The Frenchman was the only modern being to have explored the Vorrh, to enter its interior and scribble down some of its detail. The only one—and all his perilous journey had been fiction. What better way was there to trespass on the sacred and the forbidden?
He had, of course, read or held the weight of every volume related to its existence. He had absorbed all the obscure and fantastic accounts of travellers who had returned by the skin of their teeth, having been hunted by the anthropophagi, the Artabatitai, the dog-headed Hemikunes, and all manner of fabulous denizens, representative of every forest in the world, which had been sucked into the mythical whirlpool of the Vorrh. He knew of the saviour of the forest, the fabled Black Man of Many Faces, and saw in it another reworking of the Green Man of Europe; he owned copies and private translations of Euthymenes the Massilian and late medieval renditions of Scylax of Caryanda; he had marvelled at the tall tales of Sir John Mandeville, stories of the horrors and wonders to be found in the uncharted depth of unknown lands. He had ploughed through the works of Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, even tried to find the famous mummies that had been bought by René Caillié and shipped, on a tortuous route through Timbuktu, back to France, where over the latter years of forgetfulness they had become “misplaced.” He had read all the fact and all the fiction, and in later days of need and intrigue, he had created his own version, cut out of the jungles of all the other words, their slippery shadows of meaning translated into a rich weft of description. He had re-seen each moment and the backdrop of the eternal, savage forest. His writing had given it life, with all the detail of its population.
The Frenchman, Charlotte, and a reluctant chauffeur had driven into Essenwald, through the outskirts of mud and rushes to its fired foundations of imported German dogma. Their huge car heaved and jolted on the deeply rutted road. It was the first-ever motor caravan, a grandiose collision of baroque parlour and expensive, petrol-driven truck, which he had invented specifically for long-distance travel. During the day, the three travellers would be separated, each sweating in a different compartment of the vehicle, the varnished dark-brown interiors sweltering in the buckling heat. The chauffeur was forced to wear his uniform at all times, even in the blistering temperatures. Only at night would his nakedness be tolerated and his name allowed.
Charlotte was paid to stay close, to be the lifelong companion to her neighbour in the eighth arrondissement. She did this with understanding and gratitude, and because she was drawn to such stray dogs—even the noble ones.
The Frenchman’s mother paid for Charlotte’s attentions, paid for everything. She knew of her son’s weakness and something of his genius. She doted on him, and her love would have devoured him completely if she had not had a greater suitor. That suitor was heroin, and it determinedly won all conflicts of emotion and care. So Charlotte was employed to be her stand-in, the visible female pillar to which the Frenchman would be publicly leashed. This way, he could strain against something external and always have a place to return to, scratch against, and abuse.
Charlotte had a face that should have been loved. Her overpowering eyes said everything that was sensitive and feeling, on a level that hurt. Indeed, hurt was what coloured her gaze, not for herself, but for those around her, who pained and leeched their existence into permanent sadness. She was strong because she was quiet. Not silent, but still. Hers was a beauty of listening and a strength of giving; there was knowing, more than understanding, in the smoulder of her gaze. She saw and felt it all; she gave more love than she received, more than she was ever paid for.
They had been driving for an hour when the Frenchman ordered the car to stop. He smelt blood. They’d been passing through the outskirts of the city, swerving and bumping towards its stony European heart. A shrine tower, one of the many tall, red buildings with wound-like windows, had given off a pungent aroma, its dried-mud surface still showing the prints of the hands that had made it. Goats had been slaughtered there each day for centuries, and one side of the tower was saturated black with blood and milk. He stepped out of the car into the blinding sunlight, the dust still spinning in circles around the stationary wheels.
In this part of the fabled city, the streets were immaculate in their filth. Taking a pair of bone spectacles from their sealskin case, he arranged them over his eyes; the slits narrowed his vision and gated the sun. They had come from Greenland, purchased from a recent explorer of that frozen, barren place.
