‘Finish dressing,’ he said. ‘Let’s go down to breakfast.’
A flash of anger ruled her face. He folded his penknife and packed up his cleaning kit and pocketed them as well.
‘Won’t you give it one more rub?’ she asked.
He ignored her.
Wrapping the towel around her upper body, she gave him a scornful look and flounced into the bedroom.
George sipped his coffee and discovered it was tepid. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, the scale felt unnaturally cold against his chest and he set it on the desk. It might be more valuable than he had presumed. He nudged it with the tip of a finger – the room remained stable.
Sylvia re-entered, still wearing the towel and still angry, though she tried to mask her anger behind a cajoling air. ‘Please! Give it one little rub.’ She kissed the nape of his neck. ‘For me?’
‘It frightened you the first time. Why are you so eager to repeat the experience?’
‘I wasn’t frightened! I was startled. You’re the one who was frightened! You should have seen your face.’
‘That begs the question: Why so eager?’
‘When Griaule makes himself known, you’d do well to pay heed or misfortune will follow.’
He leaned back, amused. ‘So you believe this nonsense about Griaule being a god.’
‘It ain’t nonsense. You’d know it for true if you lived here.’ Hands on hips, she proceeded to deliver what was obviously a quoted passage: ‘He was once mortal, long-lived yet born to die, but Griaule has increased not only in size, but in scope. Demiurge may be too great a word to describe an overgrown lizard, yet surely he is akin to such a being. His flesh has become one with the earth. He knows its every tremor and convulsion. His thoughts roam the plenum, his mind is a cloud that encompasses our world. His blood is the marrow of time. Centuries flow through him, leaving behind a residue that he incorporates into his being. Is it any wonder he controls our lives and knows our fates?’8
‘That sounds grand, but it proves nothing. What’s it from?’
‘A book someone left at Ali’s.’
‘You don’t recall its name?’
‘Not so I could say.’
‘And yet you memorized the passage.’
‘Sometimes there’s not much to do except sit around. I get bored and I read. Sometimes I write things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Little stories about the other girls, like. All sorts of things.’ She caressed his cheek. ‘Try again! Please!’
With a show of patience tried that was only partly a show, expecting that nothing (or next to nothing) would occur, he picked up the scale and ran his thumb along the lustrous blue streak, pressing down hard. This time the ripping sound was louder and the transition from hotel room to sun-drenched plain instantaneous. He fell thuddingly among the tall grasses, the chair beneath him having vanished, and lay grasping the scale, squinting up at the diamond glare of the sun and a sky empty of clouds, like a sheet of blue enamel. Sylvia made a frightened noise and clutched his shoulder as he scrambled to his knees. She said something that – his mind dominated by an evolving sense of dismay – he failed to register. The smells that had earlier seemed generic, a vague effluvia of grass and dirt, now were particularized and pungent, and the sun’s heat was no longer a gentle warmth, but an ox-roasting presence. A droplet of sweat trickled down his side from his armpit. Insects whirred past their heads and a hawk circled high above. This was no vision, he told himself. The scale had transported them somewhere, perhaps to another section of the valley. In the distance stood a ring of rolling, forested hills enclosing the lumpish shapes of lesser, nearby hills – his coach had traversed similar hills as it ascended from the coastal plain toward Teocinte, though those had been denuded of vegetation. Panic inspired him to rub at the scale, hoping to be transported back to the room; but his actions proved fruitless.
Sylvia sank to the ground and lowered her head, and this display of helplessness served to stiffen George’s spine, engaging his protective instincts. He scanned the valley for signs of life.
‘We should find shelter,’ he said dazedly. ‘And water.’
She made an indefinite noise and half-turned her head away.
‘Perhaps there’s water there.’ He pointed to the far-off hills. ‘And a village.’
‘I doubt we’ll find a village.’
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t you recognize where we are?’ She waved dejectedly at the closest hill, which lay behind them on the right. ‘There’s Haver’s Roost, where the Weathers stood. And the rise over yonder is where Griaule’s head rested. The sunken area to the left, with all the shrimp plants and cabbage palms – that’s where Morningshade used to lie. There’s Yulin Grove. It’s all there except the houses and the people.’
She continued her cataloging of notable landmarks and he was forced to admit that she was correct. He would have expected her to be upset by this development, fearful and verging on hysteria; but she was outwardly calm (calmer than he), albeit dejected. He asked why she was so unruffled.
