I The Villa SHE STANDS UP in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance. She has sensed a shift in the weather. There is another gust of wind, a buckle of noise in the air, and the tall cypresses sway. She turns and moves uphill towards the house, climbing over a low wall, feeling the first drops of rain on her bare arms. She crosses the loggia and quickly enters the house. In the kitchen she doesn’t pause but goes through it and climbs the stairs which are in darkness and then continues along the long hall, at the end of which is a wedge of light from an open door. She turns into the room which is another garden—this one made up of trees and bowers painted over its walls and ceiling. The man lies on the bed, his body exposed to the breeze, and he turns his head slowly towards her as she enters. Every four days she washes his black body, beginning at the destroyed feet. She wets a washcloth and holding it above his ankles squeezes the water onto him, looking up as he murmurs, seeing his smile. Above the shins the burns are worst. Beyond purple. Bone. She has nursed him for months and she knows the body well, the penis sleeping like a sea horse, the thin tight hips. Hipbones of Christ, she thinks. He is her despairing saint. He lies flat on his back, no pillow, looking up at the foliage painted onto the ceiling, its canopy of branches, and above that, blue sky. She pours calamine in stripes across his chest where he is less burned, where she can touch him. She loves the hollow below the lowest rib, its cliff of skin. Reaching his shoulders she blows cool air onto his neck, and he mutters. What? she asks, coming out of her concentration. He turns his dark face with its grey eyes towards her. She puts her hand into her pocket. She unskins the plum with her teeth, withdraws the stone and passes the flesh of the fruit into his mouth. He whispers again, dragging the listening heart of the young nurse beside him to wherever his mind is, into that well of memory he kept plunging into during those months before he died. There are stories the man recites quietly into the room which slip from level to level like a hawk. He wakes in the painted arbour that surrounds him with its spilling flowers, arms of great trees. He remembers picnics, a woman who kissed parts of his body that now are burned into the colour of aubergine. I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of preoccupation. His eyes lock onto the young woman’s face. If she moves her head, his stare will travel alongside her into the wall. She leans forward. How were you burned? It is late afternoon. His hands play with a piece of sheet, the back of his fingers caressing it. I fell burning into the desert. They found my body and made me a boat of sticks and dragged me across the desert. We were in the Sand Sea, now and then crossing dry riverbeds. Nomads, you see. Bedouin. I flew down and the sand itself caught fire. They saw me stand up naked out of it. The leather helmet on my head in flames. They strapped me onto a cradle, a carcass boat, and feet thudded along as they ran with me. I had broken the spareness of the desert. The Bedouin knew about fire. They knew about planes that since 1939 had been falling out of the sky. Some of their tools and utensik were made from the metal of crashed planes and tanks. It was the time of the war in heaven. They could recognize the drone of a wounded plane, they knew how to pick their way through such shipwrecks. A small bolt from a cockpit became jewellery. I was perhaps the first one to stand up alive out of a burning machine. A man whose head was on fire. They didn’t know my name. I didn’t know their tribe. Who are you? I don’t know. You keep asking me. You said you were English. At night he is never tired enough to sleep. She reads to him from whatever book she is able to find in the library downstairs. The candle flickers over the page and over the young nurse’s talking face, barely revealing at this hour the trees and vista that decorate the walls. He listens to her, swallowing her words like water. If it is cold she moves carefully into the bed and lies beside him. She can place no weight upon him without giving him pain, not even her thin wrist. Sometimes at two a.m. he is not yet asleep, his eyes open in the darkness. He could smell the oasis before he saw it. The liquid in the air. The rustle of things. Palms and bridles. The banging of tin cans whose deep pitch revealed they were full of water. They poured oil onto large pieces of soft cloth and placed them on him. He was anointed. He could sense the one silent man who always remained beside him, the flavour of his breath when he bent down to unwrap him every twenty-four hours at nightfall, to examine his skin in the dark. Unclothed he was once again the man naked beside the blazing aircraft. They spread the layers of grey felt over him. What great nation had found him, he wondered. What country invented such soft dates to be chewed by the man beside him and then passed from that mouth into his. During this time with these people, he could not remember where he was from. He could have been, for all he knew, the enemy he had been fighting from the air. Later, at the hospital in Pisa, he thought he saw beside him the face that had come each night and chewed and softened the dates and passed them down into his mouth. There was no colour during those nights. No speech or song. The Bedouin silenced themselves when he was awake. He was on an altar of hammock and he imagined in his vanity hundreds of them around him and there may have been just two who had found him, plucked the antlered hat of fire from his head. Those two he knew only by the taste of saliva that entered him along with the date or by the sound of their feet