August (12 page)

A short man dressed in a technician's white coat entered the room.

‘Tristan, this is Simon. He will show you to your room.'

Tristan felt cheated. Where was the fight he longed to have, even if defeat was certain?

‘And if I refuse to comply?' he asked.

‘You should have thought of that before you chose to betray us,' the rector replied.

Tristan considered standing his ground, but with every second the gesture became more childish. He banked his remaining dignity and turned.

At first glance his room was most agreeable. It too was painted white. There was a small comfortable bed, more luxurious than anything Tristan had experienced in the dormitories, a chair and, in an adjoining room, a toilet and sink with clear running water. Tristan was exhausted and fell easily into sleep. Only on waking did he discover himself a prisoner.

The room's steady light appeared to glow from the walls. There were no windows and Tristan could find no other source, or detect any shadows. The only door, leading back out into what he remembered as a short dark corridor, was locked. He knocked loudly and waited, but there was no response.

In the steady, white light there was no means of measuring the passing time. One moment Tristan was sure only minutes had elapsed since waking; the next a creeping paranoia convinced him whole days were slipping by unnoticed. From there, it was a small step to imagine he had been left to die. He had been naïve to think a boy who had dared question the wisdom of the Holy Council would be treated in any other way. His hunger grew, fed by the imagined hours. He sat in the chair and counted his pulse as a way of marking time. He studied the tap, the drains and the toilet, seeking a weakness in the room's defences: some crack of natural light or the hint of a draught. He found nothing. He knocked again. He cried. He composed his protests, imagined improbable escapes and tried to ignore his thirst, so that the end would be less protracted.

When Simon finally returned he told Tristan that two days had passed. Tristan could think of no reason to trust him.

Simon led him back to the interrogation room. There was no sign of the bust or the ramp. Only the rector was present, smiling his greeting as if Tristan had been gone only a matter of minutes.

‘What are you doing to me?' Tristan demanded.

‘It was unpleasant, I imagine,' the rector replied. ‘If it is any consolation, it was designed to be that way.'

‘How could that be a consolation?' Tristan felt his fury returning. Simon left, closing the door behind him. It was just the two of them again, set in opposition, afloat in the whiteness. The rector spoke quietly, his eyes soft with concern, his voice smooth and reasonable.

‘I suppose I meant that if I was to suffer in such a way I would not wish to think my pain was without purpose. You can return to being fed, with a clock in the room and the lights switched off during the hours of darkness, as soon as you like. You have only to ask.'

‘I did ask,' Tristan protested. ‘I knocked but nobody came. I shouted. I cried out.'

‘Yes, unfortunately we needed to acclimatise you first. But now that you see clearly the shape of your suffering, you may ask to end it. Would you like it to end?'

But with the rector nothing was simple.

‘Of course I would like it to end.'

‘Good.' The rector smiled. ‘I would be the same, I am sure. Put out your hands, please.'

Tristan did as he was asked. The rector stooped to pick up a small box that until then had been hidden by his legs. From the box he lifted a kitten. Its soft fur was as white as the room, giving unnatural depth to its wide pleading eyes. The rector passed the trembling creature to Tristan. He felt its puny heart beating out terror's accelerated time.

‘All you need to do,' the rector said, ‘is break the kitten's neck. Do that and your fast will be broken, your confinement relieved.'

Tristan had killed animals before. It was one of the tasks in the kitchen and no boy, no matter how delicate, was spared the duty. But never a kitten. And never like this. The creature sat powerless in his hands as Tristan stood powerless before the rector, a line of empathy that, irrational though it may have been, could not be denied. It was the twitching nervousness of the face, the expanse of its eyes. And for what? Some tired philosophical abstraction? The rector's amusement?

‘I can't,' Tristan said, and the sound of the words echoing in the room made him feel strong and certain. ‘It is cruel and pointless and I won't be part of it.'

‘Then you will be returned to your room,' the rector said, ‘and the conditions will not be altered. Are you sure?'

‘I am sure,' Tristan replied, steadfast and proud. ‘If that is my punishment, then I shall bear it.'

‘Very well, pass me the animal. Thank you. Now look inside the box. There is an envelope. Take it back to your room with you. Do not read the note inside until you are there. We will talk again.'

‘When?' Tristan asked. ‘How long will you leave me this time?'

‘Time is complicated, Tristan,' the rector replied.

His cell was as he had left it. Still without food, Tristan's stomach was beginning to cramp. He lay on the bed, resolving to sleep as much as possible in an attempt to conserve his energy. But first there was the note.

