Keppelberg (15 page)

The three men were hauled away, yelling and screaming for mercy, and I decided to follow them to find out what punishment would be meted out to them. It was my expectation that they would be beaten up and incarcerated in jail for about three days before being released. To my horror, as I went along with the mob, I almost fell over the driver who lay on the ground with a knife sticking in his back. I was shocked to the core at the murder of a man whose only crime, if one could call it that, was to enter the village to take some pictures for a television programme. I saw him flinch in the torchlight that someone had lit and I bent down placing my ear to his mouth.

‘We only wanted to make a documentary for television,' he managed to say weakly, and then his head rolled to one side as his spirit left his body.

A murder had been committed and I was concerned at the repercussions when it was discovered by the outside world. For a village that was obsessed by its independence, someone had committed a foul deed which could change everything. I moved with the crowd to the other two intruders hoping that they would be spared the same fate as their colleague. Sadly it was not so for they were battered to death by the infuriated mob and carried back to be placed by the side of the driver. I wondered how this could be explained away to the police when the authorities began to search for them. However, the village had its own way of staying out of trouble. In a very short time, a cart was brought, drawn by a horse, and the bodies were loaded on to it.

‘What are you going to do with them?' I asked naively.

‘They're going to be buried in one of the fields,' came the reply. ‘Far from the eyes of anyone who might come looking for them. We'll do the same with the goods they brought with them and get rid of their vehicle to the man at the garage. There'll be no trace of them left.'

I realised that the village dispensed with major problems quickly and efficiently. It was their only way of remaining independent. As an outsider, who recognised the value of television, I fretted for the television crew who had come here in the night to complete their mission. They hardly deserved to be put to death by a community which tried to keep itself clandestinely away from the rest of the world. I thought about the convention set out by Obadiah Keppelberg and wondered what he would have said about the incident. He was probably turning in his grave!

* * *

I didn't return home directly that night. I considered that the unannounced arrival of the television crew and the incident that had ensued would occupy the villagers for a while and that, after burying the bodies and the equipment, they would go home and pretend that nothing ever happened. Instead, I decided to take the opportunity of returning to the pharmacy to examine the powders on the shelves and to acquire any other information which would lead me to learn the truth. Looking around to check that no one was following me, I made my way down the path to the building and used my dummy keys to gain entry, knowing that it was highly unlikely I would be disturbed. I lit one of the paraffin lamps and walked down the aisle staring at the large jars of powder on each side. I noticed that most of them were of a white constituency although it meant nothing to me. I opened one of the jars, licking my finger before placing it inside, returning it to my mouth to taste it. There appeared to be no flavour in it whatsoever. I selected another jar on the same shelf to repeat the operation but the result was exactly the same. Frustrated, I looked around the pharmacy hoping to latch on to something that might interest me when my eyes fell on a formula written in large letters on a sheet of paper affixed to the wall. I went over to scan it carefully. C12 h22 O11 p13. From my knowledge of chemistry at school, C12 H22 O11was the formula for sugar... but what was the P13? I searched the rest of the pharmacy but there was nothing more to be found until I came to a large cupboard at the far end of the room. I pulled open the door to discover numerous jars of green powder resting on the shelves. This had to be the P13 part of the formula. I removed one of the jars and tested its contents. It had a strange kind of peppermint flavour which made the hair at the back of my neck stand on end. It reminded me of the time I swam in the Dead Sea in Israel when I had touched my lips with the salted water to taste the strength of it. The same thing happened then to the hairs at the back of my neck. I returned the jar to its place on the shelf and then rummaged around the cupboard. On the top shelf, I found a sheaf of papers which contained a diagram of a formula. Unfortunately, my knowledge of chemistry was extremely limited and I could not understand what it meant. Quite clearly, it had been formulated by Obadiah Keppelberg and still stood in good stead in modern times. I turned out the paraffin lamp and left the building feeling very disappointed at not finding anything to help me solve the problem. The pharmacy held a secret... it was the only place... and the tablets had something to do with it. What in Heavens name was P13. It had been discovered by the Founder and was the key element to everything that was happening to the villagers. I had to go on searching until I arrived at a satisfactory conclusion.

On the following day, I went directly to the church to see the priest. I found him praying at the altar. I waited until he had finished his devotions and then approached him.

‘I wish to marry Bridget McBain and I'm applying for a date for the service.' I advanced, expecting him to be jubilant in his attitude at such a union. Much to my astonishment, he rejected my application outright.