running. She would sit and read, the book under the waver of light. She would glance now and then down the hall of the villa that had been a war hospital, where she had lived with the other nurses before they had all transferred out gradually, the war moving north, the war almost over. This was the time in her life that she fell upon books as the only door out of her cell. They became half her world. She sat at the night table, hunched over, reading of the young boy in India who learned to memorize diverse jewels and objects on a tray, tossed from teacher to teacher—those who taught him dialect those who taught him memory those who taught him to escape the hypnotic. The book lay on her lap. She realized that for more than five minutes she had been looking at the porousness of the paper, the crease at the corner of page 17 which someone had folded over as a mark. She brushed her hand over its skin. A scurry in her mind like a mouse in the ceiling, a moth on the night window. She looked down the hall, though there was no one else living there now, no one except the English patient and herself in the Villa San Girolamo. She had enough vegetables planted in the bombed-out orchard above the house for them to survive, a man coming now and then from the town with whom she would trade soap and sheets and whatever there was left in this war hospital for other essentials. Some beans, some meats. The man had left her two bottles of wine, and each night after she had lain with the Englishman and he was asleep, she would ceremoniously pour herself a small beaker and carry it back to the night table just outside the three-quarter-closed door and sip away further into whatever book she was reading. So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms, missing incidents as if locusts had consumed a section of tapestry, as if plaster loosened by the bombing had fallen away from a mural at night. The villa that she and the Englishman inhabited now was much like that. Some rooms could not be entered because of rubble. One bomb crater allowed moon and rain into the library downstairs—where there was in one corner a permanently soaked armchair. She was not concerned about the Englishman as far as the gaps in plot were concerned. She gave no summary of the missing chapters. She simply brought out the book and said “page ninety-six” or “page one hundred and eleven.” That was the only locator. She lifted both of his hands to her face and smelled them—the odour of sickness still in them. Your hands are getting rough, he said. The weeds and thistles and digging. Be careful. I warned you about the dangers. I know. Then she began to read. Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog’s paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumours of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog’s paw was a wonder: the smell of it never suggested dirt. It’s a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so’s garden, that field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen—a concentration of hints of all the paths the animal had taken during the day. A scurry in the ceiling like a mouse, and she looked up from the book again. They unwrapped the mask of herbs from his face. The day of the eclipse. They were waiting for it. Where was he? What civilisation was this that understood the predictions of weather and light? El Ahmar or El Abyadd, for they must be one of the northwest desert tribes. Those who could catch a man out of the sky, who covered his face with a mask of oasis reeds knitted together. He had now a bearing of grass. His favourite garden in the world had been the grass garden at Kew, the colours so delicate and various, like levels of ash on a hill. He gazed onto the landscape under the eclipse. They had taught him by now to raise his arms and drag strength into his body from the universe, the way the desert pulled down planes. He was carried in a palanquin of felt and branch. He saw the moving veins of flamingos across his sight in the half-darkness of the covered sun. Always there were ointments, or darkness, against his skin. One night he heard what seemed to be wind chimes high in the air, and after a while it stopped and he fell asleep with a hunger for it, that noise like the slowed-down sound from the throat of a bird, perhaps flamingo, or a desert fox, which one of the men kept in a sewn-half-closed pocket in his burnoose. The next day he heard snatches of the glassy sound as he lay once more covered in cloth. A noise out of the darkness. At twilight the felt was unwrapped and he saw a man’s head on a table moving towards him, then realized the man wore a giant yoke from which hung hundreds of small bottles on different lengths of string and wire. Moving as if part of a glass curtain, his body enveloped within that sphere. The figure resembled most of all those drawings of archangels he had tried to copy as a schoolboy, never solving how one body could have space for the muscles of such wings. The man moved with a long, slow gait, so smoothly there was hardly a tilt in the bottles. A wave of glass, an archangel, all the ointments within the bottles warmed from the sun, so when they were rubbed onto skin they seemed to have been heated especially for a wound. Behind him was translated light—blues and other colours shivering in the haze and sand. The faint glass noise and the diverse colours and the regal walk and his face like a lean dark gun. Up close the glass was rough and sandblasted, glass that had lost its civilisation. Each bottle had a minute cork the man plucked out with his teeth and kept in his lips while mixing one bottle’s contents with another’s, a second cork also in his teeth. He stood over the supine burned body with his wings, sank two sticks