I began to retreat from him, pushing around the ornamental shrub, but I was scared of turning my back on him. Thunder cracked suddenly, much louder and more frightening than before. It was like a physical blow. Tomak had become a stranger. He could not be the man I was hoping to find. Yet the dilemma remained, head and heart, heart against head. It must be him! Everything about this man was strange, threatening, but the threat came from my own foolish actions, not from him. Tomak was always gentle with me.

I was overcome with a sorrowful guilt, a realization of what I had done, seeing myself as he must be seeing me.

Something lay between us. It was intangible, inexplicable: we seemed to be shouting to each other across a divide. It was as if we were in sight, physically close, adjacent to each other but separated by misunderstandings, different lives, different memories. How could Tomak have forgotten me? That was impossible. Who was this man, if not my lover?

He was making no effort to detain me, so in a rush of rising shame I turned away from him and began to run, hurrying away from him down the dimly lit pathway. I looked back once he was standing where we had been, a tall figure in the dark. I was so sorry, so overcome with guilt.

I went down the road, took a side turning, ran down that, then another. A terrible flash of sheet lightning, flickering blue-white four or five times, lit the road and the houses around me. I was alone in the night, running and stumbling, frightened of the dark, frightened now of the ferocity of the storm. Thunder again thudded deafeningly above me. I finally came to the main road and from there was able to work my way back through the silent streets to find the place where I had left my car. The rain broke about me as I arrived there, but I wrenched the door open, scrambled inside. My dress was already soaked through, my arms and legs were wetly glistening. I sat in the car for several minutes before I felt able to drive. I was trembling and shivering, and alone in a violent storm. Hard rain fell, swamping visibility and drumming like huge beating hands on the roof of the car. Cascades of floodwater poured down the street outside. I was terrified the car would be washed away. I started the engine, moved the car to the centre of the road where the flood was not pouring so deeply. I felt the welcome relief of the breaking weather after weeks of torrid heat, but my inner life was as suffocated and undecided as ever before. I knew I had lost everything, that my quest had ended. I had made the search for Tomak central to my life but now I had to put that behind me.

Eventually, I put the car in gear and drove slowly back to my house. The roads were littered with fallen leaves and branches, rain continued to fall, the streets were awash. The storm moved on as I drove up the hill to my house, the thunder rumbling away in the distance. I parked the car, then walked through my garden to the house. I felt the blessed relief of the rain-washed air, the temporary cool of the dripping trees and the puddled earth.

23.

The next day I changed my car in case Tomak recognized the old one. I began to wear different clothes, I made superficial changes to my appearance: I arranged my hair differently, wore dark gla.s.ses, tied scarves around my neck. I felt ridiculous, and constantly in danger of him carrying out his threat to report me, but in spite of what happened during the night of the storm I could not let it go. I knew I was edging down into something more psychologically dangerous than obsessive curiosity, but I was trapped in a dilemma of my own making.

Then something happened that brought closure for me. It was perhaps a timely intervention, saving me from myself.

I was in my new car, watching the old restaurant building Tomak and his young girlfriend went to whenever they met. A few minutes earlier I had noticed them meeting in the cafe in the square, so I guessed where they would be next, and not long afterwards I saw them entering the tall building. Once they were inside I left the car where it was and went to a small cafe a couple of streets away, where I bought a cold drink. I knew that they always stayed inside the building for at least two hours, so I had time to kill. I sat at a table under the canvas canopy and browsed the daily newspaper. After an hour I strolled back to the old restaurant building, intending to stand at the intersection where the traffic turned, and where there was a clear if distant view of the door to the building. I took up position beneath a tree and opened a book to read.

I became aware that someone was approaching me in a deliberate way, crossing against the traffic, waiting for cars to pa.s.s then stepping forward quickly. I kept my eyes on my book. My heart leaping, I a.s.sumed it must be Tomak, but when I looked up I saw it was an older man, dressed in casual shirt and shorts, striding towards me. His manner was anything but casual. He raised a hand towards me, pointing a forefinger at me.

"Are you waiting for my daughter?" he said. His manner was forthright, but unthreatening.

I shook my head, uncertain what to say. "No a friend."

"That magician, the illusionist. I"ve seen you before, hanging around him. You keep following him."