Tristan will be offered release on the condition that he
kill the kitten. He will choose not to kill it and so will be
returned to the room. He will come to regret his decision.

No time ticked, no shadows moved, no noise penetrated Tristan's empty cell. He felt himself shrinking.

Grace gave a dismissive grunt, jolting Tristan from his story.

‘That's the problem with you St Augustine's boys,' she said. ‘You're all so smart it's made you stupid.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It's a simple trick,' she sighed. ‘No street child would have fallen for it.'

‘It was no trick.'

‘He puts one envelope in the box. If you refuse to kill the kitten he gives it to you. If you'd killed it, he would have produced another envelope, perhaps from his pocket, containing the opposite prediction, just as accurate, just as frightening.'

Tristan had reached the same conclusion as soon as the shock had passed. He had not included it in his story for a simple reason. It was wrong.

‘I know things you don't know,' he said, regretting at once all that must follow.

‘I doubt that,' Grace replied with a calm confidence that recalled the rector.

‘You do not know my story,' he said.

‘So tell me.'

‘You interrupted.'

‘Do you think we will die?' she asked.

‘We all die eventually.'

‘It's the timing that concerns me.'

‘It concerned the rector too,' Tristan replied, pulling her back to his tale. He didn't feel strong enough yet to invite death into the conversation.

Two more days passed. Tristan spent the time drifting between sleep and stupor. His hunger became muted and his sense of panic less severe. In his lucid moments he thought of the young woman. He imagined her back at the chapel, the candlelight on her face dancing in time to the choir's singing, and he conjured grand dreams of meeting her again. He remembered the body he had sketched for the rector, and it became her body. Such sweet thoughts took the place of sustenance and he rolled easily into sleepy hallucinations.

The next time he stood before the rector, Tristan was determined to give nothing away. Four days without food had weakened his body but strengthened his resolve. Tristan swayed, trying to find his balance. The light bled at the edges of his vision, causing the rector to come into and out of focus.

‘You must be hungry,' the rector said.

‘There are worse things to be.'

‘I always imagined that was the sort of thing people with full stomachs said.'

‘I'd rather be hungry than helpless,' Tristan replied.

‘The note must have come as a surprise.'

‘I am not impressed by a note,' Tristan told him. ‘I assume there were others.'

The rector held Tristan's stare and reached into the folds of his gown. He produced another envelope.

‘Take this now, Tristan, lest there be any further misunderstanding. I'll not have accusations of trickery. In a moment you may open it. But first I have a question for you.'

Tristan held the envelope in his fingertips, the future in his hands.

‘What is your question?'

‘The night we caught you coming back through the tunnel after witnessing the passing, who was it you spoke to outside the chapel?'

The rector smiled as Tristan lurched before him.

‘Nobody, I talked to nobody.'

‘There was a convent girl there,' the rector continued, as if the words had not registered, ‘comforting the mothers. Her name is Grace. She is two years older than you. Is there anything you would like to know about her?'

As if the rector could read his very thoughts. Tristan shook the possibility from his head. Someone had followed him, that was all.

‘What can I tell you about her, Tristan?' the rector repeated.

Where should he start? Tristan wanted to know what made her laugh, and cry. He wanted to know the smells of her childhood and the rhythm of her breath when she slept. He wanted to know of the dreams she had never shared and from whom she'd learnt her graceful way of moving. He wanted to know if she had promised herself to God, and, if she had, how Tristan might challenge his maker to a duel. But he asked none of these questions. She did not belong in that barren room. Tristan stared at his feet.

‘Very well then, perhaps my question needs refining. Perhaps what you say is true. Perhaps you didn't talk to her. But she talked to you. Repeat her words to me. I am sure you've not forgotten them. Do that and your reward will be food, control of the lighting in your room, the freedom to roam. Think carefully how you answer, for your response is already written. You hold it in your hand. Try not to let this fact unsettle you.'

The rector did nothing to hide his joy, delighting in the guessing game as a child might. Tristan's hunger tightened, but so did his desire to win.

What are you?
Three simple words he would never forget, although he did not understand them. Tristan stared at the envelope, as if with sufficient concentration he could see through the paper to the message within. It was simple, surely. The rector would guess at his loyalty to her, and bet on him refusing to answer, just as he had refused to kill the kitten. To beat him, then, meant betraying her. The twin urges collided, unmaking his tired mind.

Tristan looked again at the rector and held his stare, hoping to read some clue there, but the rector's eyes only crinkled with pleasure.
Yes
, they mocked,
but have I already
anticipated your calculation
? Suddenly a third possibility presented itself. Tristan dismissed the first option and let a coin tumble inside his head.

Tails. It was decided.