deep into the sand and then moved away free of the six- foot yoke, which balanced now within the crutches of the two sticks. He stepped out from under his shop. He sank to his knees and came towards the burned pilot and put his cold hands on his neck and held them there. He was known to everyone along the camel route from the Sudan north to Giza, the Forty Days Road. He met the caravans, traded spice and liquid, and moved between oases and water camps. He walked through sandstorms with this coat of bottles, his ears plugged with two other small corks so he seemed a vessel to himself, this merchant doctor, this king of oils and perfumes and panaceas, this baptist. He would enter a camp and set up the curtain of bottles in front of whoever was sick. He crouched by the burned man. He made a skin cup with the soles of his feet and leaned back to pluck, without even looking, certain bottles. With the uncorking of each tiny bottle the perfumes fell out. There was an odour of the sea. The smell of rust. Indigo. Ink. River-mud arrow-wood formaldehyde paraffin ether. The tide of airs chaotic. There were screams of camels in the distance as they picked up the scents. He began to rub green-black paste onto the rib cage. It was ground peacock bone, bartered for in a medina to the west or the south—the most potent healer of skin. Between the kitchen and the destroyed chapel a door led into an oval-shaped library. The space inside seemed safe except for a large hole at portrait level in the far wall, caused by mortar-shell attack on the villa two months earlier. The rest of the room had adapted itself to this wound, accepting the habits of weather, evening stars, the sound of birds. There was a sofa, a piano covered in a grey sheet, the head of a stuffed bear and high walls of books. The shelves nearest the torn wall bowed with the rain, which had doubled the weight of the books. Lightning came into the room too, again and again, falling across the covered piano and carpet. At the far end were French doors that were boarded up. If they had been open she could have walked from the library to the loggia, then down thirty-six penitent steps past the chapel towards what had been an ancient meadow, scarred now by phosphorus bombs and explosions. The German army had mined many of the houses they retreated from, so most rooms not needed, like this one, had been sealed for safety, the doors hammered into their frames. She knew these dangers when she slid into the room, walking into its afternoon darkness. She stood conscious suddenly of her weight on the wooden floor, thinking it was probably enough to trigger whatever mechanism was there. Her feet in dust. The only light poured through the jagged mortar circle that looked onto the sky. With a crack of separation, as if it were being dismantled from one single unit, she pulled out The Last of the Mohicans and even in this half-light was cheered by the aquamarine sky and lake on the cover illustration, the Indian in the foreground. And then, as if there were someone in the room who was not to be disturbed, she walked backwards, stepping on her own footprints, for safety, but also as part of a private game, so it would seem from the steps that she had entered the room and then the corporeal body had disappeared. She closed the door and replaced the seal of warning. She sat in the window alcove in the English patient’s room, the painted walls on one side of her, the valley on the other. She opened the book. The pages were joined together in a stiff wave. She felt like Crusoe finding a drowned book that had washed up and dried itself on the shore. A Narrative of 1757. Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth. As in all of the best books, there was the important page with the list of illustrations, a line of text for each of them. She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams. Their Italian hill town, sentinel to the northwest route, had been besieged for more than a month, the barrage focusing upon the two villas and the monastery surrounded by apple and plum orchards. There was the Villa Medici, where the generals lived. Just above it the Villa San Girolamo, previously a nunnery, whose castlelike battlements had made it the last stronghold of the German army. It had housed a hundred troops. As the hill town began to be torn apart like a battleship at sea, by fire shells, the troops moved from the barrack tents in the orchard into the now crowded bedrooms of the old nunnery. Sections of the chapel were blown up. Parts of the top storey of the villa crumbled under explosions. When the Allies finally took over the building and made it a hospital, the steps leading to the third level were sealed off, though a section of chimney and roof survived. She and the Englishman had insisted on remaining behind when the other nurses and patients moved to a safer location in the south. During this time they were very cold, without electricity. Some rooms faced onto the valley with no walls at all. She would open a door and see just a sodden bed huddled against a corner, covered with leaves. Doors opened into landscape. Some rooms had become an open aviary. The staircase had lost its lower steps during the fire that was set before the soldiers left. She had gone into the library, removed twenty books and nailed them to the floor and then onto each other, in this way rebuilding the two lowest steps. Most of the chairs had been used for fires. The armchair in the library was left there because it was always wet, drenched by evening storms that came in through the mortar hole. Whatever was wet escaped burning during that April of 1945. There were few beds left. She herself preferred to be nomadic in the house with her pallet or hammock, sleeping sometimes