He smiled. ‘Is there such a thing as a tame tiger?’
‘Tame or stupid, I don’t know. It liked it when guests gave it wool to play with. And then if it got used to you, you’d open your door in the morning and outside would be a hug from an unexpected tiger.’ I paused, feeling strange, because I’d never told anyone about it. There had been no one to tell. Charles hated that I’d left the Navy and wouldn’t hear a word about the EIC, and Clem and Minna knew it all already, because they had travelled even as children and had no sense of the exotic, only the less worn-out. ‘I’ve forgotten a lot. If you go somewhere . . . very different to home, even for a long time, the memory feels like a dream when you get back. But the general impression is hot and flowers everywhere.’
In the time I’d been talking, his breath had evened out again but there was, like the stacks, a brittleness in him and a glass core. I didn’t ask him again what was wrong. It was none of my business. He twisted his wrist to move the cross on his rosary out of the way, then pushed his abused fingers together, slowly. I didn’t think he was praying.
‘All right?’ I said, even though I knew he wasn’t.
‘Mm. See you in the morning.’
EIGHTEEN
He didn’t see me in the morning. For the next few days, he was already out before I was up, and still out well after I’d gone to bed. The snow stayed. Each morning, the top layer was crackly where it was frozen fresh and the only evidence I was sharing the church with anyone at all was the single line of footprints that went out to the forest and, sometimes, if the wind fell, his pollen wake weaving between the trees on his way to the markayuq. I wanted to ask if he was avoiding me, but it was a stupid question, because he was, and he was straight enough to say yes and keep on doing it.
I was avoiding dark windows but I had to look at myself shaving. There were marks on my neck, bruises like I’d expected, but there were grazes too. Whoever had caught me had been wearing something rough over their hands. The bruises down my ribs were nearly black in places, deep, though the ache was a clean sort and I didn’t think anything was broken. Having spent my twenties perpetually battered and flung about it made me feel more like myself again, but the feeling of being watched kept coming back when I went outside in the mornings. I didn’t go near the border again. Instead I went to see Inti. When I asked her to speak some easy Quechua for me, we were both surprised to find that I understood. I couldn’t have produced it, but in the last few days of hearing it here and there, something in my mind had clicked back into place. Dad had told all his fairytales in Quechua. I’d forgotten that, even if I’d remembered the stories. Hearing it aloud after so many years felt like organ music coming up through the glass deep under my feet.
There was a lot of milking of goats too, not just Inti’s. There weren’t many other people about during the day who were healthy enough to do it. Apart from the fishermen, most of the fitter people worked on Martel’s farm, the produce of which fed the village; all except for the cocoa, which was shipped downriver to Azangaro and sold for five English pounds per stone and a half. Three or four farmers took care to confirm the numbers, as though it was a fortune, which it wasn’t. Sometimes I saw Raphael in gardens, with laundry or broken crockery, or stitching tipped towards the sun in a way that made me sure he was quite near-sighted. And always, in the end, back to the endless waxing of the statues. If I’d been braver I might have gone to find him, but whenever I thought about it, I got one of his thousand-yard stares. It made me very glad of Inti. Without her, those days would have been a bubble of isolated silence. Everyone else was too busy or shy to talk to me and I was too feeble to help with any proper work.
I’d almost convinced myself that Clem wouldn’t come back. When he did, early on the fifth morning and completely without fanfare, having slept the previous night in one of the warm salt caves about a mile upriver, I was so surprised I dropped the cup I was holding. He laughed and hugged me. There was frost on the lining of his hood that crackled when I squeezed him.
‘Em! I was sure he would have murdered you by now.’
‘I was sure you’d have been eaten by a bear. How was it? Are you all right?’
‘Oh, fine, but I do smell. Sorry.’
I put him in a chair and ran a bowl of hot water for him from the stove as he started to peel off his coat, then had to start the long process of easing down onto my knees to pick up the pieces of the cup. I found the biggest and collected the rest up into it. ‘Did you manage to see Martel?’
‘I did. He seemed very surprised to see me; I think he was convinced Raphael would do us in too. Anyway, I wanted to come straight back, but he shouldn’t be far behind me. Two days or so. He’s bringing men.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘Snow’s still here, I see,’ he said, nodding towards the woods.
‘Never warmed up once.’ I paused, stuck, because I had a handful of glass and I needed both hands to push myself up again. I had to stretch to put the glass on the worktop beside the stove. The floor, I noticed, was scoured clean.
‘Where’s himself?’
‘Out. I don’t know. I upset him. I haven’t seen him properly for days.’
He snorted. ‘Only you. Only you would manage to upset someone you’re supposed to be charming into not shooting you. Nicely done.’
‘Yes,’ I said, feeling inept. I managed finally to get myself into the chair next to his. ‘But he hasn’t shot me, at least.’
‘Right, but let’s say the jury’s still out on that one?’
‘Probably.’ The joy at seeing him had deflated. He was right. It had been abundantly stupid. I wanted to say it wasn’t my fault that a letter for a relative Raphael could barely have known had upset him so much, but it was the kind of thing I should have guessed. Family in places like this was important. There was so little else.
‘Oh, it’s so warm,’ he said happily. ‘God, I love this place. I wish Minna were here.’
I looked away. Something else he thought was my fault. He was annoyed about having had to go by himself. I didn’t point out that he had wanted to, at the time. It never helped, to quote his own motives back at him.
‘Listen – give me an hour to sit down, but then take me on a tour, yes? Say you’ve explored the town, Merrick,’ he said when I hesitated.