I felt it was none of this stranger"s business, so again I simply shook my head. He was close beside me. He took my arm in a gentle hold.

"I don"t know your name," he said. "But you and I have interests in common. We need to speak. Shall we go somewhere that we don"t have to shout over the traffic?"

There was a park beside the intersection, so I allowed him to lead me, not discourteously, through the wrought-iron gate to the area of mown gra.s.s and flowerbeds beyond. We walked to the shade of a grove of trees planted on a shallow slope. A brook ran down through the trees towards the edge of the park.

I made sure that where we stopped was a place from which I could still see the door to the building. We were now much further away, but it was in sight.

"You should know who I am," the man said. "My name is Gerred Huun. The young woman who is currently inside that building is my child, my only daughter. Her name is Ruddebet."

In the Prachoit custom he removed a plastic ID card from his pocket and let me see it. I responded with my own.

"I am Mellanya Ross," I said.

"I"m concerned about the effect your friend might be having on my daughter. I need your help."

"I know nothing at all about your daughter," I said, mentally thrusting away from my mind the hours I had spent obsessively imagining and worrying about what her relationship with Tomak must be.

"If you"ve seen her with your friend, you know that she is barely more than a child. In fact she is just eighteen years old and in a couple of months she will be starting university. She"s an intelligent, talented girl. She has been accepted for a degree course that is academically demanding and yet will allow her to develop her love of sport. I was once a sportsman myself, as was my wife. My wife, unfortunately, died three years ago. Ruddebet is now the only family I have, and I am concerned that she should not be led astray. This man, this idle magician, is several years older than her, and I don"t know what he"s up to."

"I don"t see how I can help," I said, but a sympathetic understanding was starting to grow in me. Interests in common, indeed.

"You could tell me what you know of your friend. He moved into the town only recently, and has kept himself to himself."

"It"s complicated. I thought he was a friend, but I was wrong. I thought he was someone else, someone I knew in the past. I made a terrible mistake. It"s not the same man. I"m not even sure what his name is."

"I can tell you that. He calls himself a thaumaturge, and his name is Tom, or perhaps Thom." He p.r.o.nounced it with a soft "th", but then corrected it.

"Would that be short for Tomak?" I said.

"No, I"ve never heard a name like that. It"s Tom or Thom. But he doesn"t even use a second name. Few people seem to know anything about him. Who is he? Where has he come from?"

"Those are questions I can"t answer."

"It was my own fault," Gerred Huun said. "I was the one who suggested to Ruddebet that she might be suitable to apply for this job."

"Job?" I said.

"As his a.s.sistant on stage, when he performs his magic. She has to wait a few weeks before starting her course, and I thought she might find it interesting and make a little credit. I had no idea she would become emotionally involved with him."

"Are you sure that"s what has happened?" I said, surprising myself with the quickness of the thought, but I was remembering what I had seen of them when they were together. They were affectionate to each other, but it was the affection of friendship, not of lovers. This was what had puzzled me, because they went to a place where it was obvious they would be alone together. That implied something much more physical was taking place. But their behaviour outside was not at all suggestive of that. "Do you know what the job involves?"

"I was shown the apparatus once. He had it set up in that building in the street across there."

"So they"re using it as a rehearsal room?"

"That"s what Ruddebet calls it."

"They are rehearsing while they"re there? Why do you think that means they have become lovers? That"s what you fear, isn"t it?"

"It"s just the way she acts now. She"s become secretive, she is angry with me if I ask too many questions. I"m losing her, I can"t do or say anything right any more. We used to be so close all the time, but now it"s becoming difficult."

"If she"s eighteen," I said, "then she is an adult, no matter what she is doing."

"Yes, but she"s my daughter and she is still living with me."

I sat silently for a while, thinking how I too had misunderstood what was going on. In my single-minded need to find Tomak I had been making a lot of a.s.sumptions. It had not occurred to me they might be working together. I liked Gerred Huun he seemed a decent man, over-protective of his daughter, but perhaps it was only that his concern for her was greater than it needed to be. Our brief conversation had already made me see the young woman differently, and now I began to imagine how Ruddebet herself might feel. We sat down on the gra.s.s together and spoke for a long time. Gradually, we became more relaxed in each other"s company, speaking frankly. I tried to describe from a woman"s point of view what his daughter might well be seeing in this slightly older man. As I spoke I realized that I was no longer thinking of him as Tomak, that I had somehow accepted it was someone different, Thom or Tom, Thom the Thaumaturge. My head was at last resolving the dilemma of the heart. I pointed out that when Ruddebet started at the university their relationship, whatever it was now, would certainly come to a natural end and that in the meantime no harm was being done.