in the English patient’s room, sometimes in the hall, depending on temperature or wind or light. In the morning she rolled up her mattress and tied it into a wheel with string. Now it was warmer and she was opening more rooms, airing the dark reaches, letting sunlight dry all the dampness. Some nights she opened doors and slept in rooms that had walls missing. She lay on the pallet on the very edge of the room, facing the drifting landscape of stars, moving clouds, wakened by the growl of thunder and lightning. She was twenty years old and mad and unconcerned with safety during this time, having no qualms about the dangers of the possibly mined library or the thunder that startled her in the night. She was restless after the cold months, when she had been limited to dark, protected spaces. She entered rooms that had been soiled by soldiers, rooms whose furniture had been burned within them. She cleared out leaves and shit and urine and charred tables. She was living like a vagrant, while elsewhere the English patient reposed in his bed like a king. From outside, the place seemed devastated. An outdoor staircase disappeared in midair, its railing hanging off. Their life was foraging and tentative safety. They used only essential candlelight at night because of the brigands who annihilated everything they came across. They were protected by the simple fact that the villa seemed a ruin. But she felt safe here, half adult and half child. Coming out of what had happened to her during the war, she drew her own few rules to herself. She would not be ordered again or carry out duties for the greater good. She would care only for the burned patient. She would read to him and bathe him and give him his doses of morphine—her only communication was with him. She worked in the garden and orchard. She carried the six-foot crucifix from the bombed chapel and used it to build a scarecrow above her seedbed, hanging empty sardine cans from it which clattered and clanked whenever the wind lifted. Within the villa she would step from rubble to a candlelit alcove where there was her neatly packed suitcase, which held little besides some letters, a few rolled-up clothes, a metal box of medical supplies. She had cleared just small sections of the villa, and all this she could burn down if she wished. She lights a match in the dark hall and moves it onto the wick of the candle. Light lifts itself onto her shoulders. She is on her knees. She puts her hands on her thighs and breathes in the smell of the sulphur. She imagines she also breathes in light. She moves backwards a few feet and with a piece of white chalk draws a rectangle onto the wood floor. Then continues backwards, drawing more rectangles, so there is a pyramid of them, single then double then single, her left hand braced flat on the floor, her head down, serious. She moves farther and farther away from the light. Till she leans back onto her heels and sits crouching. She drops the chalk into the pocket of her dress. She stands and pulls up the looseness of her skirt and ties it around her waist. She pulls from another pocket a piece of metal and flings it out in front of her so it falls just beyond the farthest square. She leaps forward, her legs smashing down, her shadow behind her curling into the depth of the hall. She is very quick, her tennis shoes skidding on the numbers she has drawn into each rectangle, one foot landing, then two feet, then one again, until she reaches the last square. She bends down and picks up the piece of metal, pauses in that position, motionless, her skirt still tucked up above her thighs, hands hanging down loose, breathing hard. She takes a gulp of air and blows out the candle. Now she is in darkness. Just a smell of smoke. She leaps up and in midair turns so she lands facing the other way, then skips forward even wilder now down the black hall, still landing on squares she knows are there, her tennis shoes banging and slamming onto the dark floor—so the sound echoes out into the far reaches of the deserted Italian villa, out towards the moon and the scar of a ravine that half circles the building. Sometimes at night the burned man hears a faint shudder in the building. He turns up his hearing aid to draw in a banging noise he still cannot interpret or place. She picks up the notebook that lies on the small table beside his bed. It is the book he brought with him through the fire— a copy of The Histories by Herodotus that he has added to, cutting and gluing in pages from other books or writing in his own observations—so they all are cradled within the text of Herodotus. She begins to read his small gnarled handwriting. There is a whirlwind in southern Morocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. There is the africo, which has at times reached into the city of Rome. The aim, a fall wind out of Yugoslavia. The arifi, also christened are/or rifi, which scorches with numerous tongues. These are permanent winds that live in the present tense. There are other, less constant winds that change direction, that can knock down horse and rider and realign themselves anticlockwise. The bist roz leaps into Afghanistan for 170 days —burying villages. There is the hot, dry ghibli from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob—a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic. Imbat, a sea breeze in North Africa. Some winds that just sigh towards the sky. Night dust storms that come with the cold. The khamsin, a dust in Egypt from March to May, named after the Arabic word for “fifty,” blooming for fifty days—the ninth plague of Egypt. The datoo out of Gibraltar, which carries fragrance. There is also the ———, the secret wind of the desert, whose name was erased by a king after his son died within