‘I‘m sorry,' he responded in the sonorous tone usually employed by vicars, ‘I cannot do that. It‘s beyond my remit.'

‘Beyond your remit!' I echoed dumbly. ‘What do you mean? I thought you were the priest in the village, authorised to undertake marriages.'

‘I am,' he told me, ‘but I cannot sanction your marriage to Mrs. McBain.'

‘Why not?' I was beginning to find it difficult to hold back my temper.

‘For two reasons.' he informed me. ‘Firstly, a year has to pass after the death of a husband or wife before a further marriage can be contemplated. In this case, only a short time has gone by since Richard McBain passed away, Secondly, you're a stranger to the village. You'll need to be here for one whole year before marriage can be considered... and then you'll need further approval.'

‘Look!' I snapped irately. ‘I've read the constitution of this village set out by the Founder and there's nothing in there that mentions either of those things. Who made them up and when is what I'd like to know?'

He clasped his hands together and sat down beside me, ‘Over a period of time, the development of the village has caused secondary rules to be established,' he explained calmly. Time doesn't stand still even though we might hope it. The constitution only identifies the main elements required to be obeyed. Other minor maters ensued in the passage of time and they have to be dealt with.'

‘Bridget McBain is no longer grieving her late husband,' I told him sharply. ‘She's ready to get married.'

‘That's only in your opinion,' he returned smartly. It's imperative that a period of one year passes by from the death of her husband. Feelings run deeply with individuals. Just because Mrs. McBain shows no sign of grieving doesn't mean she isn't affected. Marriage is a very solemn condition requiring two people to love and live together. It cannot be dispensed by a mere snap of the fingers.'

‘I thought that the number of the population here has to remain at eleven hundred,' I forwarded.

‘That's true,' he responded solemnly.

‘Well if you won't sanction our wedding, what's to stop me from leaving the village and reducing that number?' I was beginning to tread on very dangerous ground by threatening to leave the village although I didn't really want to.

‘By that comment you can see why the second argument I put forward is so apt,' he related bluntly. ‘As you're still a stranger, you feel that you can stay or leave as you wish. It's different for the people who live here.'

I had to admit that he had run me to the ground on that point. I had stumbled into a weakened argument showing my vulnerability. If I had been as committed as I professed, I would never have mentioned anything about leaving the village. Apart from that, I was very angry at being rejected on an issue that I thought was extremely straightforward. I sat in the church for some considerable time reflecting my position. On any other matter I would have taken umbrage and left the village for good telling myself that it wasn't the right thing for me to stay. However there was Bridget to bring into the equation. She was young, beautiful, slender, lovely and my partner who made love to me practically every night. She was everything I looked for in a woman and if I left the village she would almost certainly have remained behind even though she loved me. I mused that none of the villagers ever seemed to have the inclination to leave the place even though there were no people of pensionable age they might have needed to look after. There had to be a reason why that was the case. Where were the old folk? I had come so far in learning about the constitution, finding out about Keppelberg's inheritance, the existence of the pharmacy, and all about village life here. It was sad for me to think I might have to give up searching for the secret guarded so carefully by the villagers. Indeed, I knew so much information about the village and its inhabitants that I could have gone into the television network in the city and made the documentary myself. Naturally, such a wild deed would be against my best interest but the notion did cross my mind in a moment of spite.

The priest returned to his devotions, ignoring my presence, in the church. There was nothing left for me but to tell Bridget of the news and find somewhere to lick my wounds!

Chapter Eleven

During my lunch hour on the same day, I decided to revisit the school to see whether I could persuade the Headmaster to employ me as the sports master. I was beginning to miss watching teams play football and cricket... even netball would have been something to feast my eyes on. As I entered the school hall, I could feel that something was wrong. I looked into the first classroom to find it empty. It was lunchtime and there was every reason for it to be so but there was not a child to be seen in that classroom or in any other one. I went to the end of the hall and turned right to go into the playground, halting just inside the doorway. All the children were sitting in a circle on their haunches discussing something that was clearly important to them.

‘I say we should revolt,' declared one young boy at the top of his voice.

‘You've got my support,' exclaimed Robert vehemently.

‘And mine,' came the agreement from a young girl, to be followed by a whole cacophony of positive responses.

I edged forward to enable me to hear their comments more clearly.

‘What do we do about it?' demanded one schoolboy.

‘We already burned down the village hall, ‘ boasted another boy audaciously.

‘That's all very well,' called out one of the girls. ‘We can do as much damage as we like but we're not getting our message over to the oldies.'

