced by the silence of wood, which is not quiet. A place for man was made, to breathe and be thankful. A garden was opened at the centre of the shadow and the Vorrh was given an occupant. He is still there.’
The Frenchman’s eyes unlatched from the gaze of the saint. He turned to look up at Seil Kor. ‘The Bible says the children of Adam left the sacred lands and moved into the world.’
Seil Kor made a gesture over his own head, a cross between wafting a scent and stroking a halo. ‘Yes, so it is written – but Adam returned.’
They continued to talk while the heat of the day prowled around the chapel. The Frenchman had given up the last remnant of sexual desire for his companion. It had been present from the start, a rich, thick musk of fantasy that had excited their meetings. He had seen no reason, initially, why he should not possess the black prince, and add him to the list of urchins, sailors and criminals who had spiced the gutter of his sexual greed. He was handsome, and presumably well-endowed; his obvious poverty would have made him easy to purchase for a short time.
But the words in Seil Kor’s mouth – the certainty of his vision and the kindness in his eyes – had washed away those stewed perfumes, replacing them with an ethereal distance that shocked back the very pride and circulation of his vital cynicism. The tired ghost of his ennui had been offered colour and hope. He had begun to sense, with some fear, that Seil Kor tasted of redemption. He even found himself giving weight to the ludicrous myths of the Vorrh, and the salvation that might shudder in them. They talked of the serpent sin, of deliverance, of the starry crown, and the origin of purpose; Adam’s house in paradise, his generations, Eve’s punishment, and all the crimes of knowledge. During those moments, his eyes had wandered back to the saint, and to his brothers lining the walls. He took in the black and white prints of angels; some he’d recognised as being pages from a book, torn and framed excerpts of Gustave Doré’s visions of heaven and hell. The images were solid, almost marble in appearance, so different from the glowering Desert Father patriarchs of the icons, who all had the same eyes, an impossible combination of tempera infinity and point-blank, chiselled authority. It had occurred to him that Seil Kor had younger versions of the same eyes, and that they would mature into that same gaze of stern wisdom.
As the conversation came to an end, the Frenchman noticed another painting. Smaller than the rest and set in a far corner of the chapel, away from any source of light, it was made on the same dense, gessoed wood, but something had obviously gone wrong with its process, for the pigmentation of varnish had turned black. He drew closer to examine it; it was as if the picture was empty, or only contained painted night. He put his fingertips on its crusted surface, discerning a raised outline, the contours of a head, the painting’s swallowed occupant invisible in the tarry depth.
‘What is this one?’ he asked of his guide.
The young man looked bashful and evasive, and refused to look directly at the block of darkness.
‘What is this one? Please tell me.’
‘Some of the stories from the Vorrh are older than man and they become confused with the Bible,’ replied Seil Kor. ‘I think this is one of those. It is said that a being will come to protect the tree, after all the sons of Adam are dead. He is called the Black Faced Man. This might be him.’