Much later, I woke in darkness and silence. I thought I had heard a knock at the door, but when I opened it no one was there. A plate of food had been left for me, protected by a piece of muslin and a fly net. I felt a dull throb of hunger in my belly, but when I unwrapped my promising little picnic I found that it contained nothing but some rice and those vegetables, desecrated by shrimp paste. I lifted a spoonful of rice to my mouth, carefully leaving aside the more offensive items on the plate, but I found that the rice had become infected by the sour, rancid smell. I simply could not eat it.
Rain began to fall, heavy drops thudding one by one on the tiled roofs before gathering into a steady, hypnotic drumming. I had not expected rain: it was, after all, at the very height of the dry season. The noise outside — a strange and intense hushing as the rain rustled the leaves on the trees — soothed my ears. I lay on the side of the bed next to the open window so that my skin would catch the odd droplet of moisture, blown astray by the swelling breeze. Lightning illuminated the distant skies, and I fell asleep to the comfortable rumble of thunder. It was my first true equatorial downpour.
That night I knew my life was about to change. For many years afterwards I relived the quivering, insistent sensations of that particular storm-washed evening and wondered if I had merely imagined it all. But now, at the end of my days, I see that it was true. Although the passing of time has tried to muddy it, the clarity of that night remains with me. Even in my sleep I sensed that I was poised on the brink of something epochal. It was not — I am utterly clear about this — my Road to Damascus, but rather a gradual, gentle realisation that by the morning, the course of my life would be altered irrevocably.
When, therefore, I was awakened by a thundering that shook the timbers of the guest house, I knew at once it was not the storm: it was the start of the rest of my life. I lay in bed with my eyes open for a few seconds, listening to the cries of the people running into the street. As I sat up, there was another explosion. I felt it trembling in my rib cage. Out on the street, a small child lay crouching in a doorway with her hands on her ears. The rain was falling hard; shimmering pools had formed in the muddied road. In the distance, about half a mile away, a spire of black smoke rose into the sky. I dressed hurriedly and joined the throng of people hurrying in the direction of the smoke. No one spoke; we merely splashed our way through the rain and the red mud, guided by the charcoal cloud that hung in the air. At last I saw the inferno: a giant mass of flame engulfing a building that was collapsing, timber by timber, as I approached it. A large crowd had gathered on a grassy bank nearby, and as I pushed through I became aware that they too were not speaking. Nothing was audible but the sound of the same rain which had washed through my sleep. At last I found what lay at the heart of this silent congregation: a pair of bodies, one shielding the other. I moved closer and saw that they were two men. The younger man, naked to the waist, lowered his face slowly toward the elder’s; he hesitated for a moment before pressing his lips firmly onto the old man’s weakly gasping mouth. I held my breath as I watched this young hero breathe life into the pale and lifeless body. It was some time before the old man, motionless on the wet grass, began to cough, wheezing as he heaved air into his lungs. He opened his eyes and stared at the sky. The younger man withdrew, exhausted from his exertions. He lifted his head to look at the crowd around him. Even before I saw his face I knew, with absolute certainty, that it was Johnny.
THE BROWN SHRIKE, Lanius cristatus, is a noisy and quarrelsome bird. It spends its summers feasting on insects in Siberia and Manchuria before journeying south to spend its winters infesting the countryside around this House. From morning till dusk they squeal, chatter, and fight in the garden, flitting across my field of vision so as to make it impossible for me to concentrate for any length of time. Now that the other residents have realised the seriousness of my undertaking, they pester me constantly with requests to devise a planting scheme that will encourage these violent hordes of irritating little birds to remain longer in the environs of the House. Unlike me, they seem actually to enjoy the sight of these winged pests.
“What about a birdbath?” Gecko trilled. “Right outside the dining hall window, so we can watch them whilst we breakfast. Or a table with rice and breadcrumbs and groundnuts on it.”
“No,” I said. “How common.”
“What beautiful red heads they have,” Alvaro said, lowering his binoculars. “I hope you are going to have lots of tall grasses, and maybe put in some big rocks too. They seem to like perching on the stones and reeds by the paddy field down the road.”