I shuddered as I realised that my earlier prediction was correct. The children were responsible for burning down the village hall. I knew it in my bones but no one had bothered to talk to any of the children about it.

‘That's right,' called out another boy. 'We need to get our point over or we're wasting our time.'

‘They've got to understand what it's doing to us,' cried out another girl.

They talked in general terms about rebelling but came to no conclusion at the end of the luncheon period.

‘Let meet again and talk about it in, say, two day's time,' suggested Robert who appeared to have become the leader of the group. ‘By then we should have some more ideas to discuss.'

He was so eloquent that I could hardly that I could hardly believe my ears. He was more like a man of forty-two than a boy of eleven. As they climbed to their feet, I raced back along the hallway, hovering until they had returned to their classrooms. There was mutiny in the air and I did not know the reason for it. It was quite apparent that the children were highly dissatisfied with their lot in the village. I didn't know whether they had a strong desire to venture into the outside world or whether they wanted to take command of the village. I hoped it was not the latter because the economy of the village was so perfect that anyone meddling with the system might ruin it.

The Headmaster came into the hallway at that moment to check that the children had returned. I collared him quickly and followed him back to his room.

‘Headmaster,' I began tiredly, knowing from the start that he would turn me down again. ‘I ask you to review your studies so that football or rugby can be introduced into your curriculum. It is important, you know.'

He shook his head with a slight smile touching his lips. ‘Mr. Ross,' he returned. ‘These children do not wish to play football or rugby. Can't I get you to understand that. They're not fit any more to do so.'

‘Not fit any more,' I echoed. ‘What do you mean?'

‘It's something you don't appreciate but I'm sure you will in time. However, I do admire your persistence but it won't influence me to change my mind.'

‘Then tell me what's going on here,' I advanced sharply.

‘What do you mean?' He was really naïve concerning the attitude of his pupils.

‘These children have been meeting in your playground discussing something that dissatisfies them. They're at breaking point. So I ask you what's going on?' I challenged bluntly.

‘Come now!' he chided gently. ‘They're only children. They're simply having fun.'

‘One of them admitted burning down the village hall. Do you call that fun?' I felt it was time someone lambasted him.

‘You must have misheard them,' he laughed easily. ‘Children make up such strange stories but many of them are untrue. If you had children of your own you would understand.'

‘Okay,' I spat angrily, washing my hands of the whole business. ‘If something goes wrong, it's your funeral. I mean they've already smashed up the chairs and desks in one of your classrooms. There has to be a reason for their bad behaviour. It's up to you to find out what it is!'

‘That was the result of a misunderstanding,' he informed me weakly. ‘All the furniture's intact now.'

‘Well you've been told,' I concluded. ‘As I said before, it's your funeral.'

I left the Headmaster who was clearly in denial about everything relating to the children. He must have known that they were discontented but preferred to hide his head in the sand regardless of what they were capable of doing. After all, in his opinion, they were only children!

* * *

I considered my duty as a security guard as optional with regard to time. Relatively speaking, I could come and go as I wished without needing to ask anyone's permission. It was an ideal kind of employment for anyone who wanted to slow down their nerves from a long-term session of patrolling the borders of Basra with factions ready to fire machine-guns or throw hand grenades at you at any time. And there was also the danger caused by buried mines. I returned home early one day having been bored to tears waiting at the entrance to the village with nothing else to do, I sat in the lounge in a comfortable armchair sipping a cup of tea. I had been thinking about my next move for quite some time It was personal and unpleasant but I felt it had to be done if I was to fathom out the truth of the secret of the village.

Bridget kept a wooden chest under the bed which was her personal property. I had never considered delving into it as it contained all her private papers and sentimental gifts or personal mementoes which she had kept for herself over the years. Privacy was paramount to the individual but I was on tenterhooks trying to unfold the secret of the village. Consequently, I threw caution to the winds and decided to rifle through her belongings to see whether there was anything that might resolve the problem.

