25

A Great Good Still To Do

Kwert woke, weak as water from his long sleep, hardly able to raise his head above his blankets, Brother Langer seeing to all his bodily needs and waste excreta without comment, judgement or disgust. Never had folk like Philbert and Kwert been stranded upon his beach, but once there they became his ­primary concern, his only duty being to care for them until they were well enough to leave. The Öde Insel, as his island was called, was in the ownership and bailiwick of Langer’s Abbey and therefore as much a sanctuary for anyone pitched up within its gates.

He was an odd combination, Philbert came to understand, hermit on the one side, socialite the other; quiet as a mustard seed one moment, spilling out his life story like grain to a goose the next. All year round he was alone on his island, apart from sporadic visits by Gruftgang and occasionally Fatzke, and even more occasionally by strangers directed from the Abbey to seek his wisdom; until once a year – and once a year only – when he threw himself out into the world with the energy of a coiled snake Then he went down to the Cloth Market at the Abbey, putting puppets onto his toes to make the children laugh, collecting the annual stipend of food-stuffs to last out his solitude for the year that would follow.

And now here were Philbert and Kwert on Langer’s Öde Insel, picked and polished like driftwood beneath Langer’s jurisdiction, biding with him and his goats and the fish that teemed in the lake beyond. These last Langer caught, gutted, salted, smoked and ate, as did Philbert whilst he was with him. They also made bread from sacks of thick, bran-brindled flour rubbed through with butter and water and griddled into scones on the fire, or made into pancakes, or strange-tasting strudels topped with honey and cream. He also had his bees and a small orchard; too early for fruit, but still a few apples stowed for the winter in wooden boxes in the barn, and pickled pears and cherries, ­sugared apricots, dried plums and peaches, walnuts and almonds, all of which Langer gave freely to his guests.

And because of Langer’s largesse and care Kwert awoke on their third morning, and a few days later was able to get up, the purple bruises on his face and body faded into yellow, although it seemed to Philbert that his skin had got thinner, as if wasps were coming in at night and scrape, scrape, scraping little slivers of it away like they did to wood to make their nests. The first thing Kwert did, once conscious, apart from introductions and effusive thanks, was to have Philbert read to him from the Philocalia, which Philbert did, Brother Langer being the one this time to help out with words he didn’t understand, intrigued by the discovery that Kwert was a Hesychast, admiring the independence of that diasporic order who valued private ­meditation with their God above all else. A week later, Kwert still couldn’t walk without wobbling hopelessly on his crane-fly legs, but Brother Langer’s mention of the upcoming Cloth Market spurred him on.

‘The perfect time for us to sift into the crowds and disappear,’ Kwert proposed, at which point Brother Langer asked Philbert to come and help him in the smokehouse, but stopped before opening the door.

‘You should stay,’ he said. ‘You and Kwert. I know he’s intent on taking you off, but he’s very frail for such a journey and I can be back in a few days. Fatzke always takes me and brings me back, and we only ever stay a night or two at the Abbey.’

Philbert wore his Ullendorf hat to keep away the gnats that rose like a mist from the damp of the orchards in early evening and rippled across the shallow waters about the island, dancing on the backs of newly emerged dragonflies sleeping on the reeds. He shuffled his feet, not knowing what to say. Brother Langer opened the door of the smoke-house, began to flip the fish on their shelves with wooden spatulas, his shadow large, suddenly engulfing Philbert as he turned.

‘You must know,’ Langer went on, ‘that Kwert will go if he is given the opportunity. He knows how unhappy you are, how much you want to find your Fair.’

Philbert winced. He’d not thought he was so easy to read. Langer sighed, cracking his knees as he suddenly squatted down.

‘He wants to protect you, Philbert, but he’s not strong. If you go, it is you who will have to take the burden if he gets ill again. And he will get ill again.’

He tilted Philbert’s hat back with a fish-wielding spatula so he could look the boy in the eye. From any other head than his the hat would have fallen to the ground, but it was jammed onto Philbert’s and did not much waver, no more did Langer’s direct gaze.

‘We sometimes have to make decisions we don’t feel ready for,’ Langer said, ‘but this decision, Philbert, has to be yours. Not that you need make it right now. But please think about it, take a little more time to plan what you must do and where you must go.’ He put a hand to Philbert’s cheek for a moment before releasing him. ‘Just promise me you’ll think about it.’