it. And the nafliat—a blast out of Arabia. The mezzar-ifoullousen —a violent and cold southwesterly known to Berbers as “that which plucks the fowls.” The beshabar, a black and dry northeasterly out of the Caucasus, “black wind.” The Samiel from Turkey, “poison and wind,” used often in battle. As well as the other “poison winds,” the simoom, of North Africa, and the solano, whose dust plucks off rare petals, causing giddiness. Other, private winds. Travelling along the ground like a flood. Blasting off paint, throwing down telephone poles, transporting stones and statue heads. The harmattan blows across the Sahara filled with red dust, dust as fire, as flour, entering and coagulating in the locks of rifles. Mariners called this red wind the “sea of darkness.” Red sand fogs out of the Sahara were deposited as far north as Cornwall and Devon, producing showers of mud so great this was also mistaken for blood. “Blood rains were widely reported in Portugal and Spain in 1901.” There are always millions of tons of dust in the air, just as there are millions of cubes of air in the earth and more living flesh in the soil (worms, beetles, underground creatures) than there is grazing and existing on it. Herodotus records the death of various armies engulfed in the simoom who were never seen again. One nation was “so enraged by this evil wind that they declared war on it and marched out in full battle array, only to be rapidly and completely interred.” Dust storms in three shapes. The whirl. The column. The sheet. In the first the horizon is lost. In the second you are surrounded by “waltzing Ginns.” The third, the sheet, is “copper-tinted. Nature seems to be on fire.” She looks up from the book and sees his eyes on her. He begins to talk across the darkness. The Bedouin were keeping me alive for a reason. I was useful, you see. Someone there had assumed I had a skill when my plane crashed in the desert. I am a man who can recognize an unnamed town by its skeletal shape on a map. I have always had information like a sea in me. I am a person who if left alone in someone’s home walks to the bookcase, pulls down a volume and inhales it. So history enters us. I knew maps of the sea floor, maps that depict weaknesses in the shield of the earth, charts painted on skin that contain the various routes of the Crusades. So I knew their place before I crashed among them, knew when Alexander had traversed it in an earlier age, for this cause or that greed. I knew the customs of nomads besotted by silk or wells. One tribe dyed a whole valley floor, blackening it to increase convection and thereby the possibility of rainfall, and built high structures to pierce the belly of a cloud. There were some tribes who held up their open palm against the beginnings of wind. Who believed that if this was done at the right moment they could deflect a storm into an adjacent sphere of the desert, towards another, less loved tribe. There were continual drownings, tribes suddenly made historical with sand across their gasp. In the desert it is easy to lose a sense of demarcation. When I came out of the air and crashed into the desert, into those troughs of yellow, all I kept thinking was, I must build a raft... I must build a raft. And here, though I was in the dry sands, I knew I was among water people. In Tassili I have seen rock engravings from a time when the Sahara people hunted water horses from reed boats. In Wadi Sura I saw caves whose walls were covered with paintings of swimmers. Here there had been a lake. I could draw its shape on a wall for them. I could lead them to its edge, six thousand years ago. Ask a mariner what is the oldest known sail, and he will describe a trapezoidal one hung from the mast of a reed boat that can be seen in rock drawings in Nubia. Pre-dynastic. Harpoons are still found in the desert. These were water people. Even today caravans look like a river. Still, today it is water who is the stranger here. Water is the exile, carried back in cans and flasks, the ghost between your hands and your mouth. When I was lost among them, unsure of where I was, all I needed was the name of a small ridge, a local custom, a cell of this historical animal, and the map of the world would slide into place. What did most of us know of such parts of Africa? The armies of the Nile moved back and forth—a battlefield eight hundred miles deep into the desert. Whippet tanks, Blenheim medium-range bombers. Gladiator biplane fighters. Eight thousand men. But who was the enemy? Who were the allies of this place—the fertile lands of Cyrenaica, the salt marshes of El Agheila? All of Europe were fighting their wars in North Africa, in Sidi Rezegh, in Baguoh. He travelled on a skid behind the Bedouin for five days in darkness, the hood over his body. He lay within this oil-doused cloth. Then suddenly the temperature fell. They had reached the valley within the red high canyon walls, joining the rest of the desert’s water tribe that spilled and slid over sand and stones, their blue robes shifting like a spray of milk or a wing. They lifted the soft cloth off him, off the suck of his body. He was within the larger womb of the canyon. The buzzards high above them slipping down a thousand years into this crack of stone where they camped. In the morning they took him to the far reach of the siq. They were talking loudly around him now. The dialect suddenly clarifying. He was here because of the buried guns. He was carried towards something, his blindfolded face looking straight ahead, and his hand made to reach out a yard or so. After days of travel, to move this one yard. To lean towards and touch something with a purpose, his arm still held, his palm facing down and open. He touched the Sten barrel and the hand let go of him. A