I hauled the chest out slowly from under the bed and stared at it, trying to expunge the guilt which flowed through my brain. It seemed comparatively light and I was delighted to discover that it wasn't locked. I opened it carefully intending to replace anything I removed back into its original position so that she wouldn't notice that anyone had tampered with it. As I looked through, the contents appeared to be quite innocuous. There were some gifts which had no value at all, such as a rabbit's foot, a scent spray, a milk bottle for a child, a saucer bearing the figure of Queen Victoria, a small red bow and a figurine of the Virgin Mary. There was nothing of any singular importance to me. At the bottom of the chest there were some letters and documents stuffed into a large leather wallet. I removed them with excitement building up inside me. I sat back on the bed making myself comfortable, tucking the pillow against the headboard, before opening the first letter. It was from her late husband, Richard, who wrote in endearing terms how much he loved her and how he wanted to marry her. In his second letter, he reiterated his love for her, telling her how beautiful she was, saying that he wanted to stroke her golden hair, adding a short poem by Christina Georgina Rosetti, the well-known poetess. The third letter was written the day before their wedding, rambling on about how her beauty embellished the world, sending him into delirium, and how he could hardly wait to hold her in his arms and marry her. Richard was clearly a man who was deeply in love with her and that marrying her and living with her had made him very happy. After having read his letters, I could only wonder what had happened between them especially as he deliberately ended his life by refusing to take his tablets. Or was that the real reason for his death. The letters that he wrote certainly caused me to think about the situation more deeply.

I soon came across some birth and marriage certificates which had been signed by the priest. A sepia wedding photograph of him performing the marriage ceremony was there as well as another one showing all the villagers standing with them outside the church after the ceremony. Even though the photographs were in sepia, I was not necessarily concerned until I opened the marriage certificate. The information set out set my mind racing. The date was boldly written as the eighth of September. 1940, I paused to blink, staring hard at the document for the second time believing that my eyes had failed me but it was plain for all to see... the eighth of September, 1940. My God, I thought to myself, that's over seventy years ago! I recalculated the time before picking up Robert's birth certificate. I closed my eyes in horror after reading the date... the fifth of April, 1968. This meant that he was really forty-two years of age... but how could that be? He was only eleven! My hand began to shake as I picked up the next document. It was Bridget's birth certificate. I stared at it with trepidation noting that the date of her birth was the fourth of November, 1928.

She had been telling me the truth when she had told me that she was eighty-seven years of age. Now that I had it all in black and white it was becoming a nightmare. It was so stunning I couldn't get my mind around it. The details were far too much for me to take in at once. Robert, her son, had been born almost twenty years before me. He could have been my father instead of the other way around. What was going on here? Robert was a typically eleven year old boy in terms of height, and size and weight; Bridget was a twenty-seven year old woman... or at least she looked to be! How could they hold their looks and age for such a long period of time?. I thought about the love-making with Bridget in that she was so lithe, so athletic, so young in action. If she was eighty-seven, how could she perform so well, so actively, practicably wearing me out some nights? It just didn't make sense! I examined the photographs again with my mind in a spin. Was it any wonder that the priest had turned me down when I asked him if I could marry Bridget? And what had actually happened with regard to her late husband's death. The story didn't sound right.

It then came to mind that Obadiah Keppelberg was a very clever chemist who had stumbled on to something quite unusual. He had not only created a village which remained exactly the same in the effluxion of time which was self-sufficient, independent and peaceful but had obviously discovered a panacea to defeat age and appearance. I now understood why I had sat alone in the doctor's surgery that day wondering why there were no other patients. The Founder had discovered a way to prolong life and allow people to retain their looks from a very early age provided they continued to take the tablets. It had to be the element P13... whatever that was! At last I had stumbled across the secret of the village although it didn't do me much good. I was facing a population of aged people who all looked relatively young and who were extremely virile. It was the reason why there were no old-looking people in the village... everyone who lived there was actually old which was why the latest epitaph in the church graveyard, with the exception of Richard McBain, was dated 1963. Suddenly everything began to fall into place except for the fact that my head was spinning. Now I knew for certain that Bridget was actually eighty-seven years of age. How could I rationalise my relationship towards her... sexual and otherwise. I was seducing a woman well into her eighties. It was inconceivable... practically immoral! And how should I treat her son, Robert, who was almost twice as old as me. There was one more thing I needed to consider... if I took the tablets myself over a long period, I would also remain looking young in my old age. Was it an advantage or not? At this moment in time, I could not come to a reasonable conclusion. It was something I needed to think about very carefully.

I replaced the documents into the wallet and put it back in the bottom of the chest before pushing it under the bed. She would never know that I had intruded into her private papers and now it was necessary for me to settle my mind rather than to do something stupid. I would carry on as normal but could I continue to make love to such an old woman? It haunted my mind because she looked so young and beautiful. It was a case of mind over matter and I needed to accept things as I saw them day after day and not as they actually were. Subsequently, when she returned later that day, I smiled at her lovely face, kissed her on the lips and the neck, and hugged her warmly. I idolised her youth, her beauty and her virility, and what's more I was in love with her. What more could a man want in a woman!