Philbert did, trying to untangle the jumble of packages that lay unsorted in his head, to untie the strings and scrutinize the contents, get everything in its proper place. Go or stay, his ­decision. He thought about the little trapdoor removed so ­skilfully by Ullendorf from his head, the great gift Ullendorf had given him by allowing the rest of the world passage in; how ever since he’d been slowly realising other people did not exist as mere adjuncts to himself, but that he was an adjunct to them; everything he did, every move he made, could have ­consequences for those around him, and no more so than now. He’d killed people, real people who had names and families and lives beyond his own; and the longer he stayed on this island the more likely it was that someone would eventually come looking for him here. And if that happened, when that happened – for he was suddenly certain that it would – then the consequences for those who’d helped him – for Kadia, Fatzke, Gruftgang and Brother Langer – could be dire. He’d already had more good luck than anyone had a right to. Time then for Philbert to stand up and be strong. Time to take his life in his own hands and not look for others to save him, time instead to put others before himself. Decision made.

Their last night on the island, and the fire was burning low, scarlet streaks across the western sky, tree bark glowing orange, grass a deep and vibrant green. They stared into the failing light of the flames as Philbert began to read a passage from the Philocalia, one Kwert had helped him choose and rehearse ­especially for Brother Langer, from the words of John Chrysostom:

Would you go into the abode of goodness, and the tents of the blessed?

Then go into the mountains, the forests, and the deserts.

See the birds flying, feel the breeze through the trees and the soft wind blowing;

Bathe in the streams flowing through the ravines.

For here is a man’s solitude and his strength;

A time away from the ever rolling waves.

All was quiet as Philbert read those words, Kwert hunched over his makeshift crutches by the campfire Philbert had built and lit, Brother Langer poking at the ash with his bare toes, drawing up his cassock over the round hills of his knees.

‘That was beautiful,’ Langer said after a few moments silence.

‘It’s you,’ Philbert said simply, and Brother Langer smiled his lopsided smile.

‘I wish you wouldn’t go,’ he said. ‘You could stay here and be safe.’

A few more moments of quiet between them all while the embers smouldered and sighed, and the night birds made soft squawks in the reeds around the island’s bays.

‘You have moles,’ said Kwert, changing the subject, pointing at the small brown archipelago on Brother Langer’s calf. ‘Shall I read them for you?’

Brother Langer laughed. ‘Why not, sir? Every man is entitled to his trade.’

Kwert creaked a little closer to his reading, moving his ­broken-nailed fingers over Brother Langer’s isles.

‘You are loyal and generous and have travelled far.’

‘You astound me, Kwert,’ the Brother replied, ‘but have I not already told you so much myself? Why not tell me of other things yet to come?’

The tospirologist in Kwert could not help but take up the challenge and he bent to look the better, shifting his head to catch the light of the dying fire.

‘You have sought and you have found,’ he said, easing himself into the patter. ‘And you have two larger moles with four smaller clustered around.’

He paused a moment, looking hard at Brother Langer’s leg as the evening dark began to spread its blue across the sky, then made a small noise in his throat, as if having a sudden revelation.

‘There’s a great good in you still to do,’ Kwert said quietly, ‘and it will not be long in coming.’

Philbert smiled. It was a common trick Philbert had seen Kwert perform a great many times. In a moment Kwert would turn back and gaze intently at his subject’s face and come out with some short and pithy homily about man doing good to man; but not this time. Instead Kwert shifted his gaze across the water, seeking out the shore on which they’d arrived.

‘A great good,’ he murmured. And that was that. Philbert raised his eyebrows but Kwert would not look at him. Langer laughed obligingly, his belly rolling, and pulled his cassock down to cover his legs and his moles.

‘Not me, Kwert, old friend, not me. The only good I do out here is for myself. The moles have got it wrong.’

‘The moles are never wrong,’ Kwert retorted quickly, his soft smile hidden amongst the fading flush of his bruises. ‘Are they, Little Maus?’

‘Never!’ Philbert replied earnestly, just as he’d been taught. Of course they could be, as could any one of a million pre­dictions given by fortune tellers the world over, but in the case of Brother Langer, Kwert was proved exactly right.