pause among the voices. He was there to translate the guns. “Twelve-millimetre Breda machine gun. From Italy.” He pulled back the bolt, inserted his finger to find no bullet, pushed it back and pulled the trigger. Puht. “Famous gun,” he muttered. He was moved forward again. “French seven-point-five-millimetre Chattelerault. Light machine gun. Nineteen twenty-four.” “German seven-point-nine-millimetre MG-Fifteen air service. He was brought to each of the guns. The weapons seemed to be from different time periods and from many countries, a museum in the desert. He brushed the contours of the stock and magazine or fingered the sight. He spoke out the gun’s name, then was carried to another gun. Eight weapons formally handed to him. He called the names out loud, speaking in French and then the tribe’s own language. But what did that matter to them? Perhaps they needed not the name but to know that he knew what the gun was. He was held by the wrist again and his hand sunk into a box of cartridges. In another box to the right were more shells, seven-millimetre shells this time. Then others. When he was a child he had grown up with an aunt, and on the grass of her lawn she had scattered a deck of cards face down and taught him the game of Pelmanism. Each player allowed to turn up two cards and, eventually, through memory pairing them off. This had been in another landscape, of trout streams, birdcalls that he could recognize from a halting fragment. A fully named world. Now, with his face blindfolded in a mask of grass fibres, he picked up a shell and moved with his carriers, guiding them towards a gun, inserted the bullet, bolted it, and holding it up in the air fired. The noise cracking crazily down the canyon walls. “For echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places.” A man thought to be sullen and mad had written that sentence down in an English hospital. And he, now in this desert, was sane, with clear thought, picking up the cards, bringing them together with ease, his grin flung out to his aunt, and firing each successful combination into the air, and gradually the unseen men around him replied to each rifle shot with a cheer. He would turn to face one direction, then move back to the Breda this time on his strange human palanquin, followed by a man with a knife who carved a parallel code on shell box and gun stock. He thrived on it—the movement and the cheering after the solitude. This was payment with his skill for the men who had saved him for such a purpose. There are villages he will travel into with them where there are no women. His knowledge is passed like a counter of usefulness from tribe to tribe. Tribes representing eight thousand individuals. He enters specific customs and specific music. Mostly blindfolded he hears the water-drawing songs of the Mzina tribe with their exultations, dahhiya dances, pipe-flutes which are used for carrying messages in times of emergency, the makruna double pipe (one pipe constantly sounding a drone). Then into the territory of five-stringed lyres. A village or oasis of preludes and interludes. Hand-clapping. Antiph-onal dance. He is given sight only after dusk, when he can witness his captors and saviours. Now he knows where he is. For some he draws maps that go beyond their own boundaries and for other tribes too he explains the mechanics of guns. The musicians sit across the fire from him. The simsimiya lyre notes flung away by a gust of breeze. Or the notes shift towards him over the flames. There is a boy dancing, who in this light is the most desirable thing he has seen. His thin shoulders white as papyrus, light from the fire reflecting sweat on his stomach, nakedness glimpsed through openings in the blue linen he wears as a lure from neck to ankle, revealing himself as a line of brown lightning. The night desert surrounds them, traversed by a loose order of storms and caravans. There are always secrets and dangers around him, as when blind he moved his hand and cut himself on a double-edged razor in the sand. At times he doesn’t know if these are dreams, the cut so clean it leaves no pain, and he must wipe the blood on his skull (his face still untouchable) to signal the wound to his captors. This village of no women he has been brought into in complete silence, or the whole month when he did not see the moon. Was this invented? Dreamed by him while wrapped in oil and felt and darkness? They had passed wells where water was cursed. In some open spaces there were hidden towns, and he waited while they dug through sand into the buried rooms or waited while they dug into nests of water. And the pure beauty of an innocent dancing boy, like sound from a boy chorister, which he remembered as the purest of sounds, the clearest river water, the most transparent depth of the sea. Here in the desert, which had been an old sea where nothing was strapped down or permanent, everything drifted—like the shift of linen across the boy as if he were embracing or freeing himself from an ocean or his own blue afterbirth. A boy arousing himself, his genitals against the colour of fire. Then the fire is sanded over, its smoke withering around them. The fall of musical instruments like a pulse or rain. The boy puts his arm across, through the lost fire, to silence the pipe-flutes. There is no boy, there are no footsteps when he leaves. Just the borrowed rags. One of the men crawls forward and collects the semen which has fallen on the sand. He brings it over to the white translator of guns and passes it into his hands. In the desert you celebrate nothing but water. She stands over the sink, gripping it, looking at the stucco wall. She has removed all mirrors and stacked them away in an empty room. She grips the sink and moves her head from side to side, releasing a movement of shadow. She wets her hands and combs water into her hair till it is completely wet. This cools her and she likes it when she goes outside and the breezes hit her, erasing the thunder. 