In the Fabled East by Adam Lewis Schroeder

Author:Adam Lewis Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, FIC014000
ISBN: 9781553656159
Publisher: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
Published: 2010-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE

RUINED TEMPLE

Pierre Lazarie.

WE did not come immediately to Amnach. Instead there were fields, punctuated by an occasional stricken-looking tree with the inevitable bu¤alo beneath it, its tail shooing flies like a pendulum ticking o¤ our days—such was the timbre of my thoughts.

—We must go back to the boat, I said. We’ve been away too long.

The sun rapped upon our helmets and though my legs believed the path grew steeper it was inexorably flat. Sweat sat so thickly upon my face I might have been peering out from inside an aquarium.

—Never, Henri grunted. The hero Besançon has that in hand. And what’s more I’ve seen them buzzing around this country like flies, and gruesome as it may have been to see those Malays gouged up I can’t help but wonder how ten or fifteen could possibly be missed. Across Indo-China at this moment there are boys in their thousands falling o¤ bu¤aloes to drown in paddy-fields, and though it grieves me deeply I can’t rush a life-preserver to each one, can I?

—What would be the point in doing what she did? I asked.

—Why would Madame Tremier sit and talk to Quinn for fifteen minutes? I thought about that and realized she was physically incapable of running away.

—But what do we know with certainty? Quinn said she intended to go up into Laos and live forever, if we—

—Before I run out of breath I ought to point out that your academic mind is making a nine-course meal of that story of Quinn’s even though you’ve only Quinn’s word that it’s true. If that’s the vanguard of French thinking I’ll weep tears of blood!

—How is it you haven’t run out of breath already?

—You haven’t heard of Ban Din whisky? This won’t be the first time good whisky has made me forget Paternina Gran Reserva, once in Cho Lon—

—But what did the dear woman imagine would become of her? It’s only people’s intentions we can second-guess—what happens in the end is beyond their control. The fact that we’re walking to Amnach without a sip of water is proof positive of that.

—It’d be worth living forever, said Henri, to have more conversations like this.

—Well, the other thing that occurred to—

—I’ll slash your throat straight across, you wait and see.

The path took us up a rise of crumbling rock, and if there hadn’t been saplings to grasp, Henri would have capsized. Yet the stubborn ox never begged a rest. The branches over our heads appeared as a lacework of shadows at our feet.

—These trails were made for smaller men, he said. Every species develops to perfection in its own place, yes? I may be the apex of Darwinian creation but this was not the place in which I developed.

I needn’t go into detail describing how thirsty I was at that point; suffice to say I coveted the sweat at the corners of my mouth.

Finally we ran up against a gate of horizontal rails. Henri slid the top three from their holes in the post and stepped nimbly over the lower two.

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