"You understand, Ruddebet and I find it difficult to speak openly to each other."

"She"s growing up," I said. "A lot of fathers find it difficult to adjust as their daughter becomes an adult woman. Things have to change."

"He said he will make her disappear in some way."

"Does that bother you? He"s not going to run away with her."

"I don"t think so. But yes, I"m not sure why, but it does make me nervous I might lose her."

"But he"s an illusionist, isn"t he? Nothing he does is real. That"s the way magicians work."

"Yes, I suppose."

I was still keeping a watch on the door, far away beyond the perimeter of the park, but it remained closed. I was looking covertly, but while I sat there with Gerred Huun I was thinking that already it was more from habit than from any real need to keep watch. I was defending Ruddebet, accounting for the relationship with the magician, almost accepting as fact what in reality I had never been able to understand. Perhaps until now. I had been alone too long, my quest to find Tomak was too one-sided. I had never confided in anyone before, but now, when the chance arose, I found that the role had unexpectedly reversed and Ruddebet"s father was confiding in me about his own fears. It strengthened me, gave me a distance from myself.

"Maybe they are merely rehearsing, as you"ve been told," I said. "You said he showed you the apparatus once."

"Yes. But you"ve seen them together. You know how they behave. He is obviously infatuated with her."

"And she with him. That wouldn"t change the fact that they are working together. Is he paying her what he promised, when it began?"

"Ruddebet told me he was."

"Magicians normally rehea.r.s.e in secret, don"t they?"

Later we parted, suddenly rather awkward with each other, as if we had opened up too much, in a non-Prachoit way. We had both exposed something of our inner fears, Gerred Huun more than I, but our meeting was a revelation to us both. I saw Tomak, or Thom, differently, understood Ruddebet more, even realized that my own behaviour had been extreme and unwarranted. I was ashamed of myself. I said none of this to Gerred, as I now knew him, but perhaps he had noticed a change in me, even during the time we were sitting on that shady hill looking down at the door, locked against us.

For me it was closure, a freeing from my own compulsive behaviour. I returned to my car, drove straight home.

That evening I made enquiries of the airfield where my plane was impounded, trying to find out what I was required to do for the aircraft to be released, how long it would be before I could fly again.

24.

A few days later Gerred Huun mailed me a ticket for a show at Il-Palazz. Thom the Thaumaturge had succeeded in obtaining a booking. A programme of magic was announced, to commence the following weekend.

Such was the transformation in my feelings that when I opened the envelope and saw what was inside I wondered briefly if I should bother to visit the show at all. Gerred enclosed a publicity handbill describing in vague but enthusiastic terms the marvels that were about to be performed.

Gerred had also written a note to me: I shall be going to every performance during the week, but I thought you would like a ticket to the final show.

I was to spend much of the week of the performances trying to establish the condition of my impounded aircraft, in particular finding out if it was still airworthy, or at least might be considered so. It had performed perfectly on the flight out, but for most of a year it had been lying unused. By now it would require a thorough technical check-up. It was still under official seal, meaning I was not allowed to go to the hangar where it was being kept.

A new difficulty had arisen without my knowledge, while I was obsessing over the man I thought was Tomak. Because of what was perceived to be my lack of interest in the plane, some bureaucrat in the Seigniory had ruled that because it appeared to be a warplane, albeit of an unidentifiable type, it was in breach of the island"s neutrality and must therefore be seized. In practical terms, it meant that the plane was still in the same hangar, but was now buried under one more layer of obstructive officialdom. I had to prove that the aircraft was properly mine. Once I had done so I would then have to attend a formal neutrality hearing in court to explain what I was doing bringing a warplane into Prachoit airs.p.a.ce.

The only doc.u.ments I had with me were my original written orders for the flight after much argument these proved to be sufficient to establish the fact the plane was properly mine, but the neutrality hearing still hung over me.