1. 别 墅 她一直在花园里干活,这会儿则站直了身子,眺望远方。她感觉到天气有了变化。又刮起了一阵大风,空气中响起一阵闷雷的声音,那棵高大的丝柏也随之摇曳起来。她转身朝坡上的房子走去,爬过一道矮墙,感觉到雨点已打在自己裸露的臂上。她穿过凉亭,迅速走进屋内。 她没有在厨房逗留,直接登上隐没在黑暗中的楼梯,沿着长长的走廊继续前行。灯光从一道敞开的房门射出,洒在长廊的尽头。 她走进房间,这里是另一个花园——墙壁和天花板上绘有树木和凉亭。那个男人躺在床上,微风吹抚着他的身子。在她进屋时,他缓缓地转过头来。 每隔四天,她便会擦洗一次他那黝黑的身体,先是从伤残的双脚开始。她沾湿一块毛巾,举到他的脚踝上方拧下水来。听到他发出喃喃的声音,她抬起头,看见了他的微笑。胫骨以 上是烧伤程度最严重的部分,深紫红色,连骨头也露出来了。 她照顾他已有好几个月了,因此对他的身体非常熟悉。耶稣的髋骨,她想。他就是她绝望的圣者。他没垫枕头,仰面平躺在床上,望着涂绘在天花板上的树叶、树冠和那片蓝天。 她往他的胸部涂上药水。这里的烧伤程度较轻,她可以触摸。她喜爱最下方一根肋骨下凹陷的肌肤。她靠向他的肩膀,朝着他的脖子吹气,他嘟哝了一句。 “什么?”她回过神来,问道。 他掉转黝黑的脸庞,一双灰色的眼睛直视着她。她把手伸进了口袋,取出李子。她用牙齿咬去李子皮,去掉内核,把果肉塞进他的嘴里。 他的低语,牵引着身旁这位年轻护土的心。与他一起进入临死前的这几个月里,他一直在挖掘回忆的深井。 那人缓缓地对着房间叙述一段段杂乱无章的往事。他在这个绘制而成的花园之中醒来,周围是蔓生的鲜花和参天大树的枝干。他想起了野餐时,曾有一个女人亲吻过他现在已经烧成紫红色的身体。 “我已在沙漠里待了好几个星期,而且根本忘了仰望月亮。”他说。就像一个已婚的男人,与妻子共同居家度日,却从不正眼瞧一下她的脸庞。这不是由于怠慢而犯下的过错,而 是因为心有旁骛。 他的眼睛盯着年轻护士的脸。只要她动一下脑袋,他的目光就会顺着她移转。她倾身向前:“你怎么受的伤?” 已近傍晚。他用指背抚弄着床单。 “我感觉到自己燃烧着掉进了沙漠。 “他们发现了我,用木棍组合成一条小船,把我拖过沙漠。我们是在一片沙海里,有时则要穿过干涸的河床。那些游牧民族的贝都因人。我的飞机坠了下去,沙堆顿时起了火。他们看见我赤裸地从火中走了出来,我头上的帽子着了火。他们把我绑在一个摇篮里,然后带着我一溜烟往前跑,脚步声劈啪作响。 “贝都因人知道火。同时,他们也知道从一九三九年起就开始从天上掉下来的飞机。他们的一些工具和用具都是用飞机和战车残骸的金属材料做成的。这时正在进行空战。他们可以听出受损飞机发出的嗡嗡声,他们也知道怎么在那些残骸之中穿行。驾驶舱的一个螺丝钉,也能成为他们灵活运用的零件。我也许是第一个从燃烧的飞机中活着钻出来的人——一个脑袋着火的人。他们并不知道我的名字。我也不了解他们的部落。” “你是谁?” “我不知道。你老是问我。” “你说过你是英国人。” 夜里,他从来都不会累得想要入睡。她总是从楼下的书房随手拿出一本书,然后读给他听。蜡烛照亮了打开的书页,映亮了年轻护士动人的面容,隐约地照出了装饰墙壁的那片树木和景观。他听着她念书,像喝水一样吞下她的话。 如果天冷了,她就轻轻爬到床上,躺在他的身边。她只要一碰到他,就会弄痛他,连那纤细的手腕都碰不得。 有时到了凌晨两点,他还睡不着,只能在黑暗中睁着眼睛。 在看见绿洲之前,他就闻到了它的味道。空气有着水的味道,还有沙沙作响的声音——那是棕榈树和缰绳。摇摆的锡罐发出深沉的声音,表示里面装满了水。 他们把油膏浇在大块软布上,把布盖在他身上。他被涂上了池膏。 他可以察觉到那个沉默的人总是待在他身旁。每隔十四个小时,他就会在夜幕降临时打开软布,在黑暗之中检查他的皮肤。当那人弯腰的时候,他能闻到他呼吸的气息。 他又是没穿衣服,赤身裸体,而旁边就是那架燃烧的飞机。他们在他身上铺上一层层灰色毛毡。他想知道是哪个伟大的民族发现了他。是哪个国家发明了这些软软的枣子,那种由他身边的那个人嚼了几口,然后塞进他嘴里的枣子。在与这些人相处的时候,他记不得自己来自何方。他只知道,他自己也许就是他在空中交战的敌人。 后来,到了比萨的医院时,他觉得自己看见了那个人的脸,那个每晚都会来到他身边,嚼软了枣子,再送进他嘴里的人。 那些夜晚毫无色彩——没有演讲和歌唱。在他醒了以后,贝都因人停止了这——切。他身处一个看来像吊床的祭坛之上,空泛地想象着自己周围聚有上百人,其中也许只有两个人发现了他,从他头上摘下那顶火帽。而他也只能根据随着枣子进入嘴中的唾液味道或奔跑的脚步声,来辨认他们。 她会坐在那里读书,书本则被摇曳的灯光映照着。她不时会打量一下别墅的走廊。这里曾是一家战时医院,她曾与别的护士住在这里,后来她们陆续走了。战火就这样向北边蔓延,而如今战争几乎已经要结束了。 在这些日子里,她感到自己身陷囹圄,而书是惟一通往外界的门。它们成了她的半个世界。她坐在床头桌前,弯着腰,读着有关印度那个小孩的故事。那个孩子学会了记住托盘中的各种珠宝和物品。教师们把盘子掷来掷去。教会了他方言,教会了他记忆的诀窍,他们教会了他逃脱被催眠的人。 那本书摊在她的腿上。她意识到自己五分多钟以来,一直看着书上渗过水的地方,以及有人为了做记号而在第十七页边角留下的折痕。她抚平了这一页,心中起了一阵骚动,像是一只老鼠跑过天花板,或是一只飞蛾在夜里落到窗户上。她朝长廊那头望去,尽管那里现在没有住着任何人——除了她和这名英国病人,圣吉洛拉莫别墅没有别人。房子那头的果园被炸得坑坑洼洼,她在里面种了蔬菜,足够他们食用。每隔一阵子,会有一个人从城里过来,她就会拿肥皂、床单和这个战时医院剩下的东西,与其交换别的日常用品——一些豆子,一些肉。那人曾给她两瓶葡萄酒,此后每晚当她躺在英国人身边看着他睡着后,她就会煞有其事地给自己倒上一小杯,然后把它放回床头柜上,继续阅读正在看的书。 为英国人读的那些书——不管他是否认真地听——情节支离破碎,就像是被暴风雨冲垮的公路,故事缺头少尾,仿佛被蝗虫吞噬过的织锦,仿佛被轰炸震松的灰泥,到了夜晚就会从壁画处掉下来。 她和英国人现在居住的别墅就很像这个样子。有些房间一片狼藉,根本进不去。月光和雨水经由一个弹坑渗进了楼下的书房,书房的一角放着一把永远是湿漉漉的安乐椅。 就书中不全的情节而言,她并不担心英国人是否介意。她也不为遗失的章节做摘要概述。她只是拿出那本书,说道“九十六页”或“一百一十一页”。这是惟一的出处。她抓起他的双于贴到自己脸上,闻着它们——它们仍有生病的气味。 “你的手越来越粗了。”他说。 “拔草拔蓟,挖这挖那。” ‘小心一点。我告诉过你要留意危险。” “我知道。” 接着她开始读书。 她的父亲跟她谈过手,是跟狗爪子有关的事。每当她的父亲和狗单独待在屋里时,他会弯腰闻一闻爪子的底部。他会说,这好像来自一个白兰地酒杯的气息,这是世上最了不起的 气味!芬芳怡人!带着惊心动魄的旅途传说!她会故作反感,但是狗爪的确是很奇妙:它的气味从来不会让人联想起肮脏与污秽。它是一座大教堂!她的父亲曾说:某某人的花园,某块 草地,从樱草属植物中间走过——爪子显示了这只动物白天踏过的所有小路。 天花板上一阵骚动,像是一只老鼠窜过。她又将目光从书本上移开,抬起头来观看。 他们揭下敷在他脸上的草药。这一天有日蚀,他们正在等着日蚀。他在哪里?这个懂得预测天气和光线的民族是什么文明国家?不是阿赫马就是阿比亚德,因为他们肯定是西北方沙漠的一个部落。他们逮到了一个来自空中的人,用绿洲芦苇编成面罩盖住他的脸。他现在能辨别芳草的方向了。这世界上他心爱的花园是基尤的芳草园,色彩缤纷,就像山上的榕木层次分明。 他凝视笼罩于日蚀下的大地。他们这时已经教会他抬起胳膊,自宇宙之中指引力量进入他的体内。他躺在毛毡和树枝做成的轿子中,看见昏暗的天空中,火鸟从他的眼前逝去。 他的皮肤总是被浇上油膏,总是被黑暗淹没。一天晚上,他似乎听到了风声,过了一会儿,声音停了,他也带着渴望睡着了——他渴望着那个像是从鸟的喉咙发出的柔弱声音。也许是火鸟,-或是被人放进缝了一半的外衣口袋里的一只狐狸。 第二天,当他又被用布包住时,他听到了青草的沙沙声——黑暗之中发出的噪音。到了黎明,毛毡被打开了,他看见一张长着人类脑袋的桌子朝他移了过来,后来他才意识到那是 一个人扛着一个巨大的扁担,扁担上挂着用长度不等的绳子和铁丝绑起来的几百个小瓶子,瓶子一晃动,看来就像是张水晶帘子,他的身子被裹在其中。 这个形象很像他以前临摹的大部分天使长画像。那时他是一个学童,从来都弄不清楚一个人的身体怎么能有地方长出这样一对翅膀。那人迈着大步,那么平稳,瓶子几乎都没倾 斜。一道水晶的波浪,一个天使长,瓶中的油膏被太阳烤热了,抹到皮肤上时,仿佛是专门为了治伤而加了热。在他身后是转化的亮光——在烟雾和尘沙中闪烁着的蓝色和其它色彩。 微弱的玻璃声,多样的色彩,威武的步伐,还有他的脸庞,像是长熗一样,又瘦又黑。 凑近一看,玻璃粗糙,喷过了沙,已经失去了文明的光泽。每一个瓶子都有一个很小的塞子。那人用牙齿咬下塞子,含在嘴里,把这瓶的油膏和另一个瓶子的油膏——第二个瓶 塞,也含在他嘴里——混在一起。长着翅膀的他,弯腰站在仰卧的那具烧伤躯体旁边,将两根棍子深深插入沙子里,然后卸下六尺长的扁担,将它用那两根棍子平衡支撑着。他从自己的铺子下面走了出来。他跪了下来,来到被火烧伤的飞行员跟前,伸出冰冷的双手扶起他。 在这条从苏丹北部到吉萨,又名“四十天路”的骆驼道上,行人都认识他。遇上商队,他就交换香料和水,然后跋涉于绿洲和水边的营地之间。他穿着这件挂满了小瓶子的大衣走 出暴风沙,耳朵塞着另外两个小木塞,所以他看来似乎就是一个容器,这个行商的医生,这个油膏、香水和灵丹妙药之王,这个施洗礼者。他会走进营地,在任何—个伤员面前架起这道瓶帘。 他在这个烧伤患者旁边蹲下,盘腿而坐,仰身向后,连看都没看就抓了某些瓶子。打开每一个小瓶子以后,香味散发了出来。这是海的气息、铁锈的气味。墨水、沙泥、箭木、甲醛、石蜡、乙醚……杂乱的气味搅在一起。远处的骆驼闻到了,于是尖叫起来。他开始往他的胸部揉擦着黑绿色的药膏。这是磨碎的孔雀骨头,是从西边或南边的阿拉伯居住区换来 的——是治疗皮肤伤口的最佳药材。 在厨房和被炸毁的小教堂之间,有个门通往椭圆形的书房。那里似乎是个安全的地方,只是在悬挂肖像的墙壁上有一个大洞,那是炮弹炸的——两个月前迫击炮对别墅炸了一阵。 房间其余的地方已习惯了这个大大的“伤口”,承受着天气的转换,星光的照耀,还有小鸟的歌唱。里面放着一张沙发,一架套了灰色布罩的钢琴,一个制成了标本的黑熊脑袋。高高的书架靠着墙壁,上面堆着无数本书。最靠近这个墙壁的书架饱经了风雨的欺凌,书的重量增加了一倍。闪电一再闯进屋子,照亮了钢琴和地毯。 对面是已被木板钉死的落地窗。如果落地窗开着,她就可以从书房走到凉亭,然后带着一颗忏悔的心迈出三十六步,经过小教堂,来到—一片已被炸得千疮百孔而不存在昔日青翠模样的草地。撤离的时候,德军在许多房子里埋了地雷,所以闲置不用的房间—就像这一间——为了安全起见都被封了,房门与门框被钉在一起。 她蹑手蹑脚溜进屋里,走进了午后的幽暗之中。她心中清楚存在着危险。她站住不动,突然意识到自己的重量正压在木质地板上,心想这份重量很可能引发某个机关。她的双脚踏在尘土之中。惟一的光亮从迫击炮炸出的窟窿照了进来,那个锯齿般的圆洞直对天空。 哐啷一声,像是拆卸金属的声音。她抽出了《大地英豪》,在半明半暗中,看到封面上的蔚蓝天空、湖泊,以及前景的那个印第安人,她的心中一阵激动。然后,仿佛屋里有个人不能惊动,她倒着往回走,为了安全起见踩着自己的脚印—这也是一个不为人知的游戏。从这些脚步来看,似乎她进了房间之后,整个血肉之躯就不知去向了。她关上房门,重新弄好警告的封条。 她来到英国病人的房间,坐到窗台上面,一边是绘画的墙壁,一边是山谷。她打开书本,书已紧紧地贴在——起。她觉得自己像是鲁滨逊,找到一本沉人海中以后被冲到了岸上而晾干的书。一七五七年的叙事小说,N·C·韦思插图。如同所有最好的书一样,这本书有一页插图目录,每——幅插图都有—行文字说明。 她走进了故事之中,知道当自己从那里出来的时候,会感到像是体验了别人的生活。随着情节的推展回到二十年前,她的身子浮沉在句子和片段之中,仿佛一觉醒来,—时想不起来做了什么梦而觉得头重脚轻。 这个意大利小镇是西北通道的要塞,曾被围困了一个多月,轰炸集中于周围分布着果园的两座别墅和修道院。果园种着苹果和李子。麦迪奇别墅住着将军们。上面—点就是圣吉洛拉莫别墅,这里从前是一个女修道院,像城堡般的城垛建筑使它成了德军的最后一个据点一百多名士兵住在这里。随着山镇开始受到炮火的袭击,这里被炸得土崩瓦解,像海上的战舰一样摇摇欲沉。那些士兵从果园的帐篷里搬到昔日的女修道院,住进了拥挤的房间。小教堂的一部分已被炸毁,别墅顶楼的一部分也被炸坍。盟军最后接收了这个房子,把它改成了医院,封死了通往三楼的楼梯。一截烟囱和屋顶在战火中逃过了一劫。 其他的护士和伤员都搬到南面一个较安全的地点去了,而她和英国人则坚持留了下来。在这一段时间里,他们因为断了电觉得很冷——有些面朝山谷的房间还没了墙壁。她只要打开一道门,就可能会看到墙边放着一张潮湿的床,上面盖着树叶。房门大开,户外景致清晰可见,有些房间已经成了敞门的鸟舍。 土兵们撤走时放了一把火,楼梯的下半截已在大火中烧掉了。