He was the most ridiculous of travellers, brilliantly prepared for all events, so long as they never happened. His handmade shoes were instantly discoloured by the red earth, as was his cream suit. He stood and glared at the tower, waiting to be noticed by the throng of local passersby. They had seen him, the little man stamping in the ground of arrival, but they were much more interested in his vast, grunting cart, enclosed on all sides. They slowed their pace and drifted towards its metal body, some daring to touch it on its blind side. Soon, the Frenchman would meet the young man who was to become the most significant person in his overcast life, but for that moment the crowd was pressed against the car’s windows, trying to glimpse the interior. The woman inside gripped her small clutch bag. Hiding in the perfumed darkness was her silver derringer, a palm-size pistol of American origin; it sat like a bright comma in the umbered pouch. It was made to fit snugly in the hand when discharged. It was blunt and inaccurate but delivered a lethal slap at short range. The Frenchman had never had any feelings of masculine protection for the fairer sex, even the few he had tolerated and liked. He and his paid companion had been locked in a crude democracy forged from selfishness, desire, and humiliation.
Turning his back on the angry chauffeur and the twitching woman, he walked towards the tower in the open street.
A young man had stepped out of the sun, the halo of his head blasted by brightness. “Which is your way, Father? Are you lost?” he asked. “Where is your way?” he asked again, in a French that reflected the rippling mirage of sand that surrounded them.
He stared at the young man, speechless as his face came into focus. There was a resonance in his tone that had stirred a place yet unravelled, but nonetheless known, in his scarred heart. In a voice that was eerily subdued, he told the young black man that he was here to see the Vorrh, to gaze on the fabled forest.
The man’s eager smile broadened, and he looked out over the dust and the Frenchman’s shoulder. He pointed a tattooed finger towards the horizon. The Frenchman turned quickly to follow his direction, to look through the crumbling gap between the rows of buildings, where a dark curtain closed off the northernmost aspect of the city with shadow and solid contrast. The redness of earth, animals, plants, and buildings ended at its massive edge.
Its suddenness instantly reminded him of a stage set and returned him to the opera he had seen as a child. It had been vivid and overwhelming, its story indistinct, its music brash and bellowing. But its set had transfixed him, a forest of painted darkness stretched across the stage, blindingly artificial, its leaves, roots, and hanging tendrils filling his hungry imagination with a longing that had gnawed at all other realities with an unrelenting insistence; the same scene would pass through the last millisecond of his life, as he lay, seeded in oxygen, choking for absorption in the tiled indifference of a hotel bathroom.
That was only the second time he had been to the theatre, though his mother had often told him of it. She would come to say good night while he was in the bath, his nanny stopping, mid-sponge, to stand back in admiration while the apparition wafted in. She was always dazzling, in her society gowns and gleaming jewellery. She would tell him of the theatres and balls she was going to; of ballet and the opera; their stories of princesses and kings, demons, maidens, magic, and spells. Sometimes she would touch his back or arm with her silken gloves, sending a shiver through his damp, excited body. But she never stayed, and the nanny was always left to dry his cooling hope and dress it for sleep. His mother’s perfume stayed in his heart for hours afterwards.
At last within sight of the Vorrh, he understood why he had travelled so far. Yet as he took an automatic step towards it and everything else that had unbalanced his life, his chauffeur had begun to pound on the horn of the car—his forgotten companions had become completely engulfed by a solid wall of in-lookers. The discordant screech, his memories, and his stumbling curiosity knotted against movement in time, cutting his next step away from beneath him, causing him to fall forward in stupid surprise towards the red earth. The young man swooped and caught his awkwardness in long black arms, before righting them both.
The Frenchman struggled against the embrace. He liked to be touched only when and where he commanded. He was about to shriek at the outrage, when something of its firm gentleness crept through his disgust. He looked into the face of the tall shadow who held him. His rescuer was now totally silhouetted against the blinding sun, his features and eyes hidden. Yet his expression could be perceived; his eyes radiated grace. Grace was holding him up, tottering on the sanguine earth. The young man said nothing, but extended a long, thin arm, shivering with bangles, towards the shade of a low building. The Frenchman leant into the grip of the other and allowed himself to be guided forward. Without speaking, they walked into the shade of a pungent bar, where they sat and drank mint tea and tried to talk. The young man started by introducing himself, explaining that, despite his rags, he was of noble blood.