However, matters started to improve in small ways. Unexpectedly, the people at the airfield forwarded to me a letter from another seigniorial department confirming that the plane had been inspected and was judged to be airworthy. That seemed positive at first, but when I looked more closely I saw that the letter was dated not long after I arrived on the island. I knew I should need a more up-to-date airworthiness certificate before I would be allowed to take off. The letter gave me the contact details for a second official inspection, so I set that in train immediately. The plane was almost new, and apart from early proving flights at the factory the only flight undertaken by the aircraft was my own long one to Prachous. I had made sure after I landed that the lubricants, cooling and hydraulic fluids were all drained, so these would have to be replaced, and the engine and the control surfaces would need to be inspected.

In preparation, I requested that the engine should be serviced and tested, and that the main fuel tanks as well as the auxiliaries should be filled with 100-octane aviation spirit.

I was concerned that the aircraft had been declared a warplane. Although basically a fighter design, the plane was essentially a long-range high-alt.i.tude reconnaissance aircraft so it had no armaments. There was, though, a valuable camera positioned in its belly. The camera was of no use to me but I did not want to be responsible for it if someone removed it. I had to a.s.sume that in the absence of any guns it was the powerful camera that made the officials realize it was a warplane.

I had let several months drift by without paying too much attention to the problem of my plane, but all that was changing quickly. I suddenly wanted to leave Prachous as soon as possible. I had convinced myself that the man I saw with Ruddebet was not Tomak. The island held nothing more for me and it was time to leave. I had lived the unnervingly calm and comfortable Prachoit life long enough. I had no idea if the war that drove me and Tomak apart was even still going on, but I wanted to return home.

While I made the practical preparations to take possession of my plane once again, I also started to look for someone who could move into my house, perhaps take over my car, keep the garden. I also had to dispose of the personal possessions I would not be able to take with me. Gradually, I was reducing my involvement in Prachoit life.

There was still the evening at the theatre, a performance of stage magic by the man who looked so uncannily like Tomak. I was curious about this, more so as the week went by. I was hearing that the show was excellent, the illusionist performing inexplicable marvels with great skill. It"s possible that if Gerred Huun had not sent me the ticket I might have left Beathurn without going to the theatre, but that was not how things turned out. I thought it would be one last chance to watch the man whose existence had taunted me for so long, and who had driven me to the brink of a kind of madness. I decided not to make my flight home until after the performance.

25.

The theatre was full for the show live magic was a novelty in Beathurn. Because I worked for this theatre I had grown to love it, so I was thrilled to see the number of people thronging the foyer, the bar, the staircases, the corridors. I knew that the ticket sales had enabled the management committee to order replacements for some of the outdated technical equipment still in use, and that the manager was talking about redecorating the auditorium during the months of the quiet season. A pit orchestra had been hired for this show. The auditorium was alive with the audience"s excitement and antic.i.p.ation when I went in. The band was already tuning up.

After I was seated, Gerred Huun hurried in and took the place next to mine. We greeted each other in a friendly way.

"I"m pleased you could be here for this, Mellanya," he said.

"Thank you for sending me the ticket."

"I think you"ll enjoy the show. I have no doubt seen it too many times this week, but I still enjoy what Ruddebet and the magician are doing. I can"t imagine how he manages those tricks. Every night his act is slightly different, but each time I"m left amazed by it."

Not long after that the orchestra started the overture, the curtains opened and the stage filled with dancers and singers. I settled down to watch. After the dance routine a comedian opened the show, introducing each of the acts in turn. His jokes were unfunny and loud, and he went on far too long. At one point he tunelessly sang a song. Next to me, Gerred was enjoying himself, laughing noisily at every joke. When a group of singers came on later, he hummed along with the tunes when an acrobat juggled plates and knives, Gerred cheered with enthusiasm.

Around us, the rest of the audience appeared to be enjoying the acts every bit as much as Gerred, to judge by the laughter and clapping. I sank low in my seat, waiting for the magician.

He was billed to appear twice: a short act to close the first half of the show, then the finale. The other acts in the first half felt as they were going to run forever. Even though most of the turns were noisy with music or singing or acts of physical exertion, and made attempts to provide a spectacle, I felt uninvolved and started to drift mentally, thinking about how much I wanted to depart from this island, return to my own life.