她去了书房,取来了二十本书,把它们钉在地板上,一本叠着一本,重新修好了楼梯最底端的两阶。大多数的椅子被拿来生火。书房的安乐椅仍在那里,它总是湿的,夜间的暴风雨总透过迫击炮弹炸出的窟窿淋得它透湿。湿透的东西在一九四五年的四月都没有被烧毁。 床只剩下几张。她本人喜欢在房子里面居无定所,打地铺睡吊床,有时睡在英国病人的房间,有时睡在走廊,一切取决于气温、风向和光线。到了清晨,她卷起被褥,用绳子绑好。现在的天气暖和了些,她打开了更多的房间,好让黑暗的角落通风,并让阳光照在潮湿的地方。有时到了夜间,她打开房门,睡在墙壁倒塌的房间。她睡在房间边缘的小床上,面对飘移的星辰和移动的云彩,在雷电的怒吼声中醒来。她年方二十,年少轻狂,毫不顾及安危,毫不惧怕书房可能埋着地雷,也不在意夜晚把她惊醒的雷声。严冬过后,她有许多事要忙,因此时常待在黑暗的屋里。她走进了曾被士兵们弄脏的房间,里面的家具已被烧掉了。她清走了树叶、粪便和烧焦的桌子。她生活得像一个流浪汉,而在另一个地方,英国病人却像一个国王,安睡在床上。 从外观看来,这个地方似乎已被炸毁了。室外的楼梯被炸掉了半截,栏杆悬挂在半空。他们过着饱一顿饥一顿的生活,时刻都有危险。到了夜里,他们不会多点上一支蜡烛,害怕土匪途经这里毁坏了一切。他们安然无恙,仅仅因为别墅似乎已经成了废墟。经历了这场战争,她给自己立下了几条原则。她再也不会听任别人发号施令,也不会为任何伟大的目的尽什么义务。她只打算照顾那位烧伤患者。 她在花园和果园里工作。她从炸毁的小教堂搬来了六英尺高的十字架,把它竖在苗床上,挂上沙丁鱼的空罐头,装扮成二个稻草人。每当起风的时候,空罐头就会叮当作响。当她置身于别墅之中时,她会从废墟旁走到被烛火照亮的壁龛,那里放着收拾整齐的皮箱,皮箱里除了—些信件、几件折叠好的衣服和一个装了医疗用品的铁匣子之外,没有多少其它东西。她已清出了别墅的一小部分。如果愿意的话,她可以把这些东西全都烧掉。 她在黑暗的走廊划起一根火柴,点燃了蜡烛。烛光照亮了她的双肩。她跪了下来,双手放在大腿上,吸进了硫磺的气味。她想象着自己吸进了光明。 她退后几步,拿出一根粉笔在木质地板上画了一个方格。接着继续后退,又画了几个方格,画出了一个塔—先是一个方格,然后是两个方格,然后又是一个方格。她的左手撑在地板上,低着头,一本正经的样子。她离开烛光越来越远。最后,她仰起了身子蹲坐着。 她把粉笔装进裙子的口袋,撩起裙子的下摆系在腰间。她又从另一个口袋里摸出一块金属,扔到前面,正好落在最远的那个方格外侧。 她往前一跳,重重地踩了下去,她的身影在身后弯曲,延伸到走廊的尽头。她动作敏捷,网球鞋踩着画在每个方格里的数字。一只脚着地、两只脚着地,然后又是一只脚着地,直到她跳进最后一个方格。 她弯腰捡起金属块,停在那里一动不动,她的裙摆仍然系在腰间,双手下垂,大口喘着气。她吸了一口·气,然后吹熄了蜡烛。 现在她陷入黑暗之中,只能闻到一股烟味。 她起身一跃,在半空中转身,落地的时候面朝另一边,然后狂野地跳向远处,停在漆黑的那头,仍然落在她知道就在那里的方格里。她的网球鞋踩响了黑暗的地板——因而在这座废弃的意大利别墅的深处响起了回声,回声传向了月亮,传到了溪谷的峭壁之上。溪谷半绕着房子。 有时到了夜里,那个烧伤患者会听到别墅里有微弱的颤动声。他调大助听器,听到了砰的一声,却无法明白那是什么声音,也不知道那声音来自何方。 她拿起放在床头柜上的笔记本。这是他从火中带出来的,上面抄了希罗多德的《历史》,还加上了一些别的内容,有的是从别的书上剪贴下来的,有的是他写的读后感——全都塞进了希罗多德的文中。 她开始阅读他那潦草的小字。 摩洛哥南部的旋风叫阿捷治,阿拉伯的农民拿着刀子与之搏斗。阿非里可风有时会刮到罗马城。阿尔姆风是自南斯拉夫吹来的—种秋风。阿利非风又叫阿里夫风或里非风,它吹干了众多人的舌头。现在常刮这些风。 还有其它不常刮的风,它们改变方向,它们可以刮倒马匹和行人,还能集聚力量逆向大刮一番。从阿富汗兴起的比斯特罗兹风狂刮一百七十天——可以埋没村庄人家。来自突尼斯的吉勃利风炎热干燥,这种风一旦席卷而来,着实让人慌神。哈布风——苏丹的一种沙暴,可以卷起千尺高黄澄澄的沙墙,并在随后带来暴雨。哈麦丹风呼呼地吹过大地,直刮到大西洋才消踪匿迹。伊姆巴特风是北非一种轻微的海风。有些风只是叹息着刮向天空。夜间的沙暴刮来寒意。喀新风是埃及境内一种挟带着沙尘的风,从三月刮到五月,它是用阿拉伯语中的“五十”来命名的,因为它肆虐五十天——埃及第九大天灾。直布罗陀海峡刮出的达突风则吹送着芳香。 还有就是一种沙漠的神秘风——纳夫哈特风——它的名字已被一个国王抹去,因为他的儿子死在风中,这是起自阿拉伯半岛的狂风。梅萨——伊伏鲁森风——一种猛烈而寒冷的西南风,柏柏尔人说它是“拔去飞禽羽毛的风”。贝沙巴尔风,来自高加索一种乌黑而干燥的东北风,又叫“黑风”。萨米尔风来自土耳其,又叫“毒风”,常在战斗中被人利用。还有别的“毒风”,来自北非的西蒙风,以及索兰诺风,它们的沙尘摧残珍贵的花瓣,让人头昏目眩。 还有其它鲜为人知的风,像洪流一样扫过大地。刮去油漆,掀倒电线杆,吹掉石头和雕像的头部。哈麦丹风吹过撒哈拉沙漠,挟带着红色的沙尘,沙尘如火,如粉,刮进了步熗的熗栓,并且凝结在上面。水手们把这种红色风暴叫作“黑暗之海”。撒哈拉的红色沙尘向北可以吹到康沃尔郡和德文郡,下阵雨时雨水中也会含有大量的红泥,被人当成是血。“据说在一九O一年,葡萄牙和西班牙多处下了血雨。” 空气中总是悬着几百万吨的沙尘,就像地球上几百万立方米的空气一样,就像土壤里的生物(蚯蚓、甲虫和地下生物)多于在土壤上生存的生物一样。希罗多德记录了众多的大军被西蒙风吞没,再也没有人见到过他们的奇闻。有一个民族“被这种邪恶的狂风激怒了,于是他们对它宣战,摆开阵势冲了进去,结果被迅速而彻底地埋葬了。” 沙暴分为三种。旋风沙暴、柱体沙暴、横面沙暴。起了第一种沙暴时,地平线消失了踪影。起了第二种沙暴时,便被“跳着华尔兹的魔鬼”围在当中。第三种沙暴——即横面沙暴——“呈黄铜色,自然界似乎着了火。” 她从书上抬起头,看见他的眼光落在她的身上。他开始在黑暗之中讲话。 “贝都因人留我活着是有原因的。我很有用。飞机在沙漠坠毁时我没有死,那时有人断定我拥有某种技术。我可以根据地图上的轮廓,识别一个不知名的城镇。我似乎已掌握了浩瀚的知识。当我独自一人在家中时,我会走到书架前,取下一本书来,然后迫不及待地读着。所以我熟知历史。我看得懂海底地图,也看得懂地表薄弱地带的地图,以及绘有十字军纷杂行军路线的兽皮图形。 “所以当飞机坠毁在他们那里之前,我就知道他们那个地方,知道古时候亚历山大大帝为丁贪婪的原因,曾君临该地。我知道游牧民族迷恋丝绸和水井的习俗。有一个部落为了促进空气对流、增加降雨的可能,把整个山谷涂成了黑色,并且筑起了高台,刺穿云彩的底部。有些部落在起风的时候,会朝着风亮出他们的手心。他们相信只要在恰当的时机这么做,就可以转移风向,引导沙暴刮向沙漠中的邻近地区,刮向另一个不大讨人喜欢的部落!有人被沙暴吞没,有的部落突然消失在风尘之中,成为历史。 “在沙漠中容易丧失界域感。我从空中落下,摔进了沙漠,落人这些黄色的沙海里,当时我一心想着,我得做个木筏……我得做个木筏。 “在这里,虽然我在干燥的细沙之中,但我知道我是身处在渔民之中。 “在塔西里,我曾见过远古的岩画,上面画着撒哈拉人划着芦苇筏子猎杀水马。在苏拉干涸河道,我曾见过洞壁画着人们游泳情景的岩洞。这里曾有一个湖泊。我可以为他们在墙上画出湖泊的模样,我可以领着他们前往六千年前的湖边。 “问一个水手什么是已知最古老的船帆,他会描绘在阿拉伯半岛见过的船帆——一叶芦苇舟的桅杆扬着梯形船帆。在建立王朝之前,沙漠里仍能发现鱼叉。时至今日,商队看上去就像一条河。可是,今天这里已经没有水了。水已远走他乡了,必须用铁罐和瓶子装运回来,它成了游荡在手和嘴之间的鬼魂。 “当我迷失在他们之中,浑然不知身在何方时,我只需要一座小桥的名字、一种当地的风俗、一个当地人作为线索,就可以知道那张世界地图上的坐标。 “我们大多数人对非洲这些地方有多少了解?尼罗河的大军往返于南北之间——战场深入沙漠八百英里。快速轻型战车,布伦亨中程轰炸机,斗士式双翼战斗机,八千名战士。但谁是敌人?谁是这个地方——昔兰尼加富饶的土地,阿盖拉的盐沼——的盟军?所有的欧洲国家都在北非打仗,在西迪雷兹格打仗,在巴古奥打仗。” 他躺在滑板上面,跟在贝都因人后面走了五个晚上,身上被罩得紧紧的,他的身子裹着浸了油的布。随后气温突然起了变化。他们到达了那个山谷,山谷的四周是高耸的红色岩壁。他们与散落在沙子和岩石上的其他渔民部落会合在一起,他们的蓝色袍子像洒落的牛奶或振动的翅膀般飘动。他们从他身上揭去那块软布,但软布已紧粘在他的身上。他置身于大峡谷的怀抱之中。空中的小虫飞人这个石缝,它们在这里安身扎营已有千年之久。 到了早晨,他们把他带到了一个地方。他们在他的周围高谈阔论。他突然听懂了这种方言,他被带到这里,因为这里埋了熗。 他被抬到什么东西跟前,被蒙住了眼睛的脸面对前方,有人拉着他的手,领着他走出了二码开外。经过几天的旅途,他就走了这一码远。倾身向前,碰到了什么东西,有人仍然抓着他的手臂,张开手掌,掌心向下。他摸到了司登轻型机熗的熗管,那双手放开丁他。众人停止说话。他到这里是要解释这些熗支。 “十二毫米口径布瑞达机熗。意大利制造的。” 他拉回熗机,探进他的手指,没有发现子弹。他推回熗机,扣动了扳机。砰!“名熗。”他含混地说。有人又拉着他向前。 “法国七点五毫米口径查特洛轻型机熗。一九二四年制造。” “德国七点九毫米MG一15空用机熗。” 他被带到每——支熗前。这些武器好像属于不同的时期,来自许多不同的国家,这是沙漠中的一个博物馆。他擦着弹盒的外壳和熗托,或者摸着瞄准具。他说出熗的名字,然后又被带到另一支熗前。八件武器被正式递到他的手里。他大声地说出熗的名字,先用法语,然后用这个部落的语言。但是这对他们有何重要?也许他们并不需要了解熗的名字,而是需要了解他知道这是什么熗。 有人又抓住了他的手腕,把他的手探进弹药盒。右边的弹药盒装有更多的子弹,这一次是七毫米口径的子弹。然后是别的炮弹。 他是姑姑带大的。姑姑在草坪上摊了一层面朝下的纸牌,教会了他玩牌,来训练他的记忆力。每个人依次翻开两张牌,然后凭着记忆配对子。这里是另一片天地,他从片段的记忆中,可以辨认出潺潺流水和鸟鸣。—个有名有实的世界。现在,他的脸被草编的面罩蒙住了。他捡起了一颗子弹,指引抬他的人走到一支熗前,装进了子弹,拉上了熗栓,举熗对着空中射击。熗声在峡谷的四周回荡,响得很。“因为回声是空谷中灵魂活跃的声音。”一个被认为是疯疯癫癫的人,在一家英国医院里写下了这句话。他现在虽然置身于沙漠之中,却是理智的,思维清晰,捡起纸牌轻易地把它们放在一起,冲着姑姑笑得合不拢嘴,冲着天空成功地打出一组组子弹,身边看不见的人逐渐对每一熗报以欢呼。他转身面对另一方向,由众人扛着他回到那挺布瑞达机熗跟前,后面跟着一个拿刀的人。那人在子弹盒和熗托做上对应的记号。他对此饶有兴趣——在被禁闭一段时间以后可以活动身体,并且听到别人的欢呼。为了报答救他命的人,他展现了自己的技艺。 他随他们进人的那个村子没有女人。他的知识像一个有用的筹码,从一个部落传至另一个部落——代表八万人的部落。他接触了独特的风俗和音乐。大部分的时候,他是在蒙住眼睛的情况下听着密兹纳部落喜气洋洋唱起了汲水歌,跳起了达希亚舞,吹起了情况紧急时用来通风报信的风笛,就是马克鲁纳双排风笛(一排风笛老是奏着一种低沉的乐声)。接着陶醉在五弦竖琴的音域当中。他们拍着手应和,轮流歌唱起舞。乐声在村子、绿洲中回荡着。 只有在过了黄昏,他才得到允许可以看看四周,这时,他可以看见俘获他的人,和拯救他的人。现在他知道了自己身在何处。他为一些部落绘制了他们疆界外的地图,也为其它的部落讲解了熗械的结构。乐师们坐在营火对面,一阵微风吹落了西姆西姆亚竖琴的乐谱,或者说乐谱飘过跳跃的火焰,飘向他这个方向。火光中,有个男孩在跳舞,男孩是最令人赏心悦目的景物。他那瘦削的肩膀像纸一样白,火光映出了肚子上的汗水。肌肤在蓝亚麻布袍子的开口间若隐若现,他穿的袍子上起脖子下到脚踝都有开口,因而他的身子像是一道黄色的闪电。 夜晚的沙漠包围了他们,偶尔会有沙暴和商队经过。他的周围充满了神秘和危险,要是在被蒙住眼睛的时候,动了一下手,他就会被沙子中的一把双层刮胡刀片给割伤。有时他不知道这些是不是梦,伤口那么干净,没有一点痛楚,他必须擦去头上的血(他的脸仍然碰不得),向俘获他的人示意他受了伤。他被带进了这个没有女人的村子,村里鸦雀无声,有时整整—个月见不到月亮。这是杜撰的吗?抑或是他在被裹进油膏、毛毡和黑暗中时的梦境?他们经过了曾遭诅咒的水井。在某些空旷的地方,那里有隐没的城镇。在他们挖起沙子发掘淹没的房屋时,他在一旁等着、或者在他们挖出水洼时,他在一旁看着。那个天真的舞童展现了纯洁的美,就像一个唱诗班男孩的歌声,在他的记忆中,那是最纯洁的声音,最明净的河水,最清澈的大海深处。这片沙漠在远古时期曾有一个大海。没有什么永久不变,…—切都漂移不定——像在那个男孩身上抖动的亚麻布袍子。他似乎是在拥抱自己,或者是在摆脱大海的束缚,或者从蓝色的袍衣中破茧而出。火光映照着一个孩子的生殖器。 接着营火被沙子埋没了,余烟在他们身边缭绕,乐器的乐声像是脉搏或雨点。那个男孩伸出手臂,伸过埋没的营火,止住了风笛。男孩不见了,在他离去以后,没有留下脚印,只有腊来的破衣破衫。一个人爬上前去,拾起掉在沙子上的精液。他拿给讲解熗械的白人,递到他的手里。在沙漠里,你只会赞美水。 她俯身靠近水槽,抓住它,看着石灰墙。她取走了所有的镜子,把它们堆在一个空房间里。她抓住水槽,左右摇着脑袋,她的影子随之摇动。她双手沾了水梳着头发,一直梳到头发完全湿了。她喜欢这样,这样令她感到凉快。她走到外面,微风迎面吹来,消去了雷声。 |