“I will call you Seil Kor,” the Frenchman announced.
“But that is not my name, master.”
“That does not matter. Seil Kor was a great hero and I know his name well. For this adventure, you shall be he.”
The young man had frowned at this strange way but accepted his play name to make the little man more comfortable. The conversation became more serious, and when the Frenchman declared he would traverse the entire forest, the space between their knowledge and understanding broadened and split.
Seil Kor turned his gaze away from his new companion and looked out towards the horizon. “Thou canst walk to the derelicts of the saints,” he said with firmness and distance, “but no farther. More is forbidden. From there is barred; you must turn away. No son of Adam is allowed, for God walks there.”
The Frenchman’s sense of intrigue and challenge was ignited by such bold and ultimate statements. “The gods and monsters that live there must be more savage at the centre.” He smirked.
At this, Seil Kor’s countenance gained an expressive patience, and he turned to stare back into the conversation, while making a gesture over his heart. “Not gods of old people,” he said gently. “The one God. Your God; my God; Yahweh. The great Father who made all things and gave Adam a corner of his clearing, so that he may dwell in it and grow. He walks there. It is his garden on earth. Paradise.”
A sudden silence opened around them.
“Seil Kor, my friend, are you telling me that the Garden of Eden is located in the Vorrh?”
“Yes, it is so. But Eden is only a corner of God’s garden; the rest of the clearing is where God walks, to think in worldly ways. It is impossible in heaven, where all things are the same, without form or colour, temperature or change. In his worldly garden, he wears a gown of senses, woven in our time. He lets rocks and stones, wind and water, clothe his invisible ideas. He pictures our life in the matter that makes us.”
The Frenchman was shocked and moved by such faith and by the clarity that bound it. Delaying his cynicism, he tried desperately to shape his next question outside of his normal patronising indifference. “How do you know this?” he asked.
Seil Kor was confused by the question. Could his companion really be so obtuse? “Because he has told us,” he replied.
Any further questioning the Frenchman may have been tempted towards had been silenced. They parted ways, agreeing to meet the next morning and begin their journey to the lip of the Vorrh.
He returned to his servants and found their hotel, solidly located at the centre of the city, on sturdy roads where all dust was banished. That night, the Frenchman had hardly spoken to Charlotte. Lying on his bed, listening to the moonlit sounds outside, he had prayed for sleep. He wanted to dream in biblical weight and in the brightness of a lush garden, untenanted by man for thousands of years. But the dreams that awaited him were without pity and had the predatory grace of a jackal.
He awoke the next day drenched in sweat, his pillow turned pink—dazed, he searched his head and body for a wound that might explain the stained fabric, but nothing could be found.
The dream had hollowed him; no trace of rest remained as he crawled into the morning, defeated and abused. Hot water did nothing; the stain of the night was indelible. He dressed grudgingly, tightly buttoning himself into a costume of scratchy, irritant lies. With one gulp of bitter black coffee, he walked out of his room and into the day, speaking to nobody. Outside the hotel, the heat had waited, ready to pounce.
Seil Kor stood in the shadow of a palm tree across the street. “Bonjour, effendi!” he called, one hand waving in the intense blue sky, as the blindingly white suit stepped into the sun. The Frenchman, barely able to get into his stride, had found himself exuberantly propelled along the street.
“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 function only 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 silk 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 contained only 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.”
The Frenchman looked closer at the picture. As he did, Seil Kor turned away, saying that he thought they would need a complete day to discuss the Vorrh’s entrance, and that this day had been sidestepped to catch a different knowledge. It was the way of life, to scent the direction of the breeze or a man’s falling. That day had been about the chapel and their place in the wheel of time. He noisily picked up the Frenchman’s cane from one of the pews and gave it to him—it was warm and light. A whisk of dust swirled from its tip, looking like smoke in the shafting rays of the afternoon that waited outside. They never spoke about the tablet of darkness again.