I was worrying about the flight I intended to take as soon as I could: would the plane still be safe to fly? How would I navigate? How could I obtain an accurate weather forecast before I departed? And what about this neutrality hearing in court? I did not like the sound of that, knowing what the Prachoit authorities could be like about real or imagined breaches of their neutrality. a.s.suming I could take off without too much trouble or interference, and could make the flight safely, what conditions might I return to if the war was still going on? It frightened me to think like that, but it was now obvious that I could not stay on Prachous much longer. I bitterly regretted the time I had spent, and wasted, searching for Tomak. I also regretted what it had done to me, the way I acted. I felt I had betrayed myself, even that I had betrayed the trusting and loving relationship I once had with Tomak. I realized now that my quest was largely caused by denial: when I heard the news about the army officers and the ma.s.sacre, I had simply not allowed myself to believe that Tomak was probably among them.

Time to put an end to all this.

Musing, I missed the announcement of Thom the Thaumaturge"s act. He was on the stage almost before I realized it was him. He was heavily made up and was wearing a voluminous costume, brightly coloured and made of shiny material. A bandanna was wound around his head, partly covering one side of his face.

I watched with fascination as he swiftly performed a few card tricks, then brought on a wheeled cabinet with curtained sides. It was possible to see beneath it, and when Thom walked around to the back of the cabinet his body was visible to the audience between the narrow legs of the apparatus. Indeed, he then opened the curtains at the rear, span the cabinet around so that we could see inside, and opened the curtain which was now at the back, revealing the whole of the interior. He leapt up into the cabinet, crawled through, and stood beside it. With swift movements he then spun the cabinet around again, s.n.a.t.c.hing the curtains closed once more as they went past. The whole cabinet was still rotating as the curtains billowed out from inside and Ruddebet appeared.

She leapt down on to the stage. She was dressed in a costume of glittering sequins, which flashed and shone in the spotlight. She bowed deeply, and ran into the wings while the applause still rang out. Beside me, Gerred was on his feet, clapping his hands above his head.

Thom next performed a few acrobatic tricks while cleverly riding a unicycle. Then Ruddebet returned. This time she was wearing a different costume: a voluminous dress, with flounces and wide sleeves. Thom dragged a large wicker basket to the centre of the stage, and helped Ruddebet insinuate herself inside it. The dress made this difficult, as it billowed up around her, seeming to fill the entire s.p.a.ce, but in the end she was contained inside and Thom placed a lid on top. He plunged several long and apparently razor-sharp scimitars into the basket through small apertures at the front and back, and at each side, culminating with a long broadsword, thrust down through the lid. He turned the basket around so that we could see how the blades ran through every part of it. Swiftly he removed each of the swords, throwing them aside with thrilling clattering noises. We were in no doubt of the st.u.r.dy manufacture of the blades. As the last one came out, Ruddebet pushed up the lid from inside, and gracefully stepped out on to the stage. Not only was she completely unharmed but she was wearing a totally different dress.

Gerred was on his feet again as she took her bow, and this time many other members of the audience stood up too.

The curtain came down, and now it was the interval.

As soon as I could I left the auditorium. The antiquated cooling system could barely cope with the presence of so many people on a warm evening, and it was a relief to move out to the small balcony at the rear of the building. This overlooked the car park and afforded a glimpse of the sea. Lights were sparkling on the dark ocean. In the town, towards the port, I could see many people out and about, the nightly promenada, the leisurely stroll through the wide and brightly illuminated boulevards where the restaurants and night clubs were situated. It was another hot night but the sea breeze made it more bearable than staying inside.

I was trying not to see Gerred during the break but he followed me out. He pushed past the people on the balcony behind me and handed me a gla.s.s of cold beer. I was in fact grateful for it and I drank it in two deep draughts. We stood side by side, looking down at the closely parked vehicles below. Gerred was trying to tell me about the variations Thom and Ruddebet had worked on the basket trick during the week: a different dress, flaming torches instead of swords, and so on, and also how horrified he was at first to see his daughter apparently placed in such peril, but how proud of her he had become when he saw the professionalism of the act.